Podcast
The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey
Hosted by James M. Dorsey · EN
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.
13episodes
Episodes
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Trump orders new strikes on Iran. Are we back to square one
5d ago00:13:55Tap to summarizeThe fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran appears to be hanging by a thread. After fresh fighting erupted and Iranian attacks targeted commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, US President Donald Trump declared the agreement "over" and warned that American bombings would "get much worse" if Tehran failed to back down. The latest exchange has seen US strikes on Iranian military targets met with retaliatory attacks on American military facilities in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan, raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Are Iran and the United States heading back to open conflict, or is this the latest round of brinkmanship before diplomacy resumes? On The Big Story, Hongbin Jeong and Dr James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, unpack what the latest escalation means for the Middle East, the global economy, and whether there's still any path back to peace.
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Yemen’s drums of war
1w ago00:10:33Tap to summarizeThe drums of war are beating again in Yemen. A series of recent incidents suggests that both Iran and Saudi Arabia are more assertively supporting their Yemeni allies at the risk of shattering an informal four-year ceasefire in the kingdom’s war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The recent incidents stand in stark contrast to the kingdom's tacit outreach to Iran. Saudi Arabia sent a delegation to this week’s funeral proceedings for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s assassinated supreme leader, enabled the indirect sale of five aging Boeing 777-200ERs to an Iranian airline, and proposed a post-war regional security architecture that would include Iran. Moreover, Saudi Arabia, which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to counter Houthi military advances, has not closed the door on a negotiated resolution of the conflict. “The political solution remains on the table; power-sharing, which could save (the Houthis) from destruction. The Houthis remain a Yemeni player with the right to be a partner in power, not to dominate it,” said Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a Saudi columnist who often reflects official Saudi thinking. Fuelling the rising tensions are rival perceptions of windows of opportunity created by the failure of the US-Iranian memorandum that extended the Iran war ceasefire and created the basis for negotiations to end the war to address Iran’s support for its Arab partners, including the Houthis.
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Iran weakened militarily but strengthened politically
2w ago00:04:49Tap to summarizeJames discusses on CNBC prospects for the US-Iran negotiations and US President Donald Trump’s interview with the network.
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Lebanon casts a shadow over US-Iran talks
2w ago00:09:34Tap to summarizeLebanon looms large as a grey swan that could run roughshod over US-Iranian negotiations to end the Iran war.
Transcribe →Lebanon casts a shadow over US-Iran talks
2w ago00:09:34Tap to summarizeLebanon looms large as a grey swan that could run roughshod over US-Iranian negotiations to end the Iran war.
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Shaping Gulf geopolitics-The battle for the Strait of Hormuz
2w ago00:09:51Tap to summarizeGeography gives Iran a leg up in the struggle to determine the strategic Strait of Hormuz’s future and potentially with it the region’s balance of power. Iran’s strategic advantage is rooted in the Marxist principle of possession is ownership. As a result, tensions in the Strait are about who controls the Strait.
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History suggests that prospects for a final US-Iranian deal are bleak
2w ago00:12:17Tap to summarizeWidely diverging US and Iranian attitudes towards Iran’s nuclear programme are not just about preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons. It’s also about perceptions of sovereignty and efforts by non-nuclear states, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, to level the playing field with the world’s core nuclear powers, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France, and perceived double standards built into the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) when it comes to haves and have-nots. In contrast to Iran, Saudi Arabia, insisting on its right to enrich uranium, this year successfully negotiated a nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States that allows the kingdom to enrich without intrusive supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite evidence over the years that it is creating some of the building blocks for a nuclear weapons programme. Saudi Arabia’s nuclear focus serves various goals: diversifying its economy, reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, countering a potential future Iranian nuclear capability, and enhancing efforts to ensure that Saudi Arabia, rather than Iran, emerges as the Middle East’s long-term dominant power. None of this is to ignore the fact that the Islamic Republic, at times, has worked to become a nuclear threshold state, if not to develop a nuclear weapon.
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Middle East Report 26062026
3w ago00:08:16Tap to summarizeJames discusses the US-Iran negotiations, the Middle East’s changing geopolitics, and Yemen on Radio Islam.
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Ottoman-era railway offers a glimpse at a post-war Middle East architecture
3w ago00:10:37Tap to summarizeA Turkish-Saudi agreement to revive the Ottoman-era Hijaz Railway tells the story of geopolitical realignment in the wake of the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, including the future of Iran’s relations with the Gulf monarchies. The agreement is the tale of efforts to reduce regional dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, diverging Gulf attitudes towards cooperation with Israel, dashed US hopes of including Israel in a rail and shipping network that would connect the Gulf and India to Europe, diminished prospects for Saudi-Israeli diplomatic relations, Turkey’s evolving regional ambitions, and post-Bashar al-Assad Syria’s reintegration into regional dynamics. The agreement is also indicative of a broader shift in the wake of the Iran war towards alternative export routes and hardened critical infrastructure that will impact the Gulf’s geopolitics.
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US-Iran talks remain fragile
3w ago00:04:40Tap to summarizeThe negotiations between the United States and Iran remain fragile with both contradicting the other on what may or may not have been agreed. James discusses the negotiations’ prospects on TRT World.
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