Episode Details

One consequence of the United States' massive military failures in the Greater Middle East is its waning influence in a region where U.S. leaders once dreamt democracy would spread outward from Kabul and Baghdad. As the U.S. presence and its credibility have shrunk, regional powers are looking elsewhere to resolve entrenched disputes. Enter Beijing. In this episode, the Quincy Institute's Trita Parsi discusses a potential paradigm shift that's been decades in the making. Without firing a shot or taking sides – without any military presence at all in the Middle East – China helped broker a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran that will restore diplomatic relations between the two nations. The U.S. has moved a long way in the wrong direction from the days of the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the Oslo Accords of 1993.