July 12 - Robert Baer: War with Iran?; Afghanistan After the Assassination of Walid Karzai; A New Plantation Economy?

Full Program	LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM
Part 1	Robert Baer, a veteran CIA operations officer who served in the Middle East, analyzes the hopeful changes underway as the Arab Spring has the Assad regime in Syria teetering and the Revolutionary Guards regime in Iran alarmed by events in Syria and increasingly paranoid about their own restive population. However, all hope for change could be dashed if, as senior Israeli Intelligence officials warn, the Netanyahu Government will likely attack Iran, leaving the compliant and supine superpower, the United States on the wrong side of history.
Part 2	Roger Morris continues the conversation about hopeful change amid the death rattle of empire. He served on the Senior Staff of the National Security Council and has just completed a history of U.S./ Afghan relations and covert activity in South Asia, Between The Graves. He will also discuss the assassination of Karzai’s brother Walid, the governor of Kandahar, who was monumentally corrupt and widely despised, may he rest in peace.
Part 3	We examine the real state of the American economy overshadowed by political gamesmanship between one party that apparently will be rewarded for wrecking the economy, and the other that will be punished at the polls for the resulting wreckage. David Ruccio, professor of Economics at Notre Dame University, will sort through this train wreck and assess how fast the United States is becoming a plantation economy.