 Conversations with Strategy in the Department of War Studies. Just if you just hold off a few seconds, I think the attendee is coming in. Hello everyone, welcome to this session on Conversations with Strategy in the Department of War Studies in the School of Security Studies, King's College London. I'm Dr. Stacey Giettkowski, Senior Lecturer in Conflict Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies. And joining us today, we're very happy to welcome Dr. Roxanne Farman-Farmaine. She is a visiting senior fellow in the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies here at King's. She's a scholar of international relations specializing in the foreign and security dimensions of the Middle East and in the media. She is Director of International Relations and Global Studies at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education and lecturer on modern Middle East politics at the Cambridge Department of Politics and International Studies. She's a senior associate fellow of the European Leadership Network and a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Women and Security Dialogue. She was a resident fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies between 2008 and 19, where she finalized a new model for theorizing media in the Middle East. In 2013, she received a five-year, 680,000-pound grant from Al Jazeera Media Corporation to study media and politics in the Southern Mediterranean, focusing on Tunisia, Morocco, and Turkey after the Arab uprisings. She's a recipient of ESRC and Annenberg Foundation for Communication Awards. She was the founder of the Paula Space Center for International Relations with the Middle East in North Africa at Cambridge and previously editor of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs. We're going to start the conversation with her earlier experience, which is prior to becoming an academic. She was an international reporter covering the Soviet Union, Iran, women's business, and the high-tech media industry. She's a frequent public speaker, opinion writer, policy commentator and television commentator on the Middle East and on its political and international affairs. Thank you so much, Roxanne, for joining us today. We're really delighted to have you. So you've worn many hats over the course of your career as a journalist, as a high-level policy consultant, as an academic, and I hope we're going to get to touch on all of those things. But perhaps we can go back to the beginning with an experience as a journalist during the Iranian Revolution. What do you remember most vividly about the time and what can you tell us about how you came to found and run Iranian Weekly News Magazine, which served as an important source of information for Foreign Press and Diplomatic Corps in Tehran between 1979 and 1980. It was a very vivid time, as you can imagine, and thank you so very much for having me. Let me first put that out there. It's a real pleasure, and it's wonderful to be a visiting fellow at King's. So I really appreciate this opportunity to speak with you, Stacey, and to look back on that period, which is already now some some decades ago. And I was quite fresh out of university. My father was Iranian, my mother was American, and I had gone to university in the United States. So I thought, okay, I shall go and do my first work in Iran and find out what it was like and arrive there just as it was having a revolution. And to be honest, the only companies that hired during a revolution are the media companies because they need people to go out into the streets. So it was an extremely exciting time, quite dangerous. And I worked for the big English language newspaper there until it closed very, very soon after I arrived and then a number of us got together young whippersnappers and started our own magazine it seems so doable at the time. And we tried to make it we thought of ourselves as a very mini version or revolutionary version of the new statesman we sort of went out and tried to have a really important interview, and with somebody at the time it was a weekly. We really just tried to cover as many aspects of the oil news of the demonstrations and, and it was, it was an extraordinary time because nobody, I think, as we look back on where Iran and the United States particularly have ended up since. It was an amazing time to witness how everyone in Iran at the time really was quite behind the revolution. There wasn't a whole lot of debate about whether everybody wanted the shot to go. Because of debate is what to create afterwards and so I think in many ways I encountered the idea of a divided society which has been part of my experience ever since, because there was definitely a whole group of people that wanted to go and have a sense of comfort a sense that they could give back as the authenticity and possibly the commandments that had that would help create a new society after the Shah's experience. I don't think that there was a great deal of debate either about the fact that people wanted free expression. They wanted individual liberties, but those were much more abstract and the Islamic dimension and the form of community that it offered was something that people at the time could hold on to and this was something my office luckily from the magazine that we started was somehow right between the United States Embassy on one end of the road. There were several blocks down and the university that was on the other end of the road several blocks down so we got to see basically the entirety of the street prayers and the demonstrations and of course once the embassy was seized in the hostage crisis that we were in many ways on a front seat of that. It was an opportunity also to see enormous misunderstanding between two countries and I would say that that actually has been the tragedy of Iran, it was not that they got didn't get the government that they wanted. They didn't anticipate that the government they got would have such a long and toxic relationship and misunderstanding with the world's greatest unipolar power at that time, and that has been the great tragedy of the Iranian situation. It's amazing to hear how you were right there on, you know, on the cusp of history right on the road I mean that is that is absolutely amazing. If some of our students found themselves in a similar situation you know in the context of history evolving around them you know how would you, what, what would you suggest to them how would you go about doing something similar to what you did. In that case we all find ourselves in new settings and new challenges, and often new crises. And so, I think the, the opportunity that students should always be aware of is the one that's right there in front of them, and to jump in. And often it may seem slightly crazy I'm sure slightly. I think all of us feel as though we, we suffer from something called imposter syndrome, where we don't feel we're well enough equipped or we don't have the background, and the only way to get that is by jumping in and doing it. And so I think I didn't know anything about writing. I didn't know anything about editing, and yet I had a confidence that I was a relatively good writer and I got along with people and I had a nose for what I was curious about and I think to follow your curiosity is really important. So my next step after he won was I ended up going to Moscow right as the Soviet Union was falling apart. And I was there in 1984. I mean it was just the moment that all of that was happening and the book and been long ago anticipating that those days. And it was a fascinating time and I was a journalist during that period as well. And it was not easy because the Soviet Union was anytime a country is falling apart is usually when it's most difficult it's very scared it tends to shut down it tends to try to repress and control. And so it was really an opportunity for me to try something new, and so I took up photography as well it just seemed like an easier way to capture some of the things that were going on. And again, I was not a, you know, a born photographer I unfortunately was unable to take that up as as I went forward, but I was able to run around with an awful lot of photo journalists and thereby see different dimensions of what was going on as a country was beginning to fall apart. And, and that too was something that I think very much shows that you can do it. I think it's really important as students to go forward, grab the bull by the horns. And you may be convinced that it's not something you want to do or that you've got other strengths, but you won't know until you've actually worked in something and given it a try. So what are sort of your main observations. Are there any kind of anecdotes or something from from that period, watching the Soviet Union start to disintegrate. Well actually having come from Iran, and then gone to the Soviet Union when I finally emerged and went back to the United States and arrived in New York. I decided I must be a journalist of revolutions. And I think since then I realized I am an academic of divided societies actually, but they are in a sense different versions of the same thing. And so when I got to the United States I was more confident in the skills that I had built and felt that I could contribute in an area that was again new. I was more confident about being able to process new materials and new ideas and meet new groups of people, and I had a certain confidence in that so I think that in some ways is one of the anecdotes is that I came away from particularly Moscow where there were a great number of journalists that were pouring in at any given moment and getting to know them and realizing there were many different styles of journalism, and many different audiences and viewpoints and my viewpoint was very different than many of those that did arrive and and being located there I had a different perspective as well than people that were coming in from the outside. And so when I got to the States. What was just happening again it just seems like another era was the beginning of the tech revolution so that was the era of the Apple to that arrived we didn't have cell phones and so what I did was I joined a magazine that was beginning to report on the tech industry which was a great place to be because every six months or every five months a new machine would arrive or a whole new kind of machine would arrive. And we rapidly cycle through the, the quick development of the tech industry so that when I left just a few years I was having been snapped up by several different magazines in turn because everybody needed somebody that knew something about the tech industry. And, although I rapidly also realized it was not going to be the specialty. I'm not a tech person. And in fact I'm disastrous at it now. But I, I realized that I knew enough about how I was working with society that it was one of the things I could bring real value to for a while and so one of the really extremely interesting programs that I did was AT&T developed the first touchscreen technology, and I was working at the time for a magazine that's now died, called Working Woman which was really at the forefront of helping women understand how to move into management and administration and executive positions. And so again, another revolution if you will. AT&T partnered with us and I was able to do a wonderful project on eight women who we labeled as eight women who had changed the world. So including the very first woman who had ever held a seat on the American stock, New York Stock Exchange, and that kind of thing. And you could do it all by touchscreen and this was at least 10, 15 years before touchscreen actually became commercial. That's amazing. And, you know, it's a very clear thread from studying different kinds of revolutions to this, this new other form of what technological and social revolution. Yes. I wonder, so then how did you start to make the transition towards becoming an academic. You did write another another book. And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that transition and about the book. Well, I think that in, in having written and reported on what was happening on the streets of Iran what was clear is the growing division between the United States and Iran, and it didn't really make sense. There are equal relationships in the United States has with countries that are as abusive or as incomprehensible, and yet those relationships are quite close simply because they fit within a strategic national interest of the United States so particularly let me specify Saudi which is not any more natural an ally to the United States than Iran would be. And in fact I would probably argue, Iran would be more likely an ally and yet somehow they were unable to patch up the relationship and I was convinced that something had, it had something to do with the hostage crisis but also being someone who who was a word longer, if you will somebody who wrote and reported and dealt with language. I felt that there was something about how the meanings of the exchange had been amplified to the point where it was very difficult to get over the assumptions and the associations the other had. I did start by writing a book with my father about his memoirs he was the, a, a high executive in the oil industry, and in fact was the originally Ron delegate to whatever what became OPEC, and so he had some extraordinary perspectives to bring to the story as well and he also during the revolution, one of the things I experienced and certainly one of the things he experiences he had to walk out of the border across the border to save his life. And so he had extraordinary stories and so I helped him write a book, his first language was not English. And so together we wrote a book called blood and oil memoirs of a Persian prince because he was from a large family that in the past was royal. And it was published by a random house and I thought, and that involved an enormous amount of research into the British archives and all sorts of things. And it went a long way to understanding a great deal more, but I felt I still wasn't there so a wonderful professor in Cambridge Peter Avery, who was known as an Iran specialist at King's College in Cambridge, invited me to come in for a fellowship, and I had never gotten a masters, and I thought, I think, better would be to spend that year. And if they'll take me to come in for an MPhil so I did. And I arrived three days before 911. So before classes that even started I was, I found myself in the politics department, weighing in on some relation, some recommendation one of the professors had to give to some of their contacts about now what does the world do. And very rapidly was invited before I'd really even embarked very much on the masters, the MPhil to do a PhD on that very concept of the relationship between Iran and my particular case but the Middle East more generally democracy and Islam. And so I was I received a thank goodness a wonderful scholarship for that, and spent the next four, five years almost completing the PhD, and trying to figure out what was it that really made the difference and I remember presenting my some of my last years PhD to a PhD group, which you sat in on Stacy, I remember your paper, and you made a statement about shame and pride, and emotions that sent me back at that last moment back to the library to find some further insight and it was actually very critical to the overall thesis it was like that that touchstone that I was missing. And it really made a difference to making a whole theory about emotion and international relations now it's become quite common effect, the effect of turn is what it's called is quite common in IR. But at the time it was really quite new a lot of people thought oh there's a woman writing about emotion again. And, and I think actually explains a great deal about the ongoing inability of what I thought it was very much a special relationship between Iran and the United States under the Shaw. And there's, and there's no worse relationship in a way than a love affair gone wrong, and I think in many ways that sums up where we are with Iran in the US at the moment. And once at Cambridge, I just sort of never left. I was thinking of your work actually, you know, during the, you know, when the, the nuclear deal was signed, how you know how these things were were evolving and what is, you know, very much a relationship and evolving and very emotional. So, once you, once you got your PhD, then you know you had you had this trajectory coming through as a journalist and then post PhD in addition to being an academic you've done all this policy consultants, which is something a lot of our students, you know, are interested in and want to go on and do. So, kind of how did you build that line of interest, and you know what would you suggest to students who want to move into that world. Well I'd always done some policy work because I think when you're involved with with certainly controversial politics or countries that people find very confusing. I often ask journalists for commentary whether the journalist knows anything about the policy side or not. And when I finally felt as though I had much stronger roots into what gave me confidence to speak about policy and politics and the longer historical relationships about between these two countries and about the United States and the Middle East generally and about issues such as not only oil but also then the nuclear issue in Iran. And when it began more clearly to develop and I think part of that is that to write policy you need to write a different way than you do as an academic. My very first approach to that was when, in quite a few cases, different committees simply wanted me to comment, and so I was invited to present my findings or my work or something I'd written to panels that were being held by different policy think tanks. And I would suggest that for students, one of the key areas to break in through is by having actually written something that presents a viewpoint that's balanced and that has a strong arguments for the position that you're taking. And I think that can often be developed through the networks that you set up, even if you yourself are not working at a think tank very likely there are friends, colleagues of yours, student friends that will be so I think one should never overlook the benefit of networking, going to various activities, attending various think tanks, for example, seeing how they put things, you know, and then again as I said earlier on, you know, grab the opportunity and go right up and present yourself and offer the fact that you know something about X that you've actually written something about X or you are writing something about X. And that will at least begin to include you on smaller closed panels or groups. And I think that often is the way of getting and it's the same way in media to get in as a journalist. It's, it's not easy. And, and one of the ways is to start writing your own blogs, your own set up your own podcasts, go to something strange so go someplace strange. Of course these days that's a little difficult, but it will change and and and be the unique writer about something and that will often be the opportunity to be placed in on the string of stringers and and that's how you often will begin to be able to move in and also to be able to move across you maybe a, you know, a reporter in one area but you can't seem to make the jump. Well, that's the way you make the jump is to start writing about other things and really sending them in. I ask you a little bit in more detail about networking, because I think as as women, particularly in the early stages of our careers we feel you know somewhat intimidated sometimes by networking I know as I get more gray hair I feel more you know confidence in it. And I wonder if you have some sort of tips for students who say okay, she says to turn up at events in London. I'm doing that. Now what. Well, first of all, one of the things that I found at Cambridge that helps a lot is that people will form groups right in the university right in either cross disciplinary cross departmental, or within the department that become what we call reading groups, and that often will bring not only the students themselves together but it gives them the opportunity to either invite people in, or to get to know absolutely everybody else in the university that's actually doing that. One of the things I've always found and I think you probably would agree with this Stacy is that we academics, often come over is just doing academics when we're talking to our students, but actually we often wear many different hats, and so getting to have academics that come in and speak to you about different things will often thereby open up their networks to you, especially if you express interest, and some knowledge on things. So I think it's the difficulty is it's often that you don't know who you'll meet who actually opens that door. But the fact is, unless you're in and, and speaking to people and exchanging cards or, or emails or whatever, you don't have the opportunity to meet that one person out of seven or 10 that is going to open the door. So it's work. It's work, but it's, you know, hopefully from the, from the aspect of meeting people, it's, it's more pleasant work, but it takes skill, it takes development. Hi, I'm conscious that we've come up to about the halfway point and I'm hoping that our participants will will jump in with your your questions Roxanne and I will keep going a little bit but if you have any questions please would you either pop them in the Q&A box, or or in the chat or raise your hand in the, and I will see you in the participants list and and call on you. I think they look like there might be two or three in the chat. I don't know if you're okay. Oh, oh, sorry. That's Lizzie in the chat. That's okay. But I hope someone will. Yeah, come. What's your quote. Give us give us your questions. Sorry, I just want to add to any students attending here that in terms of the school of security today's worst of these, we have a student engagement office in Senjana Balu and a comms team who are really interested in ideas that students might have for speakers for podcast ideas, blogs, that kind of thing. So, you know, always reach out to Senjana Balu or the comms team. If you have ideas and want to get involved and do something and we'll try and support you in that we can't always promise obviously but we've had some students come forward with podcast suggestions. And it's really helpful because at the end of the day, a lot of students listen to the worst of these podcasts. And so we want, you know, we want to give you the opportunity to contribute ideas and suggestions to speakers and themes, and that sort of thing as well and certainly we also plan to interview PhD students. So if you've got a really interesting search project that you're working on, then again put yourself forward and we could potentially interview you for the podcast. I'll put my email in. Well, and I have to underscore that I think universities themselves are are something to be maximized one year there they're multifaceted and they really do offer the opportunity for small group activities for for invited speakers for panels for all of these different ways of encounter. And I think that makes an enormous difference from our perspective as as as teachers Stacy I'm sure you two have run into this. My, what turned out to be long relationship with Al Jazeera actually came up by the fact that I had a student a master student that had come in, who was among the very first crew of Al Jazeera when it launched. And he was responsible for developing one of the main online news channels. And we just started chatting and it turned out that there was a Center for Studies in in Doha, which I had no idea about. And he suggested that maybe some of the work I'd done on media might be helpful for them, because it was always quite difficult to find common ground between the broadcasting company and this center for studies. And so I was their first visiting fellow. They'd never had one. I sort of suggested that it might be an interesting idea and there was an enlightened wonderful director at the time. The that helped set that up. And I think for both of us it really made a huge difference so even for us as as lecturers or for us students, these are things that that can come unexpectedly and I have to say he brought on, I would say at least four or five members of the infill group that he was in at the time. In one way or another into the Al Jazeera family during that period because it was growing. And they were, you know, beneficiaries but also contributors. That's really fascinating rocks take away. Can you tell us a little bit more about your observations about Al Jazeera from from the beginning, because it's such an interesting outlet. It is a very interesting place. And it's in a very interesting country that's obviously gone through quite a bit quite recently. And I think one of the extraordinary things for me was to arrive at a channel that was both Arabic and English, and the two were unbelievably different. They were very much exuding their own cultures their own linguistic specialties their own kinds of training the relationships that were common to their cultures and that were not necessarily completely similar. They had figured out a way, probably because it was growing fast when I was there and changing and very popular it was filling an enormous niche at the time that hadn't quite yet been defined, but was very very clearly something that needed to be filled. Al Jazeera has gone through many changes and has alienated many of the countries around it in its region. And in fact, of course, in the recent fallout of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the embargo that was put on Qatar the number one out of I think there were seven requirements for Qatar to fulfill before it could rejoin the Gulf Cooperation Council. The number one was to get rid of Al Jazeera and that alone helped to rally the people of Qatar together and support what Al Jazeera is a very, very important form of identity, as well as to instrument for the region in general and what's been interesting is, it's Qatar has now been semi re incorporated back into the GCC. Al Jazeera is alive and well it's perhaps a little less flamboyant than it was before that it's been a little bit careful. Sure, but it definitely is still very much active and has been successful in many of its international activities as well. So it's, it's been, I was always very admiring of Al Jazeera it's people are well trained. It operates as a large but very cohesive organization, and I admire. I was extremely admiring also of its ability to have a separate center of academic research and to have a place for that and in fact that as a think tank is one of the best examples of making a niche for itself and becoming well recognized by the international tank community it often will be indicated as one of the standouts in the world at any given annual assessment. And I think it's deserving so I, I'm a fan. I think there's a lot of problems with the country company as it's moved into its next levels and as what is the case with any company and it's certainly undergone major changes but it's a an interesting element and certainly sparked large very professional non Western journalism and broadcasting elsewhere. And so there's all sorts of new styles now that are no longer just the Anglo American. Thank you very much for that we we actually have a question about Al Jazeera from Hassan, and he asks, did you face criticism when you were with Al Jazeera, and if so how did you deal with it. In a ideal position I was never a reporter, I was never on their, their journalism side I was always an academic I served there as I mentioned two months as a fellow and then I received a very large grant from them in fact it's the only Arab broadcaster that has ever offered a string of no strings attached grant to a established educational institution. And, and it was no strings, and that's was the operative for Cambridge it would not have been able to accept that it was a grant like any other. So, I developed a project that was very much looking at media as it had changed after the Arab uprisings, but there was an element of the funding coming from Al Jazeera, in the sense that at the time for example in Egypt. There were three, I think even originally four correspondence that were incarcerated from Al Jazeera that were incarcerated by the Egyptian government, and therefore what had originally been a plan to do research in Egypt we couldn't do. So, the relationship was definitely a real relationship they were our funder we could not go into property areas in which our academics would be a risk because of the nature of the funder. We went to Algeria because it had closed the office of Al Jazeera already almost a decade before the grant was offered so we couldn't go there. It just simply would have been too dangerous for us, even though in our research we didn't say oh we're you know from Cambridge here on an Al Jazeera funding that's not what we said, but we also didn't cover it up and one has to be straightforward and if there are questions about something we need to be able to be transparent. So, it did affect our coverage to some degree on the other hand, we did get some criticism in Turkey, as it went through quite a bit of change while we were covering it it moved actually quite significantly from quite an open society to one. After the attempted coup in which academics and journalists were being incarcerated fired in large numbers and we were, you know, we were doing research the whole time, and spoke out about that, but also were able to see different sides. So, I feel as though we did the right kind of academic work there by trying to also understand the popularity of somebody. Such as air to one, because very much in the West it was described as somebody that was increasingly authoritarian and indeed he was, but how do you actually justify or understand that within the country. And that was something that Al Jazeera felt was very important that we understood and presented that side as well. So I feel as though it did help in us also realizing that there were multiple sides after all Al Jazeera's tagline is the story and the other story so it was important for us to understand that that's what we do as as academics as we present provide different sides of a story. Interesting, but you know studying the media at these particular historical turning points it really really gives you, you know the pulse of the society and the pulse of politics. I noticed that Charlie has his, his hand up Charlie would you like to jump in. I had a message from the students and thank you so much. This conversation is fascinating rocks and your story and your father's story is so inspiring and such a such a such a fascinating insight into the politics of the region and the question actually that she messing you who's on a my second year course was asking about, is it the case that even with the attention that has been we pay to Iranian hostage crisis that even that we still sort of underestimate its significance the way the way in which it's continued to reverberate. And what he was particularly the student was particularly pointing to was that in my course we listen, we look at Donald Trump's background in politics and his first interview in 1980 occurs around the time of the Iranian hostage crisis. And he's very much influenced by what happens there. Steve Bannon is in someone who's US Marine in the Middle East at the certain sort of segment of American society. As you mentioned, there's still a sense that that is still a sort of a, an open sore. Yeah, do you think it's something that we still don't really appreciate. It's such a good question and if I could begin by say I'd love to see that interview of Trump's because I haven't seen that and and I would be really fascinated to see it and in fact, I remember. I was reading, probably in about 2007 or eight an incredibly useful article written by a scholar in the United States called Elizabeth heard who has since become very much more well known but at the time, I think it was one of those first papers in the first conference and I happened to be at that conference. And she describes how, when the hostage crisis began, what happened in the majority of schools and classrooms around the country was that in the United States was that people had only had only ever heard about Israel as a part as the Middle East. They didn't really know about that much of the other parts of the world in that region. And so the first encounter they had was Iranians looking like revolutionaries marching the, you know, the embassy staff in front of the embassy in, you know, their eyes covered in in bloody bandanas and just was absolutely set up to make it an us versus them a you know this was their first encounter and I think that that certainly conditioned a great deal of what was going on. So what's interesting is that from Iran's perspective is, it is incredibly important. It was also fundamentally misunderstood on both sides, which I thought, by being right in it. It was very interesting. It was immediately taken up and misinterpreted or reinterpreted or interpreted for different reasons to be different things by both sides, using quite different facts, or interpretations of facts. And I think that what got lost was all of the elements that actually would make unraveling this. It was so difficult. And, but it by having white washed out or ignored so many of the things that were important and instead really featured those things that weren't, or that were less important to the relationship of two countries. And so one of the things that certainly happened, I mean, the United States is actually one of the things that is fascinating is the United States has encountered this very same kind of situation of entire embassies being taken and sequestered for a year in China at the time, before it became sort of Vietnam and, you know, the, and, and, and Cambodia and Laos. That happened. And nothing happened. I mean the US sort of waited until the people were released and everybody got out fine and that was it but this one was immediately one of the first things that happened was that the embassy people were no longer construed in the American press as officials of the American government they were construed as American families. And that's what started the whole yellow ribbon movement which sort of popularized the whole thing everybody wore yellow ribbons, and the whole idea that they were doing government work was lost that they therefore had taken on the risk by as a profession as part of what goes on when representing a country and instead were sort of refashioned into this set of victims of that had no had no reason to be victims. Something that happened on the Iran side was that just by chance the acceptance of the Shaw into the United States which is what triggered the whole thing he was brought in for medical reasons. The Iranian government was never informed before he that would happen. Happen to be on the most important Shia day of the year moharam. And so the Americans that did this surely didn't know this, or if they did they weren't listened to at the point where he was accepted. And the kind of thing that for Iranians was absolutely clearly had been symbolically timed. Clearly there was more to this. And that's why the association in Iran was. Well then that's going to be a repeat of what happened in the 1950s when the American coup over through the Prime Minister who had nationalized oil. And so, and which took place in the American Embassy and that was a coup. So these are things that get lost in translation. And I think, you know, are the elements that have been in many ways, reinterpreted and misinterpreted. And yes, I my one, you know, tick at the top of the boxes of all of the problems is probably I would still put it as the hostage crisis, even if people don't remember it. Even if people don't know that that's what the problem is. That's what it is still. It was a hugely shaming experience for the United States, and, and for Iran, basically, both of them. Thanks very much, Roxanne. We have a couple of couple of more questions. One was a couple of follow up. Well, one follow up question on that, which was, do you think the cultural divide makes it harder to negotiate with Iran. And in that sense makes it a misunderstood state. And then another little clarification question about with your Al Jazeera grant, did you have completely unrestricted reporting and research. So let me answer the second one first because that's the easy one because it's a one word answer and the word is yes. Absolutely. I mean, we could not have had that grant accepted without the contract ensuring that we also had full control overall publication, which was, of course, something new for Al Jazeera. I mean, it's a publishing company. Why would they have rights to everything that we found out and would, you know, publish and not publish. But that was absolutely, you know, in stone in terms of the contract. It was a complicated contract and it was really fascinating and, and I think it in it really was a success. I think we both learned how to how to huge organizations they kept saying, Oh, two huge organizations working together that couldn't be more different. Well, indeed. And, and it was, it was a felicitous relationship, I think we both came out happy with with what emerged. And so the Iranian thing I don't quite understand with the word, how you're using the word in your question of cultural differences but the United States and Iran have both succeeded in, in undertaking many significant negotiations with cultures that are not their own. And I would say that among the countries in the world, they are two extremely well placed countries in terms of being able to get over cultural divides. I mean, the United States as the country is the is this is the is the great power that came to power on the back of alliances it was the first global world in terms of a power and that's how it's done it is is negotiating with other cultures and bringing them on side and coming up with huge concepts such as all the international institutions that brought on every culture if you will into things like the WTO and the WHO and whatever. And Iran is at the center of the Silk Road it has always negotiated multicultural it is many many cultures itself, in fact. And, you know, Shia Sunni Kurds, Azerbaijanis I mean they just, it's the, it often has called itself the, you know, the many states of Iran. And so, in if in essence I don't see that as the problem. It's both very open to, to being able to negotiate and in the right circumstances as Obama and Rohani who brought the to the nuclear deal together. It took leadership it took grit, and it worked. It took those two characters to bring two countries together and. The opposite can be said that in withdrawing from the deal. It was a different kind of character and set of characters and so I think a lot of it has to do with leadership and political will. Just to jump in on that one rocks and what what do you think about the future of the deal. I have to admit talk about think tank work it seems like that's what I'm doing at the moment is is weighing in and trying to read the Biden administration tea leaves and I, I have to admit right at the moment I'm not quite sure where it's going. I think on the one hand, many of us who are supporters and I put myself strongly into that of the nuclear deal the JCP away had expected that it would move more quickly on the Biden side. In many ways it's to recapture it as the low hanging fruit, it's negotiated, we know what's in it. And the key thing about it is it's a verification system it's simply the instrument. That ensures that nuclear development doesn't take place in Iran it dropped when the JCP away was signed it started going up once it was over. And, and I think any of us would sleep more soundly in our beds if we knew that as an arms agreement, it was back on track. So I think we had hoped that that would happen more rapidly, and there are many many ways that the Europeans who have kept the deal, ruggedly alive. On its last feet, nonetheless alive had developed for sort of simultaneous ways that both countries could get back in and say face and, and be able to reconstitute that part of it and what's often forgotten is that the deal was negotiated as something that would have flanking about diplomacy in other words that other negotiations on missiles on regional security on even possibly malicious it didn't specify at all. But it was understood that all of those agreements would follow next. So I think at this point it's a little disconcerting that we're moving from a phrase of compliance with compliance which would mean the US coming back on with a reduction and sanctions with Iran coming back on and dropping the enrichment. And so both of them complying. Now we're talking and beginning to hear the phrase freezing for freezing, which in some sense is a little less warming to the soul. And, and I don't see that necessarily working very well because of two important things one key thing is that there is a presidential election. In June, and the current reformists have been very badly damaged in Iran by the failure of the of the JCPOA the nuclear deal. And so the likelihood of them retaining power is almost zero. The likelihood of a more moderate hardliner if there could be such a thing is now beginning to to recede if some form of the JCPOA does not come back on it will be a country that is sanctioned has a nuclear program and an extremely comfortable and armed to the teeth set of neighbors. And so the temperature in the Gulf will be running high. So that being the other part of it so I think we're all hoping that the Biden administration can find some way forward to get this in operation before that election takes place because once a hardliner comes on, I think it's going to be over for a while. And I think you may have have answered one of the follow up questions which was about who do you think is going to take the lead in moving, you know getting the deal back on track that you think it will be the Biden administration rather than the Iranian side. Well, I think it's both. But to be really specific, it was the American administration that left the deal, and Iran stayed in it for another full year. And the reason for that the Iran deal was put together, not, not based on trust, it was based on distrust, but the distrust was basically all heading one direction, and that was about Iran. I mean the distrust was Iran was going to make a bomb, Iran had to be contained. So, the deal reflects that set of limitations on Iran should it break its compliance. The deal has no partnering constraints on any other party of the deal breaking their, their part of the agreement. So, nobody anticipated that the United States would be the one that would stop complying. And, as a result, the only response Iran had within the terms of the deal was to go back and start making nuclear material it did there were there are no other elements to it. And that's what this deal happens to cover. And that's what makes it such a technical deal and why in many ways this deal, in my view, is simply a way to verify and keep Iran's nuclear deal contained. In any case, that's why Iran stayed in it, but it feels very strongly that having signed an international deal can complied with the deal, it then had one of the parties leave the deal and reimpose sanctions so it feels, and I think with some justification that at least the deal should be working in tandem to get back in. But that the United States should indicate in some way that it plans to fulfill a commitment to get back in. So I'm not saying that the US is the only one to do it they both are now in breach. But I think the Iranians feel that one of the problems with the existing deal is that there's nothing that will guarantee a future administration not coming back it, not withdrawing should the Biden administration come in. So there it, it is extremely interested in having follow on negotiations about a number of things but particularly that. So it's, it's, it's once again as I felt all the way through the years of watching these two countries. I think they share a great deal of common, even in this deal is how do we get there. Thank you that's a really fascinating insight into it you know into the deal and where we where we are today. We have one last question which we may not have, I may not be able to do in a minute. Okay I'll try to get it short, but I think this is somebody maybe thinking about future future study or things that they want to go on to do. So today would like to see your, hear your views about what are the most pressing topics regarding divided societies in your research, what are kind of the hot topics to do. Well, right now, especially if you're looking at the Middle East but really anywhere, but the Middle East, in particular, the societies are become becoming divided, partially because of climate change. The land is running out the water, you know it's drying the Sahara is expanding at 25 miles a a year all around its perimeter that's pushing people out to the edges. To me societies are going to become increasingly pressed and divided as a result as this as just food and water and and employment and all of that that comes from a more restful setting become stretched. And so I would say one of the most important elements and divided society certainly is that I mean it's across the board. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. It's actually a very, very important area, I think, particularly around divided societies. And I think one of the things we're also finding is that, partially because of media, partially because of the fragmentation within divided societies, we're also finding that a lot of conflict is now taking place in cities is no longer large militaries, you know, exchanging battle on the plains of wherever it's in the roads and this and the alleyways of our cities and so I think our cities are at risk. And I think they are very much what divided societies are there, their, their encounters are closed their, the migration is, is filling them up I mean we have such a good example right now in Beirut. And, and I think there are others that are like that. So, I would, I would proceed to look at those kinds of areas as subjects. It's a rich area I think almost anything that you can do to help understand and and bring news insight will be extraordinarily rich in terms of a career direction. Thank you very much Roxanne for this fantastically wide ranging talk and you know taking us through your, your journey as, you know, as a journalist as an academic as a policy commentator, and also offering some you know, great insight into what's happening in the Middle East today as well so thank you very much. We're delighted to have you in the Center for the Study of Divided Societies delighted to have you in more studies and thank you for your time. Thank you Stacey what a wonderful interviewer you are. It was really fun. Thank you everyone.