regime itself members of the quds force the deputy head was saying that they are assisting the assad regime and the iranian regime has always insisted that assad stays no i think this is something that has to be agreed between the syrian parties but one thing's for sure flynt assad cannot stay after the massive abuses of human rights in his own country after you know there's a recent human rights report that says twenty eight hour years in syria have disappeared what can what chance is there for us are to stay we all want to negotiate a settlement after this and i think this is for the syrian people to decide ok general we told really running. from you i think in beirut you're going on let's say assad did leave what difference would it make there are still people there that are stuck in the middle of a sectarian war. first of four we will be do your duty i want to serve and fooling i wonder. if we say a war on syria is a war on human rights and on democracy which countries in the middle east which are always things i wars on syria or support things i want on syria as a gun of oil companies

and some of that division spreads over the borders not just kurds remember we often talk about assad's regime being an alawite based regime where there are many more levies in turkey than in syria and one problem for the turkish government i think is any intervention and he threaten intervention even begins to bring to the surface sectarian divisions which really have been silent inside turkey for seventy years and so there is a danger leaving inside turkey itself you begin to get a sunni are we clash should be going to clash i want to talk about the sectarian differences a little bit later if i do you know the worst case scenario for me is that everyone's given up on syria now it is just a proxy war and that means it could turn into another lebanon ok because there doesn't seem to be any will on the part of the rebels to negotiate they've given up on that they just want you know as much violence and see who wins hopefully with more western intervention of some form that's the worst case scenario i think there is that there is even a even more worse scenario and that's the fact that if outsid

you see rampant defections, you see sectors across society standing up against the assad regime. i think this speaks more an analytically to the event yule collapse. >> all i would is say is the regime is not it's a question of if the regime will fall. the regime will fall for sure. and the question is, what will the cost be? i think that is more perhaps where you should be asking and looking. will it be at the cost of the entire catastrophe direction of destruction of the country reducing it to the stone i age. will there be enough for us to rebuild. this is what the project seeks to do. those who are trying to continue and rebuild syria with the necessary tools with the information and recommendations along withmany, many other people who are working in similar areas. so it is a question of cost not of if. >> many syrians believe the regime has already fallen. but that the syrians are now fighting other international forces. i mean, iran is heavily involved and so is hezbollah and russia. and so is china. it is quite interesting to see how the will of the syrian people is being

because the assad regime is very secularized and the alawites aren't and therefore will be a bufferagainst any sort of conservative suny state from developing in the arab regimes and sad as you said earlier in the aftermath the fall of assad if that should happen there would be much revenge against these minority who had supported the assad regime so that nature of the crisis has become very sick. whereas the opposition is almost entirely sunni-arab. they will put out an alawite or christian in some of the protests early on to try to show that it's not sectarian and it's more nationalist and therefore democracy and all of that but it becomes much more sectarian, almost all of that it in fact is sunni-arab from the leaders of the various military councils and militias and the free syrian are all sunni-arab and they are being supported by sunnis and turkey and qatar and saudi arabia. [inaudible] >> the prudently so. they been quiet during the whole arab spring because they are waiting to how it plays out and if they voice a position on one side or the other they could delegitimize the

details on what they found, we'd be concerned by any effort to supply military equipment to the assad regime because it's clearly being used by the regime against their own people. >> warner: all of this, as tensions between turkey and neighboring syria have escalated sharply. ankara has been leading demands for syrian president assad's ouster. last week brought cross-border shelling after a syrian mortar attack into turkish territory. the turks and the syrian army have traded artillery volleys for several days since. for more on what's behind the plane incident, i'm joined by soner cagaptay. he's director of the turkish research program at the washington institute for near east policy, and a columnist for turkey's oldest english-language newspaper, hurriyet daily news. welcome to the program. >> good to be here. >> warner: so this is a pretty bold step to send fighter jets to intercept and bring down a foreign plane. what provoked turkey to take this? >> i would say two things. one is thisclnwni is turkey uppe ante with the assad regime because turkey is the spearhead of the international c

(explosions) >> narrator: the assad regime's response was to attack the stronghold of syria's muslim rotherhood, the town of hama. >> in 1982, the syrian regime launched one of the worst massacres in the history of the middle east. the regime used artillery to level large parts of the town. between 10,000 and 30,000 people were killed or were sappeared. >> that was a very stark moment in which the alawite-dominated regime, the ba'ath party, made it clear to syria that it would not brook any opposition. >> it was a ruthless, obviously machiavellian way to deal with the problem, but it did deal with the problem from the perspective of the syrian regime, because until recently, you really haven't had any serious islamist opposition to hafez al-assad or his son when he came to power in 2000. >> narrator: bashar was never supposed to be heir apparent. but his older brother, basil, was killed in a car accident in 1994, and bashar was ordered to come home from his medical studies in london, to be prepped for the day he would take office. >> we all knew he was going to take over. we all knew

however, sporadically met with syrian opposition leaders and persian and up a dialogue with the assad regimend the support of the allstate kofi annan as jim mentioned, just to prolong the life of the regime. alienating a syrian led states since 2007, especially saudi arabia and peer to come alienating key islamic leaders such as this about cardelli who called for the boycotting of russia several days ago, russian jets are bombing the syrian people are the arab and islamic people misting against russia. we must boycott pressure and consider russia our number one enemy. number three, andersen alienates the united states in number four, increasingly alienate turkey's airgun regime is in backing the rebels. now, why is russia doing this? discontinued the ranks and rebels. there's another chance they say to reunify. hopefully moscow may think they will help aside. they have not at least been willing to hide into a searing rhetoric. however, everyone is quite headstrong if he continues to be the in the influx of refugees coming in may take action. this is why he's following the shelling and turkis

that's why ukrainians and russians and assad regime are fighting so hard. ter the election administration may change its policy. >> i would caution and say that we should not delude ourselves that people who may take over syria, its assad does the liberal democrats in the style of professor freedman. there are different people fighting in syria. there are some who are more or less secular. the syrian people's lower -- >> say it again. >> free syria and army. the serious council, the kurds, these are all rather secular people. some of them are refugees from the assad machine. on the other hand, there are islamists and elements of al qaeda who fought in iraq. and to get this right is very difficult. we saw how difficult that is in libya, where one, a former senior al qaeda figure became a security chief for tripoli and two, the tragic attack, and we heard from the president himself, just call it a terrorist attack the next day. the tragic attack that took lives of ambassador stevens and three other embassy personnel in benghazi. there are a lot of bad actors i

because of assad regime is very secularized and therefore will be a buffer on any conservative sunnisstayed from developing the sunni arab regime, that as you said earlier in the not, the fall of assad could be retribution and revenge against these minorities who have supported the assad regime. .. >> it is the very group that they want to see rise to power in some of these countries. in syria, it was a big dilemma. i have met with the israeli leadership on a number of occasions. it has been this way for years. he is in control of the country, but we know him, he is predictable, we have carried out some attacks and assassinations in syria, and they don't really respond in any sort of way if they can. there's so much power between syria and israel. you have half of the israeli theme,, we want them to have stability rather than chaos. or even worse, a radical sunni islamist state coming to power. the others other israelis have perhaps never liked us. particularly the support of israel over the years. they felt that, more importantly, it will emasculate and it will be a severe blow to ir

suppression of the green movement, when peaceful protests erupted in syria in march 2011, the assad regime responded with brute force including indiscriminate shelling, artillery and tanks and air strikes. but the administration continued to treat the regime with kid gloves. hillary clinton went so far as to describe bashar al assad as a reformer in a march 27th statement, and this was an embarrassing misreading of the situation in syria. and although assad had promised to promote reform following the death of his father in 2000, he's done precious little to deliver on those promises. in july 2011 the assad regime showed its contempt for u.s. policy by orchestrating a mob attack on the u.s. embassy in damascus, and these and other threats led to the eventual withdrawal of the u.s. ambassador for his own protection. the administration imposed three r0u7bds of incrementally escalating sanctions before president obama finally called for assad to step down in august 2011 when it became clear that this naive approach to assad had failed, the administration outsourced its syria policy to the uni

the assad regime accepted to withdraw military equipment from cities. acceptance was more in the media ban on the ground. the assad regime agreed to stop shooting at unarmed civilians and that sounded very, very well on cnn, but on the ground, there were snipers to take out civilians. the six-point plan, needed in a political dialogue. and never mentioned the assad would later consider stepping down. the problem to reach in the six-point political dialogue is all the five previous points violated and therefore, the regime will tell you that it will accept a cease-fire immediately as unconditionally. i can tell you with confidence that the assad regime is lying through his teeth. >> i think my answer to that, and i'm quoting here, it is a credible threat. we cannot wish bishara al-assad to commit. that is what i think we really want, to hope this is just for him and hope he will follow that. we need to be credible. >> can i just correct one other point. he said it is the west to assist the assad method down. q-quebec so you know, it is the syrian people

national day celebrations but somehow he is now the devil incarnate i am not trying to defend the assad regime but we get all our reports from the syrian observatory for human rights basically to people in london presenting only one side of the conflict first of all i think the countries must observe international law and international law prohibits interference in the internal affairs of a foreign state so the first thing we need to do is to make sure that other countries don't interfere with the situations in syria and libya france no doubt has sided with the opposition but what kind of opposition is it the opposition that enjoys wide support and sufficient funding it gets arms from saudi arabia qatar and nato countries and the u.s. in particular as such the current situation can be described as external aggression against a sovereign regime not a civil war i think that the french government is biased i don't think it's trying to resolve this crisis in earnest despite a new government coming to power the wall and replace our cozy no major diplomatic changes occurred the reason is what i've a

seem to get the international system they need to sort of you know do a last question against the assad regime and they cannot get a un security council resolution to authorize these things and this may be you know setting the groundwork a pretext for a back door into military intervention because of course turkey then caught it can call on its nato allies to to assist and it's essential to the nato allies who would anyways do you know a military confrontation with the assad regime if there was a un security council resolution so now and there are questions about this is this the false why you know operation to to sort of set the ground for military intervention there's been many false narratives over syria i think this is just another one of the iran's most powerful body has called for restraint from both ankara and damascus as a strongly decried serious deadly attack on turkish sentence isomer in a fortnight has got the latest from the un security council in new york. well the u.n. security council agreed and issued a presidential statement strongly condemning wednesday's mortar attack by sy

. >> host: what role does an assad regime play? >> guest: the assad regime from the beginning, 1970, when the father, senior, gained power, he was intent on bringing in, actually, the business community into the fold, even if in an informal manner to actually have the economy, after some years of serious marginalization of the business community by the same regime under a different leadership. what syria or the regime ended up doing is the summit of the book which basically ended up selectively networks with big business in such a manner that allows this state business relationship to mature and develop from the 1970s to the 1980s and eventually hijack the economy in the 1990s in what we call the business networks or cloning networks. >> host: now, who did the hijacking? >> guest: the state business relations, basically amounted to networks that ended up controlling the commanding height of the economy. of course, the state had the more strategic assets within its possession, but a lot of big business, individual business that are

libya the opposition has clearly rather grand terms of any military capacity to overthrow the assad regime so the opposition is resorting to suicide bombings coridon means the standard techniques of all qaida that they're continuing to use against the united states in afghanistan and in iraq it's a terrible embarrassment that the united states is back in bed with al qaida and one is osama bin ladin tensions are heating up between syria and its neighbor turkey with holding on to cargo confiscated from a syrian plane turkey says the ship and contained russian made weapons claims strongly denied by russia more about the diplomatic standoff at r.t. top com there's also exclusive and firsthand reports from the passengers and the crew of the plane intercepted by turkey they describe how badly they were treated. before. and october of discontent continues debt stricken e.u. tens of thousands of angry students marched across italy they're outraged by cuts to education spending which have already been imposed by the government headed by prime minister mario monti and the sentiment is also expected

in syria may get hold of these stories use the problem is that this will happen to them or the assad regime we could so you really don't understand your deity mostly that is in the west but one side trying to get rid of assad without a good placement for him on the other side being afraid that these groups would take all. of these kinds of weapons so it's sort of nonsense. to do this we are witnessing. syria and iran have been at the center of a heated debate at the end will un general assembly with russia calling for an end to some countries sidestepping the international body this is israel tried to draw up quite literally a case what intervention i mean of a ny reports from new york. as world leaders gathered for the annual un general assembly international anger over and islamophobia american film was still pleasing in the muslim world addressing the world body u.s. president barack obama condemned the video nonetheless defending the right to free speech as president of our country and commander in chief of our military i accept that people are going to call me awful things every day. a

seem to get the international system fail need to sort of you know do a last question against the assad regimethey cannot get a u.n. security council resolution to authorize these things and this may be you know setting the groundwork a pretext for a backdoor into military intervention because of course turkey then caught it can call on its nato allies to to assist and it's essential to the nato allies who would anyways do you know a military confrontation with the assad regime if there was a u.n. security council resolution and there are questions about this is this the false why you know operation to to sort of set the grounds for military intervention there's been many false narratives over syria i think this is just another one. but keeping up it's cranked on pro-reform protests causing more fierce clashes between police and demonstrators on friday tear gas and water cannons we used to disperse crowds weiland started after the funeral of a young protester who died in custody activists demanding equal rights from the shooting more nike and the release of political prisoners one of them prom

it's centrally the nato allies who would anyways do you know a military confrontation with the assad regimeif there was a u.n. security council resolution and there are questions about this is this the false why you know operation to to sort of set the grounds for military intervention there been many false narratives over syria i think this is just another one. bahrain is keeping up its crackdown on proforma protests causing more fierce clashes between police and protesters on friday tear gas and water cannons were used to disperse crowds violence started after the funeral of a young protester who died in custody to be is demanding equal rights from the sunni monarchy and the release of political prisoners one of the prominent human rights defenders to be a real job is gone on a hunger strike he was briefly released to attend his mother's funeral but not allowed to mourn further with his family his job is serving a three year jail term for participating in illegal gatherings knew well former c.n.n. correspondent amber alert. thinks her documentary on what's happening in bahrain was censore

sensually the nato allies who would anyways do you know a military confrontation with with the assad regime if there was a u.n. security council resolution so now and there are questions about this is this the false why you know operation to to sort of set the grounds for military intervention there's been many false narratives over syria i think this is just another one. and in the meantime the un's most powerful body has called for her strength from both ankara and damascus has a strong need to cry and syria's deadly attacks on talk of citizens with the latest now from the u.n. security council in new york is our team's morning of portnoy. well the u.n. security council agreed and issued a presidential statement strongly condemning wednesday's mortar attack by syria on a turkish border town that as we already heard as killed people and injured several others the council called on the syrian government to fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors and the called on all concerned parties to exercise maximum restraint a presidential statement issued by the counc

the paramilitary groups that are frenetically supporting the assad regime, most of them are doing it just to make a living and protect the community. and also to lead gives their regime somewhat plausible deniability. and it in large measure the worst atrocities. you guessed control them. you know. so i think something could happen. you release of this type of situation, and it is getting more violent. the syrians are starting to do things that they had not done. they're starting to use their helicopters and bombs indiscriminately to the point where that does not become screwed the rest in the western media. unfortunately it has in many ways. and the new cycle covers something else. the elections to conventions, what happened in libya and so forth. you know, if something happens in the humanitarian level that compels the international community to act, that is when it might happen. he knows there are reluctant to do so. >> thank you very much for a very important presentation. you brought out some very important points about what is happening in the middle east purses' the last interp

seem to get the international system they need to sort of you know do a last push against the assad regime they cannot get a u.n. security council resolution to authorize these things and this may be you know setting the groundwork a pretext for a backdoor into military intervention because of course turkey been caught it can call on its nato allies to to assist and it's centrally the nato allies who would anyways do you know a military confrontation with the assad regime if there was a u.n. security council resolution so you know and there are questions about this is this the false. you know who are a shown to to sort of set the grounds for military intervention there's been many false narratives over syria i think this is just another one the members of the u.n. security council have delivered a joint condemnation of the deadly attack of the turkish village artist more in a fortnight reports from new york well the un security council agreed and issued a presidential statement strongly condemning wednesday's mortar attack by syria on a turkish border town that as we already heard as kille

the assad regime agreed to stopped shooting at unarmed citizens and that sounded well on cnn but on the ground there were snipers that took out citizens. it never mentioned that assad would later consider stepping down. the problem to reaching the six point of political dialogue is all the previous five points have been violated and therefore the assad regime will tell you it will accept a cease fire. immediately i can tell you with confidence that the assad regime is lying through itself teeth. >> i think also it is a credible threat. we need a credible threat for him to commit to any plan. that's what i think is really wanted. we can not just suggest for him and hope he will follow that. we need to be credible. >> you said it is the west who insist that assad step down. i would like to tell you no, it is the syrian people who want assad to step down. the west is echoing what we wanted and it took them a long time to get to that point. it took heads of state and administrations several months after repeated calls from the syrian people that assad step down that that was picked up as we