Interest vs. Ideas Post-Class Blog

This week’s class helped me to understand the concept of ideas vs. interests a lot better. Especially the Goldstein and Keohane text is a lot clearer for me now. However, I am still struggling with Laffey and Weldes’ concept of symbolic technologies. The example offered by Kyra was a very good one, however, I am having issues transferring this example to international relations, especially to international events for this week’s assignment. I hope that I can complete the assignment without problems.

After class I did, however, better understand what Laffey and Weldes say about ideas and interests in foreign policy, and what the main differences are between Laffey and Weldes and Goldstein and Keohane, and why Laffey and Weldes criticize Goldstein and Kehoane’s analysis. Goldstein and Keohane see ideas and interests as two competing things, while Laffey and Weldes believe that ideas structure interests. For Laffey and Weldes ideas exist before interests and therefore ideas influence interests in foreign policy.

I think that the Iraq-Iran War would be a good example where ideas structure interests. Iraq and Iran’s conflict was fueled by Sunni-vs. -Shia and Arab-vs. -Persian disputes on the one hand and border disputes on the other. The religious and ethnic disputes as well as the border disputes influenced Iraq’s decision to gain access to the Persian Gulf by invading Iran and claiming the Khouzestan region, which was inhabited by Arabs, as their territory (Globalsecurity.org). On top of that, claiming this region as their territory also gave Iraq access to the Persian Gulf. So, if I understand this correctly, the religious and ethnic issues structured the Iraqi interests in the Khouzestan region of Iran, which eventually led Saddam Hussein to decide to invade Iran.

References

Globalsecurity. Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). Accessed September 22, 2016. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/iran-iraq.htm