Three exchanges follow from an Ask Me Anything at Reddit with Josh Keating, a global-news reporter for Slate.
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Question:
In your opinion, is Obama’s stance on Syria politically motivated due to his arbitrary chemical weapons line-in-the-sand or are there legitimate national security interests at stake?
Josh Keating:
I agree with my colleague John Dickerson that Obama boxed himself in with the “red line” comment,” but I do think the administration’s view of chemical weapons as beyond the pale compared to mass casualty conventional weapons attack is genuine. This isn’t to say the strike being considered will actually be an effective deterrent for Assad or other states considering chemical weapons use.
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Question:
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Question:
What do you think the most “unknown” world issue is? So, not something like Syria or Egypt that gets a lot of attention, but something important nonetheless.
Josh Keating:
As far as regions go, I’m always a little shocked by how little attention is paid in the U.S. conversation to Latin American politics. Given the geographical and cultural proximity, the stark ideological divides, the economic transformations we’ve seen in some countries, and how great an impact U.S. policy have there — the drug war in Central America for instance — it’s always a little baffling to me that the region gets short shrift compared to the Middle East and Asia. At least in the post-Cold War period.