He will be looking particularly at the Syria-Iraq complex but also at the regional inter-state war waged via sectarian discourse.

Raymond Hinnebusch is Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and co-founder of the Institute for the study of the Middle East, Central Asian and the Caucasus and Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies. He is the author of The International Relations of the Middle East (2003); The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, edited with A. Ehteshami (2001); Syria, Revolution from Above (2000); The Syrian-Iranian Alliance: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System, with Anoushiravan Ehteshami (1997); Syria and the Middle East Peace Process, with Alasdair Drysdale (1991); Egyptian Politics under Sadat (1985); Authoritarian Power and State Formation in Ba`thist Syria: Army, Party and Peasant (1990); and Peasant and Bureaucracy in Ba`thist Syria: The Political Economy of Rural Development (1989).