August 24, 2008

Broadcast Date: 
Aug 24 2008

Thomas Powers asks why the military option "must be kept on the table" when it comes to Iran; a look at Israel's military and political ties with Georgia; plus Action/Abstraction, an exhibit at New York City's Jewish Museum. 

Episode segments
  • Iran and the Military Option
    Foreign Policy, International Politics, Middle East
    Thomas Powers is the author of The Military Error: Baghdad and Beyond in America's War of Choice, a collection of his essays from the The New York Review of Books; his essay "Iran: The Threat" appeared in the July 17, 2008 issue.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    There is a broad consensus among US politicos that whatever diplomatic efforts are attempted or sanctions imposed to halt Iran's nuclear program, the military option must remain on the table. In an iconoclastic essay in The New York Review of Books, Thomas Powers asks why.

  • Israel and Georgia
    International Politics
    Anshel Pfeffer is a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, for whom he has recently been reporting on Israeli-Georgian relations.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    The conflict between Russia and Georgia has posed a diplomatic dilemma for Israel, which wants Russia's support in dealing with Iran. But, until its recent suspension, Israel has been supplying military equipment, training, and advisors to Georgia and two key cabinet ministers charged with solving the conflict are former residents of Israel.

  • Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning and American Art, 1940-1941
    Visual Art, Arts & Culture, Exhibits
    Martha Schwendener writes about art for Nextbook, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art Forum, and other publications.
    Esther Kaplan and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

    Beginning in the 1940s, Abstract Expressionism catapulted American art onto the international stage; Action/Abstraction, at New York City's Jewish Museum through September 21, views the work of Pollack, de Kooning, and others from the perspective of the influential Jewish art critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg.