CONFLICTED

In our previous episode on the Iranian revolution, we left the Ayatollah Khomeini sitting high and mighty in Tehran. Little did he know, next door in Baghdad, an Arab strongman nursed revolutionary, expansionary ambitions of his own: Saddam Hussein, the Lion of the Arabs and Defender of the Eastern Gate, the ultimate symbol of corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship. Taking up where we left off back i...

We’ve reached the Iranian Revolution of 1979! The great showdown! The watershed moment when the tensions which we’ve been tracing—between reform and reaction, modernism and tradition—erupted into sweeping rejection of the Western model of modernity and its replacement with something apocalyptic, something both ancient and strikingly new: a Shi’a Islamic Republic. It was out with the Shah, in with...

In this episode, Aimen and Thomas talk about one of the many governing institutions which arose out of the wreckage of the old imperial and colonial world, and which still underpins the way the world functions today: OPEC. The only great governing institution founded and run by statesmen outside the Western corridors of power, since its founding in 1960, OPEC has played a big role in every major g...

Circling back to the Arab world after a brief excursus further afield, this episode of Conflicted takes up the themes of sectarian strife and political radicalism and applies them to the country that has perhaps been most affected by the Clash of Civilizations: Lebanon. What is Lebanon? Who are the Lebanese? Why did the country crack up in 1975? Answering these questions and more, the episode clim...

Having flitted around the edges of the Ottoman Empire for most of this season, now we’re going straight to the jugular: the heart of that empire, the city of Istanbul (or Constantinople, if you prefer). In this episode of Conflicted, we tell the thrilling story of the epic historic conflict between two peoples, Turks and Greeks, practising two faiths, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, a conflict st...

From the Arab world, we now journey eastward to the Indian Subcontinent. Ancient, vast, and spiritually rich, the lands that comprise the nation-states of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh underwent one of the great traumas of the 20th century: the end of British rule and the Partition of the Raj. In this episode, we’ll tell this story, which includes a panoply of immense political personalities—Gan...

Now that we’ve told the story of the rise and fall of Nasserism, we turn to Libya and its handsome and charismatic dictator, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Believing himself to have inherited Nasser’s mantle of Arab leadership, Gaddafi’s brazen narcissistic insanity is the stuff of legend, and Aimen’s got a caravan-load of funny anecdotes to illustrate just how nuts he was. But more seriously, Gaddafi symb...

We’ve finally reached the climax of the Cold War in the Middle East: the 6-Day War of 1967 and its dramatic sequel, the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The outcomes of both wars are well known; less so the political machinations leading up to them. We’ll do our best to take you behind the scenes of the corridors of power and into the minds of Arab and Israeli leaders. No one wanted war, yet war arrived. W...

As we race toward the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, we’re putting our final duck in its row. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Jordan and Iraq both received Hashemite monarchs—and the rivalries and ideological conflicts that followed still reverberate today, perhaps nowhere more powerfully than on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Focusing mainly on the tragic history of modern Iraq, this epis...

In this episode, we talk about Syria. Or ask the question, really: What is Syria? Syria has been described as a “ fulcrum of geopolitical hegemony...” — a bit like Ukraine, interestingly — “...in the Middle East.” For that reason, for thousands of years Syria has been fought over and smashed up several times by invading armies from all directions, making the country somewhat amorphous, a patchwork...

Before the next episode, we have something a little different for your ears - an introduction to a whole new podcast - Behind the Sun. In Behind the Sun, Nadia, a young Syrian woman in the diaspora, struggles to come to terms with what the world knows about what’s happening in her country. She speaks with Riyad - her father's friend - whom she had first met in the strangest of circumstances. In ep...

Having avoided it for as long as possible, Aimen & Thomas finally turn their attention to the state of Israel: its backstory, its modern re-emergence, and its impact on the civilizational fault lines crisscrossing the Middle East. In the present day, Arab statesmen have never been closer to their Israeli counterparts, both sides united around a shared enemy: Iran. This marks a dramatic sea change...

Following on from our last episode, another CIA adventure in the Middle East kicks off this episode on Egypt. King Farouk’s removal from power is the starting pistol for the Egyptian Revolution—a landmark event in modern middle eastern history. The figure of Nasser reigns supreme, whose dogged attempts to resist incorporation into the new U.S.-led Western order precipitated a crisis that might hav...

In this episode, we shift our focus to Iran. Nobody could have known this at the time, but with hindsight we can see that at the beginning of the Cold War, Iran had somehow become a whirlpool swirling with all of the 20th century’s clashing ideological and political forces. All the players are there: an autocratic monarch in the old style; a newly formed Communist party conspiring revolution; aris...

In the last episode we talked about how the American half of the Cold War was established in Saudi Arabia. Today, we’re shifting our focus to the other half of that epic conflict: the Soviet Union. What were the Soviet Union’s designs on the Middle East? Or were their forays into Middle Eastern geopolitics simply countermoves in a Cold War chess game, attempts to wrongfoot their American opponent?...

In this week’s episode, we focus attention on Aimen’s homeland: Saudi Arabia. Arabia is as old as time, and we explore how the depth and profundity of its history inform the present day. Saudi Arabia is also, as we’ll show, where the Cold War began, and to understand how, we’ll explain the way in which long-standing British power in the region gave way, fitfully and almost without anyone noticing,...

Introduced in the first episode, we raise the all-important question: what is the “Clash of Civilizations?” We lay the groundwork by explaining the concept and how it relates to the “New World Order” covered in Series 2. Listen as Thomas and Aimen travel back to the end of the Cold War, this time zooming in on a little-known regional conflict, the explosive dispute still raging between Azerbaijan...

We pick up where we left off, narrating the failure of America’s Afghanistan policy, its chaotic pull-out, and how the future of Afghanistan rests on a game of geopolitical poker—and the dealer is the Taliban! In our first episode of the season, Thomas and Aimen fully unpack Afghanistan’s modern history and its potential future all while introducing us to the idea of the ‘Clash of Civilizations’…...

Join us on January 19 for Season 3 as we dive even deeper into the history of the Middle East by looking at the Cold War and travelling as far back as the Bronze Age. We also reflect on today’s state of affairs and digest its complexities to answer the question: is a clash of civilizations really to blame for the Middle East’s history of conflict? Or is the real problem our blindness to the region...

This year marks twenty years since 9/11 and the start of the war in Afghanistan. A war which is now reaching a tragic and extraordinary finale. In this special episode, Thomas and Aimen are back for a deep dive into the ancient and modern history of Afghanistan, Aimen's first hand experiences with the Taliban and an exploration of why the country has been in disarray for decades now. And we can al...

In November, Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated, and so Thomas and Aimen return to discuss the regional context of Iran’s nuclear program, what’s next for the region once Joe Biden takes office, and Aimen reveals how the assassination unfolded step-by-step. Plus, you will hear an update on Season 3 and a very special guest. Listen to exclusive bonus content and get al...

In this bonus episode, Thomas introduces a new show from the producers of Conflicted about the Srebrenica genocide. Tune in to hear the first episode of Untold Killing in full.   The story of the last European genocide starts with the Bosnian War in 1992. Tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims fleeing from persecution found their way to Srebrenica, a town where they were meant to be protected. And b...

Thomas introduces a new podcast about a subject familiar to Conflicted listeners: the Bosnian War. Untold Killing is a deep dive into one particularly tragic event during the war - the Srebrenica Genocide. Listen to the teaser and subscribe to the new show at https://bit.ly/untoldpod   Join the Conflicted Community hub on Discord to discuss all things Conflicted with fellow dear listeners, get exc...

In this special episode, Thomas and Aimen sit down to answer your questions. They dig deeper into past discussions as well as touch on topics we haven’t covered in the podcast before. Expect to hear discussion about how COVID-19 is impacting the Middle East, western intervention in the Balkans and the role of Faith in Saddam’s regime.   A massive thanks to the listeners who sent in questions for t...

As the financial crisis moved off the front pages, activists and politicians began to organize around another global emergency: climate change. In this episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss and debate their way through the science and politics around this hot topic.   If you’d like to help us develop Conflicted for future seasons, please take a few minutes to fill out our questionnaire at bit.ly/confl...