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Mike Giglio joins the show to discuss his new book, “Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate.” Based on in-depth reporting with protagonists on all sides of the conflict, the book provides a ground-level view of events from the Arab Spring to the battle for Mosul.
We discuss how he became a correspondent and found himself in an ancient Turkish border town; his experiences interviewing jihadis, Syrian rebels, Kurdish nationalists, and elite Iraqi shock troops; and what lessons he’s drawn from him time covering the Syrian Civil War and the US-led war against ISIS.
Mike Giglio is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on intelligence and national security and has reported extensively on the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Ukraine. Mike spent five years based in Istanbul as a correspondent for Newsweek and BuzzFeed. His work has twice been a finalist for the Livingston Award and has won the Arthur F. Burns Prize. You can find him on Twitter @mike_giglio.
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“Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate”
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Syria is a mess and neither (former) President Obama or President Trump have covered themselves in glory. I suppose it could have been done worse but its hard to see how. A lot have people have died which always happens in a civil war but maybe it could have been ended sooner.