the chinese president tells his armed forces to be ready for war amid growing tensions in the south china sea and increasingly hostile rhetoric with the u.s. . u.k.

middle east minister is grilled over arms sales to saudi arabia as a poll reveals half of all britons are unaware of the devastating conflict in yemen also ahead i don't know anything about him saying it's starting to get to that level i was eric holder. i know they all look like. the wise crack from hillary clinton draws accusations of racism we asked people in the streets what they thought of her remarks. so it's pretty insensitive i mean that is pretty offensive yet some people think all the chinese hoaxes say. the latest on these stories you can head to our tea dot com coming up interview with former british diplomat alistair cooke's about geopolitical tensions and ongoing conflicts in the middle east. i have the honor to once again the interview he is a former e.u. diplomat and founder into. rector of conflict forums and of course we're going to

discuss the middle east i was sure it's great to have you back in moscow and i think continued the conversation we had about seven months ago because everything we talked about some months going still going on there i want to i want to mention istanbul for politicians and one country in that country obviously in syria we had this meeting with merkel want putin krohn in istanbul the u.s. wasn't there would you take away from the i think it's very symbolic first of all i mean it says very clearly that the whole political process has moved away from geneva from the united states to sochi to a stand to rusher in the leaves and know the very important symbolic event of two european leaders being pressed and patted participating i don't think much substance came out of this meeting but the importance was that the europeans took

part in this starting to engage with a sad and with president putin and that is very much the key thing and it's really part of what we see happening to i think also quite striking with the images coming from the u.n. general assembly where we saw. what lead the foreign minister of syria actually being congratulated by certain arab states that. voiding him like the plague. and sort of congratulating him so i think there is a shift taking place so the shift is in europe finally taking place and a shift also in the g.c.c. . one that is leaving was even at the general assembly leaving thirty arabia

and the a slightly isolated and of course they are probably feeling great deal more isolated well then knew exactly where i want to go with the question the story the saudis change their story a number of times it looks quite obvious to anyone that is following the air no one is playing a game maker here he's basically determining the cost of what the saudis are going to have to cough up. to keep that audiotape in video from the public and of course we have the united states oscillating not very good optics from donald trump when it comes the story here how does this affect saudi arabia's position in the middle east right now and is the crown prince going to stay i think i think. it's actually you know it's not just because from saudi arabia. president one is looking for a cost from the united states and i think this is the negotiation the being going

on and we don't see all of it and i don't think there's been a strategic deal yet reached. he has called some elements probably that he wants and those are clearly lay off with the tories and yet they're. released so they can help in the financial continue to support financially and i expect he told the americans and then to the financial war on the leader so perhaps those who are already there but it seems that the big thing he is keeping his some of his cause behind away and i think that what. the head of cia who sent in the last days to with the president it seems that she really. we gave a counter threat and said well listen you start leaking those and we will leak

things about canal project corruption. and then that project was postponed. and then fit into this because you know i've often often said that when you hear about saudi arabia in western mainstream media it is it's the message the saudis want you to hear this over the last few weeks this is a totally different narrative coming out very harsh. of course in the united states is being used for domestic political purposes against donald trump. but there is there is pressure and there's pressure in the american congress for the u.s. to. somehow withdraw itself from its engagement with saudi arabia of these of b. yemen i think i think you're absolutely right i mean why why did this particular killing because of course this isn't the duction of the princes or rather by saudi arabia but i think it caught the moment and part of that was. you can see

in congress and in the senate has been an incremental souring on saudi arabia really from nine eleven but with yemen has really. gathered steam in congress and they are getting very uncomfortable that the country is on the point of starvation half the country is and a terrible tragedy is happening there and that the the united states whose income is complicit along with the u.k. and so they were i think there was a mood to to to look and say well look what is the benefits of this relationship we need really to have a reset relationship with saudi arabia because all this stuff and in washington everyone knows you know the one hundred ten billion of them sends most of those. follow through from the obama time prasun lot of very non-binding right then

returned to make it up so i don't think the talk about sort of a million employees sort of going on the dole in america was is taken serious and in washington it's fine for the media but it's also true for takes it seriously in a way i mean it was his first visit to broad and this trip to saudi arabia and it to israel. and it seems at least up until this affair that a lot of people were aware of the mind that trump was some kind of outsourcing a lot of american policy to the israelis and to the saudis because well donald trump wants to build his wall he's more worried about tariffs and things like that how does that play into it i mean is there do you think there is a possibility for a real reset if there is a reset what does it look like ok you know i think i think it really was i mean i think he like so many americans falls and has fallen in love with. the monic and saudi arabia i don't know us being wired maybe or maybe. it's only part of it

quite clearly but it is small amount they are three love it i mean you know all the flag sort of guilt sort of goes dancing around in the palaces i've just never understood but you know but then you know being british i have a sort of different view on it so i think i think it was a part of that he's had a good business relationship but it was all about and here where i do think he's always been serious about helping israel exactly it's been fact it's been been a constant thing no he's always said that he wants jewish tenants in these buildings and that he's employees are like that and when you look to the ceremony for the handover of jerusalem the embassy mood when it was inaugurated the language. used by the american pastor. was very symbolic and talked

about in the thick and in terms of intense religiosity and those was chosen by trump and his family in ivanka so i think very much there is that and the saudi was seen to be special because moment been thelma and seemed to be ready to normalize and recognize israel and they thought this is really embodied in yes and in and in a sense it was to be sort of like a real estate deal in new york that you could i mean you know people joke about it but. one official put it to me and said you know if you have a big real estate deal and you have a problem with you know the tenant that just won't give in and accept the deal and get out of the probity you know what do you do first will you cut off the electricity and then you send in the rats and then you denigrate them publicly in the press so that's what the u.s. policy towards palestine will have. these are the you know all good tenants that

need to get to a deal quickly with the the developer but i think now so where are we going with us i think in a sense trump will clearly trying to keep his iran policy he seems to have a thing about in your reading my mind because it's really the the axis of tell of the in riyadh is the two most important pieces and particularly for a man that's very close to done from now john bolton exert has always found a ransom yes it's always about iran and i think they're trying to going to try and keep it about iran and i think this is a real danger in this period ahead because once we go through the mid-term elections until we start the presidential kind campaigning there's only twelve months and really i think you know the. prime minister netanyahu will be quite uncomfortable that all this attention is on saudi arabia when he would like it on

iran iraq and so how do you get it back on the iran and i suspect that the gateway to doing that is through syria and the so-called iranian forces there in syria and when i say that just let me be clear i would of course through iranian advice if but i don't believe there are any formal arabian units as military formations of. evidence have been is gone they've gone they're not there and they've even left before the airport that israel how much of the russians have to do with that do you think are likely and the russians hear this because they then put in there are three hundreds in the next day so there was clearly an attempt by iran to help pressure if you like in its discussions with the united states when they were in with israel and with israel but i do think that what's going to happen i think that trump will try and is succeeding to keep.

in place moment in soma. and one of the reasons probably is because there's actually no more any effective rival or challenger candidate that could take. that you make sure of that so there isn't any varial of it and i think the family is in disarray but the other reason is i think now when we see what's happening in the financial markets the united states doesn't want any more instability in terms of financial instability in saudi arabia could just be enough to tip the markets into something more more serious so i think we will see. a gathering around washington sort of so-called wise heads saying oh. ok but what we need to do is put some breaks in the system because what we've seen so clearly in this period is you

know serial stupidity and there's no one there to say stop think you know is this a sensible way maybe even before we go to the regular maybe but on top of it i'm president it is generally disinterested these actually outsourced a lot of this here ok i want to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion with alister steak tartare. while give easy val find this us. one genius one. rational.

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let's continue our discussion without mr crook let's switch gears here and be a lot more broad brush here what is the relative standing of the united states in the middle east now because i think most people in the region see the war in syria being wound down now there are some threads out there that definitely have to be dealt with the kurds with turkey's position is going to be moving forward and of course we have the presence of american troops even legally in syria but for the most part i think the perception is that complex is wound down it doesn't mean it can't be blown up again. overruled there's been a huge shift in pa in the spirit we've seen contiguity that is both physical but also political and agility goings through from iraq to iran syria to lebanon big change taking place politically the balance of power is moving away

from the gulf south and to the north and what is absolutely crucial in the question of the united states is the question of does israel and the west retain superiority over the already her previous interview and their exact changed things have changed and now it's quite clearly that they certainly they may have some maybe they don't know how much superior see if any they have all they have been a t to operate but that's changed and without superiority israel come on in snow it's not the army of forty eight it's a different on the it can't operate so this is a really point of inflection for the whole for israel for the united states there they are facing a different northern the gulf is weakening and being weakened more by what's happened with. you would have made it even more isolated within that and we've seen

that from the changes taking place we just spoke about so what. is israel going to do either going to go for broke and try and change the situation in its favor through some military action or are they going to try and come to terms with the situation. in the in the region and i think that much of this hinges of course on iran and in a sense why is america come back to the middle east to stop well in the sixty's and seventy's it was here. security of energy supply of oil supply actually they've come back this time for energy insecurity. sanctioning iran putting the squeeze on iraq trying to please me so anybody else is wiser while in order to try and say to everyone look energy insecurity whereas liquefied natural gas from

america so yes it's more expensive but then there's a premium on the middle east because of its insecurity. to balance it all off and i don't think this is going to work i don't think it's going to work with russia so i think overall we're going to see a much weakened american position in terms i don't believe that iran. production will go to zero i think it will it may deploy a little bit but they will sell one way or another through various means most of their oil because the iranians are traitors and they'll do it in their very experienced being sanctioned for so many years. and i was meeting those in london where all the big oil traders were and they were well on you going to do a back deal with iran and they said no no no we were doing that and someone got up

and said you know but you know there are going to a lot of be a lot of asian trade is a going to get very rich. so i'm sure it will happen so i think the balance is has already changed it in the region and what is happening now is trying to. trump continues and then congress starts putting sanctions and actually paradoxically the magnitsky sanctions are likely to be applied only a u.s. ally in this case one of these of the interesting thing to see if the same with energy here is that the u.s. is essentially. destroying its own her. z.-y. weaponized thing it i mean we have again going back to that picture and in istanbul when you have europeans and russians chinese others getting involved in creating an alternative to swift i mean then the dollar position allor is something that will be sort slowly turned into an artifact. actually coming to it in

a different way in the sense that central banks have stopped buying u.s. debt. europeans can't afford it because of certain technical reasons that have made buying u.s. treasuries too expensive compared by buying german debt and only americans of that pick up the debt and the oceans are going well and we had a really significant event that was not much noticed in orcus when i actually when the total of interest payments on american debt that the treasury was having to pay plus entitle me to pay the automatic payments that you have pensions exceeded the all the revenue from taxation for that month to a point a tipping point and this year the treasury has to sell more than one point two trillion of debt new debt and rollover perhaps over the next couple of years seven hundred seventy of short term debt and this is at

a time countries like russia getting rid of all of their treasuries is coming in at a time when trump is suggesting he's ready to start an alms war with russia or in china but the reality is you know i think the the federal reserve increase in interest rates which are likely to become it is going to take the whole market is going to be in the you'll find actually twenty nine thousand a diminished u.s. because you want you want to have the chinese there are running the military. america needs equivalent of three china's one china because china has about. one point one trillion treasuries and it's more than that the financing requirement of the u.s. for the next three years each year the same more than a trillion every year so i think we are reaching a certain different sort of limitations to. u.s.

power our inability maybe that's why they're in such a hurry when it was take a look at him we talked about. the u.s. is relative position in the middle east but again going to back to the photo op in this temple the russians of come back in and i would say to a relatively big way here i mean when we look at the relationship the russia has with obviously with syria but with iran well implicit does a relationship with everybody virtually everyone else in the middle east is russia replacing or is it becoming a key player in the middle east as the u.s. somehow in some way withdraws yes but in a very different way to the to the united states and also you know i think that because i was in afghanistan in the early period i know that russians have no intention of getting over overreaching in the middle east because they're getting their food put prince in syria was very very small so i don't think there's any

question of any sort of you know that they are going to fill a vacuum and maybe play the roles of whoever they exactly they are doing you know they are becoming the diplomatic center of that everyone comes to the russians are playing this very cleverly they have relations with everybody and everyone comes and sees them and it's true that the only diplomatic service that exists in the classic sense of having a diplomatic service that actually does diplomacy no one else does all roads lead in this sort of these roads lead leads but i think it's more than those. i think this would probably be a surprise some of your russian view is but i think you know there are there is a shift in values taking place more white not just the sense of. community coming back the sense that a state needs to be in charge of community but different sense of sort of so verty

so over intake. is not just about borders and border police so violently is is about thinking so foreign and being sold from and when i heard mr putin talk about you know we are robust we will not give in it's the difference between the even a state which is not as well on doors rich as its opponent can still prevail because its people. and alert and thinking as opposed to a state that may be richer but who sent its people to sleep a long time ago and that makes a difference it's a different sort of self and a different sort of idea in the winds up with the region is an important change you know this can post modernist thought is really invaded in the even into an international relations because of the there there are those who believe in borders and those that don't believe in borders and we have political elites that are not

thinking in terms of borders and when you don't think in terms of borders you don't think in terms of sovereignty either and and that's why i say that you know in the west they have a post-modernist foreign policy or postmodernist view of the international system but russia is very very modern ok this is where russia gets it exactly right because you can't think so over and over and unless you have the backing of a history culture a sense of a legacy of and of an intellectual depth to which you wouldn't. have even if it's you know it's not all good you know it's a mix of this and it may involve other people as well. well without that you are just a global nothing and so i think these things all going to change and now having an impact in europe as well where we see the sense the way of the need to go back to having some sort of cultural basis to sovereignty and that without that you come to

really be so over an active in a so over way so these ideas and the eurasian one way you don't view the world simply as having a single meaning that iran is a terrorist bad act and nothing else you see you know you look at room a look at it philosophically the international the intellectual tradition has been sin. all of these philosophers and of course who have. some sort of money to he's part of iran and a very popular part of iran but russia is able to sort of say you know well we can deal with the suspect with iran and that we may disagree with them on their relationship with israel i don't know the listening to russian relationship with turkey for example exactly exactly but that's the sort of essence of eurasian ism as i understand it is that you know you respect the people have different cultures

but you also understand it's multi led culture it's not just a single in westernized idea of mono valence of a single value that you give to here you see it in the western one of these is always is the one liner here of north korea or iran for grass airport china. or against us and so those ideas which i think are emanating out of russia and because russia had a particular experience of you know the worst of all worlds in the recent history i mean of total liberalism economic new liberalism. stalin ism before that is really quite was got its sovereignty back and its aim is keep it always true this is all the time we have here and went way too fast i was too quick thank you very much for talking to r.t. thank you.

for joining me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see that. what politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or somehow want to. have to go right to be cross it's like i'm up for three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the warnings about how. this should.