Look back at excerpts from our conversations with reporters over the past 10 years about religion and its changing role in our world.
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December 22, 2010

Revisit our 2005 conversation about the iraq war with Anthony Shadid, who this week won his second Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. More →

April 15, 2010

The conflict between Sunnis and Shiites goes back nearly 1,400 years and today, it is tearing Iraq apart. But the two branches of Islam have not always been openly hostile, and in many parts of the world they live together peacefully. More →

September 29, 2006

BOOK EXCERPT by Vali Nasr (W.W. Norton & Company, 2006) It is clear today that America cannot take comfort in an imagined future for the Middle East, and cannot force the realization of that future. Such an approach guided the … More →

August 11, 2006

Read correspondent Lucky Severson’s August 7, 2006 interview in Washington, D.C. with Vali Nasr, a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. More →

August 10, 2006

As U.S. officials debate who should run Iraq after the war, one reality is the division between the two main branches of Islam, Shi’ite and Sunni. Dr. Phebe Marr, a historian and expert on Iraq, joined us to discuss the future of the conflict.
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April 4, 2003

Read more of Bob Abernethy’s interview with Dr. Phebe Marr, an Arabist and leading specialist on Iraq, about religion and politics in post-war Iraq and the origins of the split between Shii and Sunni Muslims. More →

April 4, 2003