hello and welcome to cross talk for all things considered i'm peter lavelle on forgetting iraq largely ignored by the media mainstream iraq is faced with a number of serious fault lines growing authoritarianism corruption separatism and political fragmentation this can hardly be the legacy washington wanted but it formally ended the military occupation on top of this that debt appears to be crafting its own not a western foreign policy. to cross talk iraq i'm joined by puppet escobar and some paolo he is a journalist and author in london we have sami ramadani he is a senior lecturer in sociology at london metropolitan university and in jerusalem

we crossed amir javedanfar he is a middle east expert right gentlemen cross talk cross in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want pepe escobar fine go to you first how would you describe iraq today because it's i notice something you wrote not too long ago it's going to drop out of mainstream media a story nobody is really interested in but there are a lot of fault lines as i mentioned in the introduction yes absolutely first let's put the whole situation to complex peter this is the biggest manmade humanitarian disaster or. period nothing compares to it it's one point two you rock one point two million iraqis that police dead killed directly or indirectly by the vision and occupation over five million refugees there was a cultural cleansing of iraq as well intellectuals were killed libraries were looted museums were looted the country was balkanized it became

a gigantic all right i mean i guess we'll get to all of these topics went to all of these topics or hang on but why is it out of the media spotlight. because i know for a it's what america to conduct. bring you know from the bring you washington in fact and conduct live soul searching why this thing happened in iraq in has been happening for twenty years in fact seen since the early ninety's it's absolutely unbearable you have to imagine the effects of the you when u.s. sanctions during the clinton administration you have to study even they have to go wars you have to study the effects of shock and awe why shock and awe was a strategy concocted to be ok. it's very interesting to the problem. nobody wants to do this in american in war well maybe because nobody wants to talk about iraq and syria in the same sentence sami where do you came out on this what's

going on in iraq right now well i think i do agree with. some ation of the consequences of the iraq occupation u.s. led occupation and in fact it's a common mistake to say that the occupation of iraq has completely ended i think the occupation has left a lot of things in the iraqi scene and iraqi society and there is still quite a strong powerful american presence were there direct or indirect through some of the iraqi political forces this scene in iraq is quite disastrous in addition to what they said iraq is experiencing a serious internal haemorrhage coves by the occupation which transformed variation differences between people who are these differences are religious ethnic sect type differences differences that many societies have

but when differences elevated to animosity i'm friction and blood. this is what the occupation did to the iraqi mosaic. it galvanized all the extreme forces reactionary forces and society in such a way that they have enormously weakened iraqi society there is also one one thing which is quite important and doesn't hit the news headlines which is the call the silent type killings and deaths in iraq for example a water sewage gets thrown into the rivers because of lack of electricity this is causing water borne diseases hundreds of thousands of children are falling victim to quite serious water diseases the in the health the the state health service has

collapsed that decay tional system has almost collapsed with with some serious defects unemployment is over fifty percent of the adult population. part of the occupation supporters propaganda was to help iraqi women while iraqi women don't dare walk the streets at night so all together the occupation is still a living phenomenon at dinner i. believe you know ordering of it by the media merely a pretty bleak picture there are very bleak. it is a very bleak picture and fortunately what we're seeing now is that iraq is after syria if not already it's already becoming an area where great powers in the region are trying to weaken iran i personally don't think it's a great mystery that we're seeing all these sunni demonstrations in sunni parts of

iraq these days. you know that iraq iran's competitors in the region we should be mainly saudi arabia and the persian gulf countries they see runs hand is weakening in syria they see a link between iran iraq and syria now they're going after iran's influence in iraq and now we see that there has been recently demonstrations in sunni areas of iraq and according to human rights watch to be great abuses of human rights here and there are never out in happiness that one of these things would have been happen would have happened if there were the invasion had happened right i mean iraq was one country before me in a hundred ninety three well i'm sure it's not a hand they say is out way well i can say it i could be wrong but i can say it happy what do you think well out there for let me go to pappy van ok ok i like to wear our like to add to both our guest said which is absolutely correct by the the way. initial in polls of after shock and awe.

by the absolutely inflame of the coalition provisional authority was stupid to sunni is that going to this was the way to balkanize the country at the same time a ground zero of disaster capitalism and you have to divide and subdivide the populations so they applied more or less the lebanese model so it was assumed as against shiites and sunnis shiites and kurds all fighting against each other and this is what happened nowadays the country for all practical purposes formerly iraq is totally balkanized if you go to the mountains in iraqi kurdistan is another police it's like the caucasus already has nothing to do with them as i put them in planes if you go to the solves the shiites live in more or less apart from back that includes if they accept the oil industry which is centered in basra which is control of course by baghdad and it's now exporting as much as it was exporting

during saddam and then you have the triangle of the us the sunni triangle province west of baghdad where we have. a similar ring i would see this is there's a simmering civil war in fact against the shiite dominated government in baghdad. which is consider like a new saddam or a new dictator there are nuances to that in many aspects yes in some aspects not at all but the problem is he has a very good relationship with. i would say the military dictatorship of that as i describe it in tehran and also good relations with syria and would have as well he don't forget that moloch you spent a lot of his exile years in damascus so this is very important and the sunni triangle some quote mender is dead were part of that war against the americans in this sunni triangle they'd be they crisscross the border. because the border

between iraq and syria that part isn't is there is not a border i was just there somewhere and evacuate because let me go back to jerusalem i'm going man let me go back to trying to destabilize the syrian army and then that ok go ahead sami jumping go ahead then we'll go to jerusalem go ahead sam yeah i think there's. there is a bit of a simplification regarding so never says she saw i think this is highly highly oversimplified i mean very few people might be abroad know that outside of iraq not all iraqi tribes not a single tribe is not mixed. so leaders of the tribe are responsible for both shia and sunni most iraqi cities have presence of both both sects so to depict this scene as a conflict between shia and sunni oversimplifies the situation there are a sectarian political parties that use ethnicity use sac to use the religion

to further their nest if you like but the communities in iraq there is no actual street street level animosity between the sex and religions and this has been a characteristic of iraq for many hundreds of years where there isn't a history there has never been a history of communal conflict there's been a history of this state of free jeems or pressing this ethnicity like the kurdish people or pressing the shia hour or forming or whatever i want to go to jerusalem before we go to the break here. is iraq a failed state or becoming a failed state. i don't think i don't think iraq is a failed state i think he rock has many problems but i don't think it is a failed state and i just want to point out your previous point peter you make it sound like that the sunni shiite problem in iraq only came about after the u.s.

invasion as much as on the. streets of iraq war and such and he was railing sciri did i will say was massacring kurds say was massacring shiites so i think you're pretty but i want to bring a contrarian he was a sovereign country that's the difference starting he was a sovereign country but he was still chilling to different six we're not even in the making wasn't like he said to please when you have a vision and i did something that's been happening for many years ok pepe jump in before we go to the saddam hussein was using saudi money to invade iran which is a shiite country of course it was hugo has half a chance in look everybody has a very good point in this discussion in terms of the oversimplification i agree in fact who wants to oversimplification the americans because as long as the peace soon is against shiites they have a perfect excuse to be in baghdad in that the vatican size embassy all right let me

jump in here we're going to go to one short break we're going chartering chances and after that you're provoking to your discussion on iraq stay with marty. here the reindeer is interesting for the herders. and when it suffers.

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please. welcome back across all things are considered on peter lavelle to mind you were talking about what's happening in iraq today. ok during the break sammy said you want to jump in so go right ahead. yes i think in trying to specify what the u.s. led occupation did in iraq and how it destroyed iraq one is not trying to say that saddam's regime was a bed of roses. or dictatorship it was a dictatorship that killed many thousands of people or to wage the nag

a war of aggression against iran etc etc but the people are most people in iraq who are not say politically active directly against the regime at least let me normal life there was electricity there was food distribution children went to the school without being kidnapped people's daily lives were not so deadly and this is what the occupation did to iraq so one one describes the consequences of the u.s. led occupation one is not justifying saddam's crimes one is pointing out that a country like iraq a great civilization has been brought down to its knees by this direct occupation the brutality of the occupation sort of past saddam's regime the tortures in the prisons of our book raeburn other secret prisons prisons sort of past what saddam's torture chambers did so one is trying to see where iraq has travelled

following the thirteen years of sanctions following the the brutal occupation and this is what we are trying to resolve in iowa as well what is the future for iraq having traveled this through this bloody carnage and the united states today it's trying to further destabilize iraq so that it can have a regime in baghdad that only says yes he what washington wants and this is not easy to achieve that is why washington despite iraq occupying iraq. still facing enormous opposition within the country even within parties that have cooperated with washington in the past because society hates us domination hated occupation hated the sanctions so there is deep rooted opposition to u.s. influence and but the united states has not given up at once iraq to be

a client hundred percent client state otherwise they are promising us that they will transform iraq to syria where it were a civil war or or a large scale fighting or kurds within the country there are terrorist groups already in iraq that been active the occupation by the way brought terrorism to iraq there was not terrorism in the country in terms of this extremist theory type organizations and so forth so we need to find out to discover where the iraqi people could go from here certainly the divisions being so that by the by the u.s. and its influence within iraq is leading the country into further disintegration ok all right there's a lot to chew on there i'd like to go to jerusalem right now again a failed state it sounds like to me mayor go ahead and i hear the pain in his voice because he's an iraqi and he loves his country and it's been oh he it pains him to

to to see and hear what is happening to iraq but unfortunately something i think the situation's going to get worse now because as i mentioned before iraq is going to turn into a new area where. people are going to try to challenge iran's influence and the only way they going to do that is to bring more instability there prime minister nuri al maliki is seen as being close to iran and the saudis and the americans don't like that one bit specially to solve these and this is one of the reasons why we see instability in sunni areas and what really worries me is the recent called by al qaeda. forces in iraq. sunni's to rise up and this is of course the last thing we can we can hope for the for those of us who want stability in iraq but just one more one more point i'd like to me you know i'm also an iranian. news really not the most popular countries in the middle east right now but in terms of in terms of. iranian history one thing i have to say is that you know what the west

did in iran the toppling of dick and and the history of the west what it did to iran i blame the west for many things but i also think that we do people of the middle east have to look at ourselves also to see where we can bring reform where we can bring change and where we can stop outside powers basically taking advantage from us for their own goals ok pepe it seems to me interesting there is that there is a great difficulty for the people of the middle east to assert themselves and remember this region was colonized god one i know i don't want to go about too much into history but this is this is that reality that we have regions that were installed following world war one and the united states after world war two took over from the old colonial powers and they created within these societies fairly powerful political forces that that sure there are legions through to to the former colonial

powers and to us imperialism and the intervention of off of the us led forces in these societies is the main factor in my opinion for destabilizing it doesn't mean i'll back it up telling him it's going to happy because i think it's it is too much external intervention that's the problem not reform we are paying the price of what happened one hundred years ago which was the betrayal of the great arab nation that would be merged after dmn the first world war and then france and britain the colonial powers at the time they divided the middle east between the. basically and we also at the same time pay the price of this cia facilitated coup against most of the iranian one hundred fifty three so when you have these two together in the whole in the whole region that is actually southwest asia that we call the middle east a westernized point of view of course which is wrong by the way. it's absolutely

unsolvable and the new call on your power or new cologne imperialist power due west for the past forty fifty years what they have been doing is they are aligned with the most all to craft sick and retrograde form of islam that there is in the persian gulf monarchies the petrodollar monarchies against emancipation of southwest asian populations as a whole this in my view is the key thing so but also our guest nailed it completely iran will never be totally independent because we're beyond call study imperialist intervention and the same for the rest of southwest asia iraq jordan these are jordan is an artificial country completely and even egypt in the north east africa as well so what's going on there from the pentagon point of view and now from the middle east to to i'm sorry for mena as they call it middle east north

africa from there mike gravel to the middle east he's told this the bill is ation of the ancient order but we need a gram shit to tell us the ancient order it's gone but if you one has not emerged and the pentagon wants to control the emergence of this new war that this is what is really horrible cannot cannot be and i mean go ahead. by the destabilization of the region and how much the peoples of the region have suffered . talking from israel and israel is not such a such an innocent party in all this i mean that they occupied the lands of all their neighboring. states they go into lebanon and bomb and strafe they they destroy they kill people in gaza palestinians in gaza and they do interfere in iraq as well as seymour hersh of the famous american jordan a sort of deal that israeli agents. go through iraqi kurdistan and to iran to

conduct sabotage activities and gather intelligence. as part of their effort to to maybe in future attack attack iran their role and syria is now quite clear with a with a bomb or a bombing. yesterday or the day before yesterday and to and to syria so israel is a very close ally of the united states it's a forward military base practically for the united states and it is playing also a poisonous role in the region. the united gentlemen gentlemen it is truly an old one and i want mayor to be able to reply please do not jump in please do well in terms of israel having a close relations with the united states absolutely sammy says this is the lynchpin of israel's security and in terms of us having wars with other countries some of those wars were justified i think the six day war was justified because the arab countries around iran this wanted us wanted to throw us in the sea and this is what

they were saying and that was a very justified war but israel's occupation of the west bank justified no i don't think it is justified then i want to state for the palestinian people because i don't think that anything is going to happen until the palestinian people have a state just like me as an israeli jew has a state we all have to have that right but in terms of you know blaming israel for what is happening in iraq sorry so i mean there are other countries you should look at instead of israel in terms of all the misery that's been brought upon iraq you should look at the neighbors if you look at the saudis iran the u.s. and in terms of purpose saying the russians in that region are not solved because of this because of because of the psychs picketed agreement because of what happened the first well what i want i believe that we're not that is not they are in the british under the british and the french did not even invent that the russians also for many years were attacking iran in the early nineteenth century to talk about in china goal a stand treaty which were imposed against iran. and that was totally forced upon

iran because of russia's imperialist ambitions and the fact that it was playing a great power game is nothing new the russians were doing it before the british and the french did it afterwards which brings me back to my original point let me we who is doing a good dancer will have a really really nice day pepito that's my point who's doing it today who said germany who rules where the united states and its allies are happy absolutely and the allies like a once again. the seven cent three made you have at least the house of solved which by the way i assume you have read the latest recommendation by bruce riedel to president obama stay close to king abdullah otherwise there's going to be a lot of instability in the persian gulf but this is the heart of the whole matter dump the house of saud and seventy percent of the problems in southwest asia will be solved ok maira going to give you the last word in the program had twenty twenty

seconds mayor go ahead for a time i think democracy depends on the people of the middle east outside powers doing to be seen but at the end of the day it's upon ourselves to look at that look at the people of egypt they had a democratic revolution without foreign interference i think other people can do it too all right gentlemen thank you for a fascinating discussion many thanks again to my guest in london some paolo and in truth and thanks to our viewers for watching us here rocky see you next time and remember crosstalk.

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