American entanglement in the Middle East

Gideon talks to Simon Kuper, FT columnist and author of World Cup Fever, about what distinguishes this World Cup from previous tournaments. What role has geopolitics played historically in the World Cup and is there any truth to some of the conspiracy theories surrounding this ye ...  Show more

Marine Le Pen has run for the French presidency several times before, but her chances of winning next year look better than ever. Gideon talks to the FT's Victor Mallet about the source of her growing popularity and what a far-right government would mean for France and the EU. Cl ...  Show more

Dr. Philip Gordon, Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, former White House Coordinator for the Middle East, and author of Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, dis ...

In our first episode, Jon Alterman sits down with Ambassador Bill Burns about the role of the United States in the Middle East. Amb. Burns is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the former deputy secretary of state, and the author of The Back Channel: ...  Show more

This week on Babel, Jon is joined by Hassan Barari, a professor of international politics at the University of Jordan who is currently on leave teaching at Qatar University. Jon and Hassan talk about how the Middle East has viewed past U.S. administrations and the current one. Th ...  Show more

For the past two decades, American foreign policy has been entangled in major conflicts in the Middle East, but the Biden administration has signaled a shift toward Asia. Despite the pivot to other pressing global challenges, the region still plays a crucial role in America’s ...