failed on the world stage and so that the the idea that the united states is going to put its all of its eggs in the saudi amorality basket to leave the united states to leave the middle east is something that i think few in washington have any illusion is really going to work and this is the problem with with with carter it's dramatically show who is the failure of saudi power the saudis you not only are they found in yemen but i think their perspective in washington is they couldn't even take on doha that's not a winning strategy for the united states to to rest its entire security architecture in the persian gulf on so there are many in washington think tanks who like to talk about this there are some in the pentagon as well in the defense department who see it as a last ditch attempt by the united states to be able to continue to sell the hundreds of billions of dollars in hardware and our missile defense systems particularly in light of the recent competition we're facing from russia in its s four hundred defense system but those those pieces are not i think they're not

going to come together with any kind of real summit or real organization for an air of nato that is focused on saudi arabia and the united arab emirates flight how does iran view the creation or the possible creation of this alliance is iran view this as a pretext by the u.s. to take military action against iran. foreign policy. american foreign policy magazine. piece few weeks ago trying to answer this question that the united states takes many military action against iran and as that that i don't know and i think it's a collective notices is that u.s. military is going to have serious difficulties if they engage iran militarily iran's. reach and military ability is at a level that the cost of attacking iran is going to be very very big

so we need on at least for the short media and. we don't have this out of us as the u.s. is going to attack iran militarily bigart to having a regional security outage and actually iran has been asking for that for a long time iran has argued that the countries of this region should be able to. provide for their own security does not think the united states or other countries from outside this region should be here providing security for countries that can do their own so this is an argument that. the problem we have with this issue of what they call them out of nato is that they actually countries like saudi arabia want to create this and get help from israelis to fight iran which is going

to be a disaster when i say fight i don't mean necessarily a military confrontation but just confronting iran and given the recent history of saudi foreign policy disaster they have in yemen killing innocent women and children the disaster they have the neighbor in. the mess they made in syria and iraq one could only conclude that. mohamed bin simon doesn't know how to do foreign policy and we cannot blame his age because the north korean leader is about the same age and he's doing much better than he is so overall i think this idea of the saudis needing some sort of military alliance is not really going to happen seriously you know the arab league has had a military division for many years and they haven't been able to meet the basis for throughout their history so i don't think these ideas should be taken

that says john mark if this alliance were to actually be created could you envision any kind of a scenario where gulf countries could actually take on iran militarily. well i think if that would materialize and to be if i doubt it the first theater of rishon would be would be yemen because if you if you have a similar article or article five the saudis could claim to have been attacking the territory and that would trigger a collective response of its allies meaning that the us would have to be coming in much more than they are now not just providing intelligence but they would have to provide the troops on the ground as well as contribution in air power obviously the region is not very prone to conflict we could also think later if jordan would be part of it. a commitment in syria

so that would be a decision that would have tremendous consequences for u.s. security policy but also for the balance in the gulf because if the u.s. would forge such an alliance then it could no longer play the role of the balancer that is currently playing right now with a few days. with an interim tweeting against iran and making some gesture for. for dialogue once you are committed in a military alliance is very difficult john mark karr the inaudible answer mark thank you i'm sorry to interrupt you so we're run out of time hillary may be the last word here we're just about thirty seconds of course barack obama former u.s. president when he proposed the possibility of meeting with hossam rouhani he faced a lot of anger from the left and the right donald trump now proposes much the same what do you expect the reaction is going to be from lawmakers in the u.s. especially republicans. well at this point i think the entire political class the

political elite in washington are somewhat beaten down after. a summit meeting with vladimir putin in helsinki and his meeting in singapore with the north korean leader i think the political elite are quite beaten down in washington that said there is nothing like the the pro israel anti iran industry in washington that you have north korea and russia it is an enormous industry here and all guns will be out to prevent some kind of meeting between presidents trump and rouhani so we'll have to see where that where that lands are and we're going to have to leave it there we're out of time thanks so much to all our guests hillary mann leverett for what is already and john mark rickly and thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story for me mohammed abdul in the entire team here bye for now.

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psalms in archaeology graduate from iraq he's also a part time going to pergamon museum which includes a reconstruction of the famous ishtar gate in most of the people he's showing around came to germany as refugees this is just one of several billion museums taking part in the project called a meeting point and as well as bringing people together one of its aims is to emphasise the contribution of migrants right up to the present day to western culture. because i've been here for some time i can help them with lots of things that moves us forward to me the great thing is it's not just about museums about forming a new life it is a part of life it's culture. istanbul it's known for its history and food today a new generation is shaking things up for rules is my everything five thousand six hundred years it's all different so this is all these cultures i'm now on top of each other. we're here to see how the

a teaching deaf culture and who's not forward to a.g. . on al-jazeera. zero. hello i'm maryanne demasi this is the news hour live from london coming up. facebook says it's uncovered sophisticated efforts to influence the upcoming u.s. midterm elections. iran is skeptical of a president trump's offer of talks with officials saying they don't trust the united states. fifteen dead in afghanistan after gunmen stormed a government building in the city of jalalabad taking dozens of hostages also.

supporters confident in their manners one zimbabwe's presidency despite delays in the release of election results. and i'm far it's well have all the sporting clearing basketball superstar le bron james says he may run against donald trump in the twenty twenty alexion as he blames the u.s. president for using sport to divide the country. facebook says it's found evidence of sophisticated attempts to influence upcoming midterm elections in the united states a social media giant says it's discovered and removed thirty two fold facebook accounts which it believes were to be used for a coordinated political influence campaign it says the intention was to sway the

outcome of the midterm elections which are taking place of course in november so let's get more on us now from alan fischer in washington alan what's been the reaction there. well you understand that facebook were under a great deal of pressure after the twenty six thousand election where many people felt that pages that originated in russia were certainly controlled by people in russia helped to influence the election and mark zuckerberg went on to capitol hill in april this year and told politicians look we made a mistake we will get better at this and no facebook essentially goes through all the pages that are on facebook with artificial intelligence and then followed up with human investigators and of the think there is anything suspicious they then decided to take action and what we've phoned in just the last few weeks the phone these thirty two pages know the see that indicated some divisive political activity in authentic behavior is hope that facebook actually describes that one of the

pages that they flagged up was a page that was organizing nor write. nor write to the right rally which was going to be organized later next month in washington d.c. and this was to a poor is that right wing rally see that several other pages had linked up with them to try and get people interested to try and work pop some sort of action but they decided that the page was initially up falsely and so they removed it they have known for people who signed up as being interested that this was the case and they've also told five other pages that link to it that the two could possibly have been knew your member as well that earlier this year the russian internet agency was indicted with trying to influence the twenty six thousand election facebook see at this stage there's nor firm indication that russia was involved but they suspect that somewhere along the line they probably were i thanks very much alan fish in

washington well joining us live now via skype is marcus scale really where he is a senior lecturer in digital channels and at university of the west of england just how significant is this discovery. well i think it owns part of a longer pattern i mean it's further proof of what you know is going on. but you know i think the tendency will be that we decide to say you know go go further it's kind of quick that's playing the russians that look for any evidence we can to suggest it's rush hour and kind of focus on that but i think that's neither important thing to say specially given the kind of slide last week and for its books about here is facebook's own culpability in this you know in their decision to try to make money out of people's border. and the ways in which that sort of backfiring now and they're realizing that as a business model actually people are going to try and sort of game the system and that's sort of the design tool that's built in at the ground floor where you know

that facebook has set they have removed some five hundred pages and accounts from facebook and also the instagram app as well because of it the what they describe is this an authentic behavior but really is it ever possible to know the extent of of interferon so or fake accounts that might exist for that purpose and no it's not and the reason the really simple reason is because there isn't a clear line it's not like that the good versus the evil you know there's lots in the middle. that you know is it interference is it just somebody with an agenda to push is it somebody who feels really strongly about something is it you know is or is it very clear kind of disingenuous activity you know i mean is this loss of shades and i think as we've seen from the way that facebook has a sense that a number of accounts and pages of people that were doing quite innocent things as well nobody including facebook is really very good at saying exactly what is

devious and what's just kind of people even if we don't like with what they're doing you know more or less using the platform in the way that it was designed and intended. right so how did what is likely to happen next then i mean do you see some sort of i don't know legislation unfolding with this or do companies like facebook continue to face political pressure to to do more to stop this type of activity well i think there is an ongoing effort to really try to regulate this scene there obviously the senate hearings i'm with you about attending there we've seen in the u.k. these palm tree select committees as well and that there's a lot being talked about in terms of how we might better regulate these things obviously national governments and nation states are limited in terms of trying to regulate. you know these very international. digital platforms and so that's going to i think continue to be a game of cat and mouse but one thing is also for sure again in terms of facebook's

commercial interests this is bad p.r. for them and this is the first time where they've sort of come you know palms up and said actually we're going to be try and be part of the solution in a much more substantive way whether that is because they don't want their reputation to suffer anymore because they have a genuine interest in preserving the democratic process and and markets do you mind if i just jump in there and ask you very briefly how effective are these types of accounts and influencing voters all swaying opinions well that's a very very good question and actually this very much less evidence than i think people realize that you know people who have already strong opinions can be swayed you know mechanistically to believe something different and what evidence there is only shows that actually people who are sort of in the middle there really no might be might.