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John Jenkins is a former UK ambassador to Libya and Saudi Arabia
Why the cause of liberal democracy collapsed in the Middle East.
In 1979 the forces that have left the Islamic world in chaos were unleashed – but it didn’t have to be that way then, or now.
Demonstrators in Iraq and Lebanon have stood their ground for seven weeks, but to succeed, protest movements need credible leaders, programmes of reform and at least some control over the levers of power.
Conflict between Israel and Iran seems increasingly inevitable now the US has torn up the nuclear deal. But if – or when – it happens, who do the Sunni Gulf states and Egypt back?
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Iran has become ever more powerful in the region. But now a new Saudi-led alliance is fighting back. Are we heading for a catastrophe?
For those of us who have watched the region for decades, this crisis did not come out of nowhere.
The attack on the airbase was exactly the action we expected to see from the Obama administration in August 2013
Unless Donald Trump is able to master geopolitical complexity, the trouble in the Middle East will get far worse.
As the civil war rages on, Syria has become a theatre for great-power rivalry, with Russia and Iran turning cynical opportunism into high policy.
A letter from Bahrain.
