19 episodes
Unravelling the Middle East Adel Aali, History Behind News Program
-
- History
-
-
3.7 • 3 Ratings
-
Please join me - Adel Aali, your host, on a journey of analysis, history, and myths and mysteries of the Middle East as narrated and explained by scholars.
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a History Behind News production, where 125 scholars... and counting, explain the histories behind our current events.
Middle East map by MapChart.net: https://www.mapchart.net/world.html. License is CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
-
S1E18: Story of Iran's Nuclear Program & Perceived Threats To Its Security - How It All Began.
What lessons does Iran glean from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a country that voluntarily gave up its nuclear power!
What is the logic behind Iran's nuclear program? And how has that logic evolved from the time of the Shah to Iran's 9-year war with Iraq, to Iraq's fall to the U.S. military in 2003, to Iran's present military involvement in places like Lebanon and Syria.
In this episode, we'll also talk about sanctions - they are easy to impose but extremely difficult to manage and to remove.
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Vali Nasr is a professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. From 2012 to 2019 Dr. Nasr served as the Dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. In addition, he served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011 during the Obama Administration.
Dr. Nasr has advised senior American policymakers, including the President, Secretary of State, senior members of Congress, and presidential campaigns.
He has authored many books on the Middle East and its proximate regions, including The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat.
🚩How is Iran's government structured? When did Iran become a Shia country? 🎧 Listen here.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program, for any amount you like. And thank you.
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Image by Yagasi
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iran_nuclear_program_map-en.png#/media/File:Iran_nuclear_program_map-en.png
CC BY-SA 4.0 license
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | -
S1E17: After conquering Afghanistan & Iraq, did America miss opportunities to neutralize the hardline mullahs of Iran's regime?
Today Baghdad, Tomorrow Tehran!
This was the mantra and mentality of very high ranking officials of the Bush White House after the swift fall of Baghdad to the US military in 2003, which was the same year that Iran sent a secret letter to the U.S., offering to negotiate about... well, just about everything!
In this episode, we'll also talk about why the Obama White House drew parallels... between Iran and Vietnam,... even though we were not at war with Iran?
In addition, my guest will tell us the story behind the unlikely eagerness of one Iranian leader to make a deal with the United States. Can you guess who it was?
The answer surprised me.
It was Iran's President Ahmadinejad, whose rhetoric was very much anti-American!
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Vali Nasr is a professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. From 2012 to 2019 Dr. Nasr served as the Dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. In addition, he served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011 during the Obama Administration.
Dr. Nasr has advised senior American policymakers, including the President, Secretary of State, senior members of Congress, and presidential campaigns.
He has authored many books on the Middle East and its proximate regions, including The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat.
🚩How is Iran's government structured? When did Iran become a Shia country? 🎧 Listen here.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program, for any amount you like. And thank you.
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | -
S1E16: The Crusades is an example of what happens when a group makes exclusionary claims on Palestine.
Our Holy Land and only Our Holy Land!
What does this mean to you?
My guest scholar explained to me that the Crusades is an example of what happens when outsiders come in and make exclusionary claims on Palestine.
As she told me, the history of the Crusades is not forgotten by the People of Palestine, because they draw sharp contrasts between Christian Europeans' conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, in which Muslims and Jews were slaughtered and excluded, to the Muslim Arab re-conquest of Jerusalem in 1187, in which there was no bloodbath and Jews were invited back.
She also shares a personal story with me, about her Palestinian roots and how her parents fled their homes in Palestine.
We talk about why there is so little scholarship of Palestine's history in the United States.
And I ask her, is there such a thing as Jewish Palestinians?
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Maha Nassar is a professor of Middle East History and Islamic Studies at the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies of the University of Arizona.
She is a cultural and intellectual historian of the twentieth-century Arab world, with a focus on Palestinian history. Her research on intellectual constructs of social, political and cultural identities seeks to trace the circulation of political vocabularies that construct as well as contest nationalist narratives.
She is the author of Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World. And her forthcoming book, which we talk about in this episode, is titled Palestine’s People.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program, for any amount you like. And thank you.
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/ -
S1E15: Were Palestinians historically called Palestinians? No! Historian of Palestine explains.
Would it surprise to hear a Palestinian, in fact, a scholar of Palestinians and their history, to assert that there was NOT a distinct people called Palestinians. Instead of Palestinians, my guest scholar prefers the "people of Palestine". And as it turns out, there is a huge difference between these two terms, a considerable distinction that belies our common misunderstanding of the people of Palestine and our attempts to shoehorn them into our current perceptions of homogenized peoplehood and modern nationhood.
As my guest scholar tells it, understanding the people of Palestine is not predicated on bloodline, tribal connection, or a distinct ethnonational identity. Rather, it's attachment to the land.
In this episode, we'll talk about Arabization and Islamization of the people of Palestine, and how in their history, they've rebelled against outsiders who come in... and tell them... what to do!
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Maha Nassar is a professor of Middle East History and Islamic Studies at the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies of the University of Arizona.
She is a cultural and intellectual historian of the twentieth-century Arab world, with a focus on Palestinian history. Her research on intellectual constructs of social, political and cultural identities seeks to trace the circulation of political vocabularies that construct as well as contest nationalist narratives.
She is the author of Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World. And her forthcoming book, which we talk about in this episode, is titled Palestine’s People.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program, for any amount you like. And thank you.
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keyso -
S1E14: How the Ottomans and Islam shaped Christian Europeans' Exploration and Colonization of the Americas
Spanish explorers and colonizers spoke in Christian terms and with religious zeal - calling for another crusade against the Muslims. And when describing the Americas, they referred to Montezuma as a Sultan, America's structures as mosques and Native women's dresses as Moorish.
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Alan Mikhail is a professor of history and chair of the Department of History at Yale University. He is the author of several award-winning books , including:
Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt,
and Environmental History ;
Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History, &
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program.
https://historybehindnews.com/support
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon. Music
promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The volume and lengths of t -
S1E13: Why didn’t the Ottomans explore the Americas? Were the Ottomans a Turkish Empire? And how Islam entered Ottoman ethos and geopolitics?
The Ottomans didn't explore the Americas because they didn't need to. The Ottomans were much wider polity than merely being a Turkish Empire. And the ambitions and life story of one Ottoman Sultan explains how the Ottomans became the custodian of Islam's holy cities.
These are the short answers to the questions posed in the title. But the long answer is way more interesting. The Ottoman Empire - the superpower of its time - writ large in Christian Europeans' minds.
In this episode, my guest, Dr. Alan Mikhail, explains the impact of the Ottomans in shaping the European mindset. He also shares with us the story of Sultan Selim I, the Ottoman ruler who double the size of his empire in just a few years.
🚩About My Guest:
Dr. Alan Mikhail is a professor of history and chair of the Department of History at Yale University. He is the author of several award-winning books , including:
Under Osman’s Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt,
and Environmental History ;
Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History, &
God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World.
📽️Subscribe to our YouTube channel
🖱️Support Our Program:
We appreciate your financial support of our program.
https://historybehindnews.com/support
Adel Aali
Host, Unravelling the Middle East
Host, History Behind News Podcast
Unravelling the Middle East podcast is a production of the History Behind News program.
Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music to guest introduction:
The Desert | The Grand Score
https://www.free-stock-music.com/alexander-nakarada-the-desert.html
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music to promoting History Behind News episodes:
The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon. Music
promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0):
Customer Reviews
Great!
Just like his other podcast, this is thoughtful and insightful. Using historians who are experts in their area of interest and asking questions commonly asked my people from that region (such as myself) and history enthusiasts. Unlike many other podcasts that focus on the Middle East but from outsider perspective, the creator’s insider perspective is great.
Western perspective
If this was a relationship, this would be called “mansplaining.” They try to explain my peoples ideologies, motives, and history through a western lens. It’s like white people trying to talk about what it’s like to be black. Even if you have Uncle Tom on the show with you, you’re way off. Big thumbs down. You do not understand, nor do you do try to understand us.