Transcript
MR. JAMES B. STEINBERG: Good morning and welcome to Brookings for those of you here and those of you in the television audience. This is the latest in our running series of briefings on events related to the war on terrorism.
Today we're going to play Washington's favorite power game of the week which is "What's Next?" and look at the options both in Afghanistan and more broadly.
We'll begin today with Steve Cohen who's a Senior Fellow here at Brookings to talk about the future plans and choices for Afghanistan and also in a broader South Asian region, particularly in light of the current tensions between India and Pakistan following the terrorist attacks last week.
Then we'll turn to Martin Indyk who will look at both the rather volatile situation in the Middle East and the choices on the counter-terrorism war there. Martin's a Senior Fellow here at Brookings.
Then finally Senior Fellow Ivo Daalder who will look at some of the broader questions about overall U.S. strategy and particularly the choices that the United States faces in terms of taking on the challenge of counter-terrorism by itself or continuing to try to build coalitions.
So without further ado let me turn it to Steve Cohen.
MR. STEPHEN PHILIP COHEN: Thank you, Jim.
We've left some handouts outside which cover some of my past statements about the situation and also some work I'm doing now, particularly on building a new Afghanistan army.
I think the Administration really set itself three large goals in South Asia. One was to rid Afghanistan of its terrorist guests, although parenthetically President Bush has also personified this in a search for Osama bin Laden, and also to rebuild Afghanistan into a more normal state.
Second, I think there was great concern that what had happened in Afghanistan could happen in Pakistan, and Pakistan was headed down an Islamic extremist road. There's been some attention devoted to dealing with that aspect of the problem. Part of this has been assisted by the fact that we are now once again an ally of Afghanistan, though we don't know how long that will last. There are American forces based in Pakistan, and I'm not quite sure what the duration is, let alone the roles and missions of those forces.
Thirdly, I think an objective of this Administration as stated by President Bush in one of his first major television addresses, was to deal with the Kashmir problem, really to deal with the larger India/Pakistan problem.
In terms of the first goal, I think today both the fighters and also the U.S. spokesmen have said in effect that al Qaeda is not a significant military force. I think we can count on Afghanistan being terror-free for some time, but presumably a major reconstruction effort will be devoted to Afghanistan to ensure that it doesn't once again become a base for Islamic or other forms of extremists operating there.
As to locating Osama bin Laden, apparently there was never any hard evidence that he was in the Tora Bora region. I've been on the Pakistan side of that area. Clearly this is a place where you can hide out indefinitely.
In fact one of the interesting sight-seeing tours that you'll see when the Khyber Pass is opened up again for tourism is that the British built all kinds of fortifications back in the 1920s, even the turn of the century, to guard against a Russian, then German invasion. So there are a lot of places to hide, a lot of caves, a lot of fortifications in the Khyber area. It will take a long time to go and hunt each of them down.
My guess is two things. That Osama may well have skipped town. He may have gone to Pakistan earlier, conceivably to Karachi and then out of South Asia some place else, or he may have flown directly using some of the aircraft that he had in his command much earlier in the war, leaving Afghanistan. I don't have any idea, I don't have any guess, but I think the Administration thought they had him cornered which is why they released the tape, to demonstrate that he was really a bad guy.
In terms of Pakistan— Also, there's a paper out that I've just written on building a new Afghan army. I think that will be one of the urgent priorities for the UN and for any other interested country is to build a military establishment in Afghanistan that at least reduces the level of warlordism that has prevailed there.
Secondly, in terms of our goals with Pakistan, I think we're headed down the right path. Pakistan seems to have made a major turn in its domestic policies away from extremism, but still I have some doubts about the nature of the U.S. program in Pakistan. We're apparently giving Pakistan a lot of economic assistance, but it's unclear to me as to how much that is, whether it's one year or multi-year, and whether in fact it's going to be spent wisely in terms of rebuilding and reconstructing the basic civilian institutions that Pakistan, that have deteriorated in Pakistan over the years. I think there are some important questions as to what the substance of this American relationship with Pakistan will be.
Thirdly, and really more acute in terms of the immediate future, there is once again, we're back here again, a significant heightened tightening of India/Pakistan tension. There are a lot of causes for this but basically you have two countries which cannot live with each other, they certainly can't live without each other. Each regards the other as their major enemy. The series of terrorist attacks in Kashmir, now a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament have been attributed directly to Pakistan and to Pakistan government agencies including the ISI. The Pakistanis of course deny this.
We're coming into the season of fighting. The weather in South Asia is turning very nicely for large-scale military activities and with the uncertainty over the amount of nuclear weapons they have, the location, whether they've been made into warheads or not. Also uncertainty about the command and control systems in each country. I think we're headed towards still another major regional crisis. Again I expect the United States to be drawn into this in the form of crisis management. Whether we'll be successful or not, I don't know, but clearly it's time for the American Administration to think through its larger South Asia policy in terms of India/Pakistan relations.
Until recently we've basically only intervened when there's been a crisis. I think the Administration is contemplating getting involved in a South Asia peace process as a more sustained, deeper engagement with India and with Pakistan to help deal with the Kashmir problem. Not to resolve it, but at least to manage it.
But it may be too late for a peace process. South Asia may have reached a point where no matter how much soft-talking American diplomacy there is, the two countries are really bent on hurting each other one way or another and it may be time to consider more unilateral, more forceful American steps—diplomatically and economically forceful—to get compliance from India and Pakistan separately on some vital concerns of ours. I won't go into these now, but clearly we may have reached a point where the peace process is simply too little, too late, and we may have to turn to other forms of diplomacy.
MR. STEINBERG: I hope it's just diplomacy.
Martin?
MR. MARTIN S. INDYK: Thank you, Jim.
The question of what's next inevitably brings us back to the Middle East because after all the Middle East is the swamp that spawned al Qaeda in the first place.
There are so many issues involved in what's next in the Middle East that just to ask the questions will take up the five to seven minutes that Jim has allotted me.
There are in fact four questions. What to do about Iraq; what to do about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict; what to do about the other harbors and sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East—that is Iran, Syria and Lebanon; and what to do about our allies, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, from whence the terrorists that struck on September 11th came. I only have time at the outset now to talk about the first two, that is Iraq and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. But I'll be glad to get into the other issues if you want to pursue them.
In Iraq we face a dilemma. We have to decide what our objective is. Is it to overthrow Saddam or is it to contain and deter him? If we try to do both, we're going to end up achieving neither. The worst of all worlds seems to be the direction that we're now heading in. That is attempting to do both in kind of half-hearted ways. The first, overthrow through support for insurgency; the second, containment through insistence on inspectors going back into Iraq.
Insisting on inspections in fact is a containment strategy with a booby prize at the end, if we succeed. Because as we experienced the last time we had Richard Butler in the role of chief inspector, the inspections turn up nothing and when that happens the French, the Russians, then use that as leverage on us to lift the sanctions. Indeed, the Russians already have a well thought out plan for getting inspectors back in and then after some inspections have taken place over six months calling for the suspension of sanctions. So were we to succeed in getting the inspectors back in we would find ourselves very quickly in the situation where either they would find nothing and we would be under pressure to lift the sanctions and give Saddam back control over the billions of dollars he earns in oil revenues. Or the inspectors might actually come on something, not be able to pursue the inspection, and then we'd be back in this kind of crisis cat and mouse game that we went through before whereby we would mobilize to hit Saddam and he would back down at the last minute and we'd be back in a negotiation in the Security Council about what to do next.
So far from leading to his overthrow, insisting on inspections is only likely to strengthen Saddam.
The other half measure, supporting insurgency, is also a bad option. The equivalent of the Northern Alliance in Iraq is not the INC which has no troops and no ability to operate on the ground, it's the Kurds. Now the problem with the Kurds in the north is that the Arab states and the Turks will not accept the idea of the Kurds taking over Baghdad, backed by the United States, as the Northern Alliance took Kabul. And we simply can't act in Iraq without Turkish and Arab support.
There's talk lately of a southern insurgency, creating a Southern Alliance somewhat like the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
Well, when you try to translate that to Iraq it doesn't work well either. Since the only kind of Southern Alliance we could have would be for an Iranian-backed Shiia insurgency which would cause great problems for Saudi Arabia since it would be seen as providing Iran with a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula in Southern Iraq, something which they find at least as threatening, probably more threatening than keeping Saddam in power.
And backing a Kurdish insurgency in the north and a Shiia insurgency in the south will only have the effect of solidifying support for Saddam amongst the Suni center, particularly in the army.
So if we want to overthrow Saddam the only real way to do it is to send in troops, American troops, in large numbers, on the ground, with the purpose not of taking Baghdad ourselves, but of demonstrating a seriousness of purpose sufficient to send a clear message to the Iraqi army—you will either be destroyed or you should go and do the job for us. That is, to turn the Iraqi army against Saddam. I believe that is imminently doable if we're prepared to put the forces on the ground.
It would be the ultimate act of unilateralism because nobody will be with us in the first stage of such an effort. Nobody else amongst our allies, especially I would say the Russians; nobody else sees the need for getting rid of Saddam now. They're quite happy with the current arrangements. By the way that includes all of the Arab world, notwithstanding an anonymous Arab diplomat quoted in the New York Times today, and it also includes our British allies. Nobody sees the justification for getting rid of Saddam as we do.
On the other hand, if we were serious about putting the troops in, then I believe they all would in the end adjust, since none of them particularly want to see Saddam Hussein stay there forever.
So the key question here is if the President and the American nation have the will to go and do the job ourselves. We should understand it won't be cost-free. Saddam, by all accounts, does have chemical and biological weapons which he will use as a last resort of he feels that the army has a Samson option to pursue. And he probably will use them against Israel, and Israel won't be easy to restrain this time around.
So it's a complicated undertaking at best.
The alternative is to stick with the current policy of containment and deterrence. Despite everything we've said about it, it's a policy that's actually working, as my colleagues, Phil Gordon and Michael O'Hanlon point out in a very good policy brief that's available on the Brookings web site. We can in fact afford to wait for the excuse or provocation to be much stronger than it is today to go after Saddam.
But if we're going to go the route, if the President decides with the support of the nation that we're going to go and get rid of Saddam now, that we're prepared to do it in the only way possible which is to put troops on the ground, then we are going to have to do something about that second question, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict because to engage in Iraq in such a bold strategy of regime change, needs us at a minimum to have some quiet in that other front of the Middle East.
In that regard, Arafat's speech the other night was an important first step. As everybody is saying, unless it's followed up by immediate and serious action on the ground to arrest the terrorists, stop the violence, stop the incitement and to shut down the terrorist infrastructure, that speech will end up being too little, too late.
Arafat in this speech and in actions that he's been taking around the speech, actually has started to meet the requirements that we have been insisting on for some time. He did speak to his people in Arabic. He did call for an end to violence, and specifically an end to the terrorism and suicide bombings. He did outlaw the terrorist organizations—Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. He has begun to shut down their social infrastructure.
What's missing is the sustained and credible campaign of arrests of terrorists that he has hesitated all along to do.
The tragedy of this conflict that's gone on for the last year and a half between Israelis and Palestinians is the two sides are now like ships passing in the night. Just when Arafat might actually be ready to act, Sharon has given up on the only strategy that holds out any hope of producing the security he promised the Israeli people. Basically Sharon faces two options. One is to get Arafat to act; the other is to have the Israeli army do the job itself.
Sharon has been, up until last week, pushing the first option of getting Arafat to act and his basic approach has been to try to concert massive American-led international pressure combined with the threat of massive Israeli use of force. The threat of Israeli use of force. That's exactly what he has at the moment, that combination is there working on Arafat. But it is typical of the multiple ironies of this conflict that just when he has Arafat in the corner that he's wanted to put him in, something has snapped in the minds of the Israeli people as a result of the horrendous terrorist acts over the last two weeks, and Yasser Arafat no longer has any credibility in Israel for the steps that he says he's going to take.
In addition, Sharon is under intense pressure from his right wing and from B.B. Netanyahu, and in this situation Sharon the general's instincts are overwhelming the wisdom of Sharon the Prime Minister.
As a result we have a situation where basically both Arafat and Sharon are now over the cliff. Arafat may be showing signs of trying to climb back, but if Sharon isn't willing to give him a chance to do that, then the second option of having the IDS, the Israeli army do the job, is going to be the result and where that leads is willy-nilly to the reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza by Israel, something which I believe would be a disaster not just for the Palestinians, but for Israel as well.
So what do we do about this situation? At the moment I don't believe we need another ultimatum. I think the President's message is very loud and clear and effective. He is basically telling Arafat if you don't arrest the terrorists and clamp down on them you will be treated as a harborer of terrorists. You will be treated as our enemy. And even more effective a message than that, he's saying if you won't act I'm not going to restrain Sharon.
Those messages need to be coupled with continued engagement on the ground because if we don't get down on the ground and work with Arafat as he starts to take these steps, and then turn around and work with Sharon and get him to ease up on the pressure on the Palestinians, then we've seen this movie before. It won't work and it will degenerate very quickly. There will be an incident. Maybe today there will be another terrorist incident, or maybe today the Israeli army will take out another senior Hamas terrorist. That will provide the reason or excuse for one side or the other to go back to the business as usual of violence and terrorism.
That's why we sent General Zinni out there in the first place, to get a cease-fire functioning on the ground. When the going gets tough, the Marines are supposed to stick it out, not turn on their heels. So I believe it is essential for Zinni to get back out there, to go to Arafat, make clear what we expect him to do in detail, make it clear that he, Zinni, will be providing daily reports to the President, to Arafat and to Sharon, and that if Arafat acts he will get Sharon to respond and thereby create a more virtuous cycle of action/reaction. And if Arafat doesn't act against the terrorists then Zinni will have no choice but to come back here, report to the President that he's a harborer of terrorists and should be treated accordingly. Then we will know for sure that we have exhausted the effort to get Arafat to act and we will have to look towards a different kind of future.
Thank you.
MR. STEINBERG: Before I let you off the hook could you say a word about what your expectation is for the role of the other Arab states in this end game?
MR. INDYK: On Iraq?
MR. STEINBERG: No, on the Middle East. With the meeting coming up and whether they can play a significant role.
MR. INDYK: The Egyptians have engaged much more actively in the last week or so, sending their Foreign Minister to talk with Arafat, sending him a very strong message that he needs to act. The Egyptians are now calling for Zinni to go back and continuing to urge Arafat to act. I think that their role can be very important. If Zinni does go back he should take an Egyptian envoy with him. That combination of pressure can in these circumstances provide the Palestinians, particularly Arafat with the cover in the Arab world that he needs for taking on the Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad. The Jordanians are similarly playing that role of sending that message to Arafat.
So I think we have a situation where everybody is on the same sheet of music in terms of the need for Arafat to act and not just to say the right words. I think the Europeans, the UN, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the United States can play a very useful role here.
But if we pull back again to the position that we've taken in the previous nine months of allowing the Israelis and the Palestinians simply to be left to their own devices, then I'm afraid that we will simply see a continuation of this conflict. That, as I say, will lead to a situation where Arafat will, over time, be left essentially with a one-way ticket out of the West Bank. And we will then enter into uncharted waters with the prospect for I believe a significant heating up of the conflict.
MR. STEINBERG: Thank you. Ivo?
MR. IVO H. DAALDER: Thanks.
To a broader, more specific issue of where the United States is heading in its larger strategy on terrorism. The success in Afghanistan that we've seen in the past few weeks, including the overthrow of the Taliban and the destruction of the al Qaeda terrorist infrastructure in the country is of course testament to the overwhelming military strength of the United States. The success is in large measure the result of what the American military was able to accomplish. The bombing campaign, the direct support of U.S. special forces to the opposition, to the anti-Taliban opposition that led to the ouster of the Taliban and now the destruction of al Qaeda and its infrastructure.
This was a coalition effort only in name. No other country really participated in the military action, and with the possible exception of Britain, those who did were of no military importance to that effort.
Of course the United States needed access to bases, it needed overflight rights, particularly Pakistan, but in many ways less was needed from others in this effort than we thought originally, and less was needed in order to do the job. In the end this was an American victory rather than a victory for an international coalition.
The U.S. focused on what it needed to do in order to accomplish its goal and it got others to go along only to the extent that was necessary to achieve those goals. And we had success. The Taliban is no longer in power in Afghanistan, and the al Qaeda infrastructure, the terrorist infrastructure, is gone. But there were limits to this approach as well, and there are limitations to an approach of going it alone. Not least while the Taliban is routed, it is not destroyed. The leadership still remains in Afghanistan, including its top leaders, Mullah Omar and his ministers and military advisers remain, as far as we know, in Afghanistan. Perhaps to come back another day.
While the terrorist infrastructure has been destroyed—the training camps, the houses, the sanctuary that was offered to al Qaeda, the top leadership by all accounts has not. We have not yet found Osama bin Laden. We may have killed one or two of the top leadership. But most of the others, by all accounts, are nowhere to be found. They may still be in the mountains, but then as Steve Cohen said earlier, they may very well be somewhere else. And in order to get them it may well be necessary that we get cooperation from other countries, be it from Pakistan, be it from whatever country they are hiding in and trying to continue their trade as best they can.
Nor has there been much interest on the U.S. part to work in a post-war Afghanistan alongside others and alongside our allies. The Afghanistan that is emerging after 23 years of civil war, five years of brutal Taliban rule, is an Afghanistan in dire need of assistance. It is an Afghanistan in need of economic assistance, in need of assistance politically to get the country and its very factious leadership to work together, and it's in need of assistance for security forces, for capabilities that are capable of taking down whatever pockets of resistance remain associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda and also the kind of factions and fighting that are likely to continue in this part of the world. The United States, however, has declared that peacekeeping is not something that U.S. military forces do, this is what allies do. In short, a new division of labor has emerged in Afghanistan in which it is clear that the United States does the wars and the Europeans and other countries are left to clean up the mess afterwards.
All this in fact raises a much larger point because for all the talk after September 11th that this Administration is now committed to a multilateral approach to foreign policy as opposed to the unilateralist approach it had prior to September 11th, for all the talk really of an international coalition to fight world terrorism on a global scale, the fact remains that this Administration today remains as unilateralist in its guiding philosophy towards foreign policy in general and the war on terrorism in particular as it was prior to September 11th.
On every one of the issues that on September 10th caused so much anxiety around the world because of American unilateralism, the Administration has moved either not one inch, and to the extent it has moved, it has moved in a more unilateralist direction.
It promised back in July, and the meeting of the Kyoto partners that in the next round of talks in Marrakech last October, the United States would have a new approach to global warming. The United States showed up in Marrakech with only one issue for the delegation which was to make sure that nothing worse is going to happen in this round of negotiations that would negatively affect American interests. There was no plan on global warming.
This Administration has not merely been satisfied with rejecting the treaty on the international criminal court, it is now busily engaged and working with the Congress to make absolutely sure that the United States will do whatever it can to undermine the ability of others to work with the international criminal court, including if necessary, taking direct action against even our allies if they should be engaged in activities that we don't approve of.
And of course last week we saw the withdrawal announcement of the President surrounded by his entire national security team, the announcement that the United States six months hence will withdraw from the ABM Treaty. This after having scuttled a last-minute effort to strengthen our ability to enforce the biological weapons convention and the proud proclamation of the United States as being the only signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty not to show up at a meeting of state parties in November at the UN. We are proud of our unilateralism and are standing by ourselves when it comes to issues of arms control.
So far it has to be admitted that this approach to foreign policy and even to the war on terrorism has had few direct costs. Despite the unease of the course and consequence of the war that U.S. actions have produced in Europe, our allies have continued to support the United States in the effort of dealing with the terrorist threat, even to the point now of taking over much of the responsibility for post war Afghanistan.
There has been a new partnership with Russia since September 11th, even as America's military reach now goes exactly into the back yard of Moscow. Admittedly, of course, the United States military action in Afghanistan has given Russia the kind of advantages it has long been seeking in terms of the victory of the Northern Alliance which it has long supported, and even allowing Russian military troops to return for the first time to Afghanistan since 1989.
But even so, Russia has been a steadfast supporter of our war on terrorism, and Vladimir Putin's interview two days ago in the Financial Times indicated that that support may well extend to new phases in our war.
And for all the worries about the Arab street and the Islamic world standing up against the United States as we were going to take our military action in Afghanistan, the Arab street has been quiet and the Arab governments have not directly opposed us and some of them have even indirectly supported the military effort, particularly some states in the Gulf.
So the costs today have been minimal of our unilateralism, and the results have been so far maximal. We have achieved what we set out to achieve in Afghanistan at relatively low cost.
So is there a problem with having a unilateralist foreign policy? Are we likely to achieve our objectives not just in the short term but also in the long term? Of course predicting the future is something that even here at Brookings we're not necessarily good at. But there are suggestions, ways to think about this that suggest that the likelihood of long run costs of this approach are likely to rise.
Much of the post-September 11th good will that we find around the world, including in Europe, has begun to dissipate, and it will likely disappear altogether if the United States were rash enough to take military action without consulting and without building the kind of international coalition it will need to build against other places, against Iraq in particular or even other places in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.
And support for the broader war on terrorism may well continue to decline as a unilateralist approach in the war on terrorism in general and foreign policy more generally takes a toll.
There are already large-scale disagreements between the United States and Europe on how one deals with the war on terrorism in the law enforcement aspect. The fact of the Military Tribunal order—the death penalty, a longstanding problem with us and the European Union—and now reports that the United States military may have to go out, will be ordered to engage in assassination, are likely to lead the European partners to become more of an obstacle and less of a cooperative ally in our efforts to deal on the law enforcement aspects with the war on terrorism. Which after all, if we want to prevent, our next effort is going to be as, if not more important, than the military effort.
And without a broader American willingness to address what has come to be known as the root causes of terrorism—the conflicts in the Middle East, the nature, the states that are failing around critical areas, particularly in Africa but also in the Middle East, without that willingness, European willingness and allied willingness to support the United States in military action will decline.
If you listen, for example, to our most steadfast ally, Tony Blair, he makes this clear at every single turn. He will stand with the United States when it comes to using military force against those who are responsible for terrorism or those who are harboring terrorists, but he also expects a larger policy that engages countries and situations at their root causes, that helps to make sure that the morass within which terrorism breeds can be dealt with more effectively than it has in the past.
And even if support for terrorism and the war on terrorism is likely to continue on allied countries, there is a real question whether the kind of unilateralism we have seen displayed in the last few months, in fact in the last 11 months, may not lead to a continued opposition or a growing opposition among our friends and allies with regard to other issues, be it on issues of trade, be it on issues of dealing with the environment, and what have you. On all these questions we may find that the day will come when we need our friends, when we need our partners to do things that are important to us and that our partners are no longer there because we have not been willing to work with them when the time was right for doing so today. That may be the cost in the long run that we're running by insisting on having it our way in the short run.
MR. STEINBERG: That's a broad-ranging survey. We touched on a lot of the big issues that we will be facing and the choices the Administration will be facing, but as Martin indicated there are also lots of other questions including what we do with some of the other failed states and other potential harborers of terrorism not only in the Middle East but also in Africa and Southeast Asia.
The floor is now open to your questions on this and any other subject.
Q: Ben FitzGerald with C and O Resources, for Steve.
It appears as though Zalmay Khalilzad is going to be named as the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul. That appears to be a likely outcome. As one of the key architects of the Bush Afghan policy what does this mean by his going to Kabul, and will there then be a vacuum in Washington with his leaving the Washington scene? How do you war game this?
MR. COHEN: That's the first I've heard of that possibility. I thought that Dobbins was going there to open up the mission. But then the story is that Zal may well —
MR. FITZGERALD: (inaudible)
MR. COHEN: I think that would be a splendid appointment. He is, Mr. Khalilzad was born in Afghanistan, although raised in the United States, went to school here, and knows the region very well. Although he's not an Afghan specialist in his professional career, he's done a lot of strategic policy. But I think that he would retain his influence in Washington were he sitting in Kabul, because he was close to this Administration's foreign policy team, he played a role in the transition. I don't think that he'll lose his influence should he go there.
Also, there are a number of other Americans who have specialized knowledge about Afghanistan, so presumably his role would be filled in Washington. But it certainly would be, I think, a welcome development.
MR. FITZGERALD: But the key part of this was (inaudible) this will mean that the positive aspects of what apparently is (inaudible) to help with the reconstruction —
MR. COHEN: Certainly.
Mr. FITZGERALD: —fairly high level.
MR. COHEN: I think he would press for a long term American and allied commitment to rebuilding and reconstructing Afghanistan, which is going to be a difficult task but I can't think of a better person to play that role from Afghanistan.
Q: Steven Kunst with AFP, a question for Professor Cohen.
You mentioned the Administration may be contemplating becoming involved or may be forced to become involved in some kind of South Asian peace process. How far along has that got? Is it still in terms of contemplation or do you think there are plans being laid or approaches being laid out?
Secondly, if it's too late for a peace process, as you mentioned, could you be more specific on what kinds of diplomatic tools the United States has, if its more conventional means aren't going to be any good?
MR. COHEN: I have no special knowledge about what the Administration is planning to do, except I do know that their intention originally was to in a sense continue the Clinton foreign policy by developing a much closer relationship with India. And they did. And ironically, that closer relationship with India gave us leverage over Pakistan when this crisis came, because General Musharraf was able to say, had to say to his generals and to the Pakistani public that if we don't support the Americans in Afghanistan the Americans now have an alternative in South Asia and that alternative is India. So ironically a closer relationship with India has leveraged our position with Pakistan.
The question though is whether we continue, how we balance a growing relationship with India with a revived relationship with Pakistan and whether the rush of events will catch up to us so it's not a question of balancing, but it's a question of responding to a serious crisis.
There was a serious crisis in 1987, there was another one in 1990, the two countries went to war in 1999. So I think there's good reason to expect that they could have another such crisis sometimes this year. Because the language and the rhetoric on both sides is extremely harsh.
I would characterize both countries as they hate to lose more than they would like to win. It's not that they want to beat the other country, but they don't want to lose to the other country on such issues as Kashmir, their symbolic role in the world, and so forth. The Indians in particular have been very disappointed with our new relationship with Pakistan. The Indians expect us to use our new Pakistan relationship to pressure Pakistan to lessen their support for the extremists, the militants in Kashmir. But from a Pakistani perspective, that's the only lever that they have.
So I think we're in a very difficult diplomatic position and my advice to the Administration would be that prepare a crisis team, get ready to go out there, get a good understanding of the personalities you'll be dealing with because there may be a sudden crisis blowing up very quickly. This could come out of a misperception of one side or the other side in terms of troop movements or possibly movement of nuclear forces around the country. I think after that crisis is over if we get through it without any significant dramatic event then perhaps the Administration will turn to a more systematic approach to a peace process.
But here, as I've said earlier, it may be too late and we may have to have diplomacy of parallel bilateralism, whereby we work with each country separately on particular issues of importance to the United States. These could be the nuclear question in the case of Pakistan, reviving Pakistan's civil society. In the case of India, liberalizing their rule in Kashmir to help deal with some of the alienated Kashmiri population. And it may well be that it's fruitless for us to seek cooperation between India and Pakistan when they rejoice in not cooperating with each other. They seem to take pleasure. They use our desire for their cooperation as leverage over us, so I think perhaps parallel bilateralism is the way to go.
MR. STEINBERG: The other day General Musharraf suggested that he would be prepared to have some kind of independent inquiry into who was behind the attacks. Do you think there's any sense if there were evidence of Lakshar's involvement or others that Pakistan was involved, that he would actually do something about these groups?
MR. COHEN: What they might do is simply deal with these particular groups, but I'm sure that other groups would spring up. This would be like the Middle East where you suppress one group and another one emerges because the underlying antagonism is there. Not only among Pakistanis who feel they've been cheated out of Kashmir, but also now there's an alienated Kashmiri population which is raw material for anybody who would like to pressure India.
I think what our position— We've had a dialogue with India on terrorism for some time. I think perhaps we need to open up a dialogue with Pakistan, both official and non-official, to examine why they call, the groups that they call freedom fighters are called by the Indians terrorists. Well, can this be narrowed down in some way? Can groups, some kind of actions be declared out of bounds no matter what the motive behind the action is? I think we're going to have to work more closely with Musharraf to pin him down to the suggestion that we take another look at terrorists.
Q: Venu Rajamony from CSIS. My question is also directed to Steve.
While discussing Pakistani support for militancy in Kashmir you seem to assume that this is inevitable, but such a position on the part of the U.S. isn't this in complete contradiction to everything you are doing with regard to terrorism anywhere in the world? And also the Bush doctrine and blatant double standards. When you look at the description we heard today on the Middle East situation, do you really need to have many, many more Jerusalem style blasts and killings to occur in India before the United States uses language of the kind it is using with Arafat with Musharraf? Aren't you hasty in giving Pakistan a clean shirt and saying things have changed there? Have things really fundamentally changed?
MR. COHEN: I'll give you two answers. First of all, Musharraf is not Arafat. We happen to need Pakistan right now. There are American troops based in Pakistan, literally based there for some military purpose connected to Afghanistan and perhaps beyond that. For all I know, they're going to stay there for some indefinite period of time. That's an extraordinary thing for a country to do, especially a Muslim country, to allow American troops to be based on their territory. So in a sense he can offer us much more than Arafat has been able to offer us.
Secondly, this gets to the heart of your question. The Kashmir problem is a multi-layered problem. There are radical groups which practice what you and I would call terrorism, cold-blooded murder of civilians, attacks on the symbols of Indian democracy and so forth, things which are not justified under any circumstances. There are such groups and most of them are either based in Pakistan or have the support of the Pakistan government directly or indirectly.
But there's also a separate Kashmir insurgency of Kashmiris, and whether you like it or not, India has alienated the Kashmiri population, its own citizens, by a series of bad policies over several decades, and many of them have decided that they would rather, they don't want to go to Pakistan but they would like to have an independent Kashmir, which I think is out of the question personally.
So you're dealing with two kinds of so-called terrorism, the Indian government identifies both as terrorists. Their own citizens who have taken up weapons, arms against them, and outsiders, foreigners, or groups that are supported by outside countries, and attacks.
So I think the U.S. is going to have to make decisions on this point. While we do need Musharraf for the short term, the question is do we need him for the long term? Do we need a Musharraf who is supporting what I would call terrorist groups in India and administered Kashmir? Does that run the risk of a much larger war?
I think that we will get engaged. The Indians are pressing us to get engaged and I think it's in our interest to get engaged. My point is that for the immediate future it really may be too late to start a long term process by which we sit down and talk about these various issues.
Q: Susan Page, USA Today. The President when he thinks about what's next needs to think not only about the war on terrorism but also about the recession and developments at home, and all of you have worked in Administrations. I wonder if you see conflict or friction between the need for the Administration to continue the war on terrorism while also addressing economic and domestic problems at home?
MR. STEINBERG: Let me start and then I'll ask my colleagues to join in.
I think there's clearly a sense on the part of the President's political advisers that there is a need to turn to the home front. There's a lot of anxiety about the state of the economy and a lot of uncertainty among the economic advisers about when the economy is going to turn around. While there is tremendous support for the President's efforts abroad, he can't help but notice the similarities that he's facing to the situation that his father faced, and there's a very close and well contended mid-term election coming up next year.
So I think what we'll see is very much an effort by the President to show in his public activities that he is focusing on the domestic agenda, that he's got sort of in place a set of policies internationally that don't require him to be as out front as he has been. I think we've already even seen that in the last week or so, that there is some sense of the President trying to figure out how you make the pivot to address these concerns. There's certainly been deeper politicization of the debate here in Washington, the feel-good era of bipartisanship is clearly over. It's not just in the football fields of America that we're back to normal, but also in the football fields between Capital Hill and the White House.
I think one of the questions that raises is how that might affect decisionmaking about the issues that we're talking about here today. That is to say given the concerns at home about the economy, about traditional issues, about health care and the like, does that create an environment in which the President is prepared to take on something as dramatic as what Martin has suggested would be necessary to deal with Iraq.
My own judgment is that there will be some tension on that, that the foreign policy team clearly feels in their own words that they're on a roll and that this is an opportunity to do some business now relatively early in the President's term to address some of these broader questions so that they don't have to deal with them later and hope that they can sort of slide by on the domestic side.
But I think the domestic advisers and the President's allies on the Hill will be pushing very hard to keep the focus on the domestic agenda. So that could create some real tensions that we haven't seen up until now between the domestic and the home front.
I think the other piece that's always the unknown is on the domestic security side. We've all been fortunate that we have not seen a second round of anthrax attacks or other domestic problems, but the fact is we still haven't caught the individuals who are responsible for it and we don't have any particularly good reason to think that were we to see another episode of this with the problems we've had with cross-contamination of the mail that we wouldn't find ourselves plunged back into a situation where we were focused on that again.
So I think there are tremendous uncertainties on the domestic front which will lead to some tensions with the foreign policy teams in terms of what the priorities are going forward.
MR. DAALDER: I agree with that. I see a temptation, in part because Osama bin Laden has become identified as the success or failure of the war on terrorism coming out of the fact that the tape was released and the public perception now that success and failure really depends on getting him, there may well be a temptation that if that succeeds to then turn home, both on the economic side, but I also think particularly on the homeland security side. Which is an area that has not received the kind of detailed attention that it probably needs, given the kind of vulnerabilities that were exposed by September 11th and subsequently. And it may well be, and in fact there's a synergy here by focusing at home because it has economic stimulus effects if you start spending money to protect a variety of different bases that need protection. That that becomes part of the next focus in the war on terrorism, and also in part because the next stages, whether it's Iraq or anything else, is difficult. It's hard. It's tough. Particularly compared to the kind of military operations we saw in Afghanistan which in retrospect, and even before that, is relatively simple compared to overthrowing Saddam.
Q: My name is Mary Mullen and I work with the Bosnia/Kosovo Support Committee.
I was wanting to ask Mr. Daalder to expand a bit on what he was saying about the criminal court. You mentioned that we would be losing our European friends. Is this Administration really fighting against that criminal court? The international criminal court.
MR. DAALDER: The Administration has declared from even before it became an Administration that President Clinton's decision to sign the treaty that established the international criminal court was fatally flawed, that the court is a fatally flawed court, that it shouldn't be established, and it has now supported efforts on the Hill, going under the nomenclature of the American Servicemembers' Protection Act, to expend whatever resources are necessary to make sure that American servicemen and American citizens would not ever fall under the jurisdiction of the court if that were to happen, and if in fact they were to fall under the jurisdiction of the court to take military action to make sure that the American citizens would no longer be held in custody. This is also known in European circles as The Hague Invasion Act because it implies that the United States would invade The Hague, which is where the international criminal court is supposed to be based, in order, should it happen, American citizens were taken down, were arrested and put on trial by the court.
I don't think this is highly likely to occur any time in the future, but it does suggest a view on the utility of international courts and international justice that is rather different than is shared in other parts of the world.
MR. COHEN: I have a question for Ivo. What do you think the Administration's response would be if the Indians asked for the return of John Walker on the grounds that he was fighting against them in Kashmir?
MR. DAALDER: Actually John Walker is an interesting case because you could argue, if you could make the argument that he engaged in activities that fall under the jurisdiction of the international criminal court, and if the United States then were not to pursue him in his own court, he becomes a fugitive for international justice, he might be tried by the ICC. Are we then going to demand him, who in fact is alleged to have engaged in military activity against the United States, are we going to then take him out? This is the kind of issue that is being raised by the international criminal court which is a difficult and complicated issue. I don't want to minimize the difficulties that are involved here.
But the attitude of the Administration towards this one issue is let's figure out the best way to undermine this international agreement rather than to figure out what's the best way to make this thing work. It is a striking attitude coming together with a number of other examples that I mentioned earlier including, most obviously, the ABM Treaty which we saw last week.
Q: I am Pascal Riche with the French daily newspaper Liberation.
I have a question about Somalia. I don't know who can answer to this question. The first one, do you think that bin Laden and the leadership of al Qaeda can hide in this country? Secondly, do you think that U.S. forces can intervene efficiently in this country to do something and to find something? And the third one is, do you think the U.S. public opinion would be ready for a new military operation in Somalia?
MR. STEINBERG: I'll say a word on this and then I'll ask others to.
There's no doubt that there are groups in Somalia who are at least loosely affiliated with the al Qaeda organization. Al Ittihad has associations there and it's certainly the case, although there I think is some uncertainty about the full extent of it, but it was certainly the case made by the U.S. prosecutor in New York that there was some involvement with bin Laden, even at the time of the U.S. operations in Somalia in '92, '93.
So there is a predicate at least in principle for seeing this as a potential target. There are clearly links between bin Laden's organization and some of the organizations operating in Somalia.
I think that the difficulty for bin Laden were he to go to Somalia, is that the internal fighting itself among the different Somali parties creates a pretty volatile environment in which it's not clear to me that he would have the kind of security that he certainly had in Sudan in the first instance, that he's had in the past in Afghanistan, where you have at least a quasi state or a state with some control that could guarantee him protection. The fractionization within Somalia is so great that I think it's a pretty, it would be a pretty difficult environment for him to operate out of. I don't think it's impossible, but I think it would not be a real sanctuary in the sense that he's had in the past.
I think the Administration is clearly looking seriously at operations there. The kind of operations that are most likely are attacks on camps or headquarters or places where individuals and leadership of al Itihad and associated groups might be located. I certainly don't see this as kind of a sustained military operation of the sort that we've engaged in in Afghanistan, in part because the objective would be less clear. We certainly I think have had enough involvement in Somalia to know that the potential for us to go in and sort of create a stable functioning government and civil society in Somalia is perilous and that the kind of fractionization that we've seen over the last almost a decade is not something that we're going to be able to cure very easily. So I think it would be much more like an in-and-out attack either by air alone or perhaps with special forces on camps.
I have to guess at this point, given all the discussion about this, that the leadership of al Itihad has probably figured out that they're a likely target and I would think they would be somewhat anticipating this, but I think it would be a way of the Administration signaling that the efforts are not limited to Afghanistan and that there is, since there's no government there to retaliate against us, or to sort of somehow claim their sovereignty has been invaded, it potentially would be an attractive option. But I think the challenge will be to show there is a target that is worth the effort, because there will inevitably be some reaction to any military action by the United States to say well you're just looking for an excuse to use force again.
So I think the key for the Administration will be to lay the predicate to show why al Ittihad in particular and others there do have the links to al Qaeda and do present a terrorist threat that would justify the use of military force.
Q: Michael Petrou, Ottawa citizen.
Saddam Hussein has certainly brutalized his own citizens in the past ten years which doesn't make him unique, not even among America's allies, and there hasn't been any hard evidence linking him to September 11th. I'm wondering if there's enough evidence that Saddam Hussein is a direct threat to United States security to justify military intervention. In other words, it's a very broad question, but from a policy standpoint, from the protection of the United States, why bother to invade, or why bother to intervene?
MR. INDYK: Well, it is the crux of the matter because, as I've said, if we really judge that we want to get rid of Saddam Hussein then it's going to require the President and the nation to get behind what would be needed and it's not cost free. Therefore there has to be a vital interest involved to take the nation to war against Iraq. I think that is being expressed both in the Administration and in the letter from Senator Lieberman and Senator Lott in the context of the danger that Saddam Hussein can present as a result of his determination to acquire weapons of mass destruction which he has been told by the international community that he cannot have, according to a whole range of UN Security Council resolutions. So that's where the danger, the threat to American interests exists now, in former presumed chemical and biological weapons, and will present a threat to us in the future should he manage to acquire nuclear weapons. He has the know-how to make nuclear weapons, it's a question of getting the material and the technology to do it.
So there are other countries in the world that are acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The problem with Saddam for the United States is that he's used them before and presumably would use them again.
So the President can in fact make the case, at least to the nation, that if there's not a clear and present danger there's a danger that would be good to take care of now while we can do it.
I don't think, as I said before, that there will be many nations in the world, including our staunchest allies in Europe, that are going to agree with that proposition at least at the moment. It would be an act of unilateralism. But if we show a real determination to go and do it, if we determined that it really was a danger to our interests so as to justify that, then as I say, I think we could shape the views of our allies both in the Arab world, in Turkey and in Europe.
But absent a clear determination to do that, and it would come back to the other question about domestic priorities, there's no question that it would shape the agenda for the immediate future. There's no way in which we can go to war against Saddam and do the other things that may be necessary. But if there's a determination to do it, then it can be done.
MR. PETROU: Do I understand correctly that you think that Saddam Hussein would use weapons of mass destruction against the United States were he able to?
MR. INDYK: Against our interests were he able to. Yes. Sooner or later he would represent a danger to our interests. He wouldn't necessarily come against the United States, but more likely our friends in the region whether it be Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or Israel.
MR. DAALDER: To add on that point, I have some sympathy for the argument that over time, and given what we know of the risks post-September 11th, the likelihood that WMD, biological or chemical, I'm not so sure on the nuclear, but there is a risk also on the nuclear side, will be used by Saddam, will increase as time goes by.
On the other hand there is the other part of the argument which says that if you look at Iraq's behavior, Saddam's behavior, this is a man who is eminently deterrable. He uses chemical weapons against people who cannot retaliate. He uses them against his own people which makes him a heinous figure. It doesn't mean he is irrational because these people, by definition, are not able to retaliate. He used them against Iran before Iran had chemical weapons and the retaliation that Iran when it did acquire chemical weapons was against his troops not against cities or certainly not against him. And he did not use them when he had the opportunity, and in fact one would argue the need to against Israel and against us in 1991. And that suggests that there may be something that is influencing his behavior and his calculation with regard to the use of WMD.
Now the one thing that is certain to undermine our ability to deter him is to go for his neck. That is if what is deterring him is the knowledge that we will go after him if he uses chemical and biological weapons, which is what President Bush (41) said in 1990-91 that he would do, making explicit the goal of overthrowing Saddam is, as Martin said earlier on, the most likely scenario in which he will in fact use WMD against us.
So you have to weigh into consideration of whether you want to go against Saddam not only the cost in terms of the ground forces that will be needed for the reasons that Martin I think rightly pointed out, but also whether you're willing to run the risk that those forces and perhaps even the United States itself here at home, will become subject to chemical or biological weapons attack. That is also part of the calculation. It may still lead you to say we should do it because the risk that he will in any case use WMD is so great. But it ought to be part of any calculation before you decide on overthrowing Saddam because "it's so easy".
MR. STEINBERG: Let me just add another wrinkle on this which is I think the other great fear in terms of our national interest, and certainly I think the main point that's being made by the advocates of going against Saddam now, is that he will give the WMD to terrorist groups. And though there's a huge debate about whether there is or isn't a link, whether there was or wasn't a meeting in Prague, what that was about, the argument goes that if he has them and he's prepared to give them either to al Qaeda or others that one, we might not know or may not be able to prove the connection, and that we would therefore face a direct threat by virtue of their being facilitated in getting it. And then taking it the next step, that were he to do it in an environment where he had actually gone further and developed nuclear weapons that he has for himself a great insurance policy, that he could give other WMD, maybe not including or including nukes, to terrorist groups and then be able to shield himself behind the threat of a nuclear explosion as a way of ensuring against people going after him. So that argument pushes you towards the view that sooner rather than later something needs to happen.
The question is then, therefore, not only can we deter him from using WMD directly, but can we also deter him from sharing WMD with terrorists. I think that, to my mind, is a somewhat more difficult challenge, but I think for the same reason, because his primary reason is in his own survival, that to the that we can make clear that not only would we respond with the ultimate forces necessary if he were to use WMD, but also if he were to transfer WMD, that it too ought to be a predicate for being willing to say that that crosses a threshold that would justify the full use of force to overthrow him.
Q: Mario Gazzeri, I am for the Italian News Agency ANSA.
I came here just ten days ago and I'm going to stay only one month here in Washington, but my impression is this. I was rather surprised looking at the CNN, at the television, and reading all the main newspapers here in Washington, how Europe is really completely ignored and as you know, all European countries have offered help to the United States and many of our countries have given soldiers and other units and airplanes, but there is not a single line in the newspapers and not a single word in the television. That is what I want to ask is this.
Ivo Daalder was stressing the danger of isolationism in the long, unilateralism in the long period. I would stress the same danger. This is, in my opinion, could turn into a kind of isolationist which could endanger, I wouldn't say the relations between you and the Europeans, European I would say faithful allies, but the mutual understanding. This is quite a danger.
I was in Italy and I traveled around Europe after September 11th, and I felt how deep were the feelings toward the United States, and I am rather surprised the way you look at the whole thing as only an American thing. I think you were the first victims, but I think it's a global affair. And really this isolationism could endanger this understanding. Mutual understanding. Thank you.
MR. DAALDER: I agree with the sentiment. I think the Administration made a big mistake to not try to build a coalition militarily that was larger than the one it in fact built in Afghanistan. And it actually realized, in part because Tony Blair told the President, that there was a major problem brewing in Europe. But you had the Italian government, you had the French government, you had the German government, a variety of other governments offering forces to participate in Afghanistan in the same military operation with the same goals as the United States was engaged in, and the answer from the United States was this is not the most efficient way to fight a war, which is true. To do it with allies who are not equipped in the same manner or are as good, as well trained and as well disposed to fighting along these tactics is hard. And therefore, for military efficiency reasons the United States basically unilaterally went to war with some exception, because the Brits did have some troops on the ground, so did the Australians in minor instances.
But the cost that that decision had, which was an historic one, meant that you were more likely to succeed militarily, the cost I think is if you go to Europe now the degree of sympathy and the degree of support for the larger anti-terrorist mission has gone down. September 11th is still something that resonates throughout European societies, throughout societies among other friends, but it's becoming less and less a mainstream issue that leads the Europeans to support us, and there are areas in which we will need the Europeans to help us, most importantly in law enforcement. It is not just enough to start arresting people, which has started to happen, but sharing the information that comes from those arrests, working that process cooperatively, is one that is extraordinarily important, but made more difficult by the fact that the United States has insisted on certain rules, for example with regard to military tribunals, that are not acceptable in any level by European governments, thus undermining the kind of law enforcement cooperation we have had. You can continue down the path of other areas including the possibility of military action elsewhere.
The likelihood of Europe offering forces to an American military operation even if the case for doing so is more convincing than now appears to be the case, is less because the last time the United States said no.
So I think there is a short-sightedness to that approach which says the military efficiency of the moment is more important than the longer term creation of an international coalition and managing that coalition. In the short term you may well be better off. In the long run, you're likely to suffer.
Q: I'm Steve Koff, Cleveland Plain Dealer.
You've spoken of military action involving possibly Somalia, obviously involving Iraq. What other nations could be possibly subjected to U.S. military action after Afghanistan and why?
MR. STEINBERG: I think certainly, and maybe Martin would like to say a word, there's been a lot of talk about the potential of terrorist groups, terrorist training camps in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley would be a potential. We've already seen a discussion about at least joint efforts with American training in the Philippines, is another area where there is I think a potential for action. I think those would be the leading ones. I think there are other places that are harborers of terrorists and on the terrorist list which would I think be much less likely, particularly Iran, although there are facilities that are identifiably terrorist training camps in Iran itself. It would certainly lead to a very substantial escalation even if we tried to characterize the attacks as limited to those camps. I think Syria might be another potential area again with somewhat larger consequences where there are certainly known facilities associated with terrorists, both headquarters in Damascus and other facilities in the country.
Depending on how broad you characterize this, I mean we certainly know that the FARC and ELN in Colombia are terrorist organizations. We've identified them as terrorist organizations. Would that mean that the United States would be prepared to go beyond the current limitations of our training role in Colombia to do something more extensive militarily there? There are known Hezbollah organizations in Paraguay in the tri-border area.
So there are at least potentially a large number, but I would think that Somalia and Lebanon would be the leading possibilities.
It's interesting that one other place where there had been speculation, Indonesia, was left off the list of the Administration's latest discussion about places where there were known groups associated with al Qaeda.
MR. INDYK: Let's first of all identify the problem. The Iranians are the preeminent state sponsor of terrorism so certified by the State Department in its last terrorism report. It's very interesting that in all of the discussion about phase two there is practically zero discussion of what to do about Iran, and I think it's partly because, as Jim said, it's a hard one, but then there are a lot of hard ones out there.
The particular problem of Iranian sponsorship of terrorism is manifested in its support, funding and direction of the Palestine Islamic Jihad which is a very active and aggressive Palestinian terrorist organization which has been working very deliberately to undermine the half steps that Arafat has in fact been taking.
So if you look at the period after September 11th, Arafat in fact succeeded in getting Hamas to stop its terrorist activities for some six weeks. During that time there were at least seven terrorist attacks against Arafat's borders by Palestine Islamic Jihad. That is sourced directly back to Iran.
We play the issue of good guys and bad buys in Iran, but this is the Iranian intelligence service that has an agenda here to undermine Arafat and to build the influence of terrorist operations in the West Bank.
So to come back to your question what do you do about it, I think in the first instance while we're putting immense pressure on Arafat to act against the terrorists, we sure as hell should be taking a message to the Iranians that is very clear that it's time for them to call off their dogs and it's not at all clear to me that we're doing that.
There are some ways in which we are now talking to Iran, at least that's what the Secretary of State says. That should be a high agenda item. That points to a different way of dealing with these problems of state-sponsored terror.
We do have a considerable amount of influence coming off our successes in Afghanistan. We do have a considerable amount of leverage with Iran at the moment because of their interest in a post-Taliban Afghanistan. And we should be using that influence to get them to cut off their support for terrorism.
In the case of the Syrians, here there's a salutary tale. The Turks were fed up with the Syrians after 20 years in which the Syrians had hosted Ocalan, the head of the PKK terrorist group, a Kurdish/Turkish terrorist group. They mobilized on the border with Syria and said that they were going to use force unless the Syrians shut down the PKK offices in Damascus, and within 48 hours Ocalan was out of Syria and being picked up by the Turks with a little help from us. He's now in jail in Turkey.
So I think that in the case of the Syrians we could get a lot of mileage from making a very clear ultimatum to them that they need to shut down the terrorist offices in Damascus. The Palestine Islamic Jihad, for instance, has its headquarters in Damascus. And that they need to shut down those terrorist training camps that are under their control in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.
And here, were we to act in Somalia with force, our message to the Syrians that they were next on the list I think would have quite a dramatic impact on their actions. It's really a marginal benefit to them these days to be hosting these groups. So far they've stayed off our radar screen. If we were to go to them with a very clear focus that they were next, I think we would be able to score another victory in the war on terrorism.
MR. COHEN: There's one other country that was almost put on this terrorist list and that was Pakistan. That Pakistan had been the home to or allowed to transit through a number of groups which by any definition were terrorists and were operating primarily in Kashmir but perhaps now in India itself.
Pakistan was not put on the terrorist list because of the [tina] argument. There is no alternative. That is if we were to put the military government of Pakistan on a terrorist list, then presumably the Islamic extremists would rise up and the next government would be much worse.
Well, one thing we've learned not only in the Middle East, as Marty has pointed out, but also in Pakistan, the so-called Islamic extremists are not as powerful on the street as had been feared. Some of them in fact in Pakistan with the creation of the government, the government was able to contain them and control them.
So I think Musharraf, once the war in Afghanistan is over, may come under fresh American pressure not only to stop supporting or allowing these groups to use Pakistan for terrorist operations in India, but also to have a more positive policy on Kashmir. I can see American pressure mounting in this direction on Musharraf.
On the other hand, the Kashmir problem does have an Indian aspect to it and the Pakistanis themselves will be reluctant to back off unless there's visible, tangible evidence of an Indian accommodation of their own Kashmiris. The Indian attempts to have a dialogue with Indian Kashmiris has been a complete failure. The Indian Kashmiri community is completely alienated, and I think the Indian government itself is deeply divided as to whether to hit them over the head or to begin a dialogue with them. They seem to be oscillating between these two policies with regard to the Kashmiri, let along Pakistan.
So I think if we get through the next month or two without a serious crisis, I think there will be a significant American diplomatic agenda to get the Pakistanis to stop their support for what any normal person would call terrorism, but also to get the Indians to begin a process which would allow the Pakistanis in a sense to come to a slightly different policy on Kashmir, to modify their policy on Kashmir. It's going to be a very difficult task. But since there's a nuclear war at the end of the road, it's clearly a task that has to be undertaken.
MR. STEINBERG: On that charming note let me thank you all and wish you a happy holiday.