Middle East & North Africa

Host Aroop Mukharji interviews Dr. Tarek Masoud, the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, about the shifting political dynamics of the Middle East, the region's potential for democratization, and a triple snack of doughnuts, coffee, and Turkish delight.

NPR's All Thing Considered talked to Amanda Sloat, Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, about Turkey's investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The U.S. is "a long way" from taking any "punitive action" against Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi any time soon, a former ambassador said Monday.

"For President Trump, it is a difficult balancing act," Nicholas Burns, who served under Republican and Democratic administrations as ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Greece, said on CNBC's "Squawk Alley."

"He doesn't want to end the relationship with Saudi Arabia," he added. "But on the other hand, you have American values to uphold."

We have the most solipsistic president in American history offering up the most solipsistic foreign policy ever at a time when the me-me-me generation are busy taking selfies and other pols the planet over are trying to play that self-centeredness to their advantage. Have we reached Peak Solipsism? And what does that mean for the international system. We discuss in honor of and in the context of this week’s meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York City with David Rothkopf in New York, Ambassador Nicholas Burns in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rosa Brooks in Washington, DC and Kori Schake in London, England.

In this installation of Conversations in Diplomacy, Congressman Seth Moulton, Representative of the Sixth District of Massachusetts, military veteran, and graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the most serious threats to U.S. national security with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Faculty Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project.