21/06/2014 Dateline London

programme. The United States is reluctantly sucked into the conflict

in Iraqi. Can Iraq be saved? How much of a thread is a failing Iraq

to the region and the rest of us? Consider the irony: An American

President who became President because he opposed the US going to

war in Iraq is now sending several hundred military advisers to prop up

a Baghdad government of which she has very little confidence. Can

Barack be saved? Can the West develop a coherent strategy to

counter extremist groups? Iraqi and Syria, not necessarily questioning

their future, we are facing a situation where the entire region

will be realigned one way or another. It is a very serious

problem. It started three or four years ago now and may continue for

another ten or 15 years, maybe. What we are facing at this moment is the

face of a long process of adjustment and readjustment, politically,

demographically. Over the many years since independence when the British

and French left the region, they arranged the area as we know now

demographically. It has not been working. What we have seen now, we

could have seen in the 1960s or the 70s, and they're not in a Cold War,

for example. The Cold War between the Giants. They shared the world

according to their interests. And they wanted stable borders. Stable

borders, hence the Soviet formally supported dictators in the region.

The West also supported their dictators. They recognise that

Noriega was a bad leader. But that was the attitude towards this region

itself. That unfortunately helped to stop the region from developing in

the right direction, which is democracy, debate, Parliament,

elections. It is happening now. What is happening now is really a delayed

action which should have happened about 30 or 40 years ago. Do you

agree with that big picture thought which is that we could be seeing the

redrawing of boundaries, the complete realignment and it may take

ten or 15 years? Or possibly longer than that. Yeah, I think in the

longer term, the current system situation is not sustainable. In the

shorter term, it seems to me that unlikely alliances are going to

arise to try and prevent... In that region there is no interest in

having Iraq collapse into this Civil War. We are going to get rather like

September the 11th, briefly unlikely alliances forming, not lasting very

long, in the short`term. The most optimistic route of dealing with

this, it seems, will be bizarre alliances like the United States

working with Iran, and so on. But that is a short`term reaction which

will not in the end transcend the longer term trends that you have

outlined. It is interesting. The United States in working with Iran,

even for short`term interests, with Iran working with the Syrian

regime, we have the bizarre situation of written and the United

States that were thinking about bombing President Assad, they are

now taking on the threat that he said were a threat. That is true.

Yes, and that is why the planned military attack on Syria was show

ill thought through. They are saying that there are some moderates that

we will target but not the others. How? Yeah, of the many multilayered

ironies, that is one of them. I agree. The only three countries in

that region that have been countries, that have kept their own

national borders since World War I have been Iran, Egypt and Turkey.

The rest of them were created following World War I. Looking at it

from a different perspective, what is happening in Iraq now is a crisis

within Islam itself, and secondly, it is a crisis of the political

process, a vision of a political process. When you look at the

religion aspect of it, only last month the Pope, the Catholic church

and the Orthodox Church, had a meeting. The first meeting in 50

years about a schism that had happened 1000 years ago. But this

time, the grand ayatollahs was the quietest. He should not involve

himself in politics. Instead of coming and calling for dialogue

between all these clerics, what are they good for? They have to speak to

each other and find a way forward for the sake of Islam, number one.

At the same time, when you look at the policies within Iraq itself, it

is the same kind of a vision of a political process that you see in

Iran. It is divisive, sectarian, exclusive. The political process has

been the domain of the late `` elite, mainly men, women are not

allowed, for Iraq it has been sectarian, tribal, in Iran, it is

the central government against minorities, against women, so this

is what you see right now is the baby of this political process that

has been tainted `` debris. What you get is what you see in Iraq and you

get in Syria, now as far as the United States and Iran are

concerned, let's not forget, the IR GC has been active, the

Revolutionary guards, they have been active in Iraq for many years. They

have been in communication with the Americans. It is not as if suddenly

they were nothing and now they have started. Sorry to interrupt that

there has also been the other track about nuclear weapons and so on.

There have been lots of contacts. Lots of contacts. Absolutely. So how

will this involve `` evolve forward, it remains to be seen because within

Iran itself, there is a lot of division within that elite

political... Governing the country. It is a well`known fact that the

American policy in the Middle East itself, they keep lines open with

anybody, they never cut off anybody. We know that during the Cyril

Whittaker Civil War in Lebanon, they were talking to Philip Abbey...

Whatever they say publicly, it was all going on. Secretly, the lines

remain open. There is a competition within secret factions in Iran, who

will negotiate with America. In terms of Iran, no one wants Iraq to

break up. Actually there are people who would not mind. The way they

will look at it, they look at it, OK, there is a Sunni bit, a Shi'ite

bit, a Kurdish bid, in fact, they think that the D Shi'ite bit would

be much closer to Iran. But this is the most dangerous thing that can

happen in the long run for the region. All the provinces on the

boundaries of Iran, whether you look at the boundary with Afghanistan,

they are all up in arms against the central government. Because of the

divisive policy. Where does America coming here? The administration is

perplexed and extremely upset and when you hear people talking about

considering options, already we are eight or nine days into this

crisis, they do not know what to do and they are looking for some help

and Alliance and common ground with Iran. But I think there is pressure

on Barack Obama to come up with some quick military fix and I think he is

well briefed enough to know that there is no way a few drone attacks

or a well targeted the size air attack is going to turn back this

tide. We are all seeing this grand dissolution which amend this

possibility for violence against civilians, as they go at each other.

The Americans, I think, are trying to figure out what they can do and

they do not have an answer. In Britain, there is a big debate about

whether the country is becoming more insular and turning its back on

intervention, however ill`defined that term is. That is not the case.

There is no obvious option. At primaries to questions in the House

of Commons, you had Ed Miliband and David Cameron agreeing that there is

the chilly nothing they can do, frankly. `` Prime Minister 's

questions. It is that there are not any obvious

options. Even Tony Blair when he lists... Not doing anything in Syria

was problematic... But even he implicitly says that the military

intervention in Iraq clearly was not the right... You think 1964. He was

very explicit, Barack Obama, this is not going to be mission creep. But

as he well knows, it is easier to say that. That was the tragedy of

Lyndon Johnson and there are certainly echoes of that. I do not

leave there are people in the Pentagon or people at state or

people at the CIA telling the president with just a little bit

more, you can slow this down, turn it back. I think as soon as Syria

started to become so complex, we have all rocked for some sort of

solution and it is virtually impossible `` looked. And now that

it has spilled over into this, I think the president is even more

aware that there is nothing simple they can do. What about the other

players? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? The Gulf Arabs, if you like, their main

concern really is Iraq more than anything else and they know very

well that the Americans cannot be trusted. We are talking here about

interests, not about emotion or moral issues or whatever. It is the

interests of the Americans and the West in general to sit and watch,

sit and see what is going on. Things are shaping up. A splitting up part

of Syria, a kind of corridor from the East, 50 kilometres wide in some

areas. That is being created. Yes, we are talking about ISIS as the

tool of the changing things but please are not permanently viable.

Definitely not. What you are talking about ten or 15,000 people, three or

4000 of them are foreigners. They cannot establish a state can run a

state. Though they have a lot of cash, a lot of military weapons and

all that. Apart from that, things are shaping up. You have that

corridor, then in Iran, you have above the south of Iraq towards

Baghdad, they cannot really go further than that. It is not their

environment, religiously, economically, culturally. That is

turkeys interests. We already have Kurdistan in the North. Some people

are saying we are more less independent now. Exactly. The Turks

seem to have changed their attitude towards the Kurdish question as

well. They were not allowed use their own language and now they can,

officially. There is a lot of trade going on. Interests overtake any

moralistic things. We are talking about creeping mission. Let's not

forget Iran has more to lose in this kind of a creeping mission in the

sense that it already has the brigade also operating in Iraq.

Already organising and co`ordinated activities and the other attacks

against ISIS but that the same time, ISIS in that sense I do not agree

with you as far as that they are like fighters, let's not forget,

only this week they published for the second year running, they

published their annual report of how many assassinations bit by bit and

since 2013, they have been running a province in Syria and there is an

Atlantic monthly piece about the running of this province and it is

that they've got police, hospitals and they have taken over oil fields,

these oilfields will help themselves their oil on the black market, so it

is not only a terrorist organisation. They want something

organise, a superstate. The more they commit their forces there, it

is going to... Creating a monster out of ISIS, currently is suitable

to a lot of parties in the conflict. ISIS as an organisation cannot

logically speaking prosper unless it works within its own environment.

Now they are active in these areas. These areas where they have been

deprived, and a prosecution, neglected by central governments,

whether in Damascus or in Baghdad, so these people there are desperate

for living for education, forced ability, for work. If ISIS provides

this, people will come to ISIS, but logically speaking in the long`term,

ISIS cannot run these `` this part of the region and less homogeneous

local authorities spring up. How do you see that? We have seen a young

jihadist from Cardiff and is recruiting people. We got a problem

here at home because his parents saying he was radicalised in this

country. As happened with those July bombings in 2007, it was the younger

generation. A couple of weeks ago, you probably discussed on the

programme, the controversy about the scores in Birmingham. Well, you

cannot keep track on a daily basis, so I don't know how you deal with

the problem within the UK of this or how you measure the degree to which

it has happened. But clearly, there is an issue and it is with people on

here who are relatively young and educated here and they have got an

issue. And we have no concept of crimes. `` of thought crimes. No, or

how you tangibly keep track on people thinking these thoughts. I

started talking to angry young Muslim teenagers just after the UK

and US went into Afghanistan and I was surprised at the depth of the

anger because to my mind, the attack on Afghanistan was justified, to a

degree. But the anger but that generated has reverberated and grown

and this polarisation I see as one of the enlarged and's triumphs. ``

one of Osama bin lard and's triumphs. The threat is real. Your

question is extremely important. The parties and media have not dealt

with this issue down to its roots, somehow. Why a local MP in

Birmingham or even east London or West London doesn't go to that

constituency and talk to people, extend their discussion to the Asian

community and minorities in this area, these are neglected. Do you

think there is a generational divide as well? Young Muslims are out of

touch, even with their own parents. In this case, the father was not

born here. He was an immigrant. But his son, who was born here, has

become a terrorist. So you cannot talk about two generations because

both are different. The father was born outside, carrying with him his

own culture from Yemen, but the son was born here. Actually, one of the

problems is a refugee from the Islamic republic that executed

thousands. When I come here and see suddenly, sharia courts are being

set up by the establishment, what does that say? You are enabling

these thoughts. What is sharia? It is based on only half of the

society. As a woman, I do not enjoy the same rights as any other man

just because I am a woman. When you have got that mentality becoming

institutionalised here, obviously, you are enabling something else.

That is a political problem that could be addressed. They could

download it. They have got control over the low. `` outlaw it. The

question is whether this has been triggered by Afghanistan and more so

by Iraq or whether that was just a kind of excuse and there were deeper

issues that would surface anyway. I suspect it was to do with the

invasion. If it wasn't for Iraq or Afghanistan, this wouldn't have

happened. I was going to ask you about that because we have heard

uncork it is here, some of the people wanted to blow up nightclubs

because they believed people shouldn't go out and drink and

didn't believe women should go out and wear short skirts. Some of the

acts of terror proceed 2001. But this was the trigger. When you're

talking about the radicalisation of youth in this country who feel

neglected and angry, there was a profound shift in the rhetoric, the

funding, the support, training, and people listened. How many did he

manage to inspire, at the end of the day? We are not really talking about

a well rooted political movement in the region. These are a collection

of really young people who have troubles of their own in their own

backyard, their own societies. Do you see them as misfits?

Absolutely. I have seen one or two who have come to talk to me about

these issues, but through discussion with them, they have changed their

mind. These people need people to talk to. No such discussions are

taking place. You can look in America, for example, where people

go and murder in high schools. It's the same problem but different

terminology. This is something that I think society itself has two sit

down and take a look at: How can we take away extremism? It's not just

an Islamic religious problem. We are back next week at the same time. You

can comment on the programme on Twitter.

The sun is climbing to its highest point in the sky. It is the summer

solstice, the longest day of the year and the weather is set fair

with most of us seeing lengthy spells of sunshine. Overall, the

weekend looks dry. Most of us will see some sunshine