the russians would be so much brighter if you knew about song from france to pressure these. groups for instance on t.v. dot com. this is r.t. from moscow is kevin zero in here with the top stories for you seven polish soldiers standing trial over the deaths of afghan civilians have been acquitted by a warsaw court it cited a lack of evidence to support the charges of war crimes which included the killing of six people among them a pregnant woman a child. bosnian serb wartime provide a ride home lavish wiggins's waits of the u.n. prison in the hague to be tried for genocide but his lawyers say may not live until the trial begins impression the legitimacy of the evidence against him. makes so

problems its mission in libya for over three months to keep the pressure on colonel gadhafi book riddick said the decision to side with coalition forces a ballgown the conflict. coming up on going street fighting threatens to spark civil war in yemen parties people of all newscasts than discuss the future of the country and its embattled president cross-talk is just a. few . feet. from. you can. stay. away and welcome the crosstalk i'm peter lavelle is the chaos being played out in yemen turning the country into

a failed state how should the international community be reacting to events there and will be endgame for the regime in yemen result in still another terrorist base that threatens the region and world. came. across the protests in yemen i'm joined by daniel pipes in philadelphia he's an author and director of the middle east forum and in washington we have edwin hall he's a former u.s. ambassador to yemen and he's also author of the book high value target countering al qaeda in yemen all right gentlemen this is crosstalk i mean you can jump in anytime you want to mr ambassador if i go to you first here i mean as we go to air here there's a lot of speculation some people say evidence that the the leader in yemen is opening the door to al qaeda to make sure he can stay in power in what looks like what most people are saying now is a civil war how would you assess that statement. well al qaeda in the arabian

peninsula was a threat before this current revolution in yemen and it has become more of a threat since it started simply because its operating space in the country has expanded but i go out the president is intentionally exacerbating that threat he may seek tactical advantage from that but i don't think that he has an interest in opening the door to al qaeda in any case i don't think he's getting any benefit from that and in any case. the challenge remains to get beyond the current impasse and to deal with this threat in the long term ok daniel what do you think about that because this is even if there's. any evidence of this sort is true is that it's you know we have a leader in yemen that is going to very loyal american ally for a long time and if there's even any hints that he's trying to use this to keep himself in choler which his critics are saying that he's doing right now i mean

what does that say about how the u.s. is taking its allies in the region. well i would be a little less strong in my terminology going to very loyal us ally ok. ok fine give you more details than i can but he is someone who we could work with who was on again off again not not the greatest ally actually and part of that is that many elements in the country don't want you to have a role there don't want to be fighting al qaeda and he's not that strong i mean yemen is a very difficult country to rule and the central government's writ doesn't go very far so he never was great shakes from the american point of view and now he's even less useful than i i joined the ambassador in doubting that he actually is complicit with all carter or benefiting from carter but that certainly is an

accusation from his opponents that in both jobs and zinjibar two towns that are now under arrest on this rule that he has fomented this has has allowed this to happen i doubt it but that is nonetheless a an important accusation in yemen these days mr ambassador is salo a worth a worthy of protection by the united states now or is it they would just like to see the back side of him and could still have someone there that would protect american interests in the region after all it does border on saudi arabia. our current terrorism crop aeration with the un has has always extended beyond president salva he was an important part of it but not all and essential well mr ambassador you are he said what you already said was so if you're implying that he's in the ones he's in the past tense category now. well i think in terms of ongoing counterterrorism cooperation it's considerably reduced and also in terms of his long term. shelf life when i think he's part of the past not its future

it's interesting daniel pipes i mean in looking at this and i guess we could ask the ambassador as you probably know far more about a having been on the ground but i mean yemen is a very very difficult place to rule because there's so many different variations right there do you see there's a possibility and solace says this himself did you know if this continues we could see another libya scenario where the country becomes partitioned in not just in two parts but in more parts and then what do you think the likelihood of that is. rather than expected partition peter i would say you would see that no central government has control over the country's ready or in fact somewhat the case that would be all the more the case more of the somali or the afghan or the lebanese since nobody rules what's so remarkable in the yemeni case is how many opponents the central government has i count i can remember them if you like but it was so

many it was very hard to see that ali abdullah saleh will remain in power mr ambassador i mean that if there is given u.s. interest in the region they wouldn't want the united states does not want to see chaos in yemen for a very long i mean what kind of role can the united states and i would stress positive in this case a positive role now given the obama administration's at least nuanced approach maybe not a radical change but what is the united states going to be doing now looking at is this country falls into absolute chaos i would agree with daniel i mean there are so many different elements right there how does the how does a country like the united states would like to have a relationship with yemen how do they decide now how to how to proceed maybe the best procedure is to stand back for a while. no i think that would be a serious mistake first of all i would emphasize that it's much more than us in principle at stake here there are very significant regional interests first and foremost saudi arabia and you've seen that because the gulf cooperation council has

been engaged in trying to work a solution to this but beyond that there are international interests what we see here is is in some ways reminiscent of the situation there was developing in afghanistan pre nine eleven where the international community as a whole was threatened by increasing safe haven for al qaeda now now what we do about that is another matter but i think we have to be active and take the initiative and i would suggest that you've got three forces at play here you've got forces within you have and there are significant not only the protesters in the street but general ali mohsen and the other tribal leaders of the tribes so there are there are very strong forces inside yemen moving toward change you have the regional forces gulf cooperation council which have a great deal of influence and then i think the international community needs to step forward and needs to step forward in

a much more purposeful way than it has to now daniel i mean you know if we look at the influence of the gulf countries i mean i lost count how many deals there so always given what four already now and he's not walked away from each one of them i mean what can the region do and i would like to point out that saudi arabia does. it's very harshly in school when it sees its interests. comes to mind of course i mean do you see that saudi arabia would be emboldened to do to take a side in to even actively get involved on the ground. well the saudis have been and will there's the house the rebellion which has been going on and particularly two years ago in august of two thousand and nine the saudis sent the forces into yemen back in and i think six things they did they were full fledged participants in a war which egypt's going all of the nasr was on the side so yes there's a history of saudi involvement in yemen in particular military history the final so

far the final g.c.c. offer was turned down by solid on the twenty second of may just over a week ago and it doesn't look like the diplomacy is going very much further and by the way it didn't look like that was going to solve very much because what it foresaw was solid stepping down that is vice president taking over for a month and then having a very unwieldy and unlikely group of islamists and socialists and nasr right some tribesmen coming in but it also saluted a number of important actors such as the how three rebel rebels and the tribal leaders and the youth. who are who started the whole thing in january so it was imperfect it passed and i'm not quite sure that that much was lost by its injection bus on the internet mr mastery it's eleanor to step down let's say hypothetically yes congo i jump in there go right ahead yeah i'd like. yemen is not bothering ok in a saudi intervention all about i mean in yemen i think would be

a disaster any arab country. generally any country that's tried to intervene military many in yemen has lived to regret it certainly the gyptian good and the saudi intervention these are the of two things was on the side of the president against saddam but where the saudis have influences with the pocketbook great deal of resources flow from saudi arabia into yemen and there are recent indications that the. saudis are using that as a significant lever. i'm a little bit more positive on the g.c.c. initiative also then. mr pipes i think it was a well designed effort i think it got for i think developments in the region really complicated because when you started to see what was happening in egypt with hosni mubarak i think president saleh got cold feet and really

questioned whether or not he wanted to give his faith over and i also think he was motivated in seeing developments in places like libya and syria where good caterers have held on to power through military force so it's it's a larger regional phenomenon it's interesting daniel i mean if we take this on board here. no matter what happens the president steps down now it's going to be just absolute chaos theory i mean which way could it go and i mean there are other people but i know there are some people who are very concerned that it could we could see al qaeda really get a foothold in that so i introduced this program is that it would be a threat to the region and beyond how how serious do you think that is because we know that there are we know how it is already there we've established are going. so i was right and i would take it as an assumption that ali abdullah saleh will not be the head of state in yemen for much longer i think he's finished i would put him in the past case there are different sorts of islamists in particular there's the

a slow movement which has become a political movement and then there's the what we talk about the house the rebellion which is shiite and then there's all kind of which is sunny all of them with a different ideology with a different perspective oppressed different personnel competing in ways cooperating in other ways. but there are serious forces in yemen that wish to see a car off of yemen from the west not cooperate with the west not be part of the international system but rather as in afghanistan a decade ago create an islamic emirate that deal with you we will continue on this point well after a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on yemen today with our.

well the british science. market finance scandal. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to the report on our keep. the close up team has been to build the grand reach thank you for turning point i'm world war two. this time the party goes to the

region where half of the area is occupied by a nature preserve. where the young generation transit in their ancestors. and where the mysterious city of a deadlock come come the republic of north perception the russian carkeek. can see. the full. welcome back across the computor of the bell to remind you we're discussing you know it's possible futures. can still. ok mr ambassador and we've been talking about yemen specifically but let's broaden it out and see what the international community possibly can do i'd like to add the caveat we have a intervention going on in libya right now because it's at the very very least it's

very very messy. and then make people go much further and say this is a stalemate or there's. taishan and that we have really nothing good has come of this intervention so with that in mind what can the international community do i mean are interventions off the table now or is it going to be turning into the flavor of every single month as we go forward in the in the arab awakening. well an armed intervention in yemen would be a terrible mistake. it would be even more problematic than libya so that is not the way to go in my opinion however i think what you need to do is construct some positive exit from the current impasse and it can't be all negative it can't be all sanctions and it certainly can't be passivity watching the country just spiral down in a death spiral but yemen does have

a political culture. that is surprisingly positive they've had several elections that have been deemed generally free and fair by the international community in two thousand and three two thousand and six the presidential election was contested then. it has a political infrastructure that includes functioning parties including an islamic party that is more reminiscent of a turkish islamic party than a radical one so you have material to work with and my thinking in my opinion what the international community should do perhaps in the united nations is to come up with some kind of a an exit strategy from the impasse that may involve some sticks sanctions but also in some carrots building fine yemen's tradition of politics to traditions of elections but with a more robust regional and international involvement in that to make that path

forward more credible and mr ambassador i can stay with you on this story but how do you get rid of salo arc you know because it seems to me that that's the has to happen for this for your scenario to work out i mean you know get rid of quote unquote and i'll let my audience decide what needs. well i think you start working more on what comes after saddam you don't focus all of your attention on just getting rid of saddam because you shape what comes afterwards you grease the skids for his exit. and beyond that what you have to do is to continue to narrow that base of support it's already we're all very dramatically most dramatically when there are less and. left him and i think you have to create a situation where his current supporters have to choose they have to choose between

him in the past and the future yemen as it's evolving where their interests are better served daniels i can go to you i mean i want to stay with the international community but let's go back to yemen real quickly i mean the david the current leader is when he nights all of these protests i mean if you were suddenly to disappear do you see that civil society is political society strong enough as the ambassador has pointed out do you to do really wind down the violence and actually sit down and have elections and have a civil dialogue because it is the longer this violence continues that seems more likely that would be. you know i'm more pessimistic than mr all untrue points first i think that there is no basis for a common vision beyond getting rid of the current regime. everybody agrees on that a lot of people here and that they don't agree what comes next they're competing visions and i don't see any serious chance that they can come together and work on

a combined joint future secondly i don't think that we in the west have any substantial friends in yemen and mr hall referred to a turkish salamis party where there are no friends of ours they've turned into quite a hostile element i don't think we have a base there so where is he we're trying to construct a policy the. it is that we can work with i think it's probably wiser to preempt and say that this is a state whose population is hostile and therefore we should put it on notice you have big debate and i think you know can i just explain it just coming out of the can i can interject i mean sol is because he is perceived as an american ally doesn't that create the anxiety in the in the dislike of the united states in the west just by the very fact that he's being very small rather than there is thirty thirty thirty three years he's been in power and basically been called a friend by the united states maybe not the best friend but a friend. i own that probably was not

a wise thing to do but he wasn't as i tried to start earlier really an ally he was someone we could work with i don't know more than mubarak was and i like this people that work with we have no shared. values or vision with them the saudis the same thing we're close and i have my view would be more negative let's let's put this the yemeni leadership whatever it might be in the future on may on notice that if we get any any hostilities from there we will make it painful for them if there are no hostilities then we will work with them and by the way this is a country that is and is at the at the point of near collapse there are such problems with water with the economy that are extreme and i don't think i don't think that putting money is going to solve the i think we need to protect ourselves from the potential dangers and i might conclude by saying that i've never in my life put on a program television program before they discuss yemen yemen was obscure and it is in one way

a sad development that we have to talk about yemen and yet it is an important development yemen is part of the pond today mr ambassador you were prime minister would you like to read like that go ahead please do. yeah you are first of all pessimism is not a policy i mean it's pretty easy to get special with yemen to wring our hands and say. sides are all going the upsides we're still it's imperative on us to develop an approach and i would argue an approach with the international community and the second thing is shared visions and values that are great if you can get there and i mean it's wonderful having great britain but the fact of the matter is in my experience as a diplomat what you really work upon are shared interests and it's thankfully. does provide a shared interest not only with yemen but many of the states of the middle east and it will continue to provide. a shared interest in that regard and we just have to

be adept enough diplomatically to build on that shared interest either bilaterally with yemen i'm talking about solid young men who are opposed to all of yemen and internationally with the russians the chinese the europeans and more broadly this is our basis. if i could stay with you mr ambassador let's let's say the assumption is that the the u.s. and its western allies which they would support any leader in yemen they would take on al qaeda in a serious way do you think that's a good idea what about backfire on the united states and the west go ahead. i don't think that's true i don't think it's any one gets our support i think we can be more demanding that this is the yemenis going against al qaeda it's not a favor to us al-qaeda is threatening yemen. it is a shared interest that we have so it's not a something that they can use to blackmail us but our interest in yemen should be

much broader than just outside it should be development it should be political political stability there if we have a narrow approach i think we're doomed to failure and i think you can go back historically and that's what i do in my book and show from or one two or four when we had a broad sustained approach that will not only targeted al qaeda but also supported yemeni political and economic development that is when we need our leader gains against al qaeda and actually severely degraded its leaders in its ranks and in order for the constituted a negligible threat to the united states and the international community daniel pipes the regular you let's let's really be optimistic super optimistic right now let's say let's say their minds are leaves everyone says hey we've had enough fighting we know we can sit down we can talk we have civil society political society and actually get some kind of reform there but i think all three of us in

this program would respect wouldn't saudi arabia be really upset about that and could change and you know growing bahrain. well of course it depends what it's going to look like but i would say no or the saudis would probably be concerned if yemen goes back to its usual quiet what the actual internal ranchman's are within yemen what role the zionists have and what role the it's shafi is have. the south and the north of various tribal configurations the hotshots in the book hills that really is not terribly important to the saudis if it were quiet the saudis would probably be quite happy mr ambassador if i can ask you it's brought in now for the what was i guess kind of riding i go right ahead that's what this program's all that's what this program's all about go right ahead. yeah but i i think it would be shortsighted on the saudis

part if they just hadn't had a lot of stability and that was as far as it went because it's not sustainable in the long run the economic pressures the increasing water supply the greedy decreasing gas and oil the growing populations mean that for a long term stability on the arabian peninsula you need a yemen that is more integrated with the rest of the arabian peninsula and i don't mean integrated politically because the g.c.c. is a club of monarchs and they're not going to accept a republic but i mean economically you've got to address the economic needs of young men not with charity but with things like finding work opportunities in a labor starved cold for a and they are rich young men and you've got to look at those natural complementarities between yemen and that and its neighbors and build something

positive on the complementarities all right jim over all run out of time and we're all going to keep our eye on yemen just because what the bastard you said to me thanks my guess again philadelphia and washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on our feet so you next time remember a prostitute. more than a month. in one of the most extreme environments on the planet this is an charge of guts and people have to be aware that they are far away from civilization and sean combs discovers quote makes sense articles so special and attractive from the

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