Iran’s simultaneous relations with Israel and the Arab world left it in a precarious position. After World War II, Iran had to adapt to the shifting power plays in a politically charged Middle East. The thirty years between 1945 and 1975 witnessed the waning of Iran’s influence in the Persian Gulf and the rise of Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. During much of the Nasser era, until Egypt’s defeat in 1967, Iran’s relationship with Egypt remained tense. Fervent Arab nationalist ideologies identified the shah’s Iran as a state aligned firmly with America and the West. Iran’s support for Israel became a frequent negative target of the Arab press. In the Persian Gulf, however, Iran did not see eye to eye with America or Britain and tried to forge a separate path with Saudi Arabia and the newly configured countries of the region. Iran had to tread gingerly to maintain amicable relations with its neighbors. In the end Iran could only adequately safeguard its security as its regional isolation became a new reality.

The American response to 9/11 sharpened the hostility between the two main antagonistic regional blocs and all but eliminated the possibility that either Iran or Syria might retreat from the hegemonic strategy of maintaining an ‘Axis of Resistance’ in favour of pursuing rapprochement with the West. The George W. Bush administration’s Global War on Terror (GWoT), launched in the wake of the attacks, promised assistance to authoritarian regimes that would join the United States in confronting an amorphously defined ‘terrorism’ in the Middle East and beyond. Three central dynamics underpinned regional order in the Middle East during the first decade of the new millennium. The first was the contestation between Iran and Saudi Arabia for Western favour. The second was the Arab–Israeli conflict, in which non-Arab Iran had become a central protagonist. The third was a competitive dynamic for Western support between between Turkey and Egypt. The chapter considers each of these dynamics in turn.

This chapter examines three intersecting dynamics underpinning regional order during the 1990s. The first dynamic centres on the Gulf. The chapter examines Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent divergence between Iranian and Iraqi hegemonic strategies, as well as Saudi Arabia’s efforts to preserve its primacy in the face of a moderating Iran and rising domestic opposition. The second dynamic concerns the rise of Islamist, including jihadist, opposition movements as by-products of renewed neoliberalisation and growing disillusionment with the New World Order. The chapter discusses the rise of Islamist opposition with a particular focus on Egypt. The final key regional dynamic was the Arab-Israeli peace process, and the chapter discusses the ways in which the ‘dualistic’ foreign policies of Syria and Israel reflected their broader hegemonic strategies.

The analysis of this chapter first reflects upon the structural impact of the Cold War on Middle Eastern state hegemonic strategies, including Western allies Israel, Iran and Turkey. It then discusses the impact of the revolution of 1952 on Egypt’s foreign policy of Arab neutralism. The chapter proceeds to trace the rise of the Ba’th Party in Syria, and in particular its ‘ideological co-dependency’ with Egypt, and provides an explanation for the formation and collapse of the United Arab Republic. It examines the roots of Egypt’s rivalry with Iraq between 1958 and 1963 and discusses the ideological co-dependency that formed between Nasser’s Egypt and Iraqi Nasserists and Ba’thists.

Regional order in the 1970s can be apprehended in relation to three interacting conflict dynamics, which this chapter examines in turn. The first was the competitive support-seeking dynamic between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the latter of which remained Washington’s default partner in the Gulf due to its contiguity with the Soviet Union and apparently greater internal stability. Riyadh’s main asset in this contest was its structural power within a second, Arab–Israeli arena, through consolidating its economic and political influence over Egypt and Syria. Resistance to the stabilisation of this emerging state conglomerate fed into a third conflict dynamic revolving around Syrian and Iraqi ideological externalisation strategies. The hegemonic strategies of each of these states necessitated continued confrontation with Israel.