November 23 - Diplomatic Moves to End the Syrian Agony; Russia's Changing Role in the Syrian Civil War

We begin with the upcoming visit of France's President Hollande to the White House on Tuesday who then goes on to Moscow to meet with President Putin, and discuss the possibility of a diplomatic solution to end the agony in Syria. James Gelvin, a Professor of History at UCLA whose research focuses on Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, joins us to look into both the military escalation against daesh, the self-declared Islamic State, and changes in the diplomatic landscape following a unanimous vote at the U.N. Security Council on Syria that Russia did not veto which condemned the Islamic State and called for a concerted effort by all nations to destroy it.

Part 2

Then we look further into Russia's role in the Syrian civil war which has changed since the bombing of the Russian airliner from propping up the Assad regime to trying to forge an anti-IS coalition with France and others that may lead to a diplomatic solution assuming that daesh can be neutralized. Gordon Hahn, an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation whose books include "Russia's Islamic Threat" and his latest "The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond", joins us to discuss Putin's vow to exterminate those who blew up the airliner over the Sinai. We also discuss what Gordon Hahn sees as a corruption of scholarship amongst U.S. analysts of Russia who equate Putin with Stalin and ignore evidence of U.S. meddling in Georgia and Ukraine that led to wars that are solely blamed on Putin.