Middle East

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sparked new hope in Ramallah with efforts to kickstart moribund peace negotiations but, despite several meetings between Palestinian and American officials, there is still no clear outline for negotiations. Also absent is the increase in aid to the

Many people will be familiar with the oft-quoted five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. After my most recent research trip to the Middle East, I noticed a distinct feeling that as far as Syria is concerned, most actors are now in the final stage: an acceptance

Earlier this year I wrote about the willingness of the news media to highlight claims of civilian casualties caused by coalition forces operating in Iraq and Syria, but their apparent unwillingness to critically examine their sources or to follow up when their claims have been denied, dismissed or

It is hard not to be sympathetic to the decades-long Kurdish struggle for independence and self-determination. The long-suffering Kurdish nation was summarily divvied up by the Sykes-Picot Agreement (a document that continues to vex the Middle East to this day) and the Treaty of Lausanne after World

By any measure, the German Chancellor debate between Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz last weekend was a dispiriting, monotonous affair. On irrelevant issue after irrelevant issue, both candidates spoke around each other, barely acknowledging one another's presence and finding themselves more often

Negotiated deals between government forces and various armed groups have been a feature of the Syrian conflict. But a controversial deal involving several hundred Islamic State fighters who vacated the rugged Lebanese-Syrian border area is yet another example, if any more were needed, of how

On 22 August, Reuters reported that two North Korean shipments of unspecified goods on their way to Syria had recently been intercepted. Citing a confidential UN sanctions committee report, Reuters claimed that the importing Syrian agency was a front company for the Syrian Scientific Studies and

They say that the wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn. And if the reports of the death of the terrorist Khalid Sharrouf are confirmed, then it meant that he died as a Lebanese, rather than Australian citizen (he was stripped of his Australian citizenship early this year). This doesn’t

Iraqi Shia Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's reconciliation tour of Sunni-run Gulf states continued this week, following up his visit to Riyadh to see Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a visit to the UAE. There he was met by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayad. There is little doubt

More than two months have passed since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, along with Bahrain and also Egypt, imposed a blockade on Qatar. The very public move was intended to force Qatar back into line with the Saudi-UAE regional outlook. But Qatar fought back. By diversifying its economy,

It’s hard to know at times if Trump has any Middle East specialists on his speech writing team or whether he’s just fired them all. His comments after a recent meeting with the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafiq Hariri, have become a source of mirth here in Lebanon after he stated: 'Lebanon is on

A recent interview with Christopher Pyne in his capacity as Minister for Defence Industry was somewhat unusual in the way in which he apparently advocated defence export-led closer engagement with Middle Eastern countries. The problem with defence exports, of course, is that ideally we

In April 2015 a fresh-faced Australian-born doctor appeared in a slick Islamic State video extolling the virtues of making hijra to what he portrayed as a utopian Islamic society. The video showed the doctor, Tareq Kamleh, in a pristine and well-equipped paediatric ward tending to a premature

The Lebanese civil war was, at heart, a battle over contested conceptions of the Lebanese state. Was it to be secular and West-aligned, or closer to the (predominantly Muslim) Arab world? This question has never really been settled. But these days, rather than fighting it out on the streets of

Yesterday the Australian government announced the RAAF is temporarily ceasing operations over Syria. Although a Defence spokesman told the ABC that ‘force protection was regularly reviewed’, it is hard not to conclude the move was a response to the US downing of a Syrian jet and the subsequent

Sryian President Bashar al-Assad claimed in September 2016 that he intends to re-establish control over the whole of Syria, and recent actions indicate this remains his strategic aim. In the west of Syria, realising he did not have sufficient combat power to defeat the armed opposition militarily

Much has been said about US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East but it’s worth remembering that only a few weeks earlier a mirror image of Trump’s Middle East tour took place in China. In mid-March, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

There are two reasons why US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East matters to Australia. First, the President’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he also held a summit with Arab leaders, and Israel are a signal of where the administration’s foreign policy priority lies, and this does

President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel and his much-hyped speech to Arab and Islamic leaders in Riyadh on Sunday portend a new phase of US engagement with the Middle East that is far more transactional and less values-laden than before. The Trump administration has thrown in its

President Donald Trump’s upcoming Middle East tour, his first international trip since assuming office in January, will take him to the heart of the three monotheistic faiths, beginning in Saudi Arabia, travelling to Israel and finishing at the Vatican. The symbolism of the tour is manifold.

As Iran heads into an election on Friday with the focus on the economy, it is easy to miss the rise in temperature in Iran’s regional security environment. In late April, nine Iranian border guards were killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province as the result of an attack launched from Pakistani soil

Yemen has been rather prominent in the Trump Administration's foreign policy agenda. On 29 January, a spectacularly flawed raid conducted by US special forces against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) heralded the beginning of a starkly different US policy towards the impoverished and

As we approach Easter, it's worth looking at how institutional Christianity and radical Islamism interact in the contemporary world. The bomb attacks on Coptic churches in Egypt highlight the occasional focus by Islamist groups on Christian targets in the Middle East. Just as outsiders

What should have been a joyous Easter week has turned to tragedy in Egypt. Two suicide bombings targeting St Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria (where the Coptic pope was praying just minutes before) and St George’s church in Tanta killed 44 people and injured hundreds during Palm Sunday services.