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Parker Spitzer

Protests Continue in Different Parts of Cairo; Activist Ghonim Speaks Out; Who is Egyptian VP Suleiman?

Aired February 09, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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

KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Kathleen Parker.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Eliot Spitzer. Welcome to the program.

Welcome to the republic of Tahrir Square live at 3:00 a.m. Cairo time. That's what some protesters are calling and it fits with what we see there every day and every night.

The square is now home to thousands of protesters who have lived, eaten, slept there for days now, and they're not going away, folks. In fact, their numbers just keep growing and tonight breaking news.

This is the first time we're showing you the full CNN exclusive interview with the man who is now being called the leader of the Egyptian revolution.

Our international correspondent Ivan Watson tracked down the former Google executive Wael Ghonim today and got the only interview you'll see anywhere. It is a strong and emotional conversation with a man on a mission. Just watch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Did you plan a revolution?

WAEL GHONIM, PROTESTER/INTERNET ACTIVIST Yes. We did.

WATSON: What was the plan?

GHONIM: The plan was to get everyone on the street. Number one is that we're going to start from, you know, poor areas. Our demands are going to be all about what touches people's daily life.

WATSON: There's been a lot of speculation about Muslim Brotherhood being involved in this uprising. How would you describe yourself and your friends who helped mobilize for the first protest on January 25th?

GHONIM: Muslim Brotherhood was not involved at all in the organization of this. Muslim Brotherhood announced they are not going to participate officially. And they said if the young guys want to join -- if their young guys want to join, they're not going to tell them no. If you want to free a society just give them Internet access because people are going to -- you know, the young crowds are going to -- are going to all go out and see and hear the unbiased media, see the truth about, you know, other nations and their own nation and they're going to be able to communicate and collaborate together.

WATSON: Was this an Internet revolution?

GHONIM: Definitely, this is the Internet revolution. I'll call it revolution 2.0.

WATSON: The Egyptian government right now is talking about change. It's talking about committees, constitutional reform, investigating the last parliamentary elections, respecting the demands of the youth, stopping arrests, liberating the media.

What do you think about these messages?

GHONIM: This is no longer the time to negotiate, unfortunately. We went on the street on 25th and we wanted to negotiate. We wanted to talk to our government. We were, you know, knocking the door.

They decided to negotiate with us at night with rubber bullets, with police sticks, with -- you know, water hoses, with teargas tanks, and with arresting about 500 people of us. Thanks, you know, we got the message. Now when we escalated this and it became really big they started listening to us.

WATSON: Your arrest -- do you think it was just a coincidence, a sweep of the streets, or do you think you were targeted?

GHONIM: No, I was targeted. Of course. They wanted me.

WATSON: What was going through your mind at that moment?

GHONIM: I was super scared.

WATSON: You were blindfolded.

GHONIM: Yes. Blindfolded of course.

WATSON: For the whole time.

GHONIM: Yes, of course. Today I was giving the complete power of attorney to my wife. Everything I own in my bank accounts, everything, because I am ready to die. There are tons of thousands of people, they are ready to die for --

WATSON: You gave power of attorney to your wife because you think you may die?

GHONIM: Yes, of course. They gave us a lot of promises about, you know, gradual change and so on but then going back to the interview that Omar Suleiman did a couple of days ago, he said that Egyptians are not ready for democracy now.

WATSON: So what do you think of that?

GHONIM: So I think this is actually our real problem with the regime. Just the fact that, you know, you get some -- few people to decide that they are of a better -- you know, of a better position to decide for a nation, and then use, you know, media to brainwash people, use the baseball bat to hit those who are -- you know, who decide that they want to say no.

WATSON: Do you feel any responsibility?

GHONIM: No, no, I am sorry but I don't. You know I am sorry for their loss. You know, I can't forget these people. I still remember them. This could have been me or my brother, and they were killed. They were killed as if they -- you know, you know, if these people died in a war that's fair and square. You know, you hold the weapon and, you know, someone is shooting, you know, and you died.

But no, none of them. And those people who were killed were not -- you know, were not like they did not look like they are -- they did not really look like, you know, they're going to attack anyone. They were just shooting them. They were shooting them a lot of -- you know a lot of the times the people were, you know, standing -- the policeman would stand on the bridge and shoot people down.

This is a crime. This president needs to step down because this is a crime and I'm telling you, I am ready to die. I have a lot to lose in this life. I -- you know, I work or, you know now as I'm on a leave of absence. I work in the best company to work for in the world.

I had the best wife and I have -- I love my kids, but I'm willing to lose all of that for my dream to happen and no one is going to go against our desire. No one. And I'm telling this to Omar Suleiman, he is going to watch this.

You are not going to stop us. Kidnap me, kidnap all my colleagues, put us in jail, kill us, do whatever you want to do. We are getting back our country. You guys have been ruining this country for 30 years. Enough. Enough. Enough.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SPITZER: Unbelievably powerful that interview just staggering, brilliant.

Joining us now, our reporter, Ivan Watson.

Ivan, congratulations on that amazing interview. Boy, you just -- gripping in every way. Anyhow, despite the protests we've heard from Wael Ghonim, is he now inevitably the spiritual leader of this revolution?

WATSON: He certainly says he does not want to be the figure head of this revolution, but, you know -- and in fact, he says that the initial group that came together to mobilize for this initial January 25th protest, they were deliberately trying to be nameless, faceless, anonymous and that has changed dramatically now. People recognize him on the streets.

Big question is who can lead? Who can speak for this group of people? And I asked him that again and again and he didn't really give me a solid answer. He did say that perhaps one of his favorite choices to lead a transitional government in the future would be Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nobel Prize laureate from Egypt.

PARKER: Ivan, when Wael says that he is now ready to die and he's given his wife power of attorney, that's clearly a very personal decision, but do you get any sense that there are others who are willing to take that same kind of step forward toward complete surrender to the revolution?

WATSON: We saw that last week here, Kathleen. I mean it was very dramatic. You have men who were spending days and nights sleeping at the barricades that are protecting this little enclave in the center of Cairo, filthy with bandages on their heads. You know, blood from days and nights of fighting, literally putting their lives on the line.

And they have not backed down and when it became apparent that the military might become the threat to this enclave with much more powerful weapons than the gangs of pro-Mubarak demonstrators who had been throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, when it became apparent that the military may try to step in, they went in front of the barricades, they sat down.

They're still doing it now in front of campfires all night ready to put their bodies in the way of the tanks and this strange phenomenon, this pro-democracy enclave in the middle of Cairo.

SPITZER: You know, Ivan, it does have the air and sensibility of Tiananmen Square. Let's of course hope it turns out differently. One of the most important things that Wael said -- Wael Ghonim said in that tape, is that he said this is not the moment for negotiation.

It seems to me that as long as Ghonim denies the legitimacy of the ongoing negotiations then these negotiations cannot succeed. He now is, I think, such an emotional force when he says they're not real, they're not to be credited, doesn't that, in fact, leave them with no place to go?

WATSON: Yes, you could argue that but I think the demonstrators feel emboldened right now, Eliot, and we see that their protest movement has grown. Last night they moved from Tahrir Square, this place that we've all seen day after day here in the center of Cairo, and they moved blocks away to start another sit-in where they spent the night in front of the gates of the Egyptian parliament.

And they were there again today blocking off that street and they vow that they will remain there and that they're shifting their tactics. They're going to start moving to other place, as well. And the fascinating thing was that the Egyptian army did not stop them from moving in. So they say they're going to shift the tactics, expand their tactics, and continue mounting pressure against this government and we'll see how far that can take them.

SPITZER: You say that Ghonim, when he walks on the streets, is now recognized. I just see him as becoming such a pivotal character in this. Has the government responded? Has Suleiman responded? Have they in any way through their enormous TV and propaganda apparatus try to respond to the power of this video?

WATSON: I haven't heard a direct response. We have seen a shift a bit in state television in the last 72 hours. One former state television anchorwoman who just resigned in protest tells me and she thinks that that's linked to the fact that a statement came all the way from the prime minister saying, it's time to loosen up restrictions and self-censorship on the state media.

And she has detected a definite shift in some of what's been broadcast, some of what the demonstrators argue would be lies. He has helped puncture a lot of the misperceptions that have been deliberately broadcast when Ghonim, right after coming out of detention on Monday went to a private Egyptian TV channel, Eliot, and he said, we are not drug dealers like state media has said. We are not criminals. We are not agents of foreign governments.

We are Egyptian patriots and we're here to make our country better. And that really had a ripple effect in Egyptian society.

PARKER: Ivan, on a related issue, Ghonim said that the Muslim Brotherhood had nothing to do with these demonstrations and, of course, the Brotherhood has now said that they have no interest in running anyone for public office. But as you have talked to people in the street and your interviews, do you feel that that's credible?

I mean, I take Ghonim's word.

WATSON: What he said is that the Muslim Brotherhood -- what he said is that, Kathleen, the Muslim Brotherhood did not organize, did not participate in the initial January 25th demonstration. It took them days to start -- to jump on the bandwagon that was started by what for all intents and purposes seemed like upper class secular, highly educated young Egyptians.

They are the nucleus of what we saw form here and then the Muslim Brotherhood came in. He says now the Muslim Brotherhood are perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the demonstrators out there. Other people say maybe it's 30 percent of the people there.

And he did also go on to say, Kathleen, you know, they are welcome to join us. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a bogeyman that's been used -- this is his words -- by the Egyptian government and by the U.S. government.

They're not nearly as dangerous as the Egyptian government would have us think. They are a part of Egyptian society and they have every right to be a part of this grassroots opposition movement. PARKER: All right, Ivan Watson. Thanks so much for that fabulous interview and for your report.

Next, what did the U.S. know about the growing crisis in Egypt and when did they know it? That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: The Egyptian rebellion supposedly caught America by surprise. No one could have predicted it. That has been the position of the Obama administration from the beginning of this uprising. Listen to what Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Jon Stewart.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADM. MIKE MULLEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Well, I think actually it has taken not just us but many people by surprise. To a great degree I think the timing of it certainly caught us as it moved from Tunisia and sort of across to the really difficult challenge that's there right now in Egypt.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: Well, it turns out that, in fact, the crisis was not a complete surprise. A bipartisan group of Middle East policy experts had sent explicit and detailed warnings about what might happen in Egypt.

PARKER: Almost a year ago the group began urging Hillary Clinton, among others, to push for basic democratic reforms. They did not get the strong response they were looking for.

Here to say "I told you so" are two members of working group on Egypt who join us from Washington, D.C. Michele Dunne is a professor of Arab studies at Georgetown University and Robert Kagan is a columnist for "The Washington Post" and was a State Department official under President Reagan.

Welcome to you both.

Michele, let me begin with you. Here's the critical question I just got to ask you. Did you see things that the government didn't see or did you see things the government didn't want to see because our government was so thrilled with the deal that it had going with Mubarak for the past 30 years? It got stability and it didn't care about his repressive regime.

MICHELE DUNNE, ARAB STUDIES PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIV.: I think we saw things that the government was aware of but didn't know what to do about. You know, the reason we really organized this group was that we saw that there were elections coming in Egypt, parliamentary elections that were held in November of 2010, and a presidential election coming up in 2011.

We could see there was just a great deal of dissatisfaction among the Egyptian public with this situation and that they -- you know and we were concerned there were going to be fraudulent elections held and the United States wasn't going to do anything and we were just trying to draw the attention of U.S. officials to this.

And I think what we heard from them is that, yes, yes, we realize things are bad but what can we really do about it?

PARKER: Well, Robert, I guess the obvious question is, if you were assistant secretary of state and you were responsible for Egypt, what would you have done to better manage the situation?

ROBERT KAGAN, WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST: Well, first of all, let me just say despite the lead-in I'm not here to say, I told you so. It doesn't matter anymore. You know, and these things are difficult for all U.S. administrations. You know, it's not easy to shove out or put pressure on a longtime ally.

And as assistant secretary of state I would be -- I would be torn because as they said to us many times and it's certainly true, the United States does a lot of business with President Mubarak on the peace process, vis-a-vis Iran, security, any number of issues. The problem was we were arguing that -- are actually seeking stability in Egypt and maybe even avoiding crises down the road, that's why you have to press Mubarak.

And I think if Mubarak had been convinced to take some fairly marginal but nevertheless symbolically significant steps for these last parliamentary elections in November and shown that he was willing to undertake reforms, we might not be having this explosion right now.

And that was really the argument we were making. We can forestall a crisis later by pressing for some relatively modest but nevertheless significant steps now.

SPITZER: Well, let me direct this to Michele. It seems to me we had a 30-year mortgage here. We got a 30-year deal that finally got paid off by both sides. We got stability, we got cooperation with the peace agreement. Mubarak got a free hand in terms of repression.

When in your letters do you persuadably argued to the government lift the martial law, lift the emergency powers that you, Mubarak, are using? When the White House and Secretary Clinton didn't respond to that, did you go back at them and say you are going to create the very unrest that you are fearful of?

DUNNE: Well, look, we had conversations with members of the administration, with members of Congress and so forth. You know, what we were trying to argue was the United States cannot be neutral here. The United States has this very long and deep relationship with Egypt and it's not credible for the United States just to stand by. And for political repression and rigged elections and human rights abuses to be going on and the United States acts as though kind of it has no opinion about this.

That, you know, the United States should make clear where it stands on this issue. Understanding that the United States could not force the government of Egypt to bring about changes. But that this would be -- you know, the United States should make clear where it stood and should make clear to the government of Egypt that it would make a difference in the U.S./Egyptian relationship, how the Egyptian government treated its own people.

PARKER: Well, Robert, now that things have erupted and the Obama administration continues to evolve its policy, how do you think they're doing at this point?

KAGAN: Well, I think that they're doing pretty well right now. I mean they had a kind of shaky moment over the weekend when this -- the envoy Frank Wisner told a conference in Germany that Mubarak was critical, that he stay at this point which I think was not quite where the president is.

Yesterday they put out a statement about a phone call that Vice President Biden made with Omar Suleiman and laid down some very clear points. For instance, that the Egyptian government must lift the emergency law immediately, that President Mubarak must begin to delegate authority and somehow step away from leadership in that country.

These steps really -- and some other things, as well. These steps really are essential if we're to move forward and what we see out on the streets in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt today is a force that I think is ultimately unstoppable unless the government is really willing to wreak incredible havoc and bloodshed on the Egyptian people, I actually do believe that this people power in Egypt is going to succeed, especially if the United States takes the right position.

SPITZER: You know, Robert, I think virtually everybody watching agrees with your assessment about how powerful this movement is and certainly on the outcome we desire. But it's interesting that the Egyptian government's response today was to push back pretty hard at the U.S. government, basically saying, stay out of our business.

And it's interesting that when the United States government said we might cut off the military aid and the other aid surrounding Arab nations said we will match it. If they take it away from you, we will match it. So how does the U.S. government respond to that?

KAGAN: Well, that's a bluff in my opinion. I think that no one can replace the United States. The United States provides over a billion dollars in military assistance to the Egyptian government and the tie between the United States and Egypt has been very important to the Egyptian military in particular.

I don't think we should be deterred by the fact that there are other very nervous dictators in the region. I think that we need to -- for our own interests, we need to move forward and get to a significant transition that can produce a legitimate and democratic and, therefore, stable Egypt which is critical to our interests.

SPITZER: You know, Michele, it has been observed by some that there would be a very sort of unfortunate irony if the United States, although I certainly believe would be the correct thing to do, if the United States went to Mubarak and said, you must lift martial law and we came down very hard on an ally of 30 years, when he was continuing to be repressive. When we in fact stepped back and did virtually nothing when there was the Green Revolution in Iran last year.

Would that send a very bizarre mixed message to our friends and allies around the world?

DUNNE: Well, I don't think so. I mean I do think that the Obama administration could have and should have done more to encourage, you know, those seeking, you know, freedom in Iran. But in the case of Egypt, I mean, why get this one wrong?

I mean, this is a nation of 85 million people. It's the largest Arab country. This is a pro-democracy uprising. This is not an Islamist uprising. This is not an anti-U.S. uprising. There is every reason to encourage this and there are risks going forward. In any kind of democratic transition there are a lot of political and economic risks, but I think people should also see there are risks on the other side.

If I think that -- if the Egyptian authorities put down a democratic uprising with force and particularly if the United States is seen as complicit in having put this thing down with force, you know, I don't think this is the end of it. We're going to see more instability in Egypt. We're eventually going to see another uprising and probably of a far more radical and not necessarily pro-democracy character.

PARKER: Well, Michele, before you leave that topic, you all -- your bipartisan group saw this one coming. Are there other crises coming along that you've already got your eye on?

DUNNE: Well, I think there are a lot of other countries in the region in which the grievances that set off the Tunisian uprising and now the Egyptian uprising are shared. This youth bulge, youth unemployment, corruption, lack of political participation, leaders who stay in office not years but decades.

This characterizes, you know, a number of other states in the region and it might not be too late in those places for those governments to carry out serious reforms and really start undoing human rights abuses and opening up political participation.

That's what the United States should be urging in those places now in a far more serious way than it has before.

PARKER: Well, let's hope that's what happens.

All right, Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan, thanks so much for joining us.

KAGAN: Thank you.

DUNNE: Welcome.

SPITZER: Next when the White House calls the Egyptian government these days the man who picks up the phone is the new vice president, Omar Suleiman. Unfortunately, according to our next guest, Suleiman's resume includes torture and killing. When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: We've been telling you for days that Omar Suleiman, Egypt's vice president, is the man now determining the country's fate. But who is he? Where did he come from?

Our next guest says our point man in Egypt is in fact a hit-man.

PARKER: Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist whose access to the inner-workings of our national security is incomparable. He's joining us now from Washington.

Ron, great to have you.

RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR, "THE ONE PERCENT DOCTRINE": It's good to be here.

PARKER: So, Ron, you've written extensively about him in your book, "The One Percent Doctrine." Who is Omar Suleiman?

SUSKIND: Omar Suleiman has been the point man for Mubarak in the intelligence services in Egypt for nearly three decades. It's important to note that he's not like George Tenet, an intelligence chief. The intelligence services in this part of the world are like the secret police. They operate within the country.

Suleiman is the guy who carries out assassinations, tortures and prisons. He's the guy who -- if someone knocks on your door at night and you disappear, Omar Suleiman is probably behind it. So he is a feared man and certainly not a man with any legitimacy when it comes to rule of law or any of the principles we prized in America.

SPITZER: You know, Ron, the interesting thing is that given this description that is now emerging about Suleiman, it seems odd almost bizarre that the public is Egypt is not demanding his immediate resignation as well as the resignation of Mubarak.

Why is Suleiman somehow separate and apart in the public's mind in Egypt?

SUSKIND: Well, you know, I think there are some people who are calling for Suleiman's resignation. They say he and Mubarak are really one person.

You know, it's important to note where Suleiman fits across the recent history of the United States, as well. I mean he has a couple important footnotes in the drama. The first Al Qaeda arrest we made in November of 2001 not long after 9/11 was a guy named al-Libi. The CIA picked him up and we brought him to Omar Suleiman in Egypt to torture. That's what the purpose was.

He was tortured rather dramatically by Suleiman and he gave information that was fraudulent information about chemical and biological operations inside of Iraq that Colin Powell then used in his U.N. presentation. Again, it was false.

So what you see here is part of the mix that the United States has gotten into, the so-called dark side that has causes so much trouble in terms of our legitimacy over the past few years. And now the question is being called in terms of the United States as pro- democracy, self-determination movements essentially arise from the bottom up and look to the United States for support as example.

Well, the fact is we are allied with the people they're trying to overthrow, and right now the United States hasn't done much to separate those bonds.

KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": Well, Ron, just to add a little graphic detail, I think when Suleiman was asked for a DNA sample he offered a man's arm.

SUSKIND: That's right. That was another dark chapter. We thought we picked up Zawahiri, bin Laden's number two, in 2002. We got a head that was shipped to the United States. Some Afghan tribal leader wanted the $25 million reward. We did a DNA sample, the FBI did it. We got tissue out of the molar.

We called up Suleiman as the point man and he's the guy you call. We said, hey, Zawahiri's brother is in an Egyptian prison. We have the possibility of a DNA match. Suleiman says no problem, I'll send you his arm. Of course then what happened is the CIA guy said, don't hang up. All we need is a vial of blood.

This gives you a sense of what happens when the United States goes medieval so-called and how difficult it is in terms of our relationships going forward at a moment like we're in now. We have not extricated ourselves and unless we do we'll have trouble going forward especially if pro-democratic regimes come into power.

SPITZER: I want to read to you, Ron, a very brief excerpt from a 2006 U.S. state department memo, and it says, our intelligence collaboration with Omar Suleiman is now probably the most successful element of the U.S.-Egypt relationship.

And when you read that, is that the key to understanding why we have been so off in understanding what is actually going on inside Egypt? We have seen this through the prism, through the evidence that Suleiman wanted us to have.

SUSKIND: Yes, exactly. You know, what you're talking about, Eliot, is a relationship with Egypt's intelligence services, it happens all through that region. Our liaison relationship, so-called, is with the intelligence chief of these countries, the heads of the secret police. And we see only what that government sees.

And so we are missing now as we're finding out the intelligence boiling up from the street as to what's really happening in terms of these rather sweeping movements that in some ways are out there trying to copy what we do in this country.

That blindness to intelligence more broadly wrought is what's getting us into trouble. We don't see these things coming any more than the regimes see them coming because that's all the intelligence we get.

SPITZER: You know, you have described a relationship between Suleiman and our intelligence agencies that obviously is symbiotic. Both sides were using each other. Is it possible he knows things about us that make it very hard for us to pressure him? He's basically saying to Gates and the others in our government, hey, guy, you push me too hard, I can begin telling the world other things I did for you that you don't want out there?

SUSKIND: You know, Eliot, you understand this. It is a little like being in bed with the mafia. You know, this is a two-way street and it's very messy. You know, Suleiman knows all sorts of things about the United States as do other intelligence agencies.

Just a little added not. Sheikh al-Libi who gave the bad intelligence for Colin Powell's U.N. address, we got the name from Moussa Coosa who is Omar Gaddafi's intelligence chief who was behind the Lockerbie bombing. This is throughout the region.

And it's the kind of thing the United States now should be looking at. I think some people are inside the State Department to say this is some pretty ugly things coming home to roost.

SPITZER: Looking at this from a global perspective, do you think that Suleiman when he steps back at the end of the day says I understand that I as well as the military dictatorship of the last 30 years have got to go, or do you think he still lives in such a bubble he believes he can both wait out and just beat back this force on the streets?

SUSKIND: Well, you know, we hope it's the former but, frankly, it has always proven to be the latter. And I think it's important to understand how this works. You get one of these dictators in control of a country, all the people around that dictator are really part of the inside group that often gets great opportunities and profits from United States business relationships, all sorts of things and enriches them. That goes for Suleiman too.

So what you've got is a power structure supported by these liaison relationships with U.S. business folded into it that, well, they're not going out in most cases except feet first. That's the way they live their lives and that's essentially the way they're hoping it will continue.

And so I think what we've got now is a kind of choice for the United States. Are we going to be true to our oath when this comes to these democratic ideals that are now sweeping some parts of the country of the world that are a surprise to us, or are we going to stick with business as usual?

PARKER: Ron, given your understanding of how government works and how ours works, in particular, and given our long-standing relationship with Suleiman obviously in Washington, they must be a little panicky about all this new information that's coming out. What can the Obama administration do, I mean, specifically?

SUSKIND: Well, you know, yes, they're very panicky about it. You know, the fact is that we have not developed intelligence assets in these countries in this most delicate and explosive part of the world. And that means that our overreliance on people like Suleiman is trapping us.

We need to broaden out. Years ago we needed to broaden out the scope of what the United States knows and sees in these countries so that we're not surprised and so we get on the right side of the barricades at moments like the one we're in now.

I think that part of the challenge here is how to extricate ourselves in a way that is clear and demonstrative and forceful enough that the United States shows which side it's on based on the principles that we apprise and that we're proud of in this country.

SPITZER: You know, Ron, one of the things I'm having trouble understanding over the course of the sequence of these events is the continuing support for the Egyptian military that we hear from our own defense department where they continue to praise what the Egyptian military has done.

And yet there doesn't seem to be any real question it is the Egyptian military that has orchestrated harassment of journalists, you know, while Ghonim is being picked up and held for 12 days with a hood on the entire time. All is being orchestrated by Suleiman at the top, so why do we continue to praise the military?

SUSKIND: These relationships are long and deep, Eliot. You know, they go back decades. Many of the Egyptian military leaders trained in the United States. They were trained by the Pentagon. There are all sorts of overlapping relationships and ultimately ideas of how to go forward.

You know, we do see the Egyptian military as a bulwark of stability in that part of the world. Again, the question is, how do we define stability and broader United States interests that are longer-term interests in that region?

You know, the fact is that the tentacles of this thing are pretty ugly and they go through the United States government to many of the regimes in the region, Egypt especially. And right now the United States is kind of keeping their eyes shut saying, oh, I hope this goes away or I hope this doesn't ex-employed on us.

But that's probably not going to happen. I think most people are believing that the United States needs to be a little more forceful.

SPITZER: All right, Ron Suskind, thanks for coming in tonight, fascinating conversation.

Up next, we change the subject to Wall Street with a guy who knows more about what goes on there than just about anybody else when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: In "The Big Short," best-selling author Michael Lewis tells the story of the financial crisis. Tonight I want him to tell me what's going to happen next on Wall Street. Michael Lewis has written a lot of great books, but I think "The Big Short" might be the best yet. Joining us now is Michael Lewis. Michael, thank you for joining us.

MICHAEL LEWIS, AUTHOR, "THE BIG SHORT": Thanks for having me, Eliot.

SPITZER: Here's the question, I just got to start. It seems to me the stock market is booming. Bonuses are as big as they've been. Have they learned anything from the crisis they put us through?

LEWIS: They can get away with murder. Yes, I think they learned that. I think they learned no matter what they'll do, they'll be able to keep on doing ha they do.

So it is astonishing to me that we are sitting here two years after the crisis or more than two years after the financial crisis and we don't have a properly regulated financial industry. We still have these companies that are not just too big to fail but bigger than they were before the crisis, more systemically important.

And so we've got ourselves in this very weird situation where essentially we've got socialism for the capitalists and capitalism for everybody else.

SPITZER: That means when they lose money we bail them out. When they make money, they keep it.

LEWIS: Yes, they keep the upside. Before that was always true, it urged out, but we didn't know it. But what seemed to be the case before the crisis is if they lost money their shareholders ate it. Now it's worse. If they lose money it's pretty clear taxpayers are going to eat it. So you have taxpayer subsidized banks that are engaged in still elaborate risk taking.

SPITZER: It seems to me that we have taught them all the wrong lessons and this is on top of it in the single largest stance for of wealth ever from taxpayers to the wealthiest people in America. Am I right about that?

LEWIS: Yes, no, it's very bad parenting on our part. We've reinforced the absolute worst behaviors.

How, having said that to be fair to our legislators, they did try to do something. The Dodd frank legislation does two things if properly enforced that are important. It raises capital requirements so it means that they can -- that the big firms can make fewer bets for -- so that there's less risk.

SPITZER: Right.

LEWIS: And with any luck it will make their earnings less volatile, less boomy in the boom times and less busty in the bad times. And the other thing is, if the Volcker rule that forbids them from proprietary trading, trading with their own capital is enforced, which I doubt, but if it is enforced properly, well, that would be a big deal too.

SPITZER: But the Republicans have made it very clear they want to cut back on the Volcker rule, and it says you can't make these proprietary trades with money which is then implicitly or explicitly guaranteed by the Treasury Department, a rule that makes eminent sense.

LEWIS: It makes total sense. If you were sitting here five years ago or ten years ago and Wall Street firms that you should have essentially taxpayer-backed hedge funds, they'd say that's crazy. It's a violation of free market principles but that's what we'll have if that rule is not properly enforced.

LEWIS: As you said, capitalism only applies to the little guys. The guys at the top have to make money and we have to eat their losses.

But the FCIC report came out not long ago. It tells this story and, you know, about bad decision, corrupt decisions, but nobody has been held accountable. Is that ever going to change? Where are the prosecutors? Where are the regulators? There was a time in the distant past people were held accountable is that gone?

LEWIS: Well, you know, this is interesting because the answer, the short answer is, yes. But the longer answer is, yes, the Angelides report, the commission report is very damning. You read it and put it down and say this whole system needs to be reformed radically.

But it doesn't catch anybody doing anything that's obviously criminal. And this is what is so shocking to me is how much of what happened was possibly legal. The scandal was what you could do that was legal. So the laws need to be changed. So I think it's very hard to bring a successful suit against Wall Street in the fixed income markets in the bond markets.

SPITZER: I think there are some prosecutions that could be brought when I look at the FCIC report and see, for instance, the Clayton documents that show how many of the banks knew that a significant percentage of the debt, the mortgages they were securitizing, didn't even satisfy their own underwriting standards and they shoved that stuff into the pipeline that created this metastasizing CDOS and the rest thing that blew up on us. I think you can make cases there and I'm waiting for the prosecutor to do it.

LEWIS: I hope so. I mean I hope so for no other reason than just the discovery. One of the things you see from the report is still how the report till just scratches the surface. There's stuff that Wall Street firms did not cooperate with the inquiry commission. Didn't cooperate with their government and dragged their heels on providing documents. The inquiry commission has subpoena power but didn't get everybody to talk. I would love to see this dragged out so we could find out everything that happened. I think that we live in a world for better or worse where people who make lots of money not only exert a great deal of influence but pretty quickly feel justified and self-righteous about their position in the world because of the money they made, and they sort of quickly forget about why they made the money or how they made the money.

SPITZER: Let me come back. You mentioned Ben Bernanke who everybody says he did OK once the crisis was there, but seems he was uniquely positioned, he and Tim Geithner to stop it from happening as it was escalating. They built the system that collapsed. Should they be in their current positions?

LEWIS: You know, they are -- their hands are dirty. But I think that a lot of what they've done is forgivable.

What bothers me about them is not what they did leading up to the crisis. It's that they backed themselves that this situation where you couldn't reform the system, where they essentially said these banks are too central to the economy to allow them to fail. We're going to subsidize them back to health, and in doing so created these monsters that were able to prevent themselves from being reformed that were able to exert political influence on the reform process.

So I feel like they were, both Geithner and Bernanke's biggest thing was naivete about how they would behave once they were saved.

SPITZER: Michael Lewis, thank you. I love talking about that stuff.

And up next, the Egyptian treasure that's most valued by America and the rest of the world and why it's in jeopardy.

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SPITZER: The single most important geographical location in Egypt is the Suez Canal. Two million barrels of oil pass through the canal every day bound for the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Without the canal they would have to go around adding eight weeks to the trip. Imagine what that would do to the price of oil.

In addition, the U.S. Navy sends 12 warships per month through the canal, a key shortcut to Iraq and Afghanistan. Take a look at this.

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PARKER: One more report from Cairo tonight, an important story. The demonstrations have spread to a new location. Take a look with our Ivan Watson.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Egyptian revolutionaries are shifting their tactics. We are no longer in Tahrir Square. We're in a new part of Cairo for the sit-in. We're in front of the Egyptian parliament. Come take a look over here.

Last night, crowds gathered here and performed a sit-in. They slept on the sidewalk right outside the gates of the parliament and they even put a sign up right on the gates here, and it says "To the attorney general, we want an investigation into the wealth of Hosni Mubarak and his family."

Take a listen to what one young man had to say to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to move, not to stay in the Tahrir Square all the time. They want to ignore us there and life continues around us. So we said, no for this. We're going to continue and move anywhere to stop this regime.

WATSON: These revolutionaries say their protest movement is expanding. What were you saying, sir?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am saying that all outside in the street, no Muslim Brothers. We are the Egyptians who are looking for the freedom. All what have been published to the media about Muslim Brotherhood is not true.

WATSON: And we hear this call repeatedly, these people say they will move into other government buildings until the Egyptian government accepts their demands.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Cairo.

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SPITZER: Thank you for joining us tonight. Good night from tonight.

PARKER: "Piers Morgan Tonight" starts right now.