In the past four weeks, a major political earthquake seems to have hit the Middle East, where three key regional constituencies: Iran, Qatar and Egypt, experienced more or less unexpected changes of leadership…
The grim cost of conflict.
Freedom House via Creative Commons
President Obama’s confirmation that the United States would begin arming Syrian rebels has prompted an urgent debate about both the legality and the effectiveness of the decision. The announcement, ahead…
Iran’s ruling class have engineered the result of elections to their favoured candidate - will Friday’s presidential election be any different?
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Iranian elections have often been the country’s Achilles heel, or as Iranians say, pashneye achil. Since the Islamic Republic of Iran’s inception in 1979, the ruling clergy has incorporated electoral procedures…
Palestinians from Fatah (yellow flags) and Hamas (green flags) celebrated the reconciliation agreement between the factions in 2011, but little progress in the region has been made since.
EPA/Mohammed Saber
Recently, Musheer al-Masri, a Hamas member and spokesperson, blamed his Palestinian political rivals Fatah yet again for hindering the implementation of the Palestinian Reconciliation Agreement. The agreement…
The resignation of Syrian opposition leader Moaz Al-Khatib (centre) has plunged the war-torn nation into fresh political tumult.
EPA/STR
Political upheaval within the Syrian National Council (SNC) is worsening the chaos that has defined Syria for the past two years. In recent times, we’ve also seen allegations of chemical weapon use and…
Benjamin Netanyahu will remain Israel’s prime minister, but the rise of centrist parties have made his choices for coalition partners far more difficult.
EPA/Oliver Weiken
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bruising victory in Israel’s election was costly. The hawkish atmosphere over electing members of the 19th Knesset saw the highest voter turnout since 1999 and some…
Increased sanctions against Iran could weaken more than its national currency, the Rial.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
Bob Carr’s announcement yesterday that Australia would increase sanctions against Iran will be greeted with praise from some quarters. There is a growing understanding among analysts, diplomats and leaders…
Palestinians gather around what is left of a destroyed house after an Israeli air strike this week.
EPA/Ali Ali
Gaza, ostracised, enclosed and pummelled, is being levelled – again. Israel’s case against Hamas, expressed both via air strikes and a social media war, is one of self-defence. Article 51 of the United…
Iranian students demonstrate in Tehran to mark the 33rd anniversary of US Embassy takeover.
EPA/Abedin Taherkenareh
The re-election of Barack Obama to a second term will have significant ramifications for an America struggling with economic and social difficulties. But will it have the same impact on residents of the…
President Barack Obama, pictured here with Chinese President Hu Jintao, will continue to ‘pivot’ to Asia.
EPA/Alex Wong
Sitting in New York, in the aftermath of an American election dominated by a domestic agenda, it is easy to lose sight of both the pressing external problems that the US continues to face, and the impact…
Australian Syrians protest in Hyde Park, Sydney, in February calling for the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down immediately.
AAP Image/Lauren Farrow
In Syria, the optimism which accompanied the Arab Spring uprising has faded into the reality of a bloody sectarian civil war. Recent media reports have highlighted the involvement of foreign fighters in…
Syrian government forces during an operation in Aleppo.
SANA
The exchange of artillery fire between Turkish and Syrian forces over the past few days has seen a renewed focus on the possibility of an escalating war between Damascus and Ankara. It seems that not since…
President Obama’s charm offensive in the Middle East has been overtaken by the Arab Spring and growing instability in the region.
EPA/Khaled El Fiqi
When Barack Obama and Mitt Romney commenced their presidential campaigns, Middle East policy was not a top issue. But the Middle East has a propensity to thrust itself on US politics. True to form, the…
Mitt Romney’s comments about Israel parroted the US Zionist lobby.
EPA/Abir Sultan
How should the world react when a supposedly democratic state can’t acknowledge a 40-year-old occupation? When US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel during a visit…
Residents inspect their damaged house after a bomb explosion in Baquba, Iraq.
EPA/Ali Mohammed
When US President Obama announced the end of America’s involvement in Iraq, he deliberately did not claim victory. But he did say, when welcoming the last contingent of combat troops home in October last…
Many Syrians prefer the stability of the Assad regime to the chaos they saw after dictators were deposed in Libya and Iraq.
EPA/Youssef Badawi
The stench of hypocrisy is a hard one to wash out for the West in the Middle East. We shook Gadaffi’s hand and pretended we liked his outfits when he coughed up for Lockerbie and we snuggled with Mubarak…
Looking at the earth from above can reveal incredible secrets.
delayed gratification
Archaeology is the study of the remains of the past but has long been predatory on the sciences and their ever-growing technologies. I was brought up as a student in 1970s Britain, when we learned of the…
How can we stop people putting themselves in peril?
AAP/Josh Jerga
Last weekend, an overcrowded fishing boat sank off the coast of Indonesia with more than 200 asylum seekers on board. In Australia, the political blame game started soon after with both sides trying to…
Egypt takes its first steps towards democracy but it’s not in the way many were hoping for.
EPA/Amel Pain
After the overthrowing of dictator Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has had its first round of parliamentary elections, with two parties dominating the vote – the moderate Muslim Brotherhood and the religious conservative…
Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at RUSI; Associate Professor in Politics & International Relations; Deputy Director of the Centre on US Politics, UCL