Download or read book Power and Paranoia in Syria Iraq Relations written by Amjed Rasheed and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the perplexing twists and turns in Syria-Iraq relations which since the establishment of modern Syria and Iraq after World War I have zigzagged between cooperation and hostility countless times. It questions why both countries switched regional and international alliances, but never formed one of their own, and assesses the role played by structural forces such as geopolitics, ideology, and regime survival. It also argues that a key factor was the individual personalities – the agency role – of Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussain, both of whom had a monopoly of power, similar ambitions and leadership styles, and great mistrust of each other, with the result that they clashed. It goes on to show how both were caught between commitment to pan-Arabism and the imperative for regime survival, and how this led them both to weaken pan-Arabism instead and construct sectarian polarisation to ensure regime survival. The book concludes that their ruthless fight left a heavy legacy where in both countries regime survival overshadowed state consolidation and nation-building, with both countries divided into smaller communities of faiths and ethnicities at war with each other.

Download or read book China Russia and the USA in the Middle East written by Benjamin Houghton and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The shift in international relations towards multipolarity has had profound implications across the world, but particularly in highly penetrated regions, such as the Middle East. This book explores the rivalry between the United States, Russia, and China in the region, investigating its effects and assessing the influence of regional actors and issues. Each chapter offers a comprehensive analysis of three core questions: how does global power competition manifest itself?; how does it impact regional political, economic, and security dynamics?; and how do regional actors and issues influence the trajectory and dynamics of global power competition? Expert international contributors take a country case study approach to consider these questions and investigate the most pressing contemporary events, issues, and trends in Middle Eastern politics. Tackling transregional and global issues and themes they analyse the convergence, divergence, and competition between global powers in managing threats and interests such as terrorism, energy and cyber security, nuclear non-proliferation, conflict resolution, and warfare. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of international relations, great power competition, China, Russia, the USA, and the Middle East.

Download or read book Arab Iranian Relations Since the Arab Uprisings written by Mahjoob Zweiri and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most writing on Arab-Iran relations, which looks at specific episodes and specific countries, this book, taking a long term view, assesses the overall dynamics of the relationship, discussing in particular how far religion or politics drives the relationship. It argues that although Iran asserts that religion is a key factor underpinning a coherent approach to international relations, in fact what turns out to be the key factor is the politics of particular circumstances and Iran’s specific interests. The book considers Iran’s differing reactions to the Arab uprisings of 2011 onwards, showing that while Iran supported the uprisings in some countries it sided with repressive governments in other countries. The book also examines Iran’s reaction to its own outbreak of popular discontent in 2009 which was controlled by what has been considered as severe repression and explores how Iran is viewed by ordinary people in different Arab countries. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Download or read book Israel Asia Relations in the Twenty First Century written by Yoram Evron and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines Israel's growing interaction with Asia's sub-regions and countries since the 1990s. It shows how these interactions have increased in recent years, both at government level and for companies, entrepreneurs, academic institutions, religious groups, tourists, and NGOs. Likewise, it discusses the evolving shared interests between Israel and Asian states and demonstrates how Asian countries adopted sophisticated policies that allowed them to get closer to Israel without compromising their traditional support of the pro-Palestinian position. It also explores how Israel differentiates between different regions, circles of importance, and countries in Asia rather than sees Asia as a monolithic whole. This groundbreaking book concludes by assessing the overall state of relations at present and likely future developments.

Download or read book The Abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate 1924 written by Elisa Giunchi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the decision by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in 1924 to abolish the caliphate. The Ottoman sultans had long borne the title of caliphs of Islam, with all the prestigious authority throughout the Muslim world that went with it, and in the aftermath of the First World War the caliphate still retained great symbolic relevance.The book considers the questions that arose with its abolition, including whether or not the caliphate should be revived, reformed or replaced by other forms of political affiliation and organization. It also assesses more general issues concerning identity and legitimate authority, and how to reconcile time-honoured religious institutions and concepts with modernity, the nation-state and affiliations of an ethnic and religious nature. The book additionally addresses the debates within the pan-Islamic congresses concerning the fate of the caliphate, and the implications of its abolition for Kurdish–Turkish relations and for the British and French Empires with their large Muslim populations.

Download or read book The Making of Contemporary Kuwait written by Mahjoob Zweiri and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-03 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the contemporary history, governance, foreign policy, political economy, culture, and society of Kuwait. It highlights the dynamics of the country, putting forward both an overview of each subject covered and new research findings. It begins by providing a historical understanding of state formation and goes on to examine state structure, including the ruling monarchy, state legitimacy, and the creation of the Constitution and the National Assembly. It considers foreign policy, including the tools of diplomacy, the state’s regional and international approach, and the factors that have formed and reformed Kuwait’s strategic policy in the global arena. It assesses the economy, including rentierism, the labour market both for locals and for migrants, the class system, and the process of Kuwaitization; and it discusses Kuwaiti society and national identity, as well as investigates issues of women, civil society, youth, and the Bidoon minority. Overall, the book provides a full and detailed analysis of contemporary Kuwait and of the factors which are bringing about new developments.

Download or read book Pride and Power written by Johan Franzen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Iraq is one of resistance. In this groundbreaking study, Johan Franzen offers a contextual modern history of the country, its creation and its struggle for sovereignty. Iraq's contemporary history is a tale of a diverse people thrown together into a nation-state by imperialist statecraft. From the state's inception as a League of Nations mandate in the 1920s, through wars, coups and revolutions, Iraqis have always resisted foreign domination. But the country, propelled by the quest for power, intense national pride and a zeal for sovereignty, was catapulted along a trajectory of violence. On one side stood imperialism, seeking to control Iraq for its own ends. Facing it, Iraqis of varying nationalist groups tried to rid the country of foreign meddling and steer a course of self-determination. Pride and Power offers in-depth analysis of the most important events, decisions and processes that led Iraq down this path. Based on extensive research of primary sources, both Iraqi and Western, the book unravels the complexity of Iraq's political history. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the international relations of the Middle East or in understanding the rich history of Iraq, from its foundation to the present.

Download or read book The Sanctuary written by Raymond Khoury and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-07-29 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After centuries of destruction, one unsuspecting woman stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever in this thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Templar. Portugal, 1705. In the dungeons of a Templar castle, a dying old man bequeaths an ancient, half-burnt book to his young inquisitor. Keeping one step ahead of those who would kill to wrench the book's secret from his hands, the inquisitor turns his back on his calling and sets off on an impossible journey to complete the old man's quest. Baghdad, 2003. Hunting for a mysterious bioweapon scientist, an army unit discovers a concealed state-of-the-art lab where gruesome experiments have been carried out on men, women, and children. The scientist escapes, but a puzzling clue is left behind: a circular symbol of a snake feeding on its own tail. As the power of the symbol comes to light, revealing centuries of destruction left in its wake, a woman desperate for answers holds the fate of the world in her hands...

Download or read book The International Relations of the Palestine Liberation Organization written by Augustus R. Norton and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A balanced, topical account of the PLO and its statelike relationships with several key nations in the global arena. The eight essayists examine the incentives prompting the organization to seek ties with various states as well as the benefits derived from these international bonds. The nations involved include Russia, China, Iran, many Latin American countries, and the Arab world.

Download or read book Assad or We Burn the Country written by Sam Dagher and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region. Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.

Download or read book Fractured Lands written by Scott Anderson and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia, a piercing account of how the contemporary Arab world came to be riven by catastrophe since the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. In 2011, a series of anti-government uprisings shook the Middle East and North Africa in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Few could predict that these convulsions, initially hailed in the West as a triumph of democracy, would give way to brutal civil war, the terrors of the Islamic State, and a global refugee crisis. But, as New York Times bestselling author Scott Anderson shows, the seeds of catastrophe had been sown long before. In this gripping account, Anderson examines the myriad complex causes of the region’s profound unraveling, tracing the ideological conflicts of the present to their origins in the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and beyond. From this investigation emerges a rare view into a land in upheaval through the eyes of six individuals—the matriarch of a dissident Egyptian family; a Libyan Air Force cadet with divided loyalties; a Kurdish physician from a prominent warrior clan; a Syrian university student caught in civil war; an Iraqi activist for women’s rights; and an Iraqi day laborer-turned-ISIS fighter. A probing and insightful work of reportage, Fractured Lands offers a penetrating portrait of the contemporary Arab world and brings the stunning realities of an unprecedented geopolitical tragedy into crystalline focus.

Download or read book The Caliph and the Imam written by Toby Matthiesen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-09 with total page 961 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authoritative account of Islam's schism that for centuries has shaped events in the Middle East and the Islamic world. In 632, soon after the Prophet Muhammad died, a struggle broke out among his followers as to who would succeed him. Most Muslims argued that the leader of Islam should be elected by the community's elite and rule as Caliph. They would later become the Sunnis. Otherswho would become known as the Shiabelieved that Muhammad had designated his cousin and son-in-law Ali as his successor, and that henceforth Ali's offspring should lead as Imams. This dispute over who should guide Muslims, the Caliph or the Imam, marks the origin of the Sunni-Shii split in Islam. Toby Matthiesen explores this hugely significant division from its origins to the present day. Moving chronologically, his book sheds light on the many ways that it has shaped the Islamic world, outlining how over the centuries Sunnism and Shiism became Islam's two main branches, and how Muslim Empires embraced specific sectarian identities. Focussing on connections between the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, it reveals how colonial rule and the modern state institutionalised sectarian divisions and at the same time led to pan-Islamic resistance and Sunni and Shii revivalism. It then focuses on the fall-out from the 1979 revolution in Iran and the US-led military intervention in Iraq. As Matthiesen shows, however, though Sunnism and Shiism have had a long and antagonistic history, most Muslims have led lives characterised by confessional ambiguity and peaceful co-existence. Tensions arise when sectarian identity becomes linked to politics. Based on a synthesis of decades of scholarship in numerous languages, The Caliph and the Imam will become the standard text for readers looking for a deeper understanding of contemporary sectarian conflict and its historical roots.

Download or read book The International Relations of the Contemporary Middle East written by Tareq Y. Ismael and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Middle East, a few decades ago, was seen to be an autonomous subsystem of the global international political system. More recently, the region has been subordinated to the hegemony of a singular superpower, the US, bolstered by an alliance with Israel and a network of Arab client states. The subordination of the contemporary Middle East has resulted in large part from the disappearance of countervailing forces, for example, global bipolarity, that for a while allowed the Arab world in particular to exercise a modicum of flexibility in shaping its international relations.The aspirations of the indigenous population of the Middle East have been stifled by the dynamics of the unequal global power relationships, and domestic politics of the countries of the region are regularly subordinated to the prerogatives of international markets and the strategic competition of the great powers. Employing the concept of imperialism, defined as a pattern of alliances between a center (rulers) in the Center (developed) country and a center (client regime) in the Periphery (underdeveloped country) - as an overall framework to analyse the subordination of the region, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of the Middle East, International Relations, and Politics in general.

Download or read book Accounting for Fundamentalisms written by Martin E. Marty and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2004-05 with total page 863 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accounting for Fundamentalisms features treatments of fundamentalist movements, groups that often make headlines but are rarely understood, as part of the multivolume Fundamentalism Project. This book remains a standard reference source for comprehending the dynamics of fundamentalist movements around the world. Surveying fundamentalist movements in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, the contributors to Accounting for Fundamentalisms describe the organization of these movements, their leadership and recruiting techniques, and the ways in which their ideological programs and organizational structures shift over time in response to changing political and social environments.

Download or read book The Power Triangle written by Hazem Kandil and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-12 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Revolution, reform, and resilience comprise the respective fortunes of modern Iran, Turkey, and Egypt. Although the countries all experienced coups with remarkably similar ambitions, each followed a very different trajectory. Iran became an absolutist monarchy that was overthrown from below, Turkey evolved into a limited democracy, and Egypt turned into a police state. In The Power Triangle, Hazem Kandil attributes the different outcomes to the power struggle between the political, military, and security institutions. Coups establish a division of labor, with one group of officers running government, another overseeing the military, and a third handling security. But their interests begin to vary as each group identifies with its own institution. Politicians wish to rule indefinitely; military officers prefer to return to barracks after implementing the needed reforms; and security men scramble to maintain the privileges they acquired in the post-coup emergency. Driven by conflicting agendas, these partners in domination struggle over regime control. Using comparative historical sociology, Kandil demonstrates how regimes are constantly shaped and reshaped through the recurrent clashes and shifting alliances between the team of rivals in this "power triangle." The Power Triangle's realist approach to regime change shows that a clear explanation of pivotal events in Iran, Turkey, and Egypt is impossible without a firm grasp of the power relations within each country's ruling bloc.

Download or read book The Iran Iraq War written by Williamson Murray and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Iran-Iraq War is one of the largest, yet least documented conflicts in the history of the Middle East. Drawing from an extensive cache of captured Iraqi government records, this book is the first comprehensive military and strategic account of the war through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders. It explores the rationale and decision-making processes that drove the Iraqis as they grappled with challenges that, at times, threatened their existence. Beginning with the bizarre lack of planning by the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran, the authors reveal Saddam's desperate attempts to improve the competence of an officer corps that he had purged to safeguard its loyalty to his tyranny, and then to weather the storm of suicidal attacks by Iranian religious revolutionaries. This is a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the history of war and the contemporary Middle East.

Download or read book The Truth about Syria written by Barry Rubin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned expert answers the question many are asking: How dangerous is Syria?