نشریه مطالعات خاورمیانه
سال بیست و دوم شماره 3 (پیاپی 81، پاییز 1394)

Pointing to the geostrategic importance of the Persian Gulf, this article seeks to analyze the differences and commonalties between the policies pursued by the United States and China in the region. This analysis will demonstrate that both China and the United States seek to maximize their own interests in areas of energy, arms sale and commerce. The U.S., however, displays an overall securitized and ideological conduct as a result of the role it has envisaged for itself as a hegemon. In contrast, China acts pragmatically in the Persian Gulf because its increasing domestic needs are met in this region. Expanded U.S. military presence in the region following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and U.S. attack on Iraq after the September 11th events would attest to the extraordinary importance of the Persian Gulf for the United States. Hence, while taking advantage of energy and economic opportunities, it intends to engage in fundamental changes in the region including encouragement of reforms and regime change in the Persian Gulf countries, protection of Israel’s security and isolating Iran. On the other hand, Chinese economic and political relationships with the Persian Gulf states have increased rapidly as China pays special attention to the region as one with huge energy resources in the world. Chinese need to the region’s economic interests and energy has made it distance itself from hardline military policies and instead pursue soft non-ideological policies. For this reason, China seeks to enlarge its collaboration with the regional countries while avoiding any confrontation with the great powers.

The international system and their respective domestic systems have made the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey adopt different attitudes towards the international system, leading to totally different foreign policies being pursued by the two states. In this article, the authors ask the following question: what influential factors have led the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey to adopt different foreign policy attitudes in the Middle East subsystem? The tentative answer is that domestic conditions in Iran and Turkey as well as the structure of the international system and Middle East regional subsystem have resulted in the adoption of different foreign policy attitudes by these two Middle Eastern states. The findings of the research would prove the hypothesis that difference in the Iranian and Turkish foreign policy attitudes in the Middle East regional subsystem has been caused by the aforementioned factors.

Turkey’s formal application to join the European Union has begun the accession process for the country. In the meantime, Turkey has conducted numerous reforms in order to meet the EU’s demands for making its laws and policies compatible with those of the Union. However, the EU has evaded from offering a specific date for accepting this application so far. Although Turkey’s accession would be beneficial for the EU, the Union’s enlargement towards Turkey is pursued with ambivalence, which is largely affected by cultural, religious and other differences between Turkey and the rest of the EU particularly the Cyprus question. Despite there is strong willingness on part of Turkey to join the European Union, there is not a bright prospect on the horizon for its accession in the foreseeable future.

Nowadays the world security is mostly threatened by terrorist moves rather than war among nations; moves that have resulted in a rising wave of concern in various parts of the world especially in the Middle East. So far, international relations theories have not been extensively employed as tools to analyze terrorist incidents. Among the theories of international relations, the Frankfurt School critical theory is viewed as one of the most liberating ones, seeking to offer a new definition of the world in public sphere. This article intends to answer the following question: what are the grounds for the formation of terrorist groups such as the ISIS according to the theoretical findings of the Frankfurt School concerning civil society and public sphere? Pointing to the exiled sections in the process of the domination of instrumental rationality, the Frankfurt School as a useful theoretical tool seems to see them as the major centers of deconstructing protests in the future. Thus one of the main reasons for the emergence and activities of such terrorist groups as the ISIS includes the weakness of the civil society and public sphere at the third level of analysis, i.e. the international system and its weakness at the second level of analysis namely the countries hosting the ISIS terrorism.

Since early 2011, the Middle East and North Africa has seen fundamental upheavals and changes from among which Egypt had gone through significant ups and downs. In the latest developments, Egyptian elected President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in a military coup d’etat. Morsi’s overthrow who had been elected democratically had significant repercussions at the regional level, apart from domestic implications, on the national interests and strategic position of the Middle Eastern actors. In this relation, this writing sought to answer the following question: What factors caused the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood? What implications did the coup in Egypt have for the regional actors? The hypothesis of the writing is that Morsi’s poor performance in domestic politics and foreign policy paved the ground for the coup, which created strategic opportunities for Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East as well as failure for other regional players including Turkey, Qatar, Hamas and Iran. The author concludes that with the formation of a new government in Egypt led by Sissi, the Middle East has seen the formation of a new alliance led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan.

The Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia that overthrew the country’s dictator Ben Ali has been able to bring about significant achievements in a short period of time, being known as a role model in the Arab World. Tunisia became the first Arab country that managed to remove domestic political tension through solidarity and rationality of its political leaders by employing tolerance and avoiding conflict and confrontation between the Salafist forces and Leftist political parties. Nonetheless, Tunisia is faced with a number of challenges in the future that may cause schism and internal conflict. The presence of the Salafists inside the country and the extremists along the borders all indicate that challenges can be expected ahead. On the other hand, the country’s fledgling economy has suffered a lot, which can cause a gap between the society and the state, exacerbating the existing challenges. This article addresses the active political currents in Tunisia and the challenges ahead in a variety of areas following the Tunisian people’s public uprising.