are they allies but putting that aside do you think the united states needs to be taught a lesson here that's essentially the question i'm trying to ask you do you think the european union needs to take a moral stance in this on this particular issue to show the united states the trumpet ministration in this in this example that this is not ok to conduct international politics policies like that i mean american i'm an american former official i'm not going to call on europe or anyone else to teach the united states a lesson i think europe has got a very very hard set of decisions to make where they'll need to decide the need to weigh problems in the transatlantic relationship against their real concerns their national security concerns about the resumption of iranian unconstrained nuclear program and i'm sympathetic to how difficult those decisions are going to be as i started out by saying from the u.s. perspective there are only bad answers here either you've got europe essentially isolating us because they find a way to save the deal or you've got europe failing to save the deal and return

iran returning to unconstrained arrangement which is a huge problem for us for europe and for the world but hold on mr blank you may have forgotten but it was the administration you worked for the obama administration which was very proud of forging the so-called european consensus on sanctions against russia back in two thousand and fourteen and the rationale back down was that. russia in your eyes violated certain norms of behavior and needed to be signed a signal that this is not the way you conduct yourself on the international arena now we now have the united states which clearly violated its obligations to reach is involved in behavior that you clearly disapprove of you made it very clear throughout this program which also leads to an increase in confrontation in the middle east should the united states be sent a similar. signaled that this is not the kind of behavior that. its european allies

welcome on the international arena. leaders around the world including from our closest allies have condemned this decision and the very fact that europe has now shifted from negotiating with the united states to negotiating with iran is a strong rebuke to the decision that president trump made i would i describe president obama's leadership on sanctions with iran with russia with other countries a little bit differently from what you did i don't think it's a question about germany making a moral stand or a value judgment what i would say is that we were able to convince countries around the world that on a variety of problems we had a plan and a way forward and that if countries were willing to suffer a certain amount of economic dislocation in the short term we can solve real problems and so in the iran case we were able to convince the government of russia china india as well as our closest allies to stick with us and we got to the j.c. . and some of russia's policies we were able to convince as you say germany and

other european countries to suffer some real economic harm because they thought we had a plan i think the problem now is that the united states is proving that we cannot be trusted with this tool and so the chances of getting even our closest allies let alone a nontraditional partners like russia like china decide with us i think they're they're much much reduced i don't know if your heard this but chancellor merkel said the other day that your of can no longer rely on the united states in order to protect itself and i would argue that the more pressing. question right now is whether your of can really take it for granted that the united states will not last out of europe economically do you think this rat of secondary sanctions is real do you think the united states good come with full force against the european countries if they decide to continue trading with iran provided of course if iran is in compliance. the j.c.b.

zero eight so the threat of secondary sanctions is very rule real basically this idea that you know if you're a non us company you've got to choose do you want to do business with iran or do you want to do business with the united states and for most companies that's going to be an easy choice and for most companies the threat is sufficient the u.s. doesn't really have to do much in force meant in order to get a lot of big companies to say you know what this isn't worth the risk but european governments do have tools available to them to seek to counter the secondary sanctions threat and that's the question i think that's going to be on the table when europe negotiates with iran with russia with china with the remaining participants in the g c p a way to see if there's a way to salvage a sort of a run first and of the g. c.p.o. a and if that europe were to try to deploy those tools then you could be in a situation of some confrontation government to government confrontation between the u.s. and our allies but but we're still a little ways off from that at this point well mr bank we have to take a short break now but maybe we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned. join

me every thursday on the alec simon chill and i'll be speaking to get a feel of the world of politics school business i'm show business i'll see that. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line they did accept or reject. so if you want to be president. or some want to press. you to go right to the press this is what. three of the people. interested always in the audience at the. sydney.

welcome back to worlds apart but jarrett blanc for mike u.s. state department coordinator for ironically implementations mr blank just before the break we talked about the european reaction to trump's decision and let me ask you a few questions about russia as you may imagine many people in moscow very very skeptical of all the speculations about trump supposed collusion with the kremlin but given the where we are with the reigning nuclear issue trumps rebuke of both the american obligations and to your european allies don't you wish moscow had some leverage sumber of poor with they said ministration well into. the collision question i'll just say. we don't know whether or not laws what specific laws might have been violated in the united states we don't know what president

trump himself knew what is out in the public though obviously demonstrates that the trump can play into colluded with russian actors in a way that is deeply disturbing for for america i don't want to make you have this discussion about the russian collision but what is out in the public at this point of time is the indictment of thirteen russian nationals who tried to do something on social media who have horrible english was posed have been viewed by you know in some cases zero people so i think you guys are blowing it out of proportion but anyway let's stick to the iran and the trump tower meeting and the payments to michael cohen's accounts i mean the question is not whether or not the efforts were successful i think the point is that the the public documentation shows the trump campaign tried but that as your question do i wish that russia had leverage over trump president shop i guess what i would say is this i remember a time not so long ago. you know when i was working on afghanistan pakistan and iran in the obama administration that we were able to compartmentalize our

agreements and disagreements with russia so there were some areas where we had a very serious disagreements and we confronted each other on those disagreements we were as i said occasional adversaries but where our national security interests overlapped for example in afghanistan for example on iran's nuclear program we retained the ability to work together and to achieve things and i do very much regret that the politics i think in both of our countries is pushing us away from the ability to be at least occasional partners i think that's not good for us it's not good for you it's not good for the world for the time being moscow has been very restrained in its reaction to trans announcement about the j.c.b. zero eight but short term russia is set to benefit from the increase in oil prices even though it's sad both before and now that they devalue strategic stability more than short term material again now from my point of view the crime and we'll now

have to think very carefully whether it wants to be proactive in its defense of the j.c.b. away or whether it just wants to go with the flow and a lot of the europeans have the initiative what would you personally like to see well i think you're right that both russia and china we've talked we've spoken a lot about the three european countries but both russia and china also have some decisions to make here as you say how active do you want to be in the defense of the g c p o a and how much potentially do you see the resumption of u.s. secondary sanctions as creating commercial opportunities for your firms in iran. you know what i would hope at least in the immediate term is that iran is clearly trying to make an effort to see if it's possible to salvage the deal foreign minister zarif is visiting moscow he's visiting beijing is in brussels it's hard to know what those negotiations. what those conversations will look like and whether in the end i would think that whatever emerges from them is

a good idea but i do hope that all of the remaining participants in the g c p a will make a sincere effort to figure out if the deal can be salvaged now you've given a number of interviews lately into each you essentially explain how unfair it is trumps criticism of president obama's dedication to the disappearing but i wonder if there was anything that the obama administration could have done to make it more difficult for its successor it's you bringing on the agreement you know when i was asked and twenty sixteen what happens if if donald trump wins the presidency will he tear up the deal my answer was always it is hard to imagine any president of the united states tearing up this deal if it's working if it's managing to constrain iran from developing a nuclear program and imposing all of these very strict inspections on iran i said it and i believed it and as problematic as the trump administration has been so far i still find myself surprised at every new bad decision they managed to make now in

terms of the question of you know would it have been possible to make it more legally difficult for trump to pull out the answer is really no there's been a lot of talk in washington maybe you're referring to the idea that if this had been a treaty through the senate trump could not have pulled out that's not really legally the case previous presidents jimmy carter george w. bush have pulled out of treaties just on executive authority so even if you could imagine that the republicans would have seriously considered an obama proposed deal back in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen it would not have protected that deal from from it you also made a point in one of your articles when they disappear it was drafted it was primarily a bill to respond to possible iranian violations nobody could have. foreseen that. they need to guard against american noncompliance and i wonder what is the. placation of that because you you mentioned that they were a number of previous american presidents who essentially walked away from the

previous deals but it seems to me that the message to the rest of the world here is that you can strike deals with the united states but they will only last as long as the current administration is in office well unfortunately i think that that's right i think that there is. the president trumps decision is dangerous for in the iran situation it's dangerous for the region but it also does undermine the position of the united states in the world we are demonstrating that we cannot take yes for an answer and that makes it very very difficult to make a credible deals with the united states with any future president of the united states who hopefully will be able to recover they'll be able to demonstrate that our political some system has come to its senses but it's going to be difficult now you mentioned before that on a number of strategic and important issues the obama administration and the putin administration despite the lack of very warm personal chemistry between the two leaders they were able to find some degree of compromise they could work together

but obviously i think in moscow at least there is a sounds of missed opportunities what's interesting about donald trump is that so far he has been finding it very hard to find a strategic overlocker if he's adversaries but he found one geopolitical soul mate and this is israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu. do you think the two are working in concert or do you think that policies are planned mutually planned and coordinated or is israel just being a portion a stick in following a perhaps orchestrating directing president presidents trying to leave so you know i think it's very difficult to work in concert with the trump administration because the trumpet ministration is so internally chaotic they don't have anything that resembles a normal policy process in the united states and so i'm a little bit skeptical that anybody including prime minister netanyahu is really working in concert i think that this is more opportunistic you see where president

trump sort of biases and guts gut feelings take him and then you see what you can do without and so you know i think prime minister netanyahu wants a more confrontational u.s. position toward iran he wasn't going to get that in syria because the president trump doesn't want a deeper investment in syria so he found a place where he might be able to rile up the trumpet ministration and increase the risk of confrontation now as you perhaps know it prime minister netanyahu has just visited. on sources here say that he's trying to advance a very interesting narrative he's suggesting that after trump's blog from the day scipio a threat emanating from iran is ever more pressing despite the fact that it was in fact israel which has been clamoring for the american administration to abandon this deal do you think israel is poised to become even more proactive in quote

unquote defending its security in other countries and the where can it lead all of us well for for a long time i've been trying to remind people to distinguish between prime minister netanyahu and israel prime minister netanyahu has spoken you know bitterly and angrily about the j.c. the israeli security establishment including now a string of the. he says army staff have all made clear that the j c p o worked for israel by removing the existential threat that noorani nuclear program would have been just making iran a threat but not next essential one so to some extent i think that present prime minister netanyahu is now in a phrase we use in english the dog who caught the car he got what his rhetoric wanted but he's right that this does pose real risks for israel the right response would be to try to find ways to deescalate the situation with iran on syria and other issues i think as we've seen this week there's certainly

a risk that netanyahu will take the other course and see this is an opportunity to escalate tension and see if he can draw the united states into a regional conflict that you know to be honest president trumps instinct in this case or right he'd like to avoid now the rainy and also wrote it in one of your articles now have a lot of things to consider the economic pressure the i would suggest a very provocative israelis behavior certainly emboldened by trump's moves also the considerations of domestic politics come into play here this multiplicity of challenges do you think it's likely to make iran more careful more cautious or on the contrary make it feel that it has nothing else to lose you know before it's a question i do want to say you know i heard you refer to israeli steps as provocative i would just say that everybody acting across that israel syria border is being provocative right now the iranians are being provocative the israelis as well it's incumbent on everybody to try to lower the tell me mr blank let me let me

get to this point because i don't think there is a moral equivalence here because iranians and the russians as much as you may hate their presence in syria they are on the invitation of the legitimate u.n. recognized government you may question the legitimacy of assad as the united states has done informally but you have never sought to revoke its membership in the united nations so your government also recognizes the legitimacy of this. syrian state at least at this point of time so suggesting that iranians flying over the syrian territory throwing throwing bombs on the syrian city syrian facilities is not provocative i think this is not a fair comparison so i didn't say it wasn't provocative i said that everybody was being provocative you keep bringing us back to these legal and moral questions i would just say i'm focused on i think an overarching moral question which is how do you avoid a war and the fact is that is israel does have real national security concerns about what's going on in syria including the iranian presence and it's in everybody's deeper interest i believe to try to lower the temperature that need to

go back to your earlier question which is you know what does this mean in iran is it is it is iran going to be pushed into a corner or do they act more provocatively or are they on the defensive you know my guess is that we talked a little earlier about compartmentalization i think you're going to see some of that out of iran as well i think they're going to be areas where they try to be conciliatory toward europe and others and they're probably going to be areas where they try where they they feel like they can or they need to be fairly provocative and again my hope is that everybody will take a step back from that and try to find ways to prevent an escalation which would be dangerous for all of us well mr blank i can certainly agree to that that we have to leave it there i really appreciate your sharing your perspective but that's today and our viewers can keep this conversation going in our social media pages as for me hope to see you again same place same time here and we'll to part.

yes. good politicians to do something good. to put themselves on the lawn. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury or something i want to grips with. what you do like to be close

with what before scribbling can't be good but i'm interested always in the waters of all of. us. facebook found hundreds of pages groups and a counseling to iran and russia for what it calls a coordinated intented pavia including an alleged political meddling. old so it's a comfort zone with trump's presidency is looking increasingly precarious as to form a satiates of found guilty of mere respectable drawings. kucing and sometimes attainment complex in the us city of jacksonville in florida leads to people dads and eleven. is just gone six am hit in the russian capital you're watching the weekly on r t

international good to have you with this our top stories from the past seven days facebook's upcoming upping the ante in its crusade against fake news is going on another bombing spree in an effort to stamp out the phenomenon and thereby limits efforts to sway political opinion ne ne patrol explains. thanks for joining us but franco with your latest news in the world of social media facebook and twitter have gotten rid of suspicious accounts schooling fakes and propaganda from iran the troll factories not only after the minds of the americans but users all over the world it's claimed to be run by iran's government media. not us of those by. us about them through. facebook already enables users to check if they've been exposed to russian bots and trolls how many trolls does it take to incite i've

evolution scores of so-called russian bots took over twitter and facebook well this facebook slash twitter online police rate is an actual news story this week yeah you can take plenty of the earlier reports replace the word russia with iran and get pretty much identical stuff all right speaking of facebook this time it bad six hundred twenty five pages traced to iran and an unknown number of pages linked to russia it just wouldn't work if russia didn't get mentioned and the reason for this verdict is we removed multiple pages groups and accounts for coordinated in offensive behavior on facebook and instagram what kind of sin is this in authentic behavior let's hear from zuck speak will they use similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they

were doing we ban this kind of behavior because we want people to be able to trust the connections they make on facebook the issue of trusting what pops out at you from the internet it's almost as old as i am. ask her where we should meet. it seems like you're chatting with somebody just like yourself not only even if they show a picture of themselves it may not really be who they say they are it could be somebody dangerous i'm not trying to say criminals who take advantage of online platforms shouldn't be banned or prosecuted but dear facebook the way the internet and social networks have worked for years is that users can be who they want to be online who said they must stick to what someone thinks is authentic behavior what if i want to be an elf or santa or a real news hound and i'm now going to be blamed for an authentic behavior and get

a red card sooner or later i. urge you to. come to the us just for all the things they can do i. say because of all the things they can well looks like online platforms will force us to adjust to a new reality where a step away from your genuine behavior may lead to a ban or some distinguished fact checkers will tell you who you should or shouldn't trust so next time when he choose to complain about a post online think twice what if the fact checkers disagree in fact whatever you do they're better think twice. meanwhile says concern over facebook's latest tool to tackle fake news which will involve evaluating uses based on how trustworthy they are online it's in addition to the site's existing efforts to send the spread

of misinformation the idea is to protect users from those who indiscriminately flag up fake news is real and vice versa the system will even be used to predict which articles need fact checking based on use this history of posting stories well the spot facebook boosting efforts to get rid of fake news there are still a few big questions about this latest method like which uses to which countries will be part of the new fake news initiative it's also not known how the evaluations will affect individual users on the sites or how the process will be monitored it is put facebook in the media firing line but the social media giant insists it's not as bad as it sounds we developed a process to protect against people indiscriminately flagging news is fake and attempting to game the system the reason we do this is to make sure that our fight against misinformation is as effective as possible the c.e.o.

of online privacy company crypto hippi outlines the ethical implications of facebook's policy is i think it's political pressure i think it really comes down to that they are putting themselves in the position of mediating human relationships which is first of all a very unhealthy thing to do and it's something that they really are grossly. incompetent to do the users primarily will not know what is being done to them and they will be manipulated in all sorts of ways we don't know what kind of voice. took of donald trump's possible impeachment took center stage in the u.s. media this week amid a scandal over two of his former associates. and he be impeached with this i think the beginning has to be set and mark right now and wolf we're in a watergate moment but there is i think a lot for the president to fear the discussion about impeachments comes off to

transects campaign chairman paul manifolds was found guilty of numerous fraud charges and his ex lawyer michael cohan pleaded guilty to presidential campaign finance violations and actually paying hush money to trump's mistresses it sounded the u.s. president in hot water and has implicated him as the orchestrator of the scheme but president the democrats have dismissed really keen to rake up as much muck as possible in the midterm elections or there's muck. all that muck you can and much as possible so the general public would be influenced by this in the run up to the november elections the special counsel probe was initially launched to investigate alleged collusion with russia but has so far only exposed fraud and the election campaign violations they can do so the right human which we got to hope the company

where is their closure you know they're still looking for closure where is the closure of five job killers or the fact that they haven't come up with anything that proves there is no russian collusion or they've wasted two years to find fairly pedestrian violations sure if you went into any of the campaigns including hillary clinton's and spent two years with an investigation team in the grand juries i'm sure you'd find a lot more than this filings and maybe some violations of campaign finance laws. back to michael cohen now legal fees equal big costs the film a lawyer has also the donations to cover his defense and it's paying off too he's raised more than one hundred fifty thousand dollars in three days is caleb maupin reports it's not always business to be dismissed by the president's. and donald trump was a host on the reality t.v. show the apprentice he really took the show's iconic catchphrase to heart you're

fired you're fired you're fired. now that donald trump is the president getting fired by him isn't exactly a career setback take the case of michael cohen this is michael collins lawyer urging people to support michael cohen with an online fundraiser for hoping that he will get some help from the american people so we can continue to feed the audience isn't it they don't know if they are ready to donate some people might be laughing but the cash is flowing and then there's peter strock the disk raced former f.b.i. agent who sent to trump messages to his mistress now he's raising money online he's already raised four hundred forty three thousand dollars half a million dollars on a go fund me just for hating donald trump those cancer patients on that site that are like hey we hate him too can you pay for my treatments i know you really hate him we could tell and then there's andrew mccabe the f.b.i.

director who was fired without benefits now mccain has already managed to raise five hundred thirty nine thousand dollars this issue of him raising some money in order to pursue this you know that's one issue it's an ethical issue it's it's something that you know doesn't reflect good character and if you want to get more creative than crowdfunding you can always write a book i'm a rose i'm an adult newman's new book unhinged tells stories from inside the white house thirty four thousand copies were sold within the first ten days and before on the rose it was james komi the fired f.b.i. director now he wrote a book about donald trump and within the first week six hundred thousand copies flew off the shelf writing books about donald trump is a smart move this year every single title on the new york times nonfiction best seller list has been about donald trump so if donald trump yells his new to.