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American Morning
Interview with Fareed Zakaria
Aired June 10, 2002 - 07:27 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: As Barbara Starr just reported before the break, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stopped off in the Persian Gulf before continuing on to both Pakistan and India later this week, where he will be trying to head off a confrontation between nuclear powers and try to keep up the momentum in the search for al Qaeda fighters. And Dr. Fareed Zakaria is following the story for "Newsweek" -- good morning.
FAREED ZAKARIA, "NEWSWEEK": Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: Well it sounds like the secretary listened to you last week. You essentially said that the reason for this heightened tension was basically India wanted to get America's attention, and they did.
ZAKARIA: Right. And India has a problem, which is Pakistan has for the last 13 years been following this policy of fermenting terrorism across the border, which is a very clever way in a way of bleeding India, because India doesn't have an easy response precisely because of the nuclear weapons. It knows that any reaction on its part could spark some kind of a nuclear war, and so it restrains itself. Therefore, what India wanted to do was to say, look, we are really serious this time. If you guys -- meaning Washington -- don't bear down on General Musharraf and tell him to stop this, we will really do something. And the threat worked.
ZAHN: We should also note that Secretary of State Rumsfeld, while in Kuwait, made some very strong comments about the presence of al Qaeda fighters in the Kashmir region. He said, "Scraps of information suggest that al Qaeda is active in the area; we are concerned." Have you seen any evidence of this new al Qaeda activity in the region?
ZAKARIA: Sure. I think what's happened is Musharraf had -- the president of Pakistan had to turn off the tap, if you will, in terms of the support that Pakistan was giving to the Taliban regime when the United States -- after September 11. Well, these guys have to go somewhere. All these Arabs who had come to Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban are looking for some other great cause. Well, the other great cause on Pakistan's border that Islamic fundamentalists care about is the Kashmiris. And therefore they probably moved into Kashmir and have been part of the terrorism problem there.
ZAHN: So what can anybody do about it?
ZAKARIA: That's the real question, Paula, which is, I think President Musharraf has made a decision that he's going to stop the flow of terrorism to the extent he can. But a lot of these guys are already in the Kashmir valley. They've crossed the border. Now they're sort of out of his control. What we've got to hope is, A, that we can get them. That is to say, the Indians, the Americans, to a certain extent, can find information and intelligence. And secondly, that if something happens that seems being done by people who are already there, the Indians don't overreact. That they make a distinction between guys who are already in Kashmir and guys being pushed over the border.
ZAHN: Before we let you go, let's have you reflect on the Middle East this morning. Prime Minister Sharon about to meet with the president a little bit later on today, at a time when a military incursion netted -- the Israeli army says 27 prisoners, they say, are involved in terrorism against Israelis.
ZAKARIA: Well, you know, this is part now of an operation that Israel has been doing for a month and a half. It is the largest military operation they have launched since probably the 1967 war. I don't think it's been terribly successful. If you look at the last 10 days, the state of terrorism is back. I think that Ariel Sharon needs to ask himself if he thinks that there is a purely military solution to this problem or if he also needs to move on the political track. And I think President Bush should probably push him to move on that latter, political track.
ZAHN: But you've been given no indication that that's what he's going to do, have you?
ZAKARIA: No, this will be the sixth time that the president meets with Ariel Sharon. Mostly he has only told Sharon what he wanted to hear.
ZAHN: Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much for dropping by AM.
ZAKARIA: Thank you, Paula.
ZAHN: Nice to have you with us this morning.
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