CONFLICTED

By Message Heard

An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of w... more

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FAQs about CONFLICTED:

How many episodes does CONFLICTED have?

The podcast currently has 165 episodes available.

CONFLICTED episodes:

January 15, 2026How Yemen Broke the Saudi-UAE Alliance
In this episode, Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (a great friend of the show) tells the thrilling behind-the-scenes story of how different visions for the future of Yemen led long-simmering tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia to explode into the open.
For further reference, here’s a helpful map of Yemen showing current areas of control: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/info/infographic/49654
Baraa explains:
How Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the war with different goals

The role Yemeni political parties and militias played in the conflict

Why southern Yemen has never been unified

The UAE’s obsessive fight against the Muslim Brotherhood

The emergence of parallel security structures and rival centres of power

How Saudi Arabia acted as a mediator between rival factions

The explosive gains, and rapid reversals, of Yemen’s renegade Southern Transition Council

Follow Baraa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baraashiban/
Follow Baraa on X: https://x.com/BShtwtr

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
1h 26min
January 13, 2026Crisis in the Gulf: Saudi vs UAE
A rare public rupture has emerged between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Triggered by a dramatic escalation over Yemen in late December 2025, the dispute has exposed deeper ideological and strategic differences between the two Gulf powers.
In this episode, Thomas and Aimen step back from the battlefield to examine the historical roots of Saudi–Emirati rivalry and why Yemen became the arena where these differences finally collided in public.
They discuss:
The 30 December 2025 Saudi airstrikes and the ultimatum to UAE forces

Why Yemen is the arena, not the cause, of the Saudi–UAE dispute

Continental vs maritime power in the Arabian Peninsula

The British influence on the Emirati state

The Buraimi Oasis dispute

Tribal allegiance and ‘weird borders’ in Gulf geopolitics

Why the UAE tolerates breakaway regions and Saudi Arabia cannot

Whether this rupture will be patched up and what happens if it isn’t

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Alan Leer.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
53min
January 08, 2026Re-Thinking Islam’s Global History
Islam is often treated as a civilisation apart — self-contained, resistant to modernity, and fundamentally at odds with the West. In this episode, Thomas speaks to Oxford professor James McDougall about why that framing is misleading, and how Islamic history is inseparable from the making of the modern world itself.
Drawing on his new book Worlds of Islam: A Global History, McDougall explains:
Why Islamic and Western histories are deeply intertwined rather than civilisationally opposed

The extent to which Islam is an imperial and political project

Islam’s role in shaping global modernity before European dominance

What made European power different in the nineteenth century

How the Mongol sack of Baghdad reshaped the geography of the Islamic world

The importance of Central Asia, Indonesia, and West Africa to Islamic history

The debate over early Islamic sources and why scholarly scepticism has softened

Whether today’s tensions reflect a clash of civilizations — or a clash of perspectives

Follow James on Instagram: www.instagram.com/jamesrobertmcdougall
Follow James on Substack: substack.com/@mcdougalljames
Follow James of Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jamesrmcd.bsky.social

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
1h
January 06, 2026The Crisis in Iran: The History Behind US-Iran Tensions
As mass protests sweep Iran and President Trump declares the U.S. is ‘locked and loaded’, Thomas and Aimen revisit the event that shaped U.S.–Iran relations for the next half-century: the Iran Hostage Crisis. Then, in real time, the conversation veers into a fast-moving geopolitical shock: Venezuela, Iran’s global networks, and what a new era of American ‘muscle’ might actually look like.
They discuss:
Iran’s 2026 protest wave: currency collapse, water crisis, and regime pressure points

Trump’s ‘locked and loaded’ warning

Why the embassy takeover began as ‘revolutionary entrepreneurship’

How and why Khomeini endorsed the hostage crisis

The shift to economic sanctions as America’s primary lever

U.S. back-channel diplomacy

Operation Eagle Claw: what the plan was and how it fell apart

Hostage diplomacy after 1979

The creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command

The Iran–Venezuela–Hezbollah nexus, and why Washington’s focus may be shifting

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
57min
January 01, 2026Zohran Mamdani and the Ascendancy of Third Worldism
Amid controversy surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power in New York City, Hussein Mansour tells Thomas all about the history of Third Worldism — where it comes from, what it originally meant, and why the term has resurfaced.
Thomas and Hussein discuss:
Zohran Mamdani as a symbol, not a cause, of a broader elite transformation

The Third Estate, the French Revolution, and the revolutionary inheritance of modern radical politics

Interwar Paris and the emergence of Third Worldist intellectuals

Négritude, anti-colonial humanism, and the promise of historical redemption

Decolonisation, revolutionary violence, and the crisis of postcolonial states

How ideological failure was reinterpreted as structural oppression

The migration of Third Worldist ideas into Western universities and institutions

Edward Said, postcolonial theory, and the institutionalisation of grievance

Third Worldism today less as a political programme than an elite posture

Subscribe to Hussein’s Substack The Abrahamic Metacritique here: https://critiqueanddigest.substack.com
Follow Hussein on X here: https://x.com/HusseinAboubak

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
1h 20min
December 30, 20252025 Year in Review
As 2025 draws to a close, Thomas and Aimen take an unconventional tour of the Islamic world — looking beyond the usual headlines to the under-the-radar shifts that happened in 2025, with the potential to shape 2026 and beyond.
They discuss:
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger forming the Alliance of Sahel States and what a new Sahel bloc might mean

The geopolitical ‘cluster fuck’ of the Sudanese civil war

The European Union’s re-entry into Central Asia

The Gabala Summit and the rising Turkic axis

How Bangladesh is diversifying away from India

Southern Thailand’s Malay-Muslim insurgency and why it’s so rarely discussed

In Iraq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the breakdown of state sovereignty

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
53min
December 25, 2025Inside the Trenches of Ukraine
The war in Ukraine is back in the headlines as a peace agreement appears increasingly probably — though with major concessions to Russia. So as a Christmas present to our listeners, we’ve brought this episode from August out from behind the paywall.
In it, Thomas speaks with his old university friend Jakub — a former Slovak Army officer who volunteered to fight in Ukraine — about the lived reality of modern warfare, from trench fighting to FPV strike drones. Drawing on nearly eighteen months at the front, Jakub offers an unvarnished account of combat, morale, fear, boredom, and survival — and challenges many popular assumptions about how this war is actually being fought.
Thomas and Jakub discuss:
Why Jakub left academia to fight in Ukraine

Life as a foreign volunteer inside a regular Ukrainian infantry battalion

The psychological reality of trench warfare

How artillery, drones, and attrition have reshaped the battlefield

The limits of NATO doctrine when confronted with peer warfare

What this war suggests about the future of European security

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
1h 23min
December 23, 20252025 Conflicted Christmas Special
What is ‘the Christmas story’ really? And how does it change when you tell it from within a different religious tradition? In Conflicted’s first-ever Christmas Special, Thomas and Aimen retell the Nativity as it appears in the Gospels and in the Qur’an.
They discuss:
Who were the Magi? Zoroastrian priests or Nabataean nomads?

How the Nativity story differs between the Bible and the Qur’an

A controversial theory about how local Christian traditions may have shaped the Qur’anic telling

The overlooked reason why Qur’an presumes its audience already knows the underlying stories

Christ’s ‘unfinished business’ in Islam: the Second Coming and the fight against the Antichrist

The sharpest divergence: the Crucifixion and what it implies about Jesus’ mission

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
50min
December 18, 2025What Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy Means For The World
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with global finance and security analyst Giri Rajendran about the Trump Administration’s newly published National Security Strategy — what it signals, what it omits, and what it suggests about America’s role in a multipolar world.
Thomas and Giri discuss:
How this report differs from previous US National Security Strategies

The end of the old rules-based order of liberal internationalism

The Middle East: a phase shift toward deeper economic engagement

China: economic and industrial competition, not ideological crusade

Europe: NATO burden-sharing, culture-war politics, and coercion by inducement

Russia as a potential ally, no longer an enemy

Whether global governance can exist without global institutions

Follow Giri on X here: https://x.com/Trajan1898

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm
Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
1h 1min
December 16, 2025The 2026 Middle East Forecast
What does the future hold for the Middle East — and the world — in 2026?
In this special episode of Conflicted, Thomas instructs Aimen to peer into his crystal ball and offer his forecasts for the year to come.
In this episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss:
How professional geopolitical analysts make forecasts

The impossibility of foreseeing Black Swan events

Why an end to the war in Ukraine could reshape Middle Eastern geopolitics

The likelihood of a U.S. war against the Houthis in Yemen

Renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon

The strategic importance of the Gulf states

Iran’s nuclear programme, proxy network, and the risk of renewed confrontation

Add your predictions to your 2026 Forecast Card here: https://forms.gle/sMCbRFmFTBdcfEDd8

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
...more
53min

FAQs about CONFLICTED:

How many episodes does CONFLICTED have?

The podcast currently has 165 episodes available.

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