Middle East Conflict

The Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Dror Moreh is not a defense of Israeli security policy, but a critique. The six Shin Bet heads Moreh interviews may believe in the tactics they devised, but it's the overall strategy they think is flawed.

Robert Malley, a program director for the International Crisis Group, analyzes the complexity of the situation in the Middle East, a region where conflicts interconnect and expand upon one another. "These alliances," says Malley, "are not clear cut ... they are alliances of convenience."

In his new book, journalist Gregory Johnsen charts the rise of Yemen as a haven for al-Qaida and explores the recent history of radical Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. The death of Osama bin Laden, he says, had more of an effect on the U.S. psyche than it did on people in Yemen.

The Guardian's Gahaith Abdul-Ahad calls the Syrian battle fluid and complicated. "There is chaos, there is no military planning, there is no organization," he tells Fresh Air. He reported for the PBS Frontline documentary The Battle for Syria, which airs Tuesday.

In The Twilight War, historian David Crist outlines the secret history of America's 30-year conflict with Iran. based on interview with hundreds of officials as well as classified military archives, the book details how the covert war has repeatedly threatened tot bring the two nations into open warfare.

Reporter David Kirkpatrick, the Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times, reflects on his time reporting on the Arab Spring and discusses what the election of President Mohammed Morsi means for Egypt, the United States and Israel.

Yemen is now considered to be "the greatest external threat facing the U.S. homeland in terms of terrorism," says investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill.

Journalist Peter Beinart supports Israel but thinks the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are compromising Israel's commitment to democracy. He has proposed a boycott of goods made in those Jewish settlements.

Peter Beinart's new book, The Crisis of Zionism, argues that Israel cannot be a true democratic state as long as there are settlements in the West Bank and calls for a boycott of goods made in those settlements. Gary Rosenblatt, publisher of The Jewish Week of New York, disagrees with this argument.

The Israeli government wants America's support and help for any possible attack on Iran. U.S. officials have said this isn't the right time for airstrikes. New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger explains what's at stake for both sides.

New York Times war correspondent Anthony Shadid, a frequent guest on Fresh Air, died Thursday after apparently suffering a fatal asthma attack in Syria, where he was reporting on the political uprising. Fresh Air remembers Shadid with excerpts from his December 2011 appearance on the show.

The protests that led to the Egyptian revolution last year were organized in part by Wael Ghonim, who used an anonymous Facebook page to coordinate the demonstrations. In his new book, Ghonim explains how social media helped transform his country.

For the past year, veteran war correspondent Anthony Shadid has been reporting on the Arab uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia. Last March, he was kidnapped and beaten by security forces in Libya. "It remains one of the scariest moments of my life," he says.

As protesters in the Middle East use social media to communicate, the regimes they're battling are using sophisticated technology to intercept their emails and text messages. Journalist Ben Elgin details how Western companies are providing software and equipment to help Middle Eastern governments crack down on dissidents.

What motivates someone to become a terrorist? That's the question former prosecutor Ken Ballen set out to tackle when he traveled to Saudi Arabia and Indonesia to interview more than 100 Islamist extremists. "We've never sat back and said, 'Let's really understand our adversaries,' " he says.

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel details what it's like to report from some of the more dangerous war zones on the planet. He also discusses his recent dispatches from Egypt and Libya, where he was subject to tear gas attacks and artillery fire.

CNN's national security analysts Peter Bergen just returned from Pakistan, where he just returned from Pakistan, where he visited the town where Osama bin Laden was killed. He talks about the various conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden's death -- and how al-Qaide has changed in recent years.

New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers details what he's witnessed in Libya, where he has covered the battle between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and the opposition. Chivers has traveled with the rebels through dangerous territory and is trying to tell the true story of the war.

In December 2009, an al-Qaida mole believed to be a CIA informant detonated a suicide bomb inside a fortified military base in Pakistan, killing seven CIA employees. Reporter Joby Warrick writes about the man who pulled off the attack — and explains how he did it — in The Triple Agent.

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza details President Obama's response to the ongoing uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. He explains why the president's actions — in Egypt and then in Libya — say a great deal about the administration's larger foreign policy ideology.