Amid all the debate about what the West should or shouldn't do about the Syrian civil war, few if any commentators acknowledge the reality that the political outcome in Syria matters more to regional states than it does to the West.

In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Research Fellow Associate Professor Rodger Shanahan examines how Arab Gulf States, led by Saudi Arabia, are responding to the Obama administration’s less interventionist approach to the Middle East by adopting a more assertive regional policy aimed at containing Iran diplomatically and militarily.

In this Lowy Institute Analysis Rodger Shanahan examines changes in Iranian foreign policy under President Rouhani. He argues that while the Iranian President has changed the tone of Iranian foreign policy, changing the substance will prove much more difficult. Key findings Rouhani is a centrist rather than a reformist and sees the economy as the...

Sectarian-related security concerns in Australia are not entirely new, but the current issues surrounding Australians fighting in Syria and Iraq are qualitatively different, argues this paper. Abstract Neither the presence of Australian foreign fighters overseas nor sectarian-related security concerns in Australia are entirely new to this country. However, the current issues surrounding Australian jihadists fighting...

This report examines the trajectory of the Syrian conflict in the wake of the Russian and US agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. It argues that while that agreement, enshrined in Security Council Resolution 2118, may remove a pernicious class of weapons from the Syrian battlefield, it will do nothing to end the conflict or...