As all sides in the Iran War escalate their attacks, another spectre looms on the horizon: Iran-backed sleeper cell agents across the world launching terrorist attacks against strategic assets — including in the West. Aimen opens the lid on this little-known dimension of the IRGC's activity.

Aimen and Thomas discuss:

• How the U.S. will deal with the problem of Bandar Abbas before launching an amphibious assault on islands in the Gulf
• The recent escalation: the Houthis join the war, an AWACS plane destroyed in Saudi Arabia, a desalination plant attacked in Kuwait
• The history of the sleeper cell as a tool of revolutionary subversion
• The five types of Iranian sleeper cell
• Aimen's experience embedded in sleeper cells as a double agent
• How Iranian sleeper cells launder money
• The prevalence of sleeper cells in South America
• Aimen's work investigating the finances of sleeper cells
• How London restaurants are secret IRGC fronts

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

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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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Aimen's back after a few days away uncovering the secret info and true motivations behind the Iran War.

Today he and Thomas focus on the Lebanon front in the war, telling the story of how the Lebanese state was progressively undermined over several decades, as non-state actors acted like a cancer on the body politic — with the largest tumour being, of course, Hezbollah.

Aimen and Thomas discuss:

• The method behind the madness of Pres. Trump's chaotic messaging.
• The likelihood of a U.S. assault on Iran's islands in the Gulf.
• Whether Gulf leaders are really egging the U.S. on to bring an end to the regime.
• The U.S.'s objective of 'regime destruction' and how that differs from 'regime change'.
• The failure of energy traders to price risk properly.
• Abdul Malik al-Houthi's speech on 26 March and what it reveals about his intentions
• The long history of Lebanon's experience of militant non-state actors and foreign intervention
• How Hezbollah was able to re-arm and re-build after the catastrophe of autumn 2024.
• How deep corruption within the Lebanese government and military is preventing the state from disbanding Hezbollah.
• What to think about all those seasoned analysts who are convinced that America will lose this war.

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 and edited by Thomas Small.

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Aimen has been called away for important last-minute insider meetings, so sitting in for him on today's episode is Nadwa Al-Dawsari, veteran researcher, conflict analyst, and policy advisor with 20 years of field experience in Yemen and the broader Middle East.

Nadwa and Thomas discuss:

• How Yemeni tribalism really works
• The IRGC agents who are in control of Houthi war policy
• Houthi eschatological beliefs
• When the Houthis are likely to join the Iran War in force
• What the military capabilities of the Houthis really are
• The long shadow of the Stockholm Agreement
• Houthi techniques of indoctrination and control
• The growing Houthi presence in the Horn of Africa
• How the Houthis and Al Qaeda are now effectively allies
• Why Western decision-makers get the Middle East so disastrously wrong

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

Find Nadwa on X: ⁠⁠https://x.com/Ndawsari⁠⁠

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 and edited by Thomas Small.

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to Harvard professor Sven Beckert about his new book Capitalism: A Global History.

Sven explains:

• Why the history of capitalism matters for understanding the present
• How most histories of capitalism are too Eurocentric
• How merchant communities in the medieval Muslim world and other regions laid the foundations of capitalism
• How European merchants learned from and interacted with merchants in the Muslim world
• Trust networks in global trade, including family, religious, and city-based merchant networks
• How capitalism and state power grew together
• European divergence: why Europe became central to capitalism
• Effects of Ottoman control and European geopolitical weakness on Atlantic expansion
• Role of conquest, slavery, and colonial expansion in building capitalist societies
• Tension between capitalism’s drive for unlimited growth and nature’s limits
• Challenges to neoliberalism from the left and the populist right

Find Sven on Bluesky: @svenbeckert.bsky.social

Visit Sven’s personal website: svenbeckert.com

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

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

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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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All eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz and Kharg Island as the United States and its allies struggle to wrest full control of the Arabo-Persian Gulf from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Aimen and Thomas lay out the whole story of this geostrategically vital region, from ancient times all the way up to this very morning—explaining why this war is happening, and how it is almost certainly to end.

Aimen and Thomas discuss:

• How the Strait of Hormuz caused Noah's Flood
• The medieval Kingdom of Hormuz
• How the Gulf is always caught up in the Iranian plateau's endless boom-and-bust political cycle
• How Europeans staked a claim on Hormuz in 1507—and never really left
• The fact that the U.S. did indeed go into this war with a plan for Hormuz
• How the U.S. will take Kharg Island—and what they will do with it
• The ingenuity of Gulf Arab leadership in planning workarounds for the eventuality of the Strait being closed
• How European powers and other allies are really contributing to the war effort

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

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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 with Ali Ansari, Professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of St Andrews.

Prof. Ansari discusses:

• The depth and antiquity of Iranian culture
• His childhood experiences inside the Shah's inner circle
• The Shah's biggest mistake
• How the revolution could have better built upon what it inherited
• The huge incompetence and corruption that has undermined Iran's political economy
• How the new Supreme Leader is the IRGC's man
• The clarity of America's military aims alongside the opacity of its political aims
• The real weaknesses of the Iran Nuclear Deal
• How Iranians inside Iran feel about the regime and the war

Follow Prof. Ansari on X: ⁠https://x.com/aa51_ansari

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

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

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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 and edited by Thomas Small.

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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

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 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

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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/⁠

Find us on X: ⁠https://x.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 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

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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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