#144 Saudi Arabia and the Middle East w/ Sean Foley
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2019
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The recent drone strike on Saudi oil fields has implications for the entire world, but we remain uncertain who is responsible for the attack. Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility, but Trump claims it was actually Iran. There's a lot at stake here, so Ben sat down with his MTSU colleague Sean Foley to learn about the history of the conflict and how that might inform policy moving forward.
In the second part of the episode, Bob and Ben talk about Bob's research and what he's learned about Monsanto since our last episode. We also share an exciting announcement about upcoming plans for the podcast!
Dr. Sean Foley is a Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University, where he specializes in the contemporary history and politics of the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. He frequently visits Asia and the Middle East, follows events in both regions closely, and speaks Arabic and Bahasa Malaysian. Dr. Foley has held Fulbright fellowships in Syria, Turkey, and Malaysia, and lived in Saudi Arabia from April 2013 until January 2014. His most recent book is Changing Saudi Arabia: Art, Culture, and Society in the Kingdom (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2019). You can follow him on twitter at @foleyse.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh, Cyrus. Across the margin of the podcast is a show that brings you in-depth interviews with |
| 0:17.2 | notable authors, artists, musicians, activists, filmmakers, and introspective |
| 0:22.3 | eccentrics of all kinds, diving deeply into topics that demand deeper examination, and |
| 0:27.7 | illustrating the notion that there are captivating stories to be found everywhere. Across the |
| 0:33.0 | March in the podcast is proudly in the loop. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is the road to now. |
| 0:51.7 | Today's episode is a two-part episode. |
| 0:54.4 | We start off with a great conversation with Sean Foley about the situation in the Middle East. Sean is a colleague of mine. He's a professor |
| 0:59.5 | of history at Middle Tennessee State University, a brilliant guy. And if you listen to this |
| 1:05.0 | podcast for a while, you know, he's our resident Middle East historian. And I was confused |
| 1:09.8 | about what's going on in Saudi Arabia. There's been different claims of strikes. Was it Iran? Was it the Houthi rebels in Yemen? So in all that confusion, I thought, I need to talk to Sean Foley. And I thought, if I'm confused, I'll bet other people are too. So we're going to open this episode with a great conversation with Sean |
| 1:27.9 | and we love that guy. And if you've heard him before, you know he's outstanding as a scholar |
| 1:32.4 | and as a colleague, I will say, love Sean Foley. Then after that, Bob and I roll into a conversation |
| 1:37.8 | about his research. We catch up on some things from the last episode on research that we did |
| 1:43.5 | kind of clarify some things. Bob talks about what he got right and wrong in the last episode on research that we did, kind of clarify some things. |
| 1:44.8 | Bob talks about what he got right and wrong in that last episode. |
| 1:48.8 | We add some information. |
| 1:50.1 | It's a lot of fun. |
| 1:51.5 | So thanks to everyone who enjoyed that last episode. |
| 1:53.6 | You'll get a little more of that talk in the second half. |
| 1:56.1 | You'll also get really exciting announcement that we have. |
| 1:59.0 | And I don't want to share it right here because I |
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