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CNN Live Sunday

Interview With Marc Ginsberg

Aired March 10, 2002 - 17:12   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Iraq and the Middle East are just a few of the issues on the vice president's agenda. For a closer look at the Cheney trip and what it might accomplish we're joined now by Marc Ginsberg, a scholar with the Middle East Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Morocco during the Clinton administration, and he joins us now from Washington.

Thanks, Marc, for joining us. Hi. We have got a lot on our plate here. Let's begin with Cheney and the Middle East. The recent back and forth violence in Israel, does that further underscore the need for the U.S. to be involved, or is this sending a stronger message, perhaps, that Arab states have to attack this issue, that their involvement is paramount? How do you see it?

MARC GINSBERG, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO: I think both points are actually correct. First of all, the vice president's trip comes on the heels of enormous violence, with the fault lines between extremism and moderate, Israelis and Arabs are disappearing, where the peace process is on life support, and where the vice president hopefully will encourage Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Abdullah's peace initiative to be unveiled at an Arab League summit meeting in the next two weeks.

So the vice president faces an enormous challenge, and at the same time I am afraid that General Zinni's mission this Thursday represents at best aspirin when we need major surgery, that is more American involvement in trying to bring about some semblance of a peace process in the Middle East, because the vice president's trip right now is into a region that's at best skeptical and at worst extremely angry at the United States.

WHITFIELD: Well, let's talk about this Saudi Prince Abdullah's plan. This is likely to be packed in the arsenal of Cheney when he makes his talks. Do you think that this plan has a chance to try and bring these two sides together?

GINSBERG: Well, the plan right now is a concept at best. It represents a spiritual hope to both parties that if they secure a cease-fire, that if they then go on to establish a peace process that we still reinstates an agreement between the parties to agree on the parameters of what would constitute a final settlement, then this Saudi plan has at least the chance of seeing itself being unveiled and being adopted by more than the Saudis and by the Syrians and by moderate Arab states. So we first have to at this point in time get the Israelis and the Palestinians into a process that restarts the negotiations and goes beyond a mere cease-fire.

WHITFIELD: Now onto Iraq, then, another centerpiece of vice president's 14-nation trip there, many of the nation's surrounding kind of enveloping Iraq. How significant or how important will it be that he try to gain the support of these other nations around Iraq in order to try and do something about that nation and its leader, Saddam Hussein?

GINSBERG: We cannot get to regime change in Baghdad, Fredricka, without first and foremost obtaining the support of the Saudis and the Turks. In order to preposition military forces sufficient in the region to pose a credible threat to regime change and for Baghdad to understand that we mean business, as well as other Arab states, we're going to need those two countries' support.

WHITFIELD: At the same time, how much of a risk is this that Cheney would even be addressing this issue with what could be some underlying Arab allies of Iraq?

GINSBERG: Well, the fact remains is that most Arab states at this point in time have opposed the United States effort to overthrow the regime in Baghdad, indeed at least publicly they have opposed it. The vice president is going to have to do a real hard sell here at a time when most Arabs are not convinced that the United States means business in Baghdad and is supporting extremism in the Middle East -- that is Israeli extremism, which is in effect an effort by Israel to continue to impose violence on the Palestinians.

That is how the Arabs see it. That does not mean that that's the way the rest of the world sees it, but that's the situation that the vice president faces right now. The skepticism in the Middle East toward the United States' role in supporting Israel, and at the same time (UNINTELLIGIBLE) trying to overthrow the regime in Baghdad. Two are incompatible with each other insofar as trying to accomplish each at the same time. We need first and foremost to bring about a reduction of violence in the Middle East, and then maybe we can get the Arabs to support a regime change in Baghdad. The two are inter- connected with each other.

WHITFIELD: And now the vice president says when talking about Iraq, he is going to be meeting with people he has dealt with before. This is not a meeting of strangers. So what needs to be the tone as he then tries to address this issue, when many of the Arab nation leaders are saying, you know, Iraq, no matter which way you want to look at it, these are our Arab brothers?

GINSBERG: We have to first and foremost convince the Arabs that a regime change is beneficial to them in the long run. The Iraqi people have suffered enormously under Saddam Hussein. The same pictures that we saw when we liberated Kabul we'll see when if indeed we're able to liberate Baghdad.

At the same time, Arabs want to see a commitment by the United States to support a peace process. At the same time, the United States is going to have to impose on the Arabs an effort to rein in Yasser Arafat and extremists who without doing so will never convince the Israelis that there is a partner for peace in the region. It is going to take a real effort by the United States to cause those Arab moderate regimes to rein in Arafat before we overstep into the precipice, and the peace process, to the extent that there is any, dissipates on the wave after wave of terrorism.

WHITFIELD: All right. Marc Ginsberg, thanks very much. You did a great job explaining all this and handling a lot on our plate, but nothing compared to what the vice president has got on his plate as he embarks on his 14-nation tour. Thanks very much for joining us from Washington.

GINSBERG: You're welcome.

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