Libya in Iranian Foreign Policy after 1989: Strategic Cooperation, International Pressure, and the Limits of Rapprochement

Abstract

The article analyses how Libya has been seen as part of Iran's foreign policy since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989 until it was undermined by its division in 2011 and its current partial reconciliation with Tehran. While there has been a considerable literature on Iran's regional strategy, and on Libya's trajectory after the fall of Mubarak, there is little that discusses the bilateral relationship between Iran and Libya as a logical basis for theorising the interaction between ideology, strategic interest and external constraint over a long-time horizon. The significance of the research problem is that it involves the presence of a systematic and theoretically sound account about why Iran and Libya have been simultaneously cooperating and antagonizing each other even though they have been consistently expressing anti-Western and anti-imperialist talk. The aim of the study is to analyse this development over three phases (1989-2003, 2003-2011, since 2011), to map out strategic, ideological, and geopolitical motivations for cooperation, and to consider the limits on this relationship imposed by international sanctions regimes or regional upheavals. The study identifies that cooperation has been opportunistic and strategic, not ideological or lasting; that the disappearance in 1978 of Musa al-Sadr, the U.S. secondary sanctions, and Libya's postwar institutional disintegration have challenged the relationship's limits on multiple occasions; and that cooperation has been limited in nature, without ideology, sustained engagement or unity. It is a methodological note that clarifies and mathematically evaluates how, and to which extent, Iran's cautious re-engagement with Tripoli in 2023-2026 is affected by domestic legitimacy politics in both countries, and how analysts should interpret bi-directional connections between Tehran and Tripoli in that period.