TSR: "This could be the
first pillar in a great bridge to Islam..."
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Length: 8:16
LARGE (95.7 MB)
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SMALL (10.2 MB)
Hours after President Obama's paradigm-shifting
speech in Cairo, Michael appears on The Situation
Room to discuss its impact in the Muslim world,
while Candy Crowley looks at the political
implications at home.
WOLF
BLITZER: Let's talk about what we just heard,
especially what we heard on Iraq being a war of
choice unlike the war in Afghanistan. Joining us now,
CNN senior political correspondent Candy Crowley and
our correspondent Michael Ware who has covered the
war in Iraq from day one, going back to 2003.
The explanation he gave on Iraq, is that going to
work in the Arab and Muslim world, Michael?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think this
is the closest you'll ever hear from an American
administration admitting that the war in Iraq, if not
was a mistake-- you know, it's almost an apology by
omission. He makes it very clear that it was a war of
choice, unlike the juxtaposition with the war in
Afghanistan, which was a war of necessity. He also
says that whilst the Iraqi people, I believe, are
better off without Saddam Hussein, there is still
some way to go. That's a big thing and that's going
to play heavily, I think, in that part of the Middle
East.
However, there's also an irony here. You have to look
it as a black-letter lawyer looking strictly at the
structure of this speech. Under the heading of issues
between America and the Muslim world, the first issue
being violent extremism in any form, that's where he
addresses Iraq and that's where he addresses it as a
war of choice and all but a war of mistake compared
to Afghanistan. It's almost as if that's a form of
extremism itself. Nonetheless, he hits the one key
point on Iraq and Afghanistan that the Muslim world
really cares about: that we are not going to stay.
Wolf.
BLITZER: He makes it clear, Candy, that the U.S. has
no intention of having permanent bases anywhere out
there in Iraq or Afghanistan. All right, so that's
how it's playing out there, Candy. How's it playing
back here?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT:
Well, listen, I think that rhetorically speaking,
Michael's exactly right, and I think what he's
pointing to, which is, this was not an apology. And
as you know, as the president left to go overseas,
everyone knowing he was going to make this speech,
his critics were already out there going, okay, it's
another apology tour. The president made it very
clear in advance of the speech that that isn't what
it was. He nonetheless made it very clear, the one
big point it seems to me -- set aside all the
rhetoric, all of the paragraphs, all the sub-headings
of this speech -- is, here is proof positive that he
is not George Bush. Under that particular category
is, well, that was a war of choice and even the word
'mistakes' was not used. But it was very clear and I
think the one message he wanted out there was, you
know, there's a new guy in town and I'm not George
Bush.
BLITZER: That new guy is Barack Obama. I want to
bring in CNN's Atia Abawi. She's in Kabul,
Afghanistan for us.
I know you've been gathering reaction there on the
streets of Kabul, where the U.S. is beefing up
significantly its military presence. Listen to this
so-called "man on the street," as we like to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (translated VO): We think that he
is better for Muslims compared to the last president.
There is now a hope that between Muslims, America and
other nations, we can come together in friendship,
uniting all human beings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He may help people, but unless we
unite ourselves as Muslims and help one another, it's
never going to help us if outsiders come and try to
help us. We have to unite ourselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: I know you were trying to get some reaction
also, Atia, from some women there, but so far,
unsuccessful. What happened?
ATIA ABAWI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Wolf. It
wasn't from lack of trying. We did approach women on
the street and they gracefully rejected us. And we
actually approached a car full of women, three
generations of women. We saw a grandmother, a
daughter and granddaughters. The grandmother said
that she had so much to say, so much to share to the
camera, so much to share with us, but she didn't have
permission from her grandson in the front seat. This
is the lives of women in Afghanistan today. They
still don't have those freedoms. No woman would talk
to us. And we had a grandmother, an elder, who's
having to ask permission from her grandson, who
denied her her right to speak, to express herself.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Atia Abawi's in Kabul for us.
Candy Crowley, that chunk of the speech that the
president had on women's rights was very strong, but
the question is being asked, is it just words or is
there going to be action. Will he -- did he
yesterday, for example, tell King Abdullah, let women
at least drive, forget about voting but why can't
they even drive a car in Saudi Arabia?
CROWLEY: I can't imagine it was that specific, but
you cannot go to a region with the expressed wish to
say, we respect you, we respect your culture and we
are equals and then publicly bash those cultures for
what they're doing. What you do is, I think, what the
president did, which was saying, here's how we feel
about it. Because there are obviously pro-democracy
groups that wanted to hear from him a very strong
support of the rule of law, of transparency, of human
rights. But there is critical, there is openly
critical and then there's just merely stating, here's
what we believe in and we believe it is true for all
human beings. You can't go head-on while you're
trying to say we're listening to you and we respect
you.
BLITZER: All right. And I know, Michael, you're a
tough hard-nosed war correspondent, is this speech,
when the dust settles in a few weeks or months or
years, really going to make much of a difference?
WARE: Well, we shall see, won't we? The real test
here is can this president back up this landmark
speech with deeds, with action? Is this just the
finery of rhetoric or is this the reality of his
administration because let's face it, at the end of
the day, regardless of the parameters or the
circumstances in which he frames it, you're still
going to have more than 200,000 American combat
troops on Muslim land as the sun sets today.
However, I do think we have touched upon something
that is markedly different, perhaps, from the Bush
doctrine, apart from all else, and that's a
retraction of some of the bolder ideals of the Bush
doctrine. We saw that the Bush administration waged
into the Middle East with this grand vision of
reshaping it, perhaps in America's image. Re-divising
the Middle East -- in a vision of what some called
the neo-cons or at least certainly that of the
believers of the Bush administration -- that would
let democracy spring forth. It was almost as if
everyone believed inside every Arab is a small-D
democrat. Here, we see President Obama clearly break
away from that and say we won't force any kind of a
government upon any people. This, Wolf, could be the
first pillar in a great bridge to Islam, but is the
president going to provide the bricks and mortar to
complete that bridge? That's yet to be seen.
BLITZER: You know Candy, what struck me missing from
the speech was that over the past 20 years, almost
every time an American president has sent young men
and women off to war, whether you agree with it or
disagree with it, it was to help Muslims, whether to
liberate Kuwait in the first gulf war or Kosovo or
Bosnia, or Afghanistan or Iraq, Muslims were
involved. There was no reference to that in this
speech.
CROWLEY: There wasn't, but I tell you, I do think
that will be part of this trip overall, and perhaps
it will come up later in another context, but I do
know that when they left here, certainly when you
look at the 65th anniversary of D-Day, that it is the
perfect chance for the president to rebut his critics
and say, by the way, Americans have shed blood in
many, many nations around the world to try to
preserve freedom for other people. So I think you
will hear it, but this obviously they didn't think
was the place to do it as far as Islam was concerned.
BLITZER: Candy Crowley and Michael Ware, guys, thanks
very much.