the. all right is now past the hour here in moscow you with god see a quick summary of what happens now egypt's former president hosni mubarak goes on trial in cairo six months after mass protests forced him from power he's facing charges of causing the deaths of nearly eight hundred fifty people during faeries revolution something he kind of denies the let's switch over live pictures here from egypt where crowds have been following the proceedings this is just outside the courthouse actually where earlier we did have some clashes between supporters

and opponents of the former egyptian president. but u.s. while i was a self-made a bitter pill to avert the devastating default a country that never hesitates to jump at the chance to advise other nations through their economic struggles turns out to be unprepared to handle its own crisis. must go warns against calls of the u.n. to target the syrian regime for action to push the warring sides towards dialogue to end the violence in the country this comes amid reports that the government forces have overrun the city of hama where more than one hundred people are believed to have been killed in the past few days. and those are the headlines here on our team if you stay with us next with a fiery show of crosstalk but this time the host people develop his discuss the aspects and consequences of the external force feeding off democracy in the arab world can stick.

well. the latest in science technology from the ground. we've done the future covered. can. start. to think. in welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle is outside democracy promotion an oxymoron what is america's track record in the arab world and is invoking security interest over democracy the greatest haven for tyrants. to discuss democracy promotion i'm joined by teddy ali in paris he is

a writer and filmmaker an arborist with we go to jeff purdue he is a post-doctoral fellow at the risk with university and author of american foreign policy and postwar reconstruction comparing japan in iraq and in durham we cross to bruce general since he was a professor of public policy and political science at duke university and another member of our cross talk e-mail and a hug or a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want take i'd like to go to you first in paris over the last two weeks. were saying events that we've never seen before in in the arab world i liken it to the end of the soviet union it is a world history or sturrock moment as we're doing this program events are books of folding extremely almost out of control in egypt so i ask you take what is america's track record in promoting democracy and expression is hot area right now in north africa and i'd like to name a few places. egypt lebanon jordan where there is democracy but it's not

recognize hamas hizbollah so it's a mixed game it's democracy isn't a marsh it's not recognized at least by the united states and its allies and then the united states has been a huge impediment to democracy in the arab world since its inception since independence so what is its track record. its track record is very negative as many serious american historians that make themselves throughout the cold war period when the begin to me was communism the united states not just in the middle east but also in south america it was prepared to tolerate tyrants to daters butchers of their people because it's there in cross with the end of the cold war. humanitarianism became one of the ideological pillars except in those countries where it wasn't convenient so we've seen in the middle east in particular. the dictatorship in egypt which appears to be collapsing as we

speak which has been there for the last twenty five to thirty years we have seen regimes over twenty years long in the matter of b.m. countries tunis and morocco curia we've seen the toleration of a completely authoritarian brutal monarchy in saudi arabia jordan itself has been reduced to the status of an israeli american protectorate and iraq has been occupied. and the occupation of iraq had very little to do with democracy to force it have agreed to deal to do with the establishment of us again really now we have a waiver for a sweeping the arab world you talk about it was reminiscent of the fall of the soviet union i'm not so sure because that the mass involvement in that by and large

was limited it reminds me more of the wave of revolutions that took place in europe in eight hundred forty revolutions for democracy eighteen forty eric orto revolutions against autocracy democratic revolutions trying to find a different way of governments and that that is what we are seeing very correctly. it's very interesting there's also be a lot i do and you know eighteen forty eight are interesting but it was a strong reaction eight hundred forty jeff if i can go to you a few days ago it would be clinton the u.s. secretary of state came out and said that a country like egypt a great country she said egypt needs more democratic reform isn't that a bit rich after thirty years of paying off the egyptians in the sum of sixty billion dollars basically without any kind of accountability i mean again you know and if i can expand upon that watching c.n.n. and b.b.c. they're just cheering this on when those governments were all at the very the pillars of supporting this very horrible regime and people that knew anything about

the regime just knew how terrible it was and now we're turning around saying we're so happy what's happening it's the hypocrisy is just outrageous i wouldn't say so i think that when you talk about democracy promotion you need to adopt a perspective i would say you need to look at it from a political perspective perspective of values let's say and the norms carried by democracy and the perspective of all let's say material interests or security interests or economic interests and what i'm trying to say here is that. during the cold war and even after that it's there is still seems to be there seems to be a paradox in supporting or let's say be friendly to non-democracy regimes while at the same time promoting democracy in these these same very countries. through various programs of democracy assistance usually implemented by american soul and non-governmental organizations i think that if you look at this from and you take

into consideration that you deal with two different time scales one is still kind of me and the security where you need to address very immediate concerns or issues if you want to when the only one is more in the longer run where you tend to do what you want to do is to try to cede values and norms. values and norms in this case and you hope that these will be shared by a series of sites eventually the political society of this not democratic regime and it's little by little you know you could argue and i think that what we've witnessed is little by little geese democracy assistance program starts and fruits and whatever was did we see that they did all they receive that all in tunisia i mean i came out of fear radical level i'm going to say what you're talking about but my goodness i mean you know it was not too long ago the ben ali was you know he was a guest in the white house and he's called a great friend of the united states ok i mean really i mean it's still

a bit rich if i can use that term again right here bruce if i can go to you i mean all of america's friends i mean these are can i just say something all right go ahead i want to go to something very quickly go ahead if when ali you've been ali was still such a big friend of the united states or from the western world generally speaking you probably if it was all about supporting authoritarian regimes in the name of security interests or economic interests then you wouldn't be in the dark would be in washington and going to parties ok well not well that seems to be the ultimate fate even for will. probably other dictators going there as well bruce if i can go to you i mean you can you have a dual policy like that i think in theory it sounds very nice but if you look at weeki leaks and you look at these other sources of information i mean the united states was it's going to be just stay with the people you know you to stay with the devil you know walk away and that's exactly what they did with tunisia and then they turn around and their entire democracy project blows up on them in lebanon

though it's again against the will of the people there clearly i don't care what people think about hezbollah it is a popular. political party in the country it's up for the people to decide and not again hillary clinton dictating what kind of democracy should people should have because everything the united states has done in that region last forty years is just create extremism. yeah you look i think you're dead if i had some good points i'm not sure if i agree with the way that you're portraying i mean there's no question you know that the united states hasn't lived up to this great espousal of always being for democracy you know the reality for any country whether it's today or historically you know it's had a balance off the principles you stand for the security interests that you have in the. you know and what we've been seeing i think is as as as your previous guest was saying was part of what's happening in egypt and to sort of support it was happening in tunisia was in fact fed you know by this development of civil society by n.g.o.s and not just american many indigenous many european as well that helped

to develop the networks you know at the same time you're right that the united states was sort of still keeping are some poor with as it was often said you know they may be s.o.b but there are so be and the problem is there's this old expression you know those who make reform impossible make revolution inevitable you know and are certain to say you see that playing out. this wasn't predicted by experts everybody knew egypt was unstable but there's not an expert out there a journalist academic intelligence person whatever who said that things were going to really blow up in tunisia and in egypt now and i think that we really have to see where they go people are demanding i think three things they're demanding greater freedom both for their individual lives and for ability to affect their government their protests against massive corruption the mubarak regime the ben ali regime and they want to knock opportunity this is mostly you know young males out

there who want to opportunity in their lives the reality is that you know you mentioned hizbullah as well has a lot of popular support in certain segments of of lebanon there's no question about it but you know the notion that somehow they're going to represent all the people that i can impose themselves and i'm not quite confident about that either in the same is true you know if hamas which originally won its election. on the basis of speaking to the corruption of the palestinian authority you know the injustice is the economic problems that were there but then when they began to rule they ruled with an iron fist of their own were pressing their own people so well we criticize what the united states is doing we shouldn't sort of make out is some you know glorifying force a lot of these other groups they've got their flaws as well ok terry can i go to you i mean still at the same time i mean what is the reputation of the united states as we go through this a drug raid transition here i mean do the people in the region look to the americans as being done thomas jefferson you know i mean great supporters of of

democracy after supporting their dictators for so many take decades. well a lot in the arab world and certainly not in south america where you also had a wave of democracy over the last ten to fifteen years which has brought new governments and new social movements and to power changing the relationship of forces there so decisively if i can just sort of come back to one point it's not a question of whether we like has a polo or whether we like or agree with every daughter in common hamas or i feel lies and that's not the point the point is permitting the people in their region to decide what happens when hamas won the elections in palestine sanctions were imposed on it it's money well stocked and the west refused to recognize a democratic election because they were hoping to push the p.l.o. true and we now know why with the publication of the palestinian papers the bad p.l.o. leadership it was in the pocket of the united states and now we know also be israelis

to such a disgusting extent that it's horrified people in the arab world and so will be actively promoted and tried to defend a corrupt palestinian leadership against hamas even though hamas had one then they tried to destroy hamas as they did hezbollah by encouraging very sorry to interrupt you and i think i wish you are going to go to a short break after a short break we'll continue our discussion on exporting democracy stay with. us to close up was in the cool down region where the from all over the world if you said to me is to sell coffee. this time or to go to the on the region.

or the girls worse. people like. her an ancient tribe likes to save its culture. where claims are protected the first official nature reserve. bank should close up on the party. well. you know about remind you we're talking about the so-called democracy industry. but first let's see what democracy means to russians in marcus' a for all democratic then priding all over the world some countries without them

wrong terry and others are imposed by the outside forces the public opinion agency led by the sun i ask russians what democracy means to them. as economic prosperity thirty percent as freedom of speech order and stability garner thirty percent many regard democracy as truth lawfulness and direct elections so the latest events in tunisia make us wonder if west so-called democracy industry doesn't really promote or its own interests. but jeff and i to go to you one of the things that happened when one of the reasons why ben ali was such a big friend of the americans in the west in general and any and we can look at what's going on in egypt and other countries in the region is because there. is on the war against terror ok and that's always top of mind here and in the the nonsense that spewed out about here is karen that's terribly you know just

terrifying publics in western media and it does it all of the time and there these people are you know they may not be you know thomas jeffersons but you know they they're still going to be on our side and it isn't just really being shown is a complete exaggeration now because these tyrants created a fundamentalist group of people that may be inclined to terrorism and things like that i mean the law. of supporting our own ideals and values have actually created the so-called threats against us. walking we're talking about two different historical structures as well the immediacy of the cold war or let's say. what the united states needed to do during the cold war was to contain the west in the u.s.s.r. in the region and hence you know started to cut all some less than friendly regime or not well put i mean ultimately regimes and it plays off early on what's

going on in egypt right now i think that we should look at this from a more modern perspective if you keep talking about the past and all that it was and so i mean we never you know i'm talking about today i'm very much george bush's war on terror and it seems like obama is except it is well know i'm talking about what's going on today not the cold war. ok so well in this case i would say that there is a clear progression in the obama administration about democracy promotion and the discourse is not linked anymore to the war on terror of course you still have references to what is called a democracy these theories and the fact that democracies don't go to war with each other. no would it mean that these emerging democracies in the middle east would be friendly to the united states i think like he in this case history might look like in favor of the united states and what we might see is the image and so for of some different models of democracy which will not be the liberal democratic model which we know in the west with an emphasis of on elections essentially and creating

procedures and structures favoring elections between competing elites favoring individual freedoms we're going to be trying to say here is that democracies very contested as a concept there is more than one type of democracy and that's in order to sort of guess the outcome of democracy. it is essential to look at the realities affecting the temperature and put them with rising nations where democracy is taking roots and look at you know the realities there and how democracy can adapt one thing and we have competing models we talk a lot about islamic law islam democracy. and so would that mean that we live in well i mean i mean jeff jeff i mean you're right i mean this again it's very academic but i mean under eight years of bush and then in under two years of obama we still see american understanding of democracy we're going to go to bruce here on this one to protect american national interest ok it's a cover it's

a cover for sure it's a cover to protect american interests that's why you know religion it's galling that hillary clinton will come out and say we need more democracy in egypt why couldn't she say that when she became secretary of state like when a secretary of state said that twenty five or thirty years ago. if you can see the difference between obama and bush you know they're not really looking close i'm not . here to read today they're not washington not washington to the region ok i think they raised more or less the same other one hundred eighty degrees but but but there are significant differences but i come back to a point that terry gilliam it has it's an important point you know during the cold war one of the huge mistakes that the united states made as we do is we kind of worked with or against this so the so-called third world was we lumped everything together as communism and marx and as marxism and we didn't see the way that nationalism and local factors and culture and all those things entered and so in brazil i've been back and forth quite

a few times i mean for you know for the president of brazil who came into office feared as a great left for this to have emerged with eighty percent popularity in his own country when he leaves office you know most leaders around the world would die for that sort of popularity and he demonstrated luba demonstrated. that he was progress sealion interests and he was prepared to work for them and not always agree with the united states and elsewhere and the challenge we face i think in the arab and islamic world is very similar ok there are elements in my view you know. jihad or sixty missed groups that frankly don't have the interests of the people you know the best measure people are all on their minds but with a nice nice to do do is to figure out how to have relations with different forms of political islam i think in both tunisia and egypt ultimately you know whether it's the muslim brotherhood in egypt or some of the political islam parties that have been trying to stamp out by the dictator tunisia they're going to emerge as part of the mix and we really need to figure out ways you know to work with them because

neither tunisia or egypt are these uprisings that this point at least anti-american this is not iran nine hundred seventy eight seventy nine straight may well go in that direction if the u.s. does some of the things you're saying that that that it's doing but right now i think the obama administration you know is trying it's a very tricky balance and you can find you know contradict. fine but they're trying you know as they have since the president came into office when he went to cairo and he gave a speech but an awful lot of stuff going on there that doesn't make the headlines but has been working with civil society groups and other groups in egypt and elsewhere to try to develop you know their ability to to be part of the political process and i say we get the balance right but to say that it's all just about you know standing with all the carriers i think right now this administrator is trying to change it and change it in a way that leads to things that are really in the interest of the people because the united states can't control everything that happens in these countries in one direction or any other they tell me a lot of for these they can influence because of their power and leaders teddy i

think you had your hand you had your head out around i was wondering if you if you were bored by a conversation or you were exasperated and you know i'm not true no where are those where are those see differences well those see differences i basically see essential continue to be between the bush and obama administrations both domestically and in terms of foreign policy i don't think all that much has changed except for the mood music and the record in terms of what is concretely being done in different parts of the world in afghanistan which we have mentioned obama is actually escalated the war there have been more drone attacks on purpose than during the obama years then in the entire eight years of the previous administration so one's got to preserve a balance and not to be taken in. by the rhetoric which is being thrown around i

think essential e what is going on in the middle east today isn't streamline porton if mubarak false it will be a heavy blow for the united states regardless of who takes over because egypt was absolutely central to u.s. policy in the. region in order to keep these rallies happy we haven't discussed this state for some reason is our chrome porton the united states it backs it through thick and thin and often american interests get in tangled up with what they see as israeli security and close in the region and that is one reason lie that region in many many of its intellectuals and civil society groups have been cruelly unhappy that palestine is the one colonial issue from the last century that remains resolved now in terms of political islam islam has all the colors of the rainbow you can find every current within these make world the united

states is perfectly happy working with these mummies in turkey who are staunch supporters of nato and have been a central pillar of nato i don't think the muslim brotherhood in either region of britain is here will be all that different but what will be different if the demonstrators succeed in toppling mubarak is that egypt will for the first time in years be able egyptians will be able to decide on who they want to elect and battens extremely important and big choice there is much much more different than the choice you have been europe center left center right democrats republicans in the u.s. very little divides them in egypt the gulf between the dictatorship and the people challenging it is huge so it's a very exciting prospect and of course it might well affect u.s. relations with egypt if for instance just on one issue they're decided to open the

border with car savings and not going to when our cars are to be trampled exactly you know jeff i mean i i didn't want to go too deep on israel because well first of all your program on that is this week already but i mean again i mean in the course of two weeks we have just these events playing out in egypt we. of events with lebanon i mean the entire security arrangement you needed states pursued over the last four decades and the greater middle east is in shambles now if in fact instead it was that really at the center of american foreign policy interests in the region israel's security it may now be the least secure it's been in a very long time and it's because democracy is the idea and and people took it upon themselves i agree with what we heard earlier it's not anti-american yet we'll see where it goes but when we do hear what the people have to say we could have a very very volatile and we always say volatile the greater middle east if these changes are actually come to fruition true or something that we would call democracy you know the question is that it's not necessarily the case that the

united states and i say should not be putting all our eggs in the mubarak basket there's no question about that and it's not necessarily the case that a new regime would be anti-american ok it really depends how this plays out what the forces are at work and the like but i think that this notion that there's just constant it is kind of if people need i say sometimes they're only reading the right hand pages of a book a lot of what i'm hearing is just reading the left and they just know the reality is that the reality is that you know this is ministration to the bush administration basically gave the israelis a lot of blank checks ok but i wasn't there just had some problems is ok. but it's really ok we have to stop on this point gentlemen ok many thanks to my guests today in paris and in wales and in durham and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time in remember crosstalk.