me on twitter at christine for example but i do want to thank you for watching for now have a great night. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok you don't i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. the same issue free credit asian free zones for charges free. range humans the free. free. free. download free volunteers flood video for your media projects for free media to r.t.

dot com. taking. the sofa to. the low end welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle syria's bloodiest day nato has ruled out any military operation against syria though this could change of a 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 the so can. crossed off the complicated case of syria i'm joined by summer i'll be 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 an eyewitness account of iraq's fall from grace and in chicago we. crossly i should have he's a member of the syrian national council all right gentlemen this is crosstalk 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 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 the u.n. security council has been at odds over how it should respond to the uprising despite continued pressure from the here at the end union. the european union will continue to press for strong u.n. action to be increased international pressure and 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 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 in iraq's government are part of the syrian regime hezbollah and lebanon on how in gaza meanwhile the arab league has been pulling no punches it has announced this isn't to suspend syria's membership for failing to meet at 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 syria's 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 saddam regime could also mean weakening 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 this 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 fears of international affairs is that the entire world is making their political calculations up and then left and. you know the only people that are paying the 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 the civil war is. yes i can say with you here i mean how do you how do you counter 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 on peaceful protestors and they're engaging in their in their original mandate and 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 the defense of the fenceless civilians and that's exactly what they do when defenseless civilians and protesters are being attacked brutally by

security forces and by members of the. of course they're going to fire back and of course they're going to have these around so hold that they're still the definition of the tampa nation 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. i think i think the beginnings of the civil war you seem to 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 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 stop to stick around i mean we've got december first ok in washington here who are they who is the opposition taking their orders from do you see it as being indigenous 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 insane to me is it inside that 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 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 they 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 me 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 yes and he is trying to do that now it's trying to develop itself into the salted remember president 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 you which organizations they work with ok has reduced you and 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 it 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 s.n.c. now i think that the fact that. you cannot discern because of a media blackout that is not necessarily mean know that the s.n.c. is not a legitimate representative of the of the of the majority of the of the revolutionary movement on the ground in fact we've seen several manifestations of political partner 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 commission and if they are you going to reconsider really going to use or

a moment how you get out there with the regime if i go to record historically 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 the end regime that is very unpopular with some segments and not all 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 you know the benghazi area was sort of the nucleus of the of the revolution there we what we're seeing in syria is this you know diverse activity from different groups and i think the since he's 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 got a you know a 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 that'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 the uprisings have been much more powerful display an unbelievable amount of repression from the syrian regime and really a torrent violence and a half of the syrian security forces have managed to continue to put 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

a focus 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 it wouldn't necessarily crippling the syrian government as much as we hope that it would and me in fact actually be producing counterproductive outcomes based on how distinction regimes have been living and what you think about yasser because there's so many of these so it's ok. let's go to you and then we'll go to the break go ahead real 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 one nine hundred eighty 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 now to actually break we'll continue our discussion and serious charges

. if you can. a very warm welcome to you this is your news today protesters on the wall street sprint say at. least in chips a good chance to choose says it's a good book except the stats of the human experiments. we've seen this rap music what it goes to the movies allegedly trying to make sense of local economy

and it's all changed things as financial tips to the recent family to maintain a confidence in markets and. wants to be seems way to balance his recession look even the nation's close to collapsing it's like looking closely. at some failed swivel a box again feel like thing is the u.s. crash seven smashed. into. the guts in athens three point six million plus programs increase the total economy. wealthy british style. sometimes violent. market finance come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike's cars are no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause a report on our. can i say. welcome back across the capitol hill to remind you we're talking about the situation in syria. ok yes i would like to go back to you in chicago and try to 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 i did speak caterers are falling left and right and that's actually a good thing historically what is in play in the 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 it's 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 at this point and they're very happy to see that most a 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 the people who 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 very dearly by them getting tortured and killed and. mutilated i mean i think there's plenty of evidence of the reasons of this particular uprising i think for us to. basically how you get on some you know international interest and the saudi government to. take on a life of a syria it takes a lot is it ok if i can go to you what do you think about the international dimension 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 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 this 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 point and you know yasser is right i mean this started 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 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 is syria much more important in libya ties in you've got nato to the north you know with turkey being a member state you've got the israelis to the south lebanon to the north of his ball of course iran sitting over there much to the east ok senator feingold to you and in washington. some of those going to supernews humans how who benefits from all the chaos or regional 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. 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 and 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 that to criticize certain elements of the opposition and to criticize the way the international actors have been involved in syria in a way that really did 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 well let's listen in the works it looks like about the intervention here yasser how do you feel about an outside intervention and we already have sanctions here which would punish the middle class it doesn't necessarily punish the regime itself but it is another right if you show us where agree with it and then well i mean that's what a lot of people are saying ok also i mean it is sanctions usually don't form or can

somehow me what 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 good really that if we have to do this. namely toppling the regime and entering an era of freedom a classic civil police realistic syria are we going to have to do it on our own more or less with the support for the perhaps with of some friends and some some actors now i think that we need to stop the presumption that once the assad regime leaves you know the area will will basically starke into chaos and 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 that can start ethnic and sectarian strife between the shia and the in the sunni and this is something that they like to turn on turn our and she had always control and i think we remember the mujahideen from afghanistan. but but if you think that the regime going the way is going to lead to syria that's better for the syrian people that depends on who you ask in syria it's good enough for you see a lot of the sudanese standing up in supporting the us the regime that's just 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's just something they don't want they mostly fear in islamic cases 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 this every day i mean it is very easy there's a loss of the state 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 of any party i mean we have to keep you know we have to stop talking about this this this is the scarecrow of the muslim brotherhood this care it is aimed it was hammered out of this case i think it is not 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 think this absolutely no evidence of it at all except there's a lot of violence on both sides with protestors 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 some i mean is this thing goes on and 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 was no question. the syrian people and i think the vast overwhelming majority of the syrian people simply want a free and democratic stable syria. put 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 bush other. goal 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 maintain certain kind of. watchfulness and pressure on the syrian opposition movement to make sure that they do produce something 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 a good regional players don't necessarily have a stake in producing a free and democratic syria and that's problematic it's a very good point if i can if i could ask rick here if i can ask you why the that's a very interesting point here because i can tell you 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 should be repeat the libyan scenario as i mentioned earlier. well ok here's what should be done what can be done to 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 the assad regime which might be in the foreign policy interest of several regional players and as well as well as the united states saudi arabia but what can be done you know it's syria and libya totally different situations. 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 have to protect i think militarily it is it is it would be very very difficult and i don't see noted 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 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 stomach right now for another adventure in the arab world. while i think that the arab league has taken a look 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 china has been waiting for that moment now the spikes 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 what they say hey you know i mean it's china and russia you don't want to buy security with china and russia this make it very clear to my viewers don't want to see international law abused 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. is that. this is a like a no fly zone when the syrian government is even using planes against these protesters some are if i can end the program on with you are you. going to end the program will you say i mean the washington for i always 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

you these of these you see the problem is i'm sorry the problem is that the international community doesn't have the legitimacy right now to interact with. the syrian revolutionaries in a way that helps promote democracy i mean we've especially the western world in the us 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 running out of time very interesting discussion i want to meet 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.

download the official allocation and show i phone oh i pod touch from the i.q. stops to. lunch and see life on the go. video on demand copies mind bold colors and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the call. if. it

is easy to. see.