Former “Diplomat” on Iraq, Gaza, and Espionage | Chris Merritt

The Team House

dee takos

History, Government, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2026

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former British Foreign Office official Chris Merritt joins us to discuss his time as a diplomat in Iraq, Gaza, and Jerusalem, including Basra’s deteriorating security situation, Iranian-backed militias, Hamas, the Fatah split, and the realities of doing diplomacy in war zones. He also breaks down how those experiences shaped his later work as a trauma psychologist and spy novelist, including Committed and his new book Octagon.
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"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"
00:00 — Start / Chris Merritt joins The Team House
01:02 — Growing up near London, languages, and the road toward foreign service
05:03 — Learning Arabic and getting drawn into Middle East geopolitics
06:08 — Applying to the British Foreign Office and surviving the assessment process
10:10 — First Foreign Office job and wanting something more active
12:18 — Volunteering for Iraq and deploying to Basra in 2005
17:04 — Britain’s role in southern Iraq and the worsening IED threat
19:03 — Diplomatic work in a war zone: gathering ground truth in Basra
23:47 — Iranian-backed militias, helicopter shootdowns, and the badger conspiracy
27:41 — “Aggressive diplomacy” and working alongside the British military
30:05 — Rockets, mortars, and watching Basra deteriorate
32:53 — SAS contacts, close protection, and hostile-environment training
39:15 — Jerusalem, Gaza, and working the Palestinian side of the conflict
43:53 — Hamas wins elections, the Fatah split, and Gaza’s power struggle
47:26 — Trying to understand Hamas without being allowed to talk to them
50:07 — The Alan Johnston kidnapping and negotiating through Gaza intermediaries
51:40 — Why the Israel-Palestine conflict felt increasingly impossible to solve
57:17 — Israel’s rightward shift, Gaza after October 7, and the future of the region
01:01:37 — Returning to London, Gulf policy, and shifting toward psychology
01:05:25 — Leaving the Foreign Office and retraining as a trauma psychologist
01:17:15 — From diplomacy and trauma work to writing novels
01:22:29 — Octagon: MI6, SAS, terror plots, and writing authentic spy fiction
01:24:21 — Why spy thrillers are having a resurgence
01:27:53 — Committed, Octagon, where to find Chris, and closing thoughts

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, I want to tell you tonight about my new novel, The Most Dangerous Man,
0:05.6	coming out June 9th.
0:07.4	I think, like a lot of you, I read in high school, the short story, The Greatest Game,
0:13.3	which is almost a century old at this point, but it's the classic premise of man-hunting man
0:20.0	for sport.
0:21.6	This book is based off of that a little bit, but also on stories that I have heard over the years about safari guides that have actually taken hunting parties, wealthy people, hunting poachers in West Africa.
0:36.5	That idea kind of cooked off in my mind when I was asked to
0:40.9	write a novel and get back into writing fiction again. And this book is about a Ranger with the
0:46.3	Ranger Reconnaissance Company who's on a mission in West Africa and gets kidnapped and hunted for sport
0:52.2	by a group of wealthy tech billionaires.
0:55.2	I had a lot of fun writing this book, and I think you'll have a good time reading it.
0:59.5	It's a quick, fast and furious, fast-paced action novel.
1:05.6	And I hope you all check it out.
1:07.5	It's up there.
1:08.8	You can find it wherever books are sold the hard copy uh the
1:11.9	hard back the soft cover and uh also the kindle ebook edition then we'll have some links down in the
1:18.0	description for you uh the book comes out june 9th and i hope you all let me know what you think of it. Hey, everyone.
1:36.3	This is the team house.
1:38.3	My name is Jack Murphy, and we are here with today's, tonight's guest, or this morning's
1:43.3	guest, depending on when this is recorded.
1:46.6	Chris Merritt.
1:47.9	Chris Merritt is a former member of the British Foreign Office who served in places like Iraq and Gaza.
	...

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