Talk on Syria, Terrorism, and Debt (Happy Hour!)
The Diane Rehm Show gets David Sanger of The New York Times, Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy magazine and Matt Frei of the U.K’s Channel 4 News in for a chat on a variety of subjects including whether the US should intervene. Start at 7m:15s for talk on Syria.
Sanger reminds us of the risks of giving weapons to proxies: the mujaheddin in Afghanistan used some weapons the US gave them in 80s against Americans after 9/11, he says. He forgot to mention that the US also had to buy back a lot of Stingers in the 90s. Expensive and risky. Sanger and Frei both note that Washington will use Gulf countries as a conduit for arming the rebels. Frei hit on a nice point (though a disturbing one for those of us who would like to avoid intervention): in lieu of western aid, the fractured Syrian rebel movement is more likely to seek help from religious extremists. Glassner says the US must find a way to support the “popular middle of this uprising.” Of course, who that is and whether they’re popular is left unsaid.
