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President Barack Obama Addresses the United Nations. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:03] RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR UNITED NATIONS CORRESPONDENT: I don't want to get too cozy about it considering the amount of death and destruction going on in the world. Sort of like the diplomatic Oscars and we've seen President Rouhani of Iran just walk by. We're waiting for President Putin of Russia, who's coming in in the next 15 minutes. Maybe that was the time to avoid President Obama. I think it will be interesting to see, will he be in the audience -- I'm not so sure -- to hear President Obama -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's interesting, I guess, with all these world leaders maybe almost -- Christiane, almost 200 world leaders here at the United Nations right now. Security is pretty tight here in New York City.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN ANCHOR: : It sure is. And as Richard alluded to, it's always interesting to see who's going to be in the audience to listen and what kind of diplomatic signal that sends.

So we're here with Jim and Michelle. Stand by for a second because we're also bringing in our panelist, Bobby Ghosh, who's the CNN global affairs analyst, managing editor at "Quartz," CNN's national security commentator Mike Rogers, and CNN political commentator and former senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer.

If I might just go to Mike Rogers, who of course was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, first, given the importance of intelligence matters, war and peace, and particularly Syria, wonder if we could get your perspective on what we think the result of these two major speeches from President Obama and President Putin on the way forward in Syria. What do you think is going to happen?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, two things happened that are fairly interesting. And we have to remember what Russia really wants out of this. They've always said that they want to keep the Tartus Port in, which is a warm water port in Syria, that's leased from the Syrians to the Russians. They have a naval presence there. They want to continue to keep that.

They want to continue to do the contracts for military sales in Syria, so they're preserving that. And they just did something interesting to set the table for this speech, they made -- they just cut a deal between the Syrians, Iran and Iraq on an intelligence-sharing regime, which means the Russian intelligence services are going to have a broader, more deeper involvement in those regions. And if you think about the dramatic change of that, 12 months ago you would have not -- it would have been very difficult for Russian intelligence to operate freely in Iraq in any capacity.

Now they've got this three-country region and the -- I think Putin feels he's largely in charge. So this intelligence piece is going to be very, very important.

AMANPOUR: Mike, we've just seen the motorcade, the heavily armored motorcade of President Obama come past us. He's obviously going to be walking in very soon and starting his speech. But you have just made a commercial and sort of power play response to what Putin is trying to do. But in terms of what the West is interested in, will it stop the war? What about ISIS? How do you think that's going to happen? And who's going to end up on top in Syria in the foreseeable future?

ROGERS: Well, if you look at the facts that we know on the ground today, it's clearly going to be Russia, so they have this new deal in Iran, the nuclear deal, of which Russia is all over, and they're signing contracts that cannot be undone, according to the nuclear deal, even if they find Iran cheating. So that is a stable relationship that's only going to grow. This protects Assad in anything happens.

Remember the Russians would throw Assad over in a minute if they knew what was next and could continue their role of influence. I think Russia is in a very good place to try to dictate the details of what happens next in Syria. They've got armament there, they've got combat aircraft there that they are flying missions. All of that tells you that they're girding up here for a very important, I think, next phase of this.

And they'll go around the United States, they'll go through the United States, or they'll do it with the United States. And I think that's the big decision that the president is going to have to make, what role he wants to play there. And by the way, Lebanon, too, because of Hezbollah, is now going to be in play for Russian influence as well. So they've done pretty well. Pretty dramatic change of events in the last 24 months for sure about Russian influence on the Syrian debate.

BLITZER: You know, Bobby Ghosh, it's one thing for the Russian President Putin to try to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, another to -- also the same for the Iranian leadership. They've had a close relationship with Bashar al-Assad for a long time. But when I heard the Egyptian president, Bobby, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, tell me in our interview that be careful what you wish for because if Assad's military were to go down, a lot of that military hardware -- and we're seeing President Obama walking into the United Nations right now -- these are live pictures -- with the First Lady Michelle Obama. They're going up the escalator. He'll be getting ready to deliver his address within a few moments. There he is at the United Nations.

But, Bobby Ghosh, when President El-Sisi says you know what, all that Syrian military hardware could wind up in the hands of terrorists like ISIS, Al-Nusra, al Qaeda in Syria, you've got to be careful. That was indicative of maybe there a little bit less inclination on the part of some of these Sunni Arab leaders to see Bashar al-Assad go.

[10:05:05] BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, that is very interesting. It's particularly interesting because of course in some ways President Sisi could be speaking about himself. He and Assad have much in common. He often takes his sort of talking points from Saudi Arabia, as we know. Saudi Arabia continues to be quite recalcitrant on the subject of Assad.

I'd be very interested to see how Saudi Arabia responds to your interview with Sisi. I suspect there will be some phone calls there and some clarification sought. Sisi was speaking, quite surprisingly, off the talking points that Saudi Arabia has sort of been pursuing for the last several months.

BLITZER: He said basically you could deal -- you can live with, you can deal with the Bashar al-Assad regime, you can deal with the rebels in Syria. You can't deal with ISIS. You can't deal with the terrorists. You can't deal with extremism. And you can't let those weapons get into their hands.

Dan Pfeiffer, walk us through the mission that the president of the United States will have in the coming minutes in this major address.

DAN PFEIFFER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, Wolf. This is always one of the most important speeches the president gives. But it's important to realize that he has three audiences here. The American people, of course, the leaders in the room, but also the people around the world. This has always one of the speeches that is most covered in international media. So it's one of the rare chances the president gets to speak directly to people in countries all over the world.

And so it's always an opportunity, even though the context differs every year, to talk about America's role in the world, America's values, and how we view the challenges. This year in particular, obviously Syria is at the core of it. I expect the president will talk about climate change as we head into the Paris negotiations next year and coming off of the agreement that the president reached with China last year.

So it's a very important speech. This is always one of the craziest weeks because the president goes from speech to bilateral meetings, to running in the leaders in the hallway for pull asides, and a lot of business gets done here. And I know the president has been working on this speech for a long time.

AMANPOUR: Dan, it's Christiane. Give us a little about the climate aspect of this speech because that is something that President Obama wants to make as one of his major legacies. And of course, we're coming up to a big, big world leader summit in Paris at the end of this year.

PFEIFFER: Well, I think the president will make the case that climate is a challenge that -- it's a global challenge. The world has to come together, much like the United States and China did. That we have an opportunity in Paris to begin to build on the example the U.S. has with the carbon pollution rules the president put in place and begin to mobilize not just the EU and other developed countries but developing countries and why this is so important for the environment, for public health and for the economy in the long run. AMANPOUR: Dan Pfeiffer, thank you so much. Bobby Ghosh, Mike Rogers,

all stand by for a while. We are going to take a short break and we'll be back, presumably, with the president at the podium.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:12:19] BLITZER: Welcome back to our special coverage. We're standing by to hear the president of the United States. Christiane Amanpour and I are covering, watching what's going on.

Christiane, the president of Brazil wrapping up her address right now.

AMANPOUR: That's right. And worth pointing out, a very beleaguered president of Brazil. She has a huge amount of problems back at home. But this is presumably a great platform, as it is for every world leader, including the president of the United States.

This is what I like to call it the back-to-school global agenda. They come back, it's the beginning of the year, so to speak, and they are going to put out their agenda for the rest of the year and perhaps beyond. The main thing that we're looking at today is Syria, also climate change and other such matters.

And we're joined by Michelle Kosinski, Jim Sciutto and of course our distinguished panel.

I just wanted to ask Michelle to start off with. What is it that President Obama and where is it President Obama thinks he can find some common ground with Putin in Syria that doesn't make Putin look like he's holding all the cards?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What the White House is saying is that they're looking for some common ground, maybe some coordination. Just because they have that common goal of defeating ISIS, at least that's the stated goal of Russia. You know, that that's what they're ultimately after. So in that maybe there is some nugget of cooperation that Russia could at least be, you know, a peripheral part of the coalition that President Obama has put together.

It's going to be difficult because now you see Putin with his own plan, his own little coalition forming. And I think you're going to see that kind of dichotomy also in the -- you know, we're waiting for the main event. We're waiting to hear from Obama. But the world is also wanting to hear from Putin. These are going to dueling speeches about what the situation is in Syria and what the world should do about it. I mean, diametrically opposed.

He's going to criticize what the American stance has been. And you'll hear that from the president, too. But behind the scenes, you know, when you talk privately to senior administration officials, there's skepticism here as to what could come out of this meeting. What -- you know, what good is there, what would the goal be. They're not even sure but they feel like it's time to give it a try. It's been a long time since these two had had a discussion about anything.

There's also Ukraine out there. You know, and Ukraine seems to have taken sort of a backseat to the situation now in Syria.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The other issue, to be fair, is that a couple of years ago from this podium the president called for and has repeatedly called for Assad's removal. You don't hear that anymore because the fact is, one, he survived. And two, they see the dangers of Assad falling at this point, just as Russia does. So you've seen administration goals change over that time period. Something which we know Vladimir Putin is very aware of and is probably taking advantage of, to some degree, on the ground there.

AMANPOUR: And the president of Iran told me in our interview, which we're going to play more of, that actually everybody including the U.S., the U.K., not just Iran and Russia, Assad's big backers, believe that Assad has to stay at least for the interim. The question is for how long and will there ever be a political resolution to get rid of him?

[10:15:12] BLITZER: Let's remember, keep all of this in perspective. ISIS, Syria, that will be a huge subject that the president of the United States will address. The president of Russia, Putin, will address other world leaders.

Remember, over these past few years, 200,000, maybe 300,000 people have been killed in Syria. seven million displaced persons internally, externally, the worst refugee crisis affecting the Middle East, North Africa, now Europe, since World War II. All of that will be coming up. So momentarily we'll hear from the president. The president of the General Assembly speaking right now, getting ready to introduce the president of the United States.

Mike Rogers, give us your thought right now. You're the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee as we await President Obama's important remarks. Is there a bit of a walking away, as a lot of observers are now suspecting? That maybe it's not necessary to remove Bashar al-Assad so quickly given the terrorist grip that is engulfing Syria and Iraq, for that matter, right now?

ROGERS: If you don't get an interim agreement to remove Assad over time, that situation gets 100 times worse. And these are conversations -- actually, Wolf, you and I had this conversation about two years ago about the limiting options. The longer the United States waited to try to get in and form that Arab league coalition and actually take action against what was a growing threat in eastern Syria, the fewer solutions that were available to them.

Right now I don't know if you'd find any serious national security participant tell you that it would be good for Assad to go away tomorrow because there would be a fundamental collapse of that government. So in that regard, I think, you know, Putin is correct, and so is el-Sisi correct as well.

BLITZER: He will sit down, the president of the United States now as he's introduced at the United Nations General Assembly. The president has a very, very carefully crafted speech. As Dan Pfeiffer, his former aide, our CNN commentator, just told us, he's addressing the United Nations. He's addressing the American people and he's addressing the world.

Here's the president.

(APPLAUSE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen. Seventy years after the founding of the United Nations, it is worth reflecting on what together the members of this body have helped to achieve.

Out of the ashes of the second word war, having witnessed the unthinkable power of the atomic age, the United States has worked with many nations in this assembly to prevent a third world war by forging alliances with old adversaries, by supporting the steady emergence of strong democracies accountable the their people instead of any foreign power and by building an international system that imposes a cost on those who choose conflict over cooperation, an order that recognizes the dignity and equal work of all people.

That is the work of seven decades. That is the ideal that this body, at its best, has pursued. Of course, there have been too many times when collectively we have fallen short of these ideals. Over seven decades, terrible conflicts have claimed untold victims, but we have pressed forward, slowly, steadily, to make a system of international rules and norms that are better and stronger and more consistent.

OBAMA: It is this international order that is unwritten -- underwritten unparalleled advances in human liberty and prosperity. It is this collective endeavor that has brought about diplomatic cooperation between the world's major powers, and buttressed a global economy that has lifted more than a billion people from poverty.

It is these international principles that have helped constrain bigger countries from imposing our will on smaller ones, and advance the emergence of Democracy, and development, and individual liberty on every continent.

This progress is real. It can be documented in the lives saved, agreements forged, in diseases conquered, and in mouths fed.

And yet, we come together today knowing that the marks of human progress never travels in a straight line, that our work is far from complete. That dangerous currents pulling us back into a darker, disordered world.

Today, we see the collapse of strong men, and fragile states breeding conflict, and driving innocent men, women, and children across borders on an epic scale. Brutal networks of terror have stepped into the vacuum. Technologies that empower individuals are now also exploited by those who spread disinformation, or suppress dissent, or radicalize our youth.

Global capital flows have powered growth and investment, but also increased risk of contagion, weakening the bargaining power of workers and accelerated inequality.

How should we respond to these trends? There are those who argue that the ideals enshrined in the U.N. Charter are unachievable, or out of date. A legacy of a post-war era, not suited to our own. Effectively, they argue for a return to the rules that apply to most of human history and predate this institution -- the belief that power is a zero-sum game, that might makes right, that strong states must impose their will on weaker ones, that the rights of individuals don't matter. And that, in a time of rapid change, order must be imposed by force.

On this basis, we see some major powers assert themselves in ways that contravene international law. We see an erosion of the democratic principles and human rights that are fundamental to this institution's mission. Information is strictly controlled, the space for civil society restricted. We are told that such retrenchment is required to beat back

disorder, that is the only way to step out terrorism, or prevent foreign meddling. In accordance with this logic, we should support tyrants like Bashar al-Assad, who drops barrel bombs on innocent children, because alternative is surely worse.

OBAMA: The increasing skepticism of our international order can also be found in the most advanced democracies. We see greater polarization, more frequent gridlock, movements on the far right, and sometimes, the left, that insist on stopping the trade that binds our fates to other nations, calling for the building of walls to keep out immigrants.

And most ominously, we see the fears of ordinary people being exploited through appeals to sectarianism or tribalism or racism or anti-Semitism, appeals to a glorious past before the body politic was infected by those who look different or worship God differently. A politics of us versus them.

The United States is not immune from this. Even as our economy is growing and our troops have largely returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, we see in our debates about America's role in the world a notion of strength that is defined by opposition to old enemies, perceived adversaries, a rising China or a resurgent Russia, a revolutionary Iran or an Islam that is incompatible with peace. We see an argument made that the only strength that matters for the United States is bellicose words and shows of military force. That cooperation and diplomacy will not work.

As president of the United States, I am mindful of the dangers that we face. They cross my desk every morning. I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies unilaterally and by force where necessary. But I stand before you today believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion.

We cannot look backwards. We live in an integrated world, one in which we all have a stake in each other's success. We cannot turn back those forces of integration.

No nation in this assembly can insulate itself from the threat of terrorism or the risk of financial contagion, the flow of migrants or the danger of a warming planet. The disorder we see is not driven solely by competition between nations or any single ideology, and if we cannot work together more effectively, we will all suffer the consequences. That is true for the United States as well. No matter how powerful our military, how strong our economy, we understand the United States cannot solve the world's problems alone.

OBAMA: In Iraq, the United States learned the hard lesson that even hundreds of thousands of brave, effective troops, trillions of dollars from our Treasury, cannot by itself impose stability on a foreign land. Unless we work with other nations under the mantle of international norms and principles and law that offer legitimacy to our efforts; we will not succeed. And unless we work together to defeat the ideas that drive different communities in a country like a Iraq into conflict, any order that our military's can impose will be temporary.

And just as force alone cannot impose order internationally, I believe in my core that repression cannot forge the social cohesion for nation's to succeed. The history of the last two decades prove that today's world, dictatorships are unstable. The strong men of today become the spark of revolution tomorrow. You can jail your opponents but you can't imprison ideas. You can try to control access to information but you cannot turn a lie into truth.

It is not a conspiracy of U.S. back NGO's that expose corruption and raise the expectations of people around the globe; it's technology, social media, and the irreducible desire of people everywhere to make their own choices about how they are governed. Indeed I believe that in today's world the measure of strength is no longer defined by the control of territory. Lasting prosperity does not come solely from the ability to access and extract raw materials. The strength of nations depends on the success of their people, their knowledge, their innovation, their imagination, their creativity, their drive, their opportunity, and that in turn depends on individual rights and good governance, and personal security.

Internal repression and foreign aggression are both symptoms of the failure to provide this foundation.