if you can. follow in welcome to cross talk i'm people of our field bomber doctrine is there such a thing over the past few months we've seen the us waffle as change rages across the arab middle east some western backed dictators remain firmly in power while the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all in is this a new doctrine or just muddling through. you can. discuss whether there's an obama doctrine i'm joined by phyllis bennis in washington she is project director at the institute for policy studies in paris we

have to he is a libyan political analyst and another member of our cross talk team yelena hunger all right phyllis i'd like to go to you first you know we're both americans and we're used to having presidents having doctrines when it comes to foreign policy and we had harry truman we had a universal policy you know you do universal doctrine that is if you support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation ok john f. kennedy pay any price bear any burden to assure the survival and success of liberty we all remember that one and we should it's a good saying george w. bush had his own to the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world now mr obama a few days ago had the following to say let's discuss of this is his doctrine. america should not be expected to police the world particularly when we have so many pressing concerns here at home is that a doctrine should it be a doctrine should it be embrace and is it being acted out philis well i don't think

that's a doctrine i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these doctrines is that it bases the whole of u.s. foreign policy on the military so if we say should we intervene should we help it's assumed to mean should we send troops in my analysis that's almost never the case we should intervene with a whole range of other things but not with military force and that question of how are we defining intervention is an ongoing challenge in the particular for president obama i think what he faces right now given that the arab spring has turned upside down all of the longstanding assumptions of what u.s. policy in the middle east needs to be i don't think they're anywhere close to having a real doctrine yet ok and so we're going to you in paris i mean do you agree with the military intervention into libya well or do. i

mean given what from the way phyllis just said ok i mean i and i and all tend to agree with her you know we always think of sending tanks and planes and troops and boots and bombs and sure that can affect political change changes but be tend to haunt everybody in the long run but you support it and go right ahead. well i think i think we need to have a bigger picture and we need to take a longer view of what's been happening because i don't particularly pursue military intervention as a whole be or as an interest what i think you have this is if we take a longer view but last thirty forty years and fifty years since the nationals of time a nation movements which laws are shaped and drew lines around the deserts of the middle east and you fall in that of those lines were drawn support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we were actually armed not only given vocal support but we're actually on the sports or in the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation to disarm them i personally don't think. is it morally right is

it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the argument is you're throwing more and more arms into a very very volatile dangerous situation ok and we also have the problem of mission creep ok we heard only a few days ago you know we're not going to commit to more do we're going to put boots on the ground but apparently cia sneakers are already there they've admitted that after the fact i mean mission creep is involved here. can you have a one off and you're saying we should have a one off right. well i think you should be a one off and let me go back to the first point you're making innocence if we if we talk about it. about military intervention as a as a new solution then there was working about clandestine musume from the cia. a personal look at the cia's involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of this i'm not trying to so this is great

intentions behind however we do know that the sea and. as we're calling them from the transitional council in libya is actually being as transparent as possible because that's something that we've not had in libya and we've never had a transparent and accountable government there with as well though so that the you know the training and it's not something that's kind of you know. as a mystery or as something that's coming out a certain that's coming out quite openly from the from santa because that openly what i was i was jumping going. ok fellas i want to jump in go ahead and ask can i just ask you i want to ask and ask you raise the issue of looking back further and i think that is very very crucial i think part of the problem with our discussions about libya has been that we've all focused on that one day when allegedly and i'm not convinced it was either imminent or inevitable that there was going to be the kind of massive slaughter that has really used as the reason that there was no

alternative let me just finish and that is i would have been that would you reason that i was instead it is because villa what i'm saying is let's go back let's go back two days before that when the libyan opposition had managed to drive those government tanks out of out of out of benghazi with their own power without military force i'm not convinced that they could have done it again i'm not sure but my point is if we start with that day we're hemmed in if we're looking back and we are now i think we need to look back three weeks earlier the first day there was a government assault on unarmed protesters. the first day when it they were still on arm that was the moment for the u.s. to quote intervene by saying you know what the colonel gadhafi we have allowed you since two thousand and two to be on our good side no more no more arms no more contracts no more military support you're going back out of this terrorism see if i was on the hearing this will stop exactly as they should have in the others what

does it is or that's what i said point what does it do if we're looking however and i'm going to describe john mccain just being in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is sort yourselves you know you own your own problems and we know that one solid is on the other side is not and the minute i personally don't want any arms and i'm not asking for in a situation where no one is on a person that we've made a massive massive i understand then the loving ourselves not only to tell them that they're looking at have also to blow them out of the cold in two thousand and three or two thousand and two as you'd like to call it but i personally think that huge but i do want to go about the situation in ukraine and also for the other thing is we can talk about money also because of the face and the can really focus on but and there was an imminent threat and i can you can accuse obama of procrastinating during that period of time isn't it because i didn't like elation but when the moment was imminent i wouldn't risk that personally because my people and i personally know that the indians themselves realize that. america has

a better track record on the full salvation do this. right the problem is there are some common you're going to see what has family but there are so many years that i don't have them are seeing great all right fellas jump in head. there are people in libya who also recognize that there are cia people among the libyan opposition the guy who came back from northern virginia for twenty years who is now one of the commanders of the military is somebody who clearly was involved with u.s. intelligence during that period there is a mixed bag of the libyan opposition in terms of what people have asked for what they want the other thing that i think is makes this all very problematic is that in the context of the of the arab spring where in each of these situations they began whether it was egypt whether it was tunisia whether it's been yemen bahrain all of them have faced massive military assault at the beginning only in libya was the decision made to take up arms i'm not going to second guess that decision or in

this i'm just going over there are two hundred one says. all right and that's why it's really. a good part of the structure of the notion of that's. my job. why is it different because phyllis brought up a very good point why is it different because it used now it is different why do you think. well i don't personally think that it's a numbers going up i think in terms of victims being a numbers game i don't want to say that there were more people here or more people who were there but equally we realize that gadhafi was on the radio program i mean if we look at i want to use iraq as a very good example as to why things were wrong and things are right personally when bush and blair came out saying there was a forty five minute threat and it was imminent and they tried to fool the rest of the world in the along with it but a fair enough but there was no substance to the argument good durfy was openly on the radio or on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people telling people you know been has it all coming cleanse you know if you think that's an imminent threat i don't know ok but i personally wouldn't want my conscious and secondly you have

to realize that if we're talking of the greater picture here of obama he looks like someone that obviously his intervention to us was lackluster he didn't do anything and came in late egypt can be saying the roughly the same thing however in libya i think we can accuse them of procrastination but i look back at his legal background and i say to myself someone looks at legal background and as a liberal and a different you know kind of a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's taken a legal perspective and tried to go through every avenue and track the developments as they come however when the thought was imminent he would have been and it would have been a catch twenty two situation we were talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one there are bosnia and libya another holiday charged names and countries and and you know the whole it's all. about let me answer what the right is going to i would point to. nobody does headphones nobody does and i think i have that i have a different view and i wonder i supported intervention in rwanda and i blame the

united states and france for not only not intervening but affirmatively preventing the united nations from intervening so i'm not somebody who says there should never be any intervention the question is under what circumstances and by home one of the key things that president obama did was to recognize that there is a difference between legality and legitimacy he knew he could force his way. into a u.n. resolution in the security council the u.s. has a long history of that by bribing threatening to get votes it happened here it will happen again it's happened before but he also knew that without clarity from the arab league and the african union that wasn't going to be possible so early on if you recall the general in question those already underway in question here from the way on talking about the questions i was asked and he recognized you know let me just say the question for me is partly international legitimacy and having both the arab league and the african union would have been important what we found was that the african union was not prepared to sign on to even

a no fly zone let alone all necessary measures and as soon as they made that clear the obama administration stopped talking about the need for african union or you're going to be jumping around we're going to liberate the area to do a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy in libya stay with. you. the history of this place runs through the centuries. a paradise for archeologists zoo all ages and ecological tourists.

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to. welcome back to crossfire computor is about to remind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. a bomb a doctrine is a doctrine or an intervention strategy in his speech at the national defense university barack obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say it reveals the beginnings of who would really know regarding the use of us military support us the russian public opinion research center all citizens of this support that international military operation in libya sixty four percent said they do not and then the other twenty percent of the respondents expressed

their support still the bomb a doctrine has yet to be declared but presidential doctrines have an impact on american policy and as a result on the entire world back to peter ok and this i'd like to go back to you in paris here a lot of people will say and i want to talk about george w. bush in this part of the program that obama had a sudden attack of stupid idealism. do you think that's a fair thing to say because again if we look at interventions in the past a lot of people can say you know what panama was success successful you can go to panama and a lot of people will say it wasn't ok so i guess it depends on how we define success here but very idealistic owner is obama just trying to muddle through on this one too because you can say well it's an international effort now many can walk away from it that's not being very idealistic. obama was elected to have

a third war in the muslim world bank good for him and. in a post in the post the rock world i think. in terms of real politic everyone knows that it's political suicide to recreate him in iraq and to try and fumble their way through that one again so i mean i personally think they did it with that he has done that in afghanistan or trying to be as careful as possible i think he has us through this situation about us that everyone knows that his thousand more troops i don't really think that this is a positive but and this is again as i think the crux to the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if your country fine but i mean this is. what is there but isn't this well i mean even i'm willing to admit that people can have a personal attachment to an issue ok that's fair enough ok but at the same time isn't this just bush lite this is another intervention and this time there's there is a difference too is that the american people and the world were lied to for months

on end preparing for the war to go into iraq and this was just done over the weekend i mean you know it was no debate in the united states you said you say you say there's i mean you say do you say there were some if there was transparency and there's transparency in benghazi but going into this conflict or war if it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish your parents in washington ok well that that's what's most important because nobody else is going to washington all right go ahead phyllis go ahead but i think i think that the kick the key question of transparency is important and was not true in washington but i also think that we should be clear this was not a sudden decision that was made at a moment of urgency this was a decision that was several weeks in the making as we know that come about first when the french and the brits said we want a resolution that will call for a no fly zone the u.s. position was no we don't think a no fly zone is going to work but instead of saying and therefore we're going to vote no they said. let us take the resolution we will rewrite it and we'll come

back with a better resolution which of course said not only a no fly zone but all necessary means to protect civilians but with some rules discriminating over what is tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question but what if i really question the timing most of his world nationals which is decide the libyans was the libyans also one of the libyans also for a no fly zone why they're asking for international that's one important the feeling they weren't that's a very important question is what was the only or whether it's not the only question of course is that it was i think for an imminent threat and that's a reality kaman that's a reality and then that doesn't mean that founders nationally but push back from sort of up from one of which is the stronghold of gadhafi that pushed back over a period of a week wish back militarily they were given the week to do it is going to be exactly ok good if it has the capacity because using european arms no i really want to point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether it is an imminent threat on auto think we would like to i think we're

working on very morally dubious grounds here to say that it doesn't matter if it's i thought it was you know it was heated i mean he was no innocent man so you know wasn't in the area no i'm not saying what i'm saying or worse than i already own government because there's not a question of the morning or there can be so what i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't really annoys you see what i can do what they could not you say what you want to say right now and i already asked don't jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united convinced that the united states government decision not my own personal view that the united states government decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision and it's cold it's calculated it takes into account the moral issue only as a political factor in terms of how it will be assessed what their decision is ok and i want to ask you right you know you know this and you know it's not right in terms of decision that was going to make one last. point greg i want to challenge

you on that point however because i don't think that humanitarian aid is and sort of the principle of of life has always been the timing factor in foreign policy in america or in the west there's a lot of bunch of however i do want to was whether whether or not we believe that this is not a coincidence of interests and if i can also personally what do you think the motivating factor was in order to go into libya if you want to go see i think it was a combination of factors the main one i think the main factor was a lack of clarity about what their posture was going to be in the arab spring in general they wanted to position themselves in a position of being on the right side of history that corresponded with us it was also different in there with us from popular forces right and but there's i think that we do have to separate what i might want to happen as an individual person what i want isn't really the point i would have wanted maybe for a revolution at the very very beginning that very first day when they when people in benghazi faced the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced i think

they made their own choices and second guess their choice was what the care choices were ok then we can argue them but he wasn't showing them the same and there are consequences to that choice and i want to ask you a question government in yemen. to ask you a question what they were talking about ok i want to ask you i mean the intervention is started it's going on as we speak there is a stalemate at least as we speak has the intervention it fueled or fueled on or created a civil war that could last quite a quite a while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil war zone civil war so when you have two conflicting sides of conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on though that it's a very small point to make and there's been points being made over and over again i guess will be a perino issue for the rest of the revolution and if you want to put your people.

are they rebels or talk with armies are they rebels what are they civilians with arms i mean the what's your definition of millions i mean these are teachers teachers students bakers government employees policemen i mean they're from every background that you would have in libya and i mean i work for a minute or so and so not an artifact is that it's not an army it's a people trying to govern themselves trying to get rid of forty two years after the political dysfunction is in so i want to call them rebels because i have any political aims or their aim is get rid of gadhafi is that we can have a more democratic and a more effective government so i want to get rid of him so ultimately i think it's a world that we have as well but that's true in a classroom with a kind of we have an arab spring. if i was going to. run out of the village there have been there isn't and i think it is a civil war when people when two sides are fighting to hold territory i think that makes it a civil war i don't think the the opposition side is an art when you're doing really well if you're an ass on this if your territory is your home phone it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now too cybill in zone

reading into this is going to say over here in the house and there but it was used the lesson of all put in the house is i'm not going to other to force people on this john this is the easiest but if you want to call it is silly and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right eric and phyllis and phyllis the u.s. and its allies have a show stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side as well in this again making it more and more into the side for a change i know you don't want to say she says use your emotions you're sure there's a dictator is in the way but it's the same time is that this was what. exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so where are we so good i feel no deal really we are all the treasures of the region so we trust in them with. them when. they're doing it wrong exactly or using military force in a way that is guaranteed and i said it before they did it and i say that it has

come true that the military force has made the military stalemate emerge in libya it is now whatever you want to call it i'm not going to fight over the words but there are two military forces battling for control of territory there is likely to be a stalemate that's going to go on for a long time combat more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq but one year alone one hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without flaws and some of that was obviously it was judged on what it was doing let's measure look the willingness is measure it as it is we have an issue we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean i can go and prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground there are people in there and they would say well i think they want to support america whether they're clean the mono but they've come out and they've said the no fly zone has not killed civilians i mean i'll be hard pushed to try and find more yes that's right all right through the area we're almost out of time so it's at a place where i must tell you the killer. is one more question and ask how to break

the stalemate here comes. this is the last answer how can we break the stalemate without greater outside intervention and what would be fueling what a lot of people call a civil war how do you break the stalemate. ok but i personally feel although i think over the border as it is the question is framed it's not going to get all that is the broken the social contract when we can be broken the social contract with its people as rousseau would say has broken the social contract these people he has no legitimacy and so when it is with the people they're choosing to fight against they try to so we have to negotiate with the people and not with gadhafi he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the negotiate with him and also ask the question the oversight and military forces are going to eventually but arming the people themselves you've owned them for interviews how do you know this is there on this point folks thank you very much for a very heated discussion many thanks to my guest today in washington and in paris

and thanks to our viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk with us. and. we'll. release you the latest in science and technology from the realms. we've got the future covered.

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