CNBC - Special Report with Maria Bartiromo (7:00 PM ET) -
CNBC April 12, 2004 Monday
HEADLINE: Bernard Lewis, Islamic scholar, discusses why he favors taking military action to spread democracy in the Middle East
ANCHORS: MARIA BARTIROMO
BODY: MARIA BARTIROMO, host:
All of these developments have a profound meaning for my next guest, one of the world's preeminent Islamic scholars. Professor Bernard Lewis has argued for years in favor of America taking military action to spread democracy in the Middle East. And among those listening were President Bush and his closest advisers. Joining us now from Princeton, New Jersey, Professor Bernard Lewis, author of a dov--of dozens of books, including "What Went Wrong?" and "The Crisis of Islam," as well as a new collection of essays spanning 40 years of writing.
Professor Lewis, great to see you again. Thanks so much for coming back on the program.
Dr. BERNARD LEWIS (Princeton University Professor Emeritus): Thank you. I'm delighted to be with you again.
BARTIROMO: Wha--what do you think of these latest developments in Iraq, uprisings from both Sunnis, who were Saddam's comrades? That's not a surprise, but what about the Shiites? They were supposed to welcome us. What happened?
Dr. LEWIS: Well, most of them did and most of them still do. But remember, there is a Shiite country just next door in Iran where the--the thing which is most dangerous to them, which they most fear, is the establishment of a working democracy in Iraq. Now that they see a real danger of this, they feel they have to do something to stop it. The Sunni group in Fallujah, that's something quite different. And it's becoming clearer and clearer that what happened last week in Fallujah was a carefully prepared, carefully staged replay of what happened in Somalia 11 years ago. And you may remember the horror--horrible scenes that we saw, bodies being dragged through the streets, and the immediate result of that was a decision to leave the country. Doing the same thing this time, we know now that the people in question didn't just wander in to Fallujah. They were enticed in to Fallujah. The cameras were miraculously ready and all in place to take this and their expectation was that they would achieve the same result this time as was achieved in Somalia. I think that they're wrong.
BARTIROMO: Professor Lewis, to what extent has the US misread post-war Iraq?
Dr. LEWIS: Well, when you say the US, you're talking about a lot of different people. I think some have misread it; some have read it correctly.
BARTIROMO: What about you? Do you think that you have misread it at all?
Dr. LEWIS: Yes, I think I was a little too optimistic, but what I misread I think was not so much what happens in Iraq as what happens here.
BARTIROMO: In other words, the--the reception that the war got from Americans or--or politicos?
Dr. LEWIS: Yes, I mean...
BARTIROMO: What do you mean?
Dr. LEWIS: I mean, the response, the way that the media have reported what's happening in Iraq. I mean, I understand that one bridge destroyed makes a better story than 10 bridges built. But nevertheless, the situation in Iraq, the standard of living, the improvement in general conditions to the Iraqi people and the measure of support that we enjoy among the Iraqis, all these are far better than one would gather from simply following the media.
BARTIROMO: For sure. I--we've had many--many people on this program, yourself included, who have said and reported a very different story than--than what we all read in the headlines every day. But that hasn't stopped the--the critics. With the rising death toll in Iraq have come calls to get out as soon as possible. Our allies are under pressure. Senator Ted Kennedy, even calling this America's Vietnam. What's your view on that?
Dr. LEWIS: I think that is a disastrous comparison. If you listen to the propaganda of the fundamentalists in Iraq and elsewhere, they have a litany that they keep repeating. They say, 'The Americans have become degenerate. They are soft and pampered. They can't take it. Hit them and they'll run.' And then they repeat: Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia and all the other small episodes since which brought no effective response. Talking about Vietnam now will merely confirm them, tell them that they are right, because we all know how Vietnam ended, and that will assure them they have a good chance that this will end the same way. And they have just won a considerable success in Spain, whatever the circumstances of the Spanish election, which obviously are a matter of local politics, which I can't pretend to understand. But from the point of view of the terrorists, it's very clear they won a victory in Spain. They staged a major terrorist incident and changed the election result so that government which supported action in Iraq was defeated and the government that opposes action in Iraq comes in to power. And they're hoping to achieve the same result here.
BARTIROMO: Right. And--and--and would you expect an attempt at another terrorist act this election year given the fact that they--they did try and were successful in upsetting the elections in Spain?
Dr. LEWIS: I think that it's very likely that they will try. It's--people have been talking a great deal in the last few days about what mistakes were made so that 9/11 was able to happen. Well, they haven't pointed out there has been nothing since 9/11 in the United States. There have indeed been attacks on American personnel in installations elsewhere, but there hasn't been one attack in this country. I think we may prepare for one now. We should be prepared for one now, I should say.
BARTIROMO: And--and what would be the best preparation there, sir?
Dr. LEWIS: Well, that I can't say. That's a matter of intelligence work. But I think the best political preparation is to persuade them that it wouldn't work and that, contrary to their expectations, it would not result in another flight, but in a reinforcement of American will and determination. The problem is that what we see going on now is for us normal. It is the free debate of a free society, free criticism and the like. For them, this is outside their experience. What we call open debate, they see as evidence of division and weakness and fear...
BARTIROMO: Right.
Dr. LEWIS: ...and that encourages them.
BARTIROMO: And--and--and the debate over the Bush administration and--and the knowledge and--and intelligence that it had before going into Iraq. Did you, sir, in the days after 9/11, counsel the vice president or--or--or Condoleezza Rice to--to invade Iraq?
Dr. LEWIS: We didn't discuss anything specific. I don't give advice on policy. I merely try to explain what's happening to the best of my ability.
BARTIROMO: And--and, of course, that--that long piece in The Wall Street Journal back in February detailed your close contacts with the Bush administration, quoting people like Paul Wolfowitz and--and--and Richard Pearl, who refer to you as an oracle. Let me read you one quote from that Wall Street Journal piece. "Call it the Lewis Doctrine," it was written. "Though never debated in Congress of sanctified by the president decree, Mr. Lewis' diagnosis of the Muslim world's malaise and his call for a US military invasion to seed democracy in the Mideast have helped define the boldest shift in US policy--foreign policy--in 50 years."
Does that seem accurate to you, sir?
Dr. LEWIS: No, it doesn't. That article was written without consulting or inter--or without interviewing me, and the author followed his own opinions and judgments. On many of the things he says, I would agree with him. On others, I would disagree.
BARTIROMO: We hear it from the vice president himself in a "Meet the Press" interview just before the Iraq invasion. Let's listen to this, sir.
Vice President DICK CHENEY: (From "Meet The Press"/March 16, 2003) I firmly believe, along with men like Bernard Lewis, who's one of the great, I think, students of that part of the world, that strong, firm US response to terror and--and to threats to the United States will go a long way, frankly, towards calming things in that part of the world.
BARTIROMO: Professor Lewis, do you feel a sense of great responsibility or great pride even knowing that your ideas may have indeed provided the basis for a profound shift in American policy?
Dr. LEWIS: I did not make specific recommendations. I certainly have said again and again that if one shows weakness, one will be attacked and the important point is not to show weakness, but to the show strength and to do what is necessary for that purpose, yes. I think that was right and I still think it's right.
BARTIROMO: Professor Lewis, stay right there. We will slip in a short break.
When we come back, more with Professor Bernard Lewis on whether the hand over of power in June is feasible. Later on in the program, retail prices for some of the most common prescription drugs are up an estimate 20 percent since the law adding drug benefits to Medicare was signed just a few months ago. New Medicare czar Mark McClellan will answer the tough question 'What the heck?' a little later.
(Announcements)
President GEORGE W. BUSH: We will transfer sovereignty. And as a matter of fact, the United Nations representative, Brahimi, is in Baghdad as we speak working with different parties to help devise the system to which we transfer sovereignty.
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. That was President Bush today talking about the planned transfer of political power--not military power--to the Iraqis on June 30th. I'm back with renowned Islamic scholar Dr. Bernard Lewis, a strong early supporter of the war with Iraq.
Dr. Lewis, should the US turn over political power June 30th given the turmoil? Is that too soon?
Dr. LEWIS: I don't know. I think certainly the US should turn over political power to the Iraqis. I think it would have been a good idea to give them a greater share in the running of affairs from the very beginning. But I don't--I simply don't have the detailed information to express an opinion on whether the moment is appetite right now or not.
BARTIROMO: You've said many times that such profound changes will take time. How long do you think America will need to remain a major presence in Iraq for democracy to actually take hold, not necessarily just the transfer of power but for democracy?
Dr. LEWIS: I don't think it need be that long. You know, I'm a historian. I deal with the past, not the future, and I don't like making predictions. But I would say that a little while is necessary, but it needn't be that long because the elements of democracy are already there in Iraq. People talk about the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party, the odious dictatorship which they ran, as if that were the way of doing things in the Middle East. People say that's how they are. There's nothing we can do about it. That is utter nonsense.
Neither the Ba'ath Party nor the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein have any roots in the Arab or Islamic past. This is an importation from Europe, the only one that really worked. It dates from the mid-20th century and after, and the Ba'ath Party is modeled on the Communist and Nazi and fascist parties of Europe, not a party in our sense, an organization for taking part in elections and winning votes, but in the Nazi or fascist or Communist sense as part of the apparatus of government more particularly concerned with indoctrination and surveillance and enforcement.
Once we remove that, remove the party and remove the dictatorship, we are dealing with a society which certainly has the capacity to develop democratic institutions of a kind. I say of a kind because the word democracy has been used in many, many different senses. There is no reason why they should have precisely our kind of democracy. They will evolve their own kind of democracy. But they have long traditions in that part of the world of government under law, government which is both contractual and consensual and with a decent respect for the rights of the subject or the citizen, as we would say.
BARTIROMO: Right. I--I--I--I--I want to highlight what you just said. It doesn't necessarily mean it is our democracy; it is a different democracy. Now I know you're close with Ahmad Chalabi, but what suggests that he or any other Iraqi Governing Council member should remain prominent in the leadership if, as has been widely reported, they don't enjoy legitimacy among the Iraqi people?
Dr. LEWIS: That is a line which is used against them, but I mean the people who mix up statements have no way of saying who does or who doesn't enjoy legitimacy. I've known Ahmad Chalabi for many, many years, and he was one of the first to organize an opposition movement in Iraq. He spent many of the ni--many years after '91 in the free zone which was established in northern Iraq. I know that he won considerable support among the Iraqis inside the country, as well as among the Iraqi diaspora, and I know him well enough to have confidence both in his ability and in his integrity. I feel sure that he would be able to do a good job. And he's not the only one there; there are others too. I mention him because I know him personally.
BARTIROMO: What has surprised you most about the events in--in post-war Iraq?
Dr. LEWIS: What has surprised me most is the indecision which is shown by us, not by them. You have to remember that we began with a rather unfavorable record. In '91, the time of the Gulf War, President Bush Sr. called on the Iraqi people to revolt against the tyrant. They did. They revolted against the tyrant. In the meantime, we made a cease-fire agreement with the tyrant and then sat and watched while he crushed the revolt, the Shiites in the south, the Kurds in the north, group by group and region by region with the utmost brutality. You can understand therefore that when we call on them again to revolt, they were rather more cautious. There is, shall we say, a well-grounded mistrust.
They know also of the abrupt departures from Somalia, the departure from Vietnam. They don't want to become boat people like the Vietnamese after we left them. And therefore, I would say a certain amount of caution on the part of the Iraqis is very understandable. That caution is increased when they listen to the debate at home in the United States, the many verse--the many voices urging that we get out as soon as possible, that is to say abandon them to their fate.
BARTIROMO: Right. It just...
Dr. LEWIS: In spite of all that--I was going to say, in spite of all that, there has been growing evidence of strong support for what we are doing there, for the process of establishing the nucleus, the beginnings of a democratic regime, and there is much in Iraq specifically that is favorable to such a process...
BARTIROMO: Let--let me--let me turn...
Dr. LEWIS: ...which I can develop, if you wish.
BARTIROMO: Let me turn to--to one final question for you, sir, and that is that, you know, many have long believed that peace in the Middle East would first have to come between the Arabs and the Israelis. Do you believe that instead peace in Jerusalem will come through Baghdad?
Dr. LEWIS: I believe that the peace between the Arabs and the Israelis will come after, not before. At the moment, the--the conflict is an extremely useful safety valve. It is the licensed grievance all over the Arab world. When they're angry and resentful and embittered, which they all have very good reason to be for the most part against their own governments, this provides a--a means of expressing it, which does no harm to their own governments. Before the invasion of Iraq, people were saying we have to settle the Palestine question first and then deal with Iraq. That sent a clear message to Saddam Hussein: Make sure they don't settle the Palestine question.
BARTIROMO: Mm-hmm.
Dr. LEWIS: And he then increased the bounty which he was paying to the families of suicide bombers from $10,000 to $25,000 a time.
BARTIROMO: Right. Mr. Lewis, so nice to have you on the program. Thanks very much for joining us. My thanks to Islamic scholar and prolific author Dr. Bernard Lewis.
ITEM 8: Washington Post: Jim Hoagland: Putting Politics to Work in Iraq
Washington Post
Putting Politics to Work in Iraq
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Abrupt changes in military tactics by the United States in Iraq and a
sharp rise in casualties are sending shock waves through that country
and through U.S. public opinion. President Bush did little Tuesday night
to reduce those tremors.
Click here!
Bush's laudable determination to show that the United States is in Iraq
as a "liberating power," not a long-term occupier, was undermined by his
studied vagueness on his plans to prove that proposition on June 30.
The administration can still surmount this growing challenge -- but only
if it stops mishandling the politics of security in Iraq.
In its final 10 weeks, Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority
should stop fencing local politics out of the governance and protection
of Iraq. Unrealistic efforts by its occupiers to hold Iraq to standards
of political purity that no nation in the world meets should be abandoned.
In practical terms this means that significant powers should be
transferred on June 30 to Iraqi politicians, not just to Iraqi
technocrats who may be more malleable to U.S. demands. There can be no
effective (or morally justifiable) hidden American agenda of keeping
power behind a facade of ending the occupation.
The CPA and the White House must also accept that not all Iraqi militias
were created equal, or evil. There are Iraqi security forces willing and
able to fight against the Baathist remnants, foreign gangs and Shiite
brigands who have put sections of the country in flames.
But Kurdistan's pesh merga commandos and fighters from the Iraqi
National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress and other political
organizations have been devalued and restrained by the CPA's apolitical
occupation strategy.
Those with a political vision of an Iraq worth fighting for have largely
been disqualified from defending it at the side of American forces.
Instead, the CPA championed a hastily trained, three-tier Iraqi internal
security force of army, police and civil defense guards vetted and
signed up by Americans with no way of verifying the backgrounds of the
people they recruited.
The CPA-designed structure crumpled when U.S. Marines launched the siege
of Fallujah and fighting flared with Shiite militiamen. Many Iraqi
police and troops abandoned their posts.
The important exceptions to this pattern of flight have been kept
unpublicized, apparently for operational reasons. The 36th Battalion of
the Iraqi Army, fighting under U.S. command, has performed well in Fallujah.
This became known in Baghdad after the unit was praised by Lt. Gen.
Ricardo Sanchez at a meeting with the Iraqi Governing Council on Monday.
"Shouldn't we form more like it?" asked Jalal Talabani, whose Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan has joined its once bitter rival, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, and Arab political organizations in contributing 700
soldiers to the 36th Battalion. Bremer immediately opposed Talabani's
suggestion, according to meeting participants. Adding militiamen would
"politicize" the army, Bremer reportedly said.
Tell that to the Marines, who have suffered heavy casualties as they
moved to establish control in Fallujah after taking over from more
static U.S. Army units a few weeks ago. Gen. John Abizaid, U.S. theater
commander, may have other views on the future. He met on Tuesday with
Iraqi political leaders who have contributed troops to the 36th Battalion.
The assigning of the Marines to the hottest of Iraq's hot spots was a
conscious decision to pit the best-trained fighters and the most
advanced urban combat tactics in the U.S. arsenal against the spreading
insurgency.
The Marine campaign in Fallujah is perhaps the decisive battle for the
Sunni Triangle that was not fought a year ago. But to succeed now, it
must be integrated with clear political objectives.
Many Iraqis and Americans will not offer their support if they do not
better understand what this administration intends for Iraq's political
future. If you think it was puzzling and dispiriting for Americans to
hear Bush and Bremer say on television this week that they don't know
who will be in political power in Baghdad in 10 weeks, think of the
effect it had on the Iraqis who heard them.
Bremer is a skilled, smart and experienced senior civil servant, a breed
trained never to acknowledge in a crisis that you don't have a plan --
above all if you don't. His evasion cleared the way for U.N. envoy
Lakhdar Brahimi to announce in Baghdad yesterday that a "caretaker"
government he will design should take over on June 30. (Brahimi also
denounced the siege of Fallujah as "collective punishment.") Even with
time short, the American mission in Iraq can succeed if it is a matter
of correcting well-intended but faulty theories of governance. A hidden
agenda to keep real power away from Iraqis and in American hands -- even
if blessed by U.N. civil servants -- cannot remain long hidden, nor
would it long survive. It would only bring new and irrevocable disaster.
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Bush did not act unilaterally. Bush acted without the support of three countries proven to have had vested interests in keeping Hussein in power despite his continuing murder of thousands of Iraqies. Those three countries are well known to the US public now: France, Germany, and Russia. Russia and France are both capable of vetoing UN support for anything they do not support. Absence of their support is not proof of the absence of multilateralism.
