Before we sat down to record this week’s episode, authorities in Iran announced that Hamas’ political leader, Ismael Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. This news came just hours after Israel claimed responsibility for the targeted assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, who was killed in retaliation for a gruesome missile attack in the Golan Heights. Amidst this flurry, there is a heightened prospect that conflict will escalate further throughout the region.

However, the UN offers a way out of this escalatory spiral, identified no less by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which on Wednesday released a statement saying, “The only way to prevent an all-out war is the immediate implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.” In our first segment, we explain what this means and whether an 18-year-old Security Council resolution can really prevent a wider war in the Middle East.

Our second segment uses the occasion of Sierra Leone becoming the President of the Security Council for the month of August to tell the good-news story of one of the most successful UN peacekeeping missions of all time. Our third segment takes a deep dive into the work of ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Council, a UN body that receives very little attention despite its highly consequential work.

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