know more imposing its record even on the political and economic elite that existed before before ben ali came to power in eighty seven. and also explains the real reason is in which he was ousted from from power and that the army just whereas in in egypt already the situation was different because mubarak is a product. of the army and the army is the backbone of. still in power i mean what you have in in egypt is very clearly the army ruling i mean it's not behind the scenes it's very very officially so. seen countries like libya or syria or the ruling families in the gulf countries and you could use the same formula of ruling family to for libya and syria actually. i mean you have. these elites call them like. i mean only the story. you can hardly hardly see see them leaving the scene you know and then leaving behind something very optimistic about the future is it really potentially has more violence my dream what do you think about that i mean we have assad and people like this have they learned from the. mistakes let's say of their fellow dictators in the region. well i agree with wh

it was at the heart of the revolution which overthrew ben ali and we know that economic and complete anomic questions were central to the beginning of that revolution i believe will be central to the future of it as well so democracy yes but a rejection of mere liberalism and also i think a very deep dissatisfaction with the alliance between the dictators in the region of the western powers and the state of israel so i think that in all three registers political democracy economic challenged nearly a prism challenge to the imperial structure of the region we're going to see very very profound developments and you mentioned iraq and a lot of people are comparing this to iraq and afghanistan but this is a bit different isn't it i mean after all these are strikes do you support what was essentially initially a popular uprising yes but as i say it was an intervention not to save revolution but to subvert revolution and and it's as well here is also to remember an important element of the history in iraq especially actually from the first gulf war because there were no flows with no fly z

statesman so cozy wanted to make up for his mistakes in northern africa for example his support of ben ali regime intern is the obama loss demonstrated he's actually strong minded and is willing to take action what we have is a situation where various different western leaders just want to prove something about themselves and so they're using live as a kind of stage in which to act out a kind of new personality it's a really dangerous strategy they're not thinking it through they haven't got any endgame they haven't got any real strategy they're just using this very opportunistically to say something about themselves and their personalities and their political outlook and they don't really care about the deadly consequences of it all they care about is making some short mileage and some short term gain so proud of their mail editor of online political magazine despite claims being on i'll tell you tonight are you sure you did. well as the camilla. rages on questions remain over how far the coalition might decide to go now and later today in crosstalk. share their views about the issue. to

. >> ...president ben ali has stepped down... >> narrator: then tunisia broke. and as protesters there overthrew their government, maher and the april 6 activists saw their chance. >> this was their moment. and they saw it happen. and they jumped online, they jumped on sms, they jumped on twitter. and they had each other accessible-- 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 people right away in this forum. >> narrator: they set a date-- a public holiday, january 25-- and issued a call for action. >> asmaa mahfouz, a young activist with the april 6th movement, decided to film a v- blog to encourage egyptians to join protests on january 25, police day. >> narrator: the video went viral. the morning of the 25th, maher and april 6 waited to see if anyone would show up. >> they have no idea if three people are going to turn up, or 300, or 3,000. they're just doing their best to be heard and to be convincing in cyberspace. and so they really don't know what's going to happen, what will be the turnout. >> narrator: from the balcony of the april 6 office, they saw it begin. >> narrator:

to go into libya and create a proxy government as it had with mubarak in egypt or is it had with ben ali in tunisia or it as it has with in yemen the u.s. is trying to manage this it's not simply a conspiracy but in the case of libya they're trying to put. a government in this oil rich country libya has the largest oil reserves in africa they want to control those oil reserves yeah ok the u.s. also says he's putting his money where his mouth is it's well today it says it's giving twenty five billion dollars to the rebels this of course is britain france and italy preparing to send military advisers to benghazi but you know they say they're doing this to protect civilians and those civilians request so why is it causing so much criticism. well of course the resolution nine hundred seventy three which was passed in the u.n. security council with six abstentions we should add including russia china india germany that resolution was designed to authorize the beginning of military operations against libya but the real goal from the beginning has been to topple the regime they never say we're

that he must leave office but not in the public way that obama called for the removal of tunisia's ben ali or egypt or barak definitely not the same way that libya's qaddafi has been treated so why this quiet shift and what will that mean for america's counterterrorism efforts to combat al qaeda in the arabian peninsula here to discuss with me is christopher swift a fellow at the university of virginia center for national security law christopher thanks so much for being back on the show now if the reports are true with not me is that the u.s. has essentially had enough solid they're ready for him to leave but tell me why do you think they're doing it in such a quiet fashion why will obama come out make a speech and say solly you've got to go why is it all being done behind closed doors are two very significant statements that have come out of the administration or two weeks with respect to yemen the first was the secretary of defense bob gates admitting that we don't have a plan b. for yemen but we have a plan a which is and then just just today over the weekend rather the white house com

the situation in to nisha was one in which although ben ali wasn't himself as corrupt as some other rulers, his family members essentially started running a protection racket challenging every business that stock its head up and gained a profit to contribute a share of those profits to the family purse. building seaside mansions, dictating terms, taking advantage of their closeness to power, ben ali's family's undermined his moral authority at the same time they enriched themselves, family members, sorry, i should say. now, it is a critical factor as dr. ackerman pointed out for the regime to keep the pillars the leaders of the economy, the leaders of the military, leaders of the security forces on the site of the ruler. that is also a of a rift in that inhalators strong business leaders to emerge allow the strong military leaders to emerge they would become potential rivals and so to the plea we will see these neo patrimony all leaders try and make themselves indispensable by not creating any visible successors, not even creating a process for the succession, and trying to keep potential

the situation in to nisha was one in which although ben ali wasn't himself as corrupt as some other rulerss family members essentially started running a protection racket challenging every business that stock its head up and gained a profit to contribute a share of those profits to the family purse. building seaside mansions, dictating terms, taking advantage of their closeness to power, ben ali's family's undermined his moral authority at the same time they enriched themselves, family members, sorry, i should say. now, it is a critical factor as dr. ackerman pointed out for the regime to keep the pillars the leaders of the economy, the aders of the military, leaders of the security forces on the site of the ruler. that is also a of a rift in that inhalators strong business leaders to emerge allow the strong military leaders to emerge they would become potential rivals and so to the plea we will see tse neo patrimony all leaders try and make themselves indispensable by not creating any visible successors, not even creating a process for the succession, and trying to keep potential rivals a

the situation in to nisha was one in which although ben ali wasn't himself as corrupt as some other rulers, his family members essentially started running a protection racket challenging every business that stock its head up and gained a profit to contribute a share of those profits to the family purse. building seaside mansions, dictating terms, taking advantage of their closeness to power, ben ali's family's undermined his moral authority at the same time they enriched themselves, family members, sorry, i should say. now, it is a critical factor as dr. ackerman pointed out for the regime to keep the pillars the leaders of the economy, the leaders of the military, leaders of the security forces on the site of the ruler. that is also a of a rift in that inhalators strong business leaders to emerge allow the strong military leaders to emerge they would become potential rivals and so to the plea we will see these neo patrimony all leaders try and make themselves indispensable by not creating any visible successors, not even creating a process for the succession, and trying to keep potential

even before ben ali was toppled. we discovered in the late teens and early 20s, we are seeing this can happen but now we can see it happening somewhere else. we began talking about preparations. for a long time, i believed we should push it until august. i felt that this would be important in a country like syria where there is limited room for foreign media and the state-run press will be negative and will not play any role in covering events. i felt we needed more time to make sure we're covering the country and we have what it takes to cover the developments on the ground to the international community. i was outvoted after discussion and a lot of people felt if you do not start now and soon, because of what is happening in libya and the violence, people would be afraid of joining any kind of protest movement. also, we have seen some attempts. there was a spontaneous demonstration in downtown damascus. 1500 people saying a slogan that caught the attention of everybody, the city will not be humiliated. when a traff

even when ben ali was toppled, people in syria did not know. we discovered that they were saying we can do that. we have been saying that we can do that, but never believed it. but now we see it happening. why not? we began talking about preparations. for a long time, i really believe that we should push it until august of wanted to do something. i felt that reporting on development would be extremely important in a country like syria where there is limited room of liability by foreign media and the press will be completely-. i felt we needed more time to make sure we were covering the country and have what it takes to cover the developments on the ground to the international community in a timely manner. but i was outvoted after some discussion, basically, and a lot of people inside syria felt that, if did not start now and soon, because of what was happening in libya, because of the violence in libya, people would lose faith in joining a protest movement. also, we have already seen some attempts -- there was a spontaneous demonstration in dow

people here would have predicted that you would have had popular revolts that would have swept out ben-ali, mubarak, created what we're seeing now in libya, huge demonstrations across the region literally from algeria to yemen to syria to bahrain. the fact is that, what we're seeing right now is quite extraordinary, number one. in the period of upheaval and uncertainty, there are great opportunities and great risks. think about what we're seeing right now. if these upheavals and their transitions can evolve the right way, the potential for having much more representative governments, a very different and much more positive future, something that makes the kind of independence that makes peace possible and in during could be the result of all of this -- and enduring could be the result of all this. if you have extremists hijacked these processes, and you could have greater instability and threat to our interests. the stakes are very high. need to manage to the extent that we can is great -- the need to manage, to the extent that we can, is great. i want to talk about what we are trying to d

it will send a most perverse but unmistakable message that leaders like mubarak and ben ali in egypt and tunesia who were allied with the united states get overthrown, but leaders like assad who are allied with tehran survive. is that really a message we want to send? what about tomorrow? why do i focus on the next 24 hours? madam president, tomorrow's likely to be a critical day for the future of syria as protesters come together after friday's prayers. there is a significant danger that it will also become a very bloody day if assad continues on the path of violence and brutality against his own people. this is therefore an urgent moment for american leadership, at least for america's voice to be heard. it is important for president assad in damascus to know today before the protests that are likely to take place throughout syria tomorrow that his regime will be held accountable for its actions. and i hope we will be prepared to act quickly together with the world community if assad fails to heed the will of the syrian people and tries to hang on to power through a repression and m

and even before ben ali. people did not know. later on discovered it was in the late teens and early 20s saying we can do that. we have been saying it can happen. we never believed it. we can see it happening. we can do it here. why not? we began talking about preparations. for a long time, i really believed that we should push it until august if we wanted to do something. because i felt that, you know, the development on is going to be extremely important in a country like syria where there is limited room for mobility of foreign media and, of course, the press is going to be completely negative and is not going to play any role in covering the event. i felt that we needed more time to make sure we are covered in the entire country and we have, you know, what it takes to actually be able to cover the developments and the events on the ground in the international community in a timely manner. but i was outvoted after a period of discussion, basically, and a lot of people inside syria felt if you don't start now and end soon, beca

ali abdullah saleh in yemen that was their promise for the future. so i bet on the revolutions when it comes to this current situation. >> rose: ben wedeman, thank you so much. always good to have you on this program reporting live from wherever you are and i thank you again this evening. my thanks also to my good friend les gelb and finally my good friend bernard levy. thank you all, see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org