The meter is now officially running, with the UN giving Iraq four months to determine its fate, to come clean on weapons programs.

But, with Washington’s “zero tolerance” policy on crawfishing, confrontation may come sooner.

Of course, there’s always the chance that Iraq will comply; however, that possibility isn’t interfering with the US military buildup in the Gulf.

Heavy equipment, aircraft carriers and mobile headquarters are heading east as if to war. There’s a newly leaked combat plan in the newspapers, but there are many other scenarios as well. The one missing element right now is soldiers in the field.

Balancing plans for battle, adrenalin and the ticking clock, where the buildup leads, and what another Gulf War might mean for American soldiers and sailors.

Guests:

Maj. Gen. (Ret.) William L. Nash, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Preventive Action Council on Foreign Relations

Colonel Kenneth Allard (Ret.) Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC.

Earlier this year, the president of Yale University threw down the gauntlet. He challenged the nation’s top universities to abolish the binding early decision application process.

The system is widely regarded as a ploy to pad college rankings, and as yet another source of pressure in the already frenzied lives of college-bound seniors.

No other institutions answered that call, yet this week, in a ratings-be-damned move, Yale unilaterally disarmed — easing the contract with early applicants. Stanford quickly followed suit, and now eyes are on the other elite institutions still clinging to ironclad, and some say discriminatory, admissions programs. Dropping out of early decision: a kinder, gentler road to college commitment.

Guests:

Richard Levin, President of Yale University

James Fallows, National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly.

In the wake of the midterm elections, one thing is clear: It’s George Bush’s economy now. Republicans control the Congress, and the President can expect a green light for whatever fiscal prescription he proposes. First off, the President says he wants to make his 10-year tax cut, currently weighing in at $1.35 trillion, permanent.

These are days of growing deficits, investor anger, falling consumer confidence, and a time when interest rates are already as low as they can go.

Critics say that the old supply side scheme of tax cuts and trickle down doesn’t make sense. They say that government spending and investment are what the nation needs. So how to do it, how to jump-start, prime the pump how to help the economy. Searching for Stimulus.

Guests:

Stephen Moore, President, The Club for Growth

and Robert Reich, professor of economic and social policy at Brandeis University and former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton.

We claim to know nations by their literature: James Joyce’s Ireland, Dostoevsky’s Russia, Mark Twain’s America. But these writers are old; in fact, they’re dead. So, this hour we begin a series on world literature today.

We’ll be talking with writers in nations caught up in change, where the old politics and the old literature no longer apply. Today, South Africa. The novelist Alan Paton once said, “If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn’t concern the central issues, it wouldn’t be worth publishing.” Well, those central issues have changed. And the novelist Zakes Mda is stepping into the breach.

The black writer embraces, with the sheer joy of discovery, the infinite themes that emerge once art is liberated from the demands of the liberation struggle.

Zakes Mda will be reading this afternoon at the Barker Center at Harvard University at 4:30 pm.

Guests:

Zakes Mda, author of “The Heart of Redness”.

This past Sunday, the rules of engagement changed. It happened at dawn, in the lawless Yemeni desert. Pushing a button, far away, a CIA operative launched a Hellfire missile from a high-flying pilot-less Predator drone. Six alleged Al Queda operatives died down below, and a murky legal and moral issue was born: Targeted Killings.

Calling it “assassination” conjures up poisons, snipers and shadows, executing a high-profile hit and slipping away, but is a remote control strike overseas so different? Critics worry that it may violate international conventions, risk backlash and set a nerve-wracking new precedent. Defenders say these are extreme times for the U.S. and extreme measures are needed to win.

Taking the “War on Terror” up a notch.

Guests:

Steven David, Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, and author of the forthcoming article: “Fatal Choices: Israel’s Policy of Targeted
Killing,” appearing in the spring issue of Ethics and International Affairs

and
Scott L. Silliman, Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law, and Executive Director of the Law School’s Center on Law, Ethics and National Security.

Mental illness. It can devastate families, sink political careers, become a scarlet letter for life. Unless, of course, you’re an artist. In that case you’re branded “eccentric” and sent on your merry way.

Kurt Vonnegut turned his struggles with depression and suicide into a vital ingredient of his literary identity, his intense prose granting him a certain diplomatic immunity from the rules of “sanity.” His son Mark was more hippie than artist when he went squirrelly in the height of the Vietnam era. He penned a brutally detailed narrative of his long, strange trip, but he still couldn’t plead artist by insanity. He viewed going crazy as the sane response to an insane world. Apocalyptic thoughts in a twisted society, analyzing the Vonnegut mind.

Mark and Kurt Vonnegut will be speaking and signing at the Arthur M. Sackler Art Museum, Harvard University Campus, at 6 p.m..

Guests:

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., writer

Mark Vonnegut, pediatrician and author of “The Eden Express”

Call it a mandate, call it redemption, the big winner in the midterm elections is George W. Bush. From statehouse surprises in Georgia and Massachusetts to Capitol Hill, where the GOP picked up a handful of House seats and flipped the Senate, the message is support for the president, and back to the drawing board for the opposition.

Democrats are scratching their heads and starting to point fingers as they tally the final numbers. Meanwhile, the White House is looking forward to filling federal judgeships, cementing its tax policies into place, and prosecuting its hard line against Iraq. It’s the spurning of historical trends, the fruit of relentless campaigning, and the beginning of an era of unified government, in a closely divided country.

Guests:

Linda Wertheimer, NPR’s senior national correspondent

John McHenry, Republican pollster, and partner at Ayres, McHenry & Associates

Stan Greenberg Democratic pollster, and Chairman and CEO of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research.

The eyes of devout Muslims the world over turn toward Saudi Arabia five times a day. They’re praying toward Mecca, of course, and not Riyadh. But the kingdom that encompasses both holy sites and the world’s largest known reserves of oil occupies a central spot in geopolitics, by any calculus.

Since World War Two, sweet crude has linked the American people and the House of Saud, since 9/11, a partnership now souring and strained. Within Saudi Arabia, there are also strains. A push from Islamists to break with the infidel West, and a pull from others to bring Saudi society into the modern age.

All this in the shadow of violence in the Holy Land, and amid preparations for war with Iraq. The fragile U.S. -Saudi relationship. A conversation with a Saudi prince.

Guests:

Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, governor, Saudi Arabian
General Investment Authority

Gregory Gause, associate professor of
political
science, University of Vermont, author “Oil Monarchies: Domestic and
Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States”

You can love Rumi, and you can love rock. But can you can savor the poetry of the 13th century Sufi mystic, and hard-driving, guitars-wailing, rock-and-roll. At the same time? Ask Junoon.

Junoon is a hugely popular, Pakistan-based band, probably the top band in South Asia today. Their music does combine full-blast rock with the sinuous rhythms and melodies of Sufi song. The name of the band translates as “passion” or “frenzy” from Urdu.

Their hometown is Karachi, known to Americans as an al-Qaeda hideout and the place where reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered. Junoon is a band that Danny Pearl listened to, and they were the only Pakistani group to play at a major concert held in his honor. Politics and rock on the subcontinent,Junoon live in the studio.

For Junoon’s tour information, click on the link to “Junoon” below.

Guests:

Junoon: Salman Ahmad, Ali Azmat, Brian O’Connell, Ustadd Ashiq Ali, Jay Dittamo.

It’s out of the frying pan, into the Fire, Pitt. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt’s tenure has been fraught with drama and denunciation. From Enron to Andersen to CEOs in handcuffs, the business world is bruised and expectations for government regulators are high.

The SEC was charged with creating a new oversight board but Pitt withheld information about the man chosen to head that board. Turns out that a company where this man chaired the audit committee is under investigation for, you got it, fraud. Democrats have long been calling for Pitt’s resignation, but now some GOP voices are joining the chorus, and reports say the White House may soon show him the door.

Guests:

Lynn Turner, former Chief Accountant for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, currently Director of the Center for Quality Financial Reporting at Colorado State Univesity

Senator Paul Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland, Chairman for the Senate Banking Committee

Bruce Freed, Business and Politics Columnist for The Hill magazine in Washington, formerly Chief Investigator for the Senate Banking Committee.