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About Uncommon Knowledge

For more than a decade the Hoover Institution has been producing Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, a series hosted by Hoover fellow Peter Robinson as an outlet for political leaders, scholars, journalists, and today’s big thinkers to share their views with the world. Guests have included a host of famous figures, including Paul Ryan, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and Christopher Hitchens, along with Hoover fellows such as Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz.

Uncommon Knowledge takes fascinating, accomplished guests, then sits them down with me to talk about the issues of the day,” says Robinson, an author and former speechwriter for President Reagan. “Unhurried, civil, thoughtful, and informed conversation– that’s what we produce. And there isn’t all that much of it around these days.”

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November 2, 2009 | Recorded on October 20, 2009

The Iran problem with Hanson and Baer

Victor Davis Hanson (left) and Robert Baer

Does Iran possess the ability to produce nuclear weapons? Both Bob Baer and Victor Hanson agree that it does. On the questions that flow from this assertion, agreement is more difficult to find.

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What does Iran hope to accomplish by developing the bomb? Can the United States live with a nuclear Iran—can Israel? Israeli defense minister Ephraim Sneh in an October interview asserted that “if no crippling sanctions are in place by Christmas, Israel will strike….If we are left alone, we will act alone.”

Does Israel possess the ability to destroy the Iranian nuclear program? With each month bringing another deception and diversion from Iran, what can the United States do to prevent a conflagration in the Middle East? (39:56) Video transcript

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