Document Type : Research/Original/Regular Article
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, University and Higher Research Institute of National Defense and Strategic Research, Tehran, Iran
2 Assistant Professor of Political Geography, Department of Geography, Environment and Passive Defense, Internal Security Research Institute, Holy Defense Research Institute, Tehran, Iran
3 PhD Student in Military Strategic Management, Faculty of National Defense, University and Higher Research Institute of National Defense and Strategic Research, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The relations between the Persian Gulf states and the Zionist regime have had considerable ups and downs, ranging from confrontations to coalition and compromise. Meantime, the historical relations between Iran and this regime took the opposite form, changing from friendship in the Pahlavi period into hostility in the Islamic Republic which was a turning point for the identity separation of the Zionist regime and Iran in 1978. This study seeks to investigate the relations between the Zionist regime and the Persian Gulf states according to the current order to find out its political coordinates and analyze the effects of these relations on the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran taking its indicators into account. The study has taken the thematic analysis as the research approach. Accordingly, interviews were conducted with a sample of 15 respondents and the statistical population of experts in the field of West Asia, followed by manual coding, summarizing the interviews with the Nvivo software, and extraction of the content. According to the results, the goals of the Zionist regime and Persian Gulf Arab states in the normalization of relations can be expressed under three main themes of the establishment of a security belt against Iran, military goals, and facilitating the compromise process. In contrast, the strategies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in response to security threats can be considered under the three axes of the balance between idealism and realism, expansion of regional cooperation, and the increase in military and national power.
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