Marc Lynch

[upbeat music] Hi, I'm Marc Lynch, director of the Project on Middle East Political Science.

Welcome to the new season of the Middle East Political Science Podcast.

Uh, this week we're gonna start off by talking to Inna Rudov about her new book from Manchester University Press called Iraq's Shia Warriors: From Battlefield to Parliament.

And so, uh, when we return, uh, we'll be speaking with Inna Rudov about her book, Iraq's Shia Warriors.

[upbeat music] This is the Middle East Political Science Podcast.

I'm Marc Lynch, and we're joined by Inna Rudov, a research fellow at King's College London, author of this great new book, Iraq's Shia Warriors: From Battlefield to Parliament.

Uh, Inna, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

And that continuity is real too.

[upbeat music] Okay, now we move on to Marc Lynch's quote, The End of the American Middle East.

It's also in Foreign Affairs.

Lynch's argument is the opposite of Gause's.

So the first sentence is, quote, "Outsiders continue to play their balance of power games within the borders of weak Arab states.

Overall, the Middle East emerging out of this upheaval looks a lot like the one that existed before." The second sentence is, quote, "The American Middle East is finished." And the third sentence is, quote, "It is no longer possible to talk about a US-led order in the Middle East." These are all from articles published in Foreign Affairs or directly on the Council on Foreign Relations website by Gregg Goss, Marc Lynch and Steven Cook.

They're all looking at the same set of facts and arriving at some opposed conclusions about whether something around the US role has actually ended.

I think there's a lot here that is accurate and, like, worthy of engagement, but the focus for me is a little off.

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[upbeat music] Okay, now we move on to Mark Lynch's, quote, the end of the American Middle East.

It's also in Foreign Affairs.