Hold Your Fire!

This week on Hold Your Fire!, former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos takes Rob and Naz behind the scenes of the negotiations with the FARC guerrillas that achieved a peace deal and won him the Nobel Peace Prize. Santos, also a Crisis Group Trustee, explains that making peace was much harder than leading the war effort. Beth Dickinson, Crisis Group’s analyst for Colombia, joins the conversation to give an update on how the peace agreement is working out. Background reading by Crisis Group:Leaders under Fire: Defending Colombia’s Front Line of Peace - 2020 report mentioned by Rob in the interviewThe Missing Peace: Colombia’s New Government and Last Guerrillas - 2018 reportColombia’s Armed Groups Battle for the Spoils of Peace - 2017 report Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob and Naz talk with Nigar Göksel, Crisis Group’s Turkey director, about how Turkey is flexing its muscles in its near abroad — Syria, Iraq, the eastern Mediterranean, and now Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as farther afield in Libya. Then they get an update on the Azerbaijani side of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh from Zaur Shiriyev, Crisis Group’s analyst in Baku. Background readings by Crisis Group:Crisis Group Statement (October 14): Reducing the Human Cost of the New Nagorno-Karabakh War Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob and Naz question the efficacy of international sanctions, as the European Union wields this overused tool against Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko. They are then joined by Olesya Vartanyan, Crisis Group’s senior South Caucasus analyst, for a very personal conversation about the toll the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh has taken on her friends on both sides as well as an analysis of the role played by Turkey, Russia, and other external actors in the conflict. Background reading by Crisis Group on the war in Nagorno-Karabakh:De-escalating the New Nagorno-Karabakh War - statement on the most recent escalationDigging out of Deadlock in Nagorno-Karabakh - 2019 report mentioned by Olesya in the interviewNagorno-Karabakh’s Gathering War Clouds - 2017 report mentioned by Olesya in the interviewThe Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Visual Explainer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob reminisces about his recent trip to Azerbaijan, where he saw warning signs of a “frozen conflict” ready to thaw. Naz explains why the U.S. might regret trying to designate the Huthis as a terrorist organization if it cares about helping Yemen make peace. They are joined by Aaron Miller, a veteran U.S. diplomat and Carnegie senior fellow, who examines the successes and shortcomings of President Trump’s unconventional diplomacy, and explains how the phrase “nobody ever washes a rental car” applies to conflict prevention.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob pays a very personal homage to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confides about what keeps him up at night. Naz explains the convoluted legal argument laid out by the U.S. to try and justify its snapback of UN sanctions against Iran. They then turn to the complexity of the war in Libya, torn between foreign proxies and militias, with Crisis Group Senior Analyst Claudia Gazzini.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Naz and Rob reflect on U.S. support for the Yemen war and the conspicuous absence of the Palestinian issue from the normalisation agreement among Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Crisis Group's senior analyst for Ethiopia, Will Davison, then joins them to discuss the enormous challenges facing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed amid rising ethnic tensions in Africa's second-most populous country.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Naz and Rob discuss French President Emmanuel Macron's dive into the murky waters of Lebanese politics and the Trump administration's stunning decision to impose sanctions on the staff of the International Criminal Court. They also speak with Andrew Watkins, Crisis Group's senior analyst for Afghanistan, about what to expect from the country's pending peace talks. Do the Taliban have the upper hand?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this first episode of Hold Your Fire, Naz and Rob talk about the role foreign policy played, or didn’t, at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and explain why the U.S. attempt to snap back UN sanctions on Iran met with an international, collective shrug. They welcome Crisis Group’s former Arab-Israeli project director, Nathan Thrall, to discuss the Israel-UAE agreement, what it means for Palestinians, and whether he believes there can be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.