Nouri al-Maliki was Prime Minister of Iraq between 2006 and 2014, a tenure that makes him easily the country's longest serving post-2003 prime minister.

Maliki became Iraq's head of government in the maelstrom of Iraq's sectarian civil war, following the 2003 US-UK invasion of the country. Today’s is a story of the collapse of the Iraqi state, and the highly imperfect efforts to rebuild it made necessary by the liquidation of virtually all of Saddam Hussein’s institutions by the United States within a matter of weeks.

The level of hubris displayed by the US both before and after the invasion is extraordinary, and on perhaps no issue did the US not do its homework to a more embarrassing degree than the difference between Sunni and Shia muslims. Indeed, President Bush is reported to have been surprised on finding out in 2003 that Iraq had two different kinds of Muslim living in it.

My guest today is Renad Mansour. Renad is a senior research fellow and project director of the Iraq Initiative at Chatham House. He is also a senior research fellow at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, and a research fellow at the Cambridge Security Initiative based at Cambridge University. He is also the co-author of Once Upon a Time in Iraq, which has also been made into a BBC television series.

Sadyr Japarov has been the President of Kyrgyzstan since 2021. Japarov's rise to power came after his country had experienced three revolutions in 15 years, in a part of the World unused to political upheaval.

Today's episode investigates whether the three Kyrgyz revolutions, so unusual for Central Asia, have benefited the country's development. On the one hand, they sent a message to national and regional elites that their people had a voice, and were willing to use it. On the other, Japarov has made political hay out of the disorder visited upon Kyrgyzstan as a result of 15 years of turmoil, and is now rolling back democratic freedoms in the country.

My guest today is Bruce Pannier. Bruce is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a longtime journalist and correspondent covering Central Asia. He also writes Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s blog, Qishloq Ovozi.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was President of Haiti three times between 1991 and 2004.

A lightning rod for hope and democracy on his election in 1990, the overall course and tone of Aristide's political career was set remarkably early on in 1991, when after just eight months in power, Aristide was removed in a coup.

As you’re about to hear, Aristide’s reformist agenda never recovered from the 1991 coup, and his time in power can be interpreted as the overture to Haiti’s present crisis. It is one of the most crushing stories I’ve covered on this series, but my guest also provides hope in the form of stories about the enormous cultural and communal wealth of Haiti and its people.

That guest is Rosa Freedman. Rosa is Professor of Law, Conflict, and Global Development at the University of Reading, and has published extensively on the United Nations, international human rights law, sexual exploitation and abuse in conflict, and Haiti.