to discuss these issues and more i'm joined by my guest here who's making to those that he is a professor of history and director of the nucular studies institute at american university as well as co-author with oliver stone of the untold history of the united states in new york we have roy leiter he is an associate a senior research analyst at the institute for war and peace studies at columbia university and here in moscow we have maxime's he is an expert at the russian international affairs council originally cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it ok let's go to bethesda 1st peter i'm going to ask a very simple question what to on this program what is the strategic value of the middle east for the united states it's been there for decades and we keep being told it is necessary that we be there we had a president for 4 years been trying to get out even the president of the united states in the powers of that office could pull troops out of that region so what is the strategic value of the middle east for the united states right now in 2021. it wasn't only the by trumpet ministration that wanted a call out of the forever wars obama also said it was good and the forever wars so we had 2 presidents who were trapped there and were unable to get out the us interests in the middle east going back for decades revolved around or oil well was crucial to power so the militaries to the economy the global. global economy ran. the united states got more deeply entrenched under the carter administration put troops in the area made a central to our strategic policies and doubled down increasingly over the next decades. under the obama administration when hillary clinton was secretary of state she wrote the article in november of $22011.00 when she said he called it america's pacific century and basically said the u.s. is going to be shifting its focus from the middle east to the pacific which was the future however the united states has still not been able to get out of that region and one concern of course is terrorism with after the united states invaded afghanistan in 2001 and iraq in 2003 the us completely unsettled that entire region and let loose forces that were very very destructive and. the americas rick loading about it in 2003 january 5th the new york times. sunday magazine section headline american empire get used to it we were proud of the fact we'd become the dominant empire we were talking about unipolarity were going to dominate the region forever by 2006 the whole thing had fallen apart and so the united states then was playing it was on the defensive in the region right have been on the offensive now is on the defensive and what's happened recently is there are a lot more players involved so the whole thing has been shifting as well talk about today with the rise of iran independence and taking a different course on the part of turkey the united arab emirates and others now aligning with israel we've got a whole jumbled. or in the us i mean peter i mean that's fair enough but these are countries in the region they're interacting with each other some of them are adversaries some of them are newly formed allies so roy let me go to you i mean why don't we just leave the region to itself let me all these players are active i mean they and it's their turf i mean nobody can give me in people in power can give me a reasonable answer why we are still there go ahead. inside interesting that you asked that question this week. or the you know this this year and see here it is yours is money of air verse for your money. and honestly i think that's the real reason there. is right to. the initial pitch was ok or oil and you have 30 years ago question and one of i don't know i'm going to say well i only thought of the play that isn't relevant now because the fact that we've got our own independent sources well i also. well i don't have. so why are we there. i would argue that the real reason is in fact a concern about terrorists. friends or associates immigrate could make the argument and i think it's a very strong argument that continued presence there only gives oxygen to these terrorist groups i mean that's you know they say that our presence there is not wanted i mean we have the iraqi government its parliament asked us to leave we won't leave we make a deal with the taliban and we still won't leave i mean we're not wanted in the region u.s. troops are illegally stationed in syria their unwanted is well so i mean it seems to me that this is this cultivates people with. anx and anger and want to use violence against american troops that have no business being there in the 1st place maxine let me go to you i mean i can i agree with ray and i agree with peter i mean there were there might have been a good enough reason decades ago but the world is awash with oil right now so that certainly doesn't work being their bets chair is an argument can be made and i would make it so again i mean there has to be other recent arms sales israel is i mean give me a reasonable explanation go ahead oh i can i can direct as a russian city in moscow i can perhaps the java reasonable explanation can perhaps sink elements that have eroded and i think you do badly of the middle east in the 1st place has significantly decreased well the past few years maybe a decade for the united states in it and its foreign policy because the united states says as peter mentioned and room mentioned become the world leader in oil production in washington dependence on hydrocarbon supplies from the persian gulf is declining so is the commitment to saudi arabia security you know the full support for israel does remain and us middle east agenda but as you know many people are skeptical. that this actually isn't a line with the national interest of the united states per se and there is a greater arson divide over. the you know this decision is more than a cursory question and the security of israel is anywhere that the united states counter-terrorism i think is is is is is increasingly becoming a highly politicized issue that is going to kind of manipulate the emotional conscience for owners and therefore you get leaders such as president obama presidential that are trying to kind of reining this moves and say you know you know enough is enough we're out and i think the only thing that perhaps. you know keep some policymakers in washington i'm not saying all of. this a year you know now with this quote unquote return of the great power rivalry people think that say you know leaving the region marilee you know a chest you know crazy or a vacuum that the russians and the chinese will try and still that will have it melting at least undermining or even perhaps out begs the question what if it is not of any strategic value to the united states why would it be its speech about china for example or russia you need going to peter here i mean i've heard this argument is well and it's very primitive but that's what i expect from political needs is that you know here we have to keep the russians out this is a russian ploy well i mean russia was invited by syria in september 2015 because its sovereignty was being threatened by outside groups internal groups that were bonded and carmen's by outsiders so i mean as the as a sovereign state they have the right to oust the resistance they didn't. i have never heard anyone in moscow say rubbing their hands great we got syria back now with a great deal the population is very apprehensive about russians intervention in syria . was syria is a very important case that a because most americans don't know the role they. laid in fueling that civil war there there was very it's very minimal opposition to assad in the early arab spring days then real resistance emerged after the us began operation timber sycamore which is really it's 2030 in and the us started arming and encouraging the insurgency there and that's what built up this tremendous opposition there was a drought there there was there were some serious economic problems assyria again u.s. policy has backfired in many ways and it's at least now where we get involved in syria and created a much worse situation he met syrian crisis there we get involved in libya and now that's red throughout northern parts of africa with me a jury. is going there and the arms that that were let loose after we obviously gadhafi in libya many u.s. policy even in iran you know. i'm a star as i look back i know the roots of his things when he us overthrew mo's adat back in 1953 oh no sadat was not only of the leading space of arab nationalism at that time he was enormously popular and democratic and he had according to u.s. ambassador he had perhaps 98 percent support of the iranian people and the u.s. stages a coup with the british and overthrow in our power we are so short sighted and all policies and they may have and i'd intended consequences and create a much worse and more dangerous situation so when you're talking about the need for the u.s. to pull back on its military involvement says the obviously true but most americans now are really tired of these rebel wars now which is why obama trump and biden the democratic party. platform called disk listen lay for ending the forever wars biden has said that he wants to end the forever war now we can talk about there i think a positive move on the part of the biden ministration insurance of afghanistan over the past few days that is just leaking out in the last day or so and i think that we can go into that because it is much more promising than anything i've seen it good and right promising maybe that could be the beginning of something because i mean i don't understand this mindset you know not one step back because that will be that's called appeasement or you know aiding abetting our adversaries not only just common sense i mean dish there is what does it mean to when is it mean to when to occupy forever is that when the definition of winning is now go ahead growing. well. you know a little unfair. i've never been accused of that in all i can't understand why. but. look some of this is momentum now and no moments like ellen searched hard to hard to term. and this is not a particularly death so it's a. little bit about what it will look life if the united states was not at this point if you noticed it's pull back even i.q. test these but that's you know best very little that. you know so just in think about ok what would in fact happen if the united states pull back its military commitments which no. doing anyway. but you know if they get. out what would wind up what would you want to do and my guess is you wind up as much as or more violence at the door of the you there you would have with us there . showing you the next day i mean that tempting i apologize i have to go to a hard break and after that heart break we'll continue our discussion on america's forever wars in the middle east. state party. one of the worst mass shootings in america was in last vegas in 2017 the tragedy exposed a little of the real. women who say elected officials are controlled by. the. revealed. and now it's part of the. american public barely remembers that happened just shows you the power of money and. the powerful showed that true colors when the pandemic hits the most contagious contagion we've seen in decades and then you have a mayor who doesn't care so. the lives of the vegas residents to the control group . deep indifference to the people. to take an action absolutely. huge cash is ran by people who don't care about people's lives. welcome back to crossfire where all things are considered. should remind you we're talking about the forever war in the middle east. ok let's go back to i mean where we were to the break you were trying to make a point go right ahead ok yes i do think the terrorism issue remains central for the united states in the region since obviously oil is. but and and so you know if you what are my senses of what happens it is seems to happen in various different countries but all countries most countries are not used to this central problem of radical islam taking over in some sense or at least in the policies and . you know you're not a creation of what you said is that. there's got trouble because where there. i would argue there because they've got trouble now whether they're smarter not as a dog. but you know used to be that's that's the you should you want to grapple with your left that's a that's a good point let me go to maxine right here but that's a fair enough point i mean if the u.s. forces withdraw there will be violence if the u.s. forces stay there there's going to be violence ok i mean you have to choose i mean huge and of course you know roy's point that you know there are radical groups that want to threaten government but why did they threaten government we didn't have this scourge here before ok and yet al qaida and these other groups you know it's western occupation and they they and their perceptions of how the west perceives islam you know fueled this here i mean you know we can go into chicken and egg all we want but don't we need to draw a line and say enough is enough we can't what it's not we're not getting any positive returns it just continues to be negative go ahead max it think that it mentally and some respects the united states is kind of stuck in the into period of time between. you know april 11th 1901 that is when the u.n. security council is up to it's a resolution that's worse saddam hussein to pay compensation for his invasion of kuwait that is pretty much shit now the moment where american military presence and political influence in the middle east end a bit when on the one hand and between. march 19th 2003 when the u.s. military campaign in iraq again. and actually on the one hand and on the other hand is the world that has not yet arrived but it's inevitable approach is noticeable in the sense that the region is changing fundamentally and there are areas in the region where the american presence indeed aids the battle against terrorism we can say you know what it's been a great word for it iraq's government but one can also argue there would have been such a problem if there were no u.s. and session in. iraq in the 1st place in 2003 in syria for instance now americans are helping the kurdish militia to fight off. some isis remaining cells but at the same time they're preventing at the government with a group of the russians to work to take over control of the country and the the local populations are suffering which in the long run perhaps creates this issue of you know terrorists organizations trying to recruit new people from from these areas and you know this fighting the procedures and their consent and the russians in that sense as well so in this matter are you in for a greater cooperation between the u.s. and russia and you know some of the original governments if it is a car tears. you know if it isn't it also you know fighting hard fighting terrorists because this is primarily in many respects an issue for and there are reasons for russian presence in the region to get a rift within with some others. you know peter whom much is the go in talk about oil ok for a moment if this is about israel's security because it's a it's a you know an article of baby d. us and is going to be if it is real but i would also say you know it's about when to writer earlier i mean you have big powers you have you have the rand you have saudi arabia you have israel why don't what is why doesn't you know joe biden seat the nobel peace prize by saying we're going to get out but only until you guy sit down at a big round table and sort europe bears out because we have had enough of it's i know that's very idealistic but my point is the region has to be a great sell out outsiders not china not russia not the united states not be you resolve these missions go ahead. look at this latest proposal. the u.s. just made on afghanistan. the reason i was saying it's so promising is because united states is calling for all of the countries in the region who've got an interest in a stable afghanistan to be meeting and mapping out the future there and figure out how they can work together to stabilize the situation and they call for cooperation from iran turkey india russia china they're talking about the regional powers that are involved there who have to have a stake in that future so as max is saying the u.s. and russia cooperating on counterterrorism no you've got to look at this even more broadly that was the initial idea behind the united nations strike on trees would get together and work together to create peace. and maybe this could be a starting point. that biden people as bad as they are the foreign policy national security team in my view you know the. sullivans and newlands and and those folks. there are one area which they were good i thought was on iran these were the people who supported the iran nuclear deal this is before this is going to obama's yes under obama because they were all in the obama administration although all these folks they're mostly retreads in a sense and they don't represent a new kind of thinking but at least when it comes to iran compared to the trump people the only thing they could agree on was they were all of us on the phone because they all hated iran the biden people are better on iran so let's let's work on this afghanistan thing let's work on getting the u.s. back into the iran nuclear deal with the iranians are resisting right now for obvious reasons. but this this could be a least positive step still i mean i reckon it out i'd like your optimism but you know just in the last year news cycles a gentleman named richard you've never heard of him before he's biting. iran's envoy and he's very been very public about how it was a tremendous success of the a maximum pressure on iran i mean and then he talks about maybe a greater inequality unemployment economic despair this is the buy ministration here's the thing about peter he's the deputy envoy as bad as as nephew might be he's the deputy envoy robert malley is the envoy and he is considered to be very dovish when it comes to iran and so again biden is sending a lot of mixed signals you've got some people there you don't get anybody who i would strongly like in terms of their views and their foreign policies are they've ministration but you've got some who are more reasonable you've got wendy surely and italian and you've got people who are not they have a hard line hawks in there and so they're contradictory yes so you've got nephew and you've got malley and let's say we're biden is going to go this route i mean the iran deal under obama is the only major foreign policy event of that presidency that i actually very much agreed with my great disappointment was that it wasn't taken to the next step of the regional security and that it was a cardinal mistake by the trump administration to walk away from it it was the beginning of something not the end of something i don't we how does the u.s. and iran move over now it seems to me that divine people have really painted themselves into a corner because of the trumpet ministration go ahead roy i don't think their pain and souls who are especially there's another aspect to renewing that. our iranians going to feel about. i mean you know there's an interesting question here as the administration basically. said to the world ok american foreign policy is going to change radically. with the american elections and it doesn't much matter what the rest of you guys are that's what's going to happen so that kind of reduces the incentive to get a deal. you know from the from the iranians point of you know means that go back to you know having. their nuclear materials and rot and all that stuff. are you can you believe that the united states on a whole concept a true artist well i think is doing all right why would any government interference trust the united states now after what has happened without being a for me again this is a it should have been at the beginning of something and it wasn't going to in and out with the more we know from ben rhodes and people like that there was a lot of bad faith involved here. maxine how do you see this because the. ministration a center that it wants to get back into it will have to drop all the sanctions that the trumpet ministration put on the country and is that politically of doable i mean it just seems to me that is i but in my entire life as an american we've been saying we've been told that iran is an evil awful place and you can never trust them bets well hidden but we've been brought up with obama went out on a limb and i actually congratulate him on that how do we move forward with this go ahead well i think the key difference this weekend with the industry and what the obama administration with even though they're the same most people they were under obama are now in office doing this poll is a track with iran is that the approach is very different in that now that by administration wants to take both the nuclear program and iran's missile program and discuss iranian regional behavior in one package that is totally unacceptable for iran yes and that wasn't the case on or obama who thought that you know you know tackling in nuclear deal is the most important thing can then we can talk about missile program and their regional behavior and on the markets now this very kind of approach is very different which makes it runny and suman more kind of stubborn and willing to make concessions and we have to bear in mind that in june until the presidential elections in iran and with prospects. you know a more conservative guy comment in 2 hours that will pretty much make any people see action on the track even more are ok i want to get i want to give peter the last word here peter you know public opinion polls have made it very clear the public they're sick and tired of these wars ok what is it going to take to make the political establishment military industrial complex whatever you want to call it understand that this is not a popular thing and it is a sad comment that the public has no impact on foreign policy but just 30 seconds to you my friend unfortunately the public is not speaking out we don't have a strong anti-war movement the united states now there's not a lot of interest several democrats when the us struck in syria last week several leading democrats spoke out about the authorization for the use of military force there is a strong pressure now within the democratic party to repeal that the 2001 day you m.-f. and the 2002 you have left that could be another start we see some crap to be not out of time gentlemen that's a good start rocket i want to thank my guests and to test the new york and here in moscow i want to thank our viewers for watching us here aren't easy next time remember rahsaan rules. so seems wrong. why don't we all just don't call. me while yet to see how he's going to come out to call and teach me because the trail. when something find themselves worlds apart. just in the common ground. some control for a middle class the homeless most of them are very hardworking people who want to get ahead that have either have some some health issues or have some out of streak of bad luck a full time job won't always pay for a place to live and missing just a month's rent can get she will victim to gunpoint if anything bad happens to any thing that just throws your budget off slightly. you better catch up real quick or you're going to have a judgment of possession against you and get addicted anyone that's homeless is treated like garbage people look at you like a monster or someone bad or you chose to be there most of the time it's not the case see how it is to be paul in the world's richest country. the european council president accuses britain of imposing an outright ban on vaccine exports in the u.k. furiously denies. in the headlines this hour cover ups failures and delays lawyers and doctors launch a people's covert inquiry after blasting the british government for fatal errors in the pandemic. many of the families do believe their loved ones did die any not everyone obviously the large number. and all says to channel. susa top german newspaper for claiming that it was spying on russian opposition figures alexina valmy.