Ellias Aghili Dehnavi - Hegemony and border tensions: The mystery of the Persian Gulf

Copyright 2021 Ellias Aghili Dehnavi, MohammadAli Rahiminejad

Editing: Ellias Aghili Dehnavi, Dr. Sam Fisher

Publisher: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany

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Hegemony and border tensions

It can be said that there is an interrelationship between hegemony and border tensions in the way that the establishment of hegemony for the regional and universal powers rests on overcoming environmental obstacles and border tensions. On the other hand, once a countrys hegemony is established, border tensions will be minimized in its region. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a potential power with the highest probability of achieving hegemony in the region as it owns the material requirements in western Asia. The border tensions between neighboring countries as well as the rivalry have increased the incessant tensions. In contrast to the previous decades, Iran has been able to successfully drive all the border tensions out of its border, which can result in the establishment of Irans hegemony, along with cultural influence and material possessions. However, there are some hurdles to this achievement, one of which is the alliance of Arab countries. This book also examines the aspects of disagreement and tension among Arab countries along the Persian Gulf. According to Mearsheimer, Iran is naturally working towards establishing a regional hegemony and the United States of America will clearly counteract. To this end, the USA has devised various measures such as bucket-passing and balancing policies, war, creating hostility, political decoy, and stimulation in the last four decades to escalate border tensions and impede the hegemony. Governments have always sought to maximize their power in the international system and in order to do so they have been competing with other actors. The Persian Gulf has been considered by many thinkers and policy makers in the field of international politics and its connection with the interests of the great powers. The main question of this book is: What is the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran among other powers and compared to other countries in the Persian Gulf; and whether this country can be considered as the hegemon of the Persian Gulf region in terms of aggressive realism? To advance the present study, the descriptive-analytical method of interest based on statistical data has been used. According to the results and researches from the perspective of aggressive realism, at present, the top government which is the hegemon of the Persian Gulf is considered the Islamic Republic of Iran, which in addition to geopolitical advantages has appropriate economic and military advantages.

Keywords: Potential power, regional hegemony, aggressive realism, Persian Gulf, Islamic Republic of Iran, Persian Gulf Council, and Border disputes, Persian Gulf peace, Sustainable security of the region.

Persian Gulf is located and bordered by Iran to the northeast, Oman to the east and the Arabian Peninsula to the south. Its length from the mouth of the Arvand River to the Strait of Hormuz is equal to 1259 km, and its width from the mouth to the coast Oman varies approximately between 180 and 250 km and in the Strait of Hormuz is approximately 85 km. Iran, with occupying 1375 percentage of total coasts of the Persian Gulf as the longest coastline and Iraq with 45.3 kilometers from Bandar Abbas to the mouth of Faw, includes 18.5% of all beaches and have the shortest coastline connected with open waters. This blue line is one of the strategic and geopolitical regions of the world, it is still the center of regional and international power possessing 65.5% of the world's oil resources, 30% of the world's natural gas and having a Rimland position, it is the new heartland of the world. The mentioned geopolitical position paves the way for the presence and role of the colonial states and many fundamental changes have taken place in the political units around the political geography (Weiss, 2007: 28). In addition, among the subsystems of the Middle East region, the Persian Gulf as an independent and distinct region in terms of geopolitics includes Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain (Haji Yousefi, 2008: 53). The Persian Gulf, with its abundant energy resources, has always been in conflict with world and regional powers. Over the years the United States has been involving itself through various means, such as the Iran-Iraq war, supporting Saudi Arabia, and direct intervention to prevented the formation of a dominant regional power over the Persian Gulf. In fact, the absence of intervening powers is in line with the goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the lack of formation of a dominant power in the Persian Gulf is in line with the goals of world powers, especially where the United States is defined. Recognizing the capabilities of each of the Persian Gulf countries in the present study, the authors examine the capabilities of countries within the region and their competition, especially in some cases (economic and military) and they finally rank the countries in the region in the pyramid of regional power which has come to the data of 2018. The main question of this article is: What is the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran among other powers and compared to other countries in the Persian Gulf; and whether this country can be considered as the hegemon of the Persian Gulf region in terms of aggressive realism? To advance the present study, the descriptive-analytical method of interest has been used based on statistical data. Our main goal is to provide capabilities of the Persian Gulf countries which are playing regional and global role in international interactions, which is presented through the presentation of 2018 statistics. To this end, the author first shows the nature of power from the perspective of aggressive realism in the first part of the article, these capabilities objectively and operationally are in the form of 7 tables under the title of the potential and actual capabilities of the Persian Gulf countries which are identified in the second section; finally in the conclusion section the final analysis of the data is done.