hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle syria's last chance as the dates for the geneva conference are being arranged there is every reason to believe the assad regime may sit across from an empty chair syria's rebel oppositions on the ground are hopelessly divided the syrian political opposition in exile is divorced from the brutality on the battlefield so what can geneva two point zero hope to achieve. across time geneva two point zero i'm joined by hilary leverage in washington she is a professor of international relations at the american university and author of the new book going to run and in new york we crossed to richard murphy he is a reformer u.s. ambassador to syria and currently adjunct scholar at the middle east institute in washington all right crosstalk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage a hillary fund. to you first in washington dates are being said but who's going to

show up the assad regime is made it very clear that they would like to show up but who's going to be across the table and over there enough chairs for them even if they want to show up well clearly there's a problem with the opposition but there's been a problem with the opposition for over two years there's never been a coherent opposition there have always been problems with it there's always been problems with their foreign backers from the beginning what i think would be useful is if the conference went forward with all parties who could come unconditionally without preconditions it doesn't have to be a. make nice make peace between the assad government and members of the opposition there can be other things that can be done among neighbors external power hillary hillary. and conflict ready as we speak right now some of the opposition groups of groups are saying if other groups go we won't talk to you ever again or will block any kind of initiative i mean it's even within the opposition itself it's not about

assad it's about if you show up we're not going to talk to you so it creates even more divisions so i mean i think geneva two point zero is the best idea out there but it seems very impractical right now. well you know power has a funny thing happens with power at the end of the day when there is a table when there are people there when things are being decided seats are being allocated the pie is being split people will show up that's the experience i worked with the u.n. envoy lakhdar brahimi on prior conflicts in afghanistan iraq lebanon and that's what happens first everyone says they're not going to come and then people who actually want to participate want a piece of the pie they show up they may not represent the majority of the population but they show up if they want to be involved in an on the ground political project we know that assad will show up we know that some of the neighbors will show up we know iran has said they'd come unconditionally russia the united states so there will be seats at the table whether in the front comes or not is not really my top priority ok richard. he's up

a very good point do you do is the international community want these people who are considered terrorists or jihad is to actually sit at that table should they have a place at the table we don't want any dealings with groups that are directly tied to well i think that much is clear what is unclear is the line between a. command lead. group and those who are sympathetic but can be brought to the table to discuss the future of syria because it is not interested in the future of syria which interested in a trans national islamic. state so they're not interested in that in this kind of talks anyway they are respected in the rebel ranks as serious fighters well funded will well armed dedicated but their money of the rebels just don't see a future for. syria they want their own country well it's very interesting hilary

if we look at some of these foreign fodder of fighters up to ten thousand there are some estimates and even more fighters in syria now than there were ever in afghanistan and that the civil war in syria has only been going on for two years i mean are these people fighting for syria what are they doing there and is anybody outside the the exiles can they control them in any way shape or form it's i think clearly they cannot control and we've seen over the past two years that the london eleven can't control them their sponsors saudi arabia and qatar can't control them i think they are not listening to any outside backer for the benefit of syria there they are very much for themselves whether it's for a panasonic state or whether it's just for their own various criminal reigns we don't really know and i don't think we should be so concerned we should focus on power sharing conflict resolution and reconstruction in syria whether anybody from the. mission cons or not that's what we did with afghanistan we weren't inviting

the taliban to the table right away they can come after there is a reconstruction after you stand stand up a new political situation and i think the outside government is very much not only probably a part of it but leaves that and if others can be brought in we should be encouraging that but hold up as the battlefield to have more people die on the battlefield because of our fantasy of what people on the out oppositional bring to the table is not only inhumane but it is strategically strategic malpractise we are creating a huge problem among the there of neighbors of syria and throughout the region richard anyone that goes in the opposition to sit across from the side people they're going to have to look over their shoulder aren't they because the commanders on the ground there are calling the shots they're not listening to anybody in london or washington or brussels or is stamboul they have their own game to play and this is the this is the trip this is the poverty of the whole situation

because i've listened to all these people in exile you know some of them live close to langley virginia ok i mean will who these people to be talking about the future of syria. they have their views some of them very eloquent persuasive but you're right there's a gulf between them as a whole and the fighters inside who does stay in advice coming from those living in comfort as they describe it in five star foreign hotels i don't go to disagree with what hillary said it all on getting going my question is what can. us bring his people bring to the table. to persuade those who do it. the future is open it's not predestined is going to be. the forever president of syria

and it's not enough to do is to say well we'll have a free election and let the people decide because the history of syrian elections over the last. has been the do not lose elections. hilary can you speak that because we had to say we had the secretary of state you had the secretary of state does say hours ago that assad has no future in syria shouldn't think about reelection in two thousand and fourteen i mean who the hell was the secretary of state to say what who should be leading the syrian state and who should vote for whom there i mean again it looks like the americans are sabotaging this by determining outcomes before people even sit down and talk if they want to talk at all. yes it's unfortunate because not only is the american side insisting on preconditions they're insisting on pretty results which will has doomed negotiated process for the past two years and has directly contributed to

this atrocious outcome not only in human terms but in strategic terms not just for syria but for the united states as well it is really i think strategic malpractises as i said before but i think ambassador murphy murphy's points are right just to call an election with asada running the history of that for syrians has not worked so i think what we have we have a really good asset with locked arbor he meet here at the u.n. at the table trying to organize this what he did for lebanon what he did for afghanistan what he did for iraq for somalia for haiti what he didn't to say call an election pretend that one man one vote is going to take care of the political problems here you know what he did in each one of those other conflicts which he essentially wave the vote so in lebanon today it's not one man one vote there is power sharing you can have. power sharing in syria to where i said who i think represents and most americans hate when i say this i think he represents about fifty percent of the population if you stitch together the christians the shia the

way the truth and the sunni is who don't want to live under an al-qaeda state you have at least fifty percent of the population so that's what i was that brings to the table but that's not enough there clearly needs to be more at the table and i think what the the door that locked up or he may has opened just a bit is that asada is willing to come to the table with his fifty percent but to have others run maybe for other positions maybe they won't be president but maybe they would be speaker of the parliament maybe they'd have some role in security or economic economic life in syria that is how you put together a power sharing resolution to a very very deep conflict which are you seeing and members of the opposition even thinking along those lines whatsoever i think what hillary says makes perfect sense but what's happening in syria right now has nothing to do with sense it's just brutal violence and it's getting worse. i don't sense not in direct contact with our position figures but i don't sense any trust throughout the opposition community that they can deal with

a situation where assad is there and saying you can run for speaker you can run for head of security should he bring themselves to that point. there's just no trust. they they've been in the wilderness. long before there was the arab spring and the uprisings the rebellion. and their history of unity of action it is not good if you go back into the over the decades in the twenty's in the thirty's they . had great difficulty cooperating as head of political heads of political factions so muffler has a very difficult job. saddam was doing when he. had the results that he contributed to in iraq and i don't think that karzai.

has the image throughout. the assad has in syria so maybe the situations aren't directly comparable to you he's a man of great capabilities but he's proving that you said. that he's dealing with you can you speak to that because i mean he looks like he's winning he feels like he's winning now honestly. you know i was just in syria in lebanon over the summer right after the battle and qusay are clearly they are the government is winning on the ground which i think is making the various rebels the are militias on the ground here we are hearing if you're going to jump in here of course we're going to go with a short break and after a short break we'll continue our discussion on geneva two point state with our.

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welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle two minute we're discussing the geneva peace process. ok i'd like to go back to richard in new york and six months into the conflict in syria i worried a lot about jihad is coming in and being supported by saudi arabia i was called alarmist a year later i talked about partition again i was called an alarmist but what about partition if we don't get some kind of was aleutian relatively soon because civil war is the longer they last the worse the outcome usually is this a possibility that we could see the country partitioned what does that mean for a rump state syria and what does that mean for the the region as a whole. well if partition means setting up. fully

independent mini states if you will of the current body of syria i don't think that's a viable or desirable situation and i'm personally banking on the history since the present boundaries were drawn during the first world war the british and french a sense of a dynegy and a sense of some pride in being syrian is going to prevail and what it's what they negotiate is as they gather in geneva when they gather in geneva. have to keep in mind that. there's a possibility to rebuild that state but the future of independent mini states is is suspect and the problems of federation which are possible between autonomous units i suppose will be very difficult to develop ok hilary and i think your pride he added i hope there is

a strong enough sense of identity in syria but hillary if i can extend my analysis of partition one partition state whatever you want to call it will not be secular if you know what i mean it will be jihad this land or something like that which is really no one in the region needs that we have next jordan we have also lebanon i mean this is what i worry about because assad can pull up the bridges and say i'm going to sit pretty until you guys figure out your problem your arming them you're giving them money you're giving them support you're giving them legitimacy and this is the real problem i worry about if there isn't a resolution relatively soon. unfortunately no one will be sitting pretty. not the government in iraq not the government in jordan not the government in lebanon because such states and they would be highly militarized extremely unstable very unpopular with. with the populations all of those would be would be highly

threatening to not only to syria but to all of the neighbors so i don't think anyone would be sitting pretty and no one has an interest in it not even the rebels because what's interesting and doesn't get a lot of media coverage is that every area that the rebels take they can't hold there's no popular support there's no government that emerges that's popularly based or delivers any services whatsoever we're now hearing that polio is come back into areas that the rebels have seized because it's so chaotic and so crime and violent grip violence driven so these i don't think there is a viability for these kind of areas to exist outside of the current state apparatus as weakened as it has become under the assad government that's really all people have and we should be focused on the international community as regional neighbors trying to reconstruct rebuild syria both not just materially but politically economically and potentially even militarily where there is a robust component to geneva two for disarmament we need to speak seriously and

frankly about essentially the legal arming of these rebel groups outside of security council resolution resolutions outside of international law the security council should be dealing with this with this illegal arming of the people to overthrow recognized government of the united nations now i'm not pro or anti oxy i am very focused on international law and how damaging it is to try to overthrow government extradition it's you bring up a very good point you bring up the international community richard you know we have wanted to turn around in some kind of communication ok how far it's going to go is anyone's guess after so many decades of bad relations but it does play into the dynamic because you have the united states you have turkey qatar saudi arabia and a look at israel and it looks like everyone's going in a different direction it's long as the u.s. tries to engage to some level it really changes the mix in dealing with syria.

as long as the united states doesn't engage with whom what went on a long as they continue doing the age when he's around doesn't know we're dealing with around because this is something that the saudis over are very unhappy about needless to say. oh yeah they are indeed. also i mean that's a real problem but. like to just check who with the with hillary this question of a secular state that secular state that people talk of probably as having existed under the regime of the controls in that secular state in accordance with battery doctrine were exercised largely by in a clique of the alawite community we're no political dissension was permitted no factions were allowed to arise during half of the last it's time nor during bush zero s.

so there was the feeling among the sunni's among the or less among the christians because they did feel more protected no question of ancient two rivalries and suspicions and resentment of alawite domination and. made it somewhat less of a secular state in the american sense of secular well hillary i think i saw you nodding you agree but i mean what's the alternative i mean you know you're focusing on in the beginning the program you're talking about institutional reform that may address some of those issues but often but obviously the alternative of this civil war is not an option it shouldn't be at least. no but i agree with investor murphy i don't hold up secularism as some sort of ideal particularly in the middle east i think a secular state in the heart of the middle east is an anomaly it doesn't make sense in terms of people's popular beliefs their histories and their their their aspirations for what they want out of life but when you look at public opinion

polling particularly public opinion polling that was done before the civil war the populations in syria polled differently from from others across the middle east who almost all the other countries a majority of them want sharia to be the basis of islamic law to be the basis of their judicial systems in syria that was not so and not because there are people who deeply believe in islam and who want islam to be part of their life but because there is such a mix in syria of different ethnicities and different groups and that's where i think it is able to draw this fifty percent of support but it's critically important i think to recognize that it probably can't go on that way it can't go on as some sort of both a secular ideal that never existed and that's where i said i think is opening the door with geneva two with the two thousand and fourteen plan for for elections and for political reform is to bring in some other representation to alex side of the louis sect of society that is really important they're not the majority and the

idea that a minority can continue to hold on to a country indefinitely is. historic and anachronistic that's a good point richard i mean if i saw what i know the u.s. has always says assad has to go on i'm getting tired of hearing that after two years because he's still there and there's not much to move him but it's just that this is a really good point it's incumbent upon assad to reach out to other syrians because the status quo is untenable before the civil war and now the civil war it's really up to him if he wants to make it work you agree or not. up to him it's up to his backers outside backers and you know hillary and i are on your program of americans and she may be more critical of the administration in washington than i am but that's the role of the the fact is we should be thinking also about what russia and what tehran can do to influence. of i mean the russians got assad to the

table going to do you need a side got them to the table at least that's what he claims ok that's a lot that's a lot because i don't see how a lot of other people on the other side of the table agreeing to sit down now is hillary pointed out as time passes more and more people may want to sit down and will see their i mean i don't know what else russia can do except you can bring a horse to water but you can't make them drink richard. well who got rid of who gave the push to get rid of the chemical weapons program was not all self generated to damascus so wasn't that some persuasive evidence of a russian push that this is in your best interest do it now do i save you save the barak obama from a disaster and the entire region i think that was a very good diplomatic move hilary want to jump in. i agree and i think this the united states and our so-called allies in the middle east have fought for at least the past ten years probably before that but much more so since the end of

the cold war and post nine eleven that we can use military means to affect political outcomes that is just not the case and i think russia not because it's russia but because it is using diplomacy it is using international law it is using the security council for what it was intended to do which is to keep peace and security those are the keys that we have to go forward with and i think it's important that that russia has brought syria to the table not only for geneva two the chemical weapons issue the iranians to have done this not only backing a political process for syria but in other conflicts throughout the region they are focused on bringing in more representation not to have a western liberal secular democracy but to have representative government in iraq in lebanon in afghanistan so i think we should bring them in bring that expertise that they bring to the table by negotiate with the current iranian foreign minister to have a jury over drive and zarif over afghanistan this was his focus then i think he could do it on syria but we keep insisting not just on preconditions but on pretty

results that defy history and peace and security ok thank you very much for a fascinating discussion both of you many thanks to my guest today in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember cross talk. you believe. these are.

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