liners in iran. i think any approach to iran should not be placed on the sunni block where the american president goes and sounds like he s an arms merchant. there should be an approach that is political. we are going to stop your that fairious influence and support for hezbollah and radical militias and groups and appeal to the iranian people. there s a future for you, if you open up to us, if you open up to your neighbors and pursue different policies. this harping on the sunni/shiite divide is playing into the hands of the radicals on both sides. this is prescription for more violence in the region. as it is, we have arab societies literally and physically burning in syria and iraq. we are witnessing these civil wars, these divisive issues and we shall see how the president addresses that, coming up two
a tough stance vis-a-vis iran. your previous guest made a great point. the president is walking into huge fault lines, one between extremist and less extreme forces. the other is the sunni/shiite divide. they are trying to draw the president to put his thumb on one side of the scale, the sunni side, it could escalate rather than easing those tensions, which is a better use of the president s time. you opinion on rouhani and being re-elected. he will stay in power. i think, you know, the critics of the iranian government are correct in the sense iran continued to pursue aggressive regional policies in the region. they have pursued an internal agenda. none of that is changed under rouhani. he has been open to engagement with the rest of the world and willing to negotiate with the
the president, has condemned these out of hand, the storming of the saudi embassy in tehran, called it unjustifiable, sent out a whole load of tweets, even accusing the iranians who have attacked the embassy extremists. there have been 40 arrests, according to the iranian authorities. the supreme leader, he s likening saudi arabia to another arm of isis. he s put out a tweet that shows isis and isis. in other words, the two sides of isis, he says, saudi arabia is one of those. on a deeper level, you ve got the whole sunni/shiite divide. what it means about syria and iraq not to mention yemen and the ongoing wars in all of those places. christiane, let s look at that graphic that the ayatollah khomeini put out. what does he mean, white isis versus black isis? there are those who are
from what happened in the last few months, one of them seems to be, inevitably whenever the u.s. leaves something bad is going to happen because instability is the rule given this history and given the nature of the country. and particularly if we had a hand in falsely creating the we could go in and create a brand-new government all over again and step back do you really want to get in the mid of the sunni/shiite divide which has been happening longer than the u.s. has been around. look at the regional powers in play. you don t think iranians are involved? you don t think jordanians and syrians? it is becoming a proxy war of these various nations surrounding it and the united states is tasked with fixing it. that s quite tough. among other reasons why people don t have the appetite for. we ve got to get to a break though. right back after this. okay, listen up! i m re-workin the menu.
into iraq and there s no doubt you re right, that prime minister maliki has basically been becoming a shiite dictator. he has purged sunnis out of the military, purged reasonable sunnis out of the government. he has in effect been a feckless prime minister ever since his re-election, and here, too, the administration did not pressure him when he visited the united states in november, in effect, complimented, gave him a pat on the back when he deserved a kick in the ear rear end for the way he was managing the sunni/shiite divide in iraq. i m curious how washington is responsible for the bad management of iraq when iraq is a sovereign country. but i do want to ask you about some of our other gulf allies, and i ll say allies a lit until scare quotes because we have reported in the daily beast and foreign policy magazine that there is some funding for these sunni extreme ilszs coming from the gulf. the extremist group that is threatening the existence of the iraqi state was built and g