gold new gold and new tools into. the six to dispose scheme. in a sea of this column if you visit. seven thirty pm in moscow these iraqi headlights activists in syria holding a day of nationwide protest against the government with reports demonstrators have been fired on the u.s. threatens action and slam syria's alliance with iran experts say washington may have its sights i'm told from. russian security forces killed ten are no intense and i talk is this region including the leader of a terror cell responsible for a number of attacks the latest in a series of successful counter terrorist stings in the region. the russian pilot

faces prison after a new york court finds him guilty of conspiring to smuggle drugs into the u.s. constantini or shank those defense says he committed no crime against america he was arrested by u.s. agents last year in west africa. coming up here labelling his cross talk guess look at whether there's an undercover at hand at work among the arab revolutionaries crosstalk coming your way after a short break. we'll . bring you the latest in science and technology from the realms. of the future coverage. can.

follow in welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle as the arab spring interested six months it appears to run into some serious headwinds to some arab best parts have a learning curve and are the democratic rights of some people limited by the west geopolitical interests. to. discuss what may be called a counter revolution in the arab world i'm joined by and i deem she hardy in london he's an associate fellow i kept house also in london we have gilbert ashqar he is a writer and professor at the university of london and in washington we go to lawrence korb he's a senior fellow at the center for american progress all right gentlemen this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want first i'd like to go to goldberg in london are we seeing different paradigms being developed in the arab spring moves forward the arab awakening as some people call it we have the tunisia

maybe egypt model where we have something maybe approaching a revolution a real revolution of changing the guard there and then maybe the bahrain model backed up by the saudi arabia they wrote the script there and maybe reluctantly with american supporting two different paradigms we have right now dictators that fall and dictators that are really clamping down well i wouldn't call that because you have very different situations actually. egypt and tunisia the situation is quite different countries. i mean if you mean the countries where. the overthrowing the paper and countries where the fight is still going on. basically only two countries where this has been successful ok if i could stay with you. because of maybe tunisia and egypt what is the learning curve

for. some of the autocrats in the arab middle east i mean we look at syria we look at yemen and what lessons of a learned when they look at tunisia when they look at egypt. that's the problem here is you have really different situations that in a country like tunisia for instance. the ruling clique was more like a kind of. you know more imposing its record even on the political and economic elite that existed before before ben ali came to power in eighty seven. and also explains the relative ease in this in which he was ousted from from power and the army just bent on him whereas in egypt already the situation was different because mubarak is a product of the army and the army is the backbone of power and the army is still in power i mean what you have in egypt is very clearly the army ruling i mean it's

not behind the scenes it's very very officially so. since countries like libya or syria or the ruling families in the gulf countries and you could use the same formula off ruling family to for libya and syria actually. i mean you have. these elites if one could call them like that i mean owning this thing. you can hardly hardly see see them leaving the scene you know and leaving behind something very optimistic about the future is going to be potentially has more violence and i do what do you think about that i mean if we have assad in people like this have they learned from the. mistakes let's say of their fellow dictators in the region. well i agree with what you've said of course but the other side of

this coin is that what's happening in all these countries is one single phenomenon caused by the fall of an idea the idea that a family a dictator a. sort of a dynasty can rule a country using security services and the army and basically. raising any political life in the country. that's redundant and that's what's causing all of the to collapse one after one after the other so so what's different is the circumstances but but the phenomena is more or less the same and in fact the formula in which they ruled was the same because they have shown the west. that they are irreplaceable they are indispensable that they provide stability that beyond is chaos.

it's unimaginable what would happen beyond them and that's what makes rex that. makes it difficult. to imagine life after that and that's why for example those that are clinging to what shall i thought are more in washington and london and paris than in syria itself i mean the issues that we've seen regarding russia. and the last three four days. prove this i mean. they show that there is support for trade opportunities ring in power if you can even from israel ok ok i was going to say larry i mean i mean i really like time that it was a second ago i mean these regimes are indispensable this is a message they're selling and you know in the united states looking at saudi arabia i mean it is it is said it is it's not a video it's not happy with what is happening it's on it's unfortunate what's

happening in bahrain but it's not going to do anything more to saudi arabia because it's afraid of saudi arabia's reaction because the united states just has gotten so used to working with dictators that are due there will. well i think you have a couple issues here and i think i agree that you know the whole like barclays who authoritarian rule is to try and play up what will happen after them we know that in the confine of conversation between president obama and then president mubarak about whether he should step down he kept repeating the word muslim brotherhood muslim brotherhood muslim brotherhood despite that i think then the next day then obama came out and said no it's time to step aside i think some of the other rulers have learned a somewhat i think the president of yemen doesn't want to end up like mubarak being on trial so he cut a deal that says ok i'll leave put you know no prosecution no for me and even in syria they did try it in the emergency emergency law but i think when it comes to

whether x. terminal powers like you know europe the united states should get involved that becomes a different situation it's one thing to talk rhetorical it's another thing to do what we've done for example and live a year and you're quite right in terms of saudi arabia will we will try and get the regime to modernize to you know there's chair power will try they're doing the same thing in bahrain you are going to feel it was out because well i will try. these are going to be a difference between rhetoric and you know the actual law the actual law of policy i mean when you say very rare you know you look at this very very important right now do you go ahead you jump and go ahead to this cross not go ahead rhetoric i'm following your destruction if you much more doubt is that rhetoric is much more colorful the f. sixteen the bombing through tripoli rhetoric means the international community does

not support these rulers anymore and so these these regimes will then crumble build a very fragile and people are hesitant to come forward. and. abandon ship because they think that united states. support and support it's a very good point frankly united states. is extremely important if the rhetoric that we're seeing and the rhetoric that you think equivalent to president obama. or market action going to the street and shooting people themselves in syria when when you're with the united nation they're giving the regime like kill ok gilbert i want to go to get in line here i think this is you guys are going to where i really want to get in this program i mean there is this obvious double standard here well once again already had. i think everyone is extremely optimistic first of all of being believing that all the regimes will

collapse. and secondly there. is more powerful than weapons and all that well i think. if you have only rhetorical in libya use in libya the station in libya would have been stabilized under his rule long ago actually. not really extremely optimistic about the scenario in syria. so it's not it's not that easy because precisely as i said there's a basic difference between countries like egypt and tunisia and countries like libya and syria all the ruling families in the gulf. all the state actually and if ever you can imagine anything you know stopping them from crushing the most bloody man or the mass uprising. broad split in the purpose and something leading to some forms of civil war as we have seen in libya.

could happen in syria actually if the movement could carry on so i wouldn't be. this is a mistake really this is this is a smokescreen the regime wants you to believe beyond it's chaos that if you if it's none of your goals not it's not it's six thirty and civil war. on the road it is no big deal and you know i want to go to i want to go to larry i want to go to larry but i mean if if if if we buy that then we get this boiling pot and then we get chaos anyway i mean it's always once it started this process is started you're really not going to be able to turn it off we're going to say and syria can't be gotten the right to stay you'll see you know why this was one of the only areas first it's going to larry going to marry. ok the united states wants assad to go the question is that there's no way that they can do it and a cost effective manner in terms of intervening because on like egypt the military

and police support assad and similarly in terms of the rhetoric they would like to the saudis and the. but how do we know i mean for gosh sakes i mean when we went into libya the reason that that we know that we did it is the arab league asked us to go away and so we did not want to have a situation where the united states particularly you do those so you know you are going to go and you should have been dealing with me finish ok let me finish i don't interrupt you ok let me put it like ok well let me finish here let me finish eric you know i'll let me make my point ok let me finish i don't interrupt through when you're speaking ok i'm just saying that the united states does know there's no way in which the west can interfere in syria without making the situation worse on the ground rhetorical you they are saying they have condemned what assad is doing but in terms of the ability to do something it's not like libya where you had the

rebels had taken control we're able to jump in right here we have to go to a break after that break but we'll continue our discussion on the arab spring stay with archy. to kick. start. the moment when the world has changed forever. thousands just to nothing. the sons. to suffer to. lose the first but probably not the last to the jury to decide whether.

children come and get on in the interim. sky. made him look forward to be held down say. the pain and suffering will never be forgotten. as well as the joy of the racial. spring of nine hundred forty five on our team. which. is still. welcome back across the road i'll remind you that we're talking about the revolutions in the arab world. and you can. start.

ok gilbert and i could go back to you in line and i very much appreciate the differentiations that you showed us in the beginning of the program i think you're spot on there and but at the same time there's a universal value that is. preached by the west particularly the united states is the value of democracy now should not just be a blanket application that everyone should have the right to democratic values and to a civil society where they can participate in that is a single message and is it being applied very specifically in the region right now because i think the people in bahrain feel that way. no of course you're exactly putting your finger were were should be i mean this is sheer hypocrisy that we are we're we are seeing when we deal with the west as you know holder of their use and

inspired by such values in its approach to the political situation in the region first of all we shouldn't forget. the west quite a long time before they they you know. play it as if they were on the side of popular uprisings and democracy for they have been you know maintaining close relations was all sort of despotic regimes in the region for decades and decades and even when the movement started the first reaction of paris for instance was to offer ben ali in tunisia technical help for the repression of the mass of the rebellion there and it's only after that when the really the uprising reach very big proportions that they failed ashamed and embarrassed and the same could go for washington and when you go to to egypt they start to work very long then to a muslim man and all that and if we go beyond that also we were speaking of

interventions in in libya and syria. if people are speaking of dialogue that this is because these are truly jeems which are not completely friendly to the west even though their fee for for the last few years i've been a close collaborator of the west and recently the former head of the cia actually was explaining how good you know a contributor to the cia's and united states so-called war on terror has been so when you look precisely at the gulf cooperation council countries were in bahrain where saudi troops plus other gulf troops intervened where we didn't hear much protest. or a threat so full of intervention on the side of washington or do it a little and i just mean here in louisiana i would let me let me jump in here and don't have to do it so you really want to. go have a look at mr obama had to say about it this is really about saudi arabia he said my

poll numbers go up and down depending on the latest crisis and right now gas prices are weighing heavily on people that's all about so you read you what do you think larry that's all about saudi arabia it's all about obama. and i saw it in the united states you know it's an energy policy they're not going to have the freedom that they would like to deal with saturday and look this is not just the middle east look you know what happened to tiananmen square back in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine you know thousands of people were killed but yet the world deals with you know with with china look what happened you know look what's happened in russia in terms of things that have happened so the idea that somehow or another the united states with or without its allies is going to make the world democratic you know what larry larry let me say in a different way than just let me let me say differently why can't obama just say look folks the this regime in saudi arabia they're not very nice people they live

centuries in the past but you know what we just have to deal with these guys they're thugs but it's always the price can't why can't you be transparent and i can be a translation city ok a little kid and i am going to shout easily say that you know you're making it you're making it so much more coherent than it is i think president obama basically does not have a strategy president obama was doing exactly the opposite of what president bush was doing thinking you know the mirror image of bush would give him book related things so president bush was isolating to dictators refusing to give we're going to he was engaging with them president bush was talking about democracy and values he went to cairo and apologized for democracy. reassured the dictators that he will not impose any value on them and that he understands his he understands their their specificities and all that so had he caught hold of the motivation budgets in washington and. and so. was basically engaging with

a real it was moving towards real lives and working with the dictators for stability we believe they because backfired on him because it was the wrong timing . that's me that's basically what it is it's not it's not it's lack of vision lack of strategy hesitation he took him two weeks to make up with my i mean even sorry in little you are saying you know glad you are just being gilbert jumping a. grade you're going no i'm not jumping in but ok come on to say we're going to say that bush had to say that. you know bugger all the paper ships in the region well he needs the very mild pressure on mubarak to to get you know more and more space in the elections in two thousand and five and all he

could do any changes next year prepare next year to anyone. yes yes exactly a natural a natural hair sure sure nobody has illustrations are not unique or is he so old so what happened no no no he continued you know birkenhead but. when it comes to the saudi kingdom you know the bush dynasty had extremely good relations with the dynasty including george w. bush. and that's the key point here this is the most undemocratic state in the region the most you know joe you can say wait a second. they're the most serious to saudi arabia in terms of all come on although i do. of. course no it's not a dumb army can be early as you. know not people here live a consideration they tell you however it was really come on come on this is this

is i mean either you don't know these countries or i was saying the most undemocratic states on earth is the saudi kingdom the best friend of the united states of america but in terms of the quality of life for the people there like it was a door. in syria. and i have to jump in here i have to jump in here if i want to change had all the oil of the saudi kingdom of course the people who would have a better quality of life in syria i mean this is nothing. you know and the fact actually if you look at the real figures of the saudi kingdom the fact that you have poverty in the saudi kingdom the spiders are you would always wealth if there's a lot about the kind of regime that you have there all right you know and this is that i mean by any standard if you take the women standard which also has been used by western countries i guide states as a pretext in iraq or afghanistan or anything like that well what about the saudi kingdom which is one of the most appalling situation for women in the most of

polling probably gone have vanished on earth and when you compare iran to the saudi kingdom here on the then suddenly look as a beacon of democracy ok gentlemen i want to jump in here and i want to change gears here but him i want to go to you what about the question of iran because this is you know everyone the great card in washington has played the around card ok how threatening it is to the region and everything like that and the saudi family hates around ok now they're playing their cards right now here is opening the door to the iranians because it certainly looks like it in many ways we could really change the regime around depending on helping the region around depending on how things go ahead. they said any question you are asked three months ago is not valid anymore. the region is pinching you have a systemic change when it when the whole system is collapsing and all its components are collapsing so so it's it's no longer the sunnis versus the shia or

iran versus the worst of saudi arabia or now or if it's like fundamentalism all even i think even the palestine question is going to be seen in a completely different way the new generation sees these things and it this is there because of their of their parents it's night dad and my grandfather think it's a plenty and it's so twentieth century it's redundant they want to move on so one has to buy just new ideas new and it's very difficult it's very difficult to understand what's happening it's very difficult to adjust to it and that's why the policymakers are making so many mistakes and the mistakes are translating themselves into casualties i'll get out there you bring on location i mean you know you bring up a very good point you can use the word i used to be in the program in gilbert didn't like our users only used in a different way a new paradigm what is the new paradigm that's coming into play gilbert if i go to you maybe i'll use the word the right way to start. ok.

you are again i mean because you have very situation what you have in common is this shock wave this uprising this upheaval which covered the whole region and which was facilitated this time but of course modern means of communication the fact that people can see what is happening almost in the real time and that has played a tremendous role in the events and of course this combined with the common language in the arab countries explains how the uprising spread so first of all the arab countries because they hadn't come and so many factors. of you know the worst possible indicators when it comes to development when it comes to unemployment when it comes to inflation or when it comes to you know all these considerations i wanted out of there i want to jump in here i want you i want to

see everybody this particular scene i want to be fair here when larry i'm going to give you warning and ask you question is the united states finally on the right side of history and. well i think we're getting closer but you know you look at each case each case individually and you can't and this idea that you can have a doctor on a one size fits all is simply not true there's a big difference between each of these countries what the people want where you know the way the world is treat their people and everything so to say well because it happened in libya it should happen in syria well it's certainly not true and if you take a look at egypt the real question in my mind is each of pecan turkey or is it become pakistan because as was pointed out earlier the military is going to have. to jump in here ok many thanks to my guest today in london and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk.