for the full story we've got it from. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. for your team to r.t. our main headlines this hour the u.s. led coalition against colonel gadhafi supporters is growing as libya is hit and more airstrikes and cruise missiles the forces against the intervention are also getting now the head of an arab league says the bombardment is targeting civilians instead of protecting them. from washington rain tains its intervention will be limited it's a change from there it's going to most of the pain and dropped on it it is raising fears of america's military and promised small lethal consequences from civilians

as it did in iraq and afghanistan. and japanese imports hit the global code of configuring infinitely long for example dead from saddam's arms to gaza to moment it doesn't work as a still struggling to prevent nuclear meltdown at the second facility the fish will say may never produce anything again. stay with us now as our debates show cross talk looks at whether in the distant vision is causing political turmoil in the arab world. can. stand.

alone a well known or astarte guy peter lavelle divide within islam the shia and sunni the saudi invasion and suppression of the shia majority and iran again highlights how sectarian differences can inflame passions and impact the geopolitical order in the arab world and how will these divisions be played out as the arab awakening continuous. can see. just as the prospects for the arab awakening i'm joined by juan cole in ann arbor he's a professor of history at the university of michigan in cairo we go to he somehow or he is a fellow at the center for research in ethnic relations at the university of warwick and in san francisco we cross the steven schwartz he is the executive director of the center for islamic pluralism and another member of our cross-talk team gale in the hunger all right gentlemen this was cross lucky can jump in anytime you want one can you give me your impressions what is the importance the

geopolitical importance and maybe the religious importance as well of the so the saudi incursion into bahrain to suppress what people say suppressing the majority shia population in that island. well i think there are two dimensions here one is that you had these massive demonstrations and battering the object of which was to force constitutional change the batteries rule is an absolute monarchy there is an appointed senate an upper house there's an elected lower house of forty seats but the districts are gerrymandered so as to make sure that the shiite majority doesn't get a majority in the lower house so one of the things that is being demanded here is that the better a monarchy move towards being a constitutional monarchy observe a rule of law and allow the majority population to express itself at the polls and

to live with that to live with outcome of that so that's one dimension here and i think that's the more important one than the sectarian issue because the. rain are not demanding a shiite government they're not demanding an overthrow of the sunni government they're demanding a rule of law a constitutional monarchy and so forth and so the saudi intervention also has these two dimensions from one from one side the saudis are also absolute monarchy there is very little in the way of rule of law there is no no elections to speak of in saudi arabia and so an absolute authority area and government has been brought in to repress a crowd. that's the man being where democracy on the other hand the saudis do it here to the one hobby form of islam which historically has been extremely if you shiite has attacked shiites as repress them for the sunni monarchy

a better reign to deploy one how deep saudi troops against his own people really we can see his legitimacy i think it's a tragic and perhaps fatal error ok fatal error pretty good in cairo a fatal error is that a good way of describing it. well there are several issues here peter first of all of the battering is existing behind the government by the saudis to come into their country under an agreement that was formed quite a number of years ago and was designed to protect bahrain from external invasion or from extra or forces trying to invade bahrain the way that they've invited the saudis on this particular occasion is really about a domestic affair so it stands to be quite dubious on legal grounds and that's something that will need to be investigated by the authorities in the region whether or not an agreement that was done for protection against external threats can be used to essentially quell

a domestic dispute that there's also something to be said about you know downplaying the sectarian nature of this the the way that the opposition has been formed to them but here in even amongst the shia that are protesting at the present time are divided into different groups the largest grouping to a proper are actually looking for a constitutional monarchy as your previous guest said and there's a smaller set of groups but smaller in number that are actually calling for a republic all together to. demand that the royal family step down within the bahraini government as well there are different forces at play between the different parts of government and they don't all see eye to eye on this so to play it up as a more sectarian divide i think is simplifies the matter beyond comprehension for us stephen that's a very good point and you may have gotten to this point a little bit quicker than i anticipated how much of the difference between the two different takes the sunni and the shia being played out in media as to in regard to

what is actually going on on the ground is it just oversimplifying it for everyone or is it really spot on. you know i think that it definitely plays. a very important role because the gulf cooperation council the troops that went into baccarin were actually from five different countries kuwait qatar the united arab emirates oman and saudi with the saudi arabia leading it i think that if we're realistic we have to see that this is part of the macro game in which saudi is poses the major sunni power in the area and iran is pose the major shia power in the area there's already been disruptions in iraq among she is there protesting against the investment of box grain and frankly what i'm seeing on my internet is she is in pakistan she is in the united states she is in

other parts of the world are are very very alarmed very upset are protesting about this and frankly i don't think they're trying to turn it into a sectarian conflict but i think for them it has very loud sectarian residences one in your first response to my first question is they did what you thought it was a tragic mistake i mean we're hearing that from other members of the panel here what do you mean tragic mistake mean the division is already there in the in the islamic world and we heard iran being brought up here i mean this goes back to the geopolitical implications that i was trying to kind of tease out of you guys a tragic mistake is it really about geopolitics. well i don't think it's mainly about geopolitics although there are attempts to inject geopolitics into it the better it she. is on the whole there are other schools that's a school she is i'm which more or less disappeared in iran which doesn't.

oblige people to give unthinking obedience to the grand ayatollah was so the better a knees are arabs they're not iranians and the form of she isn't that the majority of them practice isn't even the same as in iran so there you know the saudis attempt to portray what's going on in bettering as an iranian instigated uprising. to portray it as an attempt by iran to assert its soft power in the arab gulf as the saudis see it but that is a fantasy it's a kind of paranoia the. arabs and they're doing this for the sake of bettering for its majority population. with regard to the legitimacy of the monarchy remember that monarchies in the middle east have fallen one by one we went to

a republic in egypt in one nine hundred fifty two two in iraq in one thousand nine hundred fifty eight. and it's difficult to keep a monarchy going in the modern world unless it becomes a constitutional monarchy and i think when you have a monarchy that clings to power by bringing four and hated foreign forces to repress its own population. that's a i don't know how you come back from that is what i'm saying i don't know how the bad raney's will ever again look at the monarchy as legitimate and i think it probably is going to. over time we're far clear majority party more towards that republican stance that stephen schwartz mentioned of some of the minority groups. in cairo if i can go to you maybe we can just kind of go in a different direction here i mean the saudis are actually a terrifying to the shia minority in their own country in the east is this

a big part of the play here i mean you see things going on in the region in the in the saudis are just battening down. all of the any loose screws they see out there because they see a threat from the outside well i spoke to the source in bufferin earlier today peter and she grew up to very interesting points the first was that there's a feeling amongst some people in bahrain that this is centrally and message through sheer populations elsewhere in the arabian gulf so that's one the second was that she wasn't entirely sure what the end game of all of this was because the rain the would be a rain in dimension within the bahraini protesters hasn't exactly been a plea either in the past few weeks from the protesters themselves people have been protesting and behind in for several weeks now and although they had ample opportunity to start talking about bringing in an iranian style regime into the

country they haven't done so and there hasn't been any real statement about a fact by anyone from the opposition that i'm aware of and i stand to be corrected on that point what they have been constantly talking about is the rule of law a constitutional monarchy and so on and they were driven to do this not by memories of the night in seventy nine revolution although i'm sure the iranians would be syrian regime would prefer to ignore that aspect of it but they were really driven to do it by the images that they saw on the t.v. screen of here in cairo ok stephen if i go to you before we go to the break i mean i think go ahead i was going to go to you anyway i think actually sham. his sharma's made interesting point and it's a point that i would make this incursion into bach brain actually in a certain sense is risky for both saudi and iran because the book craney democratic process can have an exemplary impact on both countries it can encourage

the slow growth of a civil society and democratizing process in saudi at the same time as it can encourage support for the green opposition movement in iran and reading the iranian reactions official reactions to the incursion into iraq and it was striking how how low key they were compared with the material being put out by shia mosque since they progress on and other countries are a gentleman to this point i'm going to have to jump in after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the shia and sunni divide state with r.t. . if you. still . want.

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books the company says. welcome after prosecutor little to remind you we're talking about the divided arab world. but first let's see what russians think about events playing out in that part of the world. divisions in society what will be the result the frame has been paralyzed by protests orchestra and political reforms the majority shia country for nearly two hundred fifty years has been ruled by a sunni minority many say protests in bahrain i inspired by those in tunisia and egypt but could there be a similar outcome since both tunisia and egypt are predominantly sunni countries

the russian public opinion research center asked citizens what is behind the uprisings in the arab world forty five percent say it's all because of low living standards fourteen percent blame long terms of rulers thirteen percent see authoritarianism at ford still can religious divisions in the arab world impact the course of events developing in the region. ok i want to find go to you and look at all the different layers that we have in play here first of all we have to carry on differences are being played there on the ground obviously in the arab world in the air in the greater middle east but then we have different trends of political forces occurring on the ground we have apart i guess all of us would agree a positive one of seeing changes in egypt in tunisia a reversal of fortune to say the very least in libya and now we have so the arabia expressing its influence in the region which we see going to go how does it play

into this the carrying difference or is it just one more complicated layer on top of everything that's going on in what people are calling day the arab awakening. well i think the poll you'll do the right results which is the fact that tunisia and egypt are relatively homogeneous societies they're mostly arab and sunni made it easier for their revolutions to succeed quickly because the elites in both countries weren't afraid that some other group which had it in for them would come to power and marginalized them one of the bad effects of the american invasion of iraq in two thousand and three was that it was vindictive the sunni arabs who had been disproportionately in power in iraq before two thousand and three in the ba'ath party were targeted they were fired in the tens and thousands from their jobs their their state owned factories and enterprises were dissolved they were

reduced to the lowest of low and shiites were brought in to replace them in those jobs and. took over the main leavers of power well having seen that most sunni regimes in the region that have a substantial shiite population are now afraid of the shiites and that's certainly the case in battery and i think what happened in iraq can help to convince the sunni monarchy to begin its heels and not risk having a shiite majority legislate in the battery legislature so there is this divide but if you look carefully although the overthrow of saddam and the rise of a shiite government in iraq gave a lot of hope to shiite communities throughout the arab world in every case what they say they want in the way that they have mobilized is a better deal economically and also politically in their own countries so his

belong in lebanon has played the role of the lebanese political party not as a not a trans national one with can bat or a. it once more jobs as well as a better deal with regard to cars to show arrangements the same thing in kuwait in saudi arabia in each case it's a national demand for for a better place at the national table ok. cairo but it's not always being played out the way i think it would want to face very interesting is that we see in the next few hours few days and weeks obviously how iran is going to play this card because as many would say the saudi intervention is actually open the door for what people would call iranian meddling in their backyard in there was this agreement somehow that would stay kind of neutral stay in the middle it wouldn't be contested a lot of people are saying now the saudis have opened a door for more contests what do you think about that. well this is something that

people in back are in and out of dr in berlin for the bahraini opposition are now saying quite openly that the saudi intervention those open that sort of door but i still feel that we're not being cautious enough about playing out the sectarian aspect of this with them doctrine of the moment it's not simply a sunni bloc unified against the shia bloc a unified it's much more complicated and complex than that and even now the way that the protests have been going on over the past few weeks they did up the ante in the last week. trying to march against the world powers for example blocking the roads which meant that around eighty percent of bahrain is going to go to work this actually turned a lot of public opinion with them back around and in which went beyond the sunni population against. supporting the protesters with you know one hundred percent of their favor it's a very complex sort of situation even on the ground and behave in a country that a visit to a number of times and which. i'm quite hopeful for for the future within the

sectarian this as we might describe it isn't pronounced on the ground level between people there's anything there will be no there's a lot of getting killed now will it be now become more discrete because of the incursion i don't i don't i don't i don't think within battery and it will be i do think that in the region as a whole and the relationship between bahamian and the rest of the region and the perceptions of normal behavior a needs to the rest of the region i think that will be a factor quite strongly i don't think and i hope that within bahrain itself that kind of sectarian attitude won't go through the roof what do you think about that steven i mean we did so you really as actions opened the door for more influence in the backyard of the saudis. well there are two things that i think are being neglected in general discussion of this first is that doctrine has been a kind of safety valve for saudis who go across the causeway to do normal things

like in boxing women can drive cars they are not forced to wear by a niqab and so forth and saudi arabia is concerned that it democratizing process in baccarin could be contagious and especially towards the shias in eastern province the second thing is it is in my view true that the new arab revolt is essentially about economics and it's about the sapping of the weak links in the global system of economic power and the the problem for me is that the democratizing way the process of democratization that we saw beginning in tunisia has now encountered two very serious obstacles the first the rampant bloodshed in libya which is a terrible disincentive for anybody in the in the arab world to launch any kind of democratization movement and second now we have the specter that. democracy they should movement can dissolve into

a sectarian conflict as happened in iraq so both of these will now be obstacles to the broadening of the rocket is a sham movement or the new arab revolt or whatever we want to call it i think it's it was unfortunate that saudi arabia did this and i think it will be interesting to find out because saudi is a more open society it was in the past it will be interesting to see how this plays out in saudi political commentary in the as far as the internal conflicts in the saudi royal circles and so forth because this is basically economically based and politically based phenomena go ahead jump in go ahead go ahead oh something something that i've been observing from my vantage point within the region is the the the reaction from most arabs in the region to the saudi incursion into bufferin was so. b. another g.c.c. countries will intervene and bahrain and what is essentially a domestic dispute but they won't send troops to libya and that's

a feeling that i think is very pronounced amongst many many people in this region that while attacking his own people the arabs will not send troops in order to help but they will send troops and buttering it's very interesting one if i can because the libyans are on that's something the libyans were not for growth and i don't think it's something that public opinion in this region will forget either one i think really and it's a tangent that we just heard here the americans most somehow just be relieved i mean they have a huge naval base on the on here and on the island itself he must be relieved that it's least protected ok and that well there saudis are allies with the united states anyway i mean behind closed doors a little bit of relief because the united states has been caught so flatfooted in the arab world over the last few months that maybe this one they got it right their allies. well it's of course one doesn't know what's going on behind closed doors but what the americans are saying publicly. is not that they are happy about what's

happened and reign in fact they seem to have been urging the king of back in fact to take steps towards becoming more of a constitutional monarchy meeting some of the demands of the shia majority and i think hillary clinton and secretary of defense bob gates have a theory of this thing that the shia majority and better a needs more of a safety valve it needs to move the country towards more of a constitutional monarchy precisely in order to assure future stability and assure the functioning of that naval base the headquarters of the fifth fleet in the gulf and i think they're afraid that the movement towards polarization the sending of foreign troops into the country the crushing as we have seen today thursday of the protesters the pearl roundabout the beseeching of the

hospitals the arrest of even moderate opposition leaders that this process of repression is going to polarize things and is going to assure instability into the near and medium term and that's what's bad for the american geo political position in the gulf ok stephen to give you the last word on this program of the saudis going to regret this i think everybody in the arab muslim world is going to end up seeing it as having been either a mistake if it slows down the democratization process a new arab revolt or an opportunity that could end up because of the contagion of democratization having a positive effect in both saudi arabia iraq and iran but i think it's too. early to tell you all right gentlemen we have to leave it there many thanks to my guess a day in cairo san francisco and in ann arbor and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.

see you next time remember across tucker's. much luck getting the story. to. be soon which bryson. evolves from plans to the russians. who threw stones on t.v. don't come.

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