protest over comments made by the german foreign minister zygmunt gabriel suggested saad hariri had been held against his will in the saudi capital he had also called for lebanon's neighbors including saudi arabia to let it decide its own fate tens of thousands of people have throngs of bar ways capital harare demanding the president step down crowds have been streaming towards robert mugabe's official residence urged on by the influential war veterans association the protests were called by the war veterans under guard old rulings are new p.f. party it's a dramatic fall from grace for the embattled leader who's been in power for thirty seven years doctors in syria's eastern ghouta say many residents could die if they're not immediately evacuated four hundred thousand syrians living in the damascus suburb have been besieged by government forces for the past four years the area sided with opposition fighters so that's meant that food aid and medical supplies have not been getting in now to being completely sealed off since august

the rafa border crossing from gaza into egypt has reopened but only temporarily rafter is meant to open indefinitely later as part of a palestinian reconciliation deal brokered by egypt under the deal the palestinian authority is handling the crossing and not have us those where the headlines do stay with us here on al-jazeera. we are living through a technological revolution but are the machines taking over a piece of machinery goes wrong is there a chain of litigation through which we can bring a legal system to bear oxford university professor of machine learning stephen roberts talks to all disease this time. from escalating the conflict in yemen to rounding up and detaining his fellow princes saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin solomon has been called both ambitious and reckless in this up from special we'll ask a prominent u.s. congressman why he thinks the american government should stop supporting the saudi led bombing of yemen and in the arena we'll debate whether the crown prince is bent

on a war with iran. congressman cantor thanks for joining me up front on monday night the u.s. congress voted for the first time to condemn u.s. involvement in the saudi led war in yemen by three hundred sixty six to thirty on a resolution you co-sponsored but what actual difference will that non-binding congressional vote. of for the people of yemen who are dying right now both under a blockade imposed by a saudi led coalition and on the u.s. made bombs that the saudis are dropping on the what difference will that make well i was very pleased that chairman royce during the debate said that this resolution will put pressure on the saudis to provide humanitarian access and it's

a sense of the house resolution so you're right it's not binding but if the house foreign affairs committee as the chairman said he would use as this same goes to the saudis and says look if you don't make changes and provide more humanitarian access for basic food for basic medicine then you're going to have a congress that's going to exercise even greater oversight that's going to make a difference that can at least save lives so about putting pressure on congress shifting positions since the second world war the united states has been a very close ally of saudi arabia whether under democrat or republican administrations but is it fair to say that there is a split right now within the u.s. government between a trump lead white house which is. one hundred percent one hundred ten percent behind the saudi crown prince mohammed bin salma m.b.a.'s and they congress a republican led congress in fact that is growing more and more skeptical of this alliance with saudi arabia at least in terms of the military component of it there

is a growing sense that our intervention in the middle east has made us less safe that we ought not to be aligned with the saudi war crimes in other areas and associated with that and so you actually have this on alliance among progressives in congress and some in the freedom caucus who are questioning the neo con neil liberal paradigm of foreign policy and questioning why what are we getting out of this relationship you briefly in a previous u.s. administration the obama administration which backed the saudi war on yemen which long before trump arrived on the scene the obama administration with providing refueling to saudi jets targeting assistance arms sales diplomatic cover at the u.n. so the obama administration your party the democrats in general they don't have clean hands when it comes to saudi arabia or the war in yemen do this well i think it was a i think it was morally conflicted it was not something i agreed with i mean it's a decision that i said was wrong i don't think it was had the crumple level of

enthusiasm and obama all ways had this sense that what if you're a yemeni killed by u.s. made bombs dropped by saudi or u.a.e. jets you're not going to say well these bombs are less enthusiastically dropped under obama than they were in the truck still going to lose your life as a result of president obama or president drop but i think that the bombing has escalated to a great deal and that civilian casualties have escalated in the blockade has. been strengthened and so the humanitarian crisis i think is of a different proportion then when it when president obama left office that said i'm not i'm not trying to say that the decision that president obama made was right i think he. talked into his administration was talked into this view that we have to view saudi is counter to iran and if we're bridging relations with iran then what are we going to do for saudi arabia and i just don't see the the world that way i think was a mistake absolutely today do you believe the u.s.

is complicit in saudi war crimes in yemen today i believe that we are aiding saudi arabia in saudi arabia is committing war crimes i mean i believe that was the case under president obama as well i imagine that he was still committing war crimes but i don't think it was at the scale that it is today and i think the president i think of president obama were in office today and he saw a million people who had suffered from cholera and the saudis closing the ports closing the airport not allowing chlorine tablets to get into civilians that he would be outraged and he would put pressure on the saudis the saudis would say over the decades they have been a loyal friend to the u.s. they've helped provide stability in the region make sure the oil keeps flowing provide intel on terrorist groups invest in the u.s. economy and so the u.s. critics people like yourself are ungrateful unappreciative of that relationship well first of all fifteen of the terrorists who attacked us come from saudi arabia

as one of the largest export hers of violence and none pluralism to the world there are ties between saudi arabia and terrorist groups so to argue that they have been a voice for peace or a strong ally is very questionable i think what they say is that they are a counter to iran and they are a counter to iran's dominance in the middle east and that's usually the argument they make and i just don't view the u.s. in gauging in balance of power politics as something that is help why do you think the u.s. is so close to. not just decider of all of the gulf kingdoms none of them democracies is it just a need for cheap oil and gas or is it something else is it something more i think it goes back to the kissinger view of. balance of power politics even in europe and we view that we say if there is

a rising power we need to check that rising power that's the essence of balance of power politics and it's gotten us into trouble when we did we armed saddam hussein because we fear in iran i mean there's almost this single focus on making sure iran isn't dominant in the region and we have you i think saudis as a chat on iranian expansion given the strength of the procyon the lobby here in washington d.c. is there any chance that these congressional vote critical of the kingdom the lawsuits against the saudis by the nine eleven victims the much more critical u.s. media coverage of the kingdom in recent years to any of that will actually translate into a more tougher stance by the u.s. government on the issue of saudi arabia i do for the first time the military realizes that congress is really scrutinizing what's going on in yemen i think there is no longer this carte blanche and now the chairman. royce who is a hard liner on iran for him to go on the house floor and say this resolution is

going to give us leverage to make sure that the saudis are at least providing humanitarian access leads me to believe they're behind closed doors some people are going to say to the saudis look we have had your back but if you continue to embarrass us by creating appalling headlines of nine hundred thousand folks and kids with cholera you're going to lose public opinion there's been much talk this week of conflict and crisis in the middle east especially with the resignation of the lebanese prime minister allegedly on the orders of the saudi crown prince the rocket attack on riyadh by the rebels in yemen who were backed by iran if the saudis and or israel. decide to launch an attack on iran what should be the u.s. response in your view we should condemn it and we should. certainly not come to their defense if they are perpetrating an attack on iran i think that would be a declaration of war on their part unjustified i don't see us allies who would then

presumably be on the counterattack from iran you're saying the u.s. should not come to the help of its allies if they start a war with iran certainly not saudi arabia no i don't think that because they would be not just war and we've we've had president to protect israel but. also well it depends on what the what the response was i mean obviously if iran starts to say we're going to annihilate israel then we have to defend it but i don't expect that to be the response i expected to be proportional and i don't think israel will go and start to declaring war on iran i think there cooler heads and savvier heads will prevail and we certainly would not condone a strike on iran by either saudi arabia or israel and do you worry about a war like about happening given recent events how worried are you. on strikes me

as not smart and you know napoleon once and worse than a crime is a blunder and so monstrous means of learning about a king so model his son mohammed bin. the crown prince so i worry because he doesn't have. is not judicious and he's not prudent and he may do things that ultimately aren't even in the country's interest which usually cause war and that's that's my concern but it would be utter folly for him to start a direct war with iran and one last question if you like many people in the west of criticize the saudi ruling family for its lack of democracy like around spare and see its failure to guarantee gender equality minority rights what do you have to be careful what you wish. for many would say that if this saudi government were to forward to be toppled from power it might just be replaced by something more extreme more brutal more and to america but i think this is the type of thinking that has gotten the united states in trouble this idea that we can somehow manage

populations and install our own. governments but i think that what would happen if we didn't intervene there would be would be a sense by the people that the united states is not a cause of their suffering or a cause of interventionism that they resent and i think having a more restrained foreign policy speaking out about human rights i mean if there was a change of regime in saudi arabia and they were still oppressing women or they were still committing war crimes we should continue to speak out and speak out with moral clarity but i don't think it should be we should be in the business determining regimes in foreign countries congressman thanks for joining me on that front thank you. it's been called saudi arabia's game of thrones under the leadership of crown prince mohammed bin solemn on the kingdom of saudi arabia has arrested dozens of top officials from princes to

ministers to officials in the armed forces in what the crown prince is calling a crackdown on corruption his government has allegedly detained both the president of yemen and the lebanese prime minister and there's even talk of saudi arabia joining with israel to attack iran joining me to discuss these latest middle east crises around me is corey a political columnist author and senior fellow at the american university of beirut shereen hunter a research professor at georgetown university and author of iran's foreign policy in the post soviet era and from maryland for hognose a consultant with the embassy of saudi arabia in washington d.c. an international fellow at the national council on the us our relations thank you all for joining me on up front. let me begin with you earlier in the show i interviewed u.s. congressman roe conn or and he said sowed. crown prince mohammed bin salma on m.b.'s as he's known strikes him as not smart and not prudent and could be taking actions that could cause a war in the region we've already seen him fail to kind of bring qatar to heel failed to win the war in yemen why do we think that a confrontation with iran or lebanon would be anything other than

a failure on his part. well i think that's because foreign policy has actually been very consistent i think that it had that he had very closely into the laws norms and conventions of international relations at the same time i think that. it is more than about national community saying much closer attention it's iran this effect me as the main sponsor of terrorism in the region and in the world as well as at some of its many of the region as a lot of it with ease and others it is time to hold them just and hold them accountable just before we married if we we will get to iran and i want to talk about iran and saudi and on and the issues you raise and just to stick with whilst about in terms of recent events and m.b.'s the crown prince has begun are you saying that him rounding up eleven princes and putting them under detention at the ritz carlton him threatening lebanon possibly with war iran possibly with war hold

taking eight hundred billion dollars apparently from corrupt saudi citizens that's just a such if that's what you would call it nothing more than that it's not a big deal i mean i think that the saudi leadership the king said man and crown prince mohammed has charted a very clear course of action for his future i think that vision twenty thirty that has been added line is a broad. economic and social reforms that seeks to transform the saudi economy and wean it off the pendants of oil revenues seeks to do that by reducing the public sector and providing the private sector with the tools to succeed and become the right of the economy. rami how big a deal in your view to some of the more domestic developments in saudi arabia over the last couple of weeks well i think there are enormous the real problem in saudi arabia right now that i see having lived through and reported on the arab world for

the last fifty years as a journalist in the region is that had been settled and now is bringing in the third wave of arab autocratic authoritarian rule the first one was moussa in the fifty's the second one was. saddam hussein hafez lesson in the seventy's and eighty's and now this is the third row of the thirst monarchy in the arab world that where the one person the conference brings into his hands all the levers of power military political economic religious social media and foreign policy this is very dangerous and the fact that he's inexperienced and young and and rather reckless in his wars and in his regional events makes it even more dangerous so i think what he's doing is it's almost unprecedented and it's very dangerous and it's i think for the region is going to let me let me put that point to sure rummy saying what's happening inside syria is unprecedented fod said it's part of a reform movement but let me just say to you isn't the problem for a lot of cider of his neighbors and people and rivals in the region they don't have

much credibility to criticize what's going on in saudi arabia if you all syria if you were to come of the people who don't like saudi arabia what are you going to lecture saudi arabia on the lack of democracy is not much anyone can all but i think that there are degrees that i have no. love for the public and i don't. agree with their ideology and so on however there is you know you have to understand. you have different centers of power i'm actually there is politics in iran and that in some ways could be said this is a major problem for you ron because they cannot. take care of all this citizens even and i think that this. what if you say that the supreme leader calls all day shots and that's not true and iran you do have parliamentary elections they are not perfect obviously they are carried out within the kind of confines of

the principles of the islamic republic there has been a great tendency to buy so d.s. by most of the other exceptions of persian gulf arab states. and obviously egypt and so on and so forth to attribute all of the. internal problems to iran i mean i'm sorry this i would these are the greatest sponsor of terrorism and they have the saudi ideology has destroyed the muslim world whether it's a list of taliban al i consider that common prison let me put that point to father to respond there is a common view yes iran supports groups that are listed as terrorist groups like hamas hezbollah in the west but when it comes to quote unquote jihad to scroope the al qaeda affiliate that's really much more a saudi problem in terms of ideology and funds and you know that's a very common criticism including from members of the u.s. government yeah and again i completely disagree with saudi arabia was was

a sponsor such groups i think there would be a much bigger prize from the international community it would come under sanctions the way that iran has and the way that as well and various groups i don't think it's by accident that iran is itself in a position that it has become an international pariah it's become isolated subject to become subject to sanctions from a host of countries around i mean it's not the saudis last about the saudis lost a pretty big vote in the u.s. congress on monday night you took up a prize the u.s. congress voted three hundred sixty to thirty two to say that the war in yemen is not authorized that the war in yemen is. people to the war in yemen is causing a crisis in the region up to one hundred thirty kids a day a dying in yemen as a result of a saudi led blockade and bombing campaign you talk about being a pariah yemen his main saudi or pariah or even amongst many of its western allies generally speaking the war in yemen it began i mean it's a civil war and it's at

a sport and the violence began at once before said it was invited i received an official request from the internationally recognized yemen to support it. now and there is this sets that saudi arabia. deliver humanitarian aid and that is simply not true ok but that's not really that's what leading human rights groups and the u.n. humanitarian officials are saying so they're all lying. whereas a humanitarian aid in the form of medicine and the or to the central bank. just in the past two years it has operated very close so everything's fine in yemen people according to the world's worst humanitarian crisis you're telling us money is getting through things are good things are going through thanks to the absolute. but like i said this is a war it and when the rebels took up arms against the. government of yemen it well and those. are now so here's the situation that we're hearing when the u.s.

uses drones to kill people all over the world it's legal when israel bombs the hell out of gaza and the prisons ten fifteen thousand palestinians it's legal when the so does make the greatest catastrophe and yemen ever it's legal when c.c. puts forty thousand people in jail it's legal it's all legal it's all legal according to the rules they wrote and they're unelected unaccountable they deal with non-participant thore political systems it's a credible so what we're dealing with is a growing fraternity of authoritarian tyrants who are now it directly linked chromosomal linked to the united states leading to lead where does it lead. where does it go what happens next and if that's what you're saying as well i think we can see in modern history especially in the last fifteen twenty years when the pressures build up too much on ordinary citizens they push back and so the systems that we have in the arab world and i'm talking about the arab world now iran turkey

israel are different are building up pressure again with massive massive amounts of disparity and poverty and marginalisation and powerlessness it will manifest itself again as it did six seven years ago. with you another arab spring well we'll have something we don't know what it is the difficulty is when you have the american government and the russian government and externally other powers like iran like turkey like some of the europeans actively supporting these regimes it's very hard to exchange them until the pressure gets so big that they implode from without and romney's warning about kind of another arab spring another revolt what's your concern in terms of in the more in the coming weeks and months about conflict in the region are you worried about war in the region because i am worried about to be honestly i'm very worried about but if i might i know that i just want to say is that we have to be a little bit clear about terrorism and international terrorism i do not consider his full life terrorist group hezbollah is of what if you don't want to

palestinians to have any right of course you can call anybody that supports the palestinian right or terrorist hamas in my opinion is not terrorism commerce you know what is are you aware that western governments arab weapons manner of governments consider these groups to be terrorists but simply might does not make it right i mean if if the american media is the loudest or the other side most money that doesn't make them that they are right moderately or otherwise right the fact is iran is paying the price of supporting the palestinian rights if i were to advise the iranian government i would say let the arabs resolve their own thing iran can. never do right by arabs they think that saudis don't know the minute iran is cut down to side israelis are going to turn they are not going to last out so i'm going to come back to that point and lurch as they hear demands of half middle east and the interest of what israel side of it to bring in father the moment is

all but rami when i see this when you hear the kind of what when you hear sitting in lebanon perhaps when you hear the iranians say the saudis are interfering and sponsoring terrorist groups abroad and the saudis are saying the iranians are sponsoring terrorism to meddle in the countries from the start of lebanon which as you said earlier has been interfered with by many other powers in the region how do people on you know ordinary lebanese people and other people in the quote unquote arab street view these two regional powers both accusing each other of meddling in sovereign nations while the kind of look at it as political entertainment they read in the papers they watch on t.v. they know the reality they know that they're both lying through their teeth they all intervene in other countries the saudis for decades and decades have been promoting hardline. islamist doctrines all over the world the iranians have been all over the place doing whatever they can this is what countries do the iranians just do it better than the saudis that's the problem the saudis have they're incompetent at statecraft and they're amateurs at the plough missing the hard right now this week in the news we saw the head of the israeli military being interviewed

by the saudi press the grand mufti of saudi arabia being invited by the israeli government to israel israel and saudi arabia co-sponsoring a resolution against syria at the u.n. human rights there does seem to be this new close alliance between saudi arabia and israel possibly driven by their shared hatred for iran. that is certainly not my reading i'm not aware of any official communication of any sort between saudi arabia and israel saudi arabia's position on the israeli palestinian conflict has not changed it is still and is very much supportive of that us that your leadership president mahmoud abbas was just in saudi arabia a few days ago it ran it made it to us they are states pollution and that it has said that until that. is resolved the region well that enjoy any sense of so you're saying this is not an issue between saudi arabia is are you denying what we're all seeing in the news every day that is that is my right just because saudi arabia and israel are concerned about. iran's very destructive or that region

and that is that does not necessarily mean that this isn't a. shared concern that it's a shared concern not alliance running an alternative reading that i would offer from the region and watching these two countries and having been to both of them and followed them closely is that we have political will have been i'm and political zionism not religious what happens i'm a religious judaism but political zionism and political have as i'm have been the two most radicalizing destructive and destructive forces in our region for the last seventy eighty years along with foreign militarism and out of a talker so you put those four things together and this is what we get the most violent unstable region in the world which is getting worse and worse and worse showing lost what you well i think that. what chris been some on which he seems to me frankly has one of the biggest problem he wants to march for in my his father he

thinks that the more of that is like his palace in the here and then daddy is going to do this and that is going to give him he has gone out realize that the. moral is something completely different in ways that he cannot even imagine at the moment. we have to leave it there we're out of time for shereen rami thank you so much for joining me on the show that's our show up front only back next week.

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