just. as a very welcome this is our team come to you live from the russian capital top stories now this hour japan is struggling to avert you can meltdown but attempts to clearly overheating reactors at the tsunami damaged fukushima plant no immediate success next is the scale of the disaster is being played down. the head of the u.n. nuclear watchdog finally heads to japan amid criticism of the atomic agency has failed to get on top of the crisis. unfolding for the human disaster could severely damage the image and bank accounts of the u.s.

fund who designed the station is already rethinking its business dealings with general electric. and in libya pro-government forces regain more ground from rebels from russia pushing for a u.n. cease fire resolution after declaring persona non grata. i'll be back with more news more developments and i think thirty minutes from now in the meantime cross-talk is next. can. stand. alone and welcome the crosstalk i'm peter lavelle endgame for libya's opposition to

colonel gadhafi why is this likely outcome so much at odds with what has been seen in tunisia and in egypt what does the opposition in libya do now and should the world have particularly the west acted more decisively. to. start. to discuss libya's unrest i'm joined by david hartwell in london he is country risk expert for the middle east and north africa and i.h.s. jane's and in beirut we have osman backcross he's director of the central media authors and his by tiger and a political analyst all right gentlemen right now as we are as we meet we have events playing out in the united nations security council and we have events playing out in libya so david hartman if i can go to you in london how have things gone so terribly wrong over the last ten days two weeks when back two weeks ago there was

a lot of pressure. there were people in the west saying they must be u.s. and its allies most intervene in the arab league says yesterday should be a no fly zone and then there was no decisive move and now is the united nations security council wants to sit down and hash out some kind of deal the end game in libya already appears to almost have been played out is that be whatever elements of the opposition are there now are really finding themselves and in by it looks like a reinvigorated libyan military force and its leader. well i think it's probably important to stress that even though you got it was very much on the back first about sundays ten days ago he was never really basic and i think you know he sort of major a stronghold in shipley. other places and other towns that were he knew would be loyal to him and he clearly harbored a lot more military equipment none. of that seems to suggest otherwise so what's

happened was that the opposition's launch of supply potentially became very extended they found much more difficult encouraging uprisings in the west of libya which is traditionally good after his heartland and. they run a stable groundswell to some extent that made it easier for gadhafi to reorganize himself reestablish itself and. a fairly major counter-offensive of say. in beirut is very interesting is that the way it was pretty media is the opposition following in the footsteps of tunisia egypt of just the arab awakening the great hope that we saw on our television screens all around the world but is that as we just heard from david they didn't have the supply lines maybe not the organization people who criticize them for not having a leader describing who they actually are you have people in the west few days ago even saying they should be armed but then people step back and said who would we be arming and isn't there enough military material in the country already again i mean

all of this confusion and all of the ring this time mr gadhafi and his loyalists have slowly but surely gotten it would appears to be the upper hand again why do you think it went so wrong. well there are a number of factors here and the consideration. you mention the war in game this is far from the end of yet and let's begin in mind that we are not only talking about leave year but as well as egypt and tunisia and for that matter the rest of the arab or the young and the train and saw the arab yan's syria and all over basically what has happened is the through the sparkle just the usual ongoing evolution which has yet to come to an end it started in tunisia a small town it was bombed to create this effect i wish saw on it jump to egypt in egypt what happened in both egypt and into new c.l.

the. people power has forced us forces also in charge into the same egypt to hand over power in egypt internees year what happened is a controlled transfer of power which is not the it over it's not over the people in egypt still it's not over the internet users not all that in those states the situation remained in fluid yes went away banally fled away but have reality on the ground that evolution is not over and was alleviated in twenty's asia and egypt in libya it just wasn't possible because that hasn't been such a controlled transfer of power that this ally what we saw in libya is a through full evolution the tenement popular uprising against this brutal dictator because their feet who has stuck the pole for the past forty three years so what i think what we are witnessing this this is all the beginning

a chapter of. light which will engulf the whole middle east from a local all the way to pakistan even so. it will not surely it will take some time it will not happen overnight but there will be a lot of up and. on waves and waves and waves basically the scene what happened in libya their initial they knew euphoria danish a wave of popular sweep that swept from east toward the west that those brave heroes of the usual they had thought they could march on to and followed by tripoli but it was poorly organized this is why they had to retreat from. the north back to one of us and i was there yes now on the other hand now we have we have and what the we have both the local politics and political balance in libya versus the external international

stake and we are waiting the game we would like to i'd like to remind our viewers what kind of person we're dealing with in libya here it's listen to what colonel gadhafi had to say about how he describes what's going on in libya as opposed to what's going on in the rest of the arab world let's listen to what he had to say. situation radically different from what's transpired in tunisia egypt yemen bahrain qatar saudi arabia underground contraries one hundred what was happening in the arab countries has nothing to do with what is going on in libya and those countries there are peoples protest against the authorities there are people here with the mounting of the revolutionary leadership remains in implements the power of the people. david it seems those are kind of dangerous words because it looks like mr gadhafi and we were i guess we can all well imagine his regime hasn't really learned very much what's happened over the last few weeks in his country still blaming outside forces here i mean this is creating such

a deadlock they don't and i agree maybe i stand corrected maybe we are on the endgame of something maybe the endgame of some what some people call rebels in in libya but the libyan people are probably probably not going to be satisfied with a rule moving forward after what forty one years and after what he's does he's done to his people his military has done and probably will do in the immediate future i think the problem is that reform of the jumma area system is virtually impossible because duffy devised you have a hideous system himself and it's very much embodied in his personality his it's his idea of of the fact there is no government as such there are no institution to not to deliberate ploy to sort of prevent. the growth of rival sources of power to him and so you have this idea that you have local democracy and that in theory all funnels at the top and he is some kind of just chairman of the board type figure clearly that's that's that's an allusion just design to sort of hide the tribute

brutal nature of the your of the regime but what it was said means is that because it's so pound up with his personality reform is very very very difficult if not impossible because reforming the system remains means questioning the very basis on which he claims legitimacy and. so if you're pressed on the basis it's missing then you are in effect overturning the system so it's incredibly difficult to imagine a future in which gadhafi can reform which are hideous system and keep his people happy. us benefits it's very interesting if we look at what's been going on on the law a last two weeks or so we see you know an amazing transformation i mean did it could be and his regime just played the media very well and because it looked like was absolute chaos what we saw the pictures of people roaming going right on to tripoli it looked like it was just going to be a done deal like we saw elsewhere what what what what was the catalyst to change thing in things in your mind how did the regime find its its footing and to

actually reassert itself again because we've seen this happen in a very short amount of time. well that's not forget he's been power for forty two years so certainly like every dictator you know or any and every dictator he doesn't govern because the country where he's on day to clean he is truly he has built around himself he has built on himself core of. followers who if he goes down there go down with him we have seen at the same time we have seen many prominent figures and officials including even his cousin amakosa for them he had sent him here sent him to egypt to meditate with the tribes on the egyptian leader and one of the side will cause if he what happens that the macaws there for them to give away and he announced that he quit from cause their feet and many other out of his minister of interior minister of justice it's a there are many prominent figures they have owed him and joined revolution

now yes because they're fifteen when this is the crucial fact that he still held onto crucial military this a military force this is what enabled him to unleash he's he's he's arrived in his anger against the rebels who don't have much of a of a formal military hardware they have managed to pull some of them who where with the libyan army that defected to i don't know if you want to evolution so-called light. arms but they don't they are applied to the tanks are very even shapes never ships and airplanes so certainly from a military balance of power the cause if you side is weighs heavy or however. one of the position of opposition said one cause if he reclaimed the city of zawiya in the west he said yes maybe because if he had managed to. people i was sure the key city in the west of tripoli but without its people the people of syria fled

from it so the wanted being. because there she has gone beyond. a time of continual governing the people really be out by force and bloodshed and this is not that and this is the thing that's that i'm usually in a media we let's stop. it from this military stalemate games although it may and it made vision it into some civil war if you wait an extra mile yeah but that's the basic point is that the people and i have the head of them spoken to people in tripoli who are effectively they are being held hostage by because they are a gentleman at this point i'm going to have to jump in after a short break we'll continue our discussion on libya state with our team. and you can.

download the official tea hopefully cation chile for the ipod touch for me on q. snaps to. chauncey life on the. video on demand cheese money fuel costs and common sense feeds now with the palm of your. machine on the com. we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from around the world. we've got the future covered.

soon which crisis include moving soon from phones to. startup team dot com. can. kick. start. the. welcome back to crossfire computable about to remind you we're talking about the situation in libya. q. ok david the air and i some when the first part of the program we talked about the domestic issues being played out in libya i want to spread this out now to the united nations security council and what i would say give it

a ring over the last week or so david let's can i go to you what do what is the the u.s. administration again when it comes to an arab country great during what i like to call the arab awakening just can't seem to get it right ok on the wrong side of history almost every single time and then at the very very end even though it is a day ago also on really hard and heavy yes we need to get more tough with the gadhafi regime when the khadafi regime seems all but to recover what accounts for that is that iraq is a conflict fatigue in the united states going into a third country not figuring out who the opposition is what accounts for what why is the u.s. administration been so awkward in dealing with this situation particularly when there are very strong evidence that war crimes have been committed against libyans in the country it's probably a combination of all of the fact. as you just mentioned because on estates iraq iraq clearly looms large over the involvement instruction as far as it's concerned

it is in the process of getting out of iraq by the end of this year and so as far as i'm concerned that his studies once lights off the the former bush administration that it doesn't have to deal with one more problem for the bush administration didn't have to deal with so so that is clearly an issue there isn't but there hasn't been a domestic pressure inside america that has been in europe force of action although even european nations have been divided over the issue. but it's a didn't american change of heart so late in the day is extremely difficult to explain i mean one can argue in the last few days that it's been distracted by the situation but that doesn't explain why the vacillation over the previous two weeks has occurred and it does rather see that the u.s. wanted a very quick resolution my all the other frankly to the issue and to the situation in libya that would allow it so you would sort of you know carry on as normal but least fulminate a new policy with a good office that or a new government of an event going to you it's very interesting is that because the

united states is not is only just recently reengage gadhafi is libya out if you go back to lockerbie and what not so united states was kind of the last in line and we had the europeans that were very much up in front i mean we've all seen the pictures of european leaders a red face now that they had their pictures taken with this man which happens a lot to politicians these days but the europeans themselves have been extremely divided we have the germans on one side i'll talk about the russian position a little bit later in the program and then you have can you cite france result because the the president doesn't even have friends as they have diplomatic relations now with libya so i mean it's a huge mess mr gadhafi must be really lapping up his sleeve. historically historically. because if you wanted it under because if you had had the close relation with europe the bulk of the libyan oil goes to europe and you pointed out historically that initially between libya and united states has been rather hostile you listen i forget back in eighty six of the kind of american president reagan

they bomb. yet what's happening in the world now the key the key in explaining you there and american position in the security council now the american diplomats are saying is a no fly zone is not enough they want to go beyond that to all of impose a halt to any even novel or even ground forces for thought was iffy the key here is would the meeting that happen between clinton and the opposition in cairo which is . what happened american had waited early on the first two weeks the rebels revaluation sweeping who swept across eastern libya and they were pressing forward to police their ability they had thought that they. would have enough power to down cause their feet and they felt they knew they didn't need foreign help or assistance ok fair enough the american. troops stand by now that tide

has rivera's and that the bells are being threatened now the american felt now is the time is right for the american intervention and this i don't i don't believe they should feel it is the security council being needed as such we is that our president whether american stepped into somalia in kosovo and elsewhere it's always very interesting a cliche when i think it i think it is important and i go back to a point you made is that obama and his people around him are actually i am glad to say maybe more sensitive they need an international mandate to do this because again. third intervention into an arab muslim country just isn't going to go down well for american foreign policy in the region it is quite one and i'd like to point out looking at russia's russia's position here because it is part of the united nations security council that will be voting on legislation here and i thought look at what mr may date of the president of the russian federation had to say about what russia thinks about the situation in libya with us and what he had to say. libya is on the brink of civil war to save

all our citizens before it turned into chaos the fact that we managed to do that fast and according to plan deserves the highest praise we were the first country to start the evacuation of this relates and face difficulties as a result. and i also like to point out that sixteen names including khadafi himself his son's daughter a cousin libya's minister of defense head of like adoptee's personal security director of military intelligence and other officials are being barred from entering russia or using russia as any kind of transit point so again right now the russians i'll be playing a part in this but you know a lot of russians will say is it ok for no fly zone what if it doesn't work if i go to you david on them what i mean but the thing is is it you know so many times you know i mean i see american senators i see european politicians and their heart is bleeding all over the place but then how do you get out problem is how do we do it

go ahead. the problem has been is what i think this part of the u.k. and the french problem in the past week or so has been different is deciding on actually defining what's what the no fly zone is actually designed to achieve is it's merely to protect libyan citizens from bombing by gadhafi or is it to ever for a good offer himself those are two very very different names and i think the fact that the french and u.k. have struggled with the definition of the no fly zone and struggled to define how they would impose it and how that would in reality be reflected has been part of the problem and i think that's why there's been this this this district in policy feel like and you can see the french regretting it now because you know french the french foreign minister came out yesterday and said we should impose a no fly zone seven to ten days ago when we had one and the opposition effectively had something worth defending now there is a situation where they have been ghazi and maybe it's a book and a couple of other places but they're in

a far worse position militarily than they were seven days ago and so therefore that if we now if the u.s. is now talking of intervening militarily to help the opposition overthrow gadhafi then it's a far far more difficult task than it was ten days ago that's when i think it's in b. i think it's very interesting as you have so eurabia invading its neighbor bahrain and but the arabs in the arab league would be willing are willing to do very very little to help their arab brothers in libya do you find that to be a bit of a contrasting ironic situation. certainly by all means and this is this this issue is very sensitive and which is which is this that in reality all of this current the current geo political setup in the middle east an engine from morocco to algeria to sudan yemen iraq jordan syria you name it gulf states all of this what let's not forget that this current set up is really it's a legacy of the of the order imposed by the colonial power of the west and the

european powers going regular cyclist people and here comes to mind the famous statement by george bush the father bacon making like the one that the preaching the so-called the new world order so what you pointed out about saudi intervention in bahrain this goes to the heart of the point which is this regime so. they will do anything to protect their themselves in power that you see this ten billion dollars to support of the one in another ten billion dollars for a man they call the think there is a very close and dependency and what happened cannot happen in yemen affect so the idea what happened in libya affects syria what happened in the hay in effect so the i.b.m. vice versa so really and this is what i said earlier we are far from game over in game this is rather we are still at the beginning we are still tip of the iceberg i think that this revolution will widen. the engulf the whole region

and this now the struggle the coming conflict will see the popular rise the popular. will of the street against the imposed political order by the west and the european before and you know the american scene one of the ironies of this if i go to david where the ironies of all this is and i agree with our guest in beirut they gain and then again if it is a united nations security council whatever it resolves to do it still mandating outside intervention into the arab world again we're kind of like she said. tale right here because in the region it sounds as if the guy had a bigger head yes sorry but yeah it's an important point to note just this that is pulled the saudis invention saudi assistance to you know if you choose to describe it as a very sectarian element so i think the situation in bahrain needs is as seen by saudi arabia right here wrong in to us from further and further distance as a threat to its national interests and to its situation in iraq right now as

regards the sort of the water issue of of the incident and its national unity un effectively get another intervention in and in our country i think it's truly difficult to couch in terms of does this constitute some form of force and what hostility i think it does i think it's it's seen as a response to what has happened since december incentives here and january february in egypt where you've seen the sort of the idea that the the arab spring or the arab awakening or of egypt to describe it could sort of run it run into the ground if you like in libya but certainly one fifty you get when you win. some american publications it's that can't be allowed to happen somehow and that this is what is what and the way that the u.n. not being able to. members of the u.n. and the arab league of being able to present this as some kind of assisting the arab revolution rather than hindering it in relations and to libya you know he duffy's a tyrant has to go if he is replaced and that will be part of the wider process

that we've seen in tunisia in egypt and bahrain over the past three four months i was going to give you the last word he made it what are the other dictators in the arab world thinking right now they can pull off a khadafi or they're going to have to surrender the will of the people is it that simple. this this is a something out of question the saudi arabia and what they intervene in bahrain they really desire to do they version they raise this by not off sectarian that's the issue is far from being safe there in between for the for that's all and if that if the people in bahrain succeed in imposing their will against the dictator or the king of bahrain and he's all right we're going to be joining me here on the offer i'm afraid we've run out of time many thanks to my yesterday in beirut and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember across stock. picking up steam.