As the Executive Producer of Canto Talk, I am thrilled to have the Prager University Dean of Students, Jared Sichel, on this Thursday’s Canto Talk show (click here Sept. 12th at 7 pm PT /9 pm CT/10 pm EST for live show, or afterward for podcast).

Prager University’s Project Manager Noah Yaffe will also be on the show. The topics we plan to cover include the most recent developments in Syria. One of the current debates about this crisis centers on whether Syria is like Iraq, and whether those who supported the invasion of Iraq should now support military action against Syria.

The most recent Prager University course, “Why America Invaded Iraq,” tackles this subject. In this Political Science offering, esteemed British historian Andrew Roberts answers that question.

“The reason was clear” explains Roberts. “Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq for 35 years, was the central threat to peace in the Middle East.  With that threat removed, the Bush administration believed the establishment of a functioning democracy in Iraq would encourage the growth of democracy elsewhere in the Arab world.”

Roberts is a noted author. His, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900“ is a critically acclaimed sequel to the four volume work of Churchill and won the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Book Award. Masters and Commanders describes how four titanic figures shaped the grand strategy of the West during the Second World War.

The Canto Talk episode will also feature a discussion about Syria from a military perspective, with noted military historian and former Green Beret Barry Jacobsen.