UNAPOLOGETIC with Ashfaaq Carim

"If you go to China, you'll never ever see the world in the same way again. Never."In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Martin Jacques, author of the million-copy bestseller When China Rules the World, makes the case that China has already eclipsed the United States as the world's leading power, and that the West still fundamentally doesn't understand why.This episode explores China's identity as a...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, we speak to Mohsen Kadivar - Iranian scholar, Shia mujtahid, dissident cleric, and former political prisoner - about the Islamic Republic, its origins, and its contradictions.Kadivar offers a rare insider critique of Iran: opposing US imperialism and Israeli aggression, while also challenging the authoritarianism of the Islamic Republic from within Shia theology...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Norman Finkelstein unpacks the aftermath of the US–Iran war, beginning with the ceasefire and what it actually reveals about both sides. He argues there was no clear victory, before tracing the deeper roots of US strategy toward Iran over decades. The conversation explores Donald Trump’s highly personalised decision-making, the role Israel played in tipping the...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, historian Abdallah Marouf connects the dots between the closure of Al-Aqsa, Israel’s ultra-right, Pete Hegseth, the dangerously expanding war in Iran, and the belief in a coming Messiah.He explains how a once-marginal religious Zionist movement now holds real political power in Israel, and how its vision of rebuilding the Temple and hastening the Messiah is...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Mamoun Fandy, former professor of politics at Georgetown University and current head of the Global Strategy Institute in London, breaks down the escalating conflict involving Israel, the United States, and Iran.He argues this is not one war, but three overlapping wars, each with its own logic: regime change, regional dominance, and economic pressure. Together,...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Rabbi Elhanan Beck delivers one of the most striking critiques of Zionism and the current Israeli-US wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, you'll hear. He argues that, according to the Torah, the state of Israel has no right to exist, and goes further—describing Benjamin Netanyahu as “Amalek,” a force that pulls people away from God. The Rabbi also claims that if...

In this episode of UNAPOLOGETIC, Dr. Roy Casagranda unpacks 125 years of Iranian history - from the 1901 oil concession and the fall of the Qajar dynasty, to the rise of the Pahlavis, the 1953 CIA-backed coup, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iran–Iraq War, and the emergence of the IRGC, the reform movement in Iran and the JCPOA. He then connects this history to the present moment - where a...

Neil Quilliam, who is a political analyst at Chatham House, joined the UNAPOLOGETIC podcast to discuss how Israel is plunging the USA, the GCC and Iran into an all-out war.By continuing to kill credible leaders and hit key economic infrastructure in Iran, it is diminishing the opportunity for this war to end via a settled compromise, and antagonising Iran to lash out with retaliatory strikes...

David Hearst, editor in chief of Middle East Eye, appeared on the UNAPOLOGETIC podcast to discuss how Donald Trump may be losing control of the war he started against Iran.When will the war end? Will Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump achieve their goals? What will happen to the Iranian government? What is the future of relations between the GCC and Iran? Could the conflict escalate into a regional war...

Foad Izadi is a professor of communication at Tehran University. He has been making the rounds across broadcasters recently where he generally conveys the Iranian government’s position.He spoke to UNAPOLOGETIC to discuss the rationale behind Iran’s defence strategy, how he sees Iranian society rallying behind the Iranian state under this attack, the legacy of US-Iranian relations, Iran’s own...