hello and welcome to crossfire for all things considered i'm peter a well with the military again in control after a coup what does the future hold for egypt is this country's experiment with democracy a thing of the past what signal does this send to islamic parties in the region and will washington's reputation among egyptians ever be redeemed. to cross-talk the chaos in egypt i'm joined by cynthia schneider in washington she is a professor at georgetown university and a senior nonresident fellow with the brookings institution we also have jeffrey ingersoll in new york he is a defense reporter with business insider and in london we crossed to say to lisa he's a political analyst and writer all right. that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much appreciate it cynthia franco to you first in washington is egypt in a process of self-destruction after this coup. no not at

all but i can understand why you would say that i find the coverage of the events which by the way i would call the continuing revolution rather than a coup baffling to me i find so many people here who have actually never even heard of the grassroots use lead movement. which is the reason that millions and millions and millions of people egyptians came out into the streets last sunday to protest the rule of mohamed morsi would you agree even would you agree to cool military coup no i would not agree and i will not agree or i would put it this way if this is who who was the two thousand and eleven revolution because it's exactly the same as what happened in two thousand and eleven ok. you can go ahead. it's

completely and utterly different because mubarak did not come through elections he was a dictator he was a tyrant he imposed himself he was heavy backed up by the army in fact the army to the hilt it is the army who are running the show they are calling the shots they are supported by the americans they call the aid to egypt is in fact not to you it is simply money to the military who all running the show who are who have massive power who have been in center of the power mubarak was not talk to you was a dictator who was in democratically elected he wasn't and he came from the army he belongs to the army through and through and he imposed himself on the people while we look to see he was democratically elected as the first freely elected civilian in egypt and he had a mandate to all four years. the army moved against him they declared that cool

hiding behind that people so we can say in every sense of the world what happened was clearly an up day to. kuwait the hi good to be behind the masses who were clamoring and demanding and then to see it. through demands i do mean again you know if you're going to cry i got mean we're going to be going to jeffrey in new york where do you stand on this and there's a little bit of both here ok i can understand what cynthia is trying to say but if you look at the timeline you know you had the protesters come out by the millions and they were voicing some very legitimate concerns and the army backed them up and they gave morsi some time and morsi came out and tried to pull an obama with all this hope and change stuff and he didn't really say anything of substance in the army took him out was that a coup yeah that's a textbook definition of a coup but was it was it backed by some popular consent it was backed by some popular consent now if you look in the past that how morsi was governing i mean he

was a little bit more concerned with telling women what they can wear than with rebuilding egypt you know if you're going to foist sharia law onto a bunch of secular people you better expect him to take to the streets so that being said i think it's a little bit of a gray area here i don't think you can call it you know it's easy to want to call it a revolution it's easy to want to call it a coup it does fit the textbook definition of a coup but at the same time secy isn't sitting here trying to to be the new dictator he's not trying to be the new mubarak whatever you have to say well we don't know yet you know i have no idea you know that is that yes go ahead jump in. well what i was going to say is jeffrey i think you're right about first of all egypt nothing is ever textbook and what will happen i think what's critical now is what will happen next and it could well it look if from what happened yesterday obviously these terrible massacres of muslim brotherhood people trying to reinstate

morsi and then the reinstatement of the emergency the dreaded emergency law this does not look well i hear from my friends involved with the revolution and time are rude to they feel confident that they feel they are in charge that does not appear to be the case now i think what happens in the next few weeks is absolutely critical there has to be and it could well evolve into a military coup military dictatorship but i do think that the same millions of people who came out against the authoritarian dictatorial president morsi who simply took all the power for himself without any accountability those same people will respond in the same way if the military does that as well they know how to protest what remains to be seen and i feel optimistic about this but it remains to

be seen if the opposition which is very widespread this is not just you know university people very widespread throughout egyptian society if the opposition can coalesce organize and pressure the military to ensure a democratic transition and that remains to be ok and also what remains of the scene is let me go to london. hold on hold on a minute let's just first of all look at the facts on the ground what city which who is general said to you is that defense minister did when he first declared giving morsi only forty eight hours to sort out a huge mess which was absolutely impossible here they knew full well that he was going to spectacularly failed because he's been trying to do have the last year and tried. to defend morsi don't get me wrong he has been trying to shift egypt to words more radical extremist islamist ideology and the muslim brotherhood has

not been faithful to their people because it has shifted its rhetoric and its actions from a more direct. when it was out of power to our moderate more radical extremist who harvey said that if they were trying to appease the one harvey's and the seller fees to put out kate increasing hostility from two words mosi they followed that katter has had a major change of heart after the i mean it was forced out of power and after his architect of the must own mind of supporting the muslim what are those two words the prime minister and foreign minister was forced out took power so there was a dramatic shift by the muslim brotherhood two words it right to kill islam that's where he has failed that's where he has antagonized the people but still the army issued the forty eight hour ultimatum which was that wasn't the case when they actually start when they actually sided with their people are against mubarak they

gave them ample time to win over their people but they were hell bent on talking mercy and they took the opportunity by widespread support by their people but we must soon figure out the muslim brotherhood also have people on the ground and they feel that they have been directed by their own democratic people or and by the united states which have been advocating and pushing for and promising that it's going to. with the people they have backed up the army it is a very good point gyptian all of you which has been the safety net what i made a call to move against a democratically elected leader without the full hold i did support all of the americans well know that he was not your opinion and i don't mind the future of democracy now. oh all that said that's a tough question you want me to answer and in a soundbite the future of democracy is that when you get democratically elected you

need to govern democratically have the picture and you know you can make your arguments about democratic american presidents or or you know any other country that democratically elected their president so i know that their partisan was killed he was the first time an election quite there was no to this for the now first time you get was that for you i mean they measured the first star and you can't you can't step in you can step in and be extremist right away i mean i mean hey look good america is what you want for. this long to subvert the constitution and be super for design years now if you get this guy in and in a matter of eighteen months he's rewritten the constitution seized power and trying to foist islamic law on the people and then when the army gave him a chance they only gave him a chance that he would get i was enchanted and so i mean because he did gave me the people gave me ten simple take a little bit of a they say he did you don't know what you want to do with this is you don't do what he did for germany to sit in because i don't believe in the job and so they wanted

him to take that with in his of his it's not was you know our action they removed him go ahead cynthia jump in you know democracy is much more than elections good point and this in my view has been a fatal mistake that the united states has made and its policies in many places democracy requires much more than simply voting. and yes the people voted in president morsi and then he proceeded to govern in a mud giora terry n. way which really is an authoritarian way he did nothing to protect minorities quite the opposite he fanned the flames of sectarianism he took absolute power for himself and he had no accountability whatsoever there were no other mechanisms left to protest he removed of all they could have there was no other. telling our history we have even talked about him being damaged radically elected and until

you're blue in the faith it's going to turn democratically headed that's what matters yes the ones that democratic way of dealing with it and even though that morsi was adopting and shifting to mordor i think the extremists wahhabi islam but that was another my can is him to do it within democratic procedure and that is through an elected parliament he should have been pressured and you was moving to was the direction off a new parliamentary election through the parliament people who could help vote them out rather than to use the army which was in the way iching to talk to him and to move him out of the picture because if you look at this eight month statement by city he actually told him if there is no compromise how many dialogue between the two parties within forty eight hours then we hope over the own mouth oh i don't grudge match up which by the way that own brought the road map is exactly i called

and called we all fifteen months made by you not to leave that time i wrote that is another huge force which is the national salvation front both of those and by the way to do it but now. i have to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on each of state. but.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. holding. a hold of. her blood. the speech. she gave. her her.

i wish i. was lucky to bomb it good luck. mother. and. i know my son i'm a little. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered on peter lavelle mind you were discussing the political turmoil in egypt so.

ok since you've got to go back to you in washington what is the future of the muslim brotherhood now. you need chips they're going to be allowed to run in the elections well i think there is a. huge demand now and really the most important thing and i don't know if the military will do this i don't know if they're up to it there needs to be a national reconciliation between the different parties and yes the muslim brotherhood should be and deserves to be included in the political process but by the way the last opinion poll that i'm aware of by the zajac big group play support for president morsi of twenty eight percent so it's not that there's huge massive support but they are a factor in egyptian society and they should be included the question is what will their leadership decide will they decide to remain outside and attempt to

reinstate morsi by force which you know facing the egyptian army is a losing proposition and will only divide the country i hope that they will really enter the political process as they deserve to as do other groups as do for example coptic christians and other groups in egypt and that there can be some kind of national reconciliation which is essential if you look at morsi speeches his actions he really was fostering division in egyptian society one of the biggest debates is around identity and say you referred to this egyptians do are not what hobbies they rejected the identity that the muslim brotherhood attempted to foist on them and the people perceive the muslim brotherhood as trying to take away the egyptian identity egypt is the center of the arab world the center of culture

creativity innovation in the arab world the muslim brotherhood tried to take all that away the question is will they change from being in. hireling for the muslim brotherhood and be also for egypt if they don't do that i don't know how they're going to succeed in egypt i want to go to london i mean why would the muslim brotherhood want to participate in another election i mean they changed the rules in the middle of the game why would they want to participate. because there is you know here which is they feel now that they are have been brought to give to mishear off ruling egypt has been taken away from them and i do believe that the actions of the army which cannot be condoned that it's shooting right in the going to be that people peaceful protesters of basically playing into the hands of the muslim brotherhood it's true that the support for the muslim brotherhood that's emphatic an unequivocal backing they had when they were elected has tumbled tod's waned away because people in egypt are moderates they're

not happy with the shifts they've seen in the months and that is moving from the moderate teachings of islam to wahhabi stephy in order to please but there is a glaring contradiction that while the americans are trying to say that the. muslim brotherhood has shifted towards more extreme islam the usa happens to be the greatest and this chest and that grows to the most dictatorial and bastion of dictatorship which is the at a which is a well how it be said of the rejean bucked up by a law how do you sell your feet religious establishments which issues fact was that give religiously. religious backing and were they just incentive to suicide bombers all over that we that is in iraq and also in syria they have been but i don't know why then what are you doing to virtualize that let's think time advocating

democracy they've backed up that's what we did who invaded battering against the will of the battering the of people what i've been clamoring for democracy human rights and political reform. so they can't have it both ways they can say they are democrats and at the same time not most. likely i want to jeffrey toobin jeffrey in new york jump in are you in between the two go ahead yeah you know i think i think i saw a design of something here and i think it's that the i think political islam is encouraged growing with democracy they totally did legitimize themselves they had an opportunity they had a chance egypt is the only place to do it so you can have a democratically elected. representative of a. political islamic organization it's just not going to work and i wouldn't be surprised geo political blowback you know i i know that he was cozying more morsi was cozying up to iran and that he sort of led talks with the gaza and israel thing

you know and those are those are just superficial you know you we might see a way of making it harder to get away with but what we will see what the blowback will be is years down the road is that it is perfectly right here in bahrain the saudis are you going to start to see some of these more islamic governments have difficulty with their people especially people that want to have you know free will choice stuff like that so so yeah these these cascading effects they're going to go down and basically the only thing that the muslim brotherhood can do now is rebranding they can you got to get rid of the sound from the language in the in the constitution that all of these actions we have been going to again i just read the legal battle going on and there is still sharia law in there and that you know the secularists are not going to take that. here in the u.s. who who show for the evangelicals that that's what the muslim brotherhood is going to have to do it they're going to completely rebrand if not want to i think it's

vital to mention a conservative. chain is a political body and so much religious political body i mean a massive. speech in a rally which is a view g.v. by all sorts of radicals and fanatics one hobby is. he clearly bucked them up and back to calls for what he calls jihad to go to syria to go to iraq to blow themselves up he had a major falling out with iran he was he he actually severed his relations immediately through the demands of all the set up piece on one hundred views with syria and the shifted its position dramatically behind the sellafield and while hobbies like job who are hot being financed who have been armed and backed up according to their unit the new york times that all the funding all the logistics came from. and also qatar who are the storm just and closes its off the

united states we can see that clear. in there and to say you would actually be trying to move closer to iran is totally untrue he was trying to appease the you was trying to crack gate that whole state did him particularly after he became fully aware that now the leadership they're out of broad arab muslim or arab world has now foray into that. like question i want to hear all i want is what i thought it was seriously. i would like if we could to redirect back to to egypt which i think is has less to do with all these global adventures than is is implied by this programme the people of egypt rose because morsi was ruling as an authoritarian ruler and doing a phenomenally incompetent job of running the country the economy is in desperate

shape that the each of egyptians are like anyone just like anyone else it's the economy stupid so they care about you telling my. there are some people they want to medical is the army have the saloon and they're hammering the role of the united states i think and the united states has managed to lose on all sides in egypt it is perceived as backing the muslim brotherhood and president obama and our ambassador there sadly have been much too silent as morsi took more and more authoritarian powers you cannot say you stand for democracy and freedom and then stand by the way. violated stands in the n.t. how does it is that of the united states to tell a country about its democracy exactly. you know and that's that's a dicey situation again. you're right what business is is that of the united states while we give them a lot of money the sort of makes it a little bit our business ok but in the same breath i think that they're trying to

they're trying to backpedal a little bit they're trying not to say exactly which horse to pick and you know i got to give at least give the obama administration some credit in terms of being a little patient about what they're going to say and what they're not going to say in the same breath you know i think that they should just let it play out i think that the same thing with syria i don't know why that is just don't let it play out the getting involved too heavily has never worked out for our advantage so why do it now in terms of of of morsi it was obvious that he wasn't yes he was democratically elected but he wasn't ruling as a he wasn't governing even me using the word ruling is indicative of how he governed you need to govern as a person for the people all the people and other that was his main mistake a so we got that's that's the future of political islam is going to leave it so you take it or leave it they're going to look you didn't want us to go here in london

go ahead launch on good i do believe dr it is not the economy the economy has been doing badly and mubarak the you when they talk to. they hired them eighteen months also a chance to do something about it they actually spectacularly failed it how it's been used an excuse that it's not that say to save money he has done anything about it but that's not forget that the army has its own interest in the economy they have been invested heavily in the economy i mean i don't call them you know. but i mean what the americans who were that pay must all of the egyptian all be using it as a safety net and as an insurance policy i need to inconceivable that this all me would have moved and. a fascinating discussion i want to thank. here thanks to my guests in washington new york and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are to see you next time and remember.

the police. will not talk about language at all but our love react to situations i have read the reports for like. you know i will leave the state department comment on your plan a plan. to carry out a current on the job. well done i. think you know more recently. when you made a direct question be prepared for a change when you thought you should be ready for a. pretty tough speech a little different to my. i

would rather ask questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more. i'm not used to the tundra to freedom i am my dear. in second grade i ran away from the boarding school with to my friends will be

around to the tundra. of the tundra is just miskito that practically i don't know how people can live there to get in there no t.v.'s in the tenth how can i send my child to boarding school that i won't be able to sleep at night after that. they enter a life without knowledge of how to do basic things they don't get out of the school . system.

live from. prosecutors issue an arrest warrant for the muslim brotherhood leader after monday's deadly clashes political factions failed to agree on a transitional plan in the country and deadlock. the syrian chemical weapons controversy takes a new twist as russia's foreign minister says that compelling evidence implicating the rebel forces should be made public while also questioning u.s. efforts to put the blame on the syrian regime. with that but snowden widely expected to receive political asylum in venezuela now solidarity for the fugitive is growing across latin america we speak to a minister about what's behind this simple.