September 4 - Syria's Chemical Arsenal; Talking to Russia and Iran About Syria; The Shadow of Bush and Cheney Over Intervening on WMD's

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an expert on chemical weapons and look into why the Syrian regime has them, what they have, and who is in charge of them. Gregory Koblentz, a professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs and a member of the Scientist Working Group on Chemical and Biological Weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation in Washington D.C. joins us to discuss the impending U.S. strike on Syria over its use of chemical weapons against its own civilian population.

Part 2

Then we explore alternative scenarios to the punitive use of force in Syria and the possibility of President Obama using his visit to Russia for the G-20 summit to sit down with Putin and find a way to end the bloody civil war in Syria rather than escalate it. Asher Kaufman, a professor of History and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame joins us to discuss what might end the bloodshed and destruction of Syria, short of a partition of the country that is not likely to produce viable states if the rebels end up with a landlocked rump state with no access to the Mediterranean

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the shadow of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney hanging over the Syrian intervention and the peculiar alliances between Democratic interventionists and Republican neoconservatives on one side, and liberal Democrats and libertarian Republicans who are against the Syrian intervention on the other. Roger Morris, who served on the Senior Staff of the National Security Council under presidents Johnson and Nixon, joins us to discuss today’s strange political bedfellows and W’s legacy of lies.