Book excerpt: The region of the Middle East is beset with a structural crisis of which particular crises confronting the component countries happen to be merely subsets. The real questions revolve round the issue of how long can the present dispensations of power and social structures in the region forged in the twentieth century (first half or second) can last in the twenty-first, when they no longer reflect the realities on the ground. This volume aims to look at some of the issues to see how the faultlines in the region appear in 2020 to both those in the region, and those outside it. The volume limits itself to only Levant and the Gulf and looks at the tensions within and policies (both foreign and domestic) of some of the key regional players which have regional repercussions. It also looks at the policies of some of the global players operating in the region that have bearing on the regional faultlines. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)