Catching Up: Sean Foley on Syria and the Middle East
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2018
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In episode 53, we spoke with Sean Foley about Syria and the historic forces at work in the Syrian Civil War. A lot has changed since we first spoke with Sean in April of 2017, so we asked him to come back to catch us up on the Syrian Civil War, where Isis, Assad and other players currently stand, and the implications of Donald Trump's sudden reversal on American intervention in the conflict.
The live map of Syria that Sean mentions in this episode can be found at https://syria.liveuamap.com/
Check out the Road to Now #53 for an in-depth history of Syria and the Middle East.
Dr. Sean Foley is an Associate 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. You can learn more about Dr. Foley on his personal website and his MTSU profile page.
The Road to Now is part of the Osiris Podcast Network. For more on this and all other episodes of our podcast, visit our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is in the Loop, the Legion of Osiris Podcasts. |
| 0:08.4 | What does that mean? |
| 0:09.6 | Osiris is a community of great music and culture podcasts. |
| 0:13.4 | If you'd like this one, go check out others at osirispod.com and get in the loop. |
| 0:19.0 | Osiris is partnered with Relix Magazine at relics.com. |
| 0:31.5 | I'm Ben Sawyer, and welcome to a special catching up segment of the road to now. |
| 0:36.2 | A lot of you may remember that about a year ago, we spoke with Dr. Sean Foley, who is my |
| 0:40.7 | colleague at MTSU and a specialist on the history of the Middle East. |
| 0:44.1 | In episode 53, Sean explained to us the history of Syria and particularly what was going on |
| 0:49.9 | at the time, given that it's been a year year and also that there were recent air strikes and what |
| 0:55.9 | seemed to be a change in Donald Trump's foreign policy in the region, we decided to ask Sean to |
| 1:00.1 | come back on and he graciously said yes. So if you haven't listened to episode 53 of the roads |
| 1:04.2 | now, we suggest you go back and listen to that after this. But for now, if you've been wondering |
| 1:08.5 | what's happening and what's at stake and where ISIS is and where Assad is in terms of power, this episode is for you. |
| 1:16.7 | I'd also like to point out that we've been doing a lot on Patreon lately. |
| 1:19.9 | We actually launched this episode on Patreon a few days ago. |
| 1:22.6 | So you can find out about Patreon on our website, the road to now.com. Just go to the top and click on the |
| 1:29.2 | support tab and that will take you straight to our page. And thank you for listening to The |
| 1:33.2 | Road to Now. Here's our interview with Dr. Sean Foley. Welcome back to The Road to Now. |
| 1:38.8 | Thank you very much. I very much enjoyed my opportunity to speak with you last time and continue |
| 1:43.2 | to enjoy listening to your shows. |
| 1:45.1 | You do a wonderful service, both for the community and for the university, both as an instructor, |
... |
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