الأبحاث والتعليقات

One of the strange features of 20th century Iranian leaders has been a tendency to perceive themselves, their government, and Iran as serious challengers to the present world order. Given the fact that the present world order is very much a Western dominated system, the Iranian leaders’ historic “crusade” has been broadly anti-Western. Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi as well as his successors have perceived their respective regime as offering the world a different system of leadership — one that is far superior to that of the West in many respects.

Thirty years after the revolution, Iran’s hydrocarbon industry is facing new opportunities and challenges. This essay attempts to evaluate the future of Iran’s oil and gas sector in view of changing circumstances in the oil and gas industry and the barriers to Iran taking full advantage of its potentials.

Shortly after the revolution in 1979, Iran somewhat irrationally distanced itself from the international community. Partly because of revolutionary fervor, Iran initially made itself vulnerable. The American hostage crisis and the eight-year war with Iraq exposed Iran to economic hardship and international isolation.

Originally posted, January 2009

European governments initially reacted to Iran’s Islamic revolution by a careful testing of the ground with the new regime. But relations deteriorated quickly, as Iran accused some European countries of siding with Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and Iranian agents killed Iranian opposition figures in European capitals.

Almost immediately after the triumph of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini and the new Iranian leadership turned against Saudi Arabia and its ruling family.

When Iran’s 1979 revolution took place, many Iranians predicted that relations between Iran and France would improve in an unprecedented way. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, spent the last four months of his 14-year in exile in France. The revolutionaries in Tehran lauded French leaders for being hospitable toward their spiritual leader. They had no hatred of France, which lacked colonialist aspirations regarding Iran.

The relationship between Iran and the West has been marked by mutual mistrust and confrontation for the past 30 years. Iran’s nuclear standoff with Western countries is currently regarded as the main symbol of that confrontational relationship. Iran insists that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, while Western countries are suspicious of Tehran’s intentions. There are polarized and incompatible views about this complicated and multidimensional issue. The main source of incompatibility is that this issue is seen from different perspectives.

As one of the most important events of the past three decades in the Middle East, the Islamic Revolution not only has sustained itself, but the Islamic Republic which it spawned celebrated its 30th anniversary in February 2009.

The revolution of February 1979 was a revolt of the society against the state. In some of its basic characteristics, the revolution did not conform to the usual norms of Western revolutions, because the state did not represent just an ordinary dictatorship but an absolute and arbitrary system that lacked political legitimacy and a social base virtually across the whole of the society.

Originally posted January 2009

The Arab world, especially the Gulf countries, face many environmental threats and problems such as desertification, biodiversity loss, marine and coastal areas pollution, air pollution, and water scarcity and quality. Beside these traditional environmental threats, various other environmental problems have begun to emerge in the last few years, related to military conflicts, construction and demolition debris, and climate change.

MEI´s special edition of Viewpoints on “Architecture and Urbanism in the Middle East” is an opportunity to celebrate the beauty, diversity, and vitality of the built environment of the region. It is also an opportunity to consider the challenges facing architects, designers, and developers in their efforts not only to preserve the rich cultural heritage of Middle Eastern cities but to shape these urban spaces in ways that address the physical and socioeconomic pressures occurring within them.

Originally posted Noember 2008

One, Two / the Arab army where are you?/ The Arab army where are you?/The Egyptian Arab Army/ resides in an-Nasr [victory] compound/ Wakes up in the afternoon/ to drink its tea/ The Gulf Arab army/ can do absolutely nothing/ “Strategic silence” indeed/ “cut us some slack, man!”/ The Tunisian Arab army/ is green like parsley/ But ‘Aziza loves Yunis/ the wars can wait/ The Sudanese Arab army/ I can hear its clamor in my ears/ “Damn it!

The trials that have faced a sovereign Lebanon as it emerges from a long and bloody civil war, as well as Syrian and Israeli occupations, have been immense. In 2008, Beirut confronted an existential challenge. After years of conflict, the vast majority of Lebanese citizens clamored for positive change to buttress the state and to facilitate prosperity.