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Obama's U.N. Speech Talks to Youth; Bill Clinton Talks Obama's Strategy on ISIS; Obama Rallies Other Nations to Stop Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS

Aired September 24, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper, live at the United Nations. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and watching around the world on CNN INTERNATIONAL.

Just minutes from now, President Obama will address the Security Council. We'll bring that to you live. And it comes just hours after calling on the world to reject the ideology of al Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups. Soon after, he made a direct appeal to young people across the Muslim world, telling them they come from a great tradition that stands for education and not ignorance, and dignity of life and not murder. The corruption of their minds by violent ideology, President Obama says, must be stopped. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism.

We have reaffirmed again and again that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.

No children are born hating. No children anywhere should be educated to hate other people.

It is time for a new compact among civilized peoples of this world to eradicate war at its most fundamental source, and that's corruption of young minds by violent ideology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining me now from London is Haras Rafiq, an outreach officer with the Quilliam Foundation, which works with challenge extremism.

I appreciate you being with us, Mr. Rafiq.

One of the things that's interesting about what you do is the U.S. talks about a war of ideas as well as a military war, and it seems like it's really fighting a war of ideas, trying to kind of change the narrative and challenge the narrative that we hear from extremist groups around the world. What works in terms of trying to do that?

HARAS RAFIQ, OUTREACH OFFICER, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: I think there are a number of things that work. We have to focus on the intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of dissecting the narrative that drives people to actually hate the other, that even categorize people in a scenario situation. But I think there's more that the government needs to do. I think President Obama needs to do more. He called on Muslims around the world to actually condemn the ideology of ISIS. And I think the majority of Muslims certainly in the West do.

The problem is that there are still a huge number of organizations that still believe in the ideas, believe in the Islamist narrative, the theology that may condemn ISIS but certainly may well be part of the problem, that I think that Obama needs to get to grips with as well, as well as we do in the U.K. and many other places. So certainly, yes, I welcome that he's talking about countering the ideology and the narrative, and that's what we do, but we have to do more in actually taking away the political oxygen that some of these organizations need in order to survive, and in order to give the moderates a real chance of being able to take on this challenge.

COOPER: The irony of this coalition that the United States is now at war alongside Saudi Arabia, some of these other countries, is that while Saudi Arabia may support this attack against ISIS on one hand, but on the other hand, they also support groups across the world which promote this kind of extremist ideology.

RAFIQ: I think one of the main problems is, yes, President Obama has built this broad coalition and there has to be an understanding that our enemy's enemy is not necessarily always our friend. Saudi Arabia has, for a number of years, for decades, funded ideology that drives people to hate the other. But in recent months, they've realized, for their own personal reasons and not because they had some sort of spiritual epiphany, that they need to stop doing this. And they have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, other groups and organizations and cut off their funding supply.

Qatar, on the other hand, is a country that is still doing this, and is a major ally, not of only the United States but of the coalition as well. And even though they may be cutting off funding supply to ISIS, they are funding Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.K., U.S., and around the world. And I think that certainly I would like to see President Obama put more pressure on Qatar to stop doing this. Because if Qatar now was to play ball and stop doing this as well, alongside the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Gulf countries, we'll find a lot of ideas will, over a period of time, naturally die out because of the lack of funding that the institutions have supporting them. COOPER: Haras Rafiq, I appreciate you being on. Thank you very much,

from the Quilliam Foundation.

Up next, brand new sound just in from former President Bill Clinton talking to CNN and weighing in on the threat from ISIS. We'll talk to him and we'll ask if the air strikes in Syria were a bad decision.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Tonight on CNN, a must-see interview with Bill Clinton in a special CNN town hall. Erin Burnett sat down with the former president to talk about the threat from ISIS, U.S. air strikes on ISIS, and a lot more.

Erin Burnett is here with a preview.

So what is the former president's take on President Obama's strategy against ISIS?

ERIN BURNET, CNN HOST, OUTFRONT: What's interesting, Anderson, obviously, the president was just speaking at the U.N. right before I had a chance to speak with President Clinton and he gave an very important speech in terms of his foreign policy. And I asked President Clinton exactly whether he thought the president's air strikes against Syria make sense. Here's how that played.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: "The New York Times" has now said that the strikes in Syria are a, quote, "bad decision." Are they right?

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They say it's a bad decision? No, I don't think so. I don't think they are. I think that success is not guaranteed. I think that what ISIS was trying to do was to sucker us into putting a lot of soldiers on the ground so they could shift the blame from themselves to us for all the violence in the area. And what we learned repeatedly is that when Sunni tribal leaders, who are not militant, not twisting Islam for their political objectives, are willing to fight, they can reclaim their country, and we should help them do it.

But it's not a fight we can win for them. I personally believe the way they thought this through and planned it and limited our involvement, avoids ISIS achieving their goal of getting us, suckering us into their fight and increases the chances that the tribal leaders will prevail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: He talks about the risk of ISIS as quite significant, calling the fight against terror, in his words, "the contest of our time."

I also asked about the Khorasan group and how, as it has been reported, that members of that group were part of the group that planned 9/11 attacks and part of the core al Qaeda that president said has been decimated, and the president's response was, look, we never claimed a 100 percent kill rate.

COOPER: What other topics were you discussing with the president?

BURNETT: We actually talked about Stand your Ground and the Ferguson situation, in light of that. But a surprising moment with the president talking about the Ray Rice scandal and NFL and asked whether he's a football fan. Big smile. Huge. And I asked if his viewing habits of football had changed, and after a long pause, he said no. He became very emotional. He talked about domestic violence in his own home when he was growing up, and it was a very, very interesting conversation on the NFL.

And we'll be talking a little bit more about that tonight. We'll play exactly whether he thinks someone can stop being an abuser once they start abusing, and whether the NFL should have a zero-tolerance policy. It was very personal for him. After the interview, he said to me, I feel very emotional, I didn't expect to feel that way.

COOPER: That's really fascinating. Erin, look forward to that, a special town hall, full interview with former President Bill Clinton. He will be on tonight 9:00 eastern only on CNN.

Erin, thanks very much.

President Obama says he has no intention of sending U.S. troops to occupy foreign lands but can he convince the world and the Arab coalition, perhaps more importantly, to be onboard for the long haul?

Also ahead, stopping foreign fighters from traveling overseas in the fight to join ISIS. We'll have live coverage as President Obama leads a special session of the U.N. Security Council, live, from the U.N.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. We're a few minutes away from live remarks from President Obama before the U.N. -- United Nations Security Council. The president is chairing a debate before world leaders focused on stopping the flow of foreign fighters from joining Islamic militants abroad. It's a rallying cry after the president made a case earlier in the day for force against Islamic State killers.

I want to bring in Mark Wallace, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He just launched the Counter Extremism Project, a not-for-profit group working to expose those funding extremist groups.

Mark, I appreciate your being with us.

The president was elected on his doctrine to end wars, to get out of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan but, this morning, as he stood before the U.N., he's attempting to lead one. Is this, Obama's war, no longer a continuation of the old ones?

MARK WALLACE, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. & CO-FOUNDER, COUNTER EXTREMISM PROJECT: Thank you for having me, Anderson, first of all. I think he owned it with this speech. He made it clear that this was a grave threat to international peace and security and our own national security. I thought the president's speech was very strong and very powerful and very clear in terms of saying that we have to fight ISIS and extremist groups with the military and other tools that we have and there was no doubt that he owned it today.

COOPER: This coalition that the U.S. has built, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others, we were talking about this earlier on the program, on one hand some of these countries are now fighting against ISIS alongside the U.S., but with the other hand, they are also still funding extremist groups, and they are funding jihadist groups in a variety of countries around the world.

WALLACE: It's a good point. Obviously, the Syrian ambassador made comments about that earlier. I spoke with the ambassador earlier. I think that the question here -- that's what you'll see later on today, hopefully, a binding Security Council resolution. That doesn't mean the countries won't dishonor that resolution but a binding security resolution and the coalition of Arab states that are joining in this fight.

We have to reflect on this for a minute. It's still an historic moment when five Arab states join together as part of that coalition. Obviously, a lot of attention is focused on the Qataris who have been engaged in potentially supporting a lot of these groups particularly. But the fact they joined this coalition will adhere to a Security Council resolution adopted later on will be a sign of a renewed focus of not supporting extremism and joining this coalition and realizing the incredible danger and threat this has become. I agree with that. That's a real legitimate area of concern, but hopefully, what you're seeing is a seismic tipping point, whatever analogy you want to use, about this issue and that this coalition is hopefully going to change things.

COOPER: Do you see signs of that tipping point? Do you see signs that some of these governments are now realizing their own security and their own future is at stake?

WALLACE: You know, I spent a lot of time in that region. I have to say, and this is not intended to sound in any way diminish the White House's role, which they did a very good job today with the president's speech, but a lot of countries have been agitating and begging for this coalition for some time. I do think there may be a little bit on its head. Did we lead this coalition or did coalition inspire us to join it. I definitely hear different things out of that region. And you're seeing a totally different change in tone.

Remember, any time over the last two decades, three decades, whatever period of time, the notion that five moderate Arab states would step up and engage in a military action on other Muslim countries is quite remarkable. And it has to be -- we have to hope that it's a sign of better things to come, including importantly on the financial support of some of these extremist groups and ideological support we've seen in the past. And I think the attention will be closely paid to the Qataris. Are they going to fall in line in a much better way, other than flying one plane in support, but not dropping ordnance? I think a lot of the attention will be paid there.

COOPER: A group like ISIS, how independent are they in terms of finances? We have heard so many reports about huge coffers that they have from a variety of means, raiding banks. How much do they depend on big donors, or are they at this point -- do they need donors or are they self-sufficient? WALLACE: Extremism has been around for a long time, Anderson. This

isn't a new thing. But what extremists has done and ISIS has done is build a financial architecture to support their activities, and frankly communications and social media architecture that supported recruitment efforts and extension of ideology. That financial architecture has to be restructured, whether it's oil smuggling, taxing local people or the donor systems that are out there, but ISIS is finding money from wherever they can. There's a lot of talk about smuggling. But even a couple million dollars a day of illicit oil sales to ISIS pays for a lot of recruits and weapons on the black market. So we have to cut them off on every angle.

COOPER: Mark Wallace, I appreciate you being with us. Thanks very much.

Up next, President Obama leading a special session of the United Nations Security Council. We'll bring you his remarks live here on CNN. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Top of the hour. I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks for joining us. I want to welcome viewers here in the United States and watching around the world. This is CNN's special live coverage.

You're looking at the most important meeting room in the world. In just minutes from now, the president will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting. One of the key goals is how to stop foreign fighters from heading to Syria and Iraq to fight under the black flag of ISIS.

Joining me is Mark Wallace, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and president of United against Nuclear Iran, here with me. And outside of the U.N. is Jim Sciutto, chief national security correspondent; also joining us Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international correspondent.

Christiane, I know you just spoke to Secretary Kerry about what the president hopes to accomplish in the meeting. What did he tell you?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Of course, he is very, very clear that this campaign is going to go on for as long as it takes with an alliance. And also there are other factors that the president alluded to in his speech, and Secretary Kerry talked to me about as well, which was ending the flow of foreign fighters, a subject of the Security Council meeting ahead, which was cutting off the funding for extremist groups in Iraq and in Syria, and which was also ending the hateful ideology that they promote, which many Arab and Muslim leaders does not speak for our Islam. They are trying to de-legitimatize ISIS and what they stand for.

Here is what the secretary said to me about how long this is going to take.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, there is definitely a second day and there will be a third and more. This is going to go on. The president has been very clear that we're going to do what's necessary to get this job done. So the answer is this will go on for some time in various forms.

One of the things I would like to emphasize, Christiane, is that everybody is fixated on the strikes. But this is a broad-based strategy, which involves foreign fighters. The president will chair a meeting today on foreign fighters. It involves cutting off financing. It will involve a major effort to reclaim Islam by Muslims, by those to whom it belongs. I think you will hear more from the Saudi Arabia and from the council and from people all around the world who are outraged by what ISIL is doing to Islam.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So a big, big attempt to combat ISIS by all sorts of methods, including the political. I also spoke to the new Iraqi prime minister and he has to bring Sunnis back onboard, Anderson, to deny ISIS that kind of space that they have plunged into and fill that vacuum.

COOPER: Christiane, Secretary Kerry made an extraordinary statement saying that Baghdad itself could have fallen had the president not started air strikes against ISIS. You know, I was there around the time when ISIS started to make advances. Nobody in the U.S. was saying that there was a real chance that Baghdad itself would fall. What did you make of that comment?

AMANPOUR: Here's the thing. He did say that. He also say, in response to my question, we're not seeing, after six weeks, dislodging of ISIS and major dislodging of ISIS from the positions that they dug into. He said, look, airpower has worked to an extent. He did make that statement about preventing Baghdad from falling, but he also talked about relieving the sieges of towns and reclaiming the important Mosul Dam and staving off of the Haifa dam. All of that I think perhaps maybe some of it might have been rhetorical, but he did say, in broad, what we've done is stop the onslaught of ISIS.

COOPER: Jake Tapper also joins us, host of "THE LEAD."

Jake, it's extraordinary how we are now -- how the United States is in a situation that is really once again dependent on the capabilities, the political and military capabilities of the Iraqis to actually fight ISIS on the ground.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, THE LEAD: It is. And all the more so that it's from this president, who obviously was elected promising to end the war in Iraq, and not to mention his Nobel Peace Prize. But, look, I think what we heard today from President Obama was perhaps a more forceful denunciation of not just terrorism but the root causes of terrorism in the Muslim world than we've ever heard from him before. He denounced sectarianism. He denounced ideological extremism. He said that Muslim communities especially were responsible for condemning the kind of ideology that fuels a group like ISIS.

And I have to say I thought it was interesting he used the word "communities." He didn't say Muslim countries. "Muslim communities." That means that he could be talking about Muslim communities in neighborhoods in the United States, neighborhoods in the U.K., anyplace where this kind of ideology can thrive.

So, he is somebody who has, I think, without question been talking today more starkly about what created ISIS, the sectarianism of Iraq and Syria and the hateful ideology of all of those who have come to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS than we have ever heard from him before, Anderson.