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

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

We will begin with more Houthi attacks against shipping as the war in Gaza passes the 100-day

mark and get an analysis of U.S. Middle East policy that goes against the foreign policy

establishment, arguing that Israel and Saudi Arabia are liabilities to the United States and our unwavering

support for them has emboldened Israel and Saudi Arabia to pursue reckless policies

knowing that the U.S. will come to their aid and not hold them responsible. Joining us is John Hoffman,

a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute,

and a professor of George Mason University specializing in Middle East geopolitics and political Islam.

He was recently awarded the 40 Under 40 Award from the Middle East Policy Council for his work on U.S.

Foreign Policy and his work has been featured in Middle East

Policy, Open Democracy, the Cipher Brief, and Foreign Policy magazine. We'll discuss his article

at Foreign Policy. U.S. Middle East policy has failed. The region is on fire, and Washington is to blame.

Then, with Congressman Coma, who is on a jihad to impeach the president,

now backing down, saying his job was, quote, never to impeach Biden.

We will speak with Michael Gayhart,

a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

the scholar in residence at the National

Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and the former scholar on impeachment in the United States.

He is one of only two legal scholars to testify in three different presidential impeachment hearings

and served as a special counsel to the presiding officer in Donald Trump's second

impeachment trial. He is the only legal scholar to address the entire House of Representatives

...