Full Program

Part 1

We will begin with the shaky ceasefire in Ukraine and the fragile peace that is expected to be temporary. Ambassador Steven Pifer joins us. A former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, he was a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council and is now the Director of the Brookings Institution’s Arms Control Initiative where he focuses on arms control, Ukraine and Russia issues. We will discuss Ukraine’s precarious military and financial situation and what might restrain Vladimir Putin in his determination to crush the new government in Kyiv.

Part 2

Then we will examine the mess in Libya where there has been chaos since the U.S. and NATO “liberation” of the country from the long and brutal Qadaffi dictatorship. Wayne White a scholar at the Middle East Institute who was Deputy Director of the State Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research and served as a State Department Intelligence Analyst on Libya, joins us to discuss the impact of the Egyptian bombing of Islamic State fighters in retaliation for the graphic executions of Coptic Christian workers, and Libya’s oil-dependent economy that has all but ground to a halt from raids by the various militias on oil terminals and ports.

Part 3

Then finally, following the meeting in Budapest between the Russian and Hungarian leaders, we will look into Putin’s unusual alliance with Hungary’s Prime Minister Orban and Putin’s funding of neo-Nazi and fascist parties in Western Europe. Kim Lane Scheppele, a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, who lived in Budapest and Russia for extended periods, joins us to discuss the odd man out in Europe as Hungary drifts to the right and the demonstrations against Putin that took place with banners reading “Putin No! Europe Yes”.  

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Denmark and go to Copenhagen to speak with Flemming Rose, a journalist and the Foreign Editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the daily newspaper which published twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 that sparked violent protests across the Muslim world. Since Flemming Rose made the decision to publish the cartoons, we discuss the decision to hold a public event “Art, Blasphemy, and Freedom of Expression” in a Copenhagen café with the controversial Swedish Cartoonist Lars Vilks who also caricatured Muhammad, that provoked a terrorist attack which left a film director at the cafe and a Jewish guard at a synagogue dead. In discussing freedom verses censorship, we look into whether restrictions should be put into place to prevent young European Muslims from being radicalized in prison as was the case with the terrorists responsible for the recent massacres in Paris and the young Danish-born terrorist who was just released from jail two weeks ago.

Part 2

Then the world-renowned Islamic scholar Dr. Abou El Fadl joins us in the studio to discuss the recent displays of barbarity and murder done in the name of Islam, as well as the execution-style murders of three young Muslims in America whose killing is still being attributed to a parking dispute even though the contested parking spot was empty at the time the young students were executed by their neighbor. Dr. El Fadl is a Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law and Chair of Islamic Studies at the UCLA School of Law, who served on the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom and on the board of directors for Human Rights Watch. His books include “The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists”, “The Search for Beauty in Islam” and his latest just out is, “Reasoning with God: Reclaiming Shari’ah in the Modern Age”.