phased by with one open ended conflict that is going to be between the united states and then go into her. in iran and beyond so far in terms of conflict and there is i don't see a particular strategic way out of this mess unfortunately we had a lot of tory coming from the white house but we don't have any effective strategic decisions try into the is committed to situation or at least help with the syrians outcome that would be favorable to all parties. in this because the whole journey of a process and how it's been big history yes and i've seen i mean that i'm so i don't want to sound naive here but there is a way out here it's called a sitting down at the table and negotiate an end of this have internationally observed elections i have nothing against that. make sure no all 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 winces whatsoever to be in that country go ahead. there is no easy way out because there are too many con of 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 is that kind of us along his allies like of russia iran and hezbollah have been the main conduit for women but now we are entering the second phase in this phase 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 a 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 and all conflict for

a very long time that's a very interesting way of looking at i 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 it all. all over the world ok and the syrians want to have the russians there have the ratings there where they were not there before i mean that the rank hypocrisy of all of this you know why should these foreign powers they decide who can have a military base in syria when they have no right to do so under international law go ahead jonathan. 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 been never been proved presence by damascus so it is completely illegal and

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 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 go if you choose to go home and the i.d.p.'s to go home they have to recognize that our society is the winner in this you must deal with him and construction and reconstruction is go through him and all the rebel groups from outside funded by the gulf countries and turkey and so on must go home and leave the country alone well mohammad 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 very 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 full of since the protests. that peacefully in two thousand and eleven we had the six month open on violence so there was a political process that means the young syrians would protest and there was. no misery and socio economic grievances and then there was interaction however once we moved to the oktober to the eleven things when we had violence so far

perceive see the. kitchen of the regional bad politics where you have similar powers trying to money prelate the. district. here and i come back and we must go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on syrian state with our. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand down this is just the dance the right questions to the right answer.

question. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you there. welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle were discussing syria. we can't go back to our scene in leeds 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 country 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 an understatement. and if you do 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 turkish preoccupation is it's all internal security dynamics as you know very well 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 d.c. they see this kind of year period gear 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 dies in their internal national security so what is happening right now at

the moment between washington and it is nor longer 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 calmed of 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 to look like a disk on a big problematic. rob. as well as if that's creating a lot of impediments for a cord the other relationship between these two nato allies you know jonathan it's really interesting is that you know syria's kind of a backdrop. overlooking the crisis in turkish american relations this is

you know these are supposed to be nato allies here you have you have other nato countries that are quite nervous we have to point out to our viewers that turkey is the second largest military in nato and they see there they say what are their allies infringing upon the sovereignty of another country and we have erred on actually wanting other nato countries to start joining in on his security efforts security problems that he has created for himself the more he gave medals with the syrian situation the kurdish situation in syria the more it hurts him down the road just as we pointed out this is a very domestic issue as well it's not one in syria actually it's also in iraq go ahead jonathan. well no i mean i've seen is absolutely right i thought is analysis of turkish foreign policy in the contradictions was spot on i mean the problem is that there's no reason why there should be a conflict even in turkey itself yeah there was a peace process for two years one was talking to a larger line on the k.p. k.k. leadership people and they were making progress and then he just threw it out of

the window because he wanted to present himself to the turkish domestic electorate as a strong or thorough tearing man who wasn't giving in because at that point he was trying to win a referendum on a new executive powerful presidency so it was electorally. modified moderated. negotiated and he just threw out the sport on the floor the courage and just bored but now he's got to continue in syria because he's convinced that the s.d.f. in a corner to northeast syria is somehow beholden to the p.k. k. which is no longer true yeah you know mohamed how much you know we talked to you started out with your first comments about the first year of the presidency or trumpets and here in the middle east i mean how much of american foreign policy is actually driven by some kind of vision that president trump has which i doubt to be honest with you or how is it really coming out of tel aviv in riyadh because it seems that

you know trump has really cozy. tel aviv in riyadh in his presidency in a very simplistic and i think dangerous way but how much is he being pushed by those two countries go ahead mahmoud. what i think there are two shifts of war taken into consideration in the in the position of the administration one trump was always critical of the obama administration policy toward syria he said that he was not effective and he was not kind of put help in the syrians and now we're looking at the situation where basically it is no clear that all. in the midst of all this chaos shift number two is an overt and exaggerated over on counter terrorism in the international relations of the unite of the united states with the middle east and i think what we saw in the summit was too much investment

in this car to the extent that now it has overshadowed the complexity of the whole syrian crisis and all the chaos and there's also another problem now i think. to eighteen among the trying to simply fall who to blame who which country in order to go home and is responsible for the escalation in syria and they think the blame goes around starting from the u.s. and some really not a powers who thought the money in new power inside syria and in the region and guess what the all of this exaggerated investment income and the lot of them is now bringing in to the realization that it is still a more complex conflict that what then with back in two thousand and twelve you know i've seen one of the interesting things is the more countries like saudi

arabia and israel blame a ran for the regions was you know that it ran just gets more and more influential because it doesn't make these geopolitical blunders that these other characters do in the region here i mean iraq was a catastrophe what's happening in yemen is a catastrophe syria is holding its own here and you know always looking to blame iran and iran are by almost doing nothing comes out on top don't you think they should learn something from that go ahead. yes i mean certainly when you do look at what has been happening in the region over the last certainly. fifteen years since the invasion of iraq by the united states a lot of things that has happened in the region somehow has ended up. benefiting iranian position within the middle east the invasion of iraq and of.

the rise of isis and so on and of course it is not only about the iranian policy it is also about kind of miscalculations and wrong policies of the ukrainian was problematic here we're talking about saudi arabia but the situation is changing a little bit now we have a president in the white house who has a very kind of narrow iran centric kind of understanding of the region according to his kind of naive perspectives all the problems in the middle east all the instabilities in the middle east all of the sudden can be resolved if he could confront iran and the best way he thinks that he could confront iran is to kind of undermine this historic deal and now increasingly there is more evidence to suggest that maybe within the next three or four months we're going to see the end of this very important security deal and if that happens it can create some serious new

problems for for the region so iran should not take account of its recent victories in the region for granted because the situation is changing the corridors of power in washington is certainly in favor of saudi arabia is all to the point i'm not even sure if mr trump is acting on behalf of american interests or the interests of israel and saudi arabia or their region because if you do look at his policies his effective undermining their you can't interest or even with that into. in the region in all. of the foreign policy discourse of both israel and saudi arabia let me go to jonathan i would add on to that from what we just heard from. and also splintering nato and the european union over the iran's deal ok because the united states look at nikki haley you know in that vast hall she's all alone or virtually all alone and all of these issues here and you know i was

highly critical of obama's foreign policy the only thing that he did in his foreign policy that i agreed with was the iran deal i think it made pragmatic sense ok and now we have this reversal here john of the one last minute here i mean. from what we did today i mean is it really just all about iran and preparing some kind of conflict with the ram because you know all the pieces on the board kind of point in that direction go ahead. well no that is certainly true and what i said was right again i mean israel has always wanted the u.s. to change the regime in tehran they hoped that they would do that fifteen years ago they thought iraq was going to me they were pushing for iran and they were quiet and off by being told we'll move to on iran later after we have done iraq and that is still now the policy of the trump administration of course it's a complete diversion the real problem in the middle east as it has been for fifty years is the israeli palestinian issue but of course it. in the interests of netanyahu in the right wing in israel to try and minimize the palestinian things or

no no iran is much bigger threat and it's much bigger issue it's trying to take over the whole region and so on and unfortunately the u.s. so many people long before the trumpet ministration of fallen for that ploy they certainly hear all right gentlemen that's all the time we have for this is very fascinating discussion and i'm unfortunately i'm sure we'll be talking about syria in the future many thanks to my guests in london leeds and in doha and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstalk.

the fight against terrorism is no longer at the heart of america's defense policy the u.s. defense secretary has outlined a new strategy in which countering russia and china takes priority. french police fire tear gas at striking prison guards at europe's largest prison as they protest severe working conditions. and a scandal worse than watergate that's our some republican lawmakers describe a top secret memo that allegedly exposes political bias against trump at the highest level of law enforcement now they demand that it be made public. the moment of that someone i knew more screwed up as a teenager as

a school in eastern siberia injuring six people including a teacher is the third such incident in less than a week. joining us this hour you're watching. if you decide to challenge america's experiment in democracy it's going to be your worst day and those were the words of the u.s. defense secretary is here in veiled america's new defense strategy which now primarily focuses on deterring russia and china. but we will continue to prosecute the campaign against terror that we're engaged in today but great power competition not terrorism is now the primary focus of your security first and foremost this america's defense strategy so to speak is so much on the offensive side of the tracks it almost makes you think that someone copy and pasted the old name into the

you know into the headline space so it's the first time since the cold war american military is focusing on this great competition of powers so this can really be seen as sort of a that sort of mentality making a comeback what it also means is the infamous war on terror is taking the backseat it is being put on the back burner so to speak instead washington is focusing on russia china iran and north korea but really the pentagon is singling out moscow and beijing have a listen we face growing threat from revisionist powers as different as china and russia or from each other nations that do seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models pursuing veto authority over and over nations economic diplomatic security decision doctrine calls for modernization what what would you expect to see well another word used by the u.s. defense secretary was fundamental this is how he characterized this modernization

that he's been talking about and mostly the pentagon is going to be focusing on space on cyber security and on its nuclear program so in terms of cyber security they're going to be overhauling the whole thing really we don't know the details yet but obviously big big big changes are coming up especially with all of the russia and china hackers craze in terms of the nuclear program they're seeing it as a reaction you know as sort of a reaction to what russia has been doing in this sphere certainly to outer space and defense position that this is not going to be cheap what's the money being talked about the secretary of defense. use this opportunity to ask for more money or at least while making a step in the direction saying that budget cuts arguably delivered the worst blows to the pentagon and to the u.s. national and national defense but at the same time you have to remember that it's not only about how much money the pentagon gets but also how it chooses to spend it

for example hundreds of billions of dollars have been splashed out on the new have thirty five fighter jets and that development hasn't been even past the most basic stages. ok let's get the thoughts now don't you mcadams he's executive director paul in-situ could speak to you as always daniel this defense strategy outlined by james mattis what do you think the ramifications could be on the ground well you know listening to him and reading the entire document i really thought i was reading orwell's one thousand nine hundred four you know we're no longer at war with east asia we're at war with eurasia we've never been at war with east asia it's that sort of thing on the ground it's a predictable thing business essentially a rehash of the old wolfowitz doctrine of nine hundred ninety four there is no new thinking involved the us must remain the sole superpower on earth we must do

anything we can move heaven and nerves spent untold amounts of money to prevent any rivals from coming up to challenge us ironically it is our hyper interventionist foreign policy among the most the most likely to make others want to come and rise and challenge the us so in a way we're participating in our own downfall on this. big money involved and that needs big just a fixation so let's just hear one of the things that james mattis had to say. to those who would threaten america's experiment in democracy they must know if you challenge it will be your longest and your worst day. so. what kind of message is money sending out that. well we've had an awfully long day in afghanistan for seventeen years now going on seventeen years so you know it's a lot of bluster we certainly were not successful in syria thank goodness we

certainly haven't done very well with libya so there's a lot of bluster about how we're going to win all these wars when in fact the united states has not won a war it's been in since world war two so it's more of the same he wants more of a budget we already spend more than the next seven countries combined and he still says we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy that's ok where is that trillion dollars going that we spend every year on the military if we are atrophying is it being spent somewhere else is a good is being wasted so it doesn't make any sense. he talks about the focus now moving towards rivals such as russia and china says that it's moving away from from the war on terror found a little premature at this point is this going to give terrorists a chance to regroup refocus. no because this is simply marketing it's our new enemy now is quote revisionist powers and i thought it was absolutely hilarious that he said we must resist china and russia because they are trying to

make us follow an authoritarian model this just days after congress passed the extension of the five. amendments which allows the u.s. government to spy on every single american every email every conversation we are imposing the authoritarian model on ourselves we don't need russia and china to help us out we're doing a pretty good job already he's also looking to build on what we've heard donald trump saying about the iran nuclear deal being a really bad deal and massey's talking about setting up regional coalitions aimed at countering what some people will be concerned about is where is this heading could it lead to conflict could it go to far as the new hope in a two point zero. well or more already announced it was announced yesterday that we're going to stay in syria and our troops there are going to do everything they can to reduce iran's influence in the region

ironically it's the u.s. presence in the region that has emboldened iran it was the u.s. invasion of iraq that allow iranian influence in iraq to take over it was the u.s. is idiotic role in trying to overthrow the syrian government to open the door for iran to get involved in syria so all of our interventions in the middle east only involved in iran yet we say our intent is to weaken iran daniel great speech appreciate your views daniel mcadams is my guest executive director at the rome paul institute. we're going to other news now french riot police have fired tear gas at prison guards from europe's largest jail who are striking of a dangerous working conditions including attacks on staff in the latest incident at a different jail on corsica two guards were injured in a stabbing attack by an inmate reportedly been radicalized inside is what a french prison union told us about that incident. it's

a serious incident to police in. a ridiculous inmate brutally to a far comics french prisons have suffered several similar attacks on guards recently a week ago three security staff were injured after an inmate attacked them with scissors and a razor blade on monday at yet another jail seven guards were attacked by an inmate in that case according to the justice ministry the perpetrator had again been radicalized in prison inmate violence disobedience and radicalization have triggered a nationwide strike of french prison guards who have in turn clashed with riot police. god. was.

being striking guards are demanding or thirty's do something about the dangerous conditions in french jails r.t. france spoke to a representative of the prison guard. said bluff or to you know know the government our representatives are to blame they didn't want to discuss the problem or to find a solution to our poor working conditions we demand an increase in the number of prison guards and also the creation of a special high security wing radicalize prisoners on their. teenager has attacked a school in eastern siberia injuring six people including a teacher. commanding to the class and inflicted injuries sustained free school children and a teacher with the next.