Tehran knows its hand when it comes to playing the energy card across the region.

A papal visit helps focus world attention. It also deals the Vatican in to the crowded “great game” in the Middle East.

The drone strike on Qasem Soleimani was unlawful, the report finds, but weak analysis undercuts its conclusion.

In a new interview series, the former US special envoy discusses conflict in Syria and maximalist foreign policy goals.

New hostilities between Turkey and Syria mark another blow to the Astana process and further tragedy for civilians.

Yet the Kurds may gamble to play the two adversaries off against each other to finally achieve an independent state.

The influential Shiite cleric has avoided formal participation in government, but what he does now could be critical.

Having pre-emptively declared the militant group “100% defeated”, the pull back from Syria raises different threats.

The compromise that put Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi in office has entrenched patronage politics and fuelled public rage.

Where is the outrage over the capital punishment sentence for ISIS fighter and Australian citizen Ahmed Merhi?

The plight of the ever-persecuted Yazidis remains as dire – and as invisible – as ever.

Foreign fighters who join armed Kurdish groups become hostage to their political agenda.

The Kurds may like to say they have no friends but the mountains, but their family has a history of letting them down too.

Holding a provocative, quixotic and externally friendless referendum was an unnecessary risk for the Kurds to take, for very little return.

America’s strategy of ‘building partner capacity’ is beginning to show its weaknesses.

Hobbyist drones have moved air power away from government control and passed it to the people.

The allure of a referendum on Kurdish independence has overridden the practical implications and very real risks.

A 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 complex this conflict remains.

Gulf states have decided to try a carrot-based approach towards Iraq Shia leaders in attempting to blunt Iranian influence.

There are signs that Saudi Arabia has changed tack and has decided to contest Iran's influence in Iraq.