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tv   [untitled]    December 2, 2011 2:30am-3:00am EST

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crysler used as a moment that's too slow to react to social change. for being home to the times of . going to russia election two thousand eleven parties. you want to know if you come into a lot from moscow and news just in a blast as occur near the entrance to a nato military base in afghanistan reportedly injuring over seventy people a suicide bomber is said to have used a truck packed with explosives the taliban has already claimed responsibility for the attack. began to other headlines here in our t.v. the u.n. says the syria crisis has become a civil war with daily watch it resulting in more than four thousand deaths and nine march this comes as the e.u. ramps up pressure on the country with more financial and energy sanctions. egypt is
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holding its breath as it awaits the results of an opening stage of its first parliamentary elections this find of fact many doubt it will bring any real change protesters are demanding the military rulers step down and make way for a civilian government. thousands of protesters take to the streets of new york to stage a labor union rally demanding jobs and economic justice the latest demonstration comes on the back of occupy protests that swept through the us for more than two months l r t peter lavelle and his panel of experts discuss the deteriorating state of pakistan u.s. relations and what impact it could have on nato troops in afghanistan crosstalk is next. live. live live live live.
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live to the center of. the city to the live. below me welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle going from very bad to even worse this is the state of u.s. pakistan relations after a cross border attack that left up to twenty pakistanis dead and pakistani public opinion outraged and the stakes could not be higher for the obama administration counting on pakistan's support to wind down the last war in afghanistan. live to the center live. to cross talk u.s. pakistani relations i'm joined by akhmed my g.d.r. in washington he is the senior research associate at the american enterprise institute also in washington we have robert rainier he is chairman of the advisory board of e.r. gee partners and the cia's former top counterterrorism official all right gentlemen this is crosstalk i mean you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage
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it but first let's go to our correspondent is it does it look like these two countries are at loggerheads or are they going to have a collision well we'll see if it goes this far but it does appear that all efforts to mend this troubled relationship are experiencing repeated reversal we've seen this year the killing of two pakistanis by a cia contractor the cessation of osama bin laden more recently but he was accusations of pakistan's collaboration with militants and now a deadly nato air strike that hits an all time low. the attacks last friday were still at least twenty four pakistani soldiers has tossed outrageousness along about and prompted an indefinite shutdown of transit routes that supply needed. troops in afghanistan the pakistani army called the air strike unprovoked and question why it lasted two hours and targeted well known border post. this was a premeditated murder of this person soldiers and i think the part of the movie was not about just dropping the nickel supplies and trunk should be this has got enough
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i think you must go beyond. which is what pakistan appears to be doing it is boycotting the bonn conference on afghanistan and was also said to be considering anything up to the terminations over its involvement in the afghan war meanwhile washington says it's unsatisfied with islam about its unwillingness to crack down on taliban factions for too long extremists have been able to operate here in pakistan and from pakistani soil the nosedive in u.s. pakistan relations is badly timed but president barack obama's plans to wind down the of canister and mission and begin the withdrawal of american troops to try to avert any real damage washington to is now said to be hearing its cooperation strategy with a slam about but all in all experts on both sides of the fence agree that mutual dependence is very likely to drive the two parties back to the negotiating table for pakistan anything short of that would mean losing u.s. aid well for us it would at the very least mean resorting to other
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a logistical partners in the region an option it's currently disinclined to use so strong as both countries may feel a little tournaments are still worse ok let's talk about some of those alternatives first i'd like to go to robert you wrote an article pakistan going rogue you said it is hard to judge such things from a distance but the pakistani reaction is trying feels qualitatively different from the crises preceding it over the past few months what do you mean by that what is qualitatively different this time because there's march's report pointed out there's been a lot of downs and further downs in this relationship recently. you know that there have been in the past the perception at least has been that even when the pakistanis were very angry even when they were making threats of a future action of the motive for instance if the u.s. were to launch a nother across more operations such as the one that it launched to the killing of bin laden back in may even then the pakistanis were leaving certain the scape
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hatches open if you will if you will as they were they still returned to the tail rotor of the last helicopter that went down during that operation angry as they were they still are the u.s. to have access to some of the of the survivors of members of bin laden's family here at the compound i don't see the pakistanis trying to hold open door this time this just seems qualitatively different to me i mean when you think about there we have a tipping point right now because robert brings up a whole lot of points are quite valid here and first we'll talk about the gone conference that the pakistanis are going to at least at this point in time are boycotting yes i think that the relationship between the two countries have freaked the lowest point in ten years since the start of war and terrorism and afghanistan and the latest incident the killing of twenty four pakistani soldiers by nato was just an incident waiting to happen again there have been a series of events to wish damage pakistani years relationship over the past year
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meanly the rest of this cia operator in pakistan killing off been allowed in i know also the years accusations that the pakistani intelligence agency was involved in the attack against the u.s. embassy in pakistan but the latest incident just added to that i believe that the relationship is in a critical and a crisis situation but i don't think that it's a breaking point and i don't think there will be a complete breakdown of the relationship between the two anytime soon i'm the reason for that is that both countries need each other all the. far different purposes we have to understand that the relationship between pakistan and the united states is not is strategic alliance is shared interest but rather it is a marriage of convenience or at transactional relationship both sides need each other but they have conflicting interests it's interesting robert if i can be counterintuitive here and this is what i read i hear all the time is that if this is this a deadly embrace it's
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a bad marriage but it's going to continue on but because it's a bad marriage both sides can make mistakes quote unquote because you know the other side isn't going to walk away and that's that's the dilemma here right now because you the level of trust is so low that each side can continue fighting their own war on terror and therefore these two countries are fighting very different wars on terror i think that's absolutely right that they are fighting it two very different wars and the u.s. is demanding that pakistan should aid the u.s. in fighting its war the pakistanis say no we've got our hands full thank you very much you can fight you your own fight and just because you are inciting militants on our side of the border to attack your troops on the afghan side that doesn't necessarily create a problem for us or one that we necessarily feel that we have to address and to that to us it sounds a great deal like collusion with the enemy i mean if i can go back to you it seems to me in looking over this troubled relationship the last decade for the united states to get out of afghanistan with any sense of dignity by two thousand and
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fourteen it all essentially has to destroy pakistan in the process. absolutely so this is a this is one pakistani i'm just understand they know that they have a major card to play here and they have a lot of leverage with the united states half of the need to military supplies ran through their countries know that shutting down will be a big blow to the. years operations inside afghanistan and also. needs pakistan for a political settlement in afghanistan to bring their caliban on the table but we have to understand the leverage that pakistan has and also the u.s. dependence on on pakistan will diminish just down the road in one or two years we know that they use needed pakistan to cooperate against al qaeda but also i'm delighted in its health and many of the other senior al qaeda leaders are killed already and their operations are disrupted significantly inside pakistan and also
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because the military footprint is there menacing in afghanistan so will be the use depends on pakistan so in the near future years can put more pressure on pakistan and i believe that it will. pursue a tougher line with the pakistani government and the pakistani military and the i say those are changes for old militant policies ok robert go back to you i'm going to go back to that article that you wrote pakistan going rogue you wrote at the very end of it the u.s. has far more at stake in pakistan but it does in afghanistan can you explain that because it's very interesting in light of what a lot of republican candidates have been saying about pakistan during the recent debates. you know i think just building on some of that you said a moment ago that in the process of trying to win or at least create a dignified exit for itself in afghanistan the u.s. runs the risk of helping to destroy pakistan i think that this is quite true and i
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think that our obsession with afghanistan is tending to blind us to the fact that a great deal more harm to american interests could arise as a result of the dissolution of. civil society and politics in pakistan i disagree in a way that the u.s. is going to. be able to to increase its leverage over pakistan at the same time that pakistan leverage of the united states over time decreases yes there is the matter of aid i think that we over. i think we overestimate the degree of leverage that that gives us as much as the pakistanis would like to see continuation of u.s. aid i don't think that that's going to be a critical factor for them in making decisions about their national security going forward and i fear a situation where the u.s. and pakistan essentially are not talking to one another they are not they're not
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cooperating with one another and pakistan is essentially are going off on their own wit it's interesting admitting about these that you know the u.s. will leave eventually afghanistan in one form or another and but pakistan will still be bordering on afghanistan and this is what the pakistanis are angling on aren't they i mean they're not going anywhere it's their neighborhood and they will determine the regional dynamics because the capital of the united states house is just a minute over time it may be very quickly. as events unfold with a departure from afghanistan. well that's the most important point indeed because the pakistanis are uncertain about the long term commitment off the united states and the international community and afghanistan i myself have spoken to mean is in your pakistani off the shelves the they are also uncertain about this test and ability. of the afghan government they don't know that after two thousand and fourteen if the government of president has they will be in place once the foreign
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troops leave that's why that they are still supporting their proxies the taliban for future influence in afghanistan i guess it's archrival enemy and also to have here greek no dominance so that this policy for the united states and also for nato countries would be to shore i mean during commitment to afghanistan not just until two thousand and fourteen but past two thousand and fourteen and the united states should make it clear that it will not abandon the region once again once and for all i knew was stay there and the government of afghanistan will be supported by the international community that pulls a positive and very clear signal to the pakistani establishment that the taliban are not future of afghanistan and they have to increase their left richard totally legitimate to a store of the current government and not through the militant groups. we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion of constant state of arching. in the
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media. the military leave the military. magine assets that the phone watches show every single mom. and waiting for you to stumble. i saw men with a video camera so i moved over and he phoned me. here we realized they were following everyone from early in the morning. the only chance to get rid of him. is to reveal him. to. me general operation on r.g.p.
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. for. the world to. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. you can. well imagine crosstalk i'm futile about remind you we're discussing the relations between islamabad and washington. you can say. ok robert i'd like to go back to you and the war on terror that the united states has called over the last decade has had
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a really huge toll in pakistan and i think western audiences particularly the united states are not really aware of that or that there how many people have died as this conflict goes on and the another issue is the radicalization of politics and in pakistan i mean it has to be one of the most anti-american countries in the world i mean this is the cost of fighting a war a war that is not that is certainly not winnable in afghanistan in the united states is going to leave i mean my goodness what a net loss all the way around for the united states in the region. it's hard to paint a pretty picture coming out of this there have been many and intended consequences of the large scale u.s. presence in afghanistan and as you point out one of those is the increasing islamic radicalization of pakistan and to the extent that the the pakistan government is identified or is it is considered by many pakistani militants to be a part of the problem in fact to be allying itself and aiding the united states
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that has brought many of these domestic militants within pakistan in open warfare with their own government so that's the main preoccupation of the pakistanis right now and i think that they fear that a continued large scale u.s. presence in afghanistan will continue the political deterioration within pakistan part of the problem here is that as has been pointed out the americans are not going to entirely go away americans are going to maintain a presence in afghanistan they're not going to allow the taliban to overthrow the regime in kabul what they need to do and what the president has made clear they're going to do in a subtle way is to get their presence down to a manageable level the problem is that we lack credibility the pakistanis have no faith whatsoever that the u.s. is going to stay the course in any way shape or form in afghanistan and they're not going to believe it until they see it which creates huge problems for the americans in trying to manage their relations with the pakistanis is interesting i mean also one of the casualties of this ten year war is that you basically see
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a civil war be going on between pakistan's military and its civil authorities there i mean with this memo gate it came out recently just shows the division between the two how can it continue from being a reliable partner of the united states if it doesn't even have its own house in order. yeah and it does just been a problem in the relationship with. pakistan because in pakistan the military has the absolute authority and if we see over the past two years the military has sideline the civilian government we saw after bin laden's killing the . government of president zardari has just subordinated all the foreign policy to the military and when it comes to the key and vital decision making about pakistan's foreign policy is the military which just makes the shots now this is unfortunately over the past week it and indeed since the inception of relationship
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between the two countries over the past five years the united states has banked on the pakistani military and there's no one has not helped in a significant way this have alien government and democracy in the country which is good for their for pakistan and also for security in the region and it's time to change. that policy to continuous engaging and continue to support the civil. civilian government and also this is a civil society in pakistan which are working for the progress of pakistan and on the ad a hand get a tough ally with the military establishment. and sit a clear carrot and stick policy and make it clear to the military establishment that they cannot continue their current policy of supporting militants without consequences and i think also the united states needs to have a friend
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a mental change in their relationship with pakistan right now regarded pakistan policy and also engage in afghanistan it should engage with pakistan if pakistan continues if pakistan brings a change in this policy and stop supporting the militants but if pakistan continues this by the united states should have a plan b. and that should be to contain the bad actions of the pakistani military in the future ok remedies are possible because you've written a many creations that american policy towards the end of the reason general is really seriously flawed. and i guess what i would say is that it's find it to say that the u.s. to be. trying to support civilian governance in pakistan and trying to act as a brake on the actions of the pakistan military part of the difficulties here is however is that the civilian political authorities in pakistan are
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a pretty unlikely bunch. the lack of political support they're highly corrupt. these are not necessarily the of the sorts of people on whose side we want to be playing unequivocally so there's a huge difficulty there the other difficulty is that many people tend to assume that well look the pakistanis have it within their power to control the afghan taliban but if pakistan were only willing. it could remove the safe havens and they could essentially deliver the the different elements of the insurgency to the negotiating table and fourthly that too is is incorrect the pakistanis could certainly be more helpful than they have been in recent years but they can't deliver these people these people pose a true tremendous threat to pakistan itself and as a threat the pakistanis cannot by themselves control but it kind of does echo what robert was saying right there i mean but do you view the pakistani taliban that's
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what the there is there to carve up their sleeve when the americans leave because again we keep going around in circles here is that pakistan wants to determine the future of afghanistan and make sure that it's a friendly state and this is the great dilemma here and i get going often with roberts but also when it will the presence of american american troops there still be a big barrier for islam about to get their way and eventually in afghanistan. well as i mentioned. before i think that the solution to afghanistan does not lie in the alliance of pakistan we have failed to change the facts and policy regarding the afghan taliban over the past ten years and i don't think that pakistan will change its policy regarding supporting the afghan taliban. here are just until two thousand and fourteen so that's why this illusion lies inside afghanistan united to say it has to understand that the key solution to that is to strengthen the afghan government and also they have gained national security forces to enable them.
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to prevent the return of the taliban and al qaeda and defend their country against them i also after two thousand and fourteen definitely there well be a level of insurgency happening in the region so there is a need of it is a twelve years force is something maybe between twenty thousand which should continue contacting the counterterrorism operations against the taliban al qaeda and also helping the afghan national army which is not able to defend against the taliban on its own exactly we're going to go back to the. pakistanis saying they're not going to go to the bond conference i mean how much of a slap in the is a real slap in the face or do something symbolic if use point in trying because congress again is very confident that there will be some kind of settlement or they'll be a big player in it we could walk away from this conference right now with confidence to at least giving the americans a notice that the public opinion purposes at home they have to be listened to more
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in apology is needed more than an apology for what happened at a border crossing. yeah i think that the pakistanis can fairly securely walk away from this conference at the end of the day is that is all a part of participants in this process such as it is or equal pakistan has a great deal more weight at the table and in international process to try to bring about a political solution in afghanistan that does not include pakistan is a process that is going to go absolutely nowhere well what do you think about that argument i mean is this bigger being done for public opinion purposes back in islam about showing because like it's very interesting the military is taking advantage of this tragic situation by saying look we're waving the flag we're going to play tough with the americans we're going to shut down the supply routes the cia operations the drones are going to be suspended thrown out eccentrics through their shoulders showing themselves to be quite tough right now and that's what the public wants. yeah you are absolutely right many of the retaliatory actions that pakistan has taken after twenty four soldiers of it was killed by
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n.a.t.o.'s strike has been directed at a domestic audience far just a mistake on sanction because after they've been allowed in there are mistakes has really been tarnished and diminish inside pakistan so the army needs to show some. has to just take a very tough stance against the united states to retain its precision inside pakistan so that's why it has just kept nato supplies it has asked the united states to leave the shamsi base which is a use for drones attacks but i think that this will change pakistan has taken similar actions in the past but then has to first at. times come in and similarly have i think on conferences i think this is a debate this advantage to pakistan and it's somehow ironic that pakistan usually come pakistan is not given a proper role that it is our if in the end game in afghanistan but when it is an international conference that is deciding on the future of five ghana stan then he
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just walks away with from that and i think that this just a militia pakistan's role in the end game in afghanistan so it's not good for pakistan itself robert what has the americans learned anything from this event here because really we got a lot of different versions of what happened out of the pentagon and in the state department in they'll be an investigational that i mean is there a learning curve here or are we just all agreed with this could be us in pakistan or just go from one bad experience to another until there's some kind of critical mass two thousand and fourteen what american withdrawal or we're just going to continue seeing these things. well i'm not sure that a resolution if there can be one of this cross border incident is really going to be all that important i don't think the pakistanis at the end of the day are going to be satisfied with any of the americans explanations that they they simply will believe what they want to believe i mean i don't have any reason that this was
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anything other than an unfortunate accident but what i think is far more significant here is not so much the incident itself and the aftermath of it but the evidence that this brings of increasing degree of brittleness in the us pakistan relationship a couple of years ago the relationship could have withstood an incident like this now it really can't and so i think the underlying situation is far more significant then this this particular unfortunate incident. very sorry very interesting discussion many thanks my guess would be in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at the phoenix time remember prospects.
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