STRATEGIC STUDIES QUARTERLY
Year:2018 | Volume:21 | Issue:2 (80) |Papers Count:7

Security studies falls within the realm of applied knowledge and has the potential to produce tangible results for the human society. These studies, when combined with historical security experiences, can rid the society of the need for repeated trial and errors in the field of security. Ibn Khaldun is one of the thinkers who addressed security issues and expressed his views on historical security experiences in his works. This article aims to provide an understanding of Ibn Khaldun's security discourse, which had never been the subject of a dedicated study. Drawing on Ibn Khaldun's theoretical principles in the fields of history and security, his security discourse has been studied here within a conceptual framework comprised of seven key components, namely the meaning of security, aspects of security, level of security, friends and enemies, ways to achieve security, and strategic security solutions. The most important finding of the present study is that there is a similarity between Ibn Khaldun's security discourse and the principles of the realist schools of thought as well as the security discourse currently prevailing in the Muslim world and that his security discourse has proved ineffective in creating lasting security in the Muslim world.

This article intends to explore what approach can help the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West cooperate and interact in a desirable way in the era of globalization. The study's hypothesis is that "adopting Habermas' liberating hermeneutics based on dialogue, action, and communicative rationality as well as criticism of tradition and historical prejudices in the era of globalization can help create understanding and relative agreement between Iran and the West so that their interests can be served. "

Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis, a new entity, that is the United States as an enemy, became one of the most revealing and consolidating aspects of the political identity of the Islamic Republic of Iran's establishment. With a focus on the role of political identity, this article seeks to answer the question why the Islamic Republic of Iran still insists on not having relations with the United States and refuses to make compromises with it despite all the US-led structural pressure now that four decades have passed since the victory of the revolution. The views of political realists have been used to answer this question. Political realists maintain that the friend-enemy distinction is the essence and core tenet of politics. They also argue that the strong and innate need of groups and entities to maintain a political identity rather than a structure or a desire for power underlies this distinction and emphasize the need to keep a distance from the enemy in order to survive and pursue own objectives.

In international relations, those who impose sanctions have different motives for using this tool. A change in the US government's policy toward the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the JCPOA, is a notable issue in this regard. The question asked by the present article is: Where was the theoretical point of departure for the difference in sanctions diplomacy under US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama toward Iran despite its commitment to the terms of the agreement? The article's hypothesis is that while the Obama administration's sanctions policy was more based on a motivation to make Iran committed to conforming to international norms, the Trump administration's main objective is to advance US interests as far as possible regardless of international legal restrictions. From this perspective, the nuclear deal was considered effective by the Obama administration, while the Trump administration regards it as ineffective. The hypothesis is theoretically based on realism and liberalism theories about the function of sanctions in international relations and has been studied here using an analytical-explanatory model and reliable data.

Using a vector autoregression model, this study aims to explore the impact of financial markets on crude oil prices and Iran's economic security. The results of analysis of variance indicate that financial transactions markets, particularly the Brent futures market, have the greatest impact on the physical crude oil market. In addition, the results of action-reaction functions suggest that shocks in financial markets have different impacts on crude oil prices, meaning a shock in the Brent futures market creates a positive shock to crude oil prices and a shock resulting from the dollar-price index produces a negative shock to oil prices. Due to the heavy reliance of the Iranian government's budget on oil revenues, fluctuations in financial markets lead to fluctuations in many of the country's economic indexes and negatively affect national security.

If we categorize ineffective states into weak, fragile, and failed states, it becomes clear that in the 20th century, Africa was home to most failed states, weakness and fragile states were in the Middle East and Latin America. But since the beginning of the 21st century, weak Middle Eastern states have been on a downward spiral toward becoming failed states in such a way that now three out of 10 failed states, namely Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, are in the Middle East. The present article seeks to identify the determining factors in this transition. The findings of the study shows that out of five causes of state failure, corruption and plundering by the government and reform crisis are common to the three mentioned countries. These two causes, coupled with unique factors in each country (intensification of religion and ethnic conflicts in Iraq, the decline in the power of democratic processes in Syria, and the war in Yemen) have led to them becoming failed states.