Current Affairs

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Rania Khalek is a journalist based in Beirut and the host of Dispatches on BreakThrough News.

In this conversation with Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson, she describes life under bombardment in Lebanon as Israel’s assault displaces over a million people and spreads fear across Beirut. Khalek discusses the silence of U.S. Democrats, what Americans are responsible for as their government backs the war, and the broader escalation across the region. She also examines the failures of U.S. media coverage, the dehumanization that enables mass killing, and why Iran’s response must be understood in the context of self-defense and the breakdown of international law.

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🇱🇧 Rania's SubStack: https://substack.com/@raniakhalek?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=58m7xg

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0:00-14:05 Life under bombardment in Lebanon

14:05-18:45 Democratic silence on Lebanon

18:45-24:10 What Americans should understand about Lebanon

24:10-29:56 Escalation and nuclear fears

29:56-36:19 Media failure and dehumanization

36:19-45:20 Iran, self-defense, and international law

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Becca Rothfeld is a staff writer at The New Yorker, an editor at The Point, and the former nonfiction book critic at The Washington Post, where she wrote until the paper eliminated its books section amid sweeping layoffs.

She explains why book reviews matter and how criticism can introduce readers to ideas they didn’t know interested them. Rothfeld also discusses the role of negative reviews, what it means for a book to be “instructively bad,” and why criticism should challenge rather than flatter its audience. She also argues that the growing use of AI risks degrading human thought, and reflects on beauty, “looksmaxing,” and the kind of intellectual and cultural life worth preserving.

📚 Becca's New Yorker Articles: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/becca-rothfeld

📚 Becca's Website: https://www.beccarothfeld.com/

📚 Becca's Book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250849915/allthingsaretoosmall/

0:00–5:41 What Happened to the Washington Post

5:41–13:08 Why Review Books

13:08–22:02 Reviewing “Bad” Books

22:02–39:20 AI and the Death of Thinking

39:20–45:46 Looksmaxing and Beauty

45:46–50:58 Favorite Book Reviews

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Annelle Sheline is a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and a former U.S. State Department official who resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

In this conversation with Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson, she discusses why she chose to resign while other senior officials—including former USAID administrator Samantha Power—remained in their positions. Sheline also examines how U.S. policy and unconditional support for Israel helped lead to the current war with Iran, the devastating human toll of the conflict, and why the erosion of international law could have dangerous consequences for the future of global order.

🌹 Annelle Sheline's New Republic Article: https://newrepublic.com/article/207300/trump-israel-madness-war-iran

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🌹 The Quincy Institute: https://quincyinst.org/

0:00-18:25 Samantha Power's moral bankruptcy

18:25-28:21 How Biden policy led to this

28:21-33:48 Intentionally targeting civilians

33:48-43:41 Why we still need international law

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Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and one of the leading analysts of U.S.–Iran relations.

In this conversation with Current Affairs editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson, he explains how the escalating U.S.–Israel war on Iran is affecting civilians, how sanctions and propaganda shaped the political climate leading up to the conflict, and why Israel and the United States may see the war very differently in strategic terms. Parsi also discusses why he believes the war is a mistake for Washington, how Trump ended up launching it, how the conflict might end, and how a very different path might have been possible if diplomacy had prevailed.

🌹 Trita Parsi's latest in Responsible Statecraft: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-trump-press/

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🌹 The Quincy Institute: https://quincyinst.org/

0:00-7:08 The human toll of the war

7:08-9:49 Justifying the unjustifiable

9:49-12:45 What is Israel’s strategy?

12:45-14:51 America will pay the price for Israel

14:51-20:13 Why did Trump get the U.S. into this war?

20:13-23:02 How does this war end?

23:02-24:16 What is Europe doing?

24:16-29:23 How things could have been different

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Trump's fake-anti-imperialism only works because Democrats refuse to embrace the real thing.

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Our media’s sanitized coverage obscures the human toll. Are we able to confront the full sickening evil of what the U.S. is doing? 

🌹 Read the article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-iran-war-is-unfathomably-depraved 

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According to our elected leaders, we should be very scared of the possibility that Iran could get a nuclear bomb. But Israel already has them, and its government is increasingly unstable and belligerent. 

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In their new documentary “Earth’s Greatest Enemy,” Abby Martin and Mike Prysner reveal that the climate and anti-war movements are really one and the same—because the U.S. military is the worst polluter of all.

🌏 Watch Earth's Greatest Enemy: https://earthsgreatestenemy.com/

🌏 Current Affairs Review: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-u.s.-war-machine-is-earths-greatest-enemy

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0:00-7:27 The Film’s Core Thesis

7:27-15:19 The Military As A Destructive Cancer

15:19-18:21 Security Dilemma

18:21-22:34 The Human Cost

22:34-25:34 RIMPAC & Political Evasion

25:34-36:50 Resistance Movements

36:50-42:50 Organizing And Mass Education

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Daniel Bessner is a historian and professor at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and the co-host of the foreign policy podcast American Prestige. He’s also the editor of the new Cambridge University Press volume Cold War Liberalism: Power in a Time of Emergency, which examines how liberal elites built the U.S. national security state and justified global dominance during the Cold War.

He joined Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson to discuss what the Cold War actually was, why the phrase “Cold War” obscures the mass violence it unleashed across the Global South, and what lessons this history holds for U.S. policy regarding contemporary tensions with China.

☢️ American Prestige Podcast: https://americanprestigepod.com/

☢️ Buy Daniel's Book: https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/history/diplomatic-and-international-history/cold-war-liberalism-power-time-emergency?format=PB

☢️ Follow Daniel on Twitter: https://x.com/dbessner

0:00–19:43 Defining Cold War Liberalism

19:43–23:39 The Myth of a “Cold” War

23:39–28:21 China, Taiwan, and Spheres of Influence

28:21–37:45 JFK and Elite-Driven Liberalism

37:45–42:32 The National Security State’s Legacy

42:32–45:57 Climate

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From slavery and child labor in the 19th century to the Iraq War and Gaza, the Left position has been accepted only after horrible human costs. Next time, how about listening before the damage is done? 

⏳ Read the article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-left-is-always-right-too-early 

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