نشریه مطالعات خاورمیانه
سال نهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 29، بهار 1381)

The Middle East encounters a number of paradoxes in the highly tense existing situation. These paradoxes, including the delay in the establishment of a Palestinian state, United States dependence on the regional energy resources and its full-fledged support for Israel, an increase in militarization of the Middle East, the relationship between oil revenues and arms procurement, U.S. targeting of the Middle East for justifying its heightened level of the arms technology, etc., are interlocked, and especially the latter has generated a new phase of crises and tensions in the Middle East. The Bush administration has increased U.S. military budget in an unprecedented way to establish the United States as the dominant military power among its rivals like Russia and China at the world level. The September 11 terrorist attacks have provided the Bush administration with sufficient impetus to pursue assertive policies, encouraged subsequently by its success in eradicating the Taliban group in Afghanistan. Now, the Middle Eastern countries should contemplate to devise certain useful measures for the welfare of their peoples within current paradoxes. Under existing circumstances, these grand objectives would be of vital importance for these countries: to settle the Iraqi question in a peaceful manner, create consensus between Iran and the Arab countries on a Palestinian state, reduce the procurement of weapons by the Arab governments, encourage Iran’s membership in the common security pacts with the Arab countries, battle the terrorist networks in the Middle East, and prevent the replacement of the Palestinian question with the Iranian and Iraqi issue in the Middle East.

The Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies conducted an interview with Dr. Kamal Kharrazi, Iranian Foreign Minister to grasp recent developments in Tehran's foreign policy. This interview deals with important issues including prioritization in the Iran’s foreign policy relating to various fields, different regional crises such as the Palestinian question, Persian Gulf problems, Afghanistan crisis, the United States confrontation with the Islamic Republic and future prospects for Iranian foreign policy. Also, issues generally relating to the decision-making domain in Iran’s foreign policy, administrative structure of Iranian foreign policy apparatus, the characteristics and necessity of reforms and finally making linkages between the executive and academic areas have been addressed.

Disintegration of Mujahedin groups after the withdrawal of Soviet forces and devastating civil wars between them caused many negative implications for Afghanistan. These implications were not limited to internal boundaries and spread over neighboring countries and even great powers. This article tries to study this subject based on beliefs, views and values of people and political groups in Afghanistan in the fields of government, power structure, political and role of groups, ethnicities and religions. It also attempts to study the relationship between political values and the behavior of individuals and political groups and demonstrates that how narrow-mindedness leads to a national disaster and brings a nation on the verge of complete collapse. The foundation of unity, convergence and national solidarity is built upon construction and development. The society in which individuals, groups and different social strata mobilize their resources for a better future will succeed sooner or later, but if these efforts drive at enmity destruction and hostility, all will be destroyed. There is no room here for further studying the phenomenon of convergence and integration, thus only some conceptual descriptions will be presented about the concept of integration around which unity and solidarity could be based.

This article studies efforts made by Tunisians for transition from tradition to modernity during the presidency of Zeinolabedin Ben Ali who came to power in November 1987. Some of the modernizing issues include trends of political liberalization, improvement of woman rights, human development indices in different political, social and economic field, empowerment of middle class as a force motivating growth and development, efforts to strengthen the economy, moves toward integration in the world economy and finally, modern communications and changes in Tunisian foreign policy. The main question is that to what extent actions and strategies taken up by the new government in Tunisia have been effective in the progress and development of the country. This research tries to identify the many examples of this progress by providing statistics and substantine analyses.

Moscow lost its geopolitical significance after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was forced to reconstruct its foreign policy. Its foreign policy concentrated on Iran and Turkey following the appearance of increasing concerns about the new independent states in Central Asia and the Caucasus that many Russian called them the backyard of Russian Federation. Russian foreign policy toward Iran and challenges facing Yeltsin and Putin to improve Russian national interests were discussed in the previous part of the article. Now, in this part, a comparison has been made between the relations of Russia and Iraq and Turkey in Yeltsin and Putin era and the problems of Russian foreign policy toward these countries. The most important problem facing Iraq are international sanctions against Iraq and the obstinacy of its leaders in allowing UN inspectors to visit its mass destruction weapons plants. On the contrary, relations with Turkey have been more complicated for Russian leaders. On the one hand, both countries have engaged in competition in Central Asia and the Caucasus and on the other hand, they need cooperation with each other in the field of energy. The author believes that the main problem is that few resources exist in the Middle East for the success of the Russian foreign policy apparatus and despite its economic and military instruments. In conclusion, it is argued that Russian foreign policy in the Middle East is essentially weak and lacks efficiency.

Islamic movements have been transformed into one of the most important political actors in the Middle East region, bearing in mind that their activities have not been limited to recent years. Important developments at the regional and international levels in recent years have surfaced the salience of Islamic movements. In the first part of article, (winter 2002) the resurgence of Islamism in Egypt was explained in detail and the relationship between the Egyptian government and Islamic movements was analyzed. In the second part of the article, the presence of Egyptian Islamists in Afghanistan for jihad against the former Soviet Union and the development of "Arab Afghan" phenomenon has been considered. Accordingly, the activities of Al-Jihad and Al-Qaedeh Organizations in Afghanistan, close relations between their leaders, anti- Western activities of these two organizations and their relations with Taliban have been fully described. In analyzing the roots of Islamic movements, some references have been made to their intellectual bases and Fatwas issued by their leaders against the interests of Western countries. The original article was published in Al-Hayat newspaper in five sections (from 17 to 21 October 2001).

The phenomenon of Islamism has been one of the most important and noticeable variables among different countries in the world, particularly western countries. The author places current views on the resurgence of Islamism in the Middle East under two labels of "Neo-Third- Worldist" and "Neo-Orientalist". According to her description, the first category regards feasible the possibility of a compromise between Islamists and the West while the latter argues for the impossibility of compromise and justifies the argument of "clash of civilizations," because it perceivies an essential difference between Islamic and Western values. The author argues that Islamism in the Middle East is both affected by essential characteristics of Islam and derived from particular political, cultural and international situation. Therefore, Islamist movements do not have the same position toward the West. From Hunter’s point of view, the West has serious concerns about obtaining political power by Islamists, but in fact, if they come to power, they will face many problems and shortcomings and will have no choice but come to term with the West. She asserts that the most important problem facing the West is providing a dual strategy for containing Islamists and entering in dialogue with them.

Saudi Leaders have been faced with a series of important challenges such as declining oil revenues and their unpredictability, costly external threats, high rate of population growth and increasing demands of their citizens. When it became clear that initial response of government to these challenges by financing through budget deficit has been inadequate, some harder decisions were made including decreasing subsidies, making structural change in costs and conducting political and administrative reforms more deficient. Relatively low costs of production in this regard demonstrate the high degree of regime’s viability and sustainability. In fact, Saudi experience suggests the complexity of relations between the state and society. As a result, initial patterns of relations between the state and society in oil exporting countries should be reconsidered.