Iran, China, and the New Middle East | Ahmed Aboudouh from Chatham House

Ahmed Aboudouh — associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme and head of the China Studies Unit at the Emirates Policy Center — joins Chris to assess the shifting architecture of power in the Middle East. He argues that China has no coherent regional strategy and that Washington's expectation of Chinese pressure on Tehran reflects a fundamental misreading of Beijing's interests and the limits of coercive statecraft. He traces how Egypt’s diplomacy reflects a country that has traded regional leadership for crisis management, explains why Arab states want a normalized Iran rather than a weakened one, and argues that the war will intensify multi-alignment rather than force a binary choice between Washington and Beijing. With the Abraham Accords effectively dead, the United States faces a damning paradox of its own making: deeper military entanglement, eroding strategic credibility.

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More about Ahmed on Chatham House: https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/ahmed-aboudouh

Connect with Ahmed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-aboudouh-346b1459/

Follow Ahmed on X: https://x.com/AAboudouh

Read Ahmed’s work for Chatham House

"Why Egypt is helping to end the Iran war": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/why-egypt-helping-end-iran-war

"China will benefit from the Iran war, regardless of any deal between Trump and Tehran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/china-will-benefit-iran-war-regardless-any-deal-between-trump-and-tehran

"China is playing the long game over Iran": https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/02/china-playing-long-game-over-iran

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Photo by Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court, Chatham House

Secrets and Spies sits at the intersection of intelligence, covert action, real-world espionage, and broader geopolitics in a way that is digestible but serious. Hosted by filmmaker Chris Carr and writer Matt Fulton, each episode examines the very topics that real intelligence officers and analysts consider on a daily basis through the lens of global events and geopolitics, featuring expert insights from former spies, authors, and journalists.

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