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An ex-Al Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy and a former monk turned filmmaker, have been embedded at the heart of conflicts in the Middle East. Together Aimen Dean and Thomas Small unpack the realities of war, fundamentalism and their global implications through first-hand experience.

CONFLICTED

What does the future hold for the Middle East — and the world — in 2026?

In this special episode of Conflicted, Thomas instructs Aimen to peer into his crystal ball and offer his forecasts for the year to come.

In this episode, Aimen and Thomas discuss:

 
How professional geopolitical analysts make forecasts

 
The impossibility of foreseeing Black Swan events

 
Why an end to the war in Ukraine could reshape Middle Eastern geopolitics

 
The likelihood of a U.S. war against the Houthis in Yemen

 
Renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon

 
The strategic importance of the Gulf states

 
Iran’s nuclear programme, proxy network, and the risk of renewed confrontation

Add your predictions to your 2026 Forecast Card here: https://forms.gle/sMCbRFmFTBdcfEDd8 

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.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 by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
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The 2026 Middle East Forecast

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with Lorenzo Vidino, Director of the Programme on Extremism at The George Washington University.

What happens when an ideological movement is neither a terrorist organisation nor an ordinary religious group — but something in between? One of the world’s leading experts on the Muslim Brotherhood explains…

 
The early history of Islam in America

 
The first Brotherhood-linked students arriving in the U.S. in the 50s and 60s

 
The formation of the first American Brotherhood cells

 
The Brotherhood’s gradual institutional influence across the 80s and 90s

 
Why CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) is so controversial

 
Germany’s three-fold classification system and what the U.S. can learn from it

Follow Lorenzo on: X, BlueSky, LinkedIn, and YouTube. 

Check out his books:

 
The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2010)

 
The Closed Circle: Joining and Leaving the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (Columbia University Press, 2020).

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.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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What the U.S. Gets Wrong About the Muslim Brotherhood

The Middle East is shifting again, and fast. In this wide-ranging overview, Aimen and Thomas break down the hidden forces reshaping the geopolitical chessboard as 2025 draws to a close.

In this episode, Aimen and Thomas uncover:

 
The power of Saudi Arabia’s discovery of vast rare-earth reserves

 
The U.S.–Saudi grand bargain

 
Why the F-35 sale to Saudi Arabia rattled Israel and what it means for the future of the Abraham Accords

 
Iran’s deepening water crisis and Gulf states’ preparations for instability

 
The simmering tensions between India and Pakistan

 
Afghanistan’s compounded crises

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.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.

Produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Saudi Arabia’s New Bargaining Chip

In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks with Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat about the Muslim Brotherhood.

What happens when a Western democracy encounters an ideological movement it no longer has the language — or the institutions — to understand?

The former Security Minister and long-time observer of the Middle East explains what the Brotherhood is, how it operates, and why the British state is struggling to deal with it.

In this episode, Thomas questions Tom about…

 
Tom’s time in Egypt during the Arab Spring

 
His conversations with Brotherhood members

 
The UK government’s secretive 2014 review of the Brotherhood a nd why Parliament challenged it

 
The institutional blind spots inside Whitehall and MI5

 
How Brotherhood-linked networks operate in Britain today

 
Why talking openly about the Brotherhood is so politically and legally fraught

 
Strategies for the UK government to tackle the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood

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

Subscribe to Tom Tugendhat’s Substack here: https://tomtugendhat.substack.com/ 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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

Has the Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrated the UK?

Conflicted is back. Aimen and Thomas return with a renewed mission and a bold vision for the future of the show. In this special relaunch episode, they look back at the journey so far, celebrate the global community that’s grown around Conflicted, and reveal what’s coming next in an ever-more turbulent world.

In this episode, Aimen and Thomas:

 
Offer a sweeping recap of Conflicted’s story arcs, themes, and analyses

 
Reveal what the next phase of Conflicted has in store for dear listeners

 
Reassert Conflicted’s commitment to rising above the polarisation and simplifications dominating mainstream media

 
Celebrate the many friends of the show—journalists, scholars, analysts—who have helped Conflicted become a global phenomenon

 
Thank the listeners whose engagement, questions, and curiosity have shaped Conflicted’s direction (and good-naturedly endured Aimen’s dad jokes) 

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflictedLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Conflicted Returns: A New Era Begins

This week on Conflicted, we’re unlocking another episode we first released for members of the Conflicted Community. 

In this interview from last January, I talk with Martin Plaut, a distinguished journalist who has reported on conflicts across Africa for decades, and whose book Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray War was an essential resource for us in preparing our series on Ethiopia. We discuss:

 
Ethiopia’s recent Tigray War and why it proved so consequential for the Horn of Africa

 
How the federal government — with Eritrean support — turned against the Tigray region despite its long rule in Ethiopia

 
Martin’s personal story of growing up in apartheid South Africa and his early political activism

 
His current work on the history of African slavery and common misconceptions surrounding it

Speaking of slavery in Africa, Martin’s latest book Unbroken Chains: A 5,000-Year History of African Enslavement has recently been published. I hope to get Martin back onto the podcast to talk all about it!

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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Conflicted Revisited: Ethiopia’s Overlooked Conflict

This week on Conflicted, Thomas is joined by T.V. Paul, Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.

Prof. Paul is one of the world’s leading thinkers in international relations and author of Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era and The Unfinished Quest: India’s Search for Major Power Status from Nehru to Modi.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Thomas speaks with Prof. Paul about:

 
India’s strategy as a rising power in a shifting multipolar world

 
How ‘soft balancing’ works as an alternative to military alliances

 
The benign and malign dimensions of American hegemony

 
Why globalization both empowered and destabilized the global middle class

 
India’s complex status anxiety and its quest for recognition

 
How China and India navigate rivalry, nationalism, and regional threats

 
The future of the liberal international order—and whether it can survive

 
What a new global settlement might require from the West, China, and India alike

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

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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India and the Future of World Order: A Conversation with T.V. Paul

This week on Conflicted, we’re unlocking for everyone an episode we first released a year ago for members of the Conflicted Community — an interview with Hussam Mahjoub, a Sudanese journalist, political activist, and founder of the independent TV channel Sudan Bukra, which has become a vital source of truth amid the chaos of war.

When it was recorded, Sudan was already sliding into catastrophe. But in the months since, the country has fallen even further into one of the world’s most devastating wars. The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has shattered the country: communications have collapsed, hospitals have shut, and millions are displaced or facing famine.

In this conversation, Hussam helps us understand how Sudan got here. He traces the rise of the RSF from the Janjaweed militias that terrorised Darfur twenty years ago, and walks us through Sudan’s modern history, from the long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, to the 2019 revolution, and the collapse of hopes for civilian rule.

Hussam also offers an insider’s view of the regional powers shaping Sudan’s fate — Egypt, the Gulf states, and Russia’s Wagner network — and how rivalries over gold, trade, and influence have turned Sudan’s agony into a proxy struggle.

Listening now, his analysis feels prophetic. The structural forces he identified then have since erupted into the full-scale war we see today.

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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Conflicted Revisited… Husam Mahjoub – How Foreign States are Fuelling Sudan’s Civil War

This week on Conflicted, Thomas Small is joined by Patrick McGee, technology reporter and author of the phenomenal new book, Apple in China. Patrick provides an exclusive look at how Apple, in its relentless pursuit of operational excellence, drove a unique form of globalization that profoundly reshaped the economic and geopolitical world.

Thomas and Patrick dissect the story of Apple's pivot from near-bankruptcy to becoming a global superpower, focusing on the often-overlooked genius of CEO Tim Cook - the operations mastermind who built a manufacturing model that, while pioneering, effectively hollowed out US industrial capacity. They explore the critical role of Taiwan’s Foxconn and its founder, Terry Gou, who understood that Apple’s demanding processes were not exploitation, but a unique, fast-track training program that turned China into an advanced manufacturing powerhouse. The conversation follows the narrative from production to consumption, revealing the chaos and extraordinary demand of the Chinese retail market, the political awakening of the company under Xi Jinping's rising power, and the ultimate irony: Apple, the champion of individual liberty, forging a $275 billion partnership with America's foremost geopolitical rival. The episode is a must-listen for understanding the true forces that built the 21st-century global economy.

You can find Patrick @patrickmcgee_

To listen to more episodes like this - and to get lots more benefits upcoming very soon - you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more.

All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Conflicted is proudly made by Message Heard, a full-stack podcast production agency which uses its extensive expertise to make its own shows such as Conflicted, shows for commissioners such as the BBC, Spotify and Al Jazeera, and powerfully effective podcasts for other companies too. If you’d like to find out how we can help get your organisation’s message heard, visit messageheard.com or drop an email to hello@messageheard.com!

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflictedLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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CC: Patrick McGee – How Apple Built a Superpower

Another revisited interview from the Conflicted Community Interview archive this week, as we get ready for more Conflicted episodes coming soon… This time, the FULL interview with Hamza Howidy - a Gazan who years ago was forced to flee to Europe, telling us about his experiences and his vision for a post-Hamas Gaza…

–

This week, Thomas speaks with Hamza Howidy, a Palestinian activist originally from Gaza now living in exile in Germany. Hamza shares his extraordinary story of growing up under Hamas rule and the constant threat of Israeli military action on the one hand, and the brutality of Hamas on the other.

 

Hamza was forced to leave Gaza due to his involvement in protests against Hamas in 2019 and 2023, taking the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean from Turkey to Europe to do so. Hamza offers a vital and nuanced perspective on life in Gaza, the internal political dynamics between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and his vision for a future free from Hamas's governance. He candidly discusses the brutal realities faced by those who dissent against Hamas and his own experiences of protest and imprisonment.

Conflicted is proudly made by Message Heard, a full-stack podcast production agency which uses its extensive expertise to make its own shows such as Conflicted, shows for commissioners such as the BBC, Spotify and Al Jazeera, and powerfully effective podcasts for other companies too. If you’d like to find out how we can help get your organisation’s message heard, visit messageheard.com or drop an email to hello@messageheard.com!

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted

And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted

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

Conflicted Revisited… Hamza Howidy – Protest, Exile, and a Post-Hamas Vision of Gaza

This week for our Conflicted Community, we answer your questions about the recent events and escalation in the Middle East. From Hezbollah bombing a Druze village in the Golan Heights, to the Israeli response of assassinating Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, and Hamas political leader Ismael Haniyeh, it looks like escalation into regional war could well be imminent. But how did Israel pull off these targeted killings? What next for Hezbollah and Hamas? And how will Iran respond? Thomas and Aimen are here to discuss all this and more, including questions from dearest listeners on terrorist financing, and the recent riots in the UK.

To keep listening, you’ll need to subscribe to the Conflicted Community. And don’t forget, subscribers can also join our Conflicted Community chatroom, where you can interact with fellow dearest listeners, discuss episodes past and future, get exclusive messages from Thomas and Aimen, ask future Q&A questions and so much more.

All the information you need to sign up is on this link: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm/ 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Conflicted Community: Q&A – Hezbollah and Hamas Leaders Assassinated… What Next?

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