New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy | Podcasts

Does al-Kadhimi Make the Grade?

In this special Newlines Institute Contours podcast, Iraq experts Rasha Al-Aqeedi, Caroline Rose, and Contours host Nicholas Heras discuss Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s visit to Washington to meet President Joe Biden and what al-Kadhimi’s trip means for the dynamics inside Iraq and for U.S policy on Iraq. Al-Aqeedi, Rose, and Heras give al-Kadhimi a grade for his term as prime minister to date and forecast what to expect next in Iraq. Rasha Al-Aqeedi is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for the Nonstate Actors Program, Caroline Rose is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for Power Vacuums, and Nicholas Heras is the Senior Analyst and Program Head for State Resilience and Fragility, at the Newlines Institute. All three have written extensively on dynamics inside of Iraq, U.S. policy on Iraq, and the geopolitical impact of events in Iraq in the Middle East and beyond the region.

Jordan’s King Visits the White House

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast assesses state resilience and fragility in Jordan and the future of the U.S.-Jordanian relationship. Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with Suha Ma’ayeh, Rana Sweis, and Dr. Curtis R. Ryan to discuss why King Abdullah II’s upcoming visit to the White House to meet President Joe Biden is such a high-stakes meeting for the future of Middle East stability and security. Suha Ma’ayeh is a Jordanian freelance journalist and researcher based in Amman. She has written extensively on domestic politics, Arab spring protests, foreign affairs, terrorism, elections, and corruption, including the crisis in southern Syria and the influx of refugees, for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs. Rana Sweis is a Jordanian journalist and researcher covering political, social and refugee issues in the Middle East, most often for The New York Times, and the founder and managing director of Wishbox Media. She is the author of “Voice of Jordan,” a book that tells the story of Jordan through the lives of ordinary people, including an Iraqi political cartoonist, a Syrian refugee, a female parliamentarian and others. Dr. Curtis R. Ryan is a Professor of Political Science at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. He has written extensively on Jordan's domestic and international politics and is the author of three books on Jordan, most recently, “Jordan and the Arab Uprisings: Regime Survival and Politics Beyond the State.”

Coups and Revolutions in Egypt

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast assesses state resilience and fragility in Egypt and the future of the Egyptian state using one of the best books on this subject, “Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military, and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi ,” by Dr. Amy Austin Holmes. Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with Dr. Holmes and another highly regarded Egypt expert, Mohamed Soltan, to discuss the Egyptian state's response to the three mass uprisings it faced since 2011 and how the Abdel Fattah al-Sisi-led government could adapt to numerous pressures on Egypt's stability. Dr. Amy Austin Holmes is currently a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center. Previously she served, for more than 10 years, as a tenured Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo, where she lived through the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak and al-Sisi's subsequent rise to power. Mohamed Soltan is a human rights policy advocate and founder of The Freedom Initiative, a leading rights organization dedicated to the release of political prisoners in the Arab World. In 2013, Mohamed was shot and detained amid a violent crackdown on dissent following Egypt’s military coup. He began an open-ended hunger strike to protest his unjust imprisonment and inhumane detention conditions, which ultimately lasted 489 days. The Obama Administration, urged by bipartisan members of Congress and international civil society, intervened at the highest levels to facilitate his release in May 2015.

Forecasting Raisi’s Reign in Iran

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast examines dynamics in Iran to watch now that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s protégé Ebrahim Raisi has been elected president. In this episode, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host Nicholas Heras sits down with three noted Iran experts: Professor Neda Bolourchi, associate director of and faculty member in the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Rutgers University-New Brunswick; Amir Toumaj, a research and policy analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and co-founder of Resistance Axis Monitor; and Dr. Kamran Bokhari, the Newlines Institute's director of Analytical Development.

Biden’s Big Trip To Europe

This Newlines Institute Contours podcast presents a deep dive into U.S. President Joe Biden’s inaugural visit to Europe, his administration’s commitment to collective defense, and the fragile trajectory of U.S.-Russian relations ahead of the June 16 Geneva summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. In this episode, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and Contours host, Nicholas Heras, sits down with four special guests: Jim Townsend, Jr., an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security’s Transatlantic Security Program and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy; Rachel Rizzo, the Director of Programs at the Truman Center and Truman National Security Project; Dr. Ariel Cohen, a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Founding Principal of International Market Analysis, Ltd; and Caroline Rose, a Senior Analyst and Head of Newlines Institute’s Power Vacuums Program.

Iraq’s Revolutionary Inflection Point

Newlines Institute’s Rasha Al Aqeedi and The New York Times’ Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf discuss the current state of Iraq’s October Revolution movement that began nearly two years ago. They are joined by a prominent figure in Iraq’s political activism scene. Newlines Institute has decided to keep the activist anonymous for security reasons, as threats and assassinations continue targeting political activists. Newlines Institute’s Nick Heras moderates the discussion.

After Gaza and Jerusalem: What’s Next for Israel and Palestine Part 2

In this two-part Contours podcast, Newlines Institute’s Nicholas A. Heras explores the Palestinian-Israeli crisis with colleague Caroline Rose. They are first joined by Omar Rahman, an expert on the post-Oslo Accords era of this conflict. This episode examines the root causes of Palestinian grievances and explores the limited options available to residents of the West Bank and Gaza.
Our second episode features Newlines Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov and the Shalom-Hartman Institute’s Yossi Klein. They engage in a spirited discussion about how perceptions of the crisis within Israel differ from perspectives globally, and how the U.S. must balance its relationship with Israel while still defending human rights.
We hope that you will listen to both conversations and come away with a greater understanding of how this conflict is being perceived within and outside of the region.
The unfolding civil crisis between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza is already having significant effects in both the Middle East and the international community. The eruption of violence between Israel and the Palestinian Territories has disrupted a series of Arab-Israeli normalization deals, initiated with the 2020 Abraham Accords, and the Biden administration’s planned pivot away from the Middle East as the U.S. focuses on great power competition.
Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy’s Senior Analyst and Head of the State Fragility and Resiliency Program Nicholas Heras sat down with Elizabeth Tsurkov, a non-resident fellow at the Newlines Institute and a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking; Yossi Klein Halevi, a best-selling author and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute; and Caroline Rose, a senior analyst and head of the Power Vacuums program at the Newlines Institute. The four took a deep dive into ongoing tensions within Israel that gave way to a crisis in Gaza, the impact on regional geopolitics, and what this means for the U.S.-Israel relationship.

After Gaza and Jerusalem: What’s Next for Israel and Palestine Part 1

In this two-part Contours podcast, Newlines Institute’s Nicholas A. Heras explores the Palestinian-Israeli crisis with colleague Caroline Rose. They are first joined by Omar Rahman, an expert on the post-Oslo Accords era of this conflict. This episode examines the root causes of Palestinian grievances and explores the limited options available to residents of the West Bank and Gaza.
Our second episode features Newlines Institute Fellow Elizabeth Tsurkov and the Shalom-Hartman Institute’s Yossi Klein. They engage in a spirited discussion about how perceptions of the crisis within Israel differ from perspectives globally, and how the U.S. must balance its relationship with Israel while still defending human rights.
We hope that you will listen to both conversations and come away with a greater understanding of how this conflict is being perceived within and outside of the region.
The unfolding civil crisis between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza is already having significant regional effects in both the Middle East and the international community. The eruption of violence between Israel and the Palestinian Territories has disrupted a series of Arab-Israeli normalization deals, initiated with the 2020 Abraham Accords, and the Biden administration’s planned pivot away from the Middle East as the United States focuses on great power competition.
Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy’s Senior Analyst and Head of the State Fragility and Resiliency Program Nicholas Heras sat down with Omar Rahman, a respected analyst and expert on post-Oslo era Palestinian politics at the Brookings Doha Center, and the Head of Newlines’ Power Vacuums program Senior Analyst Caroline Rose. The three took a deep dive into ongoing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian Territories, what this means for Palestinian political consensus, and the impact on regional geopolitics.

Is Putin Planning a New Push into Ukraine?

This Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy podcast reviews the unfolding military escalation on the Russian-Ukrainian border, as Russian forces strengthen their posture and pose a potential stress test of the Biden administration, U.S. European allies, and the NATO alliance. To discuss this potential crisis in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Newlines Institute Senior Analyst and head of the Authoritarianism Program Nicholas Heras is joined by three top analysts on Russian foreign policy and Eastern European geopolitics: Caroline Rose, Eugene Chausovsky, and Jeff Hawn.
Caroline Rose is a senior analyst at the Newlines Institute for Policy and Strategy and is a foreign policy specialist on the Middle East and Europe. She is the head of Newlines’ Strategic Vacuums Program. Eugene Chausovsky is a non-resident Fellow with the Newlines Institute, focusing on the political, economic, and security issues pertaining to Russia, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Jeff Hawn is an independent geopolitical risk consultant based in London. He has published extensively on U.S.-Russian relations and the evolution of Russian domestic and foreign policy.
In this discussion, they cover the local, regional, and geopolitical dynamics of this crisis in Eastern Europe, and to forecast the potential consequences of a new Russian campaign in Ukraine.
Since the Russian intervention in Crimea in the Black Sea region and the emergence of the Donbass conflict in 2014, Russia and Ukraine have locked horns over Russian-backed separatist forces that have seized large areas of Ukraine’s eastern and Russia-bordering Donbass region. Despite efforts to achieve mediation and a permanent cease-fire, the conflict has continued to simmer, with repeated clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and Russia-backed separatist forces in the border region, without spilling into open fighting between the two countries.
Recent Russian moves to deploy an estimated 4,000 personnel and a series of combat brigades, artillery, armor, and logistical units-from different parts of Russia to within close proximity of the Russian border with the Donbass has raised alarm bells in Kyiv, Brussels, and Washington. There is now concern that Russia may launch an offensive into Ukraine and increase aggressive behavior towards former Soviet satellite states in an attempt to carve out greater influence in its Eastern European periphery.
While Ukraine is not a NATO member and the U.S. advisory presence in Ukraine is small, a renewed Russian-backed military campaign in the Donbass region would impact the more than 72,000 U.S. military personnel who are deployed in Europe and threaten NATO’s interest in protecting European territorial integrity.

Policy and Livelihoods: A Conversation on Syrian Refugees

With no end in sight for the Syrian civil war, the country’s 6 million refugees and 6 million internally displaced peoples (IDPs) face an uncertain future. Those who have fled to other countries to escape the violence face deplorable conditions in refugee camps and years-long waits for resettlement, while IDPs live in constant fear of the ongoing hostilities in Syria. Compounding these issues is the COVID-19 pandemic, to which refugees and IDPs are all the more vulnerable given their lack of access to health services, as well as restricting travel. So what options do Syrian refugees have for relief? Dina Dajani, Deputy Director of the Newlines Institute's Displacement and Migration Program, speaks with Sahar Atrache, senior advocate for the Middle East at Refugees International, about the Syrian refugee crisis.
Atrache begins the conversation by relating the story of Reema, a Ph.D. student who fled Damascus with her three children and from there lived in Lebanon, Jordan, and eventually the United States. Reema applied for temporary protective status in 2016, but it still has not been approved, and her status is increasingly tenuous amid the Trump administration’s refugee policies.
Despite this, Reema is relatively lucky, Atrache says. Those scattered across the region in countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, and Greece are living in inhospitable conditions in refugee camps with little access to clean water, sanitation, or even adequate shelter. In Turkey, an economic downturn has turned people against refugees, who have faced attacks, assaults, lack of work, and deportation. The Turkish government also has used Syrian refugees in its political power struggles against the European Union.
These problems are exacerbated by countries that have begun to push back on accepting more refugees and push refugees to return to Syria, accompanied by a false narrative that the country has entered a period of relative stability. Atrache says that for many refugees, it is simply not possible to return home for fear of political oppression for their past dissent against the Syrian regime.
The situation is no better for IDPs, Atrache says, a significant number of whom are living in camps in Idlib province, the last stronghold of the opposition. Idlib has faced multiple offensives from the regime in the past year, which have displaced millions of people. The refugee camps are overcrowded and lack basic services, and the people living there feel trapped between the regime’s assaults on one side and the closed Turkish border on the other.
These issues have only been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has restricted travel between countries and threatened outbreaks at refugee camps. Atrache says there has not yet been a real COVID-19 outbreak in a refugee setting, but the consequences of one, if it happens, will be devastating because of the refugees’ lack of access to health services. These refugees already are feeling the economic impact of the pandemic, which is further restricting their access to already-scarce work.
For Syrian refugees in the United States, Atrache says a lot hinges on the upcoming presidential election. President Donald Trump and his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, have widely different views on Syrian refugees, with the Trump administration taking a hard line on accepting Syrians and other immigrants and Biden pledging to reverse the administration’s policies. If Trump wins re-election, the futures of Syrians in the United States such as Reema will become even more uncertain.