Transcript for July 30

MR. FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. You know, I, I was really in the Middle East when this shift happened. When I went out there, you had Saudi Arabia issuing a remarkable statement, first time ever, just blaming Hezbollah for a reckless action in initiating this war, without even the ritual condemnation of Israel.  What was that about? That was the Sunni-Arab countries—Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—looking at this war in pure historical Shiite/Sunni terms. They see this war as the Shiite-Iranians, through Hezbollah, making a power play, basically, not only to dominate Lebanon but to take the Palestinian issue away from the Sunni-Arab world. So that was how they reacted.

But then, as I went around from Jordan to Damascus, one of the things you really feel when you’re in that part of the world, Tim, are all the Arab satellite TV stations—Al-Arabiya, Al Jazeera, they’re on everywhere. They’re the Muzak of the Arab world. And everywhere you turn, you see images of Israeli planes and bombs destroying Arab and Lebanese homes in Lebanon. The impact of that has “inflamed,” as always, the Arab street, and it’s made these regimes—our closest friends—these regimes—Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—enormously uncomfortable. And you’re now seeing the blowback from that.

MR. RUSSERT: Let’s talk about the Bush administration and a quote from your column on Friday. And here’s what Tom Friedman wrote: “America should be galvanizing the forces of order - Europe, Russia, China and India - into a coalition against these trends. But we can’t. Why? In part, it’s because our president and our secretary of state, although they speak with great moral clarity, have no moral authority. That’s been shattered by their performance in Iraq.

“The world hates George Bush more than any U.S. president in my lifetime. He is radioactive - and so caught up in his own ideological bubble that he is incapable of imagining or forging alternative strategies.” Pretty strong.

MR. FRIEDMAN: It was strong. It’s meant to be strong. Look at the situation we’re now in. You can’t go anywhere in the world right now—and I travel a lot—without getting that feeling from people thrown in your face.  Why is that? You know, I’ve been asking myself that a lot. Some of it’s excessive, this dislike, this distaste, this hatred of George Bush. But what’s it about? Whenever you see something that excessive, you know?

And the way I explain it is this way: Foreigners love to make fun of Americans. Our naivete, our crazy thought that every problem has a solution, that silly American notion, that silly American optimism. But you know what, Tim? Deep down, the world really envies that American optimism and naivete.  And the world needs that American optimism and naivete.

And so when we go from a country that, historically, has always exported hope to a country that always exports fear, what we do, and what this administration has done, is actually stolen something from people. Whether it’s an African or a European or an Arab or Israeli, it’s that idea of an optimistic America out there. People really need that idea, and the sort of dark nature of the Cheneys and the Bushes and the Rices, this, this sort of relentless pessimism about the world, this exporting of fear, not hope, has really left people feeling that the idea of America has been stolen from them.  And I would argue that that is the animating force behind so much of the animus directed at George Bush.

MR. RUSSERT: There’s a debate within the administration, across our country, around the world, about who we should talk to. You feel very strongly that the U.S. should try to pry Syria away from Iran. One country, Syria, which is Sunni and secular, Iran being more Shiite. Is it possible to pry those countries apart? Or is it worth trying?

MR. FRIEDMAN: That’s why I went to Damascus, really to answer that question.  Because look at the map. Tim, you’ve got Iran over here, you’ve got Hezbollah over here, and in between, the bridge, both ideological and physical and material, is Syria. Hezbollah can’t do what it does if that Syrian bridge is broken. And I basically went to Damascus to ask that question. What I found were, were, were several things. Number one—but the Syrians are feeling very confident right now because they know the street is with them and they—the regime there knows that the street with them and they’re looking at the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Jordanians and saying, “You guys are—you look awful uncomfortable over there. The street’s with us.” Number one, so they’re feeling confident.

Number two, though, what I really found, Syrian officials stressed to me over and over again, “Our marriage with Iran is a marriage of convenience.” This is a secular Sunni country. It’s got an Alawite regime, but it’s a secular Sunni country, Syria. And being in a car driven by two Shiite radicals—Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, and Nasrallah from, from Lebanon—that’s not so comfortable for the Syrians. Particularly because in this car, Tim, they’re in the back seat and the guys in the front got no brakes. So I think that there is a possibility—I wouldn’t exaggerate this, but I think there is a possibility if we—if we sat down with the Syrians and said, “What do you need? Here’s what we need. Let’s have a rational, long-term dialogue,” not one of these Condi Rice specials of, you know, 20 minutes in the Middle East, “I touched the base and went back,” but a serious, rational dialogue.

Do you know how many times I went with Jim Baker to Syria when he was preparing the Gulf War coalition and the Madrid Peace Conference? I believe it was 15 times. And you know what I remember most about those trips, Tim?  That I think on 14 of them, the lead of my story was “Secretary of State James A. Baker III Failed Today.” Failed in his effort to, to draw Syria in. But guess what? On trip 15, he brought the Syrians into the Madrid Peace Conference. Those are the same Syrians, by the way, who were behind the attacks on the Americans in Beirut in 1982. They haven’t changed. This is a tough, brutal and mean regime, but they also can be done business with with the right, I think, administration approach.

MR. RUSSERT: I remember 16 years ago reading “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” still a road map for understanding that area, and you talked extensively about what goes on in the Arab mind, in the Arab heart. And I was reminded of it in your column on Friday you had in The New York Times. You were on a rooftop in Syria talking to young writers, and Tom Friedman wrote this, “There will be no new Middle East - not as long as the New Middle Easterners, like Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, get gunned down; not as long as Old Middle Easterners, like Nasrallah, use all their wits and resources to start a new Arab-Israeli war rather than build a new Arab university; and not as long as Arab media and intellectuals refuse to speak out clearly against those who encourage their youth to embrace martyrdom with religious zeal rather than meld modernity with Arab culture.” Talk about that meeting on that rooftop.

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, it was, it was a dinner with a group of Syrian writers arranged by some friends of mine. Say, you know, one woman was saying how she’s just really—believes Israel should be, you know, eliminated, and another Arab journalist was saying how much pride—how much pride he gets by seeing Hezbollah fight the Israelis to a standstill and inflict these casualties. And a third, very interesting, was saying, “This Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, he’s a disaster for us.”

But there are too many people, Tim, outside of Lebanon, in the Arab world, getting their buzz, frankly, off seeing Hezbollah stand up to Israel while Lebanon gets decimated. Lebanon, the first Arab democracy. And I, I real—I have a real problem with that because it’s time for the Arab world to stop getting their buzz, OK, off fighting Israel and to overcome their humiliation that way. It’s time to start building something.

You know, you ever ask yourself, Tim, what’s the second largest Muslim country in the world? It’s India. It’s not Pakistan or Iran. What do we see in India? Just a couple of weeks ago, 350 Indians killed in what is widely suspected an attack by Muslim extremists in Mumbai in a train station. But the Indian reaction was incredibly restrained. Why is that? You know, why don’t Indian Muslims, you know, get their buzz this way? Could it be because the richest man in India is a Muslim software entrepreneur? Could it be because the president of India is a Muslim? Could it be because there’s an Indian Muslim woman on the Indian Supreme Court? Could it be because the leading female movie star in India is a Muslim woman? You know, when people get their dignity from building things rather than confronting other people, it’s amazing what politics flows from that. And I think that’s something the Arab world also needs to be reflecting on now.

MR. RUSSERT: How to convince these young men and women that there’s more to life than trying to destroy Israel?

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