Episodes
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During decades of turmoil, war, and regime change in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has played a critical, often overlooked role—steering Iraq away from sectarian conflict, promoting civic democracy over direct theocracy, and quietly seeking to calm regional tensions.
On this episode of Order from Ashes, Century International fellow Sajad Jiyad explains how Sistani has appealed to a majority of the world’s millions of Shia Muslims with his indirect model of clerical authority, a stark contrast to the competing model of direct clerical rule advanced by his compatriots in Iran.
Jiyad has published a new political biography, God’s Man in Iraq: The Life and Leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, which offers the first comprehensive account of Sistani’s legacy and draws on original sources and hundreds of interviews during decades of fieldwork inside Iraq. Jiyad
Observers of Iraq and of Shia power will find God’s Man in Iraq an incomparable appraisal of Sistani’s legacy—and an invaluable guide to the perilous transition that will follow his tenure.
You can learn more and order copies on the book’s homepage. God’s Man in Iraq is also available in Arabic.
Read:
Commentary: "The Man Who Saved Iraq," by Sajad Jiyad (in English and Arabic)Book page: God’s Man in Iraq: The Life and Leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, by Sajad JiyadArabic book page: رجل الله في العراقParticipants:
Sajad Jiyad, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The Middle East has faced growing instability, violence, and the risk of a wider war ever since October 7.
Most attention is understandably focused on Israel, where 1,200 people were killed in a single day, and Gaza, where the death toll is steadily climbing past 11,000, the majority children and women.
But the wider region is experiencing a level of violence that is cause for alarm: near-daily clashes between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel; steady attacks on the U.S. military in Iraq and Syria; and increasingly bold military initiatives by Yemen’s Houthi rebel forces.
How has the Gaza war changed the wider Middle East? What new dynamics are shaping conflicts and diplomacy among the regional powers and in the region’s many simmering conflicts? How will America’s bear hug of Israel affect other American interests in the Middle East?
Century International fellows Aron Lund, Sam Heller, and Thanassis Cambanis are joined by Michael Wahid Hanna from International Crisis Group to step back from the day-to-day developments of the Gaza war and assess the changing regional context.
Read:
Commentary: “It’s Time for a Ceasefire in Gaza—and Then a New Push for Peace,” by Thanassis Cambanis, Dahlia Scheindlin, and Sam HellerCommentary: “America Needs to Prevent a Regional War in the Middle East,” by Sam Heller and Thanassis CambanisParticipants:
Sam Heller, fellow, Century InternationalAron Lund, fellow, Century InternationalMichael Wahid Hanna, director, U.S. program, International Crisis GroupThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
Episodes manquant?
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Foreign donors are propping up Lebanon’s public institutions and services with the kind of aid they ordinarily provide to failed states. Will this aid create more problems than it solves for Lebanon’s long-suffering people?
On this episode of Century International’s Order from Ashes podcast, fellow Sam Heller discusses the alarming findings of his report, “Adopt a Ministry: How Foreign Aid Threatens Lebanon’s Institutions.”
As Lebanon’s crisis worsens, foreign donors have stepped in to take over many core functions normally fulfilled by the government. Is this aid, which is vital in the short term, threatening the viability and long-term recovery of Lebanon?
Donors, aid agencies, Lebanese officials and experts can start by getting honest about the tradeoffs, Sam argues. A first step toward changing the counterproductive aid dynamic requires a full picture of foreign support for Lebanon, so donors and the Lebanese government can coordinate aid to useful ends and not just perpetuate dependency and state breakdown.
Read:
Report: “Adopt a Ministry: How Foreign Aid Threatens Lebanon’s Institutions,” by Sam HellerCommentary: “International Aid Keeps Lebanon Afloat. It Could Also Be Destroying Its Institutions,” by Sam Heller [in English and Arabic]Participants:
Sam Heller, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Ali Al-Mawlawi traces the long history of anti-Shia prejudice in Iraq. That prejudice, he argues, distorts contemporary debates over whether Shia factions are undermining the state when they compete for power.
This episode of Order From Ashes is the fourth and final episode in “Shia Power,” a series about the transformation of Shia politics in Iraq, and what Iraq’s experience teaches us about the role of religion in politics everywhere.
In episode 1 of “Shia Power,” Sajad Jiyad and host Thanassis Cambanis chart the powerful role of religion and the Shia clergy in the creation of a new Iraqi order after Saddam Hussein. In episode 2, Marsin Alshammary draws on her fieldwork in the seminaries of Najaf to argue that clerical authority has not diminished, despite setbacks over the last twenty years. In episode 3, Taif Alkhudary chronicles the revolutionary efforts of the Tishreen protest movement to establish an alternative to religious politics. In episode 4, the final in this series, Ali Al-Mawlawi connects some of today’s sectarian rhetoric to Iraq’s long history of anti-Shia prejudice.
Participants:
Ali Al-Mawlawi, Thanassis Cambanis, director, Century InternationalRead:
Report: “Iraqi Shia Factions Are Supposedly ‘Anti-state.’ But State Power Is What They Want,” by Ali Al-Mawlawi
Book: Shia Power Comes of Age
Project: Shia Politics
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On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast “Shia Power” series, Taif Alkhudary explains how the October 2019 protests formed a popular response to years of thwarted democratization.
The Tishreen protests movement, Alkhudary argues, represents an indigenous democratization movement that is resisting the putative democracy put in place after the U.S. invasion. Since 2003, Iraqis have endured corruption, dysfunction, and ethno-sectarian tensions, which the political elite justified as the cost of democracy. The Tishreen movement, while still politically immature, has revealed an alternate path.
This episode of Order From Ashes is the third in a four-part series about the transformation of Shia politics in Iraq, and what Iraq’s experience teaches us about the role of religion in politics everywhere.
In episode 1 of “Shia Power,” Sajad Jiyad and host Thanassis Cambanis chart the powerful role of religion and the Shia clergy in the creation of a new Iraqi order after Saddam Hussein. In episode 2, Marsin Alshammary draws on her fieldwork in the seminaries of Najaf to argue that clerical authority has not diminished, despite setbacks over the last twenty years. In episode 3, Taif Alkhudary chronicles the revolutionary efforts of the Tishreen protest movement to establish an alternative to religious politics. In episode 4, the final in this series, Ali Al-Mawlawi connects some of today’s sectarian rhetoric to Iraq’s long history of anti-Shia prejudice.
Participants:
Taif Alkhudary, research officer, LSE Middle East Center, and PhD candidate, CambridgeThanassis Cambanis, director, Century InternationalRead:
Report: “Young Revolutionary Parties Are Still Iraq’s Best Hope for Democracy,” by Taif AlkhudaryBook: Shia Power Comes of AgeProject: Shia Politics -
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Marsin Alshamary explains why, despite some setbacks, Shia clerics in Iraq still wield a great deal of authority.
Protest movements have rejected religion in politics, while corrupt politicians have sullied the reputations of religious factions. But clerics and their institutions remain powerful players in Iraqi society even as their roles change.
This episode of Order From Ashes is the second in “Shia Power,” a four-part series about the transformation of Shia politics in Iraq, and what Iraq’s experience teaches us about the role of religion in politics everywhere.
In episode 1 of “Shia Power,” Sajad Jiyad and host Thanassis Cambanis chart the powerful role of religion and the Shia clergy in the creation of a new Iraqi order after Saddam Hussein. In episode 2, Marsin Alshammary draws on her fieldwork in the seminaries of Najaf to argue that clerical authority has not diminished, despite setbacks over the last twenty years. In episode 3, Taif Alkhudary chronicles the revolutionary efforts of the Tishreen protest movement to establish an alternative to religious politics. In episode 4, the final in this series, Ali Al-Mawlawi connects some of today’s sectarian rhetoric to Iraq’s long history of anti-Shia prejudice.
Read:
Report: “Shia Clerics in Iraq Haven’t Lost Their Authority,” by Marsin Alshamary
Book: Shia Power Comes of Age
Project: Shia Politics
Participants:
Marsin Alshamary, assistant professor of political science, Boston CollegeThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Sajad Jiyad plumbs the complex evolution of Shia Islamism during two decades at the center of Iraqi power.
This episode of Order From Ashes is the first in “Shia Power,” a four-part series about the transformation of Shia politics in Iraq, and what Iraq’s experience teaches us about the role of religion in politics everywhere.
A new edited volume from Century International, Shia Power Comes of Age: The Transformation of Islamist Politics in Iraq, 2003–2023, maps the radical transformation of Shia Islamist politics in Iraq over the last two decades. Contributors include Taif AlKhudary, Ali Al-Mawlawi, Marsin Alshamary, Thanassis Cambanis, Maria Fantappie, Fanar Haddad, Sajad Jiyad, Renad Mansour, and Ben Robin-D’Cruz.
Sajad and Thanassi, directors of Century International’s Shia Politics project, reflect on the lessons of Iraq’s Shia Islamists for politicians, policymakers, and researchers.
In episode 1 of “Shia Power,” Sajad Jiyad and host Thanassis Cambanis chart the powerful role of religion and the Shia clergy in the creation of a new Iraqi order after Saddam Hussein. In episode 2, Marsin Alshammary draws on her fieldwork in the seminaries of Najaf to argue that clerical authority has not diminished, despite setbacks over the last twenty years. In episode 3, Taif Alkhudary chronicles the revolutionary efforts of the Tishreen protest movement to establish an alternative to religious politics. In episode 4, the final in this series, Ali Al-Mawlawi connects some of today’s sectarian rhetoric to Iraq’s long history of anti-Shia prejudice.
Read:
Book: Shia Power Comes of Age
Project: Shia Politics
Participants:
Sajad Jiyad, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
In a miserable twist for the people who live there, Iraq has become a front-line test lab for the extreme effects of climate change. A combination of forces, accelerated by bad human decisions, has dramatically degraded Iraq’s environment. And Iraq’s experience is a harbinger of what’s coming to the rest of the world.
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Century International fellow Zeinab Shuker explores the unhappy mix of factors that has made Iraq so inhospitable.
Zeinab is leading “Living the Climate Emergency: Lessons from Iraq,” a new Century International project exploring how policymakers and researchers can draw on the case of Iraq and its neighbors to translate into action the growing consensus that the climate crisis is already here.
Century’s Climate Emergency Project will connect field researchers, policymakers, and a wider audience through roundtables, public events, podcasts, and reports. Future research in this project will place today’s crisis in a historical context; map the contours and human impact of climate change in Iraq and its neighborhood; and finally, drawing on the lessons of the extreme case in Iraq, make projections about the future and propose solutions.
Read:
“The Deep Roots of Iraq’s Climate Crisis,” Century International report by , Zeinab Shuker“Iraq Is Overheating. How Can It Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change?,” Century International commentary by Zeinab ShukerExplore:
Project homepage, “Living the Climate Emergency: Lessons from Iraq”
Participants:
Zeinab Shuker, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
Lebanon’s ruling elites have sabotaged talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which offered the last hope for reforms that could save the country’s economy and improve life for millions of suffering people.
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, researchers Sami Zoughaib, from The Policy Institute in Lebanon, and Sam Heller, from Century International, reveal how Lebanon’s elites have misled the public on the reality of the country’s dire situation.
Without some course change, Zoughaib and Heller argue, Lebanon will not have the IMF program it needs to halt its economic collapse. But public pressure could still force elites to act responsibly—or at least hold those elites accountable.
The two researchers discuss the findings in their new report, a joint production of Century International and The Policy Institute in Lebanon. It is part of “Networks of Change: Reviving Governance and Citizenship in the Middle East,” a Century International project supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Open Society Foundations.
Read:
“The Shadow Plan: How Lebanese Elites Are Sabotaging Their Country’s IMF Lifeline,” by Sami Zoughaib and Sam Heller.
Participants:
Sami Zoughaib, economist and research manager at The Policy Initiative in LebanonSam Heller, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The scramble for electricity has produced new interest groups that will shape the evolution of Lebanon’s decaying power sector, and the country’s future. Lebanese people endure erratic and expensive electricity supplies—not because of some staggering technical challenge but because of corrupt, often criminal, monopolies that control the energy sector.
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Century International fellow Zachary Cuyler talks about the competing interest groups that reap the benefits of Lebanon’s failed electricity system.
Zack delves deeper into the dysfunction in Lebanon’s electricity sector in his recent Century International commentary, “Lebanon’s Grid Has Collapsed. What Comes Next?”
Participants:
Zack Cuyler, fellow, Century InternationalThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The effort to secure Iraq’s borders after the defeat of ISIS has created other, new sources of instability, as conflict supply chains adapt to new circumstances.
A close look at two border towns in Iraq’s western desert illustrates the law of unintended consequences. The Iraqi government, bordering countries, and the international community moved to more tightly control official border crossings in order to defeat ISIS. As a result, however, militias and smugglers have moved a great deal of commerce, legal and illicit, to other crossing points. In the meantime, people along once-prosperous trade routes suffer privation and violence, driving new conflicts.
Researchers Renad Mansour and Hayder Al-Shakeri tell the tale of trade, smuggling, and conflict across Iraq’s borders. The trajectory of trade route towns Rutba and Qaim help explain the mechanics of conflict supply chains and the unintended consequences of efforts to secure parts of the border without thinking of the spinoff effects.
Participants:
Haydar Al-Shakeri, research associate, MENA Program, Chatham HouseRenad Mansour, director, Iraq Initiative, Chatham HouseThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
Members have fled the Muslim Brotherhood in droves since its ouster from power in Egypt in 2013, frustrated that the organization can’t take care of them, or provide meaning for their lives. Will the Brotherhood learn the lessons of its failures before its next, inevitable, comeback?
In this final episode of Broken Bonds, Amr ElAfifi explores the Brotherhood’s crisis of membership and the implications for policy.
Some have left the Brotherhood because they’ve lost trust in the leadership; others, because they say the organization “is not being brotherhood enough.” The Brotherhood’s fractious trajectory after the Rabaa massacre of 2013 makes clear that there is no single Brotherhood path during a period of unprecedented violent repression.
The Brotherhood’s scattered grassroots have followed divergent paths, some embracing militancy, some withdrawing to the private sphere, and others abandoning faith altogether.
The Brotherhood tried to claim the mantle of Islamist politics, but found itself beset by contradictions and crises. “Islamism,” like the Brotherhood, is not a clearly defined or monolithic movement.
Broken Bonds is a five-part special season of the Order From Ashes podcast. The first episode charted Abdelrahman Ayyash’s personal coming of age in a Brotherhood milieu. In the second episode, Ayyash, Noha Khaled, and Amr ElAfifi mapped how the crises of identity, legitimacy, and membership simultaneously explain the organization’s weaknesses, and staying power. In the third episode, Khaled dissected the identity crisis that has defined the Brotherhood since its establishment. In the fourth episode, Ayyash sketched the leadership vacuum and power struggles that have hobbled the Brotherhood since 2013.
Broken Bonds explores the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from the apex of its power, when it won Egypt’s presidency in 2012, to the organization’s disarray and marginalization today.
The podcast season is a companion to a new book, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22, published in February 2023 by TCF Press. Broken Bonds is part of “Faith and Fracture,” a TCF project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Participants:
Amr ElAfifi, PhD candidate at Syracuse University; research manager, Freedom InitiativeThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The Muslim Brotherhood is a hierarchical organization suffering a debilitating leadership vacuum. Now, the organization has to reinvent itself while most of its top cadres are in exile, dead, or in jail.
Years after being forced to become a transnational organization because of its leadership’s expulsion from Egypt, the Brotherhood is now at an even more complex crossroads. Its old strategies for managing its relationship with the Egyptian state, and maintaining a quasi-clandestine presence in Egypt, are no longer relevant.
Abdelrahman Ayyash explains the power struggles and inchoate efforts to create a coherent strategy among the Brotherhood’s fragmented leadership after the 2013 coup and subsequent crackdown. The Brotherhood has been riven by power struggles and fundamental debates over resources, its international orientation, and the use of violence. This leadership crisis has hobbled the Brotherhood.
This is the fourth episode of Broken Bonds, a five-part special season of the Order From Ashes podcast. The first episode charted Abdelrahman Ayyash’s personal coming of age in a Brotherhood milieu. In the second episode, Ayyash, Noha Khaled, and Amr ElAfifi mapped how the crises of identity, legitimacy, and membership simultaneously explain the organization’s weaknesses and its staying power. In the third episode, Khaled dissected the identity crisis that has defined the Brotherhood since its establishment. The fifth and final episode of Broken Bonds explores the crisis of membership and the implications for policy.
Broken Bonds explores the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from the apex of its power, when it won Egypt’s presidency in 2012, to the organization’s disarray and marginalization today.
The podcast season is a companion to a new book, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22, published in February 2023 by TCF Press. Broken Bonds is part of “Faith and Fracture,” a TCF project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Participants:
Abdelrahman Ayyash, fellow, Century International Thanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is suffering from an identity crisis, made worse by ongoing, violent state repression. Nearly a century since its founding, the Brotherhood hasn’t reconciled its social and political aims.
Noha Khaled plumbs the first of three crises besetting the Brotherhood: its internal identity conflict over what kind of organization it aspires to be.
Throughout its history, the Brotherhood has struggled to accommodate its mission as a religious and social service network, alongside its ambitions for political power. That ambivalence, or contradiction, forms the cornerstone of the Brotherhood’s ongoing triple crisis.
This is the third episode of Broken Bonds, a five-part special season of the Order From Ashes podcast. The first episode charted Abdelrahman Ayyash’s personal coming of age in a Brotherhood milieu. In the second episode, Ayyash, Khaled, and Amr ElAfifi mapped how the crises of identity, legitimacy, and membership simultaneously explain the organization’s weaknesses and its staying power. The remaining episodes of Broken Bonds go deeper into the crises of legitimacy and membership, and the implications for policy.
Broken Bonds explores the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from the apex of its power, when it won Egypt’s presidency in 2012, to the organization’s disarray and marginalization today.
The podcast season is a companion to a new book, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22, published in February 2023 by TCF Press. Broken Bonds is part of “Faith and Fracture,” a TCF project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Participants:
Noha Khaled, writer and researcherThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The Muslim Brotherhood tries to project an image of grassroots power and disciplined leadership. A trio of researchers takes a different view, describing a once-formidable organization that is under strain and out of touch.
The Brotherhood, they argue, is experiencing multiple crises—of identity, legitimacy, and membership—which accelerated after Egypt’s military coup in July 2013.
Based on unprecedented access to Brotherhood leaders, rank-and-file members, and internal dissenters, the three researchers—Abdelrahman Ayyash, Amr ElAfifi, and Noha Khaled—take a new granular view of the organization.
The Brotherhood and its detractors alike have misunderstood it as a mass ideological organization, missing its evolution into an elite membership organization disconnected from its constituents.
This is the second episode of Broken Bonds, a five-part special season of the Order From Ashes podcast. The first episode charted Ayyash’s personal coming of age in a Brotherhood milieu. Remaining episodes of Broken Bonds go deeper into each of the three crises facing the Brotherhood and the implications for policy.
Broken Bonds explores the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from the apex of its power, when it won Egypt’s presidency in 2012, to the organization’s disarray and marginalization today.
The podcast season is a companion to a new book, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22, published in February 2023 by TCF Press. Broken Bonds is part of “Faith and Fracture,” a TCF project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Participants:
Abdelrahman Ayyash, fellow, Century International Amr ElAfifi, PhD candidate at Syracuse University; research manager, Freedom InitiativeNoha Khaled, writer and researcherThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
What’s it like to come of age in a Muslim Brotherhood family in Egypt’s Nile Delta? Abdelrahman Ayyash recounts his childhood, political awakening, and disenchantment.
Ayyash recounts his early history cocooned in a Brotherhood community that took care of its members’ schooling, moral training, social life, and career counseling. And he recalls with stark frankness his shock, as a young blogger and political activist, at the political rigidity of the movement in which he’d been raised.
Ayyash’s personal journey from a young movement standout to dissident, critical researcher opens Broken Bonds, a five-part special season of the Order From Ashes podcast. The remaining episodes of Broken Bonds explore the triple crises facing the Brotherhood, the organization’s likely resurgence, and how observers and policymakers mischaracterize the Brotherhood and its significance.
Broken Bonds explores the evolution of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood from the apex of its power, when it won Egypt’s presidency in 2012, to the organization’s disarray and marginalization today.
The podcast season is a companion to a new book, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013–22, published in February 2023 by TCF Press. Broken Bonds is part of “Faith and Fracture,” a TCF project supported by the Henry Luce Foundation.
Participants:
Abdelrahman Ayyash, fellow, Century International Thanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
The catastrophic earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 had particularly dire consequences for the millions of displaced Syrians living near the epicenter. Many of them have moved multiple times to flee violence. Since September, an outbreak of cholera has rapidly spread across Syria and entered Lebanon. And to make matters worse, international humanitarian aid is only allowed to enter northern Syria through a single border crossing, which is closed because of earthquake damage.
On this episode of the Order from Ashes podcast from Century International, Aron Lund discusses Syria’s unending catastrophe, its origins in bad governance, and what donor nations can do to help.
Years of war, drought, and climate change have ravaged Syria’s water supply and infrastructure, forcing half of the population to drink unsafe water. Now, the earthquake has compounded the damage to Syria’s built environment, exacerbating Syria’s already dire humanitarian situation.
Read more about the human and environmental origins of Syria’s deadly cholera outbreak in Aron’s Century International report “Cholera in the Time of Assad.”
Participants:
Aron Lund, fellow, Century International Thanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
This fall, news broke that a web of thieves—including high-level officials—had stolen $2.5 billion in Iraqi government cash. The scam is only the most recent example of systemic corruption perpetrated by Iraq’s elites since 2003. The country’s new government has its work cut out for itself.
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Sajad Jiyad talks about the sordid theft and the way forward to fight corruption.
Sajad shares more about the origins of Iraq’s consociational system of power sharing, and public graft, in his report “Corruption Is Strangling Iraq.”
Participants:
Sajad Jiyad, fellow, Century International Thanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
America maintains an enormous military infrastructure on the Arabian peninsula and in the Persian Gulf. How should the United States shrink this enormous footprint while continuing to protect its interests and those of its sometimes difficult partners in the region?
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, Becca Wasser considers some of the practical ways in which a progressive-minded United States could shift away from its overinvestment in military bases.
Despite the war in Ukraine and rising tensions with China, the United States retains a massive and problematic military footprint in the Middle East, which creates moral hazard and often locks Washington into military solutions ill-suited for complex policy problems.
Figuring out how to get the balance right in the Middle East can help the United States strike a more healthy, and less militarized, balance throughout the world.
This episode of Order from Ashes is part of a regular series on progressive foreign policy in the United States. We’re looking to start a constructive conversation about the specifics of a progressive foreign policy that remains invested and engaged in the world, while moving away from reflexive militarism and toward a framework based on rights and values.
Participants:
Becca Wasser, senior fellow, Center for a New American SecurityThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International -
Progressives have done a good job articulating the problems with bad policies, especially the Global War on Terror, which worsened the problems it was supposed to solve.
But what is the better, progressive alternative?
On this episode of the Order From Ashes podcast, New America fellow Alex Stark outlines some of the specific ingredients of a policy that tries to promote genuine stability.
Sound, progressive counterterrorism would build on a complex and sustainable vision of stability, rooted in rights and better governance. Instead of seeking to eliminate violent groups, it has designated as terrorists, a progressive counterterrorism policy would invest in accountability and development, along with military operations, to marginalize violent groups.
This episode of Order from Ashes is the first in a regular series on progressive foreign policy in the United States. We’re looking to start a constructive conversation about the specifics of a progressive foreign policy that remains invested and engaged in the world, while moving away from reflexive militarism and toward a framework based on rights and values.
Participants:
Alex Stark, fellow, New AmericaThanassis Cambanis, director, Century International - Montre plus
