ROPESCAST

Elizabeth Tsurkov has spent years doing what most researchers only read about — traveling into conflict zones, sitting with militia commanders, and listening to the people living inside the stories we think we understand. A doctoral candidate at Princeton and fellow at both the Middle East Policy Council in Washington and the Forum for Regional Thinking in Jerusalem, she is one of the sharpest independent voices on the Arab world today. In 2023, while conducting field research in Iraq, she was abducted by an Iranian-backed militia and held for 903 days before being released in 2025. In this conversation, she reflects on that heartbreaking experience — and on what Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the wider Middle East actually look like up close, beyond the headlines and the misconceptions that keep getting in the way.Chapters:00:00 Introduction01:45 Surviving 903 Days in Captivity03:43 The Dissertation That Kept Her Going12:04 Inside Iraq's Corruption Machine15:49 What Iraq Is Really Like30:29 Was It Worth Going to Iraq?34:26 How Captivity Changed Elizabeth Tsurkov40:00 What's Really Happening in Syria?51:03 Is Syria's New Leader Still a Jihadist?56:08 Is Peace Between Israel and Syria Possible?🌐 Learn more about ROPES:  www.ropes.org📩 Don’t forget to subscribe to the ROPESCAST for more stories of peace, dialogue, and impact across the Middle East.

In this episode of ROPESCAST, Ksenia Svetlova sits down with Dr. Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, who offers an interesting perspective on the shifting strategic landscape of the region.The discussion centers on Iran’s proxies and the evolving dynamics of relations between Tehran and Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. Dr. Vakil explains how these groups have institutionalized themselves as both political, military and social forces.She paints a rather complicated picture of what has happened since the beginning of the Iran war, illustrating why a purely military approach to defeating these groups often fails to address the underlying regional reality.A significant portion of the conversation interrogates the decision-making process within the current U.S. administration. Dr. Vakil analyzes what she describes as a “hollowing out” of regional expertise in Washington and cautions against the dangerous allure of seeking “easy wins” against the Islamic Republic—a regime that operates on a strategic calculus built over decades of survival.The episode concludes with a look at the Palestinian arena and the influence of the war in Iran on it.Chapters:00:00 – Welcome to ROPESCAST02:13 – “Did Anyone Expect This War?”03:50 – How October 7 Reshaped the Middle East05:02 – Israel’s Miscalculation on Iran06:32 – How Iran Built the “Axis of Resistance”09:45 – Why Hezbollah & Hamas Can’t Be Defeated Militarily15:27 – After Soleimani: The Axis Reinvents Itself21:37 – Washington’s Iran Expertise “Hollowed Out”26:31 – A New Middle East Security Order?34:44 – “The Real War Was Disinformation39:15 – Can This Conflict End Through Negotiation?🌐 Learn more about ROPES:  ropes.org📩 Don’t forget to subscribe to the ROPESCAST for more stories of peace, dialogue, and impact across the Middle East.

In a special 50th episode of ROPESCAST, Ksenia Svetlova sits down with Ahmed Khuzaie, a strategic analyst from Bahrain who doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the reality of Gulf security.We recorded this as the region continues to deal with the messy aftermath of the war in Iran and the persistent weight of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmed has a fascinating take on the Abraham Accords—he respects the history they made but argues they’ve already reached their limit. He walks us through his vision for "Abraham Accords 2.0," a necessary evolution designed to handle the much more complex security threats we’re seeing today.One of the most striking parts of our conversation is how he clarifies Bahrain’s stance on Tehran. While some neighbors have wavered or tried different diplomatic paths, Ahmed explains why Manama has stayed remarkably consistent. For Bahrain the Iranian threat was never a theory; it’s a reality they’ve lived with, which is why they’ve maintained a firm policy against normalization with the Islamic Republic.We also talk about how the war has fundamentally shifted what the Gulf cares about most, and whether the Accords can actually help stabilize the Palestinian arena.Chapters: 00:00 — Welcome to ROPESCAST00:50 — Bahrain Under Fire03:33 — Why Iran Targets Bahrain07:12 — The Myth of Bahrain’s “Shia Majority”12:28 — Did the Abraham Accords Make Bahrain a Target?15:25 — “The Gulf Will Never Be the Same Again”16:34 — Was the Iran War Worth It?24:26 — Inside Iran’s Fragile Power Structure28:21 — Abraham Accords 2.036:14 — Can Arabs Ever Accept Israel?🌐 Learn more about ROPES:  ropes.org📩 Don’t forget to subscribe to the ROPESCAST for more stories of peace, dialogue, and impact across the Middle East.

Our new ROPESCAST episode features a high-stakes dialogue between host Ksenia Svetlova and Elliott Abrams, a veteran U.S. diplomat and foundational figure in American foreign policy who served as Deputy National Security Advisor and Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela. The discussion offers an analysis of the recent conflict with the Iranian regime, interrogating the strategic paradox of an American kinetic campaign that successfully neutralized key military assets while intentionally eschewing a ground invasion, thereby leaving the regime’s governance structures and its control over the Strait of Hormuz effectively intact. Moving beyond the tactical, Abrams—now a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—analyzes the ties between Israel and the US and discusses the military aid to Israel, settler violence and upcoming elections in Israel.The dialogue concludes by evaluating the Abraham Accords’ durability after the war with Iran, illustrating how the framework navigated its most severe geopolitical stress test to date.Chapters:00:00 — Meet Elliott Abrams: Inside U.S. Middle East Strategy08:16 — Why Trump Went to War Without Europe13:31 — Gulf States Tried to Stop the War — Then Got Hit Anyway17:34 — “We Cannot Afford Another North Korea”20:36 — Did Netanyahu Convince Trump to Attack Iran?23:22 — The Truth About Iran’s “Destroyed” Nuclear Program27:45 — Is America Turning Against Israel?35:30 — Has Israel Lost the Democratic Party?40:35 — Elliott Abrams on Settler Violence & Qatar’s Influence45:33 — Will Saudi Arabia Ever Normalize With Israel?48:23 — The Future of the Middle East After the Iran War🌐 Learn more about ROPES: ⁠ropes.org⁠📩 Don’t forget to subscribe to the ROPESCAST for more stories of peace, dialogue, and impact across the Middle East.