market find out. why no one should really happening to the global economy with much stronger or no holds barred look at the global financial headlines cars report. and i gather this is asking these other week's top stories as leisure pollution gains a landslide victory last week's presidential election the main challenger it's too long a head for indonesia and while it's i don't front entrance and a lot of their goals leave the opposition movement increasingly short of supporting rallies up to. near a part of the syrian crisis as a branch of the arab league kind of an agreement over how to stop violence in a country where there are still those trying to stakes through the crowd soaked and

out of the city. and these are continues to launch as tried senegal's that killing seventeen people in three days ivana's has broken out displayed and saunters between the signs and is the western region the region the president. and those the headlines next quizzes his guests on the arab spring and what they west is controlling the middle east joe political fights some lively debate excuse me having a wide cross talk or not. the kick. start. to. flow in welcome to crosstalk i get a little recasting the arab middle east and beyond what is the condition of the arab spring are humanitarian interventions effective what about the law of unintended consequences and is the west still determining the geopolitical fate of

this past region. live to kick. start. the process not the future of the arab world and muslim lands i'm joined by richard white's in washington he is a senior fellow and director of the center for political military analysis at the hudson institute and an expert at wilkie stop also in washington we have james phillips he is the senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs at the douglas and sarah allison center for foreign policy studies at the heritage foundation and in london we go to doubt he is the current deputy secretary general of the muslim council of britain all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want richard i'd like to go to you first you know i do and i this is a very broad brush program looking at a lot of events of the last year about a year ago the west was very concerned with the possibility of islamic democracies and they were very worried about it all the way from tunisia to let's say iraq i mean is that what those fears been allayed now. that's

a really good question i mean you probably can see common our trend since there's been no i mean program right out several decades ago you often see these waves of social more play station a marker and station so what started off in tunisia started spreading through other parts of the arab world and the common trends are people are more open about protest being expressed dissatisfaction using social networks but i think key variables been the regime response when their genius responded very ineffective lee in tunisia there was power. when they respond in a way that antagonize the international community and they're not that strong as in face of libya then you suffer international intervention in other cases. bear and syria iraq possibly it's still unclear because the the

regime's as part of the war effectively in the sense that they've managed to contain the spread of violence but i think we have to look at this as a way to analyze side about the french revolution it's too early to tell what their long term impact would be exactly james what do you think about it because it's seems to me is that as we go through this process here. change if it's going to be done in getting to sleep like we saw in tunisia. and then we see you know it's outside intervention and i think we all agreed it would be this kind of in a mess here because we see regionalism we see the federal state very strong we're not getting stronger and then we have syria and the longer we go into this process the more regimes learn how to maintain their control ok and in this case of syria to use military forces and we see outside intervention too if it's a legitimate or legal or illegal we see this internationalized the same question do you see major trends or is it just one off each time. well

i would agree with what richard said the base when the motivation of many of these movements is a quest for freedom and economic freedom political freedom in some cases religious freedom but each country of course is unique the course of the revolution depends on the the response of the regime the strength of the regime and the degrees to which it bends with the wind and makes compromises or in the case of fee or assad or brutally tries to put down their own people. in there it's unclear where the revolution may go in the future although i think there are many common denominators about the beginnings of these revolutions but revolutions are very hard to prove they can be hijacked as we saw in the french

revolution the russian revolution we're ronnie in revolution so it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen go on ahead ok now if i go back to you in london i mean how much is this these changes in the in the arab world in north africa and beyond i mean has to do with geopolitics because khadafi wasn't loved by the west i mean they may embrace him but they would they had a chance they'd drop him very quickly like a hot brick and then here is the side i mean this is again it's a very international i situation right here where the countries like russia and china saw the united nations security council through the united states and its allies abuse what a lot of people say resolution one thousand nine hundred eighty three she topple the regime i mean and we've gotten we've gone through some kind of process here where. it's we the west sees this is an opportunity for regime change when it's at

one point in time it's really actually about what's happening on the ground and what people want there and what's happening in syria is extremely unclear. well there is no doubt that there are significant international geopolitical interests across the region but it varies from one part to another if you recall in the case of tunisia initially the french foreign minister came she offered to. support the french military and she actually called for intervention to save. g.m. . ultimately the hospital her job. clearly differentiated geopolitical interests here but if we look at the case of syria i think the prospects for intervention whether we call it liberal or not it's

much more constrained because syria is part of a larger geopolitical bloc unlike tunisia one is you know was very much on its own in north africa but syria is part of a bloc that constitutes bad. mascots. and their root. cause a guy did under the tutelage after her own and for this reason. intervention in syria will not be targeted against the damascus regime course but against this larger block and hence the reason there hasn't been see to intervene in syria militarily richard what do you think about that when it's a very good point that we just heard here i mean you know you we can all talk about a liberal interventions helping people responsibility reprotect all these nice things ok they're democracy but when it gets down to something so geo political

importance a country like syria all of it or a great deal of it goes to the wayside it's just pure pragmatic geopolitics. not for every problem going for i think for example it would be hard to explain turkey's policy toward syria if you if i mean let's you understand the depth of feeling seen there are there for the sunni muslims being killed i think that you mean there are certainly different instances now i mean the obvious difference between what we saw and libya we're seeing in syria is the west intervened in libya not in syria militarily and i think it's i mean i think that's explained by the fact that syria is there's a much harder country to die for military operation against and it would be i mean you really would have to have a much more correct role of western forces then they had in the past in libya's authority and the indigenous forces so it's i mean and i'm sure you break it down by individual people though some people are very much motivated by moral factors in terms of how they're viewing what's happening in the middle east towards others

it's more instrumental economic and political those hard to generalize that's why we're doing this program here james what do you think i mean if it were possible for a military invention successful military intervention in syria would you support it . pose a direct u.s. military unit and syria why aren't you calling me why is that you're always in syria ok it sounds like in this case why is that. in part because we think there is or a war brewing in the future between the u.s. and iran and it would i think will be a mistake to get cog in syria in an open ended humanitarian intervention the us did not have a very good experience with humanitarian intervention in somalia where we went in to feed starving somalians and it up getting in fights with

somalia militias who were the problem who were starving their own people and taking the food so you know if this was an isolated case. you know there wasn't a possible war with iran on the horizon and i would look at it differently but i would not want to get into some kind of humanitarian intervention to me if you're going to intervene you should go after the cause of the problem and that's the regime and to me if the only worthwhile objective would be to get rid of that regime but then of course once that's done you know military force can destroy things but it's very hard to well we learned in libya diddly you know if i go back to you in london what about and what kind of what form of intervention if any would you support and deal in looking at syria today. well let me say first of all i

think it has to be criminalized on the on the on the popular consensus the people of syria should unfortunately at the present time don't seem to speak with unanimity in terms of of intervention and they are those who call for direct intervention and those who call for corridor or a no fly zone unlike libya where there was a much more strong and also for us consensus both on the arab league and the and the libyan people as my colleague just mentioned in the case of libya we are seeing the sad consequences to this that benghazi is almost threatened and call in for. autonomy under stead of libya itself as we knew it over the last fifty years it is very much hanging in the balance in the case of syria what will happen any military

intervention will not be a quick job it will take telling it will be protracted because baghdad will support the regime in damascus and this is an approach or activity the military confrontation in syria will also lead to the possible fragmentation of the state and this is the danger ok we can also see a possibility of our petition there original we're going to go to a short break and after the tropical continue our discussion of the geopolitical fate of the middle east asia with r.t. . is going. to take you straight. to the see. you. this respectable british gentleman is truly was. pleased jackets to to switch. a much younger life.

and more than twenty years of intelligence service in profits of the soviet union. killed his choice on forty. nearly a billion people in the world are going hungry every day. in the united states even our trash cans are filled with food you just have to go get it all of these perfectly good eggs because one was cracked didn't even get all over the other ones just threw my way out and she's from the german alps you clearly like the upper five. in the dumpster at one am this morning three pm this afternoon on the grill the cake is made from and one dozen dumpster egg whites. delicious breakfast for the family eggs and toast for about

a week every year in america we throw away ninety six billion pounds of. welcome back to prosecute about imagine we're talking about the fate of the arab spring. chicken. ok richard if i go back to you in washington one of one of the criticisms that the west always gets during the these amazing changes going on in north africa in the arab world is that you know it was that it was the west it was supporting dictators because that the trade off was always you know the dictators will create security

will be a good ally ok and the democracy was not high on the agenda and we go through this phase where there is hesitation in dealing with you know these democratic movements and then finally there's a very considerable concern in the west about the fate of democracy but there is a there's a lot of wiggle room there saudi arabia there's qatar there is the palestinian issue eccentric cetera i mean to what degree is the west and major powers still determining the geopolitical fate of this region and i can think of what's going on with egypt right now for example. well i think there are two questions and then what you just said i think your description is accurate that for some people the democratization agenda is very important for there is it's not but there are of course competing goals in each case even those people who support or really consider democracy really important. as a means to basically what you said is what secretary clinton and president already said that they in the past we didn't emphasize democratization enough still in other cases trade offs are to come in geopolitical factors oil other sources. much

respect to the question of how much influence the u.s. has a slightly different question inside so mr rection of i'll see put the entire policy and there are you know what we're seen is a lot harder than it was earlier for the for empower us to deal with the term in events in these countries because of the fact that the people are trying to empower themselves and see the social revolutions so clear the me that the west short of a military intervention can really determine the outcome and even then you we've seen this in our in iraq afghanistan now libya that is why it's the last removes its forces or the regime of course takes on a dynamic of its own as you would expect. so people are struggling in trying to even when they want to influence you know what other alternatives are there of soft power economic but it's difficult and in a way that's not very bad it means that people who are people i mean they are

saying a term in their own future as long as you end up with the people rule rather then you know local to cater is whatever is the case is that often the case in the civil war ever has the strongest force it's interesting james i mean you could see that saudi arabia and qatar for example are very good sarah gets for the united states and its allies and we look at is going on with bahrain because again that's a huge double standard right there where the united states and its allies will talk about democratization in some places but it's pretty much. the word on bahrain i mean that's where the geopolitical element comes into it how much does it bother you about the level of hypocrisy because people on the ground will say well you know the tunisians can have it you know but palestinians can't have it of course ok and then bahrain is they can't have it as well i mean how how does this skew the whole issue democracy issues that the west talks about of one and one side of its mouth but then can use military force on the other side. no i think there are some in the west that are pressing saudi arabia and bahrain for hold elections but

i think the problem is that too often things get simplified to say that democracy equals actions and really elections are just one of the last phases of democracy there has to be a support of civil society that respects the rule of law and that there are protections for minority rights so you don't end up with a tyranny of the majority. but in general. you know a situation like bahrain is difficult although it's much easier to. rectify if you consider that some of the protesters in bahrain. want the iranian style government which would lead to even less freedom for their people less genuine democracy and you know everything gets confused. waters become muddy

because everybody's speaking about the mark recede but they. are often mean very different things ok now in one line if i go to you i mean again it seems to be a huge double standard right there and i'm not really sure how many people in bahrain want to have an iranian style government i've heard that before but i haven't seen much evidence of it. is it is there is the west still tainted but by by supporting very medieval regimes like saudi arabia and qatar is the last country that comes to my mind when democracy is mentioned. yes i do think that this is a case on the streets throughout the arab region you know the manner in which. the west has engaged in this trade off between stability on the one hand and democracy on the other for decades opted for stability at the expense of democracy but over the last year i believe that the rethink it in some quarters in the west that the time has come to really respect the views of the people in the region they have

clearly demonstrated their desire for a genuine independence for participation and can respect for the rule of law. they can the west cannot prepare what will happen and therefore has to this day that the emerging forces the newly elected governments are not up to ninety two to root the government to prove themselves but if they fail then they can be disregarded but to to predict and to say well they will have step is to market a ship i don't think this is a very option now in the region and. the newly elected governments up made it clear that they are less concerned about about ideology and more about public values and interests national interests i cannot give specifics i think the western governments will be able to engage in

a meaningful discourse on the basis of mutual respect and the protection of our interest in the west it's vested interest in the middle east the flow of oil the security of israel but once that is guaranteed i don't think there will care much about the nature of the regime as we have seen in the past. richard i think that we get a very good point which are not really i think it's interesting in the course of the last year i remember a year ago people say oh this was. these are going to take over and people are a little scared about that but we have seen good and asian with libya that and and we have in iraq as well i mean you you have these parties going to coming to power coming have come to power coming or are into the process of coming to power and they don't seem very skin scary is they is they did at one point i mean is the west learned learning to begin to understand that the islam can have its own democratic values and institutions. well we've always had this debate about whether or.

if they come with the parties or in in the cold war with communist parties they come to power could see melamine out of their their beliefs you know the prime and challenge of governing being having different social services having to have in effect a kind of me and the evidence is mixed i mean so far you're right the muslim brotherhood in egypt has pursued i mean it's actually generally seen as more moderate france of the movement compared to some of the view that the second place party which is much more extremist. and but you know libya there's still this nagging doubt over all how that dynamic is going to play itself out. in bahrain were. james was sort of mentioning incline what you guys because of the fact that as the struggle progresses the extremists tend to strengthen and so you're seeing this in syria you're seen this and bahrain that the opposition being frustrated trying to

move more towards extremist solutions now the hope is when the conflict ends that we've gone back we didn't know. and i mean the word the west like everybody else is sort of grappling with this issue about how do you if you do have a change of regime control you end up with a democratic government or an or at least a not oppressive one and this is the problem that we're facing in iraq at the dynamics are leading to basically we are fearing what we create another saddam hussein type government despite our best effort so i'm not sure the west is learn the lessons and i'm sure the lessons are yet i still i think you know one lesson when there's a military intervention in iraq in libya it usually ends very badly and you don't get anything near that you were hoping for what do you think about that james. well i think. you know wars have unintended consequences and although the u.s.

did defeat saddam hussein in iraq. when it turned over control of iraq to different political parties then as iraq we covered its sovereignty u.s. influence was very limited and i think this is extremely limited today perhaps overshadowed by iranian influence but that's you know decision of the iraqis and i would expect in libya to the. you know as they say in the middle east no good deed goes unpunished so. you know all the libyans now have a good feeling about being delivered from the if this revolution becomes factionalized and there is a. struggle for power then i think those good feelings could disappear pretty quickly so there's no you know a permanent store of credit i would say in the middle east although you know i

think the u.s. is perceived to be our more benign power even by many islamised after libya ok doubt if i go back to udall and if we are you heard it here to begin the program we just heard a lot of unintended consequences ok i posited the if he says that military interventions you really do make that term the law of unintended consequences very very meaningful energy of political sense. it what i like to say in this regard is that in the case of libya libya was a bit of a people it didn't have a function instead before the uprising i mean gaddafi had more judiciary he was the state he and his family and there was no local constitution more parliament as as we know it and this was the problem once he was overthrown the libyan people found themselves in a situation where they had to build a state from scratch from zero and this is the problem it is the both of us we are

seeing of both bands of us there from from its very beginning and so through in iraq what happened the organs of the state all of this known good the army the judiciary. everything was dismantled and this is why we had the mayhem and confusion that followed you know after the defeat of of saddam hussein in tunisia the institutions are still remained in place we had the parliament we had the judiciary and the electoral process was able to. jump in here we run out of time fascinating discussion about the fate of the of the arab spring many thanks my guest today in washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching as you are to see you next time and remember our starting. point. ok. steve.