Making sense of this crazy world

If you could sum up the impact of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in a sentence, it would be something like, ‘At one and the same time, Iran has dangerously widened the Sunni-Shia split that divides Muslims whilst becoming the rallying point for the Islamic anti-imperialist, anti-American and anti-Israeli movement.’ I'm going to add a little to this sentence!

We’ve been looking at really serious things with regard to Iran; and very worrying too. But the thing that has worried the West the most is undoubtedly Iran’s nuclear programme, and that's the focus of this episode.

I’m continuing my focus on the impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, moving away from the two superpowers of America and the Soviet Union, to consider the broader international impact, selecting examples of Iran’s presence across the world – some I think will tweak your memory but I think you’ll also be in for a few surprises.

This second episode on the impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran will focus on its impact on America and the Soviet Union. The Middle East with its oil, was always going to be an important region for the two superpowers, but the Islamic Revolution in Iran would unsettle the plans of both of them.

In this episode I’m going to return to 1979 and the event that triggered a process of geopolitical realignment that is up there with the collapse of the Soviet Union in its significance on our world today. America had put a lot of time and dollars into supporting the Shah in Iran, and in 1979 that blew up in America’s face, and gave us President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and later what Iran called an...

Turkey straddles many worlds: Europe and Asia, a Christian world and the Islamic world, the West and the Russian Federation. In the aftermath of WW1, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the creator of modern Turkey, created a secular Turkey out of the old Ottoman Empire.  Today, Erdogan's Turkey has placed Islam back at the centre of Turkish life. So, this episode tries to explain how we got from Ataturk to Er...

This week we come to our last episode on Egypt, focusing on Sadat and Mubarak, both, like Nasser, members of the Free Officers group that had overthrown King Farouq in the coup of 1952. They would both reject Nasser’s Arab socialism but would follow his lead in continuing to enforce an authoritarian government on the Egyptian people, and while Sadat would take-on Israel again, both reached an acco...

This week we are going to consider Nasser's legacy. The scourge of Britain, they (along with the French) saw him as something of a Hitler or a Mussolini, but to this day he is still seen by many Egyptians, maybe most, as a hero; and he was, for a time, the leader of the Arab world and a big figure in the Third World and the non-aligned movement. But did that much change for Egyptians? And was his...

The Suez Crisis left Britain humiliated and as far as the Middle East as a whole was concerned, the spectacular failure of British power meant that, in fact, Britain was no longer seen as a major player. America had made it clear that oil and the Cold War came way up their list of priorities before the so-called “special relationship”. And the Soviet Union was emboldened. But we shouldn't forget -...

What we are going to look at this week really did shake everything up. It is a remarkable story showing the arrogant and downright immoral side of British imperialism. And it ends in humiliation.

In this episode, I’m turning to Egypt because something really, really important happens in 1956. Something that changes the whole game in the Middle East and beyond, and we need to understand it.

We have reached the point in the Middle East at which British rivalry with France is largely superseded by British rivalry with America. BIG SPOLIER – America is going to win this one. Britain’s days as a major power were numbered, they just didn’t see it just yet.

Before Britain (and France) had relinquished their mandates in the Middle East, Britain and America were already manoeuvring to put one over one another and ensure predominance in the region. Before it was even over, the Anglo-French rivalry was being replaced by an Anglo-American rivalry, again whilst the two countries were allies fighting the Axis powers.

This episode looks at the very bitter end of the British mandate and the immediate Arab response to the Israeli state. And it ends with some revelations that will probably surprise you, even shock you, but that are actually understandable.

We are now in 1946 and a combination of diplomatic pressure from the Jewish Agency and continued paramilitary activity, as well as propaganda applied in America which led to increased American pressure, and French manoeuvrings too as they sought revenge, all combined to bring about an end to the British mandate in Palestine. In truth, Britain didn’t stand a chance of maintaining its mandate.

I’m returning to the Middle East and to the last years of the British mandate in Palestine. With the defeat of Germany, the full revelations of the Holocaust and the refugee crisis in Europe (there were a quarter of a million refugees of whom more than half were Jewish survivors of the Holocaust; and they were living in awful conditions with winter on its way), the momentum was with the Zionist ca...

In this episode I'm going to take a little look at the Special Relationship the British and Americans like to talk about and that has worried the French and other Europeans in the post-war world. It was Churchill who actually coined the phrase, referring to a “fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples …. a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United...

What happened in Berlin in 1948 and 1949 can be seen in a number of ways. It is the last factor in explaining the cause of the Cold War; and at the same time, it is the first act of the Cold War, the first clash between the two superpowers. It also demonstrates just how Berlin was at the centre of those rings I described in the introduction to this little series.

In 1947 and 1948, the Soviet Union moved to fulfil Churchill’s prediction and gain control of eastern Europe. It created a bloc of countries with governments loyal to them, even if their people weren’t. And America responded.

Mistrust is an interesting word and its worth reflecting on just what it might mean. It could be seen as entirely rational. Based on reason and looking at the Cold War, it would focus on the ideological divide, a divide that appeared to allow for no compromise. Democracy and self-determination versus dictatorship and empire-building. Free trade versus protectionism too. As it might also look to pa...

Though there was a clear ideological divide, this hadn’t prevented the Soviet Union and the West uniting to defeat Hitler. So how was it that allies became enemies, and so quickly? How did Europe come to be divided by, in Churchill’s famous phrase, an ‘iron curtain’? Can we attach blame? Or was it mostly a terrible misunderstanding from both sides? This episode provides the context to this epoch-m...

I'm breaking away from my history of the Middle East though not entirely. Because it just so happens that while reading a book by a super, super historian Margaret MacMillan; the book: History’s People, I came across two incredible women, one kicking around in the Middle East, the other in the Balkans, around the time of WW1 and I really wanted to share what I learned about them with you. So, a sl...

In this episode we look at the end of the French mandates and take a brief look at what, having been given their independence, Syria and Lebanon were able to do with it.

In 1943, we come to a point where the story of the French and British mandates intertwines again, or at least more visibly intertwines for wasn’t it always so. And with victory in Europe looking increasingly likely, the waters, far from becoming clearer, only get more muddied as France and Britain lose control of events.

So far, the history of the Middle East has been a complicated story of Britain and France trying to out-manoeuvre each other whilst at the same time out-manoeuvring the Arabs and, in Britain’s case, the Jews too. Couldn’t get more complicated? Of course it could. In WW2, the same complications are there to be seen but now Britain is dealing with two Frances: Vichy France, the third of France that...