Background Briefing

Aaron David Miller / David Phillips / Alexander Motyl

Now That He is Suddenly Popular, Netanyahu Has Boxed Harris in to Support His War in Gaza and Lebanon

We begin with how Netanyahu has humiliated Biden and Blinken and boxed in Kamala Harris to support Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon now that the Israeli Prime Minister is suddenly popular, having assassinated Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and possibly Hamas’s Sinwar. Joining us is Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst and negotiator who is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. He has been an advisor to six Secretaries of State; under president Clinton, he served as the Deputy Special Middle East Coordinator for Arab-Israeli Negotiations. His books include The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace and The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.

How Turkey’s Erdogan, Who Has Stolen Billions, Threw Chump Change to New York City Mayor Eric Adams

Then we will examine the indictments of the Mayor of New York City, with a focus on the kleptocratic state of Turkey in which Erdogan and his cronies have pocketed billions while throwing chump change to Eric Adams. Joining us is David Phillips, a Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, a visiting scholar at Oxford University, and the former Director of the Peace-building and Rights Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. A former senior adviser and foreign affairs expert to the U.S. Department of State during the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, he chaired the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission and the Track Two Program in Turkey and the Caucasus. His books include Unsilencing the Past, Diplomatic History: The Turkey-Armenia Protocols and Frontline Syria: From Democratic Revolution to Proxy War.

An Assessment of Zelensky’s U.S. Visit and the Real Reason Trump Hates Him

Then finally, we assess the success or failure of the recent U.S. visit by Ukraine’s President Zelensky and speak with Alexander Motyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires and Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective. We will discuss his latest article at The Hill, “The Real Reason Trump Hates Zelensky.”