Regional power

The end of the cold war has changed world order in terms of the distribution and structure of power in international system. Following the growth of regional powers and international system’s shifting from bipolarity to multi-polarity, regional powers, undertaking key tasks in the crisis management, are likely to play an active and determining role in new world order and change world management trends with a view to securing their region as well as their own interests. According to this article, the end of the cold war between the East and West and transition to multi-polar structure has carried opportunities for the newly emerging regional powers as regards the enhancement of the their capabilities in the management and establishment of regional order as well as entrance to the global decision-making structures. This article reviews the nature of regional powers, their reasons to support regionalism, and the role of the regional order in re-defining the world order.

In the last half-century, Iran has emerged as a regional power in the Middle East. One of the indicators of a country's regional power is regional custodianship that includes fighting intra-regional threats, such as terrorism. The aim of the current paper is to study Iranian Foreign Policy approach on fighting terrorism. Confronting terrorist groups in the Middle East has been one of the major aspects of Iran's foreign policy under two different political regimes. The Iranian government's struggle with the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF) in Oman during the Pahlavi era and the fight against the Taliban terrorist group in Afghanistan and ISIS in Iraq and Syria can be seen as examples of this inter-regional struggle after Islamic revolution. Using David Rapoport (2004) and Robert Stewart's theory (2012), the paper seeks to investigate Iran’s foreign policy stance on fighting terrorism in West Asia. The main question of this article is How have the waves of international terrorism, effected Iran's regional foreign policy in the Middle East over the past half century? The findings show that Iran's foreign policy has been countered by the waves of international terrorism and has protected the security of the Middle East against terrorist groups and shows how a strong Iran has always reduced the cost of major powers in the fight against terrorism.