from SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS IN THE PERSIAN GULF: With Special Reference to Iran’s Foreign Policy, MAHBOUBEH F. SADEGHINIA, Ithaca Press, 2011

The Persian Gulf (PG) is one of the most significant geopolitical regions in the world as well as the main dominant energy source and gateway for global energy. This region is of vital significance to all littoral states as well as the entire world economy and political life. Considering such significance – which has caused the PG to be a worthy rival to outside powers, particularly the West, as well being the most unstable and chaotic of any world region – requires close scrutiny of the important geopolitical elements and security concerns and systems in this region.
Persian Gulf Security Arrangements, With Special Reference to Iran’s Foreign Policy has employed a variety of conceptual and analytical tools to understand the reasons for the failure of security models in the PG and to confront the huge obstacles to a security system for this region. The perceptions of what constitutes a threat to regional security varies among the Arabs, Iranians and the ultra-regional powers, and all accordingly have different solutions to what they perceive as the problem. Nevertheless, regardless of the relevant parties’ differences of opinion, all the consequent issues along with three decades of crises in the PG illustrate how urgent it is for the problem regarding regional security to be resolved.
The approach in this book chosen to provide a foundation for a discussion about the future shape of security arrangements in the PG focuses on historical analysis and is theoretical. It aims to address the need for a stable and peaceful structure of relationships that provides security for all individual littoral states, as well as assuring the interests of the external powers. The methodology adopted to conduct this research uses theories of geopolitics and of security, and draws upon the level of analysis framework in international relations to the foreign policies of select PG states and the forces that affected them. As it will be explained in the following chapters, it presents a conceptual framework of important works of literature related to the security issues of the PG.
The issue of security will be studied from a combination of different perspectives – political, social, military, economic, geopolitical and international – all of which affect security in this region. This is the reason this research tries to study relations between these factors as different variables relevant to modelling security in the region.
The context of the discussion is the period 1962–1997, but some analysis is given of geopolitical and security developments since 1997 in order to support the analysis of the period of primary focus and to provide a warning about the impact of further policies of regional and non-regional players on the security of the region. The reason for focusing on this period of time is that it highlights the following points that are relevant to the study.
1) The fundamental and significant role of Iran in any security approach in this region: Iran’s significant role in regional political evolutions and Tehran’s national and security concerns, regardless of the nature of its political regime in the country at any one time. For this reason, throughout the entire study Iran’s role in various events is given close attention. Following an empirical analysis of external threats and Iran’s recent trends in its foreign relations, especially concerning the security of the PG in relation to key countries including the Great Powers and its PG neighbours, 1962 marks the beginning of Tehran’s increasing interest in regional issues of the PG. The failures and successes in the period leading up to 1997 of Iran’s policy towards the PG will be divided into three different phases of the pre- and post-revolution era and within both the bipolar and unipolar system of international system.
2) The prevailing application of the traditional policy is that “to dominate a region it is necessary to weaken regional powers”: the crucial position of the PG in world politics, and the geostrategic situation of Iran, encouraged Britain and later the US to establish domination over Iran and the PG. For this reason Iran’s efforts to establish power in the PG were totally unacceptable to and annulled by Britain. It severely vetoed every action, measure, or proposal by Iran to establish a navy for security in the PG.
Moreover, the US only accepted Iran’s superiority in the region when Tehran was acting as a US proxy. Instead, during their dominance these two major ultra-regional powers continued their military superiority in the region in order to prevent any other countries gaining control over the region and its mass energy resources, and also to maintain their military access to the geostrategic region of the PG, thereby allowing them to control events in many other significant regions of the world. In addition, the old excuse given by Britain for preventing Iran from gaining power in the PG, i.e. its uncertainty about “what Iran’s intentions might be” – e.g. when Nasereddin Shah Qajar tried in 1865 to form a navy and his request for British help was rejected – was also used by the US, especially regarding Iran’s nuclear plans since 2003. This important historical political fact is highly suggestive of the strategy of the major powers in the region.
3) The increased militarisation in the region, together with the belief that for political survival or to ensure strategic interest, a back-up military power is a necessity. The US’ direct military involvement in the PG has resulted in competing reactions from emerging powers with interests in this region viz., China, the EU and Russia. This is to secure their strategic interests by gaining extensive access to PG security and adopting a greater geopolitical role in this waterway, and also because of their deep concerns over US permanent hegemony in the ME/PG. The US military presence has also stimulated popular discontent in the host countries, particularly against Arab regimes. This situation has resulted in increasing militarism, whether in the form of extending the military presence and power of different regional and non-regional parties, directly or indirectly, or in the form of terrorist attacks.
4) The importance of a proper relationship between the US and Iran for any durable security approach in this region. The study argues that establishing peace and security would be impossible without such a relationship between these two major players. In addition to the need to construct comprehensive multilateral coalitions, the argument is made that it is important to recognise the significance of the relationship between major regional and non-regional powers in order to achieve a durable and long-term security situation in any region. In this regard the study focuses particularly on the major regional and ultra-regional powers with the most influence over any security approaches; the major topic of analysis is the behaviour of Iran and the US. This study is necessary owing to the failure of all security models in the PG during the time period of this study.  Also, the vast and extended regional and global consequences of regional crises combined with the increasing complexity of methods of competition, specifically the more frequent resort to military solutions with more sophisticated weapons rather than to diplomacy or socio-economic cooperation. Hence, under such circumstances, achieving even remotely stable security is increasingly difficult.
5) The noticeable double standards of the international system due to the huge influence of the Great Powers, particularly the US, to protect their own interests, had a great influence on the security of this region during the period covered by this study. Such an international political system which applies different criteria could coerce some states into pursuing a dangerous policy to achieve their foreign policy goals. In studying Iraq’s behaviour it is possible to show a complete turnabout of attitudes from the international countries: from offering aid to open hostility.
This study has taken advantage of a great variety of secondary sources of historical, analytical data, as well as some primary documents such as interviews and also various Iranian Foreign Ministry documents.
Moreover, detailed primary source material accumulated from the author’s experiences during 1980–2003 as a journalist and also political researcher in Iran has been followed up through discussion with the key actors. In addition to advice, comments and the assistance of prominent scholars in the field of PG issues such as Anoush Ehteshamin, Keith McLachlan, Richard Schofield and Mahmood Sariolghalam, I had the opportunity to take advantage of honest and friendly talks, discussions and interviews with different high-ranking Iranian authorities as well as many elites and scholars in the Arabian Peninsula who assisted me, these being an important factor in helping me to gain a better and deeper understanding of various issues and concerns in the PG. I also had the opportunity to travel to most of the region’s countries and to live from 1985 to 1987 in Bandar Abbas, capital of Hormozgan Province on the southern coast of Iran, which occupies a strategic position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz and is the location of the main base of the Iranian Navy. Having the opportunity to visit and study various areas, and talk and socialise with the inhabitants of Hormozgan in my several visits to different cities and villages, as well as to the islands – including Abu Musa, Hormuz, Larak, Qeshm and Hengam – helped me to better understand the lifestyles and original and natural interrelations between the inhabitants of the southern and northern side of the PG. It also assisted me to gain a clearer comprehension about the geographical dimensions of various islands in respect to their significant location regarding security issues in such a geostrategic waterway.
Geopolitical approach
This study focuses on debates surrounding geopolitics to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the significance of the PG as a sub-system of the ME and its impact on the politics of the region. The intention is not to discuss different kinds of geopolitical schools of thought as power knowledge but rather to highlight the effect of the natural geographical location of the PG on power struggles in international politics. A further aim is to examine the foreign policy goals of the Great Powers and to be able to predict more accurately political developments in the region. One of the outcomes of this study is to emphasise the necessity of having a geopolitical vision of the regional states in the PG to be able to understand their significant situation in balance-of-power politics and to be able to take advantage of various opportunities resulting from geopolitical developments in their best interests as well as that of the region’s security and stability. Geopolitical discourse typically provides us with an explanation of relationships between geography, power and international relations. Here, the idea of geopolitics as a key to develop a security model in this region is drawn from many geopoliticians’ definitions, such as those of the two prominent scholars referred to below.
Gearóid Ó Tuathail
The conventional understanding today is that geopolitics is discourse about world politics, with a particular emphasis on state competition and
the geographical dimensions of power.1
Ezzatolah Ezzati
Geopolitics means understanding the realities of geographical environment to achieve power, through being able to involve in great level of global games and to secure national and vital interests. In other words, geopolitics means knowledge about relationships within a geographical environment and discerning their effect on the political fate of nations.2
Non-regional states’ geopolitical intention
Emphasis on debates enclosing geopolitics is to be found throughout the whole study to support the discussion about the rivalries and foreign policy goals of the Great Powers in the region, in particular the US in regard to the significance of Iran’s geopolitical situation. What is obvious is that, despite various concepts of geopolitics in different historical periods and structures of world order in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (viz. imperialist geopolitics, Cold War geopolitics, new world order geopolitics, environmental geopolitics, and anti-geopolitics; including definitions ranging from geopolitics as an unproblematic description of the world political map to a culturally and politically varied way of describing, representing and writing about geography and international politics – critical geopolitics), as Ó Tuathail notes, geopolitics as a shape of “power/knowledge”, which was obviously responsible for many chauvinist, racist and imperialist ideologies in the first half of the twentieth century, and which supported oppressive European colonial empires that assumed a white supremacy hypothesis and imperialist interventionism (a process which resulted in WWII), did not disappear after WWII. Geopolitics is still a very popular discourse, especially in respect of the later years of the Cold War, where it has been used to explain the global rivalry between the US and the USSR for control over the states and strategic resources and wealth of the world, and the basic and dynamic theoretical role of geopoliticians to politicians to extend such power/knowledge.3
An important point is that geopolitical debates are still being used as both theory and practice, just as they were during the Cold War. Compared to the imperialist geopolitics of the beginning of the twentieth century when physical geography had a determining influence on foreign policy and global strategy, in Cold War geopolitics geography was entwined closely with ideology in descriptions of US–Soviet antagonism. So, as Ó Tuathail notes, “The very geographical terminology used to describe the world map was also a description of ideological identity and difference.” During the Cold War, the West was more than a geographical region and US leaders viewed their state as leading the “free world” with democratic regimes and the highest standards of  civilisation and development, in a crusade against “evil”. The USSR was never simply a territory, but was represented by the West as a constantly expanding threat. The continuity of this geopolitical debate and how US statesmen conceptualised the role of their state in world affairs, which intensified after 11 September 2001 (9/11), can be seen through the US terminology used. Instead of “the evil empire” used by Ronald Reagan to describe the USSR, George W. Bush’s terminology for the official enemies of the US in 2002 was the “axis of evil”, an axis which includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea. As Ó Tuathail notes, Hostility to collective action against the long term degradation of the planet by the occupants of the White House is not new (…). What is new, from their point of view, is the global war against terrorism that began when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon (…) a new post-September 11 era that marked the end of the post-Cold War era. The US president declared the United States at war and the phrase “global war on terror” became so ubiquitous within the US government that it earned a bureaucratic acronym: GWOT. (…) [The] illegal action [of invading Iraq in 2003] and the general unilateralism of the Bush administration produced a significant rift in transatlantic relations. (…) But GWOT and the Iraq war has been good for certain groups within the United States. The US Department of Defense budget is at a record level and it remains the most powerful bureaucracy within the US state. US defense contractors, some with strong ties to the White House, are cashing in on the swelling appropriations. And, despite dangerously low popularity ratings, George W. Bush was able to use his self-appointed status as a “wartime president” to win a close
re-election battle in November 2004. Bush’s Republican Party also made electoral gains, leaving it in control of both the Congress and White House. GWOT, in short, has been very good for the GOP (the Grand Old Party, the nickname for the US Republican Party).4
In the context of this geopolitical discourse, it is not unlikely that Washington has a plan invade Iran, as the other “axis of evil” state. In this respect, the work of geopoliticians such as Mahan (1890), Mackinder (1904) or Spykman (1944) about geopolitical significance of the ME/PG
region and, particularly, the great influence of their theme of imperial expansionism in a variety of ways on the Great Powers’ geopolitical expansion, have been briefly presented to enrich the subject of study. Their views, which have been used by US politicians, were all focused on the containment of the USSR to prevent it from dominating the Eurasian marginal crescent. Halford Mackinder, restating the importance of land power as a response to the sea power doctrine of Alfred Mahan being the first necessary condition for global power, described part of the Russian land mass as the “heartland”, a geographical and territorial region. In Mackinder’s view, competing for authority in a marginal crescent to which the maritime powers have approachability, the Mediterranean and Middle East were key regions in the conflict.
Nicholas John Spykman’s great influence on US policy since WWII advocated that the US should adopt policies that would promote American influence in the marginal crescent, which he called “the rimland”, or at least try to keep the USSR away from controlling or seizing them. He believed the rimland is more important than Mackinder’s heartland and also argued that the balance of power in Eurasia directly affected US security. The rimland’s defining characteristic is that it is an intermediate region, lying between the heartland and the marginal sea powers. It includes the European Continent (except the USSR) and Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, India, the southeast of Asia, China, Korea and Siberia. He noted that all these lands as the amphibious buffer zone between the land powers and sea powers must defend themselves from both sides, and therein lie their fundamental security problems. Spykman believed that whoever controls the rimland rules Eurasia, and whoever rules Eurasia commands the world. Evidence of the vital geographical location of the rimland for Washington is seen in the US military strategy at the end of the twentieth century. As Ezzati notes, the US has three defence positions in the world: first the USA, second Western Europe and third the PG.5 However, Drysdale and Blake’s opinion in 1985 regarding lack of validity in the ideas of the heartland (Mackinder) and rimland (Spykman), and the struggle between land power and sea power to secure control of the marginal states in the modern world for different reasons – including more developed military technology – except for the ME rimland, is still credible, as the ME still has a key strategic role in the global power struggle, besides concerns over access to its energy resources.6 The view of Saul Bernard Cohen, who suggested a more dynamic and less controversial scheme of world geostrategic regions, will also be drawn upon. The general view of the geopolitical world that Cohen provides is more dynamic than the previous model of a bipolarised world because of his concerns about the emergence of “second order” powers in the world political hierarchy system, e.g. Europe, China and Japan, and also regional powers such as Iran, Nigeria and India with the potential for regional authority and infiltration. In contrast to Mackinder, who surveys the globe as a “closed” political space,7 Cohen believes that the space is not united strategically, but a fundamentally divided world is a composition of a number of separate areas and so the overall picture of the geopolitical world is a multiple power-node world with many overlapping areas with influence. Similar to the others, in his theory the ME is defined as a crucial contact zone between Eurasia and the maritime world.
Interestingly, Iran’s situation in various geopolitical theories as shown in Figure A is very significant. This situation arises because of the country’s connection to free seas through the PG and Oman Sea. In addition to Iran’s passage situation, its northern parts are embedded in the heartland in addition to Iran’s plateau, which is positioned in the rimland’s heartland.
In addition to the fact that the PG contains 55 per cent of proven world oil reserves (see Figures B and C), about 93 per cent of the PG oil exported travels through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran controlling it (see Figures D and E). This is besides the fact that Iran is the second largest OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil producer and has the second highest natural gas reserves in the world.
A recent model of the emerging world order has been discussed by the American neoconservative political scientist Samuel Huntington (1993), namely the “clash of civilizations” as a dominant factor in future global politics. While emphasising the continuation of nation-states’ position as the most powerful actors in world politics, he also claimed that culture will be the dominant source of conflict and an element in divisions between nations and groups of different civilisations in the future. In his opinion the most fundamental of such clashes is the conflict between the West and the Rest of the World.8 Emphasising the importance of democratic organisations and institutions of authority, especially the military, he believes that organisation was the path to political power, and so notes that “in the modernizing world he controls the future who organises its politics”, criticising détente policy and supporting US military build-up since President Carter, Huntington’s imperial and militarism vision, despite the end of the Cold War, was not changed and so he remarked that the emerging world “is likely to lack the clarity and stability of the Cold War and to be a more jungle-like world of multiple dangers, hidden traps, unpleasant surprises and moral ambiguities”.11
According to the new post-Cold War geopolitical world picture of Huntington, three principal American strategic interests were: perpetuating the primacy of the US as the global power, which meant watching carefully Japan’s goal of attaining economic dominance and their strategy of reaching such ambition; impeding the emergence of any political and military hegemonic power in Eurasia; and asserting substantial US interests in the PG and ME. Despite vast disagreement with his theory as a remarkably simplistic thesis, Ó Tuathail notes, It is significant, nevertheless, as an example of how neoconservative intellectuals of statecraft are endeavoring to chart global space after the Cold War. What is most interesting about this act of geopower is how it uses the assumptions, goals and methods of Cold War strategic culture to re-territorialize the global scene in a way which perpetuates the society of security and politics as Kulturkampf.12
Huntington’s post-Cold War strategic debate, as Ó Tuathail also notes, due to its aim of maintaining the US as the premier global power, should be based on “renewing its Western civilization from within and actively containing, dividing and playing off other civilizations against each other”. The other point that Ó Tuathail remarks on is that Huntington’s model describes a world of potential and actual Cold War threats against the US. However in his new debate concerning the “clash of civilizations”, his major concerns regarding the necessity of renewal of the society of security within the “West” instead of Japan focuses more on a new danger, which is:a “Confucian–Islamic connection” which features a militaristic Chinese economy exporting arms to Islamic states who are determined to seek nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. “A Confucian–Islamic military connection has … come into being, designed to promote acquisition by its members of the weapons and weapons technologies needed to counter the military power of the West. (…) A new form of arms competition is thus occurring between Islamic–Confucian states and the West.” (…)
Huntington’s response, amongst other things, is to call for a moderation in (…) [military] reduction of Western military capabilities and for the West to “maintain military superiority in East and Southeast Asia”.13 Therefore, Ó Tuathail concludes that “Huntington’s thesis is not about the clash of civilizations. It is about making global politics a clash of civilizations.”14
Regarding Huntington’s perception of the potentially rough conflict between Western and Islamic civilisations as a defining feature of an evolving world order, as Kemp and Harkavy note, “[T]he Middle East (including the Caspian Basin region) has now assumed the role of the strategic high ground, a key strategic prize in the emerging global system at the juncture between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”15 In general, this study agrees with Huntington when he downplays the continuing major power of the nation-states in the future of global politics. The specific point of agreement is not his point of view that employs ‘cultures’ of people as the dominant source of conflicts in the future global politics, but from the point of view that people (individuals and groups) will gain much more power and will play a greater role in international political affairs in the future. The modern world’s wider and more complex set of interactions, in addition to the growing capacity and importance of and emphasis on reforms, will encourage nations and groups to have more influence on world affairs. Nevertheless the orientation of future global politics is important as to whether they serve the interest of a premier global power or the benefit of a world that appreciates diversity and contains different nations and civilisations.
This is where the study has stressed the need to consider more seriously President Khatami’s theory of dialogue among civilisations in international relations. This theory, which was mainly provided in response to Huntington’s, emphasises the importance of dialogue, despite cultural diversities, in a time where all nations and the globe itself need the most cooperation and harmony possible; some major examples are global warming, environmental degradation and resource depletion.
Regional states’ geopolitical perspectives As there is a basic place for power in geopolitical discourses this domain of knowledge and expertise can provide power for whoever applies it. In addition, the advantage of this knowledge is that it predicts the future direction of international affairs with all its conflict and cooperation possibilities. However, as long as the ME/PG is a disparate region lacking a single geopolitical perspective, the intention of this study is to gather all PG states’ attention towards this important element in their strategies. Lack of attention to their geographical location will cause more geopolitical problems. The topography of this part of the world has affected its peoples’ regional and not global geopolitical perceptions; also long-standing divisions and traditional contentions between regional states have caused them to focus on regional rather than global dangers. Hence, as long as  the ME/PG political regimes do not support geographical integration or recognise the existence of a mosaic of related and imbricated geopolitical spheres in this region, there will not be any possibility of security and stability there. But, as Ezzati notes, if the countries in the Fertile Crescent, from east of the Mediterranean through the PG and sea of Oman (Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Arabian Peninsula and Iran) – which, owing to their significant geopolitical situation, have for centuries comprised a region of rivalries and so been a cause of insecurity – were able to take advantage of their geographical contiguity and establish free movement within this region, then stability and security would return to these territories. Therefore, besides external threats and interferences, other reasons which involve their domestic and regional threats and problems are major reasons why the PG states have regional geopolitical perspectives rather than global views. Because of this significance, three chapters of this study (Chapters 6–8) are dedicated to the foreign policy approach of littoral states. In addition, the borders between these states have been left as de facto boundaries in a way each state looks at its neighbouring states as its own complementary.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to territorial and boundary disputes between the littoral states as a major source of instability in the PG. However, only if such a fragile region were able to take advantage of a single geopolitical perspective would it be able to sort out most of its political, social, economic and military problems. For the PG states it is a necessity to look at this region as a whole, not as divided states and groups of individuals ranged against the other states or groups. Having a geopolitical
perspective would provide better understanding and recognise the geo -political significance of this region from the non-regional players’ views too. This study fills some of the gaps left by global geostrategic models with respect to geopolitical visions in this region. First, it aims to show how it is possible to change the geopolitical significance of the PG, which has been a disruptive element in the region’s security due to its being a subject of rivalries, into a convergent element that encourages cooperation among all beneficiary parties.
Second, all the models not based on the major geopolitical realities of this region were so preoccupied with superpower rivalry that they ignored the role of humans in their equations. Such ignorance, as Drysdale and Blake note, was present whether regarding the deeply complex and relevant regional geopolitical relationships or the geopolitical perspectives of the people.16 This study’s security model appreciates the role of peoples’ communication.
Third, it has an inclusive vision which considers the interests of all regional and ultra-regional parties whose security and interests are somehow related to this region. The theories outlined above, in contrast, had different expansionist visions deriving from their own countries’ political interests, regardless of the regional states’ security concerns and national interests. In this regard, as Ó Tuathail also notes: Geopolitical experts are never detached but embedded in economic, political, racial and sexual relations of power (as Mackinder certainly was). They do not see objectively but within the structures of meaning provided by their socialization into certain (usually privileged) backgrounds, intellectual contexts, political beliefs and culture. They do not see “the real” but see that which their culture interprets and constructs as “the real.” Their so-called “laws” of strategy are often no more than self-justifications for their own political ideology and that of those in power within their state. Their production of knowledge about international politics, in other words, is a form of power which they wield to serve their own political ends.17 Considering this significant geopolitical position of the PG required close scrutiny of the important geopolitical elements and security concerns and systems in this region. Therefore, the geopolitical elements, especially oil and gas, and their impact on the ultra-regional powers’
politics has been studied (through Chapters 1 and 2 to 4) to yield a clearer understanding of different security models in the region with respect to all regional and ultra-regional players’ interests and security concerns.
Foreign policy approach
In order to be able to analyse the determinant factors of a security system this study has drawn upon the level of analysis framework in international relations. This has examined the issues involved in creating a regional security model so as to turn threats into opportunities for regional cooperation and sustainability, especially through being able to identify casual factors of international politics. Taking advantage of
arguments of scholars such as Steven Spiegel (UCLA political science professor and author), Theodore Couloumbis and James Wolfe about the significance of finding links between the insights derived at the various levels and from different actors and units of analysis to be able to identify what Couloumbis and Wolfe note as, “different pieces of a multidimensional puzzle” which at the end could be able to “put these pieces together into a general theory of interaction, a theory that has both descriptive and predictive powers”,18 this study discusses all three levels of the PG states’ foreign policies and the forces that have affected them, including the systemic level (the interaction between states) and the debate that occurs at the domestic and individual levels (see Chapters 6 to 8). These chapters also draw upon social analysis, to provide an analysis of the situation in PG states with regard to their social backgrounds and belief systems. They also draw upon elite theory to provide an analysis of power relationships or policy-planning networks in PG states’ societies, as well as their different definitions of security and national interests.
Besides issues of particular importance to other countries, this study makes especial effort to evoke the perspective from which the PG states themselves view their problems and choose their domestic and foreign policy priorities in respect to their legitimate strategic concerns which arise from their geographic, social, and historical context. This is a fundamental factor which motivates states’ political behaviour to ensure each state’s security, territorial integrity, national cohesion and approach to the sources of wealth essential to develop its economy and political institutions effectively and independently. What is usually missing from many analyses in the West, specifically in Washington, is that security in the PG will be very heavily influenced by how they understand the regional states’ perceptions of threat as well as their national security issues. Therefore, Chapters 6–8 focus on the PG littoral states using the following framework: 1) political history; 2) political system; 3) internal threat; 4) external threat to stability of PG states. Although non-Western scholars including Iranians, such as Rouhollah Ramazani, Shahram Chubin, Sepehr Zabih, etc., have paid more attention to the regional states’ concerns and their role in any security arrangements in the region their studies left a gap, filled by the present study, with respect to the vital role of the two strongest regional and global powers with some interest in the region in establishing a long-term multilateral security  approach and ensure peace and security in that region, as a principal. The study has emphasised the need for an appropriate relationship between these two regional and non-regional powers (in this study, Iran and the US) to assure a more stable region and security for all players.
Security approach
To lay the groundwork for developing a better and more comprehensive future security arrangement, this study appeals to empirical data and observation, as well as to theoretical framework and critical analysis, to articulate the reasons for the failure of security models in the PG. The arguments are supported by detailed evidence for each model, during the time period 1962–1997. Regional security is examined in order to explain the major strategic choices available to both the PG and the external powers’ decision-makers in a different international atmosphere in this regard. This analysis is conducted through the prism of three fundamental schools of thought in international relations – realism, neo-liberalism or the cooperative-security school – and the hegemonic or counterproliferation. The present aim in this study is to investigate a comprehensive strategy for peace and stability in the PG. In order to do this the relative strengths and weaknesses of the three theories by studying their differences and similarities as well as the various historical challenges in applying the frameworks to the PG security environment will be assessed in much detail in the final conclusion.

The differences and similarities between these security theories are indicated in this study by referring Kraig as follows: proponents of traditional realpolitik consider international security to be a balance of interests based on a rough balance of power, whereas the more recent US strategic model is based on an imbalance of power and interests (hegemony) and on the use of both offensive and defensive threats.
According to neo-liberals, the cooperative model can be considered as a balance of interests based upon mutual reassurance. However, despite the similarity of realpolitik and cooperative in that both strategies advocate the importance of brokering a balance of interests, they differ in their preferred model of guaranteeing this balance. The realpolitik theory relies to a great extent on implicit military and economic threats (and temporary alliances to build up power), while the cooperative theory relies on promises and reassurances as firm and impenetrable factors.
Nevertheless, both of these schools are quite different to the evolving US hegemony strategy, which is increasingly focused on establishing a unitary and dominant value system based on a network of friends and allies in keeping with US foreign policy objectives. The hegemonic approach assumes no possibility for competitors with different goals and values, while the realpolitik and cooperative security models believe that each nation-states’ national interests should be guaranteed at some minimal level. In addition, the cooperative school of thought shares some of its theoretical assumptions with realism, e.g. requiring a set of geopolitical circumstances. For instance, both assume that the primary actor is the sovereign state and that such states will be domestically stable, immune from the sort of domestic turmoil evident in Iran’s 1979 revolution, and therefore the mutual agreements ordering relations would remain stable.19

This study will show how the policies of selective multilateralism, bilateralism and unilateralism have been unsuccessful in bringing about security in the PG. It will be shown that this is because the most prominent states favour inextricably exclusionary types of coalition. All of the above policies result in the systematic exclusion, economically or militarily, of a major state and of non-state actors in the security order. Regarding strategic properties of the PG which affect how successful a security system in it will be and the fragility of temporary alignments of the classical kind of two against the third pillar, there is an emphasis on a combination of two synergistic components of balance of power between the three key regional players, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and meaningful reform in the littoral states for the future PG security system; where the region lacks both. Therefore, analysts and scholars, as well as policy-makers, have drawn similar conclusions concerning the two dominant contending frameworks for PG security: US hegemony and its dominant military presence and principled multilateralism.
These conclusions are viewed as even more valid in the post-Saddam era. Accordingly, by studying the analysis of Michael Kraig, Steven Spiegel, Richard Russell, Rathmell and Bjørn Møller, who all, with regard to strategic properties of the PG, emphasise the need for a new approach and policy options for security in the PG regional and external powers’ security policies towards the region – from various angles and different solutions – this study has tried to come up with a more practicable approach to the security of this region.
A number of key research gaps have been highlighted regarding security in the final conclusion, which has resulted in an alternative security model in the PG. The Pyramid Security Model could be a solution to the highly volatile situation in the PG, because in addressing major security issues this model is based on the geopolitical realities, as well as the political and economic concerns, of all regional and ultraregional parties. It is also able to avoid the typical problems that arise for models based on a competition for power between states with conflicting national interests and agendas, like Russell’s,20 as it does not base a balance of power on such confrontational foundations. Building on international experiences and successes and failures of previous models, this study has created a model on the basis of the mixed approaches of a cooperative-security (liberalism) framework and realpolitik (realism) which would be able to manage relations between states and create a regulation of power, which would mean the rule of “law” and not “the powers”. To achieve such a goal, analysts have suggested multiple different approaches. For instance, Kraig has suggested a “principled multilateral” approach which includes a rules-based system in which international law is applicable to all actors in the PG, including the US.
Pyramid is a model of developing security through the feelings of attachment and interdependency which should occur when the littoral states have a single geopolitical vision. It is designed (see Figure F) with three sides consisting of: a) the policies of the littoral Arab states; b) the
policies of ultra-regional powers; c) Iran’s policies – Iran being the most powerful regional player in the PG. The base of the pyramid, which interacts with all three sides, is the geopolitics of the PG.
Choosing geopolitics as the base of the new model stems from the need to emphasise a convergent element among the PG states for ensuring the long-term functionality of a security model, as an element which can assure and remove the fear of bigger states by smaller states. This is due to the fact that geopolitics is the most fixed and firm feature of the region, with an impact on every single nation-state’s interests and national security. Emphasising the region’s geopolitics shows that every state, as a part of this geopolitical region, like pieces of a puzzle, has a unique and non-ignorable place in the security system. Irrespective of their size, all states have a similar, though unequal, weight.
In the Pyramid model regional states have been urged to have global and not merely regional geopolitical perspectives. This would result in a single geopolitical vision as a power/knowledge for all the regional states in the PG, which would enable them to play a major role in balance of power politics. They would thus be able to take advantage of various opportunities resulting from geopolitical developments, to their best interests as well as to the region’s security and stability. Only by addressing this fragile region as a whole, not as divided states and groups of individuals ranged against the other states or groups, would it be possible to prevent further geopolitical problems in this region and change the traditional disruptive role of geopolitical significance of the PG in the region’s security to enable it to become a convergent element. Under such circumstances, geopolitics would work as an element that encourages cooperation among all beneficiary parties instead of being an expansion lever of the external powers. Hence, by increasing the geopolitical position of the region, every member state will benefit. By emphasising geopolitical elements, especially socio-political and economic power, rather than military power, it is possible to minimise the significance of smaller states’ fear of bigger states. This would in turn lessen the possibility of any states withdrawing from the model because of any sudden ideological or political changes. Therefore, the pyramid is immune to any significant internal changes to the littoral states. In addition, this model connects the issues of legitimacy and authority closely with the issue of sustainability. A major cause of the potential success of the model is the way it construes the gains it aims to achieve: the gains are mutual gains for all participants, not gains for one particular actor, or set of actors. It can thereby more plausibly make the assurance that remaining in the system will be in the interests of all the relevant parties.
This study has come up with two new mechanisms for the pyramid, which differentiates it from previous security models. First, is the necessity of a proper and positive relationship between the strongest regional actor and the major non-regional player (with great influence and interest in that region), as a general and certain principle to attain regional security in any region. The lesson to be learned from the experience of the most geopolitical region in the world, the PG, is that no other alternative strategy would be able to fulfil regional and ultra-regional interests and meet security concerns in any region, including the PG. Hence, it is argued that, in addition to the need to construct comprehensive multilateral coalitions, the key issue for achieving a durable collective security approach in the PG region will remain Iran–US relations. This is in marked contrast to the other analysts’ approaches, whereby all the key players in the region – namely, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia – are given the same weight.
Besides the regional perception of the importance of cooperation models and the significance of the US–Iran relationship, this study emphasises the significance of the role of other ultra-regional players, especially emerging powers like the EU and some key states in the AP (viz. China, India and Japan) to construct a more sustainable PG security system. Through their strategic interest in the PG, especially their growing dependency on PG energy supplies which exceeds that of the US, their close ties with the region by a network of economic and political linkages and their deep concerns over US permanent hegemony in the ME/PG, which have resulted in their recognition of a need to adopt a greater geopolitical role independently of Washington, it is possible to create a counterbalance to the US hegemony in the PG in benefit of developing a multilateral security regime (mainly explained in Chapters 2 and 3).
The second mechanism the Pyramid model introduces is a fourth element to previous categories of the important, interlocking elements needed to establish a workable, legitimate and authoritative security model in the PG. An appropriate international political environment with a proper international security system’s structure is added to a further three elements: an inclusive and multilateral approach; a balance of power, preferably through arms control negotiations among all three regional key players; and domestic developments and reforms in the littoral states.
Such stress is also important because many scholars, such as Kraig; perceive an external contribution to improve the security situation within the region as important, owing to the fragility of domestic politics and interregional relations in the PG.21
The importance of this model stems not only from the role that states have in its architecture and their effect on its functionality, but also that some consideration is given to the role of people (even sub-national groups), their interactions, as well as their satisfaction. Its emphasis on reforms will encourage positive competition among all littoral states to upgrade their weight in this security framework via greater civil development, rather than military power or territorial size. This is true for ultra-regional players too; in particular, by contributing towards the regions’ development they can upgrade their role in this region.

NOTES
1 Gearóid Ó Tuathail, “General introduction; thinking critically about geopolitics”. In Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Simon Dalby, and Paul Routledge (eds), The geopolitics reader (US and Canada: Routledge, 2006), 1.
2 Ezzatolah Ezzati, Geopolitic dar Gharn-e Bist-o Yekom [Geopolitics in the Twentyfirst Century] (Tehran: SAMT, 1380 Solar Calendar [2001]), 7.
3 Ó Tuathail (edition: 1998), op. cit., 1, 24.
4 Ó Tuathail (2006), op. cit., 3.
5 Ezzati, op. cit., 18 –19.
6 Alasdair Drysdale and Gerald Blake, The Middle East and North Africa: A political geography (New York: Oxford Press, 1985), 27.
7 Ó Tuathail (1998), op. cit., 16.
8 Samuel Huntington (summer 1993), “The clash of civilizations?”, Foreign Affairs, 22–49.
9 Drysdale and Blake, op. cit., 26.
10 Figure cited from Geoffrey Kemp and Robert Harkavy, Strategic geography and the changing Middle East (Washington, D. C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 118.
11 Gearóid Ó Tuathail, “Samuel Huntington and the ‘civilizing’ of global space”. In Ó Tuathail (et al) (1998), op. cit., 170–171, cited from Samuel Huntington, Political Order in in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 8.
12 Ibid., 171, 173.
13 Ibid., 174.
14 Ibid., 175.
15 Kemp and Harkavy, op. cit., 7–8.
16 Drysdale and Blake, op. cit., 28.
17 Ó Tuathail (1998), “Introduction: thinking critically about geopolitics”, op. cit., 17.
18 Theodore Couloumbis and James Wolfe, Introduction to international relations: Power and justice (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1990), 19–31.
19 Ibid.
20 Richard Russell (winter 2005) “The Persian Gulf ’s collective-security mirage”, Middle East Policy Council, vol. XII, no. 4, 81.
21 Michael Kraig (Fall 2004), “Assessing Alternative Security Frameworks for the Persian Gulf ”, Middle East Policy, Washington: vol. 11, issue 3, cited in the site of Gulf2000 of Columbia University, NY, USA.

Read more in SECURITY ARRANGEMENTS IN THE PERSIAN GULF: With Special Reference to Iran’s Foreign Policy, MAHBOUBEH F. SADEGHINIA, Ithaca Press, 2011