Search

Values and elements of popular culture play an important role in shaping and implementing the foreign policy of Iran. In this paper, using content analysis and after explaining the characteristics of Iranian identity, the author seeks to investigate the implications of Iranian social beliefs on foreign policy. In other words, the author sets out to explore whether the perceptions and attitudes of Iranian identity at different historical periods have been the basis according to which Iranian politicians have followed the same model or not? For this purpose, three major components, the influence in the regional area, xenophobia, and conspiracy theorythat are complementary in nature, have been selected. Research findings illustrate that the long history of societies like Iran has been the raison d'etre for the recurrence of social beliefs and values in various political eras of such societies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Modern scholarship on Arabs in the pre-Islamic period has focused on Rome's Arab allies—the so-called “Jafnids” or “Ghassānids,” with much less attention paid to Persia's Arab allies, the so-called “Naṣrid” or “Lakhmid” dynasty of Arab leaders at al-Ḥīrah in Iraq. This article examines select pre-Islamic sources for the Persian Arabs, showing that even with the meager evidence available to us, and the lack of archaeological material, it is possible to draw a relatively complex portrait of the Persian Arabs. This article situates the Persian Arabs as important figures in some key themes and phenomena of late antiquity, such as the growth of Christian communities, the conflict between Rome and Persia, and the struggle for influence in the Arabian peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The under-appreciated role of the press as a tool of public diplomacy was rooted in its origins as a Qajar state project in the nineteenth century, but also cultivated by a shared impulse of Iranian journalists and statesmen to represent Iran effectively in the court of world opinion. Moreover, foreign governments often reacted to the Iranian press generally, not just the official newspapers and not just newspapers produced in Iran, as a forum though which to advance or protect their interests in Iran. The Pahlavi state integrated the press as part of a larger state-run mass communication policy in the 1930s that would eventually include new technologies such as radio, and retained public diplomacy as an essential purpose of the media. This study draws upon archival material, press accounts, and memoirs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In view of the recent expansion of Indo-Persian studies, the neglect of the Sino-Persian nexus is a missed opportunity to place Iranian history on a larger Asian stage. While Iranian contact with China has continued episodically from antiquity to modernity, scholars have so far focused almost exclusively on the pre-modern phases of exchange. As a contribution to developing the field of Sino-Persian studies, this article situates two twentieth century Iranian travelers to China against the changing background of Chinese–Iranian exchange from the medieval to modern period. In so doing, it demonstrates the infrastructural and conceptual apparatus that enabled the modern Iranian encounter with China while asking how, if at all, twentieth century intellectuals were able to draw on a longer history of interaction to find meanings for Sino-Persian exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Shatt al-Arab question has been the subject of several studies, most of which concentrate on the internationalization of the subject. However, few, if any, works have analyzed how this territorial dispute was perceived within Ottoman bureaucratic circles. When the Ottoman Empire reinstated a constitutional monarchy in 1908, the Ottoman–Iranian border dispute regarding the Shatt al-Arab had to be readdressed, with international players involved in the process. Considering the role of foreign factors, this study focuses on the contesting interests of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War on the Shatt al-Arab question (1912–13) and considers how these interests shaped foreign policy in the process of negotiating a resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at the negotiations leading up to the Persian Tobacco Régie of 1890 as well as a previous failed Tobacco Régie in 1886. There exist only a few allusions to these two phases of the tobacco concession in the existing literature. Due to the newly uncovered diaries of the main commercial intermediary in these negotiations, the present article will be able to retrace, with precision, the events leading up to this economic concession of historical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editor discusses topics within the issue, including the role of Iran in the Cold War, Iran's relationship with communist countries, and the foreign relations of Iran under the leadership of Mohammad Reza Shah.

Why did Turkey and Iran fail to become close partners in the 1970s even though they had compelling reasons to do so? This article argues that mutual distrust between Turkish and Iranian leaders, domestic turmoil in the two countries, and diverging geostrategic priorities undermined Ankara and Tehran's efforts to deepen their relations. While the shah of Iran saw his country as the policeman of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, successive governments in Turkey continued to look west for their security. As economic and political turmoil engulfed the two countries, leading to a revolution in Iran in 1979 and a coup in Turkey in 1980, Iranian and Turkish leaders could not forge a lasting partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Iranian military intervention in Oman (1972–75) proved to be one of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's most successful foreign policy initiatives. He entered at the request of Sultan Qabus to help quell the Marxist rebellion of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman in Dhufar province. The shah took this action without any prior consultation with either Britain or the United States, acting for reasons wholly related to Iran's regional security. In so doing, he angered most of his Arab neighbors, who protested vigorously. He persisted. His troops tipped the balance in favor of the sultan's forces, contributing to a speedy end to the insurrection, for which Iran earned the lasting gratitude of the sultan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Literature on the Great Game presents a strong dichotomy between European aggressors and Oriental victims. However, Qajar Iran possessed its own forgotten imperial project in Central Asia, explored here through an 1844 travelogue published anonymously in Iran as Safarnameh-ye Bokhara. This text, whose author is identified here as Qajar statesman ‘Abbas Qoli Khan, details a diplomatic exchange with the amir of Bokhara over the life and death of Rev. Joseph Wolff and the infamous disappearance of British agents Stoddart and Conolly. Notably, ‘Abbas Qoli Khan pressed Qajar claims to Marv to the amir, utilizing a discourse of historical and cultural unity between Iran and Greater Khorasan, in contrast to that of difference and hierarchy common in Anglo-Russian imperial projects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the history of the relationship between the Iranian and the Russian monarchies during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Drawing on a broad range of hitherto unexplored sources in Russian, the article analyzes Russian attitudes towards the Qajars, for whom the Romanov tsars were at the same time the most important ally and the biggest threat. The article focuses on the symbols and ceremonies by which the monarchs represented their relations, and by which they expressed symbolic competition, recognition and domination. The article thus opens a new perspective on Russia's influence on the Qajars and also raises questions about the comparative history of both monarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper re-examines the causes of outbreak of Second Russo-Iranian War and the factors that played a role in its escalation into fully fledged war. The paper challenges the common perception that Qajar Iran played a major role in the outbreak of the war and proposes that the Qajar court took a defensive posture vis-à-vis aggressive Russian provocation originated in Tiflis and was merely reacting to it. The paper then examines policy differences between Tiflis and the court of St Petersburg as a contributing factor in the outbreak of the war. Finally, the paper examines two different and contradictory views of imperial Russia and its internal politics and military capabilities among Qajar Iran's decision makers during 1825–28. It is argued that the two perceptions eventually translated into two factions, each lobbying the shah for and against escalation of hostilities with Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the nature of Iranian–Russian diplomatic relations in the half century after the death of Shah ʿAbbas I in 1629, probing the conflicts and mutual interests that prompted the two states to exchange envoys in this period of diminishing high-level contact. In particular, it seeks to reconstruct the Russian mission that visited the court of Shah ʿAbbas II in 1664. By all accounts, this mission was treated in a most humiliating way in Isfahan, seemingly in accordance with what outsiders describe the contempt the Iranians felt for Russians. A careful examination of the available sources shows that the poor treatment of its members was due as much to concrete geopolitical concerns and anxieties as to the sense of civilizational superiority the Iranians may have felt vis-à-vis Russians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reveals the story of Russia's attempts to colonize Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces of Iran in the early twentieth century. By backing and sponsoring Russian settlements there, the Russian government sought to eventually annex the territories in the northeast of Iran. Drawing on Russian and Iranian sources, the article follows the development of the settlements from their spontaneous beginning in 1907 to a state-supported colonization project by 1914. After the Russian government tried to accelerate colonization of the occupied Iranian territories during the First World War, this ambitious project came to an end with the Bolshevik coup of 1917. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought about major upheavals in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Among the newly independent states, those that were endowed with energy resources set out on the path of economic growth. The energy resources in Central Asia also attracted outside powers to the region. Moreover, the status of these countries as landlocked, and Russia's monopoly over energy pipelines, led these countries to search for new partners in order to reduce their dependency. This added a new dimension to the political, economic and security equations of the region. In this article, Turkmenistan is studied as a former Soviet republic and Iran as a regional actor that has interests in the region's energy dynamics. The role of energy in the relations between Turkmenistan and Iran is examined. The article proposes that the energy factor has produced a favorable atmosphere for closer relations between the two countries. However, Tehran needs to overcome a number of challenges in expansion of its relations with Turkmenistan, the most important of which is the United States' effective opposition to any Iranian initiative in the field of energy in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the last 65 years, European, American and Russian historians have often tried to study the reasons which led to the Allied invasion of Iran on 25 August 1941. For a long period, the main obstacle was the limited access to official documentary sources. Gradually, British and Russian archives started to declassify their documents concerning the events of August 1941. That, in turn, caused a new wave of publications on this topic. Unfortunately, even with newly available sources, modern researchers were frequently unable to grasp the whole picture, emphasizing only one reason for the invasion or even exaggerating its importance. This paper attempts to analyze the most common explanations of the reasons for the occupation of Iran offered by different historians and try to find out which of these causes impelled the Allies to invade Iran. The research paid special attention to existing Russian primary and secondary sources on the issue which are less well known to English readers. Important information found in them allows events related to the Allied occupation of Iran in 1941 to be described from a relatively new angle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the parameters of the irregular army in Qajar Iran, including its assembly, numbers, and provisions, as well as the army's organizational structure: its administration and the divisions of the ad hoc forces (provincial militia and tribal cavalry) and of the standing forces (the shah's bodyguard and artillery corps). Until the creation of the so-called regular army units in Iran at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the irregular army was regarded as the only military force in the service of the Qajar dynasty. Despite the existence of a “regular army,” irregular forces, particularly tribal cavalry, continued to play a significant role in Iran's military system throughout the nineteenth century. By understanding the features of the irregular army—its role in Qajar society, its organizational and social structures, its ethnic composition, and other characteristics—we can better understand the character of the state itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the mid-nineteenth century, Parsis reestablished ties with Zoroastrians in Iran that had languished due to decades-long internal unrest in Iran. In 1854 reformists in India established the Society for the Amelioration of Conditions in Iran and sent a representative to Iran—Maneckji Hataria. Hataria was charged with eliminating the onerous non-Muslim tax owed by the Zoroastrians (the jaziyeh). Hataria also organized the Iranian Zoroastrian community, and funded a variety of community projects. He also brought Parsi reformist ideas to Iran, and attempted to reshape Iranian religious practice and belief along Parsi lines. This article explores the effects of Parsi reformist ideas on Iran, and Hataria's own writings concerning Zoroastrianism and its relationship to Iranian national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Qajar dynasty (1797-1925) of Iran engaged in a continuous process to build a regular army under the leadership and tutelage of professional European military missions. These continuous attempts at military reform and Europeanization reached a peak with the creation of the Persian Cossack Brigade (1879-1921) by the Russian military mission. This article focuses on the genesis of the Brigade and the Russian military mission, which followed some of the previously unsuccessful European military missions. The scholarly literature has paid little attention to the fitful beginnings of the Brigade. This article, however, deals with the early challenges faced by the Brigade during the period between 1879 and 1894, at the end of which it was on the verge of dissolution. The article tackles formative issues raised in under-explored Russian archival material and supplemented by Russian-language primary sources, as well as other relevant sources. It attempts to re-evaluate the origins of the Persian Cossack Brigade and provide a well-balanced portrait of the Brigade in light of the changing regional politics of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the nature of Israeli-Iranian relations in the post-Cold War era. Analysis of strategic competition from Charles Doran’s power cycle theory; Distribution of power in the Middle East region; Countries' quest for domination; Ideological and balance of threat motives affecting the relations.

An introduction on the issue's theme of relations between Russia and Iran from the mid-17th to the early 21st centuries is presented, commenting on articles on the Second Russo-Iranian War, relations between the countries' monarchies, and Russian settlements in Iran's Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces.