Transcripts For ALJAZ Robert Malley 20240714

A prophet. Betray one of. The. Forests. 0. I see whats the way to solve the conflicts in the middle east on talk to al jazeera this week a man who tried to figure that out for president obama a Senior Advisor on the region in the last white house Robert Malley now heads one of the worlds leading think tanks the International Crisis group he gives us his view of President Trumps efforts to produce the deal of the century between israelis and palestinians. We talk about the brutal wars in yemen libya and syria and the threat of an even bigger conflict between the u. S. And iran after President Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal of 2015 a deal molly helped to negotiate i. Robert malley president of the International Crisis group thank you for talking to aljazeera let me start for our viewers who dont know the International Crisis Group Tell Us about your organization the one minute version sure and i hope theyre not too many who dont know about the organization but its great to be here and this is an organization that is pretty unique it has it starts with people on the ground people in conflict areas and their goal is to come up with ideas to resolve prevent or mitigate deadly conflict and then come up with practical recommendations that we could then advocate on behalf of the organization to leaders and Civil Society and nonstate actors around the world you wrote earlier this year for an american who had a hand in shaping u. S. Middle east policy during the obama years coming to yemen has the unpleasant feel of visiting the scene of a tragedy one helped to cowrite or explain you know and it was at a time as we write in this piece. Where the United States was in the middle the negotiations on the Iran Nuclear Deal causing huge channels with saudi. And some of some of the other allies in the region and the feeling was saudi arabia came to the us and said to who these have taken over so now theyve taken over yemen they are an iranian proxy if we dont react and if you dont help and we will react anyway and if you dont help us it will be an act of betrayal because we feel like our existence or security is at stake because of the presence of this militia armed by iran on arse on our southern border and i think the decision then that president obama made and the ministration made was even though they were huge reservations about how quickly the war would end about how close the who these at that time were to iran and how much we would make them closer if this intervention took place but the feeling was we cant afford another rupture with saudi arabia which could be a major one after coming in the wake of the of the iran ago sheesh and and so the president busy had this view of we could help saudi arabia defend its security defend its borders defend its territory integrity and were trying not to get too involved in the war against the who these but in a way that was getting half pregnant because once you support saudi arabia once you support the Saudi Led Coalition support its fungible and the u. S. Became complicit in what today the United Nations says is the worst humanitarian crisis we face so this is a case of tragedy in which u. S. Fingerprints are very present i am i welcome the fact that than an organization welcomes the fact that the congress the u. S. Congress is now trying to reassert itself and trying to say wait a minute this is a war and the u. S. The u. S. Congress is the entity that has the right to begin and end wars and therefore this war is being conducted without congressional authorization and theyre trying to take steps to limit the ability of the u. S. To participate in this war they have not succeeded so far because the president still has veto power so the us has rocketed as. As president but its very important i think its a message that i always share with fissures in saudi arabia the u. A. E. Be careful you know this is going to have a long term repercussions for the u. S. You are. With us because there are many in this country democrats for the most up and also republicans who have a visceral dislike distaste for this war because the u. S. Has been so involved and because of the damage its doing and does it go beyond this war because the architect of the war mohamed bin so mom is involved in the blockade of qatar hes involved many people believe in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi i mean does there need to be a reassessment of the whole relationship with saudi arabia well i mean we read in the report and were sitting on our advocating breaking relations with saudi arabia i think on both sides there is reason to be dissatisfied amount of power sitting in riyadh and its looked at u. S. Policy for the last 10 years i more if you go back to the iraq invasion many questions on the saudi side also about the health of this relationship i think both sides need to sit down and figure out what the objectives are where the differences are and their real policy differences theres a difference on yemen theres a difference on iran theres a difference on the whole we spoke about the arab spring about what to do with islam is what to do when theres a Popular Uprising so i think there needs to be a honest conversation between the 2 sides in some readjustments and one of the disagreements you mentioned was in the obama times the iran deal President Trump pulled out a got you one of the team negotiate it he says its defective this is core horrible one sided deal and he talks about the deal sunset provisions about the regime being on the verge of a Nuclear Breakout even when it was in the deal what do you make of his criticism. Again i dont think we should spend much time because his criticisms are either deliberately. Dishonest or he hasnt read the do it doesnt know whats in it because it was as i said i helped negotiate it some bias but i dont think that the criticism that hes leveling against it is is grounded in fact you know every deal by definition is going to be a compromise so they were compromises the us and get everything it wouldve wanted but it was a very solid deal to achieve the objective that president obama had set from the beginning to make sure that iran is not in a position to get a bomb for at least for 10 years and then the breakout time and what we call the breakout time and the time for iran to have the capacity of a bomb would be at least a year for at least 10 years and thats what was achieved and what by by breaking this deal the president said that it was to meet several objectives in the administration said one to get a better deal and 2nd to moderate to curb irans behavior in the region what have we seen a year later iran is now itself moving away from the deal so its Nuclear Activities are worse than they were under the deal so far having a better deal having a worse actual says you really and 2nd just listen to what the Us Administration itself is saying iran is escalating its behavior in there its its antiamerican behavior in the region so its clearly is not meeting its objectives and it is it could well leave to a war which i am profoundly convinced the president doesnt want but i think hes on a collision course with himself because his policies when hes aware of it are not a leading towards the possibility of a military confrontation that his instincts pose when you then compare that situation with north korea you know where President Trump says he has a love affair with kim jong un i mean how do you make sense of this. Oh you know reagan said the President Trump is not something that. I dont think im the only one struggling with where no problem with i have no problem an organization or problem with his outreach to the that was the right thing to do and of course he created the crisis from which he then had to walk back but much better to see them talking much better to see than the go shooting than to see the fire and fury that we were seeing back in 2000 and so theres no process when we when we end up with a far inferior guess see lets see you i think both sides are going to have to moderate their demands is you cant have the maximum is demands that were on display when they met in hanoi where the u. S. Basically is saying denuclearization 1st then will rule move the sanctions and chairman kim is saying 1st to remove the sanctions then we might move towards inquiries ation weve advocated a incremental step by step approach where the u. S. Would gradually relax some of the sanctions and north korea take some steps towards denuclearization thats the only realistic path but if youre sitting in tehran and thats where your question was theres one lesson unfortunate which is why is north korea being treated this way and were not a north korea has a Nuclear Weapon and we dont and i think thats a dangerous lesson which i hope the u. S. Is not continue sending to other parties which is if you have a Nuclear Weapon then were going to treat you with with all of the. Way President Trump is is is true is treating a conjunction lets go back to the Clinton Administration everyone remembers that handshake on the white house lawn in 1993 that many ways was the high watermark of the diplomacy between the israelis and the palestinians you were involved in the last year of president clintons presidency organizing the camp david summit that went badly tell us what went wrong in some ways camp david came but too soon and too late that the parties were not ready for what was about to to occur they were not ready to talk about all the central issues that the core issues the conflict since some ways it was too early was also too late because it took place in july of the last. Of the administration i think what weve still scuppered since then since camp david which i may not have been able to tell you at the time is that the gaps between the parties on the central issues of identity of territory of refugees of security its settlements all those those gaps are very wide and it will take and it didnt we didnt have it then a very strong 3rd party to try to get the parties to where they need to go fast forward almost 20 years and President Trump thinks the u. S. Is now that 3rd party to do what he says is the deal of the century now we dont know all of it yet we only know the economic peace but the president s son in law jerry cush there in effect is doing the job you used to do what do you think of the child and i wouldnt want to take over towards his of his efforts i think in some ways were spending too much time with we not us but just in general the world is spending too much time talking about the state of the century in many ways its being implemented on the ground and were seeing the decisions that the administration has made about drucilla about funding for refugees about recognition while recognition of jerusalem as a couple of israel so theres been a number of steps already that are prefiguring what will be in the deal but 2nd of all we know that when this is put on the table if and when it is put on the table the palestinians will say no because even if its slightly better than people expect its going to be far less than what president clinton proposed to the palestinian in 2000 less than what was on offer during the george w. Bush presidency less than what was on offer for the palace in june we broke Obama Presidency so theres no way theyre going to say yes so were going through the motions theyll put it on the table you know maybe some people be surprised at whats there the palace is will say no the arab countries for the most part wont want to alienate the administration so theyre going to give us kind of lukewarm well interesting but not quite what we want. Promise in it and you know if hes Prime Minister the time will say yes but and then well go on to Something Else so i think in some ways the what really matters right now are developments in in israel which is moving ever more to the right and consolidating its control over the occupied terror to. And whats happening on the palestinian side where sooner or later theres going to have to be some change because its been a sclerotic political system palestinians in the vast majority dont believe anymore in the 2 state solution they dont believe in american diplomacy they dont believe in the palace in authority they dont believe in their leadership so theres going to have to be some change there the real events right now are going to take place in israel and palestine the deal of the century is a sideshow they dont believe in the 2 state solution do you still believe in the 2 state solution liz and when you say do i believe in it i think everyone not everyone but i believe in it as still the best possible outcome do i believe in it as a realistic outcome its becoming harder and harder to say youve got you look at whats happening on the ground its been a systematic effort to make the 2 state solution impossible i mean its pretty easy today to say that the 2 state solution is more and more thing of the past its not very easy to say was a thing of the present or of the future so lets look at the motivation for the 2 sides because one thing that puzzles me if you look at israel right now in the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu what end state does he actually want he pays the surface to a 2 state solution sometimes but he doesnt seem to be doing anything that would support that idea and hes going to end up with a situation where israel still runs everything and yet the palestinian population is growing in eventually getting larger than the israeli population one of one of the tricks or one of the what we try to do a crisis group is put ourselves and everyone choose as objective as possible so i put myself in the shoes of it and is really sort of of the on the right maybe of the center as well and they look at the situation today which in terms of security is probably as good as theyve got in terms of their their imbalance of power with the palestinians the countries in their neighborhood are either absorbed by the internal problems or at peace with israel so israel doesnt really face that kind of threat it is a long term threat perhaps from iran and things if we tomorrow were to make a deal where we turn power more land over a term land over to the palestinians. We will face an internal traumatic decision what we do with the settlements how do we evacuate them we saw what happened in gaza during the year not a withdrawal but we also by definition are going to face a more uncertain time palestinian state what kind of providence will have what kind of security will would provide so from an israeli put perspective the status quo is much preferable to almost anything else that you could put on the table what could happen on the palestinian side because right now you have the ongoing disunity the division between gaza and the west bank and you have an incredibly old leadership in terms of who the International Community but dealing with president abbas 83 years old elucidated for a 4 year term and hes in the 14th year of a 4 year something has to change on the palestinian side as well you know inevitably something will at some point theyll be a transition leadership i think the International Community is going to sorely miss the leadership that theyve had for many years because it was a leadership that was committed to a 2 state solution to a peaceful resolution of the conflict something that will give i dont want to sit here and predict what it will be but there will be a change by definition theyll be a transition and if you look at where the majority of the power palestinians are particularly our young people thats when you get its going to raise questions about the future of the 2 state of their adherence to the 2 state solution of their hearings to the palace in authority which many palestinians today view more as an instrument that israel uses to perpetuate the occupation rather than an instrument of liberation for the Palestinian People why did the u. S. Establish its monopoly its because it had a very strong relationship with israel so israel accepted its mediation and the palestinians wanted to have a better relationship with the u. S. So they also invited the u. S. No longer true on the palestinian side but im not sure that theres any other candidate right now that the israelis would look upon favorably so it may be a case where the most the center of gravity of Decision Making will be among the israeli and Palestinian People the socalled arab spring 8 years ago coincided with. The Obama Administration which you served in looking now with the great benefit of hindsight its a big mess isnt it 3 countries still in a state of war ready egypt bahrain greater repression what do you think looking back the International Community did wrong. Thats thats a difficult question i mean it is assumed that its an International Community that had was a driver i think these are really local events what we see is that the there were always 3 levels of the conflict there was a local conflict between the citizenry that was rising up against its leadership and the fight among the busy citizens themselves between the more islam is the less islam is more secular the others 2nd level was the regional confrontation and that regional confrontation is one that very quickly to a cold conflict between iran on the one hand and saudi arabia as south as on the other but also the intercity arab conflict between the cutter and turkey on the one hand saudi arabia the u. A. E. And others and then theres an International Dimension where the u. S. Intervene the russians intervened and the problem is of course the 1st time and that local dimension which people focused on which was the most inspiring people rising up against autocratic sclerotic regimes corrupt regimes that one get overwhelmed by these other dimensions of Regional Cold war and then hot war and the International Intervention and the local dimension was unable to be preserved because too much else can get into the mix and the middle east as a as i like to say is both the most polarized region in the world meaning you have all these divisions that i spoke about all these axes but also the most integrated which means that what happens in syria matters to saudi arabia mazur iran matters to israel and so you cannot have an uprising that simply lives on and so on lets look at libya because in 2011 thats the only one that the west got directly involved in nato started a bombardment it took a long time but that helped the fall of the khadafi regime was the International Community lacking in what it did off to that should it have done more i mean the answer that question any question youre going to ask me about is probably yes would it really have changed the outcome the trajectory of libya if theyd been morkie economic assist. Once more systems to try to stabilize a country maybe what would it have taken to stop the militias im not trying to say and certainly not everything was done right in libya as you know president obama who i served has said that one of his big regrets was that more was not done after the toppling of more market off the so clearly other things could have been done but you know theres a reason when you look at the history of the region and region writ large afghanistan iraq libya. Yemen outside intervention with put yemen aside but outside intervention western intervention and all those cases syria. Thats failed the outcome is that was that was is one that people look back and say it was wrong and they could always say well maybe had we done Something Else afterwards or maybe if the intervention had been slightly different the outcome would have been widely more positive but at some point you have to ask yourself the question if time after time it goes wrong in iraq and afghanistan and libya and syria maybe maybe theres a limit to how much the west can do even with the best of intentions which are not always there but even with the best of intentions to get these countries right lets look at the situation in libya now there was busy an internationally backed plan and then in april general haftar launched his or dayshift offensive towards tripoli at the moment where the u. N. Secretary general happened to be visiting tripoli what amazes me is even though everyone says they support the u. N. Plan there are some people in the International Community who believe general haftar is a warlord guilty of war crimes and others who think that these the strongman savior and we dont even know whether u. S. Administrations position is doing right well thats not a surprise not knowing with us in this situation is these days is pretty commonplace yes there are those countries that supported general have to but you also have countries in the International Community that have decided that the priority in libya is the fight against terrorist groups that the the what you need is a strongman a military strongman to fight them and have to or was their candidate they should have learned and we again we want about this for a long time but as soon as you have to launch an offensive it is not going to work its not going to work the way the french may think is not going to work the way the egyptians immorality of the saudis or washing President Trump may think because local politics always come back to the local politics lot of people dont militias are not very happy with whats happening in tripoli but if the choice is between tripoli in general have to or they wont hesitate so general offensive triggered this alliance between entities who were not particularly on good terms at the time turning to syria throughout the long and awful war in syria there seems to have been one man. Coming from the International Community you heard it from obama you heard it from David Cameron you heard it from bank even get it from everyone there is no military solution where we stand now was that wrong and was there a military solution and did assad find it yes or no i mean people always ive said theres no military solution in the sense that even if even if president assad were to prevail it would be a pyrrhic victory because the country would be devastated because he wouldnt be able to reassert his authority the way he had before i think this is a case where the Syrian Regime won the war and lost its sovereignty and that means that it has not won it is not won what it tried to do and we now have this very sort of paradoxal its a status quo i think were in a new status quo kind of status quo frozen situation in syria which is what neither side really wanted assad is still there and so that the goals of the opposition and all those who backed the opposition to see him topple thats obviously a thing of the past but they are said regime is not able to reconquer the territory and you have at least 2 areas which amount to a pretty big chunk of the country over 30 percent the north west where you have it live ben and turkish under turkish influence and then you have the northeast where you have the kurds with with the support of the United States and those areas at this point seem out of reach for the regime if the regime has won the war will last sovereignty its because the future of syria the real future is now going to be determined by the United States by turkey by iran by russia by israel those are the actors why has one of those of the actors who are really going to determine whether we the status quo that on this frozen situation remains frozen or whether it opens up id like to examine one moment in that long war that was the red line president obama said if chemical weapons were used he would intervene looking at it now was that a mistake that that in bolton the assad regime did it allow the russians to enter fully militarily into the conflict and did it affect. Other countries views of the u. S. Is result beyond syria so there are many mistakes made in the in the syrian war and i was i joined in 20141 instruction so i was not there during the the red line episode and of course its a story of failure because nobody could look back at what happened in syria and said and say we succeeded i mean from an us point of view so clearly this is not im not defending the outcome im not sure that the red line i mean maybe it was a mistake to have a sort of the red line to begin with but you know we could play out what would have happened if the Obama Administration of president obama had decided to go through with what he said with the strikes it is at least plus conceivable that syria would still have the vast quantity of chemical weapons that it had of the time the 90 plus percent of which was shipped out as a result of the deal that was reached with russia its not at all clear that the regime would be would have been toppled as a result of what by its own admission the Obama Administration said would be pinprick strikes its not clear that russia and iran would not have redoubled their assistance to the regime in the face of u. S. Intervention so i think you know it was not a pretty episode and president obama himself has acknowledged it i do think traveling around the world that has sent a message well maybe the u. S. Is not were not going to take its threats seriously but you know if i dont know that we should judge it by that if it was the right decision not to strike i would live with that decision even if it meant that some countries were questioning us resolve we focused in our interview on the middle east but for my last question you can go anywhere in the world one of the jobs of your Ready Organization the International Crisis group is Early Warning tell me where in the world is the next conflict the next place we should all be worried about. I mean there are so many places where we could worry about i think i could just tell you where we are focused and some of these are conflicts that are ongoing so we could go look around the world we could focus on country after country with it sudan whether its on the horn of africa. Venezuela the somehow i think its a theme that is very important to bear in mind which is that u. S. Policy today seems to follow a pretty conventional or at least not what has become a conventional playbook maximum pressure weve seen that in venezuela we seen that in iran weve seen that on the palestinians were seeing that in north korea coupled with demands denuclearization duros exit iran negotiating the new deal the palestinians agreeing to these new parameters and the promise of a nerve on a like future if those countries are entities agree to those conditions. The problem is thats all the way politics work and we should know better because of that as well and the regime is not going to give in and the Iranian Regime is not going to give in a north korean to the palaces and im going to give in theyll fight for all kinds of reasons rather than simply surrender to the man who they believe go against their core interests and we are with maximum pressure we comes maximum risk and i think what we need now is not some diplomacy rob malley president of the International Crisis group thank you for talking to us thank you but its a. Bigger and potentially more dangerous thats the best way to describe whats happening with the smoking alternative known as vapor i enjoy the taste of it and not get the harmful effects of what smoking does between 20132014 alone we start tripling in use among Us High School students and head to head comparison ysaye versus conventional cigarette which one do you think has helped my opinion i think theyre both dangerous take no one else is in. The discussions he is policing cape town has struggled to regain steadily down by in examining the headlines now under president putin russia is making a push to engage explore an abundance of world class programming designed to inform among todays im done spying but. Its almost 2nd nature and i also know when they see the world from a different perspective on aljazeera. The president s on Donald Trump Jr was promised damaging information about the Hillary Clinton allegation like to see an investigation to the troops did the Trump Campaign committee with russia did you at any time of the urge the former f. B. I. Director james comey in any way shape or form the closer the backing down the investigation into Michael Flynn and. Also as you will know. Next question Michael Field washington on aljazeera. 10 people are killed including a gunman in the u. S. State of ohio just hours after a mass shooting in texas. Thats not cut. And police in texas are investigating whether the shooting that killed 20 people in el paso was a hate crime. Hello im down in jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up a test is out back on the streets in hong kong a day after police fired tear gas to disperse them. Thousands more indian troops are deployed to kashmir as hindu pilgrims and tourist dollars and leave of a security concern