You know see whats the way to solve the conflicts in the middle east on talk to al jazeera this week a man who tried to figure that out for president obama a Senior Advisor on the region in the last white house Robert Malley now heads one of the worlds leading think tanks the International Crisis group he gives us his view of President Trumps efforts to produce the deal of the century between israelis and palestinians. We talk about the brutal wars in yemen libya and syria and the threat of an even bigger conflict between the u. S. And iran after President Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal of 2015 a deal molly helped to negotiate. Robert malley president of the International Crisis group thank you for talking to aljazeera let me start for our viewers ready who dont know the International CrisisGroup Tell Us about your organization the one minute version sure i hope theyre not too many who dont know about the organization but its great to be here and this is an organization that is pretty unique it has it starts with people on the ground people in conflict areas and their goal is to come up with ideas to resolve prevent or mitigate deadly conflict and then come up with practical recommendations that we could then advocate on behalf of the organization to leaders and Civil Society and nonstate actors around the world you wrote earlier this year for an american who had a hand in shaping u. S. Middle east policy during the obama. He is coming to yemen has the unpleasant feel of visiting the scene of a tragedy one helped to cowrite. Explained you know and it was at a time as we write in this piece. Where the United States was in the middle the negotiations on the Iran Nuclear Deal causing huge chances with saudi arabia and some of some of the other allies in the region and the feeling was saudi arabia came to the us and said to who these have taken over somehow theyve taken over yemen they are an iranian proxy if we dont react and if you dont help and we will react anyway and if you dont help us it will be an act of betrayal because we feel like our existence or security is at stake because of the presence of this militia armed by iran on arse on our southern border and i think the decision then the president obama made and the ministration made was even though they were huge reservations about how quickly the war would end about how close the who these at the time were to iran and how much we would make them closer if this intervention took place but the feeling was we cant afford another rupture with saudi arabia which could be a major one after coming in the wake of the of the iran ago sheesh and and so the president had this view of we could help saudi arabia defend its security defend its borders defend its territory integrity and were trying not to get too involved in the war against the who these but in a way that was getting half pregnant because once you support saudi arabia once you support the Saudi Led Coalition support its fungible and the u. S. Became complicit in what today the United Nations says is the worst humanitarian crisis we face so this is a case of tragedy in which u. S. Fingerprints are very present i am i welcome the fact that than an organization welcomes the fact that the congress the u. S. Congress is now trying to reassert itself and trying to say wait a minute this is a war and the u. S. Is the u. S. Congress is the entity that has the right to begin and end wars and therefore this war is being conducted without congressional authorization and theyre trying to take steps to limit the ability of the. Yes to participate in this war they have not succeeded so far because the president still has veto power so the us has rocketed as. As president but its very important i think its a message that i always share with fissures in saudi arabia the u. A. E. Be careful you know this is going to have long term repercussions for the u. S. Youre a ship with us because there are many in this country democrats for the most part it also republicans who have a visceral dislike distaste for this war because the u. S. Has been so involved and because of the damage its doing and does it go beyond this war because the architect of the war mohamed bin so mom is involved in the blockade of qatar hes involved many people believe in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi i mean does there need to be a reassessment of the whole relationship with saudi arabia well i mean we read in the report and were sitting on our advocating breaking relations with saudi arabia i think on both sides there is reason to be dissatisfied amount of power sitting in riyadh and its looked at u. S. Policy for the last 10 years i more if you go back to the iraq invasion many questions on the saudi side also about the health of this relationship i think both sides need to sit down and figure out what the objectives are where the differences are and their real policy differences theres a difference on yemen theres a difference on iran theres a difference on the whole we spoke about the arab spring about what to do with islam is what to do when there is a Popular Uprising so i think there needs to be a honest conversation between the 2 sides in some readjustments one of the disagreements you mentioned was in the obama times the iran deal President Trump pulled out of got you one of the Team Negotiation days he says its defective this is core horrible one sided deal and he talks about the deal sunset provisions about the regime being on the verge of a Nuclear Breakout even when it was in the deal what do you make of his criticisms again i dont think we should spend much time because his criticisms are either deliberately. Dishonest or he hasnt read the deal doesnt know whats in it because it was as you said i held the. Go shoot it some bias but i dont think that the criticism that hes leveling against it is is grounded in fact you know every deal by definition is going to be a compromise so they were compromises the u. S. And get everything it wouldve wanted but it was a very solid deal to achieve the objective that president obama had set from the beginning to make sure that iran is not in a position to get a bomb for at least for 10 years and then the breakout time and what we call the breakout time and the time for iran to have the capacity of a bomb would be at least a year for at least 10 years and thats what was achieved and what by breaking this deal the president said that it was to meet several objectives in the administration said one to get a better deal. And 2nd to moderate to curb irans behavior in the region what have we seen a year later iran is now itself moving away from the deal so its Nuclear Activities are worse than they were under the deal so for having a better deal having a worse actual security and 2nd just listen to what the Us Administration itself is saying iran is escalating its behavior in there its its no anti american behavior in the region so its clearly is not meeting its objectives and it is it could well leave to a war which i am profoundly convinced the president doesnt want but i think hes on a collision course with himself because his policies whether hes aware of it or not a leading towards the possibility of a military confrontation that his instincts pose when you then compare that situation with north korea where President Trump says he has a love affair with kim jong un i mean how do you make sense of this. Oh you know reagan said the President Trump is not something that is i dont think im the only one whos struggling with where no problem with i have no problem in organizational problem with his outreach to pyongyang and that was the right thing to do now of course he created the crisis from which he then had to walk back but much better to see them talking much better to see than the go shooting than to see the fire and fury that we were seeing back in 2000 and so theres no process when we when we end up with a foreign fury against c lets see i think both sides are going to have to moderate their demands if you cant have the maximum is demands that were on display when they met in hanoi where the u. S. Basically is saying denuclearization 1st then will rule move the sanctions and chairman kim is saying 1st to remove the sanctions then we might move towards inquiries ation weve advocated a incremental step by step approach where the u. S. Would gradually relax some of the sanctions and north korea take some steps towards denuclearization thats the only realistic path but if youre sitting in tehran and thats where your question was theres one lesson unfortunate which is. Why is north korea being treated this way and were not a north korea has a Nuclear Weapon and we dont and i think thats a dangerous lesson which i hope the u. S. Is not continue sending to other parties which is if you have a Nuclear Weapon then were going to treat you with with all of the. Way President Trump is is is true as treating a conjunction lets go back to the Clinton Administration everyone remembers that handshake on the white house lawn in 1993 that many ways was the high watermark of the diplomacy between the israelis and the palestinians you were involved in the last year of president clintons presidency organizing the camp david summit that went badly tell us what went wrong in some ways camp david came but too soon and too late that the parties were not ready for what was about to to occur they were not ready to talk about all the central issues that the core issues the conflict since some ways it was too early was also too late because it took place in july of the last year of the administration i think what weve still scuppered since then since camp david which i may not have been able to tell you at the time is that the gaps between the parties on the central issues of identity of territory of refugees of security its settlements all those those gaps are very wide and it will take and it didnt we didnt have it then a very strong 3rd party to try to get the parties to where they need to go fast forward almost 20 years and President Trump thinks the u. S. Is now that 3rd party to do what he says is the deal of the century now we dont know all of it yet we only know the economic peace but the president s son in law jerry cushier in effect is doing the job you used to do what do you think of the charge and i wouldnt want to take over towards his of his efforts i think in some ways were spending too much time we not us but just in general the world is spending too much time talking about the state of the century in many ways its being implemented on the ground and were seeing the decisions that the administration has made about drucilla about funding for refugees about record. Mission well recognition of jerusalem as a couple of israel so theres been a number of steps already that are prefiguring what will be in the deal but 2nd of all we know that when this is put on the table if and when it is put on the table the palestinians will say no because even if its slightly better than people expect its going to be far less than what president clinton proposed to the palestinian in 2000 less than what was on offer during the george w. Bush presidency less than what was on offer for the palace in june the Barack Obama Presidency so theres no way theyre going to say yes so were going through the motions theyll put it on the table you know maybe some people be surprised at whats there the palace is will say no the arab countries for the most part wont want to alienate the administration so theyre going to give us kind of lukewarm well interesting but not quite what we want. Promise in it and you know if hes Prime Minister the time will say yes but and then well go on to Something Else so i think in some ways the what really matters right now are developments in in israel which is moving ever more to the right and consolidating its control over the occupied territories and whats happening on the palestinian side where sooner or later theres going to have to be some change because its been a sclerotic political system palestinians in the vast majority dont believe anymore in the 2 state solution they dont believe in american diplomacy they dont believe in the palace in authority they dont believe in their leadership so theres going to have to be some change there the real events right now are going to take place in israel and palestine the deal of the century is a sideshow they dont believe in the 2 state solution do you still believe in the 2 state solution listen when you say do i believe in it i think everyone not everyone but i believe in it as still the best possible outcome do i believe in it as a realistic outcome its becoming harder and harder to say youve got you look at whats happening on the ground its been a systematic effort to make the 2 state solution impossible i mean its pretty easy today to say that the 2 state solution is more and more thing of the past its not very easy to say what a thing of the present or of the future so lets look at the motivation for the 2 sides because one thing that puzzles me you look at israel right now in the current Prime Minister. Benjamin netanyahu what end state does he actually want he pays the surface to a 2 state solution sometimes but he doesnt seem to be doing anything that would support that idea and hes going to end up with a situation where israel still runs everything and yet the palestinian population is growing in eventually getting larger than the israeli population one of one of the tricks or one of the what we try to do a crisis group is put ourselves in everyone shoes as objective as possible so i put myself in the shoes of and is really sort of of the on the right maybe of the center as well and they look at the situation today which in terms of security is probably as good as theyve got in terms of their their imbalance of power with the palestinians the countries in their neighborhood are either absorbed by the internal problems or at peace with israel so israel doesnt really face that kind of threat it is a long term threat perhaps from iran and things if we tomorrow were to make a deal where we turn power more land over turn land over to the palestinians we will face an internal traumatic decision what do we do with the settlements how do we evacuate them we saw what happened in gaza during the year not a withdrawal but we also by definition are going to face a more uncertain time palestinian state what kind of progress would i have what kind of security will would provide so from an israeli put perspective the status quo is much preferable to almost anything else than you could put on the table what could happen on the palestinian side because right now you have the ongoing disunity the division between gaza and the west bank and you have an incredibly old leadership in terms of who the International Community but dealing with president abbas 83 years old elucidated for a 4 year term and hes in the 14th year of a 4 year something has to change on the palestinian side as well you know inevitably something will at some point theyll be a transition leadership i think the International Community is going to sorely miss the leadership that theyve had for many years because it was a leadership that was committed to a 2 state solution to a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Something will give i dont want to sit here and predict what it will be but there will be a change by definition theyll be a transition and if you look at where the majority of the power palestinians are particularly our young people thats when you get its going to raise questions about the future of the 2 state of their adherence to the 2 state solution of their hearings to the palace in authority which many palestinians today view more as an instrument that israel uses to perpetuate the occupation rather than an instrument of liberation for the Palestinian People why did the u. S. Establish its monopoly its because it had a very strong relationship with israel so israel accepted its mediation and the palestinians wanted to have a better relationship with the u. S. So they also invited the u. S. No longer true on the palestinian side but im not sure that theres any other candidate right now that the israelis would look upon favorably so it may be a case where the most the center of gravity of Decision Making will be among the israeli and Palestinian People the socalled arab spring 8 years ago coincided with the Obama Administration which you served in looking now with the great benefit of hindsight its a big mess isnt it 3 countries still in a state of war ready egypt bahrain great repression what do you think looking back the International Community did wrong. Thats thats a difficult question i mean it is assumed that its an International Community that had was a driver i think these are really local events what we see is that the there were always 3 levels of the conflict there was a local conflict between the citizenry that was rising up against its leadership and the fight among the busy citizens themselves between the more islam is the less islamist more secular others 2nd level was the regional confrontation and that regional confrontation is one that very quickly to a cold conflict between iran on the one hand and saudi arabia as out as on the other but also the interests in the arab conflict between the cutter and turkey on the one hand saudi arabia the u. A. E. And others and then theres an International Dimension where the u. S. Intervened the russians intervened and the