Gareth Porter, independent historian and investigative journalist for IPS News and Antiwar.com, discusses the themes in his article “Georgia War Rooted in US Self-Deceit on NATO,” how the national security bureaucracy dominates American policy to the detriment of the rest of Americans’ interests, the rise of the empire after World War II, how American Cold War policy pushed China toward Russia until the 1970s, the imperial bureaucrats desire to expand NATO up to the Russian border to weaken them, the often conflicting views between the American military and corporate policy ambitions and the multitude of excuses given to retain our many hundreds of military bases around the world.

MP3 here. (34:06)

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.

Daniel Levy, senior fellow and director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation, discusses the need for Israel to adopt a diplomatic foreign policy, prominent Israeli officials opposed to attacking Iran, the remaining danger of an Israeli attack, how hard-line rhetoric empowers Iran’s hawks in return, the disastrous effects any attack on Iran would have, the process for the upcoming Israeli election, the consequences of conflating all of Israel and America’s enemies and the new liberal U.S.-Israeli lobbying organization J-Street.

MP3 here. (28:48)

Daniel Levy is a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation and was a negotiator in the Rabin and Barak governments in Israel.