In the Middle East, a familiar pattern unfolds – air strikes, bombings of military and civilian targets, vows of retribution, then a shaky ceasefire. Right now, that’s the situation between Iran and Israel. 

But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US president Donald Trump are also toying publicly with supporting regime change in Iran. We’ve been here before, as well, with the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the civil war that engulfed Iraq and spread to Syria. 

Dr JESSIE MORITZ from the Australian National University studies the religious politics of the region. She’s wary of outsiders trying to force change.

For almost 40 years, journalist STAN GRANT was in the maelstrom of global politics and conflict, from London to Beijing to the mountains of Pakistan. 

But in the past five years, he’s been quietly working on a doctoral thesis on theology, resurrecting a family history in the church. In a new documentary for ABC TV’s Compass, Stan unveils the house he’s built in the stunning Snowy River Valley and explains how the environment helped him see through the clutter of the messy world around him.

GUESTS:

Dr Jessie Moritz - Lecturer, at Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies, ANU

Dr Stan Grant, a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and author of Murriyung: Song of Time

This program was made on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.