Jamal Khashoggi's Secret Interview

The world of journalism faces an existential crisis . Attacks on the press as "the enemy of the people" by the president of the United States and other authoritarian leaders is just the beginning. Bombs sent to CNN, reporters spat on at political rallies, and the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi make the prima facie case.

Award-winning international journalist and foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal, comes to this discussion with a unique perspective. Having covered stories and worked in Italy, the US, and the Middle East, she sees the global dimensions of the issues. Perhaps most significantly, she secretly conducted one of the last interviews with Jamal Khashoggi. In that interview Khashoggi talks about what it might take for the US to actually look objectively at Saudi Arabia. But this would only happen, he believed, in the face of a serious crisis. Little did he know that his brutal murder would be that crisis.

My WhoWhatWhy.org interview with Rula Jebreal.

Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East

Often understanding global affairs, particularly in the Middle East, is like a game of three-card monte. What’s in view is never really a reflection of what’s going on underneath. What’s more, alliances, loyalties and truth is ever shifting and almost always hidden.

Such has long been the case in Egypt. As the Arab spring descended on Tahrir Square in February of 201, what once seemed like the hope for freedom and democracy gave way to ongoing authorianism. And like the three-card monte game, for a while it was impossible to tell who was with who, and who was on what side, including the United States.

David Kirkpatrick, an international correspondent for the NY Times, led the papers coverage of the Arab Spring, first in Tunisia and then in Egypt and Libya. He has reported from virtually everywhere in the region, but also brings the perspective of having coved Washington, two presidential elections, and the rise of the Christian right in the US.

In his new book Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East he bring us a unique and sobering perspective on the Middle East, and the US, which always seems to get it wrong.

My conversation with David Kirkpatrick:

Why the Isis rhetoric to restore the Caliphate is exactly like Trump wanting to Make America Great Again.

It's hard to imagine today, but the East, what we refer to now as the Middle East, was once a pinnacle of civilization. Like all great civilizations, it struggled with conflict between personal values and its laws, about succession and tribalism and security. It evolved a form of rule in the Islamic world that lasted for almost 1300 years..by any account a pretty good run.

Today that rule, what was once called the Caliphate, has been morphed into something far removed from it’s original meaning. As such, it has become a word that embodies the worst, not the best of civilization.  Esteemed historian Hugh Kennedy puts all of this in perspective in Caliphate: The History of an Idea.

My conversation with Hugh Kennedy:

From Kabul to the Oval Office

Daniel Patrick Moynihan is often quoted as saying that “you can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.” This is as true in looking at the world, as it is here at home. There are lots of opinions about the US role and US actions in the world, specifically the Middle East. However, facts come first. And part of those facts include an understanding of the people, the history and the nuance of the region. Our domestic politics has debates every day about who best understand the American people...why should we conduct our global affairs without a similar understanding of others?

When it comes to the Middle East in general, or to Afghanistan, to Iraq and even our international policy architecture in the post war era, few understand the people, the history and the nuance better than Zalmay Khalilzad. He’s served four Presidents and has traveled from a small village in Afghanistan to the pinacle of the Oval Office. He tells that story in The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey Through a Turbulent World

My conversation with Zalmay Khalilzad:

Syria Burning

The US seems to be giving up on training Syrian rebels. The Russians continue the bombing of ISIS targets, even while some of their missiles land in Iran. Refugees continue to flee from Syria. All while ISIS continues on the march, Palestinian protests turn more violent. The cauldron that is the Middle East continues to bubble.

For a real and contemporaneous perspective we turn to author, journalist, esteemed Middle East foreign correspondent Charles Glass.

My conversation with Charles Glass:

What we don't see about the Middle East

To the extent that we are all the sum total of our wider experience and our private moments, imagine how that might be magnified amidst the terror, turmoil, and violence of Middle East.

A place where even the quiet moments of love, life and even pain are amplified by events in the present and memories of the past.

Mai Al-Nakib’s stories in her collection The Hidden Light of Objects, takes us into the lives of people in the crucible of conflict who hang on to extraordinary memories.

My conversation with Mai Al-Nakib:

Terrorism and the Search for Justice

For decades, it seems, we've read and watched stories about suicide bombers in the Middle East. We process the information without emotion, as we do most news stories. Then 9/11 happened and suddenly suicide bombers took on a new meaning for most Americans.

With that new understanding, award winning journalist Mike Kelly looks back at a story of a suicide bombing in Israel, that took place in 1996, years before 9/11. The story, fraught with the humanity and frustration of loss, would have, if we knew better than, presaged so much of what’s happened since….in Israel, in Palestine, and in America.

Mike Kelly's story is Bus on Jaffa Road: A Story of Middle East Terrorism and the Search for Justice.

My conversation with Mike Kelly:

A new perspective on the Middle East

When we think and talk about the Middle East today, we look at it terms of the religious and ethnic strife and extremism that define today's conflicts. We also assume that these conflicts has been going on for centuries. That the holy wars and clash of civilizations of today have been the basis for the whole history of the region

Middle East historian Brian Catlos has a different view. One that puts those conflicts in a more political and economic perspective. In fact, it was really a world of conflict about money and land and power, and where interfaith cooperation was possible and where globalization may have gotten its real start.

Can understanding this helps us face today's challenges? I don’t know; but we do know that perhaps it’s the beginning of wisdom. Catlos explains it in Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad.

My conversation with Brian Catlos:

How Millennials are changing the Middle East

Technology is transforming the world. But so too are millions of young people throughout the Middle East, whose attitudes, desire for freedom and more cosmopolitan views, are transforming nations. When these forces combine, the results can be powerful. This is what we’ve seen in the Arab Spring and in the uprisings and youth movements in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, one of our most distinguished Middle East experts, talks of a rising Arab Generation Y, in his new book The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East.

My conversation with Juan Cole:

The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East

35 years ago we witnessed the Iran Hostage crisis. Israel was at war with all of its neighbors in the region and fundamentalist revolutions were rampant.

For many of us, our images of and attitude towards the Middle East, were frozen in place at that moment in time. The events of 9/11 and the wars that followed, further hardened those preconceived views.

But since 1978 a whole new generation has grown up in the region. Tahrir square was merely the most outward personification of that. These young people want to solve problems, they want technology and they want a better life. And like the forward march of creative destruction everywhere on the planet, the Middle East is no exception.

The world of startups and brain power in the Middle East is not limited to Israel. In fact, the whole of the Middle East has the potential to be as powerful a force as Silicon Valley.  So says venture capitalist and entrepreneur Christopher Schroeder in Startup Rising: The Entrepreneurial Revolution Remaking the Middle East.

My conversation with Chris Schroeder:

Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East

There is an old saying that says that if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem as if it is a nail. So too for American policy in the Arab world. If every problem looks like an existential threat, then perhaps it’s because we often see the military as the only tool we have.

In fact, as Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy stupid.” Perhaps if we found new ways to deal with the Middle East in terms of its economics, its desire for goods, jobs for the 60% of it’s population under 30, we’d have a better outcome.

Few know the region better than two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Rohde. He lays out his ideas in Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East.

My conversation with David Rohde:

Clcik here to listen on your iphone or ipad

Rashid Khalidi explains the impact of the Cold War on the current Middle East Conflicts

While usually followed by controversy, there can be little doubt about the soundness of Rashid Khalidi’s arguments that today’s Middle East conflicts are, in large measure, shaped by the Cold War. In his new book Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East Khalidi shows how the global conflicts now playing out in the Middle East were significantly shaped and exacerbated by the Cold War era, and that any successful peace process must begin with a through understanding of these historical antecedents.

My conversation with Rashid Khalidi:                                                 Powered by Podbean.com 

The real Middle East

Beyond the headlines, the hot spots and the bombings are millions of people who go about their daily lives each day in the Middle East. People who eat, drink, play, love and engage in the stuff of everyday life. To those of us in the West, they often seem invisible. Some are eccentric, some normal. But very few represent what we see in the daily stories of life in the Middle East. It has been left to Neil MacFarquhar, to document their lives. He does so brilliantly in his new book The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East.

My conversation with Neil MacFarquhar:
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Engaging the Muslim World

Many people think they know what's really going on in the Middle East. Most do not!  But every day, tens of thousands of people get their news on this region from Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment.  Cole has stayed away from the knee-jerk politics of Islamophobia, and has been a voice of reason in a part of the world usually gone mad.  He is the author of a new book about the Middle East, entitled Engaging the Muslim World,just published by Palgrave.

My conversation this morning with Juan Cole:

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