Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat and a professor at Princeton University, as well as Salman Ameri, PHD student at Georgetown University, wrote an article under the title of "The End of the Middle East’s Unipolar Era" at the Journal of Global South, arguing that coordination among these six countries "will push the Middle East into an era of bipolarity."
Pointing to the US presidents' policy of maintaining hegemony in the Persian Gulf region, these two analysts noted that Washington and its regional allies tried to consolidate their dominance in the region, so Saudi Arabia stood against independence of Qatar and attempted to exercise its influence in Bahrain.
Turkey and Iran supported Qatar to stand against Saudi dominance in the Persian Gulf region, they wrote, adding that all six countries of RICTIS would have common strategic interests in confronting domination of the US and its allies.
Iran's regional role
Vigilance of the regional power - Iran - following 1979 Islamic Revolution has made the US and its regional allies upset; therefore, Iraqi Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein started military aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran in a bid to lead the neighboring country towards isolation and then downfall, a policy which has been maintained by the US and its Western allies through imposition of economic embargo, the two academics argued.
However, they mentioned, certain regional countries such as Turkey, a member state of NATO, have their own considerations, but they have accepted legitimate position of Iran in the region. China and Russia, as two eastern powers, consider Iran's regional influence as a positive factor to contain US hegemony in the region.
According to the writers, Turkey and Iran are two non-Arab regional powers, which are facing inclusive challenges from the US front, and it is obvious that China and the US are experiencing a kind of new cold war; such challenges have pushed the potential member states of the RICTIS to pursue a convergent policy in recent years.
As to other instances of cooperation at regional level, they stipulated that Russian and Iranian support for Syria and Iraq in dealing with terrorist threats, as well as strategic cooperation between China and Iran, indicate that these countries require to establish a joint system to pursue their common interests and find a way to stand against unilateralism of the US and its allies.
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