The COVID-19 epidemic hit Iran and its neighboring countries early, and has tested health systems and governments across the region. A second crisis hit the region in early March, when oil prices plummeted after a decision by oil producers to flood the market. Our guest on this episode, Karen Young, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has been following both crises.

These twin shocks have shaken vulnerable people across a region already buffeted by conflicts and political crises. Countries like Iraq and Iran seem ill-positioned to handle a health emergency—and falling oil prices threaten to make the Iraqi state insolvent. The virus and the spiralling effects of an oil price war also highlight the deep connections among countries in the MIddle East, and between the Middle East and the world economy.

Participants include:

• Karen Young, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

During the Cold War, the United States promoted international law and human rights as a way to constrain its global rivals. Since the 1990s, however, Washington has more and more often dispensed with even the rhetorical cover of international law. The United States and its allies have habitually considered themselves exempt from international legal constraints.

The decades since the 2003 invasion of Iraq have witnessed an acceleration of this trend. What is the cost of a full-fledged abandonment of the norms promoted by international law and human rights? International law and Middle East policy scholar Aslı Ü. Bâli discusses the many disturbing practical outcomes of our current state of eroded international law, including the impact on sanctions regimes, assassinations, and wars.

Participants include:

• Aslı Ü. Bâli, UCLA professor of law

Years of tension and slights between the governments of Iraq and the United States came to a head after the United States breached the terms of its partnership with Iraq with the assassination of a group of government officials outside Baghdad International Airport.

Now Iraq is asking the United States to withdraw its troops, and the United States is threatening sanctions against Iraq—one of its most important strategic partners in the Arab world.

How will this crisis affect security in Iraq and the resurgence of the Islamic State? How much of the relationship can be salvaged? What will be the costs for Iraq, the United States, and the surrounding region?

Participants include:

• Sajad Jiyad, managing director, Bayan Center

Sajad Jiyad is the managing director of Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies in Baghdad.

Maria Fantappie is a special adviser on the Middle East–North Africa region at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Switzerland.

A new report out today from TCF report examines Gulf expansionism through a case study of the Emirates-based company Dubai Ports World (DP World). This multinational is one of the world’s leading global port operators and logistics giants—and a source of power for the United Arab Emirates. 

A close look at its operations in the Horn of Africa reveals the ways that a government can exert control through a modern state-chartered company. A closer look at the operations of DP World also casts light on a key driver of disastrous state fragmentation in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. 

DP World functions like a modern-day version of the British East India Company, serving as both a foreign policy tool and a profit engine. The analysis in Advani’s report, and our discussion with him here, help explain how governments exert political power outside the confines of traditional statecraft.

Participants include:

• Rohan Advani, researcher

From Libya to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond, countless militias, parties, “brigades,” “forces,” “battalions,” and “detachments” have emerged to directly challenge the formal state. 

These groups form a new category of actor, which draws power from the state, and at the same time competes with the state or even undermines it. The authors of a new report from The Century Foundation discuss the concept of “hybrid actor,” which allows us to make better sense of the pivotal players in conflict zones and shaky states across the Middle East, and beyond. 

Participants include:

• Renad Mansour, research fellow, Chatham House

1. Samya Kullab, senior correspondent, Iraq Oil Report

Nearly a decade after the Arab uprisings gripped the region, large-scale protests have broken out in Iraq and Egypt. In Iraq, arguably one of the most open political systems in the Arab world, authorities struck the protesters with surprising levels of violence. In Egypt, the surprise was that protests took place at all, given the historic levels of authoritarian repression.

What do the protests reveal about state failure—and what kind of pressure do they exert on governments to change? Iraq and Egypt, like many governments in the region, have rigid systems that appear incapable of serious changes in policy or governance. What can we learn from the latest round of revolts?

Participants include:

• Maria Fantappie, Iraq senior adviser, International Crisis Group

This podcast is part of an ongoing TCF series that explores progressive policy proposals for America’s most pressing international priorities.

The United States is by far the most significant donor to the United Nations and has, for much of the UN’s history, been one of its primary boosters. American support for the United Nations has fluctuated, and, since President Trump took office, has plummeted. But Washington’s love-hate relationship with the United Nations and with the compromises and niceties of international diplomacy predates Trump, and has come in for bipartisan criticism.

However, a pressing global emergency like climate change, or another worldwide financial crisis, cannot be solved without the international system. How can the United States revive the effectiveness of the United Nations, so that the international institution can help address ongoing crises and manage burgeoning great-power competition between the United States, Russia, and China?

Participants include:

• Richard Gowan, UN Director, International Crisis Group

This podcast is part of an ongoing TCF series that explores progressive policy proposals for America’s most pressing international priorities.

On this podcast, we learn about the shifting views of Israelis and Palestinians, and the different visions of the future that they are considering in addition to the two states envisioned in the Oslo Accords—including confederation, a single state, annexation, and indefinite occupation. 

Politics in Israel–Palestine can seem unpredictable, but some long-term trends are clear. The Israeli electorate has moved decisively to the right, and support for a “two-state solution” has fallen to historic lows among both Palestinians and Israelis.

What are the possibilities for the United States to affect Israeli policies on settlements and annexation of occupied territory? 

Participants include:

• Dahlia Scheindlin, political scientist and fellow, The Century Foundation

This podcast is part of an ongoing TCF series that explores progressive policy proposals for America’s most pressing international priorities.

America has had an inflated military presence since 9/11, especially in the Middle East. Defense budgets are historically bloated, and policymakers have avoided making choices about closing bases and reducing troop deployments. 

Political support is waning for the forever war and politicians from both major American parties agree that the United States needs to scale back its global military entanglements and set real priorities. The Middle East, many of them say, has occupied policy attention that should be directed to other, more pressing priorities. 

Now the tough questions concern the details: What would a right-sized U.S. military presence look like in the Middle East? If the U.S. military shouldn’t have quite so many bases in the region and troops deployed, what is the right amount? What wars should the United States be prepared to fight? How, politically, can American leaders sell the idea of containing threats instead of setting impossible but popular goals, like entirely eliminating terrorism? What’s a reasonable budget? 

Participants include:

• Mara Karlin, director of strategic studies, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies