we're taken prisoner by anti government. up next in our teeth crosstalk debates. in syria could push the u.s. into a new war stay with us. hello and welcome to crossfire for all things considered i'm people of al here we go again we're told the islamic state terrorist group is the worst of the worst and has global ambitions the public is being taught slowly but surely to fear the islamic state it would appear washington continues to attempt to shape in reshape the middle east. to cross-talk the islamic state i'm joined by my guest jobber husain in london he

is director of the iraqi association also in london we have joseph willits he is from the council for arab british understanding and in washington we cross to ray locker he is the washington enterprise editor for usa today right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want ray if i go to you in washington we have the u.s. defense secretary saying the islamic state threat beyond anything we've seen is it really of this magnitude here because we've heard this before about other groups and the march toward go ahead ray in washington. well we have a history of doing that i mean the government as we saw that pre two thousand and three with saddam hussein in iraq saying he had weapons of mass destruction he didn't we invaded anyway and now all of the rest of the world wonders about our credibility however we had an attack on nine eleven thirteen years ago that killed more than three thousand people and nobody wants to be the person in charge in the government who turns a blind eye to something like that rules out

a potential threat and then comes to regret it later so certainly politically the pressure is on to always take these things seriously and then if they turn out not to be so bad to dial it back this may not be a case where we can dial it back if we keep stepping up the military action ok that's interesting joseph i go to you in london but i mean i suppose if you could just get at the chicken or the egg here of course no politician wants to be held responsible for not being vigilant enough here but if you continue to involve yourself in the affairs of other people very far away you know it's syria you know the free syrian army give them money give them equipment oh well there are two two religious or two radical for us so they move over to another group with all her quit with our money our training and you know again the law of unintended consequences i mean of course what ray says is true but that also can justify more military intervention when less intervention is probably the best thing to do go

ahead joseph in london well i think i think bombing alone would would not be the right idea for cereal for iraq they obviously need to be very clear strategy which that hasn't been that hasn't been for a long long time in syria and for the wider region. we have you know we've also getting the argument that somehow you know isis is the new evil and has been failure is kindness for it is in terms of dealing with saddam and that it's not forget that you know assad is still barrel bombing. people in aleppo there are still atrocities carrying out documented evidence of war crimes on both sides. obviously you know the fear of this is great and i think this the turning point happens to be i think the beheading of james foley a couple of couple of days ago and it seems that now you know the death of an american journalist is bringing this back in the spotlight and bringing it closer

to home again just so you know as i've just said let me ask you do you think that sun intentionally and i'm not dismissing the suffering of that man and his family and his grieving family but you know it's quite interesting from a p.r. perspective isn't it you have such a spotlight on an american being killed by someone with a british accent which i think needs to be a little bit more investigated as well what i'm saying is it fits really well into this kind of media environment what i think i think with the images of of james foley we have possibly the biggest extremist p.r. coup since nine eleven i think this comparable images that in terms of london's bombings in madrid bombings and also the death of lee rigby the soldier on the streets of london last year. and i think you know the argument is is that there is a sense that however horrific and gory and extreme the decapitation of james foley is it seems seems strange that only now we're recognizing the plight of iraqis in

syria as you are suffering similar of similar fates that there are at the hands of isis and it does there is a risk a very serious risk that you're sending a message that one american life is more valuable than countless thousands of iraq in syria and one's ok you are in line at one of the interesting things is that we look at this ongoing tragedy in syria where no one is faultless when it be time logically speaking to make amends with assad and take on according to the u.s. state department. if defense department the most horrific threat to the world then take on isis together that would be logical but it's not going to happen is it well i don't think so to be practical on this issue especially every other to prove that there's no way for the western allies to make any piece of deals with the. assad regime. but the threat is there is

a chloe the should be an immediate action to hold the advances on both sides of the border of iraq on syria. ok ray you know it seems to me this is exactly what isis wants they want to take on the big western military giant plane they want to take though and they're just waiting for it because this is what feeds up that make you know it tracks a lot of people to their followings i mean the f.b.i. and we have other western intelligence agencies having a difficult time estimating how many westerners are actually joining isis right now i mean this is really quite interesting here this is what isis wants it's in the spotlight it's all about they're the purest the baddest the meanest all of the above when it be better not to play their game and to back off and see where it's going to go i don't think it's best to back off i mean i think you do that at your own risk i mean clearly this is on stable group with has a very apocalyptic worldview and to let them do whatever they want would be

a mistake regardless of where you are i mean there are so many dangers there are you know in any of these decisions and i don't think you see the u.s. government rushing to do anything president obama does not want to go into syria he only wants to deal with that if he absolutely has to because the choices are all bad you can go away any take out the islamic state in syria you're helping assad or you may be helping another group but i mean what are your choices maybe the ice is just too much intervention too much intervention here joseph you know you know ray is absolutely right because what ever party you hope you're going to help another party that you don't like that's a terrible foreign policy position to be in and you know we've seen this tumultuous change in that region for since the end of the cold war particularly in this century here it's outside mentally the more outside meddling the more situations come up like this. or clearly that there has been a failed failed strategy when it comes to syria and iraq and and again it seems

that we're only talking about this now. but we you know we can either diminish diminish or stray away from the threat of isis and we cannot stray away from the threat of assad you know i keep reiterating this this point you know that only last year we were talking about chemical attacks in ghouta we talk about barrel bombs in aleppo we're talking evidence of eleven thousand people killed under assad and evidence of you know photographic evidence of torture and of course we're seeing evidence of of isis atrocities are seeing crucifixions we're seeing beheadings we're seeing amputations we're seeing this policy of of fear and of course you know when you were talking about the issue of james foley this this image of a of an american being beheaded in such a way is not necessary a new one it's a tried and tested method that al qaeda have used and there is a discussion now about whether isis is more brutal isis is worse than al-qaeda i

think it's irrelevant i mean isis is not great it's i you know al qaeda plus. and they just but they're. and we cannot write of isis simply sometimes as a as a crazy ragtag bunch of lunatics which of course they are but they are very smart and they're they're very effective and they have you know they have done so by building and maintaining and consolidating the concept of a state which al-qaeda and in the franchise of al qaeda did not do and obviously it is tapping into specific iraqi syrian grievances and regional grievances and we cannot underestimate that and there has been failings across the board and and of course bombing alone in what work has to has to be a coalition a an inclusive rate of increase of group of regional and international powers yeah exactly don't know if i agree with you but you know do you have same partners you know you the. golf countries saudi arabia i mean where is the funding coming from

here i mean again you know you be talking out of both sides of their mouth you're afraid of these fundamentalist groups but there are plenty of people in saudi arabia and the gulf countries that are just giving money to these people and and who knows what else here i mean a coalition is nice and find be can you trust your coalition partners go ahead just before we go to the break what that regardless of that there has to has to be this inclusive inclusive approach and this includes russia and iran are who of course of you know have been confronting assad and and there are you know we have to we have to we have to make sure there is inclusive for approach because all parties do have a role to play regardless of of the implications and without that there will be no hope of freeing up syria iraq of of its tyrants of various forms jabari london do you think this is what isis counts on is that there is so the relationships in alliances in the region are so complex complicated and contradictory even that it's going to be very difficult for the region to deal with

them well unknown nowhere years. to rethink just soon or. the. decider to attack people who come for nothing the. first to. continents and many partners were not meeting. the situation specially in styria while in iraq was different of course the. government which. looked to the. brutal regime of saddam but in syria definitely played the in the very clever way but then dropped the. norbu. come ok ok i'm going on this. and i'm going to get we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the

islamic state stay part. of the reason the league. is a. c.b.s. this is hard to see it more than the propaganda film that is the state sponsored rush or today program just words by sabean not like i don't think analyze this present time is just ridiculous non answer to my question. john is not happy to support their safety and sometimes their lives all over the wall to bring people stories none the common ganda chalo don't want to see and we told the coast sucks.

a lot happened when as you saw after world war one of much of european countries just jump in the middle east and da lines all over the map and say all these are new countries we don't care about the history culture well flash forward twenty fourteen and you end up with islamic state or isis. the united states as i go as a warfare surveillance a president as it oppressively strong cold war era regulatory export apparatus among other things it wants to manage the internet it wants to spy on every government it wants to you know it wants to have every partner in the world beneath . dramas that can't be ignored. stories there is still

a few still no. change in the world lights now. so picture today. from around the globe.

welcome back to cross talk we're all things considered on peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the threat known as the islamic state. ok ray i'd like to go back to you in washington exactly one year ago there was the big discussion about the gas attacks in and around damascus and whether the u.s. was going to attack and that was one year ago i think there are plenty of people in washington would like another shot another pretext to take out that regime and actually try to use it to their advantage when look in dealing with isis what do you think about that. i don't think right now that we really the united states government wants to get rid of the assad regime i mean who is going to replace that we've seen in the last year all the things that have happened when you know we've tried to do whatever in syria you have assad he's obviously

a bad actor we would like to not have him there you have isis which is i think even worse stan simply have the free syrian army but no one really knows how powerful they are then you have other islamised groups that are are probably between assad and isis in terms of ideology so if you pull out assad what's going to happen i don't think this government wants to do anything to help assad but i don't think that they can look at a future without him in power and realize that it's going to be any better this is going to take years if you want to support the free syrian army and hope they both have a kind of capacity. from scuse me to replace assad. you know that might be an option but a vacuum that would be created by knocking out the assad regime right now i think would be a disaster ok i joseph a lot of neo cons in in washington if not be logical thinking they would still take advantage of the situation let's talk about iran because iran is a very important regional player and it's

a very stable one it. again odd better bedfellows because if you look at the sunni shia divide i mean you see how the iranians are helping out. baghdad and you get one of these unintended consequences of the invasion of two thousand and three again because of the animosity between the west and iran that kind of cooperation is going to be quite limited but if we could you know we could get rid of some history and some bad feelings iran could play a very positive role in dealing with isis because they have nothing in common with them because i mean you know isis or of cool threat to iran and they're very they're very close to iran a buddhist and i think we've just we've discussed before. in the sense that actually you know iran and iran's involvement with the us in terms of isis in iraq was quite significant in terms of actually sometimes the people of the u.s. are backing in syria are. fighting against assad who is obviously being you know is

being funded in iran and i think you know iran has to be brought to the table iran is part of this inclusive approach towards syria and iraq and of course you have seen iran's iran's moves in iraq maliki was a was a person that the was supported by iran and also largely got rid of by iran and i think that is significant and obviously there are there are plenty of areas of agreement even if even if not in public where the u.s. u.k. and iran can engage and can come work because of the threat the threat is to plenty of us whether whether we be in london new york washington. damascus or tehran you know if i can go quickly back to you in washington i guess there's no political will for that because logically speaking logically speaking if this is the greatest threat to the world right now then you have to forgive a few things in and forget a few things that you have to deal with people you don't like with iran's one of

them again this is an opportunity but because of israel and other lobbies it's not going to happen while the greatest threat in the world continues to scare everybody . well i don't think we can say it's not going to happen it could be happening right now we just don't know pat it will after all we're talking to iran about its nuclear program we're doing it openly i mean when you're talking to people and you don't have to stick to the script about you know all we're all going to talk about the nuclear program you can go off into a corner and say what are we can do about isis i mean it's clearly in our interests and obviously if the iranians help with isis we may consider giving them a break somehow on the nuclear program that that's everything you know goes into a somebodies calculations when you're having a negotiation hey if i give up this maybe i'll get that and so would not surprise me at all if there were people who are having those conversations right now but they're not making them public ok if you are in london one of the things i find quite remarkable particularly in the last ten years is that we just go from one war

one conflict one sectarian conflict one after another it's almost if if it's pre or gain it just keeps the region boiling until you can get the right outcome you want because we all agree on this program you know you you you're helping some people the yemeni enemies of some and then the opposite and you actually have these very strange bedfellows is again if this part of the calculation in the west particularly washington to see where isis is going to go before you make your final bets and who you're going to back in the region. and so it will be puzzling question they have the problem with gunships on with the support of the majority do you know in the car the comes with the we all know what the car the. again the. zam of come out of the car the car those for you to go way too small to extreme brought up to piping. london the clock to and to national so-called the motional

islamic programmers and to believe them. we've sort of got to the. the americans and their allies the british as well there had no pause. you know or war or war with saddam's a from power strategy always making dollars looks like try on our own the expenses of the people of the region. says should be dealt with immediately and they should be stopped literally but that will not. advocate them definitely it's a long process. they really want to eradicate them they have to cut off supplies that's not only the money but the pouring of internationals to coming from all over the world even from china where chuck turns on from the balkans of from europe

these are all using the root of most of them are using the route of turkey this can be halted again going back to american policy of well i'm one of millions of iraqis we don't know what they are planning for to war even ok i think that you know that is one of the most interesting things said on this program today and i want to go to joseph because do they have any idea what they're doing this is what i've been getting at for a year is right now do they actually have a plan because when we look at what's being said about a year ago about sarin gas in syria i mean it was just a few seconds away from hitting the button until someone said hey this doesn't make any sense at all and then everybody stood back and said yeah you're right i mean do you have to give any confidence at all that the policy makers particularly in washington have any idea what they're doing or they just winging it. i think there is a. there is a immense feeling that actually that really they don't know what to do and this is

the you had also seen a former military figures in the u.k. the other day saying the there is no clear strategy and i think again there is this sort of hangover certainly in the u.k. and in the us as well of a hangover by intervention in iraq and that that does dominate any sense of intervention in the region and of course last year in london we had a parliamentary vote which david cameron cameron lost and i think this time if if there were to be a vote on intervention in iraq i don't know whether we would it would go through but i think there would be more support for it there are indications certainly in the british public that around forty five percent of people would support british strikes of seymour would more support u.s. air strikes on isis targets in syria and iraq and this is significantly increased since the beheading of foley and of course this idea of the very real for it bring

it closer to home with actually british extremists being involved in syria iraq and numbers estimates of around five hundred i think this this is motivating with the public opinion but also political opinion but whether it is just reactionary in terms of responding to this theory that isis is creating and obviously there is a justification to the hysteria. but if their reaction is also in part hysterical and then there are dangers in a structure that is dominated by that really you're in washington you're an inside the beltway there i mean how much is the obama under pressure to do something as they always say something must be done you know he's got midterm elections up and coming up and you know there is this you know that creeping feeling of mission creep here he has to show that he's doing something. as commander in chief because well let's face it his presidency doesn't have too many foreign policy successes

and he looks weak again is he going to be doing something that may not necessarily be in the national interest but to make a show for the elections going to only a few weeks away well there's obviously the pressure from some people who want him to do something i mean primarily those are the same people who supported the invasion of iraq eleven years ago and i think the verdict on that intervention is clear i mean most americans consider that a mistake even though they didn't like saddam hussein. you know you talk people inside washington the elites the political elites they favor some kind of action because that's usually what they do you look at poll numbers from you know polls taken throughout the country overwhelmingly not in favor of intervention in syria don't want to send troops back to iraq maybe air strikes because they think airstrikes are relatively antiseptic at least to the people in the airplanes on the ground. there's not an appetite in the united states for you know

a long term commitment of ground troops they don't want to go back into iraq. you know yet they want obama to do something and i think in many cases the best action is to not do anything well you know it doesn't you know the people that want something done they have to make isis look so bad but the baddest of the bad that'll help justify some intervention because he said there's no appetite for zero obviously. well i mean you have to make them look bad and they're doing a great job themselves of making themselves look bad and obviously when you have you know people there killed it's kind of an abstraction you take an american journalist who is there just doing his job and you take him out in the middle of the desert and cut his head off and on the video that you post on line there gets a lot of people ok then gentlemen it gets a lot of ok and yet we're running out of time many thanks my guests in london and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. unix time and remember.

i'm at the martin the stories we cover here we're not going to hear any right other big story that has turned out like a reason they don't want to. point. out now let's break the set. there's a lido so we leave the people. of the same bush and see your. play your part of the physical. issues that no one is asking with to get that you deserve answers from.

politics. if you leave with the economic ups and downs on the planet long stay the longer the deal sank i and the rest of the case it'll be a great week on sleeper police. were all told what arlo react to situations i have read the reports of legal protection from the no i will leave that to the state department to comment on your latter point to save to please or carry out a car is all your dog. no god. no more will.