Philip Giraldi, contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine, discusses the disposition of U.S. diplomacy in the Obama administration, the role Dick Cheney played in scuttling a Syria/Israel peace agreement, Obama’s use of unofficial envoys to float diplomatic trial balloons in Iran and Russia, the fate of Hamid Karzai and why the Pyrrhic nature of the Israel lobby’s recent victory over the realists has been greatly exaggerated.

MP3 here. (41:43)

Philip Giraldi is a former DIA and CIA counter-terrorism officer, member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance and contributing editor at the American Conservative Magazine. His Smoke and Mirrors column is a regular feature on Antiwar.com

Eric Margolis, author of American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World, discusses the repeating of history in Afghanistan, India’s under-the-radar regional influence and sweetheart nuclear deal, ramifications of a future “Pashtunistan”, the precarious economic and political conditions in Pakistan, the possibility of Obama using Bill Clinton as Kashmir peacemaker, the need for a waxing Department of State and waning Pentagon in the foreign policy realm, the Caspian oil pipeline as “Great Game” prize, new accusations about Syria’s nuclear program and the supreme importance of U.S./Russia relations.

MP3 here. (53:49)

Eric Margolis is a foreign correspondent and columnist with the Quebecor Media Company and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj.

Joe Cirincione, president of the Plougshares Fund, discusses developments in the Israeli bombing of an alleged nuclear reactor in Syria, the North Korean nuclear program, the Bush regime’s failure to negotiate its dismantling, the AQ Kahn nuclear secret black-market network, the Iranian nuclear energy program, what it would take for Iran to build a weapons program, the missed opportunity five years ago to become friends with them, the political structure within Iran, the foreign policies of the presidential candidates, the dismantling of the old Soviet nuclear arsenal and the necessity of a nuclear weapon free world for the survival of the species.

MP3 here. (44:04)

Joe Cirincione is President of Plougshares Fund based in Washington, DC and San Francisco and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.

Dr. Gordon Prather, Antiwar.com’s in-house nuclear physicist, discusses the chaos of the Bush regime’s policies against the “Axis of Evil” and global non-proliferation regime, from trying to frame North Korea with the same bogus intel as they used on Iraq to trying to connect Iran and North Korea with the Israeli-bombed facility in Syria, the U.S.’s nuclear deals with India, how A.Q. Kahn’s stolen intel scheme was falsely claimed by George Tenet to be a CIA success story, the vague credentials of nuke “expert” David Albright Ph.D and how the Bush team has put us in far more danger from nuclear proliferation.

MP3 here. (52:09)

YouTube here.

Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. – ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Mohamad Bazzi, Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses his recent article in Newsweek about the prospects for peace in the Middle East, the peace talks between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights, the Bush administration’s policy of isolating Syria, their close alliance with Iran, Turkey’s role in the Israeli-Syrian talks, the State Department’s recent contact with the Syrian ambassador to the U.S., U.S. involvement in the Middle East, the situation in Lebanon between the Seniora government and Hezbollah and takes questions from callers.

MP3 here. (16:41)

Mohamad Bazzi is Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday. He is currently working on a project about Hezbollah and the Shiite community in Lebanon.

Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent for Canada’s Sun National Media and author of War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet, discusses the new hype about Israel’s bombing of the supposed Syrian/North Korean nuclear facility in September 2007, the North Korean uranium enrichment program which still does not exist and which they still won’t fess up to, Israeli peace negotiations with Syria over the Golan Heights on the eve of further war, the two countries’ relative strength, the insane neocon “the Iranians want to be bombed and taken over by the MEK” theory, new war plans being drawn up, various ways that Iran could strike back, the bogus threat of the “Shi’ite Crescent,” the very real willingness of the Iranians to negotiate and do business with the U.S., the motivations which drive the al Qaeda movement, pro-Americanism in France and the NATO/EU Army question.

MP3 here. (42:17)

Award winning author, columnist, and broadcaster Eric S. Margolis has covered 14 wars and is a leading authority on military affairs, the Middle East, South Asia, and Islamic movements. He is the author of War at the Top of the World. See his website.

Philip Giraldi, former DIA and CIA officer and columnist for Antiwar.com, discusses his scoop for the American Conservative magazine that the information leading the FBI to Ben Ami Kadish came from inside the Israeli government, speculation that it may have been an attempt by antiwar factions in Israel to thwart scheduled testimony by Israeli intelligence agents in favor of the bogus story of the North Korea/Syria nuclear weapons program, the promotion of Gen. Petraeus to commander of Centcom, the remaining danger of war with Iran given a suitable pretext, the detriment of the narrative of the indivisibility of Israeli and American interests, the natural divisions between groups like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, the Iranian Mullahs, the War Party’s claims about their cooperation, the FBI’s bogus terrorism prosecutions since 9/11, America’s regime change in Somalia, the case for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and the McCain prescription for confrontation with Russia and China.

MP3 here. (39:51)

Philip Giraldi is a former DIA and CIA officer, partner at Cannistraro Associates, Francis Walsingham Fellow for the American Conservative Defense Alliance, contributing editor at the American Conservative magazine and columnist at Antiwar.com.

Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses the “retirement” of Adm. Fox Fallon from his position as the head of Centcom, his repeated clashes with the White House over Iran policy, Robert Gates role, his belief that war is still unlikely, the U.S. government propaganda again blaming Iran for all the problems in Iraq, Obama and his advisers, Bill Clinton’s 1997 attempt to have former Centcom commander Gen. Anthony Zinni to create a pretext for war with Iraq and Zinni’s play to shut it down and attempt to pin bin Laden’s Khobar Towers attack on “Iranian-backed Saudi Hezbollah” as a pretext for war against Iran.

MP3 here. (27:32)

Some relevant Porter articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Dr. Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on U.S. national security policy who has been independent since a brief period of university teaching in the 1980s. Dr. Porter is the author of four books, the latest of which is Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005). He has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005.

Dr. Porter was both a Vietnam specialist and an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War and was Co-Director of Indochina Resource Center in Washington. Dr. Porter taught international studies at City College of New York and American University. He was the first Academic Director for Peace and Conflict Resolution in the Washington Semester program at American University.

Seymour Hersh from the New Yorker discusses his new article about the  Israeli air strike against Syria last September, U.S. complicity and the lies used to justify it.

MP3 here. (17:00)

Seymour Hersh is an award winning investigative reporter currently writing for the New Yorker magazine.

Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, discusses the true nature of Syria, North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs, the neoconservatives lies about them, their motives, the Cheney Cabal’s attempted end run around the president, the willingness of the mass media to continually repeat whatever the government says about Iran, the fragility of the UN’s non-proliferation regime and the possibility of a nuclear war against Iran.

MP3 here. (39:31)

Joseph Cirincione is Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at CAP and author of the new book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons (Columbia University Press, Spring 2007). Prior to joining the Center in May 2006, he served as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for eight years. He is the co-author of Contain and Engage: A New Strategy for Resolving the Iran Nuclear Crisis (Center for American Progress, March 2007), Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats (Second Edition, 2005), and Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (March 2005). He teaches at the graduate School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.