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this is Hannah.
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And Armand. We're
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on the fifth and final day of our road trip from Boston, Massachusetts to Phoenix, Arizona, accompanied by my dog, Finn. This podcast was recorded at... 108 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, December 10th, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully I'll be settling into my new home in Phoenix. Here's the show. Oh, congratulations. That's a long trip and a lot of weather and geography changes. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm
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Greg Myrie. I cover national security. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent.
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Today on the show, we're taking a look at the major changes in recent days in Syria and what those events mean for U.S. foreign policy as a new administration prepares to take office in Washington. Greg, let's start with the big news of the weekend. Bashar al-Assad, the country's longtime leader, has been deposed. What happened and why did this happen now after so many years of civil war?
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Yeah, it was quite shocking. And as somebody who's followed Syria for a long time, I mean, we're talking about more than 50 years of rule by Bashar Assad's father, Hafez Assad, and now by Bashar Assad. So between them, they date back to the Nixon administration. Little aside, I saw a great picture posted just before Nixon resigned. He went to Syria in 1974, posed with Hafez Assad, and there's little Bashar Assad, eight-year in short pants, standing with him in the photo. So quite an extraordinary image if we think about that time till today. Wow.
