The Historian Who Explains Why the Middle East Is Messed Up - Simon Sebag Montefiore
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Why is 1979 considered the pivotal year for the modern Middle East?
1979 is the key date in modern Middle Eastern history. You've got to think of 1979, like we think of 1776 or 1917 or 1789. It's one of those mega revolutions that change everything. And it changes the destiny of Iran, but it also changes the Sunni Arab world too. And it unleashes and promotes a newly potent version of Islamism, which is anti-West and anti-West. Anti-American, anti-Israeli resistance, radicalism. It turns out that those people are extremely incompetent at running their states, but then they kill huge numbers of people, and that works as well for them, and it's extremely miserable to live in their countries often. But blaming America for 1979 means blaming America for the Shah. And the Shah was long regarded in leftist discourse as one of the great villains of all time.
The only thing I have to say on that is this. In the entire reign of the Shah, he ruled for 41 years. Approximately 4,000 people were killed violently. In the first days of the Islamic Republic, far more than that were murdered. And in about three days in January this year, 2026, the Islamic Republic killed approximately 30 to 40,000 young people. And that is many. many many multiples more than the Shah killed in forty-one years.
Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci. Joining me today is Simon Sabag Montefori. He's an internationally bestselling author. He's a prize-winning historian. He has a number one book out right now, a Times bestseller. Went to number one this week, The Cauldron, The Making of the Modern Middle East. And I have to tell you that I'm a big bibliophile. I'm a big fan of yours. I've read many of your books, Simon. Thank you. Thank you. Uh but I think this one really is uh one of the toppers for you because uh you've explained the Middle East. You're I mean, the title is there, it's a cauldron, but I want you to tell us what that image captures for you, uh that maybe the conventional descriptions of the Middle East do not capture.
I mean, I've called it the cauldron because As you can see at the moment, the cauldron is boiling. It's a there's a there is a ferocious struggle for power and influence happening there. And the cauldron suggests that struggle for security and power. Um that is turbulent, that is violent. But a cauldron can also be cooking. Fascinating, colorful, delicious ingredients. And this book is not just about the wars and coups and terrorists and fanaticism and empires of the Middle East. It's also a celebration of poetry, the the open view of the Middle East, the another tradition in the Arab world, in the Turkish world, um, that looks openly to the world, that takes in influences and And ideas and philosophies and there's two way traffic.
And so we too often think of the dark side of the Middle East. This book is a celebration of both. The reason why I wrote it is because. This book didn't exist. And as my hero Benjamin Disraeli always said, he always said, When I want to read a book and I can't find it, I write it myself. So I've written this because this book doesn't exist. Even though there are millions of books on the Middle East, most of them are about the end of World War I, like the famous Fromkin book that we've both read, but or about Israel-Palestine.
How does Simon Sebag Montefiore describe the “cauldron” metaphor for the Middle East?
But this book is from um Iran all the way to Morocco from Turkey. to Israel and Egypt and and Yemen and Sudan and it's it's 19 countries and many of them are Arab and Muslim but some of them are are are are are Turkish speaking and Persian speaking and um and some of them are Jewish, some of them are Christian, uh have large Christian populations. Um And it it's really about all of those states and all of the ethnicities and sects that are at home in the Middle East that make it the cauldron.
Well, I mean, it's just so much here and it's just a great history, and I would implore anybody to read this book because it'll get them up to speed. And to your point, I have a ton of clients in the Middle East. I go often. I love the countries and the hospitality. And I've even been to places like Iraq and Afghanistan on troop support missions where when the American military had presence there.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is 1979 considered the pivotal year for the modern Middle East?
0:00–3:35
2
How does Simon Sebag Montefiore describe the “cauldron” metaphor for the Middle East?
3:35–8:14
3
What was the impact of the Sykes‑Picot agreement on today’s borders?
8:14–11:46
4
How did the 1902 raid on Riyadh lead to the founding of Saudi Arabia?
11:46–16:32
5
Could alternative post‑World‑War‑I maps have created a more peaceful region?
16:32–20:56
6
What lessons did Iran learn from the Iran‑Iraq war and the 2003 US invasion?
20:56–25:23
7
Why does the host argue that the term “Middle East” is now obsolete?
25:23–29:16
8
What are the guest’s thoughts on the future of Iran’s regime and regional stability?
29:16–32:05
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci
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