عاطفه طغیانی

Negative socio-psychological repertoire about adversary exists in many societies plunged in conflicts. The challenge is how to make the structure of the society more flexible for a conflict resolution with enemies. This article examines the attempts of a pro-Iran-deal civil society, the - International Crisis Group, to change the negative societal beliefs regarding Iran, which exist in the American society. By using the unfreezing theory of Bar-Tal and Halperin (2011 b) as well as the NVIVO 12, which is qualitative content analysis methodology, this paper attempts to analyze this procedure from 2011 to 2016. The International Crisis Group made an effort to break the rigidity of barriers and remove their content in the American society. This trend of Iran unfreezing started in 2011 and increased in 2013, during the presidency of Hassan Rohani in Iran. Results indicate that the International Crisis Group fought against the rigid discourse that exists in the US about Iran through four main principles: removing the perception of Iran as a threat, legitimizing and humanizing Iran’s image, emphasizing the importance of the course of time, and expanding new information and alternative data about the US-Iran conflict. This new information aimed at justifying Iran’s actions and giving roadmaps for the future policies of the US toward Iran.

This article illustrates the fact that the U.S. administration's behavior toward Africa has always been shaped by the conception of rivalries' presence, rather than the potentials of the continent. In recent years, with the emergence of America’s rivals, such as China and Russia in Africa in the continent, who have invested not only in the African economy, but also in its security and military sectors, the notion of rivalries' limitation has been exaggerated in U.S. decision making toward Africa. Using a neoclassical approach, by analyzing the dynamism of the U.S. foreign policies toward Africa and Trump's rivalry-based policies, this article concludes that Trumps' African policy has not been different from that of his predecessors, and that the U.S. has always adopted a neoclassical realism approach toward Africa, which has been invigorated by the presidency of Trump.

During the Iran agreement from 2011 to 2015 a pro-Iran deal campaign has started in the U.S. Critical questions for Iranian are: who were these people? Who funded them? From whom do they get their information? This study tried to answer these questions by following the pro-Iran deal actors from 2011 to 2015 in the United States. Therefore, a couple of actors were found who were in favor of the Iran deal. The work then followed the money and information transformation data of these pro-Iran deal actors. The article got into a socio-diagram of the interrelation of pro-deal funders and actors with the help of NVIVO 12 software. It also followed the role of the Obama administration in this network. The social network theory of power by Castells (2007) was used that indicates the importance of the social network in gaining discourse power to program-specific networks according to the interests and values of the programmers. So, with the help of theory, the article concluded that the Obama administration programmed a significant network to have the influence and the power to seal the deal in the U.S.; besides, the network tried to influence Obama policy toward Iran. The articles also categorized the supporters of the deal into eight groups: institutions in the prevention of nuclear weapons, the Iranian community, political advocacy groups, religious groups, think tank associations, Jewish institutions, those related to the Obama administration, and free funders.