Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Mee and Masters, and today I'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the fall of the 54-year brutal rule of the Assad clan in Syria,

after having stayed in power with the help of Russia and Iran by killing their own citizens,

while turning the country into a narco state.

Joining us to assess how the Islamist capture of Syria has upended regional and global geopolitics,

with dominoes likely to fall to the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and even Egypt,

is Paul Pillar, who served for 30 years as an analyst at the CIA in which his last position was

National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Previously, he served as

chief of the analytics units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf,

and South Asia. He has also headed the Assessments and Information Group of the Director of Central

and Intelligence's Counterterrorism Center and is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the

Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and an associate fellow at the Geneva

Center for Security Policy and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible

Statecraft.

His latest book is Beyond the Water's Edge, How Partizanship Corrupts U.S. foreign policy.

Then we'll examine how Americans need an alternative to the choice between Trump's America

first unilateralism or Biden's America is back nostalgia, which, instead of offering a

genuine foreign policy for the middle class, let alone the working class, has Washington pursuing

global military hegemony for the ruling class. Joining us is Dr. Nancy O'Kale, President and CEO of

the Center for International Policy,

a scholar and advocate of human rights, justice, peace, and equity.

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