top stories now this hour the euro zone's weaken nations are striving for growth amid a cycle of cuts and bailouts if the prime minister is in germany to seek help to soaring costs while portugal waits to find out whether it will get more cash. iran is key in solving problems in the middle east so says the u.n. secretary general in tehran ban ki moon is taking part in a gathering of nations in the city not aligned with the u.s. washington has voiced criticism of the u.n. chief's visit and of the gathering in general. but also reporting the sound off to ukraine's former prime minister will not move free is the country's high cool rejects her appeal against a seven year sentence for abuse of power to get to the shrink it was sentenced last

year for her role in the greek gas deal with russia. with a news team with more on those stories other stories too for you in half an hour from now in the meantime a debate on the nature of recent international conflicts and what lies behind world disorder. and crossed. more news today violence has once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of kenya that. operation to rule the day.

it is. a low in welcome to cross talk i'm futile about wars revolts revolutions occupations and regime change are among the most important elements that are making and remaking our world today is there any logic or design behind these that people's is the world order of today the one that was expected with the end of the cold war and is the west a force for positive change. and. to cross-talk the new world disorder i'm joined by ryan monroe in new york he is the national security analyst of radical islam dot org and a fellow at the clarion phone also in new york we have george the movie he is a fellow at the global policy institute of the london metropolitan university and in austin we cross to alan cooperman he is an associate professor at the l.b.j.

school of public affairs at the university of texas all right gentlemen crosstalk rosen if i can and you can jump in anytime you want a few days ago pat buchanan wrote an article that got a lot of attention he said what is driving the world today is sectarianism tribalism and nationalism and he talks about democracy which will mention later why and what do you think about that i think that is very true that you are seeing an increasing sectarian conflict in the middle east not just in syria but also between iran with the radical shiites and then the saudis the radical sunni's but there's also an ideological conflict that's going on within the islamic world between the islam as that one sharia based governance and then the non islamize who want to bring their world into a more twenty first century type outlook and that's more democratic and peaceful and nature ok george what do you think about that i mean there's i don't hear any history there go ahead george. yes i don't find that the analysis is quite right i don't because i don't think that these sectarian conflicts are innate

i think these sectarian conflicts have been willed into existence and i think that what has happened has been the west chiefly the united states has gone out of its way to foster disorder and out of disorder sectarianism because what happens when you demonize and. destroy a government is that there is a use society would disintegrate people rally around where it was going to defend them whether it's tribal leaders or clans or local warlords or gangsters so i don't think that. there's an inherent sectarianism i think the sectarianism has been willed into existence largely by the policies of the united states ok where do you want to jump in on that alan. well i would disagree with george i think that you know national sectarian differences rivalries and conflicts are inherent

where the west and the international community have a role is that they they can if there is a leader they can help contain those things but look you know the conflicts that you're talking about go well beyond the middle east look at east asia we have china and japan in rivalries japan and south korean rivalries china disputing islands with the philippines in vietnam that's not because of u.s. meddling or anything like that that's inherent in international politics especially when you don't have a strong leader and what we've seen from the united states is really in some ways a lack of strong leadership to help contain those conflicts and sometimes george is correct we've actually engaged in correct strategies and policies and policies that have exacerbated conflicts ok going to was a lot said right there i think it's really likely that you know yes i mean this is a process we had ryan jump in yeah i think it's completely wrong to think that the u.s. wants for example sunni's and shiites to just kill each other like in iraq that happened

on its own it partially happened because of incorrect strategy but that was a decision made by radical sunni the radical shiites on their own and the u.s. engages in the surge in iraq partially to put an end to that so i think that it's absurd to think that the u.s. wants this type of conflict to happen well george what do you think about that because the conflict of these sectarian differences actually promote american foreign policy and its allies saudi arabia qatar yes i think yeah well that's the exact the sectarian differences lead to the destruction of states i mean where before you had an iraq that was. a serious state. and a reasonably powerful state now we have the kurdistan which is virtually succeeded we have. conflict with each other this is come about as a result of u.s. policy i mean u.s. policy makers aren't stupid and they didn't exactly come as

a complete surprise to them that this was how what would happen once the united states invaded the same thing as happened following libya i mean we've already seen the spillover effect. in mali i mean again this was always likely once the united states aligned itself with various radical islamic forces very very groups that are already listed as terrorist organizations and the same thing is clearly happening in syria we've seen that the the civil war which has been clearly few and funded and financed by the united states has now spilled over into lebanon and this as this war continues as it will do. lebanon will almost certainly be engulfed in the civil war so i think these are policies that great powers particularly the united states will into existence because they weaken possible opponents ok and what do you think about that it works to america's advantage and its allies to have

these sectarian differences particularly in looking at a syria in the region. well on the one hand i think ryan is right that the u.s. doesn't deliberately want there to be the secretary in conflict but on the other hand the u.s. has other should teach it goals in the way it pursues them actually exacerbates and fuel sectarian conflict so when the u.s. looks at a place like syria they see bashar al assad's regime they see it allied with iran iran is our enemy and so we really want that guy to go and but in trying to will that to happen what we wind up doing is helping the opposition with non-lethal aid with intelligence helping other countries that are giving lethal aid and what that does is fuel a big sectarian civil war in syria that's now spilling over into lebanon spilling into turkey spilling into iraq and creating disorder and my initial criticism of u.s. policy at the beginning of the show is that what a great power should do is try and promote stability above all else because

instability hurts a country's national interest it hurts civilians noncombatants creates i'm a humanitarian emergencies creates contagious civil war that's that's where i fault the u.s. government right now for not taking a leadership role to promote stability instead what they're doing is sowing instability it's very shortsighted it's very dangerous i mean ryan this instability is working for the united states they want to get rid of the regime in iran ok this is the end game isn't it so instability works. i think it depends you want instability if you're unhappy with the status quo if you're happy with the status quo like we were in egypt then you don't look upon things like revolutions very kindly but in terms of what's happened in libya and syria the u.s. was late in the game to getting involved i think that's incorrect to blame the u.s. soley for what's happening in those countries the u.s. very reluctantly got involved and we're still not fully involved and look at how long it took president obama to call him bashar assad to resign he was criticized

heavily by the syrian opposition for that in fact the syrian opposition continues to criticize the u.s. it didn't take very long at all it didn't take it's over a year ago that they called for bashar al assad to step down that's that's that's incorrect so the point and the point is not just that now you know you guys i don't think that there was abuse going on the way that doesn't mean the u.s. isn't at fault no i'm sorry i do think so i do think that's correct because you know if you remember there was. a long article in the new yorker in two thousand and seven in two thousand and seven that the bush administration has targeted the syrian regime for the removal and the detailed in how working with saudi arabia and israel they were and with what you know various radical islamic forces they intended to destroy the regime of bashar assad this was in two thousand and seven that seymour hersh wrote this article and what we've seen is the fulfillment of that policy so it's not true to say that somehow they do they go there well there's a lot of really were they want to scream the u.s.

was meeting with syrian opposition activists of different kinds yes the muslim brotherhood was involved in the coalition but they're also meeting with the factors that were in europe and it didn't look like there were a lot of resources put behind that and in fact again the syrian opposition disagrees with that analysis that the u.s. is fully behind them in fact if you listen to what the free syrian army is saying is that the u.s. is betraying the american dream the u.s. says it stands for freedom and human rights yet they're letting us be massacred. alan go ahead but that's it that's the whole problem right now that it's own problem i only. three. you know the u.s. could do three things right it could stay out of the syrian conflict and let the syrian regime just control the country that would be promoting stability or you could come in with a big leadership role with a big intervention and stability in the region and install a new regime let me ok and that that would at least protect civilians but instead what the u.s. has done is the worst of both worlds it is said assad has to step down and therefore what that down is does is just embolden the rebels and fuel the civil war

but it's not doing anything to actually help the rebels win or to defeat assad so all it's done is throw fuel on the fire if you want to say that that's not the u.s. taking a big role i would disagree the u.s. has made a play the flute role in syria it is emboldened it is escalated the civil war but it hasn't done anything to rein it in that's the worst of both worlds ok ryan when you look at all these interventions and anywhere to go right when did these interventions go right for the united states in the west i mean one example. i think libya went well. ok george you want to talk about libya well i don't see how one can saying that things are going well in libya we will look at the situation now. where there is no government there i mean essentially. local militia you know running their neighborhoods. you know even when it comes to. the trial of gaddafi son i mean the central government is unable even to bring the man into

custody. the other day there was news stories about these. muslim monuments that were destroyed so. you know it it's gone well for the united states and of the united states suffered minimal casualties nato suffered minimal casualties for the victims of the nato bombs i don't think it's going well at all right gentlemen i'm going to jump in we're going to go to a short break and after that short break in your discussion of the new world order state.

goals started here. for going global that's not. only my right. to. choose your place to take your stuff and. to. make your statement. spread the word. coupon stream the moment. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you

knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture. and. welcome back to crossfire i'm about to remind you we're talking about what is changing the world today. and it's. ok i would like to go back to you when asked and you wanted to remark on what george had to say about the relative success or failure of the libyan intervention . yeah i would say i'm going to a conference actually this week and talking about libya and i would say the intervention was a failure not only on humanitarian grounds but also on strategic grounds on

humanitarian grounds at the time of the intervention when it started there were only a thousand dead libyans from the conflict and by the time the intervention ended eight months later there was something on the order of ten to forty thousand dead libyans so the intervention which was supposed to save lives actually cost lives and if you look at it from a strategic standpoint it's potentially even worse this intervention in libya because the overthrow of the government in neighboring mali and now the northern half of mali is occupied by islamic extremists that are allied with al qaeda and this is now seeping into neighboring in the neighboring me share so we went from a country in libya that was actually our ally at the time and now who knows what libya is going to be and the neighboring countries are now our enemies so it's a disaster but you asked are there any interventions that work and actually i was in liberia this summer doing research that's one of the few interventions that actually worked and you probably don't even remember it it's two thousand and three

and the reason you don't remember it is that there were only about two hundred u.s. troops in the country for about two weeks and what really worked there was diplomacy and that's the element that that the obama administration seems to have forgotten in syria they just think that by aiding the rebels encouraging the rebels condemning the government that everything's going to just wind up fine and doesn't it takes hard work it takes hard diplomacy ok ryan if i can i can we can change the subject slightly here i mean you said that the united states should lead but maybe the international order should change i mean why should the united states always be leading ok the cold war is over ok we have a different world order coming into being but the united states still wants to lead maybe it should change. well personally i'm not willing to let people be massacred while we wait for that world order to arise we should definitely work with international partners but i don't think that we should wait on the united nations when you have russia and china on the un security council to get stuff done as for a living you have to consider the fact of how many libyans were going to die absent intervention i mean the conflict wasn't going to just what was orion but the war

was over the rebels no more libyans were going to be killed so there is where we are now turning to god and i think it would have ended there i really don't let me ask you a question ryan if no no no they don't say forces were. said go ahead allan ask you but ask your question again go ahead go ahead if gadhafi forces had not massacred libyan civilians in any of the other cities that they recaptured why would they have massacred civilians in the last city of benghazi that was that was not going to happen that was propaganda by the rebels to get the west to intervene you know what it work they play this for patsies you want to reply to that right now i think if you look at the human rights abuses you know i could i think your sense where they said they were going to hunt down every rebel and every closet in benghazi i mean qaddafi was a madman there was going to be an iranian but there's a lot of my feeling about you and me is just that you know you were wrong and it's very interesting that you listen to god you took him seriously once ok he had

a long history of saying crazy things george jump in. he wasn't crazy about yes i was so yes i was just because he says you know he says something that in terms of rhetorical overkill and. nato intervenes but in fact i mean it was all these interventions i mean not just on libya the united states neglected any kind of diplomacy because he was very anxious to intervene i mean we saw this in kosovo and before that involves near precisely again while talks of massacres and genocide and so on and you know in order to justify u.s. intervention so the obama administration in syria and in libya has neglected diplomacy but it's a continuing in the long tradition of favoring united states favoring military solutions rather than diplomatic one so it's very interesting alan if i can go to you i mean the whole issue of democracy isn't talked a whole lot about now because i guess it's inconvenient but bahrain was

a country that actually was. people were protesting for more democracy and then the united states chooses a side in syria that we have no idea whatsoever of their democratic or not as a matter of fact they have a lot of unsavory elements attached to them so what about democracy. well i mean i think you're right there's a certain amount of hypocrisy and countries will always pursue the national interest first and so you know when it's the enemy of our enemy is the strategy and so we don't like assad in syria because he's ally with iran but on the other side and behind it's the opposition that's shiite and therefore allied with iran so in that case we support the government crackdown quietly but i'd like to get to your other point here overarching question was why does the u.s. have to play a leadership role you know why does the u.s. have to lead and i would agree argue the u.s. actually does have to leave this is probably an area where we disagree i think you always have to have somebody leading the international community because it's hard

it's hard to organize countries it's like for example in syria we would have to get saudi arabia turkey qatar all to agree on a concerted policy and that doesn't happen just naturally somebody has to take the lead role and only the united states can do it and if the united states decides to recede from the international stage to lead from behind in this oxymoronic obama strategy then what we're going to see is what we're seeing for example in east asia where without the u.s. being there providing stability now all the other countries are going to be fighting for their interests and it can be china versus japan versus south korea versus philippines versus vietnam we don't need to relive the twentieth century in east asia george you want to jump in on that well if i could if i could this you know if i could disagree with that i really don't think that you can have a stable the world though with one power leading it's never been the case in the process and when the united nations was set up after world war two the idea was to have a consensus of the great powers hence the permanent members of the security council

the moment the united states decides well we're going to work with the league of nations how did that work with the legal nations george. whether the league of nations didn't work because the leading powers in england and france were simply not strong enough to. impose their world order you have a germany and the soviet union were pretty much out of the league of nations and england and france by themselves and the united states was also out of it england france were really too weak to impose a world order but. if you don't have a leader then you're not going to get concerted action and you're going to get chaos that's why you need a leader you might not like the united states but you have what you have you know in syria what you. order then disorder george you want to reply there is yes i agree that there should be order but the only way that you can have all the is by a consensus of the great powers and therefore respecting the rights and pretty rugged lives of the great powers and not to do things that clearly untag and eyes

of them and ensure that they will always be in opposition they were united. designed or in policy to go ahead ryan jump in i'm just interested to know what great powers as he called it he feels should decide our foreign policy if we have to work with this giant consensus that he's advocating. well russia russia and china are permanent members of the security council they are huge nations they are massive nuclear superpowers. clearly their rights and progress have to be respected nobody's saying the russians should decide us foreign policy but if you are going to create a world order then you do need the consensus of the great powers and so therefore there has to be some agreement among these giant powers in the regions this is how things will be one can't just have you know one power deciding well we're going to have these these powers in nato or we're going to overthrow governments here and

we're just going to ignore you except when we come to united nations security council and try and get a resolution going that's a recipe for failure ok i want to change gears alan i'd like to go back to you i think it's quite interesting here is that you mentioned the pacific and north asia which i think is correct and we were talking about the greater middle east is that we've seen the map being redrawn or going back to where you used to be when we look at so carrying differences and all that because so many countries in the world are artificial their borders are artificial and were decided by outside powers do you see that unraveling given sectarian differences tribal differences. well i hope not you know one of the great sources of stability and order in the world is that there's been this norm that you simply are not allowed to change borders by force and as you point out the ethnic and national demography does not match exactly the territorial borders in places like africa in

asia and many parts of the world in europe even and so if we if we get rid of that norm of these fixed borders then we're in big trouble i'm not sure that that's that's the big issue what i see is that there are disputes over resources especially oil in east asia and then there are these historical animosities you know what shapin did in china in the one nine hundred thirty s. is absolutely reprehensible if i were chinese i would carry a grudge against japan i would be very leery of japan and i might see even seek vengeance and so you have this this terrible mix of dispute over resources plus these resentments from the past justified resentments and that is a very very dangerous mix and that's why i've always felt that the u.s. plays a stabilizing role in the stage it says we are the strongest power here we provide security you don't have to worry about your security we're not going to let you get

revenge for your past. wrongs and so if the u.s. were to recede from that stage then i think what you're talking about could happen we could go back to the future as the movies to say and we could start seeing these countries try to resolve their their at their anger and their resource disputes on their own and that's a recipe for war and that would just be horrible ok but you know if george if i go to you the borders that have been settled in the twentieth century they were settled by the great powers the western powers for the most part i mean no wonder some people want to change and now. right well they say that that's exactly right i mean you know the border is a stylish of the world war one didn't survive because england and france were simply not strong enough to ensure that they would survive and once germany decided that they didn't want those borders and that was left after world war two the united states and the soviet union were strong enough to say that there'd be no

border changes but the most serious border change that taken place since world war two took place. in yugoslavia was clearly a case of where your border changes took place george we're going to talk about the border changes in another program thank you gentlemen many thanks indeed i guess in new york and in austin and thanks to our viewers for watching us here see you next time and remember crosstalk.