The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Who Are The Houthis And Why Are We Bombing Them?

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

It's our regular Monday discussion with foreign affairs expert Dr Janice Stein. On topic. today: Taiwan, the Houthis, and a two-state solution for the Middle East. It's a master class in geopolitics.  Also, we'll unveil this week's big question that you have a chance to answer and win a coveted prize!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. So, who are the Hooties and why are we bombing them? That and a lot more, coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Monday. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Snowy, cold Stratford, Ontario. Hope your weekend was a good one. In many parts of the country, winter finally kind of hit. With plummeting temperatures.

It's a snow in different places. You know, here in Stratford, we're right in that kind of, well, we're in the snow belt. And you can be 10 miles outside of Stratford and you're looking at green grass. Well, not quite green, but you know what I mean for January. And then suddenly you're in Stratford and there's a foot of snow. So it's that interesting time of year. But it's called winter.

You know, we do live in Canada. We do get winters. Milder, perhaps, in length, shorter in length, milder in places. But it is winter. So you go for that. Look at the states. Look at Iowa. It's crazy, right?

Every four years, the media descends on Iowa for the first in the presidential voting or caucus situation, as they call it in Iowa, it's not quite the same as the voting that takes place like next week in New Hampshire. But this, you know, tends to, well, sometimes it sets the stage for who's going to win. Sometimes it sets the stage for a surprise, an upset. What's going to happen tonight in Iowa? We're not going to go there today. What we are going to do is tell you that tomorrow I have one of my former colleagues,

now retired, long-time correspondent for the CBC in Washington, Keith Bogue is going to be with us. And, you know, Keith's been to Iowa. Keith's done this trek before in past presidential elections, including, I think, 2016 when Trump first was on the presidential scene. So we'll pick Keith's brain on whatever happens tonight actually means, what the consequences are, what happens going forward. And so looking forward to that, looking forward to having Keith on the bridge tomorrow.

Today, it's Monday, Dr. Janice Stein is with us, and there's quite a few things to talk about, including what I kind of highlighted at the beginning, like who are the Houthis? Like, you know, like we're bombing them. We're kind of at war with the Houthis. Well, who are they? What do they want?

Why are we bombing them? So we'll talk to Janice about that, but there are other things as well. The Taiwanese election, obviously, over the weekend. What does that actually mean? So there are things to talk about, and we will. But because it's Monday, I also got to give you a heads up on the question of the week, which we're looking for your ideas on this. We've just been through a couple of them. They've been highly successful.

Lots and lots of entries from all over the country. So here's this year, this week's question. It comes at a time of polarization in the country where we've got people against people, region against region, interest against interest, and it's pretty anxious out there on a lot of these fronts. So here's the question. If you could name one thing

that would improve the way we understand each other, what would that be? All right, think about that. If you could name one thing that would improve the way we understand each other or communicate with each other, what do you think that would be? Straightforward question, right? So I want you to think about that.

It's kind of, you know, understand each other, communicate with each other, improve the knowledge we have of each other. What would that be? So here are the basic ground rules once again. You write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Entries have to be in before 6 p.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday evening. All right?

This is for the Thursday program. 6 p.m. Wednesday evening of Alright? This is for the Thursday program. 6 p.m. Wednesday evening of this week. I'll repeat the question at the end of the program today. But you've got it. The answers should be short and to the point.

A paragraph is perfect. You know, a normal paragraph. Not an extended paragraph. You were great last week on that. And at the end of the day, on Thursday, at the end of your turn, after we've been through a lot of your answers, I'll pick a winner.

And the winner gets a signed copy of one of my books. So, look forward to that. Once again, I'll repeat that question later on in today's program. Okay, it is time to get into today's program. Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto, the Munk School, Middle East analyst, conflict management analyst. Janice is listened to by people literally around the world, governments, businesses, you name it. And we have been extremely lucky to have her with us on Mondays for some time now, certainly since October 7th, dealing with the Middle East issue, dealing with Ukraine,

and this week dealing with the elections over the weekend in Taiwan. So we'll spend a couple of minutes on that to begin, and then into this, the whole issue of the Houthis, and secondly, I think this is really important. If there's a solution to the Middle East situation, it may be in whether or not a two-state solution can be formed for Israel and the Palestinians. So we're going to break that down, try to understand what it means, who's on side, who isn't, and who historically has been on side and who hasn't.

So let's get started. Here's our weekly conversation with Dr. Janice Stein. Well, you warned us last week about the Taiwan election, and you pretty well predicted it. I mean, most people were predicting that the ruling party, the DPP, would get a third government, a third go at government, and they got it. So here's my question. Instead of getting deep into Taiwanese politics,

let's keep it simple. Does this increase or decrease the possibility of conflict with China over Taiwan? I think it's a pretty stable situation, Peter. If anything, it's the best possible result. Let me put it to you this way. First of all, William Maloney did not get a majority of the votes cast, even though he's president. The Chinese read that.

Secondly, even better, and as a Canadian, we get this, he didn't win the majority of seats in parliament, this party. He's number two. And the good old fashioned Kuomintang is number one. So you have a divided parliament now in Taiwan.

If you were the Chinese, this is the best possible outcome that you can hope for. A president who doesn't get a majority of the popular vote and a hung jury inside the parliament. Here's what I found interesting about reading the different reports that came out after the vote had been counted, after the exit polls had been done, after the polls that had been done in the

week or two leading up to the election. That most Taiwanese, as opposed to the rest of the world, who were focused on the issue being what's best for this possibility of a conflict with China, as opposed to that, the rest of the world thinking, us included, the Taiwanese were focused on the economy. They weren't focused on china yeah there should there's probably a lesson in that for all of us you know it's it's amazing it makes you think about that great phrase it's the economy stupid right um and that's what all the exit polls showed. They showed two interesting things, really. One, housing prices.

Big issue, housing prices and the cost of living. And they're really focused on the next government doing a better job. That's familiar to us. And the other was a kind of sophisticated discussion. They're all agreed that they want somebody who will, quote, stand up to China, but not too much. And there's a discussion, well, maybe we need to distance ourselves a little bit from the United States. Maybe the hug is too close right now.

So that's a very sophisticated message from voters. And you got a really sophisticated result. They split their ticket. These are sophisticated voters in Taiwan. So how should we look at this before we leave this topic?

Do we sense that the situation is basically stable? It's going to calm down? We're going to hear less about Taiwan in the immediate future? So my instinct on this, Peter, it's markedly better. And why is that? Because what Xi Jinping needed was a story that he can tell himself and he can tell the party.

And if William Wong had gotten a majority of votes and if his party had won a majority in the Taiwanese parliament, which his predecessor had, but he can tell a story now. Well, they're walking it back. He's not as strong as the previous one that takes the pressure off him in the immediate future to do anything that frankly would push

us all to the verge of catastrophe so I found this a very very encouraging result it's a good news story for the world okay well we'll feel good about that then for a while we'll go with that one yeah um okay and let's move then to i mean that's the weekend's kind of big news uh last week the end of the week the big news was uh the americans deciding

to go after with force along with the the British and to some degree other countries, including Canada, in the support role, attacking the Houthi rebels in Yemen for what they've been doing to marine traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. We throw this term Houthi rebels around like we know what we're talking about. And for the most part, we don't know what we're talking about. Who are these people? So we have to go back a little bit in time here to the mid-1990s. They are Ansar Allah, or

the supporters of God. They are a militant Islamic group who profess a version of Shia Islam, which is somewhat different from the mainstream. Now, the rest of us wouldn't get too excited about the difference. Just like, you know, for people who are not Christian, understanding the differences between Catholicism and Protestants is hard work. But those differences are real and matter in this part of the world. And they organized an attack, really what was a very corrupt regime in Yemen, led by President Salah

and managed in fact to overthrow him. He was replaced and then came the Arab Spring which opened the gates all over the Arab world and the Houthis moved out of Sana'a in the north and attempted

to expand their rich during the Arab Spring. That's when the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates came in and backed the transitional regime. And it's really astonishing, Peter, in a way, this, the UN has declared the largest humanitarian disaster in the world, that six-year war in Yemen that went on from 2014 to 2022. You and I would both say it didn't get a lot of attention, you know, our part of the world.

10,000 people dead. Difficult to know really how many people were displaced, but two-thirds of outlast the Saudi Air Force and the Emiratis. They are tough. They are resilient. I think that's a really important thing for people to understand. They have been fighting for almost 20 years. They're tough. They're tough. They're resilient. They got assistance from Iran

in three really important ways and continue to get that assistance. One, they're local manufacturers of their own weapons. So those unmanned, you know, air vehicles that we saw, flying ships, those are manufactured

in northern Yemen by the Houthis. that we saw, flying ships, those are manufactured in northern Yemen by the Houthis. They don't need an external supplier. They got financial assistance, continue to get it from Iran, and since October the 7th, when these

attacks started in the Red Sea, Iran is providing intelligence. The United States and Britain launched a really large-scale attack. 60 sites. All up and down the Red Sea to try to take out these local manufacturing

facilities. There isn't anyone I know who does not think that the Houthis will outlast them, that they will stand up these manufacturing facilities again, and that they will respond. This is the beginning, not the end of the story. You know, a lot of people wondered over these past weeks, actually months,

what was taking the Americans so long to do anything? Well, obviously, there was the political decision whether or not to do it. Then there's the military decision of where to do it. As you say, 60 sites. You don't come up with those overnight. No. There's a lot of planning, and then there's also, you know, trying to put some form of a coalition together.

I mean, the U. the UK was probably easy. They're aligned all the time, the Americans and the Brits on these things, but putting the other countries together, like Canada, the Netherlands, et cetera, et cetera, just almost in terms of just name. I mean, it's basically kind of minor support stuff, but it looks good on the list of names involved. It sure does. And we're part of it. We're part of it. And we are allegedly providing logistics and intelligence. I don't think we're providing much intelligence, Peter. We may be providing some logistical support. But if you look at this strike and it planned, and there was pressure on the administration,

because this is an issue of global shipping and freedom of international waterways. And so here's the problem. You have to make it big enough so that it's material, but you don't want to make it that big that it draws Iran in further and escalates. What is still a war that is going on in two places, once Iran gets into this, should Iran get into this, we're in a wholly different game. That is a genuine regional war. So that's what you saw.

And then you saw a response again the next day. Don't be deluded by the quiet from the Houthis. They have tremendous local organizational capacity. And they are another group that will pay any price. You know, here's their slogan. God is great death to america death to israel these are religiously motivated fighters who are battle-hardened so it's easy to see how they've aligned themselves with hamas since october 7th and what they're doing you know

there's one other piece which is interesting because we were just talking about domestic issues in Taiwan and what a fact that that played. Well, a peace process started, and peace processes are often bad for militias who are not very good at governing. And that's been the story with the Houthis since 2022. September 23, one month before October the 7th,

street demonstrations in Sana'a, in the capital of northern Yemen, in their base territory, protesting against lousy governance, failure to deliver on economic promises. If you're the Houthi leadership and October the 7th comes along, what a gift. What do they want? What do they want?

This is, this is, well, what they, what they truly want is the eradication of Israel. That's one. They want the United States to withdraw from this part of the world. That's two. And then thirdly, they want a much more intense Islamic life throughout the Middle East. So they're Shia, but they're not Shia. They're an offshoot of Shia. So most Shia would not consider them Shia.

But they're not dissimilar from the Sunni Islamic State. They're repressive. They have a terrible record inside Yemen. Women face exactly the same challenges here that they get under the Islamic State. So what they want is something that's not achievable, frankly, which makes them more dangerous because their goals can never be met. You know, for those who are kind of puzzled by this, and I'm sure many people are, you basically just have to look at a map to understand what this is all about.

I mean, Yemen is this like a key chunk of land that basically borders on both the Red Sea going into the Suez and the Gulf of Aden on the other side. And the international traffic that uses it, it's not just American oil tankers, it's everybody who uses that part of the world to move stuff around. And, you know, the big transportation companies and the oil companies are, you know, really concerned about what's happening here

because they don't have any options. If they can't use that area, they've got to go, you know, really concerned about what's happening here because they don't have any options. If they can't use that area, they've got to go, you know, south of Africa. They've got to go around. 3,500 miles longer, right? Two weeks longer. Two weeks. Two weeks. The insurance premiums have already gone up.

And if we don't think, you know think this part of the world is strategic, car companies in Germany shut down their factories last week for three or four days because they're missing parts that are on those container ships. Inflation, right? We talked about that a little bit last week. Governments are optimistic now they've tamed inflation it's coming down well that was before this increase in shipping costs because so much of what gets made travels from country to country and parts cross borders and they travel

in container ships so you can perfectly get why the United States can't let this go on but frankly there isn't an option there isn't an option from the air that is really going to damage the capacity of the utilities.

Here's one out of the box comment You know, here's one out-of-the-box comment. But sometimes things play in very perverse ways. In effect, I can imagine the United States ramping up the pressure on Israel to cease fire. Because the most effective strategy to shut this down right now, because that's a pretext on which they're doing this, is to get a cease fire. So we may have a convergence of forces here that really increases the pressure.

It just, you know, I hear you on this, and I've heard you on this for the last couple of weeks and and i know there are others who feel the same way as you but boy every day there's no indication from netanyahu that he's going to budge none zero well again what does budge mean okay uh you know there have been two budgets here, or at least I can see one. They've effectively drawn more than half their forces from northern Gaza. They're still in central and southern Gaza. And there's probably one more tactical objective that they'll go for, which is that strip along the Egyptian border just close to Rasa.

But I'm still betting, Peter, that by the end of January, we're going to see a significant pullback. And the rhetoric has changed. Finally, Netanyahu, who would rather choke than utter these words, said no voluntary evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza and no Israeli settlements from Gaza. Now, that was in part because of the process going on at the Hague, but it does show us there's limits to the capacity of the government to define in Israel, to defy international pressure.

Okay. Not always. All right. Well, I want to get to, you know, one of the other terms that is constantly used when we're dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian question, and that is the two-state solution. I want to talk about that, but first we're going to take a quick break and be right back on that right after this and welcome back you're listening to the bridge the monday episode mondays means

dr janice stein from university of torontounk School. And we're dealing with various issues on the international scene right now. We talked about Taiwan. We talked about the Houthis. And we just started talking on the Middle East. And I want to use this time that we have left to have a discussion about the two-state solution. It's a term we hear often and have heard often for a number of years. I want to break it down a little bit. I mean, it seems obvious, seems pretty straightforward what we're talking about.

But give us the general definition of a two-state solution. All right. You know, to be current, I'm going to start in 1947. When the United Nations passes a partition resolution, right? That says the British are leaving. There's plenty of things going on now. We need to partition Palestine. This is where it always starts. Two states, one Jewish state, as they put it, one Palestinian state, with the

city of Jerusalem as an internationalized city. That's where the discussion of two states starts. So there's a long history. Next big marker is 19th century. That fails. And by the way, who occupies the Palestinian state that the UN has mandated?

The Kingdom of Jordan takes the eastern side, what we call today the West Bank. And the Kingdom of Egypt at that point occupies Gaza. And so the idea of a Palestinian state drops off the political map until 1967. After the war in 1967, one more resolution from the UN. Two states, the State of Israel within the pre-1967 borders which actually conform more or less the state of Israel within the pre-1967 borders, which actually conform more or less to what it looks like today. And then the West Bank and Gaza and half of Jerusalem. That's the Palestinian state.

We've gone through highs and lows. Who in Israel today supports that concept of a two-state solution? So the right wing and those to the right of Likud, those two right-wing nationalist extremist parties, absolutely not, absolutely not. No way, no way. They want a Jewish state from the river to the sea.

And that's why many people were so appalled when those two parties entered government. Frankly, they've never been in an Israeli government before. Next to them, adjacent on the political spectrum, is Netanyahu's party, the Rikud.

Netanyahu in the past has supported a two-state solution, but really grudgingly. You could tell. But when he stood up this government, and he stood up this government in part because he was facing criminal proceedings, he absolutely disavowed any support of a two-state solution. And recently crowed, in fact, that he alone has stood in front of Israel and has prevented the rise of a Palestinian state. I cannot see Peter Howie going to walk that back at this time.

And that's why almost everyone feels that as long as he's prime minister, there's not much diplomatic running room for this. Move a little now to the center, to Benny Gantz, the National Unity Party,

who's conservative, but has supported the two-state solution. And here we get into, here's where it gets really murky, because what that means to different parties means different things. Well, so for Benny Gantz, it's a two-state solution with appropriate security guarantees. Well, we don't know what those are, right? With land swaps so that the Jewish, the half a million Israelis who live in the West Bank, the land that they are living on, compensated for with an equivalent swap of land from Israel. So you're getting now into the details that have been negotiated for the last 50 years.

But he certainly has supported it. Next to him, and we're already in the center now, LaPete, firm support of a two-state solution. Absolutely unequivocal that this is the only solution, that there was not a military solution. And then you get two small parties left, really. The great big labor party led by Golda Meir, people like that that are familiar, I think,

to Westerners, reduced out of four or five seats out of 120 in the Israeli parliament. And the party to the left, unambiguously supported. So looking at the parliament then, you have the center-right, the center and these two tiny parties supportive of a two-state solution. Now there are four others or six other parties, depending on what's happening on any given day, of Israeli Palestinians. These are the Israeli, and people use

different names, Israeli Arab Palestinians who live inside Israel. 20% different names israeli arab palestinians who live inside israel 20 percent um one is not um but the others are and so if you're counting votes um israeli palestinians will have to be a part of this discussion on what a two-state solution looks like okay i you know i i want to get a sense of the discussion on what a two-state solution looks like okay i you know i i want to get a sense of the arab world on this too but first but first before i go there in terms of past israeli governments yeah who was not only in support of but actively tried to get the two-state solution so there's two prime ministers um that really worked hard to get

there one negotiated with arafat one with a bus ahud barak in the waning days of the clinton administration literally the last days there was a very very detailed negotiation. And how you count this, Peter, let's just put brackets around it because the numbers are contested. Palestinian leaders will quarrel with the numbers. But it was certainly 90 plus percent of the West Bank would have gone to a Palestinian state and two Arab districts in the city of Jerusalem would have been the capital. The difficulty, it was almost impossible.

Arafat said no. And why was that? Because by then, it was clear that the support for that in Gaza, as Hamas had not yet taken power, but the support in Gaza was going to be very difficult to get. And there have been, I can tell you, the forests that have been written by people who said that Arafat missed the opportunity and Palestinians who said said no, the offer

wasn't generous enough. Ehud Olmert tries again eight years later and interestingly enough, he also faced criminal charges and was in the dying days of his prime ministership. Sweetened the offer.

94% offered it to Abbas. By then Hamas was in control, was already the government of Gaza. And Abbas really never said yes. He never said no, but he never said yes. And I think if we look back, it is the 2008 offer that comes closest to standing up two states.

And that's the last time there was any serious negotiation. So we're talking about 16 years in which there has not been anything like a process to talk in real terms about what two states would look like. Okay. What about on the Arab side? So Jordan and King Abdullah, absolutely. Strongly, strongly, strongly in support. Strongly in support.

Egypt, strongly in support. Egypt, strongly in support. The game changer over the last 16 years, Saudi Arabia, strongly in support and has actually, you know, a message went back this week with Blinken. Saudi Arabia will move ahead with normalization, but is contingent on an independent Palestinian state. So Mohammed bin Salman is coming out explicitly. The Emiratis strongly in support.

Those are the four big players that will openly speak about their support for a two-state solution. I think some of the other smaller ones, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, would certainly support it if Palestinian leadership were to support it. Who's opposed? Hamas. Absolutely opposed. The Houthis. Opposed. Hezbollah, just north on the other side opposed and of course Iran you know Nasrallah

just came out last week and said okay all you Jewish Israelis there's really no room for you in this part of the world go back to Hungary, go back to Poland go back to where you came from so there is still a group of what could be called states in this part of the world

who reject not a Palestinian state, that's not the problem, but reject a Jewish Israeli state. Is this the, when it gets right down to it is is this the issue that will you know kind of forever be the the cause of of no peace yeah yeah i mean this has been going on you know i could i i was mindful of time so i in 1947, but I could have gone back to the appeal of Kanishk. We've been talking about this for close to 100 years, Peter, right? And it's the obvious solution. There's no other way of thinking about that.

You know, Palestinian leaders and some in the Jewish world as well, talk about just one state, a secular state. You know, Israelis, Palestinians, the remnants of the Christian community in the Arab world that are mainly, by the way, now in the Israeli-Palestinian world. That's where the bulk of the Middle East Christians are now because most of them have left for one reason or another. One democratic, secular state.

I frankly, I hear it. I understand the appeal. I think that is completely unrealistic, both on the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side. I can't see either of them ever agreeing to cohabit in a single state. The only other idea, and this one surfaces every now and then, and it's a confederation. An Israeli state, a Palestinian state, both

of them in a larger federation with the Kingdom of Jordan. Why would you want that? Presumably because you get same leadership from the Jordanians who would put some balance and some ballast.

Again, I'm very dubious that the Palestinians or the Israelis will agree. I think there will be a really significant push now, but not when these governments are still in place. Let's not talk about the day after. Let's talk about 18 months from now. Where will we be 18 months from now if Netanyahu is gone

that's the first prerequisite Abbas has to broaden his political support and what role is Hamas playing in Gaza that's the preconditions to get any closer than we've gotten in the last 100 years

the fear of course is you know, once this current war ends, and, you know, it will end at some point, that when it does, that suddenly this issue is, you know, like it's not a front burner issue anymore. Yeah, that's for sure. And if you look at the timing timing the timing is not good because we are up against the u.s election right in november and i don't think it is unfair to say that if president trump were to become president this would decision will disappear. And nobody else in the region has the leverage

to push hard enough to do this. And we can ask ourselves too, Peter, do you think that a second Biden administration, given its preoccupation with China, its preoccupation with Russia, do you think that it's going to invest the diplomatic energy and effort that this takes? Because this sucks

the energy of the Secretary of Defense. The State Department becomes all-consuming, as you see it is now for Blinken. Will the Biden administration do that if they're elected again? Who knows?

I'm sure Blinken, although he's a career diplomat before this, but I'm sure he must be just burned out once this election's over. You just look at him. You can see it. This is proud by fire. All he can say is it's a good thing he's a jazz musician

in private. Which he is because this is truly punishing.'s truly punishing but you know if history tells us anything it's that you know on a two-term uh administration you you lose a lot of people fairly quickly early on because they just go okay i'm glad i did it but i'm i i gotta get out of here well here optimistic note, though, on this part of the conversation. When have we seen any progress made in the past? It's in the first 18 months of a second term administration because they're not worried about domestic politics.

They're freed up to push. At that 18 months, when we look back over the 100 years, that 18 months is the open window to move this forward. So if we get that two-term administration. Well, there's another two terms. It's just not consecutive. But if that's the one it is, the Oval Office is going to look a lot different. It's going to be smaller and with bars around it is my assumption here. But anyway, enough.

This has been a classic Janice Stein masterclass on a number of different foreign policy, foreign affairs issues. And we thank you, as we do every week. It's been terrific. It's great talking to you, Peter. Thanks, Janice. We'll talk again in a week. See you in a week. It's been terrific. It's great talking to you, Peter. Thanks, Janice. We'll talk again in a week. See you in a week. Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto, Munk School.

You know, I wasn't kidding when I called the masterclass. Now, listen, you don't have to agree with everything Janice says. And I know some of you don't because you write me about it, and that's good. What's great about these sessions with Janice Stein, and today's was a classic, it really was a classic masterclass on a number of big issues. What's best about it is it provokes you to think about it, right? Provokes you to come to your own conclusions based on, you know, hopefully more knowledge than you had going into the conversation.

And that's great. That's good. And, you know, I'm so indebted to Janice, have been for decades now, as the go-to person on so many of these kinds of issues with an amazing mind, great recall of facts, understandings of situations. So it's terrific that we've had this opportunity to talk with Janice every week. Okay, I promised I would remind you

of this week's question. Once again, looking for short answers, paragraph is the ideal. Remember to leave your name and the location you're writing from. That's really important. And it has to be in before 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday evening. Since we started this at the beginning of the calendar year, we've had two winners from British Columbia, one from Manitoba. We've had lots of entries from Central Canada

and lots of really good entries from central canada and eastern canada the maritimes and in newfoundland and newfoundland the labrador so keep them coming right here's this week's question it's along the same theme of if you had one thing you could do so this one one, in an era of polarization, right? And sometimes that polarization gets nasty surrounding issues, regions, you name it. Politics, obviously. So here's the question that we're asking this week. If you could name one thing that would improve the way we communicate with each other,

understand each other, have knowledge of each other, what would that one thing be? Okay? So one thing that would improve the way we basically, you know, communicate and understand each other, what would that issue be? What would that thing be that you'd want to see done? So think that one through. Don't be shy.

Drop me a line at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Tomorrow we'll try and dissect the results from the Iowa caucus tonight in the U.S. Republican presidential race. It's only the Republicans who are voting in or caucusing in Iowa tonight. We'll try to understand that process and what the results from tonight mean at a time when the Iowa, I mean, it's usually cold in January, but it's really cold this January and snowy.

And I don't know whether you've seen some of the pictures, but it's quite something. What will happen? Because this isn't just going to a voting booth and voting. This is going to town halls and community places to caucus, to talk, to debate, to try to understand each other on the issues of the day and who they think is best to deal with those issues. So there you go. That's tomorrow with Keith Vogue, former Washington correspondent from the CBC,

great friend of mine, someone who I anchored more than a few big shows with over the years uh former chief political correspondent in ottawa as well as the washington correspondent so keeps being around all right that's tomorrow that's it for this day i'm peter thanks so much for listening and we will talk again in 24 hours.