Once again the Middle East tops the headlines, with a story of surprising good news from Iran, plus a risky move by Obama to involve the US in the Syrian civil war. Listen in as Jeff Salzman tries to make some integral sense of these developments.
Iran Votes to Rejoin the World
Weary of the corruption, stagnation and world pariah status brought on them by their firebrand traditionalist (amber altitude) president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranians elected Hassan Rowhani, a modernist (orange altitude) technocrat, the most moderate of six candidates approved by the Supreme Leader Khamenei. He won by a landslide gaining 51% to his nearest rival’s 18%. Altitude matters, and this is a welcome updraft in one of the most contentious issues in all of world politics: the nuclearization of Iran.
Obama Joins the Civil War in Syria
Syria is where the Arab Spring went bad. Hoping to gain political concessions from their young president, Bashar Assad, modernist protesters staged demonstrations in early 2011 that have metastasized into a full bore civil war. With over 90,000 people dead and two million displaced, Syria is quickly becoming a proxy war for tribal and state interests throughout the Middle East. And now, the the United States has agreed to send small arms to certain rebel groups. Good move? Are there any good options?
Check back next week as we take an integral look at current events and news headlines!
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Listen below to an excerpt. The full audio is here on integrallife.com.
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