Emile Hokayem, IISS Senior Fellow for Middle East Security, joins Dr Kori Schake for this episode of Sounds Strategic.Emile and Kori give a masterclass in understanding the Middle East and political violence. Emile explains the misconceptions surrounding the state of Iraq before the 2003 invasion, what non-proliferation experts miss about Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons, and the problematic notion that Iran and Saudi Arabia can and should share the Middle East, thus making it possible for the US to adopt an ‘offshore balancing’ posture, and much more.Emile responds to the US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and reflects on his recent analysis of the continuation of the Arab Spring, stating that ‘the ebb and flow of street protests will be the new normal.’Emile is perfectly placed to explore the question of conflict in the Middle East, having grown up in Lebanon during some of the most intense years of the civil war, studied in the US during the invasion of Iraq, and used his expertise to conduct field research across the region. With a brief that is constantly in the news, his work and comments are referenced regularly in leading outlets.Favourite data visualisationThe impacts of climate change at 1.5C, 2C and beyond | Carbon Briefhttps://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/Map of Syria: situation as of January 2019, featured in ‘The US withdrawal from Syria’ (IISS Strategic Comment, vol. 25, no. 1, January 2019: https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/2019/the-us-withdrawal-from-syria)Reading recommendations:Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) Further writings on Syria and the regional context by Emile:How Syria defeated the Sunni powers (New York Times, 30 December 2016)‘Assad or we burn the country’: misreading sectarianism and the regime in Syria (War on the Rocks, 24 August 2016)Obama’s disastrous betrayal of the Syrian rebels (Foreign Policy, 4 February 2016)Iran, the Gulf States and the Syrian Civil War (Survival, vol. 56, no. 6, November 2014) Date of recording: 25 March 2019Sounds Strategic is recorded and produced at the IISS in London.Theme music: ‘Safety in Numbers’ by We Were Promised Jetpacks.

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