May 27 – The Assad Killing Machine; Spillover From Syria Into Lebanon; Polarized Results in Egyptian Election

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an update on Syria where a massacre of civilians and children has outraged the international community and intensified calls for the Assad regime to step down. A Syrian-born specialist who is a Professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University, Murhaf Jouejati, joins us to discuss whether this latest outrage by the Assad regime will move Russia to ease the Assads out of power.

Part 2

Then we go to Lebanon next door to get an assessment of how instability in Syria is spilling over into Lebanon which already has fragile political arrangements between sectarian groups who fought a long bloody civil war. Habib Battah, a reporter based in Lebanon who is the author of the blog “The Beirut Report” joins us to discuss the competing media coverage of Syria, where most reporters are banned, between the anti-Assad Gulf-based Al Jazeera and other major Arab TV channels, and pro-Syrian Iranian and Lebanese broadcasters.

Part 3

Then finally we go to Cairo, Egypt to speak with Khaled Elgindy who is a visiting fellow at the Brooking Institution and previously served as an advisor to the Palestinian leadership. We discuss how the liberal and socialist majority who brought about the revolution was split, leading to the polarized results for the run-off, and we also look into the ramifications of regime change in Egypt on the moribund Israeli/Palestinian peace negotiations.