فصلنامه سیاست جهانی
سال چهارم شماره 3 (پیاپی 14، پاییز 1394)

Even though studying of countries’ soft power is seen as a significant concern by researchers in different majors (such as political geography, geopolitics, international relations, and politics) not many advancements has taken place in this regard. That’s because measuring of soft power, in its nature, is sophisticated and complicated and, as a result, only few comparative patterns and models for studying countries’ soft power have been historically purposed. The aim of this paper is to investigate courtiers’ soft power using a methodology named “Fuzzy Topsis” by which, as it is claimed, researchers can make a comparison between different countries’ soft power. Final results show that countries located in Southwest and Central Asia, by the order of the amount and qualification of their soft power, must be listed as follow: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Iran, Oman, Qatar, Georgia, Azerbaijan, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and, finally, Afghanistan and Yemen.

The essence and political orientation and consequently the formation of behaviors and interpretations is dictated by the necessity of survival,security,constructive interaction and well-being of the countries.Interpretations and behaviors are intertwined and enjoy the organic relationships.The need for creating internal cohesiveness in politics,interpretations,behaviors,facilitating decision making process based on a theoretical framework with specified principles and making prediction the basis which shape interpretations,behaviors and policies for other players of the international scene compel each country according to a defined security strategy engage in introducing itself,others and operational environment which in its context rivalries,cooperations and conflicts are formed.Based on consideration of this critical point that survival,security,constructive interaction and well-being have internal lineage without having any conceptual or essential preferences upon each other,the security strategy has to show the greatest flexibility regarding the definition of national interest,national identity national values and least disregard with respect to cultural,historical,geographical,technological capabilities at the domestic level and equations shaping the relations of forces at the international level.The essence of security strategy is formed and continued based on three major questions.At first the elements which are necessary and sufficient conditions to safeguard security to be specified.The necessary condition is identifying three factors of national interest,national identity and national values.Each of these elements has to precisely be clarified and indexed.In the context of understanding these factors and their positions the threat or threats toward these elements have to be identified.At the final phase in the process of compiling security strategy the tactics for nullifying the threats to these factors have to be specified.The security strategy of The Islamic Republic of Iran in order to shape his behavior at the international level needs to move toward realization of national interest,solidifying national identity and more effective national values.The players which are considered threat based on this framework by using dual mechanism of coercion or compromise have to be transformed to an ally or partner or to be neutralized.

After the occurrence of the Islamic revolution, foreign relations in the Islamic Republic of Iran have confronted with a substantial orientation change under the influence of four-fold variables of the international system structure, internal demands, elites decision maker's attitudes and geopolitics which could be observed in formation of the burdens of foreign relations in the first and third periods. What is considerable in this regard is the kind of several foreign relations in different periods of political system life in the Islamic Republic of Iran and including the first period i.e. dominance profit – centered realists with third period i.e. pragmatic-oriented functionalists dominance. Now, this basic question could be pointed out that which patterns could be formulated based on the above four – fold variables in foreign relations of the first and third in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The findings of this research are based on this that the influential factors on the foreign relations in the first and third periods regarding the importance and different weight of four variables of international system structure, internal demands, elites decision makers attitudes and geopolitics in the definition of national roles and purposes and orientations and performing them in foreign relations have created different patterns periods. Indeed, influencing and different weight of these four fundamental variables have leaded to different definition of national roles and purposes and take orientations and performing them in foreign relations of both of these periods

Parallel to the developments of international system and behavior patterns of actors, security, as a key concept in the field of international relations, has developed. From primitive societies to the late 1990s, the dominant concept of security was narrow, but from 1991, the concept of broad security was introduced. Therefore, the function of the Security Council from 1991 to 2010 gained more significance as in this period the Council had a broader view to the concept of security and accordingly it included disarmament and arms control, terrorism, human rights, environment and communicable diseases as security issues. In this regard, the Security Council issued resolutions or discussed about them in its meetings

Some researchers believe that the Yemeni crisis is merely influenced by social forces or the contribution of regional players like Iran and Saudi Arabia, but the strategic facts suggest that Washington and Zionist regime act as two global and regional powers playing a determining role in the incremental course of Yemeni crisis and exacerbation of the situation. The US officials believe that there will be an Iranian erosion of regional power if Iran experiences the signs of intensified conflict within the regional context. The Saudi-led backlash from 11 Arab Union nations and support for the involved players such as Zionist regime, the UK and the US demonstrate how the Islamist realms are increasingly encountered. Any Saudi coup carried out in Egypt backed by Washington and Tel Aviv must have been aimed at encountering the Yemeni national revolution and the contribution of Ansarollah by means of military force. The Saudi military operation was parallel to the involvement of the British Foreign Secretary in the region, similar to the scenario where the US Secretary of Defense made his presence felt in Bahrain prior to the Saudi counteraction. The main question of this research is how are the Yemeni security policies characterized in the wake of nationwide crisis? The hypothesis of this paper stresses the following statement: The Yemeni security crisis broken out in April 2015 will be controlled through achievement of a regional balance. The theoretical framework of this research draws mainly on the regional balance theory in heterogeneous systems and chaotic strategic environments.

From 1990s onward, we observe the genesis and extension of supra-national public sphere in cybernetic and satellite space and mobilization of public opinion universally. From 2000 onward, in Middle East and North Africa, a type of public sphere has been shaped and expanded in cybernetic and satellite space. In this article by causal-analytical method, the author tries to give analytical answer to this question: why has been successful the Aljazeera satellite network in shaping of nascent public sphere in Arab world? The hypothesis is that: Aljazeera Network has been successful in the genesis and expansion of nascent public sphere due to these reasons: making opportunities for free and equal participation of all individuals and groups in dialogues and round tables, pushing of dialogues and public opinion to criticism, centralizing of dialogues and audiences on Arab’s general issues and public mobilization to democratic and revolutionary activism. The total finding of this research is that: Aljazeera Network has had high successfulness in fulfillment of tenets and characteristics of ideal model of Habermas such as: the principal of equal and general dialogue, pushing of dialogues to criticism and public dissatisfactions and issues and in end, mobilization of public opinion and protests in Arab world, the principle of general action.

The fall of Saddam Hossein by the American forces in 2003 eliminated the old enemy and the trouble making neighbor of the two countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and produced opportunities and challenges for both of these countries so that Iran got relieved form its old trouble making neigh box and found belter opportunities to get into talk on the issues of the region. For Saudi Arabia, it implied the fall of one of the caliming who claimed for the leadership of the Arab world. But the rise of a government with a majority of Shiite Iraq, Shiite cvescent dsign by Malek Abdullah of Jordan, sense of marginalization from the Sunnite and the increase of influence and the regional power of Iran as a result has become the major concern for Saudi Arabia and these two countries now have encountered a challenge in their mutual relationship even greater than ever, although their common enemy has disappeared. With regard to that, the present article ties to express how the changes in Iraq affected the mutual relationship of Iran and Saudi Arabia in a constructivism frame work and come to an answer to the basic question as to what effects the new discipline of Iraq have had on the mutual relationship of Iran and Saudi Arabia. The result of the research shows that the position and status of Iran, especially in terms of politics, social, media and culture has enhanced in the region after the fall of Saddam and the geopolicalization of Shiite and the country could have been more efficient and more participant that before and it has become an influential determinant in the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia and have brought. Significant challenges about in the mutual relationship between the two countries.

According to the geo-economic approach to international relations and politics we can claim that energy constitutes the core of policies and strategies adopted by the large and industrial countries, the main pressure is on the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea littoral states to facilitate domination over their energy resources. What is important and promising is that, Iran, because of being located between these two marine bodies and possessing the second largest oil and gas reserves in the world, has become an important and effective role-player in the global geopolitical strategies. However, in the recent four decades, on the basis of its revolutionary, anti-Western doctrine and rentier economy, it has always faced concerted efforts by the opposing countries who intend to reduce its geopolitical weight and sovereign power and pose a constant national security threat to it. Therefore, it has inevitably taken a set of subsequent realistic, neo-realistic decisions and through mutual dependence for role-playing in energy geopolitics, it has been trying to tie its objectives, values and interests to the economy-oriented world and achieve its desirable national security. Therefore, with the purpose of investigating the role of energy geopolitics in the world and its impacts on Iran's national security, the present paper tries to answer the question that: what is the proportion of energy geopolitic's influence on the national security in the Islamic Republic of Iran? In this way, the results of the research test using descriptive analytical method and the codes of geopolitics, political sciences and international relations indicate that Iran, capitalizing on high geopolitical capacities in the region, through being located at the hub of the world's oil and gas production and transmission, and through its crucial role in the world's energy equations can gain a strategic and unparalleled geopolitical weight in the Middle East. However, following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, with the transformation of Iran's objectives, interests and values in its national security, as well as excessive dependency on the oil revenues and a rentier economy, the world countries have been working toward reducing the sovereign power and the geopolitical weight of Iran in the region. Through imposing sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sector, they have pushed for an absence of Iran's role-playing in the regional and global geopolitical developments. This leaves a direct impact on the national security or insecurity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.