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Obama Addresses UN General Assembly; Reactions to Obama's UN Speech

Aired September 24, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE SITUATION ROOM": And Jake Tapper, it sounded like the President had a very long-term agenda he was laying out today. This is not a short-term strategy, if you will. This is going to take a generation at least if he's going to achieve -- if the U.S. is going to take the leadership now in achieving what he has laid out as far as the Middle East, the Muslim and Arab world is concerned.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": Absolutely, Wolf. And one of the things that I found so striking that others have commented on, of course, is the call by President Obama for Muslim communities, especially, he said -- especially to combat the hateful ideology of extremist Islam.

This of course is not going to go away, this ideology after this campaign against ISIS or ISIL, whether it lasts two months or two years. This is something that's spreading throughout the Muslim world.

It's one of the reasons that President Obama specifically talked in his speech to Muslim youth, talking about how they were -- too many of them -- being led astray by those preached this violent extremism.

But you're right, this agenda is not a modest one. It's not one that President Obama believes can be accomplished any time soon. It's one that's going to last decades, if not generations, Wolf.

BLITZER: And, Fareed Zakaria, how is it going to be received in the Muslim and Arab world? It almost seems like the president was lecturing Muslims, lecturing Arabs, telling them what they need to do.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Wolf, I picked up on that as well.

I think that the most different part of this speech from any speech, any speech any American president has given to the United Nations is not the call for American leadership or the assertion of American leadership. Frankly, every president does that every year.

Yes, this is accompanied with a bombing campaign, but by the way, President Obama has bombed before.

What is different here has been this extraordinarily tough love, tough language to the Muslim world, which was done in a very unvarnished way. I don't think President Bush, frankly, would have done it because he would have been accused of being anti-Muslim. This is Obama's "Sistah Souljah" moment. You remember Bill Clinton taking on a difficult issue that only a Democrat could take on. Obama feels he has cover and is willing to talk very tough.

He did it not just -- you're talking about extremism and talking about the need for Muslims at every level, culture, political leaders, to denounce it. He also took a veiled swipe at Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states saying you cannot profit from the global economy on the one hand -- meaning sell your oil to us -- and at the same time use the money to fund extremism in various forms.

Of course, that's been one of the root causes of the rise of this kind of Islamic fundamentalism. So this -- to me, you know, the idea that the American president would step up and name and shame was the most extraordinary part of the speech, very tough, eloquent and I think effective. It might start an interesting debate in the Arab world.

BLITZER: I suspect it will. And the president opened up by reminding everyone that he was speaking as someone whose grandmother's village, he said, was more 200 miles from Nairobi, so he has a personal stake in what's going on as well.

The president doesn't often speak about that, but he did today.

Gloria Borger, what do you think about the speech that the president just delivered?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I agree with Fareed. I think the president was blunt, he was tough, he was strong, not only in addressing what Fareed was talking about, the Muslim world, but I also think in terms of Russia.

I mean, this is a president who essentially called Russia a bully and said their vision of the world is a vision in which might makes right. And he spoke for quite some time about Russia, Crimea, Ukraine, and about international norms and how international norms need to be respected.

Also, one other thing that impressed me about this speech is that the president really made a generational point here. He indicated clearly that this is a generational task and that it's going to take time.

And he made the point, and this struck me, we cannot rely on a rule book written for a different century. So what he was saying was, youth all over the world, take advantage of what is before you, of things we did not have, but don't use it to the end that the terrorists are using it, but take advantage of it in different ways.

And he indicated that this is a fight that will go on for generations.

BLITZER: I'm sure it will. Jim Sciutto is with me, our chief national security correspondent.

One line also struck me when he said Iraq has come perilously close to plunging back into the abyss, this after ten years of an enormous U.S. involvement in Iraq, a trillion dollars, whatever the U.S. spent training 200,000, 300,000 Iraqi troops and very close to an abyss, plunging into an abyss.

That's the first time I heard it outlined what clearly could have been a disaster in Iraq and is still pretty much a disaster with ISIS controlling huge amounts of Iraq. It's really the second largest city there, Mosul.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: And from the president who withdrew troops in Iraq in 2011 as a central victory, at the time, of his foreign policy.

I think what was striking here was that this message was about a return to American leadership, in effect. And it was also striking that the message was much broader than about Islamic extremism or ISIS.

It was an ambitious call to arms internationally, call to arms and call to action, the president connecting the dots on a number of crises beyond ISIS, Ukraine, even a reference to China. and the conflict that he's setting up here is a conflict between what he said -- defending a system of international norms against what he described as an undertow of instability.

And under that umbrella, he mentions ISIS and al Qaeda, certainly, but also Russia's actions in Ukraine. He had a veiled reference to China, which I thought was very interesting, talking about the U.S. being a Pacific power and saying that there countries too need to follow international norms.

This is the force that he's fighting here, and he's saying that the world has to join together to fight, and really saying that that is a crisis that goes beyond what we're seeing with ISIS now in Syria and Iraq.

It's a very ambitious call. It's a global call. And it's not just a call to arms. It's a call to action on a number of levels. And the president is saying here that this country, this nation, under this presidency, is ready to lead in this conflict.

That's a very definitive statement from him.

BLITZER: Let's go to the region now. Becky Anderson is joining us from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Becky, UAE, one of the countries that militarily got involved in with the United States in striking ISIS targets there, so how is the speech likely to be received in the part of the world you are right now, Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was absolutely fascinated to be listening some -- what -- thousands of miles away. I can tell you I think this will resonate very well here in the Middle East, particularly in this region, despite what he said about sort of the idea that there are huge economies here that are feasting off their own sort of, you know, economic success as it were.

I think this call to reject extremist violence is one that will go down very well here. Consider just recently ahead of this fight against ISIS, you've had this enormous risk between Saudi, the UAE here, and Bahrain, plus Kuwait and Qatar, for example, who've been hosting to -- (INAUDIBLE) and this is something that really angered the UAE and the Saudis, for example.

They see that as the hosting and the fostering of political Islam here. And when you listen to the UAE's ambassador to Washington, ahead of this speech and ahead of this coalition effort against ISIS, he said very specifically that the UAE was behind an international coalition to fight, to degrade, and to destroy ISIS.

He went on to say that ISIS isn't the only problem in this region. It is bigger than that. The problem of extremist violence is huge, and I'm alluding here to the Libyas of this world on the brink of absolute disaster. That feeds into Egypt, for example, what's going on in Algeria.

I think this speech, rather than it being seen as a lecture, I think that the fact that the U.S. has led this sort of Arab-allied coalition against ISIS may actually legitimize what otherwise may have been seen as a bit of a lecture. I think this will go down quite well in this region.

BLITZER: I'm sure it will go down well in the United Arab Emirates. I'm sure it will go down well Jordan and the other countries that were involved militarily with the United States. Let's see how it goes down elsewhere in the region.

Becky, standby. We're going to get back to everyone. We have a lot more analysis coming up, new information coming in.

The president now wrapped up his speech before the General Assembly. In a few hours, he'll be convening a special session of the United Nations Security Council. He preside and he will try to get a resolution through to stop the funding and the training of ISIS terrorists.

Much more of our special coverage right after this.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This speaks to a central question of our global age, whether we will solve our problems together in a spirit of mutual interest and mutual respect or whether we descend into the destructive rivalries of the past.

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OBAMA: America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might. That bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones and that people should be able to choose their own future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The president of the United States telling Russia don't interfere, don't get yourself involved in the sovereignty of a neighboring country, specifically Ukraine, strong words from the president.

He's going to be convening a special session with the U.N. Security Council in the next few hours. He's going to need Russia's support for a resolution to go forward. Russia, as you know, has veto power if they want to go ahead and use it.

Jake Tapper is listening very carefully to what the president has to say. Jake, the president was really forceful in making the case that there's a lot of problems in the world right now, and the United States is going to spend the time to try to deal with them, but this is going to go on and on and on.

TAPPER: That's right, Wolf, and in fact, he framed the entire speech within the context of the need for integration, the need for all countries to work together, and the alternative, he said, was disorder or chaos. And that's how he framed everything.

I have to say it was something of a risk not in terms of principle, but in terms of realpolitik for President Obama to speak as aggressively as he did about Russia because he's going to need Russia's participation, Russia's cooperation and help with several other items on the agenda, including the fight against ISIL or ISIS.

So the idea that he would be so aggressive speaking up against what Russia has done with its invasion of Ukraine, its seizure of Crimea, really was something -- and I'm sure they had to discuss it and debate it, because obviously right now the American people are far more concerned and focused on issues of terrorism relating to not only ISIS but other terrorism organizations, whether Boko Haram, Khorasan or others spreading throughout the world. Al Qaeda setting up a new center of operations in India.

So while I don't think that in any way u is contradictory in terms of the principles he was outlining, I'm sure there was some discussion about whether or not that was the right tack given the need to have cooperation and integration. But that was the decision he made and I think it, in terms of policy, it's coherent. It just is a risk in terms of what kind of cooperation is he going to get on the U.N. Security Council where, as you pointed out, you noted, Russia has a veto.

BLITZER: Yes, and he said specifically we will impose a cost on Russia for aggression and counter falsehoods with the truth. Strong words coming on this, on the eve -- only hours before he's going to seek Russia's help in getting this resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council.

David Gergen, we heard the president once again, in referring to ISIS, say that the terrorist group known as ISIL -- he calls it ISIL -- must be degraded and ultimately destroyed. Jumped out at me, he also pointed out that al Qaeda has been degraded. The U.S. has been at war with al Qaeda now since 9/11, 13 years. That hasn't been destroyed. If the U.S. goal is to destroy ISIS, which now may have a billion dollars and thousands and thousands of not only terrorists but soldiers part of this ISIS military, this is going to be a long, drawn out process. Not going to last only a few months or a few years. DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's absolutely right,

Wolf. And I think to point out that we have been after al Qaeda now for 13 years and they're still around, they haven't been destroyed, I think that most experts will tell you that's likely to be the outcome with ISIS. We can degrade them, we can diminish them, we can make them much less of a force, but it's like crime. You're never going to get rid of all of the criminals. You get to a place where you essentially have them under control and you move on. I think that's his goal here.

But this is going to be -- there are big, big questions that we're all going to be wrestling with here. He really didn't take on, for example, what really is going to happen in Syria now. Now that we've started to whack them, which I think has been excellent, it was a good setup for his speech to go ahead and have the attacks on the eve of his speech; gave much more credibility to what he was saying, especially to have those Sunni nations as partners with him. It gave him a lot more credibility today.

But then really what's going to happen in Syria? We don't have -- it's going to take -- some time next year to get the opposition forces trained up to do the fighting on the ground, even if we hit people from the air. So what does that leave? Doesn't that leave Assad an opening to expand his own power? And is that really what we want to get out of this, at the end of day? We don't want to fight against ISIS only to have Assad the winner.

So it's complicated. We're going to be at this for a long time, and there are going to be a lot of twists and turns.

BLITZER: Gloria, the president has been receiving a lot of support since going to -- expanding the war on ISIS not only from Iraq but into Syria. A lot of bipartisan support. A whole bunch of Republicans, conservative Republicans, are saying the president is doing the right thing. Some are saying they would like him to do more against the Syrian regime of Bashar al Assad, but they're basically praising the president.

It's the Democrats, many of the liberal Democrats on the left, who are feeling a bit queasy, shall we say, about this new war the United States is involved in.

BORGER: Right, and, at some point, Wolf, maybe it's during the lame duck session because they've already gone home, they may actually come back to Washington and vote after the fact.

But what really struck me here, Wolf, and particularly in terms of domestic consumption, is that what you saw at the United Nations was a president who seemed to have a coherent policy, strategy, and was not ambivalent about anything. You know, one of the criticisms always of this president has been that he's ambivalent. Look back to a year ago when he was on the verge of striking in Syria over chemical weapons and then decided not to do that because he didn't have congressional support. And you remember that, Wolf, He took the walk around the Rose Garden with his chief of staff and decided to do something else. You heard none of that ambivalence today from President Obama when describing his policy, whether it was this very tough statement about Russia as a bully or -- and he laid it out very succinctly. He said, this is what America is prepared to do. We will take action against immediate threats facing us while pursuing a world in which the need for such action is diminished. Period. End of paragraph.

And I think for domestic consumption, that was a clarity that you have not heard from this president throughout this entire question over Syria and how you attack ISIS. I mean, as David points out, there's a long way to go here vis-a-vis Syria, but I think that's what he was striving for in this speech was, we are leading, here's what we believe, and here's what you need to do.

BLITZER: Fareed -- Fareed Zakaria, you and I have listened to many American presidents deliver these annual addresses before the U.N. General Assembly. Usually pretty good speeches, well written, there's a whole laundry list of international issues they want to get through, make some points, but then a few days later, certainly a few weeks later, very few people remember what they said. I suspect -- now I could be wrong, but I'm anxious to get your thoughts -- this is a speech that will be remembered down the road.

ZAKARIA: I think it will because of that very distinctive piece of it, the call on the Muslim world to cleanse itself of extremism. Very unusual. Many presidents have thought about talking in those terms, have always been deterred because -- I know this was a conversation that took place within the Bush White House -- always felt it would seem too anti-Muslim.

But I think it's also important to point out that this was a great speech, the kind Obama gives well. It's -- Obama as professor; it's a public education speech. It's coherent. It arches over lots of subjects, talks about world order.

The problem, as David Gergen and Jake Tapper have pointed out, is the policy underneath remains somewhat troubling. We are fighting ISIS, which will have the effect of strengthening the Assad regime, strengthening Iran, strengthening Russia, while we are also saying that we are battling the Assad regime, Russia, and Iran.

That is not simply a problem; that is frankly incoherent. And we haven't figured out how to get around that strategic incoherence at the heart of the policy. That will start unraveling on the ground. The speech was great. President Bush made lots of very strong, determined, fiery speeches. But the problem is the policy on the ground has to keep up.

Take Iraq. He says we have a new government in Iraq. That's not exactly true. We have a new prime minister. The prime minister has not made any major concessions to the Sunnis. The Sunni tribes remain on strike, as it were. And that's one of the reasons that there's an excellent piece in "The New York Times" a couple of days ago that pointed out 198 airstrikes in Iraq have not been very effective because you don't have the ground troops, which would be the Sunni locals whose hearts and minds you have won over. So that's the kind of stuff that will unravel on the ground despite

the eloquence and frankly brilliance of the speech.

BLITZER: And let me bring in our CNN global affairs analyst, Kimberly Dozier. The president once again said no combat troops on the ground. He was very tough in warning ISIS that they will eventually not only be degraded but destroyed. But then he said, "Nor do we intend to send U.S. troops to occupy foreign lands. Instead, we will support Iraqis and Syrians fighting to reclaim their communities."

Here's the question, Kimberly. Can the Iraqis and the Syrians alone on the ground get the job done even if they are backed by significant U.S. and Arab coalition air power?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think what President Obama was trying to outline is that he believes they have (AUDIO GAP) this ultimate victory to stick. That if the fight is fought for by U.S. troops, as it has been done in the past, that those victories will be ephemeral.

It really struck me how he was trying to recruit the Muslim world to this cause, that he talked about this is not a clash of civilizations. And he reminded of the Muslim world of the millions of Muslim Americans who are here.

He also gave us a preview of the U.N. Resolution he's going to be introducing at the Security Council this afternoon that tries to knit together the world's efforts to counter violent extremism. Now, he highlighted one of the faults in that resolution, that it has a lot of words of encouragement, that it urges countries to try to build a better system to track foreign fighters within their own territories. But there are no punitive measures within the resolution itself. That's why it's pretty easy for countries to sign on to it.

You saw the president reminding them that, a year from now, he'll be asking them, "What did you do in a concrete way to counter violent extremism at home?"

BLITZER: We'll of course have live coverage later today of the president's convening of the special session of the United Nations Security Council, one that will try to get the new resolution passed by the 15 members.

We're going to take a quick break. More of the special coverage from here at the United Nations right after this.

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BLITZER: Let's go back out to the region. Arwa Damon is standing by. She's on the border between Turkey and Syria right now, where literally hundreds of thousands of refugees, Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees, have been pouring into Turkey. They've been pouring into Jordan, I should say, for that matter as well.

Arwa, you're in Turkey right now. The speech that the President of the United States just delivered, how is it likely to be received where you are?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Well, Wolf, here's what's quite important when it comes to discussing President Obama's speech and its call on the Muslim world to cleanse itself. As eloquent as his rhetoric is being described as, this is not necessarily a message that is going to resonate with the types of youths, the individuals that are being lured towards groups like ISIS and that violent radical ideology, when delivered but an American president.

That being said, it is a message that is critical, but it is one that needs to be echoed by the top Sunni clergy, especially those who are from the schools of Wahhabi and Salafi ideology. And this is where U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia can play a vital role in trying to put pressure on the top Wahhabi Salafi scholars and clergy. Because they need to come out. And if not, at least echo his message, that at the very least put out a message rejecting ISIS, to cause those young jihadis, whether they're Arab or Westerners, who are thinking about joining ISIS, to begin to question that decision and begin to really question what it is that that is achieving and whether or not that's truly representative of Islam, Wolf.

BLITZER: We're going to stay in touch with you, Arwa. She's right on the border there between Turkey and Syria right now.

Want to thank all of our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer here at the United Nations. I'll be back in about an hour and a half. Much more coverage coming up. The breaking news we're watching "@THISHOUR" starts right after a quick break.

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