market. find out what's really happening to the global economy for a normal look at the global financial headlines you guys are reporting on are to. follow again here is a recap of our top stories here on our t.v. american armed drones are in action over libya as the coalition turns up the heat on colonel gadhafi it's more than a month since operation started but with the allied forces entrenched many are saying the cost the campaign is going nowhere. moscow has warned the coalition that sending military advisors to libya is risky and breaks the u.n. resolution while the bodies chief is in moscow discussing the crisis in the arab

world with the russian leadership. and talk of card a militant has been killed by russian police in the north caucasus he was targeted in a special security raid of the man's thought to have played a key role in terror attacks in the country in recent years. and next on our t.v. hot debate on cross talk peter lavelle asks is guest if double standards are at work in the treatment of libya by western governments compared to bahrain where the royal family remains in control that's coming up next.

if. you think you are. alone in the welcome to crossfire i'm peter lavelle we're told libya's khadafi must go but the royal family of bahrain must stay is this a double standard is freedom allowed for some well others are not worthy of the same and will the west later regret its differing approaches to the arab awakening . across five different reactions towards the arab awakening i'm joined by hussein in pensacola he's the director of americans for democracy and human rights in bahrain in san francisco we cross the street and zoom this he's a professor of politics and international studies at the university of san francisco and in new york we have matthew schaffer he is a writer for the national review online all right gentlemen this is cross talk i

mean you can jump in anytime you want to before we start our discussion here let's take a look at some of the issues in reactions to the arab awakening. what is this state democracy all security interests revolutionaries sandstones have brought silence through the streets across the arab world people sponsored so-called western budget creators in egypt and tunisia meanwhile in predominantly crain ruled by a sunni minority people have been sluggishly silenced and this so to truth since the viens some point this double standard home to the us feeds and so does neighbor grain strivings who would sell to the nation piers an acceptable as it sounds are really interests of the west while in libya the corsi is seen as a priority and my neighbor really threw it out first and then he. mandates under

the u.n. mandate we have an obligation to protect civilians for our potential atrocities and we have succeeded that doesn't lessen mean so intervention in defiance of the rebels many of us blames a double standard that a critic rights of citizens and for greater political threat and i'll support it in countries like egypt tunisia and libya let's see a second drink in bakri oh yeah and well western military and security interests are at stake syria is just in the other example not so new to the revolution here we demonstrations can see their country and the u.s. state department is there a great so you can them they will and as arab awakening can see is what hosts wait national interest all the lives of the people themselves that is for crossed our hearts. ok stephen i'd like to go to you first hear

mr obama the u.s. president said that the united states is going to intervene or some form of intervention into libya because of. the need to protect civilians and he said innocent people are were targeted for killing hospitals and ambulances were attacked journalists were arrested and today is that they were doing the program here the independent wrote about bahrain one doctor intensive care specialist. was held after she photographed weeping over a good protester and another arrested in the theater room while an operation on an operation on a patient was going on i mean i seems like that's a very blatant double standard there and it's only going to get worse so i started by asking what we're going to be great are different reactions to what is fundamentally the same phenomena. i think very much so the united states has a clear double standard when it comes to human rights abuses by autocratic regimes

or we don't like autocratic regimes that are considered allies we seem to be willing to give them a free pass the repression in bahrain has increased over the. past couple months it is becoming increasingly brutal police state and the united states stands by the monarchy the united states has refused to condemn the intervention by the neighboring family dictatorships to suppress what is at least as a legitimate a pro-democracy movement as you've seen in other arab states matthew where you think about that in new york. i think that we've heard the phrase double standard thrown around i think that what we're actually seeing is a relatively consistent set of standards applied to widely differing circumstances in libya there was an urgent call to action the arab league asked us to intervene. forces were moving towards benghazi and wal-mart off a promise to raise the city and killed citizens in bahrain there are these abuses

in their tragic and there are four and they're evil there's not something that we can do we can stop a motorcade from going to a particular city because these forces are in the same cities they're both in the nama. so there's just not the same urgent call for a response so when you think about that i mean there are different enough to have different reactions because fundamentally is the message of the united states supposedly supports democracy the right to protest and all other things that we would consider normal and in a civil society you see that the reactions are different and they are a double standard. it is a clear double standard i think the u.s. policy toward iran is short sided it's going to fire back on the united states and it's going to hurt the american interest in the region because basically it's going to radicalize the pro-democracy movement in the country because the people in bahrain think that there is a green light from the united states to saudi arabia and the government of bahrain

to crack down on peaceful protesters you know you cannot support peaceful protesters in libya or egypt or any other places and then just stand a blind blind eye toward the legitimate grievances and the frame i think is going to basically turn the people away from the legitimate causes and maybe radicalize them and that will hurt the american interest and bring it even if i go back to you know i think it's really interesting if we look at the arab awakening starting in tunisia going all the way to today. in my read of it is you know i don't see a fundamental american anti-americanism element in it all when you see people striving for the right things i think we were on this program would agree for agree to but the more the different reactions are so stark don't you think the region is going to say and looking at the younger generation say ah it's just the west looking to find very new man in these new countries that have thrown off old

dictators that were friends of the west. it's unfortunate because united states has been quite fortunate for the very reason you mention that there has not been a strong anti american orientation of these pro-democracy movements at least so far as long as united states is seen to support the bahraini regime is really going to hurt us now i don't think anybody is advocating military intervention in bahrain i think i'm ambivalent about the military intervention in libya but the least we can call for more forcefully corn into the repression we can sever. our strategic ties so to that autocratic regime the early stretton to weaken in the security assistance so that regime we can make it very clear that

that kind of repression is illegitimate we really need to be on the right side of history here in history is moving more and more towards democracy and as long as the united states is seen to be on the wrong side really strong side in some cases it's going to really hurt our image and it's going to encourage more extremist elements that may not be that interested in democracy it imagine if i'm going to use saudi arabia on the right side of history. no certainly not. but just because somebody is wrong that doesn't mean it was not something that we can do to make them perfect again so i mean talking about for example you talked about how the protesters haven't sort of shown a strong anti-american element of course they haven't shown it i mean they they want american intervention they want american help so there could be anti-american elements we haven't identified but more importantly first of all the us has strongly call for an end to the violence and human rights abuses president obama

has been totally clear about that but in terms of going farther than that you know we have the fifth fleet station in bahrain saudi arabia is very powerful america's military is already stretched some of our geo political relations are already strained i don't think there's anything we can feasibly do to oust the khalifa these are they are sods. that is actually within our power right now and so condemn them intervene in libya to send a message but we can't go much further than that ok you say no i mean security is always brought up in these discussions here and looking at the right side of history you give it give you give me your prognosis i mean if the crackdown continues continues in bahrain and it's seventy percent of the population that is they treated as a second class citizen here the longer this goes on them how much more disillusioned are they going to become and i'm talking about these oppressed people with the worst of prickly with the united states and given the scheme of history and we never know how these things are turned out and i think we've all learned out of the last few months just how safe the fifth fleet fleet be there if things

turned radically against the royal family will be the fifth weeks they'll be welcome there. the u.s. administration not even listening to their own congress there are several members of congress yesterday issued statements and letters to the obama administration to immediately intervene and playing through diplomatic pressure. there were a few senators in the united states senate also issued such statement calling on the president and the state department to condemn the violence toward protesters i mean yes there is a general statement that we are against human rights violations but when it comes to the rain hillary clinton made it clear. for regime strategic allies are important to our interests and other way. other way the message was to the people of my friend that basically we. want the government and what that is going to do to people of bahrain right now looking for an ally they're looking toward the united states for help and what kind of help we're not advocating here military help

basically advocating for political help to mediate into the situation to resolve it but if the united states is not helping the states is going to. be blind then they're going to look into some other ally and that would be guess who iran because the majority of the people in bahrain are shiite and when they look into iran iran is going to play the situation and it's going to be very much difficult for the united states to maintain a secure base in the country where they are ignoring the majority of the people and the legitimate grievances of the country he's feeling i got to you real quickly before the break i want to talk about iran on now and in the second part of the program is this is opening the door to around. the for democracy movement is not opening the door to iran but the continued u.s. support for the regime and the ongoing repression i think very well could almost and very upsetting as there are some people in the ministration who are

exaggerating the iranian influence in the pro-democracy struggle as a rationalization for continued backing of the team in the jungle to bring them to jump in here and i'll let you finish and we come back from the break and after the break we'll continue our discussion on western policy in the arab world stay with our. key. story. download the official anti allocation show i phone the i pod touch from the i.q. saps to. one shall see life on the go. video on demand parties mind bold colors and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question.

come. closer to you has been to the show yeah the inspiration for the long lost secret of steel has been discovered. now archie goes east of lake baikal with the longest russian railway line drugs are going to the sunday desert lies among siberian mountains place where people follow the same routes as hundreds of years ago. welcome to the tribes like. washing clothes of barcelona. player can. play. welcome back to crossfire i'm peter lavelle remind you we're talking about the arab revolutions playing can.

live. ok stephen if i go back to you in san francisco before we went to the break we were talking about the iranian angle here i mean they must be very amused watching how the united states is tripping all over itself with former allies in the region here when iran for all intensive purposes been pretty consistent if you like it or not consistent. it's very disappointing to hear dennis ross speak at a conference i was fact i'd spoken in a previous panel in washington d.c. where ross who. has an important position in the administration as a. special advisor on the greater middle east for the abound in stray ssion he was going on and on about how iran was manipulating the the. the crisis in bahrain etc etc not one word

a critic is in their repression and they remind me so much of the cold war when whenever any kind of leftwing pro-democracy movement challenging right when you take a shit was somehow this conspiracy that came from the survey union in cuba but you know this president can you remind us of those who make peaceful evolution impossible violent revolution inevitable and that by supporting the continued repression it very well could drive some elements of the opposition into more around tickle hands so far the move is very nationalistic not for raining at all but this could change of the pro-democracy struggle cesar ran as their ally not the united states in the west matthew is it really just the case is that it completely ok hussein and pensacola try to go ahead with this statement i completely agree with stephen look the only political association that's their member were not that they were fuck their leadership highly said i'm on a stated yesterday that they cannot control the street i'm afraid these you with

them behave and who are seen dead their parents their rather their sisters get in unless that eventually they going to have to become. violent they eventually have to face ballance with violence and that's would be that would not serve anyone especially would not serve the united states' interest in bahrain you know matthew it's interesting is it really just stories about saudi arabia and what it wants and ever since mubarak was overthrown in egypt the saudis probably feel pretty scared i mean it was a mubarak and the saudi royal family with the two pillars there and the saudis are are not going to budge i mean it seems like this marriage of tribal feudalism and modern capitalism is really beginning to fall apart it's breaking here why doesn't the united states really make that clear to the saudis say we've really kind of how can you have a new kind of relationship because the current regime that you have in the in the region is untenable. i'll borrow one of our president's favorite quotes and say

that arc of history is long but it bends towards justice i mean we've seen that there are calls for a little democracy in the middle east i believe that the al assad on the wrong side of history and saudi arabia will be a democracy sometime in the future but if the u.s. like takes an aggressive posture will promote alienation and backlash but i just want to go back to one thing that stephen said and say that when he said that essentially the u.s. has a sort of hypocritical response because you know we're just supporting any dictatorship that will help us out i want to just sort of draw a parallel to the repression in belarus we're seeing certain similar things go on in belgrade and we're not refusing to intervene because we like the dictator look at shanker and belarus we're not intervening we're not doing anything because we don't we simply don't have the capability so i really want to press stephen and hussein know somebody on isn't going to be less like any means of supporting that cater ship or not to support the taylor shipping it's condemned the violence we've made an example of gadhafi but we just simply don't have the ability to affect all

the good we would like to steven jump in i'm not going to prevention i'm talking about stopping just stopping these security assistance to the regime providing them you know with the weapons of the instruments of repression and making very clear that we're going to sever these kinds of. you know economic and strategic ties or they continue doing this kind of thing i mean we we put sanctions on syria and libya appropriately. against their against their will for a. long list of these things for bargaining is misstating the. it's misstating that . i think that the fact is we are supporting behind the gas. canister that are used against the peaceful protesters in bahrain made in the united states there are weapons sold. on yearly basis to what rain but rain get aid from us every year

equal to twenty million dollars we pay them aid any well run to run their base so saying that. we don't have influence or we cannot change the situation on our hands are tied i think it's because we have a lot of say so and we have a lot of influence on the regime there because we basically for this they are in power because we are supporting them matthew one of the things i find very interesting is that the united states and many of the you could say the united states waffles from country to country and is it just because the united states wants to make sure there's an outcome that it can live with actually have an ally with a more democratic face or one who you are that will attempt to reform real or imagined i mean that's what the waffling is all about because united states can't say in principle we are going to move forward in this direction and we're going to support protestors and democracy why can't we do that because we won't because we're looking after our interests first and foremost right. i think yes we are looking

after our interests are also looking after geo political stability i mean if you want to talk about death repression horrible things i mean those things are as likely or more likely to result from war than they are from every press of regime so i mean where you do something massively destabilize the middle east make the al assad feel so threatened that they had to act out and i mean it is a dying ruling family that had it you know cause a lot more death and destruction and repression on a short term basis than maintaining geo political stability and promoting democracy with soft power what do you think about that steven i mean i think. it is even first go ahead i mean are you i mean. we're talking about soft power we're talking about using the leverage the normas leverage the united states has on countries like bahrain in terms of security assistance and and economic

relationship and that kind of thing but the thing is is that you know you put out you put a lid on a boiling pot that's where the danger comes from that's where the explosion happens that i see no no contradiction between america's security interests and supporting democracy in that part of the world because democracies are much more stable in the long term than dictatorships so when you have dictatorships now that's when you get the much higher much greater likelihood of war instability and the like so i there's no contradiction and we really do need for even putting aside the moral and legal questions for our own national security interest we need to support democracy and stop supporting dictators are you saying you want to jump in there. yes look over as advising obama on. policy toward iran or the persian gulf countries i think is doing a big disservice because the policy toward iran i mean and rather we're somehow

supporting dictators a dictatorship and bahrain or and d.c. countries serve our interests i think is going to backfire is going to hurt american interests it's going to cause these rich because these nations these people to turn into someone else that probably will not be an ally to us probably was going to hurt our existence and in the region so it's in the best interest of the obama administration and the united states of america to find new allies in these movements because these are genes these are autocratic regimes that been ruling these countries for over two hundred years not going to sustain in their current status matthew look like you are going there for a second their head go ahead. yeah i mean so steven hussein have both clarified that what they want to me first of all is point that still be a double standard relative to what we're doing in libya so that's the talking point here. but more importantly i mean i'm not sure exactly is going on inside the

administration what i would guess though is is sort of the administration is sort of holding those cards things are bad in bahrain they're bad in saudi arabia but they could get a lot worse and so maybe the obama administration wants to maintain the ability to exercise that soft power in the future and i hate once again to be sort of the you can play the cynical skunk here but i mean democratic movements haven't worked out for the u.s. or for liberalism in iran in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine in the gaza strip for example so i'm not sure i do think it's kind of naive to say democracy always furthers liberalism and u.s. interests particularly in the middle east see even go right ahead though those are those are certainly there's just told a story as analogies hamas won elections in prime introductions and palestine as a reaction to the israeli occupation and to the corruption and autocratic rule of fatah. similarly ran the the the as the reactionaries and of hijacking that revolution in part because the u.s.

backed the shah for so many years he was able to crush in marginalize the more democratic and moderate elements of the revolution so the ayatollah was rooted able to fill in the political vacuum and you know the longer we support the bahraini regime the more likely could end up with that scenario but the difference in bahrain for one thing about raney's i don't traditionally follow ayatollah like you find in iran does that do are much more the more quietest you know. it's all those people who like to sania and those and in that tradition so again i don't think it's anything that. the idea of bahrain is somehow going to turn into this you know fundamentalist islamist. state i think there's a real ignorance of politics i should quickly add there are just visions within the administration on this issue i know for a fact there's been a real battle in fact about where well u.s. policy should be in bahrain and thus far the more hawkish elements secretary of

state clinton started defense a gates have been. winning but i think this could change if the american people as we did in terms of u.s. support for el salvador and u.s. support for indonesia during the height of the repression in those countries then of enough people raise enough of a fuss and this is reflected in capitol hill i think there is a chance of changing u.s. policy so i really really i so i really think there's a there's a hope in this administration for more and the right and the right you know i'm afraid we have two gentlemen to hear from people would run out of time many thanks to my leslie san francisco new york and pensacola and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at our peak see you next time and remember a prostitute. taking the stand.

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