Iran under Rouhani: Still Alone in the World

Juneau, Thomas

doi:10.1111/mepo.12098

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(2 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Compared to Saudi Arabia, Iran had for a long time been internationally isolated. 9 Yet, as Gregory Gause notes, after 2003, and especially 2011, Riyadh was not able to translate its nominal alliances into successful restraints on Tehran. 10 This made the 2003-2011 shift all the more significant as Saudi Arabia was at a structural disadvantage given that the pillar of its previous Iran containment strategy -the US -was becoming more withdrawn after the election of Barack Obama in 2008.…”

Section: Systemic Change On the Eve Of Syria's Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capability and culpability

Phillips

2022

Saudi Arabia and Iran

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Syrian conflict is a useful case study to explore Iranian and Saudi Arabian rivalry. 1 Both states took an active interest in the civil war from the beginning, each seeking an outcome that would benefit its wider regional ambitions. Iran, allied with the Ba'ath regime in Damascus since 1979, resolved early on to aid President Bashar al-Assad in the face of first demonstrations and then an armed insurgency. This initially consisted of an 'advisory mission' in early 2011 but, within a few years, had ballooned into vital economic and military support that allowed the embattled Assad to survive. Saudi Arabia, in contrast, was slower to oppose its rival's ally. Before the uprising ties between Damascus and Riyadh, never especially friendly, had warmed and King Abdullah was cautious to condemn a fellow autocrat for crushing protestors. However, by late 2011 Saudi Arabia had decisively turned on Assad, calling for his departure and urging sanctions. A year later it was sponsoring the opposition movement, sending weapons to armed rebels and urging its ally, the US, to intervene.However, after a decade of war, Assad has clung on to power. Though it has been costly, Iran is now deeply embedded in Syria, while Saudi Arabia has effectively given up on ousting Assad, ending support for the opposition. This chapter asks how we can explain this comparative strategic defeat for Riyadh and victory for Tehran. It draws on debates within international relations scholarship to ask whether either had a structural advantage going in the conflict, or whether the outcomes were more the result of the decision-making of the ruling elites. Can Iran's success in Syria be explained primarily by structural factors as systemic realists would argue, with a focus on the international and regional system, material capabilities and international alliances? Alternatively, were ideational tools, such as utilising Shia identity and anti-Western ideology the key to its success, as constructivists would emphasise? Or is Saudi incompetence the better explanation, placing more focus on the domestic factors limiting Riyadh's foreign policy effectiveness, in contrast to more domestic security from Tehran, as neoclassical realists might argue? This chapter will suggest that all played a role. While

show abstract

Section: Systemic Change On the Eve Of Syria's Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capability and culpability

Phillips

2022

Saudi Arabia and Iran

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For Iran, Israel is the ‘enemy’ because it is seen as an extension of US hegemony, which is related to the Palestine issue. Since the 1979 Revolution, Palestine has remained a key concern of Iranian foreign policy (Halliday, 2001; Juneau, 2014; Warnaar, 2013). To varying degrees, the populist discourses of Ahmadinejad and Rouhani represent a continuation of Khomeini’s discursive construction of Israel.…”

Section: The Discursive Construction Of Israel and Global Order Throumentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism, the International and Methodological Nationalism: Global Order and the Iran–Israel Nexus

Holliday

2019

Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article contends that the international is integral to populism. Thus, it calls for populism scholarship to embrace the interconnectivity between the domestic/internal and international/external. By borrowing from Global Historical Sociology, Global International Relations and Ernesto Laclau’s notion of populist discourse, the article puts forward a new conceptual framework for the study of populism that bridges the gap between Comparative Politics and International Relations. It shows how populist discourse simultaneously constructs several aspects of the social world: the actor who is articulating it and its relationship with its own population, that actor’s relationship with others in the international system, and global order. To illustrate its case, it examines populist discourses of Islamic Republic of Iran elites. Their discourses articulate the need to maintain the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy and populist credentials inside and outside Iran, delegitimise Israel, and construct global order. These discourses are grounded in a historical trajectory: the 1979 Revolution.

show abstract

“…Moreover, a strong Iraq will eventually emerge as a bulwark against Iran; a resurgent Iraq will not be an ally of Iran, and will likely return to its pre-2003 rivalry with its eastern neighbor. 5 Similarly, a post-Assad Syria, whatever its nature, is highly unlikely to be as close to Tehran.…”

Section: The Least-bad Optionmentioning

confidence: 99%