i don't think it will happen because the way the world is set up is we prosecute developing leaders or rebels for war crimes but we don't we can't do it for major powers because they have too much power in the system so i don't think it will happen the question is should they be i don't think it's of the realm of possibility that they probably morally and legally could be stephen ok weigh in on that just because they're powerful they can avoid the law but no i i do think that i mean i totally agree with the other commentator which is that what happened in iraq was a violation of the u.n. charter the u.n. never gave it sanction that invasion so but you know because they settled longer still law was broken a law was broken international law was broken yes this this is true but you know we i have to say that i've done a book on the u.n. the u.n. charter has been violated many times by both sides on the communist side and

democratic side the u.s. went into kosovo without the sanction of the u.n. security council so there are you know the question is where this is two questions one is the violation such that it. becomes a war crime the second question is how do you draw the line about war crimes when franklin roosevelt did rescue the jews in the second world war is that a war crime when obama is not intervening in syria is that a war crime i mean it's a very very much he said look when talking about the violation of international law international criminal court we're looking at law established international criminal court will will of eventually be the arbiter of these kind of issues but this is something that it is going to take some time to make clear what how how you define it ivan eland how you define it which defined. well i think you know i think we often in the united states define terrorism and war crimes and all

this other stuff too to. you know alleviate our own government of some blame of course you know you know in the in the terror bombings in world war two we always kind of forget about those but nations can commit acts of terrorism and in fact of kill more people with terrorists acts against civilians than little rebel groups like even around it so i think nation states are not especially powerful nation states are never held to these types of things because they up there the pillars of the international system i guess that's what people think they're just simply too powerful to prosecute but if you do want to institute an international legal system and you want to have the international criminal court as its bases which of course the united states doesn't it's supporting it more now behind the scenes but it it hasn't joined and doesn't intend to join it so it's very it's very difficult to use that form to get at people but i mean george bush is a invasion of iraq was such

a flagrant violation of. not only international law but international custom of any you would define it as aggression if you had an impartial look at it almost any person or any country other than the united states of course and britain and britain. right right and britain is well as well right and britain was all the way our are. you know lack if you will in the whole mass and so i think he and i'm sure you could probably implicate blair for some of the help with the cia secret prisons and that sort of thing although it's not been established but i mean the british the brits were really close to the u.s. on policy on torture and that sort of thing as well i think. in iraq and elsewhere so i think that it should be explored stephen jump in go ahead. it's

important to note that in both cases of blair and george w. bush they've they've in a sense been ostracised by the public i mean george w. bush couldn't even show up at the last republican convention he's so tarnished by what he did in his term in office particularly in iraq blair has been rejected by his own party it's not as if these people have not been in a sense punished it's not in court since you ation but in the arena of public opinion now it is it is you are right though to point out that our realities do play a role in this kind of world arena you know when the un was set up in one thousand nine hundred five five countries were given the veto veto power now none of the rest of the members of the un have their veto power now why were they given the veto power in one thousand nine hundred five because they were considered the most

powerful countries on earth at that time and they were also considered the people the states that were more like most likely to give. support in terms of troops and financing to any un action or course today the power realities are much different in the year two thousand and thirteen and it's been a constant problem with the within the un where many states feel that the security council composition should be changed in the veto should be dropped or it should be expanded but the fact is is the other commentator points out power realities to play an enormous role in defining what is considered a war crime and what isn't considered a war crime and we do have to recognise that even as we pursue the ideal which is to have an international criminal court be the arbiter of these kind of situations i mean even so do we need law then international law. if no one's going to be held accountable well yes it well i think it would help the problem that you have with

the international criminal court isn't a situation in of sadat conflict is if these if these dictators think that they're going to be thrown in. before the court and thrown in jail for the rest of their lives are going to fight more so there are downsides to the international court but i think there are also upsides but of course you know i mean here is what happened britain in the us invaded iraq and even killing rebels what we would call some terrorists that was unnecessary so anyone who died in that war. died unnecessarily because it was aggression right so bush and blair killed probably hundreds of thousands of people we don't know that they didn't bother to keep track of how many civilians were killed or rocky's were killed in that war and so you know you call it

a war crime you call it aggression whatever you call it you know you have milosevic in the dock for. killing far fewer people and you know so is that fair probably not but that's the reality but i think you know we should develop some international standards for these things but of course and try to enter in for some but of course you reach roadblocks when powerful nations are brought to the dock so to speak and their leaders are brought to into the dock so stephen international is for the weak not for the powerful stephen. well actually you know international law is. something in process it's always being developed it's not something that has reach ever reach the ideal because as we've pointed out the power realities are such in around the world that you cannot ever get to the best. situation that you want in terms of punishment

for work crimes but the fact but but but the creation of the united nations has been a important development in the affirmative affirmation of international law there have been over three hundred treaties so for which have been. have occurred because of the u.n. auspices and you know it's not just war crimes it's you know the maritime law airplane safety also all sorts of issues that cross borders that have to be dealt with on a world scale so international law is something that we are always trying to achieve we never quite reached the best of what we want to to achieve but it is there to remind people that there is a moral and in and legal issue that always has to be taken you would

consider it consideration when when big issues occur and now in war crimes is again one of these issues that is still being developed and it is quite true that the it's dictators more than it democrats that get punished at least as far as the international criminal court is concerned but i do think that even to johnny i'm going to jump in here i'll let you finish we're going to get a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on troubling tony blair state. of the.

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the international airport in the very heart of moscow. please. welcome back across up are all things are considered i'm peter lavelle reminder we're discussing whether tony blair should be put on trial. i mean do you think do you think tony blair will ever face any consequences legal consequences for what he did. i would say probably not given the current power

realities and i think it's very interesting another example of this power reality is simply the movement to get blair instead of bush i mean certainly britain is on the security council and has nuclear weapons and that sort of thing but it's a medium power nowadays and the us is a super power and so it's interesting that they're going after blair and not bush because of course bush had much more blatant policies of torture and and you know he was the the impetus behind the invasion i think tony blair was initially reluctant to do it and then he greg gradually knew that of britain wanted to have a special relationship with the us continue it needed to go along with whatever bush wanted to do so it but the movement here is against blair and not bush and that's an indicator of the current state of affairs so i would say probably even blair will not face. you know prosecution simply because he's perceived as being and a leader of a democratic country or he was a leader of

a democratic country as opposed to a dictator but the problem that we have in international affairs is that sometimes autocracies are not aggressive and sometimes democracies are very aggressive british french empires the us informal empire that has now i'd say the us is probably the most aggressive country of the in the world including the soviet union after world war two if you look at the data i don't think there's any question about the military intervention that's gone on so but as we've been saying it's these countries are powerful they're perceived as being democratic leaders which makes them seem more benevolent somehow when their acts turn out behavior may not be steven which i can reply to that that's very interesting. yeah well actually if you're making the point about the u.s. being aggressive after nine hundred forty five if you actually look if you have if you look back at history the u.s. was incredibly aggressive before and i didn't forty five was the intervening all

over latin america for a century and of course there was no rules or regulations of that time so nobody but there are no rules or regulations today during that period it is different today there but since one thousand nine hundred five says since the creation of the united nations and since the formulation of all sorts of treaties no i think there's no question today that there are standards that are that countries have to abide by and frankly one of the reasons that a country would want to abide by them is that in order to be a member of organizations like the united nations united nations there are you know standards that they have to meet to be to be a regular participant in that place now of course it's very unlikely that a country will be ousted from the u.n. it's really never happened except with you know south africa but on the other hand . the morals persuasion of the international. body like the u.n.

can have a terrific impact as well as the international or terrific impact on decision making in countries where there democracies are dictatorships and i will say one last point even a democratic leader like henry kissinger and appointed leaders are poised posed to an elected leader cannot attract cannot go to certain countries because of fear of prosecution do you think that you know lied to blair democrat out of police should not apply to blair in your opinion stephen. well i think there's something to be said the blair should be at least considered a person of interest of that sort but i doubt it's ever going to happen i don't what do you think. it's one way to go i think i think it may happen certainly kissinger was guilty of carpet helping the knicks in the carpet by. hundreds of thousands of people so kissinger may be a bit more flagrant violator but but certainly if the if this goes forward they

maybe have some inroads i don't i agree with stephen that it probably won't happen but i think you can you can make it happen in like kissinger sort of him livery of going overseas and that sort of thing but my question is what you know what about bush so he was the real driver of the war etc and i was only using the post world war two period to compare this with the with really the soviet period of you know after world war two i agree that the us was aggressive in latin america. prior to that you know stephen would you like to hear blair apologize it least that and bush to. yes i would like to hear blair i think. not just to his own country put to the world a lot to the ranch. and to the iraqi people as well and to the iraqi people of

course absolutely that that in fact should be the first a place that he should where he should apologize but i think the point is that you know blair has sort of recreated a new career for himself as a kind of were oving ambassador to help settle the middle east and situation and he's not been a terribly significant player in that role but he's redeemed himself to that extent so that people don't don't focus solely on what he did in iraq it is interesting that people do have careers after abysmal failures in their past and it's something that i reclined of regret and blair is in blair's role because i think he did not pay for what he did and i do think that what he what he by going along with bush as he did he really dragged the british people into

a fear that they will regret for many years to come i haven't redemption and he would be for bush blair. well i think stephen is right in the fact that it's probably going to help blair or maybe avoid this because you know people popular opinion around the world and does matter in these affairs it's not really supposed to the facts are supposed to matter but i think people's image or whatever and i think blair is attempting to clean clean up his image and have some redemption at least in the public mind for the so you know whereas bush is sitting at his ranch staying out of sight blair is actively you know being becoming a peacemaker so if we look back at teddy roosevelt he was always very belligerent and rhetoric and manner but you know he helped. and the one thousand and five war between russia and japan and so he he that kind of softened his image and i think where you know we're not talking about teddy roosevelt being on

a war crime you know trial for war crimes but i think that sort of thing does help your image and it probably will help blair of void these things stephen if we've learned anything nice to gentleman. well we've learned democracies can make mistakes you know we can elect leaders even human democracies have paid the price do they pay them the right is do they pay the price certainly they pay the price of the u.s. government the u.s. society has paid an enormous price for what we're still what about the political climate was not going on the political class they paid. well the political class put paid to i mean bush donnelly destroyed the u.s. in terms of these wars that he forward in iraq and earlier in afghanistan but also in terms of the u.s. economy and we as a result of his incredible errors we have just gone through the worst recession

since the great depression so yes democratic societies do pay for the mistakes of their leaders and ivan eland what do you think. well i think obama can't be. exempted from blame here he came in and he just kind of swept the bush era under the rug with the torture with the iraq war he just wanted to put that all in the past because he didn't want to interfere with his agenda but to me in a democracy and the republicans were supposed to have it's vitally important when somebody flagrantly. violates international law as well as domestic laws against torture that and other things and unconstitutional wars. you know we really need to look into it and i think that. you know obama kind of swept that under the rug because i think he's afraid of somebody doing that to him the next republicans will get at him you know if they get into office next and i think

that's the way it works in democracy there's sort of a collusion between the two parties well we're not going to dredge up year old skeletons if you don't do it so i think that was a that was terrible and i think we would have found out more about tony blair's role had obama looked looked into the bush thing because tony blair was bush's sidekick through the whole thing she even when you think about that interesting. well i agree i think that's a blemish on obama's record that he did not open an investigation of what happened on the torture issue fortunately we do have a free press and they've done a lot of investigation on their own and brought out a lot of these details that otherwise would have been buried and i think that's the one saving grace in a democracy that you do have a kind of. investigative capacity not just by the way in the press but also in congress to reopen old wounds and find out what happened to cause them and i think

that certainly the country has learned that the bush administration did permit torture to go on and the reputations of people like cheney and rumsfeld have been credibly blackened by what happened as well as of course george w. bush so there is there is some redeeming value in free free free free wheeling the markets see that that this stuff comes out it's unfortunate that in the case of obama he we we did not learn more and more of the details in a kind of. investigation which was sponsored by the government itself but listen more stuff will probably come out oh i bet yes we do know what happened pretty much detail all right gentlemen fascinating discussion many thanks to make us in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the

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