The BookJelly Podcast

For forty years, across nine presidencies, America kept returning to the Middle East — convinced, each time, that this administration would finally get it right. It never did. In this episode, we dig into Grand Delusion, a fantastic book by Steven Simon — a former Reagan and Obama insider who had a ringside seat to four decades of foreign policy. The book traces a chilling pattern: each president arrives with a new theory, builds policy around it, and leaves the region worse than they found it. Oil? Turns out, that was never really the point. This one is essential listening if you follow geopolitics — or if you've ever wondered how the world's most powerful country keeps making the same expensive, exhausting mistake.