HORIZONS OF SECURITY
Year:2013 | Volume:6 | Issue:20|Papers Count:6

Religious Minority Exclusivism is one of the gravest threats to the country’s national security. It is defined as a specific approach of religious minority sectarianism which is based on the significance of religious identity and politicization of religious minority in the society. By its special endeavors and particular ideological background, the movement polarizes the society and destroys the national integrity by challenging the national identity. In order to explain the issue systematically and analytically, this paper, initially, does a study of the national defense of the Islamic Republic by using the framework of comprehensive model of soft and hard security. Then, it explains the effects of Deoband School extremist groups’ activities, as an active Salafi movement in the country, on the national security as well as its implications for it.

The I.R. of Iran’s location in a geopolitical, geostrategic region, the Shia geography in the Persian Gulf, and the existence of world’s giant energy resources in the region have increased the attentions and sensitivity of superpowers towards the geopolitics of Shia in the region. This has also heightened concerns of regional and transregional powers. Islamic Revolution’s anti-Israeli motto, which is based on Shia’s anti-oppressive discourse as well as its geographical presence near the borders of the Israeli regime, is the other threat which added their concerns. Shia’s geopolitical factors, as the main dynamics of Islamic Revolution’s expanding influence, is the focus of attentions on account of the Shia majority in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, and the influential Shia minority in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Lebanon, as well as the presence of Shia sects in other countries, including Yemen, Turkey, Syria, and countries in the Balkans and North Africa. Therefore, the main question is whether Shia’s geopolitical factors still perform an influential role in the spread of the Islamic Revolution’s guidelines in the region. Of course, the effects of Shia’s geopolitical factors on the spread of the Islamic Revolution’s guidelines have not been steady since the victory of the Islamic Revolution. Also, there are various other factors falling into a category of mediating variables. The hypothesis of the study is that the effect of Shia’s geopolitical factors caused, in many ways, the formation of resistance front against the superpowers and they has also paved the way for the spread of Islamic Revolution in the region. By answering to the main question, the hypothesis of the study is analyzed and evaluated. The Islamic Revolution has been able to make progress, under the aegis of Shitte geopolitics, in various fields despite international pressures and challenges. The new form of Islamic Awakening, with its anti-arrogance, pro-Islam mottos embedded in itself, is a challenge to the West’s interests, for its pro-independence pro-freedom nature, and is closely aligned with the principal mottos of the Islamic revolution.

Sustainable security is among the issues analyzed by researchers from different perspectives. Various schools and approaches of security studies have also analyzed factors affecting the sustainability of security. This paper applies the constructivist approach and, due to the case study’s security environment, that of the third world security school in order to examine the effects of identity, livelihood, and institution, as variables, on the mediator variable of national convergence. It eventually studies the effect of the mediator variable of national convergence, next to the external variable, on sustainable security. What distinguishes this paper from the previous similar studies is that it focused on the sensitivity analysis and the engineering functions of the non-identity livelihood and institutional variables in the compensation for the shortcomings of identity distinctions between ethnicities and the national identity. The research is based on library studies and a qualitative method. It also utilized the analyses and findings of other researches for meta-analysis. In conclusion, the results show that some variables related to identity convergence, due to the inherence of identity effects, serve a pivotal role in creating national convergence and institutionalized sustainable security, by determining the type, form, intensity, and frequency of stable security. In an approach based on engineering and architecture of security, other nonidentity variables, like two sets of institutional and livelihood variables, can make up for shortcomings of the distinction between the case study’s national and state identity and ethnic identity. Therefore, politicians must consider the effectiveness and efficiency of the government in different dimensions of sociability institutions and in the implementation of livelihood policies, as a solution and strategy of providing domestic security in ethnic areas. They should prevent the effects of these variables on ethnicities and internal groups, relying on self-reliance as well as sovereignty and power production.

The massacres of Shia Muslims in Pakistan, committed systematically by extremist fundamentalist groups like ‘Sepah Sahabe’, ‘Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’, ‘Jaish-e-Mohammad’, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba’, and other anti-Shia groups, are resulted from the growth of sectarian terrorism in the country. Also, the reasons include US and other western countries supports, pro-western regional regimes’ sponsorship, like Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan’s passive policies. Therefore, the systematic massacres of Shia Muslims in Pakistan have a political nature. This can be analyzed in frameworks of Sectarian Terrorism, Organized Terrorism, and Religious Terrorism. The main objective of these massacres is to bring Muslims into conflict; Sunni Muslims, supported by Saudi Arabia, and Shia Muslims, supported by the I.R. of Iran. The situation favors the American strategy of ‘constructive chaos.’

Regional and transregional players show different attitudes towards the prolonged Syrian Crisis. The conflicting interests of each player in Syria make the crisis aggravated. Meanwhile, the role of Russian Federation, as a key player, is of significance in many ways. Russia, on one hand, is an influential player in many regional and sometimes international issues and crises, and on the other hand, it tries to retain its influence in the security-political equations in Damascus owing to its military bases in Syria as well as its historical relationship with the Syrian government. Therefore, Russia is definitely considered as a major player in Syria. This paper studies Russian policies and strategies in the Syrian Crisis, using the conceptual framework of Defensive Realism. In fact, the main question of this study is how Russian Federation has reacted to the Syrian Crisis since its beginning. The initial answer, as the hypothesis of the study, is that, by its political and often military support, the Russian Federation, for its security and political interests in Syria, has attempted to prevent the collapse of Asad’s government and transition of power to pro-Arab, pro-Western opposition groups. In order to offer an acceptable model of its attitude towards the Syrian Crisis, this study analyzes different aspects of its role and strategies in the crisis, employing a descriptive- analytical methodology.

With the rapid growth of urbanization, many people have migrated to cities and metropolitans due to the insufficiency of production modes in the villages and towns. This process created a new style of urban life in the suburban areas of mega-cities which generally made over-population, cultural conflicts, social instability, unemployment, false jobs, violence, crime, unrest, etc. The rapid growth of migrations, also, altered the normal demographic composition of cities and big provinces, so suburban cities appeared. This study identifies and models the influential factors of slum dwelling in Iran, emphasizing on the reasons behind the formation and expansion of slum cities near Tehran City. By a statistical description and analysis, the paper uses the mathematical econometric Logit and Probit Model. Finally, it is concluded that migration, low-income migrants, the size of migrating families, exorbitant price of urban land, and unemployed family members are the factors which contribute to the emergence and rapid growth of slum dwelling in Tehran Province.