September 3 – The Author of “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault”; Does the Islamic State Want to Take Over Saudi Arabia?; A Tribute to Charles Bowden

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the intensifying crisis over Ukraine with President Obama in Estonia castigating Vladimir Putin ahead of a NATO summit as the Russian leader doubles down in his determination not to allow Ukraine to fall into NATO’s orbit. John Mearsheimer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program in International Security Policy at the University of Chicago and author of “Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics” joins us to discuss his article at Foreign Affairs “Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault”.

Part 2

Then we look into the possibility of Iran and Saudi Arabia working together to stabilize Iraq and contain the Islamic State that is bent on slaughtering Iraqi Shiites who they consider heretics, and might well have designs on replacing the House of Saud as the custodians of Islam’s holy shrines of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Nader Hashemi, the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and co-editor of “The Syria Dilemma”, joins us to discuss the roles of Saudi Arabia and Iran in the regional strategy to contain the Islamic State that President Obama is trying to organize.

Part 3

Then finally we offer a tribute to the great American reporter and writer Charles Bowden who died on Saturday in New Mexico at the age of 69. He was the author of more than 20 books, among them, “Down by the River”, “Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Field” and “Dreamland”. His friend and acclaimed Latino author Luis Alberto Urrea joins us. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the author of “Devil’s Highway” which was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. We discuss the border issues that Charles Bowden wrote about and fought for and against; the war on drugs, immigration reform and the environment.