Dispatch: Sam Kiley on the Middle East

"History is happening to people who have become very complacent about history being a thing that happens to other people."

That's Sam Kiley, near the end of our conversation. And the line I keep coming back to.

Sam has covered every major conflict of the past thirty years — from Somalia, Rwanda and Iraq, to Afghanistan, Ukraine and — now — the widening war in the Middle East. He is World Affairs Editor of The Independent, a two-time Emmy winner, and — perhaps most usefully — not an American journalist. So he has no institutional reason to edit what he reports.

I called him on March 29th, two days after the Houthis entered the fight and the day after President Zelenskyy signed defence agreements with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We covered a lot of ground: the logic, or lack of it, behind the US-Israeli strikes on Iran; what the Mosaic defence strategy means for anyone still thinking in 20th-century military terms; why Houthi involvement could reshape global trade in ways most people aren't tracking; and what Gaza's endgame actually looks like when you strip away the noise.

There was also something I didn't expect: a case that the war in the Middle East may be doing more for Ukraine's long-term survival than three years of Western military aid. And a question about where, right now, Sam sees the ingredients for a coup most clearly assembled.

The answer is not where most people would look.

Photo: Bjoern Wylezich

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Credits:

Host: Meredith Ogilvie-Thompson

Sound Editing: Dax Krishna and the team at SpeechDocs

Music: Ilya Kuznetsov