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The 'Axis of Resistance' bloc of state and non-state actors, Shia and Sunni militias, has been long in the making, as Iran's revolutionary elite has sought to project its influence via a disparate group of organisations ranged across the Middle East. Its components are of differing sizes and capabilities, and their links to Iran also vary.

Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani has been taking the lead in the recent diplomatic rapprochement with Iran’s Gulf neighbours.  Analysts suggest that Shamkhani has been recognised as a more skilled messenger than foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

With reformists sidelined, elections for Iran’s parliament look set to be an intra-conservative affair broadly viewed as a jostle between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finds himself besieged by a resurgent clerical elite and a parliament (Majlis) firmly behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Opponents are fighting back against Ahmadinejad’s consolidation of power since his disputed re-election in 2009, and his position in what hardline conservatives call a liberal ‘deviant current’ in Iranian politics.

With Ahmadinejad finding a second wind as Khamenei endorses nationalist populism, his conservative pragmatist rivals who now dominate the Majlis risk being outmanoeuvred as president and supreme leader unite in defying international opinion over the nuclear issue and continuing a high-spending domestic policy recipe that has fuelled surging inflation.

The impact of four-month-old Gaza conflict between Hamas and Israel is steadily spreading around the region, bringing fresh instability to Iraq where the US and Iran-backed militia are engaging in an escalating series of strikes and counter-strikes. While Qatar and Egypt continue to push on the diplomatic front, the risk of wider confrontation breaking out is rising.

Iranian officials have in recent days reiterated their determination to hold presidential elections on schedule on 18 June, although the voting may have to be extended to a second day given the expectation that the coronavirus pandemic will still have impacts well into next year. It is likely to be an unusual campaign, with a ban on public meetings.

President Ebrahim Raisi took his oath of office in the Majlis-e Shura-ye Eslami (parliament) on 5 August in the presence of Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei and Expediency Council. Raisi’s credentials as president-elect were endorsed by Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the days before his inauguration – an event that highlighted many of the weaknesses of Iran’s international position, but also its potential to improve the situation.

The attack on Iranian Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregân-e Rahbari) member Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani Esbukolai late April brought to the fore the question of who might lead Iran in the future.

Iran has arrested more than a dozen journalists affiliated to reformist news outlets, accusing them of collaborating with groups opposed to the Islamic Revolution. The sweep of detentions starting on 26 January appeared to be the largest crackdown on the press since 2009, and comes just months before a planned presidential election.

Saudi officials are trying to put the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi behind them, with a new initiative to kick-start inward investment and a range of soft power initiatives. But while the stellar turn-out of sporting stars, entertainers and business leaders arriving in the kingdom suggests that – rather predictably – many supports for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS)’s Vision 2030 agenda see it is business as usual, Riyadh continues to struggle to address criticism of its record on human rights and financial abuses.

Some 30 Al-Saud princes – and one princess – have been appointed to positions of authority by King Salman Bin Abdelaziz since 2017. The appointments have come in waves: 22 in 2017, seven in 2018 and four in spring 2019. Many are notably young, in a system that has traditionally not favoured youth, and are drawn from the same cohort as Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS).

Informed observers have long noted that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) likes to surround himself with trusted allies from among the younger generation of the Al-Saud, who have a similar educational background and interests as himself. According to a veteran observer of the Al-Saud, “MBS likes young people around him, he finds it awkward to deal with the older generation”. A source who worked in and around MBS’s Vision 2030 programme commented that the crown prince “doesn’t trust some of the older princes and has preferred to socialise with the younger ones”.

Culture minister Prince Badr Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Nasir Bin Saud Bin Ibrahim Bin Abdallah Bin Farhan Bin Saud (to give him his full name) has been close to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) for at least a decade. Badr is a great-grandson of Nasir Bin Saud (died 1939), who accompanied Ibn Saud on the 1902 raid on Riyadh. In December 2015, Badr was appointed chairman of media conglomerate Saudi Research and Marketing Group, which is closely tied to the Al-Salman. However, he was in MBS’s orbit some years before that.

Speculation continues over another key Saudi diplomatic role, as ambassador to the United States Prince Khalid Bin Salman is reported to have left Washington once again in December amid suggestions that he could soon be replaced by another royal. If that does happen, it will be seen as another effort by Riyadh to draw a line under the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October – an event which Prince Khalid has been linked to despite his denial of playing any role in the grisly affair.