فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی
سال هفتم شماره 3 (پیاپی 25، پاییز 1383)

In this article, by recognizing the discoursive foundations of Ignorance (Jahelyya) in the issue of security and using it as an ‘other’, the author attempts to reach a clearer picture of the Islamic security discourse. To do so, he identifies four main elements of the Ignorance discourse –namely multiplicity of gods, aggression, trade and bigotry- and accordingly describes the negative perception of security envisaged by the Ignorant Arabs. By drawing upon divine verses and analyzing the Islamic worldview, the author continues to introduce four alternative elements to replace the Ignorant ones as considered in the Islamic worldview including monotheism, faith, tutelage and happiness, and reconsider them in security terms. Consequently, a new picture of security emerges as contrasted with the Ignorant image of security. The most important characteristics of this new picture include the affirmative nature of security, multi-logical characters of analyzing security issues and offering strategies for them, and finally the preponderance of individual over government (that represents the essential pivot of human security in the contemporary age). The three aforementioned principles constitute the guidelines for understanding security from an Islamic point of view and for processing Islamic theory of security.

This article intends to point out that the acquisition of power on part of human has not been met only through his ongoing predisposition to authority and the establishment of the state, but he seeks, by nature, to destroy the surrounding and dominant authority of alien and non-alien states as well. The human nature is not merely manifested in the building of states; but also human effort is concentrated on the abolition of states. To investigate the possibility of anti-state is another effort to come in terms with the other ways of political unity among those groups of humans that do not tend to be subjected to the city-state. This article aims to explain the separation of states’ political interests from the internal and external identities seeking to destroy them. On this ground, the future of world order is not merely subject to the existing states and sovereignties, but it will depend on the threats that anti-states pose to the states.Anti-state, by nature, lacks a history as clear as that of the concept of state and historical concept of state; but it has played a part throughout history along with the state authority and has resisted its manifestations either secretly or openly. Hence, any historical study of state hinges on the historical discovery of its antithesis which has existed in a variety of periods and in a multitude of ways both implicitly and explicitly. At our time, the phenomenon of September 11th signifies the rise of anti-state vis-à-vis the global authority and dominance of a single superpower, i.e. the United States.

This article aims to extrapolate the contents and essence of the Greater Middle East Plan ad to analyze the causes, motivations and objectives thereof in order to discover its impact on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national security. In other words, the author intends to answer the following main and secondary questions: What are the US reasons, motivations and objectives in proposing this plan? What is the place of this plan in the US national security strategy, Middle East policy and national role? Why does the democratization process begin in the Middle East under the international conditions governing the post-September 11th period? Which are the theoretical foundations underlying the Greater Middle East Plan? What are the security repercussions and effects of this plan for the Middle Eastern countries and societies? Finally, what security challenges and opportunities will the materialization and implementation of this plan bring about for the Islamic Republic of Iran?The probable answer to these questions will be studied within the following hypothesis: “The Greater Middle East Plan as one of the central directives and measures in the US preemptive strategy and the focal point of its grand national security strategy which is intended to counter asymmetrical threats while creating various security threats and challenges, will provide opportunities for the preservation and consolidation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s national security.”

The author believes that the Islamic Republic of Iran, after a period of negating and rejecting international organizations, came to the understanding that these organizations, because of the new developments and new appraisal of interests, can be, first, an instrument for the preservation of the country’s rights and security, second they may help Iran to go out of isolation, and third they may support and safeguard the Islamic Republic vis-à-vis the dangers of the unipolar world. In this relation, while tending to non-Western organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic Conference, Iran embarked on the initiative of creating new regional organizations. While established earlier, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) became more active with the adhesion of members from the newly independent former Soviet Union republics. Iran’s success in regionalism may be evaluated as somehow relative and slight. The reasons accounting for this slight success can be counted as follow: the divergence of the regional countries’ strategies, certain countries’ concern about Iran particularly small countries and the Persian Gulf states, the willingness and even eagerness of these organizations’ members to work with the United States (whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran regards such organizations essentially a means for battling against the United States) and the lack of complementary character of regional economies. Nonetheless, the organizations’ success relate largely to the creation of a forum for proposing discussions and preventing tension in other areas. Furthermore, some important economic projects and linkages among the various networks of these countries make promising the prospects for future activities and probably the promotion of European status.

There are a variety of theoretical outlooks on war, military power and security that deal with this subject from a specific and different perspective none of which provides appropriate answers to the proposed queries. In this article, the author explains war and military power from the viewpoint of grand theories of international relations including realism, liberalism and the world system and along with them, he also extrapolates the outlook of constructivists as the theorists of the fourth debate in international relations. Within this framework, realists give priority to military hardware power and view war as a natural order of affairs. In contrast, liberals do not regard war as the natural order of affairs and while considering software power, they maintain that stability and security may be established through expanded economic relationships, free trade and enlargement of international organizations, thus in this way war could be avoided. The world system theory also considers the exploitative economic relations and injustice in international relations as the root cause of war and insecurity. The constructivist school seeks to link material affairs with non-material ones in the category of security. This outlook focuses on the change in perspectives, interpretations and understandings, and establishes a direct relationship among identity, interests and security. We face a combination of such theories in analyzing security at the international level, because none of them is lonely able to explain security.

The events of September 11 and the subsequent US occupation of Iraq changed the power system in the Persian Gulf that provided for the alliance of six Persian Gulf Cooperation Council’s countries along with the United States versus Iran and Iraq as two countries singled out of the system. This made the region enter a new stage of power interactions. On this basis, the Persian Gulf region is currently in a state of transition and the new power system has not been fully formed and established yet. Under the new circumstances, this article seeks to answer the question that what comprises the parameters of the new power system in the Persian Gulf. Also, what will be the place of Saudi Arabia as the most prominent GCC member in the system? To reply to the question, the author is of the belief that the place of Saudi Arabia and its significance in the US regional strategy will decline from the superior status and will be replaced by the small regional countries along with the new Iraq, due to the extended domestic dissatisfaction in Saudi Arabia with US extensive military presence, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the formation of alternative actors like Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. Therefore, the most likely situation in the region in the future will involve the establishment of a system based on the alliance of the small Persian Gulf countries along with Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran as the only actor outside the alliance.