Iran
Peace with and within Iran may seem an outlandish prospect to many following recent events. Yet reaching an agreement is now not only vital for the stability of neighbouring countries, but also in the interests of the Iranian people themselves.
As recent events have deepened uncertainty in the Gulf, zenith asks former Saudi intelligence chief Turki al-Faisal for his thoughts on the death of Qassem Suleimani, Saudi support for Iraq and a possible rapprochement between the kingdom and Iran.
Amid great sighs of relief over the supposedly avoided escalation between the USA and Iran, an astonishing fact has been overlooked. America has a vulnerable flank.
An Iranian-Saudi war along sectarian lines could spell doom for Pakistan and could put its Shia minority into a stranglehold. The first priority for foreign policy should be to mitigate this, and quickly.
The story of who really attacked the Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia has taken strange turns. The anti-Iran axis fails to stay on message. And yet Trump, the Houthis, Tehran and even the Saudis all have at least something positive to take away.
The ‘Kalashnikov of the skies’ is changing the equation of warfare, equipping non-state actors with unprecedented aerial capabilities. Iran has found a cheap way to arm its vassals, though development of drone systems doesn’t follow a straight path.
Nearly a million people are caught up between the battle lines in Idlib. French Syria expert Fabrice Balanche explains why Russia’s deal with Erdoğan failed, and yet Moscow still holds all the cards.
Stuck in the present and with no viable perspective for positive change, Iranian citizens feel powerless. Worse, we can expect things to stay as they are, until change will come – suddenly, and possibly from a direction we do not expect.