then that's what i would hate for none of them doing. anything to get this whole full fledged choice on yours or you have them and they are turning in syria has said in a previous yards away. from my last farthing to me after the whole front around mr hate that for a human and we are far from it are for every minute for. me the money. hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle with the islamic state in its many confederates defeated or facing defeat in syria what

is next for this war torn country what justification exists for the u.s. to maintain military forces there does washington want syria partition if so and why. cross talking syria i'm joined by my guest jonathan steele in london he's an international affairs commentator in leeds we have here he is a senior lecturer in middle east politics at the university of bradford and in doha we cross the mohammed should we he is a professor of conflict resolution at george mason university and author of what isn't like continuity or rupture in the wake of the arab uprisings all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate if i can go to you first in leeds here let me read some of the headlines here tillerson touts indefinite u.s. presence in syria and assad must go in new plan also tillerson u.s.

military presence in syria open ended will ensure regime change i thought we got way way past that with the collapse of the islamic state with talks in afghanistan i'm sorry in kazakhstan with the russians in the iranians and the turks i thought you know to look this is a blast from the past where is this coming from go ahead i've seen in leeds i think what we see at the moment effectively. germany for cation of syria effectively what we are seeing at the moment is deeply in the post-war german situation when the country became divided between two different spheres of influence and that kind of open ended division changed the security and the political landscape of the world at least for about

forty years of course we have to bear this in mind that at the moment over the last thirteen months what we have seen in the american political establishment is confusion so i really don't want to jump to a conclusion but if mr tillotson is absolutely committed to his words and they are going to keep their forces in syria to prevent further empowerment of bashar assad effectively is what i mentioned is going to be kind of germany fixation of syrian conflict which will have serious implications not only for syria but for the right the region of course they keep telling us that you know they are not interested in partition and disintegration of syria what if it moves like a doc if you like a dog then probably it's a thought you know jonathan weigh in on that because i am really quite mystified by all that's what is the national security interest of the united states to maintain

military forces even legally under international law in syria what is the game plan it seems to me it's a lot of spite they don't like the fact that the russians the iranians and our side won that it's back down on the ground they want to accept it go ahead jonathan well i think they've made it clear they're doing against iran. but it was against. iran quite clearly bill to run up into a burglar to loosen wrist. talking about this northern arch the some kind of arch invisible to anybody except to listen and the american administration that would stretch from turn around to the mediterranean coast and it's nonsense i mean for years syria was a completely calm country but iran had meant minimal influence they have no troops no toll it's only because of the collapse of the authority in syria as the ukrainians of commune and if authority is restored in damascus and assad can exert control as he's hoping to do throughout the country then the need for the ukrainian

presence and i'm quite confident that it would be dramatically reduced so it's a bogeyman in the eyes of the americans it's nonsense yeah ok go to mohammed in doha i mean i agree with you it's really. a farce here that the u.s. is created in pursuing it but it has real life implications on the ground here i mean the interesting thing is is that the syrians proxy civil war it never gets simpler we have the whole situation ok granted it's an illusion but turkey is not and this is we have this collision that's going on between two million nato countries the united states and turkey having a collision over the kurds here and i don't see any real easy way out except for maybe a deterioration of nato relations within the alliance i mean that certainly can't be what the americans want is it go ahead moment. while so for we have seen one

year off from prism in the u.s. foreign policy and so far what we are witnessing is basically politics with no specific strategic objectives so far but the ministration has not has a lot to resolve the isis problem for sure at the same time the syrian conflict now is limbaugh and instead of the scale eighteen this particular conflict in the middle east what he has tricked through a good another go. with so far now we're faced by with one open ended conflict that is going to be between the united states. then go into if you're in iran and beyond so far in terms of conflict i don't see a particular strategic way out of this mess unfortunately we had a lot of it coming from the white house but we don't have any effective strategic

decisions try into the skill of distribution or at least help with the syrians outcome that would be favorable to all. of this because the whole journey for process in the house has been big history yes and i've seen i mean there i'm so i don't want to sound naive here but there is a way out here it's called sitting down at the table and negotiate an end of this have internationally observed elections i have nothing against that. make sure no of these foreign proxies leave make sure the gulf countries stop sending arms and money to these various groups i mean there is a way out it's not that hard there's no political will particularly on the side of the united states that has no geopolitical interests whatsoever to be in that country go ahead. there is no easy way out because there are

too many qana foreign interests involved. in this conflict and in my opinion we are only beginning to end to the second phase of this bloody and multi-faceted and multi-dimensional conflict in the first phase we can say that kind of along his allies like to russia iran and hezbollah have been the main conduit for women but now we are entering the second phase and in. face maybe we're going to have an active involvement of other regional players important regional players who did not play a leading role and here i'm talking about is the reason that the united states is going to keep kind of at least two thousand soldiers in syria and at the same time training another thirty thousand of soldiers within the framework of. forces is because of the fact that they want to maintain

a military balance in the second phase because it seems that they are extremely concerned about permanent military bases by countries like russia and the islamic republic of iran so in my opinion basically fighting against or basically taking measures to prevent further empowerment of bashar assad is nothing but a pretext against against what's happening at the moment so they want to just create a balance of power. and that can create all kind of conflict for a very very long time that's a very interesting way of looking at it and go to jonathan i mean but you know what i i guess you know these other outside forces forget that syria is of sovereign country it can invite other countries in to set up a military base i mean the united states does that all over the world ok. the syrians want to have the russians there have the ratings there where they were not

there before i mean the rank hypocrisy of all of this you know why should these foreign powers decide who can have a military base in syria when they have no right to do so under international law go ahead john. well i mean i agree with you on that i mean you know who rock the americans were invited by the iraqi government of nuri al maliki initially and hyderabadi afterwards they came in but. syria they've never been invited in and they've never never been proved their presence by damascus so it is completely illegal and they should finish off i mean the trouble is the council behind eating away at us policy is this issue of trying to get our side to resign early on in twenty eleven thought he would resign or be toppled by the crowds in the street like what happened in syria what happened what happened in egypt i mean what happened in two news you're going to didn't happen there must admit that they made a terrible mistake and if they want peace in the country if they want

reconstruction if they want to get a few jews to go home in the i.d.p.'s to go home they have to recognize that our side is the winner in this you must deal with him and construction reconstruction is go through him and all these rebel groups from outside funded by the gulf countries and turkey and so on must go home and leave the country alone well mohamed to me if i go back to go back you know our last minute before we go to the break here i mean since two thousand and eleven to the present can you explain to me in our audience what difference does that make it saad is there a reason not there we have seen through this this civil war that is an invention from the outside that cohesion of the damascus government it is there ok it's not based on a personality cult of a personality the outs these outside forces that brought the people of syria a bit very different people to come together and fight all foreigners ok so this

whole thing that assad must go is ridiculous go ahead mom it. was so far out of the protests. that peacefully. we had this. so there was a kind of process that means the young syrians would protest and there was. no misery and socio economic grievances and then there was an interaction however once we moved to the oktober to the eleven things when we had violence so far perceive see the. kitchen region in bad politics where you have so many powers trying to money prelate that but. i don't hear and i come back and we must go to a break in after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state with.

the two thousand and eight economic crisis turned some countries into paychecks these were the countries with weaker economies that needed austerity policies if you are in a situation of even the recession austerity is a very bad idea it doesn't work and it makes millions of people very unhappy those who are unemployed see which is decline almost a decade how good are the results. by the people. in which the wider world get people to see what you are doing a choice. she was i mean.

why are the same measures still in place. this is the truth the consider this is. really quite acceptable as a decision. welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle were discussing syria. we can't go back to in leads here i mean we can discuss the origins of all of this i would disagree with our guest in doha it wasn't all peaceful in the beginning

they were people that were using force and looking for force regime change which of course those elements have been there for a long time and we know who have been backing them so and also i'd like to point out is that in this horrible horrific civil war when you look at the casualties how of them of big government troops fighting for their country fighting for their their right to exist ok the people they were fighting well they were more interested in ethnic cleansing ok so i think we should have a sense of proportion i've seen i mean i'm really still very concerned with this element with turkey here how do we get through this here because it seems to me that one has this kind of a neo ottoman view of the conflict he's digging in in northern syria and he plans to stay it looks like so much for the sovereignty of syria and it's from a country that is a member of nato go ahead. turkish foreign policy is complicated and if you do look at that an understatement. and if you look at kind of.

foreign policy over the last five years it has gone through so many different stages so we really cannot talk about a single turkish policy towards either us or see the over the last five years certainly in the first phase of the war it was all about us and if you cheer of syria without him but now it seems that the main main preoccupation is it's all internal security dynamics as you nobody will the turkish security establishment and political has been sometimes in violent and sometimes in nonviolent confrontation with we're talking about three four decades of confrontation and now they see this kind of year period gear which is into framework of the year of gaining more and more power not only is gaining more and

more power in syria but it is directly backed up by the united states as far as the turks are concerned this is directly jointly guys in their internal national security so what is happening right now at the moment between washington and it is nor longer or only about the future of syria it is also about some other very important issues and if you do look at what has been happening between washington and over the last year their relationship has gone to a very very problematic stage i mean only it was about a week ago american officials warned their own citizens about traveling to turkey and turkey did exactly the same to our so many issues. like a discount be problematic results out of there as well as that or con of creating a lot of impediments for a chord the relationship between these.