Hello, dear listeners, as you can probably tell, I'm still battling a bad winter's cold. I'm

over the worst of it, but poor Eamon, he's still laid low. While he recovers, I thought it would

be a good idea to re-release an episode from back in season three, spying for Saudi. Saudi Arabia celebrated

founding day on Sunday, as they do every year on the 22nd of February.

And in this episode, we told the story of the beginnings of Saudi Arabia back in the 18th century. And Amin talked about the way Saudi history

in the 20th century was interwoven with high-stakes spycraft, including his insider explanation

of what really went down in the notorious murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

It's one of our best episodes, I think, worth listening to for sure if you're one of our many tens of thousands of new listeners and worth re-listening to if you've been a dear listener

from the beginning. So without further ado, here's conflicted, revisited, spying for Saudi.

Hello, Eamon. Hello, Thomas. We've got a huge episode today, so I just want to get right into it. Is that okay?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

So in this series of conflicted, we're exploring the various ways in which the idea of clash

of civilizations can be used to understand Middle Eastern history and the conflicts which

continue to rage across the region. As we said before, what we're trying to do isn't straightforward

because civilization is a difficult word to define, but we're trying to do isn't straightforward because civilization is a difficult word to define.

But we're going to try.

Having told the story of the end of America's quote-unquote empire in the Middle East,

we're going to tell the story of how that empire began and developed during the Cold War,

starting in your homeland, Amin, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is in a way where the Cold War, starting in your homeland, Aiman, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is in a way where the Cold War began, and to understand how, we'll explain

how long-standing British power in the region gave way fitfully and almost without anyone noticing

to American power. And we'll see how the Cold War world of spycraft, ideological conflict, and state paranoia

...