Podcast: It's the End of the World as We Know it, with Richard Haass

TRANSCRIPT: It's the End of the World as We Know it, with Richard Haass

Richard Haass:

We talked about the liberal world order or the democratic world order. Well, we're not there anymore.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast, an audio version of what you can find on public television, where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets.

Ian Bremmer:

This week I sit down with Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, and a longtime top-level diplomat. Haass doesn't mince words, and today he'll talk candidly about a world he says is increasingly in disarray. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

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Ian Bremmer:

And I'm here with my friend Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Good to be with you.

Richard Haass:

Always good to be with you.

Ian Bremmer:

As the United States has less energy requirements from the Middle East, as you see this kind of pushback, as China has a lot more equities they need from the Middle East, do you see it as an inevitability that we're going to see a post-American Middle East in the near future?

Richard Haass:

Well, I think we're largely there. The Middle East sponged up a disproportionate share of our energy since the end of the Cold War, so you could argue that strategically it made sense to adjust it or dial it down to some extent. I think that's fair. But I think, Ian, we're seeing what a post-American Middle East essentially looks like. You got all sorts of regional actors, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Israelis, essentially taking matters into their own hands. The Russians are doing what they're doing. We've got a low level war between Israel and Iran being fought out in Syria. The Israelis have essentially determined that you will not see the Lebanonization by Iran of Syria, where they build up a military infrastructure.

Richard Haass:

So we're essentially, we're not out. It's not post-American in the sense that we've departed, but it's post-American compared to where we were 25, 30 years ago, when Saddam invaded Kuwait.

Ian Bremmer:

And we defended the Kuwaitis.

Richard Haass:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

We made that call.

Richard Haass:

There would not have been an international coalition without us. We were then the ones who essentially convened the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. This was an American-led-

Ian Bremmer:

And now it's kind of a free-for-all, with all these regional actors essentially.

Richard Haass:

Exactly, exactly right. Exactly right.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. And what-

Richard Haass:

I guess one other thing, we still have some interests there. There's terrorists. We don't want to see nuclear weapons proliferate. We still care about Israel. We don't want to see the humanitarian costs continue. We don't even want to see massive refugee flows into Europe, which is much of anything. Explains how Europe has changed its political complexion. So we still have interests in the Middle East, even though our direct energy interest is considerably less.

Ian Bremmer:

Speaking of who is a major player in the Middle East, how constructive of an ally do you see today's Turkey as being?

Richard Haass:

Well, they're an ally, but only on paper. Turkey's-

Ian Bremmer:

Only on paper?

Richard Haass:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

Turkey is not an actual ally of the United States today?

Richard Haass:

No, sir. They're not a partner. We don't agree on enough, whether it's in terms of how we organize ourselves. Turkey's domestic politics now, they're not a democracy. They're another authoritarian system that's essentially abolished term limits for its leader. There's more journalists in jail in Turkey than any other country that I know of. We can't depend on them to act in ways that are consistent with our interests in terms of dealing with terrorists, dealing with ... All the Turks-

Ian Bremmer:

With the Kurds on the ground in Syria.

Richard Haass:

Yeah, all they basically want to go after the Kurds. So Turkey sees-

Ian Bremmer:

Who they consider terrorists on the ground.

Richard Haass:

Absolutely. But our views are not aligned. They're not aligned with Cyprus. They're not aligned about Russia, where Turkey now wants to buy major weapon systems from. So it's interesting, the NATO document doesn't have a withdrawal ... We can't kick them out, there's no mechanism for ...

Richard Haass:

But we should proceed on the basis of a kind of, funnily enough, a transactional relationship. In limited areas where we might overlap, fine. But for the most part, the United States and Turkey have taken divergent paths under Erdogan. I would make the recommendation, indeed I've made it, that we take steps to make ourselves less dependent on access to bases like Incirlik-

Ian Bremmer:

Incirlik.

Richard Haass:

... because I don't have any confidence that they would necessarily be available in a crisis. Indeed-

Ian Bremmer:

So we shouldn't have nuclear weapons based there, for example.

Richard Haass:

No, sir.

Ian Bremmer:

You would take them out.

Richard Haass:

I lean in that direction with the only caveat being, I don't want to see the Turks necessarily move in a direction of developing nuclear weapons of their own.

Ian Bremmer:

But I mean, you, one, would expect in today's environment, that if we were to proceed in that direction, that Turkey would become much more engaged and aligned militarily with the Russians.

Richard Haass:

Either that, or they would become even more independent. And I think when the United States does less anywhere, countries essentially have two options. One is the one you just described, to align themselves with another powerful local store.

Ian Bremmer:

With the regional, whoever. Yeah.

Richard Haass:

Whether it's a China in Asia, an Iran in the Middle East, a Russia in Europe, or they become more independent. The world becomes more of a self-help society.

Richard Haass:

So if we dial down dramatically the US relationship with Turkey, we've got to expect either moving towards Russia or a Turkey that might actually consider nuclear weapons of its own. We obviously don't want to see either, and that's probably the biggest constraint on a formal distancing from Turkey.

Ian Bremmer:

Since we're on Middle East, we can't leave Iran. We have left the Iranian nuclear deal. Everyone else-

Richard Haass:

Incorrectly, in my view.

Ian Bremmer:

Everyone else is still in it, including the Iranians-

Richard Haass:

Including the Iranians.

Ian Bremmer:

... at this point. A fair number of sanctioned waivers have been provided, so in other words, American allies and others can still do some business with Iran. Where do you see this ... Now you didn't think we should have left?

Richard Haass:

No, it wasn't the deal I would've negotiated. I think we were too generous and we were generous to a fault, but it was the deal we did negotiate. The Iranians were in compliance with it.

Richard Haass:

Out of all the things the Iranians are doing in the Middle East, this was the one thing that we temporarily at least should have lived with. We should have gotten some of its provisions extended and I think we might have been able to do that. But we should have focused much more on Iran's regional ambitions where, again, we talk about it, but we don't seem to do much about it. Secretary Pompeo the other day gave a speech, where he articulated the goal-

Ian Bremmer:

In Cairo.

Richard Haass:

In Cairo. Getting every last Iranian boot out of Syria.

Secretary Pompeo:

The United States will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot, and work through the UN-led process to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people.

Richard Haass:

Talk about a gap between means and ends in American foreign policy. We're talking about getting every American boot out of Syria. How in the world are we going to get every Iranian boot out of Syria?

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think that the Iranians will continue to actually live by the terms of the deal?

Richard Haass:

I do. Because they understand if they were to break the terms of the deal, that more than anything else will be the trigger an Israeli military action or an American one, and would probably put them a bit on the defensive.

Richard Haass:

If the sanctions though really do get applied and really starts to hurt them, they've got to do something if they can't find ways to work around them. And then they might try other things to put pressure on the Saudis, do some other things in the region. So I don't rule out that they would challenge the nuclear deal, but they've got to know if they do that, that would bring in either American or Israeli military action.

Ian Bremmer:

That does imply that there was probably a lot more on the table for the Obama administration to push the Iranians a lot harder. There was a lot more wiggle and give from Tehran-

Richard Haass:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

... at the time. I mean, if they're willing to stick with a deal that is, for all intents and purposes, materially worse today, than the one that the Americans actually were still a part of.

Richard Haass:

I think if you were interviewing-

Ian Bremmer:

Revealed preferences.

Richard Haass:

Interesting. If you were interviewing John Kerry or someone who was intimately associated with that, he would say it was a really good deal. But again, my own view is we committed the cardinal sin of wanting the deal too much. And I think the Obama administration also thought that the deal would have this great byproduct or dividend, that it would set in motion domestic-

Ian Bremmer:

Better Iranian behavior in other ways.

Richard Haass:

Right. It would basically bring about, not regime change, but societal evolution. And I think they confused foreign policy with what I would call wishery.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. So the biggest issue on the table for any of us is of course China. What do you think the approach to manage, contain, engage... What's the right word to think about long-term, if you're the Americans, with China?

Richard Haass:

It's basically a competitive relationship, but you want to save areas of actual or potential cooperation. So it's going to be a relationship with more than one personality type.

Ian Bremmer:

Frenemy.

Richard Haass:

I hate that.

Ian Bremmer:

I know you hate it, but that's only because you're old, right, it's not a ... It doesn't mean it's wrong.

Richard Haass:

Well, thank you for that. Thank you for that.

Ian Bremmer:

I'm getting it, I'm catching up every day.

Richard Haass:

I doubt you'll catch up, until you can no longer interview me. I'm no longer around to be interviewed.

Ian Bremmer:

So there's going to be a level of compartmentalization.

Richard Haass:

It's the opposite of linkage. In the old days during the Cold War, we said, "Well, if we disagree here, how do we use areas to pressure them?" Now it's just the opposite. You want to preserve, almost protect the areas where you selectively cooperate. And you don't want to let the areas where you compete, or worse, spill over and preclude the areas of cooperation. I think that's where we are.

Ian Bremmer:

But I mean, the North Korea situation, when we pushed the Chinese on actually enforcing sanctions that they normally were a part of, that was in part a linkage with the US trade relationship at the time.

Richard Haass:

Chinese may have seen it that way, that they... And also, the Chinese have a certain strategic interest in not seeing a North Korean nuclear capability run out of control, because one day either a country like Japan will rethink its nuclear posture. Or at the time they had to have taken seriously some of the American threats to use military force against North Korea.

Richard Haass:

But I think the Chinese have long since come to the position that they can avoid using all the influence they have over North Korea. I think they're comfortable with some version of the status quo.

Ian Bremmer:

We're talking to them about a trade deficit. They just threw a bunch more licenses at Ivanka. Some kind of linkage.

Richard Haass:

Well, the Chinese essentially I think would like to avoid a situation where we raise tariffs yet again against them. I think they're talking about reducing the trade imbalance. It's something that, for reasons I don't quite understand, matters overwhelmingly to this president when he looks at trade things, but they're not going to change their basic system. They're not going to stop stealing technology. More important, they're not going to stop having a large state role in the economy. China's not going to change that. If you're a communist country, if you're a statist economy, you're going to have a large role of the state. That's the way it is. That means we're essentially saying this relationship is destined to be essentially at loggerheads or worse economically.

I think that's a mistake. I think there are ways we could work with that. I'm much more concerned about the technology issues than I am about China's state-centric role. But if we see it that way, it's almost saying, "China, you've got to change yourself." There are people in this administration who have, I don't know if you want to call it regime change or systemic change, is their goal with China. I believe they're going to fail to say the least. But I was a bit taken aback by that formulation.

Ian Bremmer:

And for such a long time the transatlantic relationship is what underpinned the way we think about global architecture, global institutions. Let's imagine that the United States just was starting to get it all right, and had a foreign policy orientation that you actually were quite optimistic, enthusiastic about.

Ian Bremmer:

To what extent in that environment would Europe be diminished and less relevant for that US, would there be a real pivot to Asia? Whether it's about the Chinese managing that relationship well and the importance of the alliances that are there. Because Japan's not lost altitude in the last three years. If anything, they probably gained a little bit.

Richard Haass:

Probably gained some, yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. How do you think about that?

Richard Haass:

Well, years ago, before any of these crises happened, I was already writing and arguing that the Atlantic era of American foreign policy was coming to a close. And this was because that the European share of global GDP was going down, and European projection capabilities militarily were not developing. And psychologically Europe was just not thinking about playing that kind of a larger role. A few modest exceptions in the Middle East and Afghanistan, but basically Europe was not going to be a major player say in Asia, which was much more where the center of gravity, I thought, of 21st century international relations would be.

Richard Haass:

So I think we're in a post-Atlantic era under the best of terms. But I think this is, the European role or weight will be even less than I thought it would be. And I think it'll probably be more absorbed by European issues and by national issues, than it will by playing a large role.

Ian Bremmer:

What's the single thing Kissinger's been most right about?

Richard Haass:

Well, to me, he's most right historically about order, the nature of it, that it takes not just a balance of power, but some shared conception. His word was "legitimacy," what aught be the rules of international relations. And I think we're living in an era where it's not so much the absolute balance of power is changing, though it's changing somewhat, but the will to use capability is changing. We're becoming much less willing. Russia seems to be more willing, China perhaps as well.

Richard Haass:

But even more important, what he called legitimacy just isn't there. I'm beginning to see a real unraveling of any sort of consensus on what the arrangements ought to be regionally in various parts of the world, much less globally, whether it's on cyber or climate-

Ian Bremmer:

What values should matter, basic standards.

Richard Haass:

Values. Yes, I just don't see that. So you and I and others, we talked about the liberal world order or the democratic world order. Well, we're not there anymore. And the question is, could something like it be revived? If so, what would it take, because Putin's Russia wants no part of it. Xi Jinping's China wants at most a very limited part of it.

Ian Bremmer:

They want the stability-

Richard Haass:

Absolutely.

Ian Bremmer:

... but they don't want those rules.

Richard Haass:

Absolutely not. And I think the question is, how do we in any case adapt what was a world order for this era, where global issues are far more significant? Liberal world order didn't necessarily help you deal with climate change. We have these new technologies like cyber where there's no rules of the road.

Richard Haass:

And that's what worries me, is that it's not only that some of the old arrangements have broken down, but we're not making any move collectively towards coming up with new arrangements. And that gives me real pause.

Ian Bremmer:

Richard Haass, thank you very much.

Richard Haass:

As always, sir. Thanks Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week, same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which case it's wherever you happen to be. Don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

Announcer:

The GZERO World is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company. Imagine a bank without teller lines, where your banker knows your name, and its most prized currency is extraordinary client service. Hear directly from First Republic's clients by visiting firstrepublic.com.