نشریه مطالعات خاورمیانه
سال بیست و نهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 108، تابستان 1401)

Today, ISIS is one of the most dangerous manifestations of Takfiri terrorism in West Asia. This terrorist group expanded rapidly after the withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq and was able to form an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran was one of the states, which was directly opposed to ISIS. With the emergence of this terrorist group, Iran, as a strategic actor of resistance, faced challenges in various discursive, security, and political spheres. Considering this issue and using the theoretical framework of defensive realism, this article seeks to answer the following main question: What policy has the Islamic Republic of Iran adopted to eliminate ISIS from Iraq and Syria? The article hypothesizes that since ISIS was considered as a direct and serious threat to Iran's national security and territorial integrity, in order to eliminate the challenges and threats ahead, the Islamic Republic of Iran pursued a policy of striking and destroying ISIS in Syria and Iraq in strategic cooperation with the actors of the resistance, as well as with the effective help of Russia. It managed to defeat the terrorist group in the area. To analyze the data, qualitative analysis method has been used.

Due to the slow and fruitless process of Turkey's accession negotiations with the European Union and the withdrawal of this issue from the priority of Turkish foreign policy and the efforts of the Turkish Islamist government to increase its regional power and activity in the Middle East, has led to government actions. Turkey's domestic issues, particularly those of opposition groups, as well as domestic reform movements such as the Fethullah Gulen movement, have led to the formation of various human rights claims against the country in the European Council's human rights forums.The aim of this study is to examine the role of human rights norms in the relations between Turkey and the Council of Europe. Therefore, the researcher has used the thinking method of Soheil Enayatullah to study the human rights challenges between the Council of Europe and the Republic of Turkey during the rule of Islamists. The findings of this study indicate that human rights conflicts between us are rooted at different levels. It has causes, and the more we move to the inner level of the challenge, the fewer possible alternatives to resolve conflicts, and the more fundamental the level of challenge becomes.

In recent years, the United States has defined its foreign policy toward Iran on a variety of issues. Iran's nuclear program, Iran's defense program in the development of missile activities and the regional approach are among the topics of interest to the United States towards Iran, which has pursued various policies to counter them. Imposition of unilateral and multilateral sanctions, maximum pressure and disruption of Iran's regional and international interactions and relations can be considered as pressure to change Iran's approach. Among the issues raised was Iran's nuclear program, which led to the JCPOA, which was on the verge of collapse with the withdrawal of the United States and the subsequent reduction of Iran's commitments. The Biden administration came to power with the slogan of returning to the nuclear deal at a time when curbing Iran's regional approach and missile program remains an important issue for the United States. Using functionalist theory and descriptive-analytical method, the present study seeks to answer the question that what approach will the United States take to confront regional policies and develop Iran's missile program? In response, the United States will re-accede to the nuclear deal in order to extend it to other Iranian policies, including missile and regional activities, and to change Iran's position

This article is an attempt to analyze the representation of the "other" in Hollywood cinema after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Hollywood cinema also became a theater for countering terrorism/ war on trror. The conflict is itself part of Hollywood's confrontation with the "other" or "enemy" in the history of Hollywood cinema, based on the United States' confrontation with its enemies in three historical periods: Cold War, Cold War, and Post-Cold War. With the rise of the US "counter-terrorism" or "war on terror" discourse in the aftermath of 9/11, Hollywood also represented the "other" in that discourse. In this article, the authors analyze the representation of the "other" in Hollywood cinema during this period. To do this, they used another definition by Levinas and a methodology of discourse analysis. This article shows that Hollywood cinema has portrayed Islamic fundamentalism as the "other" or "enemy" of the United States / Western civilization in the post-9/11 historical discourse.

The Middle East has undergone major political and social changes since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in recent decades. According to Hisham Sharabi, a prominent Arab writer, the result of Western modernity entering the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Caliphate was the emergence of a neo-patriarchal society in opposition to the patriarchal and traditional society of the Middle East. Neo-patriarchy has in fact led to an anthropic and irregular modernization that is neither modern nor patriarchal. This neo-patriarchal society is in conflict with the issue and concept of democracy. The question that arises in this regard is: "What effect has neo-patriarchy had on the concept of democracy in the Middle East?" In answer to this question, the following hypothesis has been put forward: "Neo-patriarchy in a dialectical confrontation with the category of democracy has led to a change in the meaning and form of democracy in the Middle East contrary to its common meaning (as a Western concept)." In fact, neo-patriarchy has changed the nature of democracy and created a new form of it, which is examined in this study as "distorted democracy".

The growing importance of China's presence in the world order and its increasing power projection with its global goals raises questions about how the Middle East fits into China's grand strategy. Particularly several hypotheses have been proposed regarding whether China seeks to replace the United States as the main guarantor of the security of some actors in the Middle East. This trend seems to depend on whether the United States will withdraw its commitment to the region or whether Middle Eastern countries will look for an alternative guarantor. On the other hand, this issue also depends mainly on whether China is interested in playing such a role or whether it has the ability to do so. Understanding the dynamics of China's macro strategy and how the Middle East is related to the parameters around which the strategy is conceived should be the depature point for such an assessment. The purpose of this article is to provide a real assessment of this grand strategy and then draw conclusions regarding China's current and future role in the Middle East. The analysis of the data leads to the conclusion that the relationship with Middle Eastern countries is indeed significant for China. Nevertheless, it is of secondary importance to the Chinese government in comparison to their viatal interests.

The media world, particularly far-reaching media and virtual networks, have become influential instruments for mainstreaming, justification and persuasion for violent and subversive movements. Hence, they have significantly attracted the attention of terrorist groups. One of the most important media-virtual instruments used by these groups includes virtual space particularly social networks. Jaish ul-Adl has also sought to persuade and attract people and expand its activities, by establishing a variety of groups and channels in various social networks according to time and place necessities through releasing notices, religious trailers, motivational speeches, documentaries and so on. Apart from its degree of success in these three arenas, its political propaganda has reinforced its acts of terror and accordingly has threatened the border security of the Islamic Republic in eastern areas. Considering its vast similarity to ISIS, it has imitated their media-virtual pattern, thus increasingly elaborating its media-virtual language in its oratory literature, religious justification and alike. Drawing upon content analysis methodology, this article has identified Jaish ul-Adl’s propaganda in the Sunni-Shia, minority-majority, right-wrong, faith-paganism, and Jihad-peace binaries. The article has provided the ground for new findings by generalizing the binaries.

Iran’s uneven experience in its economic development process during the last decades, which seemingly culminated in the JCPOA process and continuous efforts made at the removal of sanctions, has made Iran revise its choice of partners in the international scene in order to attain economic development. In the meantime, world developments and the shift in power paradigm based on economy or in other words, the new international order relying on economic variables provide observes with a new outlook. In the existing order, economic rivalries based on technology, communications and information provide the basis for the formation of power structure in the international system. The major players of the international system, which give rise to such rivalries and form international interactions and transactions, include rising economic powers. To investigate this issue, this article proposed the following question: What are the place and role of the rising economies comparatively in the process of Iran’s economic development? To answer it, a hypothesis is put forward which suggests that considering Iran’s development conditions and structure, rising economies possess a salient place in development relations with Iran because of their flexibility in relations, and cheap, low cost, low risk, non-political and efficient characteristics.

The advent of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the redefinition of geopolitical codes led to the production of new discourses whose floating sign consisted of Iran's confrontation with the West’s geopolitical field. In order to produce a counter-discourse against the United States, Iran seeks a compensatory mechanism to manage the effects of sanctions on its economy, resulting in a 25-year Iran-China strategic plan. From the perspective of critical geopolitics and Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, this study has reviewed the text of the 25-Year Iran-China Cooperation Plan in order to identify and analyze its geopolitical propositions and trends. Accordingly, the text was examined in three scales: agents, actions, and context. At the agents’ scale, China has been identified as the guarantor of security. Findings from this critical analysis showed that the floating sign in the text was to ensure Iran's geo-economic security against US sanctions. The meaning of the second identified reference, or geopolitical threatening reference, is the United States and Western Europe (Western geopolitical field). Iran seeks to create a geopolitical society discourse based on the text of a 25-year plan by identifying examples of threats against itself and China. In terms of actions, China seeks a strategic partnership with Iran by taking two steps to raise the issue of Iran on the non-security agenda and to distance itself and impose its position. In the third scale, the impact of the threat-generating actor on the context (25-year plan) was first examined, during which the United States seeks to minimize Iran's achievements by attaching the 25-year plan into Iran's nuclear program.

This article reviews the concept of transitional justice and its administration regarding the foreign fighters in the Syrian armed conflict in light of positive complementarity jurisdiction held by the International Criminal Court. Since the trial of violators of international humanitarian law in Syria is among the goals of transitional justice, by enabling the state to investigate and prosecute international crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the principle of complementarity jurisdiction allows the Syrian judicial system to try the criminals and violators of human rights and humanitarian law. This research drawn upon the descriptive-analytical research method. Based on the findings of the research, the Syrian government is able to fill the gaps found in its national criminal justice system for investigating and prosecuting foreign fighters for their crimes, relying upon the positive complementarity of the International Criminal Court. Among the capacities provided by the positive complementarity principle are penalizing international crimes, training the judicial system, prosecution of criminals, reforming and restructuring the police force and judges for documenting the crimes, and investigating the committed crimes. Hence, such a possibility exists for such states as Syria, which are not parties to the Court Statute.