Persian Gulf

Thanks to problems of both conception and execution, the Iraq war ended up becoming the most egregious American foreign policy failure since Vietnam. Historians will long debate what the consequences might have been of different decisions at key turning points. We at Foreign Affairs were participating in these debates in real time; here are some highlights of our coverage of the war over the last decade.

After four years in exile, the former radical Shia militant Muqtada al-Sadr returned to Iraq in early 2011. For the past two years, he has sought to rebrand himself as a moderate with an inclusive message -- but it remains unclear whether Iraqis should accept his new persona as genuine.

The standoff between Iran and the West has moved into the Caucasus, where both the Islamic Republic and Israel are trying to woo Azerbaijan -- a country with firm historical connections to Iran but whose interests have overlapped with those of Israel. The dynamic is upsetting the regional balance of power and threatening to overturn nearly two decades of uneasy peace.

Editor Gideon Rose interviews Gary Sick, adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, on his contribution to Foreign Affairs' latest eBook, Iran and the Bomb: Solving the Persian Puzzle.