Rioting over a lack of educational resources in France, yet somehow the looters found every luxury boutique, electronics shop and footwear store while missing every bookshop and stationery store!🧐

Total solidarity with the 🇸🇦 Kingdom 🇸🇦 against the pan-regional IRGC/Houthi terrorism🫡

Sudan’s civil war has become a regional proxy struggle, with the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Turkey and other powers backing rival armed camps as the country fragments under the pressure of war. But while the RSF’s foreign support has drawn intense scrutiny, the forces sustaining Sudan’s army - from Islamist networks to drones, money and weapons supplied from abroad - have received far less attention. Aimen and Thomas discuss: Why Sudan has become everyone’s proxy war The UAE, the RSF - and the case against the usual narrative Who is really backing Burhan’s army? How the Muslim Brotherhood returned through Sudan’s war Iran, Turkey and the drone war changing the battlefield The hidden regional contest between Egypt and Ethiopia Did Sudan’s army use chemical weapons? Can the outside powers stop the war they helped sustain? podcasts.apple.com/ae/podcas…

Is the Ayatollah’s chief national security official already taking responsibility for today’s attempted terror attack involving FlyDubai flight?! 🧐

Multiple senior Iranian officials have made several threats over the past 12 days, warning that if Iranian planes can’t fly, then no one in the region will fly! Then, an Emirati 🇦🇪 plane flying over Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 with dozens of Israeli 🇮🇱 passengers on board was almost hijacked and crashed by a rogue pilot. This is NOT a coincidence!

This is the biggest news no one is talking about. The Iranian rial has just breached 2.5 million to the US dollar. Conflicted Podcast listeners will know I’ve long said: once we hit this level, the black market is pricing in renewed conflict, and the risk of regime’s implosion!

My two wonderful business partners!😎 Or shall I say, my partners in crime!😈🇯🇴🇦🇪 @AlMajlisGroup @dbelhoul

Every region-watcher was stunned over past week as the anti-Houthi forces in Yemen suffered an extremely brutal reversal, with global consequences. Aimen lifts up the curtain of inter-Gulf politics to help Thomas understand better what went wrong, and why Saudi Arabia's confused foreign policy may deserve the lion's share of the blame. Aimen and Thomas discuss: Did Iran dupe Saudi Arabia? How the Houthis humiliated their rivals Mocha falls: Bab al-Mandab exposed Saudi Arabia’s oil lifeline gets hit Why Yemen’s anti-Houthi coalition imploded The bitter Saudi-UAE divorce Has Qatar reshaped Saudi foreign policy? Why Trump refused MBS’s rescue call? podcasts.apple.com/ae/podcas…

To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Aimen and Thomas take a deeper, wider look at the historical, ideological, and geopolitical context on either side of that momentous world-changing event. They discuss: Was 9/11 an ending as well as a beginning? Al-Qaeda’s attacks as the culmination of decades of revolution, failed political projects and Cold War conflict. The myth of the peaceful 1990s: a decade remembered for Western optimism but experienced elsewhere through war, state collapse and economic upheaval. America inherited a geopolitical mess: the Soviet collapse created opportunities for US dominance—and left behind dependent regimes, armed movements and unresolved conflicts. America as a revolutionary power: how US opposition to European imperialism and willingness to work with radical movements complicate its image as the defender of established order. Could preserving Middle Eastern monarchies have prevented later disasters? Aimen’s provocative counterfactual about revolution, state-building and the road to 9/11. Al-Qaeda and liberal globalisation: enemies with something in common? Their very different challenges to national sovereignty and visions of a world transcending borders. Jihadism amid the wreckage of earlier promises: how disappointed hopes for national liberation, Arab unity and socialism shaped the world in which al-Qaeda emerged. Was the War on Terror a rupture or an acceleration? Older American objectives pursued with new urgency, alongside an expansion of surveillance and state power. Bin Laden’s selective use of history: how an analogy with medieval siege warfare became a justification for killing civilians on 9/11. History without a puppet master: why examining competing ambitions and unintended consequences can leave us less certain about who controls events - and what sensible policy requires. podcasts.apple.com/ae/podcas…

The big question hanging over this entire new chapter of the Yemen war is a very simple one: Where is the Saudi Air Force? Without Saudi air cover, Yemeni government forces that have depended heavily on Riyadh’s backing face an enormous problem. They are confronting the Houthis with no Saudi air cover, no American air cover, and - perhaps more importantly - no confidence that overwhelming air power will arrive when they need it. That is potentially devastating for morale. The Houthis understand this perfectly. They are advancing, taking territory and seeking to consolidate control over strategically critical positions around Bab el-Mandeb. If Saudi-backed Yemeni forces believe they have effectively been left to fight alone, the psychological consequences could be almost as important as the military ones. And this brings us back to the lesson Saudi Arabia should have learned from the fighting between 2018 and 2022: You cannot fight half a war. Either Riyadh decides that preventing an Iranian-backed Houthi victory in Yemen is a strategic imperative and commits the military power necessary to pursue that objective, or it accepts that the Houthis may ultimately dominate Yemen. Saudi Arabia possesses one of the largest and most modern combat-air fleets in the region. If that capability is deliberately kept out of the battle, then Saudi-backed forces on the ground will inevitably ask what exactly they are being expected to fight for, and with what support. Half-wars do not produce half-results. They produce total failures. And if the Houthis really have taken Mocha, then I cannot resist the terrible dad joke: Mocha has been iced🤦🏻‍♂️