bush and blair appears quite accepting of violence aftermath. on both will and bassett the west for ruling iraq out cynically advocating a similar approach in syria want to discuss that i'm now joined by our last hour to critique president of the code of a foundation mr altikriti i really appreciate your being here now my first question may sound provocative but i find much of the pro-democracy and anti a sad rhetoric really similar to what we heard from george w. bush about a decade ago people like yourself who at least at some point for in support of armed rebellion argued that since assad is a dictator syria would be a better place without him and therefore all the measures to get rid of him are somehow justified even if it is a war and to me that's the very asons of the bush's case to launch a war in iraq there are some stark differences to start off with between iraq and

between syria and iraq there was no revolution in iraq there was a war that was instigated by the push of interests strategic financial. whatever it may be at the time the lead tony blair and george w. bush to launch a war which i felt the time was one of the leaders of the end to a movement ok what's the difference. well syria was. was a revolution in the in the in the same way that egypt saw its revolution which toppled hosni mubarak in the same way that tunisia so revolution that toppled the and in the same way that the people of libya rose the people of syria as well as yemen other countries also rose at the very same time the context can't be ignored the syrian revolution for six months after it starts all it was calling for was the reform of the regime not the fall of the regime you mentioned that their way of started to was through peaceful protests and. i take your point i was there on the

ground are so many of those peaceful rallies but i think the protesters that i saw back then in damascus and in many other syrian cities have absolutely nothing in common with the armed rebels and the problem is that you yourself your group and many other arab intellectuals in the west seem to you said just that you know on this particular case using violence using aren't resistance may be justified in my my argument is that it is not because in the case of george w. bush he also had some strong arguments of ridding the world of saddam hussein throughout percent had blood on his hands he was a dictator so president bush felt or at least articulated that you know world may be a better place without him but using violence once you start using violence you cannot control the point is actually right i agree with you once you start violence you enter into perpetual cycle of violence that you can't really control after that the

party that started the violence and in fact brutal violence was a syrian regime the revolution started with sun and using to your viewers who may have forgotten this revolution started after fifteen boys young boys of ten and eleven year old were taken from their homes tortured abused raped and then returned in a shattered state to their parents in the city of daraa that's what started people in the resort in. all they wanted was to reform the regime and to bring those who brutalized and rape those young boys to justice you mentioned how these protests started in the city of daraa and i was also in the city of daraa and if you remember one of the first buildings in the city of dera that was set on fire by the protesters was they had quarters of local television after they showed the footage of. man on man present in the crowd so i do contest your point about you know the protests and the uprising being entirely peaceful from. very beginning

but i think we both missed the point here you know it's true that there is a very significant grassroots support for some of the demands of the city civilian opposition but the problem is of course is once you make this transition from peaceful protests to using violence attacking army checkpoints launching attacks from civilian how and how do you defend yourself accent i mean the question the question the protesters had was that whilst they were on the streets men women children the elderly. maybe i mean you can you can definitely say that when you have a big demonstration when you have a big protest there will be people who will you know carry knives or carry guns maybe or do something idiotic if it isn't for a vacation home as well and that's really my trust in government is no no i've always contended and said that the main the main strength of the arab spring throughout wherever it was was the peaceful nature of the arab spring that was the real and therefore i was one of the the proponents of the revolution remains

peaceful however when someone's wife gets raped when someone's kid gets raped and tortured when someone's house gets burnt it's very difficult to reason with them that they must remain peaceful despite the fact that the other party is perpetually perpetuating some of the most brutal violence that one can ever imagine of those atrocities have never been verified or have been proven to committed by either side like for example the houla massacre but once the world got a wind of what is happening in syria your own neighborhood many of the muslim neighbors of syria started providing the opposition with weapons and foreign fighters and from the very early stage that uprising was have only influenced by foreign power so if you were so strongly against foreign interference back in iraq i don't understand why you would be in favor of foreign interference in syria it is still foreign interference regardless of whether it is muslim or arab it once again let me for the third time try to repeat iraq is not. syria and syria is not your

there was no uprising in iraq there was an international a group war of aggression against iraq to change the reality which only the iraqi people have the right to change for themselves the iraqi people have no say in the change that then could i think can apply the same argument the title i've made that clear in syria there was a revolution within the context of the arab spring so basically when the saudis or the iraqis or the or the turks or the companies when they provide the syrian the providing for their own the the same d.n.a. their cousins who share a language who share a faith who share a cultural tradition this altikriti you just made a genetic argument but i actually think that one of the reasons why it is so easy for many of the arab intellectuals to dismiss george w. bush as war criminal i'm dan condone some of the similar tactics in syria is precisely because of this tribal. reason like when you have a now that i'm going to tell you monetary value monetary that is why what else

about them are absorbing misallocated but when you say that as an arab or as a muslim as a or as a humanitarian you have some more entitle men to come in to syria and say to the syrian people who are still highly divided in the attitude towards assad because you know a significant proportion still supports president assad whether you like it or not so when you are coming to syria and start telling those people who should be their legitimate leader and who should be not i think this is the very same argument that president bush said because president bush based it on a humanitarian basis he said the american capital rights and responsibilities to protect the oppressed people of iraq now what you're saying is that because you're an arab because you're a muslim you for some reason have the same right or more in title meant to protecting the syrian people but to me it sounds just as you know condescendingly has the bushes claim or he is not a supposedly higher responsibility i'm not imposing. no no no no no can i just say

respectfully you're trying to draw parallels where there are none and therefore you're bringing us back to the issue of iraq which i but by the way once again i repeat i was one of the most. vocal oppositions to the war in iraq and i made that clear what i'm saying is if there was a revolution today in some you know middle african country in the same way that the syrian events happened then we would be obliged to humanitarian lee to support that resolution after six months the those people said we have to defend ourselves when we go out and protest all the time with all due respect you russia and many other partners and including the west i have no standing with what i have no no trust in the position of my own government here in london or in the washington mr altikriti you just pointed out that you have no i finished here for for their west end their practices and the history of western engagement in the arab world but in this

particular case in theory your position seem to be quiet aligned isn't that a sign that maybe your on the side that you support now since it's also supported by the west maybe your judgment is a bit misguided here no not at all i mean i think that if there is a case that is righteous that it's remains righteous even if you know some really suspicious parties start to sympathize with that in fact if anything the position of the west makes it even clearer that the revolution in syria is on the side of the right and simply because had it been something that fulfils western interests believe you me we'd have seen a much much and a far more early intervention than we have right now can i just ask you a mansion for humanitarian concerns humanitarian issues several times now. yes since you're so kind of concerned about the humanitarian aspect of it do you think the support of there aren't resistance here proclaim fairly. early in their pricing

and the military support that this resistance is getting from the gulf countries from turkey from some other international players do you think that actually how to decrease humanitarian suffering in syria because even if you take the argument that president assad was a brutal dictator which is still contested but even if i was to consider concede that point the extent of human suffering onder assad regime was. not comparable to what is actually happening in syria because they once again let me go back this revolution started peacefully it started peacefully it doesn't matter how it started when talking about what is happening on the ground and until it got to a stage until it got to a stage where it was no doubt it was going to be a bloodbath and massacre when people see a call for support when people. are killed in white town systematically by one of the most brutal machines in the in the region and they call for help when someone starts to help them that does not value the suffering that does not die due to

their rights when you say about simply because this uprising turned brutal that you had to bring even more brutality there this is the point that i find extremely hard to digest because if there is here what they did at the world i don't usually arrive to take you want but you could have predicted the response early on so why then again t. says these are what you're saying and so and so what you're saying is that as varying no what you're saying is this allow me to just basically explain what you just said what you just said is this if in any regressive dictatorship country anywhere in the world people rights the regime starts to brutalize to to brutally and systematically wipe them out and then create another look at him and saying that had led to his arrest and there saddam quotations and then i'm going to let me just finish this what you're suggesting is that people should come to their senses and say let's leave our demands because essentially half months without some sort only arms on it's going to resupply brigade this is not what i'm saying at all but

i'm saying what you're saying no no no i'm telling you i'm telling you that the syrian revolution was peaceful and was armless for about six months while i you know staying in its ways and i said i'm asking you is that why i didn't stay this way because people. because because what well that would have been you know quite pleasurable to some i'm imagining to say that well you know now we're just town seeing the body count amongst the people listening something you know let me tell you this and quite frankly found that me when i got it why wasn't it one more away as a global humanitarian to resort to violence rather than continue on the path off but it's already there no no it's a democratic change it's not about morality it works on it if you and i were attacking just feel think you might be having some tears are a little bit more of this is this is not this is not far off this is not far off you know you and i was sitting in our comfort zones and we're talking about this and i'm sorry but what was sort of you know pontificating about the rights and wrongs when someone is actually being threatened in every single aspect of their

existence then some but i'm sorry but that's shameful well hold on to that thought where we will be back after a short break. right

to see. her street. and i would think that you're.

an army corps player. welcome back to worlds apart three are discussing the historic parallels between syria and iraq without us all to create a president of the cordoba foundation mr creepy people are being women are being raped on the government side as well homes are being attacked the other ninety nine times i get it i challenge well you can get that out challenge anyone to come up and said i challenge anyone to tell me any kind of incident that that's happened that is a lowly looks on it that is a lie the people want to peacefully to change things when the regime came down them with a fist the fire you're not talking about the top i mean does the usual justify them

doing what they did in terms of killing young children in terms of raping women in terms of burning down the entire towns and since you have all they justified in doing that had a quite the quite is quite easy to verify you don't even need to go to syria you can go on youtube and you can see. all those atrocities committed by rabble for forces through me documented i'm going to agree with york sun i'm going to agree with you the thing is i mean this is my point when i said that the very start that i had wanted the revolution i had dreamt of the revolution staying peaceful because i think that is essentially how the arab people will change their realities unfortunately after a while that same revolution becomes monday by the presence of elements who have interests such as unfortunate going to say this again russia in its name in syria the same with these elements who have after two and a half years of the world standing by and watching and doing virtually nothing when that happens what will happen is the revolution itself will become muddied and polluted by the presence. of if that syria bear added responsibility for the fact

that their revolution was not and that indeed rebel forces became far more radicalized the responsibility the real absolutely the responsibility lies with two parties the first being the regime which started this cycle of violence which you spoke about and the second being the international community the stood by watched and did absolutely nothing once the resolution was taken in life and what about see that all that's wise out of it what about people like yourself who empty pontificate from london whose concerns are legitimate and whose concerns are not legitimate because again in syria today there are a lot of people who still support president assad so your point earlier was that they were nationalists and there she was a saturday there was a recent native poll that found that seventy percent seventy percent of people in syria still support our side maybe not support police so that may well that's actually my girl you look at them he says or has international i think let me tell you this let me tell you this that even let me let me let me do this let me let me draw the power of the you try to draw throughout the program and that is with iraq

do you claim that no one in iraq wanted the western intervention does that make the was an intervention ok i say that it does it was quite a considerable people in. the iraqi people who wanted the west to remove but how. valuable is the value of the making. after one group of people ignoring another group of people because as a again re stablish i think we can agree a lot of points out there. on syrians how did you arrive on the demands of the revolution how did you respond to it under the sun do you recognize our d.c. a chance of people disagreeing with you because it looks to me that you have either my way or no way at all but you seem to be a lot like george w. bush that we mentioned earlier he had only one very righteous view that he's a vision what's right and what you didn't thought before going hundreds of thousands of people to try to implement that you're still incensed that big armed resistance was a legitimate way to go even though

a hundred thousands of syrians have been killed in syria is nowhere closer to democratic aspirations that hat it's not about what you believe in but actually how you can bring about that positive change and maybe the mode of operation that you seem to have selected is very counterproductive to the very cause you're after a candidate well first of all i welcome the fact that you call the demands of the syrian people as ideal and legitimate i'm glad that you do that why it is you talk about the weaponization of the rebellion when you fail to talk about the weaponization of the region russia is complicit in the crime against the syrian people the one hundred thousand that you talk about the one hundred thousand victims you fail to mention that ninety eight percent of them of the rebels are the people who rose initially peacefully the united nations has just recently released latest death toll figures. putting the death toll in syria at ninety three thousand people several groups pointed out that the majority of victims actually come from

the government five now i'm sure you would dispute that point but i think at least you could agree that yes you know everything we know from bin nature of war is that it produces atrocities on. i'm not arguing that there were some atrocities committed on the government side in fact the government says they killed them no this is going to get on well and it is a view it's not a war but a hundred thousand people have been killed on you you call it about dilution looks like a war because they have the cities are destroyed once the regime starts to kill once the regime starts to send in fighter jets once the regime starts to send the people who who who who put in explosives in the path of the protests this peaceful protesters you get to a time you get to a particular position and by the way i would much rather. this resolution remain peaceful i would have much rather that this resolution remain peaceful let me say i'm saying it as much as i could however once you start to be targeted in your own

family when that starts to happen then you must imagine then you must support the resolutions right in defending it so you know one of the criticisms of the iraq invasion was that. yes because i think it well i mean there are many parallels and you may not see that but i think it's very important that for those countries and neighbors immediate neighbors so the flow of arms goes between the two countries there floor. and there are many things that come into play here so one of the criticisms of the west western invasion of iraq was the lack of strategic planning that washington and london didn't really consider what is going to happen after wars they just assume that iraq will become democracies the next day and you know neighboring countries will follow suit and i think you know some of the critics of the western governments including yourself guilty of the same naivete you assume that you know once these peaceful uprising or now

militarized uprising is given a chance to realize itself democracy will come there and this is not what we have seen in the. bring countries here you imagine arab spring as some of the other arab countries like egypt likely be or other countries anywhere closer to democratic ideals than they were before those uprisings even though there there was no war and now that we have the revolution becoming the kind of violence carnage that we are seeing and the entrance of elements on both sides. so that you see here i'm agreeing with you on both sides that have solid and made this you know almost out of control and that is when by the way the united states and britain the such have decided to step in. not out of once again not out of interest for the syrian people or the such but out of their interest regional and such. as

a result of this no syria once the regime falls and there is no question that you know the regime is unsustainable it's just fighting you know the end game basically and it looks like that's happened that's got him actually now because that forces have been advancing all across syria they took control of coursera they're now mounting an offense is a no no sleep on a lot of. the the only the only recent victory that they achieve those of course anyway that's not my area of military street its president has said that though that i said is i don't know your town is a don't ask yourself yet but anyway what i'm what i'm saying is well this is the record i'll tell you something that looks on one thing that we've learned from the arab spring is that ultimately you can't fight the tight of the change that is demanded by the people we saw this happen in egypt with those so this happened in tunisia we saw it happen in a different form and manner in libya and we saw it happen and we're seeing it happen in syria that's something that the regime now contends with its now fighting a struggle for survival for its own survival the family itself and those

surrounding it but what i'm coming back to this there is going to be a huge a huge effort in order to rebuild the country and there will be times that are extremely dark maybe something akin to iraq. maybe something akin to other countries of the ascent of the such maybe you earlier alluded to the to this tide of revolutions and russia i think has a unique vantage point here because we have been through more revolutions than any other country and we also attempted this extremely difficult transition from authoritarianism to democracy and let me tell you it has it wasn't easy it's still not easy and one of the main problems with this transition is that authoritarianism is not just about the leader is authoritarian habits authoritarianism runs extremely deeply in the society itself so when people get rid of one authoritarian leader they still expect somebody else to come in and do their job for them to fix the society and you know put the house in order but the problem is of course is

that democracy is not just about having an opportunity to vote new leader into office every four years it's about civic engagement it's about personal responsibility for your country and so far up what we have seen in libya in egypt in tunisia the civic engagement hasn't really materialized in my question to you how do you go from this initial step of encouraging public protests we've seen a lot of it in the middle east to actually working and taking responsibility for your society with all due respect i resent the tone of the question the arab people have been subjugated for more than six seven eight possibly ten dickens almost a century they've been subjugated with the assistance of either the west or the east from time to time by proxy rulers who have never held the best interests of their people it's hard but rather carried out the interests of foreign powers as i

said west as well as east over the over the past century and as a result forbid any kind of space for free thinking free expression free exercise and what you're talking about civilian gauge means arab countries particularly let's me concentrate on. the arab world particularly the rose against its rulers that that that region of the world saw the total eradication of any kind of society there is no end there is no you know middle class the can think there is no. it's not true i don't know what i'm going to let me finish because you've made assertions that are entirely wrong what i what i'm trying to get out is the people don't rise and give from what they are the most precious to them i.e. their life and limb for nothing just for again just you know because they didn't have anything better to do believe you me when they rise they rise simply because they have had enough and for far too long for far too long the arab people have been ruled by dictators who have suffocated the oxygen have taken suck the oxygen

out of their air and therefore to says suggest that well maybe rather than you know revolt or maybe our prize you know maybe they could do better for themselves it's their fault ultimately it's the oil that's my thing is it is absolutely my point but because we have only a minute left let me let me tell you what exactly i'm mad i'm mad that the revolution is never a good method of changing a society because if you look historically it's all no bit and it's a last resort to us if you're right. you're absolutely right it is the last resort and it's the last resort simply because it is so expensive and that is why i contend that the people of egypt the people of libya the people of tunisia and the people of syria have not resorted to the very last resort only after they have exhausted everything else let me just add that unlike people of egypt people of tunisia people of syria have actually taken up arms and this is ultimately the main factor that is responsible for the total destruction to receive the crime by the

governator look at trying to also respond to the crown's of the regime's other police to join ever again same place same time here on the part. it's. one of the greats stayed blind to what is happening in their country. the american dream is disappearing. the houses with. the. streets are full of angry crowds. fighting against. the stole the american dream.

plus. live.

live live. live . mission to teach me.