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President Obama Leaves for NATO Summit; ISIS Claims It Killed Second American

Aired September 02, 2014 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MICHAEL WEISS: From Estonia, a very small nation of about a million people, recent NATO ally, very vulnerable to attack from Russia, OK, and Russia has already made noises about trying to stoke up separatist unrest and discontent in Estonia, which has a sizeable Russian minority population. The president needs to emphasize and affirm thus far no further, Russia better not even think about it.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Exactly. As the "Wall Street Journal" put it, don't touch the Baltics. Right? That's the message from the White House.

We will watch for the president from Estonia.

WEISS: Yes.

BALDWIN: The message is quite clear, and the message is quite clear to the Kremlin. As far as how Vladimir Putin responds, we wait and see.

Michael Weiss, thank you so much, for us from Kiev right now.

WEISS: Sure. My pleasure.

BALDWIN: And speaking of the president, let me just show you some live pictures. Here you have Air Force One. As we mentioned, the president is leaving in really mere minutes for that trip overseas. As we mentioned first to Estonia, which is a neighboring nation to Russia and then to that NATO meeting in Wales. This is a meeting that's really being billed as one of the most important since the end of the Cold War.

And on the agenda, certainly we've been talking about not just what's happening with Russia encroaching upon Ukraine, but what's happening now with this latest beheading video of a second American, the threat of ISIS, the Islamic State, as they called themselves.

Much more on that after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just past the bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And once again just showing you these live pictures, Air Force One here on the screen as we're watching and waiting for President Barack Obama to be leaving any minute now for that trip overseas, including a crucial NATO summit, and beginning with a stop in Estonia meant to reassure the Baltic allies in the face of Russian aggression to their east specifically what we've been watching playing out in Ukraine.

In its strongest response to the crisis so far, NATO is expected to approve the creation of a rapid strike force for eastern Europe.

So we have Matthew Chance who's standing by for us from the Estonian capital and from Washington, Gloria Borger, CNN chief political analyst.

So, Matthew, let me just begin with you there in Estonia. Is there real fear, just given everything that the boldness, shall we call it, from the Kremlin with regard to Ukraine is the real fear in Estonia that those military moves could happen where you are?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think, Brooke, there is a very deep sense of concern here in Estonia and across the three Baltic republics that they could be next in line perhaps for any Russian aggression, that the three NATO members, remember, that actually border the Russian federation. I mean, the main military base that is alleged to be sending troops into Ukraine from Russia is just about 50 kilometers, is about 30 miles from where I'm standing right here in the capital of Estonia.

So there is real concern. Not least because Vladimir Putin has said for some time now that he reserves the right to intervene, to protect ethnic Russians, Russian speakers who he feels are under threat in Estonia, that has a sizeable ethnic Russian population numbering about 25 percent of its 1.3 million people. There have been long-standing concerns in Moscow that those, I think, Russians are not treated fairly.

Russia is not an official language in Estonia. Moscow believes they're discriminated against because of their language status. And so it's being seen as a possible motive that Russia may support some kind of unrest here in Estonia. It's one of the reasons, of course, the main reason that President Obama is coming here -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Certainly symbolic before he heads to Wales for this -- for this NATO summit.

And so, Gloria, to you, you know, as the NATO summit happening Thursday, Russia appears to be ramping things up in Ukraine, do you think the president views that as a direct challenge to him from Vladimir Putin?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's -- he would view it not only as a direct challenge to him but as a direct challenge to NATO. And I think, you know, this is a president, don't forget, who pushed the reset button with Putin. That didn't work out so well for him. Tried to establish a relationship with him where their mutual self-interests was involved. That didn't work out so well for him.

So not only does he have this issue, as Matthew was talking about, about Ukraine but now of course the NATO allies, when they meet, are going to be looking to the president for leadership on this question of ISIS.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BORGER: Will the president -- and I think NATO is looking to him not only to lead on Ukraine, he's done that, I would argue, on some economic sanctions. But on the question of ISIS, will the president now come out after the second beheading to say that ISIS is a direct threat to American national security?

We don't know the answer to that yet, Brooke. He's got a divided advisers on what the appropriate course of action is. He's clearly ambivalent about the use of force. So all eyes are going to be on him. It could be an opportunity to lead or it could be something else that would not be --

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: What kind of pressure? What kind of pressure do you think he, the administration, his Cabinets are making these incredibly important decisions? What kind of pressure are they under here to come out of this NATO with something tangible with regard to the ISIS threat?

BORGER: Look, I think they are under a huge amount of pressure whether there were a NATO summit or not.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BORGER: I think the summit puts pressure on them to act in concert with our allies because the president has always said, we are not going to go this alone so I think he will put pressure on them. But in the eyes of the American public, Brooke, you know, 54 percent of the American public says that they don't think President Obama is strong enough, tough enough when it comes to foreign policy.

On the other hand, they also don't want boots on the ground anywhere. So they are a little conflicted themselves. But what they want is a president who is decisive and who leads in a direction and who explains to them what the situation is, and I don't think we've really heard enough yet about that.

BALDWIN: OK. Matthew, let me just pivot back to you, off of ISIS and more germane to where you are. You know, when we talk about this, what, readiness force from NATO, ready to move in and move swiftly if and when needed, when it comes to Russia's movements. What would the trigger be for this readiness force to be used?

CHANCE: Well, it's not clear. Presumably it would be some kind of Russian aggressiveness towards a NATO member in Eastern Europe. So talking about the Baltic states or Poland.

I mean, I think that it's important to point out that none of this talk of a rapid reaction force, that none of this talk of increased, you know, kind of better posturing in terms of the defensiveness of Eastern Europe is going to be much consolation to Ukraine because unlike Estonia and the other Baltic states, Ukraine is not a NATO member and, of course, it does not qualify for that kind of military support from the West.

And so we're talking about military posturing outside of the crisis in Ukraine on the issue of Ukraine. It's still a huge dilemma for the U.S. president. I mean, he doesn't want to be seen to be weak and to not act at all. Certainly he's on a risk of military confrontation with Russia, but the risk is that, you know, that he could be seen as indecisive and the NATO alliance and the European Union and the Western powers could be seen as disunited and that's something that Vladimir Putin will notice very clearly.

BALDWIN: Matthew, thank you. Gloria Borger in Washington, appreciate it very much.

Coming up next, back to our breaking story here. The terrorist in that video, the ISIS terrorist, sent a very specific message to the United States. A former CIA operative reacts to that. His read, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Back to our breaking news here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

As we await the official intelligence community authentication of this ISIS video, this ISIS video shows a second American, Steven Sotloff, another journalist being beheaded here, let me play you a sound bite as we are not watching this video but we do have some audio from a similar, as we saw in the James Foley beheading video, British accented, black masked terrorist, murderer.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of your insistence and continuing your bombings in Amerli and Mosul dam, despite our serious warnings, you, Obama, have yet again for your actions, we take another American citizen. So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Bob Baer, let me bring you in, CNN security analyst, former CIA operative.

I mean, there's a lot to get into when we see and hear this. But just off the top, beyond the brutality, what is your read on this?

ROBERT BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: What ISIS wants to do is portray this as a war of Islam against the West and particularly the United States. ISIS is cutting the heads off of Shia Muslims as well. But it's not putting those atrocities forward because it wants to appear to be an organization for all Muslims and by going to war with the United States, it achieves a major propaganda victory. And you see more and more, even the Taliban in Afghanistan is parts of

it are swearing allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic state. And I think that's the real fear of the administration, is this virus is spreading rather than being contained.

BALDWIN: I mean, you have been part of CIA, covered Middle East for decades. And you know, we have talked ad nauseam, for example, about al Qaeda. And Christiane Amanpour was sitting here with me a little while ago, just sort of comparing ISIS to al Qaeda, saying this is like al Qaeda squared cubed, you know, beyond, right, in terms of these two groups?

BAER: I think you're both right. This is something entirely different. You could almost look at al Qaeda as a cult. A few people, they got lucky on 9/11, a couple more times. But this is much more closer to a Sunni uprising which threatens the whole Islamic world if it really picks up speed and it appears to be picking up speed rather than regressing because I even put at one end the Islamic state, Hamas, which has fought Israel to a standstill.

And it's that kind of thinking that's so dangerous and I compare it to a prairie fire. You just don't know when it's going to die out.

BALDWIN: I mean, just listening, just quickly, to John Kirby, spokesperson at the Pentagon, talking about the airstrikes in Iraq, in Amerli over the weekend and how the Kurds now have the Mosul dam back from ISIS, but you say the Kurds, the Peshmerga, Kurdish military, they're losing?

BAER: I think they are losing. I've seen tons of pictures coming in of Kurdish corpses being carried back and yes, they've been set back at the dam but this is a highly mobile military, well-officered and they will give up positions to strike elsewhere but not until, you know, the Iraqi government takes back Mosul and Fallujah and Ramadi where it will really suffer a setback. And then you still have Syria where they have firm control and the Syrian army is not doing well. They just lost an airbase last week.

BALDWIN: Bob Baer, thank you so much.

We know the president -- let's go to the live pictures at Joint Airbase Andrews. And now the president landing in Marine One and then will head to Air Force One, hop on the plane and head toward Estonia which clearly is symbolic, one of the Baltic states, Estonia neighboring to Russia. Given everything that's happened, the bold moves from Russia in Ukraine. Certainly there is some fear in the Baltic states that what has happened there could happen to them. And then he will head off to that incredibly important NATO summit in Wales on Thursday.

Quick break. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right. Just quickly taking a look at the president at Air Force Base Andrews, as he just got off of Marine One and is about to ascend the stairs to Air Force One heading first to Estonia and then on to Wales for that NATO summit on Thursday.

So a lot going on in the world, and that's to say the least.

Michael Williams, former advisor to the State Department, NATO, Pentagon and a professor at New York University, joining me right now to just sort of walk through everything that we're looking at.

And you know, I think we should just begin with what we've really focused on the last two hours, which is this video of this second American beheaded Steven Sotloff. And to your point, as we watch the president head off to ultimately Wales for this NATO summit, in terms of the ISIS threat and coalition building, how does he get other nations on board to help fight this?

MICHAEL WILLIAMS, FORMER ADVISER TO NATO: That's a great question. I mean, the president is going to be looking to build a coalition in the Wales summit coming up in Europe to deal with the Russia situation and he also needs to look at doing that more widely in the Middle East. He needs to consider his options tactically on the ground on what he can do with U.S. military forces, which are quite limited to a certain extent but also what are the allies doing.

And what we similar, too, in Europe is that lots of people are complaining about the U.S. not doing something but they're not actually moving themselves against the organization. And so the U.S. needs to encourage allies again in Europe at the Wales summit for NATO and the Russia issue, but also then in the Middle East to act against ISIS to try and contain this organization. And because that will be more effective if it comes from an indigenous group, right?

The West going and feeds into this narrative, as Robert Baer said earlier, of ISIS against the United States, of the Muslim world against the United States because the Americans are imposing themselves on the Muslim world. So getting a coalition of American Muslim countries as allies in the region to work against this threat is going to be more effective than the president doing something unilaterally. And that might entail some unpopular relationships such as with Syria and also Iran.

BALDWIN: That's something, who knows? I mean, looking at your face when you say Iran, it's like almost unimaginable. But at the same time they helped with Nouri al-Maliki getting out.

In terms of the brutality of ISIS, hearing Bob Baer saying this basically al Qaeda on steroids in the, you know, 90 seconds I have you, how did they evolve, develop, become as sophisticated as they are, propaganda? Who taught them?

WILLIAMS: In the remaining 45 seconds? It's a lot of things. First of all we have a global community now where this sort of information is shared very easily and allows for recruiting. So you literally can have people who learn through virtual sources and come as we've seen from Europe and the United States to train and fight with these groups. But you also have elements of these fighters who have been fighting in conflicts across Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the Middle East for over a decade and also in the Caucasus and in the Balkans region.

That was again involving Muslims against Christian communities. And there were jihadis who came from the Afghan jihadists against Soviet to Europe and then they've gone back to Afghanistan and now into the Middle East. So there are elements of individuals who then move on and feed into the organization. So you recruit globally. You have actual people who fought in these conflicts. And it's easier than ever to sort of learn about the trade craft of being an insurgent so it comes together in a really deadly mix.

BALDWIN: Michael Williams, thank you.

We're watching for how the president and this coalition handles both the pressing issue with Russia, Ukraine and of course also what's happening here with ISIS. Thank you very much for popping through.

Quick break. We'll be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: And quickly before we go, some news from Home Depot. They're investigating a possible hack. They may have leaked customer payment information. The company said today it is looking into, quote-unquote, "some unusual activity relating to customers." Home Depot is promising to alert its customers as soon as it can determine what happened.

That is it for me. Stay right with CNN. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.