This paper aims to expand our knowledge of a historical episode that not only dramatically affected the Middle East, but it also had a significant impact on North African countries. When the Arab-Israeli war broke out Algerian-Moroccan relations were already strained as a consequence of their border conflict, the ‘War of the Sands’ (1963), and the significant acquisition of Soviet arms by the Algerian regime that ensued. Then, as Algeria broke relations with the US and radicalized its position in relation to Arab policy towards Israel, Morocco grew further distrustful. King Hassan II therefore was compelled, on the one hand, to turn to Washington seeking further military assistance to compensate this arms imbalance; and, on the other hand, to work towards improving relations with other neighbors. This study results from analyzing Morocco’s policy reaction to these challenging developments from a three-party perspective and using diplomatic documentation from American (NARA-College Park, and Lyndon B. Johnson Library), and Spanish national archives (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive and Ministry of the Presidency Archive). It leads to two main conclusions. Firstly, that in its fundamentals President Johnson´s policy towards Morocco’s demands followed Kennedy’s previous path, which consisted in avoiding a major involvement of his government in support of this regional ally. The Johnson administration, in addition, encountered limitations in foreign aid established by Congress at the time. The US government finally was not able to provide a timely delivery of military assistance, and so King Hassan’s expectations were frustrated. Secondly, that such an unsatisfying US response to Morocco’s request was eventually beneficial for Spanish interests. As the King of Morocco felt insufficiently backed by the US, he resorted to ameliorating relations with neighboring regimes with whom outstanding territorial disputes still existed as a legacy of the colonial period. In particular, the negotiations of a fishing treaty favoring Spanish interests were facilitated, in compensation for the return of the enclave of Ifni to Morocco in 1969.

This paper provides a comparative archival case study of Egyptian and Jordanian foreign policy in the build-up to the 1967 Six Day War. It investigates the ways in which President Nasser and King Hussein were pushed towards war by domestic forces, in particular, the security apparatuses that fortified their rule. More importantly, the paper explores variation in American and Israeli awareness of these domestic constraints: though each leader faced near-mutinous internal pressure from their top brass to confront Israel, U.S. and Israeli intelligence were clearly more attentive to Jordanian military pressure than Egyptian. What explains this variation, and how did it affect Israel’s treatment of the respective belligerents? At stake is the viability of Audience Cost Theory (ACT), a prominent International Relations theory on credible signals of resolve during crisis bargaining. According to ACT, leaders who demonstrate that they will be punished domestically if they back down from foreign policy threats will be taken more seriously. While ACT proponents usually conclude that democracies should issue more credible threats, this paper offers a new authoritarian audience cost mechanism. First, I argue that authoritarian militaries act as potent domestic audiences to leaders’ foreign policy decisions; authoritarian rulers must heed the foreign policy preferences of their security apparatus, or risk their downfall by coup d’état. I then argue that the transparency of these audience costs depends on two conditions, which constrain the autocrats’ ability to signal that his hands are tied without fear of exploitation by his opponents. First, does the opponent believe that the autocrats’ likely replacement would be more threatening than the current regime? Second, does the autocrat have reliable allies through which he could signal his vulnerability? The case studies, which rely on both declassified U.S. diplomatic cables (FRUS series) and authoritative historical accounts of the conflict, provide evidence of these dynamics. While Egyptian President Nasser’s hands were tied on the inexorable march to war by key military elites, he was unwilling and unable to signal these constraints—as a result, Nasser received no bargaining advantage. In contrast, Jordanian King Hussein used his comparatively friendly relationship with Israel and alliance with the United States to repeatedly signal his vulnerability to a nationalist military coup. This signaling won Hussein extraordinarily leniency from the Israelis, who only engaged with the Jordanians following Hussein’s fateful decision to relinquish control of his army to Egyptian command.

This paper examines the questions of how the UAE, which is a small state with limited material capacity and soft power capabilities, proactively seeks a middle power status within the Middle East. The paper adds to the burgeoning literature on middle power politics in two distinct ways. First, it augments the study of middle powers by focusing on a dimension that examines middle powers on a regional level rather than on the international level. Second, the paper examines middle power politics in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region, which are understudied geographic areas insofar as middle power politics is concerned. The paper argues that since middle powers rise during times of flux in the international or regional orders, the 2011 Arab Uprisings were exceptionally critical as they were the final nail in the coffin of the decade old volatile regional power structure. The vacuum resulting from the reconfiguration of the regional power structure has created new opportunities for countries in the Middle East to emerge or aspire to become regional middle powers. Since seeking status is a common behavior of small states, the UAE has capitalized on the power vacuum resulting from the instability in the region, and has adopted an assertive foreign policy. This foreign policy aims to make UAE an object rather than a subject of regional affairs by utilizing the country’s subtle power, which stems from its activism in international and regional organizations, dispatchment of forces as part of international peacekeeping troops, generous foreign aid, and massive foreign investments. UAE’s assertive foreign policy is triggered by five main conditions. First, the UAE’s leadership perceived the regional instability as a threat that needs to be preempted by an active foreign policy agenda. Second, the failure of the Gulf Cooperation Council to stimulate a robust defense and diplomatic coordination, and Saudi Arabia’s hegemony over the council elicited the UAE’s leadership to sponsor an independent foreign policy agenda. Third, the rising economic power of the UAE endorsed its capability to maintain the ruling bargain domestically and project soft power regionally; thus contributing to the crafting of an assertive foreign policy agenda. Finally, the narrative on the UAE being a model of modernism and progressivism, and the transition in leadership have also played a significant role in UAE’s seek for a regional middle power status.

Historians of Saudi Arabia have largely viewed the “Mahmal Incident” of 1926, when Ibn Saud’s Ikhwan attacked the Egyptian pilgrimage caravan, as the last straw that caused him to defeat the group. Yet viewed through a wider comparative temporal and geographical lens, the story is quite different: It is about breaking Egypt’s centuries old religious and political claim to the Haramayn, the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and finalizing Saudi control. This analysis is reached through broadening the historical focus and distinguishing and comparing two regional trading systems: the Arabian Peninsula system and the Red Sea-Mediterranean-Indian Ocean system. The Hijaz was part of the later -- not the former. This new focus produces greater attention to Egypt-Hijaz relations than previously considered. The caravan and its holy camel-borne palanquin represented the projection of Egyptian political force, economic might and religious primacy into the Hijaz. For Ibn Saud to assert his control and world Islamic leadership he had to sever the Egyptian connection and bind the ?aramayn to Najd. After the attack Ibn Saud refused to sign a treaty with Egypt until it recognized him as ruler and gave up all claims to the Hijaz. The treaty paved the way for an improvement in relations: Egypt helped the fledgling Saudi state and the two states most often cooperated on the international stage.

Iran-China Relations: Past, Present, and Future The established discourse on the success or failure of the 2015 nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) between Iran, on the one hand, and the 5+1 countries and EU, on the other, focuses predominantly on the dynamic of Iran-US relations. This might explain why the election of a fierce critic of the deal, Donald Trump, to the presidency of the United States led to much speculation about the death of the nuclear agreement. Even though there are good reasons for the supporters of JCPOA to worry about its fate, the survival of JCPOA depends also on Iran’s relations with other major players. This study focuses on relations with one such player, i.e. China. Since the conclusion of the agreement China and Iran have expanded not only their economic ties but their defense cooperation. In fact China has become the biggest exporter and importer market for Iran, as well as its major supplier of advanced weapons. But would China resist a reversal of this trend or even back off from supporting the JCPOA, if pressed by the US? China’s response has been an emphatic, no. But how reliable or durable this answer would be? Ever since the establishment of the Islamic Republic China’s relations with Iran, particularly at critical moments, have been influenced by the dynamic of its relations with the US. This tri-lateral character of Iran-China relations, therefore, creates uncertainty about whether China could resist US pressure and keep its promise to Iran. The first part of this paper focuses on the pre-JCPOA history of interactions between the two countries. The periods of Rafsanjani’s and Khatami’s administrations are particularly instructive in understanding the trilateral character of the relationship between Iran and China. As will be argued China’s distancing from Iran at some crucial moments, was to a good extent due to its interactions with the US. Would history repeats itself or is there hope for the breaking of this pattern? The rest of the paper is an attempt to provide an answer to this question by looking at several factors both specific and global, including Iran’s expanded ties with China, the latter’s increasing international power, and the impact of European and Russians’ view and behavior towards Iran’s and the JCPOA.