TEHRAN TIMES -- Mahmood Monshipouri, Ph.D., teaches Middle Eastern politics at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote this opinion piece for the Tehran Times.
“There is overall less consensus among the major world powers concerning governance and the new order. The fall of trade agreements, or as some would like to say the demise of the Transpacific Partnership (TTP), points to several convergent trends with potentially uncertain consequences. The decentralization of decision-making at the global level since the post-Cold War period has created a different balance of economic and political powers. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has thrown the Middle East into a region festering sectarian tensions.
“Subsequently, the Arab Spring uprisings, which led to a significant authority void in Libya and civil war in Syria, indicated that an emerging new regional disarray that often spills over into other countries. The rise of populism and the resiliency of authoritarian in the Middle East are likely to shape its political climate in the coming years. The spread of oligarchic rule and/or power throughout different regions will produce an alarming order for those interested in the persistence of human rights and liberal governance.”