technology innovation on the list of bell amends for round russia we dump the future covered. dramas that can't be ignored. stories others refused to notice. faces change the world lights never. so picture of today's. on demand from around the globe. up to. fifty.

hello and welcome across town where all things considered i'm people of l. the end of one era and the start of another with a lot of proper care review on syria's chemical weapons and play it would appear the international system is returning to some kind of multilateral order the united states indeed remains the world's only military superpower but that same power can now be put into check could washington cope with this new geo political reality. to cross talk american influence in the middle east and beyond i'm joined by lou coffey in washington he is a margaret thatcher fellow at the heritage foundation in new york we have robert

house he is a professor of international law at the new york university law school and in london we cross to people come ready he is a writer and journalist or a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much appreciate if you do a couple if i go to you first in london. kerry deal for syria is a big game changer are we seeing some major shifts of sand in the middle east now. i think it's temporarily a game changer but i think it sets the stage for an eventual intervention because it gives a limited time to the assad regime to surrender its chemical weapons stockpiles and i think given the situation in syria it's a very unrealistic deadline and the condition they're going to place is that if assad fails to surrender his stockpiles triggers intervention so i think this could rather than being a return to diplomacy that this could actually be a preview to agree to intervention so i can stay with you in london ergo the united

states doesn't want to let go of its influence in the region. i don't think i don't know i don't think it does ok look. lucas game changer in the middle east now i think that go ahead. now i don't think it i don't think it's a game changer i think there have been significant developments with the kerry and lavrov deal and i think it's a positive thing that for the meantime anyway it looks like any sort of military strike has been averted but in terms of this being a game changer or the u.s. some losing interest in the middle east i think you know it's far too early to make these sort of sort of claims you know what we saw with the deal with with with kerry is the amount of russian leverage that exists with syria so you know we might want to paint this as some great russian diplomatic coup but in reality shows like the diplomatic equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel for

a show they basically tell us what to do and he does it well ok but robert de it's a victory for international law i'm not i'm not i'm the last person to say this is a great victory for russian diplomacy i think it's a victory for international law that's why i'm looking at a game changer that's why i'm using the term robert what do you think. i think it is a victory for international law because. there's a clear. decision. the syrian regime will bring itself under. the legal norms. for for chemical weapons so how could that not be in itself a victory and it's especially a victory because of the commitment to ensure that there is actual compliance with. these promises so to my mind from the international law point of view it's definitely

a step forward and it shows that the law is something serious there can't be violated without significant consequences and without those consequences coming from the international community. that you suggest that the youth still think there's going to be a strike it will probably be against international law and so it's one step forward one step back because i would i'll tell you i agree with your life i agree with your pessimism ok i agree with your president as a mom is go ahead. but i think it'll have the gloss of international backing because if they if they invoke chapter seven in the current agreement they are putting together and i don't think assad will be able to surrender his chemical weapons but i'm a twenty fourteen if you've been to syria you'll know that it's deeply divided it's impossible for inspectors to just walk about and take it to civil war weapons it's a civil war it's a civil war it's it's the notion that the syrian government will be able to

surrender its weapons as is i think very unrealistic and one of the things you have to of course remember is that. there's an intense pressure on the government and within this acknowledge within this agreement there is an acknowledgement that. assad is in charge of syria. if we could if there is going to be a strike here because i have the pick. same pessimism is couple in london i mean how could it be. you know as under international law because we don't have congress on board we don't have a united nations security council on board we don't have anybody on board ok the one i don't really think this was some great victory for international law basically you had john kerry give some off the cuff remarks during the question and answer session during a press conference in london and all of a sudden we're talking about you know syria certain during their chemical weapons

it's not as a result of pressure from the international community being applied to the united states i mean look at look at the situation that president obama was facing no one in the american public once intervene militarily in the syrian civil war very few in congress want to get you know president obama seemed very convinced that he was still going to go through with this so you know i just don't see the you know the american military might being checked by by the international community i think that most americans think that if any military intervention is needed in syria then it's the authority of the u.s. congress that weighs more importantly than you know u.n. security council resolution or the international community but you know that being said i still think the worst thing that could happen out of all of this is. a u.s. led military intervention i don't think it's going to solve any problem. robert you know again you know. if you go ahead the legality of it all go ahead jump in robert . so my view is that there is one kind of military intervention that could

be justified under international law and that is not prohibited by the main provision on the use of force in the un charter and that is a targeted intervention for humanitarian reasons to prevent future chemical attacks and the argument for prevention is really that prevention atrocities is consistent with the principles and purposes of the united nations and it's a targeted goal that does not constitute the use of force against the political independence or territorial integrity of any state it's directed surgically at degrading the chemical weapons capacity however it seems to me that the burden of proof would be very high in the present circumstances i think you would have to show. that is to

say that the alternative to the use of force is not working and so it's been suggested that it will be very difficult for assad to meet the timetable well there could be logistical reasons for that or there could be reasons related to lock up trust and lock of cooperation and it seems to me that if the reasons are due to untrustworthy conduct by assad then there is a stronger case for a strike targeted at degrading his chemical weapons capacity because ultimately any solution other than force is a solution that has to depend upon trust and if there is no trust what options do we have on the table it looks to me i mean i like to i like to focus on international law but i think at the end of the day if there is a strike in this whole deal is this issue iran on the a part of the americans it's because saudi arabia and israel. on a strike it has nothing to do with international law i mean it would be nice if it

were but it's not really and the saudis are furious the turks are furious elements of israel are furious a lot of people are furious and they still want to strike you know have nothing to do with international law you have a great tragedy of all of this is they turkey and saudi arabia were hoping to use american troops as mercenaries they wanted to bring in americans to achieve that to advance their goals basically which was to get rid of it which was get rid of assad especially saudi arabia which is extremely furious that the strikes haven't gone gone through we know that saudi arabia has been pushing for some time for strikes and for strikes against assad this talk about humanitarian intervention but one hundred thousand people have been killed by conventional weapons already and now the focus has shifted from protecting people to ridding some of the chemical weapons and they've set a timetable which is which is impossible to achieve and so they will if the eventual intervention will not be to protect human lives it will be because assad has failed to meet the deadline robert you want to jump in there. well as i say i

think there could be two reasons or more for not meeting the deadline it would seem to me are reasonable to launch a strike just because there are or the deadline is stop and met due to you know logistical or technical articles and i very much doubt that the united states would react in that kind of automatic function without exploring very closely the reasons why the deadline is not being met and how one can come as close as possible to meeting it but if the problem is that there is no trust and no real cooperation and bad faith then that sets up the standard c. of course it is so i got all over here of course there is a bad thing here there's bad faith here because the obama administration said assad used these weapons and there was no evidence at the time i mean obviously there was no. trust. yeah well you know what i mean major it's that intelligence

agency in the in the every major intelligence agency in the world other than russia believes that assad used these chemical weapons i believe even the un secretary general made some comments that he didn't know was recorded where he also thought assad used these weapons oh my now what did you defense loses him physically thinking something and knowing something that's what i'm getting at thinking something and then we something yes you're absolutely you're absolutely right you're absolutely right say and perhaps if russia thinks that the rebels did it and they have intelligence that the rebels did it then maybe in the same way they're calling on the u.s. to share their intelligence maybe russia should also share their intel of a sharing to be telegenic through talk to their three month study three months let it go to the united nations you can find it ok gentlemen 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 a possible multi-polar world state come to.

the police with.

plug the lead. live. a. libertarian they play very hard to make up lists or get along there's a club that has sex with the perfect pair of gloves let's play. lists. lists lists lists

lists lists lists lists lists about. a. welcome back to cross talk were all things considered i'm peter will remind you we're discussing american influence in the middle east and beyond. ok back to you in london then we've talked about international law and but i think

that's what's more important is perceptions here and i kind of went down the path of saudi arabia and other people other regional players here what do you think the perception is of the obama administration right now they did take a knock did it step back is it humiliated itself because when the united states the united states likes to use force ok and in the region it uses it quite often particularly in the last ten years and this is the first time maybe it's you know a short break but you know for the first time the americans have kind of stepped back a little bit but how is the region perceived that. i think one of your panelists said that the end intelligence agencies of all the world believed that assad used chemical weapons just before coming on to the program i spoke to officials in delhi they're skeptical that assad used chemical weapons personally i believe elements within the assad government may have used chemical weapons but there are governments around the world which are very skeptical of american claims that these claims were made a day after the videos were posted online and they're going to claim this one

bridge claims you're claiming u.s. british claims yes. indeed i'm going to show you just heard russian television so how does it work claims well i mean you know that they're ok but i'm still on the road. so the world isn't made up simply of western nations there are large nations out there yeah of course the belief of an american and of course the question i'll tell you you know especially situation where you have a group of rebels who cave and do this. all of the narrow president as he has and what have the military capabilities they want to do this and what has happened. i think american credibility is a was around the world and that was evident in the way in which the world refused to believe this claim even though he may have been running from this occasion they got it wrong so many times in the past they were actually right no one wants to believe them that's a good point look what is what about you i didn't think i was it would be the best way to settle this go ahead lou go ahead jump in yeah i agree i agree with that

point about the credibility i mean there are a lot of people especially united states who want nothing to do with wars in the middle east they see no value in the u.s. getting involved in syria they see little or they see no national interests in syria but you know it's a two way street you know you have countries like this say russia or china saying that they have evidence that it was the rebels and then you have the u.s. and the u.k. and france saying what we have evidence of the assad why no way to solve this problem why is everyone show their hand otherwise we just have this ongoing big ring competition where we have no united nations report is all we have the not united nations report ok finally that came out again with western countries made up their minds about what happened there but then the report comes out after the fact no wonder there's so much credibility issues involved here when western governments i mean only a couple just pointed out i mean western governments think one thing well after the

last ten years look i mean don't you think most of the world's kind of skeptical of particularly after iraq. yeah well don't you think most of the world is skeptical of chinese and russian motives i mean you know russia is a country that still occupies twenty percent of its neighbor you know so one times reason that you know why doesn't result is a reason that i as you were americans did you learn that it's not enough you know there are two depending on how serious they are recognized by the russian ok a truth very very well you know why do you spoil all these it's not going to be you know you attack south of said you're going to bring this up now even his own government didn't stand yes when you were saying that you know that's ridiculous you know all right let me bring i've been you know we don't race you know she wanted us to a lesser extent ok ok are you satisfied are you satisfied it gets off the point of labeling it completely ok so go ahead and they're not going to go i don't think we should not let me say that i agree come on guys. i think that we should not lose

sight of the moral intuition. that something needed to be done after there was evidence of this massive chemical attack on the moral intuition is that you know every line in the sand we draw about the use of horrific weapons is a victory of sorts of for humanity it stands for humanity now from that point of view i think that the obama administration acted upon a moral intuition that many people in the united states and the world share but how do you get to that from that moral intuition to deciding or knowing what to do that's the more complicated thing and it seems to me about the administration did two things which were very good one is that there have to be consequences there is a line in the sand and secondly we're going to take some time we're going to go to congress we're deliberation and it seems to me it's precisely these two steps that

paved the way for the agreement that is now in place and so. from my point of view the administration did quite well in this situation but if you don't share of the initial moral intuition about about you know drawing these lines in the sand with regard to particularly perfect means of warfare then you would never get off the ground as it were any kind of real case for doing something about it ok but if we go back to the real world i absolutely agree with ron when you don't like agree with what about ok you know that this is in a moral imperative here but i mean again from a global perspective you know. agent orange. white phosphorus of these are used by the united states and by israel i mean that really doesn't apply it only applies to countries the west doesn't like it seems to me. there are many people

who would not share the view american view of its monopoly on the moral high ground but many people disagree with the view that the only option in syria is either too easy either to do something or to fold our hands and sit back there are multilateral institutions which can be used to apply pressure on the assad regime and one of the things you have to stop doing is arming the rebels but we russia has to stop stop arming assad but america must lean on its client saudi arabia qatar and turkey to stop arming the jihad these in syria no one seems to be doing that there's a virtually no opposition to the it's taken as a it's taken as a great act of moral courage to people we don't know we don't know who these people's ideology is they're more than likely cut from the same cloth as the men who drove those planes into the world trade center but america seems to wake up only when the twin towers come crashing down or its embassies were bombed otherwise it has its convenient allies if uses these you know these it's willing there are

many same voices in america which which see no problem. do you hold these look what do you think about i mean it's the army in the ground people are good actually very good point go ahead go ahead jump in here i wouldn't i wouldn't i wouldn't give these i would give the rebels so much as a b.b. gun in my personal opinion i don't think we should be arming any any side here and i think that you know robert made a very good point in this debate in this heated debate we lose focus on what the real issue is and you know at the end of the day i guess it's important to determine who use these weapons so maybe someone can be held account of intially but you know we have to look at the fact that over one hundred thousand people have died in this tragic conflict and that chemical weapons have been used for a girl or so by whom they have been used they have been used so we need to figure out how can we prevent this from happening in the future how do we alleviate some of the humanitarian suffering going on inside syria how do we really push towards a cease fire to end. the brutal slaughter and you know how do we help countries

around syria to deal with the you know refugee problems and these other humanitarian issues and other putting look i think everyone on the program agree on what he wants here and i think everyone agrees with you everyone on the panel agrees with you but robert you know what you want to do that would be to stop arming the rebels small way to do that would be to stop pumping weapons into syria ok robert let me go to you but we have this initiative right now ok the united states and russia has come together on this initiative on chemical weapons now we've heard on this program it could be just a false break for an assault ok because someone's going to say ah we found the smoking gun finally or and that's what the reason why we have you on the program you can go in a different direction we have a tentative agreement right now can you go to the next step geneva two point two do you think enough trust can be built up and war this civil war can be put to an end ok no one will know side will get exactly what they want but maybe the killing will

stop. i don't have. any kind of certain optimism that will happen but what i do think is that. this agreement is done is it has ratcheted up the the serious attention of the international community and international institutions. to this problem which is as was just mentioned among other things a humanitarian. disaster and my impression is that you know the the u.n. to some extent has looked the other way and there hasn't been insistence on any kind of decisive action just allow the different powers to play out their own interests in the region. i think we've gotten

a little bit beyond that with this agreement but from my point of view not enough yet to you know to justify that kind of optimism but i do think it's it's a step forward out of assad behaves in a relatively you know trustworthy fashion on this then perhaps it will be possible gradually to build up to some broader negotiations at least to alleviate the humanitarian costs of the war if not you know and all to you know peaceful settlement in the foreseeable future ok because we are going to ask you to give you the last word what's your crystal ball because it from the program i can tell it's not too bright. i think there might be an intervention of some kind limited perhaps but that i don't think assad will be able to meet the deadline and even if he were to meet the deadline no one in the west is likely to trust him on the so chapter seven will be some kind of intervention will occur eventually got

twenty seconds to be fair go ahead. i hope that we can refocus the efforts on bringing a peaceful resolution to the crisis in syria i really hope that there is no military intervention because i don't think it's going to solve the intended objective and i think it could just make matters worse ok i think i think we're all going to be in agreement on that thank you very much and when we run out of time many thanks be to my guests in washington new york and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and we member. the one. unexplored antarctica what is it in this icy expanse that attracts the people who

come here. but you know now i only go to the docks. and enter into. a new generation of polar explorers is coming. we have a new group of specialists here now all of them are young how are they going to get along with each other and i don't know. do. i used to be a bureaucrat. seriously. what adventures await in this mysterious land where do they live what do they eat and what are they actually doing in antarctica . think. we're going to do that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy albus. role. in

fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across several we've been hijacked lying handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once built up my job market and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on in the world we go beyond identifying the problem try to fix rational debate and a real discussion critical issues facing america five for ready to join the movement then walk a bit. more is probably the most complex and difficult human activity.

all of us are still locked up. in the phenomenon of friendly fire probability extends back to the invention of gunpowder. just killed a bunch of people in a family don't know what they're up their families there are in the us people. many are reading. this some of them shoots my brother in the leg not intentionally because of it because it was ny times four in the morning even the best even the mesh shoulders. are going to make mistakes does this whole idea of brotherhood it on are and can. in this sense it was and in this context it has absolutely no place.

it's. going to be. coming up on our t.v. u.s. relations with brazil continue to sour after was revealed by edward snowden the u.s. for spying on the brazilian president she's canceled a planned visit to the white house and also wants her nation to have its own internet we'll tell you more about these developments ahead. and d.c. is now the scene of a growing wage battle between workers and wal-mart attempts to make the company pay a living wage in d.c. have come up short but is the fight over more on that coming up. and we may be on the cusp of a medical crisis in the u.s. there's been an increase in bacteria that can resist antibiotics and increase that has the c.d.c. worried it will tell you what's behind this increase later in the show.