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August 09, 2007

Special Report Roundtable - Aug 9

FOX News Special Report With Brit Hume

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a hard heart to heart with my friend the prime minister, because I don't believe they are constructive.

I don't think he, in his heart of hearts, thinks they are constructive, either. Maybe he is hopeful in trying to get them to be constructive by laying out a positive picture.

You asked me to speculate. Should I be concerned--should the American people be concerned about Iran? Yes, we ought to be very concerned about Iran. They are a destabilizing influence.

BAIER: That was President Bush today at a news conference at the White House. He was talking about a meeting today with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nori al-Maliki, who traveled to Tehran meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And there was some video of the two leaders holding hands, saying nice things about each other.

So what does this all mean and what is the president trying to say here? Now some analytical observations from Bill Sammon, Senior White House Correspondent of the Washington Examiner, Juan Williams, Senior Correspondent of National Public Radio, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, FOX News contributors all.

Juan, the message out of the White House, Iran is very bad. The message from Nori al-Maliki, they are helping.

JUAN WILLIAMS, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Well, it is contradictory, and you got to imagine--the president, I thought, was very cute about it. He said you don't go into one of these meetings and put your dukes up, he said--the boxing analogy--you go there, and you make nice, and you have nice pictures.

The question is what is being said behind the scenes. And the president said he hasn't got a read out yet on this meting, but that he expects that the message that is being delivered from al-Maliki to Ahmadinejad is "Stay out, we want a stable relationship here, and by allowing weapons to be traveling from Iran into Iraq, you are destabilizing the region."

That is the message that the president hopes is being said.

On the other hand, when you look at it, this is the exact same thing that was going on when he met with the leader of Afghanistan earlier in the week. When Hamid Karzai was saying "You know what? We seem to have a good relationship with Iran."

That is not what White House is saying, it is not what our intelligence would indicate in terms of the role that Iran is playing in the Middle East.

BAIER: Yes. Well, look at the video of the Camp David meeting with Hamid Karzai, in which he said, basically, the same thing, that Iran is not a force that can help in Afghanistan.

BILL SAMMON, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: But you have to understand that it looks jarring to us in America to see our allies cozying up with Tehran. But you have to understand, they are neighbors to Iran. They have borders with Iran.

Iraq and Iran are both--they are all Muslim nations, Iraq and Iran are predominately Shiite nations. They have a lot in commonality that to some extent transcends this trouble that Iran is causing by sending weapons and fighters across the border.

And so I think it is natural for those countries in the neighborhood to do the best they can to get along with Iran, whereas we, way over here, can look at Iran more clearly as an adversary.

BAIER: The message here, Charles, today, was this Iranian effort that the White House is focused on to funnel weapons into Shia extremists inside Iraq, the president said there will be sequences, but, of course, stopped short of saying what those consequences would be.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, the threat is rather empty, because he has said that before.

But I think al-Maliki's appearance in Iran is more sinister than we have made out. What is happening here is a gigantic shift if strategy. We waited a year-and-a-half for the al-Maliki government to actually offer reconciliation inside Iraq to the Sunnis, it didn't.

So we have taken it under--Petraeus under the surge plan. It is not just an increase in troops, it's a change of strategy. We reached out to the Sunnis. We are arming them and controlling them. We are bringing them in. They are attacking al-Quida on our behalf, and they are reducing any attacks on us.

Who is attacking us now? Shiite militias, some of them in the government of al-Maliki, some of them armed by Iran. What is happening here is the Shiite government is wary about our strategy in arming and cozying up with the Sunnis, hedging its bets on making a visit with Iran, looking to a day when America leaves.

And we are going to have to make a decision as to whether we can work with the Maliki government in the future or not. But a split is developing here, and the visit to Tehran is a very important index of that.

BAIER: Is there any daylight Juan. Do you see any daylight developing between President Bush and Nori al-Maliki?

WILLIAMS: Well, Charles suggests something that I'm just not prepared to say, which is that there is daylight, that, in fact, al-Maliki's government has decided that they can't rely on United States presence, and therefore they have to make a deal with the power in the region.

If that is the case, then, gosh, I don't understand, Charles. I mean, it seems to me, then, that is a rationale for saying that the U.S. presence there, the fact that our troops are on the ground already is a wasted effort.

SAMMON: Unless Maliki sides with Iran and says that America has to leave, I don't think there is any delight. If that happens, then there is clearly risk.

KRAUTHAMMER: A top advisor to Maliki two weeks ago attacked Petraeus by name and the surge as arming the Sunnis. They are looking at us, and worrying about our strategy.

I think our strategy is correct. It is helping to drive out al-Quida and to reduce the original insurgency. But the Shiites in Baghdad are going to have to make a decision if they their future is as Iraqis or as Shiites allied with Iran. And that decision not yet been made.

WILLIAMS: That is a troubling decision for the U.S., for our policy, trying to establish a stable democracy, all the effort, all the bloodshed that we have invested if that. So, at this point, that would call into question what we are doing going forward. And what the president was doing today was saying there has been political progress.

What we are hearing here, if what you are saying is right, is the political progress is negligible.

BAIER: All right, that is the last word on this topic.

When we come back, how about some voting with your eggnog? We are now looking at the primary and caucus season possibly beginning around the holidays this year. The all-stars weigh in on the implications of that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATON DAWSON, SOUTH CAROLINA GOP CHAIRMAN: I'm here today to present this letter to the Secretary of State Bill Gardener, and announce the date of our first in the south Republican Party presidential primary will be held on Saturday, January 19, 2008.

I believe this date will help solidify a combined 83 year history of being first the nation, and first in the south.

BAIER: Well, that was South Carolina's Republican Party Chairman announcing a shift in the calendar, moving that Republican primary up. Let's take a look at the calendar where it was.

These were the dates as they stood before this shakeup--Iowa the 14th, South Carolina the 19th, and the 22nd for New Hampshire and Florida on the 29th. Then you look at the possible changes here, and the moves.

With South Carolina moving up, the guess is that Iowa is going to move up, possibly, to the 14th, and New Hampshire up to the 22nd. What does all of this mean on the calendar and for the candidates?

We are back with our panel. It is quite a shift, Bill.

SAMMON: Yes. I think in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter that much to voters, because you are talking about a 10 month period before the general election versus 11 month period, if we get into December, if it moves further earlier.

I think, in a broader sense, it might be not terribly helpful to candidates if terms of voter fatigue, especially those who are well known and who have been well known for a long period of years. Hillary Clinton comes to mind. Here is a woman who was a high-profile first lady for eight years. She has been a high-profile Senator for seven years, and seems like she has been running for president forever.

The longer this campaign goes, the longer you risk filling voters with fatigue. And I think it actually works a little bit better for fresher faces like a Barack Obama--people don't know him as well--on the Republican side, perhaps a Mitt Romney, who doesn't have a much name recognition as McCain, or ever Rudy Giuliani.

BAIER: OK. So let me just make a clarification. The reason that the shakeup continues is that Iowa and New Hampshire both have state laws that say they have to be first, and by a certain amount of days. So you potentially, as Carl reported, could have voting this year--doubtful but potentially.

Juan, I mean, it does stretch things out. Are there any candidates to benefit from this?

WILLIAMS: I don't think so. I can see candidates who don't benefit now. Just a few minutes ago we were talking, when the cameras were off, and you were saying look at what Thompson's people are saying. Thompson's people are saying that, in fact, this is going to hurt people who already have a campaign strategy.

BAIER: Let's put up this quote while we have it. The National Political Director of the Friends of Fred Thompson--"Changes to the primary dates are only a problem for long-running candidates. Large organizations with detailed political strategies that include rollout dates may find it more difficult to change their play book mid-game."

But you have to have a game, right?

WILLIAMS: Exactly. You want to sprinkle a little magic dust on that statement, because it has all sorts of fanciful things to it.

But the reality is that you have to have a game, you have to have a plan, and you have to have a team. You have to have a structure in place to run in these states. And so Fred Thompson, who has stumbled even before announcing, and is not scrambling to announce in early September, doesn't have the team, doesn't have the money place that would carry him through that kind of advanced schedule that has been pushed forward.

KRAUTHAMMER: That Thompson statement is a model of disinterested, objective analysis.

I think this shakeup is really quite minor. It is a couple of days here and there. The major event here--and the cause of this shakeup is the fact that the large states are having all of their stuff very early in February. And that is why all of this earlier small states stuff has move up, and that is going to be the really important event.

What is going to happen is we will probably know who candidates are on the Sixth of February, which is nine months before the general election. You can gestate a baby in nine months. And in the nine months, you are going to have an interval in which for the first time third party candidates are going to have a long enough stretch to actually organize and raise money, and perhaps mount a serious campaign.

So I think the major affect, here, is on people who might come in from the outside in a period where the parties may have buyers remorse, which often sets in after you have chosen a nominee, who is going to be chosen extremely early in the process.

WILLIAMS: The key for New Hampshire, for Iowa, and for South Carolina, which has been a real barometer of late, is that you get momentum. And that momentum allows you to get more money when going into the big states.

And so what you are doing by pushing this forward is you are accentuating the importance of it. But because it has become so muddled, I think now people are going to--and this is something that we saw in a memo from one of Hillary Clinton's advisers early on--is, you know what, maybe it is not worth getting in this game.

Maybe we just save all our money and wait for the big states, because that's where the thing is going to be decided.

SAMMON: I still think momentum will carry the day, because the dynamic changes--if you win Iowa and New Hampshire, the dynamic totally changes going into Tsunami Tuesday, February 5th, where you have California and New York and Illinois, and 20 states.

And that, like Charles says, is the day when it will be decided.

BAIER: We have 15 seconds Charles--Mitt Romney leading in New Hampshire, Iowa. Is this a good thing for him?

KRAUTHAMMER: I think, calculating which actual candidate it helps is a three person shot--too hard to calculate.

WILLIAMSS: And in the straw polls this weekend, nobody is even running against him. They don't care.

BAIER: Last word.

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