In a way, you almost anticipated Sept. 11.
Well, I said that something cataclysmic would happen. You can't keep going around the world night-sticking one villain after another without expecting something to happen to us. Did I anticipate exactly this? Of course not; no one did. I assumed it would be a major attack of one kind or another. There had been attempted attacks before. The Japanese cult that was going to put a lethal weapon at Disneyworld, or the group that was going to blow up the World Trade Center [in 1993].
The Salon Interviews index -- links to all the interviews related to the Sept. 11 attacks and the events that have followed.
But clearly you thought it would be bin Laden and al-Qaida, as you wrote in your book.
I anticipated bin Laden's group since he was responsible for the events in Africa -- [the 1998 embassy bombings] in Kenya and Tanzania. I assumed it would be one of these terrorist groups in countries where the U.S. intervened militarily -- from the Arabic and Islamic world. You take a look at all the places the U.S. has been intervening since the end of the Cold War, and it's all the same places where terrorism is coming out of. Even with Oklahoma City, immediately there was the suspicion that it was Islamic terrorism.
How do you think Bush is doing with the war on terrorism?
Overall, very well. Sure, you could flyspeck it. But I really commend him. He's handled himself very well. He's showed patience and perseverance. He's fought a just war in an honorable fashion. I think Americans have performed magnificently. But I think he's headed for a crossroads. And either course he takes is going to be very problematic for him.
You're referring to which countries he goes after once the campaign in Afghanistan has concluded. Whether we engage Iraq, for instance. Where do you see Bush going?
What I'd guess he's going to do is to use military strikes against secondary targets. In Somalia and places like that. Then I think he'll go to the U.N. and try to get weapons inspectors rather than invade. I just read [Robert] Kagan in the Washington Post; the neo-cons are clearly afraid that he'll do that. But I don't think in his heart he's confident about a ground war in Iraq. His father is not, and his father is a big influence on him.
Also I think he's going to run into a buzz saw in the Middle East. And when he does, he'll take a look and realize why he didn't want to get involved in the first place. Though he's made these pledges to the Saudis and Egyptians to do what he can there. So I think this is probably the apogee of the Bush presidency. There will be very, very powerful forces it will be tough for him to resist either place he goes. If he moves against Iraq he'll dynamite his antiterrorism coalition in the Middle East and Europe. And given the fact that it will take six to nine months to build up the forces, the pressure will be intolerable on him not to do it.
On the other hand, if he tries to strong-arm Ariel Sharon he's going to dynamite his domestic coalition. The neo-cons and even conservatives and the Israeli lobby and Congress and the Democratic Party will, I think, just make it impossible for him to force concessions on the Israelis to do what they need to do to get peace from the Palestinians. So, I predict he will back away from it. Or just play it out, go for interim agreements. I don't think Sharon is going to deal with Arafat. I don't think he trusts him. I think he thinks a Palestinian state will be a base camp of a war of liberation.
What are your thoughts about the suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa over the weekend, and Israel's military response on Monday?
I think that the Hamas terrorists -- I don't know whether it was a reprisal for the killing of their leader or if they were trying to dynamite the U.S.-led peace process -- but either way I think they succeeded. I don't think you can have a Sharon agreement with Yasser Arafat now. It's a disaster in the Middle East. The wrong people are winning over there. I can understand what took place -- with the Israelis responding to the appalling atrocities, I can understand why they would want to retaliate -- but in the last analysis if you want peace you need a Palestinian state. Ultimately, it's "No Palestine, no peace." But that idea, of a Palestinian state, has receded farther than ever. The president's mission over there is somewhat hopeless.
Surely, though, the president is right when he says that Israel has a right to defend itself.
Yes, but in the longer haul, unless you stop this cycle of reprisals and assassinations and atrocities and terror on all sides, the U.S. -- which is lined up behind Israel because of our aid to them ... the U.S. needs to take an independent stance to make a just, honorable workable solution that does not take Israel's side 100 percent, and does not take the side of the Palestinians 100 percent.
Which seemed to be what the administration was trying to accomplish, what Colin Powell was trying to do a couple of weeks ago with his speech in Louisville, Ky.
The administration was trying to do this, but clearly after the horrific massacres, most Americans look at that and say, "The Israelis really oughta pound them." Bush is not in a position to tell Sharon, "We know how horrible the thing was, but you ought to use restraint." So we're being dragged into this. We're not leading this -- we're following it.
No American president has the ability to stand up to force the players there, to use America's leverage. And I think we have less leverage now than we did before, after the atrocities over the weekend.
The Hamas terrorism clearly put Arafat in the unenviable position of appearing at best impotent, at worst complicit.
I don't think Arafat is responsible. I don't think he wanted this. But I don't think he can stop it any more than Sharon can stop it. It's a tragedy for him. It blows any chance of him as the first president of a Palestinian state, it blows any chance for a renewal of the Oslo process, it blows any chance for any land-for-peace [agreement]. He's the big loser. Arafat doesn't want these acts of terror -- he wants to get back to the negotiating table. But the Israelis who say that Arafat can't control Hamas, I think have a point.
Have you seen that translation of the letter that Arafat sent to the family of the Hamas suicide bomber from the Tel Aviv disco, where he praises the bomber's "heroic martyrdom" and "noble soul"? Twenty-one Israelis, most of them teenagers, were killed in that attack, which Arafat publicly condemned.
I didn't see that, no.
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