Concerned about the threat of violence many want to if they can be free and fast. And want to thank 2 phase of kevin 19 have fun times. In the indian accents on aljazeera. See. September 26th seen nearly 2 months before but then president ial candidate donald trump selection president barack obama spoke at the Un General Assembly via address this hall as president for the final time. Let me recounts the progress that weve made a quarter century after the end of the cold. The world is by many measures less violent and more prosperous than ever before. But with millions of people displaced worldwide. Unresolved conflicts from yemen. To syria iraq and afghanistan an armed groups like he sold on al qaida launching attacks against civilians was president obamas speech too optimistic. His top u. N. Diplomat at the time was ambassador Samantha Power who was responsible for securing International Consensus on a variety of pressing issues of the Security Council and general assembly. Im james bays of the United Nations in new york our house us Foreign Policy change since President Trump took office of what should have been done differently and with the next president ial elections in november will ambassador power pursue a new political role in washington the former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power talks to al jazeera. Ambassador Samantha Power former u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. Thank you for talking to aljazeera let me start from having read your recent memoir and ask you to rewind to november 26th when you were still the u. S. Ambassador it was Election Night you had a party for all the female voters of the u. N. You invited them to your then residence the top of the waldorf a story a hotel to celebrate i think what you thought was going to be the election of a president clinton can i ask you a forts or matt knight and now how things stand in the world after 3 and a half nearly 4 years of a trumpet ministration well james it was a great night we started off assuming that america would be electing its 1st female president that would have profound effects the tension for whats impossible all around the world as america leads as a very powerful country no matter what it does a good or bad and instead here was the election someone that had made it clear that he had very little appetite for americas alliances that he had very little faith in multilateral action. And in International Institutions even traditional republican stalwarts like nato had come under attack he had made clear that he didnt really see america in the inclusive way that we have long seen ourselves you know making it clear that immigrants were not welcome making clear that certain minority groups should feel out of place and of course he had said that he was going to put in place a ban on travel from muslim countries and so there were people in the room that night who whose families certainly would have been affected by such a ban so we it was it was a few neary or i would say you led in part the Obama Administration response to it boma can you tell me how you think the response of the pandemic has been particularly in terms of International Leadership and International Cooperation i think what one sees in president obamas response to the a ball at the demick that one doesnt see in the corona response is one major power in the case of of all of the United States leading president obama declaring that he is going to send 3000 american troops and Health Workers into the eye of the store and into west africa to try to support local efforts that we all know that success rises and falls on the work of the brave people on the ground and so in that support role he then goes to the other countries of the United Nations taps people like me and john kerry and others to go and say ok heres what were doing were building 17 a pool of treatment you thats what are you prepared to do were going to take a leadership role in the country like syria United Kingdom could you take seriously of france how about guinea china how many people are treatment units are you going to ringback cuba youre famous for your medical corps that works in Subsaharan Africa how many doctors and Health Workers can you send to west africa and so the United States wasnt the. Policeman then it was a kind of catalyzer of Global Action and it leverages what it was doing globally to try to get other countries to pool their resources to solve a collective action problem because we all knew that all the wasnt contains it wasnt just going to wipe out by faith in west africa its going to spread well beyond that including to the United States to europe and to major cities everywhere so the goal response though is different the United States is not leading within International Organizations the u. N. Security council which i let it for the 1st time in the uns history to declare a ball a threat to International Peace and security hasnt even made that modest proclamation at this stage of a pandemic that has infected more than 3000000 people around the world. W. H. O. The United States has pulled back funding at the height of a Global Pandemic which is sort of like an onion cartoon headline but it actually is happening in our lifetimes and instead of leading within an International Institution like the un or its an agency like the World Health Organization of the United States is hunkering down. Inviting a kind of courting process globally racing rightly for a vaccine but making it very clear that anything that we manufacture produce you know is something that we are going to you know keep close and indeed banning us aids from funding n. G. O. S that might be providing protective equipment to people in the developing world where the pandemic is just now beginning to wallop vulnerable communities so its really really different youve seen some of the richest countries on earth really struggling im here in new york city which has had a very bad time how worried are you about the more Vulnerable Countries on earth if i give you an example Central African republic for a population of nearly 5000000 people they apparently have 3. Ventilators you know they have 3 the country of south sudan has 4 i think there are fewer than 200 doctors in all of south sudan i think again one has to think about both dimensions to this pandemic there is the Public Health dimension and the fact that with an absence of ventilators an absence of basic Treatment Facilities youre probably in many many countries there is variance of how this pandemic is hitting communities and so again the science on this is a bit murky at the present but in many many countries that dont have the Health Infrastructure to withstand what is coming at them youre going to see massive losses much much higher concentration of loss of life then in developed countries like ours that are struggling so much as it is but well beyond the help dimension theres the economic dimension these are countries that dont have 2 trillion dollars stimulus packages that are going to be brought forth where when markets shut down when social lockdowns occur when communities actually true do their best to observe guidelines that are needed from a Public Health perspective that wipes out the Economic Economic possibilities of people who are living often hand to mouth and so the knock on effects in terms of malnutrition in our 8 starvation the World Food Program is now orning that 265000000 people are risk of severe malnutrition and in some cases what the head of the w. S. P. Has referred to as a fan of biblical proportions so again its the health and the economic together with no cushion and very little ability to be resilient because so many of these communities are living on the edge youve talked about the trumpet ministrations decision to cut funding to the World Health Organization because they say that its too close to china come i raise that point with you does President Trump have a bit of a point that china is growing more powerful. Immune to National System a managing to silence parts of the u. N. System particularly on issues of human rights the best recipe for china to increase its influence in International Organizations is for the United States to pull back and that is what the u. S. Has been doing since january 20th 2017 and new the u. S. Has been pulling out International Agreements pulling away from its democratic allies in the insulting its democratic allies at the same time praises dictatorships and dictators even like kim jong un and certainly president xi and in that vacuum where the u. S. Walks away the number 2 donor to the United Nations china which had overtaken japan just a couple years ago as the number 2 donor to the un is definitely going to take advantage of that opportunity to try to throw its weight around in more significant ways and you see that in the Chinese Governments effort to get its personnel into more places to try to offset what is perceived to be an american advantage of decades of u. S. Leadership within these organizations and decades of putting u. S. Personnel in places of influence you see it during the pandemic absolutely where the World Health Organization senior officials could have been more outspoken particularly about the stonewalling i think that the Chinese Government was doing for those critical weeks in january and february there was the Bad Information that was provide there was the insufficient amounts of information that was provided but then there was the deluge shows attempts to gain access to china where beijing clearly didnt want external scrutiny to what was happening in one because they were in the midst of a cover up and so at that time again with us leadership is the job of the United States other democratic countries other countries that believe in transparency and accountable governance to make it impossible for the World Health Organization to sustain any reticence on. The issue of this will import and that didnt happen in the United States wasnt even present it see on the executive board of the w. H. O. Was begun it was 200000000. 00 in the reverse having not paid still used to the w. H. O. Even before trumps more recent funding cut off and the other democracies of the un havent yet adjusted to self organize absent that kind of catalytic role that the us has played for a while that may be changing now as we see with the Solidarity Fund and the effort to raise money for developing countries how should the u. S. Deal with a more assertive china because it is of course conflict complicated china is an important part of the Global Economic system and do you have worries that this issue is just going to get more toxic now weve got all the discussion about the pandemic and the possibility that china now could become a big issue in the us election i am worried im worried about chinas actions for starters because again we have now the global ramifications of authoritarian capitalism a model that people were praising until quite recently and yet you see in a culture of fear and a climate of fear how afraid local officials who are in china to step forward to such an end as it was attempting to sort of hide the numbers and downplay the epidemic expelling western journalists from china so we also dont have independent voices it will then move around china to really alert the outside world even to what is happening right now behind chinese borders so i worry about that i think for a long time u. S. Officials have been quite reticent on issues like the detention of the leaders for example or on the real risks associated with the export of Artificial Intelligence and surveillance technologies technologies of course that are becoming more pronounced in as part of what is perceived to be a remedy for this epidemic so. We can worry about whats happening in china or what china is seeking to export and i think thats a genuine war let me take you now to the middle east and back to your time when you were the u. S. Ambassador to the u. N. In a previous interview for this program you told me when i wake up in the morning i think of syria when i go to bed at night i think of syria and it was very interesting reading your book and the passages on syria particularly on that red line on chemical weapons president obamas red line that was crossed and he didnt take action what was interesting to me is that he initially decided to take military action and even set a date for it or ghost 25th 2030. I appreciate you noticing that because there is a little news in that book i think given the way some of these histories have been written. Absolutely president obama asked me to go to ban ki moon and. Request that he remove the weapons inspectors who are on the ground looking in to the ghastly chemical weapons attack of august 2013 that it killed 1400 people including more than 400 children and i went to the moon knowing that once those inspectors left syria that president obama would be following through on his pledge to hold the Syrian Government accountable for such a gross violation of International Law and human said no he said no i want the inspectors to do their work many in the u. N. System would have applauded that decision because many were very unintrusive mastic about the use of u. S. Military force even though now many of those same people are very critical of how president obama handled the crisis but president obama was going to go the targets have been chosen and it was really just a question of not wanting to see the assad regime holding u. N. Inspectors as human shields and compounding an already devastating humanitarian situation i should note that the military action that was contemplated was very limited it was about deterring the use of future chemical weapons it was not about creating a safe zone or civilian protection areas carving out large slots of syria again where civilians might be able to take shelter so its limited but i think when one looks bad one wonders you know would just a limited use of force been able potentially to at least deter the future use of chemical weapons thereby taking out of assads arsenal a weapon that he used for strategic advantage on the battlefield what do you think would have be the outcome if he had studied military action because remember this was a year before. Well russia got involved and russias involvement was what turned the tide when russia got involved the opposition had been doing well and making games could things have turned out very differently was this the turning point in the war i think it was the turning point in so far as from that point forward president assad felt quite confident that there would be no u. S. Military involvement in syria i will say as one who is in the situation room from 2013 to january 20th 2017 it never felt like a closed case to me it always felt like something that was being litigated that we were thinking creatively is there some way that this issue can be reopened but in retrospect because president obama decided to use that time before the inspectors came out to go to congress the u. S. Congress and to seek congressional support so from that point on i think both president assad and the key architects of his Vicious Campaign felt much more confident and i think you see that as they gradually escalate their bombing campaigns including in places like aleppo where there was just no regard for civilian life whatsoever you describe what it was like in the situation room youve described president obamas views but theres one figure who also seem to be opposed in your descriptions in your book to the use of force and that was the price President Joe Biden when talking about libya you write biden had grown dubious about using u. S. Military force he regretted having supported the invasion of iraq and consistently advocated for winding down the war in afghanistan you talk of his skepticism of new military engagement does this tell us anything about the joe biden whos trying to become commander in chief i think so but i think it tells us something that is broadly shared view. Certainly across the United States but i also think across the broader middle east which is that military force is never going to. To resolve the root causes of the conflict just isnt going to happen and yes its true that Vice President biden was deeply affected i think by the fact that his son both served in iraq that feeling of vulnerability for someone you love so much so Many American families have gone through that with people on their 78 tours in afghanistan or those who served 4 tours in iraq they were done because the u. S. That were drawn in with isis ended up back in a training role and so you know really is the case that local actors hopefully with appropriate u. S. Training and not blank checks and training in International Humanitarian law pressure and engagement on issues of governance which themselves have fueled extremism in so many parts of the middle east but that there is a tool in the tool box and that the u. S. Over reliance on military force has really skewed american Foreign Policy and it hasnt delivered the kinds of results i think that the American People but also the broader Global Public need and so i think the Vice President s view is weve got to invest much more in diplomacy President Trump has ravaged our diplomatic corps we have to do much better on the economic side bringing in the private sector you know pushing on the corruption front i think the way that Vice President biden has embraced elizabeth warrens anticorruption agenda should resonate in the middle east in ways large and small but the United States is also a lot more effective on issues like that when its acting with its partners and when were acting multilateral you write a lot in your book about syria and about libya you barely mention yemen yet that was a conflict started by saudi arabia and the u. A. E. On your watch me a bomber administration didnt speak out against it yet its now become the worst humanitarian disaster on earth do you have regrets. I certainly i have regrets about our yemen policy absolutely and i you know i think that it was one thing in the 1st instance when the yemeni ambassador to the United Nations you remember this day came to the u. N. And said my country has been overrun i had to escape my capital city in hiding to avoid war knows what hell when a sovereign head of state comes and this is not a sovereign head of state who forfeited his claim to International Legitimacy like someone like assad or khadafi but when that militia who the militia take over asuna and take over large parts of yemen happen i think was very reasonable to come to the aid of the sovereign government and indeed you mentioned that the United States in criticized Saudi Coalition went much further than that its actually supported what saudi arabia was doing though a terribly by providing intelligence and military support of all kinds i think the problem was that very soon into the saudi led campaign it became clear that saudi arabia was very interested in our money our intelligence our Weapons Systems but not very interested in our advice or our Legal Counsel for example on which targets the targets could be struck and which the targets could not be struck and i think at that point that was really the time. To turn off the spigot and to say you know there are too many violations of International Humanitarian law happening if you want to learn just like we have had to learn in afghanistan iraq about how to discipline this fight i mean youre losing hearts and minds every day on the ground in yemen its in your interest to learn other than we are here to provide accounts and we set lawyers. You know to engage the saudi government at all times but there was so little receptivity to our counsel in that conflict and i think absolutely we should have pulled the plug. Ugh on assistance to the saudi led effort and i dont know that that would have changed mohammed in some months calculus i dont know that that would have caused him to reassess his own agenda but here we are all these years later no progress has been made from the saudis standpoint militarily if anything the opposite and all that this war has meant for the people of yemen is heartache disease starvation and bombardment and so no one can look back at this and not a progress frankly. The mastermind of that saudi led war in yemen was the crown Prince Mohammed bin so hes been accused of human rights abuses hes been accused of murdering the journalist Jamal Khashoggi do you think its time for the u. S. To recalibrate its relationship with saudi arabia i think it has long been taboo i mean in many ways i think public and even political understanding of the u. S. Saudi relationship is forged in a different era at a different time of us great vulnerability in terms of Energy Dependence on saudi arabia on fears about saudi arabia as it related to israel and the saudi agenda there fears that saudi arabia also would allow the implication of of terrorism or abet it in some fashion and i think if you look at saudi arabias interests as it perceives its interests now many of the issues that the United States has been pushing for a long time it believes it needs its leverage to secure cooperation on our issues that saudi arabia seems to believe it has in its own interests to pursue i think this is the saudi israeli relationship is different and changing saudi arabias own relationship to terrorism but also its broader support for example to people like assisi who wants to gether members of the Muslim Brotherhood and isis and treats them as one you see saudi arabia pursuing policies on its own and you see it as in the case of yemen very reluctant to take u. S. Counsel as it relates to the conduct of its its war in yemen and the conduct of course as it relates to Something Like journalists whether a journalist like Jamal Khashoggi in in the saudi consulate in turkey or journalists inside saudi arabia. And again from the standpoint of us interests Us National Insurance we dont need to be falling over ourselves to accommodate policies with which we disagree we need to have a complex multifaceted relationship that includes accountability for things we disagree with partnership when partnership is appropriate in terms of our interests but not a kind of all school autopilot which is what often i feel we granted not just our relationship but other nations its in the midst finally ambassador you have a most compelling biography born in dublin immigrant to the us war correspondent academic human rights activists professor Government Official cabinet member and ambassador what is next for Samantha Power many of talk to view as possibly serving in a Joe Biden Administration if he wins novembers election but some of even said you could be the next secretary of state. What is next is doing everything in my power whatever the limits of those powers are to test those limits to get joe biden elected i think i would be honored to serve again in some fashion and i think after this presidency the Trump Presidency i feel all of us feel a duty. You know to do whatever we can whether in our own communities or at the National Level so id be honored to serve but my priority again is getting joe biden who back into the white house about a Samantha Power thank you for talking to al jazeera. Thanks jane. Beleaguered out of 5 paying the price for his political maneuvering never now desperate for american recognition good teddy and absolutely denounce all. Good it is how did the p. L. O. Find strength and support from their only lifeline oppressed palestinians living in the occupied territories chronicling the turbulent story of the struggle for a palestinian homeland p. L. O. History of a revolution on aljazeera. Political ideals grassroots activists and polished speech its lines takes you inside the battle for the democratic party. And asks if its base is too polarized to take home the white house theres a generational divide thats real you might ironically see the outsider mantle the most corrupt incumbent president ever pulled langs americas divided democrats on alexs their. Old order. Brazils health but has to quit softer less than a month in the job he criticized the president s handling of the pandemic. Alive adrian for the get this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up a quarantine comes into effect in chiles capital as the government orders thousands of graves dug. A new 3 trillion dollar Coronavirus Relief package has passed its 1st hurdle in the u. S. President trump is threatening to
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