gather a brush out the syrian crisis there are fears their humanitarian motives may be a cover for other western led military intervention. washington's intelligence services reportedly concluded iran is not building a nuclear weapon but america's main news outlets refused to drop the entire audience scaremongering. had less than a fortnight before russians choose a new president the front runner is facing a flood the streets of london we explain why. coming join people of l. and guess as we discuss what the future holds for yemen cross-talk next. if you're. still. below and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle meet the new boss same as the old boss this could very well describe what has happened in yemen after an uncontested presidential election what does the future hold for the people of this very poor

and divided country and will the u.s. continue with so-called war on terror within yemen that only appears to strengthen al qaeda. and. to cross-talk the presidential election in yemen i'm joined by steven soonest in san francisco he's a professor of politics and international studies at the university of san francisco and in nairobi we have sudarsan raghavan he is the washington post african bureau chief all right gentlemen crossed micros in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want stephen you got up early as for this program so i'm going to go to you first are you impressed with the election result the u.s. state department seems to be very happy saudi arabia seems to be very happy western media seems to say this is a good election even though there was only one candidate and one more question will anything change in yemen. well it's hard to call a truly democratic election when there is only one candidate but appears it could

at least have some semblance of closure to his rule and give civil society an opportunity to be able to press forward for real changes i don't trust the new president himself to make those changes he was a right hand man of for many many years the same people in the military who are responsible for the massacres of civilians many of whom are sollars relatives are still there so there's obviously a lot more struggle to struggle to happen but. with this. gone formally finally it might. pay the way we do you believe now that the changes you need to be made do you believe that sol is really really gone. i think he's going to try to have continued influence but it's going to be much harder when he's on the other side of the world. question is whether the divide in society which

nevertheless showed an impressive four to it against a severe repression will be able to to press forward and continue to advance because if the people don't the man that obviously the old guard is going to try to hold onto it is going to try to resist change ok not move forward at all ok if we go to nairobi it let's take a look at the players that are still there i mean we're ok sol is gone but i'm most everybody else is the same i mean stephen brings up a very good point here we have a divided army we have divided tribal chiefs we have secession movement and we have young people that i think we can throw under the rubric of the arab spring still clamoring for. issues and initiatives that they've been fighting for dying for for quite a few months right now so it's even though there's been a quote unquote successful election things are still in flux. definitely definitely i mean for all of you just pointed out but you know one thing what's really unclear now is whether sol is actually gone i mean i was just there in yemen last week and

his loyalists are convinced that he is going to come back at least for the succession to hand over formally hand over power to the vice president hadi who is now the president and you know is still going to remain the head of the ruling party and hadi in effect is still his deputy so it's a huge question what kind of influence saleh is going to have many of the special youth activists in the square i've actually heard this from numerous of the activists and they are saying it's a situation quite like russia actually where you have. putin basically still influence even though he after you know he stepped down from power and he still remained quite influential in prayer and you know he's been minister of russia and he has an enormous amount of power and as much power as the president wants to give him i don't think it's a very good analogy but maybe we can come back and talk about that when he was reelected in a week's time stephen if i could go back to you it's quite interesting here is that

you know. he comes back it's very interesting he's really called the shots here hasn't he i mean with the gulf cooperation council he's pretty much negotiated his semi exit ok and he's going to be possibly be negotiating a semi return behind the scenes i don't think vladimir putin analogy is good i think paying is probably a lot closer to the mark yes i think the irony is you had saudi arabia and these other autocracies. taking the leadership. supposed to transition to democracy and. then obviously sol is the guy who seems to. know the. house guest that never seems to want to leave but. the there. is but it's because clear that the society is sick and tired of it. they don't want to return and in fact if you try to return it could

rekindle the street protests and ironically revitalize the movement trying to create greater change because what's so remarkable is that despite being so so divided that you were able to get millions of people on the streets despite having probably more guns per capita than virtually any country in the world the demonstrations were. overwhelmingly nonviolent that we have if you believe we have the yemeni people a force that is ultimately more powerful. whatever saul and his henchmen can muster ok so then to send him back in nairobi well what about what's the condition of the yemen the many arab spring i mean again you know we have all these young people that came out and i looked very closely there they were very dissatisfied with this quote unquote transition of power and we again as i pointed out earlier is that we have the same figures in the military in the government in the police forces

eccentric cetera i mean what's the next step for them ok sol is gone ok mubarak is gone but now he's gone i mean what i'm trying to draw an analogy here i mean you can get rid of the head but getting rid of the changing the genetic code of the body is a lot harder. stress again that you know it's still very unclear sali is gone i mean he's come back to you know when he went to saudi arabia last year he did return and there and he's a very he's a man filled with immense pride and i thought i find it quite hard to believe that he's going to remain in exile for the rest of his life i think you know most people i spoke to in yemen do believe in a comeback at some point but going to the youth activists you have to you know it's gotten much more complex than what the media's been portraying it to be i mean there's actually quite a number of divisions amongst the youth you have youth who are aligned significant the opposition and especially the islamic party as well as the the who. or in the square you also have a independent youth activists who are who are the ones who actually secure the revolution but the ones who are politically aligned are much bigger than the ones

and then independent ones and there's a great deal of frustration in the square they do feel let down not only by the international community the us as well as the traditional political opposition but at the same time the demonstrations happened getting smaller the political parties who are who are now share power in the government are not allowing their youth activists to enter the demonstrations and so you have seen a significant decline in the size which which which brings down the pressure a bit for change in yemen you know you steven i mean let's go back to this you know this lack of musical chairs because i mean one person has left the table at least officially i mean even with his relative silence relatives right there i mean how do you get how is the new president going to move them or move them around or unite them is he can he unite them i mean as you pointed out in the very start of his program this is just a legacy of the solow regime this individual has become president. very much so but we've seen other cases where you have had. vice presidents or other

people from the establishment come in and and generally trying to take on reforms the question is whether he's going to who he who is he going to make alliances with obviously he can try to make alliances with the old guard salis people at the same time he could also you know try to make alliances with opposition figures both in terms of the established political movements but also you know with the people on the street you also the phenomenon that the visions within the party you have. a course is divided especially the youth wing tends to be more leaning towards the street opposition is and this was self of course has played this kind of contradictory role. especially being an opposition party at the same time very much in bed with it was solid for quite

a number of years as well so it's a very elaborate young constellation of forces here and i. think that the new president will probably just be see see which way the wind blows and try to cast his lot to whomever and with whomever he believes like and maintain his power not necessarily solid but unless there is more pressure from the more likely scenario you know sudarsan in nairobi salo if officially with this deal that he more or less dictated the terms for got immunity ok now holly socketed going to how is that going down among the yemeni because i mean there a lot of people have been killed and it was in solid they pulled the trigger personally it was his cronies they did this i mean how is this unity issue going down because the people that have committed these atrocities are still in power and still have a gun in their hand. the. most people are of course against

the immunity for solly and his family it's not just his family it's also those who've worked with him so there is a great deal of concern on the streets but the same time what we're seeing now is that the the the the street itself i mean did just don't have a voice youth active do not have a voice in this new government it's being it's being driven by an older generation who have the greatest say now the opposition as well as the ruling party at least for the next two years they're going to be in full control the youth are not as organized as they would like to be and you have to understand it has a saying earlier there's the youth themselves are divided there are a good number of youth i've heard as much as forty to fifty percent of the youth activists in the chain square the nexus of the yemeni revolution do are affiliated with islam and other political parties who are now in power so they have less incentive to go out in the streets in fact i was quite surprised last week when almost every. youth act as i spoke to in the square was in favor of the elections

they were actually urging people to go out and vote to give hadi a sense of legitimacy and to and to close this final chapter on sollie they're actually out there and just three months ago they were the same people who were rejecting the elections rejecting the gulf initiative that allowed solid to have immunity so things are much more ambiguous now as we go forward and i think the the script that we've that we've heard for so long over the past year is altering is being changed day by day all right let me jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the future of yemen after the election state.

i. play. the tax cut. cut.

cut. cut cut cut. cut. cut cut. welcome back across tough times you know all about you were talking about the fate of yemen. and. ok stephen you want to reply what we just heard about domestic affairs in yemen after the election go right ahead and then i'd like to talk about al qaeda go ahead steve. well certainly there has been

a client in the street protests because rightly or wrongly there many of the. activists who are affiliated with the political parties have decided tactically to support this transition in the hopes of bringing things forward however if things do not move forward which i suspect is a more likely scenario i don't doubt that many of these people would be back on the streets especially if solid tries to return because the government's power is limited to how many people respect its legitimacy so even if you do have the established political order centering around the new president if there is not real change i think you're going to see a return to the massive demonstrations massive non-cooperation from from below because the past year has demonstrated that the yemeni people want real change and i don't think there's a transition at the top with the same the same old guard is going to satisfy them very long ok so it doesn't and i wrote in

a clock until i was going to i just like to say if we the new president prioritize his most important issues tasks right now ok because i mean we could spend hours on this program talking about the problems of yemen it's one of the most difficult countries in the world right now the new president to bring the country together to unify the country what's his top priority. in my opinion and what i've heard on the streets there is the main part is unifying the army ok i mean he's got a he's got to deal with bringing dealing with the fact that you do have a son and nephews in charge of key powerful positions in the military and security forces but the same time you have a general. who is who was once a key ally who is now defected to last year and now controls a significant chunk of the army there's got to find some way to bring all of these guys together in order to move this country forward without the unification of the army you're just going to see more chaos ok stephen one of the reasons why the u.s. state department congratulated the yemeni people on the election is because the

united states will continue to use drones and fighting the. elements of al qaeda in the country i'd like to point out to our viewers yemen the yemenis government is one of the only governments in the world that allow a foreign power to use drones in their own country i mean that's why the united states is happy with this transition quote unquote transition by the way sala staying at the ritz hotel in new york right now i guess he's not too sick ok so i mean this is why the united states supported this in saudi arabia because it doesn't change the rules of the game they're going to continue to use drones and innocent people going to be continued to be killed in yemen and that's going to continue the the protests in the country and the anti-american anti western sentiment in the country today. it's interesting u.s. military aid to yemen increased five fold in the first two years of the obama presidency he suspended much of that in response to the. gross and systematic human rights abuses and killings mass killings of demonstrators with the drone attacks

have continued. and states of course is interested in stability and instability and in a strong government figure that they can help crush al qaeda the problem is is that yemenis don't like strong government by anybody like their independence and and the . al qaeda has wanted you know. has taken advantage of this resentment to gain support among certain tribal leaders and the but at the same time the the popular pro-democracy movement. the fia's united states all this in this chaos is going to strengthen ironically weaken al-qaeda because many people who might have been prone to support that kind of opposition are realizing hey there's more power in massive nonviolent action than there is in terrorism it's a very sort of so when you think about that i mean it's blowback i mean the more you try to use

a government that may not have is the kind of legitimacy that you've been telling us about on this program that only strengthens the hand of al qaeda or would you disagree. no i definitely agree i mean i think you know there is there's a good section of yemenis who are extremely frustrated angry at at the u.s. attacks on attacks specially in the south. that there is a danger of of alienating many yemenis but such tactics but the same time you know we are looking at you know this is a legitimate al-qaeda linked movement who has. last summer mass to take over large swaths of southern yemen i was in. province in december and in zinjibar and i saw for myself my own eyes what you know the destruction that's been happening there a largely it's because of the assaults by the yemeni military forces but there was a great sense of fear amongst amongst ordinary yemenis many of them have fled the

area and they do speak in about an al qaeda presence a significant presence so you know after osama bin laden's death many u.s. officials certainly believe that yemen is the. feel in yemen is one of the most significant threats to u.s. soil and they're trying to do everything they possibly can to to to to negate that will it is going to cost a lot of blowback quite possibly yes and you've seen it but the same time i think you know the yemeni government is allowing the the americans to do this as well this isn't this isn't being done unilaterally ok in steven i mean just how much of a threat is al qaeda in yemen a threat to the united states. probably the most active. constellation of al qaeda cells in the world. and as a result you know they do have. potentially a global reach though on

a smaller scale than we've seen in love and there's certainly a. threat there the question of course is how to deal with it as you pointed out the stress on the military forces and a. creating a reaction where tribal groups that may not want to have a thing to do with al-qaeda to ally with them out of their their opposition to their country being attacked was in speaking of blowback i think a significant sizable number of the al-qaeda fighters are veterans of iraq people yemenis who came to iraq in opposition to the us invasion and occupation and became radicalized who learned how to use weapons who learned how to do engage in girl warfare and in acts of terrorism and once again we're seeing the blowback of this tragic and this guided policy but at the same time as we saw in iraq some time

the access is al qaeda itself can turn people off you know the yemenis don't just want their independence from an overly. overbearing central government and from foreign powers you know they i think a lot of them be turned off with the. incredibly rigid you a puritanical rule tends to impose in areas over which it has control so it doesn't i mean it's quite interesting the way that's go right ahead you know pampering it go ahead jump in yeah that's that's exactly what's happening in the south right now i mean you know i've talked to many refugees from beyond and they say they you know there is a sense of just a love for al qaeda no no yemeni loves al qaeda and in fact the fact of the tactics that we've seen now. i mean i've interviewed people with you know with arms amputated for stealing very much like what we've seen in other parts of the world where the and there is there is this sense of that that certainly there's there's

no love for yemenis and the support in that sense is is waning to some extent but they still remain a considerable. force in southern yemen and as of this day they still control much more territory than they have ever had since they since they since they launched you know years ago it is not also a function of the fact that the the yemeni military itself as an entity it's divided among themselves ok looking at different factions right here and it goes all the way back to sala again i mean this plays into the hands of al qaeda there's no legitimate rule no government services and well al qaeda shows up and feeds your kids. absolutely i mean the. problem in yemen is as much a a result of of the weak central government of himself and his rule i mean you know he has not been the perfect. anti-terrorist terrorism partner for united states

and most u.s. officials will acknowledge this certainly in private you know he's ever since the u.s.s. cole bombing there's always been a very love hate relationship you may say between the u.s. and yemen when it comes to fighting terrorism in fact you know one of the key reasons why. it is is is even as as influential as today is because of a prison outbreak that happened a few years ago which many believe was an inside job by the but by the yemenis themselves so so there's there's always been this this really imperfect partnership. to fight terrorism in yemen in the u.s. and the and the emmys ok stephen if if the if the outside world were just to leave the yemen alone in the people of yemen alone could they sort out their own affairs instead of having these sarah good election sarah good president sarah get you know

connections from the outside washington could they fix it themselves. well the emmys really have had trouble story on things going themselves the past couple thousand years i mean it really is kind of an anarchic society of rival tribes and and interests but i don't think things are the bunch worse i think and in general on average this kind of foreign intervention which we've seen manifested in a number of ways by a number of outside powers over the decades. certainly exacerbates the problem or the thing you saw it was able to maintain this control by this bribe a tribe you know a program that had a sickly try to you know to solicit favors from the from a few shakes who'd be willing to switch sides including al qaeda if they got more more more money and you could play one side off of the other and definitely in the u.s. certainly has played a role in this but ultimately i think it comes from strengthening civil society and

having people who want to have a kind of stability that maybe the centralized but never the less is more willing to a cooperate than constantly be at war with each other and unfortunately the united states by militarizing the conflict by by working with solid other people at the top instead of the. originally running out of time here and we can stephen you ended on a very pessimistic note many thanks to my guest today in san francisco and in nairobi and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember problems.

tonight friends or foes has the u.s. and its allies gathered us russia the syrian crisis their affairs their humanitarian motives may be a cover for another western led military intervention.