Contemporary Political Studies

Contemporary Political Studies

Studying the security and political dimensions of drugs in the Middle East and its impact on regional peace and security

Document Type : .

Authors
1 Faculty Member of Political Science of Yasouj University
2 Master's Degree in Geography and Urban Planning, Yasouj University
3 .Associate professor and faculty member of Yasouj University
4 Associate Professor and member of the faculty of Political Science Department of Quaid-e-Azam University of Pakistan
Abstract
Abstract
The main issue of the current research is that drugs affect public security and there is no doubt that people are the pillars of society. Therefore, whenever drugs dominate the society and the phenomenon of drug addiction appears in the society, the society will be sick with the most dangerous pests and stagnation, violation and backwardness will dominate the society and chaos will spread and that The society becomes an easy prey for the enemies to easily influence and dominate that society and their wealth, beliefs and religion and weaken them, and the weakening of the individual leads to the weakening of the efficiency of the society. Therefore, this process is a threat in general it is for production and national economy. The purpose of this research is to investigate and analyze the security and political aspects of drugs in the Middle East. For the statistical and graphical analysis of patterns of distribution centers of drug trafficking in the Middle East from statistical methods of average center Standard deviation ellipse and clustering tests including nearest neighbor and kernel density estimation method were used. The findings of the research show that during the years 2000 to 2021, the highest concentration of drug discovery is in Turkey, northern Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. That there are the most centers of crime in this area, that this area has a more critical situation than other regions in the Middle East. The countries of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have less density in terms of the distribution of drug crimes than other countries in the Middle East.
Keywords: drug trafficking, spatial analysis, crimes, crime hotspots.
 
Introduction
The present study was developed and conducted based on Buzan's security theory. Buzan places his main emphasis in security analysis on the level of regional analysis and believes that countries should allocate a special place to the "regional dimensions of security" in their foreign policy and pursue security in its multidimensional dimensions; in other words, his main distinguishing feature of post-Cold War security studies from the Cold War era is the breadth of the scope of security and the inclusion of issues such as drugs, immigration, transnational and subnational criminal (terrorist) organizations, and the environment and economic welfare, which were not previously included in security definitions (Tabatabai, 2014: 21). In this regard, considering the comprehensive view that the Copenhagen and Buzan schools have on security, this theory is used in the present study.
 
Materials & Methods
This research employs a descriptive – analytical and correlational method with a Qualitative and exploratory approach to study the reasons of the spread of narcotics and its security and political dimensions in West Asia. For statistical and graphical analyses of patterns of drug trafficking distribution centers in the Middle East, statistical methods such as mean center, standard deviation ellipse, and clustering tests including nearest neighbor and the Estimate kernel density method in GIS will be used.
 
Discussion & Results
The findings reveal a significant relationship between multiple variables and the spread of of the spread of narcotics and its security and political dimensions in West Asia. These factors and variables includes:
Social factors:
Weak religious faith and desire for fun, insecurity and lack of comfort and social problems. Family breakdown, lack of use of leisure time, non-religious friends and social restrictions, ignorance of the harms and dangers of addiction, love of experimenting and imitating parents and others.
Political and security factors:
Lack of a democratic, stable and strong government in these countries or a fragile and weak government, instability and insecurity in the region, lack of precise border control by governments, ethnic and geographical considerations and lack of government control over some regions, laxity and negligence in implementing laws and corruption and contamination of political and security officials and Lack of coordination between various judicial, security, and political institutions in some West Asian countries. Also, The permeability of borders, the lack of economic and business security in border areas, the lack of border surveillance and cooperation between regional governments in the fight against drugs and smuggling, and the lack of honesty and serious cooperation between the United States, NATO, and Western governments in the fight against and eradication of drugs.
Economic factors:
Large number of foreign workers, abundance of money and luxuries, greed for quick profits, unemployment and poverty in West Asian countries. The abundant economic income that some Western governments, terrorists, and some organizations such as NATO and Western-affiliated agents and countries receive from drug and arms trafficking has created an underground economy and widespread money laundering.
 
Conclusions
The findings of this study show that drug trafficking is a security threat. Transnational organized crime can be considered a new security threat, examples of which include arms, drug, human trafficking, and... Groups active in organized crime operate secretly and in networks and are so complex that it is difficult to penetrate them. Organized crime weakens the authority of governments and reduces their influence in their territories. The people of the Middle East are victims of a type of international drug trade and have suffered many security, economic, social, and cultural losses from this area. The permeability of borders and the poor functioning of borders in drug trafficking and other goods, evil and insecurity, some regional and international political forces, and Western interference are among the factors that have been listed in this study as factors that are destructive to the national security of Middle East countries.
Keywords

Subjects


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