and. to cross out the future of syria i'm joined by james carafano in washington he is the director of the heritage foundation's allison center for foreign policy studies in amsterdam we have nick autons he is editor of the atlantic sentinel and a special correspondent for the soul times and in los angeles we have james morris he's a political analyst commentator and editor of america hijacked dot com all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want jim and i to go to you first it seems like western powers have an agenda here they want to get rid of assad but they want to stop the killing as well aren't they mutually contradictory well this is a common problem we've seen this over and over again around the world we've seen it in libya this recently but you have to remember that we had a similar situation in liberia we've had a longstanding problem in the sudan so in a sense it's not

a new problem i'm not really sure if the world is divided i think generally people agree that the syrian government has been excessive in its use of force and constructive so i do think in a sense there is yet unanimity and the people think what this government is doing is wrong ok what do you think about that james in los angeles here because we have kind of a new situation right now the u.n. security council didn't vote for the any kind of intervention the removal of assad is a precondition to move forward here so we kind of have a deadlock obviously i mean what what's the next move here because we're going to get a coalition of the willing that will just go its own way like the west dating led by the united states into iraq. well peter thank you for having me on crosstalk what you have here in the middle east basically is an ongoing situation where we're fighting wars for israel and you have a divide and conquer that gender that goes back to the israeli look could make loaded you know on paper readied written

a strategy for israel in the one nine hundred eighty s. and that's what these neo conservatives are following my good friend dr stephen snow gossipy haddad's as written about this in a book his book titled the transparent cobol and what we have are these neo conservatives which are the vanguard of the pro israel lobby in washington and they've started with the rock and they wanted to basically divide and conquer israel's enemies they base that iraq conflict an invasion on the clean break agenda gins of the jewish institute for national security affairs which colin powell had mentioned was in control of the pentagon if you look at the washington post editor karen de young biographical book about him you can look up jones in the index people like richard perle who are associated with. douglas feith david wurmser and they all pushed for this invasion to secure the room for israel and it was based on the couldn't it go to you know and divide and conquer and i would say this is jason jason really well but can you answer my question do you think that now if we look at the the not the libyan president but the iraq president that the united states

and its allies in nato may try going it alone having a coalition of the willing and just bypassing the united nations because there won't be a u.n. resolution supporting any kind of intervention. well what i think will happen here peters you're going to have basically joe lieberman who's also part of the pros will lobby apac american israel public affairs committee and similar and also senator john mccain has been a neo con hawk as well basically a mouthpiece for the neoconservatives i think the next step will be open arming you know we have we've had arming of the rebels covertly coming in from turkey a former cia field officer and friend of mine philip rowley is written about that i think you're going to basically see a call now for the rebels to be armed in syria and they going to try to engage the syrian regime or the endgame of this for the neoconservatives in the rest of the pros are a lot b. is a take down that syrian regime before we go to war with iran for israel ok that's in the autumn why ok now and so i literally have to settle it with i don't know for so you know i want to go to nic in amsterdam here i mean it i find it very

interesting is that i don't think i'll agree with jim and washington d.c. i don't think there's any love lost for this regime in damascus here but i think there are some countries important country in the world they're worried about what's going to happen afterward just because assad leaves let's say a parent that equally it doesn't mean it's the violence is going to necessarily stop it actually could get worse yes actually i think everyone worries about what happens next in syria and which is why the russians and the chinese in particular they don't want to see the regime gone necessarily but to answer your question. i don't think that the united states and western powers nor israel particularly want to intervene in syria exactly because they fear. what comes next we have a very clear understanding of what's happening on the ground. in all this because the syrian regime limits international media entrance into syria. i don't think we know what we're getting ourselves into. if we repeat. the libya scenario it's very

interesting you mention that jim if i can go back to you in washington it seems to me that we could have the possibility of a partition of syria well because i think a lot of people seem to forget that seventy percent of the country is sunni and the alawite with in damascus supporting the current regime i mean there is no love lost between them either could you potentially see a partition there like this and they're selling necessarily mean it's good for anybody in the region or israel or any other country in the neighbors syria. well i think i think those are all very good concerns and questions actually if you go back and look at iraq and say two thousand and five and two thousand and six and he and the problems that you saw come to the surface what happens when you take away a government which really doesn't provide much governance other than oppressing its own people we have deep sectarian divides we have all kinds of other divides we have a democrat sions when you have access from transnational terrorist groups well when you take that away you get iraq and in two thousand and five the two thousand and

six syria would essentially be iraq in a very small place it would be a very very difficult and problematic situation and i think that's why. people talk about this but i don't think anybody has a real appetite to go in there i must tell you i think from the u.s. perspective although the u.s. has interests in how things turn out in syria i don't believe you should only use force when it's in your vital national interest and i don't think that the u.s. has a vital national interest that would that would justify a u.s. and a u.s. military intervention we have. there are four countries that border this country which are very important. iraq israel and turkey we have very good relations with three of those countries turkey iraq and israel they have very vested interests in a solution that doesn't make that part of the world worse i think primarily what u.s. policy be doing is working with those three countries working on getting them on

a common agenda and doing what is best possible for the region and for the people of syria but i think this discussion about a direct military intervention by a coalition of the willing is premature and and again very likely to lead to a really really difficult situation that make things look like somalia and other countries are just bad and i just remind people you know the closest we've had to this is bosnia and if you remember about the one thing about the european intervention in bosnia the europeans went in basically after the killing stopped. i mean after the worst genocide was over after the sides had had split off and after everybody was exhausted then they went in and going in on the front ends a very difficult and very different scenario very interesting james i got to you in los angeles it already appears that the the united states and its allies in one degree or another in some of these countries are more directly involved have chosen the what's called the opposition there are a mixed group of people here whose agenda is not particularly clear and if i may

have said that assad has to go it's ratcheting things up you can't turn around and say now all he can stay ok i mean do you think this is one of the fundamental mistakes had been made in dealing with syria because they they start from the wish the most important thing they want and then they work down instead of the other way around and jim pointed out and in washington very good point you know this is the bosnian situation in reverse yeah but you also have to look at peter what's happening we obviously had a we have a genuine situation in syria we do have ethnic strife i mean you've got the alawite it's in control of scholl assad and you've got the sunni with the muslim brotherhood and then you've obviously got christians and whatnot and there are sectarian groups there that actually you know nobody believes in dictatorship i certainly don't i'd like to see democracy there as well but there are many sects there are at least several six there that are comfortable with the status quo and there they feel very strengthened if that regime is overthrown but let me draw you to a web site the passion of attachment dot com and there's

a post there at the top and it's titled the israel lobby is role in pushing for regime change in syria i think it's very important and you can also go to the web site that many of my c.-span and similar calls appear neo-cons on a stretch dot com it's very important to de-stress who's pushing this who's encouraging i'm not saying who started it from the beginning what not or per se but who's encouraging this and again it's the pro israel lobby in america through its components such as you know the ned the national endowment for democracy you've got a former a.d.l. researcher there karl. gershman who's intro that again go to that post israel lobby's role in pushing for regime change in syria let's look at the title that it's not about dot com let's talk about israel nick do you do you see that the israelis have a huge interest in seeing the assad regime go down because i i find that a bit dubious i mean they preferred that to deal with the devils that they know ok they liked working with the they like you like would i mean let me finish a question they liked working with a mubarak in egypt because he was he was the devil that they knew go ahead nick

what do you think absolutely and look at the situation in egypt now the israelis absolutely not they're happy about this they don't know what's going to happen they don't know if israel is egypt below its base to to hit israel and they were afraid and for good reason that is assad goes in syria and there is a sunni dominated government that is really more aggressive toward israel and will probably continue to support hamas in the palestinian territories so so i don't buy this argument that the israeli lobby in the united states is pushing for regime change in damascus what do you think about that joel nick nick you are right james go. ahead and you've got to look at the nick you've got to look at and you've got to look in the james bamford's a pretext for war book then and what he talks about with the clean break agenda that was our co-author eyes by three a leading sponsor of the of the of the iraq intervention richard perle douglas feith and david wurmser i'm not saying everybody

bill in israel believes this i'm talking about look could mix that are following this you know and strategy like i said it was it was time of the strategy for israel in the one nine hundred eighty s. and that's what these neoconservative warmongers are pushing now i agree with peter it's not necessarily a favorable situation if utah if you topple assad because you could get the muslim brothers or the gentle hand here we're going to we're all going to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the unrest in syria stay with r.t. . if you. want. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

but i'm defining it as a struggle for phobia australia and the new zealand no we're going to see the film on screen if you want to have sex go and have sex. resistance is not politics but a culture. is

could. all its own. cultures of resistance on the part seen. an issue free credit a should free transport charges free from a judgment free. free. free. download free broadcast live video for your media projects a free media party dot com you. can.

come across people about remind you we're talking about the unrest in syria. and you can. start. to go back to jim in the wall in washington d.c. with the failed u.n. security council resolution jim what do you think the possibility is now on am very hypothetical again that we can we will see some kind of settlement on the ground instead of outside elements playing a role i mean does this give an impetus now i know the violence is horrific there but does it give it an impetus impetus to have the parties sit down somehow the russians are trying to mediate and we can see where that will go you know if there isn't hopefully i don't like to see an international solution with the use of force but is it telling the syrians that you have to start drawing lines and you have to start talking because every conflict is resolved with negotiations eventually. well i will make a prediction and i do think in this situation what's going to drive internal events

within syria as opposed to the extra pressure syria is not libya because it was kind of the end of the world nobody really cared about his regime he was very isolated syria's very different syrias very good ties with syria they have good ties with iran they have access to the rest of the world so they're not completely isolated regime they can hang on i mean they they've proven determination hang on last time an uprising like this of ten thousand people were killed we i think estimates are about half that now so you know the regime may just hang on and crush everything else the regime may collapse and made of all that is so war but my guess is it's the internal events inside the country that are going to drive the future and the decision that the regime makes and the opposition makes and of course that's very complicated because that's a dynamic relationship neither one of them is and an actor but they're going to

determine the future of this country much more than the rest of us are standing in the sidelines that's why i really think with what the rest of us are standing on the sidelines with the united states and other countries should be doing is you know we can work to ensure the stability of the region and to deal with this crisis with every direction it goes rather than delude ourselves in that somehow we're going to tell the syrians what their future is going to look like a week or a month from now we are it was already mentioned at the beginning of this part of the program is iran and my suspicions are it's less about israel because i think israel actually is very worried because it's very confused about what's going on with the arab spring in general in the region because it's not as black as black and white as it used to be but iran is an issue here and we hear a lot of saber rattling right now in so let's look at the issue of syria and iran because there's a lot of countries in the world including the united states would love to see the iranians punished somehow one way or another you know take down has been you mentioned to maslow ready i mean it's really has nothing to do about the poor people of syria or democracy it's

a geo political play to go after to turn around and turn on would be you know i met loser if the regime in the mountain massacres did fall. well it's both exactly which part of the reason why the united states would like to see assad go because then iran looses its only regional ally and it further isolates you are allowing the united states and israel to put more pressure on it to stop its nuclear weapons program suspected nuclear weapons program so there is a clear strategic interests go ahead jump in i just want to jump in i do think there any ans are greatly concerned here i think one of the problems at the top of their concern is if the syrian regime falls that in a sense the arab spring will blow back into iran again in the sea and take in there in the opposition our own country so i think they're not just for the strategic reasons that they want syria to stay because it's their pipeline and lawson has once important regional ally but i think it also has domestic implications for them that they're really concerned about what you think about that james i mean what how

does the rand play into all of this here because again i look at western mainstream media and they're just doing this typical colored revolution element here which we we all have to be honest with ourselves we don't really know what's much of what's going on on the ground because western media all media as far as i can tell all been banned from the country so all these numbers coming about casualties are guesstimates as far as i'm concerned. well that's a very valid point peter i mean the endgame here is iran i mean the neoconservatives in the us the pro israel lobby want to take down the ronnie regime because it supports the enemies of israel and hezbollah and lebanon and hamas and that's what this is all about that's what iraq was all about iraq wasn't about oil how much oil are we getting out of iraq it's negligible i mean it's nothing how many a lot with oil company merican oil companies there was about taking down saddam hussein because he supported the enemies of israel and with regard to the palestinian resistance there so with iran that's what then game is for this agenda like i said

i'm not saying that elements of the pros are a lobby started that revolution or uprising in syria but i think the numbers have been inflated i think i saw an artsy piece about that about it about reporting entity and they've been exaggerated in western media and like i said then game is iran you can read my friend's book the transparent cabal dr steven seagal ski and that is what we're we're working towards they want to take down the neocon service and wrestle pros are a lot we want to take down the. main arab ally and that's syria and it all goes back to nine hundred sixty seven peter and israel's deliberate attack on the u.s.s. liberty of a good friend former republican congressman paul finley and he told me when israel got away with murdering american marines and sailors on the u.s.s. liberty on june eighth one hundred sixty seven he wrote the excellent book they dare to speak out about the pro israel lobby influence in america he said once israel realizes get away with murdering american sailors and marines and people like john mccain and others in his admiral father covered it up for lyndon johnson

they could get away with anything and that's what we're dealing with here you've got politicians in america the put the interests of israel first and they don't put the best interests of america first you have neoconservative think tanks like the heritage foundation american enterprise institute they're all pushing war for israel against iran and syria well and recently right as we go to jim jim is from the heritage foundation go right ahead would you like to defend yourself or a comment i mean are you supporting me you could well. i mean you can go to heritage dot org we have a piece on our website it's we think the u.s. military intervention in syria is not a good idea so i think it speaks to jim let me stay with you here what you also know ok let me let me stay with him here jim what is the what is the future now you think of the humanitarian interventions right now because. russia and china particularly russia has been very much criticized in western governments and and western media for its veto and the russians are standing by it was listen to what russia's ambassador to the u.n. but how he had to say about that. our effort was directed at ending the bloodshed

those who are accusing us have been trying to fan civil war and conflict in syria so you know i don't want to want to make them in using this kind of hysterical language but we should have a. call that track record in dealing with the situation of syria supporting opposition sometimes with arms with their goals of forty's even change so. history will show i think. russia has been doing everything we can and continues to do everything we can. ok jim so what do you think about that i mean what my point is here is that you know these humanitarian interventions which i think is an oxymoron in a way because so much violence is used but i mean you know it was libya. being what we looking at libya as a president we can do it in other places and let's be fair and places that are that to the west would like to target their and their co called enemies of the west and

all that friends of the west they're never going to be targeted that way even though their human rights records could be deplorable or eccentric cetera i mean and i think you know the right to protect is a very good case russia did that with south to settle we can disagree on that but that's how russia looks at a valid form of the right protect the south with thousands were defenseless they were not fighting anyone and now we have a people that are in very dire straits i believe but the whole idea of an a humanitarian intervention has been short circuited because the some western countries took advantage of the libyan case. well i do believe that humanitarian operations are really no different than any other kind of foreign policy decision and it's never simple go to the rule book and it tells you exactly what to do you have to weigh the merits of all the situations your own capability what's the right thing to do what can you actually bring a situation i actually think the right to protect is a pretty bad he was an empty dr and that can be used for going after your enemies

and can be used actually to prevent people from doing legitimate humanitarian operations so i would just put it aside it's going to go to the ash heap of history we're going to take each one of these cases on their own merit i mean i would say in the case of russia russia does have a longstanding relationship with syria and this regime they i think they they have special access and i do think they have special obligations to make every possible effort to do what they can and i think they are. well as it looks i don't grudge you're going the extra mile in trying to get the sides to talk to each other each other in moscow another venue i mean the ambassador was very emphatic about all of that i mean the the behave the reaction from western politicians and diplomats i think was hyperbole i mean the amount of violence that to the u.s. is committed against the people in the greater middle east in the last twenty years particularly you know it's you know you get to the point of hypocrisy here make a fine go to you what do you think about the future of these humanitarian interventions i mean we had a dead end right now because or we do see western powers or

a coalition of the willing as i keep saying they will end up doing it because the u.n. security council is not going to back it up anymore. we'll see a coalition of the willing as you put it the best thing for the united states to do now is support the support to support saudi arabia in whatever they can do to help the opposition to go back to a point about this responsibility to protect doctrine i think and the situation in syria now shows that strategic interest always trump humanitarian missions. the western world may want to help the syrian people on the sleeve but. it would be a huge mistake to antagonize china and russia now by crossing them and intervening in syria despite their feet oh. i don't think that any humanitarian concern in the west will be big enough to actually prompt governments ok james james in and i'm

going to give you the last word even dissolve and you think we'll be doing a program on syria a month from now. you know i think it's going to end with us arming people like john mccain he's been a neo con neocon sort of matthews for years now putting israel's israel interests ahead of america i think you'll see him and joe lieberman and others pressure of to arm the rebels in syria i think alaska late from there perhaps you'll see civil war and you'll see these a liberal human you know minute i mean intervention run out of time thank you much for a very very interested question it looks like it's going to be a terrible ending no matter how you cut it many thanks to my guest today in washington amsterdam and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at d.c. an extra remember stuff will. soon .

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

the top stories and i'll see you on arab league london join forces to end the bloodshed in syria as critics claim disinformation of the number of deaths is being used to cloud a problem the standing of the station. eurozone ministers postpone a decision on a second financial bailout package for greek there's the spine of the coalition athens closing a last minute deal on reforms understandably matches. up to the president hamid karzai lashes out at age children are killed in a nation try to go on from but i'm trying to level at the dead and see a picture of an incident that startled him. and up next a cool story washington to take a look at where business and politics meet in the capital account with lauren that stuff you're watching on c.

good afternoon and welcome to capital account i'm born lister here in washington d.c. here are your headlines for thursday february ninth italian prime minister technocrat mario monti has been in washington meeting with barack obama today meanwhile greek leaders scraped together a deal on austerity but they may face the same problem arguing about this again three months from now fractures in the e.u. continue to appear as leaders try to keep it together but does any of this matter or does the likelihood of a european disintegration have to do with something else entirely will explain and is the same thing that moves markets moves women ten lines is the same thing driving the dow what drives hollywood producers to make movies like this. through.