Anti-imperialist history under live fire.
The East is a Podcast treats current crises as historical structures, not isolated headlines. Its conversations move through Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, sanctions, Zionist media, and U.S. power with polemical urgency and long-form political context.
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The East is a Podcast is a long-form, interview-centered politics show with a hard anti-imperialist line and a persistent focus on West Asia, North Africa, and the wider global order around them. It treats the present as history still in motion. A discussion of Pakistan hosting U.S.-Iran negotiations becomes a question of energy dependence, regional leverage, American pressure, and the limits of state maneuvering. A war diary from Iran becomes a map of reformists, hardliners, rentier corruption, sanctions, neoliberal policy, fake negotiations, and social exhaustion. The show does not smooth these arguments into tidy consensus. It lets them remain tense, recursive, and morally charged. Iran appears across its episodes as a central political terrain: Tehran guests describe war, public rallies, state response, disillusionment, resilience, and the radicalizing effects of foreign attack. Palestine appears through archival and historical analysis, especially in the prehistory of Al Aqsa Flood, prisoner exchanges, Hamas's local electoral participation, and the lore around resistance figures. Media itself is treated as a battlefield. Episodes on Zionist Hebrew media examine ownership, propaganda, oligarchs, shipping, refineries, donor networks, and the machinery through which violence is narrated at home. The show also carries conversations across other anti-imperialist circuits, including Venezuela, Cuba, the Bolivarian Revolution, and the Iranian Revolution. Its rhythm is seminar-like but not bloodless. Questions arrive with long frames, guests speak in extended arcs, and the conversation often stops to clarify an institution, a date, or the political consequence of a euphemism. The tone can be angry, mournful, sardonic, and analytical in the same hour. It is demanding audio for listeners who already care about empire, sanctions, Zionism, resistance, and media power, or who are willing to learn those arguments without being eased in. What sets it apart is not neutrality but commitment: the show wants political clarity, and it is willing to argue its way there in public.
Made for: For politically literate listeners who want long-form analysis of Iran, Palestine, West Asia, sanctions, media power, and resistance politics. It best suits an audience comfortable with dense interviews and openly argued positions.
What sets it apart: The show combines crisis response with historical excavation, bringing guests into long, often urgent conversations that connect media, war, law, energy, sanctions, and regional politics. Its edge comes from refusing institutional neutrality while still insisting on detail.
A critical lens on the history of the present on West Asia and North Africa. Interviews with experts and archival mashups. Created by Sina Rahmani (twitter: @urorientalist)
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Sina Rahmani connects present conflicts to media power, political history, and voices speaking from the countries under discussion.
The East is a Podcast treats geopolitics as an argument over power, sovereignty, and political memory, usually through interviews led by Sina Rahmani.
A wrong mic, then a microscope for Israeli media: your evening just got more specific.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Pakistan's broker role is tested by energy limits and American pressure.
This episode works best when it stays with Amanullah and the host as Pakistan takes center stage, from the negotiations and the media response to the state's reaction and the familiar line that Pakistan can talk to everyone without being cornered.
A Tehran-linked discussion of Iran's war, economic policy, and why faith in negotiations has faded.
The East is a Podcast reads Iran's wartime uncertainty through the politics beneath it: sidelined reformists, rethought hard-liners, and an economic order tied to rentier corruption and a Western-leaning elite.
A Tehran-grounded conversation on war, national unity, and dissent inside Iranian society.
The East is a Podcast stages a Tehran-grounded conversation about how war is changing the mood inside Iranian society. Its guests describe a public response shaped by both anger at Islamic Republic policies and a rally-behind-the-flag reaction to foreign attack.
A compact long view of prisoner exchanges, Hamas's local electoral gains, and the road toward Tufan al-Aqsa.
The episode sets Tufan al-Aqsa inside a longer history of Palestinian resistance, with prisoner exchanges treated as both proof of leverage and a repeatable method.
A sharp tour of Israeli media's owners, donors, and the machinery around them.
The episode tracks Dror Dayan and the host as they sketch the Israeli media machine through a clear chain of names and institutions, moving from Channel 14 to Zim, Buzan refineries, Blavatnik, Miri Lashvili, and the donor ties around them.
A grounded wartime discussion of Iran, tying possible attrition to corruption, reformist sidelining, subsidies, and normalization.
The episode frames Iran's wartime politics through endurance: not only the prospect of a war of attrition, but the economic and political pressures already shaping life inside the country.
A dense year-in-review conversation connecting Palestine, Russia, Bretton Woods, and extreme wealth through the question of sovereignty.
The year-in-review frame turns into a broader argument about sovereignty under pressure. The host and Max Ajl move from the U.S. role in the Arab region and parts of Africa to the idea that Washington is trying to pull national planning away from sovereign states, tying that…
This episode discusses and compares the anti-sovereignty models of Canada and Mexico in a casual, conversational style.
This episode features a discussion with Nick Estes and Ali Alizadeh on Indigenous resistance and martyrdom, framed around the upcoming funeral of Hezbollah's Sayed Hassan Nasrallah.
Host Sina Rahmani reunites with Max Ajl for a 'Rear in Review 2025' analyzing global crises.
In this episode of The East is a Podcast, host Sina Rahmani and guest Humar Salehi interview Navid Zarinal, who reports from Tehran during the Iran-Israel war.
The East is a Podcast examines the 2024 shutdown of the Palestine Congress in Berlin through accounts from Helena Zohdi and Dror Dayan.
Amanullah returns to talk through Pakistan's role in the negotiations, with Iran hanging over the discussion.
Tehran-based guest Navid Zarinnal says a Quds Day march near Engelab Square and the Tatar Shah intersection was hit by a bomb about 100 meters from the crowd.
Sara Larijani and Taha Zeinali speak from Tehran about hearing bombs while they were planning the week, with children screaming near two elementary schools and parents rushing into the streets.
This episode features an interview with Helyeh Doutaghi, a scholar discussing Iran's geopolitical actions, international law, and the impacts of sanctions from a post-colonial perspective.
This emergency episode discusses Iran's resistance to US imperialism with expert Sina Rahmani, providing context on recent events and Western-Iranian relations.
The host starts by fixing the mic and welcoming Daur back.
Mujama joins the host to trace a prehistory of Tufan al-Aqsa through the long history of Palestinian resistance.
This episode features interviews with Carlos Ron and Mohammad Marandi discussing how the Iranian and Bolivarian revolutions resist U.S.
The host discusses upcoming content, including a two-part episode featuring Muhammad and Mahmoud reflecting on recent years, with a second half interview about translation work in Gaza.
This episode features a discussion with Sina Rahmani on the psychology of resistance in global conflicts, particularly between Iran and Israel, building on previous talks about entropy.