The Shah of Iran, the Iraqi Kurds, and the Lebanese Shia


Book Description

This book sheds new light on the emergence and fluctuation of Iran’s connections with non-state entities in the Middle East. Iran’s involvement with political-militant non-states has been at the heart of international and regional security policy for more than three decades. The author analyzes Iran’s non-state foreign policy by focusing on specific geopolitical and geocultural threats and opportunities that pushed Tehran to build strategic ties with the Iraqi Kurds and the Lebanese Shia. This project will appeal to multiple audiences interested in geopolitics of the Middle East, Iran's foreign policy, and international relations.




Shia Islam and Politics


Book Description

This book argues that ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established a Shia Islamic government in Iran, that country’s religious and political leaders have used Shia Islam as a crucial way of expanding Iran’s objectives in the Middle East and beyond. Since 1979, Iran’s religious and political leaders have been concerned about Iran’s security in the face of the hostility and expansionism of the United States and other western countries, and the threats from powerful neighboring Sunni leaders and countries. While Iran’s government has attempted to align itself with Shia Muslims in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, against American and Sunni expansionism, the Iranian government has attempted to religiously nourish and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, not only because of the Iranian government’s desires to protect Iran from external threats. The book analyzes Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon which have among the largest proportional Shia populations in the Middle East and are vibrant centers of Shia intellectual life. The book's clear and jargon-free approach make it especially accessible for students and general readers who would like an introduction to the book's topics.




No Conquest, No Defeat


Book Description

In early 2019, the Islamic Republic of Iran marked its fortieth anniversary, despite decades of isolation, political pressure, sanctions and war. Observers of its security policies continue to try and make sense of this unlikely endurance. Some view the regime as a purely rational actor, whose national security decisions and military affairs are shaped by the same considerations as in other states. Others believe that it is ideology driving Tehran's strategy. Either way, virtually everyone agrees that the mullahs' policies are fundamentally different from those pursued by their monarchical predecessors. No Conquest, No Defeat offers a historically grounded overview of Iranian national security. Tabatabai argues that the Islamic Republic is neither completely rational nor purely ideological. Rather, its national security policy today is largely shaped by its strategic culture, a product of the country's historical experiences of war and peace. As a result, Iranian strategic thinking is perhaps best characterized by its dynamic yet resilient nature, one that is continually evolving. As the Islamic Republic enters its fifth decade, this book sheds new light on Iran's controversial nuclear and missile programs and its involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.




Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (April-May 2020)


Book Description

Survival, the IISS’s bimonthly journal, challenges conventional wisdom and brings fresh, often controversial, perspectives on strategic issues of the moment. In this issue: Anatol Lieven argues that strong and legitimate states remain central to any efforts to limit climate change and mitigate diseases such as coronavirus, and to maintain Western democracy Oriana Skylar Mastro warns that hereditary autocratic regimes such as North Korea’s are prone to sudden collapse, something for which policymakers should be prepared Shelby Butt and Daniel Byman contend that Russia’s attempts to undermine the West include supporting white-supremacist and other far-right groups And eight more thought-provoking pieces, as well as our regular book reviews and noteworthy column




Conflict Among Rebels


Book Description

Why do rebel groups frequently clash instead of cooperating against their shared enemy, the state? This pattern occurs in conflicts around the world, yet it flies in the face of common notions of strategic logic. Weaving together insights from international relations theory and the study of ethnic politics, Costantino Pischedda presents an original theory to unravel the puzzle of inter-rebel conflict. Examining the dynamics of civil wars in Iraq, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Syria, Pischedda argues that infighting is a calculated response by rebel groups to perceived opportunities and vulnerabilities. Conflicts break out between groups when one sees the potential to eliminate weaker rivals at a low cost or fears the deterioration of its power relative to a competitor and embarks on a desperate gamble. Counterintuitively, Pischedda finds that rebels sharing an ethnic identity are especially prone to violent conflict, as they see each other as both potential existential threats and enticing opportunities for expansion. Since coethnic rebels aspire to control the same community, their antagonism is stark and immediate. In addition, insurgents expect to be able to draw on the resources of defeated rivals from the same ethnic group more easily than they could on those of outsiders. Marshaling a range of data, Pischedda’s mixed-methods study features original interviews conducted with former insurgent leaders. The first book-length examination of inter-rebel fighting, Conflict Among Rebels sheds new light on a key question of civil war dynamics: why the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.




The Fate of Third Worldism in the Middle East


Book Description

In the latter half of the twentieth century, a revolutionary idea promised to upend the global order. Anti-imperialist militancy, bolstered by international solidarity, would lead to not only the national liberation of oppressed peoples but universal emancipation, shattering the division between the prosperous nations of the capitalist West and the poorer countries of the Global South. The idea was Third Worldism, and among others it inspired struggles in Iran and Palestine. By the early 1980s, however, progressive visions of independence and freedom had fallen to the reality of an oppressive Islamic theocracy in Iran, while the Palestinian Revolution had been eclipsed by civil war in Lebanon, Israeli aggression and intra-Arab conflict. This thought-provoking volume explores the dramatic decline of Third Worldism in the Middle East. It reveals the lived realities of the time by focusing on the key protagonists – from student activists to guerrilla fighters, and from volunteer nurses to militant intellectuals – and juxtaposes the Iranian and Palestinian cases to offer a riveting re-examination of this defining era. Ultimately, it challenges us to reassess how we view the end of the long 1960s, prompting us to reconsider perennial questions concerning self-determination, emancipation, change and solidarity. Contents Introduction: The Transformation of Third Worldism in the Middle East Sune Haugbolle and Rasmus Elling 1 Demystifying Third World Solidarity: Cuba and the Palestinian Revolution in the Seventies Sorcha Thomson 2 Nursing the Revolution: Norwegian Medical Support in Lebanon as Solidarity, 1976–1983 Pelle Valentin Olsen 3 Searching for Friends Across the Global South: Classified Documents, Iran, and the Export of the Revolution in 1983 Simon Wolfgang Fuchs 4 The Gendered Politics of Dead Bodies: Obituaries, Revolutionaries, and Martyrs between the Iranian, Palestinian, and Dhufar Revolutions Marral Shamshiri 5 Brothers, Comrades, and the Quest for the Islamist International: The First Gathering of Liberation Movements in Revolutionary Iran Mohammad Ataie 6 Abu Jubran and Jabal ʿAmil Between the Palestinian and Iranian Revolutions Nathaniel George 7 The Islamic Republic Party and the Palestinian Cause, 1979–80: A Discursive Transformation of the Third Worldist Agenda Maryam Alemzadeh 8 Translation, Revolutionary Praxis, and the Enigma of Manuchehr Hezarkhani Nasser Mohajer and Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi 9 The Front of our Friends: Shu’un Falastiniyya as an Archive of Palestinian Third Worldism Klaudia Wieser 10 Fragile Solidarity: The Iranian Left and the Kurdish National Question in the 1979 Revolution Rasmus C. Elling and Jahangir Mahmoudi 11 The ‘Ends’ of the Palestinian Revolution in the Fakhani Republic Sune Haugbolle Afterword: Towards a Praxis-Centred Historiography of Middle East Third Worldism Toufoul Abou-Hodeib and Naghmeh Sohrabi




The Last Shah


Book Description

The surprising story of Iran’s transformation from America’s ally in the Middle East into one of its staunchest adversaries "An original interpretation that puts Iranian actors where they belong: at center stage."—Michael Doran, Wall Street Journal “An extraordinary account. . . . Deeply nuanced and eloquent.”—Benjamin Weinthal, Jerusalem Post Offering a new view of one of America’s most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power. This revolution was not, as many believe, the popular overthrow of a powerful and ruthless puppet of the United States; rather, it followed decades of corrosion of Iran’s political establishment by an autocratic ruler who demanded fealty but lacked the personal strength to make hard decisions and, ultimately, lost the support of every sector of Iranian society. Esteemed Middle East scholar Ray Takeyh provides new interpretations of many key events—including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—significantly revising our understanding of America and Iran’s complex and difficult history.




Turkey's Relations With Israel


Book Description

This book offers the first comprehensive history and analysis of Turkey’s relations with Israel since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, up until 2010 and places them within the wider framework of Turkey’s foreign policy. It highlights the remarkable lack of consistency in Turkey’s foreign policy towards Israel, under different Turkish governments, which has given the relationship a pervasive sense of unpredictability. Combining empirical-analytical evidence with role theory insights, as developed in Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), it explores Turkish foreign policy makers’ perceptions regarding the proper role and function of the country in the international system and the sub-system of the Middle East and how they affected the policy towards Israel. The author argues that Ankara’s ambivalent policy towards Israel for over sixty years can be explained by Turkey's multiple and often contradictory national role conceptions. The study, which draws from archival material and over fifty interviews with Turkish, Israeli, American and Arab officials and experts, places Ankara’s policy into a larger analytical framework, which helps link the past to the present and future. The book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in understanding Turkey's foreign policy in general and towards the Middle East in particular.




Understanding the New Proxy Wars


Book Description

Proxy warfare will shape the conflicts of the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future. Yet the popular understanding of proxy wars remains largely shaped by the experience of the Cold War. In reality, in the Greater Middle East and its periphery today, the growing power of regional states and non-state actors, combined with the proliferation of new technology, has reshaped proxy conflicts, in an increasingly multipolar and interconnected environment. In this collected volume, a range of researchers examine what constitutes proxy warfare and provide new insight into how these wars are waged, in contexts stretching from Ukraine to North Africa and Syria to Afghanistan. The volume draws upon research, surveys and interviews conducted in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, as well as examining the propaganda output of those involved in these countries’ wars. In doing so, Understanding the New Proxy Wars helps reveal both the continuities and the differences between recent conflicts and those of times past.




Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups d'état


Book Description

“For readers interested in international relations, politics, and global issues.” -Library Journal, Starred Review The Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups d’état surveys the history of coups d’état in the post-World War II period. The term “modern” in the title therefore demarcates the period since January 1946. This book documents over 582 coup attempts that have occurred in 108 different countries worldwide over a period of 75 years. Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups d'état contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1,400 cross-referenced dictionary entries. This book is an excellent resource for students, and researchers.