i stand before you tonight in my red chiffon evening god. based so lemaitre my fair gently way. with. this extraordinary deal between the united kingdom and saudi arabia in which ronald reagan wanted to sell the saudis billions and billions dollars worth of equipment but these raids stopped it and congress wouldn't approve it because they feared saudi would strengthen israel. handed the deal with or effectively to his political soulmate. un seen nothing yet was. very effective for the ad.

when. the saudi arms. deal we really started to stumble on a central feature of british politics over the last thirty years. has been at the heart of many of the great quote events of the polish. i was always pleased to see him when i was prime minister because he brought me extraordinary insight. she formed us she considers saudi arabia is a strong friend and would be willing to support the king then with whatever the king they meet and the discussion from there on everything else was. he explained to mrs thatcher this was a deal with saudi arabia. and therefore things were done differently. they

wanted forty three billion pounds worth of weaponry that was six billion pounds in commission. the cost majority of most people understand is bribes. we'll continue to work together against the turks who threaten the way of life pacifist. one day i thought right and it was a man to look at it coming i'm actually he said i've been working for a travel company and we had a kind of slush fund we used to distribute to saudis and other arabs when they came to britain for be all to help the path of alms deals along. and he told us that sort restore is that when saudi military officers would come along he would present them with canteens of cut through that was something that

they light another thing they liked was girls so he would take about the town and get them girls. to be honest it seemed like quite small beer payments made some of them from rather on as manic activity is aiming chips to the talks about cooldowns that sort of thing there's only two things that count in business my friend money and sex the rest you can write as much as you like is absolute garbage you can measure weapon beautiful the president's secretary. because they're more destructive live you just take it to the what the hell you are talking about. and that is sometimes all that is you need. i have to use an escort agency cold war kids because of the specialties of the chief of staff of the army like blowing bits of them. we had their secretary of the

embassy come and review the photos she said i want this one i want this one i win this one i win this one i had the girls i arrived one day before and i said girls i know you will be paid handsomely for this but do me a favor if you get any people thought that is relevant please bring your cross because i could use it and for each interesting information i will give another two thousand euro bonus so with sixty grand i signed the contract with three million so it was a bad deal. i met my phone rang again. it was another whistle and he said you have no idea what it is that you're getting into here. and he said this slush fund is much much bigger than you realize our job was to look after the really high level people those who used to come to england who were being bribed essentially by be a people of the level of the head of the saudi air force who was a royal prince. we would fly the two of us angelica's and they would buy cars

dresses and it wasn't shopping like you would i would think in the end when they gather together all the shopping we would charge an entire jumbo jet to fly it all back to saudi arabia it was in the attempt to try and trace through the bank accounts who the ultimate beneficiaries are that the case became really very serious as the trail appeared to lead towards senior members of society royal family. the most outrageous example was that maybe a no order to go the way with prince bandar at one point made him a present of a huge commercial airliner all of his very. which he promptly have painted in the gray and silver colors of the dallas cowboys who were his favorite american team i mean is the fly around in that quite cheerfully. the case stented on establishing the ultimate beneficiary of exceptionally large amounts of

money paid by beach sharing space for consultancy said decisions. while there's evidence that mark fashion of this is that your son got twelve million in cash for his work as a fixer. this is started i don't. this is one group. it's a really beautiful weapon it's also made if you want to sell on the market and you're looking probably about three thousand five hundred euros and why you keep it in the house because i have a song here and you can do that legally. yes and no but you know more or less you care as long as it's in the house. and it's all should because of the neighbor. i don't know the u.s.

money i don't mind paying bribes to politicians spite of the deal think about politicians is that they're very much like prostitutes but only more expensive. polities is it dated by the whims of the arms industry politicians are nothing more than sales reps by their friends to have as much power as a middle ranking executive and want to martin ident of the day they do with the tolls. when an executive goes to bribe a foreign official he says to himself look i've taken a lot of risk to take this five million dollars that i'm paying to the prime minister of x.y.z. who makes an arrangement with prime minister of x.y.z. . i'll hand over the five million but you take half of that five million and you send it to the following bank account and churchill and we'll share in this florida . the first time an executive does that and he collects two point five million

dollars he says wow this is a good business to be and within moments of that realisation he is no no longer in the business of selling airplanes he's in the business of selling bribes and he is now scouring the world for somebody to find to bribe. we. had to feed. you can. choose to eat. i. was i had to. see what it. is out it said. i play. each child to clean. each careful city. on foot by.

hides. with me. i'm in the phone rang again. this was somebody who said you have no idea what you're getting into he said this whole be a thing is much much bigger it goes right to the very top what he had was something that you never see as a journalist swiss bank records of international cover payments going all over the world he showed me how be a set of a whole system with lloyds bank under which they channeled secret payments into a british virgin islands offshore company called red diamond from red diamond the money went into this guy's swiss bank account and he then used it to distribute to the local politicians taking a big check for himself of course you know i can assure you we don't we and i believe most companies all to the business of late payments as you suggest

a lot of sums up what they do employees of government it is just all the way business is done. we were actually able to publish what was the most dangerous story that prince bandar had been given not just the plane but over the years a total of one billion pounds we did not invent. corruption i mean i doubt many would have been and they had hanky panky and they had to go down to edit so i mean this is this is what made sure i salute the prince of state run and a friend. how do you agree. of course none of us are greedy it's only the other fellow's greed. this world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interest. all those people who believe that greed violence etc these primal so-called primal instincts other religions things and everything else is

a social construction they've lost their mind and for the last fifty years at least policy has been made based on the assumption of greed and it's ruined the world. had hundreds believe there is no nature of society so you have to nurture individual is i don't accept that at all i think there are very many good public policy initiatives for creating society. in the beirut they're saying allude to you . there's a comment isn't a good forty seven kalashnikov. a society that decides that the bulk of its budget is going to go to arms manufacturing building of a military eccentric this is made a moral decision that militarism is more important then the creation of wellbeing for the population. this is not the

world i want to live in i want to live in the real world and the real world is peopled by real emotions including love and generosity. my god if you want is freedom the freedom of human beings of individuals to pursue their own say is i think what the term freedom means is economic license and the economic license of those who control property and those who control capital has in fact been a threat not only to equality but a threat to the freedom of peoples all over the world and not only in europe and in the united states but nafta in asia and in latin america i want you to name me any society in which you have any large measure that freedom where capitalism and free enterprise has not been the predominant mechanism of the free enterprise system has spread through the force of arms and those on to wield it by government that was government intervention under the name of the free enterprise system but a government intervention which destroyed the cretins of many people not the least of which are the people of chile.

from the one nine hundred fifty s. all the way through the one nine hundred seventy s. the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions throughout central mad america throughout africa really throughout the world where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right wing military juntas funding and arming death squads like the contras in nicaragua or battalion three sixteen and under us and and there were these spate of assassinations across the globe. including three slay mine people have been killed to be quiet to know that any day any time you're going to be killed you don't know how but it's coming. we were fighting in the league and still we are fighting you know only god it's mines

that don't want to work going inclusiveness they just extract is not only about taking from d.s. but taking from the people. even to dreams take the next. the last half of what is called the cold war did not to be a very hot war for many parts of the world. from the standpoint of want it by them and cause the victims or what i would think of really as of people trying to make their own futures. there was an attempt in the global south to create an alternative imagination for people. but in the early one nine hundred seventy s. this attempt was destroyed and it was stopped through a real genuine attempt by the global lot to take over the institutions of the world including the world bank the i.m.f. . souls not simply that the bible of the south was incapable of carrying forward

their dreams. to. it was a very strong with their dreams were assassinated. it's not just the one off killings the corrie other cool there. it's the entire dream that had to be killed. to be sure to do less than to be a book. but aren't going to or much else. to live by a similar and manner merely for the sure loser will be because on the the end. looks even george was he not one to us got a person on the most if anybody's. when i said kind of guy is here. the

whole you know men team you julio to what are the salmon. you know be your command. is and fit yeah that mindy. egypt then go to micio. the joint hearings of the house elect committee to investigate covert arms

transaction with iran. and the select committee on secret military assistance to iran in the neck iraq going opposition will come to order. the third reich adored by millions like a stone's most famous cricketer arrived just prime minister on a grave of national celebration. now one hundred days into his leadership people in power asks whether delivering on promises will be is easy in practice as it was in favor a. now the nation is not feeling confident right or people are disappointed with the government in mines one hundred days on al-jazeera. well you know. some of it i like.

after joining the greenpeace team campaigning to protect the weddell sea in antarctica we're now in australia for the outcome with the first generation to realize the gravity of this crisis. but we may be the last to be able to do something about it another throw a special find out if the effort to create the largest sentry on earth has succeeded thrice on al-jazeera. allowing maryam namazie in on them just a quick update of the top stories u.s. foreign policy is under the spotlight after a major shift in its military moves president trump says he'll withdraw his troops from syria turkey's president who has been a critic of american policy in syria has welcomed the announcement and in return

has vowed to get rid of my sil that. sort of the criticism in question love did it since the beginning of the syrian crisis our diplomatic contacts with the us lift off disappointed in terms of the results the trumpet ministration inherited problems that we experienced particularly during the obama presidency in face to post meetings and phone calls president trumpet i have seen that we shared views on a range of issues related to syria yet the translation of the agreement to the ground was overdue and difficult finally in recent days we have been able to see the clearest and most encouraging statements to date probably administration or president trump has reportedly also ordered the withdrawal of up to seven thousand u.s. troops from afghanistan the move would harm the u.s. presence of service personnel in the country where they train and mentor afghan security forces a separate u.s. force also conduct strikes out i still on the taliban all this is the u.s. government could be heading towards a shutdown as the senate cari debates a finance bill includes more than five billion dollars for

a wall along the border with mexico president trump says his administration is prepared for a very long shutdown unless works get underway a shutdown would mean all but essential government services would cease to function the u.n. security council has unanimously voted to send observers to yemen to monitor a fragile truce between the saudi led coalition and who see rebels the vote concerns the implementation of a cease fire in yemen's key port of data and the withdrawal of rival forces from the area it comes after a un brokered peace negotiation saw yemen's warring parties agreed to a cease fire in sweden last week protest as a taking part in a mass rally in the hungarian capital budapest against a new amendment to labor legislation. critics are calling it the slave law as it allows employers to force people to work more over time and even delay payments for up to three years nationwide protests have been held since last week in as you can see protesters are still force despite the freezing temperatures there in budapest

and bring you more on that story and everything else in the news hour in twenty five minutes time join me then. the. franks. will continue on into the night but into the next week with detailed coverage of criticism of capitalist economics to all a fifty six billion dollar i.m.f. loan to argentina from the around the these are the victims of one of the world's most conflicts and without age and health they could become a lost generation. the joint hearings of the house select committee to investigate covert arms transaction with iran. and the select committee on

secret military assistance to iran in the nicaraguan opposition will come to order congress began to address what they perceive to be an insanely out of control series of covert actions with little to no congressional oversight we have been supplying lethal weapons to terrorist nation involving the us government in military activities in direct contravention of the law and lying to the congress now i believe that democracy cannot survive that kind of abuse. and people like dick cheney and donald rumsfeld who are relatively new to government at the time did not like when congress said we need to step in and confront the national security state and what's become a very out of control kill program cheney then went on during the reagan years in the eighty's to serve in congress and when the iran contra scandal broke out into the open cheney did not like congress being involved with anything that the executive branch was doing. and you had this is utter scandal that emanated from

the highest echelons of power and the reagan administration was acting as though it had nothing to do with it i've told. all that i know and you know the truth of the matter is for quite some long time all that you knew was what i told you. to. our witnesses morning is mr robert mcfarlane the former national security adviser to the president. mr mcfarlane we welcome you to the committee and we look forward to your testimony. mr mcfarlane. did you have any discussion about the possibility. of in effect farming out the whole contra support operations in nicaragua to another country which will call country run yes that's correct and did you in fact succeed in

obtaining money from another country. which we'll call country to. that's correct. i had the practice meeting periodic lee with a official from country to about assistance we could provide some cases arms sales. and he intended to provide a contribution of a million dollars per months to the contras through the end of the year. you have no problems working with the cia we have no problem working with the united states government and unless the cia does not work for the government then i think we have a bigger problem there have been occasions when some americans are question that you know well thank heaven both of kaizen was not in connection with the.

i think that there was a substantial shadow government. try to run for it if they actually manage day. these events have been characterized by some pretty strong statements we've heard talk of a grave constitutional crisis and even been treated to talk about a coup in the white house not only does cheney sort of defend iran contra but he argues that iran contra is actually a model for how the u.s. should be conducting its national security policy he is a radical subscriber to this notion of the unitary executive effectively what you're doing is saying on certain parts of american policy we don't have a democracy we have a dictatorship as a matter of fact i was. very definitely involved in the decisions about support to the freedom fighters my idea to begin with. in my opinion there is no justification

for further restrictions on the power and flexibility a future president. the national security today is mostly composed of people who hit the revolving door multiple times during their long nomination of richard b. cheney to be secretary of the friends is a make a name for themselves in the private industry and then they come into the go. this revolving door keeps the national security leak very small and very wealthy. and increasing its wealth as it goes up the chain to the extent that then when you get to the top as cheney did then you can become a member of the plutocracy that runs the country to this is impressive crowd the haves. and the have more. money commissioned a study by halliburton to find out how much more of the defense department could be privatized robert proud to serve our troops and was he laid to get this million

dollar contract and of course returned a verdict that oh mr secretary lots more of it can be privatized. dick cheney leaves the defense department and goes and heads halliburton himself and he spends the entire nine hundred ninety s. building up the how important war empire well if we're going to talk about star wars we might as well invite darth vader i. am happy to accept. when he comes back into power as vice president and then they start hiring halliburton to you know in advance even if u.s. troops going into iraq personnel and equipment was being deployed to the gulf it's hard to look at this and not say these guys had a very long term plan for how they were going to increase the powerful infrastructure of private companies. what we've essentially done is to

create a network of corporations that have the fire. power of small nation states that could you know overthrow some small governments around the world. in essence we in the united states have privatized the ultimate public function war. and i want to get on the market right now even obama's of the time with the like food. you know munitions as good does good to know so by that it's. good. to see. you can see. that.

in iraq that if this feels and i faith scenes where firing six million dollars within seconds coming back re army in going up again. there's no hope of any more because there's always a small cobble of people for wars really really good business. it doesn't matter that we're losing the war in afghanistan albertan could care less it's good for them good for profit. margins. i don't want to have a. bad law how is her choice really did. i

know you. it. well we've undergone a corporate coup d'etat in slow motion. thirty five thousand lobbyists in washington they write the legislation they write the bills. all it takes is one phone call from somebody on the hill to someone in the pentagon saying hey turn on the dogs the hills out to get our program the guys in the senate are on board we need you to turn on the gucci shoes guys to straighten this thing out the guy's been the lobbyist. and what this does is just lock the system up that's the whole name of the game it's it's called political engineering and i'm like political

science political engineering is real. one of the most important things dunder stand is essentially creates what we call a self licking ice cream cone. and it's like perpetual motion machine for getting ever increasing defense budgets the way we do it is by downplaying the future consequences to start a new weapon we over promises performance under promise it's cost we then systematically spread dollars jobs and profits to as many congressional districts as quickly as possible so that everybody has skin in the game. the people who are invested in this day or people like the largest defense contractor in the world. they will die before they see it. going to change the world. we're probably already working.

what did martin basically just similar to your last two posts with. the goals you know in all branches of the government and the whole them and this is the group that made them if you will go to a bunch of school boys. fiscal year nine hundred ninety nine two point three trillion missing fiscal year two thousand one point one trillion missing the pentagon has claimed year after year that the reason it can't account for the money is because its computers don't communicate with each other one trillion one dollar bills stacked high would reach nearly sixty eight thousand miles into space one third of the way to the moon. i got a phone call from the f.b.i. saying that i was a target of a death threat. and that's what happens when you go against the big boys who has the contracts today to make those systems communicate with each other and how much

have the taxpayers paid for them there are times that corporations do things they should not do in which case they tend to be suspended for some period there are times then that corporations can get out of the penalty box it. was never in the penalty box if you could proceed to my second question please the second question. i forgot what the second question was. in the vigil was operating in the shadows and never having their names called are able to leverage the power of the military and the foreign policy apparatus for their own personal pick uni ery in. what's now who's the enemy how do we justify. what better our new other need.

when. we're we'll bring to mind a celeb yellow mutinies with our unity back home by the end of the see those for me will end up on but at the robot he decked years embodied in a little bit dorian out of the many gun woman dose of the new or that the analysis which you see mean this is tony n.

says and similarly i'm going to see mean you know better you don't know either our foot on the dealer will. now you're a nary doubt. less it will be very dark even they let our money earned to that extent i am in a fabulous i don't mother this delusion i must see what i want in a service and i need an assist those for me. is a seat in one fundamental demand your home on a c.c. your. get the we are now you back then didn't she on the get out a second a bit earlier her lack. of i think of the most basic level when we realize how we've entered into. a

permanent state of war. like would often proponents of. counter-terrorism on a global scale think of as a long war but a war without end something like that. and i think that what we've accepted is a political regime that is stained by fear is a very old it's a very old political tactic i mean machiavelli asin the prince is it better for the prince to be feared or loved and his conclusion is because the locus of fear the the source of fear resides in him in the prince it can be constant for his rule whereas the locus of love resides in the people it's in their power and so for them could be constant long lasting means so much already opens

a question that he probably doesn't provide us the answer with what would it mean to have our social arrangement like the basis of our social choices. be founded on love. i don't think one has to justify the cost and nature of the national security state one just has to keep the people fearful enough to support it but what i want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between iraq and the o. kind of terrorist network every word in that speech was gone over by the director of central intelligence and his deputy director after so it was nothing that i made up it was nothing that i stuck in there and in fact some people tried to stick extra things in there that the intelligence community wouldn't verify with multi-sourcing and i said no powell grabbed me physically which was unlike him and drug me into a space at the cia at langley and said throw all the material in my

presentation about terrorism out cut it out out this amount this is just within an hour george tenet the director of central intelligence made a spectacular bombshell presentation we have just learned from a hollow evill al qaida operative under interrogation about significant contacts between baghdad's move of our ot an al qaeda. this was devastating. here's the director of central intelligence telling the secretary of state that he has interrogated evidence well the secretary turned to me and said put it back in. al qaeda continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction as with the story of the kawi in his network i can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how iraq provided training in these weapons to al qaeda later i learned that that was shake out libby that had to happen just

instantly happened it happened months before that he been in water boarded in egypt when he did this no u.s. personnel were present and he had recanted within a couple of weeks and we never were told about that every statement i make today is backed up by sources solid sources these are not assertions we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence we were indisputable we were allowed to. at this hour american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq to free and people and to defend the world from grave danger is called rove famously said to this reporter you know you guys are reality based communities we make reality by the time you figured out you know what's wrong with our reality we've moved on the creation of another reality they chose sal or cause to come into the possession of saddam hussein weapons of mass

destruction did the united states to him absolutely not. iran iraq was on such a scale that i was on the iranian side and i went down to the bottom i was actually given the gasket and so let me take the train back right away up to town and the carriages with crimes with iranian soldiers had been gassed some would just coffee russian and a one man who was reading it. it was so he put a handkerchief blood on his lips. gradually to cardozo became permeated with this sort of thirty six mile and i realized it was the smell of the gas they were coughing up from the lungs i was going around the car does open the windows and night is trying to clean the train out of the smallest obviously chemical. after two thousand and three i was being attacked on radio shows especially from america you know complaining about the american eventually you produce adama i said excuse me i was on the train of iranians gassed by the iraqis and the chemical

components came from the united states at the very time that you'll rumsfeld was meeting saddam you were meeting with saddam hussein i think we have some video of that. of that meeting tell me what was going on during this is what did you get this video from the iraqi television is on the wacky television when did they give it to you recently or back then we dug this out of the c.n.n. library i see. isn't that interesting there i am. our war on terror. begins with al qaida. but it does not in.

this very phrase war on terror is a rational line saying. a war on rule. when the serious fraud office launched its investigation into the crimes that we were covering it turned out that many of these arms deals have been forced through by tony blair personally he said there's a case you don't send me. once you start a war. you open a kind of pandora's box you don't control it it controls you again on. the bottle you still advantage i not myself and again in our cabin i am.

today there are good terrorists and bad the bad terrorists those in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the good terrorists those who are in syria the joke here is we've been there before. i mean if you consider the of the honest on story they have learned nothing. today if i say that the saudis are giving money to groups that are inside the un that are not only models so the. people who say you are a conspiracy theorist. american song review put one billion dollars each to give them training equipment we out of that was so clear to all those people to go we had. peace that's what we want freedom and peace but no doubt.

the doctrine that has endured from bush to obama is that the world is a battlefield and that the united states has the right to go into any country around the world to conduct what they call kinetic operations lethal operations regardless of what international law says if you're a small state like we were for one hundred fifty years in in essence these of these spain france. russia you've got to be exquisitely good at diplomacy you got to be able to talk yourself out of lots of things and make deals and compromises and so forth but if you're the world's head human you don't deal with anybody you smack him you your military and you smack him.

hello again it's good to have you back we're here cross southern parts of queensland we saw some thunderstorms again for another day bringing down power lines as well as people losing their power across the region things are looking a little bit better here across brisbane temperatures are still quite warm we have been looking at a heat wave across the area thirty four degrees is our expected high here on saturday the good news is as we go towards sunday temperatures begin to come down twenty seven degrees there down towards melbourne it is going to be a partly cloudy day at twenty three but very warm over here towards the southwest where perth we do expect to see some showers in your forecast for the tempter there about twenty six degrees while across the north and south island we have seen some

stormy weather daves clouds pushing through right now but pushing through quite quickly as we go towards saturday improving conditions up here towards the north island maybe auckland will see a random shower or two with the storms passing by to the north down towards christ church it is going to be messy and we do expect to see some more wet messy weather as we go towards sunday well as make our way up here towards north asia we are seeing some very very cold conditions particularly here towards mongolia well of atar minus twenty two is going to be a high it is going to get a little bit warmer by the time we get to sunday and over here towards tokyo a rainy day if you with a temperature of twelve degrees. on counting the cost two thousand and eighty the year the u.s. and china by trade tariff poca gregg's it could be used everyone and opec will review the year that was

a new dynamics with shaping the global economy. counting the cost just. because we're not expanding as we should it. rights being violated. and free to be stripped away. on the seventieth anniversary. wish of the whites that stand up. stand up for human rights. a policy imposed decades ago pregnant woman thought that she would selectively goods and boards changing demographics across asia with far reaching consequences for creating a pool of socially disadvantaged young men so you have the system where people at every level will be get being given money money to agree distro zation or money to get other people to agree to certain social. or examines the politics of population

control in the first episode of science in a golden age i'll be exploring the contributions made my school is doing a medieval islam in the period in the field on. professor jim. brings the brilliance of the pasta line. last point credible almost doesn't look real all we've done is block out the mud from the roof and then allow it to come through the small hole served one of science and go into marriage on al-jazeera. hello i'm maryam namazie this is the news hour live from london coming up a major shift in u.s. military policy as president trump announces his intention to pull troops out of

syria and afghanistan. anti-government protesters gather once more in the one garion capital voicing their anger at what many have dubbed the still a little. opposition to the forces demonstrating in the democratic republic of congo on the presidential election. and i'm really a hearty with all your support including liverpool are on a course to go for points clear at the top of the english premier league wolves one nil away. way now for us foreign policy is the key question being asked of president donald trump's decision to pull his troops out of syria trauma's shift in u.s. military strategy is one of the reasons his defense secretary says he's quitting james mattis becomes the latest high profile member of trump's administration to

resign a policy differences his announcement also coincides with reports that trump has ordered the withdrawal of up to seven thousand u.s. troops from afghanistan which would hov its presence that she has mall. there's been no shortage of voices in washington expressing dismay at donald trump's decision to withdraw troops from syria and the subsequent resignation of defense secretary james mattis and shaken by the news because of the patriot that general secretary models. and now with reports that the president has ordered a withdrawal from afghanistan republican senator lindsey graham has called for congressional hearings on both decisions the foreign policy establishment is confronting one of its greatest fear is that trump meant what he said on the campaign trail where force in the middle east that we were fifteen years ago i mean right now it's a disaster once trump filled his cabinet with people who did not share that view though the establishment thought it was safe i think it's fair to say that the establishment never wanted this moment to come stablish night and that is certainly

as a member of that establishment in good standing. is unwilling i think to. ask and he's restored it questions about u.s. policy in the region and even if things haven't gone well and they haven't they're going ation is simply to persist there is skepticism about how deeply geo strategic trumps decision was and whether the president will even follow through. but several issues are reported to have been involved in the syria decision including the primacy of the us a strategic relationship with turkey and the avoidance of mission creep. in the last few months national security advisor john bolton has made it clear that the us was in syria to confront iran that was a position explicitly rejected in the tweet that announced the withdrawal we have defeated isis in syria my only reason for being that during the trump presidency the president writes. itself is divided there are many senior officers in the military we think the serial deployments over long periods of time just aren't

working and are eroding military readiness but it's worth remembering that even with these proposed withdrawals the u.s. still has tens of thousands of troops a massive effort in the region she ever tense the elders are of washington all talk as president i have typed on has been a strong chrissake of american policy in syria has welcomed the announcement and in return has vowed to get rid of i still that santa honda has more. the turkish military will stay on alert along the border with syria but the planned to cross border offensive against what turkey considers terrorists east of the euphrates is now on hold the target was the syrian kurdish armed group the white peachey which controls four hundred kilometer stretch of territory along the border . president measure of tayyip erdogan cited a common understanding with washington as the reason for the perspire and went sort

of their criticism in question number two since the beginning of the syrian crisis our diplomatic contacts with the us left off disappointed in terms of the results the trumpet ministration inherited problems that we experienced particularly cheering the obama presidency in face to face meetings and phone calls president trump and i have seen that we shared views on a range of issues related to syria yet the translation of the agreement to the ground was overdue untypical and finally in recent days we have been able to see the clearest and most encouraging statements to date from the administration trump announced american troops would pull out from north east syria this week the us president chose turkey over washington's alliance with the white p.g. a main source of tension between the two allies the decision was welcomed in ankara but the foreign minister met little childish provided more details on what turkey expects to happen next we need to. have

already. i have. my. first. he said two things one is called the nation the other one is that turkey will never let out any country any power to feel their work is very important because she is from two days there are lots of explanations from the minister of foreign affairs of france that they will feel that he will never lead out. a delegation from the white peachey dominated syrian democratic forces is trying to reach out to paris to seek support following the u.s. decision to leave it seems the message was not to france but to other powers as well the s.d.f. is believed to be reengaging with the syrian government to cut a deal that will allow it to stay in its autonomous enclave in the north east turkey has repeatedly said that it has no territorial ambitions in syria and its

fight against new y p g is about its national security interests it believes the y.p. g. is the syrian offshoot of the outlawed kurdistan workers' party or the p.k. k. which is fighting for autonomy in south east turkey. turkey also backs what it calls the rightful owners of y p g controlled areas some arab tribes and others have accused the kurdish force of capturing predominantly arab lands and its military campaign against eisel those tribes who say they are being prevented from returning home or throwing their weight behind turkey which seems to be coordinating an arrangement on the future of that corner of syria with the united states senate there are a check on the turkey syria border so what then could the u.s. cost in military forces mean for afghanistan up to half the u.s. forces based there are expected to pull out this has all. but. as much as

gridlock is a part of living in kabul so is the presence of u.s. troops for seventeen years thousands of american soldiers have been stationed in afghanistan and now there are reports that may be coming to an end for american millionaire we consider this good luck if they get lost and disappear from here would be very happy with. their own fourteen thousand u.s. military personnel in support an advisory role for more than two hundred thousand afghan troops but the u.s. numbers may be hogged. we would be happy that u.s. troops are leaving if the f. ghana forces were strong enough to defend us but unfortunately we do not have enough power to defend our country similar concerns were voiced three weeks ago by the general nominated to command all u.s. forces in the middle east if we were precipitously right now i do not believe they would be able to successfully defend their country prison ashraf ghani and his government remained largely silent in response with organics chief advisor to tweet

most analysts believe that afghanistan would collapse with the departure of more than one hundred thousand troops but our brave defense and security forces prove these analysts wrong and defended the nation with great valor president donald trump has flip flopped on afghanistan coming into office he was for a troop withdrawal then last year increase the number of troops and said this there's no talking to the taliban we don't want to talk to the taliban we're going to finish what we have to finish what nobody else has been able to finish we're going to be able to do it but now the u.s. is talking to the taliban in peace talks again in momentum earlier this week u.s. taliban saudi pakistan and afghan representatives mit and the united arab emirates talks covered a possible cease fire and a complete u.s. troop withdrawal something the taliban says is normally go shabelle maybe we could look at it as a confidence building measures. requesting. a bus of the hundreds on. a

schedule to draw two forces this could will be one of those lines were the committee to draw from of one stone if the good. busier than a on the phone. or afghans anxiously wait for clarity what president trump do what it will mean for the palace al-jazeera. well for more on all this we can go live to washington and speak to p.j. crowley he's the former u.s. assistant secretary of state for public affairs also the author of red line american foreign policy and a time of fractured politics and failing states which is a pretty good description of the situation we face right now thank you very much for speaking to us we knew from the outset that there was this clash between president trump and his defense secretary and that was relayed barrin mathis's resignation letter how if we reached a watershed moment in the trump presidency well certainly jim

mattress was the last of the conventional foreign policy figures you know within the trump administration looks at the world differently than say john bolton the national security adviser and mike pompei with the secretary of state now with jim matheson is stepping down you know the question is who's going to give the president here perhaps a perspective rooted in fact and history that that others have not so we'll have to wait and see but obviously i think a lot a lot of us in the foreign policy establishment are are nervous about what this means tell us more about where this nervous to nervousness stems from because we know that mattis was very much of the view that america's may just strength was not its military but its allies and its alliances when you think about the rivals to the u.s. who are emerging in the world where do your concerns lie now. well

the really the question is you know we're do we go from here you know in the context of syria it is fair to say that perhaps you know the u.s. military has accomplished as much as a can in defeating the islamic state caliphate there is still a readout along the iraq border but but you know this to this decision appears to be based on impulse and not strategy you know if we were you know nothing has changed in the ground of the past six months we're not necessarily on a cusp of a political breakthrough so one of part of the logic of having u.s. forces remain in syria was to make sure that the united states would have a seat at the table whenever there was the prospect of a political solution and likewise in the context of afghanistan as your previous package suggested if in fact this is a gesture that will advance.