In the final episode of this season, Thomas & Aimen come full circle again, back to the latest chapter in Aimen’s extraordinary life—a new, sad chapter that has forced a difficult and fateful decision upon him. The two friends also roll up their sleeves and resume their age-old ongoing argument: is the clash between Western modernity and Islamic civilization bound to end in bloody conflict, or can the Islamic world make the adjustments required to reap the benefits of modernity—without losing it...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast As Conflicted approaches the end of season 3, Aimen & Thomas turn their attention to a country which hasn’t featured much on the podcast so far: Algeria. Often overlooked due to the Algerian regime’s isolationist policy, for those with eyes to see Algeria has been at the vanguard of Middle Eastern developments for over two hundred years. For this reason, it’s the perfect prism through which to revisit all the historical themes from this season: traditional Islamic civilization, the challenge of ...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast With the assassination of Al Qaeda leader Aymen al-Zawahiri ringing in their ears, Aimen & Thomas turn their attention once again to Afghanistan, focusing this time on the Soviet invasion in 1979 and the rise of global jihadism that followed. What led the Soviets to invade? What was Kabul’s Cold War relationship with Moscow like in the run-up to the invasion? What was the U.S.’s true role in the anti-Soviet jihad? And most importantly: why did thousands of young men from the Arab role sign up to...
Sep 14, 2022•2 hr 38 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast 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 in episode 9, with Iraq reeling from the bloody 1958 coup that replaced the Hashemite monarchy with a...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast 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 the Ayatollah; and the consequences have been without parallel—for the Middle East, and the world. L...
Aug 17, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast 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 geopolitical event since its founding in 1960. War, terrorism, kidnappings, assassinations, and an ev...
Aug 03, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast 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 climaxes with what must be the fastest, most breathless description of the Lebanese Civil War ever attem...
Jul 20, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast 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 still manifest today, most painfully on the divided island of Cyprus. The invasion of Cyprus by Turkis...
Jul 06, 2022•1 hr•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast 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—Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah—and which reverberates down to the present day in the ongoing crisis over the Him...
Jun 22, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast 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 symbolizes the tragic turn toward unhinged dictatorship which much of the Arab world underwent in the se...
Jun 08, 2022•2 hr 30 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Why? These two wars were transformative: Nasserism was out and radicalism was in, and in the ongoing ...
May 25, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 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 episode engages with the clash between modern Arab republicanism and something like traditional monarchi...
May 11, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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 of peoples practicing a huge variety of religions. More than perhaps anywhere else, Syria’s road to...
Apr 27, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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 episode 1, Nadia and Riyad explore the true meaning of "safety and justice" in Syria. He tells her the...
Apr 20, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 from the past, and to help explain it, as so often this season, this episode reaches back into the B...
Apr 13, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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 have led to World War 3: the Suez Crisis. All eyes remain fixed on Egypt today, as the war in Ukraine t...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast 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; aristocratic Liberals demanding economic and constitutional reform; Islamist terrorists; Big Oil; a decl...
Mar 16, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast 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? And now, as the spectre of war between Russia and Ukraine hangs over Europe, to what extent can Sov...
Mar 02, 2022•1 hr•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 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, to those upstart imperialists from Thomas’s homeland: the United States. And we’ll see how the Cold...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast 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 and Armenia. Their struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh offers a topical example of how the Clash of Civil...
Feb 02, 2022•57 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 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’… Buckle up. Listen to exclusive bonus content and get all episodes ad-free by subscribing to Conflict...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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’s reality? Listen to exclusive bonus content and get all episodes ad-free by subscribing to Conflic...
Jan 12, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 also confirm that we are coming back for Season 3! Listen to exclusive bonus content and get all episo...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast 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 all episodes ad-free by subscribing to Conflicted Extra on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for just 99p/mon...
Dec 16, 2020•46 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 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 before genocide was carried out in that very town in 1995, the Muslims survived a siege that lasted for...
Oct 22, 2020•48 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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 exclusive content, bonus episodes and ad-free listening. Register your interest through the link: http://...
Jul 11, 2020•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 this episode and filled our audience survey. Listen to exclusive bonus content and get all episodes ad-...
Jul 01, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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/conflictedq (and maybe win a little treat!). Thank you! Listen to exclusive bonus content and get all episo...
Apr 22, 2020•59 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast From a bomb maker to double agent to… banker? In this episode, Aimen draws on his experience helping banks combat financial terrorism as our hosts explore the 2008 Financial Crisis and its impact on the New World Order. Listen to bonus content and get all episodes ad-free by subscribing to Conflicted Extra on Apple and Spotify. Join the Facebook group here: http://bit.ly/37cqJAY Read the transcript here: https://bit.ly/2RoEruG Join the Conflicted Community hub on Discord to discuss all things Co...
Apr 08, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast From the protests in Hong Kong, to the persecution of the Uighurs and the building of the New Silk Road, this episode explores the role China has played in the New World Order. Listen to bonus content and get all episodes ad-free by subscribing to Conflicted Extra on Apple and Spotify. Join the FB group here: http://bit.ly/37cqJAY Read the transcript here: https://bit.ly/2xdNmYL Join the Conflicted Community hub on Discord to discuss all things Conflicted with fellow dear listeners, get exclusiv...
Mar 25, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 
