August 10 - We Broke Iraq Which We Are Now Trying to Disown; Middle East Regimes Look Nervously at I.S.; Comparing the 100th Anniversary of the Outbreak of WWI to Today's Toublespots

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the humanitarian crisis in the north of Iraq and the U.S. intervention with air strikes from the aircraft carrier the George Bush in the Gulf and air drops to besieged Christians and Yazidis fleeing the murderous I.S. fighters. Robert Baer, who ran the CIA’s operations in the Kurdish north of Iraq starting in 1991, joins us to discuss the disconnect that the Obama Administration is still trying to stand up an inclusive government in Baghdad to govern a country that is no longer a country, while the stable Kurdish area in the north, which is under threat from I.S., is being denied weapons and money it is owed from the central government as well as not being able to sell its oil.

Part 2

Then we speak with Shibley Telhami, who served on the Iraq Study Group and is the author of “The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East”. We will discuss the shifting focus of regimes in the Middle East away from blaming Israel and the U.S for the regions problems, as the radical group I.S. makes stunning territorial gains that are frightening regimes in the area which previously supported Sunni radicals. We will also discuss the apparent silence of mainstream Muslim scholars, clerics and leaders in condemning the barbaric sectarian slaughter and rape underway as I.S. fighters terrorize Christian, Yazidi and Shiite minorities they have captured.

Part 3

Then finally Christopher Clark, professor of history at Cambridge University in the UK and author of “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went of War in 1914” joins us to discuss ceremonies in Europe commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War 1, and the comparisons between the entangling alliances that dragged the big powers into war back then, to today’s geopolitical landscape where the crisis in Ukraine and disputes over small islands in the north eastern Pacific could drag the U.S., China and Russia into a wider war.