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Message Heard

An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.

CONFLICTED

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to two friends of the show about how Europe is responding to the war with Iran. In the first half, the Rt Hon Tom Tugendhat MP — former chair of the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee and former UK Security Minister — discusses Britain’s confused response to the conflict, and in the second half, French journalist Wassim Nasr explains France’s position.

Sir Tom and Wassim explain:

 The UK government’s uncertain response to the Iran war

 What politicians mean when they talk about the ‘legal basis’ for military action

 The lessons of the Iraq War and whether they are being misunderstood

 Iran’s role in the insurgency against Western forces in Iraq

 The debate over designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization in the UK

 The state of the British military after decades of defence cuts

 The strategic controversy surrounding Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands

 France’s historic Arab Policy and its effort to maintain strategic independence in the Middle East

 France’s military agreements with the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait

 The E3 framework (France, Germany, UK) and its role in negotiations with Iran

 Macron’s attempt to expand France’s nuclear deterrent to cover Europe

 The evolving situation in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s weakening position

 Intelligence cooperation between France, Israel, and regional partners

 Whether Europe is entering a new era of strategic independence

Follow Sir Tom on X: https://x.com/TomTugendhat

Follow Wassim on X: https://x.com/SimNasr

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm 

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Iran War: British Uncertainty vs. French Resolve

With missiles streaking across Middle Eastern skies and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader sending shockwaves through the region, Aimen joins Thomas from a Dubai under fire to unpack a historic turning point.

They discuss:

 Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile strikes across the GCC and Israel

 Life under bombardment in Dubai and the regional military response

 The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and what it means for Iran’s future

 Whether this war marks the death of the 1979 Islamic Revolution

 The internal dynamics of the Iranian regime at this critical moment

 The United States’ strategic calculus and the question of escalation

Join the Conflicted Community here: ⁠https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/⁠ 

Find us on X: ⁠https://x.com/MHconflicted⁠

And Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted⁠

And Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod⁠

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠megaphone.fm/adchoices⁠

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Death of Ayatollah Khamenei & The Future of Iran

In this very special Emergency Episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss the Iran War, which began this morning with wide-ranging air strikes carried out by Israel and the United States against IRGC and Iranian regime targets, and which almost immediately resulted in Iranian counter-strikes against seven states in the region — including in Dubai, where Aimen lives.
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🚨 Emergency Episode: The Iran War Has Begun 🚨

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to former BBC journalist Martin Plaut about his new book Unbroken Chains: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement, which tells the whole story of African slavery, a story far older and more global than the one that focuses only on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Martin explains:

 How Africa’s slavery story begins in the Nile Valley around 2900 BC

 Why the trans-Saharan slave routes remain less examined than Atlantic slavery

 What Islam did — and didn’t — change about slavery in practice

 Indian Ocean slavery

 Oman’s slave market in Zanzibar and its caravans that penetrated deep into central Africa

 Indigenous African slavery in Ethiopia and the Sokoto Caliphate

 The role of racial hierarchies and ‘slave blood’ stigma within societies

 Barbary corsairs and European so-called ‘white slavery’

 Contemporary chattel slavery in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Sudan, and Libya

 Why major institutions still prefer commemorating slavery in the past to confronting it in the present

Follow Martin on X: https://x.com/martinplaut

And his personal website: https://martinplaut.com/

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm 

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

African Slavery: The Untold Story

As Saudi Arabia celebrates Founding Day, and as the murky underbelly of GCC geopolitics is on everyone's minds, we're re-releasing this classic Conflicted episode from early 2022.

Thomas & Aimen discuss:

 The deep history of Arabia

 The first foundations of Saudi Arabia

 The transition from British to American dominance in the Middle East

 Aimen’s family history within the British imperial system

 The 1920 Iraqi revolt 

 St John Philby (Abdullah Philby)

 The consolidation of Saudi Arabia under Ibn Saud

 Oil politics and the American-Saudi partnership

 Cold War spy-craft and intelligence networks in Saudi Arabia

 Espionage culture in the region

 The murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConflictedYoutube 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Rowan Bishop.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Conflicted Revisited: Spying for Saudi

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to historian Yossef Rapoport about his new book Becoming Arab, and the revolutionary argument at its heart: that Arab identity in Egypt and the Levant was not the result of mass migration from Arabia, but was forged in the medieval countryside between the 11th and 15th centuries.

Rapoport explains:

 What the word ‘Arab’ meant in the early Islamic centuries

 Why most medieval villagers in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine did not initially think of themselves as Arabs

 Why migration models fail to explain Arabisation in the settled countryside

 How Islamisation and Islamic governance reshaped rural society

 The role of clan genealogies, taxation, and local leadership in creating Arab village identities

 The extraordinary 1245 Fayyum survey and what it reveals about rural Egypt

 The rise of popular Arab epics and the imagination of tribal ancestry

 Ibn Taymiyyah’s critique of manufactured tribalism in the 14th century

 How medieval Arabisation reshapes modern debates about identity, belonging, and land

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm 

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The People Who Became Arabs

With war clouds gathering once again over the Middle East, Aimen takes us behind the scenes of the indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. He narrates the shifting Iranian position, the will-he-or-won’t-he calculus surrounding Donald Trump, and the vital strategic role played by Israel as the White House formulates a way forward. Is this brinkmanship, miscalculation, or the prelude to full-scale war?

They discuss:

 Iran’s negotiating position over the past 17–18 days

 The domestic factors informing Trump’s thinking

 How the IRGC is united around a rejectionist position

 How Israel may have helped provide the White House with the narrative it needs to get buy-in from U.S. citizens

 What really went on during Netanyahu’s recent visit

 The truth beyond Scott Bessent’s claims about causing a dollar crisis in Iran

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump, Netanyahu, and the Iran Endgame

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to U.S. Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, founder of AfghanEvac, about the fate of Afghans who worked alongside American forces during the U.S. occupation, and how the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions are increasingly freezing them out.

Shawn explains:

 Who America’s Afghan allies were and the risks they took

 The complex tragedy of the National Guardsmen shooting in Washington D.C.

 The Special Immigrant Visa system and why it failed

 Trump’s first travel ban and the dismantling of refugee pathways

 The Doha Agreement and the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan

 The creation of AfghanEvac and cooperation with the U.S. government

 How Trump’s second term is closing the door on Afghan allies

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm 

Follow AfghanEvac:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfghanEvac

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afghan_evac

X: https://x.com/afghanevac

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@afghanevac

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/afghanevac

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/afghanevac.bsky.social

Truth Social: @AfghanEvac

Follow Shawn VanDiver:

X: https://x.com/shawnjvandiver

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnjvandiver

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnvandiver/

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/shawnjvandiver.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnjvandiver

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjvandiver

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How the US is Abandoning its Afghan Allies

After a tragic shooting in Washington, D.C., Thomas and Aimen trace the story back to Afghanistan and to the CIA-backed Zero Units that carried out some of the coalition’s most clandestine kill-or-capture missions.

They discuss:

 The November 2025 D.C. shooting and the alleged link to a former Zero Unit operative

 What the Zero Units were designed to do and why they were so controversial

 Afghanistan's geography of terrorism and counterterrorism

 The lifelong psychological damage caused by black ops

 How the Doha Agreement sidelined the US’s Afghan partners

 The halfway house vetting pipeline through German

 The problem of PTSD, monitoring, and support for both Afghan allies and U.S. veterans

 Whether America can fight future wars if local allies believe they’ll be left behind

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The CIA’s Zero Units in Afghanistan

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to veteran Singaporean diplomat Prof. Kishore Mahbubani about his thesis that the 21st century will be remembered as ‘the Asian Century’, and how the West can prepare peacefully and optimistically for China's return as the fulcrum of world history.

Drawing on his books Living the Asian Century, Has China Won?, and Can Asians Think?, Prof. Mahbubani explains:

 Why the 21st century will be the Asian century and why this need not require Western decline

 How colonialism shaped Asian self-perception, and the need for intellectual decolonisation

 How other countries can adopt Singapore’s model for success

 His meeting with Fidel Castro, Hafez al-Assad, and Yasser Arafat

 The hypocrisy of Western power and diplomacy

 How the United States keeps the UN weak on purpose

 Why Pres. Trump’s China realism has been a good thing

 The threat of war in Asia

Follow Prof. Mahbubani on X: https://x.com/mahbubani_k

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm 

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why China’s Rise Cannot Be Stopped

On the first anniversary of the dismantling of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, Thomas and Aimen trace the history of the organisation and ask whether USAID’s collapse represents a failure of liberal internationalism itself, or simply the end of one particular way of organizing American power in the world.

They discuss:

 Trump’s 2025 executive order and the effective end of USAID

 USAID, anti-communism, and the CIA

 The Clinton-era debate over whether USAID should survive at all

 USAID in the War on Terror: Iraq, Afghanistan, and counterinsurgency

 The Arab Spring and the shift toward NGO-mediated governance

 Corruption in USAID

 What the end of USAID tells us about the end of the unipolar era

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConflictedYoutube 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump vs USAID: The Rise and Fall of America’s Aid Empire

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