the. cross talk is coming up here on r t but first let's check in on today's top stories i mean. the foreign air strikes in libya are a direct result of the single behavior of colonel gadhafi and the crimes carried out against his people but the russian president stressed civilians should not be put at risk while enforcing the no fly zone. and the libyan leader's stronghold was targeted in the ten uing barrage of strikes which are purportedly killed over sixty people western officials claim they have to go into

a command center used by the libyan army in the capital tripoli. and in other news emergency teams have been evacuated from japan's fukushima nuclear site as smoke is seen rising from a paralyzed reactor engineers have managed to restore electricity to three reactors that it's holding back on enable them to restart the sales cooling systems nexus promise cross talks peter lavelle and his guest discuss if the sunni shiite conflict is actually behind the ongoing unrest in the arab world. can't. stand.

alone we welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle divide within islam the shia and sunni the saudi invasion and suppression of the shia majority in bahrain 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 still. discuss the prospects of 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 and 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 crosstalk team on the hunger all right gentlemen this is cross talk you 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 in bettering the object of which was to force constitutional change the battery is ruled 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's 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 there 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 a mass that steam ending where democracy on the other hand the saudis do it here to the one hobby form of islam which historically has been extremely actually shiite

has attacked shiites as recross them for the sunni monarchy a better way to deploy what 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 if we go to cairo a fatal error is that a good way of describing it. well there are several issues here first of all of the battering is existing between a 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 property in from external invasion or from xorn or forces trying to invade bahrain the way the dave invited the saudis on this particular occasion is really about a domestic affair so it stands to be quite dubious on legal grounds and 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

through a century quell a domestic dispute and 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 back in even amongst the shia that are protesting at the present time are divided into different groups the largest grouping. are actually looking for a constitutional monarchy or as your previous guest said there's a smaller set of groups but smaller in number that are actually calling for a republican all together to. demand of 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 up 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 buckram were actually from five different countries away qatar the united arab emirates oman and saudi with 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 poses a major shia power in the area there's already been disruptions in iraq among she is there protesting against the investment of bahrain 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 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 in your first response to my first question is that what you thought it was a tragic mistake and 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 geo political 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. worries 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 as 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 are the saudis attempt to portray what's going on in bad rain 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 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 cause to tional monarchy and i think when you have a monarchy that they 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 poo. over time with the majority party more towards that republican stance even schwartz mentioned some of the minority groups in in chicago in cairo if i go to you and maybe we can do is kind of go in a different direction here i mean the saudis are actually terrified of 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 battling down there all of the any loose screws they see out there because they see a threat from the outside well i spoke to a sunni source in doctorin 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 essential in message through shia populations elsewhere in the arabian gulf so that's one and 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 played either in the past few weeks from the protesters themselves people have been protesting and bought 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 to that effect 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 one thousand something nine revolution although i'm sure the iranians would or the syrian regime would prefer to ignore that aspect of it but they were really driven to do it by the images of this on a t.v. screen of here in cairo ok stephen if i go to you before we go to the break i mean thank god i was going to go to you anyway i think actually show. his sharma's made interesting point and it's a point i would make this in persian into book grain actually in a certain sense is risky for both saudi and iran because the book grainy 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 at this point i'm going to have to jump in after a short break we'll continue our discussion on the shia sunni divide state with our team. standing.

first the cream removal cold clear cutting. second explosives are used to glasgow deeper than the piers a. third of the remains are removed by machinery. finally the fundamental choice is deposited in valley feel. on our team hungry for the full summer we've got it first hand the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. if . russia would be soon which bryson. to bounce from

funds to christians. who threw stones hot seat belts come. on. the topic. posts. welcome at the process of trying to get a little reminder 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 but fraying has been paralyzed by protests pakistan's political reforms then one turkish shia country for nearly two hundred fifty years has been ruled by

a sunni minority many say protests in bahrain are inspired by those in tunisia and egypt but could there be a similar outcome since both tunisia and egypt predominately 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 or rulers thirteen percent see authoritarianism at fault still can religious divisions in the arab world impact the course of events developing in the region. ok i want to find go to 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 better on the ground obviously in the arab world and here in the greater middle east but in then we have different trends of political forces occurring on the ground we have a partner i guess all of us would agree

a positive one of seeing changes in egypt and in tunisia a reversal of fortune to say the very least in libya and now we have so you arabia expressing its influence in the region which ways are going to go how does it play into the sea carrying difference or is it just one more complicated layer on top of everything that's going on in what people are calling the the arab awakening. well i think the poll yielded 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 marginalize 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 barrett i think what happened in iraq can help to convince the sunni monarchy to dig in its heels and not risk having a shiite majority legislate in the battery legislature so there is this divide but if you look carefully though 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 form a better deal economically and also politically in their own countries so his bill law in lebanon has played the role of a lebanese political party not as a not a trans national one with rain. it wants more jobs for shiites as well as a better deal with regard to cars to tional 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. in 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 he ran 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 and it was this agreement

somehow that would state kind of neutral stay in the middle it wouldn't be contested a lot of people are saying now the saudis have opened the door for more contests what do you think about that. well this is something that people in back here in and out of dr in berlin for the hearing opposition are now saying quite openly that the saudi intervention was opened out sort of door but i still feel that we're not being cautious enough about playing up the sectarian aspect of this within bufferin at 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 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 behind me in a country that i visited the 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 do you think it will be now a lot of you think it will be now will that 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 the train and the rest of the region and the perceptions of normal behavior in is to the rest of the region i think that will be affected 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. so you read his actions open the door for more reigning in

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 bachmann has been a kind of safety valve for saudis who go across the causeway to do normal things like in bahrain women can drive cars they are not forced to wear buy and niqab and so forth and saudi arabia is concerned that it democratising not grain could be contagious and especially towards the shias in the 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 you see the problem for me is that the democratizing way of 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 to dissolve into a sectarian conflict as happened in iraq so both of these will now be obstacles to the broadening of iraq that 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 a phenomena go ahead jump in go ahead go ahead 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 interview number three 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 on mongst many many people in this region that while gadhafi is attacking his own people the arabs will not send troops in order to help but they will send troops and offering it's very interesting what if i can go to the libyans that's something the libyans will not forget and i don't think it's something the public opinion in this region will forget either one i'd like to go to and this is a tangent that we just heard here the americans must somehow just be relieved i mean they have a huge naval base on the i'm sorry and on the island itself we 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 in back rain 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 in battery 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 polarize ation 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 steve your last word on this program are 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 iran and iran but i think it's too. early to tell all right gentlemen to leave it there many thanks so my guess again kyra san francisco and in ann arbor and thanks to our viewers for watching us eat r.v. see you next time remember across the. nation. state.

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