Iran has chosen its new Supreme Leader: Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the recently assassinated Ayatollah Khamenei. Who is he? What does he believe? And most importantly, is his coming to power the fulfilment of ancient prophecy?

Aimen and Thomas discuss:

• Mojtaba's youth and his experience fighting in the Iran-Iraq War as a 17 year old
• How he became his father's primary gatekeeper, and how he used this to amass great power and wealth
• Mojtaba's self-belief: that he is "the Khorasani", a long-expected End Times figure in Shia eschatology
• The long story of Islamic apocalypticism and how the Islamic Republic has used medieval prophecies to justify its ambitions

Join the Conflicted Community here: ⁠⁠https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/⁠⁠

Find us on X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/MHconflicted⁠⁠

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And Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod⁠⁠

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to two friends of the show about how Europe is responding to the war with Iran. In the first half, the Rt Hon Tom Tugendhat MP — former chair of the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee and former UK Security Minister — discusses Britain’s confused response to the conflict, and in the second half, French journalist Wassim Nasr explains France’s position.

Sir Tom and Wassim explain:

• The UK government’s uncertain response to the Iran war
• What politicians mean when they talk about the ‘legal basis’ for military action
• The lessons of the Iraq War and whether they are being misunderstood
• Iran’s role in the insurgency against Western forces in Iraq
• The debate over designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization in the UK
• The state of the British military after decades of defence cuts
• The strategic controversy surrounding Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands
• France’s historic Arab Policy and its effort to maintain strategic independence in the Middle East
• France’s military agreements with the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait
• The E3 framework (France, Germany, UK) and its role in negotiations with Iran
• Macron’s attempt to expand France’s nuclear deterrent to cover Europe
• The evolving situation in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s weakening position
• Intelligence cooperation between France, Israel, and regional partners
• Whether Europe is entering a new era of strategic independence

Follow Sir Tom on X: https://x.com/TomTugendhat

Follow Wassim on X: https://x.com/SimNasr

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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With missiles streaking across Middle Eastern skies and the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader sending shockwaves through the region, Aimen joins Thomas from a Dubai under fire to unpack a historic turning point.

They discuss:

• Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile strikes across the GCC and Israel
• Life under bombardment in Dubai and the regional military response
• The assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei and what it means for Iran’s future
• Whether this war marks the death of the 1979 Islamic Revolution
• The internal dynamics of the Iranian regime at this critical moment
• The United States’ strategic calculus and the question of escalation

Join the Conflicted Community here: ⁠https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/⁠

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And Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted⁠

And Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod⁠

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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In this very special Emergency Episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss the Iran War, which began this morning with wide-ranging air strikes carried out by Israel and the United States against IRGC and Iranian regime targets, and which almost immediately resulted in Iranian counter-strikes against seven states in the region — including in Dubai, where Aimen lives.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to former BBC journalist Martin Plaut about his new book Unbroken Chains: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement, which tells the whole story of African slavery, a story far older and more global than the one that focuses only on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Martin explains:

• How Africa’s slavery story begins in the Nile Valley around 2900 BC
• Why the trans-Saharan slave routes remain less examined than Atlantic slavery
• What Islam did — and didn’t — change about slavery in practice
• Indian Ocean slavery
• Oman’s slave market in Zanzibar and its caravans that penetrated deep into central Africa
• Indigenous African slavery in Ethiopia and the Sokoto Caliphate
• The role of racial hierarchies and ‘slave blood’ stigma within societies
• Barbary corsairs and European so-called ‘white slavery’
• Contemporary chattel slavery in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Sudan, and Libya
• Why major institutions still prefer commemorating slavery in the past to confronting it in the present

Follow Martin on X: https://x.com/martinplaut

And his personal website: https://martinplaut.com/

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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As Saudi Arabia celebrates Founding Day, and as the murky underbelly of GCC geopolitics is on everyone's minds, we're re-releasing this classic Conflicted episode from early 2022.

Thomas & Aimen discuss:

• The deep history of Arabia
• The first foundations of Saudi Arabia
• The transition from British to American dominance in the Middle East
• Aimen’s family history within the British imperial system
• The 1920 Iraqi revolt
• St John Philby (Abdullah Philby)
• The consolidation of Saudi Arabia under Ibn Saud
• Oil politics and the American-Saudi partnership
• Cold War spy-craft and intelligence networks in Saudi Arabia
• Espionage culture in the region
• The murder of Jamal Khashoggi

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ConflictedYoutube

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Rowan Bishop.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to historian Yossef Rapoport about his new book Becoming Arab, and the revolutionary argument at its heart: that Arab identity in Egypt and the Levant was not the result of mass migration from Arabia, but was forged in the medieval countryside between the 11th and 15th centuries.

Rapoport explains:

• What the word ‘Arab’ meant in the early Islamic centuries
• Why most medieval villagers in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine did not initially think of themselves as Arabs
• Why migration models fail to explain Arabisation in the settled countryside
• How Islamisation and Islamic governance reshaped rural society
• The role of clan genealogies, taxation, and local leadership in creating Arab village identities
• The extraordinary 1245 Fayyum survey and what it reveals about rural Egypt
• The rise of popular Arab epics and the imagination of tribal ancestry
• Ibn Taymiyyah’s critique of manufactured tribalism in the 14th century
• How medieval Arabisation reshapes modern debates about identity, belonging, and land

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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With war clouds gathering once again over the Middle East, Aimen takes us behind the scenes of the indirect negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. He narrates the shifting Iranian position, the will-he-or-won’t-he calculus surrounding Donald Trump, and the vital strategic role played by Israel as the White House formulates a way forward. Is this brinkmanship, miscalculation, or the prelude to full-scale war?

They discuss:

• Iran’s negotiating position over the past 17–18 days
• The domestic factors informing Trump’s thinking
• How the IRGC is united around a rejectionist position
• How Israel may have helped provide the White House with the narrative it needs to get buy-in from U.S. citizens
• What really went on during Netanyahu’s recent visit
• The truth beyond Scott Bessent’s claims about causing a dollar crisis in Iran

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to U.S. Navy veteran Shawn VanDiver, founder of AfghanEvac, about the fate of Afghans who worked alongside American forces during the U.S. occupation, and how the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions are increasingly freezing them out.

Shawn explains:

• Who America’s Afghan allies were and the risks they took
• The complex tragedy of the National Guardsmen shooting in Washington D.C.
• The Special Immigrant Visa system and why it failed
• Trump’s first travel ban and the dismantling of refugee pathways
• The Doha Agreement and the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan
• The creation of AfghanEvac and cooperation with the U.S. government
• How Trump’s second term is closing the door on Afghan allies

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Follow AfghanEvac:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfghanEvac

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afghan_evac

X: https://x.com/afghanevac

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@afghanevac

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/afghanevac

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/afghanevac.bsky.social

Truth Social: @AfghanEvac

Follow Shawn VanDiver:

X: https://x.com/shawnjvandiver

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnjvandiver

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnvandiver/

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/shawnjvandiver.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnjvandiver

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjvandiver

Find Conflicted on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

And YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sdlF1mY5t4

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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After a tragic shooting in Washington, D.C., Thomas and Aimen trace the story back to Afghanistan and to the CIA-backed Zero Units that carried out some of the coalition’s most clandestine kill-or-capture missions.

They discuss:

• The November 2025 D.C. shooting and the alleged link to a former Zero Unit operative
• What the Zero Units were designed to do and why they were so controversial
• Afghanistan's geography of terrorism and counterterrorism
• The lifelong psychological damage caused by black ops
• How the Doha Agreement sidelined the US’s Afghan partners
• The halfway house vetting pipeline through German
• The problem of PTSD, monitoring, and support for both Afghan allies and U.S. veterans
• Whether America can fight future wars if local allies believe they’ll be left behind

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to veteran Singaporean diplomat Prof. Kishore Mahbubani about his thesis that the 21st century will be remembered as ‘the Asian Century’, and how the West can prepare peacefully and optimistically for China's return as the fulcrum of world history.

Drawing on his books Living the Asian Century, Has China Won?, and Can Asians Think?, Prof. Mahbubani explains:

• Why the 21st century will be the Asian century and why this need not require Western decline
• How colonialism shaped Asian self-perception, and the need for intellectual decolonisation
• How other countries can adopt Singapore’s model for success
• His meeting with Fidel Castro, Hafez al-Assad, and Yasser Arafat
• The hypocrisy of Western power and diplomacy
• How the United States keeps the UN weak on purpose
• Why Pres. Trump’s China realism has been a good thing
• The threat of war in Asia

Follow Prof. Mahbubani on X: https://x.com/mahbubani_k

Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm

Find us on X: https://x.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod

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Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.

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