The newest episode of our podcast features Steven A. Cook, Octavian Report board member and Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies and Director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations. We spoke with Cook about two major events in the Middle East: the historic Israel/UAE deal and the recent explosion in Beirut, and what these mean against the general context of the global COVID crisis.