Vol.3 - No. 10 - Autumn 2018

Editor's Note

The United Nation's "NO" vote to America's proposed resolution was seen as a bitter episode and a catastrophic defeat for the United States of America, and revealed Trump's government's deficiencies and shortcomings. By the American delegate's failure in the United Nations in condemning Palestinians' resistance, accusing Hamas of terrorism and doubling pressure on Palestinian resistance groups it turned out that in the current situation and despite of putting both legal and illegal...

Exclusive Interview with Ali Shamkhani, Rear Admiral Upper Half, military advisor to and delegate of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and secretary of the Supreme Na-tional Security Council.

Ali Shamkhani is the secretary of the highest security-political organization in the Islamic Repub-lic of Iran, i.e. the "Supreme National Security Council”. He plays a very remarkable role in both proposing and legislating defensive, security and political strategies of the country.  The most important strategic decisions of the country in internal, security and foreign policy equations are made in the Supreme National Security Council and the sanctioned laws, after the approval of the Supreme Leader,...

The Deal of the Century; Aspects, Goals and Implications

Mehdi Honarmandzadeh

Since the Zionist regime occupied Palestine and established Israel government, the United States of America has proposed different plans and ideas to solve the Palestinian-Zionist and Arab-Israeli conflicts. The Zionist regime has always tried to impede the formation of Palestinian gov-ernment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by its plan of an 'alternative homeland' for the Palestin-ians. The Oslo Agreement (Accords) officialized solution of formation of two separate govern-ments in Palestine, and therefore...

Examining the Consequences of Reproducing ISIS in Syria

Seyyed Mohammad Javad Ghorbi
(MA in Political Sciences from the Imam Khomeini Institute for Research and Education)
(ghorbi68@yahoo.com)

One of the security crises in the countries of West Asia and Persian Gulf region is the emergence and their empowerment of the ISIS terrorist group whose actions and terroristic and jihadi activi-ties constantly threaten regional security. The important point about these Takfiri-terroristic movements is that the center of their activities is placed in Iran and its allies' strategic zone, and that's why surveillance and close observation of the ISIS activities by Iran is doubly important. Meanwhile, Syria, which...

Expert Panel: the Deal of the Century and Palestine's Future

Mehdi Honarmandzadeh, Ph.D.
Secretary of West Asia Affairs

There have been a series of deals and projects to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, or to be more exact, Palestinian-Zionist conflict suggested by the American presidents since the occupation of Palestine by the Zionist regime and foundation of Israel government. Different American presi-dents in different periods felt obligated to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and in fact the ad-vancement of the peace negotiations in the Middle East between Arabs and the Zionist regime is a part of the United States commitment in...

A Framework of Understanding Trump's Foreign Policy

Rezadad Darvish

Whether Trump follows a specific doctrine or strategy or any stated principle of government pol-icy has always been a matter of lots of speculations. Studying the intellectual foundations of Trump's foreign policy and the practical steps that are derived from it during his term in the White House in order to answer these two questions of "what are Trump's strategies and priori-ties" and "are his practical steps based on a specific pattern or intellectual foundation/principles" led us to this...

Bahrain: Internal Conflicts and Macro-Crises

Abbas Abu-Safvan
(Bahraini researcher and political expert in London)

Violent raid on Ayatollah Isa Qassim's followers while they had a sit-in encampment around this Shia spiritual leader's house and killing of five Bahraini citizens, and sentencing the leader of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society to life imprisonment are not coincidental. It is definitely a per-fectly designed plan by the support of regional and trans-regional powers. On one hand, the United States backs the oppressive regime of Manama because of its animosity with Iran and Bahraini shia cooperation with the...

Assessment of the West's Promises in Afghanistan's changes in Post-Taliban Era

Mojtaba Noruzi
(Ph.D. in Regional Studies from the University of Tehran; Former delegate of the Islamic Re-public of Iran's cultural attaché in Kabul)

Seventeen years ago, after the September 11 attacks and then the western coalition's raids on Af-ghanistan (with American leadership), Afghan people experienced a new-found hope to escape all the damages of several major wars they had suffered. This new-found hope originated from the American officials' many assurances and promises. Now that a fairly long time has passed since that invasion, we can review and have a formal assessment of these pledges and the extent they came into realization based on statistics...

Khashoggi's Murder; a Project Which Backfired

Hadi Mohammadi
(Political analyst and West Asia strategic issues researcher)

This aggressive and antagonistic realism of Trump and bin Salman is their new behavioral model in politics and global relations; however, it is both unexpected and surprising for the world and brings about unforeseen costs. The nature of the House of Saud and bin Salman's character has been in line with the history of Wahhabism in Arabian Peninsula, and now, with Khashoggi's murder and their policy of dodging the issue by escaping forward, they have to deal with exten-sive global reactions, especially from the...