hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle trumping ministration is on an offensive around the globe as a candidate trump called out new columns for supporting american military adventures now many of them work for the president in this administration the very idea of diplomacy is absent it relies upon threats and sanctions. cross talking whether we're going to war i'm joined by my guest peter cuz nick in washington he's a professor of history at american university as well as co-author with all of our stone the untold history of the united states in burbank we have rough is a day he is president of the international american council and

a harvard educated iranian american political scientist and in person bill we cross to philip giraldi he's a former cia counterterrorism specialist who is now executive director of the counsel for the national interest all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to philip first i'm calling this program go moving toward war question mark as it happens so very often philip an article you wrote a few days ago inspired me to do this program and to invite our guests here so philip and percival are we in this situation because we can look at iran we can look what's going on in venezuela the bipartisan support to get out of the conflict that's supporting the saudi arabia and yemen moving the capital recognizing the capital of israel's jerusalem the trumpet ministration giving away the golden heights the golan heights it's not even theirs to give away and also the possibility of an oil shock by this unilateral global blockade and sanctioning of

iranian oil i mean there's a whole lot of things going on at the same time ear and it gets senator around to people in the administration and you know who i'm talking about go ahead philip. you know i rather suspect you're talking about john bolton than mike pompei yeah there you go you know i think the issue is here yeah i think the issue is here that that they've managed to get the presidency ear in a very real way the president has a business head he doesn't know anything about diplomacy he doesn't know anything about foreign policy does nothing about iran or russia and the fact is i think that these people have convinced the president using his business head that if you put enough pressure on these people backed up by the military they will inevitably back down and this is probably something that trump believes to be true i don't think that anyone other than maybe bolton really expect that there's going to be

a war but they think i. am quite sure that what will happen is that the other side will back down and in the case of iran iran will break up in the civil war and this is what they would like to see ok michael is it stay with the rand here designating the revolutionary guards as a terrorist organization that is essentially a declaration of war against the entire country because the revolutionary guards are part of the military here is that wise to do it seems so very rash to do and it does risk a possibility of a rainy and revolutionary guards and american troops facing off in a variety of places the middle east again this is kind of brinkmanship without any real common sense i mean it's dangerous it's going to burbank go ahead. i think i disagree that's why you're on the program my friend i want you to disagree with me go right ahead thank you. think so if you look at the

revolutionary guard corps this long equivalent of cops or i.r.g.c. i mean since their establishment nine hundred seventy nine they have they have gained significant power and they are a primary. military institution that's fundamentally shot across the region they don't hear that all the time i hear that all the time on terror groups and all that and i don't think i think i think they need yes that's because it's true so i think well it's certainly needed to get certainly a time a talking point keep going no it's a fact so if you look at iran politics have been working on all their a decade and i lived in iran i mean there are evolutionary guards let me sickly let me ask the question sort of larry let me ask why should a different way let me ask the question a different way does this bring iran into the united states closer to war that's a better question go ahead. well i it's not my job to predict i really don't

predict what's going to happen i think it's wrong to predict but i think iran you know you see there are two options peter you can't pursue appeasement policy like obama administration did so well was the answer everybody agrees iran didn't change its behavior ok continue to a leader when you know. you know what those initials mean ok and they found iran to this day ok let me go to peter and we can mix it up here peter i did ashington peter moore let me i want to get everyone in the program person then we can mix it up here peter reflect upon some of the things that we have said here today because this is appears to be an ministration that is hyper aggressive in the world and sanctioning friends and allies you threatening to sanction friends and foes so it seems to me that trump and ministration his or her in a hurry to get where to continue the unit polar moment go ahead peter in washington . well even charles krauthammer who announced the unocal of moment back in one nine

hundred ninety and then in nineteen and then in two thousand and two said it was no longer yuna polar and he said it's now the unipolarity era and it's going to last indefinitely by two thousand and six krauthammer said the unit problem moment and the unit poll era are over and that's all we have to deal with now it's a much more complicated multi-polar world and trump this is just an incoherent policy his policies are very contradictory in a sense he's moving toward diplomacy with north korea at the same time he's moving toward confrontation with iran oliver stone and i just put out the new edition of the untold history of the united states we added one hundred fifty plus page chapter twenty twelve to twenty nineteen period and what we talk about is how much more dangerous the world has become over the past six plus years

you look at the hands the doomsday clock in the end of two thousand and twelve they stood it eight minutes before midnight and hence the doomsday clock now stands at two minutes before midnight and probably should be even closer so we're on the verge of confrontations all over the planet you've mentioned some of them in the relations with russia have never been worse at least since one thousand nine hundred sixty two relations with china are very very tense to look like is going on in the south china sea right now situation with iran is potentially explosive the situation in eastern europe in the baltics very very dangerous so i mean in some places we're making little bit of progress that the overall picture right now is very very frightening. it is very frightening here let me go back to philip here i mean i think all of us you know it well i mentioned in one way or another is it is this a form of brinkmanship where you believe that this your opponent is going to fold.

because of over well meaning pressure financial military i mean it seems to me a very dangerous game of bluffing because the world is changing and it is already a multi-polar world though people in washington don't seem to realize that go ahead philip. you know i absolutely agree with you i mean brinkmanship is the old fashioned expression for exactly what this is you you sort of push and push and push up to the brink of war and you expect the other side to back down now the united states since it is the supremely terry flower on the planet believes that you can get away with this without any anybody being able to check this this is progress but the fact is that these situations that are currently evolving in the middle east and in latin america have the potential to escalate and that requires one or two missteps which this med ministration is quite capable of doing and it

will lead to a major war and a major war could ultimately lead to a nuclear exchange there's a bill in congress right now to call the to call the russian federation a state supporter of terrorism there's another bill the same bill in congress is also seeking to name some of the allegedly russian supported militias in ukraine as terrorist groups this stuff is very very dangerous ok let's go back to burbank budget i mean the u.s. and its have is a very skin sort of effort to shut down iran's exports of oil i mean it's unprecedented to see a country like the united states telling other countries who it can buy and sell things from and it's in it and it's putting a lot of countries into a real crimp right now and it really the possibility of an oil global oil shock is there again this is brinkmanship and everybody knows that iran will be able to

break those sanctions i mean what's the point in going down this path where so many countries are damaged the global economy is damaged and it won't change the political facts on the ground in iran we've already seen it that won't happen should there be a reassessment of these policies go ahead in burbank. well there is already some prices in the iranian government and the oil oil export is less than half compared to a year and a half ago and they are they are facing. a crisis in any event they ring a president said it's the war's economic crisis they have had in forty years so the sanctions are definitely working we can't doubt so you welcome and they rely on you well consarn comes you well well you know well you know well you know when iran i mean it's for forty years has been sworn to damage us national security to scuttle us foreign policy in the region they have carried out terrorist attacks in lebanon in other countries against americans so i think the rain in peat i think what

amounted to rewrite people what about the reigning people the same concert the iranian people want you know what they're saying that yes well remember. no remember no i don't support remember the sanction sanction. let me tell you know what. it hurts no it doesn't hurt the leaders of the people of the government no it doesn't you know you and you know that and you know that. ok you need to let me finish so. when the obama this is to lift the sanctions against iran and everybody said well now it's going to trickle down to the people and money is coming to the country it didn't happen i mean the poverty is over forty percent and still be. people living under the poverty i mean this this kind of things that really didn't help people and they realize that lifting the sanction does not help people because we have a theocratic establish and we have. a hard break after

a short break we'll continue our discussion on whether we're moving towards more. international memorial towards twenty nine now open for entry. the media professionals are eligible whether you're a freelance journalist media or part of a global news. published works in video. that you run a blood bank. in one room are dead patients they've been dead since two thousand

and eight j.p. morgan. society generali just say except. and in the other room you have living middle class people and the point of blood bank is to take blood from the living middle class people and to transfuse that blood to the dead banks next door that they've been dead now for more than ten years the people that are in the middle class are going to start to suffer and suffer horribly and many of them will die by the way they won't be getting any of the blood from the other middle class people to keep them alive all the blood all the plasma goes to the dead. because i live he didn't feel confident.

we have many things in this world this isn't enough for everyone why some people's minds so take our things all the power just for themselves to see. welcome like the cross talk we're all things are considered. we're discussing whether we're moving towards war.

ok let's go back to peter in washington during the break you signal that you'd like to jump in first go ahead peter. i have a little bit of a different perspective on this. and. he talked about forty years rainy and miti tour of the united states as a star and i go back to one thousand nine hundred fifty three iranians have good reason for not trusting the united states united states the cia overthrew the mossad that government in one thousand nine hundred fifty three in iran you talk about russian interference in the american election or the cia consciously deliberately proposed simply overthrew a very popular government in iran because the iranian government was nationalizing british oil interests so how would we feel if iran had come in and overthrown the kennedy government in one thousand nine hundred sixty two and this is the who they were context we have to understand this and so yes and this these sanctions are

hurting the iranian people definitely an iranian economy is suffering as a result what is going to be the outcome of this as china going to go along with with us demand is india going to go along with u.s. demand turkey turkey perhaps south korea and japan will but the other countries are not and the europeans were already looking for mechanisms to deal with oil and trade with iran outside of the us economics we are so i think the united states is isolating itself with this kind of policy the sanctions were imposing all over the planet now they were a sanction happy government and they do have an economic impact they do hurt the people there but the effect as we see in russia is to rally around the government and we're going to see the same thing in iran the iranian people are nationalist they might not like what the government is doing they might not like what the revolutionary guard is doing in much of the world i think in a rally around their government if they see it being attacked by the united states

ok let me go to philip here philip you know i said in my introduction that donald trump was very critical of what we would call in this program neo cons and their military adventures around the world i mean his twitter feed. for he was elected here as they said some of these people are actually working for him right now how do you square that because you know mike pump aoe and john bolton they have their agendas and they're very very parochial at times and very very dangerous and then we have juxtaposed to america first so how do those america first and these two characters work together because it seems to me as peter just pointed out it's like short circuiting everything around us ok it's impossible you could actually do a separate program on all of these issues that we have mentioned here and everything is short circuiting and i can't see how that is successful for america first go ahead philip well i think the the the real situation here is that bolton in pompei oh i have essentially taken over the foreign policy. agenda

for the trumpet ministration and they have brought in a lot of the neo cons and the neo cons a very active at the second and third level. and these people are basically they're not america first there's these people have a have a global agenda in terms of using american power to create as they keep referring to it a liberal liberal international order that the united states support us so this is what they're pushing and they think they think if you push hard enough you're going to succeed but the fact is that as you noted the europeans the japanese the chinese the russians are all now setting up alternatives to the u.s. dominated international financial order and this is going to basically make it very difficult for the united states to keep printing money which is probably a good thing but it will have consequences. go back to you in burbank you know also

in the beginning my first question to philip was about the middle east here i mean how how we said to america's advantage. when they are they want to have a liberal world order is put it that way but you know there's this illegal occupation in syria and no one wants those troops there maybe except for israel because they're keeping american troops in syria keeps the quagmire there doesn't allow the people to rebuild it doesn't allow syrians the come home because the united states and is intentionally a spoiler there i mean the middle east is far more unstable right now because the united states heavily were lower donald trump i should say heavily relies upon israel and saudi arabia as a matter of fact everything this administration has done in the middle east is been really catered and a script written by the saudis and by the israelis is that make the middle east safer go ahead and burbank well i don't you know before when the united states

actually doing obama the shit has more role i think more troops actually in the me the least compared to no so before when the us was in the middle east there was criticism that why the troops are there now the trumpet in decision has with their own troops from a lot of troops from syria again there is a criticism why they're doing that so i think i think it's there's all of the united. states in the middle east in general this is a bull now that under obama is it more unstable or less or equal. it's not a something like you can really measure quite sure you can but sure you can sure you can ok i'm going to be moving the american ambassador to see rosalia that that is something you can you can quantify very easily ok the reaction globally is very very very negative ok so that makes the region more unstable it makes having any kind of subtle and we have palestinians more difficult so i would say it's kind of

more unstable go ahead keep going in burbank. i don't i mean when i look at syria i don't think it's more unstable compared to the obama administration. the civil war has toned down i mean it's if you look i mean people are returning to their homes and i think it's not the united. players i mean mostly iran actually that really intensifying the tension in the region ok but also they you know what i have to tell you i mean every government's not the united states every go many were. very very pleased with their national it's really refreshing to hear it's always a rans fall because i live in a country where everybody in the west says it's russians fault so i guess we have another straw man on the international stage or i just peter i see you're smiling ok you want to react to anything we've just said here go ahead. the situation in syria. u.s. u.s.

policy was disastrous in syria i agree with majid that things are stabilizing there but if you go back to twenty thirteen in the syrian civil war really began in two thousand and eleven right things were relatively calm there nobody expected this to be a serious civil war they were in the midst of a six year drought having economic problems but if you read the accounts when the u.s. started to get involved it looked like the uprising was more about that part time than the u.s. introduces operation timber sycamore and we'd put a massive cia operation and we really do what we can to ignite the under arrest there and now look it's a disaster what's what's occurred and in syria but let it put it was going on in a slightly different context about the threat of war on march first twenty eight lattimer putin gave his state of the nation address and when she said that russia now has five new nuclear weapons all of which can circumvent u.s.

missile defense and there's february twenty one thousand state of the nation address he announced a six new nuclear weapon russia has modernized more than sixty percent of its nuclear arsenal the united states is modernizing its nuclear arsenal it's going to estimate now is one point seven trillion dollars over a thirty year period every country now is making its nuclear weapons not only more efficient but more usable we look at threats coming out of moscow they repeatedly are threatening the use of nuclear weapons in a way that we haven't seen certainly since the cold war but and they're taking this seriously and they're modernizing their other forces also and every one of these situations now is becoming more ok we're dangerous peter i think there's like there's a cabby out here i agree with everything you've said. but these new new weapons their capabilities are exclusively defensive preparing russia is prepared now it

has made it public that it is prepared for a conflict if the united states so wishes it will be a defensive war ok that's why these missile systems came into being but you know what everybody it wouldn't have been necessary if the united states hadn't unilaterally withdrawn from the a.b.m. treaty and two thousand and two and blatter me opposed it and said there will be consequences for this ok two thousand and nineteen the consequences there are quite evident here if philip is conflict with russia in evitable i mean considering all of the i mean this russia gate thing as it sounds like for me so far away it's a bunch of juvenile delinquents in the media and the democratic party that have just absolutely destroyed the reputation of the and you can't take the united states very seriously and at the same time it's being very aggressive in the world go ahead philip. well i think you have to understand that the united states tends to back off a bad when it's confronted by an actual nuclear power that's why the situation with

north korea has gone back and forth because when the other guy can bite back the united states tends to be a little bit fearful so i don't think war with russia is inevitable but i agree with previous comments that this is the worst relationship between the united states and russia since the cuban missile crisis and the fact is that the trumpet ministration has came in with the promise that we would fix this that there was no reasons for russia united states to be adversaries and trouble ministration has completely failed in this which is it has forced conservatives like me who initially supported the term promise to say what's wrong with this guy which is do we have insanity in the white house because some of the stuff that's going on in terms of provoking situations that will only only have bad outcomes is something

that is very hard to believe it will feel ability to finish off with you here i think is one silver lining in least in my mind trump has promised that he will not start any new wars during his first term here do you think that's going to temper pompei oh and bolton here because he's made it very clear he doesn't want to new war twenty seconds philip go ahead. well trump has made that promise but he's made other promises to and the fact is that even when he says he's not going to start a new war he still kind of says that they also he and pompei you and bolton all say that all options are on the table ok we'll all options on the table we're going to be watching all of them thank you gentlemen many thanks to my guests in washington burbank and percival and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember.

also the government just creates the platform against this dialogue because that does not allow any compromise in their platform talks about the serbian crimes how serbia should play war iterations. being in its official states it was simply things that everything is already over when they wake up from the illusions that they will have to face it several reality with. facebook and google started with a great idea and great ideals unfortunately it was also a very dark side. they are constructing a profile of you and that profile is real it's detailed and it never goes away turns out that google is manipulating your opinions from the very first character that you type into the search bar it will always favor one dog food over another

one comparative shopping service over another and one candidate over another they can suppress certain types of results deiced on what they think you should be seeing if they have this kind of power then democracy is an illusion the free and fair election doesn't exist the more we give them the sooner we're all. free could only be done what the rule book. for the fall to do soon. i'll sell some properties to me if you don't have to keep. playing if. you're among the group was. to build a modem if you did it well yeah except you're then he says the calls for folks like

me the folks with the security. oh. well. closure we're going to produce a. monkey . this is what i was stopped at a push and i was full force as. i . thought.

i. press the national memory of bullets in a is sentenced to eighteen months jail by a us federal court for failing to register as a foreign agent. but i don't think she's in. he'll shoulder the ball to anyone who thinks that someone who wasn't russia would be in the situation this will actually turn the less sensitive fun for mation on arms the sales of the yemeni war are folded in for questioning by french intelligence. a project of truly apic britain and germany hailed china's balance on the road trading network initiative that's the countries take part in

a major economic forum on base which means.