Iraq’s Identity Crisis and Iran’s Foreign Policy Orientation

Iraq has been the most prominent example of divergence and identity crisis in recent decades. The multiplicity of ethnic, religious, and power sharing groups has caused political and social divisions. Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis are the main players in this split. The ethnic has divided Iraq into two Kurdish and Arab communities, and the religious one into Shiite and Sunni groups. With the victory of the Islamic Revolution there were fundamental changes in Iran s foreign policy at the regional level and toward its neighbors. At the same time, Saddam s dictatorship did not provide an opportunity to express different ethnicities and identities. The US invasion to Iraq and the overthrow of the Ba athist regime brought Iraq into a new and unstable phase, with various groups and ethnicities trying to express their conflicting political and social identity goals and demands. The regional countries particularly the IslamicRepublic of Iran, have expanded their influence in Iraq by changing their foreign policy orientation based on their regional goals and national security, to prevent other competitors increasing their influence. The main purpose of the present study is to analyze and investigate the identity crisis impact in Iraq on the Islamic Republic of Iran foreign policy orientation by emphasizing on the post-Saddam era from 2003 to 2020 by using Constructivism Theory. The paper, based on the nature and type of the subject, uses a descriptive-analytical method and the library resources to collect data and information.