It has been the dominant view that both Syria in the 1980s and Iran today have acted as rogue states in the Middle East threatening to upset the stability of the region. In this innovative new study, Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond Hinnebusch show that these two countries have in fact acted in a rational fashion pursuing the aim of containing Western influence.
This book demonstrates how Syrian foreign policy resembles the "rational actor" model and Iran's rational factions in government guide its diplomacy. Syria and Iran's foreign policies are shown to be conventional ones, of...

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Middle East international politics in the light of international relations theory. It assesses the impact of international penetration, including the historic formation of the regional state system, the continued role of external great powers, and the incorporation of the region into the international capitalist market. The book also examines the region's distinctive dialectic between trans-state identities, Arabism and Islam, and the consolidation of a sovereign state system. The consequences of state formation for the ability of state elites to...