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In the Arena
Strains in the Anti-Gadhafi Coalition; One-on-one with Bill Maher
Aired March 22, 2011 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Eliot Spitzer, welcome to the program.
With me tonight our show regulars, E.D. Hill and Will Cain. But tonight we start with breaking news as bombs and missiles fall in Libya for a fourth day, and Gadhafi's forces fight on, the White House is pushing back against criticism it has not sufficiently explained its objectives in Libya.
In an exclusive interview, CNN Espanol's Juan Carlos Lopez sat down with President Obama about the mission in Libya. We will bring that interview to you shortly. But first let's head to Tripoli where senior international correspondent Nic Robertson joins us.
Nic, my question for you tonight is, are Gadhafi's troops showing any signs of cracking under the four-day assault that we have waged against them?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: From what we're seeing here in Tripoli, the answer seems to be no. From the reports that we get from coalition and from opposition forces in Misrata, the answer also appears to be no. And from the town of Ajdabiya in the east of the country where there's been reports of fighting in the city between rebels and the government, the answer there seems to be no.
Coalition commanders had yesterday said they thought they were having some impact in persuading Gadhafi's forces it wasn't worth fighting. We talked to naval officers today at a naval facility that was targeted overnight last night. They also told us they wouldn't -- they wouldn't be about to back down.
SPITZER: So, Nic, what I gather from what you're saying is that even though we have established this no-fly zone that is the centerpiece of our military strategy, it has not been effective in preventing either the continued assault against civilians in Misrata or the other cities in the east, or certainly in getting Gadhafi to leave the country or leave power.
So this -- there seems to be a very real tension, a disjunction between our military strategy and political objectives here.
ROBERTSON: Or to reach the political objectives, the military strategy needs to continue. That may also be something that people would be weighing at the moment. When we were in the port facility today that was targeted overnight last night, right next to the warehouses and missile -- mobile missile systems that have been targeted were eight naval vessels.
We weren't allowed to film them, but the clear inference for the Gadhafi regime would be that we can hit the storage facilities one night, we could just as easily be hitting your Navy the following night. And the naval officers themselves told us the same thing, that they believe they could be the targets in the coming nights ahead.
So this will be what Gadhafi is weighing up as he tries to figure out, is he going to continue to push the fight against the opposition at the moment? And at the moment the answer seems to be he's coming up with defiance for the first time. He appeared on television apparently, and according to state television this was live, at his palace compound that was struck just two days ago, calling this, as he had over the past couple of days, a crusader of war. He appears to be backing down not one inch here -- Eliot.
SPITZER: Well, you know, certainly, his rhetoric has not changed one -- the slightest little bit. What are you hearing from those in his military? Do you sense on the part of the military beneath him any sense of doubt, any sense that my goodness, we have Europe against us, we have the Arab League against us, we have the might of the United States against us? We the military had better come up with an exit strategy, otherwise our necks are on the line?
Any sense there of doubt within the military ranks in -- on Gadhafi's side?
ROBERTSON: You know I have to say that rag test to the military is pretty limited. We did get an opportunity to speak with some naval air officers. A young officer just graduated from university last year, and some more senior officers.
And none of them said when I asked them what should be happening now, should you be backing down in the face of the coalition enforcement of the no-fly zone and protection of civilians, none of them said Gadhafi should go.
One of them I spoke to spoke good English. He understood my questions, but didn't really understand my questions. I think what he was telling me was I can't answer this question. I'm not going to answer this question about Gadhafi going because it's going to be hard for me.
No one here is going to go camera and tell you that they think Gadhafi should step down. So I mean I think you just have to try and read between the lines here. Certainly there's a recognition that these strikes could go on. I've talked to various people who said that there needs to be a cease-fire, that the strikes need to stop, and there can be talks and negotiations.
But I don't think we're going to find anyone in the military openly criticizing Gadhafi, particularly not to us right now -- Eliot. SPITZER: From your travels around the city of Tripoli and whatever travels outside of Tripoli they're permitting you to take, what sense do you have of the damage that is being done by what seems to be a continuous and awfully effective, at least the reports we're getting, effective assault by the United States and our allies, France and England in particular, against the Gadhafi military from the cruise missiles and the other aircraft?
What are you -- what are you seeing in terms of the impact of that assault?
ROBERTSON: Well, our travel is pretty limited. And the physical impact we've seen in the palace compound, the damage of a building we've seen in the port facility, the damage to the warehouses, to the storerooms and -- include military equipment, specifically the rocket launchers.
And psychologically, there's something else that's going on. There was a great deal of interest today along the seafront road. The citizens of Tripoli just turning up to take a look at what had happened. To have their own -- puts their own eyes on the side of the bombing.
Why? A lot of people here don't trust state television, they'll want to get a look for themselves. What is interesting about it, we often see and are presented with these green flag-waving Gadhafi loyalists. Well, a lot of these people showing up today weren't waving flags, green flags, we're showing this symbolic support for Moammar Gadhafi which gives you to understand that there are people here who aren't loyal to him and who don't trust the state television media to inform them about what's going on, but they want to look.
They're concerned, they're worried about what's going to happen. So there's a psychological impact, too. And you -- we saw that today as well on the streets with lines of traffic at gas stations queuing up to buy gas. We saw that as we drove around because a lot more stores than normal were shuttered closed.
We saw that as well because there was very little traffic on the roads. Far fewer cars about than there would be normally. So I think these are the indications, much more psychological indications than physical.
Gadhafi doesn't have a huge military presence in the city, at his palace compounds, at the military air base, at the east of the city, but it's not a city that has anti-aircraft guns on the roofs, as per Baghdad did during -- in 2003, in 1991. It's not that kind of militarized capital in that way -- Eliot.
SPITZER: All right. Thank you, Nic Robertson.
Joining us now to discuss the mission in Libya from Cambridge, Massachusetts, is senior political analyst David Gergen.
David, how do you assess the situation as of this moment where we seem to be hearing from the U.S. military, we rule the airwaves, we have accomplished our military objective in terms of creating a no-fly zone but don't seem yet -- and certainly it's only four days in -- to be cracking Gadhafi's will to fight back. And if the objective is to have him leave office, are we getting closer to that?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think our military objective so far have been much more limited, Eliot. And in that sense, the narrow sense, they've succeeded masterfully. We have suppressed his anti-aircraft capacity. We've now captured the skies over Libya. And we've beaten him back so that he's not been able to get into Benghazi.
Those are the goals with that, we've succeeded. We have an extraordinary good military, it's the best trained, the equipped military in all of history. And we're up after all against a force of like 10,000 who have rather decrepit -- you know equipment. So it's not surprising we would succeed.
But the hard part is still ahead, isn't it? Because we see no signs -- as Nic Robertson suggested, we see no signs that there's a crack in the -- in the circle around him. That there's going to be an overthrow, a coup from within. That it appears he's going to fight on.
And now we're beginning to face the hard questions. How much longer do you continue the bombing? You know the longer this goes on, the more protests we're going to see from places like China and India, and, indeed, from Turkey and other countries.
Where do we hand it of to? There's been all this scrapping about the handoff. What are we going to do now when the rebels get back on their feet and start trying to advance? Are we going to help the rebels or not?
The administration has given off conflicting signals on that. The president still has not addressed a lot of the tougher issues that are -- that are, you know, embedded in all of this. And until he does, I think all of us are going to continue asking those questions. Wondering where it's going to go. And there's going to be a sense of what is the end game here, what constitutes success.
From my point of view, as long as Gadhafi is in power, we haven't finished the job.
SPITZER: David, we can now run a piece of that interview with President Obama so let's listen to this interview, and then I'll come back to you and get your assessment of what the president says and how he has begun or not to confront those very difficult those issues that you just teed up. Let's listen to President Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gadhafi may try to hunker down and wait it out, even in the face of a no-fly zone. Even though his forces have been degraded. But keep in mind that we don't just have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Gadhafi's leaving. You know, we put in place strong international sanctions. We've frozen his assets. We will continue to ply a whole range of pressure on him, but with respect to the military action, that specifically is done under the U.N. Security Council resolution. And calls for maintaining the no-fly zone and ensuring that the people of Libya aren't assaulted by their own military.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SPITZER: All right, David, having just listened to the president give that answer, does he address the questions you were raising? And in particular the one that you have focused on that I think is so central -- if the rebels, the opposition forces, begin to go on offense, will we be able to help them? Is that military action covered within the scope of the U.N. mandate?
GERGEN: Exactly. And we didn't get an answer there, Eliot. In fairness to the president, he wasn't asked that specific question, but it's clearly out there. And what the president was saying elaborated upon what he said yesterday, that we have these two tracks, the military tracks, which is more limited, and then we have the nonmilitary track which is sanctions and diplomatic efforts, which he hopes will oust him.
But as you know, between those two tracks, there's a lot of gray area. And these big, big questions that are so important to what actually happens in the next five days, next 10 days, next 15 days, you know, because if we're going to throw him out there, if we're going to force him out, doesn't it have to come sooner rather than later?
Don't you have to create a momentum on the side of the rebels that tells the inner circle, hey, you're not going to last? This whole thing -- you know, your days are numbered. You better turn on him now. Have a coup if you want to save your own skin.
SPITZER: You know, David, I -- look, I'm not a military analyst so I don't want -- and I don't want to pretend to be. But what you're saying sounds so right. And the other statement the president has made that surprised me a bit over the past couple of days, he has said we're going to have a very quick handoff in a matter of days to our allies and our military role will recede, seeming to suggest, not only to us and the American public but also to Gadhafi who certainly is listening to this, that our military functions will be completed.
So I wonder if that is the message we're sending. That doesn't seem to create the incentive for the military surrounding Gadhafi to stand up and stage a coup or give comfort to the rebels that we're going to be there to give them the support they need.
GERGEN: That's exactly right, Eliot, and one wonders -- I haven't heard, perhaps you have, what is going to happen to our naval ships that are in the Med now, what is going to happen to air force assets that are on station there. Are they going to disappear over the horizon, or if we're going to really send a serious message to Gadhafi, shouldn't we remain there on station, ready to pounce? Shouldn't we be part of the command-and-control structure? Are we going to totally hands this over? Are we going to say, you know, we finished that, we're out of here, or are we going to sort of give Gadhafi -- make sure Gadhafi knows there is going to be steady, relentless pressure on you, buster, and you better get out of there. And here's your last chance.
SPITZER: You know, I think that when the president returns from his Latin American trip -- and look, many people are criticizing him for going on that trip, I'm not one of them. Look, that was scheduled long ahead of time. He needed to go to meet with foreign leaders. That's fine.
But I think when he gets back doesn't he need to address the American public? And I would almost like to see him stride off the helicopter right into the oval office, speak to the American public and say, here's why we're doing this, here's the mission, we will accomplish it and here's how, to answer these questions that are I think fair game for critics at this point.
GERGEN: Eliot, that's basically the right approach. My own recommendation would be that when he comes off that helicopter, and I agree with you, I applaud him for going to Latin America, glad he's there.
But when he comes back, to go back into the situation room and sit down with all of his of advisers and look at the whole chess board. Not just the Libyan piece of this. What's the whole chess board stretching to Saudi Arabia, stretching to Iran, all these other questions.
Figure out what is our strategic plan for the region. What are we going to do in these individual countries like Yemen and Bahrain which, after all, in some ways are much more strategic to us than Libya? What is our overall plan?
Then sit down with the Congress, try to build a consensus around the overall plan and how we're applying it in Libya as well as other countries and then go to the country. I think he needs to get his ducks in a row in effect. When it's his own team and with the Congress, and then I think it is imperative that he come to the country and help us understand because Americans are hanging -- you know, at the end of their seats on this.
A lot of Americans I talk to don't understand this. They don't quite understand what we're trying to do here. They clearly want the president to succeed, but they're just uncertain, and they're just anxious about it, and they -- you know, and leadership demands I think in this situation -- and you know this, you've been in this chair.
You know leadership demands someone speak with clarity, in simple terms that everybody can get. And so show us the way forward.
SPITZER: David, you -- look, I think you're absolutely right. And I think what we've seen from the president is a lot of tactical decisions, but the strategy is not apparent to anybody out there. And I think he needs to give that strategic overview. And look, I hope he's listening to your wisdom and hope he'll pursues what you're saying.
(CROSSTALK)
GERGEN: And listening to you, Eliot. OK.
SPITZER: All right, David. Always great to have you. Thank you.
GERGEN: Thank you.
SPITZER: E.D. and Will, you're here as always on the set. What do you guy working on tonight?
E.D., what do you have?
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: David touched on a little bit. There are several countries that are by far much more critical to our national security. And so we're going to take a look at one of them in particular that is on the verge of collapse right now and find out from a person that --
SPITZER: You're going to tell us which it is?
HILL: -- incredible insight and knowledge of this country and find out what's going on there. Yemen.
SPITZER: Yemen. All right. Will?
HILL: Good guess.
WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm going to build on that. With protests, rebellions, revolutions in, what, no less than 12 Middle Eastern countries, it's being called the Arab spring. It's being hailed as being this push towards democracy. But I'm talking to (INAUDIBLE) says it's not that simple.
SPITZER: It's never simple but it's really fascinating to watch unfold. All right.
And coming up also, some call him infuriating, others call him thought provoking. Whatever you call him, Bill Maher is always controversial, fascinating, amusing and entertaining. He'll join me when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Despicable brilliance. It's a term that's been used to describe Bill Maher. He critics and condemns with abandon, sparing no one from his ruthless wit and insight. His HBO show "Real Time with Bill Maher" is now in its ninth season, proving that among other talents, he's got staying power.
Bill Maher joins me tonight.
Bill, thanks for joining us.
BILL MAHER, HBO'S "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": Always good to be here, Governor.
SPITZER: All right. Let me ask you, we just can't avoid this issue -- Libya, should we be there? Do we have the right purpose and the right mission right now?
MAHER: Yes. I would say in general we should stop the bloodbath that was probably going to be inevitable. I've heard a lot of talk these days about whether Hillary Clinton and talking to Bill Clinton about what happened in Rwanda and then maybe that influenced Obama, yes, it probably did. I'm sure Obama knew all that. I don't think he had to talk to Hillary Clinton about it.
And also I've heard people say half measures don't work. Well, they worked in Kosovo, with the bombing campaign that we did over Serbia. And the Clinton administration, that seemed to have stopped that genocide. So I think when people are about to be slaughtered, there is a case to be made that the talking has to stop and you have to kind of do something. And you feel much better about it the next day. You know people don't -- people live in the short run to paraphrase FDR.
SPITZER: Look, I'm with you 100 percent. I think we not only needed to go in. My concern, in fact, is that we don't have a specific enough mission statement. I don't think we should stop until Gadhafi is gone.
Do you agree with that? Or do you think that we can just stop the genocide now or stop the slaughter now but leave him in place? Or would that be a half measure that would be insufficient to accomplishing the long-run goal of democracy, freedom, liberalization?
MAHER: You know, there are no good answers to that question. I mean, if you insist on getting rid of Gadhafi, that means, I think, you have to send in ground troops at some point.
I'm, first of all, very glad that we're not taking the lead on this. That's the first thing I said on our show a couple of weeks ago when Libya was in the news, was let somebody else do it for a change. On the other hand, I know what you're saying, the United States is gaining a terrible reputation around the world as someone -- as a country that doesn't really stick up to its commitments, abandon its friends.
Well, I mean, the Bay of Pigs did not look good, Vietnam, punching people as they tried to get into the helicopter on the roof, that didn't look good. '91, the first President Bush leaving the Kurds and the Shiites after they thought we were going to come to their aid, rising against -- up against Saddam Hussein. You know, we're like Newt Gingrich. We just -- we leave when you you're in trouble.
(LAUGHTER) SPITZER: Well, you could add '56 and Hungary, I think that also -- I think the other example where he encouraged revolution and then did nothing to assist those who actually stood up.
But let me ask you, put this into the larger context of the revolutions that are sweeping in North Africa and the Middle East. How do you put that into some larger context? Is this an Arab awakening towards democracy, towards liberalization freedom? How do you understand that?
MAHER: I do. And I think the key point to understand is that it had to be organic. I know that conservatives would like to think that the United States going into Iraq in 2003 is really what caused this uprising, but we know that's not true. If that was what had caused the uprising, then it would have -- then they would have stood up at that moment when we pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein and they were hitting it with the shoe.
That would be the moment when the people all over the Middle East would have said, hey, I want some of that cheese, too. But they didn't because that was something that wasn't organic. That was a foreign invader doing it, and they just turned away and nothing happened.
Now it's eight years later, it happened organically, and now we see the chance for real change in the Middle East. But that's how it has to happen. And that's one of the dangers, of course, of western powers getting involved in these revolutions. It taints them.
SPITZER: Look, you're exactly right. We cannot make it our revolution if it isn't organic. It will not succeed in the long run. On the other hand, there are times that we have to provide some assistance, such as in Libya right now, otherwise Gadhafi could crush them.
I think that's the delicate balance we've got to weigh in every one of these circumstances. Is it a huge defeat for al Qaeda? In other words, if this organic revolution now is from the street, whether it's in Cairo or Benghazi, and these are individuals who are educated, who what want freedom and tolerance, this is a rejection it seems to me and to others, as well, of what al Qaeda was saying would be the dominant ideology of Arab youth.
MAHER: Yes, I do think it's a defeat for al Qaeda. But it's not a complete defeat. There was a million-woman march a couple of weeks ago in Cairo. And about 1,000 women showed up, greatly outnumbered by men jeering them to get back into the house as women should be.
SPITZER: Yes --
MAHER: So, you know, I said this on our show a few weeks ago and people were very upset. I very often make my liberals in our audience mad at me when I talk about this subject, but I said, you know what, if there is not a sexual revolution that is going to accompany your revolution-revolution, just forget it because, you know, that's part of it, is becoming a somewhat secular society. I mean, al Qaeda draws its strength from religion, and we know this is a religious culture, much more than the west is a religious culture. At some point, they are going to have to make a break. You cannot have a sort of semi theocracy where you're getting laws from the Koran and so forth, and I worry about that.
We saw the polls that were coming out of Egypt at the time of the revolution when Mubarak was still in power. And a majority of the people believe in things like Shariah law. It's very a religious conservative society. And I don't think it's -- that is compatible with democracy.
I know liberals don't like to hear that, that some people aren't ready for it. But you know what, if you're too religious, you can't also be a democracy.
SPITZER: Look, you are absolutely right. The tension between a secular democracy and the theocracies that still govern in many parts of that world is a tension that's going to have to see work itself through. We hope it works itself through in favor of secular democracy. We're going to have to wait and see.
I want to pivot for a minute to domestic politics. It seems to me -- and Bill, I think you and I pretty much agree on this. Two things that are remarkable about the last couple of years. The first 30 years -- for the past 30 years, the middle class has been squeezed and has suffered. Middle-class incomes have not gone up at all. The top 2 or 3 percent has profited amazingly well.
And the second thing is, we had this financial meltdown caused primarily by Wall Street. And yet out of that combination of things when you might have thought we'd get a turn politically towards a new vision of what government should do, it hasn't happened.
We've gotten the Tea Party and we've gotten anti-government rhetoric and a push once again for less government, less regulation. How did that happen?
MAHER: Well, if you read "Newsweek" this week -- our guest Friday is Tina Brown, by the way, one of our guests on the panel. There's a big story called -- I think it's called "Why are We So Dumb?" They did surveys. This happens all the time. And they ask Americans very basic questions.
I think they gave them the citizenship test that people who are trying to immigrate to this country have to take. And of course people just don't know very much.
The Tea Party is a party named after a tax revolt that does not know very much about taxes. It's very hard to get effective policy in place if the people are voting against their own economic interests.
The Tea Party, it's supposed to be a party of the common man. A populist movement. And yet somehow everything they want is also what Steve Forbes wants. I mean, if your agenda is the same as a billionaire, you're not really a populist movement. And if they're supposed to be all about taxes and deficits and debt, most of the money, most of the deficit money, the debt money, was from under Bush. These are facts that they don't care about. Two wars that we put on the credit card.
SPITZER: But Bill --
MAHER: The prescription drug bill --
(CROSSTALK)
SPITZER: Bill, let me interrupt you just to ask you this question. Let me ask this question. Where have been the elected officials educating the public instead of creating the void into which you get the sort of empty rhetoric that fuels the Tea Party?
In other words, where has the leadership been on the other side to explain --
MAHER: Right.
SPITZER: -- as articulately as you just did what got us to this precipice?
MAHER: I couldn't agree more. This is one of my big problems with our president. He never blames the Republicans for anything. He's their best friend. He always helps them with their narrative.
There's an oil rig that blows up in the Gulf of Mexico, and the party of drill, baby, drill does not get blamed. There's a financial meltdown, and the party of bank deregulation does not get blamed. There's an attack in Arizona with assault weapons, and the party that backs assault weapons doesn't get blamed.
SPITZER: Let me ask you this --
MAHER: You know when you see him talk to the -- yes?
SPITZER: Is it a perfect metaphor for everything that's wrong with our politics? That Elizabeth Warren, one of the few people who stood up and wanted to protect consumers, cannot be confirmed by Congress to be head of the consumer protection bureau. And yet any partner at Goldman Sachs could walk right in there and get virtually every vote in Congress?
MAHER: Well, you know that area way better than I do, Eliot. And you know, I have little crush on Elizabeth Warren. She's a frequent guest on our show. So I'm biased in that area. But you certainly -- she is if anyone is at this moment in our history the spokesman for the middle class, and who needs a spokesman more than the middle class?
Well, yes, perhaps the poor in this country. But both are struggling mightily. And why does she have to fight for this position? She's really only fighting to take a job to stop banks from basically screwing people with fine print. I mean, it seems like the banks do nothing but have entire divisions to figure out how to -- how to fake people into charges that they don't -- they shouldn't be paying, fine print that they didn't read, fees, and this is one person who was just saying, we're just trying to level the playing field and make it so you can understand it and you can't get charged for something you don't deserve to be charged for.
SPITZER: Well --
MAHER: And somehow that person is controversial? I don't understand it.
SPITZER: It is one of the great unfortunate paradoxes, as you have just said. That there are so many people out there who are voting against their own economic self-interest. And I'm with you, it is because we haven't explained it adequately and explained the facts and actually what he led to the financial debacle and to this maldistribution of income that we've seen over the last 20 years.
Anyway, Bill Maher, thank you so much for joining us. Your show is brilliant. I love watching it.
MAHER: Always a pleasure. We'll see you on it soon.
SPITZER: Look forward to it. Thanks, Bill.
Coming up, Yemen. It's a hot spot for international terrorism. And tonight its government is on the verge of collapse. Will al Qaeda fill the void? Intelligence expert Jane Harman weighs in coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Turning now to Yemen, the country that poses perhaps the greatest threat to our national security.
My colleague, E.D. Hill, is following events there.
E.D., what's up?
E.D. HILL, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, President Saleh, an ally of the United States against al Qaeda, is barely clinging to power tonight. He's offered to leave by the end of the year. But, today, a protester said that was no good.
Former Congresswoman Jane Harman chaired the subcommittee intelligence and is now president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: It's great to have you on because you are one of the folks who has had the access to all the classified information. You know what's going on, and I respect your opinion.
JANE HARMAN, WOODROW WILSON CENTER: Thank you.
HILL: That's why I want to find out from you today, President Saleh has offered to step down at the end of the year. He offered that to the opposition. Will he make it?
HARMAN: Well, let me put Yemen in context and then answer that.
I think that Yemen is ground zero in terms of threats to the United States. I've been saying this for two years. The Christmas bomber was trained there. The parcel bomb plot was hatched there. Awlaki, this U.S.-Yemeni cleric who's inspired so many like the Fort Hood shooter, lives there, and a number of English language magazines called "Inspire" that teach you how to make bombs are produced there and read online in the United States by homegrown terrorist wannabes.
So, this is a big problem for us. I don't know whether Saleh steps down or not. But I do think his government needs to open up. The defection by the military general who represents part of the Huthi area in Yemen -- it's very interesting. He's attracted a lot of followers. And what I think is going to happen is that unless Saleh keeps that promise or moves out sooner, I think there could easily be a military coup.
HILL: Yes.
HARMAN: And following that, a new government.
HILL: Well, with the new government, a lot of people talk about the will of the Yemeni people, as if they're all united under, you know, one goal.
What could happen here? You know, you've talked about the impact of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And that's basically been their base. Could it potentially become a country that is a base for al Qaeda if there is not some very strong opposition, you know, leader that is able to move into position of leadership there?
HARMAN: Yes. Yemen is a much bigger threat to us, as I just said, than Libya is. Number two -- close number two might be Pakistan.
Yemen, if it is a failed state, is a huge opportunity for al Qaeda to train in the boonies all over the country. The country's been in a sort of, kind of civil war which Saleh has manipulated to stay in power for over 30 years. There are 150,000 small villages that are extremely poor, and AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, leaders are hiding out in those small villages protected by their tribes.
This is a very messy situation, and my concern about saying, as some are, that Libya is a stand-alone problem is that this is a zero- sum game here. We don't have enough brain cells or money or certainly soldiers -- not that soldiers are on the ground in Yemen -- to put against every problem we have.
So, we're continuing this new fight in Libya, we are taking resources, especially brain cells, away from Yemen, and that worries me a great deal.
HILL: Well, that was a concern that I had. And that's why I wanted to speak with you this evening, to find out where you think we -- well, if we're looking at simply using our military and our assets to protect our national security, where is the country in the Middle East that we should be most focused?
HARMAN: Well, the most dangerous country to our homeland security, in my view, is Yemen. Yemen does not want U.S. boots on the ground. We aren't talking about that. We have increased both civil and military aid to Yemen, and the Yemenis in the Saleh government have been cooperating with our intelligence services and they have gone after the bad guys hiding out in the boonies.
We need the continued cooperation of the Yemeni government to do that. But I think that with this general who has defected and with fairly strong opposition parties. And nobody seems to know that Yemen, for years, has had opposition parties. I was there about a year ago, and I met with them. And they are capable folks who have been shut out of the process by Saleh.
But I can imagine a future in embassy than is a hopeful future where we have an ongoing working relationship. We are able to increase economic aid and support for a new democratic, with a small "d," government.
I see kind of two classes of countries. Libya in particular where the future is extremely worrisome, but Egypt and Yemen where we could actually have what they call an "Arab Spring." And we could emerge -- they could emerge from this transition process much stronger and more democratic countries.
HILL: Jane Harman, it is great to have you with us to share your knowledge.
HARMAN: Thank you, E.D.
HILL: Thank you very much for being with us.
HARMAN: Thank you, E.D.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HILL: So, we continue watching Libya, but the most recent terrorist threats against us have come from Yemen -- organized there, planned there. We will continue focusing on that, as well.
SPITZER: Clearly another hot spot we've got to keep an eye on. And in fact, we will be.
All right. When we come back, more of that exclusive CNN interview with President Obama in which he addresses some of these issues. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SPITZER: Breaking news. We're going to play more of that one- on-one interview with President Obama. Within the last hour, the president sat down with CNN Espanol reporter Juan Carlos Lopez, who's joining us now from San Salvador.
Juan Carlos, what did the president tell you about military action in Libya?
JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ, CNN EN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I started asking him about what happens now when the 1973 resolution allows support, protection for civilians, and allows for this no-fly zone, but it says nothing about Gadhafi or removal of Gadhafi from power. So, I asked him what happens with the rebels now and what can the coalition and the U.S. do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LOPEZ: Can you -- will you give military support to the rebels?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, the -- you know, obviously, we're discussing with the coalition what steps can be taken.
I think that our hope is that the first thing that happens once we've cleared this space is that the rebels are able to start discussing how they organize themselves, how they articulate their aspirations for the Libyan people and create a legitimate government. And, you know, potentially what we may see is that all the enthusiasm the Libyan people had for a change in government that was occurring a few weeks ago, but that Gadhafi, through just brutal application of force, you know, made people fearful that that can resurface. And it may be that it's not a matter of military might but instead an idea that's come to the Libyan people that it's time for a change that ends up ultimately sweeping Gadhafi out of power.
But we are going to be examining all our options. But our first task right now is to shape the environment so that, you know, Gadhafi's forces can't attack his own people, maintain the no-fly zone. And the United States' role once that environment is shaped is actually significantly reduced because we've got a broad-based international coalition, including Arab states that believe in the same thing that we do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOPEZ: And that was our interview, Eliot. I also asked him about possible contradiction, the fact that a Nobel Peace Prize winner authorizes force on the eighth anniversary of the Iraq war that he opposed. And he says, yes, that he was aware of the contradiction and he said it was when he received the award, didn't say if he would return it as some are asking to do.
SPITZER: Yes. Fascinating stuff. And, Juan Carlos, you asked the most critical question, which is what we're going to do to help the rebels. And I think the answer the president gave us is going to be parsed very carefully. Interesting stuff in there, a lot of contradictions. But it's going to be something we talk about at length later on.
All right. Great interview, thanks so much for joining us.
Coming up: it's hard to believe, but three short months ago, the leadership of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya seemed written in stone. Now, it's more like desert sand. A look at the ever- shifting landscape of the Middle East -- when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: Bloodshed across the Middle East today as revolutions stretch beyond Libya and Yemen to the entire region.
Will Cain has been digging to events across the Middle East and he joins us now.
Will, what's the story?
WILL CAIN, CN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Eliot, what, it's been three short months since a Tunisian street vendor lit himself on fire in protest against the autocratic regime there. And in three months since, damn near every country in the Middle East has had to deal with some level of protest or rebellion.
We know about Egypt. We know about Libya. We talked tonight about Yemen.
But Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Iran, Iraq -- these countries have all had to deal with some protest or rebellion. And it's being called the "Arab Spring," and broadly defined as people rising up against dictators in search of democracy. Well, my next guest says it's not simple. These are all different countries with different prospects for hope and different rebellions.
Joining me now to discuss what's going on in the Middle East is Hisham Melhem, D.C. bureau chief of Al-Arabiya.
Hisham, we talked a little earlier and you said, in trying to understand what's going on in the Middle East, we need to understand there's a fundamental difference between what's happening in Egypt and Tunisia and what's happening in the rest of these countries. Describe that that for me.
HISHAM MELHEM, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, AL-ARABIYA: Well, to begin with, a lot would defend on the character of the leader, but most importantly, on the character of the countries. The Arab world, most of the Arab countries are ruled by autocrats, but also, some of them are ruled by bloody tyrants and despots. And even in despotism, there is a hierarchy.
But what is more important is the character of the country. In both Tunisia and Egypt, you have homogenous societies with a clear national identity, with a fairly developed civil society, and where the armed forces do not have a bloody history of suppressing their own people. In the heterogeneous societies are Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, you -- you do not have that. You have tribal, ethnic, sometimes linguistic regional, sectarian and ethnic differences that makes it difficult for those who are seeking political reform to agree on a set of political grievances because the priorities of the Kurds in Iraq are not necessarily the priorities of the Shia and Sunnis in Iraq.
CAIN: Hisham --
MELHEM: Also that fact makes it difficult -- it makes it easier for the ruling governments to use these social and ethnic cleavages to undermine any reform movement. And, hence, you have what you have in Yemen and Libya where both leaders, by the way, use the exact language to warn the opposition to say if you continue, there will be civil war.
CAIN: Right. If the great asset, though, of Egypt and Tunisia is that their homogenous, and others are diverse societies broken down on tribal or ethnic or religious lines -- you know, simply removing a dictator isn't going to change that. In fact, one could argue that the dictator is keeping that country held together.
So, how are we supposed to be optimistic about the prospects of democracy in those countries?
CAIN: Look, I mean, an oppressive regime kept Yugoslavia together by force. The Soviet Union was an empire by force. You are running the risk that when you have a transition, the transition by its own nature is messy and it's turbulent, and unpredictable.
But you cannot stop history, the march of history. There's a yearning on the part of the youth, particularly in those societies, for a change. Now, change doesn't mean change from this nasty situation into a Jefferson democracy. So, we have to keep that in mind.
Now, the desire for change is very deep. But the outcome of the change is still debatable. You have people who want to have democracy, accountability, reform, who believe in the same values that -- universal values that we believe in this country.
But then you have people who want different kind of change. We have the Islamists. We have people who have different visions of the future. And that's why this process is still unfolding and there's no guarantee that the change is going to be necessarily positive.
We were lucky so far that in Tunisia and Egypt, the change has been less violent, somewhat predictable and there is some hope that it could unfold in a kind of democratic, civil way. If there's going to be change in a Syria, or Yemen, or Sudan, or Algeria, it's essentially going to be bloody because the regimes are going to fight, as Gadhafi said, to the last man and to last bullet. And those who are waging the revolution should be extremely careful and those who are supporting from the outside -- and they do deserve support, by the way -- also, they should be careful. But there is no guarantee. This is a very complex reality in the Arab world, and it's unfolding in an uncertain way. And that's part of the -- of the -- of this moment of enthusiasm, if you will, that is sweeping the region.
CAIN: One of the complexities that you described that is present for us is the fear in the West of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. In fact, the United States has been involved in this area and has been behind some of these dictators because of that fear of Islamic fundamentalism.
Now, a writer I like named Raul Margarec (ph), who's a former CIA officer, says that we must now embrace the concept of democracy in Middle East. And we need to embrace it at the risk of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. He says, in our own societies, we went through the same process, that there has to be a debate between God and man and society, and we now have to allow the debate to take place in the Middle East.
Do you agree that that's a necessary step?
MELHEM: I mean, these questions should be asked by intellectuals and others in Arab and Muslim societies, obviously. The relationship between the state and individual -- all of these things are legitimate.
The Islamists in the Arab world, even for a secularist like me, committed secularist like me, are a part of life. They are part of the cultural, social, religious make up or mosaic of these societies. As long as they are not armed, as long as they are not using coercion, they should be allowed in the market of ideas to debate and to work on the political theater, if you will, like other people.
The point is: let's give the other nonsectarian groups, the liberals, the progressives, the national -- whatever, enough space so that they can compete and organize and debate those people and take them on intellectually and politically. Those people are very well- organized because we make them -- we made martyrs out of them because they were repressed by force, and they -- they had iconic leaders.
And if the liberals and the reformers are allowed that space, they can deal with them politically, intellectually. And let's remember the process in Tunisia and in Egypt was not driven by these people. It was driven by people who are reformers and who are not alien to our ideas and our --
CAIN: All right, Hisham, listen, I appreciate you're joining us. Thanks a lot.
Eliot, it's a complicated issue.
SPITZER: Yes.
CAIN: I wish it was as simple as just a rise in democracy. But it might be more complex.
SPITZER: Complicated, fraught with uncertainty, as we must follow it.
All right. Next: President Obama says he wants to help the Libyan rebels. But how far is he willing to go? I'll go into the arena with Will and E.D.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SPITZER: All right. Welcome back.
So, E.D., what do you make of the president's comments about our strategy in Libya?
HILL: What I make of it is that he thought it was a nice idea, that it was the right moral, ethical thing to do, and he has no clue where to go from here. I'd like to hear what he plans next.
SPITZER: Will?
CAIN: Why are we in Libya? What is our objective? What is our position on these other countries?
I've been asking these questions for three days into a war, an American plane has hit the ground, no one's answered those questions -- including you.
SPITZER: No. Look, we know why we're there. We know what we want to do. They haven't taken the military --
CAIN: I know you know.
SPITZER: They haven't done the military thing to do. Anyway, we'll discuss this story.
E.D., Will, thanks for being here.
"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.
