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CNN Live Saturday

The Intricacies of Coalition Building

Aired October 06, 2001 - 14:11   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: British Prime Minister Tony Blair is heading back to London, after a coalition-building mission to Pakistan and India. Blair left India today, following a meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee. Earlier this week, he met with top officials in Pakistan, whose diplomatic mission was also aimed at diffusing tensions between India and Pakistan, which now maintain an uneasy truce.

With some perspective on the international politics of coalition building, we turn to our guest in San Francisco. He is Amin Tarzi of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Mr. Tarzi is an expert on the Middle East and Central Asia. He is also an American citizen of Afghan origin and a former U.S. Marine. Good afternoon to you. Thanks very much. There are a lot of things we could talk about with that kind of background.

AMIN TARZI, MONTEREY INSTITUTE OF INT'L STUDIES: Good morning.

SAVIDGE: Let me ask you this, first and foremost, this coalition building, how strong do you think the coalition is at this particular point, especially amongst the Islamic nations?

TARZI: Basically, there are two types of assistance and two types of support. Some of them are vocal, some will not be vocal. I think countries such as Saudi Arabia will not -- should not be expected to give their vocal support. They will, of course, condemn terrorism and may indeed help our efforts to dislodge the Taliban or get peace into Afghanistan, but they don't want to be shown or seen as supporting an invasion or even an attack against Islamic country, being, you know, conducted from their soil.

Turkey may be a different issue, because Turkey has openly said that they will support and the Turkish government has a different viewpoint to this. But within the Arab countries, I think, and I think Secretary Rumsfeld wildly said we should not be expecting Saudis to be very vocal on this issue.

Whereas Pakistan is concerned, of course, the whole issue of Pakistan is much more different because Pakistan is a neighbor. Pakistan is heavily involved with the Taliban. They were the country that basically created the Taliban. And their support within their government is very much appreciated the in the public's eyes. U.S. will not be very popular there. SAVIDGE: The United States has said that time is running out for the Taliban. Is that an indication, you think, that military action is imminent? Or what is it you look for that might indicate that?

TARZI: The issue is that I think the policy will be three-fold or even four-fold. One is, of course, there will be some military strikes. There is some military strikes needed, if nothing else, for the more the American general public. We need to see something, some action. And I think the administration has been very wise so far not hastily do something as what we did in 1998, after the bombings in Africa, where we launched cruise missiles onto Osama bin Laden's camps.

That those camps are still valid targets. Whether somebody's there or not there is irrelevant. They are legitimate targets. They're terrorist camps. We know where they are. And there will be not much collateral damage.

As for going directly into a military offensive in Afghanistan and ground warfare, I think hopefully people in the Pentagon are looking into that and not thinking that way. I think that would be disastrous not only for the United States, it will be disastrous for the Afghan people. And it'll likely encourage more terrorism.

So one is maybe surgical strikes, maybe some commander operation. But the main effort is what has happened, a sustained diplomatic campaign has been announced $20 million aid. I think that is a very wise policy. That should be coordinated in the international community.

And then, hopefully a viable government to take the vacuum. What happened in Afghanistan from 1989 to '82 was once the Soviet Union withdrew and then the Communist government fell in '92, the world basically kind of forgot about Afghanistan, not Pakistan and Iran, but the world at large.

And what should happen is, again, and I want to emphasize that, it should be an international effort to bring a broad-based stable government in Afghanistan that is responsible to its international obligations and will not allow terrorist organizations to be in that country.

SAVIDGE: Isn't there a danger that any government that is sort of put in place after the Taliban is going to be looked upon as a puppet regime?

TARZI: That's a very good question. This is very important. That's why I think the United States should not go alone. The United States troops, specifically ground troops, should not be leading a charge. And anybody who comes in of any coalition should be an international coalition.

We are not reinventing the wheel here. We have a -- United Nations has had a plan in Afghanistan that has been secretly touted as a solution. The latest one was Turkey last year. There is six plus two process -- six naval of Afghanistan plus the United States and Russia and a third of a peace plan. The United States Congress has passed a resolution last year, 414 in the House.

And most importantly, we also have precedents in recent history. I can name Cambodia, what happened in Cambodia. There was a U.N., United Nations, transitional approach in Cambodia in 1992.

So the U.N. and world bodies such as the U.N. should be involved. And then the donor countries and the sovereign countries should be involved, but not like Pakistan and Iran should not be given a veto card. And this is very important. And the U.S. should be involved but not directly, because if it is, you're right. That government will be a puppet regime and it will create more problems.

SAVIDGE: Amin Tarzi of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Thanks very much for talking to us on this Saturday morning there in San Francisco. Thank you.

TARZI: Thank you, good-bye.

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