CONFLICTED Podcast
1) How Yemen Broke the Saudi-UAE Alliance
In this episode, Yemeni researcher and political analyst Baraa Shiban (a great friend of the show) tells the thrilling behind-the-scenes story of how different visions for the future of Yemen led long...Show More
2) Saudi Arabia vs the Emirates: A Gulf Family Feud Crisis in the Gulf? Saudi vs UAE
A rare public rupture has emerged between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Triggered by a dramatic escalation over Yemen in late December 2025, the dispute has exposed deeper ideological and...Show More
3) Re-Thinking Islam’s Global History
Islam is often treated as a civilisation apart — self-contained, resistant to modernity, and fundamentally at odds with the West. In this episode, Thomas speaks to Oxford professor James McDougall abo...Show More
4) The Crisis in Iran: The History Behind US-Iran Tensions
As mass protests sweep Iran and President Trump declares the U.S. is ‘locked and loaded’, Thomas and Aimen revisit the event that shaped U.S.–Iran relations for the next half-century: the Iran Hostage...Show More
5) Zohran Mamdani and the Ascendancy of Third Worldism
Amid controversy surrounding Zohran Mamdani’s rise to power in New York City, Hussein Mansour tells Thomas all about the history of Third Worldism — where it comes from, what it originally meant, and ...Show More
6) 2025 Year in Review
As 2025 draws to a close, Thomas and Aimen take an unconventional tour of the Islamic world — looking beyond the usual headlines to the under-the-radar shifts that happened in 2025, with the potential...Show More
7) Inside the Trenches of Ukraine
The war in Ukraine is back in the headlines as a peace agreement appears increasingly probable - though with major concessions to Russia. So as a Christmas present to our listeners, we’ve brought this...Show More
8) 2025 Conflicted Christmas Special
What is ‘the Christmas story’ really? And how does it change when you tell it from within a different religious tradition? In Conflicted’s first-ever Christmas Special, Thomas and Aimen retell the Nat...Show More
9) What Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy Means For The World
In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with global finance and security analyst Giri Rajendran about the Trump Administration’s newly published National Security Strategy — what it signals, wh...Show More
10) The 2026 Middle East Forecast
What does the future hold for the Middle East — and the world — in 2026? In this special episode of Conflicted, Thomas instructs Aimen to peer into his crystal ball and offer his forecasts for the ye...Show More