James M Dorsey

Three recent developments lay bare the fragility of Middle Eastern alliances and a rebalancing of their priorities: the Russian-Turkish compromise on an assault on the rebel-held Syrian region of Idlib, the fate of troubled Abu Dhabi airline Etihad, and battles over reconstruction of Syria.

An attack on a military parade in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz is likely to prompt Iranian retaliation against opposition groups at home and abroad.

An offer by a Saudi-backed bank to lend financially strapped Pakistan USD 4 billion is likely intended to bolster Saudi influence when former international cricket player Imran Khan is sworn in as the South Asian country's next prime minister.

Saudi conduct of its ill-fated war in Yemen coupled with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's alignment with the Trump administration and Israel,

With multiple Middle Eastern disputes threatening to spill out of control,

A virulently anti-Shiite, Saudi-backed candidate for parliament in Pakistan's July 25 election symbolises the country's effort to reconcile contradictory policy objectives in an all but impossible attempt to keep domestic forces and foreign allies happy.

Iran, in the latest of a series of incidents on its western and south-eastern borders, said it had disbanded a Pakistan-based cell of anti-Shiite militants in a clash this week on the Iranian side of the border.

If the notion that history repeats itself is accurate, it is nowhere truer than in the Middle East where the international community, caught by surprise by the 2011 popular Arab revolts, has reverted to opting for political stability as opposed to sustainability, ignoring the undercurrents of change wracking the Middle East. Major powers do so at their peril.

Yahya Staquf, a diminutive, soft-spoken leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world's largest Muslim movement, and Indonesian president Joko Widodo's advisor on religious affairs,

With electoral upsets having become the norm, the latest upheaval that swept aside the long-standing president of Fenerbahce SC, the political crown jewel of Turkish soccer, has taken on added significance with Turkey heading into crucial snap presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24.

Protests that forced Jordan's prime minister to resign and laid bare the country's systemic economic and political crisis shed new light on the root causes of popular protests in the Middle East that swept the region in 2011 and have since continuously erupted at local levels in a swath of land stretching from Morocco to Egypt.

Newly elected Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir is adopting policies that could reshape the Southeast nation's relations with powerful Gulf states. A series of anti-corruption measures as well as statements by Mahathir and his defence minister, Mohamad (Mat) Sabu, since this month's upset in elections that ousted Prime Minister Najib Razak from office, are sparking concern in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

President Donald Trump's abrogation of the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran is likely to put his America First policy to the test. Trump's decision to walk away from the agreement that curbed Iran's nuclear programme risks fuelling a nuclear race in the Middle East, particularly if Iran decides that the US withdrawal has rendered the deal unbeneficial.

With US President Donald J Trump scheduled to announce whether he will uphold the international community's nuclear agreement on Iran and Iraqi elections slated for the same day, May 12 is gearing up to be a day that could shape the future of the Middle East.

There is no indication that this week's protests in Khuzestan were anything more than an expression of popular anger against perceived denial of an Iranian Arab identity.

In his effort to improve Saudi Arabia's badly tarnished image and project the kingdom as embracing an unidentified form of moderate Islam, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has hinted that he envisions a conservative rather than an ultra-conservative society, but not one in which citizens are fully free to make personal, let alone political choices of their own.

The Gulf crisis that has pitted World Cup host Qatar against a United Arab Emirates-Saudi Arabia-led alliance for the past eight months is showing up the fiction of a separation of sports and politics.

It's the pot calling the kettle black. As Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of seeking to encircle it with its support for Houthi rebels in Yemen as well as Qatar, the kingdom and the Islamic republic are extending their bitter rivalry beyond the Middle East into the Caucasus.

In a further warning sign, 67.3 percent favoured Iran seeking to achieve economic self-sufficiency—a policy pursued by former hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That promises to complicate any future negotiation with Iran.

Turkish allegations of Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian support for the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) threaten to turn Turkey's military offensive against Syrian Kurds aligned with the PKK into a regional imbroglio.