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--:-- A Martinez: The fall of Syria's ruler is a blow against Iran. Iranian money and troops propped up the old Syrian leaders, so how much does his government's collapse set back an adversary of Israel and the United States?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep, that's A Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Some American colleges have a warning for their international students. They're suggesting students who leave for the holidays should try to return before Inauguration Day to avoid any trouble at the border. How real is that concern?
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--:-- A Martinez: Also, who's flying drones over New Jersey? Could it be a Springsteen fan? Someone who's afraid of the drivers? And is it a coincidence that the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds was set there?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We won't just drone on about the state where I used to live, but stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: The fall of Syria's longtime president prompted celebrations by many of its people. It's safe to say the same event led to dismay in the capital of Iran.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Yeah, that's because the longtime enemy of Israel in the U.S. relied on Syria as one of its allies in a bid for power across the Middle East.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Iranian troops and money propped up the ruler Bashar al-Assad during years of civil war. Now, if you look at a map, you can actually see why. Syria offered a connection to Iran's proxies in nearby Lebanon.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Now, the government's collapse amounts to Iran's latest disaster. NPR International Affairs correspondent Jackie Northam covers Iran.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Hey there, Steve. Good morning. How did the Iranians use the old Syrian government?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, the most important way that it used it is Syria allowed Iran to set up a critical land bridge to Lebanon, so a corridor to Lebanon, so it could funnel weapons to Hezbollah for many years.
--:-- Jackie Northam: You know, this was crucial to get fighters, weapons going both ways, actually. But now that the anti-government rebels control Syria, that strategic route to Lebanon is really most likely off limits to Iran. And that's a huge blow for the regime's long-term goals in the region.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What were or are the regime's long-term goals exactly?
--:-- Jackie Northam: Well, there are two key ones. They want to see the destruction or the collapse of Israel as a Jewish state. Iran also wants to counter any power or influence that the U.S. has in the Middle East, you know, at the same time projecting the regime own power in the region using its military and proxies, you know, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and certainly the Houthis in Yemen.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Oh, which underlines how disastrous the last few months have been for Iran, because Hezbollah has been decimated by Israel's military. This is just a moment when you would think Iran would be resupplying Hezbollah. I guess that's not going to happen.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, and this is just really going to make it much, much harder to get, you know, missiles and drones and the like to Hezbollah in Lebanon if this corridor is out of reach now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But, you know, Steve, this isn't the only setback that Iran has faced recently.
--:-- Jackie Northam: I spoke with Afshan Ostevar, and he's a specialist on Iran and its proxies at the Naval Postgraduate school. And, you know, he said losing Syria as an ally really marks a profound turnaround for Iran. You know, if you consider just a year ago, it was one of the most powerful states in the Middle East.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It controlled politics on the ground in Iraq, in much of Syria, in much of Lebanon. It was losing ground in Gaza, but only just. And its allies in Yemen controlled much of Yemen. But in the last two months, three months, all of that has been reversed.
--:-- Jackie Northam: So, Steve, you know, not only has Israel degraded Hezbollah, as you mentioned, but Hamas in Gaza. It assassinated senior Iranian officials and pounded Iran's air defenses. And now it's lost a powerful ally in Syria.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so might Iran change its strategy of seeking domination through the region?
--:-- Jackie Northam: That's highly unlikely. And, you know, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned earlier this week not to underestimate the regime.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: One of the concerns is if Tehran feels cornered, it may try to use its nuclear program as leverage. But, you know, the other thing that's worth noting in the wake of the shake-up in Syria is that Iran's hardline regime may also be worried about a threat of upheaval from its own population. You know, the economy is terrible. Any kind of dissent is crushed. And Tehran's watching what's happening in Syria.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I wonder if the same thing could happen in Iran.
--:-- Jackie Northam: NPR's Jackie Northam, thanks for the insights.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Thanks very much, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Some American colleges are preparing for President-elect Trump's second term. And here's one of the ways they're doing that.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Several universities, including USC, Penn, and Cornell, are giving advice to international students. If they're going home for the holidays, the university suggests returning before Inauguration Day, January 20, to avoid any trouble at the border.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Kirk Carapesa is covering this. He follows higher education from member station GBH in Boston.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Kirk, good morning. What exactly are colleges saying?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, most colleges aren't saying much, but there are some. The ones you mentioned and a handful of schools here in New England, UMass Amherst, MIT, and Wesleyan have all reached out to international students, urging them to return to the U.S. before January 20th.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Harvard also contacted its international students this week. The college suggested those traveling overseas for the holidays, quote, budget time ahead of Martin Luther King Day, which coincidentally is also inauguration day.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: OK, so I guess we can imagine why they would make this suggestion, but let's let's try to get the facts out. What is driving this?
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Well, I think I think many administrators are revisiting Trump's track record. You know, in his first term, new foreign student enrollment dropped by 12 percentage points. You'll remember there was the travel ban targeting several majority Muslim countries, heightened visa scrutiny. And then in 2020, the mandate for all international students to attend classes in person, even during the pandemic.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, this time around, Trump is promising even stricter policies. At a rally in New Jersey this summer, he warned foreign students involved in campus protests. If you come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti or anti to our campuses we will immediately deport you. You be out of that school.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: OK, so he said that, but there's an if at the beginning of that. Is it entirely clear what specifically the new president will do regarding international students?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: No, there are no concrete proposals at this point from Trump or his transition team.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: But, these colleges are trying to make sure their students don't get stuck out of the country when the new semester begins.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What do you hear when you reach out to administrators as well as students? They're really anxious.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Behind closed doors, they tell me they're worried. Ted Mitchell is president of the American Council on Education, and he calls the potential decline of international students a tragedy because he says these students create a global atmosphere that's critical to American campuses.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's kind of a brain sweep in which American institutions help bring the best and the brightest from other countries to our shores. And I think that the rhetoric of the campaign suggested that immigrants were the opposite of that.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: And Steve, you know, some faculty members I talked to, they tell me their students are genuinely afraid.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Here's Professor Gerardo Blanco. Blanco runs Boston College's Center for International Higher Education.
--:-- Gerardo Blanco: Having talked with colleagues, they feel like there is no evidence of a change in policy and this is not a time to panic. But Blanco says many students are already very concerned and these colleges are taking precautions to protect them and ease their anxiety.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, although fair point. Policy hasn't changed yet. We don't really know what's going to happen.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Kirk, thanks so much.
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: Thank you, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What in the world is going on in the skies over New Jersey?
--:-- Kirk Carapesa: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen once described North Jersey sky with the line, the sun's just a red ball rising over them refinery towers. But now we need to add a few drones to the lyrics and to that picture because people have been reporting flying objects.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Federal authorities say the drones are not a security threat, which still leaves the question of what they are.
--:-- Julie Hayward: For more on what we do know about the aircraft, we're joined by WNYC reporter Julie Hayward, who has been covering this story.
--:-- Julie Hayward: So is the federal government planning to investigate these alleged drone sightings?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yes. So the FBI and other federal agencies have confirmed that there's an active ongoing investigation into what exactly is going on with these drones that people are seeing in the sky.
--:-- Julie Hayward: It is happening. The latest information we have is that the federal government's actually sending specialized radar technology to local police departments in New Jersey to help with them sort of monitoring what's going on with these drones.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So things are happening. The issue is that some local lawmakers and people who live in the Northeast don't necessarily think things are happening as quickly as they should be.
--:-- Julie Hayward: Okay, but at least they're on the case. Have they said anything about whether they're a threat at all?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So we've heard now repeatedly both from federal officials as well as some state officials. For example, the New Jersey governor has said this as well, that the drones seemingly pose no public safety risk and that folks should remain calm.
--:-- Julie Hayward: However, you'll often hear a little bit of a divide between local lawmakers. There are some state senators some reps some mayors even who have gone on the record and expressed a lot more concern over how safe people actually are.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah especially if we don't really know what we're seeing.
--:-- Julie Hayward: So you reported that New Jersey residents have been spotting these objects for weeks now, but we've also seen some accounts from folks in Pennsylvania saying that they've seen them now, too.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I mean, what are locals saying about what they're actually seeing in the skies? I mean, what does it look like?
--:-- Julie Hayward: Yeah, so right now the count is Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and Connecticut as well as New Jersey. So they're starting to pop up in other places other than New Jersey at this point.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Folks just seem to be posting what they're seeing online. This is getting a lot of traction on social media.
--:-- Julie Hayward: There are now Facebook groups. There are folks commenting, coming up with theories for what's going on with these drones. It's getting a lot of attention online.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Aliens? Any talk of aliens?
--:-- Julie Hayward: Definitely aliens.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: There are some people concerned that this is a national security threat, spies from foreign nations, you name it, someone has said it.
--:-- Julie Hayward: I mean, if, okay, so if it's been going on since last month, why are most Americans just hearing about this now?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's a great question.
--:-- Julie Hayward: So this has been going on for weeks. I'm talking like since mid-November, people in New Jersey originally were the ones to say that they were spotting drones in the air and nobody was really sure why.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Part of why it's gaining so much traction now is that it's spreading outside of New Jersey.
--:-- Julie Hayward: We're now having sightings in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, elsewhere. And then on top of that, it's all the attention it's getting on social media as well.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And then you also add to that the fact that you now have lawmakers who are talking about it.
--:-- Julie Hayward: There was a hearing in Congress about it earlier this month. So people are now paying more attention, which is then sparking more interest and is fanning the flames more, so to speak.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: If the FBI just sends Mulder and Scully out to investigate, they'll get to the bottom of this.
--:-- Julie Hayward: Julia Hayward is a reporter for WNYC.
--:-- Julie Hayward: Thanks a lot.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's Up First for this Friday, December 13th.
--:-- A Martinez: I'm A Martinez.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- A Martinez: Don't forget, Up First airs on the weekend, too. Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon have all the news.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It'll be right here in this feed or wherever you go get those podcasts.
--:-- A Martinez: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Deedee Skanky, Stephen Drummond, Ali Schweitzer, H.J. Mai, and Mohamed El Bardisi.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Ziad Bach, Nia DeMoss, and Ben Abrams.
--:-- A Martinez: We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Carly Strange.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Our executive producer is Kelly Dickens.
--:-- A Martinez: Join us Monday.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from Lisa. Lisa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality, and each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind.
--:-- A Martinez: Plus, they back it all up with free shipping, easy returns, and a 100-night sleep trial.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Visit lisa.com for 25% off mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code NPR.
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--:-- A Martinez: This message comes from the Hartford. Every day, they create unique risk solutions for unique businesses.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: They understand the challenges businesses face today and are ready to anticipate the risks of tomorrow.
--:-- A Martinez: Their teams know the ins and outs of specific industries, so the Hartford can help provide insurance solutions for midsize and large businesses.
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--:-- A Martinez: Connect with your underwriter at the Hartford or visit thehartford.com.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's all for today.
