The Place of Hedging in the Choice of Iran's Foreign Policy Strategy From the Safavid to the Qajar Dynasty

One of the main themes of empirical research in foreign policy analysis is to examine the strategies adopted by each state to advance foreign policy in the international arena. In this framework, along with alliance, neutrality, isolationism, and non-alignment, hedging is another strategy that has been used in the current international system. Thus, the article aims to illustrate whether and to what extent Iran's foreign policy has been drawing the hedging during the reign of the classical dynasties,.the method of data collection is through library and internet searches based on the use of secondary data contained in related books and articles. By utilizing the content analysis of the qualitative data contained in these texts, we seek to achieve an appropriate evaluation on the place of hedging in the history of Iranian foreign policy. The research findings indicate that none of the foreign policy strategies have given Iran a superior position in the regional and international arenas, and although dominating the strategy of alliance, Iran's foreign policy strategies came close to hedging, but they did not have all the characteristics of hedging.