but i'm not seeing hardly any birds squirrels you know. darts here i don't know what's going on here. concrete monarchy. says r.t. from moscow no top stories tonight flashback to iraq the same experts that played baghdad had weapons of mass destruction and now with all things a suggestion is that iran is developing a nuclear bomb that says western media names the so-called nuclear scientists mentioned in. the answer regime free syrian army reportedly stages a major assault on a loyalist base near the capital damascus but says the arab league ratchets up the pressure on president assad despite his pledge to reform. targeting the syrian regime instead of steering the warring factions toward dialogue only to provoke more violent. passout but not down

a string of victims around the call for occupy protesters by police across the u.s. sales to stop a movement from gearing up to shut down all street. kevin i would want use for me in half an hour next the crosstalk which this time takes an in-depth look at the future of syria. you can live. the lives that you think you can. live the olympic welcoming cross-talk i'm peter lavelle syria's bloodiest day nato has ruled out any military operation against syria though this could change the tense 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 geo political dynamics change. it can live

live. to 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 allied to adversity and eye witness account of iraq's fall from grace and in chicago we cross the acetate he's a member of the syrian national council all right gentlemen this is cross talk you can jump in anytime you want but first marcia serious experience this bloodiest day yes and it's been exactly eight months since it all started at the u.n. says more than thirty five hundred people have been killed with thousands more injured yet there seems to be no plan to take military action to protect civilians and despite outside pressure to end the crackdown there's been no letup in violence this 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 a strong un actions we increase international pressure and all members of the

security council 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 like libya is part of an alliance and that by it's very wide it begins in iran. iraq's government are part of the syrian regime has won on lebanon on how. meanwhile the arab league has been pulling no punches and has announced a decision to suspend syria's membership for failing to meet the 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 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 u.n. 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 mainly to avoid provoking iran but because syria is much the strategically important to iran toppling the regime could also mean we can mean these lawmakers public itself so the stakes are high both sides of the fence ok first of all i think go to yasser in chicago i mean considering we just heard in march his report here and the news it has come out as we sit down to do just program syria's experienced its 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 fears of international affairs is that the entire world

is making their political calculations up and. you know the only people that are paying the price with their blood 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 the civil war. 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 or members of its security forces are being killed as well i mean these people there are some people would least there are there are arms in getting better armed every single passing day hence my comment civil war. there's something called the free syrian army and those are all noble 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 people to defend defend defend the fenceless of millions and that's exactly what they do when defenseless civilians and protesters are being attacked brutally by security forces and by members of the sudden militias of course they're going to fire back and of course they're going to be out of these around the cycle that they're still going to have an issue that's a definition 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 going on what's going on there right now. well i think i think you saw the beginnings of the civil war you see the breakdown 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. 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 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 are 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 stop a cigar i mean we got a summer first ok in washington here who is being who is the opposition taking their orders from do you see it as being in vision is we have this committee outside that made in istanbul i think yasser you're a member of the council i mean who's 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 or a 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 has some degree of legitimacy in syria they have some ability to draw support to draw demonstrators and that 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 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 cost us 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 saw legitimacy representative 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 because of the which organizations they work with ok has reduced you in your organization speak for the syrian people. the syrian national council has been in combination 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 or 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 seat and i think that the fact that you cannot discern because of a media blackout that is not necessarily mean that the s.n.c. is not a legitimate representative of the of the of the majority of the revolutionary 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 weeks that have gone in staunch opposition to the to the coordination. if ever you're going to really have a good regular season or a moment how you get out there with the regime if i go to rick in pittsburgh what is the opposition for me 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 and 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 unit 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 revolutionary we what we're seeing in syria is this you know diverse activity

from different groups and i think the sense he's trying to you know to organize that into a cohesive thing and 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 asa regime but i don't know if they've got a you know a single goal that they're going to ok so what do you think is i mean it's sort of the assad regime is it is it's days 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. i mean i think it's a question of 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 the uprisings have been much more powerful despite unbelievable amount of repression from the syrian regime and really really

of or at violence behalf of the syrian security forces have managed to continue to put pressure on the syrian regime but it's actually stay 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 be crippling the syrian government as much as we hope that it were only in fact actually producing counterproductive outcomes based on how the sanctions regime and looking at what you think about that yasser because there's so many of these so it's ok we let's go buddy 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 has and you know the son no different than the father has shown absolutely no reason to jump in here we go to a short break and now to actually break we'll continue our discussion on syria state guard. if you can. the i. just saw.

a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the. street they have. the chance to get legal status of the huge experiment gifts. business rap music in which it snows gibbs libby trial in the sense of the company and its on changelings us financial table the reason is to maintain our confidence

in markets and. wants to be seen trade imbalances recession look to the nations close to collapsing of supply close close close. to fail switchblade the game feel like there's us crash and imminent smashed ceiling is close to the decision in st the same just programs increase the total economy. and. see. welcome back across beautiful to remind you we're talking about the situation in syria. ok yes or not to go back to you in chicago and kind of spread this out

a little bit we talked 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 of 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 is syria just a pawn. you know i tend to stay away from these conspiracy theories and i'm not talking about conspiracy theories is plenty of evidence out there that saudi arabia is just overwhelmed to see iran's greatest ally in the region take a bloody nose at least to this point and they're very happy to see they mostly conduit to hezbollah are. cut so that's not a conspiracy theory that's real that's very real there's there's there's plenty of evidence that people started this revolution on the grounds are are it all started

in spark with bunch of kids from the city of their are who basically were writing graffiti and as a result they paid very dearly by them getting tortured and killed and mutilated i mean i think there is plenty of evidence to the reasons of this particular uprising i think for us to. basically get some you know international interest and the saudi government of a plan to take on a life of its and syria this is people ok if i can go to you what do you think about the international dimension i mean you know this 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 middle of all of this. you know syria i mean i think this is 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 remove 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 darrell 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 this 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 with his ball and of course iran sitting over there much of the east ok sam if i go to you in washington and. some of the i was going to supernews came in how who benefits from all the chaos you don't riginal 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 stand a lot to gain from maintaining the syrian regime both of those things are absolutely true neither of them detracts from the fact that. 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 the to criticize certain elements of the opposition and criticize the way the international actors have been involved in syria in no way that you would in most of the opposition itself. but questions the role that say saudi arabia might play questions the role that iran or israel or even the united states might play well let's listen to the words and let's talk about the intervention here yasser how do you feel about an outside intervention and we already have sanctions here which will punish the middle class it doesn't necessarily punish the the regime itself

but in other issues. well i mean that's what a lot of people are saying ok also i mean sanctions usually go on for more attempts on me where my my question is how would you feel about the military and for 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 three in a free democratic civil police realistic syria we're going to have to do it on our own more or less with the support perhaps with of some friends and some actors now i think that we need to stop 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 you know that will you know ensure a you know 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. in a sectarian strife between the shia and the in the sunni and this is something that they like to turn on turn off but you can't always control it i think we remember the mujahideen from afghanistan. but but if you think that the ousted 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 that's good enough for you see a lot of the sudanese standing up and supporting the us the 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 asad regime goes it just something they don't want they mostly fear in islamic case they're going 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 it is a very is he doesn't want us to stay and we're talking about such a pluralistic opposition that is functioning that is functioning within this umbrella 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 is the scare crow of the muslim brotherhood this care you have it is aimed at was having a lot of escapes i think it is you didn't hear i mean i'm not convinced at all that there's democracies on the march in syria ok i mean i've just absolutely no evidence of it at all except there's a lot of violence on both sides with protesters with open arms and they're getting better armed every single day that's how i started out the program as a civil war so some 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 to the violence of the regime almost no question. the syrian people and i think the vast overwhelming majority of the syrian people simply live in 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 their democratic state under the assad regime but 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 bush other the third is 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 mean tain 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 revolutions right and this comes back to the international intervention question of a 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 ask you why there's a that's a very interesting point here because i do try to 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 want more what should be done to be repeat the libyan scenario as 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 civilians in syria and if you want to hasten the overthrow of 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 at the logistics of it the you know the tactical operational scenarios you'd 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 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 see no 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 won't be done yes or do you have confidence in the region you can resolve this issue here because i think most people would agree with rick is that nato just doesn't have the stomach right now for another adventure in the arab world. while i think that the arab league has taken a first step i mean late as a that 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 the spites 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 to you know i mean it's russia if you want to buy security with china and russia i just make it very clear to my viewers don't 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 we went down this path you're going to go in the case of syria before is. it was you know she was alive and 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're seeing a lot of i guess right in the process will you say i mean 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 give you these an easy answer also see 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 we've especially the western world and 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're out of time to be very interesting discussion on the brink all of my guests today in pittsburgh chicago and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the scenic site and remember prostate. cancer.