Middle East: Oil and Turmoil

Who Controls Southern Lebanon? | Amb. Danny Danon on the Israel-Lebanon Framework

Israel and Lebanon have signed a framework agreement both sides are calling historic. Lebanon’s parliament speaker has rejected it, warning of civil war. A secret security annex has leaked. And the question of whether Hezbollah will actually disarm remains open. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon joins MBN Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly to defend the agreement, respond to its harshest critics, and explain what comes next for southern Lebanon, for Hezbollah, and for a region he says is being reshaped. The Diplomat is produced by MBN/Alhurra.

Middle East: Oil and Turmoil

Four months into the war with Iran, Congress just voted on whether it should continue. Congressman Michael Baumgartner was at the center of that debate. A member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Middle East subcommittee, Baumgartner served at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and in Afghanistan before Congress, and first visited the region as a student thirty years ago. In this episode, he tells Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly what was actually buried, not destroyed, in Iran's nuclear program, why Iran's negotiating leverage may run out in months, and why the future of Lebanon depends on whether Hezbollah's grip can be broken.

Nothing Works Without Stability

The war with Iran is paused, not closed. Gaza is at a stalemate with no clear way forward. Lebanon is holding under a fragile ceasefire. And Washington just released a counterterrorism strategy that is raising alarm among the people who wrote the original playbook. Two of the most decorated American diplomats alive sit down with Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly to tell you what the headlines are missing. Ambassador Ryan Crocker survived the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing, the deadliest attack on American diplomatic life in history. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He says the U.S.-Iran talks are not negotiations. They are messages being passed. And that Iran cannot be bombed into submission. Ambassador Susan Ziadeh was in Jerusalem the night Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. She spent her career across the Gulf and the Levant. She says the Gulf states are not coordinating with Washington on Gaza, they are running parallel. And that the billion-dollar reconstruction fund has come to a standstill. Together they reach the same conclusion from opposite ends of the region: nothing good happens, nothing moves, nothing is built, without stability first. The Diplomat is produced by MBN/Alhurra. New episodes every week.

The Middle East Rewritten: This Is the Inside Story

Ambassador Tom Nides served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Biden. He had screaming matches with Netanyahu. He sat with families who buried their children. He was in the room when Saudi normalization almost happened. Now he is speaking freely. In this episode of The Diplomat, Nides joins Washington Bureau Chief Joe Kawly and MBN Editor-in-Chief Leila Bazzi for a wide-ranging, unfiltered conversation about the new Middle East taking shape after the Iran war, the collapse of the old map, and what American diplomacy actually looks like behind closed doors. He calls Ben-Gvir "a thug." He says the JCPOA will effectively come back under a different name. He argues that regime change in Iran can only succeed from the bottom up. And he reveals what he was quietly doing for Palestinians while serving as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, something most people never knew. This is the kind of honesty rarely heard in Washington. And that is exactly why it matters.

S2 E8 | After Khamenei: Who Rules Iran Now?

Khamenei is gone, but the real story is not his death. It is the dangerous vacuum now opening behind him. In this urgent episode of The Diplomat, Joe Kawly, Washington Bureau Chief, sits down with Alex Vatanka, one of Washington’s most respected Iran analysts, to break down the power vacuum now opening inside Tehran. Who takes over after Khamenei? Does the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tighten its grip, or does the system begin to fracture from within? And if the regime falls, is anyone actually ready for what comes after? This is not just a conversation about Iran. It is about the future of the Middle East, the risks of state collapse, the danger of regional spillover, and the question no one can dodge anymore: can the Islamic Republic survive the moment that finally tested it from every direction at once? A must-listen for anyone following Iran, regime change, Gulf security, U.S. foreign policy, and the next phase of the Middle East.