tv [untitled] November 16, 2011 10:30am-11:00am EST
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is that similar to the there's a huge musician at the time from the mark less serious leads me to his read on any military operation against syria though this could change the face change on the ground. seven thirty pm in moscow these iraqi have rides flashback to iraq the same experts that claimed baghdad had weapons of mass destruction allan dorris i mean suggestions that whole ron is developing a nuclear bomb as western media wrongly named the so-called nuclear scientist mentioned in the report. yeah anti regime free syrian army reportedly stages a major assault on the loyalist base near the capital damascus as the arab league turns up the pressure on president assad despite his pledge to reform. out but not down a string of evictions of anti-corporate occupy protesters across the u.s.
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failed to stop the move with near enough. my colleague kevin no one will be up next with more news in thirty minutes time but first cross talk looking at the future of syria stay with us. you can live. a long and welcome across our computer all of our serious bloodiest days mikail has ruled out any military operation against syria though this could change the bench change on the ground can and will western powers succeed in overthrowing the current syrian regime without direct use of force and if there were to be regime change in syria what would replace it and how would the region's geopolitical dynamics change. keep.
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cross-talk the complicated case of syria i'm joined by samara roby in washington he's a foreign policy manager at the arab american institute in pittsburgh we have rick francona he is a middle east expert and author of how i to adversity and eye witness account of iraq's fall from grace and in chicago we cross the answer to barak he's a member of the syrian national council for a gentleman this is cross talk you can jump in anytime you want but first marcia syria's experiences bloodiest day yes and it's been exactly eight months since it all started the u.n. says more than thirty five hundred people have been filled with thousands more injured yet there seems to be no plans to take military action to protect civilians and outside pressure to end the crackdown there's been no letup in violence as u.n. security council has been at odds over how to respond to the uprising despite continued pressure from the european union. the european union will continue to press for strong u.n. action to increase international pressure and all members of the security council
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to assume their responsibilities in relation to the situation in syria. the e.u. has already passed several rounds of sanctions against the assad regime but during a meeting on monday the british foreign secretary william hague was unequivocal about avoiding a repeat of the libya scenario calling syria a much more complex situation the reason for this is that a military intervention into syria could provoke a reaction from its allies and destabilize the entire middle east syria or like libya is part of an alliance and that the violence is very wide it begins in iran some elements iraq government are part of a syrian regime hezbollah in lebanon on how in gaza meanwhile the arab league has been pulling no punches as it has announced a decision to suspend syria's membership for failing to meet a good terms of its peace plan a move that syria has fervently denounced. were surprised that the arab league had already prepared a document which obviously came from american orders and they were asked to produce
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this document because serious positive response surprised them and their masters in america and the west. syria has also remain confident that china and russia would oppose any resolution to get militarily involved both countries have vetoed such a decision back in october the international community has gone to great lengths to draw a contrast between libya and syria namely to avoid provoking iran because syria is much the strategically important to run toppling regime could also mean we can in these lawmakers public itself so the stakes are high both sides of the fence ok first of all i'd like to go to yasser in chicago i mean considering we just heard in march his report here and the news it became does come out as we sit down to do this program syria's experienced it's bloodiest day so can you convince me that it's not a civil war going on in syria it's definitely not a civil war the reality the fair's of international affairs is that the entire
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world is making their political calculations up and then left and. you know the only people that are paying their price with their blood there with their souls and their lives are the syrian people on the ground the pro-democracy movement protesters that have been overwhelmingly peaceful i believe that the reference to a civil war is yet one yes i can say with you here i mean how do you how do you counter the remarks made by the regime in damascus that its own security forces and members of its security forces are being killed as well i mean these people there's some people would least there are there are arms in getting better armed every single passing day and my comment civil war. there's something called the free syrian army and those are honorable soldiers that belong to the syrian army that refused to open fire and peaceful protestors and they're engaging in their in their original mandate in their rightful mandate of civilian protection and they are you know they are members of the army their job their duty is to defend the syrian
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people to defend defend defend to the senseless civilians and that's exactly what they do when the fenceless civilians and protesters are being attacked brutally by security forces and by members of the militias of course they're going to fire back and of course they're going to be perfectly safe from the cycle that there's still the calculation of the foundation of a civil war rick what do you think about that because before we have the international dimension here what is going on inside syria because there is a media blackout so there's a lot of questioning is what it's on what's going on there right now. well i think i think the beginnings of the civil war you're seeing a great down of order in the military so you've got fact is that a military that are loyal to the assad regime and you've got other factions that are siding with the people and as as yesterday says they're not going to fire on syrian civilians but it goes further than that what you're seeing is these army defectors these ones are not going to follow orders from damascus actually taking
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up arms and starting fights with the syrian soldiers i mean we if you look at the casualty figures over the last few days a lot of those casualties or in the syrian military not in the protesters so you're starting to see both sides use weapons lethal weapons against each other so yeah where this is going to devolve into a civil war if it's not start to stick around i mean we've got a summer first ok in washington here who are they who's the opposition taking their orders from you see it is being indigenous we have this committee outside that made in istanbul i think yes or you're a member of that council i mean hoost who's calling the shots here is it inside of him is it inside i'm sorry is it inside the country or outside the country and if it's outside the country who is leading them who's paying them. that's a great question and it's actually a very difficult one to answer i think part of the problem is that we can't necessarily reify the entire opposition into a single entity right i don't think we've been able to identify exactly what motivates syrian protesters on the ground on a case by case basis i mean there's no question that the syrian national council
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has some degree of legitimacy in syria they have some ability to draw support to draw demonstrators in a kind of thing but the extent to which it has managed to develop itself into the cohesive element of the opposition has yet to be determined i mean there's still a lot of action going on the ground maybe by local coordinating committees by different syrian groups by different syrian political parties that may be affecting the situation on the ground in ways that the s.n.c. isn't necessarily controlling i mean one of the unfortunate aspects of the syrian uprising is that it hasn't developed into a very cohesive opposition that has coalesced around a very specific set of political needs and demands and i think the s.n.c. is trying to do that now it's trying to develop itself into the solid america's image of the syrian people but i don't think it's quite reached that stage and if it has you know as you mentioned the media blackout makes it very difficult for us to discern what the true motivations are of syrian protesters these are b. which organizations they work with ok has reduced you you in your organization speak for the syrian people. the syrian national council has been in combination
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for the past you know eight months basically took it took took us a few months to bring together an umbrella group that represents well over eighty percent of all opposition pro-democracy movement representation whether it's on the ground or outside of syria whether it's classical political or revolutionary and i think that was the reason that it took us a long time to establish the umbrella group that is now the us and see now i think that the fact that. you cannot discern because of a media blackout that's not necessarily mean that the s.n.c. is not able to sort of a representative of the of the of the majority of the. movement on the ground in fact we've seen several manifestations of political popular support popular support whether it's in the forms of you know naming an entire friday that the s.n.c. represents me. with protesters on the ground to the more recent protests that we've seen over the past couple of weeks that have gone in staunch
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opposition to the to the coordination commission and if they are you going to really have a good or a goose or a moment how you go with the regime if i go to rick in pittsburgh what is the opposition from what you understand and i understand you were based in damascus for a while is this a democracy movement or is this just to end a regime that is very unpopular with some segments not our segments of syrian society. well i think that's the problem we don't know what it is i mean it's probably a combination of all of those you don't have a cohesive you know united front like you had say in libya and that's causing a problem if you look at where the protests are occurring they're all over the country and so there's no there's no enclave that you can you can attach it to like in libya you had that you know the benghazi area was sort of the nucleus of the of the revolution there we were seeing in syria is this you know diverse activity from different groups and i think the the s.n.c.
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is trying to you know to organize that into a cohesive thing but i think they've got a long way to go and i think as they try and unite and coalesce into one organization you're going to see it maybe fragment more because i think you've got people with different agendas united by the common goal of getting rid of the ousted regime but i don't know if they've had a you know a single goal that they're going to ok some of what do you think is i mean it's sort of the assad regime is it is it stays numbered or does it still have enough core backing to survive a much longer because there's so many different guesses out there about just how strong the regime is. yeah i mean i think it's a question it's to some extent impossible to answer i mean it's already proven much more resilient than people expected it to be but at the same token so has the syrian revolutionary movement i mean uprisings have been much more powerful despite unbelievable amount of repression from the sooner jean and really really up for it violence and behalf of the syrian security forces have managed to continue to put
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pressure on the syrian regime but it's actually stayed put which is something that's kind of remarkable. to some extent i think that it's kind of proof positive that the current international community's actions toward syria haven't necessarily been as effective as people had hoped they would be certainly of the opinion that the kind of sanctions regimes that were pushing on syria aren't necessarily benefiting the syrian people as much as people hope that it wouldn't necessarily cripple in the syrian government as much as we hope that it would. actually be producing counterproductive outcomes based on how the sanctions regimes have been living but you think about a gas or because there's so many of these sites ranch ok let's go to you and then we'll go to the break go ahead rick ok yeah i think that's a very key point that he makes you know the resilience of both sides i mean if you look back at the series history and you go back to ninety two and hama i was absolutely shocked to see the syrian people come out in those numbers against a government that they know is going to act just like it house and you know the son
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no different than the father has shown absolutely no reason to jump in here we go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state . drive to clean a ghost town. squandered money. than the. one who's in. more than sixty square kilometers of environmental devastation and those who are still surprisingly in line and fighting for just. scaring bad out here
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but not saying hardly any birds squirrels. you know our know what's going on here. cause greed on our cheek. on. a very warm welcome this is your news today protesters on the. streets they have. the chance to say the good book except the status of the human experiments good. businessman you support it just goes to trial sensibly come to me and it's all came slings us financial temples. to maintain our confidence in markets and. wants to be his research and look even the nations close to collapsing us close.
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to fail switchblade think and feel like things us crash and imminent. seems like close to the judges in athens the i.m.f. spokesman just programs increase the total economy. wealthy british style. sometimes violent. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy because the reports on our. welcome back across some futile goal to remind you we're talking about the situation in syria. and.
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ok yes i would like to go back to you in chicago and kind of spread this out a little bit we talk about domestic issues going on in syria let's talk about the international dimension here i mean who benefits from all of the chaos going on inside syria is it iran is it saudi arabia is it israel we know very clearly the united states has a particular agenda about exporting democracy in the arab world in light of the fact that it's dictators are falling left and right and that's actually a good thing historically what is in play in is he serious just a pawn. you know i tend to stay away from these conspiracy theories and i'm not talking about conspiracy theories it's plenty of evidence out there that saudi arabia is just overwhelmed to see iran's our greatest ally in the region cake a bloody nose at least this point and they're very happy to see the morsy conduit
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to hezbollah are. cut so that's not a conspiracy theory that's real it's very real there's there's there's plenty of evidence that the people who started this revolution on the grounds are are it all started in spark with a bunch of kids from the city of their are who basically were writing. as a result they paid very dearly by them getting tortured and killed and. mutilated i mean i think there's plenty of evidence to the reasons of this particular uprising i think for us to. basically have. you know international interest. this is a people ok because i can go to you what do you think about the question i mean if you know saudi arabia is gleeful about this and then we have the i.a.e.a. report on iran we have israel to attack iran i mean and then syria is right in the
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middle of all of this. you know syria i mean i think this is a great i mean for if you're a saudi you're looking at this and think this is ok this is going to tie up iran is going to move their focus instead of being our primary you know rival in the persian gulf but i think iran has a lot to lose here in syria falls and they lose their access to his ball in lebanon that really hurts their foreign policy in the region so i think everybody's looking at this man and you know yasser is right i mean this story with a bunch of kids and arab but it did take on a life of its own and that's how it started really now is irrelevant because it's this is now in the forefront and now you've got all these other countries looking at what's going to happen there and syria much more important in libya it ties in you've got nato to the north you know with with turkey being a member state you've got the israelis to the south lebanon to the north of his ball and of course iran sitting over there much of the east ok sam if i go to you in washington. i was going to supernews you make and how who benefits from all the
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chaos your original question. that's a very important question but i think it's important and i think a lot of people fail to distinguish between the legitimacy of the uprising itself and the legitimacy of the way that international players have interacted with the syrian uprising i mean there's no question that you know a lot of regional actors stand to gain a lot from a revolution in syria just like a lot of international actors and even regional players spend a lot to gain from maintaining the syrian regime both of those things are absolutely true neither of them detracts from the fact. i think we can safely say that the overwhelming majority of syrian demonstrators simply want a free prosperous and liberated syria that being said it's ok i feel like based on that to criticize certain elements of the opposition and to criticize the way the international actors have been involved in syria in no way to deal with it most of the opposition itself. but questions the role that say saudi arabia might play a question for the role that iran or israel or even the united states might play
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well let's listen to the words of let's talk about intervention here yasser how do you feel about an outside intervention and we already have sanctions here which punish the middle class isn't necessarily punish the regime itself but in other issues of agreement and then well i mean that's what a lot of people are saying ok also i mean it is sanctions usually from where i am somebody what my my question is how would you feel about a military intervention intervention are the libyan scenario. look i think the situation in syria is such that you know the entire world has made it clear that they're not ready for any military intervention right now and we syrians have come to recognize and realize very bitterly that if we have to do this . namely toppling the regime and entering an era of freedom a graphics civil police realistic syria we're going to have to do it on our own more or less with the support of her house with of. friends and some some actors
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now i think that we need to start the presumption that once the assad regime leaves you know the area will will will basically spark into chaos i think that there are many many capable minds that that are part of the opposition that are coming together that are drawing him out for the future of syria and that you know that will you know ensure a. syria that is good for the syrian people and that is good for the for the for the region nobody wants to go in the direction of chaos if i can ask you there's a lot of people saying that you know again if i can bring in the saudi angle here is that if you start ethnic sectarian strife between the shia and the in the sunni and this is something that they like to turn on turn our and you can always control it i think we remember the mujahideen from afghanistan. but but if you think that the acid regime going away is going to lead to a syria that's better for the syrian people that depends on who you ask in syria
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it's good enough where you see a lot of the sunni's standing up in supporting the asad regime and that's not you know let's turn out the list turn out the demonstrations like the syrian government is capable of doing these are people that actually believe i talk a lot of people in syria and their biggest fear is that if the us the regime goes it just something they don't want they mostly fear in islamic case were and of course the muslim brotherhood so that's what that's what's driving a lot of a lot of the resistance in syria to the whole of it is the activity. as it was at this stage and we're talking about such a pluralistic opposition that is functioning that is functioning within this umbrella that has been created the is not controlled by any any faction or any party i mean we have to keep you know we have to stop talking about this this this the scarecrow of the muslim brotherhood the scare crow yet it is aimed at was having a lot of escapes i think it's been here i mean i'm not convinced at all that there's democracies on the march in syria ok i mean i think this is absolutely no evidence
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of it at all except there's a lot of violence on both sides with protesters with their arms and they're getting better armed every single day that's how i started out the program as a civil war so so i mean is this thing goes on if i go back to washington i mean how likely are we going to get a jeffersonian democracy in syria. it's not inconceivable i still stand by the fact that yes absolutely the protests have gotten increasingly violent but that's a response of the violence of the regime and there's no question. the syrian people and i think the vast overwhelming majority of the syrian people simply want a free and democratic stable syria. but the steps to get there are complicated steps i think it's possible that syria will reach some kind of happy democratic state but they certainly won't reach a democratic state under the assad regime it will be a long and very painful process to get there but i think the thing that we really need to remember the middle road that we have to that we have to attack here is that the end goal is not a syria without bashar that's the end goal is
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a free and prosperous syria and the elimination of the shuttle as it is a necessary but not sufficient step towards that goal it's important that we maintain certain kind of. watchfulness and pressure on the syrian opposition movement to make sure that they do produce something that's that's conducive to producing a viable strong democracy in the long term and that's not necessarily what's going to come out of these these revolutions right and this comes back to the international intervention question a good regional players don't necessarily have a stake in producing a free and democratic syria and that's problematic that's a very good point if i didn't if i could ask rick here if i could history here why you think that's a very interesting point here. what should the international community be doing because i think there's a lot of frustration. among members of the opposition and certainly the people that are dying in syria what more work should be done should we repeat the libyan scenario i mentioned earlier. well ok here's what should be done what can be done very different things what should be done is some sort of protection regime for the
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civilians in syria and if you want to hasten the overthrow the assad regime which might be in the foreign policy interests of several regional players and as well as well as the united states saudi arabia but what can be done if you know it's syria and libya totally different situations you look the logistics of it the you know the tactical operational scenarios you have to use yes you have a nato country there but i don't i don't think you could exert enough force to create the protection regime you want and also you've got this this fighting spread out all over syria you've got all these pockets you'd have to protect i think militarily it is it is it would be very very difficult and i don't say no to nato stepping up to the plate and if nato doesn't do it i don't see any other combination of countries that will do it i know what should be done but i'm afraid that will be done yes or do you have confidence that the region can resolve this issue here because i think most people would agree with rick is that nato just doesn't have the scum make right now for another adventure in the arab world. while
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i think that the arab league has taken a excellent first step i mean late as it as it may be but it's a very good first step in lifting the political cover off of the syrian regime and i think that the u.n. security council including russia has been waiting for and china has been waiting for that moment now despite the recent you know announcements by the russian foreign minister i believe that the russians are coming to realize that what's taking place in syria is something that they cannot just sit idly and watch and i think that you know if i may say hey you know i mean it's china and russia if you're going to buy security with china and russia i just make it very clear to my viewers that want to see international law of used again like it was in the libyan case sam or if i can go to you do you think you know we went down this path you're going to go in the case of syria before is. is that it was i was a like it was on when the syrian government is even using planes against these protesters some are if i can end a program on with you are you saying
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a lot of what is right in the program we'll use them in the washington trial would you like what would you like to see asian the international community do. again that's not an easy question but obviously we'd like to see the international community help the syrian i'm giving these an easy answer honestly the problem is i'm sorry the problem is that the international community doesn't have the legitimacy right now to interact with interact with the syrian revolutionaries in a way that helps promote democracy i mean you've especially the western world in the u.s. in particular have kind of shattered our legitimacy in the region i mean the arab american institute actually conducted a poll i'm sorry gentlemen we are out of time very interesting discussion i will make all of my guests today in pittsburgh chicago and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the phoenix time and remember crosstalk. to. see.
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