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Selected countries in the world have the technical capability of creating nuclear energy. Iran has striven to acquire the know-how to harness nuclear power and has been scientifically successful. However, it was sanctioned by the foremost world powers for doing so. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the Iranian nuclear dossier came about and how it became a global issue, how it was resolved and who will benefit from its resolution.

The paper is designed to review the antecedents, to study the international community’s position, to analyze the outcomes and to make some recommendations. The study’s methodology is therefore analytical.

Access to nuclear technology is a political matter and those who are allowed to use it might be subject to the ideological preferences of those that have long had it. The holders of nuclear technology normally interact with allies to provide them with help to fulfill a nuclear power program under certain circumstances. If an individual country decides to go its own way and develop an indigenous technical capability, it will come under scrutiny and measures will be taken to control it. If those measures fail, sanctions and pressures will be employed to hamper the achievement of nuclear independence. In the absence of tangible results, negotiations will start and agreement may be reached based on the expertise of the two sides’ negotiators. A peaceful agreement could be a win-win solution if it respects the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. Iran’s nuclear deal, if implemented properly, would be a success story and will shape future policies in the Middle East.

The first prerequisite for research is to have access to credible literature. When dealing with a new phenomenon, researchers face the challenge of not having sufficient material to develop a hypothesis or respond to all the questions that they have to pose. For Iran’s nuclear deal hundreds of articles have been written, but few books. Furthermore, because of the delicacy and confidentiality of the negotiations undertaken, one cannot interview the authorities involved either.

There are some Asian, Latin American and African countries with similar plans concerning nuclear energy. The paper will provide food for thought to evaluate the cost of their decisions and make suggestions for how they should proceed so that they can be perceived to be acting properly.

Although nuclear themes are largely political and a part of the security arena internationally, access to nuclear technology as a power source could have a significant impact on the social development of the countries pursuing nuclear energy programs. The paper studies the effect of the Iranian deal on health, education, social networks and civil society.

The author has been involved in part of the negotiating process and has, thus, been in a position to verify different information discussed in the global mass media. The subject is also a brand-new issue in international relations, since a peaceful solution was found for a scenario that had previously been solved by military intervention, without exception. Finally, it is interdisciplinary research with an innovative analysis approach.

This paper aims to examine the regional dynamics that further consolidated Israel’s national security in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, reflecting upon the nuclear challenge between Iran and Israel and Iran's expanding activities in the region.

To prove the central argument, the study uses a conceptual framework that centers on deterrence as the main approach used by states to consolidate their influence in the Middle East region.

Iran's nuclear progress and influence in the region has strengthened Israel’s security and fostered an unprecedented open rapprochement led by USA efforts with the Gulf regimes.

The paper draws particular attention to the Iran–Israel nuclear competency, and the Israeli preferred policy options regarding Iranian activities in the region amid turbulent Middle East. In addition, the paper offers insight to the regional dynamics that further consolidated Israel’s national security in the region while maintaining a status of Arab vulnerability and backwardness.

Iran is a country with substantial tourism potential. Iran’s tourism industry, however, was side-lined for decades due to international sanctions. The election of President Hassan Rouhani and the subsequent deal on Iran’s nuclear programme (reached on 14 July 2015) has resulted in softening of nuclear-related international sanctions and brought much needed relief to a struggling tourism industry in Iran. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the emergence of cruise tourism—as an attractive option for both domestic and international markets—with the introduction of the Iran’s first cruise ship, named “Sunny”, since the 1979 revolution.

This study is a short viewpoint piece based on the author’s interpretation of cruise tourism development in Iran and its future opportunities and challenges.

Following the nuclear deal, Iran has seen a substantial growth in inbound tourist numbers and attracted considerable investment in tourism-related infrastructure such as air transport and the hospitality sector. While cruise tourism is and remains an emerging phenomenon in Iran, it is evident that the country has a vested interest in developing this lucrative sector due to the country’s strong domestic market and potential to serve the international market.

This is an original topic which has never been investigated before. Cruise tourism is an emerging market in Iran and this study sheds new light on this new development. The paper focuses on the historical, current and future development of the tourism industry in Iran with a specific emphasis on cruise tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to study and specify to what extent Iran will succeed in being a regional hegemon. The paper is devoted to clarification of the constitutive elements for regional hegemony. These elements will be related to an actor’s perception of its role and regional perception, and how these hegemons exert power, do these work for the public good in the region (provision) and how this regional power projects power and exerts power to influence others’ preferences and values without reference to violence (projection). For the Middle East, Iran emerged as a key player in most regional conflicts and it tried to increase its sphere of influence as a regional hegemon. Therefore the question here would be: To what extend could Iran succeed in being a regional hegemon and what are the circumstances that could enhance or constrain this Iranian ambition? So the aim of the paper is to look at three dimensions in general and see whether Iran makes a plausible candidate for regional hegemony. The paper outlines the essential traits of a regional hegemon, and the main elements that constitute a regional hegemony such as perception, provision and projection, and then analyze how Iran follows those elements by analyzing internal perceptions of the Iranian elite about Iranian regional role, regional acceptance, provision of public good, projection and finally impact of the relation with external great powers. Through analyzing its regional strategy in Syria and Iraq since 2003, the year of invasion of Iraq, since ever a political vacuum was created, that enabled Iran to extend its regional influence, after the fall of its historical regional rival, Saddam Hussein baathi regime.

The study adopts an analytical framework of analyzing a regional hegemony strategy which is approached by Miriam Prys in her study “Hegemony, domination, detachment: differences in regional powerhood” to study and analyze Iran’s regional behavior as one of regional power that is seeking regional hegemony. This analytical framework is one of the most significant analytical tools that interests in the study of the behavior of regional power and identify the constitutive dimensions for regional hegemony such as self-perception, regional perception, provision and power projection.

The study concludes that there are obstacles completely in front of achieving the Iranian quest to regional hegemony over the Middle East. These are the continuing US involvement in the Middle East and the consequent tense relationship between Iran and the USA. It is most unlikely that Iran will be hegemonic state over the Middle East as long as there are refusal and resistance from other regional states for Iranian regional role; as each of regional powers has tools to contain the influence of the other. The Iranian regional behavior that is sectarianism-based, whether to protect Shiite shrines and holy places or to protect Shiites in the region, such policies deepen the ideological and sectarian conflicts. It also has not provided an attractive cultural model for the peoples of the region.

This paper enhances the deep analysis of the Middle East dynamics through the prospective of regional power. Also, the paper focuses on the analysis of the relation between great power and aspiring regional power and the impact on its strategies.

This study enhances the understanding of how Iranian decision-makers perceive their regional Iranian and the threats. Moreover, the tools that Iran uses its hard power and ideational one to create regional followers and change its allies’ normative and value systems to come in line with its national interests. Moreover, the study tries to measure the actual Iranian influence, its weakness and strength so that the Arab states and the West could behave in a fruitful way.

In the final analysis, the paper offers an insight into the regional behavior and the importance of external power in regional dynamics and to what extent the regional hegemon is applicable to Iran.

The conflict between Iran and Iraq is not new; it dates from long before September 1980. In fact, the origins of the current war can be traced to the battle of Qadisiyah in Southern Iraq in 637 A.D., a battle in which the Arab armies of General Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas decisively defeated the Persian army. In victory, the Arab armies extended Islam east of the Zagros Mountains to Iran. In defeat, the Persian Empire began a steady decline that lasted until the sixteenth century. However, since the beginning of that century, Persia has occupied Iraq three times: 1508–1514, 1529–1543, and 1623–1638. Boundary disputes, specifically over the Shatt al‐Arab Waterway, and old enmities caused the wars. In 1735, belligerent Iranian naval forces entered the Shatt al‐Arab but subsequently withdrew. Twenty years later, Iranians occupied the city of Sulimaniah and threatened to occupy the neighboring countries of Bahrain and Kuwait. In 1847, Iran dominated the eastern bank of the Shatt al‐Arab and occupied Mohamarah in Iraq.

This paper aims to explore to what extent can the Saudi–US alliance endure, given the several challenges it has faced over the past decade. Using a conceptual framework from the alliance theory, the paper will trace the historical evolution of the alliance between the two countries, then will identify some of the challenges that have faced the alliance on both the regional and bilateral levels, and finally will assess the impact of these challenges on the resilience of the Saudi–US alliance.

This paper will use the alliance theory literature to analyze the challenges and the resilience of the Saudi–US relations.

The Saudi–US alliance has encountered several challenges in the past decade such as the Arab spring, the Iranian nuclear deal and the Civil War in Syria and Yemen. However, this alliance proved to be resilient, and the strategic partnership between the two countries managed to overcome these challenges.

The importance of this paper stems from the fact that the USA and the Saudi Arabia are two pivotal countries, and their relationship affects regional and international dynamics. The paper contributes to the literature on the Saudi–US bilateral relations as well as their views on recent regional issues such as the Arab Spring, the civil war in Yemen and Syria. Assessing the limits and potentials of the alliance between the two countries could also help us understand the future of regional developments in the Middle East.

This paper aims to identify and determine regional tourism axes in Hormozgan Province, Iran, as a region with significant potential

The research method is quantitative and uses the fuzzy accreditation tool and TOPSIS model; the identification, determination and ranking of regional tourism axes have been performed by analyzing the spatial distribution of tourism attractions in the GIS environment.

The results show that given the capacities of Hormozgan Province, at least 15 axes are recognizable. This paper highlights regional tourism planning as a tool for urban and rural socio-economic development in potential provinces such Hormozgan.

This study provides a number of practical implications for regional tourism development as follows: it identifies some of the most important potential axes in Hormozgan Province, which can be considered as investment areas in the national and regional tourism development strategy. The spatial results of this study could be embedded in all urban and rural developmental plans in the province. Tourism investment should shift its spatial concentration from the spot approach, especially islands and cities, to the axis approach while equipping those axes as comprehensive spatial strategic regional tourism plans. Sectoral tourism in each sector including sports, economy and nature could be planned as if sectoral institutions and organizations are going to develop their own tourism goals.

The starting point of this paper is the propositional model of conflict resolution which was presented and critically discussed in Lempp (2016). Based on this model, a software implementation, called ProCON, is introduced and applied to three scenarios. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how ProCON can be used by negotiators and to evaluate ProCON’s practical usefulness as an automated negotiation support system.

The propositional model is implemented as a computer program. The implementation consists of an input module to enter data about a negotiation situation, an output module to generate outputs (e.g. a list of all incompatible goal pairs or a graph displaying the compatibility relations between goals) and a queries module to run queries on particular aspects of a negotiation situation.

The author demonstrates how ProCON can be used to capture a simple two-party, non-iterative prisoner’s dilemma, applies ProCON to a contract negotiation between a supplier and a purchaser of goods, and uses it to model the negotiations between the Iranian and six Western governments over Iran’s nuclear enrichment and stockpiling capacities.

A limitation of the current version of ProCON arises from the fact that the computational complexity of the underlying algorithm is EXPTIME (i.e. the computing time required to process information in ProCON grows exponentially with respect to the number of issues fed into the program). This means that computing time can be quite long for even relatively small negotiation scenarios.

The three case studies demonstrate how ProCON can provide support for negotiators in a wide range of multi-party, multi-issue negotiations. In particular, ProCON can be used to visualise the compatibility relations between parties’ goals, generate possible outcomes and solutions and evaluate solutions regarding the extent to which they satisfy the parties’ goals.

In contrast to standard game-theoretic models of negotiation, ProCON does not require users to provide data about their preferences across their goals. Consequently, it can operate in situations where no information about the parties’ goal preferences is available. Compared to game-theoretical models, ProCON represents a more general approach of looking at possible outcomes in the context of negotiations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative opinion on the current debate on Iran and its place in the world, while seeking to avoid unnecessary dogma or propaganda.

The paper is a pure opinion paper and has not been designed as a methodological research paper.

The findings are entirely subjective and are the sole opinion of the author.

The practical implications are to stimulate a debate over the use of specific legal powers possessed by the USA, and the way in which they are used.

The paper is an entirely original piece of work by the author and its value or worth must be determined by the reader.

The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze the Iranian policy towards the Middle East (ME) and its consequences on Egypt.

This study uses the national interest approach and system analysis approach as analytical framework.

Several areas are points such as pillars of the Iranian National strategy, pillars of the Iranian policy in the ME and the concept of the Iranian National Security.

Iran is one of the most important and influential regional powers in the Middle East that affects dramatically regional security and stability. The paper analyzes Iranian policy in the ME and its determinants. In this context, this study deals with the Iranian strategy and Iranian interests. It focuses on the impact of Iranian policy on Egypt and its national security from a comprehensive perspective.