Positive Thinking towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Central Asian Countries: with an Emphasis on the Nuclear Issue

Positive thinking is the result of a mental conception of the capabilities one country can play for another. So that any action taken by country A can have beneficial results for B. Finding positive aspects in comparison with the negative effects is some of dimensions of positive thinking. In fact, changing the attitude from negativity toward positivity is a long-term process which is, of course is due to a reciprocal and interactive relationship. Therefore, positive thinking, while somewhat rooted in objective facts, comes from the thinking of the person at first and the elite ruling of foreign policy as a device of that country in the second phase. For example, while most of Gulf States have a pessimistic look about Iran's nuclear program and implicitly advocated unilateral action by the United States and Israel against Iran (Saudi Arabia is notable in this case), Central Asian countries have looked more positive and cautious about Iran's nuclear program and rejected any unilateral attack on the country with the aim of destroying its nuclear facilities, and called for a peaceful solution to this issue. For example, Uzbekistan was silent about Iran's nuclear issue, indicating no support from the parties to the conflict; Turkmenistan supports Iran for its borders with Iran and high-level economic relations with the country. Tajikistan had a more positive attitude toward Iran's nuclear program than all of Central Asian countries. Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan and its president strongly opposed any unilateral attack on Iran's nuclear facilities through the Kyrgyzstan manas base. (Although this site is not currently leased to Americans) and called for a peaceful solution to this issue. Kazakhstan also challenges the international community's stance on Iran's nuclear program. On the other hand, they want Iran to cooperate more in this regard with the international community, For example, in November of 2011, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in a media commentary, announced that current sanctions would suffice because the IAEA conclusions were ambiguous, and the IAEA inspectors should once more go to Iran's nuclear facilities for further investigation. He Asked the United States to enter directly with Iran to resolve the remaining issues. Given the above assumptions, the basic question is posed: What are the reasons for the Central Asian countries to look positively towards the Islamic Republic of Iran? Are economic, political-security-strategic considerations effective in creating such a view? In response to the above question, it can be argued that a set of political, economic, security and strategic considerations serves as a reason for the positive perception of Central Asian countries compared with the countries of the southern Gulf of Persian Gulf to the Islamic Republic of Iran. For example, while Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have good commercial and economic ties with Iran, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have political and strategic motives, worrying about the spread of political instability in the region and its spread within their borders and the activation of Islamist groups in their country. Kazakhstan, as an influential country in Central Asia, is concerned about the prevalence of instability and the possibility of Iran reacting to a military strike against them. The method used in this research is descriptive-analytic after event occurrence. In this regard, at first, the dependent variable, the positive look of Central Asian countries, was investigated in the form of an examination of the approach of the elites of these countries to Iran. For example,  statements by presidents of some of countries regions, including NourSultan Nazarbayev, have been advocating remarks, indicating their support for the peaceful nuclear program of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Authors studied geo-economic, geo-strategic and geo-cultural indicators to clarify their independent variables. In other words, in order to prove the research hypothesis, using existing information and statistics and library, the authors tried to prove a meaningful relationship between two variables, namely, the positive thinking of Central Asian countries relative to Iran, due to geo-economic, geo-strategic, and geo-cultural considerations. Therefore, the reasons for the Central Asian countries to look positively towards Iran, especially in the nuclear issue derive from geo-politics, geo-cultural and geo-economic dimensions. For example, all Central Asian countries have a degree of economic relations with Iran and Iran could be considered a key factor in the future for the access of these countries to free water. For example, nearly 70% of cotton exports are currently exported to the outside world through the Islamic Republic as the second largest export commodity in Uzbekistan. In terms of security-strategy, Central Asian countries are also concerned about weakening Iran and the powering of countries such as Turkey, Israel and Pakistan, That is the reason why a country like Kazakhstan explicitly declares that the West's approach to Iran's nuclear program is not transparent and they want to clarify the true nature nuclear programs of Israel and Pakistan because they don’t regard Israel as having nuclear weapons, and put the Islamic Republic at the forefront. The third reason why Central Asian countries have a positive outlook for Iran is that they are worried about the spread of insecurity and instability resulting from the attack and rehabilitation of Iran's rigid response. Finally, the cultural and soft powers of Iran in the region and the influence of Iran among the peoples of the countries of the region will make the decision making system of Central Asian countries, even in countries like Uzbekistan, to look at the Islamic Republic of Iran as an influential country in the Central Asian region. Therefore, the positive attitude of Central Asian countries towards the Islamic Republic of Iran is due to their beliefs about the functioning of Iran in the regional sub-system. As a result, the main motivations of Central Asian countries to support Iran's nuclear program are rooted in various political, security, economic and geostrategic considerations which could increase Iran's regional weight among these countries. Whether this pattern can be repeated in relation to the Persian Gulf countries that have a negative view of Iran, needs to be explored separately.