Full Event - The United States, India and Pakistan: To the Brink and Back

ladies and gentlemen good afternoon welcome I'm Tamera Kaufman witness and on behalf of this Center for Middle East policy and the foreign policy program here at Brookings I am delighted to welcome you in out of the rain to celebrate the launch of the latest book from our colleague Saban center senior fellow Bruce Riedel it is of course avoiding Armageddon America India and Pakistan to the brink and back copies outside if you didn't get a chance to get one on the way in now Bruce is a senior fellow in the Saban Center where he's been with us for a number of years he's also of course a former CIA officer senior adviser to four American presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues and headed up the interagency review on half pack at the beginning of the Obama administration those of you who know Bruce at all know what an unusual creature he is in Washington he is as that as that bio tells you a true expert in a number of areas areas where expertise is rare and valued but he's never in a culture that's dominated by a lot of loud voices he's never the first person to speak in a meeting or a conference he sits back quietly as he's doing right now wondering what I'm going to say next he he listens carefully as others around him it's about their views engage in robust debate or simply list their talking points and then in his quiet measured voice he cuts through all the chaff with fully formed analysis of astonishing coherence and clarity that persuades everyone in the room that there simply is nothing further to say but in operating that way in the Washington context I think Bruce over the course of his distinguished career has truly earned the praise that David Miliband gives him on in his blurb on the back cover of this book that Bruce is expert honest rational and humane and it is those qualities that he brings to bear in analyzing this truly tricky topic and we're very grateful to him for doing so many of you also know that Bruce is a frequent contributor to The Daily Beast and we are particularly delighted that the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast Tina Brown is here and has agreed to join us and engage Bruce in a conversation about his new book so with no further ado let me turn it over to her Tina thank you so much for being here thank you so much it is certainly true that whenever a another terrorist gets whacked by a drone Nonie might feel rather festive about the fact that somebody of evil has been removed from the world the other great thing that happens is I know I'm gonna get a wonderful piece from the Bruce Riedel so I have a sort of terribly you know a dual reaction every time there's a terrorist who meets his his maker because Bruce writes better about issues of terrorism and and AfPak and and the bad guys and what we're doing about the bad guys than anybody else that I can think of right now in in in the commentary world so let me start with a question about the title of your really brilliant and gripping book avoiding Armageddon which is that's a very provocative title Bruce I mean so have we really been on the edge of Armageddon in South Asia and if so how close if we actually mean you think in recent is to nuclear war first of all let me thank Tammy and you for this very kind introduction if you go on any further I'm gonna be as pink as my socks are sitting up here we spent a lot of time at Brookings debating the title actually awarding Armageddon America India and Pakistan to the brink and back and I think and back is a very important part of this every American president since John F Kennedy has confronted a crisis between India and Pakistan some larger some smaller the last four presidents starting with Bush the elder have confronted crises that had a nuclear dimension in one case certainly one case Bill Clinton we had a war underway in South Asia small war small wars are real to the Warriors just as big wars are real to the worse that we now know was careening towards a much broader war at the time it was confined to the northern part of Kashmir but we know the Indians were seriously considering blockading Pakistan's port of Kashmir which would have escalated the war right away the morning of the decisive meeting in 1999 the 4th of July 1999 between President Clinton and Prime Minister Sharif at Blair House the president's Daily Brief the CIA's top secret newspaper told the president that Pakistan is arming its nuclear weapons for use it has to be considered one of the seminal moments of his presidency he was looking at very real possibility that if he couldn't persuade Nawaz Sharif to back down India would escalate the war and Pakistan would respond with a nuclear blast so I think we came very very close in $2.99 I would argue change the dynamic there I think at the end of the day we were saved by three individuals one is Bill Clinton second is the Prime Minister of India who showed remarkable self-restraint India had been attacked and he responded in a measured way but at the end it was now a Sharif Nawaz Sharif knew that the course Pakistan was on in 1999 was going to lead to disaster and he chose at the last minute literally to veer the car in the right way and he lost his job for it and he came very close to losing his head and he went into exile for tea we had similar crises in 2001 and 2002 in Bush juniors when Pakistani terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament would the goal of murdering the Indian Prime Minister had they got their timing right they would have done it that crisis led to a year-long standoff between India and Pakistan which over a million troops were mobilised on both sides President Obama faced his India Pakistan crisis or at least the first one even before he was inaugurated with the attack on Mumbai in November 2008 there again the Indian government displayed incredible self-restraint and chose not to respond to an attack that killed 166 people with violence but to in effect turn the other cheek and yet the worst part about that bombing really is the fact that the perpetrator the mastermind happy Sayed is actually still at large it's warning around in Pakistan making television broadcasts and I mean he's hiding in plain sight how could that be I mean how can it be that this man who was responsible for the death of all those people in Mumbai is not apprehended he's not in jail it's not you know exit he's not alone the top three most wanted on the US most wanted terrorist list are all in Pakistan Hafiz Saeed not hiding at all as you say he appears on TV every day mullah omar the head of the Afghan Taliban is not hiding either he's in Quetta in a safe house of the Pakistani inter-services intelligence Directorate the Pakistani equivalent to the CIA Ayman Zawahiri the saleh bin Laden's successor is theoretically hiding but I think it's a safe bet that we will find him in something a lot like the safe house that his boss was found in inside a closed military area if that gets to the answer to your question the Pakistani military the Pakistani army remains obsessed with India it has been obsessed with India since partition it has lost every war with India and losing every war it has come back even more obsessed with India it sees no way of ever defeating India conventionally having tried and failed and therefore has come up with two strategies to try to even the playing field one is building nuclear weapons and Pakistan today has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world probably in excess of 200 nuclear weapons and second is what they refer to euphemistically as asymmetric warfare which is a fancy term for supporting terrorists and they are convinced that these strategies work and they take from the fact that India has not retaliated in these previous cases the argument it works see we can do anything we want if there's a third attack of this kind it's hard to imagine that India is going to sit on its hands again I think that's true you will hear a healthy debate on this issue many in India and Pakistan will argue no avoiding Armageddon is - ominous we know what we're doing like you in the Soviet Union during the Cold War we know how to manage this relationship so that it can go to the edge but won't go over the edge I hope that's right I think it's much more likely we're playing Russian roulette so what kind of America's role be in in making this intransigent problem you know go away I mean there have been many multiple attempts to make these two powers you know like each other and it doesn't seem to be working and at the same time you know we've given Pakistan so much in the way of support and funds and yet that a poll in June 2012 showed that 74% of the Pakistanis view America as the enemy so what can this mean we're now about to be starting a second you know administration of Obama what now can be done what can john kerry for instance put in motion that will do anything if it is possible to do anything to change the situation we do one thing well and one thing poorly the thing that we do well is conflict management we have in essence a playbook when a crisis like this happens we deploy the secretary of state the national security adviser of Secretary of Defense we round up everyone we can the British the French the Chinese all to go in and urge restraint so far we've been very successful in doing that what we're very weak at his conflict resolution the poem though is that if if you look at the 70 year history of America's relationship with India and Pakistan I would argue and I have I try to argue in the book that we have a demonstrated capacity to make the situation worse and we're good at that we support the dictators we give millions billions of dollars to Pakistani dictators we tend to undermine the civilian government we know how to irritate and antagonize our Indian friends there's not much evidence that we're very good at moving the situation in the right direction but I think there are opportunities ahead our relationship with India today is better than it's ever been before the us-india civil nuclear deal whatever you think of its merits in terms of arms control has taken away the biggest irritant in our relationship trade between the United States and India is growing military relations are growing because we have stood by them in cases like the Kargil war we have more trust in Delhi than we've ever had before same can't be said obviously in Islam about our relationship there is as bad as it can be but I think that the challenge that John Kerry and the presidents have is to try to nurture India and Pakistan together they've got to take the lead we can cheer them on the good news is there's an increasing body on both sides that recognize that the path of going to crisis in crisis is insanity when in fact India and Pakistan today could through a productive relationship create nirvana in South Asia if you harnessed the entrepreneurial talent of India and Pakistan together I think you would create an economic prosperity zone that would make the European Union be a distant memory and would outdo China yeah there's a escalating sectarian bloodshed now in Pakistan and Malik Ishaq was just arrested this week for staring at his shine hatred and his room free for all this time like like say Syed has so I mean what chance is there of Pakistan ending impunity finally for known terrorists I mean we know that we didn't even want to tell the Pakistanis when we went in to get Osama bin Laden and surely nothing can really change unless they actually deal with their own problem inside Pakistan of terrorists are there attacking Mumbai or attacking the West exactly Pakistan today is a country under siege it is the world's number one patron state sponsor of terrorism it is probably also one of the world's number one victims of terrorism and the two are related American presidents and I have watched four of them do it I've been telling Pakistanis for a quarter of a century if you patronize terrorism it will ultimately consume you we have the virtue of knowing we were right now the question is how do we move it forward I think there are fragile signs of a real debate for the first time in Pakistan on this issue that's what I call the battle for the soul of Pakistan there are voices out there which are saying this is a self-destructive policy we can't continue on this way now so far those voices are still pretty small and they have yet to move the army and the jihadist forces in Pakistan and it will be very hard to do it our objective has to be to help those people not only are they moving the country or do they want to move the country in the right direction they're doing it at incredible risk to themselves the girl wallah was shot in the head by the Taliban that's that's the battle for the soul of Pakistan my first rule in a situation like this in terms of policy advice is do no harm that's easy to say and actually very hard to do in Pakistan because in Pakistan for reasons of our own self-defense we do harm ourselves every day with drone strikes it's a very difficult balance but we have to constantly be thinking about ways to try to move this battle for the soul of Pakistan in the right direction and certainly try to do nothing that hinders those voices how much is the war in Afghanistan being a bad thing for Pakistan I mean if you talk to certain people who are friendly towards Pakistan they say well so much of their turbulence and instability and terrorism has been caused by refugees coming from that from Afghanistan radical elements coming from Afghanistan is there any truth in that there is there's a lot of truth we see this as a war that's now ten years old Afghans and Pakistanis see this as a war that's thirty years old and if you look at it in those terms Pakistan has suffered tremendously the the collision of cough culture that dominates Pakistani cities today that makes places like kieta or Karachi murder capitals of the world is a product of the spillover from all of these Afghan Wars not just the current one but all of these Afghan Wars the the Pakistani military and intelligence love affair with terrorist groups like lashkar-e-taiba like clash marijana the one that attacks she is all date back to the start of this war and two decisions made by Zia hawk at the beginning of the war the American role in all of this has generally been to support the generals in Islamabad Ronald Reagan loves you look how badly do you think Bush to was was conned by Musharraf I mean it feels as if he was just completely taken in by Musharraf is that true I think I think that's I think that's very true the former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah has this great phrase about the relationship between Musharraf and bush he says Musharraf threw dust in Bush's eyes and I think it's true I think he was very good at that the generals are experts at telling us what we want to hear and convincing us that they're serious while at the same time they're not President Obama I think falls into a different category and you hinted at it and I just expand on the point you know when he sent the SEAL team in to have a tuba to kill Osama bin Laden at that point the United States has provided Pakistan with 25 billion dollars in military and economic assistance in ten years that's even more than we gave Israel in those 10 years and anytime you're giving some other country more money than you're giving Israel you are really in an unusual position and we gave them all that money for one purpose to fight al-qaeda and at the moment of truth the president made the right decision he couldn't trust the Pakistanis with that information I think everything we've seen since then underscores that so where does that left us though I mean given that we did go in and we did get Osama bin Laden I mean the fact that mullah omar and Zawahiri and so on are still there and nothing's happened I mean I actually thought naively that perhaps after Osama was killed you'd see the Pakistanis kind of giving up the others but it doesn't seem to have happened and I mean what is there what is their state of being about this now or is there rationale for this appalling thing the army remains obsessed with India that is what drives their policy if you ask Chief of Army Staff General Kayani what is the nature of his being he will tell you I am obsessed with India so how do we break this we can't do it but we can help Indians and Pakistanis do it it needs to be done at several levels one is people-to-people contact increasing that up until 1965 Indians and Pakistanis could cross the border without a visa now the only people who can cross the border without a visa have to be over 90 and under nine and the ISI and it's Indian equivalent look at every deal visa application has an opportunity to say no not as an opportunity yes people are beginning to look at this india-pakistan are changing those things trade as well Indian Pakistan could have a vibrant direct trade economist for example estimates that within five years if they lifted some tariffs regulations on both sides they could quadruple that's one part another part though has to be resolving the Kashmir issue Kashmir is the issue that divides Indians and Pakistanis there's no escaping it American presidents since John F Kennedy have tried to escape the Kashmir issue has too hard too difficult to deal with and certainly if we appointed a special negotiator for Kashmir he would never ever ever get a visa to go to New Delhi you can count on it but we need to be more subtle you need to be a little more indirect we need to be a cheerleader for Indians and Pakistanis doing this Musharraf who we've we've dissed pretty thoroughly here to be fair to him after he tried nuclear blackmail terrorism a small war came around to negotiations and negotiated indirectly with Prime Minister Vajpayee and then Prime Minister Singh the basic outlines of a deal we need to get back to that deal what do you think is gonna happen in the forthcoming elections that stop the forthcoming elections in fact he does Imran Khan have any kind of a chance he was good in Davos what can I say he's very good he's very articulate he understands a lot of the problem but Pakistani politics are run by two political parties and if you don't have the grassroots networks you're not really competing and he doesn't have the grassroots Network the way to think about Pakistani elections is simple essentially they're having a runoff between the winners and losers of the 19 eighty-eight election every year since 1988 1988 Nawaz Sharif in benazir bhutto went at it for the first time and in 2013 they'll go at it for a second time only she's dead but her husband will be the standing if you think of it in those terms it's not hard to understand why Pakistanis are desperate for Imran Khan or anybody or Martian anybody to come on the scene and have something different to say but they're likely to be disappointed all that said this year assuming there is not a military coup or something like that Pakistan will cost a huge threshold for the first time in its history an elected government will serve out its full term there will be an election and a new elected government will take its place now that may not seem like a big deal but for Pakistan that's a huge deal and this gets back to the question how do we help Pakistan we want to encourage this process what do you think can be expected now for women in Pakistan I mean we were all as you mentioned very shocked by the whole Malala incident if you talk to anybody there they say that actually Malala was just one that we happened to hear about that there's plenty of that going on every every month so what kind of protection do you think can be offered to women in Pakistan and in Afghanistan now in terms of the troops pulling out in terms of the you know the sectarian violence is this going to get worse for than now I think that we're certainly in for a very rough next two years the confluence of Pakistan's elections the turnover and command of the Pakistani army the Chief of Army Staff changes this year NATO American drawdown in Afghanistan elections in Afghanistan the the forces of militancy of terrorism of jihadism of violence are going to see all of these as opportunities to try to veer the situation in the worst possible direction our ability to do much to help people in Pakistan is pretty limited you you quoted the numbers we now out poll India is the bad guy in Pakistan and is that a result of the drone policy no it's the drones had added to it but it's unfair to blame the drones for that 60 years of American foreign policy has created this Pakistanis believe that the United States treats their country like a tissue use it and throw it away they actually have a different terminology but I'll stick with tissue and any objective review of us-pakistani relations I think would have to argue there right that's this that's where we are we have we don't have you know in the in the State Department they like to call it the trust deficit such an innocuous term the trust deficit it's not what it is they hate us they absolutely hate us they may admire things about America about our about our democracy about our entrepreneurialship but a they hate our foreign policy and the drones is only the latest part of that the challenge here is with all of that baggage let's not make it worse first and then let's look for ways to help Malala and others like that by being on the side of democracy good governance the rule of law accountability well thank you Bruce you've now made me incredibly threatened depressed in your face I'd love to turn it now to the audience to see if you're I'm sure there's lots of questions yes over here yes he's just coming with a mic maybe you want to self-identify when you stand up thank you very much my name is Malik sahajayoga I'm a journalist from Pakistan in your book you talk extensively about the relationships between the US presidents and the Indian or Pakistani Prime Minister's do how much do you think have the four u.s. presidents personal experience of traveling to the region or their experiences of having been there have influenced or added to improving the relationship like the way you talked about President Nixon's relationship towards the region and his problems with Indra Gandhi for instance so has the u.s. had had a policy towards India and Pakistan or has it been like personality driven based on personal contacts and relationships thank you one of the most fun things in researching this book was studying American president each American president and their relationship with India and Pakistan and I think I am now prepared to go on any trivia contest and one that says American presidents in South Asia to take that knowing I think I know all the answers I'll give you I'll give you one then I'm going to come to your important question the American president who spent more time in South Asia than any other ulysses s grant because when he went right when he went the 1870s you couldn't just go for an hour you had to go it was an investment of time and he spent more than a month how important is it critically important presidents are like people everywhere they tend to think in personal terms Bush and Bush he thought he was looked into his eyes and couldn't trust him you can you can criticize his judgment but you can understand how he got there I think Obama famously known for not being one of the world's great bonders has bonded pretty well with saying the two of them seemed to find a common cow the danger with Pakistan right now is that we've lost any hope of trying to to get those bonds I think one of the interesting phenomenon of this first Obama is how each of the principles in the cabinet at one point or another basically decided I'm not doing Pakistan anymore I've had but is that because I mean who are you bonding with it's the point I mean it's a diary for instance what is he like and then clearly when you try to bond with him you've got the army kind of bond with two so I mean is is it a dual-pronged effort to win both these people or is it hopeless it's it's it's got to be engagement across the board but engagement with your eyes wide open just because they tell you what to want to hear doesn't mean they're going to do it and we have to engage with what we have president sadar II is a crook okay he's referred to as mr. 10% a Pakistani I talked to today said no he's mister a hundred percent he takes everything if he can get it that said presidents Dara's vision of Pakistan is fundamentally different than that of the generals he wants Pakistan to be at peace with India he wants to stop fighting terrorism that's why the Mumbai attack happened was they wanted to sabotage that and they'd sabotaged it very well so there's no shortcut here engagement is the only alternative but it's got to be engagement with our eyes wide open thanks very much I'm Garrett Mitchell and I write the Mitchell report and read all of Bruce's books I was thinking about the question of policy options in a situation like this and you began by saying first do no harm which i think is what you said not so long ago about the sunni-shia divide that were faced with in the current issue of foreign affairs ambassador Haqqani has defined a new kind of relationship between the u.s. and Pakistan and I won't elaborate on what that is but we'll make a presumption that you're familiar with it a what what what do you think about the validity of what he's proposing and second in what ways is it the same as or different from the first do no harm recommendation that you're making ambassador Haqqani is a close friend he is if you if you want me to give you an example of people fighting for the soul of Pakistan here's one the man who wrote the book about how the military controls the politics of the country and then went on to serve as ambassador of that same state because he knew that there was no shortcut there's no shortcut to talking his he's referred to as the need for a divorce i think this i think this marriage is is over so i don't know why we need to go through the legal process of divorce it is certainly one of the most broken marriages I mean there's not a character in Dallas that can rival the u.s. Pakistan relationship but we still need to talk to each other and we're not going to get away from that and we need to find ways to help people like the same haqqani it's not easy to do when we put our arms around them they get called home and have their passports taken away and are almost killed so we're gonna have to be more subtle here but one of the things we need to do and I think he would agree with me on this is stop thinking about these countries in isolation and start thinking of them holistically I think one of the mistakes president made in his first term was halfback it's very poorly phrased term most Pakistanis do not like to be referred to as a pack very few Afghans want to be referred to as an F it wasn't it also makes you thinking about the region perverted we need to think of the region's United that's why I keep saying but do no harm but also encourage those who are trying to move in the right direction India wants increased trade with Pakistan let's be on the on the same wavelength let's promote it let's increase trade ourselves with Pakistan my name is Elliott Horowitz and I'm retired mr. Rydell I have a question for you although it is a difficult question are all the other ones were easy RPV's also known as drugs create turmoil in South southern Asia and everywhere else in the world in your judgment is that are there advance the advantages of RPV's greater than the disadvantages okay you're right this is very this is the many difficult questions one of the most difficult let me let me begin with a little bit of perspective the drones began under President Bush the first use of drones in a systematic way was in 2007 at that time in 2007 the policy of the administration was to give Pakistan advance notice of lethal drone strikes seemed like a common courtesy we were attacking people in their country we should let them know that's coming every single time we did that the target wasn't there when the missile arrived and they did it enough that it was let's say a statistically significant database you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to connect these dots someone who was getting the advance notice was telling the terrorists that changed at the end of the Bush administration by the time President Obama came into office he inherited a fully mature program ready to operate what do I mean by that not just unmanned aerial vehicles in the air but intelligence officers on the ground who could tell you where to find the bad guys over the course of the last four years that program has significantly degraded al Qaeda's capabilities it is not defeated al Qaeda it is not destroyed al Qaeda but it is significantly degraded in the absence of Pakistan taking action against these targets this is the only way the president has to deal with the problem but it comes with a cost comes with a very big cost it adds to Pakistan's anger at America the challenge here for Obama and his team is to avoid drone addiction to see the drone has the answer to every problem and to be extremely selective now that's really easy to say in fall auditorium on Massachusetts Avenue it's a lot more complicated to turn that into practice when the CIA comes to it and says here's mr. bad guy we want to take them out we know where he is we have a window one of the things that I think has been healthy about the debate about John Brennan becoming director of CIA is we're finally having a serious conversation in this country about how much is enough how much is too much and I think from what I've read or what mr. Brennan thinks about these things he understands that we need to have a more rigorous process of doing this and that we can't see the drone has the answer to every security threat we face but on the other hand we can't throw it away Thank You M dr. Lesage Chaudhary with Pakistan American League a Bruce you mentioned about a survey about Pakistan's people almost 74 or 75 percent anti-americans I think this survey it becomes questionable because about 700,000 Pakistani Americans back 90s Laura lives in this country and they are very proud of their adopted land and they are also ambassadors of goodwill for USA they inherit the East they have adopted the West I think 75% people might disagree with the policies towards Pakistan but people about sand are people of America American people are wonderful people and the best friends I have they're all Americans then you know it very well inside the beltway so I think that survey becomes little questionable when it comes to people of Pakistan against Americans they are not against Americans they love to be here the love America they love their way of life and I'm especially the American virtues my question is that the US he has plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and NATO forces also there could be some residual force inside Afghanistan when all these forces which is a huge number comes out and people in that area has a hobby of fighting this is a game for them like hunting fishing what could be the possible fallout and how can we develop a regional approach because all these three countries their stability as well as their territorial integrity is interdependent as you mentioned shield elements are in every country who one was understanding can America play such a role to bring all these three countries and because my car does have a leverage in that region before I address your question yes there's a huge Pakistani American community there's a huge Indian American community a huge Bangladeshi American community and we need to use those bridges in the future more creatively than we've used them in the past that is an asset we have they are incredibly successful communities as well the United States is certainly not going to be able to do the second thing until it starts looking at this problem in a regional scope so my first response is I'm hoping to see the revival of South Asia Bureau in the State Department and it's mutation in the White House and in the Pentagon we need to think about the area holistically if we're going to have a holistic policy Afghanistan itself let's let's let's also put a little perspective on this when Barack Obama inherited the Afghan war in January 2009 we were on the verge of a catastrophic defeat and the report I wrote to the president then the section on Afghanistan was entitled we are losing the war but it is not yet lost we had neglected for seven years the fundamentals in Afghanistan we thought that security would come from magic not from building security forces we embarked on a five-year program and we're now close to the end we have created that security force we are now route withdrawing and transitioning to them there is no guarantee this will work I call it a gamble it is a huge gamble we don't have an alternative we can't stay in Afghanistan we can't keep a hundred thousand Americans we can't afford this we're broke but it is a gamble it needs to be we need to go through this gamble in as cautious away as possible not recklessly we cannot simply walk away from Afghanistan you mentioned Afghan girls 4 million Afghan girls are going to school today we can't throw those people under the bus we need we will need to st. ain some residual presence it will be much cheaper than what we're doing now it will require though a willingness to stick at this longer than most Americans I think have the willingness to but here's the bottom line we've abandoned Afghanistan before arguably twice in 1989 and in 2002 and we see what the result is so if you made one mistake twice and you do it a third time that's not tragic that's criminal we have time for one last question so I'm just gonna let me take something from the back here over here Thank You Ronnie I'm a retired person also originally from Pakistan I'm a comment at a question you said Pakistan is the foremost sponsor of terrorism I I talked you none used to have that privilege when did you change that to Pakistan but the question I have is you mentioned very correctly that the big difference between India Pakistan and the reason for their antagonism over all these years is the issue of Kashmir and you just sort of switched it away there are Security Council resolutions there are all kind of other things that u.s. could do to help resolve that issue and then bring the two countries together what can you recommend for that well it's certainly a close race between Iran and Pakistan but I think if you if you look at numbers of terrorist organizations Pakistan I think has pride of place the dubious distinction one which is destroying the country according to the government of Pakistan since 9/11 forty five thousand Pakistanis have died in terrorist related incidents since 9/11 there have been three hundred suicide bombings in Pakistan before 9/11 there was one this is a country which is being consumed by the militancy that it has chosen to sponsor over the years the good news is more and more impacted auntie's who are aware of this problem of Kashmir we can't we can't impose a solution but we can certainly facilitate a solution I'll give you one one practical aspect when India and Pakistan in India and Pakistan can reach some agreement on how to defuse it it will need to go to the Security Council for global international blessing that's up our alley you know that's where we specialize in things like that we can also help in building a coalition of states to support them when they do this from the Chinese to the Saudis to the British to all these all those who have a stake in the outcome so it's it's not the classic American solution the classic American solution is let's appoint a special negotiator but you know we can be a little more subtle we can be a little more indirect we certainly need to work with the parties but we can also be there with the parties to transfer an idea into reality thank you so much Bruce very fascinating book everybody if you get a chance to read it it's gripping it will keep you up at night it did me and I want to thank Bruce Riedel who is so knowledgeable and so gripping in his analysis thank you you

Channel: Brookings Institution

Views: 342,011

Keywords: mumbai, Tamara Cofman Wittes, terrorism, islamabad, pakistanized, Bruce Riedel, pakistan, india, Pakistanis, Foreign Policy, South Asia, Nuclear Weapons

Id: y3LFTlDke_A

Length: 48min 7sec (2887 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2013