نشریه مطالعات سیاسی بین النهرین
سال دوم شماره 1 (بهار 1402)

In recent years, the issue of water shortage in the Middle East has become more prominent, and this has increased the importance of rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates that pass through several countries, especially since the countries around these rivers, namely Turkey, Iraq and Syria, have not yet reached an understanding on how to divide water.Turkey considered both the Tigris and Euphrates basins as a single transboundary river basin and has started building dams under a project called Gap.Turkey's refusal to adhere to the League of Nations and United Nations treaties that began in 1923 and Turkey is planning to block most of the water that has historically flowed into Syria and Iraq.In recent years, the construction of dams in Turkey has been accelerated.This aggravates the water shortage in downstream countries such as Iraq. This issue can cause internal and regional problems for a country like Iraq that is rebuilding and pursuing its independence.Especially since most of Iraq's population lives in rural areas and rural life is directly dependent on the availability of water for agricultural production. Therefore, it is necessary to know the dimensions of this project. Also, considering the importance of the issue of water shortage and that the issue of dam construction can connect many issues in the region, this article aims to answer the question of Turkey in the construction of dams in a descriptive-analytical way and using library documents. What goals has the Gap project pursued? Also, what effect has the construction of these dams had on Iraq from an economic point of view?As a result, this article deals with economic goals and industrial development, hegemony and Kurdish problem in Turkey by using the framework of "interdependence" theory and examines the negative effects of building dams on food security, migration and agriculture in Iraq.

The growth of energy diplomacy and networking has caused more interaction at the international level In a long period of time, the OPEC member countries played a role as the most important decision-making players in the energy market, but over time, players like Russia decided to cooperate and interact more with the energy-owning countries, especially OPEC, in order to have more influence, and formed a coalition in the form of OPEC Plus. Russia and Saudi Arabia are its biggest players. Russia seeks to play a greater role in the energy market and replace itself instead of America in the region, and OPEC members seek to reduce dependence on the West and diversify the sales market and dominate the pricing market. Both sides realized that their proximity leads to market growth and more power. The question of the article is, what approach does Russia follow in OPEC+? What advantages has this alliance had for Russia? In the framework of energy diplomacy, the article has divided the approach of Russia's energy policy into two parts before and after the formation of OPEC Plus. Fields such as shale oil, the price crisis have caused Russia's attitude to change from competition to cooperation. Considering the presence of Russia in this alliance, Russia's emergence as an important player in determining the price of oil market,raising political and economic interests, disrupting the balance between Riyadh and Washington, and greater cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Russia are among the advantages that Russia has in this The coalition has won.

The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 facilitated the annexation of the Province of Mosul (Southern Kurdistan) to the newly established country of Iraq, despite its linguistic and cultural differences from the Arab dominated Iraq. To establish a ‘unified’ nation-state based on Arabic identity, King Faisal the first made nation-making the priority of his kingdom. This research examines King Faisal’s policies in Kurdistan between 1921 to 1933 and Kurdish elite’s resistance against his policies. The article illustrates King Faisal adopted assimilation policies and forced Iraqi identity to achieve his nation-building, but his policies were met with resistance by the Kurdish elites. Relying on primary and neglected sources including early Kurdish periodicals, this research demonstrates that despite the depiction of the situation of Kurds under King Faisal as favourable, the Kurdish elites’ resistance and their strategies shows the severity of King Faisal’s assimilation policy in Kurdistan.

Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of Israel, the regional crisis in the Middle East reached its peak and the Arab-Israeli conflict became one of the main issues of the Middle East. However, some Arab countries are affected by various factors such as Arab nationalism, internal and regional crises, the balance of power in the region, identity issues, the occurrence of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the formation of Arab unrest since 2011, and finally Iran's nuclear agreement with the so-called 5+1. According to the JCPOA, they have always shown different positions towards Israel, all of which were derived from their national interests. The Arab countries that seek to expand their relations with Israel are influenced by their national interests to make this type of decision in the field of their foreign policy. Have adopted considering the fundamental conflict that has existed between the Arabs and Israel since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the issue of normalizing relations between them has become important since the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1978. This issue received more attention when Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco normalized relations with Israel within just a few months. Here, the main question is, “Why are Israel and the Arab countries moving towards the normalization of relations despite the existence of differences with each other?” In this research, the analytical-explanatory method has been used to answer this question, and library sources have also been used to collect data. The findings of the research indicate that these governments have taken steps towards the normalization of relations with each other due to the existence of common threats and common interests, in fact, this action can be explained under the theory of neorealism. Under the influence of a series of internal, regional, and international factors centered on national interests, as well as Donald Trump's efforts in line with the so-called Middle East peace plan, these governments have normalized relations with each other and have moved towards cooperation in order to better secure their national interests.

Nation and nation-building is a subject that is as old as human political history. In fact, from the point of view of political science, one of the pillars of the state is the existence of the nation. Today, not only governments receive their existence from their nation, but the legitimacy and internal power and the possibility of bargaining and reaching better economic and political positions at the international level for governments also with the nations under their domination. will be This has caused all countries to try, while creating grounds for strengthening their foundations and internal relations with their respective nations, to use international capacities in order to achieve the goals that their nations demand. From the point of view of realism, the strength and weakness of governments depends on their strength in bringing their people together for their goals, and in fact, there is a two-way relationship between the demands of nations and governments. This issue has caused that in recent years, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, instead of focusing on the mere increase of military power and being under the shadow of the support of countries such as the United States, has tried to create a modern concept of the Kurdish nation within its borders and as a result, They have used international and domestic capacities to pursue the goals of the Kurdish nation (instead of focusing on militant groups), in order to improve the economic, security and defense situation of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Redefining foreign relations with the countries of Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Syria on the one hand and redefining regional programs with the aim of improving economic and security relations are among the important things that have been carried out in order to form a new Kurdish nation in this region has taken. In this article, the nation-building process in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the ups and downs of the foreign policy of this region have been examined in accordance with the new goal of the media, focusing on realist theories.

The issue of economy and its relationship with military sectors in a country under the title of defense economy is a very important and complex issue that can be analyzed from different angles. Defense economics has been recognized as one the most important factors in any country. Economist have been studying different aspects of this area regarding economics factor such as debt, growth, international trade and political regimes. Different economic, political and strategic factors can affect the demand for defense spending. In countries with oil income, one of the economic factors affecting defense spending can be the amount of oil income, which is considered as a financial source for military expenditures in these countries. Also, the type of regime that governs a country can be considered one of the main factors that determine defense spending in that country. In the last decade, many of these studies focused on investigating the relationship among political regimes and military expenditure. The theoretical framework illustrated that there is a negative relationship between these two variables. In this study, we aimed to investigate this relationship among Persian Gulf countries us in Hsu (2010) political variables and the ratio of military expenditure from 2000 to 2020. We also used dynamic panel approach with GMM estimator and with the variables of political regimes, the ratio of military expenditures to GDP, oil revenues, healthcare expenditures, and government expenditures without military expenditures to evaluate this relationship. The results depicted that there is a negative relationship between political regimes and military expenditure confirming the latter research in this area. This result was consistent with the studies of economic researchers given in this research. Moreover, the results showed that the rise of military expenditure does not have any correlation with oil rents. Thus, the amount of military expenditure has more prior factors than oil revenue.