Welcome back to The Voices of War. Today’s conversation comes at a time of immense upheaval in the Middle East. Israel’s war in Gaza rages on with staggering human costs, tensions with Iran are escalating after US airstrikes, and settlement expansion in the West Bank continues to erode hopes for a two-state solution. But while the headlines focus on bombs, borders, and diplomacy, my guest today invites us to look deeper at the ideas, identities, and internal fractures driving these conflicts.
Joining me once again is Nadim Shadi, a Lebanese economist and political analyst with decades of experience interpreting the region’s complexity. From academic institutions like Tufts and Oxford, to advising governments and think tanks across the world, Nadim has long been at the centre of conversations about power, ideology, and survival in the Middle East. In this episode, we’ll explore the ideological battles shaping today’s violence, the internal divisions within both Israeli and Palestinian societies, the shifting posture of Iran and its proxies, and what it really means to talk about peace in a region where power so often resides outside the state. Nadim, it’s a real pleasure to host you again on the show. Welcome back.
Thank you, Maz, and thank you for this introduction. You’ve raised the expectations much higher than I can deliver.
I very much doubt that I’ve actually re-listened to our last episode. And wow, I was promptly reminded how wide reaching your knowledge and insights are. we jumped from Ukraine to Israel and Gaza. In fact, that was on the 8th of November that we spoke, 2023. So exactly, just a month after 7th of October. And just to situate our…
Absolutely, yes. It was a month after, yes. I remember.
And I was expecting an air raid on Beirut anytime. And we are in a similar situation now because you’re expecting your children to come back from school, which would probably be the equivalent of an Israeli air raid.
Not far off, not far off of the Israeli Air Force. At least, at least sometimes. It’s a bit of dark humor to get us off. But just also to situate our audience, today is the 4th of July. we speak, you’re obviously in Lebanon and I’m speaking to you from Australia. But perhaps to just to set the scene for us or to kick us off.
I’d love to hear an interpretation of yours of the current moment in the Middle East. In other words, what do you see as the underlying forces that are shaping where we are today?
Underlying forces? Well, as you know, I always look at the internal rather than two sides. So the main developments should come from inside Iran, inside Israel, inside Lebanon, and inside the Palestinian authority with the two sides.
Which are Hamas and so that’s what I look for rather than what’s happening between the United States and Iran, between Israel and so it’s just a different way of looking and I think it’s far more important because the internal battle is the important one. You want one side to prevail, there should be some sort of
Between sides, internal synchronization between sides. So for example now you have, even though it looks like Hamas has lost, if you look at it between Hamas versus Israel, but Hamas has won a crushing victory against the Palestinian Authority. Nobody visits Ramallah to resolve anything.
The interlocutor is Hamas and all the mediators are talking to Hamas, the proposal is with Hamas. So the power is with the interlocutor. And so it has won over the, what we call the legitimate authority. That is gaining legitimacy. Internally, in Israel, I think it’s unquestionable that the government has support. There are protests, but
There has to be a change in, at least I look for changes in internal dynamics. And if you look at the American strike over Iran, it hasn’t, I mean, we don’t know what changes in the internal dynamics in Iran have happened. Did the regime gain support?
Because when you’re being bombed, you never thank the people who bomb you. When the whole city is put in a panic, 10 million people are trying to flee Tehran. The anger goes somewhere. So somewhere, when it gets equilibrium, this regime…
Will either become stronger or weaker. And that’s what we’re looking for. If we’re looking for peace in the region…
There’s of course real causes, there are real issues between the players, but there are also dynamics within each context which have to take part. I hope it’s not…
Okay. So can we maybe develop that a little bit more? Cause I’m really interested in the way you analyze conflicts and your focus on the internal dynamics. For the audience who’s not familiar with this interpretation of conflict in general, give us an understanding of how and why you look at conflicts and then maybe give us a little bit more context as to who the competing factions are within this particular context with Palestinians and Israelis.
Yeah, I mean, it’s not theoretical at all. I mean, I’m not going to go, there’s no sort of grand theory. It’s just very simple idea that, let me give you Lebanon as an example. We have an agreement brokered by the United States and the Saudis. I mean, we have a regional agreement that stopped the war in November.
And one of the conditions is that Hezbollah should disarm in Lebanon. Now, the disarming of Hezbollah, which is the key element in regaining stability and preventing another war happening, is an internal issue. So for the moment, the relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state and the discussions on
In chat shows on TV, in the press, in the media, in cafes, between Hezbollah fighters and their mother-in-law. All these factors are playing into whether Hezbollah will accept disarming or whether there is a way out which it will make it accept defeat after all. It is a military defeat.
But a military defeat does not necessarily lead to a political defeat. You can be defeated militarily. You can communicate it as a military defeat but a political victory. So communications are important. Internal dynamics are important. The internal narratives are important. You finesse it. So for example, the power of Hamas in
The Palestinian society is because it portrays itself as the only resistance against Israel and portrays the Palestinian authority as collaborators with the Israelis. Which is not true. This is not reality. But they have the upper hand in the internal narrative.
In the internal dynamics. And so if we want a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority prevailing and the viable, somehow viable state, I mean the minimum possible, if you like, not an ideal state, you know, this is the main problem that has to be resolved between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state, between the Iraqi militias and the Iraqi state, between Iran and the United States, but all these are branches of a bigger conflict that have internal dynamics that are affected by military operations, by lots of
Lots of factors. Same in the Gulf, in the Gulf states. So it’s just a different way of looking at it.
So the internal competition is not necessarily the narrative that we in the West analyse, discuss, talk about because the way it’s presented in the Hamas context is, and I think you’ve worded it beautifully last time we spoke, you used the kind of classic guerrilla theory to explain what Hamas has done where it’s provoked an overwhelming response by Israel. And despite the fact that there’s now 56,000 plus dead in Gaza, 17,000 plus children, and also allegedly by Israel, around 30,000 Hamas fighters have been killed. All of that is a price being paid by Hamas in order for Hamas to retain power and influence over the Palestinian cause as opposed to what the narrative is that we get to see and explore and understand in the West certainly is that Hamas is out to exterminate Israel or delete Israel from the map of the world, which is part of their static claims, but not necessarily the ultimate end state because if Israel is gone, then they’ve got no reason to hold power anymore.
Yes, I mean, it’s a bit simpler also because in Israel, the government gains support by saying that Hamas wants to exterminate us. And everything that Hamas says almost confirms this to the Israeli public. They gain, so the government know what they do, know what they do. And at the same time,
And what they do, right?
What Israel does and what Israel says and what even what President Trump says confirms internally in the Palestinian context that Israel and the United States and the West are here to exterminate the Palestinians and kick them out of their homes and make two million people homeless and starve them to death and all that.
So this internal dynamic, the two sides are reinforcing each other. See, Hamas doesn’t have to convince the people in Palestine that this is what’s happening. All they have to do is listen to what Israel is saying and what Trump said.
And the inactivity of the Arab states and it reinforces its… and that internal battle is crucial.
So for now, now the situation now, the reason for not being very optimistic is that if you want to divide every context into the goodies and the baddies, the baddies are prevailing and the baddies are reinforcing each other and you have to break this somehow.
Right. Well, how do we reconcile the fact that Hamas enjoys popular support in Gaza today and I think even more support in the West Bank? Is that because they are seen as the only ones that are actually fighting and standing up to Israel?
It doesn’t mean that… Yeah, sorry.
I’m not sure that Hamas enjoys the support it does, the support we think it does in Gaza. Maybe it does in the West Bank, maybe it does at Columbia University, places like that. But somewhere within Palestinian society, there must be a conversation saying that this is what Hamas is doing to us.
But this conversation is not being allowed to surface because the circumstances are strengthening the other conversation. You can’t come out and say and attack Hamas in a situation when you’re being bombed by these radios. It sounds like you’re defending the people who are bombing.
You know, we spoke about the Blitz. Nobody can blame Churchill for the Nazis bombing London while the bombing is happening. You would sound like a collaborator. But maybe someone in London thought this war is useless or it should have stopped or we shouldn’t have bombed Dresden or we shouldn’t—maybe someone thought that, but they would never have said it.
So given that the war’s been going on for 20 odd months now or 21 months. How do you assess the strength of both Hezbollah as well in Lebanon, but also Hamas? If the figures are even broadly accurate from what we’re hearing from Israel, you know, 30,000 Hamas fighters assessed as being dead. I mean, how do you assess the strength of both organizations and their will to fight? Has it been eroded? Are they being merely just strengthened? Are the new fighters just joining en masse or how do you view the situation?
It’s difficult to assess, and I don’t have the tools. I’m not really on the ground there to really understand what’s happening. But let’s say that this is really the important factor. It’s the morale, the will to fight, and whether there is an alternative.
I am assuming that if you’re sitting in Gaza, forget about Hamas, if you’re sitting in Gaza listening to what the Israelis and the West are saying,
Hamas is your only alternative.
So what we say affects their internal dynamics.
And they can also twist what we say to make it even worse. And we are in the same situation here in Lebanon where the government is asking Hezbollah to give up its arms on the basis of an agreement with Israel, the United States, and the Saudis, and the Gulf.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, of course.
So there are ways in which Hezbollah propagandists or spokespeople are twisting this, making the Lebanese government as a tool of the Israelis and the West and relying on it. So I don’t know how one can… There has to be a game changer
to set this on the right course. One side is that Hezbollah started this war. It led to the destruction of South Lebanon and large parts of Beirut to massive casualties and losses. And it led to the catastrophe. And Hezbollah is responsible for it. That’s one side.
And Hezbollah should disarm and we should have an agreement with the Israelis. Not necessarily a peace treaty, not necessarily normalization, just forget about each other for a while. It’s not the time to go into lovey-dovey peace with Israelis, but we’ve had enough. So that’s one side. The other side is that we are the resistance. Israel has designs over Lebanon. It’s not true that we provoked the war. The war would have come anyway because they were planning for it for years. All you have to do is listen to the Israeli media and some Israeli generals, and they will confirm this. The Lebanese government is collaborating with Israel and the United States to disarm the resistance and surrender. That’s the other side. And we’re not going to surrender. We’re steadfast, we’re blah, blah, blah. These are the two conversations happening in Lebanon. And they’re a crucial factor in developments. Unless we’re going to have a civil war.
With the army fighting Hezbollah and disarming it. Unless we turn into a Ba’ath party ruled, you know, like…
What is the chance of that actually happening? I mean, is that even—
I don’t know, there’s no chance of this happening in Lebanon.
I find it really interesting because I can draw so many parallels from—sorry, the delay catches us there. I was just going to say, I find it very interesting because when you talk about this internal dynamic against an external aggressor or perceived aggressor, I mean, it really resonates again, much like last time we drew some parallels with the Balkans in Bosnia, but you need to keep an enemy alive in order to retain power and the narratives that are—in the Bosnian context, it’s almost like a dial. The politicians will just turn the dial up. The narratives will just increase: imminent threat, they want to kill you again, it’s going to be Srebrenica again, or they want all the Serbs out. Every side just plays their—just turns up the volume on their narratives.
Yes, exactly.
Brilliant, yes.
The kind of pressure builds a little bit and then we kind of come down again when, you know, once the kind of people have gone, “Well, no, no, no, we don’t really want to go into war. Let’s, you know, we’ll listen, we’ll follow, we’ll, you know, you can do what you will to protect us,” etc. Of course, in the Middle East that’s escalated into actual violence. But what I can’t quite get is if all of these factions and parties and even states like Israel are benefiting in some sense from the conflict, then I mean, is there—can we solve it? I mean, if this is a perpetual, you know, turning of—adjusting of knobs to kind of keep the violence at a level where individual leaders can retain power, then are we as a world powerless? I mean, is the death and destruction of Gaza—can we even hope to stop it? Or what can we do, if anything, to stop it?
Yes, these are the questions. These are the questions. And the way we’re describing it together now is different from looking at it as Palestinians versus Israelis or the West. And in the internal dynamics, the knobs you’re speaking about, Hezbollah can justify defeat and glorify defeat very easily. Yeah, I mean, we’re not—
Like Iran did.
They can say we’re just a bunch of civilians in resistance mode because of an occupation. And we’re not just fighting the Zionist enemy, we’re fighting the whole West and the United States. And they haven’t been able to shut us down. And look at Gaza, after almost two years, over two years,
The resistance is still active. So they can glorify resistance, they can glorify blood, they can glorify martyrdom. The Algerian example is always used—that the Algerian revolution cost a million dead. So we are nowhere, we are just at the beginning and…
Design is the—yeah, yeah, yeah.
Europeans, yeah, of course.
They were just getting rid of a few French. We are getting rid of… We’re part of a… And the Americans and the Gulf states and the collaborators and the Europeans. So they can always twist it. And as long as they can twist it, they prevail. You cannot kill everybody. And you cannot get rid of the idea. And if they emerge even defeated and broken and bankrupt—if they emerge as the main interlocutor, they won. It’s always the interlocutors that set the terms after a war. Technically, the war should be to change the… like when the negotiations over the Treaty of Westphalia were happening in the 17th century.
You had periods of war which changed the balance, and people feel that they can sit at the table, they have enough because the balance of power is changing. And then if the result is not satisfying, they go to war again, change the balance, and come back.
Hmm. Shifting of dynamics. So how do you assess Israeli strategy given what we’ve just discussed? I mean, is this totally ineffective long-term? I mean, if Hamas is going to claim—and always can, especially if they’re the only holders of power in, say, Gaza—they will always be able to claim victory. Because as you rightly pointed out, you can’t kill all of them. It’s impossible. You can’t kill an idea. You can’t kill a people. We’ve witnessed that time and time again.
So in other words, they will always be able to rise and say, “We’re still here, we’re still fighting, we’re still the resistance.” Israel is no safer, I suspect. So how do you evaluate Israeli strategy in this?
Not at all, no.
And on top of that, you have the region to think of.
I mean, we’re all outraged by what’s happening in Gaza, and we have sympathy with the civilian population. I mean, it’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening in Gaza all over the Arab world, and we identify with the civilians in Gaza, in a sense. But whether people have enough perspective to lay the blame on Hamas rather than on purely on Israel is doubtful.
So you have people over the whole region seeing Palestinians being slaughtered, and this could have an effect on the internal stability of Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf states, even North Africa. But on the other hand,
You have demographic change in the region. You have a new generation—this is illustrated mostly in the Gulf states, in Saudi Arabia—we have a new generation that doesn’t want war, that thinks of moving on, technology, all that sort of…
Yeah, prosperity, wealth, fun. Yeah.
Prosperity—resistance people would call it the corruptions of capitalism. So we want the corruption of capitalism, they want the purity of resistance against imperialism and all that, and they have support from—
Yeah. Yeah.
Global forces that think that way also, and they think they’re winning. Because there are global forces—including and including within the Jewish community, the diaspora community—which rightly feel outraged at what’s happening in Gaza because it’s worse that it’s being done in their name, you know, in a way. So these are all
Dynamics at play which are too complex for us to reply to—answer. There’s another way of putting it. When you know—if you look at the way historians deal with the rise and fall of international orders or empires—you know, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire or the Byzantine or Turkey—you know, the Ottomans, or you know, this is the main theme in historians.
There’s a model of the barbarians surrounding the city and attacking the city, and the city being too corrupt and fat and comfortable to fight, so eventually the barbarians always win. But this time the barbarians attacked the city and the city turned out to be as barbarian as the barbarian itself. I mean Israel has proved to be really barbaric in its attack.
So it’s not a standard model we’re dealing with. People are supporting—various people are supporting various barbarians. I—for me Hamas is barbarian, but Israel is behaving as barbarically as Hamas is. So it’s not the normal pattern of…
What do you put that down to? I mean, obviously, as we fully well know, there are members of the Knesset that are openly calling for ethnic cleansing of Gaza, blaming Egypt for not letting Palestinians from Gaza enter. Trump’s even made remarks that it will be the Riviera of the Middle East. These kinds of calls for a…
You know, as—and even Norman Finkelstein, he calls it the final solution. Very much a play on words, obviously. What—where—where do you sit on this? How do you view overall what the intent is now? I mean, because it’s been so long. I mean, we’re, you know, two years into this and—or well past. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up.
You can ignore the Norman Finkelsteins of this world because they would always say that. Same as, you know, I mean in the United States they also have the Jeffrey Sachs who would always take the anti-American position, if you like. So nobody listens to him eventually. Maybe the Russians listen to him more than Americans, and it’s Russian bots that circulate his videos.
Right. That’s interesting. I mean, I would have thought Norman Finkelstein as someone who understands the region quite well. I mean, I can’t say I agree with him intimately because I don’t understand him intimately. Yeah.
No, he does, but he has taken… He doesn’t—he’s been… He is… He’s taken extreme positions that discredit him within Israeli society and makes him a hero in Palestinian circles. I mean, he was invited to Ba’ath party reunions in Damascus during Assad. So yeah, I see them as part of the strength. There’s a whole group of the new historians in Israel, whom I know well because St. Anthony’s College, where I spent 20 years, is their sort of focal point. People like Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé, Israel Gershoni—all these new historians are very useful in the debate. I think they’re… on the Arab side, we don’t have that much revisionism as the Israelis do.
Right, but Ilan Pappé, for example, is quite critical of Zionism and I’ve just started reading his new book.
Yes, but of course. Yes, yes. No, Ilan Pappé is very critical of Zionism. So is Avi Shlaim—he has become very critical of Zionism. And these are credible academics.
And they affect the internal debate. Sometimes they strengthen it rather than weaken it. They strengthen the other. Because when you’re challenged, you refine your arguments. So they’re challenging the internal—they’re fuelling the debate internally in Israel. Whereas on the Palestinian side, I don’t see that we have our Finkelsteins and our Pappés and our… it’s less tolerated. Yes. Yes. There’s less revisionism. Or at least those who are keep—are in danger and keep a low profile sometimes. It’s not as outspoken as…
To be critical of the Palestinian side, right.
But they are—I mean, they’re important elements in the internal dynamics. And there’s even debates between them. I mean, someone like Benny Morris, who was one of the pioneer new historians, openly says that he’s a Zionist. But at the same time, he’s a professional historian. It so happens that
What he finds as a professional historian does not agree with his politics, but he keeps the… So I think this is a very rich debate and it’s the strength of a free society—internally free society. Don’t forget that there are other elements. Israel is probably the only
Country in the region that had an Islamist as a minister in cabinet during the Lapid government. The leader of the Arab group who’s openly an Islamist. And you can’t imagine that in Egypt.
What does that mean, openly an Islamist in this context? I mean, was he provocative?
Well, he has the looks and the talks and the walk of… and was elected, but by a minority, and was included in the coalition because of the particular dynamics that they have in Israel. And you can’t imagine that in Egypt, you can’t imagine that in Jordan, you can’t imagine that in Tunis now,
Or anywhere in the Gulf states or not in Morocco. These are parts of the strengths and weaknesses of society. But the weakness of Israel is that I don’t think they have an endgame in sight.
Because the way they’re going is self-destructive for sure, because you cannot maintain a society like Israel in full mobilization and in state of war for—and maintain at the same time the prosperity it had and the technology—I mean, the tech industry is volatile. It can happen.
It can move out, the investments can move out. It’s very costly, the war. But, yes.
And also for its moral high ground. I mean, it retained a moral high ground in the region despite numerous atrocities over the years, some might say, but it retained the moral high ground because it was the democracy in the region. It was perceived as Western in its values and approach. But I think that—
Correct me if you disagree—but I would suspect that that’s been heavily eroded in the kind of global community. I mean, we just see, by the way, the votes land in the General Assembly. You know, 85, 90% of the world is actively pursuing Israel for what’s happening in Gaza and demanding a ceasefire. Of course, demanding the release of hostages. But it feels to me that the shine—
Of Israel being the beacon of light in the region that’s so volatile has been degraded to a pretty significant extent. And I wonder how Israel can regain that, you know, given what’s happening in Gaza.
Absolutely. And elements like these are far more important in the long run than the military operations. Or at least they’re worth considering as much as the military operations.
Hmm. As much as in history, ICJ rulings and ICC rulings, these remain in history now. Yep.
Yes. Well, yeah. Yes, yes. You know, but people can easily dismiss anything from the UN sometimes. They do. And sometimes, you know, sometimes support for—you know, America is the hegemon and people are anti-American. So they will support Hamas.
To the cause,
Because Hamas is anti-American. Not because of sympathy to the… I mean—and this was shown during the Syrian—in the Syrian context, where the global left, if you like, who are now supporting Hamas because it’s anti-American, were supporting Assad because Assad was anti-American. So they were supporting Assad destroying
Major cities like Aleppo and Homs and Hama and displacing five, six million people purely because Assad is anti-American or presents himself as part of the axis of resistance. So in that context, this is also part of the internal dynamics in the West. Which you can dismiss, you can dismiss these people. But in the end, they do have an effect and we’ve seen it in play. We’ve seen it—I mean, what happened in Syria in 2024, which means, which is the fall of Assad—could have easily happened in 2013. We would have saved huge damage to Syrian society, and the transition—if Assad had fallen in 2013—the transition and the reconstruction would have been much easier, and the trauma that the society has had would have been easier to resolve. We deliberately kept Assad in power, and the West is responsible for that, because we blinked.
We were afraid of regime change because of what happened in Iraq. We wanted Bush to be wrong in America. Bush could not be right. And we kept Assad in power. We allowed Russia and Iran to save Assad. And we pretended that—I mean, if you look back at what
John Kerry was saying at the time—John Kerry was saying there is no military solution in Syria. There’s only a political one. The Russians were saying, yes, yes, there is no military solution. But at the same time, they were pursuing a military solution. They were destroying and killing and displacing. So we fell for the trick, for the scam, very willingly.
And we have a responsibility—the West has a responsibility—to what’s happened. The same way as if you look back at 1991—the circumstances of the liberation of Kuwait by the American coalition, which had the whole Arab countries with it. So after the defeat of Saddam Hussein in that battle, his regime was weakened and
People thought that they had the support of the United States because of a declaration that George Bush the Elder made. And they rose. There was a revolt against Saddam Hussein. And the regime lost control of 14 out of 18 provinces. People just went to the towns, took over Ba’ath Party headquarters,
And intelligence and army headquarters, and he was losing control.
The Americans deliberately allowed him to—turned their blind eye—and he was allowed to crush the revolt.
And the result is that he was kept in power. And instead of helping the Iraqis free themselves from Saddam, we punished them for rising against him after we told them to rise against him. And we punished them with sanctions—turning again a blind eye to what Saddam was doing internally. We divided the country into—
The cost that Iraqi society incurred, between 1991 and 2003, when there was the other invasion, is an element in what happened—a very important element in what happened afterwards. It’s not the invasion that created the chaos. It’s a combination of the invasion and the pre-invasion. And the answer to that is not that you should keep a dictator
In power perpetually because you’re afraid of what happens later. This is the game dictators play with the international community and with their own people. And we succumbed to that. And we thought that Assad was indispensable, irreplaceable, and that after him would be chaos.
Mm.
So we kept him in power because of that. I mean, I’m using provocative language—I mean, we kept him in power—but we did help circumstances to keep him in power. And the Russians—we allowed the Russians and the Iranians to—we ignored the Russians. And if you want to go even deeper,
The JCPOA was part of that. You see, the JCPOA is not important because of the nuclear issue alone. The JCPOA is important because this is a way that Iran engaged the West—the Europeans and the Americans—on an issue that resounds with them.
Because if you’re Iranian and know the West, you know that there is a whole generation that was brought up on the campaign for nuclear disarmament and CND and all that. So this is an important… this is a good topic to exploit.
Non-Proliferation Treaty and yeah.
And during the negotiations between the Americans and the Iranians in 2015, one of the conditions of the Iranians—and this is well documented—one of the conditions was to ignore the regional and geopolitical aspects. So we concentrate on the nuclear deal. We don’t include
What Iran is doing in Palestine, in Syria, Iraq, in Yemen, in Lebanon.
Lebanon.
So we were kept busy with the nuclear deal. And it’s an achievement. It’s a box you tick. And while we were busy with that,
Hmm.
Iran strengthened Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Syrian regime, the Iraqi militias who took over the country, and the Houthis. And they all came back to haunt us later.
That’s really interesting because I thought the JCPOA—and that’s perhaps my naivety without seeing the deeper layer—that it’s almost like a distraction. You know, “We’ll talk about this. Let’s find a deal, unfreeze a whole suite of money and assets, frozen and sanctions and so on…”
And then use that money, of course, to then continue the fight elsewhere whilst you look like to the rest of the world—because even the IAEA has stated that Iran was compliant while the JCPOA was there, until Trump pulled out of it—that it was compliant.
But they were compliant. Yeah, because that was not the central issue for them. The central issue was—that was a distraction, in my view. And that was also what made them an interlocutor. Again, it’s important to be the interlocutor. So you’re at the table and you’ve got not only a seat at the table—you are the main interlocutor. The Arab states, the Gulf states—
If you’ve got a seat at the table, right? Yeah.
Were not included in the conversation, even though they have a stake in the relations between Iran and America. Because America is their protector, and their protector is being distracted from protecting them. America is being weaned away. And you know, you have declarations by President Obama
And the region, yeah.
Which acknowledge that Iran has a stake in the region and that we should share the region with Iran.
That’s something outrageous for Arab states. And now the Americans are saying disarm Hezbollah—after Hezbollah was strengthened by their own actions, in a way.
That’s really interesting, so I want to take this in a couple of strands. While we’re on Iran, and given what we just said about Saddam in ’91 and then Bush Senior effectively withdrawing from Iraq and Saddam was allowed to remain in power—what do you then see, what do you think should the West, i.e. the US, do right now, given they’ve bombed Iran, as they proclaim annihilated the nuclear program—which in your own words has been a distraction anyway?
And of course we know fully well that the Iranian regime every few years gets shaken internally a little bit. It ever so slightly gives the impression domestically that it’s changing, that it’s modernising, to kind of stem the uprising, whilst of course keeping the true enemy—you know, the Satan and mini Satan—in full view of domestic politics. What do you think? Is this the time for regime change?
Listen, I’m not going to give—I have no idea what they should do. Or even if I did, they would never listen to me. But the important element to highlight in what you’ve said is that what America did in 1991, in 2003, in the JCPOA in 2009—
All these things were done with a strong internal element also. So it’s the internal dynamics within the United States that were partly important, that led these actions on. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was also—I mean, which was a catastrophe. I mean, you have—can you imagine—
And embarrassment on so many levels.
It’s not just an embarrassment. I mean, it’s horrific. It’s horrific to America’s friends, rather than America’s enemies, who were jubilant that a bunch of barbarians, if you like—I use barbarians in the historic sense—the barbarians won.
Barbarians who were just today recognised by Russia formally. I don’t know if you saw that.
Yes. But imagine that the United States, with an international coalition, with—I don’t know if the figures are correct—but the cost of the whole Afghan occupation and operation cost $2.2 trillion,
Come end up with nothing to show for it but humiliation.
Apart from a well-armed Taliban.
Yes, better. Yes. I mean, that’s difficult to… And also if you consider the cost—I look at the cost of… I asked a friend—I’m not a military expert at all—but I asked a friend about the cost of the bombing, the American bombing of Iran. And
He said anything between $200 and $300 billion.
You can reconstruct the whole region.
This recent bombing of the nuclear sites was $200 to $300 billion? I mean, I guess there were nuclear… I mean, there were submarines, there were drones, there were obviously aircraft flying 36 hours, etc. So there’s obviously a lot of things went bang, but wow.
Yes, I don’t know about the figures. I mean, I’m not sure about the figures. I’m not sure I remember the figures correctly. And I have no way of judging them. But the destruction has huge cost.
You have to keep that in mind when you think of the cost of reconstruction. I heard once in a debate the Houthis boasting that they can send a drone that costs a couple of thousand on Alibaba, and the Americans and the Israelis reply with an air raid that costs
Them several million. And what they destroy on the ground is worth less than the cost of bombing it. But I mean these are the wrong calculations of course, but it’s part of the triumphalism and part of the general—and the Houthis were boasting: “What do you mean we lost? Everybody’s talking about us. We can disrupt global trade.”
Yeah.
We are the most important people on the planet.
Hmm.
So how do you view Trump’s moves then in the region—most notably of course, the bombing of Iran? How do you view that? I mean, is this a net good, bad, indifferent, uncertain? How do you see it?
Well, I’ve always said that Trump has to be taken seriously. When I was in the US—especially, I mean, I was in Boston and New York, so it’s a bias thing—Trump was made jokes about, and nobody spoke of Trump seriously. And that’s part of an American problem, which is a serious American problem in a way. The federal capital of the United States voted 92% for Biden in 2020. And if you heard even NPR, which is supposed to be the BBC of the United States and balanced and all that, they spoke of Trump in joking terms.
And I think—so if one takes Trump seriously and looks at the results, I think, for example, the Abraham Accords are great achievements. Even the withdrawal—even the moving of the embassy to Jerusalem—has positive aspects in the sense that it did break a taboo.
He promised it in the electoral campaign. But he was not the only one who promised it. I mean, every president from Ford to Clinton to Bush to Obama made that same promise to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And they never executed that, probably because their advisers told them
That if you do that, there will be blood in the streets and burning of American flags from Marrakesh to Bangladesh and American embassies will be even less safe and American citizens and Starbucks and all that. But he actually went—did the crazy thing of delivering on an electoral promise, which is absurd in politics. Electoral promises are just to be elected. But in the end, nothing happened. It’s a major taboo that was broken with that.
Much like bombing of Iran.
Much like bombing of Iran, exactly—that’s what I’m going to say. And there are problems in the way the American system works—bureaucracy, the deep state and all that. There are real things to be taken seriously and to be addressed, especially the way the paralysis that results at huge cost from the internal battles in the administration and the administrative structure. I mean, you know, the so-called resistance to Trump paralysed the …bureaucracy in Washington at huge cost. The reason why you did not have so many ambassadorial appointments and government appointments was not because Trump didn’t care—maybe he didn’t—but it was because every single appointment was resisted internally, and every security clearance would take 18 months in one case that I know of. Eighteen months.
For someone who was not at the top tier and who was an Obama voter, but just because he was a Trump appointee, the process of him getting security clearance took 18 months. Eighteen months means that during those 18 months, you’re not allowed to say anything, meet anybody, write anything, because everything you do hinders the process on that. So there is a crisis within America. There is a divide which probably even dates back to the divisions of the Civil War—the role of the federal state towards the other states, the hegemony of… So there are—I’m not saying that this is abnormal. There are these complexities in every society, as you know.
But it matters here because it’s the only hegemon still.
But they are—so—but the internal… it matters here also because it is part of the internal dynamics in the United States rather than part of the confrontation between the US and Iran.
Let me just try and kind of summarise what we’ve broadly touched on because I think that will give me a kind of launchpad for the next question I want to ask. We’ve talked about the internal dynamics of various states—not even states, but entities—as being a key piece to understanding the larger narratives that are discussed kind of more broadly in media and so on.
Quite often we don’t have the time or the patience to understand what lies underneath the surface. So we have the kind of contestation for power between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah and whatever. In Lebanon, we’ll have the internal contestation between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah. In Israel, we’ll have the internal contestation between the kind of far right of politics and the opposition.
In the US, we have this fight between the MAGA camp and the Never Trumpers. So these kind of internal dynamics often are then… and then the foreign relations or the international arena is part of… it’s a subject in the internal machinations, in internal battles, which then kind of…
It plays out in the global scene in a way where we’re kind of seeing, well, it’s the US against Iran. Well, or Israel against Iran. Yes, of course, that is the visible, the surface level narrative, but underneath that is a whole number of layers of internal battles that give air to these larger narratives to even have any space in our discourse.
And you alluded to earlier in the discussion is—sorry, you go.
Yes. You add to that the dysfunctionality of the EU as well, where one state—
Hmm. Or the UN, or the kind of neutering of the Security Council and kind of global institutions. Yeah. But yes, please, please, please, elaborate on that a little.
Well, I mean, to give you just one example of how the dysfunctionality within the EU affected where we are now: in 2006, there were elections in Palestine. Hamas won the elections in Palestine. Hamas won because it was a protest vote.
Hamas.
Because there were 11 Fatah, PLO and independent lists in an electoral system which looked at proportional representation also. There was only one Hamas list. So that’s the reason why Hamas—Hamas—one of the reasons why. There was a dilution of everyone else and there was a genuine protest vote against—
Diluted the vote of everyone else, right? Completely, because you were divided across 11.
The PA, against the lack of progress, against corruption and all that. So it was a genuine result which reflected the mood. And Hamas at the time offered to participate in a joint government with the PLO and the PA, where they would not put forward their main
Politicians as candidates for ministries—they would put someone once or twice removed, but with no sympathies. And so they offered a compromise to have a joint government. And this was sent to Brussels. In Brussels, it was put to the vote in the European Council, the Council of Ministers—and it was vetoed by one state and it was refused. That’s the dysfunctionality within Europe that affected the… And at the same time, the other lesson from this is that even Hamas itself is not a monolithic entity, because there are the—
Yeah.
There are different factions. There is an internal dynamic within Hamas. There is an internal dynamic within even the Muslim Brotherhood. And you could see that—I’ll give you another illustration: that in 2006, on the 25th of June 2006, there was an agreement between—
I mean, between Hamas and Fatah reached within Israeli jails. So Hamas and Fatah prisoners were allowed to meet and discuss the relationship between Hamas and Fatah and the PA and the PLO. And they came up with what was called the Prisoners’ Document. And this Prisoners’ Document was presented to the
To Hamas and the PLO outside. And Ismail Haniyeh and Abu Mazen were due to sign it on the 25th of June 2006—an important date. And what happened that evening was that elements from Hamas or Islamic Jihad or whatever crossed the border, kidnapped Gilad Shalit,
And started throwing rockets and inflamed the whole Israeli-Gaza front. Basically, the agreement was irrelevant by then because there was a state of war. So this is part of the internal dynamics within Hamas and Islamic Jihad and all these resistance factions. So you can’t even take that as monolithic, or Hezbollah as monolithic. So there’s always an internal dynamic. So the reason why I’m explaining all this is that you have to look at that as well as the larger picture of Iran versus the US, Israel versus the Palestinians—or if you like, Israel versus the Arabs, and Israel and, within a closer circle, Israel versus Palestinians. It gives you some real issues. I’m not saying they’re not, but at the same time, solution lies with the solution—or the disruption of solution lies—within the internal dynamics in each camp, including the West.
Well, that actually brings me to the direction I wanted to take this. Last time we briefly spoke about the Shia political revival, which to me still is a huge undercurrent in the region and one that again, we in the West don’t really see. We understand that the Arab states are against Iran. We understand that Saudi Arabia is the mortal enemy of Iran in so many ways, but we also understand that there’s been a bit of a rapprochement between them. And we also saw that, you know, Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks by Trump. So that also gives a perplexing image as to what’s actually happening in the region. And also what we don’t talk about is how deep and how far-reaching and what the intent behind this revival really is. And I feel like that’s an important aspect of this, if we are to understand not just the Palestinian issue, but the broader Iranian issue, the Houthis, the Lebanon and Hezbollah issue. Maybe you can help us understand how that revival is playing out in the region even today.
Yeah, well, I don’t—I can’t. All you have to do is—you’re asking too much. No, no, let me put it—let me try and explain it that way. No, I think with—you know, just to have a little bit of a break, I think the imbalance you had—I’m glad you’re back and very happy that you solved the—
You will do a far better job than me. So please.
But when you had lost your balance and tilting to one side, you could understand the world far better because you were in tune with the way the world was in chaos. You were spinning with it.
I was spinning with it. I was spinning with it. I kept on hitting the wall like the world is.
Yes, exactly. And tilting to the far right. But let me put it this way. If you consider, for example, the Reformation, 500 years ago—
Yeah.
In 1560,
Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Very elaborate, with gold and red and, you know, amazing stuff.
Grand in its design.
Yes, grand and colourful and full of people. At the same time, exactly at the same time, in Northern Europe, they were—
Destroying art, defacing icons, destroying churches and cathedrals. This is the Calvinists, you know, in Northern Europe. And these people, 500 years later, have produced IKEA.
Whereas in Rome you have Gucci and Versace and Bergamo and all that. So this cultural difference or artistic difference between Rome and Northern—and Sweden or the Nordic states—is a continuation of the division of the Reformation.
The cultural legacy.
The cultural legacy of the Reformation, in a way. And the United States is also a continuation of the cultural legacy of very bigoted Puritans who crossed on—and Geneva is also a continuation of the Calvinist period, where they were—I mean, it was not very different from ISIS and Raqqa under Calvin. So what we’re seeing is a region-wide revival in the Shia context, after 1,400 years, similar to the Reformation, which may eventually—and probably will—come up with something positive. But it went through without the bigger hindsight we can’t judge where it’s going, whether it’ll change direction, whether it’ll be reformed, whether it’ll be… But it’s definitely not reversible. And it has to find an equilibrium somewhere, like all conflicts do eventually. I mean, that’s… But we don’t know.
Where it’s going to go.
We have no way of knowing. But the idea that we can reverse it or crush it is absurd.
That’s the conclusion, if you like—the idea. And again, yeah, I mean, yes.
Is that because it’s an idea again? Because it’s an ideology?
Yeah. King Philip of Spain, when he invaded Europe to crush the Calvinists, had to stop somewhere.
So lay the groundwork for us then—where are the waves of this revival? How are they manifesting on the ground in the Middle East?
But even that revival is not monolithic, because there are very serious internal discussions within them. There are the radicals that want to revenge for the killing of Hussein 1,400 years ago. And there are the more quietists who want to—
Restore stability and coexistence with the rest of the region. And the region knows how to do coexistence, because it’s done it for hundreds of years. Remember that if there are people who are in conflict in a small area, like Sarajevo, the fact that they are in conflict in a small area means that they have been there together at the same time.
Otherwise, they would have ethnically cleansed each other a long time ago, like Europe dividing itself into homogeneous principalities in the 16th and 17th centuries. So they know how to do it. They just slipped—and have the ability of going back to living together in a place like Sarajevo, let’s say. And we—
Have the ability to do that in Lebanon, we have the ability to do that in the Middle East, and we know how to do it. We haven’t lost all the ideas that lead to it. And you have a new generation that wants to do it. That’s a—
So how do you interpret some of the—yeah, that was just coming. Yeah. Yeah. That—I just wanted to come to that actually, because you alluded to that earlier, that there is a new generation. I think Mohammed bin Salman represents perhaps that generation of wanting to explore the world and live life and travel and study and enjoy, you know, the blessings of this world, so to say. Do you harbour hope that that new generation might see the world a little bit different? And is that a reality for the Palestinian youth as well as the Israeli youth, really?
Yeah, I mean to continue along the same lines that we’ve been discussing, what I imagine is happening with a new generation is people who want to live the world and grow technology and forget about the wars of their parents and grandparents and they want change, which is probably best represented with Mohammed bin Salman and
Dubai and the Gulf states and the Abraham Accords and all that. And there are at the same time people who are angry, young people who are angry, who are being mobilised, who are being radicalised, and who are being told that you can’t bow to imperialism and Zionism and
All that—they are evil and we have to fight them. So there are these two currents happening.
I hope the Gulf one will prevail rather than the Hamas one. And it has to—I mean, can’t live like this forever. But they both exist within every society. There are people who wake up one morning and switch on social media—and young people—and think, gosh, while I’m being busy, which dating app
Works better, this is being done and we’re not doing anything about it and we’re collaborating with it. So there are—I don’t see that the angry youth will prevail over the happy youth, but it is something to be taken seriously. It’s a dynamic that’s that should be taken seriously.
And perhaps my last question then, given how long we’ve been going for—but what is the general mood in Lebanon at the moment?
Well, I mean, to end on a good note—Beirut is a party city. And it’s the paradox of life continuing normally. The expats are coming back, some tourists are coming. Restaurants are full. You need
To pull strings to get into some of them—and night clubs and the beaches. But at the same time there are air raids still happening. Yesterday there were several, and there was a targeted assassination on a car sort of a few metres away from the airport.
Yeah.
And planes were still landing with… So that’s the—we’re at the edge of the abyss again.
So situation normal, despite the abyss.
At the same time, there is a very intense conversation happening. There is criticism of the government for not delivering on promises. There’s normal politics, of course, happening at the same time. And the government is looking far weaker than it did when it was set up—when it was founded in November.
But so that’s the situation. It was a government that over-promised, a bit like your introduction to our discussions. It was—I mean, we have a government of 24 ministers, 14 of them have PhDs, three LLMs.
Wow.
I’m talking LLMs from Harvard and Columbia—I’m not talking about yet. We have two brigadier generals and one major general in the… People who served in the IMF and the World Bank. Our prime minister was head of the ICJ and was president of the Security Council, of the UN Security Council. We have the most qualified government in the history of humanity.
Yeah, there you go.
Because I can’t even think—I couldn’t even think of one British Prime Minister who ever had a PhD, and then I thought, well, yes, Gordon Brown, but nobody remembers him. But we have 14. So we have this government which is overqualified, which is definitely full of honest people and the best you could think of.
Yeah.
They couldn’t deliver on a deal with Hezbollah to disarm, or any way to bring back confidence in the country. So these are—that’s…
Right.
Perhaps proof that we do ultimately need strongmen to…
Perhaps a few barbarians also.
Yeah, yeah—you know, to paraphrase Trump, you know, to paraphrase Trump, you know, two kids in the schoolyard are fighting and Rutte—as he referred to him—as daddy Trump needs to come in and sort them out, which is—I mean, look, if that’s the world we live in, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s actually the case. But it’s a sad realisation if that’s where the world is…
To confront barbarians.
…that we ultimately need the muscle to—yeah. Sorry.
You see, Trump—yeah, Trump is behave—if America is an empire, Trump is behaving like an emperor for the first time. Because former presidents were reluctant emperors, because there is this deeply seated resistance to being an empire in America, which
Presents itself in the division between interventionism and isolation. And the root of it is because fundamentally the country was created as a reaction to British colonialism and imperialism. So Trump is the first emperor of the empire—maybe not the last one.
Well, on that cheery note, Nadim, it’s been a pleasure. I love speaking with you because you bring me back to earth in so many ways. I love that you speak in crisp truths. You’re very pragmatic. You don’t sit in the kind of esoteric space of shoulds or shouldn’ts. I get the sense that you’re quite pragmatic in the way you view the world and it’s very refreshing.
It certainly helps me contextualise, because I find myself sometimes running off with the fairies, much like the rest of the world. So I’m very grateful for your time once again and I really do hope that we can do this again.
Thank you. Thank you. You make me sound immoral, but I’m very glad you’re back. I’m very glad you’re thinking of all these things. And I look forward to listening to your future podcasts.