General Wesley Clark on The Ed Schultz Show

August 18, 2008
transcript by Reg NYC

Ed Schultz: The pressing issues at h- at hand, this whole deal with Musharraf and fighting terrorism and what's going on with the Russian invasion of Georgia and how we handled it as a country - for more on all of that our friend of this program and mine, General Wesley Clark here on the Ed Schultz Show. General, great to have you with us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Very good to be with you, Ed.

Ed Schultz: Some very trying times right now. What do you, what do you make of Musharraf's resignation? What does this mean in the overall picture for America?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it means a period of uncertainty. We do know the military leadership, and we think a lot of the military leadership in Pakistan. But Musharraf was somebody we had relationships with. He was a strong executive. I'm not passing judgement in- by saying that. I'm not approving of the fact that he overthrew the democracy in Pakistan and, and took control. He had his reasons for doing that, but, but, if you simply look at what happens next, it's uncertain.

Ed Schultz: Mean- M-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And that uncertainty creates its own vulnerabilities and dangers for the United States and for Pakistan.

Ed Schultz: We may not have an ally in there is what you're saying.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think we'll have an ally, but it may not be in a- they, they may not be able to make decisions effectively. It really depends on what degree of autonomy the Pakistan military feels and how, how well that military leader who's in there can control the ISI, the intelligence agencies of Pakistan.

Ed Schultz: The assassination that took place in that country, oh gosh, what was it about six, maybe a year ago was (stumbles) Bhutto?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: December of-

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Bhutto was assassinated.

Ed Schultz: Yeah, and as that played out to where we are right now, could you have anticipated back then that this is the path that would've been that of Musharraf?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, this was always going to be a problem for Musharraf. How long he was going to be able to stay and retain his authority was going to be a problem.

Ed Schultz: And as we look forward, is this like a, a- a-are we walking on hot coals here?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely-

Ed Schultz: I mean-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -walking on hot coals.

Ed Schultz: I mean, we're going into an election and th-this makes it a, a, a little doubly tough in the transition, doesn't it?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It certainly does make it tough, and you know, there's no easy way forward for the United States with Pakistan. Pakistan has been an American ally, but there is anti-Americanism there. They're suffering their own terrorist problems. They certainly, the, the ruling elites there, the people who are in the Parliament, they don't want the country to succumb to terrorism. The terrorist, the religious party's actually lost ground in the last election. The terrorists don't have any legal support in the country. And yet it takes strong executive leadership to deal with the problem of terrorism in Pakistan, and we just don't know where that executive leadership's going to come from.

Ed Schultz: Was- his alignment with the United States, fighting terrorism - and he's been, you know, criticized in numerous circles that he wasn't doing enough - what's your call on that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it was very difficult for him to bring a political consensus to bear that enabled him to do more than he did. The Pakistan, Pakistani military has a long history of noninvolvement in the tribal areas. When they went in there, they didn't do well. They took a lot of losses. The military got beat up, and it basically built resentment against the military. And they had a lot of- they had a few military people who actually went over and said, 'Look, I'm just not going to fight these people. These, these are our own people.' The Pakistani military exists to defend the country from attack by India. And-

Ed Schultz: So-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -they're not trained in counterinsurgency. They don't want to be trained in counterinsurgency. They don't want to deal with (chuckles) counterinsurgency in their own country.

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, this is a real problem. It's a real leadership problem inside Pakistan.

Ed Schultz: So, General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show, I, I'm, I guess I'm hearing you describe that these tribal areas are going to go unchallenged, because, you know, and terrorists are going to be able to come out of these tribal areas, and that's just the way it is unless we go in there and do something about it. Am I reading that right?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's a little sharp, Ed, in the se- in this way: I think that the tribal areas, they cannot be worked by force, not effectively. You've got to promote economic development - schooling, electric power, roads, factories, employment, hope, a future, integration into the world economy. They don't have any of that right now.

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And simply going in there with a bunch of troops with body armor on and knocking on people's doors and saying, 'Do you know any terrorists?' - I mean, (laughs) that's not going to get you anywhere.

Ed Schultz: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I mean, you know, that's, that's- we wouldn't like it in the United States if an outside army came in and occupied us. Whether you're in North Dakota or Arkansas or anyplace else, you wouldn't like it, and, and people resent it. And what instead they're looking for is the same thing that basically Americans are looking for, which is jobs and hope and a future for their children.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You've got to sell it in the right way to them.

Ed Schultz: Yeah. General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show, let's talk about Russia and Georgia. How should we have handled this or what, what's your scorecard on how the United States handled this invasion by the Russians?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I sort of give us a C- in the sense that I would say that first we should've seen it coming and acted more effectively to head it off. Having that sharp exchange of forces and having this doesn't make the United States look good. It certainly doesn't l- make Russia look good. But it does raise questions about the United States, our relationship with Georgia, how much people knew in advance. Condie went over there a month in advance, told them not to do it, but President Saakashvili felt that he had to do it. Okay, why and what could we've done to've taken that burden off of him. Could we've worked more effectively with Russia? Could we have forced them to deal more effectively diplomatically with the unresolved issues in South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Did we do everything we could do or did we just stand back and say, 'Well, you know, it's up to you all, and,' you know, 'we're behind you.' It turns out of course we weren't quite behind him the way that he probably wanted us to be. He certainly made a lot of strong statements to the press and people in Georgia were frightened by this. And I hear the news this morning is that the Russians are leaving. That doesn't say they've left, and they've done one heck of a lot of damage and shaken investor confidence in Georgia which is probably the most important thing. I don't know if they've left the port yet. I don't know if they've moved away from Gori and opened up the road, and I don't know if the, all the forces have pulled back. President Sarkozy of France said that there'd be a neutral observer team in there. Well, it's been over a week. I don't see any observers. I mean, why not? So, there's a lot of issues of execution here that haven't exactly come through the way we wanted them to.

Ed Schultz: General, weren't we a so-somewhat limited in our re- our, our ability to respond other than to talk tough and ask them to back off? I mean-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well,

Ed Schultz: -what, what could we do about it? What are we going to put economic sanctions on Russia?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think we wanted to put economic sanctions on Russia for this at this point, nor do I think we wanted to send in a brigade of, of, of troops at the, at this point to sort of confront the Russians. The Russians have about two, three brigades in there. It's not their home turf, but they're close to their home turf. And getting in a military confrontation over something before all the options have been exhausted is, i-is bad policy. And so, what we really needed to do was foresee what was coming, put the leverage on early to work it diplomatically. When that failed, put the leverage on immediately to work it diplomatically. We deferred to the European Union. S- France was the, had the Presidency of the European Union. They went in there. Their agreement was a little bit flawed. It wasn't quite sharp enough to force the Russians out right away. We're trying to fill in and put the pressure on right now. The most important thing we can do is maintain U.S. and European unity on this issue.

Ed Schultz: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There's no doubt the Uk-U (chuckles)-Ukraines and- that Ukraine and Poland and the Baltic States are vitally concerned with Russia's behavior. The question is: Can we pull all of NATO together? Can we really lead this alliance to take constructive steps that remove these trigger opportunities that the Russians might use or seize on to interfere in their near abroad - Kaliningrad-

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -Moldova, Nagorno-Karabakh. Can we got Abkhazia and South Ossetia settled properly?

Ed Schultz: And finally, this relationship that Russia has with the Iranians, does that play at all into their actions going into Georgia? And doing this damage and posturing and doesn't that kind of signal to the United States that, you know, maybe we better not talk so tough with the Iranians, our friends? You know what I mean that how the, how the, the Russians, they don't want these deals getting knocked down, do they?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's certainly a factor to be considered, Ed, in, in this regard in that, you know, the tougher we talk with Russia on this the less likelihood we can expect them to back us up with Iran.

Ed Schultz: That puts us in a spot, that put- I think.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Seems to.

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And, and yet you know, all of these are interconnected in a way. Russia doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons. Russia doesn't believe that the threat is as serious or, nor does Russia want the United States at war in the Middles East again, because every time we go to war, it makes Russia look bad. We win, our weapons look good, their weapons don't look so good. So, they don't have any real interest in seeing us go to war. On the other hand, they don't have any interest, they don't have the s- the same interest we do in seeing the Iranian issue resolved.

Ed Schultz: Gosh, it's complex.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It is very complex, and there's a lot of cross-pressures on all parties, but those cross-pressures are the opportunities to bring this to resolution, Ed.

Ed Schultz: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: If, if Russia wasn't connected to the outside world, they'd be much (chuckles) more difficult for us to deal with. The point is we need Russia, but they need us.

Ed Schultz: Yeah. General, great to have-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And somewhere in that, we ought to be able to convince them to come out of Georgia and support a peaceful resolution to Abkhazia.

Ed Schultz: Okay. Now-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And South Ossetia.

Ed Schultz: And, and, and do you feel like this is, is getting resolved at this point? I mean, do you, you feel a little bit more confident today (chuckles) than you did maybe last week?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Um, I, I think the near-term crisis is going to be resolved. I think this is a lingering issue that will linger throughout the election season and into the next administration.

Ed Schultz: General, great to have you on. I appreciate your insight, and all the best.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show.