Middle East

US President Joe Biden this month issued an Interim National Security Guidance which will, in his words, “convey my vision for how America will engage the world”. He has directed departments and agencies “to align their actions with this guidance”. This document also provides some answers

Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has cast doubt on the Australian government’s strategy in securing her release from Iran last November. In her first post-release public interview on 9 March, Moore-Gilbert said she believed the government’s “quiet diplomacy” approach – dealing

The chronicles recount that, while praying in the little dilapidated church of San Damiano, Saint Francis of Assisi heard a voice: “Francis, go repair my church, which as you can see is in ruin.” Like his namesake saint, Pope Francis will travel to Iraq from 5 to 8 March on a double-repair

The Indonesian coast guard (BAKAMLA) last week seized two oil tankers – one Iranian flagged, the other from Panama – inside Indonesia’s waters. The two tankers are suspected of conducting a cargo transfer at sea. Yet despite the obvious interest because of US unilateral sanctions on Iran, the

While Australia is facing its own war crimes allegations in relation to Afghanistan, the UK is the focus of allegations with respect to Iraq. The trials of UK nationals for war crimes committed in Iraq would have been a positive development for the International Criminal Court (

Political assassinations require considerable preparation and planning. It is almost certain the killing last week of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, head of the Iranian nuclear program, was timed to avoid cancellation of the hostage exchange involving Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert. The

2020 could be defined as a year of global crises – health, political, environmental and economic. The G20 is caught among all four, and how the forum responds raises questions about whether it is facing its own existential crisis. With a chaotic US election and presidential transition as well as

If he’s not already, Qatar’s ambassador in Canberra should be prepared to fly home on short notice. If he wants to use Qatar Airways, fine. But he might also need to tell the pilot that as a result of this outrageous scandal involving forced invasive examinations of female passengers at

The re-emergence of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in September 2020 over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh has taken a much more deadly and destabilising turn than in previous recent outbreaks. A seemingly intractable conflict, dating back to well before the Soviet occupation of the

Book review: Philip H. Gordon, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East (St. Martin’s Press 2020) Philip H. Gordon, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East during the Barack Obama administration, and now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign

Turkey’s reimagining of the Pax Ottomana has not made many friends in the region, and it currently finds itself at odds with Egypt, UAE and Greece to name a few. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made very clear his ambition that Turkey will be a leader in the Mediterranean and in

The Abraham Accord, the deal announced this month that laid the groundwork for normalisation of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, was hailed as a historic opportunity to advance regional peace. Yet it was also seen by Palestinians as a betrayal, as they bitterly complained that

After the United States experienced a rebuff at the United Nations last week – with almost the entire membership of the Security Council rejecting its attempt to re-impose UN sanctions on Iran – US officials warned that the dispute could lead to a major crisis in the Council, damaging the

The sclerotic Lebanese political system has a way of corrupting those who become involved in it. Last week’s verdict from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon found a Hezbollah member was guilty of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005, but it did not find that Hezbollah or

Pakistan­–Saudi Arabia relations are at a historically low ebb. In November 2018, Saudi Arabia announced a US$6.2 billion loan package for cash-strapped Pakistan. The package included a total of $3 billion in loans and an oil credit facility amounting to $3.2 billion. Then, however, Riyad

When you have the privilege of working in international relations, there are some experiences that stay with you for life. There are the places you go and the people you meet. Conversations that start at the roundtable, continue into dinner, and often go late into the night. At airports and hotels,

In the early hours of 3 January 2020, missiles fired from US drones killed ten people near Baghdad airport. Drone strikes by the US are almost commonplace these days, but what made this particular strike noteworthy was its target: General Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran's Quds Force, a unit of

On Saturday last week, following weeks of lobbying by humanitarian agencies and difficult diplomatic negotiations, the UN Security Council renewed its authorisation for the UN and its partners to provide humanitarian assistance in north-western Syria from across the Turkish border. The final

Back in December, US President Donald Trump signed the National Defence Authorisation Act, which included was a set of measures known as the Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act, or Caesar Act. It was so labelled after the codename of a Syrian defector who had exposed evidence of Syrian government

In April, the UN Security Council issued a statement endorsing the UN Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire in Yemen to better enable a response to Covid-19. The Council recognised that the humanitarian crisis in Yemen made the country “exceptionally vulnerable”, and that any further

Given the increasingly familiarity of video conferencing during working from home arrangements, we thought to take the opportunity to commence a new series of interviews with key policy makers and observers in world affairs. To kick off, we were fortunate to interview Brett McGurk, currently a

Iran’s initial reaction to the coronavirus pandemic was sluggish, and its fight with the outbreak has been chaotic and inefficient. US sanctions undeniably played a role in cutting off Iran’s access to medical equipment and expertise, medicine, and tests, but the crisis has also displayed the

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the heart of Europe. The severity of the virus has forced policymakers to shift their priorities almost exclusively to the home front. As a result, international security concerns, particularly the fight against the remnants of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which had until

The War on Covid-19 In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mobilising language of war is being used by leaders from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to France’s President Emmanuel Macron and British