Juan Cole is interviewed (audio) by Amy Gross on Fresh Air.
A bunch of the Brookings Institute boys got together to talk Iraq (video). Brookings still has some decent analysts - like Michael O'Hanlon. This conference/shindig thing is just very informative.
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosts Brandeis University Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Chair, Yitzhak Nakash, to speak (video) on the future of the Shiites and the U.S. in Iraq. This dude speaks a little slowly for my taste, but like the Brookings shindig, this one is really informative too.
Noticed Brandeis has a Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Program. Need to research these programs a bit more as they seem interesting.
p.s. How amazingly, stupendously, outrageously fantastic is CSPAN. Holy cow. And NPR.
UPDATE: Ivo Daalder, in the Brookings Institute panel above, dispels the myth that turning Iraq over to NATO will solve all of our problems. Ivo tells us that Nato only has 80,000 deployable troops. Once we deduct from that 80,000 the NATO troops that already deployed in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, we are left with 5 to 10 thousands troops. The next part is Ivo's quote (minute: 31):
So anybody who's out there telling you let's turn this over to NATO so we can have more troops...is smoking the same thing that the Administration is smoking.
Doh!
