so abrasions of all religious holidays under the pretext of equality but i think we are forgetting that some of our cultural traditions are based on christian traditions i'm interested to see if they're also prohibit the jews from celebrating hanukkah i wonder if our multiculturalism will go far. so over the coming months we're just going to have to wait and see how locals and tourists alike take to the rebranding of a centuries old german tradition. up next another news make a comes under scrutiny in the latest edition of plus a face of a nazi. one. agenda u.s. president barack obama has ordered the pentagon to double be a task force and expand the target list as part of his assumed assault on syria it

was spent of international opinion and polls at home the u.s. on its own is poised to carry out forced regime change in damascus well at least that's the plan. to hold it. i. will. speak. with a. good.

run of a better little. secret lover a tour to mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which will unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach me creation and why it should care about you. this is why you should. only. welcome to sophie and co i'm sophie shevardnadze and today we're talking about

syria the u.s. congress is voting on about this proposal to bomb syria an operation he claims will be surgical not intended to instigate regime change that was seen as the full and if we have why aren't we learning from. striking syria an absurdity all right just necessity america's ships sit on the horizon but do they carry hopes for a solution or nails for the coffin of assad's presidency. the west reads the reality of conflicts in the east. the chemical trail poisons it all is syria the next iraq. is a sign that the new subject. will surgical strikes cure the patient or spreads disease inside the borders and beyond.

i guess today if that person directly involved in taking a similar decision to launch an attack on another country without a complete picture jack straw that's one member of parliament and british foreign secretary when britain went into war with iraq. have you with us today. thank you so do you think the congress will approve the strike. are assuming that congress will approve the strike if i did. because it would not make sense for president obama to decide to put this before congress without having done the numbers in advance on the other hand all of us made that assumption about the british house of commons. about twelve days ago. and the assumption was that prime minister cameron had done the numbers particularly on his own side to ensure that he would win the vote and he failed to

do so so. for president obama's point of view it's really rather important that he does win. what effect that will have on the situation in syria don't stability in the middle east but you've said it you never know for sure what do you think will happen in case of a no vote do you think he will go on with a strike without the support of his people and politicians. are can't see any circumstances in which president obama would press ahead with a military strike if congress voted against that strike you can't go to the democratic. institution of a government of a country like the american congress asked them for a decision and when you get decision you don't like that ignore it and it would be very serious indeed for president obama words to do that so you have to respect the decision whether it's yes or no just to promise to cameron has done so. but it is

a fact that i have been advancing against a rebel senate weeks leading up to the august twenty first do you think that may be informed obama's reaction to the alleged attack. well look i think there is an absolutely no doubt that chemical weapons were used in this suburb of damascus we wait final confirmation by the u.n. weapons inspectors but no one is seriously disputing that chemical weapons were used almost certainly it was sarin the second question is were they used at the instigation of the regime and the evidence is overwhelming although it's not completely conclusive. one of the reasons why it's not absolutely conclusive is because people are scratching their head and thinking why would any chemical weapons attack in the interest of their said regime given the fact that in recent months they've been making advances rather than retreating and why would you by all

accounts of the extremely unpleasant and serious regime but it's not irrational why would he decide to risk the role of the united states when he was making progress in any event however stranger things have happened in warfare what we have in syria is. it could have been. a commander down the line who took this action but moreover there is i think very little evidence that the rebels would have any capacity to launch a chemical weapons attack so let's just assume for a moment this was a chemical weapons attack launched by the assad regime and the question then arises what do you do about it and one of the reasons why there was such hesitation in the british house of commons when we debated this at the end of august was because no one was clear and we were spoke out to see what the consequence would be we were

told that there were going to be. some tomahawk missile strikes that morning president obama had said that this would quote be a shot across the bow of the syrian regime. shots across the bow of token they don't cause damage so the question then was what happens if the shot across the bow doesn't work and. that was never started really except we learned from. communications which had taken place between the head of the. chiefs of staff and leading congressmen that the united states fully understood that they had no plans and no capacity short of quotes hundreds of ships and thousands of special forces to take out its chemical weapons capabilities so we were left scratching our heads what was going to be the consequence of this action and that remains a worry but one thing for certain is for certain is that if president obama does

launch a series of sustained missile attacks then he would have explicitly join the rebels and there's no way in which he can detach. publishing we're going to get to that in just a minute joining the rebels we're going to get we're going to get to adults in just a minute but just to just to make sure i'm sure you understand that we over here are getting a totally different intelligence data do you personally believe the evidence is sufficient it was assad who carried out the attack. just your person a lot of senior intelligence not look are not see the intelligence i think the high probability is that it was the assad regime not the rebels for a whole series of reasons but one of the things i would like to see is much better cooperation between the largest states france the united kingdom and russia particularly including intelligence sharing about this some of the. mike long

experience of handling intelligence is that first good intelligence going from one country's sources there's likely to be power or intelligence going to another country's sources. although russia and united states there are the kingdom and france have typically been on quote different sides there's been plenty of intelligence cooperation as well i think both sides need to sit down and could share the information they have got all between secrecy because we need to know definite definitively. who was responsible however as i say is that the larger question even if it is the assad regime. does launching tomahawk missiles on parts of damascus and elsewhere in syria what does that help or hinder the chances of peace and a reduction in the number of casualties you know you've said that cameron's presentation of the case to parliament was actually quite convincing what you want

to see the vote go differently. we voted for our resolution our resolution was not ruling out military action in respect of syria our resolution was laying down a clear process not least based on the lessons that all of us learnt from iraq and that process included waiting for the reports of the weapons inspectors because although they're not allocating blame those reports i'm sure will be very important in terms of others making an assessment about responsibility and then having the matter discussed and brought to a vote in the security council ok on current predictions it may well be that a resolution put to the security council by for example us here in front of us would fail as a result it would be so by either or both russia and china but we don't know that for certain we don't know what the terms of the resolution would be and in any event we need to see what the argument is when there is a prospect

a vote so we wanted both of those to happen and much clearer statement about the strategic objectives if those little being forthcoming. including clearer evidence about covered the couple ability that labor could have supported not saying would could have supported military action but those weren't forthcoming and instead we had this extraordinary situation where the labor opposition motion was voted on it then went to the government of the government bear in mind it's got a big much. normally in the british house of commons that line gets voted down as well our leader ed miliband simply stood up for what's called a point of order after that vote and asked mr cameron whether you could give an undertaking that he wouldn't put british forces into action without a further vote that was all he asked mr cameron used that to to read from a prepared text to say words to the effect that he was not to bring about

a back the house of commons at all so this is a situation of freedom is to cameron has brought on himself so well but just in a nutshell where are the big holes and cameron's case and his presentation what first of all was in the timing we were brought back from our recess our holidays four days before we were due to go back anyway so what he's thinking what's the urgency here is there about to be a missile strike launched over the weekend are we to be presented with. significant intelligence. that we never offered a proper explanation so people were brought back without proper explanation and they were left wondering why that was secondly we were brought back before the weapons inspectors had reported thirdly before that been any discussion on a resolution inside the security council and we were given an abstract summary of

some intelligence which didn't say any more frankly about culpability then one could read in the newspapers that simply use the phrase that it was very likely that they are said regime. was responsible the difficulty is that in the case of iraq we had much better intelligence than that and we had a very clear baseline of all the holdings of chemical and biological weapons that the saddam regime had held without any question. but because of iraq the bar that has to be overcome for decisions like this is now much higher. after the break we'll continue to ask what can be won and what have we learned and can we be a friend to your friends or enemy staging to.

slip on your arm and allow the bank of new knowledge base you know. pleasure to have you with us here on our team today on roller sutra. dramas the trying to be ignored. stories others refuse to notice. places change the world right.

so picture posted a. lot longer from around the globe the local. welcome back to the show we're looking at the perils of the attack on syria with jack straw foreign secretary at the time of the iraqi war great to have you back all right so it seems to me that many british public opposes this attack on syria the british parliament doesn't want it in particular who doubts. well it's certainly the case that there is a very high level of opposition once the british public even much higher i think

than most parliamentarians including myself and to separate it and you've drawn attention to the votes at the end of august in the british house of commons with that. british governments have to take responsibility so does the british parliament so if we in parliament were convinced about both the process for decision and the need for a decision in favor of military action in respect of syria then we would take it notwithstanding the fact that it was going to be unpopular i mean i can tell you that in my own constituency my poetry district the military action against iraq wasn't popular at the time it was taken but i made every effort to explain why i thought it was right and i subsequently had my position endorsed in the following election so you can take unpopular decisions indeed as part of the responsibility of government but you've got to be able to explain them and that has so far not been the case but if you could if you were in charge would you order

a strike. not as i'm sitting here today. no because i would need to have much more information i'd also need the intelligence which i don't get. out of the opposition i did have a much clearer idea. about what the consequences would be all of us are shocked and. very upset about the fact that there's been a chemical weapons attack in syria and the consequences of the deaths of some hundreds of if not thousands of people including women and children and the elderly so that shock is. regardless of anybody's political or religious opinions but shock and anxiety is not enough to make a policy and the question is this which is got to be answered. if there are missile attacks. of any kind of scale in syria. how does that

advance the cause of peace and i hope both sides the other point is here i understand the importance of chemical weapons of course i do but it is fair enough for some people as they did in the british house of commons to point out that the west has been relative in its condemnation of the use of chemical weapons and notoriously when the iraqis with saddam backed by the west used various chemical weapons against the iranians against innocent iranians there was no hullabaloo from the west at that time and that is very much in the balance and i'm sure it's something producing such a lot of cynicism in some quarters in the middle east. you know what i'm thinking this for i'm saying that it is being framed in western terms but it's not

a western war in there and decisions are still being taken on basis of western perception rather than proven facts as of now we are still learning from the damage of such orientalism watching libya aren't we. well i my own view libya is concerned is that it was right for france united kingdom the united states and others to take the action that we did in libya i understand that it's a cause of very great concern in russia that the russian government felt that they were blindsided in the security council but that. it's not a view we accept it is also the case that there was a very clear mandate from the security council which russia had endorsed in favor of that military action and i think that libya is a better place than it was before and will become an even better place so i don't think it's a parallel with libya but what you had in libya was

a mass of the population pretty united against a very small pretty corrupt elite around the gadhafi. in syria you've got a very much more complicated situation it is a multi sect multi religious so you've got the alawite the shia the christians on one side and the sunni on the other side but it's even more complicated than that as well you know you've also got different. interests in that country including historically that of france after the carve up of the middle east at the end of the first world war they got. what became syria and you've also got russia which has seems to me perfectly legitimate interests in its naval base and as a traditional ally of syria so you've got that complexity and you've got the neighbors turkey on one side and iran on the other both of which have separate but the gist

of it interests and it's for this reason that about the others that we feel not that we want to see it through russians are his or british allies but we need to. i mean the strategy through the eyes of what is best for the people of that benighted country and the neighbors and have been calls very recently the british house of commons not only to be a friends of syria which is actually friends of syrian rebels but for the. group which brings together the western interests with russia and with iran particularly some of the gulf states to see whether we can finally produce some solution to this crisis because how many people are killed or maimed in gassed in the end there has to be a political solution to what is happening in syria a lack of threats from syria to attack israel i mean surely there will be planned

consequences if this strikes take place. this is one of the great concerns about this i have no no military action where some of the consequences of not being unintended i may go wrong but i've seen no. reports from israel that they are pushing for an immediate strike by the americans on the syrians and that's understandable some of the reports are. exactly it's all the reports i've seen suggest that although there was no love lost between the israeli government and the assad regime. at least felt that he was the devil they knew and was reasonably predictable. here's another question why do you think the west cautiously is waging military campaigns against secular leaders when we know if there are toppled right or wrong because toppling dictators is obviously a good thing but in this case the only alternative that you know the western

policies are your policies can create our hard line islamists is that there isn't it like simply we're sort of policy contrary to best interests. it's not it's not automatic that you get islamists. but one of the reasons why. such caution by the british government as well as the british house of commons about providing lethal support weaponry to the rebels was because of concerns as to the nature of the rebel course now some of them. perfectly respectable secular people i'm told that that is a majority but there are as we now know. people who are equated to the taliban and even more extreme people behind the salafist people attached to al-qaeda so this is another part of the complexity of the syrian situation personally i mean if you take the egyptian situation. you know i thought it was

quite right that we backed elections in egypt and i believe that the west as well as a radio should have described what was happening before our eyes which was a military coup against an elected government albeit one people disagreed with the muslim brotherhood in those terms because people's confidence in the idea of democracy is undermined if they think that those outside not least people in the west. want to have it both ways so they should be free. and if they are free of. the results comes through then removing that government doesn't seem to be to be in the long term very sensible but in this particular case is it possible to undermine the assad regime without playing into the hands of the radical islam. yet the way to undermine the i said regime would be for its

external i was particularly russia and iran to. give president assad council and advice in very strong terms about his need assad's need to see a political settlement which would not result in the destruction of the our white interest and we know what the what assad and his. clan fear which is that if they give up any power then that. they want some protection just to make sure just to make sure do you really believe that if president putin were to say to president assad you need to go he will just get his stuff pack it up and leave well it's not it's not that simple but but i do believe that if there were a level of engagement by the west and an understanding by the west of russia's own needs in the area and legitimate interest russia has

a base in syria well russia russia has a base in syria united states bases and in the gulf kingdom has a base number of sovereign base areas in cyprus so. that all the old great powers have got interests in that area including terrorists some territorial interests these people are understanding about that they need to be understanding of russia's own high levels of anxiety about the possibility of islamism feeding further into the caucasus into their own backyard and destabilizing southern part of russia so we need that we need an understanding about iran's role as well not least as we now have the optimism following the election of dr hassan rowhani president and i'm not saying that if president putin picks up the telephone to present president assad would jump. however that the assad regime is very

sensitive to russian influence it relies a lot on russia for problems. maybe in terms of financial support i don't know if as well certainly it's a national political support it receives russia is absolutely critical and if putin president putin were there for to say you need to do this you need to start to moderate your attacks on the rebels and to start. as it were geneva two and get the iranians in there as well then i think we may be in a more optimistic situation all right unfortunately that's all the time we have for today this was jack straw former u.k. foreign secretary thank you for being with us here and so fake oh we'll see you next time.

told me my language as well but i will only react to situations i haven't read the reports so i'm not going to the no i will leave them to the state department to comment on your latter point you say. to carry out a call as i'm going to talk you know god i. think you know more weasel words. when you say to direct question be prepared for a change when you have to. be ready for a. freedom of speech means little down to freedom to walk. leg.

length . leg . live.

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