Author: Tomasz Otłowski

Three years after the outbreak of the Arab Spring, events in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are continuing to surprise us with their scale and dynamism. One of these intriguing developments has been the increasing evidence of a thaw between Iran and the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf. The signs of a potential warming of relations between the two countries are all the more astonishing considering that they are appearing at a time when Sunni-Shia confrontation has been at its most severe for decades. On the territory of war-torn Syria, this confrontation has taken on explicitly militant character.