This week on the podcast we discuss Syria and the regime of Bashar al-Assad. For over a decade, the regime in Damascus has been an international pariah, amid a brutal campaign of terror by the Syrian armed forces against its people. The geopolitical sands however are shifting, with signs that regimes across the Middle East are prepared to talk with Assad once more. We look at what this means for the region, the implications for the alliance between Iran and Syria, and whether justice for the Assad regime’s victims is now lost to realpolitik diplomacy. 

We also look this week at the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia. This week Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a rallying call for Ukraine at the summit, in a part of the world where views of the war differ greatly from those here in Europe. We ask what Zelenskyy was trying to achieve, not least by meeting Mohammed Bin Salman, what influence Russia has in the region and how is the war perceived by the people of the Middle East more widely.

Joining Bronwen Maddox on the show this week s Dr Sanam Vakil, the new Director of our Middle East and North Africa programme. Dr Haid Haid, a Consulting Fellow with our MENA programme, and Professor Christopher Phillips from Queen Mary University London, and the author of the book The Battle for Syria.

Read our expertise:

The end of the Arab Spring and there is a price to pay

Turkey’s politics on the cusp of generational change

War in Sudan: Perspectives and prospects for resolution

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Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by John Pollock. Sound by Robin Gardner and Alex Moyler.