Podcasts about iraq iran

With War on everyone's mind these days we decided to tackle a tough subject in War Crimes.  For this week Mike brings you a discussion of the First Gulf War or the Iraq Iran conflict.  Unfortunatley JT was sick so Paige of Reverie True Crime pinch hit for him.    Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_Warhttps://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-Iraq-Warhttps://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/iran-iraq-warhttps://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/topics/iran-iraq-warhttps://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-iran-iraq-war-will-shape-the-region-for-decades-to-come/chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AUPress/Books/B_0025_BERGQUIST_AIRPOWER_IRANIRAQ.pdfhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvjk2vcjhttps://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/past-operations/middle-east/vagabond.htmlchrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/81ali.pdfhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/books/iraniraq-war/7C6E42D57383472EA9B9F6101BEABD94https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/9/22/legacy-of-iran-iraq-war-still-reverberates-40-years-laterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against_Iranhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muthana_State_Establishmenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabun_(nerve_agent)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_gashttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_(nerve_agent)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attackhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Algiers_Agreementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath_of_the_Iranian_revolutionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_revolutionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dawn_2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_al-Faw#Iranian_attackhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre 

Today, as part of the women's special series in March, 2025, Gayatri Kalyanaraman is in conversation with Ponni Krishnamoorthy, Director and Global head of Telco cloud in Nokia talks about breaking societal expectations to achieving career goals - Ponni shares about her humble background and Her roots in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, and how her upbringing shaped her career choices and Ponni's career journey from NIT Trichy to becoming Director at Nokia.- Ponni shares her Being the first woman engineer in her extended family.- Initial societal expectations (suggestions to become a teacher or doctor).- Love for math, problem-solving, and coding led her to engineering.- Ponni shares her Career Growth & Transition from software engineer and her inspiration to be a coding guru- She started her career with Siemens Communication Software as a developer and slowly shifted into techno-management after earning an MBA from IIM Bangalore while working full-time.- Ponni shares stories of her transition from developer to global technology leadership.- Ponni talks about taking different roles in the same firm such as global product development and end-to-end project ownership- Pooni shares her Experience with mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and predicting industry trends.- She talks about operational challenges and Leading teams across multiple countries (Finland, India, China, US) and working through sanctions during the Iraq-Iran war.- Ponni talks about Early involvement in digital twin technology (before it became mainstream).-Importance of creating a culture of problem-solving & dreaming big.- Ponni talks about her role in University Engagement & Mentorship while encouraging students and young professionals to take risks.- Pooni shares her career advice and Leadership Lessons on the importance of patience and long-term growth, avoiding the trap of jumping jobs for short-term gains.- She also shares her learning from each role before moving up the ladder and defining personal success metrics rather than following trends.Ponni is Director of Telco Cloud Data center and Telecom Test networks with Mobile Networks business group, Nokia - Leading R&D Telco cloud data centers and services across 8 countries- Leading the unit of end-to-end telecom test networks for testing of Nokia products and solutions- Leading University Collaboration platform for Nokia Bangalore - connecting universities, Professional organizations , Research & management institutes- Leading global and cross cultural teams, across Europe, India, China and USA- Leads the Nokia Bangalore 6G research center- Nokia certified coach having coached and developed high performing employees globally She has been Instrumental in ramping up and setting up new product development groups, global lab service organization , R&D Cloud data centers, end-to-end test network infrastructure & services unit and transformation of organizations. Experienced in Partner management, leadership development, nurturing innovation and driving efficiency improvement programs and strategic decision making etc.She has successfully launched various programs across Indian universities and is committed to take the latest telecom technologies and research opportunities to the doorsteps of academic world.She is a recipient of IEEE Women Technologist of the year-2019.A strong leader and team player with good communication and interpersonal skills. Ponni did her computer science engineering from NIT Trichy and management from IIM BangalorePonni can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ponnikrishnamoorthy/

In this 'EPISODE 401 TEMPLE MOUNT AND THE NEW REBUILD OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE WILL IT HAPPEN SOON? WHAT LIES IN STORE FOR SAUDI ARABIA IRAQ IRAN ISRAEL AND SURROUNDING NATIONS? WHAT ARE THESE TIMES OF TROUBLE?'.Author/speaker and host Elbert Hardy (itellwhy.com) reads from Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Matthew, Revelation, and Daniel about the Temple Mount, perilous times and the proposed construction of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.Muslims now rule the Temple Mount and the Jewish Rabbis are anxious to rebuild Solomon's Temple on it, which is unthinkable to the Muslim religion. Will Jerusalem become 'Ground Zero' for World War Three?Go to itellwhy.com to read Elbert's books free of charge, no Ads and no requests for money or Email addresses. You can watch faith building YouTube Links to Videos and the listen to Elbert's Life of Christ Audio Book in 30 minute Episodes arranged and read by the author straight from the Bible, but rearranged in logical harmony of the Gospels, Revelation and other scriptures. All FREE of charge in the public interest.

#IRAQ: Shia militias firing drones and rockets:  Dr. Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf states. He is a cofounder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Tigris River

PREVIEW: ISIS: IRAQ: IRAN: Colleague Bill Roggio of FDD looks at the contradiction in US containment of ISIS that may include leaving the watch on ISIS in Syria in order to please Iran. More tonight. 1923 Baghdad

Episode 46 America's Incarceration Industry: Exposing Private Prisons Peer into the world of prison profiteers with Shane Bauer. Shane's name may sound familiar. In 2009, he and two friends were hiking near the Iraq-Iran border when they were arrested by Iranian authorities, accused of espionage and imprisoned for more than two years. Extensive international pressure and diplomatic efforts ultimately secured their release. An American journalist and author, Shane decided to dive deeper into the private U.S. prison system after his return to America. Working as an undercover guard in a private Louisiana prison, Shane exposed its conditions and practices in his award-winning book, American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment. He and host Matt Adams engage in a perspective-shifting conversation on the origins of America's private prison system, which accelerated in the South after the Civil War. They also discuss the impact of Shane's book on the industry, which pivoted into immigration detention during the Trump administration.

Welcome to the travel/literary podcast The Wandering Book Collector with host Michelle Jana Chan. This is a series of conversations with writers exploring what's informed their books and their lives around themes of movement, memory, sense of place, borders, identity, belonging and home.In this edition, I'm joined by the writer Hilary Bradt to discuss Taking the Risk: My Adventures in Travel & Publishing. Please consider supporting your local bookshop.If you're enjoying the podcast, I'd love you to leave a rating or a review. To learn about future editions, please subscribe or hit “follow” on your podcast app of choice. Thank you for listening! For more on the podcast, book recs, what books to pack for where's next, and who's up next, I'm across socials @michellejchan. I'd love to hear from you.And if you've missed any, do catch up. From Janine di Giovanni to Bernardine Evaristo to Afua Hirsch to Carla Power to Maaza Mengiste to Kapka Kassabova to Sara Wheeler to Brigid Delaney to Horatio Clare to Rebecca Mead to Preti Taneja to Kathryn D. Sullivan to Emmanuel Jal to Jennifer Steil to Winnie M Li to Mona Arshi to Tim Mackintosh-Smith to Karen Joy Fowler and Shannon Leone Fowler to Ariana Neumann to Anthony Sattin to Roger Robinson to Justin Marozzi to Frances Stonor Saunders to Osman Yousefzada to Kylie Moore-Gilbert to Doreen Cunningham to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o to Sophie Ward to Damian Le Bas to Hanne Ørstavik to Khashayar J Khabushani to Daljit Nagra to Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ to Nastassja Martin to Ginanne Brownell. All credit for sound effects goes to the artists and founders of Freesound.org and Zapsplat.com. All credit for music goes to the artists and founders of Soundstripe.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Briefing by Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), on the situation concerning Iraq.Madam President, Distinguished members of the Security Council,With the conflict raging in Gaza, as well as armed action elsewhere, the Middle East is at a critical juncture. The same is true for Iraq.To be clear: Iraq's Government's efforts are focused on avoiding a domestic (and regional) spillover. Still, continued attacks have become a harsh reality. These attacks originate from within and outside of the country's borders. Attacks which, if they were to continue, stand to undo Iraq's hard-won stability, as well as other achievements made in the past 18 months.As we all know, history can have a long tail. One which can impact the present. This is searingly true for the Middle East. To fully grasp the current regional and domestic dynamics, therefore, we would need to traverse decades - an exercise this briefing does not allow for.That said, it is within this context that various Iraqi armed groups (groups acting outside state control, that is) reference, as a justification for their operations, a doctrine which transcends politics and state borders. Other motivations expressed pertain specifically to Iraq, such as calls for Iraqi skies to be, and I quote, “free”, and for an end to the international military presence in the country.However, for Iraq to further continue on its path of stability and progress, an enabling environment will prove essential. And, such an environment requires restraint from all sides.Yes, indeed, from Iraq's armed actors. And, as might be expected, restraint from Iraq's neighbours and other countries is just as crucial.I have said it numerous times in the past and will say it again: messaging by strikes only serves to recklessly heighten tensions, to kill or injure people and to destroy property.A case in point was the attack on 28 January, which killed and injured US service members. This was seen again, with the retaliatory strikes on 2 February, which also resulted in casualties.Rather than shows of force, all efforts should centre on safeguarding Iraq from being drawn in any way into a wider conflict.And it is within this context that many expressed shock over Iran's missile attack on Erbil a few weeks ago, which killed civilians - including a little girl. Based on accusations the Iraqi Government has strongly refuted, these actions were sorely at odds with the great efforts made on the Iraq-Iran security agreement, which I highlighted in my October briefing.Meanwhile, Turkish military operations in the North also continue. Just because these attacks have become the new “normal” does not mean they do not seriously compound the risk of new arenas of violence being opened.Now - when talking about the incendiary potential of retaliatory strikes, we would like to welcome the recent launch of dialogue through the United States-Iraq Higher Military Commission.This dialogue channel opened at a critical moment. The setting of joint objectives could only be a positive development amid rising tensions.Having said all this today, I am compelled to reiterate our appeal to all sides to exercise maximum restraint. With Iraq cloaked in an already complex tapestry of challenges, it is of greatest importance that all attacks cease.While we are (of course) aware that many authorities and actors seek to limit further escalation, it is clear that the situation remains volatile. Iraq (and, indeed, the wider region) remain on a knife-edge, with the tiniest miscalculation threatening a major conflagration.On a more optimistic note, Madam President, on 18 December 2023, Iraq held local elections for the first time in 10 years. And, in the case of Kirkuk, for the first time since 2005.This electoral process took place in a broadly peaceful and technically sound manner. It marked another milestone in the Government's efforts to break from past cycles of dysfunction. And we truly hope that the re-establishment of local representative bodies, which have been inactive since 2019, will signify another major step forward.Now, a challenge for future elections will be to rally a higher voter turnout and, importantly, to encourage Iraq's eligible voters to register.While turnout among registered voters for the 2023 governorate council elections was on par with Iraq's national parliamentary elections (two years prior) around 60% of registered voters did not cast their ballots...Watch the full Security Council meeting on the situation concerning Iraq: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1o/k1o...

As the Iran-Iraq war raged from 1980, ships to Persian Gulf energy shipping lines escalated, forcing the US to commit its Navy. It took time and bloodshed, before strategists finally realised the answers lay on land. That's a message the planners of the multinational fleet headed to the Red Sea to fight Houthi attacks haven't learned.----more----https://theprint.in/opinion/security-code/us-battle-yemen-houthi-rebels-red-sea-iran-iraq-tanker-war-1980s/1893263/

#GAZA:   Houthis are risk-takers., ideologically driven. Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf states. He is a co-founder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/27/us-navy-thwarts-attempted-seizure-of-israel-linked-cargo-ship https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-775848 https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iranian-escalation-iraq-and-syria-implications-and-us-options 1962 Sanaa

#Gaza: What is known about the IDF plans?  Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf states. He is a co-founder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-tanks-troops-briefly-push-into-gaza-strip-ahead-of-ground-offensive/ https://thehill.com/homenews/4272964-us-shifts-tone-on-israel-hamas-war-as-potential-ground-invasion-looms/ 1940 GAZA

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #Iraq: The failed state:  Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf states.Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/washington-keeps-watchful-eye-pmf-consolidates-its-dominance-iraq https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/iraq-quietly-falling-apart

Photo: No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #Kurdistan: #Iraq: #Iran: #Syria: Jonathan Spyer director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis (MECRA),  a  Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Strategy and Security and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Malcolm Hoenlein @Conf_of_pres @mhoenlein1 https://jonathanspyer.com/ https://www.axios.com/2022/12/07/cia-warned-turkey-strikes-syria-kurds-us-troops https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/21/iran-attacks-positions-in-northern-iraq-targeting-kurdish-groupso

In Iran, since September the country has been swept by thousands of women-led protests, demanding an end to the morality police and the even the fall of the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile at Chatham House this week, we hosted our long-awaited Iraq conference, which delved heavily into the multiple challenges facing Iraq two decades on from the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Joining Bronwen Maddox on the podcast this week are Dr Sanam Vakil, the Deputy Director of our Middle East and North Africa programme, Dr Renad Mansour, a Senior Research Fellow, for the Middle East and North Africa Programme and the Project Director of our Iraq Initiative and Sanya Burgess, a digital investigations journalist with Sky News. Read our expertise: Iraq initiative conference 2022 The Sadrist movement in Iraq Iran protests highlight its crisis of legitimacy Subscribe to Independent Thinking wherever you get your podcasts. Please listen, rate, review and subscribe. Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by John Pollock. Sound by Abdul Boudiaf and Robin Gardner.

World News in 7 minutes. Monday 14th March 2022. Please help to support the podcast by giving what you would spend on a cup of coffee just once a month at send7.org/supportTranscripts at send7.org/transcriptsToday: Putin attacks west Ukraine. Pope Mariupol 'martyrs' Journalist killed. Mayors abducted. Russians leaving. Talks continue. Chile new president. Iraq Iran missile. Kenya Kenyatta supports rival. China Paralympics finish.Please leave a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify.With Stephen Devincenzi.SEND7 (Simple English News Daily in 7 minutes) tells the most important world news stories in intermediate English. Every day, listen to the most important stories from every part of the world in slow, clear English. Whether you are an intermediate learner trying to improve your advanced, technical and business English, or if you are a native speaker who just wants to hear a summary of world news as fast as possible, this podcast is for you. Transcripts are totally free and can be found at send7.org/transcripts. Simple English News Daily is the perfect way to start your day, by practising your listening skills and understanding complicated stories in a simple way. It is also highly valuable for IELTS and TOEFL students. Students, teachers, and people with English as a second language, tell us that they listen to SEND7 because they can learn English through hard topics, but simple grammar. We believe that the best way to improve your spoken English is to immerse yourself in real-life content, such as what our podcast provides. SEND7 covers all news including politics, business, natural events and human rights. Whether it is happening in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas or Oceania, you will hear it on SEND7, and you will understand it. For more information visit send7.org/contact

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bush-describes-iraq-iran-north-korea-as-axis-of-evilSupport the show on Patreon

On today's Watchman Newscast, host Erick Stakelbeck breaks down the latest rocket attack against U.S. personnel in Iraq by Iran's terror proxies. The target this time was Baghdad International Airport, which is adjacent to Camp Victory, where U.S. soldiers are based. Top Israeli counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor joins Erick to discuss how Iran's proxies in Iraq and elsewhere are growing bolder--and what it means for Israel, America and the region. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Emma Belcher sits down with Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Director of the Oslo Nuclear Project. She discusses efforts to roll back nuclear programs in Iraq & Iran, and US-centric biases when it comes to nuclear weapons policy. On Early Warning, Michelle Dover is joined by Melissa Hanham, an affiliate of Stanford Center for International Security & Cooperation. Hanham discusses recent North Korean missile test and whether sanctions play a role in preventing nuclear proliferation.

Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network Show Name: Speaking for the SilencedEpisode 4: Child Soldiers: Part 1Tune into this week's episode of #SpeakingfortheSilenced!You are listening to Speaking for the Silenced podcast with your host(s) Jacqueline Sun.In this episode of Speaking for the Silenced, we will begin a two-part segment discussing child soldiers and their roles in wars. A child soldier is someone who is under 18 years old who is compelled through force or fraud to engage, directly or indirectly, in armed conflict. They may work under the military or a non-government organization.Segment 1: Background of Child Soldiers93000 children found to be soldiers around world South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.First use in Iran-Iraq war3 causesPoverty/Bad Home ConditionsFind food/income/homeSurvival/Protection in Warring ZonesOutside threats of attack/organizations coerce families or child themselvesForce, Coercion, or Indoctrination (as seen in the Iran-Iraq war, where it all started)Young, weaker, and more easily manipulated.It is an extensive form of trafficking Never a truly voluntary choice Segment 2: The Experience of the VictimsNot always used in direct combat.3 main uses:Fighting: Child more vulnerable, experience chronic injury or mental illness Sent on suicide missions, talk about the Iraq-Iran war experience Reconnaissance: Due to unassuming nature, act well as spiesMore trustworthy, experience less resistance, bring information back to their organizationSexual services: Girls are frequently targets, given to adult soldiers as compensation Suffer physical and mental trauma, highly susceptible to STISSegment 3: The AftermathPTSD plays huge role : Adults more likely to find help, children more likely to shut down

Always trying to get beneath the surface of things. Social

Scott talks to Dave DeCamp about some of the latest stories at antiwar.com. Recently, says DeCamp, it's been reported that Iran was urging Iraqi militias not to retaliate against the U.S., after they'd been the target of airstrikes by the Biden administration. Needless to say, this doesn't exactly comport with the mainstream narrative about Iran, and you won't see stories like this widely covered. Dave and Scott go on to discuss a rumored American withdrawal from Iraq and wrap up with an update on the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran surrounding a reinstatement of the nuclear deal. Discussed on the show: "Iraqi Militias Defy Iran By Attacking US Forces" (Antiwar.com) "Keeping up attacks, some Iraq militias challenge patron Iran" (Associated Press) "Iraq Says U.S. Discusses Troop Withdrawal, Biden Administration Denies" (Newsweek) "US Denies Troop Withdrawal Was Discussed in Iraq" (Antiwar.com) "Iran Not Ready to Resume Nuclear Talks Until New President Takes Office" (Antiwar.com) Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee; Zippix Toothpicks and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. https://youtu.be/fFw-a7MleEU

Scott talks to Dave DeCamp about some of the latest stories at antiwar.com. Recently, says DeCamp, it's been reported that Iran was urging Iraqi militias not to retaliate against the U.S., after they'd been the target of airstrikes by the Biden administration. Needless to say, this doesn't exactly comport with the mainstream narrative about Iran, and you won't see stories like this widely covered. Dave and Scott go on to discuss a rumored American withdrawal from Iraq and wrap up with an update on the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran surrounding a reinstatement of the nuclear deal. Discussed on the show: "Iraqi Militias Defy Iran By Attacking US Forces" (Antiwar.com) "Keeping up attacks, some Iraq militias challenge patron Iran" (Associated Press) "Iraq Says U.S. Discusses Troop Withdrawal, Biden Administration Denies" (Newsweek) "US Denies Troop Withdrawal Was Discussed in Iraq" (Antiwar.com) "Iran Not Ready to Resume Nuclear Talks Until New President Takes Office" (Antiwar.com) Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt; Lorenzotti Coffee; Zippix Toothpicks and Listen and Think Audio. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. https://youtu.be/fFw-a7MleEU

This week on A Podcast About Catholic Things, Eric (The Ambassador of Common Sense) and Dan (The Ambassador of Nonsense) rediscuss the vaccine, along with the medical and science community in general--how it's changed over the last century, and when it stopped being a part of the charitable industry. In current events, James Martin gets a letter of support from Pope Francis. US puts sanctions on 5 Chinese companies. UN votes to end Cuba embargo. More news about the fake capital attack. John McAfee dead--condos collapse in Florida. Some troops will remain in Afghanistan. Russia and UK sparring. Microsoft to release Windows 11. Gibraltar votes to legalize abortion. US military complex back in action against Iraq/Iran. Biden ships millions of vaccines to poor countries. Bill Cosby out on the streets again. In the land of nonsense, a man calls in a bomb threat because McDonald's forgets his sauce. Great Dane runs over kid. Wyoming man questions police judgement. Rescue workers rescue fake woman.

This 'EPISODE 208 ISRAEL, SAUDI ARABIA, IRAQ, IRAN IN PROPHECY--BAD NEWS AND THE GOOD NEWS IN BIBLE PROPHECY--THE DAY OF THE LORD AND THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST, with author and host Elbert Hardy of itellwhy.com, covers several scriptures about the 'Day of the LORD' and the 'Return of Jesus Christ'. He shows some of the great changes that are going to happen on earth at that time, and the joy and peace Jesus will bring to all the earth as its King of kings.

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Harma Hartouni. After listening to Harma and his story today, you will have no excuse for not being able to keep going and reaching your goals. Harma grew up in Iran during the Iraq-Iran war taking shelter from bombs every night. He later had a traumatic accident that crushed his lower body and took him a year to come back from. And I will let him tell you about everything else that has happened to him in his life. But this guy never quit. And today, Harma is a self-made millionaire entrepreneur and developer, owns a real estate company employing hundreds of residential and commercial real estate agents in Southern California, and runs the #1 ranked real estate business in his region. His real estate practice exceeds $1B in sales volume and he is also the founder and CEO of multiple companies servicing the local real estate industry, His businesses include financial services, technology and coaching. If that is not enough, he is the author of Getting Back Up: A Story of Resilience, Self-Acceptance & Success. Fittingly, those are the topics we are going to discuss in this episode. www.HarmaHartouni.com Harma was born in LA and within 30 days moved to Iran. Shortly after, the revolution happened and his mother lost all her rights and they were stuck in the country. At 18, Harma got into a car accident and did not get hurt, but when he got out of his car, another car hit breaking both his legs and mangling his lower body. He was not supposed to walk again. He did everything he could to get back to walking and was able to move to the US. He ended up in Glendale, CA. He had a lot of struggles and it took him a year and half to become confident enough to come out to his family and reveal he was gay. He quit dental school against his families wishes to be a real estate agent. He’s been in real estate for 18 years and his business now does over $1.2 billion in sales a year. His passion has grown to really building the business and he has the top agents in the nation working for him. He’s married and had 3 kids. ​ I’ve heard you say that “everyone is a survivor.” Explain what that means. Every single person has a story. Some are deeper, other not so much. Everyone has been through challenges. Understanding this helps you to appreciate not only them, but what you have gone through as well. Resilience comes from learning from the past and choosing to move forward. Everyone has gone through and overcome something in their lives. You talk about not letting yourself become a victim. Talk to us about the difference between being victimized and being a victim. Run towards your fear. Accept it and own it. If you start doing that, you cannot be a victim. Harma has been so broke that he has been in place where he had no hope in anything else. He had not choice, but to find a way to survive. People that manage to become victims at some point were given a false hope. They were not pushed to move through their challenge or trauma. You cannot move forward by being stuck in the past. If you keep reading your last chapter, how will you write a new one? There are of people in the same situation you have been in that don’t break out and reach their full potential and accomplish successes like you. A lot of people would just give into their state and accept it and stay there. Why didn’t that happen to you? How did you break out? This is one of the reasons he wrote the book with his lessons. Harma had a very challenging upbringing with his father. He had to think ahead. He had to protect his mom. But, his father was very successful, yet didn’t have followers. He would use people and burn through them. Seeing this gave him a why and purpose – not to be like that in his life. He was fueled by a mission to become more successful and bigger than his father. He was also fueled to be able to get his mom and family out of Iran and to help fund them in the US. Harma was fueled by gaining a better live for himself and all those around him. You must get in the habit of loving the journey. You must find the joy and meaning in it as you go through it. At the 22-minute mark, we talk about the peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship What are a couple of your favorite lessons from your book? Unsolicited advice should not be welcomed. Don’t let yourself get derailed by someone else’s opinion. Seek advice from those that are successful and doing it and learn from them. The 5 Minute Funeral. We all have setbacks. Deal with them for 5 minutes and move on. Be fast to move on to a solution. Don’t get hung up on things. It does no good. Talk to us about the principles you use to build a business… Harma failed miserably in his first business. You need to know what you are doing and have done it before you hire someone as you will be training them. You will need to understand all areas of your business – but you cannot be good in all area. Every talented person can do anything, but they won’t do it too long if they don’t like it. You must understand personality and what people gravitate to in their lives. A tool such as DISC will help with this. Make sure you have the right personality in the right role. You will have to be slow to higher, fast to de-hire, and be very careful who you choose to partner with in business. You are responsible for helping your hires succeed. Your job is to put them in the right role and give them the environment to succeed. Meet people where “they are at.” A magical question when having challenges with a staff member is “Knowing what I know today, would I still have hired them?” If the answer is no, then you need to part ways. If it yes, then you need to work through things together. You hire the people, and the people build your business. Every year, your business does over a billion in real estate sales. Talk to us about selling in today’s world. You must know your market so well and know your ideal customer inside and out. It works well to niche. Develop a very unique value proposition. People don’t care how much you know. They care how much you care. Trust is at the core of a sale. Thoughts on the real estate market at this time? Things will not continue forever. Rates are low There will be a period of correction because of the forbearances that people took over the last year and then will have to pay back. Banks are seeing people have hard times paying payments. It will not be 2006-2008, but will correct. The media is always 6 months behind – what you hear on the news is not current. Consumer spending will go up and balance out a correction over time – we will still need to go through the correction.   Best Quote: Run towards your fear. Accept it and own it. If you start doing that, you cannot be a victim.   Harma's Misfit 3: 5 Minute Funeral. Spend 5 minutes dealing with a setback and then move forward. No means not yet. Don’t give up. Only listen to someone who has a proven record to guide you.   Show Sponsors: ROI International: www.ROIINTL.com/Podcast   5 Minute Journal: www.MisfitEntrepreneur.com/Journal    

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In this episode I talk to Zahee who as a child grew up in the Iraq/Iran war where bombings and seeing dead people in the street was just a normal part of everyday life. Zahee is now living down under and is the host of the MCC podcast. Topics covered in this episode.. - lockdowns in Australia - Chinese investment in OZ - What it was like Growing up in the Iraq/Iran war - Genocide in Iraq - ISIS - The persecution and beheadings of christians - Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - The present pope and Joe Biden - aborted foetus cells in the covid vaccine - A Godless society - Satanic ceremonies Mindwars content can be found on Bitchute - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/Gt4uHP3cjoCt/ - Bitchute - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/Gt4uHP3cjoCt/ - https://anchor.fm/mindwars (8 podcasting platforms) - Website https://www.mindwars.uk Connect with Zahee.. - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAamGEH-HlgkKBpRwcZVLrQ?view_as=subscriber - https://anchor.fm/isaac-mac - https://www.bitchute.com/channel/gtvpl8yULgdn/ Please like, share and subscribe to our channels as it really helps getting the message out their and keeping people awake!

9/11 I walked next door to pay Pat Quillen's hotel stay at the Adam's Mark hotel, before the conference meetings were to start.  The young man at the desk asked if I was expecting to catch a flight.  I told him that I wasn't due to leave until the next day.  He asked if I knew that the airports had been closed.  I didn't.  He went on to explain that a plane had accidentally crashed into the World Trade Center and that a second plane had been hijacked and purposely crashed into the same buildings.   I stood there wondering, where the World Trade Center was and how anyone could think that the first plane was an accident, if the second one was hijacked.  Obviously worked up over the situation the young black man went on to say that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon.  Now I was incredulous, but now it made sense.   Before leaving Tampa for St. Louis I felt such a sense of end-of-the-world dread.  I had wanted to go see Momma Jacquie before leaving town.  I felt like I needed to personally say good-bye to everyone.  I dismissed it as just being my dread of dealing with the pompous AZA people. That still small Voice had said, “It is the end, but not for your and yours.”   I went to the conference room where the announcement was made that due to the national crisis all of the meetings were being cancelled.  The normally boisterous crowd was oddly silent.  I walked back to the Radisson and took the windowed elevator back to room 1808.  Looking out as the elevator climbed I saw the word SECURITY engraved into the face of the bank building erected in 1890.   Today was the end of Security.  It was the end of innocence.  It was the end of feeling that our borders were impenetrable.  For all I knew at the time, it could have been the end of the world.   I stood, motionless, breathless, in front of the T.V. in my room.  The reporter was saying that one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed and that there was a fear that the second tower would collapse as well.  It looked like the top 1/10th of the 110-story building was engulfed in flames, but I didn't see why anyone thought that would cause it to collapse.   Within moments I saw something that was beyond description.  The building imploded, and it seemed to come down, one floor at a time, in slow motion.  There was a plume of smoke and cinders that looked like an atomic explosion.  From cameras on the street, the smoke boiled through downtown Manhattan, and engulfed everything and everyone in its path.  Later, eyewitnesses said that there were huge balls of fire rolling through the smoke spurred on by gas pipes bursting.   I have spent these last two days in front of the T.V.  No one will ever forget this day, in their lifetime, nor will we ever be able to forget the images of the two 757 jets crashing into the World Trade Center.  No one will forget the icon of our country's military power, the Pentagon, being ripped open and engulfed in flames.   For the first time ever, the Stock Market was closed indefinitely.  I tried to get back to the conference attendees and wanted to discuss Pat's work in Brazil last week, but by now everyone was in a frenzy.  They were all upset and panic stricken and struggling to make arrangements to get home despite the trains being shut down, the air ports all being “ground stopped” and all of the buses and cars rented already.  As much as I soak up other people's stress, I thought my heart would burst from my chest; it was beating so hard, so I barricaded myself in the hotel room for the next two days.   Eleven   The date of the attack:   9/11 -  9 + 1 + 1 = 11 September 11th is the  254th  day of the year:   2 + 5 + 4 = 11 After September 11th there are  111  days left to the end of the year. 119  is the area code to Iraq/Iran.   1 + 1 + 9 = 11 Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11 The first plane to hit the towers was  Flight 11 State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union New York City - 11 Letters Afghanistan  - 11 Letters The Pentagon - 11 Letters Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted or orchestrating the attack on the WTC in 1993) Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11 Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11   Incidentally, Disney World has 11 letters and as does Kissimmee, FL  Today's date adds up to 11.  My mother, Jamie, Daniel, Mary Ann and Scott are all in Orlando today.  How many people there could be exposed to a virus in a single day?

On September 22, 1980, Iraq and Iran went to war. The conflict dragged on for eight long years, taking an estimated half million lives. When it was over, both countries and the Middle East had been profoundly changed. Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow at FDD — also a native Farsi speaker who has been intensively studying the region for years — talks with host Cliff May about this not-so-well-remembered war, and its significant fallout. For additional background reading, read Behnam's latest article, "Why The Iran-Iraq War Matters For The Success Of Maximum Pressure," here.

On September 22, 1980, Iraq and Iran went to war. The conflict dragged on for eight long years, taking an estimated half million lives. When it was over, both countries and the Middle East had been profoundly changed. Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert and senior fellow at FDD — also a native Farsi speaker who has been intensively studying the region for years — talks with host Cliff May about this not-so-well-remembered war, and its significant fallout. For additional background reading, read Behnam's latest article, "Why The Iran-Iraq War Matters For The Success Of Maximum Pressure," here.

EndTime Advocacy Report find the COVID at different stages. While it is lifting in many areas, persecution of Christians ramp up. At the same time we can and do report on many successes for believers even as the hardships come at them. We look at the latest miracle from the field. In addition we cover the latest from Libya, Iraq, Iran, and India. It is a place where persecution, hope, faith, and walking the line of daily hardships the Lord is firmly in charge. This is the Warn Radio endtime report. To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com EndTime Advocacy Report moves forward into the toughest regions on earth for people to hear the gospel. The word to go ye and to preach is not taken lightly by believers in nations around the world. Where the gospel is stifled, harassed, and persecuted we find the miracles and signs. We find a church growing amidst the weeds of this world. To say the Lord is moving among his people is an understatement. To believe he is losing the war for souls is a lie. On the contrary many are now coming to the Lord. Only in backslidden western nations do we find the hardened heart that refuses. The sin and iniquity abounding drives the hearts of many to a lukewarmness amond believers. At the same time, the hardened sinners refuse and even reject the message of life in the comfortable but divided Western world.  Howbeit the Lord is not finished with them. Go to our link https://linktr.ee/warnradio for the latest articles and show episodes plus more resources

Go https://linktr.ee/warnradio more info EndTime Advocacy Report moves forward into the toughest regions on earth for people to hear the gospel. The word to go ye and to preach is not taken lightly by believers in nations around the world. Where the gospel is stifled, harassed, and persecuted we find the miracles and signs. We find a church growing amidst the weeds of this world. To say the Lord is moving among his people is an understatement. To believe he is losing the war for souls is a lie. On the contrary many are now coming to the Lord. Only in backslidden western nations do we find the hardened heart that refuses. The sin and iniquity abounding drives the hearts of many to a lukewarmness amond believers. At the same time, the hardened sinners refuse and even reject the message of life in the comfortable but divided Western world. Howbeit the Lord is not finished with them. To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com Main five Keywords: EndTime-Advocacy-Report, Jesus-Christ, Christian-News, Christian-Life, Persecuted-Believers Hashtags for show: #WarnRadio, #PersecutionNews, #Christian-News, #Christian-persecution, #Faith, #JesusChrist, #Persecution-Advocacy --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wibr-visions/support

EndTime Advocacy Report find the COVID at different stages. While it is lifting in many areas, persecution of Christians ramp up. At the same time we can and do report on many successes for believers even as the hardships come at them. We look at the latest miracle from the field. In addition we cover the latest from Libya, Iraq, Iran, and India. It is a place where persecution, hope, faith, and walking the line of daily hardships the Lord is firmly in charge. This is the Warn Radio endtime report. To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com EndTime Advocacy Report moves forward into the toughest regions on earth for people to hear the gospel. The word to go ye and to preach is not taken lightly by believers in nations around the world. Where the gospel is stifled, harassed, and persecuted we find the miracles and signs. We find a church growing amidst the weeds of this world. To say the Lord is moving among his people is an understatement. To believe he is losing the war for souls is a lie. On the contrary many are now coming to the Lord. Only in backslidden western nations do we find the hardened heart that refuses. The sin and iniquity abounding drives the hearts of many to a lukewarmness amond believers. At the same time, the hardened sinners refuse and even reject the message of life in the comfortable but divided Western world.  Howbeit the Lord is not finished with them. Go to our link https://linktr.ee/warnradio for the latest articles and show episodes plus more resources

From covering covert arms deals under Chilean dictator Pinochet to seven-hour speeches by Fidel Castro, Anthony Boadle (@AnthonyBoadle) has written the first draft of Latin America’s history over recent decades. Not without risk - he’s been kicked out of a country (but allowed back), had his apartment broken into (likely by state security) and is familiar with being followed by government handlers. Now Reuters chief political correspondent for Brazil, he follows the wild ride of right-wing Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. Countries featured: Argentina, UK, Venezuela, Chile, Brazil, Canada, USA, Cuba Publications featured: UPI, Reuters Anthony discusses Bolsonaro’s impeachment prospects (2:38), his own early education and getting his start covering oil in Venezuela (5:53), joining UPI and moving to Chile under Pinochet (9:00), cloak/dagger with Chilean communists and getting expelled from the country (16:12), the story about Chilean cluster bombs sold to Iraq/Iran that got his apartment broken into (18:32), a close encounter with Pinochet (23:11), moving to Ottawa to cover Canadian politics (32:31), interviewing George W Bush in Washington (38:15), covering a rambling Fidel Castro and breaking the news of his illness (40:14), his "story that got away" on a faulty dengue vaccine in Brazil (53:22), his long family history in Latin America (1:00:33) and the lightning round (1:04:46)   Here are links to some of the things we talk about: Anthony’s story on Bolsonaro keeping impeachment at bay - https://reut.rs/2W9OwOy UPI on wikipedia - https://bit.ly/3iWru7h WSJ’s The Soccer Match that Kicked Off Italy’s Coronavirus Disaster - https://on.wsj.com/3iW92M0 Fernando Gabeira bio on wikipedia - https://bit.ly/3ehtTpD Four Days in September on IMDb - https://imdb.to/3gQUf3C   Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats From: freemusicarchive.org CC BY NC

An Interview with an FAI Gateway Leader on the Volatile Border of Iraq-Iran-Turkey March 15, 2020 // THE WIRE, Dalton Thomas talks with Julie, one of FAI's Gateway Leaders pioneering on the volatile border area of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey. Duration 13 minutes

Christian Global Report, India Itinerary, Burkina Faso, Middle east, Iraq, Iran Evin Prison, Christian Persecution, Chinas Christian problem, Pakistan kidnapping girls, Brazil for Jesus, from Warn Radio Christian Global Report this week looks at President Trumps itinerary to India with hopes that he will bring up religious freedom to PM modi there. We also report on the biggest trouble in Africa today is the ongoing trouble in Burkino Faso. Next to this trouble we find Nigeria on the hot list of troubles. Iran and Evin Prison is in for a close look, as is China's Christian problem. Plus the Pakistani trouble of Islamic men kidnapping young girls is in the news. Brazil also focus' on Jesus with It's President declaring as much. Join Warn Radio today and listen in. Go to our link https://linktr.ee/warnradio for the latest articles and show episodes plus more resources Christian Global Report surveys the nations and finds the latest in gospel and christian news. In this we also find politics, governments, and other innocents in the cross fire of bullets and political intrigue. From one corner to the other this week we find people in danger, hope arising, and the faith of Jesus tested in many believers. Join us today!  To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com

Christian Global Report surveys the nations and finds the latest in gospel and christian news. In this we also find politics, governments, and other innocents in the cross fire of bullets and political intrigue. From one corner to the other this week we find people in danger, hope arising, and the faith of Jesus tested in many believers. Join us today! Find other Links at https://linktr.ee/warnradio for the latest articles and show episodes plus more resources To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com Christian-Global-Report, Faith-testimony, JesusChrist, Gospel, Christian-persecution #Christian-Advocacy-Practics, #India-persecutes, #Iraq, #Irans-Evin, #Nigerian-attacks, #Gospel, #Pakistan, #Burkina-faso, #Christian-persecution, #Pakistan-kidnapping-girls, #Brazil-for-Jesus, #WarnRadio --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wibr-visions/support

Christian Global Report, India Itinerary, Burkina Faso, Middle east, Iraq, Iran Evin Prison, Christian Persecution, Chinas Christian problem, Pakistan kidnapping girls, Brazil for Jesus, from Warn Radio Christian Global Report this week looks at President Trumps itinerary to India with hopes that he will bring up religious freedom to PM modi there. We also report on the biggest trouble in Africa today is the ongoing trouble in Burkino Faso. Next to this trouble we find Nigeria on the hot list of troubles. Iran and Evin Prison is in for a close look, as is China's Christian problem. Plus the Pakistani trouble of Islamic men kidnapping young girls is in the news. Brazil also focus' on Jesus with It's President declaring as much. Join Warn Radio today and listen in. Go to our link https://linktr.ee/warnradio for the latest articles and show episodes plus more resources Christian Global Report surveys the nations and finds the latest in gospel and christian news. In this we also find politics, governments, and other innocents in the cross fire of bullets and political intrigue. From one corner to the other this week we find people in danger, hope arising, and the faith of Jesus tested in many believers. Join us today!  To get the Books from the Watchman Dana G Smith go to his website http://www.DanaGlennSmith.com

In Episode 024 of Bike Tour Adventures, I have the chance to speak with Viktor Zicho, a 26 year old Hungarian citizen that is currently from Hungary to India on a recumbent bike. Not just your everyday adventurer, Viktor combines his favourite pastimes of photography, climbing and travelling in to one amazing lifestyle. Don't miss the bonus section where we discuss his spending 4 weeks in Pakistani prison for illegally crossing the border.For links to Viktor's social media and webpage, follow the episode 024 link posted below and you will find all his links before the show notes.EPISODE 024: http://biketouradventures.com/episode-024/Follow me at…WEBSITE: http://www.biketouradventures.com YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPQl_pNcMZA-hHckhVrpmaw FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/biketouradventures/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/bike_tour_adventures/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BikeTourAdv ITUNES: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bike-tour-adventures/id1464406852 Show Notes~ 01 min       Intro to Episode 24 with Viktor Zicho and all about him~ 4m 30s      Motivation for bike tour to India~ 08 min       Viktor's recumbent bike and all about it~ 19 min       Cost of the tour and sponsorships~ 21 min       Talking about the tour, how different Turkey is from Europe, and his route through Turkey~ 27 min       Riding through Iraqi Kurdistan~ 34 min       The terrible highway experiences riding from Kermanshah to Tehran, Iran~ 42 min       Becoming famous in Tehran and cycling Chalus Road to the Caspian Sea~ 52 min       Central Asia: 2 weeks in Khorog, Tajikistan, cycling into Afghanistan and through the Wakhan Corridor~ 1h 3m        Illegally crossing into Pakistan & Tips for cycling in Afghanistan and Pakistan~ 1h 11m      The people of Northern Pakistan and being hosted by a Prince~ 1h 16m      Most amazing part of the trip~ 1h 21m      What parts of his bike needed fixing after finishing the Hindukush~ 1h 24m      Temporary goodbye~ 1h 25m      Catch-up call after he gets out of prison~ 1h 28m      What it's like in a Pakistani prison and getting saved by his government~ 1h 32m      Conclusions and next time on Bike Tour Adventures

On Thursday, the House passed an amendment to repeal the 2002 Iraq AUMF. The administration is vehemently opposed and will likely veto. But under the Constitution, which branch makes this decision, or is it both? Path to Liberty, Fast Friday Edition: January 31, 2020 PODCAST VERSION Subscribe: iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | Spotify […]

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Members of Trump's team Pat Cipollone and personal Trump attorney Jay Sekulow told some untruths. Two examples: Cipollone at one point complained that “not even [House Intelligence Committee chair and impeachment manager Adam] Schiff's Republican colleagues were allowed into the SCIF,” or Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, which is basically the secure facility that members of Congress used to review classified information pertinent to the impeachment inquiry. Not only did Republicans involved in the impeachment have access to the SCIF, but many of them also used it.During Sekulow's opening statement he claimed House Democrats delayed transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a longer period of time than was actually the case and mischaracterize the impeachment process (he said Trump “was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses” during the House inquiry when, in fact, the White House declined to do so).We know that the president won't be found guilty and removed by the Senate but this is really about the court of public opinion. Will this, in the long run, hurt the president's case in the court of public opinion?A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.What's the significance of this? In Whitney Webb's recent Mint Press News article she writes, “Since the U.S. killed Iranian General QassemSoleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandisearlier this month, the official narrative has held that their deaths were necessary to prevent a vague, yet allegedly imminent, threat of violence towards Americans, though President Trump has since claimed whether or not Soleimani or his Iraqi allies posed an imminent threat “doesn't really matter.”While the situation between Iran, Iraq and the U.S. appears to have de-escalated substantially, at least for now, it is worth revisiting the lead-up to the recent U.S.-Iraq/Iran tensions up to the Trump-mandated killing of Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in order to understand one of the most overlooked yet relevant drivers behind Trump's current policy with respect to Iraq: preventing China from expanding its foothold in the Middle East.GUESTS:David Schultz — Professor of political science at Hamline University. Joe Lauria - the Editor-in-Chief of Consortium News.Mark Sleboda — International affairs and security analyst. Whitney Webb — Staff Writer at MintPress News.

We’re continuing our visit with Kirk Legacy, who longed in his heart to minister to a nomadic people who had no nation to call their own - the Kurdish people, along the border of Turkey, Iraq & Iran. But, Kirk was battling the dreadful disease, Cystic Fibrosis, lying in his hospital bed not knowing if tomorrow on earth would ever come!--- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/connect2richandbobbi/support

Over 10,000 lies and counting, Impeached by Facts, Republicans desperately and criminally look to avoid trial in the Senate and the 2020 elections, nobody believes Trump. What's the choice of the deflection from reality?

Understanding foreign policy can be tough.Especially when the corporate media wants to keep you confused.And the president already has his mind made up.And your Facebook friends have already declared themselves experts on war.What you need is a source you can trust. That's where this podcast comes in. In this episode, we answer the questions you've been asking all weekend. And we give you the history to put it all in perspective.Give me one hour, and you'll understand the current conflict better than anyone you know.Subscribe and download now!https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/01/iran-tensions-timeline-events-leading-soleimani-killing-200103152234464.htmlhttps://original.antiwar.com/scott/2020/01/05/iraq-war-iv/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stud former PJ and current kettle bell aficionado, BK talks Iraq/Iran, leftist media activists, woke vets, transgender military policy and a few other controversial topics.

Hundreds of thousands of lives are suddenly at great risk. As former national security advisor Susan Rice writes “Full-scale conflict is not a certainty, but the probability is higher than at any point in decades.” With us to discuss the The post Iraq/Iran: Reverberations From The Assassination appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Steffan talks Tension in Iraq/Iran after US Embassy Attack, Trump sends in Troops, is WW3 imminent? Also, CBS Military Analyst Mike Lyons calls in with his reaction.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joe Kent, Green Beret and Operator, discusses Iraq/Iran and ramifications going forward as well as the incredible story of his late wife, SCPO Shannon Kent, who gave her life fighting ISIS in Manbij, Syria.

Just a brief New Year's Day stream from the home office. Tomorrow we will return for a full production. On the docket are a few related items i skimmed off the top of my twitter feeds and elsewhere - we will try to make sense of the Iraq/Iran situation a little later in the week. Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/U_8-VN2bMY8 Sponsor the Show: Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/QuiteFrankly One-Time Gift: http://www.paypal.me/QuiteFranklyLive SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/quitefrankly BTC: 1EafWUDPHY6y6HQNBjZ4kLWzQJFnE5k9PK LTC: LRs6my7scMxpTD5j7i8WkgBgxpbjXABYXX ETH: 0x80cd26f708815003F11Bd99310a47069320641fC Episodes On Demand: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/301gcES iTunes: http://apple.co/2dMURMq SoundCloud: http://bit.ly/2dTMD13 Google Play: https://bit.ly/2SMi1SF Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2tI5THI BitChute: https://bit.ly/2vNSMFq Official WebSite: http://www.QuiteFranklyPodcast.com DISCORD Hangout: https://bit.ly/2FpkS11 Quite Frankly Subreddit: https://bit.ly/2HdvzEC Steemit: https://bit.ly/2FrNkyi Twitter: @PoliticalOrgy MINDS: @QuiteFrankly Live On: Periscope: https://bit.ly/2FmsOzQ Twitch: https://bit.ly/2TGAeB6 YouTube: https://bit.ly/2exPzj4 DLive: https://bit.ly/2PpY0k0

War Brief: In Libya, Haftar's forces dealt new defeat in Gharyan, commander of operations is captured and an explosion rocks apartment building in Danish town, Hundige and more

Thom's take - Intentional cruelty was used by the Trump administration to frighten possible future asylum seekers from coming to America. And with 48,000 people presently in detention, many of them children, and many children placed in foster homes, now the administration is claiming it would be too difficult to return the kids to their families. Thom is utterly disgusted, and so are his callers, who add detail and dimension to this obscene situation. - Thom reads from 'The Wretched of the Earth' by France Franon. - Congressman Mark Pocan, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, considers with Thom the looming prospect of another possible government shutdown. Callers phone in with questions from climate change to net neutrality to the stigmatizing of Medicare for All as *gasp* 'socialism'. - Bob Ney is also disgusted with the administration's refusal to return the tens of thousands of kids separated from their families illegally at the border. And them an alarming analysis on Trump's military buildup on the Iraq-Iran border.

Episode 30 - Paul Batou, a native Assyrian Iraqi artist, received a degree in pharmacy in 1982 from the University of Baghdad. While in school, Batou worked and was inspired by many teachers and artists studying at the University. In 1980, he had his first art show in Baghdad. During his years spent in Baghdad, Paul Batou placed his art in several galleries, learned to play the guitar, and was forced into service for the Iraq-Iran war as a medic. In 1989, he left Iraq with his family and moved to Los Angeles. In the United States, Batou continues to create art and write poems that inspire all those close to him. www.paulbatou.com

Dr. Devin Smith & Shermichael Singleton join The Strongcast to discuss Meek Mill's situation, Roy Moore, the President returning state-side, and the devastating earthquake that rocked the Iraq/Iran border. The #Strongcast Subscribe to The Strongcast on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-strongcast/id1299887231?mt=2 Find out more about The Strongcast at: https://armstrongwilliams.com/strongcast

On this episode of the #ControlledChaosShow we're joined by friends of the show Isaiah Mccorkle and Rykeem Thomas to talk aboutthe recent local elections. We also talk about Colin Kaepernick being named GQ's Citizen of the year, the earthquakes in Iraq/Iran and the sexual assault accusations taking place involving some of Hollywoods elite. We also ask Rykeem, a US Army veteran what the difficulties are for our veterans returning home from service and rejoining society. Enjoy the show. It's a really good one.

Souch had some questions about a standing scoring record in hockey. Well it didn't matter, the info did not apply. Oops. Stabbing at the Mall of America. Earthquakes on the Iraq/Iran border is not very forgiving.

Parliamo con il Presidente dell’Associazione Donatori Sangue divisione di Trieste Ennio Furlani e del terremoto in Iraq, Iran e Costa Rica. In studio Marco Vitrotti e Paolo Agostinelli.In onda ogni giorno dal Lunedì al Venerdì dalle 16:30!

Mark opines on the well-deserved shots from Saturday Night Live against the Democratic National Committee, as well as chatting with Lisa Daftari from The Foreign Desk News about the Iraq/Iran earthquake, as well as Trump's trip to Asia.

A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.2 has struck northeast Iraq near the border with Iran, seismologists and residents say. Shaking was felt across the region but only few details were immediately available. James Valles reports. (BNO News)

David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American Libertarian think tank. He is the editor of The Libertarian Reader and the author of 6 books including his most recent “The Libertarian Mind: a Manifesto for Freedom”. Today we discuss some of the basic tenets of Libertarianism, the difference between being Libertarian (Big L) vs. libertarian (small l), the war on drugs and the logic behind social liberalism and fiscal conservatism.   You can find out more about David here Or connect with David on Twitter You can buy his book A Libertarian Mind   Show Notes Liberalism and Libertarianism Gary Johnson Cato Institut  Iraq Iran war Timeline  War on Drugs Privatization of Prisons  

Ashley Hartz is an amateur adventurer who lives for the thin line between a bad idea and a great idea. She's lived on six continents and her adventures have taken her to Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Myanmar, among other countries. While her day job in international development keeps her busy, she's currently planning the first ever Iraq Ski Rally, a ski race for international and local skiers, which will take place next January on the Iraq/Iran border. Her adventures have been chronicled in international media outlets such as this Guardian Article. She has made it her mission to explore the unexplored parts of the world when not working. Her trip last year to Iraq is the first known backcountry skiing of that part of the country. Listen as she shares her passion for adventure and travel in this episode.   Follow Ashley: Website: www.iraqskirally.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/fromthehartz   Show Sponsored by:  Four Sigmatic - http://www.foursigmatic.com Use code: DIYS to save 10% on your order   Mistobox Coffee Club - http://mbox.coffee/Y9FA Use Code: DIYS to save $10 on your subscription   Full Shownotes:  http://www.dirtinyourskirt.com Join the Facebook Group:  http://www.dirtinyourskirt.com/tribe Support the Show: http://www.dirtinyourskirt.com/support 

Jacob L. Shapiro and Xander Snyder discuss the future of Syria, the prospect of US-Russian cooperation in the Middle East, and whether ideology defines geopolitics or vice versa. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: Xander Snyder: Hi, and welcome to the Geopolitical Futures Podcast. I'm Xander Snyder. I'm an analyst here at Geopolitical Futures, and I'll be chatting with Jacob Shapiro, the director of analysis here at Geopolitical Futures. How's it going Jacob? Jacob L. Shapiro: Nice to be back, we've been on hiatus it feels like for a couple weeks. XS: Yeah, and today we're going to dig into a subject that's probably more on the forefront of people's minds than many others in the world of international affairs. We're going to be talking about the conflict in the Middle East and U.S. and Russian interests, and how they're affected by what's going on there now. So just for the sake of context, let's lay out the current lay of the land for what's going on in the Syrian civil war right now. You can either just look at this as a single conflict, but really it's more complicated than this and the nature of the fight is that there are multiple fronts or fights all built into one. How would you describe the nature of those different individual conflicts Jacob? JLS: Yeah, it's really difficult to talk about Syria and the conflict that's going on there in the first place because Syria really doesn't exist anymore, and we don't really have the vocabulary for talking about what actually exists in its place because nothing has emerged. I don't think that anything is really going to emerge. I was looking into this for a research project lately, and I sort of knew this intuitively, but I think of Lebanon and Syria as together. I've always thought of them as part of the same sphere of influence and usually it was Syria always interfering in Lebanon, but you could also think of Lebanon as a model for what's going to happen in Syria. And Lebanon is, it's a much smaller country than Syria, and yet it fought a civil war for 15 years. So the idea that Syria is going to calm down and that Syria is going to remerge as a single country at some point in the near future seems to me to be mostly folly in the same way that thinking that Iraq is going to be able to pull itself back together is simply folly. But in thinking about all the different sides that are in this fight – I mean, it started as an internal Syrian conflict and in some ways, it still is. It's the Assad regime, which is the Syrian Alawites, and also a lot of Sunnis bought into the Assad regime and the Syrian Kurds and the more secular opposition and then all the opposition groups that are various flavors in terms of Islam, some of which are more moderate in the way they want Islam to govern daily life and some of whom are like Islamic State, who are sort of on the religious totalitarianism end of the spectrum. So there's the local fight, there is the sectarian fight in general between Sunnis and Shiites for which Syria and especially Iraq have become huge battlegrounds. There's the problem with Syria now being really a way for different powers in the region to position themselves. The Turks have their interests in Syria, the Iranians have their interests in Syria, Saudis have their interests in Syria, the Israelis have their interests in Syria, and then you zoom an even bigger step out and it seems like almost every Western power in the world is somehow participating in bombing Syria or attacking ISIS in some way. I mean, when you read down the list of countries that have actually participated in military actions in Syria, it's a pretty impressive list. So it started as an internal Syrian conflict, but as most conflicts in the Middle East go, it quickly morphed into all these different levels, and I think that's one of the things that's going to keep it going for a long time. XS: Yeah, and part of the reason why it's difficult to imagine any sort of coherent Syria, in the way that we've come to know it, emerging out of this is in part due to what Syria was defined as most of the 20th century anyways, right? You had a number of countries in this region that were drawn basically specifically to allow outside … powers to maintain some degree of influence over these countries. So just like it's hard to imagine Syria with its borders before 2011 emerging again, it's hard to imagine Iraq coming out of this with similar borders. And what is it that has changed in the last 25 but also hundred years that has weakened the powers that existed in the 20th century that maintained these borders and has driven it to what it looks like today? I mean certainly, the rise of Islamism in the last 30, 40 years and the decline in the Soviet Union play some role in that. But what's really sparked the deterioration of these borders? JLS: I would say two things. First of all, it would've been better if the outside powers that carved up the Middle East had thought about it in terms of how are going to best control or influence these particular countries. I think it wasn't even that thoughtful. I think it really was they were just carving up the region, and they thought of the region from a sort of, “what are the resources that I can access here or what does owning this particularly territory versus this particular territory give me for my power.” So they didn't really think about where different local communities were, and how to divide things in such a way that these states would be more manageable. It's a general trend of homogenization, right? Even if you look at a place like Eastern Europe today, Eastern Europe is now a collection of states with a lot more homogenized populations than they were even a century ago. You had large pockets of minorities in these different states, and that's less so. That's also true of the Middle East, the Turks are now in Turkey. Well, you can't really speak about Iran because Iran is such a cluster of different things, but people are self-segregating themselves into their little groups and the previous multinational way of dealing with things has sort of broken down. The Ottoman Empire was a multinational empire, there was no real nationalist impulse there. And this gets to the second question that you posed, which is: What has changed? And I think that the thing to think about there is to remember a lot of the ideas that led to the political ideologies that created nationalism – and not just nationalism in Europe but helped organize Europe into the nation-states that exist today – I mean, those started bubbling up around the Enlightenment, right? So we're talking really even by the 1600 and 1700s, a lot of those things are beginning to develop. They didn't come to the Middle East really until the Ottoman Empire collapsed. So the Middle East really encountered the Enlightenment and modernity and nationalism and all of these ideas when the Ottoman Empire fell apart after World War I. And they had to integrate these new ideas with their traditional notion of how things should be governed, and Islam was obviously a big part of that. There was a big rush at first in the embrace of nationalism, and you had all different kinds of nationalism flourishing in the Middle East in the 20th century. You had Turkish nationalism, Iran rose as a national power, certainly Israel is an example of that, Zionism is just a fancy word for Jewish nationalism. And then you had Arab nationalism. And Arab nationalism I guess we would say didn't quite work. You know, there was a sense that the Arabs are a group as a whole, but then they also created these subidentities. Egypt was one that made more sense because Egypt has always been sort of separate and unto itself. But especially Lebanon, Syria, Iraq – these were countries that were really trying to create a national identity essentially out of nothing, and it worked for a while. It was seductive for a while, Nasserism and Baathism and all these things certainly gave a lot of these countries meaning. But in the long term, they were viewed as bankrupt by the populations. They didn't bring economic prosperity to the region. They didn't bring greater choice in representation to the region. They sidelined Islam to a great extent because they were afraid that Islam was a threat to their power. And they couldn't defeat Israel. Israel was one of the major political issues for these Arab nationalist powers, and I mean, to be frank, they got their butts kicked every time they tried to engage with Israel. So I think all of those things led people to look somewhere else and the only real organizing principle that has ever worked in bringing the peoples of the Middle East, the Arab people of the Middle East, together has been Islam. Besides Islam, there's never been a unifying sense of what's going on. So in that sense, it's a reversion to the previous organizing principle of the region. Now, the problem is that you have people using Islam for their own political purposes, and everybody's arguing that they have the one true path, and they all have to fight each other. XS: As an American and someone who's obviously observed how U.S. media and U.S. society has attempted to interpret the events in the Middle East over the last six years – you know, you mentioned a moment ago how the ideas of Enlightenment didn't really even get there until the early 20th century, and it seems like so much of American identity is defined by our relationship to Enlightenment principles. And it seems to me that part of the reason that a lot of folks here didn't really truly understand what was going on during what's come to be called the Arab Spring, is just this sense of optimism that, you know, the rest of the world is finally going to come around to this idea of democracy, and this kind of led a lot of commentators and analysts to really miss what was going on there, right? It wasn't that you had huge percentages of these protestors ascribing to liberal ideas or philosophies. The more powerful subgroups within them turned out to be or many of them turned out to be jihadi. Is there more to it than just optimism? Why did so many people miss the nature of the uprisings that began in 2011? JLS: Well, I understand why people wanted to interpret the events of 2011 in that way. There was some reason for it. First of all, the vanguard of the protestors, there were liberals among them. There were people who wanted greater political representation, and they were certainly at the forefront, especially in Egypt. I mean, it wasn't by any means even a majority of the protestors probably, but there was a significant contingent that wanted real reform. But when you think about how things set off in Tunisia, that wasn't a result of any kind of democratic rising. That was a vegetable salesman who couldn't make ends meet, and he got accosted by a female police officer, and he felt humiliated and embarrassed, and it set off a bunch of protests. We've got more protests in Tunisia now, the military has actually now intervened, which is a little out of character for Tunisia because the military has never played that big a role. But I am getting a little off track in answering your question. I've written before about what people got wrong when they were dissecting the Arab Spring. I don't blame people for getting it wrong. There's a reason to hope that these things would happen. What I think happened though was a complete lack of self-awareness because even in Europe, even in a place like the United States that has this allegiance to the principles that you talked about, it took many hundreds of years and a great deal of bloodshed before the present-day reality emerged, and these things certainly aren't perfect. There are Enlightenment principles, and there are nationalist principles, and in Europe those two things combined together to create World War I and World War II and some of the greatest horrors the world had ever seen. So I understand that there was this sense of optimism and that, you know, the Middle East was ready, and I think also there might have been some residual guilt on behalf of the parties that had been colonial powers in the region and had really not set them up for success. They wanted them to succeed, and there's nothing really wrong with wanting them to succeed. But when you got down to it, there was really no deep tradition, not even tradition but there was no real political organization for the ideas that we're talking about right now in the Middle East. The groups that were the best organized were the Islamic groups, whether that was offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood or different ones because they were able to speak directly to the people to engage them. And over time, they were able to come to dominate a lot of these protest movements which we've seen, Syria is a great example. The initial protests in Syria were a result of, you know, there had been a big drought, and the government had not been providing the level of goods and services necessary. And the people looked out and saw that things were changing ostensibly in Egypt and changing in Tunisia, and they asked for more. Assad did not do what his father did in similar situations and just completely crack down, but he tried to sort of give them what they wanted piece meal, and it wasn't enough. And you had a bunch of different groups with a bunch of different interests, and eventually the ones that were able to carry the day were the Islamist ones because they were the best organized, and they were most willing to die for the things that they were pushing for. So I guess I don't know if that actually answers your question Xander, but that's sort of how I see how we got the wrong impression of what was going on there. XS: Do you think that if there was any optimism involved in the misinterpretation of these events, has that optimism been beaten out of us? Is the U.S. beginning to look at the world less from the perspective of spreading democracy and more in terms of what's good for us? I mean, when I was growing up, you know I was younger during the 2003 Iraq invasion, for example, and I remember this idea of “spreading democracy” not really being debated too much, at least in the mainstream. I mean, it was somewhat taken for granted that this was a foreign policy goal worth achieving, worth exerting forces on achieving. Now it seems more taken for granted, at least by many that this just isn't a tenable model for forming U.S. foreign policy strategy. Have we lost this optimism? The last six years of events in the Middle East, is this pushing us to change how we look at the world or was this change in ideology inevitable? JLS: Well it's funny, and it's a good question because and I've written about this before. I don't remember the last time I wrote about it for GPF, but you know, after the Cold War ended and the U.S. emerged as the really only dominant global power in the world, there was the Clinton presidency, but after that came the Bush presidency, and they were the ones that had to respond to 9/11 and also carried out the 2003 Iraq invasion. They were neoconservatives, and this was a political ideology, which basically equated the national interests of the United States with ideological goals. So the spread of things like democracy and human rights came to be identified directly with the national interest. And then the other important part of neoconservativism was that the U.S. would intervene when it needed to, to promote those values because that was in the national interest. The funny thing that people often forget is that, in that sense, neoconservatism really is a cousin of liberal internationalism because liberal internationalism says the same thing. It also equates the national interest of the United States with the spread of particular liberal principles. The main difference between the two is that neoconservatism is willing to have the United States unilaterally intervene in different countries to push those principles, whereas liberal internationalists would rather do it through the U.N. or other multilateral institutions. So this has always been part of the United States, the spread of American values has always been embedded within U.S. ideology and U.S. foreign policy frameworks. And certainly coming out of World War II, there was a real sense that liberal internationalism the way Roosevelt defined it was the way to help make the world better and also make the world safer from the prospective of the United States. As the Cold War really ratcheted up, that all fell aside and realism and pragmatism, which I have always argued are the great American philosophies, asserted themselves, and you had people dealing not so much with the ideologies – although they certainly dress them up in the guise of those things – but there was a larger enemy to defeat. And those ideological concerns had to be subordinated to the goal of defeating the Soviet Union. So what I am saying there is I think the United States goes back and forth depending on how powerful it is, and when the U.S. is feeling particularly powerful, and its challengers are particularly weak, the United States has the luxury of saying, “well yeah, we should push our values because that's what's best for the world and that's what's best for the United States.” When you enter a situation as the U.S. did after really the failure of the Iraq intervention, you get into a place not only where there's political fatigue in the United States with those ideas but where the United States is spread too thin. There's no one power that is challenging U.S. dominance in the world right now, but there are so many smaller conflicts, all of which seem to require U.S. attention that the United States is spread too thin and it can't think in terms of making the world a better place and convincing itself that that is what's going to be best for United States policy. It has to define a clear set of objectives and then pursue them and have a larger goal but deal with the people you have to deal with no matter what your ideological differences are with them. So I definitely think the U.S. has moved more towards a realist view of the world, and I would note that this shift happened under the Obama administration, the administration that from a rhetorical point of view was probably more hopeful and more internationalist than many previous administrations. Obama even won a Nobel Peace Prize because the Europeans were so happy that somebody who spoke their language got into office. But he got into office and the challenges were laid in front of him, and then he had to make compromises. And that's where we are today. XS: I think that raises sort of an interesting question that's really at the core of any sort of social studies, which is trying to understand the direction of causality – what leads to another thing, right? I think it's almost common sense that ideology influences a society in a state's actions and that just makes sense because what someone thinks influences what they do. But to a degree, it seems like ideology is also influenced by the constraints that a state finds itself in at any given time. For example, with the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was essentially supremely powerful I think. It was the global superpower, so to an extent it could afford to think that neoconservatism in that constant global intervention was in its national interest because it could make the mistakes essentially that the U.S. has made over the last 25 years without having its core fundamental interests threatened in a way that a state with a lower margin of error would encounter. How do you think about causality in this context? JLS: Yeah in this sense – and you and I have argued about this before – I am on the side of saying that reality determines ideology and that ideology very rarely goes the other way. I use the term ideology very broadly. So we were just talking about neoconservative ideology – neoconservative ideology is a product of the Cold War, the way the Cold War ended, U.S. military economic power in the 1990s. You can't have neoconservative ideology, be a convincing ideology, if you don't have all of those other things first. Islam is a really interesting example of this question. Is Islam an ideology? What are the factors that have led to this birth of Islamism throughout the Middle East, and is it the factors there that led to Islamism or is Islamism driving regional actors to their current situation? You know, if I'm going to stick to my guns then I really have to say that, no, I think that there are actually hard objective political and social realities that then lead people towards embracing Islam and its various manifestations. One of the things that I get asked often is, is it even possible for a Muslim country to be a liberal democracy? Can Islam coexist with liberal democracy? Does it make any sense to want these types of political regimes in the Middle East? And I would say that just in terms of principles, there's no reason that Islam can't coexist with liberal democracy, there's no reason that Christianity or Judaism can't coexist with liberal democracy. The problem comes in understanding the objective political realities, and there, to have the types of regimes that the United States wants, there has to be a certain level of wealth, a certain tradition of rights. And if it's not there, you can't just create it. So the U.S. found that out in Iraq when it tried to engage in state building there. And in some ways, I am not sure that U.S. policymakers have learned the lesson because when they talk about what they want after the fighting in Syria ends, whenever that's going to happen, they think about reconstituting some sort of federalist system in Syria and a federalist system in Iraq, and as I said at the beginning, Syria doesn't exist anymore, Iraq doesn't exist anymore. These countries are not going to get put back together, and trying to put them back together and believing that federalist principles or the right separation of powers in the government is going to achieve that to me is really wishful thinking. If you want to engage with the reality on the ground, you have to engage with the fact that you live in a world where people want to take care of their own and identify with their own and trust their own and they are going to fight and die for their own. You can't put people who hate each other and who have a history of hating each other in the same country and expect that overnight they are going to sign a piece of paper and going to trust each other. Again, there's nothing really that outside powers can do in a situation like Syria and Iraq, there's the illusion that the United States or the illusion that Russia, in its talks in Astana and wherever else it's having its talks, that they're going to be able to accomplish something at the diplomatic level that will fix things in a place like Syria. It just won't. It doesn't matter what ideology you have, it doesn't matter what people say far away from the conflict, this is a civil war. And it's a civil war that nobody can win except the actors that are in it, and they're going to have to fight it out. Most countries in the world have gone through these upheavals. I think it's hard to see yourself in other parts of the world, but it's something that should be better understood. XS: So how then have the U.S. and Russia been engaging in these difficult or thorny, prickly realities that they're encountering in the Middle East? Is there room for overlap of interests between the global superpower and the European regional power, Russia, or are our interests fundamentally divergent in the Middle East or can we find and have we found ways to cooperate with Russia? JLS: I was listening to George give a speech a couple weeks ago, and one of the things he said was that he wrote his book “The Next 100 Years” – and if you go back and read “The Next 100 Years”, it's pretty incredible how accurate George was in a lot of the predictions that he made. But he said in the speech the one thing that he really got wrong, was he really got the Middle East wrong. He didn't realize that Islamism was going to be a force and that jihadism was going to be a force and that the U.S. was going to have to commit so much energy and so many resources to the region. He really thought that there was going to be a pullback on the part of the United States and that it would be focusing on other parts of the world. So I say all that to say that when I heard George making that point that one of the things that stood out to me was he was still thinking about the Middle East through a Cold War prism. And the Middle East was one of the real main battlegrounds between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Middle East had a great share of global oil production, it's less so today and the proxy conflicts that were happening in places like the Middle East had a lot more, there was a lot more at stake in them then there currently is today. We talked a little bit about ideology. I actually think that inertia is a more difficult thing for both the United States and Russia to overcome in their relations when it comes to the Middle East than any ideological things. There's no capitalism versus communism anymore, it's really Russian nationalism versus United States national interests. So the place where Russia and the United States can get bogged down in a place like the Middle East is to get used to dealing with each other as if they're adversaries. When you look at what the actual hard interests are in the Middle East, the United States and Russia first of all share some general interests, and second of all, this region is of little importance to both of them honestly. Russia has much bigger fish to fry in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and Central Asia. It has real differences with the United States in a lot of these regions, particularly in Eastern Europe. That was part of the reason that Russia intervened in Syria in the first place, to try and create some leverage with the United States with the Ukraine crisis. And for the part of the United States, it has been trying unsuccessfully to get out of Iraq really since 2007. The surge that Bush administration put through was one strategy to try and finish off the conflict and get out, that didn't work. Obama just tried to pull everything out and hope that everything was going to be fine, that didn't work. Trump seems to be going back to more of a surge kind of mentality of, you know, let's commit a couple more forces now and knock out these ISIS guys, and then we'll finally leave. At the end of the day, what do the United States and Russia share in common in the Middle East? Neither one of them has any interest in ISIS being a powerful force. It's a lot closer to home for Russia, there are a lot of Chechens fighting in the Syrian civil war, and the Caucasus is a fertile ground for the types of radical Islamist ideologies that have developed in the Middle East. So Russia has that in mind. And I think the other thing that Russia has to think about is containing Turkey. I know that everybody sees that Putin and Erdogan seem to have buried the hatchet, but Russia and Turkey are historical enemies. And Russia is a declining power, and Turkey is a rising power, and Turkey is historically a U.S. ally, but it is also beginning to have problems with the United States that we've seen in recent weeks really become clear. So for Russia, it's really about containing radical Islam and then making sure that a country like Turkey or a coalition of powers with Turkey at the head can threaten Russian interests in places that are more important to them like in the Caucasus or the Balkans and the rest of Eastern Europe. The United States shares a similar concern with ISIS. It can't tolerate ISIS mostly because I think when the United States looks at ISIS, it worries about – is this or could this be some kind of unifying Sunni Arab state that would be completely hostile to the United States? That's the fear. And then the second part is that the United States is trying to build a balance of power. The United States wrecked the balance of power when it invaded Iraq in 2003. The Iraq-Iran standoff was a major part of that balance of power. The United States has been trying to restore some order to it ever since, so in that sense, the United States also doesn't want Turkey to become too powerful. Certainly, the United States would like Turkey to take a greater role in managing ISIS. But at the same time, as Turkey becomes more powerful, you are going to see more and more clashes between the United States and Turkey, and in that sense, this weird U.S.-Russia-Turkey triangle is going to be a constant maneuvering of different sides against each other. So I think that overall the Middle East is not that important to Russia and the United States, but they both find themselves there, and they both share some tactical goals there. We've said in our 2017 forecast that we expected that the U.S. and Russia would find some quiet ways to cooperate and coordinate their activities in the Middle East. I still expect that to be the case. I don't necessarily expect it to be friendly or even cordial, but I do think that when you look just at the hard interests and you put away the baggage and when you put away the history and when you put away the ideology and you just look at what both countries want in the Middle East, there is some room for cooperation. XS: Right and at Geopolitical Futures, this is really how we try to interpret and analyze what's going on in the world, right? It's not so much what one country says, its rhetoric or even what it wants but rather what's in the realm of possibility. And at least as it relates to U.S. and Russian overlaps of interests in the Middle East, I mean there are places for cooperation despite the tension between the two countries that probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We've written a good deal about both U.S.-Russian relations as well as their role in the Middle East and the developments in the Middle East on our website http://geopoliticalfutures.com. Check it out, you can navigate directly to analyses by region if you are interested in learning a little bit more about our net assessment on any particular region. We've written large-scale long-term forecasts, and we update these regularly with our Reality Checks and Deep Dives, so if anything on this episode interests you, go to http://geopoliticalfutures.comand you can learn more there. Thanks for chatting today Jacob. JLS: My pleasure, and if folks out there have comments, please also we love comments so let us know how we're doing. If you even have suggestions for topics, we're here, we're listening. XS: And you can reach us at comments@geopoliticalfutures.com Thanks everyone for listening, and we'll see you next week.

As ISIS moves closer to Baghdad, sectarian violence has broken out in that city. Can Prime Minister al-Maliki keep Iraq together? Is it destined to become a divided country?

Ever since the Iranian hostage crisis in November of 1979, political and diplomatic relations between the US and Iran have been irreparably ruptured.  Thirty years later, three young Americans would be hiking near the Iraq / Iran border.  They would be captured, accused of espionage, transferred to Iran's most notorious prison and held, sometimes for long periods in solitary confinement.Their story is a cautionary reminder of the complexities of politics in the Middle East and most importantly of the  human face of news stories from the region that have, after 30+ years, and all that has transpired during that time, had an almost  numbing effect. But there is nothing numbing about the story of Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal & Sarah Shourd.  They tell their full story, for the first time in A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in IranMy conversation with Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal & Sarah Shourd:  

Alex Kingsbury, associate editor at U.S. News & World Report, speaks with WTOP.

Host: Dr. Barry Creamer Guest:  Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy.

Mario Loyola, fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies

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The Iraq Liberation Act got little attention when Congress passed it in 1998, but it was used later to help set the nation on the path to war. What is the Iran Freedom Support Act, also passed with little attention just one month ago?  Will it set the stage for confrontation--as opposed to diplomacy--over Iran's nuclear program?  Plus, North Korea surprises the world by agreeing to rejoin the six-nations talks, and NASA changes its mind on the Hubble Telescope.