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Washington’s decision, announced on 9 July, to release five Iranian officials detained by US forces in Iraq since January 2007 was unusually timed. The men were described by Tehran as ‘diplomats’ but were said to have included the operations chief and other members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds force, which was accused of arming local Shia militias and inciting attacks against US forces

Senior Saudi princes were seen lining up to praise King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz during recent celebrations of the fourth anniversary of the pledge of allegiance (bayaa) to the new monarch. Several of the most senior princes wrote special speeches, with observers pointing to a strict protocol and hierarchy in how they were reported.

The King is overseeing a programme of cautious change, but is reluctant to ease the family hold on real power or alienate powerful religious interests. It takes fine political judgment to bolster the position of his Shammar branch of the family without provoking a rift with the Sudeiris and other powerful factions

Respected individuals identified with the outside world but not politically active are among those rounded up in the Iranian regime's post-election crackdown.

Charismatic opposition leader Hassan Mushaima is weighing up the options for future campaigning as he continues to debate whether to join the cleric Sheikh Abdeljalil Al-Mukhdad and 1990s protest leader Abdelwahab Hussain at the head of a new Shia Islamist movement.

Securocrat's nervousness at a deteriorating regional security situation was highlighted by reports that Saudi Arabia may place an order for extra Typhoon warplanes from BAE Systems. Saudi Arabia is anyway looking to develop

Iran’s post-election crackdown has deepened GCC concerns about regional security. But that does not mean the Saudis would tacitly grant Israel airspace to mount a strike against the Natanz nuclear plant.

As Riyadh’s new envoy Abdullah Al-Eifa prepares to take up his post in Damascus, President Bashar Al-Assad is enjoying the diplomatic payback for a sustained period of good behaviour over the past two years. The timing of the return of both the US and Saudi ambassadors, after four- and one-year hiatuses respectively, is no coincidence – foreign partners are once more seriously courting Syria. Riyadh and Damascus have decided to close a troubled chapter in Syria’s relations with the wider Arab world after Assad’s regime demonstrated good faith in its conduct during the Lebanese parliamentary elections of 7 June, which saw its proxies lose to the Saudi/US-backed 14 March coalition led by Saad Hariri.

The withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq over the next 12 months presents Kurdistan with its greatest political risk since the end of the four-year KDP-PUK civil war in 1998. The prospect of the US military no longer guaranteeing the Kurdish/Iraqi peace heads a long list of negative factors that are competing to undermine the KRG region’s stability and end its enviable recent track record in terms of lack of violence.

Rapidly spreading protests are seen as a challenge not just to the election result and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but also to Rahbar (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – and may eventually challenge the basis of the Islamic Republic (although this latter challenge still seems a long way off).

In the aftermath of the election results, security forces cracked down on opposition members, protesters and the media. Over 100 members of reformist groups have been arrested, accused of orchestrating protests and the ensuing violence. Many backers of the defeated candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been rounded up.

Mishal Bin Abdullah has stepped into one of the Kingdom’s most sensitive domestic government positions, facing expectations and suspicions.

The widely disputed 12 June presidential elections have led to protests in Iran on a scale not seen since the Islamic Republic’s 1979 revolution. The incumbent candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s seemingly implausible victory with 63% of the vote has led to a further divide in Iranian politics and society.

Iraqi Kurdistan has long promoted itself as ‘the other Iraq’, a haven of peace and stability in a country riven with violence. But as the region approaches its most important electoral test since autonomous rule from Erbil started in 1991, opposition is growing to the Kurdistan Regional Government coalition’s huge control, raising questions about the KRG’s commitment to democracy.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Of Iran's international critics he said, "The 84%-plus participation by eligible voters is a major blow… to the oppressive system ruling the world." "This is a great victory at a time and condition when the whole material, political and propaganda facilities outside of Iran and sometimes... inside Iran, were total mobilised against our people," he said. He also dismissed the unrest as being like the "passions after a soccer match."