controlled so effectively by the security forces. and because the sunni elites there are still with the regime, they re popping up all over the place, in every part of the country and in an unpredictable way. it s a very sophisticated alternative approach. and i think asad has decided now that he s just going to use force to try to crack down, but he s stuck in that dictator s dilemma. he offers concessions, and they see it as a sign of weakness. he cracks down, and it enrages the demonstrators even more. can he succeed in the short term using his tanks and security forces to kill a lot of people and suppress it? yes. but i don t think it will hold for long. i really think that just as we ve seen in other places, it may be bloody, it may take more time, but he, too, is history. fawaz, when you look at the syrian situation, what does it tell us about the arab awakening, about this arab
an enormously important fact. you know, what happens in the if you look at the gross economic statistics in that same period, it s what you see. you see that what s driving income inequality is this sudden massive increase in the amount of money being paid to the 99th percentile. so is it good or bad? well, you could make a and people who the kind of person who pays the ceo $20 million a year, or if we had the president we had hank steinbrenner in here. we asked him, why are you paying alex rodriguez so much money? he d say because he s worth it, right? alex rodriguez s predecessor, in 1955, was radically underpaid, radically. but you have to also consider, though, the broader social dimension, that is that when you have a society which has the level of economic inequality we have now, and we re basically up there with venezuela and mexico,
particularly if you re a cop in egypt, maybe it will be decided in a way that is disadvantage yus to you and your community. how does the united states handle this from your point of view, martin? well, i d say fairly well. there s been a clumsiness in the way that they handled mubarak. the president s statements about that which had a negative roll-on effect for our other allies in the region, particularly the saudis, the emirates felt that he had humiliated an ally, and that they could no longer rely on us. essentially the president got on the right side of history, supported the demands for freedom from egypt. and that was very important. and we ve come in now with economic support and organizational support for the sake of the political parties. i think basically we re doing what s needed there. in the case of libya, i think he also has basically done the right thing, letting others who have a vital interest since we do not in libya take the lead,
martin indyk was u.s. ambassador to israel twice and ran the clinton administration s eastern affairs at the state department. elliott abrams held similar top foreign policy positions for two republican presidents. ayman mohyeldin is based in cairo for al jazeera english. ayman was named to the time 100 for his vivid coverage of events in egypt. and in london, fawaz fegerges. welcome all of you. martin, the man at the center of the drama right now is president asad. you ve met with him. do you think that he is ruthless enough, and is the syrian state apparatus of repression ruthless enough to be able to make these protests go away? well, i think he s panicked at the moment because the nature of the protests are such that he can t exactly predict where they are going to come from next. this is a kind of opposite of the tahrir square revolution that you reported on where because they can t move into damascus, it s sort of