Talk of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel has been heating up in recent weeks, with American officials visiting Riyadh to hammer out the terms of an agreement and Saudi and Israeli leaders sounding optimistic. But how close to such a deal are we really? Joshua Teitelbaum, a professor of Middle East history at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and an expert on Saudi Arabia, offers his insights on the prospects of normalization. What are the Saudis looking to get out of such an agreement? Why is the United States being asked to provide the inducements? What are the obstacles that stand in the way of normalization and might they be too great to overcome in the near term? 

After the Islamic State seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2013-14, the United States led a yearslong effort to roll back the group’s gains. Journalist and author Michael Gordon has written four books on the wars in Iraq, and in his latest, Degrade and Destroy, he takes us inside the war on the Islamic State, detailing the key White House deliberations and military struggles that finally resulted, in 2019, in the liberation of all the territories occupied by the group. Why did the United States fully withdraw from Iraq in 2011 only to return in 2014? What was the strategy for “degrading and destroying” the Islamic State adopted by the Obama administration, and how did it evolve over time? What did the advent of the Trump administration mean for the war effort? How successful, ultimately, was Operation Inherent Resolve, and why was it called this?

The special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011 yielded a massive trove of documents never intended for publication, but in 2017 the CIA declassified them in their entirety. Nelly Lahoud, a scholar at New America, has written the first history of al-Qaeda based on a systematic reading of these documents, which lay bare the secrets of the group and serve to correct some existing narratives. How strong an organization was al-Qaeda in the decade after 9/11, and what were its objectives? How should we understand the relationship between al-Qaeda and Iran, and between al-Qaeda and the Taliban? How predictable was the rise of the Islamic State? What was life like in the Abbottabad compound? Dr. Lahoud answers these questions and more in this episode.  

Big things are shaping up in the Middle East as the Biden administration appears to be rethinking its get-tough policy on Saudi Arabia, even as it continues to hold out hope for a revived nuclear deal with Iran. Meanwhile, Russia looks poised to shut down a key humanitarian aid corridor in Syria, while the West may have a new opportunity for maintaining pressure on the regime of Bashar al-Asad. Joining us to discuss these developments and more is Joel Rayburn, a retired army colonel visiting fellow at Hoover who served in senior positions at the National Security Council and the State Department during the Trump administration.

In September 2015, Russia intervened militarily in Syria to save the regime of dictator Bashar al-Asad. President Obama predicted a “quagmire,” but that is not what followed. What is the nexus between the Russian intervention in Syria and the more recent Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine? What can the West learn from its failures in Syria that might apply to the case of Ukraine? Will Ukraine turn out to be the quagmire for Russia that Obama predicted for Syria? Anna Borshchevskaya, an expert on Russian policy in the Middle East and author of a new book on Russia’s war in Syria, discusses all this and more on this episode of the Caravan Podcast.

On February 3, President Biden announced the death of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the leader of the Islamic State, in a U.S. special forces raid on his hideout in northern Syria. The leader, better known as Hajji ‘Abdallah, had been the Islamic State’s so-called caliph since October 2019, following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Who was Hajji ‘Abdallah and how did he end up in a small town on the border with Turkey? How impactful will his loss be to the terrorist organization he headed? How great of a threat does the Islamic State continue to pose to the region? Aymenn al-Tamimi, a British expert on Islamic militant groups in Iraq and Syria, shares his unique perspective on these questions and more in this episode.

Journalist and author Steve Coll examines the debates and decisions in Washington, Kabul, and Doha preceding the collapse of the Afghan government and the return to power of the Taliban. In a recent article in the New Yorker, Steve and coauthor Adam Entous document a “dispiriting record of misjudgment, hubris, and delusion” that characterized the diplomatic efforts to end the war in Afghanistan. What went wrong? Why? And who is to blame?

Ambassador Martin Indyk, a former diplomat and senior government official, discusses his new book Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy. The book explores Kissinger’s diplomacy in the Middle East, focused as it was on achieving order and equilibrium in the context of the Cold War. Indyk argues that Kissinger’s order-based diplomacy and gradualist approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict hold lessons for American policymakers today.

Tom Tugendhat was elected to Parliament in 2015, after military service in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In August he delivered a widely reported speech critical of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, insisting on the need for long-term patience of the sort America has displayed with great success in South Korea. In this podcast discussion, Tugendhat expands on how democracies can mobilize public support for foreign policies, their structural advantage over authoritarian states: given the choice, everyone would choose democracy.  He discusses the impact of the dearth of consultation with allies prior to the Afghanistan exit on foreign policy thinking in Europe and beyond, from the United Kingdom and France to Taiwan and Japan. He also describes the potential for the Abraham Accords, and he expresses doubts regarding the likelihood of a return to the JCPOA ("the Iran Deal"), given the primacy of hard-liners in Tehran and the fragile political situation of the Biden administration, in the forefront of the upcoming midterm elections.

Alain Bifani has had an insider's view of Lebanese politics for decades as Director General of the Ministry of Finance. In this discussion he explores the origins of the current crisis in Lebanon in the historical corruption of the banking sector.  Entrenched interests, called "the cartel," have grown enormously rich at the expense of the impoverishment of the nation at large, especially the middle class. The very wealthy have been able to shelter assets overseas, some of which has been exposed by the Pandora Papers revelations. Bifani argues that little  can change until there is a change in the national leadership. The international community, in particular the United States, should respond by sanctioning corrupt actors, insisting on transparency in finances and governances, and making sure that any aid programs benefit the Lebanese people as a whole, not only the elite of the "bankocracy."

Elisabeth Kendall, a scholar of Arabic and jihadism at Oxford University, joins the podcast to discuss the state of the jihadi threat in Yemen, a country she knows well. The local franchises of al-Qaida and the Islamic State are weakened but continue to pose a significant threat. As Kendall argues, conditions in Yemen favor an al-Qaida resurgence. How have these groups changed over time and where are they headed? How do the jihadis fit on the political map of the ongoing Yemeni civil war? Would a ceasefire in the war diminish the jihadi threat or, perversely, fuel it? 

Colonel (Ret.) Joel Rayburn knows the Middle East well. He served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Levant Affairs and Special Envoy for Syria during the Trump administration, after tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also an accomplished historian, author of Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance (Hoover Press) and co-author of the Army War College history of the Iraq War. This conversation begins with an analysis of the situation in Daraa, a city in southern Syria where the revolution against the Assad regime began in 2011.  Russia-brokered agreements between the rebels and the regime in 2018 and 2020 have broken down, as Assad tries to establish full control and extend its longstanding strategy of forcible displacements, that is, forcing restive population groups to leave, adding to the international flow of refugees: this is a war crime.  Col. Rayburn discusses the developments in Daraa in detail and then places them in the framework of the ambitions of the various international actors: Russia, Iran, Turkey, the United States, Israel and the Europeans. He concludes with brief remarks on the prospects for the recently announced formation of a government in Lebanon.

Asfandyar Mir, a noted expert on South Asia and terrorism, was in Kabul just weeks before the Taliban overran the country in mid-August. How did the Afghan government fall so fast and what will be the ramifications of the return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the official name of the Taliban? Has the group changed since it last governed the country between 1996 and 2001? What is the nature of the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaida? Can the Taliban really be trusted to prevent Afghanistan from being used to threaten the United States? 

Paul Wood served as BBC foreign correspondent for twenty-five years and is now a columnist for the The Spectator magazine in London. He has reported from a wide range of locations across the broad Middle East: Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Chechnya, Libya, Algeria, and Sudan including Darfur. He covered the invasion of Iraq from Baghdad in 2003 and the fighting in the Syrian Civil War from Homs in 2012. He is also a keen observer of the complex situation that has been developing in Lebanon. In the background is the severe economic crisis, in which the currency has lost some 90% of its value, pushing much of the population below the poverty line. The government is drawing down the remaining foreign currency reserves to continue to subsidize some basic commodities, but the political leadership has proven unwilling to undertake the sorts of reforms on which support from the IMF is conditioned. The structure of political power also contributes to an ongoing stalemate, despite the severity of the crisis. The key political blocks are defined in sectarian terms--Sunni, Shia, Druze, and Christian--designed to deliver patronage to their respective clientele. The key actor however is Hezbollah, internationally regarded as a terrorist organization. It plays multiple roles: a social service organization for poor Shia, a proxy for the Iranian regime, a participant in international criminal activities, especially the drug trade, and its self-declared mission to mount the "resistance" to Israel.  Recent events testify to growing popular opposition to Hezbollah inside Lebanon, as Lebanon faces further loss of governability, economic implosion, or renewed conflict involving Hezbollah, acting for Iran, and Israel.   

In September 2014, the Houthis, a revolutionary Islamist movement, seized control of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, precipitating a civil war in the country that continues to this day. Who are the main actors in the Yemen conflict? What is the role of the United States? What do the Houthis really want? Professor Bernard Haykel of Princeton University, a noted expert on Yemen, addresses these questions and more, including potential avenues for resolving the unending conflict.

Ben Hubbard is the New York Times bureau chief in Beirut, Lebanon, and author of MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman (2020), a biography of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. The conversation treats the Crown Prince's rise to power in the context of a Saudi Arabia marked by deeply conservative cultural formations and at the same time a very young population well connected to modern social media and the cultural products of the West. MBS has promoted reforms in Saudi society, not only by trying to move the economy away from its dependency on oil, but also through some dramatic cultural changes, especially by limiting the role of the religious police, by expanding women's rights and by developing access to forms of previously excluded popular entertainment (cinema, music). Yet these changes are taking place in the context of an absolute monarchy, and the reforms have been carried out with authoritarian power. This tension between liberalization and monarchical power characterizes the current moment in Saudi Arabia; the limits to reform are especially evident in the constraints on public criticism and freedom of the press, as became brutally clear in the case of the assassinated journalist, Jamal Kashoggi. The discussion also addresses the 2017 incident involving the Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, as an example of MBS's political inclinations but also in light of Hariri's recent 2021 stepping back from forming a government in Beirut.

In February, Martin Smith traveled to Idlib, Syria, where he became the first Western journalist to conduct an interview with Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, a U.S.-designated terrorist and the leader of the jihadi group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Once an official branch of al-Qaida under a different name, HTS controls Syria’s northwestern Idlib Province, where it has set up a government to manage the affairs of the province’s more than 3 million people. Jawlani has distanced himself from al-Qaida and seeks to improve his image in the West, but his terrorist pedigree has proven an obstacle. Will the U.S. ever lift the terrorist designations? Has Jawlani really changed? What’s it like to interview one of the major jihadi personalities of the past decade? 

Facing neighbors fundamentally hostile to its existence, Israel has developed a multidimensional grand strategy. Assaf Orion initially described the development of this strategy in a Hoover essay here and he expands on the topic in this podcast conversation. He begins with comments on the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza strip, as well as the various military and political goals and prospects for the future. The conflict has impacted the political dynamic on the Palestinian side between Hamas and Fatah as well as the process of forming a new governing coalition in Israel. In general, he describes how Israel's defense depends on the strength of its technology sector and the relationship to the educational system although he identifies significant weak spots. Assaf also addresses the changing character of warfare, the existential threat that Iranian nuclear power would present to Israel as well as the danger of nuclear proliferation in the region because other countries would feel compelled to match Iranian nuclear capacity. Finding responsible Palestinian partners for peace is vital for Israel, and it requires curtailing the malign influence of Iran as well as Islamist radicals, both committed to the destruction of Israel. In this context, the Abraham Accords have significantly changed the landscape of the region and provide opportunities for the future.

Muhammad Reza Shah reigned from 1941 to 1979, when the Iranian Revolution ushered in the era of the Islamic Republic. In his book The Last Shah, Ray Takeyh chronicles the period of last shah’s reign with a view to understanding the causes of the revolution. What role did the United States play in the coup of 1953? How much responsibility does the shah bear for what happened in 1979? Did Jimmy Carter “lose” Iran? Is the Islamic Republic poised to suffer the same fate as the man it replaced? 

Prior to 1979, Saudi Arabia and Iran, two Muslim monarchies--one Sunni and one Shia--were allied with the US in the Cold War against Communism. The Iranian Revolution changed that, as did the Saudi response to the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The two powers began to compete for regional primacy, especially through the export of their versions of politicized Islam. Kim Ghattas discusses her book Black Wave, which describes the consequences for the Middle East. This Saudi-Iranian conflict largely plays out in other countries--Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Pakistan--often with violent consequences. As religious extremism spread after 1979, a massive rollback in women's rights took place. While today Saudi Arabia and Iran are still locked in competition with each other, religion is losing its grip on a younger generation, that includes activists and writers trying to change repressive systems from within. The diplomacy around the JCPOA negotiations currently under way in Vienna and the policies of the US are of course important, but the future of the region ultimately depends on the agency of local forces hoping to escape the conflict of the past four decades.

Wesley Morgan, a journalist and expert on military affairs, discusses his new book The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley, as well as prospects for Afghanistan and counterterrorism following U.S. withdrawal.

Negotiations concerning a potential American return to the Iran Deal have opened in Vienna. The diplomacy is complex. While the JCPOA is generally treated as involving only the U.S. and Iran, it also includes Russia, China and three European countries: England, France and Germany. Germany is exceptional because it is (aside from Iran) the only non-nuclear power in the talks, but also because of its long-standing special relationship with Iran. Political scientist Matthias Kuentzel studies this relationship and sheds light on several aspects including nuclear politics, anti-Americanism in Europe, and the anti-Semitism of the Iranian regime. He builds on his book Germany and Iran: From the Aryan Axis to the Nuclear Threshold and some of his articles are available at matthiaskuentzel.de 

The Biden Administration is eager to reverse the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran and reenter the Iranian nuclear deal, or JCPOA. Xiyue Wang, who spent 40 months as a prisoner in Iran on false charges of espionage, shares his criticism of this approach. What is the nature of the Iranian regime? What is problematic about “Obama-style engagement”? And what should U.S. policy toward Iran be?

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is undergoing profound changes. With its young population, it faces a transition from a traditional, conservative society to one with greater rights, perhaps especially for women. The powerful young Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is driving some of these changes, which also concentrates power in his hands. The Biden administration has given him the cold shoulder because of his implication in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. What does this mean for the US-Saudi partnership that dates back to the Roosevelt administration? And how do difficulties between Washington and Riyadh look in the context of Iranian ambitions to achieve hegemony in the Middle East? Karen Elliott House, a longtime observer of Saudi Arabia and author of Saudi Arabia--Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines--and Future, discusses the cultural transformations and the political challenges. 

U.S.-Turkish relations have hit a low point in recent years. Yet it is imperative, according to Michael Doran, that the United States and Turkey rediscover their common interests. What are the sources of conflict between the two countries? How should the United States see Turkey as it formulates Middle East strategy? What are the prospects for U.S.-Turkish relations under the Biden administration?

Discussing her new book, The Perils of Non-Violent Islamism (Telos Press), Elham Manea describes her experience of a tolerant Islam in Morocco, the traditionalism of Yemen, and her own encounter with Islamist indoctrination. She explores the nuanced relationship between the politics of Islamism and its selective reading of religious traditions, and she comments on current French policies against Islamist "separatism" and the upcoming referendum in Switzerland that would prohibit wearing the niqab. She ends with a report on a reform movement within Islam.

Under Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has undergone a dramatic transformation as it pursues unprecedented economic diversification and social liberalization. It has also moved toward greater authoritarianism and political repression. What is the outlook for these changes? How stable is the kingdom today? And how will the Biden administration handle the relationship with Saudi Arabia?

The Survey, conducted by YouGov and Arab News, shows how the Arab public was disappointed with Obama era policies. This result cautions against the Biden administration returning to them, especially with regard to Iran. Trump received greater support in the Gulf and the Levant than in North Africa. High on the list of aspirations in the region is the empowerment of young people, which ranks on par with progress between Israel and the Palestinians. 

In Syria, American foreign policy faces an enormous humanitarian crisis and a political challenge to implement UN Security Resolution 2254, against the backdrop of competition from both Russia and Iran. A US return to "the Iran Deal" is likely to exacerbate conditions in Syria, while continued American support for the Kurdish YPG in Northeast Syria raises human rights concerns. The Syria file is one of the most complex and most urgent that the Biden administration will face.

In late February the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement over the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The Taliban has pledged not to host al-Qaida or allow it to use Afghan soil "to threaten the security of the United States and its allies." The reaction in the world of jihadism has been mixed, ranging from celebration to condemnation. Is the deal a victory for al-Qaida or a severe blow? What is the state of al-Qaida in the world today?