repercussions for u.s./china relations. can the two powers recover from this new low? is this the start of a cold war? i ve got the experts on it all. also justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more. america kills a leader of al qaeda, once again. so just what is the state of terrorism today? how big is the threat to the west? but first, here s my take. the world s two most powerful nations find themselves in a hair-raising crisis that could spill into military conflict. and the strangest aspect of all this is how predictable it was. taiwan s status has long been known as the most sensitive issue for both the united states and china, one that has been carefully managed for five decades, and nancy pelosi had signaled her desire to go to taiwan months ago. but on the american side, a series of errors, many of them tactical and driven by domestic politics, have resulted in a dangerous reality. there is no serious working relationship between the 21st
government in the muslim world. and when you look at the taliban s decision to let zawahiri in, do you think that they were, you know, exceeding to a request from a kind of old confederate or do they they must have realized that this would almost certainly make the united states do something. help us understand that decision. well, it was a bad decision. but, you know, haqqani, the acting minister of the interior, equivalent running the fbi, the department of homeland security, is described by the united nations as a member of the leadership council of al qaeda. the first time that a member of al qaeda has a cabinet position and that s inside the taliban. so the fact that they brought zawahiri in, yes, as you say, an old confederate and these are they have known each other for decades and they re friends and they basically share a world
west since the london bombings of 2005. and but they do have more freedom of movement. the fact that zawahiri was found in kabul, in a safe house, was known to be living there by leaders of the taliban sort of speaks for itself. they have considerable freedom of movement in afghanistan, they can regroup, it may take them years, what it means for the west, you know, that it is still some time off before i think they can carry out a really serious attack outside the region. now, bin laden had been the kind of innovator in saying let s attack the west. a lot of these terrorist groups from the 70s, zawahiri, the one he was involved in, was islamic jihad in egypt had been trying to overturn as they saw as the secular tyrants who were terrible rulers because they were not islamic. bin laden says why don t we go for the head of the snake, the