Potential Iranian Hegemony in Oil Producing Islamic Countries – Implications for Oil Geopolitics Cover Image

Potential Iranian Hegemony in Oil Producing Islamic Countries – Implications for Oil Geopolitics
Potential Iranian Hegemony in Oil Producing Islamic Countries – Implications for Oil Geopolitics

Author(s): James Leigh, Predrag Vuković
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Институт за међународну политику и привреду
Keywords: Iran; Islamism; Shia; Sunni; oil, Persian Gulf; OPEC; geopolitics; nuclear weapons; civilization clash

Summary/Abstract: In recent decades world supply of oil has been increasingly held in the Islamic countries around the Persian Gulf. The fact that the level of oil production is high in these countries and that they possess most of the world’s oil reserves could be extremely significant. This “petropower” could lead to strategic geopolitical developments when oil is used as economic and political weapons. It may be that the apocalyptic appeal of militant Islamism coming out of Iran can weld both Shia and Sunni people of the region to the cause of establishing a world Islamic “caliphate”. This may appear in a new world of a tripartite mix of superpowers, one of which could be an Iranian-led oil rich Islamic bloc of Gulf states. Each superpower would vie for advantage, and particularly two of these superpowers would seek favour in maintaining supplies of oil imports increasingly from a potentially Iran dominated mix of oil producing Islamic countries.

  • Issue Year: LXII/2010
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 7-36
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: English
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