this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. on today's show, 20 years since the 9/11 attacks, 28 days since the fall of kabul. we will look at the legacy of islamic terror and the war that followed 9/11. has osama bin laden's dream to destroy the myth of american invincibility come true?

i'll talk to tony blair who was prime minister of the united kingdom on 9/11 and oversaw britain's entry in those wars alongside its closest ally, the united states. then an exclusive interview with the president of ukraine. in the oval office just last week, president biden assured him that the u.s. opposes russian aggression. >> the united states remains firmly committed to ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. >> but after what the world witnessed in kabul, is president zelensky still confident that america will have ukraine's back in case of further russian aggression? i'll ask him about that and his role in that scandal that caused donald trump to be impeached. but first here's my take. if you want to understand what islamic militancy is really about, pay attention to this

statement last week by the taliban spokesman. china is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us. let that sink in and let me remind you that china is credibly accused of massive and pervasive persecution of its small population of muslims, including mass incarceration, systematic reeducation, 24/7 surveillance, and in some cases forced stirlization. in other words, the world's most committed islamic government has said its closest ally will be a nation engaged in what many observers call cultural genocide against its muslims. lesson: the islamic militant movement has always been more about power than about religion. 20 years after 9/11, we are still not clear on how to think

about radical islam. it is real. it is evil. but it has lost the idealogical argument. the real clash of civilizations was never between the west and islam. it was within the world of islam between the existing regimes and their islamic opposition movements and more broadly between moderates and radical religious groups. recall that in osama bin laden's original thought log in 1996, his reason to go for the far enemy, the united states is because of governments inside saudi arabia which were the near enemy and the true focus of bin laden's strategy. the goal was to sweep out dictators which would bring islamic rulers to power which would rule like the caliphate of

old. but the dislike of dictators of hussein and assad translated to opposing the regimes. in fact, as they were ruled by unpopular tyrants, what the people really wanted, it turned out, was greater openness, more democracy and an accommodation with modern life, not a rejection of it. we saw this in the massive demonstrations of 2011, the arab spring, which is now ten years old. we've seen it in the many elections in the muslim world, in iraq, tunisia, turkey, pakistan, indonesia and malaysia where even when islamic parties win, its parties within the democratic framework are reasonably moderate and have rarely advocated strict sharia. public polls long-established this pattern. in 2009 it was found that polls

conducted in dozens of muslim countries showed the same trend, a collapse of support for islamic militancy and terrorism. he pointed out 20% of jordanian suicide attacks were sometimes justified, down from 27% in 2005. in indonesia, 74% agreed that terrorist attacks are never justified, up from 41% in 2004. even in pakistan, nearly 90% opposed any terrorism, up from 43% in 2002. subsequent pugh surveys have confirmed this broader version to islamic militancy. to give these numbers some context, gerges noted that 20% of americans believed bombing and terror attacks aimed at civilians were only sometimes justified. 40% of americans said these kinds of attacks were never

justified. consider the changing role of saudi arabia and other gulf states. for decades before 9/11, saudi arabia has been the idealogical, political and financial heart of islamic fundamentalism. it had exported money, mosques all across the muslim world, all imbued with a view of tyrannical islam. and the terror attacks in 2004 and 2005 happened inside saudi arabia itself. it started changing course, a process that general david petraeus described to me as one of the most important, least reported, positive developments in the war on terror. that development has continued. whatever his other flaws, saudi arabia's crown prince has been even tougher on radical preachers and ideologists. in 2017 he said in riyadh, we will not waste our lives in extremist ideas. we will destroy them today.

in 2001, the united arab emirates, along with pakistan and afghanistan, were the only three governments to recognize the taliban. lately they haven't recognized taliban but they are getting close with islam countries in the world. they are increasingly embracing openness and diversity. five years ago the uae created a ministry of tolerance and more than a quarter of that country's cabinet is now female. it is not surprising that the taliban is seeking out china as its most important partner. it certainly will not find many easy allies in the muslim world. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my "washington post" column this week. and let's get started.

♪ this is not a battle between the united states of america and terrorism but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. we, therefore, here in britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our american friends in this hour of tragedy. >> that was tony blair, then the british prime minister on september 11, 2001. blair made good on his promise to stand with america, sending his nation's men and women into war in both afghanistan and iraq. tony blair joins me now. welcome. that day, and the few days after, what was the dominant

thing in your mind after that horrible event took place? >> to keep our people safe. this was an event where just in the recent weeks as people have gone back over it again, they've seen the footage and some sense of the immensity of the tragedy and the shock, the trauma of it has come across, i think. but for us in positions of leadership, this was obviously a devastating attack and we thought there could be further attacks. we needed to prepare our countries. the world had stopped, effectively. everything was dominated by this and nothing else. >> and did it also, do you think, bring the world face to face with this phenomenon of radical islam that many experts had paid attention to, and there

had been terrorist attacks before in kenya and tanzania, but this was, it seems to me, the first time the whole world said, oh my god, there is a force out there. what was your thinking about it then? >> exactly that. i watched various terrorist incidents happen over previous years. you were aware of the fact that al qaeda and other groups were operating, but nothing had happened on this scale in this way. this was an attack in new york and america, thousands of people dying. so, yes, of course, this brought it home to everybody that there was this movement there. now, i think at the time knowledge of it was much more limited, even with the experience we had had. but it was the first time people, certainly in the broader public and in the broader world of politics, realized that this was a threat of a completely

different kind and with the capability of doing immense damage. because the point i always make to people is they killed 3,000 people, but if they could have killed 30,000 or 300,000, they would have. >> so now let's come to the present. now, 20 years later, what do you think you understand about the sort of fundamental source of this threat, which is this idealogy of radical militant islam? >> so my view is that -- and in the research ply institute has done, we've tried to show how the roots of radical islam are deep, they're linked to the ideology of islamism, which is turning the religion into a political ideology of a totalitarian sort, and that the roots stretch back many, many decades, so this has been a long time growing. of course, not all islamists

engage in violence. many islamists condemn violence. but the idealogy is an idealogy based on religious conviction. it's extensive in the sense that it has a global footprint. it's in many different parts of the world. it's grown over a long period of time, and its most radical form, it espouses this violent jihadism which justifies the killing of people, muslims who don't agree with them, those of us who live under different systems, in pursuit of a cause which is to basically to turn society, a country, its economy, its politics into a religious state that's governed by religious laws according to their view of those laws. >> now, i'm just trying to put myself in their shoes or articulate what i think bin laden's view was. so you're exactly right, they want the caliphate for muslim countries.

they're attacking the west because they see the west, at least again bin laden did, as supporting what they saw as insufficiently religious, godless, corrupt regimes. saudi arabia, egypt, this was the important part fort war. does that make an extinction that they were trying to make caliphates in the western world and it was essentially roadkill? >> you can look at it like that, but it comes to the same factual act in the end. they want to kill us and they want to kill the muslims who don't agree with them. if you look over the last 20 years, the vast majority of muslims who have lost their lives were killed by other muslims, and this is part of the tragedy. i say to people there is good news in all of this, because there is a real fight back within the muslim world, and one of the lessons i've certainly learned in the last 20 years is

this will only be defeated by an alliance with those strong voices now within islam who want to retrieve their religion from extremism, and our job should be to help them, to support them and to make it clear that this is not -- any actions we take are not directed at the religion of islam but its perversion through islamism. stay with us next on "gps." after 9/11 america went to war for islam to be in power. of course, they are back in power. tony blair has slammed what he calls the abandonment of afghan people. i'll ask him about that when we come back. ♪ get some whipped cream ♪ ♪ on the top too ♪ ♪ two straws, one check, ♪ ♪ girl, i got you ♪ ♪ bougie like natty in the styrofoam ♪ ♪ squeak-squeakin' in the truck bed all the way home ♪

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my blood pressure is borderline. garlique healthy blood pressure formula helps maintain healthy blood pressure with a custom blend of ingredients. i'm taking charge, with garlique. we are back with more "gps" and more of my conversation with former british prime minister tony blair. you've been critical of the decision to leave afghanistan. i think nobody doubts it was done in a fairly tragic and sloppy way. but i want to ask you about the kind of larger -- the error of the way we got out and could we have held onto the bagram base and things like that. but the larger error seems to me did we delude ourselves into thinking this was a stable situation? you had in afghanistan ten years of warfare, two surges, one big

surge. you had inspector general reports saying, guys, you say there are 300,000 afghan troops. there actually only half that many. the rest are ghost soldiers. we had a setup where 80% of the government revenues came from a foreign assistance, the defense budget was larger than its gdp. that surely is not the model that's sustainable, and maybe it wasn't so surprising that it collapsed so quickly. >> it's a great point, and i think it's really important we go into it in detail. i put all these points to someone who until recently was actually fighting as part of the afghan forces in afghanistan. i put exactly these points to him a few days back. what he said to me is there is a lot of truth in all of that, but there is another truth, which is that there was real progress in that kabul is a transformed city, and yes, the taliban had

significant parts of territory, but actually, up until 2019, they had no major cities or occasionally they would take one city but then lose it again. people were getting educated. he gave me several stories of his own acquaintance and how people and their families had developed over time. you had a vibrant media and culture, as we can see now. so i think the picture is probably mixed. here's the point i want to make, because i think this is the toughest thing for us to come to terms with. the people that we're fighting are prepared to die. they're prepared to visit death and destruction at whatever scale they can. they're prepared to kill wholly innocent people. if we're trying to build a road, they're trying to blow it up. if we're trying to get people to vote in afghanistan, they're trying to kill them on the way to the polling booths. here's my worry over what

happened over our 20 years. number one, these people don't have our time scale. we have time scales of four years, five years. this is what i so objected to these forever wars. these guys think 20 years is a long time. and the lesson they've taken from what happened is we wait them out. the second thing is what they realize is the more death and destruction they inflict, the more they kill our troops, the more they kill the innocent people, the more they destabilize the situation, the more inclined we are to say, the wholt thing is a fail your, we should just get out. but the problem with that is, the message you're sending to them is basically hang on and carry on doing the maximum damage you can, because in the end these guys haven't got the staying power. >> the question, i suppose, is where was the way we were handling this helping or hurting?

you said we tried to build a bridge and they tried to blow them up. there is an anecdote in the inspector general's report on afghanistan, it's in the afghanistan papers. there is an ally to the americans who would build the bridges. they would get blown up and americans would say, what should we do to make sure these bridges don't get blown up? he says, well, my brother is in the taliban, the village next door. he's the guy blowing them up. if we pay him off, he won't blow up the bridge. so the united states was paying the guy to build the bridge and then paying someone not to blow them up. it seemed like we were in a never-ending loop where the west was not winning that. >> no, and i think that's an absolutely fair point, and you can look back on all of this and think of the things we could have done differently. for example, i think there was an early stage of this where we probably should have reached out to parts of the taliban. so i think you learn a whole lot

of lessons from how you deal with this. my view very strongly, looking at where my institute was, these groups that are causing this damage, they divide into two. the genuine fanatics and the people that, for all sorts of reasons, good and bad, have associated with them. sometimes to do with money, sometimes to do with tribal issues. so i think we can develop a much more sophisticated strategy in light of what we've learned. my point is a very simple one. let's agree to that strategy, or if we simply say, look, these are just not our fights. when it comes to our shores, we'll deal with it, otherwise we want out and we'll default back to counterterrorism, which is where we were on 9/11, 2001. my point is let's decide it. >> tony blair, a pleasure to have a serious, intellectual conversation about this subject. very important and thank you. >> thank you, fareed.

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in the aftermath of america's exit from afghanistan, governments around the world are reexamining their relationship with the united states and reassessing the level of protection they can expect from

the world's key superpower. top of that list is almost certainly taiwan, but let us not forget about ukraine, which continues to be embroiled in conflict with russia. moscow, of course, annexed crimea, a force of ukraine. and putin published something just last week on this. president volodymyr zelensky was in washington with president biden and other top u.s. officials. president zelensky joins me now. welcome, sir. >> thank you so much, sir, thank you. >> looking from the outside, it feels like you're in a very difficult situation. you have russia having the next crimea, parts of eastern ukraine with forces there, 100,000

russian troops have been gathered on your border. putin writes this long essay

seven days, you can't take such a big country geographically as ukraine with such a big population and simply occupy it like that. >> you're very diplomatic, but you're not answering the question. let me put it to you in a different way, which is the secretary of russia's security councill said specifically that ukraine should look at what happened in kabul. just as they abandoned kabul, they will abandon kiev. >> translator: in 2014, and partners in the u.s. and eu, forgive us.

in 2014, at first we ended up where we ended up. there was russian escalation. our territories were occupied. no one was hand in hand with us. there was no military equipment other than what we had available at that time. there were no other troops, just the citizens of ukraine. and, therefore, we had the wave of volunteers, volunteer battalions, people who came together as a citizen effort to protect their own country. there was no one else. so in four days, even in eight years, russia didn't manage to take over. russia. it's not the taliban army. this is one of the most powerful armies in the world. that's why we, i think, we stood for our statehood. and this is why, i think, we are as independent as possible from any economy. as i said to president biden, and partially this is about concerning the possible exit from ukraine, what does it mean to leave ukraine? i mean, it's the other way around.

the u.s. should enhance their presence in ukraine. i'm very glad that we had a very powerful meeting on a high level in the u.s., and we have been looking forward very much to this, and the fact that we're in the priority list of the countries that president biden met with, it means that we are priority for the u.s., and we are thankful for that. that's a big signal. but behind the signal, we are also expecting actions. >> you asked president biden when you were in the oval office with him for ukraine to become a member of nato. did he say yes? >> very directly i asked president biden very directly, what about nato? what about ukraine? what about our membership in nato? >> what did he say? >> he said, i think you have -- as far as you remember -- not

all the words will be correct, yes, but the main meaning of his speech -- it was speech, not one phrase because we spoke about it during 20, 30 minutes about alliance, membership in nato. he said i think you have to be here, but it's not only my decision. i think i got this rhetoric with him before my meeting, and i'm sure it's true for today. i think it's not good position for power for usa. my mind, sorry. but it's true that it includes suggestions of some leaders of european, big european countries. but i know, and i said to him, i know you're right, mr. president.

but i think from your decision, from your decision, this way to nato will be a shot -- will be more transparency, more clear for us, for ukraine. i know it. >> so you think that -- >> usa always give message and signal, i think, to europe, and if we don't see where he directed, yes, tomorrow, or yes, the day after tomorrow, that's why it goes such way. next up, i was supposed to interview president zelensky two years ago this month. why didn't it happen then? well, it had a lot to do with then-president trump. i will talk to ukraine's leader about exactly what happened when we come back.

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tomorrow will mark two years when i first met volodymyr zelensky in kiev. a former actor and comedian, zelensky had only been president a few months at the time. after that meeting, his team and my team ramped up discussions about the two of us meeting again, this time for an interview that would air right here on "gps." in the ensuing days, though, suddenly the lines of communication went silent. what happened? well, parts of it came out in donald trump's first impeachment trial. but let us hear president zelensky explain what kind of pressure he was under. i didn't realize at the time when we were talking to your team that you were under a lot of pressure from then-president trump to announce on television that you were investigating joe biden's son, hunter biden.

did you ever think you would have to -- did you ever feel the pressure from trump was so great that you would have to come on a show like this and announce an investigation? >> translator: yeah, no. maybe that was because i wasn't in politics before. and i was looking at life, and i still look at it just the way i do. i have to work a lot, a whole lot. i have to pay taxes. and i want to go down in history and gain success. that was my credo before i became president. and i was always happy when there was a victory and the your cranian ukranian flag would come up. but also when america would win tv awards and outplay us, or in sports when they would outperform.

i never thought there was any pressure on us. i thought there's room to improve. so that's ambitious. i always thought that we are an independent country, and i feel like an ambitious, independent person who has to learn every day from the best. that's why my conversation with president trump was along the same lines. i knew that we needed to have good relations with the united states, that they support us, and we must get more from the united states. this was my objective. >> that's why you wanted the white house meeting? >> translator: yes. this is exactly why we wanted the meeting. it wasn't just about having a picture hanging over the fireplace. i mean, i'm very at ease with this. i'm very easygoing with these things. he is the president of the united states. this is not robert deniro. to me robert deniro was my idol. with him i would talk casually regardless of whether there would be assistance or not

before i became president. and here, this is serious stuff. this is at the level of the person on which the stability of our country depends and the assistance to my country. we need a relationship. >> did it strike you as odd or disappointing that here's the united states telling ukraine to clean up its corruption, and then the president of the united states is asking you to do something that was not very straightforward. he was asking you to do something to help his reelection campaign. >> translator: i didn't feel that he was making me do something. and i was telling the truth then. i didn't feel such pressure. as i said quite ambitiously, i am the president of my country. no one can pressure us. it wasn't just diplomacy in the

present position. i didn't feel it. i wasn't ready to feel this and i am not ready. i don't feel that. i was thinking about my country, about the assistance. i didn't want to jeopardize the military aid, and i wanted to have another meeting at the white house because my country needed this. >> president zelensky, a pleasure and an honor having you on. >> thank you so much. next on "gps," the great jewish tradition of teshuvah meaning self-exam nation or repentance has been resonating with me this weekend as we mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and all that flowed from that terrible day. ♪ get some whipped cream on the top too ♪ ♪ two straws, one check, girl, i got you ♪ ♪ bougie like natty in the styrofoam ♪ ♪ squeak-squeakin' in the truck bed all the way home ♪ ♪ some alabama-jamma, she my dixieland delight ♪ ♪ ayy, that's how we do, ♪ ♪ how we do, fancy like, oh ♪

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and now for the last look. the phrase lessons of the past is usually an empty clay shea. what we are describes is what we hope people will learn. in fact, people are often defensive and fail to learn from their previous mistakes, and thus, are condemned to repeat them. but there are exceptions and we have seen an extraordinary such example just in the last week. the anti-defamation league, one of the most important organizations battling prejudice and discrimination has rep repudiated one of the most noxious decisions it has ever made in his distinguished history.

in an opinion piece on cnn.com, the ceo and national director of the adl apologized for the group's opposition to the park 51 islamic community center and mosque. for those who don't recall, this was a proposed institution modelled on the jewish community center in manhattan with the goal of interfaith dialogue and in interreligious community. it was originally named to recall the tolerance in spain. and it was long preached islam is compatible. they used the location a few blocks from the world trade centers to brand it the ground zero mosque and fan the flames of fear and bigotry. there were genuine statesmen like michael bloomberg who delivered a memorable address can on religious freedom in

america in support of the islamic center. but sadly, emotion and prejudice won out and the project was abandoned in a frenzy of islamaphobia. i reacted to the controversy on the show in august of 2010 explaining why the basic idea was so important and so broadly admired. >> you know that ever since 9/11 the united states has been trying to engage in a battle of ideas against radical islam. now, america can't really get involved in it in a debate within islam. so that means finding and supporting moderate muslims. this is a cultural struggle that has been warmly supported by liberals and conservatives. in fact, many conservatives have argued that we should be engaged in a much more extensive and expensive effort to fund moderates and delegitimize rad lal and violent islam. under both the bush and obama administration there have been

active efforts to support muslims trying to rescue their religion from extremists, fundamentalists and this has been funding mosques, and community leaders who share a peaceful and pluralistic vision of islam. except it turns out if they are in our own backyard. >> i then noted the adl ease opposition and explained why that had a special significance for me. >> the director of the adl explained that the victims of 9/11 had feelings on this matter that should be respected even if they were irrational. first of all, there were many dozens of victims of 9/11 who were muslim. do their feelings count? more important, are irrational feelings, prejudices, hatreds okay because those expressing them are victims or see themselves as victims? will the adl defend the rights

of palestinian victims to be anti-semimites? i have to say i was personally deeply saddened by the adl's stand because five years ago the organization honored me with an award for first amendment freedoms. given the position that they have taken on a core issue of religious freedom in america, i cannot in good conscious keep that award. so this week i am going to return to the adl the generous honorarium. i hope this might spur them to see they've made a mistake and to return to their historic robust defense of freedom of religion in america, something they have subscribed to for decades and which i honor for them. >> it took 11 years, but it is still remarkable that the adl leadership has taken a serious look at its past, learned from it, and then had the courage to publicly acknowledge its

mistake. greenblatt pointed out he was writing his apology in the period that jewish were celebrating high holy days and he did it in the spirit of the jewish concept of self-examination and repentance. i wish we could all learn from the adl's example, and as we look back over 20 years of the war on terror, genuinely ask ourselves, where did we go wrong? how did we overreact? can we reckon with that past? and what actions could we take today to make up for our own mistakes? let us all be brave enough to engage. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week.

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hello, everyone. thank you for joining me this sunday. we begin this hour with a newly declassified document providing details about the fbi's investigation into the 9/11 terror attacks. and the suspected support by the saudi government for some of the terrorists who hijacked the planes. the release came on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and just a week after president biden issued an executive order to declassify the reports following pressure from family members of 9/11 victims. for more, let's go to cnn's senior nationa