
Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (and dear friend of the show) is back not only to give us an update on Yemen now that the civil war (and Saudi Arabia’s role in it) are heating up again, but also to give Thomas a much-deserved dressing down for not going far enough to hold Jeremy Hunt to account for his role in the Stockholm Agreement.
Baraa explains:
The collapse of the 2022 Yemen truce and renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping
The Yemen battlefield map: Houthi control of Sanaa, Hodeidah and the northwest versus government-held south and east
The strategic importance of Marib and Hadramaut, including Saudi-trained National Shield and Emergency Forces
Mocha, the Giants Brigades and the impact of the UAE withdrawal on anti-Houthi military capabilities
The Stockholm Agreement and how the 2018 ceasefire strengthened long-term Houthi leverage
Why the Houthis are escalating now and how renewed fighting serves Iran’s regional strategy
Houthi links with the IRGC, Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, including operations and financial networks in Iraq
Saudi war aims, the Mecca Accords and the emerging Saudi–Turkey–Pakistan security architecture
Follow Baraa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baraashiban/
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small .
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Aug 18
56 min

Turning their attention away from Iran and toward another Middle Eastern hotspot, Aimen and Thomas explain the course of events in Libya since the Arab Spring. Seismic political events are underway in that sad country, which has been riven by civil war and political division for over fifteen years.
They discuss:
The difference between East and West Libya
First Libyan Civil War: state collapse and militia fragmentation
NATO intervention and Western short-termism
Khalifa Haftar: from Gaddafi officer to eastern strongman
Second Libyan Civil War: Operation Dignity and divided government
Libya proxy war: Egypt, UAE, Russia, Turkey and Qatar
Libyan oil politics: NOC, Central Bank and Haftar’s leverage
U.S.-backed Libya deal: Saddam Haftar, Dbeibah and Pakistan mediation
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Aug 13
1 hr 19 min

In this Conflicted Conversation, Nicholas Morton discusses his new book The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East.
Associate Professor in History at Nottingham Trent University, Nicholas reframes the Crusades as one part of a much larger transformation of the medieval Middle East, driven above all by Seljuk-Turkmen expansion, Byzantine contraction, Fatimid decline and the fragmentation of political power.
Nicholas explains:
The Seljuk-Turkmen transformation of the medieval Middle East
Why the Crusades were not the region’s main event
Dandanqan, nomadic warfare and the rise of Seljuk power
Abbasids, Fatimids and fragmented government before the First Crusade
Manzikert, Byzantine civil war and the Turkish conquest of Anatolia
Frankish-Turkish rivalry, alliances and shared warrior culture
Crusader violence and Christianity’s uneasy relationship with holy war
Nizari Ismailis, Seljuk civil wars and competing Muslim priorities
Damascus and Byzantium as key powers in Crusader geopolitics
The Middle East as a crossroads of trade, ideas and cultural exchange
Follow Nicholas on X: https://x.com/NicholasMorto11
On Bluesky: @nicmorton.bsky.social
On Instagram: @Nicholas Morton
And his You Tube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MedievalNearEast
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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Aug 11
1 hr 19 min

In this Conflicted Conversation, Justin Marozzi discusses his new book Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World.
Justin traces the long, varied history of slavery in the Islamic world, arguing that slavery could sometimes offer remarkable paths to freedom and power, but that these exceptions never erased the violence of capture, ownership and exploitation—or the uneasy entanglement of abolition with Western imperialism.
Justin explains:
The scale and longevity of slavery in the Islamic world
The spiritual status of enslaved people in early Islam
The Quran, manumission and the legal regulation of slavery
The Islamic conquests and the expansion of slave-taking
Anti-black racism and the Zanj Revolt in Abbasid Iraq
Concubines, eunuchs, and sexual slavery
Mamluks, Janissaries and elite forms of servitude
Christian and Muslim slave-raiding across the Mediterranean
Ottoman abolition and its entanglement with Western imperialism
Modern slavery, Daesh and hereditary servitude in Mauritania
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Aug 6
1 hr 6 min

Donald Trump has once again stepped back from a threatened major attack on Iran. So has America lost the Iran War? Or is Trump’s apparent hesitation part of a longer strategy to exhaust the Iranian regime?
Aimen and Thomas discuss:
Whether Iran has outmanoeuvred Trump despite America’s overwhelming military superiority
Aimen’s three possible futures for the war: US withdrawal, prolonged attrition or extreme escalation
Why an American retreat could unleash an even more destructive regional war
Israel, the Gulf states and Pakistan in a Middle East without American restraint
The revival of the US–Iran MoU and President Pezeshkian’s lack of authority over the IRGC
America’s possible ‘death by a thousand cuts’ strategy against Iran’s military and economy
Iran’s collapsing currency, soaring inflation and ability to withstand prolonged pressure
Trump’s highly personal style of government and the absence of a stable American war strategy
The limits of air power and America’s repeated failure to convert destruction into political victory
The danger of nuclear escalation if Iran races towards a bomb or misreads Trump’s restraint as weakness
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Aug 4
49 min

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thant Myint-U talks about his new book Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s. It tells the story of his grandfather U Thant, the Burmese schoolteacher turned UN Secretary-General who guided the United Nations through some of the most dangerous crises of the 1960s, yet is now woefully forgotten or badly misremembered.
Thant explains:
U Thant’s forgotten role as UN Secretary-General during the great crises of the 1960s
His sociability, humour, directness, and moral imagination
How Buddhism shaped U Thant’s approach to crisis
How newly independent post-colonial states tried to remake the world order
Burma/Myanmar after empire: colonial destruction, weak institutions, and postcolonial state-building
The Non-Aligned Movement: Afro-Asian internationalism beyond the US–Soviet Cold War
Congo, Katanga and sovereignty: U Thant’s defence of postcolonial borders against neo-imperial fragmentation
The Cuban Missile Crisis: U Thant’s overlooked role in helping Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro de-escalate
Vietnam and the lost peace channel: U Thant’s ignored 1964 attempt to open talks with Ho Chi Minh
The Six-Day War and the UN-Israel rupture: UNEF, Nasser, Israel, and the myth that the UN abandoned Israel
U Thant’s late one-world vision, the decline of Bandung idealism, and the lost promise of postcolonial internationalism
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Visit Thant’s website: thantmyintu.com
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Jul 30
1 hr 23 min

French war reporter and global jihadism expert Wassim Nasr was part of the presidential press party during Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Damascus. He shares his first-hand account not only of what happened between Macron and Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa during the visit, but also what he discovered afterwards, during a trip to Aleppo and to the northern town of Kobane.
Wassim and Thomas discuss:
What it was like inside Macron’s presidential delegation to Syria
France–Syria relations after the fall of Bashar al-Assad
Macron and Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Umayyad Mosque and Mount Qasioun
Islamic State bombings during Macron’s Damascus visit
French investment in Syrian reconstruction, energy, ports and transport
Aleppo’s security, political representation and slow post-war recovery
Kobani, SDF integration, PKK influence and Arab–Kurdish tensions
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s Islamist pragmatism and Syria’s dependence on his leadership
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Jul 28
1 hr 4 min

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas meets Laura Spinney, author of Proto: How One Language Went Global, the story of the Proto-Indo-European language and its descendants, which are spoken today by half of humanity.
Laura explains:
How, where, and among whom Proto-Indo-European emerged
How Indo-European split into English, Hindi, Persian, Russian, Greek, Latin-derived Romance languages, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic tongues
How linguists reconstruct an unwritten prehistoric language through sound laws, comparative vocabulary and ancient texts
Why ancient DNA has transformed the debate over Indo-European origins by restoring migration to the centre of the story
Who the Yamnaya were, and how mobile pastoralists north of the Black Sea spread language through cattle, wagons, dairy and steppe mobility
How a small number of steppe migrants may have transformed Europe’s languages through disease, prestige, violence, intermarriage and social networks
Why Tocharian, Sanskrit and Persian reveal extraordinary Indo-European journeys from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to China, India and Iran
How ‘Aryan’ began as a real Indo-Iranian self-description before being distorted by racial nationalism and Nazi pseudoscience
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find Laura on X: https://x.com/lfspinney
And on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/laurainparis.bsky.social
And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laura.spinney
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Jul 23
1 hr 14 min

The MoU with Iran has broken down, war has returned to the Middle East, and so Aimen walks us through the events since the war re-ignited on 7th July.
More than anything, the fighting now focuses on the Strait of Hormuz. In Iran’s eyes, it has won control of the Strait as a spoil of war. In the rest of the world’s eyes, freedom of navigation through the Strait remains a cast-iron principle of international law.
Aimen and Thomas discuss:
Why the US–Iran MoU collapsed over control of the Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s attacks on Gulf shipping and the return of the US naval blockade
US strikes on Bandar Abbas and Iran’s coastal military infrastructure
GCC retaliation: Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Jordan confront Iran
Trump assassination threats and divisions inside the US administration
Saudi Arabia’s internal debate over Iran and renewed war with the Houthis
Houthi threats to close Bab al-Mandab and attack Saudi infrastructure
Oman, NATO and Israel’s roles in the widening Iran war
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Jul 21
1 hr 6 min

In this latest Conflicted Conversation, Thomas talks with Yaakov Katz, the former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and co-author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East.
Yaakov explains:
October 7 intelligence failure and Israel’s missed warnings
Hamas’s ‘Jericho Walls’ plan and ignored Unit 8200 alerts
The Israeli conceptzia: why leaders believed Hamas was deterred
Netanyahu’s Gaza containment strategy and Qatari money policy
Hamas as a political asset against Palestinian statehood
Israel’s overreliance on technology, SIGINT and border barriers
Unit 504, HUMINT failure and the absence of agents in Gaza
Gaza’s tunnel network and Hamas’s hidden underground military city
Operation Guardian of the Walls and Israel’s exaggerated ‘Metro’ success
Netanyahu’s responsibility, Israeli division and the post–October 7 media war
**PLUS: Yaakov answers listener questions! FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY!**
Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/
Find Yaakov on X: https://x.com/yaakovkatz
And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yaakov.katz
And on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaakovkatz
Yaakov's website: www.yaakovkatz.com
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And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod
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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.
Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.
Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
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Jul 16
1 hr 1 min
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