Arab Digest podcasts

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Egyptian writer and analyst Maged Mandour. Their conversation focusses on the repressive dictatorship that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his generals are building in Egypt. His is a regime rooted in a fascistic, militarist nationalism that continues to hold strong appeal, even as more and more Egyptians fall ever deeper into poverty. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

The Baker Institute for Public Policy's Kristian Coates Ulrichsen joins Arab Digest editor William Law in a conversation about how Qatar is renewing independent foreign policy initiatives that are gaining pace as the small Gulf state plays a pivotal role, assisting Washington in smoothing out the rough edges from Joe Biden's abrupt and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law in conversation with Dr Elisabeth Kendall, Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Oxford University's Pembroke College. Though drone strikes have seen AQAP severely degraded, the ongoing war and the Taliban victory in Afghanistan reinforce the lethal threat jihadist terrorism continues to pose to the region and to the West from its base in Yemen. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by Dr Andreas Krieg, lecturer at the School of Security Studies, King's College London. On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attack they examine what the West's 'war on terror' has really achieved in MENA: a reinforcement of authoritarian regimes, the fueling of brutal insurgencies, the silencing of protest and the crushing of civil society. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law launches the third season of the podcast with Sami Hamdi, editor in chief of The International Interest. In the wake of the Taliban rout of the US and its coalition allies we consider gains and losses, whether or not the Taliban victory will spark intensified jihadist insurgencies and who will ultimately determine the timing of when MENA states recognise the new regime in Kabul. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law in conversation with Annelle Sheline, a Research Fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute in Washington DC. The podcast focusses on the marketing of 'moderate Islam' as a propaganda weapon designed to convince the West and most importantly America that the authoritarian regimes that espouse it are bastions of tolerance and promulgators of shared values. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with the North Africa expert Francis Ghilès, an associate senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB). Their economies, their governments, the repression of critics and journalists, relations with France and the Western Sahara affair all feature in a wide-ranging overview of the two senior Maghreb countries. And the Pegasus scandal gets a look-in too! Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law is in conversation with Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. The focus is on President Biden and his administration's Middle East efforts. He inherited several challenges from the chaotic Trump years, not least to repair America's diplomatic standing in the region while seeking a return to the JCPOA. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law in conversation with Jim Krane, an energy research analyst at Rice University's Baker Institute in Houston.The podcast focusses on the Gulf's national oil companies and the challenges they and the MENA region share with the rest of the world as climate change ramps temperatures up. In the Middle East, unless temperature rise is slowed whole regions will become uninhabitable. The NOCs are potentially game changers but the ruling families that control them are moving too slowly and time is fast running out. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.

Arab Digest editor William Law speaks with Chatham House's Renad Mansour, a MENA Senior Research Fellow and Project Director of the Iraq Initiative. In the week that saw the death of Donald Rumsfeld, a key architect of the 2003 war, their conversation focusses on a governance structure built by the US but enabled and empowered by Iran. It is Rumsfeld's legacy, one that sustains a corrupt political elite and betrays the people of Iraq. Sign up NOW at Arabdigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & podcasts.