The Diplomat | ديبلومات

Israel and Lebanon have signed a framework agreement both sides are calling historic. Lebanon’s parliament speaker has rejected it, warning of civil war. A secret security annex has leaked. And the question of whether Hezbollah will actually disarm remains open. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon joins MBN Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly to defend the agreement, respond to its harshest cri...

Four months into the war with Iran, Congress just voted on whether it should continue. Congressman Michael Baumgartner was at the center of that debate. A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Middle East subcommittee, Baumgartner served at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and in Afghanistan before Congress, and first visited the region as a student thirty years ago. In this episode, he...

The war with Iran is paused, not closed. Gaza is at a stalemate with no clear way forward. Lebanon is holding under a fragile ceasefire. And Washington just released a counterterrorism strategy that is raising alarm among the people who wrote the original playbook. Two of the most decorated American diplomats alive sit down with Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly to tell you what the headlines are...

Ambassador Tom Nides served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Biden. He had screaming matches with Netanyahu. He sat with families who buried their children. He was in the room when Saudi normalization almost happened. Now he is speaking freely. In this episode of The Diplomat, Nides joins Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly and MBN Editor-in-Chief Leila Bazzi for a wide-ranging, unfilter...

Khamenei is gone, but the real story is not his death. It is the dangerous vacuum now opening behind him. In this urgent episode of The Diplomat , Joe Kawly, Washington Bureau Chief, sits down with Alex Vatanka, one of Washington’s most respected Iran analysts, to break down the power vacuum now opening inside Tehran. Who takes over after Khamenei? Does the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tighte...

A negotiation is unfolding quietly in Muscat, and it may define the next chapter of the Middle East, or simply postpone the next crisis. In this episode of The Diplomat , Joe Kawly speaks with Ambassador Dennis Ross, Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute, and one of the most experienced American diplomats of the modern era, about what is really happening beneath the surface of the U.S.–...

Washington is betting on a new Syria. The question is whether Syria can survive the bet. In this episode of The Diplomat , Joe Kawly speaks with Will Todman of CSIS, who recently returned from Syria, about what has changed since the fall of Assad and what has not. The conversation cuts through optimistic policy narratives and examines the risks that remain beneath the surface: fragile security, in...

Israel’s security model is being tested on every front. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are all shifting at the same time, and the old formulas of deterrence are no longer behaving the way they used to.  In this episode of The Diplomat, Israeli Defense Strategist Assaf Orion breaks down why Israel’s traditional reliance on walls, buffer zones, and preemptive deterrence is reaching its limit. Orion...

Why Trump sees Turkey as an essential problem solver, and why Israel views the same moves as a growing danger.  Middle East politics are rearranging themselves in real time, and Turkey is touching every pressure point. Ankara is brokering deals in Gaza, pushing into Syria, resetting ties with Egypt, and balancing between Washington and Moscow. All of this is happening while Israeli officials warn...

Lebanon has been called a failed state, a fragile state, even a cautionary tale,  but none of these labels capture what’s really happening. In this episode, Dania Arayssi, Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute and a political scientist studying Lebanon’s public trust and remittance economy, joins Joe Kawly to unpack: • Why Lebanon’s leadership can’t disarm Hezbollah without risking civil war •...

This week on The Diplomat , we look at how some democracies are quietly reshaping themselves under pressure. Jonathan Katz, an anti-corruption and democracy expert, from the Brookings Institution explains why Moldova is moving forward while Ukraine, Tunisia, and others are struggling to keep reform alive. From strategic corruption to AI-fueled disinformation, this episode reveals how democracy can...

In this episode of The Diplomat , Dr. Kenneth Pollack joins Joe Kawly to map what comes next: Iran is retrenching, Israel is recalibrating, and Gulf capitals are quietly rewriting the rules of power? Pollack has been inside the CIA, briefed U.S. presidents, and watched the Middle East reinvent itself through war, diplomacy, and everything in between. From Tehran’s post-war caution to Washington’s...

He served under three U.S. presidents, shaped policy on the Middle East and Latin America, and was America’s special envoy for both Iran and Venezuela. In this episode of The Diplomat, Elliott Abrams joins Joe Kawly to assess whether Iran’s influence across the region is truly weakening or if that is just an illusion. From Hezbollah’s arsenal in Lebanon to Gaza’s uncertain future and the so-called...

He warned NATO about Russia long before the tanks rolled into Ukraine and built one of the world’s most advanced digital societies from a country once dismissed as a “former Soviet republic.” In this episode of The Diplomat, former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves joins Joe Kawly to reveal how ignorance, prejudice, and misplaced faith in dialogue left NATO exposed and how Estonia turned tec...

He advised U.S. presidents, negotiated peace deals, and shaped Washington's Middle East policy from the inside. In this episode of The Diplomat, veteran peace negotiator Aaron David Miller joins Joe Kawly to explain how domestic politics, evangelical support, and deep-rooted alliances continue to shape America’s policy on Israel and Gaza. From the Trump-Netanyahu partnership to the silence on civi...

What happens when the truth comes too early, and no one listens? He wrote the memo that warned the Iraq war could ignite a regional storm. Then he was sent into the storm. In this episode of The Diplomat , Ambassador James Jeffrey reflects on what Washington refused to see, from Iraq’s fragile sovereignty to the myth of unlimited U.S. support. Joe Kawly pulls back the curtain on the delicate line...

What happens when war creeps to your doorstep, and you’re the one sent to hold the line? In this episode of The Diplomat , Ambassador Douglas Silliman tells the untold stories of his time in Kuwait and Iraq. From covert smuggling routes to tense backroom talks, this is the kind of diplomacy that never makes the news, but changes everything. Host and Producer Joe Kawly brings you into the conversat...

Former U.S. Ambassador David Shinn offers rare insights into the shifting dynamics of the Horn of Africa.  In this exclusive podcast interview, he unpacks U.S. policy, regional rivalries, and the road ahead. Joe Kawly brings extensive experience from conflict zones in the Middle East to the power corridors of Washington. As a journalist, he’s seen how words can escalate a crisis or open the door t...

From nuclear red lines to backchannel diplomacy, Eyal Hulata was at the heart of Israel’s national security strategy during some of its most delicate moments. In this episode of The Diplomat, Hulata speaks openly about covert strikes on Iran, the maritime deal with Lebanon, and the sentence that made him a political target. From secret mediation between Moscow and Kyiv to standing in Bahrain and r...

“We were not careful in Lebanon.” With that quiet indictment, former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker begins a story that doesn’t read like memoirs, but like real lessons from the heart of war. In this episode of The Diplomat , Crocker recounts surviving the 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, exposing how Syria used terror as a foreign policy tool, and warning why Bashar al-Assad was never the refor...

Behind every nuclear crisis is a pattern of overlooked loopholes, ignored warnings, and political blind spots. From civilian cover stories to strategic exceptions, Henry Sokolski has spent four decades warning about the cracks in the global nonproliferation system. In this episode of The Diplomat , Sokolski explains how enrichment and reprocessing became normalized under the guise of peaceful ener...

In December 2010, a fruit vendor’s act of protest sparked a revolution. Weeks later, Tunisia’s longtime dictator fled the country—and at the center of it all was Gordon Gray, the U.S. ambassador whose private cables pulled no punches about what was really happening on the ground. In this third episode of The Diplomat , Gray reflects on the moment when honesty turned explosive, what it means to lis...

When former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone spoke up about freedom of expression in 2013, it wasn’t meant to ignite a firestorm. But the backlash was swift, and the accusations - explosive. In this premiere episode of The Diplomat , we explore the thin line between diplomacy and provocation, and how one sentence turned into a geopolitical flashpoint. Amb. Ricciardone opens up about G...

From the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in 2000 to the looming famine in Gaza in 2024, Ambassador David Satterfield has been in the room where decisions are made—but rarely discussed. In this first episode of The Diplomat, Satterfield reveals how Hafez al-Assad tried to sabotage Israel’s withdrawal by leveraging Hezbollah, how Syria blocked Lebanese cooperation with the UN, and why the cris...