CONFLICTED

Latest Episodes:

🚨 Emergency Episode: The Iran War Has Begun 🚨 Feb 28, 2026

Show notes

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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African Slavery: The Untold Story Feb 26, 2026

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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/

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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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Conflicted Revisited: Spying for Saudi Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

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/

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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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The People Who Became Arabs Feb 19, 2026

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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

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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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Trump, Netanyahu, and the Iran Endgame Feb 17, 2026

Show notes

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/

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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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How the US is Abandoning its Afghan Allies Feb 12, 2026

Show notes

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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The CIA’s Zero Units in Afghanistan Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

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/

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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 by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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Why China’s Rise Cannot Be Stopped Feb 05, 2026

Show notes

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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Trump vs Iran: The War That Wasn’t Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

In this semi-emergency episode, Aimen helps Thomas unpack the last eight months of escalating tension and threats between the US and Iran, and explains why it’s now unlikely the American ‘armada’ President Trump sent to the Gulf will be going to war with Iran anytime soon.

Thomas and Aimen discuss:

How the 12-Day War changed Iran
Why Israel’s Doha strike jolted the Gulf and accelerated a ceasefire
The Saudi–Pakistan defence pact and the Abraham Accords fallout
How the region became more militarized and less diplomatically aligned
Iran’s protest wave and the regime’s unspeakably brutal crackdown
How Trump’s promises were empty from the start
Why this may be Trump’s ‘Obama red line’ moment
What this latest example of TACO signals to China

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 by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paul Kenyon: 30 Years Under Fire as a BBC War Reporter Jan 29, 2026

Show notes

In this episode, Thomas talks to distinguished BBC journalist Paul Kenyon about his new podcast series Two Nottingham Lads. Paul recalls highlights from his remarkable career, which has taken him from Iran to Libya to Ukraine to Stockport —as he watched, in real time, America lose its grip on the international order.

Paul talks about:

How two Nottingham lads ended up on opposite sides of the Ukraine War
The time he was detained by Iranian secret police
Watching anti-Gaddafi tribesmen ride into Benghazi on horseback
Accompanying unarmed Ukrainian guards as they marched uphill toward Russian troops
Getting to know the notorious ISIS brides in the Midlands
Being the only BBC journalist in Liverpool who witnessed the outbreak of the riots there in summer 2004

Listen to Two Nottingham Lads here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002ntm9

Follow Paul on X: https://x.com/paulkenyonTV

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

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices