همت ایمانی

The purpose of the present study is to review requirements of Iran’s foreign policy in ICT (Information Communication Technology) development. The research method is descriptive-analytic and the results show that ICT and cyber space development in Iran is not feasible merely relying on internal power. The nature and essence of ICT is in such a way that development in this field is almost impossible without international cooperation and collaboration with different countries and pioneer multinational corporations. In neoliberal institutionalists’ view, collaboration in international institutionalization in order to determine the standards of ICT is a very important issue because in the age of globalization, the governments which set the standards will also determine the agenda for other governments and in this way, they gradually dominate them. Moreover, the decision makers’ understanding of the issue that resources and power are immensely pluralistic in the international level is very vital. It means that it is globally effective on a country’s power and status in terms of military hard sources as well as economic, political, structural, consensual, diplomatic, scientific, technological, and innovative sources. Governments should reach their priorities to those of people and private sector in the development of ICT. Currently, there is a gap between these two aspects which is evident in the issue of filtering. The government should expand the country’s cyber space in the atmosphere of international competition.

Achieving economic integration, security and sustainable development in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf has suggested as a considerable topic for many international relations' researchers. Reviewing the research literature, it can conclude that the researchers did not provide the same solutions on how to achieve regional convergence in the Persian Gulf. Instead, a variety of analysis, hypotheses and suggestions made in this regard. The study aims on the feasibility of economic integration in the Persian Gulf region (including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain) and the requirements for achieving it. Economic convergence considered as a process that aims to achieve peace, security and sustainable development in the region. Accordingly, the research question would be “How the Gulf States could achieve economic integration in order to achieve peace, security and sustainable development”. In order to achieve peace, security and sustainable development, the research hypothesis the Persian Gulf States should rely on a combination of various economic, political, security, and religious-cultural capacities. Then, overcoming internal, regional and visionary divergent factors must take into account the behavioral requirements of achieving economic and political-security cooperation (in the short and medium term) and economic convergence (in the long-term) in major national decisions as well as their foreign policy approaches. The research methodology, as needed, was a combination of qualitative method based on library documents and quantitative and statistical methods. The findings provide a comprehensive network model for achieving peace, security and sustainable development through economic integration in the Persian Gulf. While rejecting strategic hierarchy model in prioritizing the indicators, the simultaneous and interconnected use of different economic, political, security and religious-cultural components in achieving economic and political-security cooperation in the short and medium-term and economic convergence is proposed for long-term.

Today, with regard to the influence of globalization process, not only the security of the countries has not been improved, but the threats against their national security have become more and more diversified than before. It should be said that governments, unilaterally, can’t provide their national security. In many cases, the elimination of threats and keeping safe the national security is possible only through the system of collective security and multilateral cooperation. The issue of terrorism is one of the most fundamental threats that all countries are facing. Currently, the phenomenon of terrorism affected by globalization and the spread of communications and information technology which has become much wider and more powerful day after day. It has many destructive effects than the past, which virtually no country is safe from its dangers, and no single country is able to deal with it lonely.
The paper, using a library-based qualitative research method, Multilateralism is proposed as an effective approach to counteracting terrorism and its gradual extirpation in the Islamic world. Accordingly, the research question is, in view of the increasing threats of terrorism in the Islamic world, which approach is more efficient and comprehensive to deal with this phenomenon? The study findings showed that the most effective way to fight terrorism in the Muslim world is to develop a multilateral approach and joint efforts of the countries of the region (i.e. Middle East countries). The influential countries of the region, including Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other regional actors, should adopt a common approach to confront terrorism in the framework of multilateral relations and regional institutions. The multilateral approaches promotes the effective coordination of regional actors, reduces the cost of fighting terrorism, decrease the involvement of foreigners in regional affairs, eliminates the formation roots of terrorist groups, and etc. It ultimately ensures the establishment of security and stability in the region for an all-embracing development in the Muslim world.

Unlike the traditional conceptualization of hard military power as a criteria for the assessment of national power, in globalization era the components and indicators of national power have extended to novel dimensions including economic, financial, scientific, technological, cultural, and the like. Nowadays, the significance of new components of power (soft power) has abundantly been increased compared to the traditional components of power (hard power). Considering the convergence and interconnectedness of the world economies, approaches of foreign policy and diplomacy and specifying their objectives and strategies, is of significant role in improving national power of any country including Iran. Therefore, the foreign policy of Iran plays a significant role in creating a proper environment so as to promote Iran’s international status. It can be claimed that foreign policy in a developed country should always serve the national development. Therefore, economic diplomacy as a developmentalist approach to Iran's foreign policy and, consequently, its behavioral imperatives is highly emphasized. The principal research question of the study is: What role can Iran's foreign policy play in order to achieve an influential status in the world economy? And what components and indicators should be underscored and included in decision-makers’ plans to promote Iran’s power? The research hypothesis is that Iranian leaders and decision makers should concentrate on economic diplomacy as an approach to Iran's foreign policy so as to promote Iran’s power and enhance its international economic status.

This paper examines the realistic theory in international relations. Theory of alliances has been proposed by both idealism and realism approaches. Idealism and liberalism approaches in survey alliances indicate to commonalities of governments’ cultural, ideological parts of alliances in addition to economic issues. This approach plays a very important role in ideology in the formation of alliances. Realism approach in survey alliances focuses on the power of countries and external threats. Nowadays, the alliance and cooperation in international relations are very important because of the extensive communication between countries and also the globalization process in such a way that no country can keep itself away of this process. In the first part of the paper, we are going to define the alliance. In the second part, the formation causes of alliances and also the kinds of alliances are discussed and finally in the third part of article, the continuation and declineof alliances have been studied.

Relations between Turkey and Israel are of great importance due to Tel Aviv and Ankara's influence; especially from the Islamic Republic of Iran's point of view. Their alliance in 1996 posed a serious threat to Iran, but it seems that during the past decade, relations between them have become tense with positive results for Iran. This trend has been particularly noticeable after the Justice and Development Party's ascent to power in Turkey. Therefore, studying domestic, regional and trans-regional developments and their impact on relations between Turkey and Israel as well as on the I.R.I. is of great importance. After reviewing developments in Turkey-Israel relations in the past decade, this article concludes that those ties will not be severed although they will tend to diverge. This research argues that this will have positive consequences for Iranian foreign policy, which is faced with complexities and difficulties in the region.