Joe Kent: Why I resigned over Iran

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in his first international interview since his resignation from the Trump administration. A highly decorated Green Beret and CIA veteran, Kent became the most senior official to step down in protest of the ongoing war in Iran, which he describes as a ‘quagmire’ driven by external pressure rather than national interest. In this wide-ranging conversation, Kent alleges that the U.S. was misled into the conflict by the Israel lobby, shares personal reflections on the death of his wife in a ‘manufactured’ war, and raises questions about the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with The Economist’s defence editor, Shashank Joshi, to dissect the frightening new reality of ‘democratised warfare’ in the Strait of Hormuz. As Iran utilises low-cost drones, ‘smart mines’, and autonomous suicide boats to threaten 20% of the world's oil supply, Joshi explains the shift from traditional naval battles to a war of economic attrition and investigates whether the price of entry for war has been permanently lowered - and what it means for the future of global stability. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, Helen Thompson, to dismantle the mainstream narrative surrounding the conflict in the Middle East. Moving beyond the idea that the U.S. is stumbling into war, Thompson reveals a possible strategic plan by the Trump administration to weaponise energy markets against China, while exploring how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz serves American interests in the global AI race, and how a reverse Suez moment is fundamentally redrawing the map of global power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Robert Pape, to discuss the high-stakes ‘escalation trap’ unfolding between the United States and Iran - breaking down the tactical successes and failures of the US military campaign and analysing how Iran is leveraging its geographical position and control of the Strait of Hormuz through low-cost drone and missile harassment. As Professor Pape draws comparisons to the Vietnam War and 1973 oil crisis, has the Trump administration lost control of the conflict's trajectory, and are we moving toward a dangerous ground power dilemma that threatens the global economy and the stability of the Western alliance? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd’s Flo Read hosts an exploration into the global exorcism boom, investigating why demand for spiritual deliverance has tripled in the last decade and why Gen Z, in particular, is leading a resurgence in supernatural belief. A panel featuring historian Dr. Francis Young, Anglican deliverance minister Rev. Dr. Jason Bray, and legal expert Professor Helen Hall unpack the shift to a post-pandemic ‘spiritual marketplace’ where social media-fuelled occultism and ancient theology collide, and address the safeguarding risks and legal complexities of performing exorcisms in a multicultural society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers hosts a debate on the internal future of Iran featuring two clashing geopolitical perspectives: Professor Edward Luttwak - a strategist and expert on international diplomacy, who argues that the Trump administration is successfully pursuing a strategy to achieve regime change via surgical airstrikes; and Dr Arta Moeini - international political theorist and a realist thinker, who warns that the West is dangerously underestimating the resilience of Iran’s decentralised "total state”, and that direct attacks could fuel a civil war that accelerates a global shift toward a new world order dominated by China. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers and US editor Sohrab Ahmari unpick the ideological fracture within the Republican party following the escalatory US strikes against Iran. From the notable silence of JD Vance to the resurging influence of Lindsey Graham, they explore how Donald Trump’s "Peace Admin" shifted toward a hawk-like interventionism agenda reminiscent of the George W. Bush era, at a decisive moment in the battle for the soul of American foreign policy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the wake of Obama's on-air revelation that he believes in aliens and Trump's move to declassify government UFO documents, UnHerd invites two world experts to make the best case for hope and doubt about extraterrestrial life. Michael Shermer, Skeptic magazine founder and author of the new book Truth (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-What-Find-Still-Matters/dp/142145372X), and Harvard astronomer Prof. Avi Loeb ask: are we alone in the universe? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to journalist Michael Tracey about the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and what Tracey describes as a "moral panic" surrounding the Epstein scandal. Tracey challenges the mainstream narrative, arguing that the case against the former Prince relies on fictionalised accounts and inconsistent testimony from the late Virginia Giuffre, and by examining recently surfaced FBI memos and the charges of misconduct in public office, suggests that the current constitutional crisis is driven more by mass hysteria and media credulity than by unassailable legal evidence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd’s Jonny Ball meets historian, academic, and author Anton Jäger to discuss his new book ‘Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences’, charting the pronounced shift in engagement and death of political institutions since the 1980s via analysis of movements like Brexit, BLM, and the rise of the far-Right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.