The Dimensions of Threat and Insecurity along the Iran’s Eastern Borders with Emphasis on Drug Transit

Abstract

<p>Borders are lines that separate a political unit or a country from other neighboring units or countries. The main function of the borders is determined in the interactions between surrounding countries and these mutual effects result in the governments in both sides of the border show a specific behavior towards each other.</p><p>Considering what has been pointed above, the security geography of Iran’s eastern borders is highly influenced by the two neighboring countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have special problems each and impact the security of Iran’s eastern borders at national and regional levels.</p><p>The dimensions of threat and insecurity along the Iranian eastern borders are: drugs, terrorism, the Afghan immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, development of insecurity into Iran and religious actions. The drugs and drug transit, due to Iran’s adjacency to the golden crescent as the producer of 80 percent of opiates in the world, being between the source (Afghanistan and Pakistan) and target (Turkey and Europe) of the path and the destructive impacts of the drugs on country, in addition to the order villages and regions and the high costs that drugs have imposed on Iran, are highly and more significantly important.</p>Employing analytical-descriptive method and using library resources and documents, the present study aims at clarifying the way Iran’s eastern borders have been delineated, the dimensions of threat and insecurity along the aforementioned borders with emphasis on the drugs as the main case of threat and insecurity and explaining Iran’s geographical realities and capacities for drug transit from this route in the country.