BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST): As he talked about Libya specifically, Clarissa Ward, let me pivot back to you, because it wasn't too long ago President Obama in an interview was asked about, you know, his worst mistake or his biggest regret, and he said it was Libya. And the fact is, as Donald Trump continues to point out, Hillary Clinton has her fingerprints all over it.
CLARISSA WARD: That's true, but I think if we've learned anything, Brooke, by the sort of rich tapestry of the Middle East over the ages, what we understand is it's incredibly complex and there are no really good solutions.
The idea that Donald Trump seems to be proposing, that we return to the heyday of the brutal dictator, that that somehow is better for world and for the region, is laughable, because the reality is the Arab Spring happened. It didn't happen because of President Obama, If anything, it was unleashed because of President Bush's invasion of Iraq, but as Ben Wedeman just said, it had been bubbling under the surface for decades, and you can't put the genie back in the lamp, so to speak.
Obviously, the region is a complete mess and it may take decades decades to try to sift through it, and to try to improve the situation there. He specifically mentioned President Sisi several times, as a kind of bastion of stability. Well, the reality is that President Sisi came to power in a coup, and has subsequently rounded up tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and condemned them to death.
He is a controversial leader by any standards, and certainly by U.S. standards, and under his watch, in fact, the insurgency in Sinai has really gathered momentum, because the reality is this kind of rhetoric and these kinds of crackdowns do not prevent extremism, they contribute to extremism.
I've said this before, and it's true, ISIS supporters who I have spoken to say that they would like to see Donald Trump become President of the United States of America, because they believe that he will perpetuate the same narrative they are trying to perpetuate, which is that you're either with us or against us. You're either a Muslim, or you're American, and there is nowhere in between where the two meet.
