Abstract
With its enormous natural and human resources, a growing economy and adjacency to Iran’s security and strategic environment, India is considered one of the most important options with which the Islamic Republic of Iran can establish stable and reliable, if not strategic, relations. Despite this, all economic, trade and cultural capacities as well as diplomatic initiatives have not elevated the mutual relations higher than ‘cordial and friendly’. The present article discusses the reasons behind Indo-Iranian failure to create a once desired strategic partnership. The main idea is that differences in the direction and objectives of the relations between Iran and India, that is, balancing the United States for the former and cooperation with Iran besides the United States for the latter, have led to failure of the efforts to establish a strategic partnership. The theory of soft-balancing is used to analyse Iran–India relations when United States as a factor affecting bilateral relations is concerned.
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