Britain’s Post-Colonial Foreign Policy Towards the Persian Gulf Security (1971-1991): An Alternative Approach

Abstract

By the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, a new era started in the region with the new political order and new security map. Iran and the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia emerged as the guardians of the status quo to be filling the power vacuum left by the British in behalf of the West. Iran was a strategic Western ally until the fall of the Shah resulted by the Iranian revolution in 1979. After 1979, Iran, no longer a Western military ally, has been determined as the major internal threat for the regional security and stability following the major external threat of the Soviet expansion in the British foreign policy. The British foreign policy towards the region adopted a sectarianist approach that went along with the securitization of the Gulf within the determinants of the Anglo-American alliance towards the regional security. The shift in the British foreign policy towards the regional security in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution is analysed at this work based on the British foreign policy documents. This work argues that the sectarianist discourse adopted by the post-colonial British foreign policy was functioned as an effective tool of the securitization of the Gulf which was deepened during the regional conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and the Gulf War (1990-91).

Keywords

• persian gulf
• securıty
• britain
• iran
• foreign policy
• basra körfezi
• güvenlik
• i̇ngiltere
• i̇ran
• dış politika