October 7 – Saudi Arabia’s Under-Reported Destruction of Yemen; “The US Massacre in Kunduz Exposes the Bankruptcy of Obama’s National Security Policy”; Has the Iran Deal Led to Closer Relations Between Russia and Iran?;

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the under-reported destruction of the country of Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East that is being destroyed by the richest country in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. Charles Schmitz, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who has researched and written extensively on Yemen, joins us to discuss how the Saudis are destroying Yemen’s infrastructure and blockading the country’s food supply that is causing a humanitarian crisis the U.N. has warned is catastrophic. But meanwhile the Saudis have effectively blocked a U.N. inquiry into the dire situation in Yemen.

Part 2

Then we speak with Bob Dreyfuss , an investigative journalist who has written extensively on Iraq, Iran, the war on terrorism, and national security. He is the author of “Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”.  We discuss his article at The Nation “The U.S. Massacre in Kunduz Exposes the Bankruptcy of Obama’s National Security Policy” and examine how Obama has handled the wars he inherited from George W. Bush in a region Obama would clearly like to get out of but circumstances keep sucking him back into the quagmires.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland who was an advisor to the Iraq Study Group and was recently an advisor to the State Department.  He is the author of “The World Through Arab Eyes: Arab Public Opinion and the Reshaping of the Middle East” and we discuss whether the recently concluded deal with Iran has presented the U.S. with more options in dealing with Tehran or has it cemented a closer relationship between Iran and Russia to work against American interests?