مطالب

Russian military deployment in Syria should not be considered as the core goal of Moscow’s diplomacy but its instrument. It is also a serious mistake to present Russian efforts in the country as the result of a game of “chicken” between Moscow and the West. Moscow is playing a different type of game that could be characterized as “geostrategic poker”, where the Assad regime is logically considered Russia’s main stake. This stake allows the Russians to influence the situation on the ground and demonstrate their importance in the international arena by positioning Moscow as one of those players without whom the Syrian question cannot be solved. By increasing military support to the Syrian government the Russian authorities simply strengthened their stake. Now they are starting to reveal their hand. The latest developments also show that Russian stance on Syria is determined by the interplay of the complex factors among which the growing security concerns are of the main importance. The Kremlin is worried that the fall of Assad will inevitably bring radical Islamists to power in Syria. This, in turn, will lead to the further destabilisation of the situation in the Middle East inevitably affecting the Muslim regions of Russia. At the same time, this does not mean that Moscow supports Bashar Assad as a person. On the contrary, the Kremlin accepts the possibility of the post-Assad Syria and Russian contacts with the Syrian opposition also demonstrate that Moscow is open to the dialogue. By September 2015, on the eve of Russia’s dramatic military moves, the Kremlin feared that Assad’s regime was on the verge of collapse. The assessment was that the existing levels of military, technological, and financial assistance by Russia to the Syrian regime would only prolong its agony and not save it. Moscow could not afford losing its stake in the Middle East. Intervention was based on a choice between a “bad” and a “very bad” scenario: either a costly military operation to support Assad, or doing nothing as his power crumbled. The Russian leadership was also motivated in part by its perception of what had happened in Libya and Iraq, where—in its view—nothing good came of the complete destruction of the old regimes. It did not want to see the same happen to Syria as, from the Kremlin point of view, this would mean the turning of Syria into another regional source of instability and jihadist threat..

Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republicof Iran, opened the Sixth Model United Nations (MUN) Simulation Exercise on24 August 2017 in Tehran. The theme of the UN Security Council Simulationthis year was the nuclear programme of the People’s Democratic Republic ofKorea (PDRK). In his speech, Dr. Zarif first applauded the Model UN simulations held by the International Studies Journal, and mentioned that he has missed teaching international relations in an academic setting. He also mentioned that it was heartwarming for him to see so many women participants in the room, and took pride in Iranian women being interested in international relations and world politics. Dr. Zarif also spoke about the significance of Cold War as well as the collapse of Soviet Union and the role that the UN played 30 years ago. He also emphasized that “We all need to arrive at a good, reliable,and convincing understanding of this period of transition, which was perceivedat a certain time in the past to be of a rather short period and expected – orsimply aspired to - arrive at a definitive position of unchallenged Americanglobal hegemony. Well, that hasn’t come to pass.” He also touched base on the issue of North Korea (DPRK) and mentioned that “it is not only states that areengaged in the drama, a much larger catalog of players and actors, inclusive ofnon-state actors – falling under the general rubric of civil society - are alsoinvolved and bear on the situation.” In addition, he talked about the significance of ‘change and power’ in international relations and iterated that “power couldbe defined as increasing influence and decreasing vulnerability.” Dr. Zarif mentioned a few historical and political events in which the issue of  power and gaining hegemony were involved. Lastly, he discussed how the Security Council failed Iran and watched in silence when Iraqis used chemical weapons on Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. In the end, he wished the participants success and luck in the Model UN simulation and hoped that they could “move in the direction of - hopefully – political-diplomaticresolution of a regional tension with grave consequences for international peaceand security.”  

The current Korean crisis is just a prelude to the tensions and conflicts that will accompany the rise of the ancient civilizations which have a much longer tradition than the Western World. Globalization will inevitably lead to the newly rise of the civilizations which have lost their standing and recognition in the course of Western colonialism and hegemony.  What we therefore need is a development of mutual recognition among the great civilizations of the earth, which should transcend a mere parallelism as well as a universal civilization which in the end would just be a kind of universalized Western civilization. While the task of the late 20^th century was the avoidance of the self-destruction of the planet, the task of our century will be to manage the new rise of the ancient civilizations without falling in the Thucydides trap of a repetition of the First World War – only now in Asia. As the slain former prime minister of Israel highlighted: "You don't make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.” Mutual recognition of the civilizations of the earth has a double perspective: It allows solving conflicts on a rational basis and it is binding the conflict-parties to their own civilizational standards.