The Bahrain Crisis and the Religious and Geopolitical Conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia

Document Type : Science - Research

Author

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Payame Noor University, Tehran, IRAN.

Abstract

The Bahraini crisis has particular geopolitical importance for regional and trans-regional powers regarding the limited ability of domestic actors and the interests of foreign actors in it. The present study aimed to examine the crisis in Bahrain and the religious and geopolitical conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia. To this aim, investigated the causes and roots of the conflicting approaches of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia to the Bahrain crisis using the theoretical framework of constructivism and descriptive-analytical research methods. The results indicated that these conflicts began before the Islamic Revolution of Iran and culminated in the recent uprising of the Bahraini people. Iran and Saudi Arabia are two prominent regional actors in the Bahraini crisis that pursue active but conflicting approaches. This contradictory approach has caused severe tensions in Saudi Arabia's relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Keywords

Main Subjects


Aghaei, S; Ahmadian, H. (2010 AD/1389 SH). "Relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia; Fundamental Challenges and Opportunities Ahead." Quarterly Journal of Politics. Vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 25-40.
 
Akhbari, M; Nami, M. (2009 AD/1388 SH). Geography of the Border with Emphasis on the Borders of Iran. Tehran: Publications of the Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces.
 
Azghandi, A. (2007 AD/1386 SH). "Structuralism, Theoretical Framework for Understanding Iran's Foreign Policy." Quarterly Journal of Politics, Faculty of Law and Political Science and Research Branch. Vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 67-85.
 
Bahrami, G; Khodadadi, M. (2010 AD/1389 SH). Political-economic Geography of Iran. Qom: Islamic Research Institute, Zamzam Hedayat Publications.
 
Barzegar, K. (2011 AD/1390 SH). Bahrain Developments and the Balance of Regional Powers. http://www.khabaronline.ir /detal/153312.
 
Bilis, G; Smith, J. (2003). The Globalization of Politics: International Relations in the New Arena. (A, Rah-e Chamani. Trans). Tehran: Abrar Moaser Publications.
 
Bouzan, B; Weaver, G. (2009). Regions and Power: The Structure of International Security. (R, Ghahramanpour. Trans). Tehran: Research Institute for Strategic Studies Publications.
 
Poorahmadi, H; Jamali, J. (2009). "Shia Crescent Project: Objectives, Obstacles and Consequences." Quarterly Journal of Shia Studies. Vol. 18, no. 26, pp. 42-59.
 
Brzezinski, Z. (2007). Selection: Dominance or Leadership. (A, Norouzi. Trans). Tehran: Ney Publishing.
 
Camp, J; Harkawy, R. (2004 AD/1383 SH). Strategic Geography of the Middle East. (M, Hosseini Matin. Trans). Vol. 2, Tehran: Institute for Strategic Studies Publications.
 
Choi, A. (2003). "The Power of Democratic Cooperation." International Security. Vol. 26, no. 21, pp. 77-98.
 
Chomsky, N. (2011 AD/1390 SH). "Regional Security Depends on Nuclear Iran." https://www.irdiplomacy.ir/fa/news//bodyView/.
 
Chubin, S. (1995). Iran’s National Security, in Jeffery Kemp and Janice Gross Stein Lanham. Rowman and Littlefield publisher Inc.
 
Cohen, S. (2008 AD/1387 SH). Geopolitics of the World System. (M, Hafezeyan. Trans). Tehran: Abrar Contemporary International Cultural Studies and Research Institute.
 
Drissdell, A; Blake, G. (1995 AD/1374 SH). The Political Geography of the Middle East and North Africa. (M, Valley. Trans). Fourth Edition. Tehran: State Department Press.
 
Ezzati, E. (2005 AD/1384 SH). Geostrategy. Fourth Edition. Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2007 AD/1386 SH). Geopolitics. Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2009 a). Geopolitics in the 21st Century. Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2009 b). Shia Geopolitics and Security of Iran's Borders. Vol. 1, Tehran: Alborz Far Danesh Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2010 AD/1389 SH). Strategic Geography of Iran. Vol. 2, Tehran: Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2011 AD/1390 SH). Strategic Geography of Iran. Vol. 3, Tehran: Publications of the Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces.
 
Fazli, M. (2011 AD/1390 SH). "America and Saudi Arabia in a Dead End." Hamshahri Diplomatic Magazine. Vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 137-123.
 
Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces. (2007 AD/1386 SH). Geopolitics of the Persian Gulf Region-with Emphasis on Shias. Tehran: Publications of the Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces.
 
Ghavam, A. (2005). International Relations Theories and Approaches. Tehran: Samat Organization.
 
Gholobi, J. (2008 AD/1387 SH). "The Role of the United States and the Zionist Regime in Political Relations between Iran and Egypt." Quarterly Journal of African Studies. Vol. 8, no. 18, pp. 125-139.
 
Hafezian, M. (2011 AD/1390 SH). "Contradictions of Turkish Foreign Policy." Vol. 15, no. 50, pp. 71-13.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2002 AD/1381 SH). Political Geography of Iran. Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2006 AD/1385 SH). Principles and Concepts of Geopolitics. Tehran: Amirkabir Publications.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2007 AD/1386 SH). Power and National Interests. Tehran: Entekhab.
 
Hafeznia, M; Kaviani Rad, M. (2009 AD/1388 SH). New Horizons in Political Geography. Second Edition. Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
Hafeznia, M; Romina, E. (2005 AD/1384 SH). "The Evolution of Iran-Saudi Arabia relations and its impact on the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf." Geographical Research Quarterly. Vol. 12, no.77, pp. 43-60.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ibish, H. (November 2011). "The Bahrain Uprising: Towards Confrontation or Accommodation?" New York: Hennery Jason society.
 
Jackson, R; George, S. (2006 AD/1385 SH). An Introduction to International Relations. (M. Zakerian; et al, Trans). Tehran: Mizan Publications.
 
Khademi, G. (2005 AD/1384 SH). "The Universality of National Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran; the Model of Clean Cooperation, a Suitable Model for Security." Proceedings of the First National Conference on Strategic Studies in the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Norouzi, H). Tehran: Publications of the Research Institute for Strategic Studies.
 
Majidi, M; et al. (2008 AD/1387 SH). West Asia, International System and Regional Convergence. Tehran: Research Institute for Cultural and Social Studies Publications.
 
Mandel, R. (2008 AD/1387 SH). The Changing Face of National Security. (The Research Institute for Strategic Studies, Trans). Third Edition. Tehran: Publications of the Research Institute for Strategic Studies.
 
Martin, G. (1999). Fifty Key Thinkers in International Relations. London: Routledge.
 
Mojtahedzadeh, P. (2000 AD/1379 SH). Persian Gulf Countries and Borders. Tehran: Ataee Publishing.
 
ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ. (2000 AD/1383 SH). "Political Geography and Geographical Politics." Esfand, 3rd1390 Conference on Islam and Geopolitical Developments in the Middle East and North Africa. Second Edition. (Sedaghat, R). Tehran: Samat Publications.
 
Mottaqi, E; Kazemi, H. (2007 AD/1386 SH) "Constructivism, Identity, Language and Foreign Policy of the Islamic Republic." Quarterly Journal of Politics, Journal of the Faculty of Law and Political Science. Vol. 37, no. 4, pp. 5-56.
 
Mushirzadeh, H. (2004 AD/1383 SH). "Constructivism as a Trans-theory of International Relations." Quarterly Journal of Law and Political Science. Vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 28-36.
 
Naderi Nasab, P. (2010 AD/1389 SH). "Challenges of the Relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Region." Quarterly Journal of Politics, Journal of the Faculty of Law and Political Science. Vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 65-84.
 
Pishgahifard, Z. (2012). Dictionary of Political Geography. Tehran: Entekhab.
 
Rezaei, M. (2005 AD/1384 SH). Regional Iran. Second Edition. Tehran: Publications of the Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces.
 
Sadeghi, H; Ahmadian, H. (2010 AD/1389 SH). "Saudi Arabia; From Oil Hegemony to Regional Leadership." International Quarterly Journal of Foreign Relations. Vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 76-95.
 
Soleimani, K. (2009 AD/1386 SH). "A Study of How Iran - Saudi Arabia Relations Are Reflected in the Press from and the Perspective of Iranian Embassy Documents in Jeddah (1978)." Quarterly Journal of Iranian History (Journal of Humanities). Vol. 15, no. 60, pp. 41-5.
 
Tabatabai, A; Mahmoudi, A. (2010). "The Impact of NATO Cooperation Agreements and the South Persian Gulf Countries on the National Security of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Strategy Quarterly. Vol. 14, no. 55, pp. 13-30.
 
Taheri Mousavi, M. (2008 AD/1387 SH). Geography and National Strategy of Iran (With Emphasis on Political Strategy). Tehran: Publications of the Geographical Organization of the Armed Forces.
 
Valipour Zarumi, S. (2004 AD/1383 SH). National Security Discourse in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran: Publications of the Research Institute for Strategic Studies.
 
Young, J. (2005). Cold War, Detente (Relations of America and Russia 1941-1998). (E. Ezati; et al, Trans). Tehran: Ghomes publications.