Articles
Op-Ed
Middle East and North Africa
In declaring war on Germany in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson defined the central goal of his vision for American foreign policy by asserting that “the world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.”[i]Wilson ingrained this philosophy, known as Liberal Internationalism, into the psyche of the American public by advocating for the promotion of democracy, economic openness, well-structured multilateral institutions, and American leadership.
Barter, commonly associated with ancient times and micro-level transactions, summons to the mind images of rustic trade routes spanning across Asia, as merchants from the East and traders from the West journey to exchange exotic spices for commodities and metals. What many fail to realize, however, is that barter is far from a phenomenon isolated to the history books
As China’s increasing assertiveness in the Middle East stands in stark contrast with the U.S. fading footprint, this article is attempting to examine the whole situation based on Beijing’s perspective. Specifically, it indicates that China’s strategies in achieving its interests revolve around four main tenets: partnerships with individual countries, non-interference, continuous increase of its economic footprint, and avoidance of a direct challenge to the U.S.-led security architecture. However, Beijing’s approach deems to be unsustainable in the long term since a deeper economic engagement will be translated into political entanglements, inevitably leading to further military involvement.
Many analysts have said it is faulty to compare Rouhani and Gorbachev. That’s true, but not quite for the reasons they list. As General Secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev was the head of state. His Iranian counterpart, therefore, is the Supreme Leader. Like Gorbachev, Khamenei’s primary concern is the survival of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was a large-scale nationalist and religious movement. It resulted from various political and economic factors, including the Shah’s questionably close ties to the United States, rampant corruption throughout the Iranian government, and the inequitable distribution of wealth in Iran.[ii] Although the Revolution was widely embraced by a sizable segment of the Iranian population, it caused irreparable economic damage that is still being felt throughout the country to this day.