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Following the 2017 presidential elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Iran), Hassan Rouhani was elected as the President of Iran for the second time. During and following the Rouhani's election process, a period started in which it became difficult to maintain conciliatory rhetoric between Iran and the United States of America (US). The rising tension in the Iran-US relations was reflected in regional policies and increased rivalry among the regional actors, especially Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Although the Barack Obama administration in the US had brought the diplomacy option to the forefront in Iran-US relations, the Donald Trump administration adopted the rogue state rhetoric, which led to the escalation of the tension between the parties. Trump, one of whose election promises was to save the United States from The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action/Nuclear Agreement (JCPOA), kept this promise when he took the office. The US President tried to persuade Iran of a negotiation that was in line with the expectations of the US through maximum pressure policy. In response to this, the maximum resistance policy of the Iranian administration have been resulted with difficulties of reconciliation for the parties. For the period following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran-US relations came to the brink of war with the conflict inside the borders of Iraq. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the departure of Iran-US relations from diplomacy after the US's withdrawal decision from the Nuclear Agreement and to emphasize the effect of diplomacy option in order to maintain regional security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran's investments in the cyberspace as of the beginning of the twenty-first century caused a re-evaluation of the country's perception of its capabilities in cyber space. The reasons for this evaluation are; not only the cyber space activities attributed to Iran, but also discourse of the country's administration about investments in the cyber space have been effective. Iran's previous experience in developing cyber space skills is important. These experiences have had an impact on the The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which is considered a new era for US-Iran Relations. With the initiation of the JCPOA process, which was aimed to be gain a mutual trust between the P5 + 1 countries and the Iranian administration, has begun, but the main actors of this process USA and Iran has not been sufficient neither bilateral nor regional approaches and policies. The progressive process has shown that the threat perception growing between the two countries is not limited only to its dimensions in the physical world. In the study firstly, the history of the relations between the two countries is briefly mentioned and the perspectives related to the geopolitical issues of the parties are discussed in the process leading to the signing of the JCPOA agreement. The study then focuses on the perceived threat perception as a result of the lack of convergence situation between the US and Iran on bilateral and regional approaches and policies. The study examines, as a result of this threat perception, the defense and offensive cyber space strategy of Iran. In this paper, first of all, findings regarding the capabilities of the Iranian administration in the cyber space will be revealed. Then, it will be examined how Iran put these capabilities into action during the JCPOA process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]