Why are we still “kicking the hornet’s nest”? The last time Mark Labberton interviewed Daniel Zoughbie (UC Berkeley/UCSF) for his expertise on international diplomacy in the Middle East, there was not yet an Iran war. Regardless of your geographical distance, this war is imminently important as it escalates and impacts not just Iran but the entire Middle East and the entire world economy.
Taking seriously both the significance and validity of Israel as a nation and the need for appropriate and just treatment of all Jews, Christians, and Muslims during a time of rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, this conversation comes at a volatile moment, pregnant with violence and chaos in American foreign policy.
Starting the timeline at the 2018 US exit from the “Iran nuclear deal” (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) Zoughbie discusses a variety of interconnected issues, including the role of Middle Eastern geography such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandab (“Gate of Tears”), the proliferation cascade a Saudi Arabian nuclear program could set off, and the difference between tactical brilliance and strategic vision.
Together, they also consider hopes for improvement, looking at Gerald Ford’s unpopular but effective ultimatum that forced Egypt and Israel to talk; the Olmert-Abbas negotiations that almost reached a two-state solution; the role of Christianity in politics; the danger of national pride; wisdom from antiquity in Herodotus, Croesus, and Cyrus the Great; and a definition of greatness that has nothing to do with force.
