مهدی زیبایی

The Islamic Republic of Iran's Middle East policy and its fundamentals are among the most discussed issues in the MiddleEast's international politics. The present paper seeks to analyze the structure and formation of Iran's foreign policy interests in the region with a view of bureaucratic diplomacy. Based on Graham Allison's framework of organizational trends and bureaucratic politics, this study assesses two recent Iranian presidents' foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia. Bureaucratic diplomacy of Iran, along with military and security apparatus formulate and implement Iranian foreign policy tactics. Ahmadinejad focused on developing a personal relationship with Saudi leaders, which was not aligned with his bureaucratic diplomacy, though. However, Rouhani embarked on making use of JCPOA as a model to negotiate with Saudi Arabia. The region's constantly evolving situation, the hostile approach of Saudi Arabia, and the maximum pressure of the U.S. on Iran prevented Rouhani’s bureaucratic diplomacy from succeeding. 

The Arab Uprisings initiated a new phase of security order in the Middle East. In light of these developments, Türkiye is regarded as one of the players who set the stage for shifting its regional stance. Moreover, the Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria were able to express their desire for independence, which led to new geopolitical developments in the North Middle East. In this regard, the attitudes of Turkish politicians toward the Kurds in northern Iraq and Syria demonstrate their different views of the aforementioned Kurdish territories in the years following the beginning of the Arab Uprisings. Now the question here is why the Turkish government behaved differently toward the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria both during and after the Arab Uprisings. The Turkish government's divergent actions seem to be caused by two factors: on the one hand, its security concerns regarding the autonomous territories of the Syrian Kurds in the south of Türkiye; and on the other hand, its economic gains from the Kurdish territories of Iraq, including oil concessions. Put simply, the contradictory behavior of Turkish statesmen toward Syrian and Iraqi Kurds in the post-Arab Uprisings is influenced by existential security concerns as well as economic and political interests. This paper aims to use the defensive realism theory to address the double standards of Türkiye towards the Kurds of Iraq and Syria in the post-Arab Uprising era.