by no euro skeptics. asks me to food to brussels. the rules say you cannot feed your child do you think i would respect brussels rules do you think i would feed my child it is decided to wage a war on the home front to aside from the many pots it's also proposed a draft law that would give the government the power to appoint members to the bank of italy the e.u. is flustered fearing the board could end up less independent and more anti you and it's likely disappointed over the loss of an ally on the inside the bank that he reportedly acted on behalf of the european central bank to help oust former prime minister silvio berlusconi. they threaten governments that misbehave with financial destruction they cut off refinancing and threaten to kill the banking system they create a rollover crisis in the bond market this is what happened to italy in 2011 so you can sympathize with the e.u. the current italian governments make no attempt to hide it's the state of the block

the recent e.u. parliament chill actually thought populist euro skeptic parties when ground the threats it uses to dissipate and wait what member states are being bypassed and they're not exactly galloping ahead practice shown by resident bit painful alternative you'd forgive the e.u. if it needed a moment to mop it brow we are trying to find some solutions who. go out from the system to. we want to change this. because that is a flock of that is not working in the right direction so one to fight the flexible . shows. ready to me into the rest of european countries because we are all these hoops of this and that just the. banks and so home we are not making big. or we're not making big tourist.

you're watching r.t. international appreciate your company stick around with updates on our top stories in half an hour. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics or business i'm showbusiness i'll see that.

below and welcome the crosstalk we're all things are considered. with 10 minutes to spare trump pulled back from attacking iran reception of this new split down the middle or depending on how you view the president but it's not talked about is why the u.s. feels compelled to go to war washington's obsession with iran is hardly over. cross knocking some real news i'm joined by my guest here in moscow wendy's and he is a professor at the higher school of economics as well as author of the decay of western civilization and the resurgence of russia and in paris we cross to john laughlin he's a lecturer in political philosophy and i says the catholic university of bendy all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump any time you want and i always appreciate let me go to john 1st in paris with what we have seen happen with trump pulling back with 10 minutes to spare he's created in in amazing dilemma for him for himself and his administration essentially now he's damned if

he does and he's damned if he doesn't and this is a trap that i would say in my opinion that he he has allowed himself to be painted into a corner by. the figures such as pump a 0 in bolton because this crisis and it is a crisis is far from over we are going to have to wait for the next step and i would say before i go to you the momentum in the initiative is on the side of iran now not the united states go ahead joe. i think that. donald trump is totally inscrutable and in a way that's part of his political genius and what i mean by that is that you know we've been talking about donald trump now for 4 years for 2 years while he was during the primaries and for 2 years since he's been president and he has an incredible talent for making people talk about him all the time because he never does what you expect and he does outrageous things and then doesn't follow through

with them and nothing is coherent so yes as in your question of course like many observers i see the pressure of the neo cons. bolton and so on pushing him to do things which he then doesn't do we told us over venezuela he venezuela fizzled out and it was clearly a failure but it was cooked up by bolton and pompei o ditto iran so you know what we have servers are left perplexed and i you know i have no special information is it that he is their puppet and that he doesn't know what to do is he playing some clever game it's impossible to say what we have is a kind of strange situation where we're led to the brink repeatedly we were led to the brink a couple of years ago in april 27th seen over syria we were led to the brink of course in venezuela now we've been led to the brink again including with absurd false flag operations like the the so-called mining operation the grainy video and

so on all this nonsense but trump doesn't follow through it's a kind of tease it's a kind of political co-exists interrupt us and. whether it's a plan or not a plan i just tell them to go to glenn i mean john's absolutely right it's we're out we're still talking about donald trump and maybe that was going to divine was in the 1st place i think you know the more serious here i think we have to remind our. viewers that iran perceives all of this is the war has already started this maximum pressure is is hurting the economy it is hurting the middle class it is the economy is hurting ok in so iran sees this is just another step in america's war against the islamic republic. and i think for that reason it can be quite important for iran. to make sure the. world they can reach renegotiate

this. tension as well i'm not saying that this is a mission to but i do think that they have something to gain by increasing tensions and get the americans to sit down because quite accurately as john pointed out. there the seems to be some confusion about what the trump administration is doing and i think for trump he says his main objective is simply to put maximum pressure on all of america's adversaries to negotiate something else while he's up ministration from the pump aosta bolton as they are more intraday actually want to go all the way to war so invents you know they want to go in. iran this well so i think the they seem to want to go the same way in terms of putting marks pressure but then at the final stage actually doesn't want to go the last mile while they do which is why you have this you know we were talking to the talk show host tucker carlson has been talking with the president and if you look at some of the. tucker carlson's commentary about what was going on right before the

pullback he was essentially telling donald trump and i believe he was speaking to him personally to on his broadcast is that if you do this if you follow through on this you will destroy your presidency you will not be reelected let me let me go back to paris to john i mean obviously what what the iranians would want if there is any kind of negotiations is sanction relief i mean that's exactly what they want and this is goes back to my 1st question to you this is a dilemma because trump is all in on maximum. pressure it would be very difficult for him politically to withdraw from that and we'll talk about the media reaction later but this is part of the dilemma if you want he says he wants negotiations but from the iranian side said we had to go sheehan's with you we came up with a with a nuclear deal and you walked away from it why should we trust you that's the dilemma john. yes but that is also part of trump's tactic you know his tactic is to go into a room shout a lot of totally outrageous things and then stomp out again and leave everyone

wondering what the hell just happened he did that over korea let's not forget he called him rocket man he said he told the united nations he was going to obliterate korea north korea from the face of the earth and then he went to meet kim jong il that is his tactic and i think it's the same with iran he disavowed john bolton publicly in the oval office he said i sometimes have to rein john bolton in and he said we're ready to talk with the iranians in as much as he has a strategy and i'm not sure that he does in as much as he does his strategy is to disorient everyone by his completely outrageous behavior and then come in and say i'm ready to talk and he has done that with the iranians so i don't think it's politically impossible for him to climb down on the country all i i you know what he i agree with you i mean what he should do what he should do right now is fire john bolton but fire him and say i'm taking charge of this right now i mean that

would give him a little breathing space with the same time john iran's is not going to be understanding iran feels that is it is the united states is an existential threat to the islamic republic and it is john. well i don't think that's what the iranians iranians would want i think if trump did say right mate you know we're going to i think they would respond maybe i'm wrong maybe i don't never go yeah but they would have to be sanctioned really they would have to say we will. lower the saying let me go to glenn on this i mean is that because i think i think it has to be the north koreans and he did a little bit is it possible but yeah i i think so but again it's a very different ball to can get out of this mix pressure because. iran this is not like these other countries the united states a bomb than invaded the past 30 years it is a large middle power so it's it has the ability to inflict. pain on new and i said

exactly and for this reason that's a limitation for how much pressure of the united states can put on it because it knows that america has a lot to lose if they would actually go to war so i guess for for united states the ideal situation if they could put max pressure in or even like a bloody nose attack where they do a limited strike on iran iran is you know too terrified to retaliate because of the repercussions it would have would have for them if america would then escalate however because iran has so much capabilities it is it's quite vital for them to be able to hold up a red line and hold american psychology that's why they have the smallest infringement on their security such as this drone passing into the airspace it's imperative for them to respond and do so harshly because if the americans they will use this military power then they will probably go for this but in those attack however if. if they believe the american that they run this will retaliate. with

full force the only thing they don't strive to really don't have to we have with full force and go back to john and paris iran doesn't have to react in full force with iran's greatest strain. when taking on the united states is fighting asymmetrically so a drone is. shot over to round for example then an in american air base in iraq yet it gets attacked or something in syria so this is this is the nightmare for the for the strategists because iran can react you don't know where or how and you can't plan for it john. well i'm going to stick my neck out i'm going to say i mean i think trump is completely unpredictable and like many observers as i've just said i found it impossible to reach him but i'm going to say stick my neck out and say that he's not going to go for it he didn't go for it over syria he's more or less structured crain he's more or less structured venezuela as far as we know it keeps he's

a tease it keeps the neo cons onside by pretending he's with them and then he drops them at the last minute maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm being optimistic i think it's fascinating analysis because if. you everything you've said is that you can't prove that that is incorrect ok so i mean that's fascinating in itself well give you the last word in this block composition trump either because on one hand his the. one on the other hand the piece president. obama or bush or clinton doesn't start new wars on the other hand he's looking at his base and is he thinking about the legacy only but on the other hand he's he's pushing almost all countries into conflict of same time is threatening war us with more than anyone else so it's hard to tell if he is a war of words is it is it there is the credibility gap i mean john just said you know all these countries here are so i mean he's just all what is it was the saying he's all happy and no cattle well it depends because he wants to put too much

pressure on all countries in order to renegotiate america's relationship with the world to reverse the klein however if it would actually go to war with iran and this would drain all of america's focus and resources for the next decade and you know while. all other powers to trust negotiate with would be able to walk free china would the rise to global privacy and so it would be it would be the worst thing right 22nd said john before we go go ahead john 20 seconds i disagree with that and again i'm look i'm not like many people i've been deeply disappointed by trump i'm appalled by the appointment of bolton and and so on but to the extent that he has a foreign policy and that he runs u.s. foreign policy which of course is itself a question yes what glenn as it is right trump is focused on china ok i long to. be the topic for the next time you are going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on some real news stayed with our team.

my protection a break that is not that i like to hear you but it without the mollifying influence of the e.u. the brits are going to be exposed face on head on to people like boris johnson and jacob smog who are who are the ones the certifiably insane. when else should seem wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me world yet to see palin just be active. and engaged because the trail. went something and find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground

. welcome back to cross dock where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing iran. and now we're joined by alexander me curious in london he is a writer on legal affairs as well as editor in chief of the duran dot com alex goal can be the program you i know you heard the 1st half we had with john laughlin let's switch gears a little bit here i was. unpleasantly surprised i'm i say that the media reaction in the media reaction to this polling back of this attack all has to do about how you perceive donald trump and it's really not about the conflict itself all right because you have people that know that

a war an american war on iran would be devastating to for the region for the global economy but it would be under trump's watch go for it i mean and then of course watching american cable with these low octane thinkers they don't know anything about iran or foreign policy all they could do was say that trump doesn't have credibility we can talk about that but it misses the whole point here why the united states needs to feels that compulsion compulsion to go to war all the time go ahead alex and one indeed if you go to the media here in rishon and what i've seen of the media in the united states there is a world full lack of analysis of this there is very little discussion a war has led up to this conflict all of potential conflicts and there is even less discussion of what the potential consequences of this conflict would be as you correctly say and as was indeed discussed on the 1st segment of your program the focus is overwhelmingly on the personality of one man which is donald trump

ignoring the fact that there are multiple actors. this matter one in which is of course iran which most definitely does have agency the rain ians are sitting back and calculating and making their own decisions and there seems to be incredibly little interest in. the media generally in finding out what they think and what they're going to do i saw a statement on a discussion program in the united states where it was suggested that even discussing it rainy annoyed years was somehow treasonable credibly incredible way of thinking given what how dangerous the situation is becoming you know when that's going to cure it brings up such a great point in this in this is primarily the media's fault is that negotiating with an adversary is treasonous i mean that that that defies the very concept of

diplomacy having state craft ok i've come across that too that any kind of negotiations with the iranians is somehow morally wrong and that is a very dangerous supposition. in that they refer to a character dilemma sensible to being able to put yourself in the shoes of the other serious because if you simply divide the world into the right versus wrong good versus evil. you know that then you get the rhetoric they have in the u.s. now or you know iran's been behaving we have to teach them a lesson so you know i think that we're behavior hey there has to have a. approach where you know the teacher address a student the parent of a child so you have to discipline them in order to get the correct behavior but that's not really how international relations work you have 2 states with competing conflicting interests what you really need to do than the 6 i mean the interest of both states in order to find some way to do a compromise. there's

a lot of noise here so you can't really actually have this process of what actually diplomacy is supposed to be all about. instead you have good countries and bad if you listen to the valid one it's the it's a piece meant so taking in to consideration what iran might need it security interest the us appeasement is treason and this is goes against peace so it's a really if international relations diplomacy put on this head because this is not how it's supposed to work furthermore because of this whole focus now on trump to impede stability of the united states to act rationally and not simply irrational would suggest are able to look at foreign affairs and do a rational calculation in terms of what's the best way to approach it to maximize their security but what we're seeing is it's a domestic politics of the united states that will dictate its foreign policy let's point out if if if you can criticize trump for how he's handling it are his not the size of enough is too aggressive he did this then if this serves domestic politics

then he will do it so essentially foreign policy is shaped or even directed. at your door it is this whole mantra about socialism you know that's that's domestically driven in the united states visa v. been his way or let me go back to london i got i have a way to get out of this mess here because it's certainly a dilemma that trump is a lot of south to be painted into a corner fire pompei or fire bolton and call and said again what do you think we need because of course the way glenn was discussing matters is very much if i may say so a view of international relations that you can find in europe and you can find in moscow but when she's not very current in the united states the united states isn't doing diplomacy at the moment a lot of is a suit green diplomat and he is the foreign minister of the great power and he is someone who's extremely skilled and adept at negotiating compromises and

brokering solutions as was recently point you know a good exe. well of how that can happen is the conflict between russia and turkey that existed over syria some years ago when a russian aircraft was shot down and we did not hear anything about military action being taken at that time certain sanctions were imposed but in the end the 2 sides found nothing commonality of interest to negotiate a compromise but that required diplomas and that is not what we're seeing at the moment if i can just say one very quick thing about some of the comments that have been made both by john and by clem i think there is riddle to this mystery of donald trump and glenn touched on it the riddle is that trantor needs to do whatever he must as he thinks to win the 20 twentieth's. has tookie

use the evangelical christians like tents and poincare who are fired up against iran and see things in the black and white terms the donald trump that glenn was talking about and at the same time he has to appease he's our that the other part of he's base which is against war which is what tucker carlson comes from and this is what explains to my mind these extraordinary zig zags in the decisions that we are seeing not a way to conduct diplomacy and diplomacy is what we need to clint i mean i think we've you know with john laughlin and we're going to be here as yourself i mean myself you know i think we've we've kind of cut through the hedges here but we still have to deal with the issues that are rare and certainly doesn't see it this way they're not psychoanalyzing donald trump they are very seriously concerned with

their sovereignty so if you're if you're into law your adversary is. i'm sorry irrational or. not no sense predictable how how does iran deal with that because they're on the receiving end you know that's a good question and this didn't start with trump of course it is a very long american policy to put them or more pressure on iran so it's. how would you react if you're a country like iran as i mentioned before iran is a large middle power it's it's it's much greater than the countries to which america's attacked a loss of 3 or so yet this doesn't have the talent power let's say china or russia so. i guess the only thing they can do is see it trying to continue to negotiate with the americans but again the current has to be the basis of all of this. yeah it's very hard for them the. we have like pump

a 0 and using exactly that same word it turns you know but i find that really bizarre but the turn that they use it's slightly wrong because the target is supposed to prevent someone from taking an action and that's usually the revisionist power but in this situation it's the americans who are the rich and if they are they are ripping off the iran nuclear deal and then they're telling their on the installer to their to stop abiding by but you can't this is this would only make sense if you're telling them from ripping up the agreement but if you're the revisionist power you're the one expanding you're the one bombing the neighbors you're the one threatening the terrorist doesn't work in this way and. then we're going to be the thing that i guess we're going to be seeing moving forward because this isn't over i mean this simply is not over this is the beginning of something here because as i said in the 1st part of the program iran already perceives itself to in a conflict with the united states and that is the it is on the receiving end of

economic warfare but i always stress iran has a lot of asymmetrical ways to make the u.s. pay attention ok and its ability and it does how friends in the region it is all the way to lebanon and we we a rock i mean the iraqis have made it very clear they want to american troops out one of the reasons why american troops are staying there is quote unquote watching iran i mean it could make it very very messy and even painful for the u.s. with this asymmetrical approach. asymmetrical look she's followed. in response to this campaign of american pressure which to be very clear if you read american demands they demand iran's total could get you lay surrender so right . in a way which would make the entire political system in iran

a non viable and unsustainable it is a campaign in effect for regime change but the radiance absolutely have to respond they have by the standards of the region an advanced military they are as glenn correctly said a significant middle ranking power and they have many many supporters in the middle east and these this campaign against them is going to win over more people in the middle east because there's so much they're perceived victim exactly if i could just say i mean the whole policy of maximum pressure when a marine has been a plant by the united states you see this was north korea we've seen this with cuba we've seen this with venezuela we see this with russia by the way we're seeing it now of course with the wrong the in nor the in the results based on experience is that it causes the other saw 8 to harden its position exactly out of popular

resistance within the. country to steer juror in venezuela seems to be in a stronger position now than he was a few months ago and. so i had to jump in here and i know gwen wanted to say something but we rode out of down here many thanks to my guests here in moscow paris and london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are can you see you next time and remember across like rules. good food descriptions sound appetising even for the owners it's so hard to choose just pet food industry is telling. us what to feed our pets really more based on

what they want to sell us than was necessarily good for the pet turns out food may not be best people believe we have animals that have you know diabetes in arthritis they have auto immune disorders allergies we are actually creating these problems is a huge of a democrat problems all of them i believe can be linked to very simple problem of diet and some dog owners so heartbreaking stories about their pets last treats the larger corporations are not very interested in proving or disproving the value of their food because they're already making a $1000000000.00 on it and there's no reason to do that research. some time over shoulder like a honey pot and everyone believe that it was all on stable and on the reliability of russia but they thought that everyone was great over their russian businessmen wanted to do business in the west because they feared some could take everything

away from them in russia which now is the opposite they have businesses outside of russia was snatched less has frozen the old log and now the student whine about the . united states is imposing new sanctions against iran's supremely leader on this occasion in the wake of the drone shooting who looking at how washington stance on the country seems to be pulling in different directions. coupled ministrations middle east peace plan is rejected by palestine with critics accusing washington of trying to bribe arabs into making political concessions that was rather. small the parents of critically ill palestinian infants taken from gaza to better equipped hospitals in israel a big denied access to their children with exit permits much harder to obtain.