History As It Happens

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Two and a half months after President Trump ordered U.S. forces to bomb Iran, there is no war, no peace, and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed at both ends. The global economy is staggering from the loss of energy resources (oil and natural gas) that normally traverse the strait. Iran wants to establish its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz as part of any settlement. What's actually happening out there? The Wall Street Journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov joins us from Dubai, which faces the Persian Gulf.

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Lebanon, a small country on the Mediterranean coast that cannot defend its borders, is once again stuck in a hellacious bind, between Hezbollah fanaticism and Israeli destruction. Since its long civil war (1975-90), sectarian strife and foreign occupation have intermixed with economic mismanagement and political paralysis, leaving Lebanon in a near-permanent state of crisis. In this episode, Maha Yahya of Carnegie Middle East Center joins us from Beirut to explain the causes of the country's deep domestic problems.
Recommended reading:
Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon by Robert Fisk

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A decade before the state of Israel was born, a revolt rocked the British mandate of Palestine. It was an uprising of Arab peasants directed at their colonial overlords, Zionist immigrants, and Arab elites. The Great Revolt of 1936-1939 nearly succeeded before it was crushed by overwhelming force, a setback from which the Palestinian national movement never truly recovered. When you listen to this episode, you'll hear its echoes in today's crisis.
Our guest is Ted Swedenburg, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arkansas and author of Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past.

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The United States' failure to defeat Iran in an unprovoked, undeclared war is fueling the notion that the U.S. is in decline. Its security commitments cover the globe. The annual defense budget is approaching $1 trillion. But the Pentagon can neither defend its Persian Gulf bases from low-cost drone attacks nor reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Forty years ago, a Yale historian named Paul Kennedy argued in a best-selling book that the U.S., like all great powers, could not avoid relative decline, especially if it failed to square means and ends. In those days, the national debt was $3 trillion. Today, it's soaring toward $40 trillion. Our guest is one of Paul Kennedy's old students, historian Jeremi Suri.
Jeremi Suri teaches history at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He writes the Democracy of Hope newsletter and co-hosts This is Democracy podcast.
Further reading:
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

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Shortly after taking office in 1969, President Richard Nixon believed he might intimidate, through military threats, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam into making concessions at the peace table. In Nixon's words, it was "Madman theory." It didn't work. Today, President Trump has tried to bluster and bluff his way to victory over Iran, even threatening to wipe out Iranian civilization. Now the president hopes a naval blockade will force Tehran into surrendering the Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear ambitions. Historian Carolyn Eisenberg is our guest.
Historian Carolyn Eisenberg teaches at Hofstra University. She is an expert on the Vietnam War and the author of Fire and Rain: Nixon, Kissinger, and the Wars in Southeast Asia.