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While the Cold War ended about three-decades ago, this event spawned a shift in the balance of power that the Middle Due east has yet to recover from. Harrison lays out how this has produced the current regional structure that is the source of nearly of the problems the region contends with today.

The Middle Eastward has undergone several geopolitical transformations over the decades since World State of war II. While these in part were driven by political and economic realities indigenous to the region, the well-nigh profound changes have come up nearly through the actions of outside actors, first by the Europeans and later by the United States and the Soviet Spousal relationship.

Today the Middle East is enduring some other transformation, perhaps the most consequential of this region's already fraught political history. Even though Russia and the United states are engaged in the region's hotspots, the metamorphous ongoing today is mostly driven by local and regional factors. The Arab Jump, the ensuing collapse of the Arab political order, and the ongoing ceremonious wars, are the drivers of an emerging new Eye East political society. (ane)

To get a sense of what is driving this metamorphous, and what trajectory this is likely to put the region on in the futurity, information technology is critical that nosotros examine how the Middle Eastward has evolved upwardly to this bespeak. The argument advanced here is that the almost important historical factor to look at is how the stop of the Cold War, and the ensuing era of American primacy, triggered a rebalancing of power in the region, giving birth to some of the problems nosotros are contending with in the Middle Eastward today.

It will also be argued that the most important current factor shaping the new Middle East are the ongoing civil wars, within which regional and international powers are contending. If we are going to think about policy scenarios and strategies for moving the region from chaos to at least a modicum of stability, we need to understand both the historical dynamics that got us to where we are today, as well as the current factors that are helping shape the future.

The Cold War in the Heart E

While the Cold War has been over for nearly 3 decades, the legacy of this rivalrous period is still having an impact on the Middle Due east. The reason this period of superpower competition was so profound, and is now critical for agreement the region, is that its appearance corresponded with the liberation of most Arab countries from the yoke of European colonialism. From the bookends of Syria and Lebanon gaining their sovereignty in 1946 to Algeria throwing off French dominion in 1962, almost all former European colonial holdings became independent Arab states.

Each of these fledgling Arab countries had specific security, political and economic needs as they struggled to make the transition from colony to independent state. The omnipresent security threat for most Arab states was a fright of European colonial revanchism. At that place was also the perception that the creation of the state of State of israel represented a form of neo-colonialism. Many of the states, particularly those without significant oil assets similar Syria, faced economic challenges that they looked to outside powers to help convalesce.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union saw this emerging Arab landscape as fertile ground upon which to compete with the global ambitions of the other. Each of the superpowers competed for Arab allies in an endeavor gain the upper regional hand, thereby containing what they saw as the nefarious ambitions of their adversary.

It was the convergence of the needs of the newly independent Arab countries for exterior support, and the available supply of that support from the U.s. and Soviet Wedlock, that created the modern Middle Due east. Arab states, at their most vulnerable moment of transitioning from colonial vassals to independent states, sought and received back up from the superpowers. Conservative monarchies, like Hashemite kingdom of jordan and Saudi Arabia, fell squarely into the camp of the Us, risking their domestic legitimacy to ensure regime security. Syria, Libya, Iraq and Egypt (upward until 1978), states whose legitimacy depended on the flouting of European and American norms, aligned themselves with the Soviet Spousal relationship. (2) Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, initially in the 1950s tried to resist superpower entreaties and pursued a policy of not-alignment. But even he ultimately succumbed to the reality that this wasn't sustainable and aligned his country with the U.S.Due south.R. (3)

Non-Arab countries too figured into the Cold War equation, though they weren't as contested by the superpowers as the Arab states. Turkey, Iran and Israel all tacked towards the west, putting them squarely in the U.South. army camp. (4) The upshot of this intersection between the appearance of the Common cold State of war and the security and economic needs of independent Arab states is that the region started to mimic the bipolar structure of the international system. Show of this was an Arab Cold War that mirrored the global superpower conflict. This divided the Arab world into ii camps, with the Soviet backed, leftist leaning, Arab nationalist camp led by Egypt's Nasser pitted confronting the more bourgeois U.S. supported camp, consisting of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. (v)

What is most important almost the Common cold War flow is that it engendered a Middle East political lodge that persisted from the 1940s until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. (half-dozen) Information technology was the collapse of this society, and the ensuing dislocations this acquired, which best helps united states understand how changes in global geopolitics accept contributed to the current power struggles we come across in the Middle Due east today.

The Plummet of the Cold War Regional Order

Political transitions from 1 era to another are always messy. The political lodge that was established during the Cold War started to fray fifty-fifty earlier the formal plummet of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1977 Egypt'due south President Anwar Sadat stunned the Arab world and the West past going to Jerusalem, forging a peace treaty with Israel in 1978, and upending a decades-long alliance with the Soviet Wedlock, realigning Egypt squarely in the U.Southward. camp. In 1979, U.S. ally Islamic republic of iran underwent an Islamic revolution, which at its core repudiated the Shah'south close alliance with the United States. And in 1990, as the Soviet Union was shut to collapse, Republic of iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, in issue testing the strength of the prevailing regional order. While these events put pressure on the Cold War regional order that had defined the Middle East since the end of Earth War II, it was the formal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that delivered the biggest geopolitical shock to the Middle East.

There were several effects of this momentous effect that rocked the region. Offset, all countries aligned with either superpower took a strategic haircut. For the U.s.a. and the Soviet Union, alliances in the region were seen largely as instruments for battling and containing each other. When the Soviet Union complanate, this strategic imperative concluded for the Us. While the Center East remained of import to Washington given its reliance on oil and gas from the Persian Gulf and ties with Israel, the Cold War gum that held the United states of america riveted to the region gave way. Two decades later, this provided the impetus to the Obama assistants's "pivot to Asia". (7)

2nd, former Soviet allies were left holding the handbag. While all states were afflicted by the end of the Cold War, former Soviet allies like Syria, Iraq, Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya, Yemen (S) had to reconfigure their economic and political social contracts, as well as their foreign policies. It is no mere coincidence that these are the countries that today are mired in civil war.

Syria, for case, tried to make the transition from a sprawling public sector to a private-sector oriented economy, partially because of the loss of Soviet economic aid. Because of the entrenched economic interests that had developed from the planned economy during the Cold War, Syria's transition to a more market-oriented approach wasn't as complete as those who saw Bashar Assad every bit a reformer would take liked. This along with the lack of liberalization of the political system contributed to the discontent that percolated through Syrian arab republic in 2011, and ultimately plunged the country into civil state of war. (8)

In Yemen, the end of the Cold State of war coincided with the unity between North and S. While the Soviets began winding downwardly their support for S Yemen (PDRY) before the Cold State of war ended, Salim al-Bidh from South Republic of yemen and Ali Abdullah Saleh from the North began discussing unification, which was consummated in 1990. According to Charles Dunbar, who had been the U.S. administrator to Saana at the time, Moscow's inverse attitudes towards Eastern Europe and elsewhere equally the Cold War was winding downwardly, translated into the leadership in the Southward feeling compelled to strike the best deal with the North as possible. (nine)

Equally profound was the upshot the end of the Cold War had on the foreign policies of former Soviet allies. American allies, Saudi Arabia and State of israel, maintained their relationship with the merely remaining superpower, retaining the security umbrella they derived from this human relationship. Sometime Soviet allies lost their security umbrellas, and in the case of Due south Republic of yemen, likewise its socialist identity.

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Also, the end of the Cold State of war upended the regional power rest. Since Syrian arab republic lost the Golan Heights to Israel during the 1967 war, it has tried to build enough leverage to negotiate a repatriation of this strategic territory. With the termination of the Cold War, the leverage Syria derived from its Soviet patron vis-à-vis Israel evaporated almost overnight. Moreover, Syria, Iraq and Libya, states which had positioned themselves during the Cold War as challengers to the regional status quo, lost the Soviet superpower engine that enabled that kind of a stance.

Each former Soviet ally dealt with this geopolitical stupor of the lost Soviet patron in a different way. Libya, which nether Qaddafi had the reputation as the "bad boy" of the Arab globe, voluntarily renounced its nuclear weapons program, and quickly improved its relations with the United states of america. (ten) Yemen, as stated before, unified. Iraq under Saddam Hussein saw opportunity, recklessly invading Kuwait, seemingly on the assumption that the United states would be less vigilant over the regional political order every bit the Cold War wound down. He seemed to go that message from his interaction with U.Southward. Administrator April Glaspie, who right before the invasion, said that the United states of america had no opinion about Iraq's escalating conflict with Kuwait. (eleven)

Glaspie – Saddam

Syria's response to what was perceived as a threat posed by the loss of its Soviet patron was to reinforce its alliance with Iran, which had been forged years before in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, much to chagrin of its Arab brethren. This, in conjunction with Damascus'due south ties to Hezbollah in Lebanon, created a resistance forepart against what was perceived to be American hegemonic designs on the region, particularly later on the U.S. invasions of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan and Republic of iraq, in 2001 and 2003 respectively. (12)

This created a new power structure for the region, consisting of states like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Hashemite kingdom of jordan, U.A.East. and Arab republic of egypt, which tilted towards the United States, on one side, and a revisionist forepart on the other side, consisting of Iran and Syria along with non-land actors Hezbollah and Hamas, that accept arrayed themselves to resist what they encounter as American designs on the Middle East. (thirteen)

[Video]: Professor Ross Harrison at the conference delivering his presentation on Console 1: Dynamics of Political Geography in the Middle East

American Unipolarity and a New Regional Lodge

At the end of the Common cold War there were two phases of American unipolarity. The first was a menstruum of "placidity unipolarity" during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. This is when the plans for NATO and EU expansion were hatched, and when the United States pursued a policy of dual containment towards Iraq and Iran, in effect imposing a Pax Americana on the Eye Due east in the absence of a global rival. (fourteen) The United states of america only a couple years earlier had defeated Saddam Hussein in his bid to annex Kuwait. And Washington, seeing few constraints to its behavior in the Middle Eastward, imposed tougher sanctions on Iran, labeling it a "rogue" state. (15)

The second phase was a more "aggressive unipolarity", starting in the immediate wake of 9/11, when the United States brooked no agile resistance by Center Eastern regimes. This translated into military invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. (16) Islamic republic of iran initially saw its interests threatened by these incursions nigh its borders, only after the U.S. got bogged downwardly militarily, it began to see an opportunity to build deterrence against possible U.South. and Israeli invasions. (17)

This provided the strategic impetus for Iran to strengthen the resistance front it led, with Syria and Hezbollah in tow. Past developing asymmetric hybrid warfare ways, augmented by Shi'i militias recruited from across the region, Islamic republic of iran developed the wherewithal to push back against what it saw every bit the capricious wielding of power by the U.s.. (18)

What unipolarity did was prepare a new rivalrous ability construction in the region. While during the Cold War, the Middle Due east reflected the bipolarity of the international system, what emerged following the Soviet plummet was much more an authentically regional system, defined by competing Iranian and Arab nationalisms and Sunni and Shi'i sectarian identities. Turkey up until the Syrian ceremonious war was generally neutral in disputes between the Iranian led resistance front and U.Southward. Arab allies. But later on it got mired in Syria, Ankara found its "zero problems with neighbors" neutral policy to be untenable. (19)

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Civil State of war Vertical Contamination

This tripartite contest between Iranian, Arab and Turkish centers of power is today playing out in the ceremonious wars of the Heart East. The civil wars in Yemen, Syria and Iraq turned what had been competition between coexisting regional powers into hotly contested proxy battles. These wars created security vacuums that Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey projected their ability into.

Typically, involvement past Iran, Turkey and Kingdom of saudi arabia in the civil wars in the Middle East is thought of as a proxy miracle, where fighters on the government or insubordinate sides do the behest of their respective external benefactors. Simply reducing regional power involvement in the civil wars to this proxy dynamic is misleading. In addition to the regional powers pushing themselves into the civil wars, they are pulled in by something this author has labeled "vertical contagion". This means that conflicts do non just spread beyond borders horizontally to vulnerable neighboring states, simply also vertically to stronger and larger regional powers. (20)

There are two aspects of this vertical contagion miracle to consider. The showtime is how the compression of time, the fog of war, and "bad neighborhood effects" of the ceremonious wars accept drawn regional actors like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and now Israel, into the region's civil wars. This is not to suggest that the fighting itself spreads to these regional powers, but rather that the political and economic effects of the fighting are exported. Example in point would be the Syrian civil war, where Turkey, Israel, Kingdom of saudi arabia and Iran have felt the effects of the conflict in the grade of refugees, strengthened hardliners, terrorist attacks, and other threats to their interests, making staying on the sidelines untenable.

But the 2d attribute of vertical contagion is in many ways the most profound in terms of shifts in the balance of ability. That is that the civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Republic of yemen and Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya have morphed into a regional disharmonize among the major regional powers, where a vicious competition for curt-term regional authorisation completely overshadows longer-term shared interests of a stable and prosperous Eye E. (21) Whereas the country-level wars are nearly which elites govern the state, the regional ceremonious war is nigh establishing a balance of power, or worse, which country asserts dominance over the broader Middle East. (22)

Another style of thinking nearly vertical contagion is that the land-level civil wars take turned this struggle for ability within the regional order from a victimless rivalry into a destructive competition which has lethal implications for the Heart East and the global order.

Enter Moscow

Russia'south foray into Syria in 2015 spelled the stop of the American unipolar era. The truth is that the United States had already become a tentative power in the Centre East prior to Moscow's motion, much to the dismay of Kingdom of saudi arabia and Israel. Spooked by the difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States started to retrench from the Heart East towards the stop of the Bush Administration. In 2011, President Obama waded into Syria, merely only tepidly, giving pocket-sized back up to the rebels. When the U.South. did show resolve in Syria, information technology was mostly in the northeast part of the country, where with the help of the Kurds it battled ISIS. This left a vacuum in the main boxing zones of the state of war in the western part of the country, which was filled by Russian federation in 2015 when it entered militarily to dorsum Syria's President Assad.

A resurgent Russia has added a layer of complexity to the distribution of power in the Center East. It has turned the region into a iii-layered ability system. The first layer is the battle for the state being fought betwixt the rebels and government in the Syrian, Yemeni, Iraqi and Libyan civil wars. The 2nd layer is the boxing for regional say-so being waged between Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. And the 3rd is the competition between Washington and Moscow, in Syria and the broader region.

Russia's return to the Centre East was reminiscent of the Common cold War era, in that at that place were again ii great powers vying for influence in this tumultuous region. But by scratching beneath the surface, nosotros see that this era in many means is a articulate departure from the by. Outset, unlike during the Cold State of war, the fulcrum of the Eye East today isn't the rivalry betwixt the Usa and Russia, just rather the regional competition betwixt Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, playing out in the region'south civil wars. Second, the ideologies which serve equally the sectarian fault-lines today aren't imported from the cracking powers, as they were during the Cold State of war, merely rather are ethnic to the Heart Due east. Tertiary, in contrast to the past, Russia and the United States take some common interests in the Middle Due east, such every bit regional stability, the stemming of refugee flows, successful counterterrorism efforts, among others.
So, while this is a multi-layered organization consisting of local, regional and international actors, it is far more complex than the Cold War system of the past. Now it is the regional piece which is the most important to solving the issues of the Heart East, something that international actors similar the The states and Russia demand to sympathize when devising policy. (23)

Policy Implications

While the United States, due to it alliances and war machine footprint, remains an important actor in the Heart East, a give-and-take of what lies ahead in terms of power shifts should non be overly American centric. There are several reasons for this. Beginning, with the entry of Russia into Syria in 2015, Moscow muscled its manner into being mayhap the most consequential external role player in the region. (24) Second, the United States under President Donald Trump has withdrawn back up from the Syrian rebels and abdicated leadership in May of 2017 past breaking the Islamic republic of iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). These actions reinforced the view that the Usa was an unreliable, arbitrary and impetuous actor in the region. For these reasons, any discussion of policy recommendations needs to besides include Russia, China, and the European Wedlock.

Policy discussions also need to incorporate an understanding that as shattered equally the Middle East appears today, it is nevertheless an interconnected regional system, where changes that occur in one office can produce a disturbance elsewhere. While correct now the organisation is dysfunctional and breeds instability, it is notwithstanding a organisation of interdependence. Policymakers, who traditionally have viewed the region through state-specific lenses, demand to broaden their view to think almost policy from a regional vantage signal, and how interdependence in the region can exist shifted from conflict to cooperation.

When weighing policy options for creating more than regional stability, a pressure indicate is the relationship betwixt Turkey, Iran, Kingdom of saudi arabia and Israel. It is these countries that accept the potential to assist deescalate the civil wars, interruption the vertical contamination vortex, and finish the mutual recriminations that add turmoil to an already tense region.

Russia has in fact been post-obit a regional arroyo that focuses on these actors. This is enshrined in the Astana peace process, which Moscow co-sponsors with Turkey and Iran, in order to manage the conflict zones in Syria. While it is far from a perfect given the complexities on the ground, it has helped to de-escalate the conflict in some of the most fraught areas of Syria. Russia'south recent attempts to broker an understanding between Iran and Israel on redlines for Syrian arab republic is another example. (25)

Ideally, this model of working to forge cooperation amongst the regional powers should extend across Russian federation and Syrian arab republic to the broader region and international community, to break the spell of vertical contamination. Ane pathway would be for the global powers to work with the regional powers on a security architecture for the Middle East that would work towards bringing the civil wars to an end, prevent a render to hostilities once the fighting stops, and provide mechanisms for peaceful conflict resolution. (26)

Skeptics would debate that given the degree of animosity between Iran and Saudi Arabia, it is implausible that the current venomous human relationship between these regional powers tin can exist reversed. Only there are two reasons why this isn't completely unrealistic. First, the region is highly sensitive to cues from the international environment. While there is no guarantee that a concerted attempt by international powers would bring the regional powers together, global forums in the past take brought warring parties together. The United States and Soviet Union co-sponsored the Madrid conference in 1991, which did set in motion negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Arrangement (PLO). And while the negotiation of the JCPOA Islamic republic of iran nuclear deal didn't have wide support in the region, it did show the chapters for the international powers to work in concert on behalf of an consequence that afflicted the stability of the Middle East.

Second, the disputes between Iran and Saudi arabia, and Israel and Iran, aren't over territory. Instead they center on the regional behaviors of these countries and the motivations behind them. While in some ways this makes resolution more hard, every bit disputes aren't rooted in concrete grievances, it also makes them easier to resolve. Agreements wouldn't crave states to give up land, something leaders are normally politically loath to do.

3rd, despite the current vitriol and anger, in that location are shared interests amongst the regional powers. Without regional stability, no state tin maximize their long-term economical prosperity and political security. The fact that firsthand threats overshadow longer-term common interests doesn't hateful that they don't exist.

Those still not convinced nearly the prospects or advisability of pursuing regional cooperation might advise that offshore balancing is the all-time mode to ensure regional security. (27) The thought is that external actors counterbalance in on a lopsided regional competition on the side of the disadvantaged political party, with the goal of restoring the region to a healthy balance of power. In a mode, that is what the Trump administration is doing by siding with Kingdom of saudi arabia and Israel in their struggle against what they see as a rising Iran.

But, at that place are 2 problems with this approach. The first is both Saudi Arabia and State of israel already savor conventional armed services superiority over Iran, even without further "balancing" by the The states. Iran'due south advantages in the region do not stem from its conventional capabilities, but rather are rooted in its anarchistic hybrid warfare capabilities. (28) Iran's unique capabilities are perfectly suited for projecting influence into fragile states like Syria, Republic of iraq and Republic of yemen, currently the soft underbelly of the Arab globe. In other words, current regional atmospheric condition play to Iran's strengths and to Saudi weaknesses. Offshore balancing, instead of hurting Islamic republic of iran would likely give it incentives to further hunker down in the ceremonious war zones of the Eye East, further weakening the Saudi and Israeli positions, and potentially reinforcing a cycle of violence.

2nd, offshore balancing assumes that in that location is no rival power willing to ratchet up support for the other side of the regional power equation. If Iran feels nether siege from the United States, as it does today, it can plow to Russia, Red china and perhaps even the European Union for back up. This ratcheting up upshot can lead to an escalation of the conflict, rather than stabilization, undermining the purpose of off-shore balancing.

Conclusion

The current power dynamics in the Middle E can be linked back to the onset of the Cold War and the simultaneous emergence of many of the Arab countries from the yoke of European colonialism into independence. And information technology was the collapse of the global Cold War system nearly 4 decades later that set the Middle Eastward on its course for the futurity. The cease of the Cold War set all states in the region, but peculiarly erstwhile Soviet allies, scrambling for new domestic legitimacy formulas and regional security frameworks. This and the period of American unipolarity that followed the end of the Cold State of war led to a regional power imbalance, which the Middle Eastward is still contending with today.

While the end of the Cold War spawned a resistance front, consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, against the United States and its regional allies, it is likewise important to admit that the conflict in the Middle East is more than just about revisionist and status quo powers. Another twist of the kaleidoscope reveals that because of the civil wars, the Middle Eastward has morphed into a tripartite organisation, consisting of a struggle for power between Iranian, Arab and Turkish nationalisms.

The challenge for the hereafter will be to reduce the incentives for revisionist versus condition quo behavior. The opportunity is to instead reinforce the notion of articulation stewardship of the regional organisation through regional cooperation and the creation of a regional security compages. While this will prove a difficult road, it is the only feasible path for leaders of the region to provide security and prosperity to their increasingly restive populations. This will also be the chore for the international powers, which have an incentive to button in this direction, given the potential for disturbances in the Centre East to sow instability beyond the earth.

Harrison'due south book

References

(1)  See Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Chaos in the Eye Due east, (New York: Public Affairs), 2017, for a treatment of how the civil wars in the Middle E are shaping the region.

(2)  Raymond Hinnebusch, "Syria: From Authoritarian Upgrading to Revolution?", International Diplomacy 88:(1) 2012, pp. 95-113.

(three)  Gamal Abdel Nasser, On Non-Alignment, (Cairo: Assistants Data) 1966

(4)  See Ross Harrison and Paul Salem, "Preface", in Ross Harrison and Paul Salem, From Chaos to Cooperation: Toward Regional Society in the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Constitute) 2017, pp. ix, 10.

(five)  Run across Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold State of war: Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir and his Rivals, 1958-1970, 3rd Edition, (Oxford University Printing: Oxford), 1971

(6)    Meet Yevgeny Primakov, Russian federation and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East from the Cold War to the Nowadays (Basic Books) 2009, p.10. He argues that there was a significant departure between Soviet style communism and Nasser's Arab socialism, where the former was congenital on class, the latter was not. But is hard to deny the ideological ripple effect of the Russian revolution and the Soviet Wedlock on the socialist movements, from Nasser's Arab nationalism to the Syrian and Iraq Ba'ath movements.

(7)  Stephen P. Cohen and Robert Ward, "Asia Pin: Obama's Ticket Out of the Middle E?", Brookings, August 21st, 2013, https://world wide web.brookings.edu/opinions/asia-pivot-obamas-ticket-out-of-middle-east/

(8)  Hinnebusch, "Syria…….", p. 97.

(9) Run into Charles Dunbar, "The Unification of Yemen: Process, Politics and Prospects" in Center East Journal (Volume 46, No. 3, Summertime 1992) p. 463

(10)   "Qadaffi Comes Clean", The Economist, December 29th, 2003.

(11)  "Gulf War Documents: Meeting Between Saddam Hussein and U.Due south. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie", Transcript of meeting on July 25th 1990, viii days before Iraq invades State of kuwait, Global Research, March 5th, 2012. https://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-documents-meeting-between-saddam-hussein-and-ambassador-to-iraq-apr-glaspie/31145

(12)   Jubin Thousand. Goodarzi, Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East, (London: I.B. Tauris and Co. Ltd), 2009 page 292.

(13)   Ben Hubbard, Isabel Kershner, and Anne Barnard, "Iran Deeply Embedded in Syrian arab republic, expands 'Axis of Resistance', The New York Times, February 19th, 2018. https://world wide web.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/globe/middleeast/iran-syria-israel.html

(14)   F. Gregory Gaus Three, "The Illogic of Dual Containment", Foreign Diplomacy, March/April 1994 Effect. https://world wide web.foreignaffairs.com/articles/islamic republic of iran/1994-03-01/illogic-dual-containment

(xv)   Robin Wright, "President Says he will Ban Trade with Iran", Los Angeles Times, May 1st, 1995 http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-01/news/mn-61015_1_trade-embargo

(16)   For a give-and-take of how the Bush Administration made decisions in the wake of 9/11, run across Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision, (New York: Harper Collins), 2009.

(17)   Kayhan Barzegar, "Iran's Foreign Policy in Post-Invasion Iraq", Middle East Policy, Vol XV (four) 2008

(xviii)  Goodarzi, Syria and Iran…." Chapter 4.

(19)   Piotor Zalewski, "How Turkey went from Zero problems to Zero Friends", Foreign Policy, Baronial 22nd, 2013. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/22/how-turkey-went-from-zip-bug-to-zilch-friends/

(xx)    Erika Forsberg "Transnational Dimensions of Civil Wars: Clustering, Contagion, and Connectedness" in T. David Mason and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell (eds), What Do We Know Virtually Civil Wars? (Rowman & Littlefield: New York: 2016), Kindle Version location 1805.

(21)   See Ross Harrison, "Regionalism in the Eye East: An Incommunicable Dream", Orient, I:2018

(22)   For a portrayal of this "regional war", see Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East (Public Diplomacy: New York: 2017)

(23)    See Ross Harrison, "Defying Gravity: Working Toward a Regional Strategy for a Stable Middle E", Harrison and Salem, From Anarchy to Cooperation….pp.xv-28.

(24)   Dennis Ross, "Why Centre Eastern Leaders are Talking to Putin, not Obama", Pol Magazine, May 8th, 2016 https://www.pol.com/magazine/story/2016/05/putin-obama-middle-east-leaders-213867

(25)    Joost Hiltermann, "Russian federation can Keep the Peace between Israel and Islamic republic of iran", The Atlantic, February 13th, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/annal/2018/02/israel-syrian arab republic-iran-hezbollah-putin-assad/553217/

(26)   Harrison "Toward a Regional Framework for the Middle East: Takeaways from other Regions" in Harrison and and Salem, From Chaos to Cooperation.

(27)  John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, "The Example for Offshore Balancing: A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy", Strange Affairs, July/August 2016. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/manufactures/united-states/2016-06-thirteen/case-offshore-balancing

(28)   Kayhan Barzegar and Abdolrasool Divsallar, "Political Rationality in Iranian Strange Policy", The Washington Quarterly, Vol 40 (1), 2017 pp.39-53

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Source: https://studies.aljazeera.net/en/reports/2018/09/shifts-middle-east-balance-power-historical-perspective-180902084750811.html

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