- 24 Aug 2012
IRAN AND THE ARAB SPRING: NEW MIDDLE EAST GEOPOLITICS
ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings of 2011, a new geopolitical order is being shaped in the larger Middle East. In particular, a working coalition between Turkey and Saudi Arabia to form a new power bloc at the expense of Iran is emerging. In this coalition, political Islam will be suppressed, economic privatization will characterize a new basis for domestic power holders in the Arab world, and cultural pluralism will yield to narrow narratives of socialization and participatory politics. In this matrix, the Syrian crisis and Putin’s ascendancy have brought Russia to the surface once more vis-à-vis the Middle Eastern political order. The future of Syria as well as that of Iraq and Egypt and the fate of the negotiations regarding the Iranian nuclear program will determine the level of stability and strength of the Ankara-Riyadh axis. In sum, at the regional level, the political game involves Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and at the international level the players are the United States and Russia. Yet there appear to be two current winners of this post-“Arab Spring” Middle East game: Turkey economically and Saudi Arabia geopolitically.
About the Speakers
Mahmood Sariolghalam is Professor of International Relations at the National University of Iran in Tehran (Shahid Beheshti). He earned his PhD and MA in international relations at the University of Southern California. He also completed his bachelor’s degree in political science at the California State University. Professor Sariolghalam pursued a post doctorate at the Ohio State University. He specializes in international politics of the Middle East, Iranian foreign policy and political culture, and has written extensively in Farsi, Arabic and English. He has made presentations in more than one hundred countries. His recent publications are Iranian Authoritarianism During the Qajar Period (Farsi), 2011; “The Evolution of State in Iran: A Political Culture Perspective,” published by the Strategic Studies Center of Kuwait University, 2010; Iran’s Political Culture, a field research in Farsi based on 900 questionnaires, third edition, 2010; “International Relations in Iran: Achievements and Limitations,’ in International Relations Scholarship Around the World edited by Arlene Tickner and Ole Waever (Routledge, 2009) and “Iran in Search of Itself,” in Current History, 2008. Professor Sariolghalam spent the 2009-2010 academic year at Kuwait University. He is a member of International Studies Association (US), Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum (Switzerland) and a Non-Resident Scholar at ASERI (Italy). Professor Sariolghalam was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC in late 2011.
