June 23 - Obama's Announcement of a Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan; An Analysis of the Middle East Following the Arab Spring Revolutions; An Update on the Financial Crisis in Europe

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Part 1	We start off by discussing the president’s announcement yesterday regarding a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, in effect, the un-surge of the extra 30,000 troops Obama deployed. To get an analysis of the beginning of the end of this decade-long, losing war, we are joined by AfPak expert, Christine Fair, who served as a United Nations political officer in Kabul and is a senior fellow in the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Part 2	Then we get a broader analysis of the Middle East, shaken by the Arab Spring revolutions, and assess the successes and failures while focusing on the counterrevolutionaries, in particular the contra of contras, Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich, reactionary feudal state that fuels religious medievalism and abhors democracy. Anouar Boukhars, an expert on the Middle East and in particular Morocco, where the Moroccan king is doing exactly what the Saudi King is urging and trying to bribe him not to do, joins us.
Part 3	Then, finally, we have an update on the financial crisis shaking the Eurozone with concerns over Greece defaulting on its stifling debt, and Portugal and Ireland staggering under the weight of their debt. Steven Hill, the author of “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age,” joins us from a conference of European leaders in Spain where these issues are being discussed, debated and presumably dealt with.