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and you can. still get. into. the fold hello and welcome across the aisle is an game inside for the assad regime with the u.s. in a regional ally seeking to subvert diplomacy and the warning from damascus it will use chemical weapons in face with foreign intervention it would appear the syrian civil war is that it chipping. can. start. to cross talk serious possible endgame i'm joined by carl show in london he's a middle east blogger in chicago we have stephen lemon he is a blogger and author and in los angeles we cross to ravi said he is a policy analyst and an ambassador for the national iranian american council all

right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want karl let me go to you first where do we go from here damascus says it has chemical weapons and the u.s. and its regional allies have no interest in diplomacy anymore where do we go. i think. let's clarify one thing that all this talk about tipping point and game i think is very exaggerated it all started with the explosion last week that killed several of like a former and current defense minister and security leaders and now is basically a very high quality or peroration though is really a dramatic operation but in terms of the real dynamics on the ground in syria they're not going to shift very much and in fact what we have seen this is sort of given an impetus to the syrian regime to try to retreat take damascus so i predict that this violence of kind of burn floor of this syrian uprising will

continue there is no substantive kind of qualitative or quantitative change in the balance of power but it seems that there's sort of this imagined momentum and the area wakened interest of the west now that the chemical weapons are mention is sort of might propel this external dynamic to change which we need to focus on because it's not directly linked to what's happening on the ground in syria i mean it's been going on for sixteen months why all of a sudden now the talk of chemical weapons become such a priority and securing them this is the interesting angle we need to look at it carol thank you to stay with you you're saying the level a lebanese situation the fifteen year civil war. not necessarily that long but i say not in length when he in the type of car yet. in terms of the type of conflict unfortunately and i have to clarify i'm with the spear a sions for freedom of the syrian people but what i have warned against from the

beginning is if there's no clear political leadership with a clear political message ultimately another dynamic will take over which is the sectarian dynamic and i have long said sort of this is not deterministic this is not bound to happen it's not fertile estate but where is the politics why our people are reluctant to join up from other communities in syria with this uprising and that political failure means that the sectarian dynamic will get enhanced and it is very into the minute i know if i go to you in los angeles it's a very interesting thing we just heard from karl i mean is are of a political agenda the can coalesce the people in syria. well i think. we can say the month of july was a turning point. since the uprising started sixteen months ago you see the more improved. performance and and coordination by capability and

capabilities by the by the local opposition groups and and and the rebels in syria i think they're they're trying to to to concentrate on damascus and aleppo to send a message to the syrian people to call is the syrian people that there is is more while noble of the need for it project and there is you cannot hold the stability and as you know the syrian regime they they have been citing the calmness in damascus repeatedly to strengthen their argument that the they they enjoy support in syria but i think it's now it's very hard for them to sustain that argument and you see now a tactical shift in the strategies that the rebel are using and in order to to to to as you mentioned to call is the syrian people and to to convince the silent to middle class spatially and we ask the different fick hereon communities can get along because this radical sunni is coming out of saudi arabia we've seen this

before haven't we afghanistan. well i think you're right i mean if the friend players strive to take sides with different parties in syria and to try to to to secure their own national interests you might see what you mentioned it's like this civil war in lebanon or or iraq or or afghanistan but i think. probably you also would see as the violence increases in syria as more people being probably you see a friend saying when if i don't go home i can't get there if i can go to you i mean the outlying forces that are involved in the civil war in there are numerous here do they have or are they all on the same page are we just looking at maybe a spanish civil war we've already talked about lebanon how about spain in the one nine hundred thirty s. . oh peter let me say categorically what's going on in syria i've written

volumes of what's going on here at times i rate every single day well what's going on this morning before i came to the studio i drafted a new article for tomorrow and my title is syria threatens no one syria is a nonbelligerent country what's going on is not an uprising it's not a revolution it's not a civil war the i.c.r.c. was paid eight million dollars by washington to lie to lie is if their lie change international law international law did not change and it's very clear in categorical it says no nation may interfere in the internal affairs of another except in self-defense syria attacked no one serious or right and no one doesn't threaten its neighbors doesn't threaten israel doesn't threaten the

west what's going on in syria since last since winter two thousand and eleven is weston weston generated violence for one purpose washington planned this years ago general wesley clark former nato commander wrote about it in his book winning modern wars he visited the pentagon right around the nine eleven period and he was told by high officials in the pentagon that washington planned regime change in about half a dozen regional countries afghanistan of course iraq libya syria ok. let me go to karl and one of them here and stephen just mentioned all those countries as ever as it ever worked out very well. can i just say someday and oh i mean i think stephen is sort of getting himself a bit more than a bit confused and receiving that amongst

a lot of western anti imperialist is this desire to oppose western intervention is kind of pushing them in the direction of kind of distorting if you like what's happening on the ground or a distorted understanding of what's happening in the ground i think also the other problem is this appearance that the us has any clear sense of purpose or clarity in the middle east has been completely shattered and that's even more destructive because the united states now in the middle east because it doesn't have a clear sense of purpose is just very detrimental to stability and this is what we need to focus on so unfortunately i mean far from the u.s. having a clear plan about how they react to the course of events it's sort of persisting in this sustained level of meddling that has not sense of purpose and allowing its allies to do all sorts of things but it doesn't have a clear idea which is more devastating that is likely to push all these conflicts around the middle east into kind of them further kind of sustained period of time

because the u.s. simply doesn't seem to be clear about how it establishes stability how it astonishes order how even brought us its going and why should it why should it be in the position to do that karl. well this is this is kind of a historical analogy because i think we have to shift in our understanding of kind of imperialism it was clear in the past and actually it made our job easier because it was clear it was clear for us to now there's a level of incompetence and lack of foresight in washington that's actually reflecting very badly on the situation on the ground so you talk about how they exited from here are cleaving the country in a complete shambles and not taking responsibility for the way they did before and inviting iran and syria to come into iraq and allow the new cabinet to be formed and all that kind of thing only for them either later to sort of turn against syria and suddenly becomes the pariah states there's no sense of consistency and this is what we need to pay attention and i think a lot of people are serious threats go to los angeles magid you want to jump in

there go ahead. if i can just add to. what your guest said earlier that syria is not a danger to any body and it's not a revolution i just want to see some facts that started with a localized movement in dar with some children first writing graffiti on the wall and then being tortured and in order family went to police station they told them. to go and make new children for these ones and i. might use it why is there an injury or why i don't know western intervention into bryant brain then . well i think syria is a strategic an important country for any trouble the rain is on syria would do reverberate across the region i think we can't just go inside a country and change it the head of state saying well that should and you are something doing. purse the u.s. has been doing that for at least a decade if not longer well. well i just want to point person i mean i.

i mean you can make an argument if syria's a danger to our country but the definitely is danger for its own people i personally be in that country i know the political suppression in that country and what the people are going through now and how can can if i can ask your guest how can he explain the thousands of syrian people who are being killed their life being sacrificed how can he say to them that this is not. in our pricing and this is all like what the syrian regime maintains the line this is all conspirators and western backed terrorist even you want to jump in there before we go to the break or absolutely. it absolutely is western back in america karl america has a very clear purpose it what it's doing it again this was planned many many years ago the purpose is regime change america tolerates no independent regimes all of

the countries that america goes to war against in the ones it plans to go to war against are independent governments that i'm not one sided or even i haven't been to many here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syria stay. wealthy british silence on. the time line for.

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arrangement the free live free the stereotypes prelims dominoes free broadcast live video for your media projects a free media to r.t. dot com. play the game start. listening to. the live. welcome back to crossfire you know about to mind you were talking about the syrian civil war. or let the case against stoke live. to go back to you karl in london many are in western media and politicians are talking about an end game in syria what is that and i mean assad goes and every everyone lives happily ever

after ever after i mean what is the end mean. well that's the real problem is the question i mean in my next column writing is what is an endgame in syria how do you define that because they're making mistaken analogies with places like egypt and tunisia where you can just sideline the president and then kind of the system can continue in a different way in syria it's a radically different situation if bashar assad leaves tomorrow another person will step in there is a much wider circle that has this power interests so ultimately even if you're talking about the higher echelons of there is actually leaving you're going to have to i arrive at a political kind of solution that allows that transition to happen and laws like the ilo a community the christian minority is all of these people are not to feel threatened by whatever is coming so that the idea that we keep the pressure and then one day bashar al assad will just leave that's not going to happen in syria there's a much more different power structure in there and what we really need to look at

is what is the political solution and here is the failure of what has become the de facto representative political representative of the syrian uprising the syrian national.

that's to be happening soon ok stephen if i can go to you it's very interesting the assad regime said they have chemical weapons do you think that's going to make the west hesitate a little bit nato because we keep hearing something where you don't which brought up the subject. well this is all i peter this is hype and the west brought up the subject of chemical weapons a lot of countries have chemical weapons i deploy them biological weapons nuclear weapons there is no country would with great greater i stole of weapons of mass destruction in the region than israel it's well known it's acknowledge they have a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons delivery systems that can send them far distant from is a real they have chemical weapons and they use them peta they have used them in

lebanon they've used biological weapons they used them against the palestinians in gaza in cast lead and doctors have treated the injured in the dead and they've seen injuries they never saw before from the weapons that israel uses and israel tests new weapons in this war as where is the condemnation of israel where is the condemnation where is the condemnation of the occupation. it's a very distorted picture and how this how this ends i have no idea but it could end if washington called off its dogs but you know once you unleash them it's not so simple and i must tell you i just learned about this and i don't know very much about it and i can't ikon substantiate it but i've heard stories that these so-called rebels that are being enlisted from regional countries they mostly coming in from outside not inside they're being told that they're going into syria to

fight israeli forces not syrian forces could you imagine that why would one arab want to go to war with another arab but you tell them that israel is is got its army in syria and these people think they are going on a mission to liberate syria from israel centers of policy that our own israel has been mentioned here we hear the israeli government is prepared to intervene in syria what do you think about that. i think again you look at israel today and it's kind of a similar symptoms to my happening with the us but much more exaggerated in that it can only see the world through this very paranoid security obsessed perspective and it was quite interesting that when they asked. barak and sharon peres about this your article possibility of some syrian refugees escaping to israel and they said absolutely not we're not going to receive them which is a kind of

a very telling situation they've been selling us all this empty talk for months about how sympathetic to the syrian people they are of course it's empty rhetoric and now they're sort of found the hook them and the american that there's a hook to the american crisis and this is why i say we have to be very attentive to this level of meddling that's kind of completely irrational almost once they've found the security hook you know in the same story of w m d that we heard with saddam hussein before they're not deterred suddenly they're sort of interested there's there's an angle in it for us and it's done out of complete but i neuer so i think for both countries but particularly for the states because it's the one that drives the policies i disagree completely with stephen they they didn't and leash this power in fact there's lots of debate in washington now and lots of reluctance to supply weapons because they know it might end up in the hands of al qaida but at the same time this level of persistent meddling and allowing there are allies to meddle. consistently and kind of fueling the fire in syria is very very

destructive and i think this component of the chemical weapons is only going to mother the picture the big picture now is the syrian people should be allowed to decide their fate for themselves we don't have direct military intervention but we have all sorts of destructive foreign meddling that needs to stop and syria shouldn't be treated as a kind of a regional international playground for all these players to settle their scores to you in los angeles the chemical weapons you can that could be a hope for the u.s. in israel to strike syria. well let me say i think we are missing the point by focusing wastes shifting the conversation more on israel and the united states i think if they wanted to. to change the regime in syria and if they i mean you would say you would think that that would be the best scenario for them just to to change the regime in syria because then they will separate syria from iran and there would weaken iran in the region to the sunni or the closest ally in iran but they haven't done so and they for the sixteen months and they tried in my in my

judgment they try to to to to wait for international consensus and they haven't to use really any unilateral or or aggressive methods and i think we should more focus on what is going in syria and here is the regional allies like saudi arabia and qatar they're the surrogates for the u.s. . know all i think every country in the region wants to secure its own national interests you have iran's is saudi arabia there is the shia sunni confrontation there is the influences of iran in their region and there is hezbollah the all these. intricate relationship i think play a role but. i don't think it's it's the way you characterize it that they are some sort of. some sort of a playing in the hand of the united states or russia or saudi or israel directory.

carol in london you want to jump in go ahead yeah because i think that's a very important angle i think since the beginning of from tunisia and egypt the beginning of the arab uprising we've seen that saudi arabia and qatar have actually kind of broken free from this american region order so to speak which has completely collapsed and we can see very clearly the the declining u.s. influence over here and the lack of clarity about how to restore it which is kind of bridging a this competition between qatar and saudi arabia and again both of those countries kind of put it meddling more aggressively and affairs of other countries i mean just mentioned the example of bahrain where saudi arabia sends out abs and it troops over there without any western condemnation and that's a very clear example of the type of activity that we're seeing and that's again contributing to this further instability because you don't even have that sort of american common factor they used to orchestrate regional policy you have independent competing powers now in even you know between saudi arabia and qatar

which is very very destabilizing for the region ok stephen if i go to you fundamentally. jump in i fundamentally disagree with it qatar and saudi arabia are working closely with western countries saudi arabia has a deep pockets are doing a lot of funding guitars got a lot of money is a well with it but they are actively working with britain with washington with france israel is involved jordan is involved they have broken away. their partners in this in a prize can i bring in one very important thing to talk about transition in syria does anybody remember that i think around march there was a new constitution written for the syrian people it was presented in a national referendum and syrians overwhelmingly voted to pass their constitution i read it i wrote about it not perfect but but really a wonderful constitution a democratic constitution. and in may syria had its first ever free open and fair

internationally monnet in a parliamentary election it shamed some of the ones that go on in the west and again i mean this was a wonderful achievement transition day on that you know you're not always an interesting discussion but we've run out of time many many thanks today to my guests in london chicago and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are going to see you next time and remember. any. story. wealthy british scientists not. because.

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