The recent rapprochement between Iran and the United States after Hassan Rouhani was elected president in June 2013 may represent an important geopolitical shift that would alter the politics of the Middle East. The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate this political shift, examine whether the interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States would lead to some structural shifts in the Middle East, and analyze to what extent this change can be sustainable for both sides.

The main Part of this paper is divided into three sections. The first section examines in detail the process of Iran’s Presidential election in June 2013, especially the sudden change of atmosphere which took place just three days before election day. The second section is devoted to analyzing the Obama administration’s shift to diplomacy with Iran. And the third section treats the on-going nuclear negotiations between Iran and P5+1, which is expected to reach a comprehensive solution.

The paper argues that the dramatic shift in the US policy toward Iran is not limited to the bilateral relationships between the US and Iran, but it is related to several key issues in the Middle East, in particular to those in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This changing process in Iranian politics and the path to diplomacy is profitable for Japanese national interest, and that Japan should also contribute to Iran’s return to the international community.

In this paper, first we look back at the activities of the JMSDF in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf for the past 10-20 years from the view-point of contributions to security in the regions, and Japan's defence and diplomatic policies. In addition we would like to consider the situation that Japan has currently been placed in, or the primary factors of the change of power balance caused by China's foreign expansion and US gradual troop reductions, and economic conditions and energy supply problems after the earthquake disaster, as well as the returning of the LDP Administration. Each of these affects Japan's defence and diplomatic policies, and Japanese approach to Gulf countries is to be precisely understood in this context.

For Japan, the importance of relationships with Gulf countries will surely increase in the foreseeable future. However the immediate addition of the JMSDF's force in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf Region is difficult. So Japan's role in regional security will probably be depending on the licensing of technology to India and Gulf countries, plus the construction of collaborative systems devoted to the training and support of highly proficient personnel . China will have a competitive relationship with Japan over access to the energy supply sources and the markets in Gulf countries, and it will be necessary to employ such systems for the purpose of international trust building and preventing of any free-ride.

Diverging outcomes are unfolding in the post-Arab Uprising countries’ transitional processes. In January 2014, Tunisia successfully adopted a new constitution based on a consensus of the opposing political parties and factions. In contrast, Egypt abolished one constitution and hastily instituted another in a time span of slightly more than a year. Yemen has announced the final document of the National Dialogue Conference in the same month. Libyans finally voted for the long awaited and disputed elections of the Constitutional Drafting Committee in February 2014.

The paper picks up three factors which seem to be influential in determining the modality of transitional political process in the four Post-Arab spring countries. The first is the initial conditions of the transitional politics.. Differences in the way the previous regimes collapsed are analyzed to illuminate the continuity and break of the ruling institutions and state apparatus. The second factor is the type of the interim government. In line with Shain and Linz typology, provisional, power-sharing, caretaker, and international interim government models are applied to clarify the types of interim governments in each four countries’ different phases in transitional politics. The third is the “rules of the game,” particularly those pertaining to the constitutional process. Who set what kind of rules and how are to be considered in each of four countries and possible influences of each set of the rules of the game to the diverging results of the transitional politics are considered.