The Shah of Iran, the Iraqi Kurds, and the Lebanese Shia
Author: Arash Reisinezhad
Publisher:
Published: 2019
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9783319899480
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The Shah of Iran, the Iraqi Kurds, and the Lebanese Shia
Author: Arash Reisinezhad
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2018-07-06
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 3319899473
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis 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
Author: Jon Armajani
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2020-05-20
Total Pages: 252
ISBN-13: 1793621365
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis 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.
Iran's Persian Gulf Policy
Author: Dr Christin Marschall
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2003-12-08
Total Pages: 311
ISBN-13: 1134429908
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book examines the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the states of the Persian Gulf from 1979 to 1998. It covers perceptions Iranians and Arabs have of each other, Islamic revolutionary ideology, the Iran/Iraq war, the Gulf crisis, the election of President Khatami and finally the role of external powers, such as the United States. The author argues that over the twenty-year period, the policy has moved from being ideological to pragmatic; and that by tracing its history, we can better anticipate its future relationship.
No Conquest, No Defeat
Author: Ariane M. Tabatabai
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-12-15
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 019756691X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 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.
Out of Nowhere
Author: Michael M. Gunter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13: 184904435X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExamines the emergence of Syrian Kurds, who became game-changers in the Syrian civil war and potentially in Kurdish areas of other countries as well.
Resistance to the Shah
Author: Mohammad Gholi Majd
Publisher:
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 415
ISBN-13: 9780813017310
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMohammad Gholi Majd examines land policy in Iran under the two Pahlavi shahs from 1925 to 1979, the social and economic consequences of the policies, and their impact on the popular uprisings of 1962-63, which many scholars regard as the beginning of the Islamic revolution. Contrary to widely held views, much of Iran's agricultural land up to 1960 was owned by 1.3 million small landowners. Majd points out that traditional Islamic practices of matrimony and inheritance resulted in a continuous redistribution of landownership, and these customs included a system of sharecropping that fulfilled a vital social and economic function. Tenants enjoyed secure rights to the land and the water, could not be easily evicted, and were thus practically owners themselves. In short, conditions in Iran were entirely different from those assumed in most Western theories of land policy and reform. Pressured by the United States in the 1950s to inaugurate land reform, the shah in his initial attempts met with stiff resistance from parliament and the Islamic leadership. The result, Majd argues, was an effective alliance between landowners and the fundamentalist Islamic ulama, in particular Ayatollah Khomeini, who emerged as the principal leader of the religious opposition. In addition to photos of the secular and religious opposition leaders, the book contains many rare photos of rural Iran during the periods 1890-1911 and 1930-60. For students of Iran and the Middle East as well as those interested in agrarian change and reform, this work offers a provocative and revisionist perspective on important events in Iran's recent history.
The Kurds of Iraq
Author: Mahir A. Aziz
Publisher:
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780755692835
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"Over ninety years since their absorption into the modern Iraqi state, the Kurdish people of Iraq still remain an apparent anomaly in the modern world - a nation without a state. In 'The Kurds of Iraq', Mahir Aziz explores this incongruity, and asks the pertinent questions, who are the Kurds today? What is their relationship to the Iraqi state? How do they perceive themselves and their prospective political future? And in what way are they crucial for the stability of the Iraqi state? In the wake of the Gulf War of 1991 in the face of the Iraqi state, the Kurds endeavoured to create a de facto state and to concretise and stabilise the institutions that would enable this. 'The Kurds of Iraq' thus examines the creation, evolution and development of Kurdish nationalism despite the suppression of its political and cultural manifestations. Through extensive interviews in the field, Aziz assesses the impact of recent history on the complex process of identity formation amongst Kurdish students at three of the nation's leading universities. He provides an in depth examination of students' socio-economic backgrounds, and their thoughts on and experiences of what it means to be Kurdish in the modern Iraqi state, and the impact this has on their perception of their language, culture and religion. Aziz's invaluable and extensive field research furthermore serves as a point of departure for an investigation into the relationship between national identity and historical memory in Iraqi Kurdistan and beyond. He thus analyses wider issues of the intersection and interdependency of national, regional, ethnic, tribal and local identities. He thus constructs an intimate portrait of the Kurds of Iraq, which will provide an important insight for students and researchers of the Middle East and for those interested the important issues of nationalism and ethnic identity in the modern nation state, and the impact these issues have on the stability of Iraq itself."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
Survival: Global Politics and Strategy (April-May 2020)
Author: 0 The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS),
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2023-04-14
Total Pages: 177
ISBN-13: 1000951227
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSurvival, 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
Author: Costantino Pischedda
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2020-11-24
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 0231552742
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy 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.
