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

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

We'll begin with a likely invasion of Ruffer and the expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt,

as talks underway in Cairo for a ceasefire appear deadlocked, while Netanyahu's right flank

threatens to bolt from the ruling coalition if he accepts a ceasefire deal.

Joining us is Paul Pillar, who served for 30 years as an analyst of the CIA,

in which his last position was a national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.

Previously he served as the chief of analytics units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East,

the Persian Gulf and South Asia.

He also headed the assessments and information group of the Director of Central

Intelligence's Counterterrorist Center and was deputy chief of the center.

He is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown

University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. And we will discuss his latest book, Beyond the Water's Edge,

how partisanship corrupts U.S. foreign policy. Then with the DEA considering moving marijuana

from a Schedule 1 list to a Schedule 3 list of illegal drugs. We'll look into this too little too late

move and speak with David Posen, a professor of law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches

and writes about constitutional law, information law and non-profit law, among other topics.

He previously served as a special assistant to Senator Ted Kennedy

on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee and as a law clerk for Justice John Paul

Stevens of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of

Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. His new book, Just Out is The Constitution of War on Drugs, and he has an essay at Time

magazine, Do Americans have a constitutional right to use drugs? Then finally, we'll speak with

...