Zuhair Al-Naher and Christopher Hill

Just when you think the instability in the Middle East can't get any worse, it does. The Sunni extremist takeover of much of northern and western Iraq threatens to create a zone of chaos and violence that respects no national borders. In Riyadh, Tehran and Washington key strategic players have a huge stake in what happens next. HARDtalk speaks to Zuhair al-Naher, a spokesman for the Dawa party of Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, and to former US ambassador in Baghdad, Christopher Hill. Can Iraq be brought back from the brink?