just a nice little about what to do with them but he's a big business for individuals that are directly connected to some very powerful politicians that don't want anybody to find out about it and that was one who they good here as president of almost any of us usa and that's going to do it for now i thank you so much for watching we will be back here at seven o'clock i'm christine president. is that so much for the future because it is. the. cycle of is this country the state of the civil war about to start is this current regime falls from. the thing. the theme.

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me is he's. a charmer here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

live nation is. going to take three lives for a charge of three. arrangement three. three. three liberals three branches video for your media project a free media don carty tom. you can live. live. live. below and welcome to cross talk on peter lavelle series growing cycle of violence is this country to state a cause the civil war or about to start a civil war if this current regime falls from power what could replace it and how should the international community at length can live their lives. to cross-talk syria's future i'm joined by mark levine in washington

he's a senior fellow with the truman national security project and a talk radio host in cambridge we cross to george joffe and he is a research fellow at king's college london and in detroit we go to the army he is a journalist and political analyst hard folks cross talk rules in effect that means that you can jump in anytime you want and i really encourage it but first let's see how the world has been reacting to the events in syria. as protests in syria continue unabated up to three thousand people most of whom are civilians who are already thought to have died in the government's crackdown despite this the international community has in effect ignored the bloodshed opting instead for sanctions and rhetorical operations i think that increasingly are saying president assad. lose legitimacy in the eyes of his people and that's why we've been working at an international level to make sure that we keep the pressure up. to see if we

can bring some real change in syria but i like made us aerial campaign in libya syrian protesters have been largely left to fend for themselves and that despite syrian protesters calls on the international community to interfere the syrian people in the united nations to adopt a resolution sense of. mission in syria and yet there has been no u.n. resolution of the sorts experts say one of the reasons for that lack of action is president bashar assad's military arsenal which far outweighs that of low market fees some politicians such as france's foreign minister have also pointed the finger at russia which opposes foreign intervention in libya and is likely to go a un resolution of condemnation against the syrian government. resolution the security council condemning the use of violence against civilians and as you know regime of sanctions it's

a hard struggle but we do not give up but most importantly the syrian question seems to be about a clash of competing interests over syria's diverse ethnic and religious makeup so far the struggle for reform in the embattled country has resembled the playing field for regional powers like saudi arabia turkey and iran with few in the west willing to provoke the latter. for across our team. ok first i'd like to start with george in cambridge the mainstream media is looking at syria is just the slaughter of innocent civilians innocent protesters but a little bit deeper description would probably be this is an armed insurrection because we have members of the security forces and presumably the military that are taking casualties why is the you think it's being reported is simply is just. assad's government attacking protesters when they some of these protesters obviously appear to be armed. well i think the short answer is that at the moment

the majority of people demonstrating are unarmed ok so you can argue that it's a peaceful demonstration but the problem is that you're quite right. amongst the demonstrators in some parts of the country the demonstrations have really been armed and the regime massacres and security forces as well so the problem is whether or not the demonstrations overall do become the nominee insurrection and should that occur then i think the outcome in syria is going to be very bloody indeed ok mark if i can go to you if you would you call this a civil war that it's beginning to be a civil war now and it's of war that could just continue to develop over time because it looks like the assad government regime is not going to give up very easily it's shown that while it's true the government represents a tiny minority alawite population in syria and that extends the majority sunni's want to have a voice in their country it could become a civil war right now though it's a bunch of innocent pacifists people are the vast majority of them have no arms who

are trying to fight to have a voice and they're all i have to do is look at today's washington post is a picture of our this is a pacifist this is a young man not twenty five years old he's the head rose is to the soldiers who are lowering down protesters trying to get them to stop here of course he was just murdered tortured brutalized along with three thousand six hundred innocent people in syria right now it's just people fighting to have a voice in their country and being brutalized by their own government would be i mean in detroit how would you describe the events playing out in detroit in there in syria right now would you call it a civil war an armed insurrection i think it is a good. i believe it is the beginning of the civil war there are elements there that are armed the syrian government has pointed out that the opposition certainly elements within the opposition have been armed by outside forces particularly the united states as well as israel they claim that they have a confession from a former general from syria who defected and he's going to be featured on syrian

television are very soon to talk about the involvement of the united states and israel and this overall on rastus been taking place in syria now for the last several months we have to keep in mind that syria is one of the countries that has been targeted for several years now by the u.s. and other western powers for regime change and the people who are calling for the imposition of the no fly zone and for international intervention have to keep in mind that this is not helped the situation at all in libya we just need to take libya as a playbook we've had the bombing of libya now for over six months and the situation there the conditions are deplorable for the civilian population is divided the people of libya and are we do not want to see the same situation develop in syria because it's going to be the united states and these western industrialized countries and the populations within these western industrialized countries that

are going to be victimized by this war that they're planning to carry out against the syrian government came out and no use they say marjorie seamless of nicea mark in washington and he's delusional who disagrees very much mark all right ahead actually this program however. i hardly know where to begin the syrian people would be lucky to join the libyan people internation people of the egyptian people in freedom they would be lucky to get rid of a dictator who has already murdered three thousand six hundred innocent civilians his father killed tens of thousands in hama and if the syrian government is on the up and up and frankly i don't know anyone who believes it's here. in government now if the syrians luckly the syrian government i don't know any nation in the world who takes serious word the syrian government said if they are telling the truth then allow the media to syria allow the media into the squares love the myriad media to see the troops knowing down innocent people like pacifist people and our role is to soldiers if they don't allow the media in because they know they can massacre and torture and brutalize

a lot more people and they don't allow the media in nobody believes the syrian government not even in fact the people the syrian government do you think about george i mean we heard earlier that the united states and other countries and israel was mentioned have an interest in seeing syria being disable is unstable excuse me well i have to say i find confusion of truth and misunderstanding there quite extraordinary as far as i know it's certainly true that the united states has for many years now called for the syrian government to be overthrown or modified and it's also true that there has been some evidence the the american government has become an officially to encourage armed insurrection inside syria but to suggest that israel would do so i do find strange not because i believe that israel is not capable of doing so because actually it doesn't serve israel's interest to do so if indeed it gets rid of the syrian government he disturbs a stable situation inside the middle east which has been through its benefit for

a very long time and it's got no guarantee that what will come instead would be more acceptable to it almost certainly will be less so you only have to look at the situation that's developed in egypt that's developing in cooled and it's what's occurred in turkey to see that so i really don't think you can lump together the israeli government with the united states in that respect and then beyond that to the idea of an external intervention of the kind that occurred in libya doesn't seem to me to be in the remotest sense possible likely or to being courage and to suggest that in in fact. eventually libya was to the disadvantage of the libyan people when the gadhafi regime was if possible more brutal than that president assad seems to me to be quite simply ludicrous what do you think it's go back to detroit what do you think about that i mean is it doesn't seem to be in everyone's interest to see the assad regime fall apart is a matter of fact there's a lot of other issues involved we have iran we have saudi arabia we have has it's

extremely complicated i mean it assad is the devil you know in the region in a lot of people are quite satisfied with that. well the fact of the matter is is that there is an alliance between the syrian government the government in iran hezbollah the resistance movement a lot of non as well as a mosque in palestine and these are the sworn enemies of the united states as well as the western industrialized countries along with israel israel operates as the forward operating base of u.s. interests in the middle east you cannot look up the developments in egypt and tunisia and of what has happened in libya and syria for the simple fact that the governments in egypt and tunisia have long had long been supported by the united states and to a certain degree are supported by them today as well we have the egyptian now special forces that operated with the n.c.c.

in libya in order to out topple gadhafi government in libya also we have the situation in tunisia where the armed forces there assisted the m.t.c. and nato forces in destabilizing libya and it does not serve the interests of the syrian people or any other people in the region to have a direct u.s. and western involvement in their countries the arab league has been attempting to mediate the situation inside of syria the secretary general of the arab league i'm just an uphill l.r.b. i was in damascus about five days ago and this is what needs to be occurs and needs to be encouragement of dialogue with the right problem and i'm going to jump in right here reading the a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state parties.

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c. n. n. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about the future of syria. and. say. ok mark i want to go back to you in washington so give me your opinion should there be an intervention an armed intervention to overthrow this regime in damascus and if we should do that should if we should it is a coffee out then should we do with bahrain as well. first of all i think that's a last resort i don't think we have tried all the same chins in fact i think contrary to what our young he was saying united states and in

a very slow to say anything about syria the europeans have said something far before president obama finally said that president assad has to go frankly were slow in libya as well the english and the french he took away and was until khadafi promised to kind everyone in their closets and murder and massacre them that the united states finally came in to help their eyes in terms of an armed intervention that for the syrian people to decide this is their revolution again in today's washington post they talk about the murder of this pacifist they are not are they the person used to hand roses to the soldiers and hand them water and the people who firmly believe in nonviolence about he would chant peaceful peaceful as the soldiers were killing the civilians it's up to them to decide whether armed intervention is the right way to go unfortunately the more pacifists are murdered the more the syrian regime will be likely to face armed intervention if the people of syria do take up arms intervention against the government then i think the west has to seriously consider whether you have a no fly zone much as they did in libya but we haven't reached that step first i want to see harsher sanctions i want to see harsher sanctions on the europeans they

have gas deals with syria they don't expire until november let's expire them now as to a lot of pressure on this regime to start mass create its own people george if i can go to you it seems like a pattern is starting now and if we look at libya as that pattern you start with a little flies on then you have you know the resolution one thousand nine hundred eighty three and then there was a by any definition by any standard that resolution was very much abused and i don't care about the outcome at this point because look at the resolution in international institutions and international law do you perceive that the same thing could happen with syria. well first of all i agree with you the resolution one thousand and seventy three was used and nato in fact actually agreed is the vehicle by which western powers are able to demonstrate their distaste for the khadafi regime and remove it because there is a pattern but the. patton's quite an interesting one and let me just add first of all that i think it's most unlikely there be any intervention in syria because the

syrian case is completely different and the ramifications of an intervention will be far more serious but the pattern that seems to me to be interesting is that we're doing intervention now one removed when all that cian gauging on the ground what we're doing instead is using indirect mechanisms to achieve ians that we want and indeed inside the arab world the arab press has noted this and there's been a lot of criticism of what occurred in libya and there be a lot more should be applied to syria to have a much regimes and our newspapers may dislike the assad regime if indeed we with repeat that process they regard this as the potential for the beginning of a new round of nato imperialism inside the region and to that extent therefore the point you make his quite valid if i go back to detroit is this a pattern that we see that the we see with the arab spring we see all dictators being thrown out of all or supported by the united states and now this is just another western wave of neo colonialism just we put in people bit ok the old ones

are out there not popular find new ones to put in and use this this liberal interventionist playbook to get what they want. i think the u.s. as well as the nato countries are very concerned about the uprisings that started in december and to nisha and spread to egypt and other countries in january and february are there any eventually in libya was an attempt to stave off further our revolutionary movements that may take on an anti-imperialist and i at a zionist character and that is why they are now in libya trying to control the political direction of the country there that's why mr cycle c. and mr cameron it was announced today that they were in tripoli and this is indicative of the fact that this so-called revolution in libya was nothing but a effort at regime change that was hatched in washington london and london and paris and they want to do the same process carry out the same process in syria as

well as iran and why have they not intervened in bahrain and in yemen where we've also had the trust of these being committed by the regimes there because those regimes do the bidding of the united states they do the bidding of the british and the french and of course we have to keep policies factors in consideration when we try to analyze what is going on in the region we cannot say that what happened in egypt and tunisia earlier in the year is the same type of process that developed in libya and what is going on now in syria because those regimes have been targeted for decades for destabilization by the united states and by other western industrialized countries so we have to keep all of these variables in mind in libya they engage in over twenty thousand sorties there was over seventy five hundred air strikes against that country of six million people which had no air defense there was never any substantial evidence that massacres have occurred inside of libya if they had been the evidence would have been shown to us over the various cable and

satellite television stations are you out the worry for you going around here if i didn't hear you need me to jump in here mark again i see you did. go ahead i do i think i do yeah he gives no credit to the people of the region it's as if they're pawns in some imperialist game the people of libya like the people of syria like the people of iran like the people of tunisia like the people of egypt like the people of yemen in bahrain all of them want freedom all of them want to voice all the of tired of corrupt dictatorships who massacred their own people in the case of khadafi he says there's no evidence he massacred his own people listen to the words of copy himself when he said we will find you in your closets we will show no mercy this is a man who was threatening to massacre virtually everyone in benghazi and every army says it's all about a new imperial design look whatever games the western powers or russia are playing we i'm happy to discuss with you but no one should doubt this is an indigenous movement of people who are seeking their own freedom this by like makes it very different from the war in iraq which i was very much opposed to with united states

impose its will on the ground these are people who are asking for their own freedoms and the west has been very late to support their cause i'm glad we are georgia if i can ask you i mean there is an element of hypocrisy here we've already heard it i mean why not yemen why not bahrain because these are just western allies are or or very friendly to western powers but syria isn't and i'd like to point out i mean you assure europe has more trade connections with syria but when united states talks about sanctions it ended any kind of trade relationship years ago so i mean what kind of leverage is there but george at the start to say with the double standard in the region it is a patent double standard isn't it. well you know i'm afraid international relations is characterized by hypocrisy anyway states do what they can not war they might like to do or they may claim they would like to do so norms don't really apply practicalities do and in this case it was easy to intervene in libya it was easy

because diplomatically nobody would object and it was easy too because it didn't have any direct ramifications on other countries that's simply not true in the case of syria and therefore it was late in the day that we began to hear condemnations of the assad regime and despite the huff and puff from washington we haven't yet heard anything to suggest there's going to be military intervention no european state to suggest that either no will they they can't simply forward it will become engaged in it and the result is that the only mechanisms available are sanctions against the regime which is quite frankly massacring its own people let me just add in libya the regime simply did massacres and population and there is evidence of it and it is known a series of mass graves have been uncovered particularly in tripoli the demonstrate that quite clearly so to that extent i think we need to be very careful of the way mates revaluate the interactions and the reactions of the states in the developed

world to these two different crises and then make another point to be nobody really wants assad to go in not exactly he will go exactly as he did a very interesting point if i could ask mark here don't you we have to be careful what we wish for because what is going what could replace assad ok are we going to have ethnic strife we're going to have religious strife i mean it's it's it's you can never it's easy to start these things but it's very very rarely do you get the outcome that you hope for i think we've seen that over the last decade. well i gave peter anytime a dictatorship goes it's unclear what's going to happen next i think tunisia is likely to be the most successful egypt is already showing signs of even in libya they're showing signs of some secular is longest battles back and forth i think that any time you have a dictatorship you're always going to have three parties you're going to have a dictator in place you're going to have people who promote religious intolerance or ethnic hatred and you're going to have the liberal democrats and of course i'm

on the side of liberal democrats i want to see them succeed you're absolutely right there's no guarantee of success but as far as i'm concerned assad may be the devil you know but he is a devil and he's an awful devil and i think that we're better off without him come what may although i must admit i don't know what will come on i just know that assad is a terrible horrible leader of syria and you know me if i go back even to try what do you think we could come after this regime if it falls so i think eventually different opinions out there could probably stand for a very long time. well we don't know what would come after but we do know in regard to diplomatic opposition to the u.s. and nato bombing of libya the african union fifty three to fifty four member of that organization opposed the intervention in libya from march to terms when they issued the initial communique by the peace and security council this was totally disregarded by the united states and by the nato countries as well as the m.t.c. which is supported by the united states and the nato countries so to say that there

was no diplomatic opposition to the war against libya is purely false and it's very the euro centric heinous approach and in regard to the attacks on civilians in libya nobody is talking about the attacks against black libyans against africans from other parts of the continent who have been rounded up who have been imprisoned who have been beaten and tortured who have been lynched by these m.t.c. rebels who are backed up by the united states and nato where is the outrage about the cable and satellite television networks and. the so called international humanitarian organizations in regard to the treatment or i'd like to jump let me jump in here and give them since i think you look like i've been i think in georgia last what do you think the regional deal with this this problem in syria itself without having to have to have western powers and intervene western powers are not going to intervene it's as simple as that and at the moment they have said regime will prevail whether we like it or not simply because the majority populations in

damascus and aleppo still support it because of their own economic interests and because of their fears of instability if they don't so until that changes there's going to be no change in syria not in the short term in the longer term that's another matter so we really can look forward to any question of intervention and i'm not certain we can look forward to regime change either all right general see how the story unfolds many thanks my guest today in washington cambridge and in detroit and thanks to our viewers for watching us iraqi see you next time and remember cross talk rules. download the official. q i phone or i pod touch from the saps to.

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