Political Faultlines in the Middle East

Editor KINGSHUK CHATTERJEE

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.

Editor KINGSHUK CHATTERJEE is a Professor in the Department of History, Calcutta University. Chatterjee’s area of expertise is in Middle Eastern politics and he specialises in Political Islam in the Modern World. He is the author of Ali Shari’ati and the Shaping of Political Islam in Iran and A Split in the Middle: the Making of the Political Centre in Iran (1987-2004).

Contents

Contributors

1. Introduction

2. ‘A Fantasy Brought to Life’: Revisiting Neo-Ottomanism in YeniTurkiye
Anita Sengupta

3. Trajectories of a Stalemate: Turkey’s Kurdish Question
NecatiAnazand Mehmet Ozkan

4. The Lebanese Revolution and Hizbullah’s Shi‘i Axis of Resistance
Joseph Alagha

5. Imperial Storm Troopers and the Return of the Mahdi: A Historical Perspective of the Israeli-Iranian Struggle
Dr. NirBomsand Maj. (Res.) Stéphane Cohen

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

7. Safeguarding the Islamic Republic: Structural Factors and Generational Shift Shaping Tehran’s Foreign Policy
Kingshuk Chatterjee

8. From Proactive to Reactive Shift in American Middle East Strategy
Binoda K. Mishra

9. The Return of the Prodigal: The Lengthening Shadow of Russia in the Middle East
Hari SankarVasudevanandKingshuk Chatterjee

10. China, Iran and West Asia: Civilisational Co-operation in the Twenty-first Century
Jigme Yeshe Lama

11. The Unstable Middle East and India’s Options
Ambassador Anil Trigunayat (IFS Retd.)