Iraqi Shiites outnumber Iraqi Sunnis by a factor of two to one, but ever since Western allies created the Iraqi state in 1921, political power has belonged to the latter. That will very likely change in postwar Iraq. Many challenges and trouble spots lie ahead for any postwar government.

As talk turns to Shiite rule in postwar Iraq, some fear that the new government could end up being a fifth column for Tehran, which has long harbored Iraqi Shiite opposition groups. Others worry that the centuries’ old doctrinal divide between the Sunnis and the Shiites will hinder any effort to establish a secular Iraqi government.

Guests:

Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Chair of Persian Literature and Sociology of Culture at Columbia University

Barvir Hagopian, secretary of the Central Committee of Armenians in Iraq

Hasim Naheem, a Sunni Imam

Sheikh Samil al Bindawi, a Shiia Sheikh.

Bullet-proof legislation. Last Wednesday, as the sounds of gunfire quieted in Baghdad, a different kind of fight was being waged on Capitol Hill. In a remarkable decision, the House passed a bill that grants the gun industry immunity from most lawsuits. A similar bill is pending in the Senate. If it passes, many current lawsuits, including those brought by victims of gun violence, will be dismissed.

Activists on both sides are brawling, not just in Congress but in courtrooms nationwide. And one surprising witness is testifying for the gun-control lobby: former NRA lawyer Robert Ricker. He now says gunmakers have long known about the many ways arms move into the black market, and they’ve looked the other way. Kitchen-table dealers, gun traffickers, and the battle for immunity.

Guests:

Robert Ricker, a former lobbyist for the NRA and other gun industry trade groups, turned whistleblower
Joseph Olson, professor, Hamline University Law School, former board member of the NRA

Seven hundred and fifty years ago, Mongol warriors sacked this city. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and many of the treasures of the Islamic empire were smashed and stolen. To look today at Iraq’s National Museum, to smell the stench of burning books at the National Library, it’s not hard to conclude that Baghdad’s treasures have once again been plundered. This time, though, it seems the looting was done from within.

Despite urgent pleas for protection and consideration from archaeologists around the world, many of the finest pieces, priceless items of art and archaeology, are now missing, whisked away by professional thieves and amateurs under very barrels of American tanks. It is as if the physical objects in the book of this planet’s history had been destroyed. The shattered cradle of our civilization.

Guests:

John Malcolm Russell, professor of art history and archaeology, Massachusetts College of Art, author, “The Final Sacking of Nineveh”

Muayed Said Damerji, former director general of antiquities in Iraq

Ahmed Abdullah Faddam, professor of sculpture at the College of Fine Arts in Baghdad.

Last September, President Bush threw down the gauntlet before the UN General Assembly. “Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding,” he asked, “or will it be irrelevant?”

After months of not-so-subtle diplomacy, a bitterly divided Security Council refused to authorize the use of force against Iraq, and, well, you know the rest. Some argue that the entire process was an exercise in futility. The Security Council, they say, had neither the teeth nor the standing to fulfill its mission to maintain international peace and security, that it’s a moribund relic of a simpler time. Security Council boosters say it’s not dead yet. Debating the future of the UN Security Council in the new world disorder

Guests:

Michael Glennon, Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs and Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

How to frighten enemies and influence dictators. According to the neoconservative doctrine of preemptive deterrence, it’s better to be feared than liked. In the months preceding the war in Iraq, America forfeited the congeniality prize, but enemies were more angry than they were anxious.

Then came the war in Iraq. Dictators everywhere saw their faces on the now famous felled statue of Saddam Hussein. And when the Bush Administration hinted that Syria might be the next candidate for regime change, rogues got worried. Proponents say…that’s the idea. But critics warn that no less than global stability is at stake. What comes next after Iraq, and a check-in with Dick Gordon, who will join us from Baghdad.

Guests:

Gary Sick, Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University

Peter Huessy, President of the National Defense University Foundation.

Answering the call to jihad, 21st century style. The word went out through the mosques and via internet messaging boards, calling on the Muslim faithful to leave their homes and families and join their Iraqi brethren to fight the invaders.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Arab volunteers from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iran hopped on buses and headed for Bagdad. According to American marines, some of the fiercest fighting they encountered in Iraq came from those volunteers. But now most of them are heading back home. Earlier today there were clashes in the airport in Yemen when 45 volunteers got back from Iraq. Friends and family members came to welcome them, but so did Yemeni intelligence officials, who promptly arrested them. Jihad warriors, who they are.

Guests:

Steven Simon, Senior Analyst, RAND institution

Mouin Rabbani, Senior Middle East Analyst, International Crisis Group.

Combat troops are not cops. The skills of winning a war are very different from those needed to maintain peace. Yet, as the world has seen, chaos lurks at the edge of the battlefield. The orgy of looting that broke out in Baghdad and other “liberated” cities seems to be subsiding. In part, because there’s not much left to steal.

The American military is now holding job fairs in Bagdad, interviewing some of the police who worked for Saddam Hussein to see if they will volunteer (there’s no pay at the moment) to help maintain order. The first two dozen of a thousand American police officers and lawyers, who are trained for post-conflict work, are now on their way to Iraq. Many people are asking what took them so long.

Guests:

Michele Flournoy, Senior International Security Adviser, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Former Defense Dept. Assistant Secretary for Strategy

Michael Dziedzic, Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace and Co-Editor of “Policing the New World Disorder”

Paul Watson, reporter and photographer for the LA Times.

One day in October, 1971, the life of a young French scholar named Francois Bizot changed forever. On the way to a temple in rural Cambodia, Bizot was abducted by the Khmer Rouge. During his captivity, deep in the jungle, shackled to a tree, he developed a strangely close relationship with his captor, Douch, who later became the chief commandant of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison.

There, tens of thousands of Cambodians were brutally tortured and executed. But the captor did spare one life. Francois Bizot was the only Westerner to survive imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge. Thirty years later, he shares his remarkable story with us. Francois Bizot and his memoir of captivity, The Gate.

Guests:

Francois Bizot, Ethnologist and Chair of Southeast Asian Buddhism at the Sorbonne in Paris and author of “The Gate.”

Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters rallied outside the American Embassy in Moscow this week. News? yes. A surprise? no. 90 percent of Russians say they’re against the war in Iraq. The fine print, however, was more revealing: the rally was organized by the pro-Putin United Russia party. Not a smooth move diplomatically for a country already at risk of being shut out of the spoils of reconstruction in post-war Iraq. But with elections just a year away, Vladimir Putin can read the poll numbers as well as anyone.

The question is whom he needs more, the voters who can keep him in office, or the global ties that can help keep Russia economically viable and diplomatically relevant. Russia’s roulette with its future.

Guests:

Marshall Goldman, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Wellesley College and authorof “The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry”

Vyacheslav Nikonov, President of the Polity Foundation

Sergey Rogov, Director of the Institute of USA and Canada

with John Danisweski , correspondent with the Los Angeles Times in Baghdad.

Many Arabs are rejoicing as they watch Iraqis toppling statues and burning images of their former dictator. But the joy is tempered by frustration, concern, skepticism, and some concede, embarrassment. “Should we laugh or cry today?” asks one opinion piece in a Dubai newspaper. The tears are because the United States did what the people of Iraq could not–and that is overthrow Saddam Hussein….and worse that the US did it live on television so everyone could watch the ignominious collapse of such an historic city. The laughter though is equally tempting, springing from the shared joy of saying goodbye to a despised despot. But many in the Arab world are bristling at the images of U.S. Marines perched on their tanks, looking down at Baghdad. Liberation and humiliation.

Guests:

Michael Hudson, professor of Arab studies and International Relations at Georgetown University.

Abdel Bari-Atwan, Editor-in-Chief of Al Quds

Khaled Al-Maeena, Editor-in-Chief of Arab News

Francis Matthew, editor of Gulf News in Dubai

Rami Khouri, executive editor of the Daily Star in Beirut.