Mayhem and Misadventures in the Middle East
War on the Rocks
War on the Rocks
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2019
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Middle East is the region that keeps on giving, and taking away. How has the American approach to the use of force evolved in Syria and Iraq? And what is the relationship between U.S. politics and these policies? How is Turkey preparing for the possible withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria? What is Iraq's view of the region's conflicts? Is the Trump administration really taking the fight to Iran somehow? What of other great powers interests? Our guests tackle these questions and many more. We were joined -- over drinks of course -- by Doug Ollivant of New America and Mantid International,* Elizabeth Saunders of Georgetown University, and Nicholas Danforth of the Bipartisan Policy Center.
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*Mantid does business in Iraq
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. |
| 0:16.0 | My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the editor-in-chief of War in the Rocks. |
| 0:18.8 | The Middle East is the region that keeps on giving and taking away. |
| 0:22.6 | In this episode, we got a great group together |
| 0:24.2 | at the War on the Rocks headquarters |
| 0:25.4 | to talk about developments in the region, |
| 0:26.9 | with a focus on Syria, Iraq, and Turkey |
| 0:29.4 | with a side of Iran. |
| 0:33.0 | Hello, I'm Nicholas Danforth. I'm a fellow at the bipartisan policy center. |
| 0:36.0 | I'm Elizabeth Saunders. I'm an associate professor at the Georgetown Security Studies program. |
| 0:40.0 | I'm Doug Olavant. I'm a senior fellow at New America and a managing partner at Manted International. |
| 0:45.0 | The great thing about the Middle East is it's sort of the gift that keeps on giving. |
| 0:48.8 | There's always interesting stuff to talk about. |
| 0:51.0 | Warren L'Rlerock's listeners and readers will have followed the sort of on again, off again relationship |
| 0:57.6 | with a military withdrawal from Syria. |
| 1:00.0 | It's not entirely clear how that policy is shaping up. |
| 1:02.7 | Nick, Turkey was obviously a key player in this. |
| 1:05.9 | So reportedly, Erdogan, and President Erdogan of Turkey |
| 1:08.6 | was on the phone with Trump and trying to say, |
| 1:11.4 | you guys should just leave and let us handle what's happening and |
| 1:14.3 | Trump's like great we'll do it right and it didn't quite happen that way but how |
| 1:18.4 | did Turkey react to was this sort of an expected concession or did it really catch them off guard? |
... |
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