and you live from the russian capital really try to president top stories now u.n. security council foreign ministers launched a renewed effort to solve the deepening syrian crisis with the u.s. and its allies now reportedly considering direct intervention or has talked about his calls for regime change only fueling the conflict a military involvement would be a disaster for the entire region. resignations of al-jazeera as a number of key staff of the arabic news channel broke out in protest they claim the network is politicizing news and its reporting from syria is biased towards

your position. plus afghanistan demands justice for the massacre of sixteen civilians part a us soldier just weeks after the burning of the koran by military personnel ignited anti american some cement across the country relations between the countries are further worsening as the u.s. and nato reduce troop numbers ahead of the twenty fourteenth point. i'll be back with more news stories in half an hour from now in the meantime people develop quizzes his guests on if the west is controlling the middle east geo political fate crosstalk is next. can. you think of. the low in welcome the crosstalk on peter lavelle 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 of 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 wookey stout 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 did 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 trends and so it's been going on in florida right out several decades ago you often see these waves of social mobilization in a marker and station so what started off in tunisia started spreading to other parts of the arab world and the common trends are people are more open about protesting express dissatisfaction using social networks but i think the key variable has been their regime response when their genius responded very ineffective lee as in tunisia there was power. when they're responding the way then tag and eyes of the international community and they're not that strong as in the face of libya well then you suffer international intervention in other cases.

syria iraq possibly it's still unclear because the the regimes as part of the war affective only 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 that about the french revolution it's too early to tell what their long term impact will 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 indigenously like we saw in tunisia. and then we see you know it's outside intervention and i think we all agreed it really is 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 if in this case of syria to use military forces and we see outside intervention too if it's legitimate or legal or illegal we see this internationalized the same question do you do you

see major trends or is it just one off each time. well i would agree with what richard said the base. motivation of many of these movements is a quest for freedom 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 the degrees to which it bends with the when the man makes compromises or in the case of could. 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 predict they can be hijacked as we saw the french revolution the russian revolution the iranian 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 do 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 have views with a lot of people say resolution one thousand nine hundred three she taught all of regime i mean and we've gotten through some kind of process here where. it's the

west sees this is an opportunity for regime change when it at one point in time it's really actually about what's happening on the ground and what people want there i mean what's happening in syria is extremely unclear. well there is more. significant international geopolitical interests across the region but it varies from one party to another but if you recall in the case of tunisia initially the french foreign minister came she offered to. support of of the french military and she actually called for intervention to save. g.m. . ultimately that cost little jog. clearly the french had 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 the syria is part of a block that constant close by and mask us. and beirut of course guided to ponder. after her and i thought this reason. intervention in syria will not be targeted against the damascus regime per se but against this larger block and here is the reason the hesitancy to intervene in syria militarily richard what do you think about because it was 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 refer to protect all these

nice things like a good democracy but then when it gets down to something so geo political importance a country like syria all of it or a great deal goes to the wayside it's just pure pragmatic geopolitics. not for everybody ok for i think for example it would be hard to explain turkey's policy toward syria if if you if. you understood the depth of the feeling to seen there at the current all 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 and what we're seeing in syria is in the west intervened in libya and not in syria militarily and i think it's i mean i think that's explained by the fact that syria is just a much harder country to contract a military operation against and it would be i mean you really would have to have much more correct western forces that they had in the past in libya supporting the indigenous forces so it's i mean and i'm sure you would 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 or as others it's more instrumental economic or political is hard to generalize because it's why we're doing this program here james what do you think i mean if it were possible for a military intervention successful military intervention in syria would you support it. will go from here to. pose a direct u.s. military unit venture in syria why. why is that always in syria ok it sounds like 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 bogged down 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 ended up getting in fights with somalian militias who were the problem who were starving their own people and taking the food so you know if this was an isolated case and you know there wasn't a possible war with iran on the horizon then i would look at it differently but i would not want to get into or 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 boil we learned that in libya didn't we i know it if i go back to you in london what about it it looks like form of intervention

if any would you support a deal in looking at syria today. well let me say first of all i think it has to be premised on the on the on the popular consensus the people of syria should unfortunately at the present time don't seem to speak with you know and the miti in terms of intervention there are those who call for direct intervention and those who call for corridor or go or a no fly zone unlike libya where there was a much more strong force a forest consensus both on the arab league and the and the libyan people but as my colleague just mentioned in the case of libya we have seen as the sad consequences so then back then ghazi is almost threatened and called in for herself after an army and the state 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 and the military intervention will not be a quick quick job it went into a taped i mean it will be protracted because baghdad will support the regime in damascus and this is not protracted the military confrontation in syria will also need to the possible fragmentation of the state and this is the danger ok we can also see a possibility for fish and their original we're going to go to a short break and after that tropical continue our discussion of the geopolitical feat of the middle east stayed with r.t. . you just said would you still. eludes. to just if. you. will see british style

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to the limit if our she goes to the city. where blacksmithing develops from a craft into an industry. where rough wrong turn into words of duty. and village called a newspaper hides amid the. grecian russia close. to keep a. welcome back to toss up i'm curious to mind you were talking about the fate of the arab spring. ok richard if i go back to you in washington what if one of the criticisms that the

best 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 of the trade. it 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 considerable concern in the west about the fate of democracy that 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 a major power still determining the geo political 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 trend is very important for others it's not but there are of course competing goals in each case so even those people who says well really consider democracy really important. as

a means to him basically what you said is what secretary clinton and the president already said that they had passed we couldn't emphasize democratization enough still in other cases tradeoffs are to come in geopolitical factors oil other sources. but respect to the question of how much influence the u.s. has a slightly different question and so it's a mystery rection of policy but the impact of policy and there are you know what we're seen is a lot harder than it was earlier to for foreign powers to be able to determine events in these countries because of the fact that people are trying to empower themselves you see the social revolutions so clear the me that the west sort of a military intervention can really determine the outcome and even then you we've seen this in our in iraq afghanistan and libya that is it once the west's moves its forces or the regime of course takes on a dynamic of its own as you would expect. so people are struggling and trying to

even when they want to influence you know what other alternative tools are there of soft power economic but it's difficult and in a way that's not bad it means that people are local people i mean they are saying a term in their own future as long as you end up with the people rule rather than you know local take papers over or is the case that often the case in a civil war over it has the strongest force it's interesting james i mean you could see that saudi arabia and qatar for example are very good surrogates for the united states and its allies and when you look it's 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 mum the. the word on bahrain i mean that's where the geopolitical olney comes into it. how much is it value about the level of hypocrisy because people on the ground will say well you know if you lesions can have it you know the palestinians can't have it of course ok and then bahrain they can't have it as well i mean how how does this skew the whole him ocracy issue that the west talks about

a one on one side of its mouth and then can use military force on the other side. i think there are some in the west that are pressing saudi arabia and bahrain to hold the 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 to mark recy there has to be a support of civil society that respects the rule of law and that there are protections for nine already rights so you don't end up with tyranny of the majority. but in general. you know a situation like bahrain is difficult although it's much easier to or 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 because because everybody's speaking about democracy but they. are often mean very different things ok now did 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 with fire 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 you know the west has been gauging this tradeoff between stability on the one hand and democracy on the other for decades they've opted for stability at the expense of

democracy but over the last year i believe that there is a rethink in some quarters in the west that the time has come to really respect the views of the people in the region and they have clearly demonstrated their desire for genuine independence for participation and respect for the rule of law. they were not. what will happen therefore has to give the emergency forces the newly elected government an opportunity to true to govern and to prove themselves if they fail then they can be disregarded. to predict and say well they will establish democracy the dictatorship i don't think is this is a very fair option now in the region and. the newly elected governments have made it clear that they are less concerned about ideology and more about values

and interests and national interests that are not just this i think. western governments would be able to engage in a meaningful discourse on the basis of mutual respect and the protection of of interest in the west its basic interest in the middle east and the floor of the oil the security of this rain was at this guaranteed i don't think i would care much about the nature of the regime as we have seen in the past. richard and i think that we just very good point richard i think it's interesting in the course of the last year i remember a year ago people say well these are. we're going to take over and people are a little scared about that but we're seeing with the nation with libya and and and we have in iraq as well i mean you you have these parties that are coming to power coming have come to power coming or going to the process of coming to power and they don't seem very scary is that a is they did at one point i mean is the west learning 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 the if they come if the islamist parties the war in the cold war with the communist party so they come to power. i mean out of their of their beliefs you know the primary challenge of governing people having the right social services i mean to have an effective economy 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 and this movement compared to some of the second place party which is much more extremist. and but you know a libya there's still this nagging doubt over how that dynamic is going to play itself out. bahrain were. things with soaring mention and find what you got because of the fact that as

a struggle progresses the extremists tend to strengthen so you're seen as interior scene this and bahrain that the opposition being frustrated trying to drift more towards extremist solutions now the hope is when the conflict ends that we've gone back which son no. and i mean the word the west like everybody else is sort of grappling with this issue about how do you know if you do have a change of regime control you end up with a democratic government and or at least not oppressive one and this is the problem that we're facing in iraq. the dynamics are leading to basically we are fearing what we create another saddam hussein type government which despite our best efforts so i'm not sure if the west is learn the lessons and i'm sure the lessons are yet i still think no one likes it 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. and when it turned over control of iraq to the different political parties then as iraq we covered it sovereignty u.s. influence was very limited and i think it is extremely limited today perhaps overshadowed by iranian influence but that's you know the decision of the iraq east 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 libyans and i have a good feeling about being delivered from could offie 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 permanent store or credit i would say in the middle east although you know i think the u.s. is perceived to be your more benign power even by many is alarmists after a libya ok doubt if i got it to you to learn it heard it be heard to begin the program we just heard of the law of unintended consequences ok i posited the if he says the military interventions you really do make that term the law of unintended consequences very very meaningful in a geopolitical sense. it what i like to say in this regard is that in the case of libya libya was a bit of a people you are itty it didn't have a function instead it before the uprising and i mean gaddafi had more judiciary he was the state he and his family there was no local constitution more parliament as as we know it and this was the problem once he was all of us thrown the libyan

people found themselves in a situation where they had to build a state from scratch from zero and this is a problem it is the both of us that we are seeing the growth plans of us there from from its very beginning and sought to in europe what happened in the balkans on the spiritual all of this none could meet the judiciary and everything was dismantled and this is why we had him and confusion that followed you know after the defeat of saddam hussein in tunisia institutions are still remained in place we had the parliament we had the judiciary and 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 we never rushed out. to. you steve.

i'm.