نشریه مطالعات خاورمیانه
سال بیست و سوم شماره 2 (پیاپی 84، تابستان 1395)

To investigate the factors of change and continuity in the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran would require an analysis of the sources and elements that shape it. One of these important factors is geopolitical location, which has directly and indirectly influenced Iranian foreign policy. This would contradict neutrality and isolationism, demanding an outward-looking, active foreign policy. The Rouhani government’s foreign policy discourse concerning the linkage between moderation and diplomatic dynamism constitutes the pivot of Iran’s nuclear diplomacy and efforts at finding a role for Iran in handling regional security crises. In such context, moderation can be understood as balancing between realism and idealism. The authors test the hypothesis that the necessities of managing crises in the Middle Eastern securitized environment where geopolitically important countries are located, would require taking advantage of moderation in foreign policy. They use the constructivist approach to conduct the research.

After the crisis and civil war broke out in Syria, the Syrian Arab Republic government made an agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Union Party, withdrawing the army forces from the Kurdish areas. In its turn, the Party established a new government structure (canton) in the Kurdish areas of Syria, which followed Abdullah Ocalan’s democratic self-rule theory. With the canton structure gaining relative stability in western Kurdistan (Rojava), the Kurdistan Free Life Party revised its statute, declaring the implementation of the democratic self-rule model. Hence, the Islamic Republic of Iran was faced with the challenge of simulation of democratic self-rule in Iran. As democratic self-rule in Syria is consolidated, the process of gaining legitimacy for this canton structure will lead to certain customary legal leverage, posing new challenges to Iran. This article seeks to explore what kind of threats will be posed to the Islamic Republic of Iran with the establishment of the democratic self-rule in west Kurdistan (Rojava).

Terrorist activities have spread in the Arab countries of West Asia within the past few years. The terrorist organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is among the groups that is fighting the governments in both Iraq and Syria in an organized and unconventional fashion. This article addresses the correlation between the failed nationstate-building and the outbreak or intensification of terrorist activities in Iraq. Three interrelated factors are particularly important including the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, absence of dominant centralist citizenship identity, and slow process of formation of democratic progress and institutions which are respectively related to territorial saturation, national cohesion and integration, and political stability. These components of nation-state-building have given rise to the appearance of terrorist groups in the country. The author has investigated nation-statebuilding as the independent variable and spread of terrorism in Iraq as the independent variable.

The Middle East that took shape in 1916 according to the Sykes-Picot Agreement is entering the third millennium at a time when it has remained an underdeveloped and unsafe island in the world. In the meantime, Kurds as the largest nation in the world without a state have been influencing and being affected by these crises. The Arab Spring has also made the Kurds enter a new era of political and economic life. These new conditions have added to the importance of doing independent research on the status of Kurds in the new Middle Eastern geopolitics. Drawing on a constructivist approach, this research has sought to test the hypothesis that in spite of the formation of a triple canton (Jazira, Afrin and Kobani), the formation of a Kurdish region in Syria still seems improbable due to domestic and foreign structural obstacles and the vital role that regional and transregional actors play in it. Nonetheless, a return to the pre-2010 situation will be unlikely.

The Middle East is viewed as one of the most strategically important regions of the world, which has gone through many crises in the past. In recent years, it has been faced with another crisis known as the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that has entangled some of the regional countries. This phenomenon as a transnational crisis has the possibility of spillover to other Middle Eastern nations. It also threatens the security and identity of all regional countries due to the radical identity that the ISIS has defined for itself. In this respect, this research seeks to explore the identity and security threats that the ISIS has posed to Iran. Considering the significant part identity plays in these threats, the theory of constructivism has been adopted in order to compare the ISIS identity and Iranian identity. ISIS threats to Iran include the danger of crushing the ideal of a united Islamic Ummah, Islamic unity and government, and Shia geopolitics.

Salafism has become one of the most important religious-political currents in the Middle East to such an extent that it would be impossible to assess new developments in the region without understanding these currents. Hence, using a descriptive-analytical method, this writing seeks to answer the questions that what factors contributed to the rise of Salafist groups in the Middle East, and what obstacles these groups are faced with in order to gain political power in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The article is organized into three sections. The first section concerns theoretical framework, Salafist types, their political thoughts and factors contributing to their rise in the Middle East. The second section deals with the most important Salafist-Jihadist-Takfiri groups in the MENA. The third section investigates the obstacles these groups encounter in their struggle for political power.