it's seven thirty pm in moscow these are have lines from policy in global markets we've heard stops yoyo around the world in reaction to the u.s. from credit rating cotton and spreading debt crisis in europe stock markets are once again in decline despite the central bank promising to buy up spanish and italian government bonds. energy in the u.k. parts of london turned into a battlefield for a second night because rioters and looters the fatal police shooting thirty five

police officers were injured and over a hundred and sixty people arrested. and it's three years since georgia launched an attack on the people of the small republic of south of setia speaks of those who bear the scars of the five day conflict which claimed hundreds of innocent lives. next as cross talk with peter got so. and you can. follow unwelcome across computable about the obama doctrine is there such a thing over the past few months we've seen the u.s.

waffle as change rages across the arab middle east and some western backed dictators remain firmly in power well the same time forced regime change is happening in libya all when is this a new doctrine or just muddling through. can still. 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 on this album artie he's 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 he had a universal policy you know 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 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 if 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 through us but i don't think that's a dark and i think it's a statement of lowering expectations i also think that one of the problems with all of these documents 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 yes i do. i mean given what's going on with phyllis you 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 like in effect political change changes but it became 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 take a longer view there were three happening because i don't particularly pursue the truth attention as a whole interest what i think you have this is if we take

a longer view but the last thirty forty years and fifty years since the nationals of terminations movements which laws are shaped and drew lines around the deserts of the middle east and you fall in that of those loans with support was given and it wasn't in the economic sense it was given a military sense i mean we were actually armed. to get involved was actually on passports around the middle east and i think that's why we have a moral obligation to this on them i personally don't think it is option is it morally right is it morally right to arm rebels at the same time i mean the argument is here or even 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 more to going to put boots on the ground but apparently cia sneakers are already there david needed 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. you know the think you should be a one off and let me go to the first point you're making in a sense if we if we talk about. military intervention as a as an only solution and that was working about columbus the news from the from the c.e.o. a person look at the c.e.o.'s involvement in panama and places that really really show the you know the old intentions of this i'm not trying to so the c.e.o. has a great intentions behind however we do know that the c.n.c. 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. the training and it's not something that's coming out. as a mystery or something that's coming out as a something that's coming out quite openly from the center because. it was going.

ok for those who were jumping 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 nasa's slaughter that has really used as the reason that there was no alternative let me just finish and that is what we have which is a reason that i'm not resisting it is because i don't want to feel 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 started with that they were 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 unarmed that was the moment for the u.s. to quote intervene by saying you know what the final 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 says i was on hearing this will stop exactly as they should have in the others what does it exactly that's what i think point what does it do if we're looking however long maybe this will just be just the x. in the conflict it looks in the conflict i mean what we're saying is sort of yourselves you know your own your own problems and we know that one side is on the other side is not i'm not 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 them more loving ourselves and looking at have also brought 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 is going and also for the thing is we can talk about also because of the base and we can really focus on but has it right 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'm going to do is look elation but when the moment was imminent well i wouldn't risk that personally because they are my people and i personally know that produces himself realize that. america has a protractor record on the fulfillment of mission to do this. right the problem is there are some. there's your first family but there are so many years that don't have them are seeing great all right so let's jump ahead. 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's 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 arab spring we're 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 in the same sense as there are two hundred one says. right now this one is a lazy good for. her the instrument emotional. and it's going to just remove. why isn't it because of the very good point why is it different because it is now with these different ideas. but i personally think that it's a numbers game although i think in terms of victims being a numbers game i don't want to say that there were more people here more people who were there but equally we realize that birth he was on the radio program i mean if you look at i want to use iraq as

a very good example as to why things are 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 and we went along with the plan for enough but there was no substance of the argument he was openly on the radio on the radio waves of libya and forcing and people are going in because 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 this 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 progress the nation but i look back at his legal background and i think most of some legal background as a liberal and a different you know kind of a fish to the neo conservative background i would say that he's like in a legal perspective and try to go through every avenue and tracking developments as they come however when the thought was imminent he would have been and it would

have been the case with the situation we were talking about anyway i personally want to be talking about another one in libya another holiday charged names and countries and and you know the whole is charged. let me answer i don't want the response i would point to your school and nobody does head falls nobody does and i think i have i have a different view and i wonder i supported intervention and i want to 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 i call on one of the key things that president obama did was to recognize that there's a difference between legality and legitimacy he knew he could force his way. and to 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 result of that was question those already rules are way in question here from some way i'm talking about the questions iran 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 know jumping in really really really really really breaking after that short break we'll continue our discussion on obama's foreign policy in libya stay with. q. . the

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russia. we've got the future covered. up up the can still. want to. welcome back across our guy curious about true mind you we're talking about the so-called obama doctrine. of the kitchen. but first let's see what russians think about the libyan intervention. obama doctrine is a doctrine or an interventionist strategy in his speech at the national defense university barack obama articulated the grounds for the intervention in libya and now many say into reveals the beginnings of a million regarding league use of u.s. military supports the russian public opinion research center all citizens if this

support the 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 obama doctrine has yet to be declared but presidential dr have an impact on american policy and as a result of the entire world. and its 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 but 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 except successful you can go to panama a lot of people will say it wasn't ok so i guess it depends on how we define success here but very idealistic or 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 good for him and. in a post in the post the rock world i think. in terms of real political everyone knows that it's political suicide to recruit in iraq and to try and come all the way through that one again so i mean i personally think they did it with that he's done that in afghanistan or trying to be possible yeah i think you know. the situation about is that everyone knows that he sent in thirty thousand more troops so i don't really think that this is there but and this is again this i think this really is the crux of the reason i ask you is that you support this intervention ok you're a libyan ok if it's your country fine but i mean this is this isn't this is it isn't this well i mean even i'm willing to admit to people that 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 is this there is

a difference to 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 seriously you said it was over you say do you say they were sleeping he was transparency in their transparency and in gaza but going into this conflict or war it is a war there wasn't much transparency ok so and if you can finish your parents here in washington ok well that blockade that's what's most important because nobody else can do i think that all right go ahead phyllis go ahead but i think i think the key question of transparency is important and what's 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 the world's discriminators know what his tactics could be. it's one of the questions that needs to be asked it's not the only question i think i want a question of how many first of his world nationals are the decider libyans why the libyans also know the libyans also in foreign affairs and why they are asking for international that's one import of the feeling they weren't that's a very important question is a loss and while most of what we do it's not the only question of course is which i think personal threats and that's a reality came in that's a reality and for the for and that doesn't mean they're going to because nationally pushback from sort of from which is the stronghold of gadhafi and push back over a period of a week which back militarily take a good lead as we have to do exactly ok have graphene has the capacity because

using european norms you know a. point i really want to make here is is that whether or not we want to debate whether it's going to through an auto think we would like to i think we're working on very morally dubious grounds here if we were to say that it doesn't matter if it's a threat or it was in the you know it was in the heated i mean he was going to say you know and so you know wasn't in the area no i'm not saying that what i'm saying in almost all united in our own government is because there's not a question a lot more of them can be what i'm saying no i'm not saying i can't really a choice you see what i can do is really could not you say what you want to see right now and i already am going to jump and go ahead i'm not convinced that the united and convinced that the united states government decision that's my own personal view that the united states government's decision was not a sudden one based on what the people of benghazi wanted they made a strategic decision because 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 what you know you know so you know it's not are you challenging situation that was not the way we. last point but greg i want to challenge you on that point however because i don't think that it is and sort of the principle of of life has always been the family factor and foreign policy in america or in the west there's a lot of bunch about however i do want to was whether or not we believe that this is not a coincidence of interests and if we can all see personally what do you think the motivating factor was in order to go into libya 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 all the things that were the from popular forces right and but it was like 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 ten thousand fell face the same kind of attack that the people in yemen faced. i think they did make their own choices and. i guess their choice was ok choices was ok well you know we can argue that he was enjoying it with me and there are consequences to that and i want to ask you a question government in yemen but i think it is going to ask you a question what they were talking about go ahead 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 that fueled fueled on or created a civil war that could last quite a while while at the expense of the libyan people civil civil war civil civil war zone civil war when you have two conflicting stories with conflicting demands and i think i don't like to call them rebels on though that it's a very small point to make the point of being made over and over again. for the

rest of the revolution and it's like you are the people of the warrant. people are people around this much are they rebels are killed with arms for the rebels what are they civilians with arms i mean what's your definition of millions i mean these are teachers teachers students bakers government employees policeman i mean they're from every background that you have in libya and i mean i work for a minute or so and so not an artifact is that before and it's not an army it's a people trying to govern themselves and trying to get rid of forty two years after the political dysfunction is into i want to call them rebels because i have any political aims all their aim is get rid of gadhafi so 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 war of ideas that's true in a classroom with a kind of we have an arab spring. it was going. through the if 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 you're to retreat is your home and for no it's not an army it's a it's an armed population i agree with that but there are now two cybill in zone rating which it is required to say over here in the house and there but it has used the be a lesson of hope within the house is not going to all those on paper for another john this is the games this year if you want to call it is to me and i'm saying there are two sides fighting right character and phyllis and phil is the u.s. and its allies is how they chose to stalemate the u.s. and its allies have chosen the side is well in this again making it more and more into the side for a change without even going to say she says use your shoes ensure the safety procedures in the boat but it's the same time is that this is what. exactly i will choose the dictators including gadhafi so we sobered up you know just where we had all the treasures over to the rest of the region so we trust in them a little confusion watching them i wasn't sure if you were 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 complete more people are going to die under the no fly zone in iraq because one year alone one hundred forty four people were killed by the no fly zone so this is not something without clothes and some of the noise of elian was just what it was judge it was doing but as most of the world is through this measure it is you know we have an issue we have an awful. for the last two weeks i mean i could go out and prove it to you but i mean the western journalists on the ground. there would say well i think they want to support america whether they're killing them or not but that's come out and they've said the no fly zone has not killed

civilians i mean the whole push to try and point out yes that's right through the area we're almost trying to talk it's in the same place ramos time the killers. just one more question and ask how to break the stalemate here comes ali. 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 see although i think it was that the question is framed it's not bushrangers all that is the broken the social contract can weaken the death is broken the social contract with its people is rousseau i would say he's broken the social contract with people he has no legitimacy and so when he is with the people they are choosing to fight against a dictator so we have to negotiate with the people and not with the he has no terms he has no ground and he has no legitimacy to the motion with him and also is the question of the oversight and military security going from entry arming the people themselves even on them for forty two years 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 for viewers for watching us here on r.t. see you next time and remember prostitutes. can still. wealthy british style sign. on. the market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mikes concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars report.

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