 I'm with Anthony Bobalo from Louis Institute on the sideline of the Crawford Leadership Forum. We just had a very lively discussion about the Middle East threats and opportunities. Anthony, what are the major threats that you see particularly to Australia's security from the Middle East? The major threat is the collapse of the regional order, the order within states. Now that's not been uniform across the region. In some cases we've seen a total collapse as in Libya. In other cases, like Egypt, you saw the overthrowing of the regime but now an effort by old regime elements to rebuild the regime. And in Syria, of course, the regime has survived but the country has been plunged into chaos. And the major threat for Australia, there are two immediate threats from that. One is obviously the movement of peoples, these conflicts and these gaps in governance that have been generated. Obviously it mostly affects Europe but we have seen flows of refugees from the Middle East to Australia as well. But more particularly has been the rise of extremist movements. And particularly in these ungoverned spaces that have emerged from the collapse of the old Arab states, those ungoverned spaces now have emerged as areas for these groups to train, to bring in followers from around the world and to promote violence and extremism. Is Australia's involvement in the US-led military coalition against us likely to be very productive? At the moment, the military campaign against Islamic State does seem to be working in that over time Islamic State is losing territory and I think there's a reasonable chance that over time Islamic State will disappear. The problem is this is a very narrow focus. We're focused on Islamic State and even if we defeat Islamic State, Australia is part of a coalition, the likelihood is that until the bigger problem of the Syrian civil war is solved, until governance is re-established in Syria, that Islamic State will disappear and new extremist movements or existing extremist movements will simply fill the vacuum. But of course it's going to be very hard to put a country like Syria or for that matter Iraq back together and of course the same thing applies to Yemen and Libya. So the international community has got a very big job in their hands and a very major challenge. It's an enormous job. At the same time as you try and deal with the consequences, dealing with the symptoms, you have to try and attack the cause. So at the same time as we are trying to mitigate the symptoms by targeting extremists, by giving assistance to deal with the humanitarian situation where also we also should be supporting and arguably doing more to support political efforts to solve the conflicts in these countries. How do you view the Iran's nuclear agreement with the world powers? Do you think that's likely to contribute to stability in the region or is it likely to cause more anguish on the part of the Arab states and particularly Saudi Arabia and its partners and Gulf Cooperation Council and that may prompt Saudis to seek nuclear weapons of their own particularly from Pakistan where they really have with which they have deeper strategic ties and at the same time Pakistanis are producing tactical nuclear bombs very madly in large numbers and there have been reports that Saudi Arabia has made possibly made a down payment for some of those nuclear weapons or there has been even a report lately that actually Saudis may have already laid their hands down on a couple of those tactical nuclear bombs. I think certainly in the case of Iran's relations with the West and with the United States, the nuclear deal has been a positive development in terms of efforts to slow down or restrain the Iranian nuclear program. I think you can argue it has been a positive development, but the nuclear program has clearly even stimulated even further the fears that Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia have of Iran. They feel that Iran now with sanctions removed will emerge even more powerful. So I think absolutely the Saudis are considering a range of options about how to counter Iran's kind of growing power and growing influence. I'm not sure that they would go to the full lengths at least in open anyway of obtaining a nuclear weapon from Pakistan because this would have enormously negative consequences for the relationship with the United States. So I think the Saudis would do it in circumstances where there would already been a breakdown in U.S.-Saudi relations, but I think the Saudis recognize the U.S. is still too important to Saudi Arabia in terms of its external security as an arms supplier, as a trainer, for them to risk such a move which would really badly damage their ties. Do you think the Saudis and their partners and the Gulf Corporation Council, particularly United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, exaggerating the Iranian threat just simply because of their own domestic problems? I think there's certainly an argument for that. I think in the case of Yemen, the Saudis clearly are worried. Other non-Arab observers have argued that perhaps the amount of support that the Iranians are supplying the rebels in Yemen is not as extensive as the Saudis fear, but you have to deal with the fact that this is the real Saudi fear. I mean, I think it's also the case that this is an important way for the Saudis to build unity and loyalty internally within Saudi Arabia, particularly at a time of leadership transition. We've seen the transition in the last couple of years to a new king. His son, the Deputy Crown Prince, is trying to push through a very ambitious reform agenda, but is also clearly building up his position as well in the succession. And I think these things are also linked to the way that the Saudis depict the Iranian threat. Saudi Arabia and Arab countries now they've really torn down their opposition to Israel over the Palestinian issue. But of course, Iran also been trying to do the same sort of thing. Where is that going to really leave the Palestinian issue? Well, the Palestinian issue, I think it will leave the Palestinian issue where it has been left for the last few years, which is very much on the back burner. Now, there are structural reasons for that on the Israeli side and the Palestinian side. There's been a lack of trust. There's no the relationship between the political issues of both sides is completely broken down. So the prospects of a resume negotiation are not very high anyway, but equally externally, there's no one really pushing for it, with the exception now of this French initiative. And even the US has, for all intents and purposes, seemingly given up on these processes. But of course, the two important parties that Israel and the Palestinians are not represented in the Paris talk. And that's the best, and that gives you the best sense of how likely those talks are to succeed.