Mansour Anbarmou - Ph.D. Candidate in political science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Arab countries always accuse Iran of trying to weaken Sunni groups in favor of strengthening Shiites. This research is an attempt to challenge the existing opinions regarding Iran's exclusive reliance on the Shiite Crescent and investigate the evolution of Iran's approach towards the Sunni groups in the framework of understanding its belongings. Iran's foreign strategies have always been defined by emphasizing Shiite/Islamic concepts, yet developments of the Arab Spring, showed Iran that unilateralism and excessive emphasis on Shiite groups could not provide maximum interests. The religious divide of Iran's Shiite government has never been an obstacle to communication with foreign Sunni groups in the way of expanding Iran's regional influence, However, Iran's relationship with Sunni groups in Palestine, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan has a longer history in the Middle East. In last decade Iran has tried to create a Sunni crescent in South and Central Asia centered on the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Sunni crescent plays a complementary and balancing role to the Shiite crescent. The formation of Sunni Crescent naturally leads to consequences for Iran in the regional and domestic level, such as regional competitions as well as the rivalry of the Iranian Sunnis with the Sunni groups supported by Iran in the Sunni Crescent. As much as Iran requests foreign Sunni groups to develop their political activities; it depoliticized the Sunnis inside Iran. To answer the research questions, Qualitative methods will be conducted to discover all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Sunni Crescent also in particular in which context Sunni crescent can change the content of belonging and bring about new ideas regarding regional identitiesArab countries always accuse Iran of trying to weaken Sunni groups in favor of strengthening Shiites. This research is an attempt to challenge the existing opinions regarding Iran's exclusive reliance on the Shiite Crescent and investigate the evolution of Iran's approach towards the Sunni groups in the framework of understanding its belongings. Iran's foreign strategies have always been defined by emphasizing Shiite/Islamic concepts, yet developments of the Arab Spring, showed Iran that unilateralism and excessive emphasis on Shiite groups could not provide maximum interests. The religious divide of Iran's Shiite government has never been an obstacle to communication with foreign Sunni groups in the way of expanding Iran's regional influence, However, Iran's relationship with Sunni groups in Palestine, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan has a longer history in the Middle East. In last decade Iran has tried to create a Sunni crescent in South and Central Asia centered on the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Sunni crescent plays a complementary and balancing role to the Shiite crescent. The formation of Sunni Crescent naturally leads to consequences for Iran in the regional and domestic level, such as regional competitions as well as the rivalry of the Iranian Sunnis with the Sunni groups supported by Iran in the Sunni Crescent. As much as Iran requests foreign Sunni groups to develop their political activities; it depoliticized the Sunnis inside Iran. To answer the research questions, Qualitative methods will be conducted to discover all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Sunni Crescent also in particular in which context Sunni crescent can change the content of belonging and bring about new ideas regarding regional identities

Iran, Arab Uprising, Sunni Crescent, Shiite identity, Middle East