that's why we bought a subaru. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- gwen: middle east peace? stepping back in iraq. drumming up campaign money. and the politics of islam. tonight on "washington week." >> i have invited israeli prime netanyahu and president abbas to meet on september 2 in washington, d.c. gwen: the obama administration dives head first back into the historically difficult middle east peace process. what's different this time? u.s. troops celebrate the long promised pullout from iraq. >> we won! it's over! america, we brought it to iraq. gwen: events there, afghanistan and pakistan showing us more complications than that.

at home, democrats and republicans raise money hand over fist for the mid-term election. >> we will put money into the mid-terms by far, $50 million. presidential events are huge. gwen: as the president steps into the debate about a new york mosque. >> the answer is no regrets. gwen: a secondary discussion builds. >> it is being used as a political football by both parties. gwen: how do americans view islam and why do so many think their president is muslim? >> i think the president's problem is that he was born a muslim. gwen: really? covering the week, helene cooper of the "new york times," martha raddatz, jeanne cummings of politico and michael duffy of time magazine.

>> covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill." produced in association with national journal. funding for "washington week" is provided by boeing, exxon mobil, the epics in excellence in journalism, annanburg foundation and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. we got a surprise announcement, the palestinian president and israeli prime minister will come to washington in two weeks to begin face-to face peace talks without pre-conditions. >> i don't think that it should

be an option for us now. i would view this as the last shot. >> we want to make sure there are iron-clad arrangements that there will be peace and security because you can't have one without the other. >> former senator george mitchell has been pushing president obama has been asked why these negotiations will work when previous talks haven't. >> we believe that there is a basis for proceeding and achieving a successful result and we are going to pursue that. we do not take the position that if you don't get everything you want the first time you ask for it, you pack up your bags and go home. gwen: or the second or third time. what's different this time? >> why do you start with the hard questions? gwen: it's my job. >> the difference is, and this is not necessarily a good difference, the difference is

there is little speaks physicianity in this agreement. in the past, you have seen the two sides commit to agenda items and what are we going to talk about and what are the parameters of how we're going to do this. for instance, there is in this agreement no agreement to the 1967 borders, which in the past, have been been a plank between israelis and palestinians. there is a lot of vagueness that doesn't leave a lot of people feeling too optimistic. you have president abbas who was strong-armed into doing this. he said i'm not coming unless there is an israeli freeze on settlements and didn't get that and now he is taking a pretty big gamble that he will get something in the end. gwen: how was the administration or whom ever able to pressure

him if it was against his best interests? >> i think when it came down to it, he felt that he had no other choice. there was no other option for him. the arab league last month put out a statement that said if you want to go in direct talks, it's up to you to decide. that moved the political cover that he was using internationally. he is very weak at home right now politicalically with hamas governing gaza and the turmoil that is going on there. when you look around, you have the united states pressuring him and the european union pressuring him and arab logan at the end of the day, he felt he had no where else to go. gwen: i was surprised that hillary clinton said we can do this in one year and george bush said the same thing in 2008, i think we can do it in a year. so that one year stuck out. why one year?

>> one year that is probably the best thing that the palestinians got out of this, one-year deadline. there is nobody who thinks they will get the israelis and palestinians reaching any kind of agreement. what their hope now is they will go at this for a few months and then president obama is going to have to step in with some sort of bridging proposal where he puts this what he thinks what the united states thinks should be done on the table and that's what is going to get them anywhere. and that's when it's really going to get interesting, because at that point, you are going to see how far israeli prime minister netanyahu is willing to go, how far the palestinians are willing to go and what do the americans think a peace plan should look like, because president obama at that point will be basically having to say this is what i think you guys should do. >> it seems like we start out with more nonstarters than we

have real areas where they might be able to compromise. what's different? >> it's so interesting to go around this again and again. the nonstarters -- it's not necessarily as hard as the years and years that we have spent doing this. everybody knows what a general peace agreement would look like. they have the final status solutions that they need to work out and that is the status of jerusalem, the palestinian right of return and security for israel and the borders of an evental palestinian state. most people kind of know the geneva accords laid this out and know -- they have reached or come to like 90% back in 2000 to what a final peace process would look like and a final peace deal would look like. the problem has been the political will to take that final step and take on the

politicians at home. >> we have heard that the people who would have to do this deal haven't been strong enough, either abbas or netanyahu. have they consolidated enough power to make a difference and is president obama able to make a difference? are those stars aligned for these people doing the negotiating? >> absolutely not. netanyahu has a really weak coalition. a right wing that is threatening to pull out if he makes any concession. abbas is politically weak and it will come down to president obama and just how much, you know, how much he is willing to put on the line and how much can he bring these two guys along. gwen: others will be at the table as well. we will be watching. while american combat involvement in another long-standing conflict ended this week as the last brigade

pulled out of iraq in advance of the august 30 deadline. >> we are keeping the promise i made when i began my campaign. by the end of this month we will have removed 100,000 troops from iraq and our combat mission will be over. gwen: as the war ramps up in afghanistan, that kept promise the president was talking about could fade pretty quickly. but how significant was the pullout? >> it was a historic week and watching the last combat brigade pull out of iraq, one thing i would say is the combat mission technically may be over. you may have pulled out the combat brigades, but everybody there still has guns. all the u.s. troops -- gwen: all 50,000 of them. >> what they will do now is advise and assist the iraqis and the iraqis still need quite a

bit of advising and assisting, and that may may very well include combat missions. a lot of people are saying the war is over, mission accomplished. let's not forget what is going on there. it is incredibly significant how much they have reduced the troop numbers by. but it is not over yet. in fact, it is a very complicated time there now particularly with the political situation. >> i thought i heard you report a few weeks ago, it has been a long time that u.s. troops have been involved in what might be considered a combat mission in iraq. so what are they they going to do and how long do they going to be there? >> medical assists, the iraqis if they get into trouble when they are in some sort of combat situation, you have to have medical evacuation and intelligence resources and the technical resources to help them

out. now, how long will they be there? the status of forces agreement says everybody out by december of 2011. the iraqis have to say wait, we like you to stay. nobody thinks that's going to happen. u.s. troops based on people i have talked to will be there for a very long time. will it be 50,000? right now, they are down to as few as they think they can get by with. there is force protection. they have to protect the people that are there. so that takes a number of troops. u.s. will be doing counterterrorism operations. >> as much as these soldiers have come home which is a great thing, will they be here for long or will they be flipped around now and headed into afghanistan? >> i think that's a good question, because these troops who have just left are not going to go right back to afghanistan

and you have to retrain. but eventually, i would bet on the fact that a lot of them will end up in afghanistan because while we have had a huge drawdown in iraq, we have had a huge ramp-up in afghanistan. we have tripled the number of troops. at the end of this month, we will have 100,000 troops in afghanistan. when president obama came in and you have to keep rotating and our services would like to increase dwell time, get the troops home more. they are working for that. but as you continue to ramp up in afghanistan, that is harder to do. >> when you are talking about afghanistan, whenever you talk to the people in the administration, they say we are in afghanistan but the real problem is in pakistan. i was looking at the flood pictures, how does that affect both what we are doing in afghanistan and pakistan? >> it does affect it.

you have assets having to go into afghanistan and wanting to go into pakistan to help the flood victims. but another thing that happens is, there were drone strikes constantly in that area. going after so many targets there. and those have really slowed down and it slowed down because of the weather. >> you can't fly those predators if you can't see what's going on over there, but also the pakistani army and the pakistani security forces, they are pretty tied up now. you need intelligence to go after those targets. and if they are tied up in helping flood victims that really hurts this. >> it seems like we have three fairly weak political leaders. mall ki in iraq and karzai who gets back and forth and the pakistani leader who is less

than zero percent. how do you work to try to get a working plan for that whole region? >> well, i mean that is what the administration has said it has been trying to do and by looking at the region particularly with afghanistan and pakistan and how they work together, but it is a huge concern, gwen. in watching the performances, during the floods, he wasn't there. came back at the last minute. 20 million people are affected. this is truly the international katrina. gwen: bigger than katrina and bigger than haiti and the tsunami all together and it has political and humanitarian consequences? >> extreme security consequences because you have everybody tied up with this, not only a rescue effort now, but this is going to go on for years and years to come. they have no place to go back to. you can rescue people and give

them food and give them supplies, but when they realize their homes are gone, that many people, i don't know how you handle it. gwen: back to the united states because president obama spent the week skipping across the united states. talking up the economy and talking down the republicans. most important he raised millions of dollars for his party, probably the most useful thing a president can do. >> remember our campaign slogan, yes, we can? their campaign slogan is no, we can't. pretty inspiring, huh? you know, you wake up in the morning and you hear no. that puts a little pep in your step. [laughter] gwen: he is never having a better time than attacking republican. their senate committee raised $4 million in july, less than the senate democrats. how are they raising and spending and why does it matter?

jeanne? >> it's interesting because you could go back to 2004 and 2006 to see what the two parties are doing. you have the president helping out the establishment committees, which is the best thing, as you said, a president can do. and despite his unpopularity ratings generally with the public, he can still draw a pretty good crowd. helene was out there with him and he was making a lot of money. you look at the republicans, the republicans are trying to model what the democrats did when they were in the minority. their committees are raising money, but they also have a coalition of outside groups that are starting to get together to try to raise even more money and try to fill the gaps for where the republicans are lacking. and notably the national governors association has got practically double the amount

that the democratic governors association has. so that gives them a big fat kitty to play with. and when you help the governors, you help the state legislatures and you help the federal candidates, too. any time you get a statewide organization like the governors association working in a state, they are enlisting votes. >> in 2008, the democrats clearly outraised the republicans. with 10 weeks to go, can you give us a tally who is ahead by how much and does it matter? >> the democrats are ahead substantially. the democratic party's candidates have raised $590 million and the republicans have raised $390 million, pretty big gap which is why the outside groups are important and the republican governors association is so important. they need the outside groups to

try to fill in. so far, the outside groups, including one called the american crossroads run by karl rove and ed gillespie, they are taking corporate money based upon the supreme court ruling. they raised $10 million and banging up some of these vulnerable democrats. >> jeanne, who are the corporate donors are. i think i know who one of them is? >> it's hard to tell -- gwen: tell everybody else. >> one we know is target. target jumped into the governor's race in minnesota. they gave $150,000 to a pro-business group called minnesota forward. minnesota forward started running ads for the republican candidate. and the reason they picked him

is because he is low taxes and his business record. it was unclear if target knew his social record when they gave the money or not. come to find out, his social record -- his record on social issues is more conservative if not more so than his economic policies. he is anti-gay marriage. and he is stride ent on abortion, he opposes birth control in some cases. and so the target community, which is pretty progressive went nuts. gwen: didn't rupert murdock give a lot of money? >> news corp. gave $1 million to the republican governors's association and they didn't match that. that he gave $1 million to the r.g.a. and democrats are raising cane and saying fox should put

disclaimers on their news. and what both of these stories tell us is that there are corporations who take advantage of that new liberty that the supreme court has given. gwen: both of you worked for the "wall street journal." we turn to the debate that had us scratching our heads. why do so many americans think barack obama is muslim? and how did a local debate about an islamic center in new york come central to those two questions. 55% of those polled said u.s. muslims are patriotic americans but 46% americans said no. 46% said islam is more likely than other states to encourage violence and 55% said they wouldn't have -- mind having a mosque, but 61% oppose one to

the one in manhattan. "time" magazine's cover raises the question, is america islamaphobic? >> it's out there and growing. we weren't surprised by the results on whether there should be a mosque in lower manhattan. what surprised us is the intensity of feelings and i'll mention two in particular. a full third of american public believes that a muslim american should not be allowed to even run for president. and a similar margin does not think a muslim american should be allowed to sit on the supreme court. that puts that group of people in line with americans about the 18 40's that thought only white males should have full citizenship. another amazing number is the one you rempsed, nearly a quarter think barack obama is a muslim. that is two creers after he was

-- that is two years after he was inaugurated. those are astonishing figures. we can see fears. there are 2,000 mosques in the united states. the language and the contentiousness can be found in other places. even this month in california, florida, wisconsin. and on the web, those fights are much more toxic and just as big as this one has become. and i think this began to take deep root after 9/11. there was supressing factor in the first years in the decade because george bush worked hard at setting tolerant signals. that's gone. obama comes in and as a consequence things have changed. one other factor, in the last year, there have been a number of plots by home-grown terrorists that were thwarted by authorities, but involved muslim

americans. and that has led people to be scared. gwen: the president's reaction to this is pretty defensive. is he in danger of going too far? no. no. no. i'm not a muslim. >> the performance was shakey. he gave a profound speech last friday night when he said muslims have a right to build a mosque there or anywhere but walked it back the next day and said that doesn't mean i'm for this particular project. that opened criticism from right and left. and at the end of the week he issued a statement last night saying -- affirming restating that he is a christian. he just doesn't wear it on his sleeve and prays every day which is a revolution in a short period of time. gwen: what is it about this president that sort of leads to all of this?

and what's the political impact for president obama? >> there is obviously a lot of factors at work here in this situation. you know, a lot of this is ignorance and unfamiliarity. there are 2.5 million muslims in america, less than 1% of the population. when we polled, we found roughly a third of the country said they know a muslim. i think it's far less than that. i think this is still a culture of unfamiliarity and ignorance. in addition to that, we have been at war for a decade in southwest asian have an economy that is in deep trouble and a measure of hatred as well. and it's getting worse. when i looked at the number of people who thought obama was a muslim and looked at how they thought about politics, eight or nine to one of disapproval of

president obama. there are some feelings and quite intense. if we had polled, do you think he is a vampire, some percentage would have said that. gwen: thank you everyone. the conversation will continue online. catch up with our web cast at pbs.org. if there is more you want to know, drop us a line. keep up with developments. we'll see you next week right here on "washington week." good night. >> download our weekly podcast and take us with you. "washington week" podcast at washingtonweek online@pbs.org. >> funding is provided by -- >> we know why we are here, to

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