Political Faultlines in the Middle East-中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所

The whole region of the Middle East is beset with a structural crisis of which particular crises confronting the component countries happen to be merely subsets. The real questions revolve round the issue of how long can the present dispensations of power and social structures in the region forged in the twentieth century (first half or second) can last in the twenty-first, when they no longer reflect the realities on the ground.

This volume aims to look at some of the issues to see how the faultlines in the region appear in 2020 to both those in the region, and those outside it. The volume limits itself to only Levant and the Gulf and looks at the tensions within and policies (both foreign and domestic) of some of the key regional players which have regional repercussions. It also looks at the policies of some of the global players operating in the region that have bearing on the regional faultlines.

CONTENTS

xi Contributors

1 1.Introduction

9 2.'A Fantasy Brought to Life': Revisiting Neo-Ottomanism in Yeni Turkiye

Anita Sengupta

29 3.Trajectories of a Stalemate: Turkey's Kurdish Question

Necati Anaz and Mehmet Ozkan

47 4.The Lebanese Revolution and Hizbullah's Shi ‘i Axis of Resistance

Joseph Alagha

97 5.Imperial Storm Troopers and the Return ofthe Mahdi:A Historical Perspective of the Israeli-Iranian Struggle

Dr Nir Boms and Maj. (Res.) Stephane Cohen

111 6.Saudi Arabia: Navigating a Perilous Regional and International Politics

Muddassir Quamar

131 7.Safeguarding the Islamic Republic: Structural Factors and Generational Shift Shaping Tehran's Foreign Policy

Kingshuk Chatterjee

151 8.From Proactive to Reactive Shift in American Middle East Strategy

Binoda K Mishra

163 9.The Return of the Prodigal: The Lengthening Shadow of Russia in the Middle East

Hari Sankar Vasudevan and Kingshuk Chatterjee

179 10. China, Iran and West Asia: Civilisational Co-operation in theTwenty-first Century

Jigme Yeshe Lama

195 11. The Unstable Middle East and India's Options

Ambassador Anil Trigunayat (IFS Retd.)