or to go to youtube dot com slash r c america and christine for the alone a show is up next in thirty minutes. a charming here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture. we'll be. bringing you the latest in science and technology from the realms of.

the future of coverage. live. to the elite elite

. kicking. along in welcome to cross talk i'm peter all about as the arab spring interested six months it appears to run into some serious headwinds be some arab desperadoes 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 at chapman 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

crossfire going if you can jump in anytime you want first and i to go to gold 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 and 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. the situation is quite different between the two countries. the. conference where the succeeded the overthrowing the paper and countries where the

fighting still going on yes indeed you. basically all the countries where this has been successful ok if i could stay with you. is 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 they are what lessons if they learned when they look at tunisia when they look at egypt. no but that's the problem here is you have really different situations that is in a country like tunisia for instance. the ruling clique was more like a kind of. you know we're imposing its record even on 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 his in which he was ousted from from power and the army just abandon him whereas in in egypt already the situation was

different because mubarak is a product. of the army and the army is the backbone of power and 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 in the gulf countries and you could use the same formula off ruling family two for libya and syria actually. i mean you have. these elites call them. i mean only the state. you can hardly hardly see see them leaving the scene you know and leaving behind something very optimistic about the future is it really potentially has more violence imagine what do you think about that i mean we have assad and people like this. from the. mistakes that say of their fellow dictators in the region.

well i agree with what you 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 big date or 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 before we lied which they ruled was the same because they have shown the west. they are irreplaceable indispensable

they provide stability got beyond the chaos. it's unimaginable what would happen beyond them and that's what makes makes them. makes it difficult. to imagine life after that and that's why for example those that are clinging to washington i thought are more in washington and london and paris than in syria itself i mean the variations that we've seen regarding bashar. and the last three four days. prove this i mean the way they show their support for a person or anything in power. if you can even for a miserable ok ok i was going to say larry i mean i mean i really liked 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's it is sad 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 is gotten so used to working with dictators that are due there will. well i think you have a couple of issues here and i think i agree that you know these people like barclays who are far terry and rulers do try and play out what will happen after them we know that in the final 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 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 somewhat i think the president of yemen doesn't want to end up like with barak being on trial so he cut

a deal that says ok i'll leave but 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. turtle 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 in live or your and you're quite right in terms of saudi arabia will we will try and get the regime to modernize to you know share power we'll try to do the same thing in bahrain where we're going to be a little jeweler's out because well i will try. these are going to be a difference between rhetoric and you know the actual law and the actual law policy and we need to get ready to use that is very very important right now he is going to do i jump ahead to this crosstalk ahead three i'm following your destruction of the space if you can much more rhetoric is much more powerful than sixteen's

bombing through tripoli rhetoric means that the international community does not support these rulers anymore and so these these regimes will then crumble they are very fragile and people are hesitant to come forward. and. abandon ship because they think that the united states support bashar assad and support saudis and support it's a very good point of trying to state the right of states is extremely important. for the rhetoric and we're seeing the rhetoric that you think. to president obama. or margaret ashton going to the street and shooting people themselves in syria when when they. are giving the regime life to kill ok gilbert i want to go to gilbert in london 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 one second

already had one say and i think everyone is extremely optimistic first of all of being believing that all the regimes will collapse. and secondly there are three couric is is more powerful than weapons and all that well i think. if you had only rhetorical in libya used in libya the station in libya would have been stabilized under. rule long ago actually. and 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 the ruling families in the gulf where the 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 and could happen in syria actually if the movement could carry on so i wouldn't be. this is the most the scream this is this is a smokescreen regime wants you to believe beyond the scale that if the if none of us girls know there is no it's six thirty and civil war. on the world is not the end i want to do 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 it was a process that started you really not going to be able to turn it off or going to. syria can't you have to stay you'll see you know 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 in 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 the saudis and the. what 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 those seals they were going to you should have been the willing to let me finish ok let me finish i don't interrupt you ok let me finish ok. let me finish here let me finish air you know let me make my point ok well 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 were toric lee 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 have taken to the role we're able to jump in right here we have to go to a break after the break we'll continue our discussion on the arab spring stay with arkie. key. wealthy british style. sometimes violent.

market finance come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much stronger raw no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into comes a report on our key. download the official antti obligation to on the phone or i pod touch from the i choose ops to. watch all sheesh life on the go. video on demand all cheese money for old costs an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on all key jobs come.

can. welcome back across takahiro lobell remind you we're talking about the revolutions

in the arab world. ok gilbert i'd like to 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 is 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 it should be i mean this is sheer hypocrisy that we are 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 that took the west quite a long time before they. you know. play it as if they were on the side of 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 through author 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 felt shamed and then burst and the same could go for washington and when you go to to egypt they start very long then to almost a layman and all that if we go beyond that also we were speaking of interventions

in in libya and syria. if people are speaking of that about that this is because these are two regimes which were not completely friendly to the west even the fee for for the last few years have been a close collaborator of the west and recently the former head of the cia actually was explaining how good you know what contributed to the cia's and united states so-called war on terror has been so but when you look precisely at the gulf cooperation council countries where in the terrain where saudi troops are plus other gulf troops intervened we didn't hear much protest. or threats of intervention on the side of washington or do if you would like to jump in here and i would let me let me jump in here and not have to do so he lets it with the snow would go have a look at what 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 as it is truly and i saw it in the united states against an energy policy they're not going to have the freedom that they would like to deal with saudi arabia look this is not just the middle east you know what could happen 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 which 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 democrat i can you know what larry larry let me say in a different way than just let me let me say in a different way why can't obama just say look folks this regime in saudi arabia

they're not very nice people they live centuries in the past but you know what we did have to deal with these guys they're thugs but it's all price can't why can't you be transparent and i can be a translator saudi ok 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 about president obama basically does not have a strategy president obama was doing exactly the opposite of what president bush was doing thinking that you know the mirror image of bush would give him properly everything so president bush was isolating to dictators refusing to be with them he was engaging with them president bush with talking about democracy and values he went to cairo and apologized for democracy. reassure 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 him or her they say sure budgets in washington and. and so for president obama was basically engage in

a real moving towards real lives and working with the dictators for stability we believe in our state because it's backfired on him because it was the wrong timing . that's basically that's basically what it is it's not or it's not it's lack of vision lack of strategy hesitation he took two weeks to make up with my i mean even sorry never been one of the r.c. i know just jumping. right your going no i'm not jumping in but ok come on to say whether to say that bush had to say that. you know bugger all the paper ships in the region well he exhibited very mild pressure on mubarak to do to get you know more or more space in the elections in two

thousand and five and all he could do any changes. next year to anyone who did yes yes exactly matches the natural hair sure sure nobody has illustrations are not unique or if he's wrong so what happened no no no let me continue gilbert continued but. when it comes to the saudi kingdom you know the bush dynasty had extremely good relations with the. including george w. bush. and that's the key point here this is the most undemocratic state in the region the most logical way to say wait a second salamone can't compare them or syria to saudi arabia in terms of all can. so i can compare of course no it's not. it's not a democracy this is all that can be only as you hear your show every year watch the king kong what i mean the people here love considerate in nature we have a really good come on come on this is this is

a riot i mean either you don't know these countries or i work on the saying the most undemocratic state 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 most people there it's not like it was in libya and nor. in syria i am only here and i have to be here i have to jump in here if i want to change had all the oil of the saudi kingdom of course the people 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 huge all wealth a lot about the kind of regime that you have there all right you know and this is the i mean by any standard if you think the women standard which also has been used by western countries a by 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 if not the most are

calling after the probably been have vanished on earth and when you compare the 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 i want to go to you what about the question of iran because this is you know everyone is one of the great cards in washington is play the around card ok how frightening it is to the region and everything like that and the saudi family hates turn around ok now they're playing that card right now here is opening the door to the iranians because it certainly looks like it in many ways and it could really change the regime around complaining and helping the region and around depending on how things go ahead. listen any question you are asked three months ago is not valid anymore. the region is changing you have a systemic change when it when the whole system is collapsing and all its components are collapsing so it's it's no longer the sunnis versus the shia or iran

vs the versus saudi arabia or or or if it's like fundamentalism or even i think even the palestine question is going to be seen in a completely different way a new generation sees these things and. this is their cause of their of their parents it's my dad and my grandfather think it's a twentieth it's so twentieth century it's redundant they want to move on so so one has to i just new ideas the 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 put a sleeping themselves into casualties under the law that you bring on the ok nineteen you bring up a very good point you didn't use the word i used to be in the program and your didn't like how i used it's 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 and you know he used the word the right way to start. ok.

i can see it in you 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 which was facilitated this time but of course modern means of communication the fact that people can now see what is happening almost in the real time and 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 to build all the arab countries because they have income 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 off of that i want to jump in here i want to give i want to

see everybody this particular scene i want to be fair here when larry i'm going to give you the last word and ask you question is the united states finally on the right side of history and i. well i think they'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 in a one size fits all is simply not true there's a big difference between each of these countries what the people want the way you know the way the world is treated people and everything so to say well because it happened in libya it should happen in syria now exactly not true and then if you take a look at egypt the real question in my mind is egypt become turkey where as if we can't 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 darkie see you next time and remember crosstalk.

the latest in science and technology.