Podcasts

William Law’s guest this week on the AD podcast is the Libyan analyst Anas El Gomati. As the warlord Khalifa Haftar and his sons spin a web of deceit and attempt to shirk responsibility for the massive flood that killed thousands, El Gomati strips away their lies to reveal how the Haftars’ greed and incompetence are at the heart of the disaster and how the support of foreign players has enabled the family to plunder Libya.

Summary: Top of our New Top Ten Podcast Countdown is our 1 July, 2022 podcast with Matthew Hedges. Matthew is an academic focusing on authoritarian regimes with an emphasis on the monarchies of the Gulf states. He’s the author of Reinventing the Sheikhdom: Clan, Power and Patronage in Mohammed bin Zayed’s UAE published last year by Hurst.

Summary: number 2 in our NEW Top Ten Podcast Countdown is our 18 February 2022 podcast with Sami Hamdi, Editor in Chief of the International Interest and a regular Arab Digest newsletter and podcast contributor.

Summary: today’s New Top Ten entry is our 8 July 2022 podcast with Maged Mandour. Maged is a political analyst and a regular contributor to Arab Digest and to Middle East Eye and Open Democracy. He is also a writer for Sada, the Carnegie Endowment online journal. Maged is the author of an upcoming book, Egypt Under Sisi (I.B.Tauris) which will examine the social and political developments in Egypt since the coup of 2013.

Summary: number 4 in our new Top Ten is our 9 September 2022 podcast with Dr Elisabeth Kendall. Dr Kendall is an expert on Yemen and militant jihadist movements. Prior to her appointment as Mistress  of Girton College, Cambridge University she was a senior research fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University’s Pembroke College.

Summary: in an assessment that time has shown to be unerringly accurate, a leading American Middle East expert delineated the Kais Saied coup and the way in which the US and Europe stood by while Tunisian democracy was dismantled.

Summary: in the wake of Putin’s war Iraq faced uncertainty and anxiety with Iran continuing its oversized presence and parliamentary parties jostling for advantage even as the vast majority of Iraqis suffered the ongoing consequences of massive corruption. 

Summary: French President Emmanuel Macron’s record in the Middle East and North Africa has been at best a mixed one marked by a lack of collaborative strategic thinking and occasional diplomatic gaffes.

Summary: amidst domestic political uncertainty and a lack of coherent policy formulation in the autumn of 2022 the UK found its presence in the Gulf and the wider Middle East in danger of slipping further into decline.

Summary: the UAE and Saudi Arabia took stock of America’s declining status in the Middle East, saw Washington seemingly ready to do a deal with Tehran that once again cut them out and decided that they needed a fresh approach and new strategies in dealing with the threat of Iran.