facebook and me it's still found no sign that russia interfered in the u.k. vote despite a renewed effort to dig up proof. and south africa's parliament passes a measure that could see the entire white population stripped of their land without compensation. my colleague will receive next hour with a complete look at today's top stories well up next we have placed korea on syria at a crossroads cross-talk ways that president obama's policies toward his country's. hello and welcome to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle from north korea to syria's president donald trump's foreign policy is literally all

over the map north korea says it is open to direct talks with washington only to be met with preconditions in syria where the u.s. has no legal right to be in the first place peace is within view but this is not what the trumpet ministration want. cross talking missing diplomacy i'm joined by my guest in washington he is the executive vice president of the eurasia center in new york we have daniel is our he is an author and freelance journalist who writes frequently about the middle east eastern europe and the us constitution and in fort lauderdale we have ivan eland he's a senior fellow and director of the center on peace and liberty at the independent institute or the gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i always appreciate dan you let me go to you first you were calling this program missing diplomacy and let's look at two areas where a lot of diplomacy is next. north korea and syria in both cases there have been or

still present some kind of diplomatic opening considering the very fierce rhetoric we've heard about a second phase when we look at it from the truman administration for north korea and then the u.s. sensually obstructing a number of peace processes and designs in syria where is the diplomacy daniel go ahead. is absent we have a very erratic individual at the top donald trump who has little idea what he's doing but it's very important to emphasize that the u.s. empire is vastly overextended it's gotten soft and in deep trouble the number of parts the world including korea syria and so there really is no easy way out so trumps confusion is the reflection of the larger confusion of the u.s. system ok i've been one. that's

a point you know and we could put it on the person of donald trump and i would put it on the people he surrounded him self with my impression and i'm very far away is that he's basically just interested in these topics and he's delegated it to others and unfortunately a lot of them are neo-cons go ahead i've been yeah i think you're right but i hear his campaign pledges were different then than what he's doing now he pledges was let's stay out of a lot of stuff america for let's do what we need to do here at home etc and get in don't do nation building overseas that but i do agree that the u.s. has been overextended for a long period of time and he's exacerbating the problem and it's very it is very confusing to him because he no one ever his advisors do not. given the option of saying well you know we we deterred radical mouse a ton when he got nuclear weapons in china so he can probably. deter kim jong.

un in north korea because dictators they just want to survive that's their main goal is to reviving in power and so you know why threaten a paranoid guy right but you know that's not what they're doing in syria of course his main objective was to he said to get isis well isis is at least you know shrunk vastly shrunk in size of territory and now whether they'll come back elsewhere i don't know but certainly if you're done with the job get out but of course the united states is not doing that because it wants or has forces on the ground it wants to keep control of territory so it has a role in the syrian negotiations that's a much different mission then we started with earlier you know that's exactly right and you could apply that you know syria staying there to determine political outcomes staying in south korea to do to determine political outcomes that is

exactly it and it's a zero sum game that we get what we want to win or there's going to be trouble there could be potentially even war i mean that's not how you run a foreign policy all of that is foreign policy it's an extension of military policy and it precludes or excludes the possibility of peacemaking you can think whatever you want of the north korean regime but if the north korean regime and south korea are talking and both want to talk more and the south wants the u.s. to talk to north korea i don't think there's anything wrong with that because the alternative is far far worse go ahead. and i think peter you're. it's unfortunate but i don't necessarily think people want to direct conflict however we're getting dangerously close to that one could accidentally happening specially when we've got erratic leaders in place. that want their survival or the looking for the political perspective and they back in their own selves in their corner and sometimes things happen that you don't expect but i think when we look at syria.

you know the. the u.s. is concerned about the rising role of iran and russia in the middle east and i think i think there's pressure from both from the u.s. side from one of their close allies in the area as well as some of the gulf states they do not want to see iran raising up so you see these accusations are violating the nuclear accord you see them try and even though they're they're welcome in syria trying to force them to get out of the region. it's a dangerous situation they're in and the u.s. really right now it appears they just want to stay present there and present in korea as well to really i don't know if that stuff sort of counter north korea more than just as much as perhaps to counter the rising influence of china on record as well of course that's the whole point ok that's why they want to stay there they want to determine well first of all they want to make sure that if there's

a unification of of the peninsula they determine what that unification is because that is going right up to china's border would be what the president white house would very much want intends in the in the chinese don't want that happen no surprise daniel let me go to you you know earl is mentioning about u.s. presence in syria and iran well i mean it's the activities of the united states in the region since two thousand and three that is only advance the interests of iran i mean i how many more do we have to go through how many more failed regimes that we have to go through in that region to to show that the more you push for regime change you more you push to determine political outcomes the more you lose i mean it's a losing streak ok for over a decade and a half but nobody realizes that go ahead dan you're absolutely correct i mean the u.s. policy in the that part of the world has been just amazingly wrong headed the invasion of iraq provided a huge opening to iran to match america's allegedly our number one enemy in the region you said before that you know the america wants things you know in. and

syria but it's not really clear that america even knows what it wants exact limiting russian iranian or chinese. influence but otherwise it has no idea does no positive program you know and so therefore the us is trying you know is acting at the behest of saudi arabia and israel saudi arabia is maybe forming a part very rapidly israel be facing regime change also. who struggles to maintain its grip so things are crumbling really fast the us has no idea how to stay on top of these things and of course as you say everything had seems to make things worse yes i mean you know it's pushing these pushing for political outcomes there's an impatience going on right here i mean the united states in all this give my opinion is scared to death that peace could break out on the korean

peninsula they're terrified of that they're terrified that peace could break out in syria because the very fact that they stay there were nobody wants them to be there it makes it a political outcome a peaceful outcome impossible i mean why are they so afraid of peace go ahead ivan . well i think you're absolutely correct they seem to want to maintain overseas president presence in south korea and japan that's where our major forces are right now and that gives a. you know an anchor in east asia and i think they do feel that china's rising and you know just like when saddam invaded kuwait that was a way to stay in saudi arabia for a long time and so i think these types of conflicts are useful in a certain sense for the has your mind to stay and whatever region they want to stay in you know earl if we if we look at the south korean peninsula look at that let's

look at the region we've got japan. we've got south korea we've got north korea we've got china we've got russia those countries can solve this tension on the peninsula all by themselves but the us will not let that happen the us will not allow south korea full sovereignty over its defense planning and this is the real problem here i think it could be solved with regional players go ahead. i would agree in fact i just made a made a comment on our blog recently they were talking about there was some type of conference in vancouver that canada was hosting of course the us was there and and other players but two players to discuss the resolution what direction to go forward on korea and of course the two players that probably should most importantly be there russia and china were not invited and so i think it's. it

i agree that i think and i also think the new president south korea is open to dialogue with north korea i think you saw that during the olympics a potential you know mel maybe a slight melting of some ice there but. i do not think the u.s. sees it is in their interest to actually have a dialogue unless it's under their terms and unfortunate i think personally i agree the regional i think the regional powers here could come to a very good settlement could be general for everyone. but the us wants to the us wants to play the role as far as determining what the conditions are and i don't think that's very healthy for the future of korea and for the region and it very dangerous and in the current environment let me go to daniel before we go to the break here one of the things i find very problematic troubling is that diplomacy is equated with a peace mint these days that is that is terrifying go ahead daniel. yes it is that the u.s. is in a very militant mood is not interested in diplomacy or talking. look the america

wants to prolong its you know the polar moment which broke out in ninety nine but now it's faced with challenges by china and russia trying to hold them off trying very hard. i don't see how that strategy will be successful but that's what the u.s. is trying to game going to jump and here's our chance i got to jump in here we're going to go to one of our all rake and after that heart break we'll continue our discussion on missing diplomacy stay with r.t. . ukraine is in a pre-collapse a situation or crisis

a moment to do renew all you ukraine agreement was all region. exactly because the some concrete for the story carries on something appear in countries. above the role of russian federation i can understand why cannot the glee. the new global economic war is unfolding in the realm of education the right to education is being supplanted by the right to access education its high education is becoming just another product that can be born and sold so this is not just about education anymore it's also about running a business and what you know models of. the dream that they could to me. is the place of students in this business model before college i was born now

and i'm extremely more education with the new global economic war. welcome back across the uk where all things are considered i'm peter remind you we're discussing missing diplomacy. ok let's go back to new york with a new i do any want to finish up your point the one that you were a lab rating on before the break yeah yeah my point simply is the u.s. is trying to fend off a triple threat from iran russia and china. and there is complete unanimity i've seen no dissent whatsoever among any of the mainstream commentators or political politicians liberal concerned. or what have you they all agree that they must rebut the russian chinese and the rainy and threat madness.

and i can't see have that strategy can possibly prevail well you know ivan. i don't agree that there are threats whatsoever i mean china is a regional power russia is certainly. not a global power its reach is actually quite small and if you look at russian foreign policy and defense policy it's very they're most concerned about their sovereignty more than anything else and the near abroad i know some people don't like that term but it it's real ok i mean these these threats here in a rant on iran it's surrounded by. nato or nato related countries bases i mean this is all a fiction here but it certainly is very good for the arms industry i mean and donald trump has been so.