Trump has no Syria strategy. Obama didn't either.

Worldly

Yochi, Jenn, and Zack talk about President Trump’s threats to bomb Syria after a brutal chemical weapons attack there — and why a US military strike won’t have much impact on the country’s civil war. On Elsewhere, they talk about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who just cruised to reelection despite (or perhaps because of) his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and at times anti-Semitic rhetoric. Zack shows off his knowledge of Emerson, Yochi mocks Bashar al-Assad’s unusually long neck, and Jenn decides it’s okay to body-shame a genocidal dictator. Show Notes! -The war in Syria, explained. -For more background on Syria, listen to the latest Today, Explained primer. -Yochi mentioned photos that make Aleppo look like Leningrad after WWII. -Zack mentioned “siege, starve, and surrender” as a strategy. Here’s a lot more context on that. -Jenn talked about the ways Russia and Assad spin the narrative around chemical weapons attacks. -More reading on the Russian nerve agent attack in the UK that Yochi mentioned, and on the killing of Kim Jong Nam. -Yochi mentioned two Pentagon leaks — one involving Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the other involving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford. -This BBC piece gives some good background on Prime Minister Orbán, and on his statements about George Soros. -Jenn mentioned Sarah Wildman’s piece about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Europe-bashing hot mic. -Zack talked about the demographic trends in Hungary, drawing on this article in the Guardian. -And this piece talks about Orbán running on an anti-immigrant platform even though there are more anti-immigrant billboards than immigrants and refugees who were let into Hungary in all of 2017.

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