Gen. Hayden on “Danger of Chaos” in Egypt?
CNN chief national correspondent and anchor John King spoke with former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden about Egypt’s changing political climate and how it impacts the U.S. Parts of this interview aired tonight on John King, USA — 7pm ET. A full transcript is after the jump.
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EMBEDDABLE VIDEO: Gen. Michael Hayden talks about Egypt’s changing political climate and how it impacts the U.S. with CNN’s John King.
FULL TRANSCRIPT- MANDATORY CREDIT: JOHN KING, USA
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, HOST: General, let me start with this. If you were in your old job as the director of Central Intelligence or working in the White House in the intelligence community in the situation room when this happens, President Mubarak steps aside, what are you worried about?
GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR OF NSA & CIA: You’re worried about the reaction of several, for want of a better word, audiences to that step. I mean, there’s an important thing to remember, John, Egypt is not North Korea. And in North Korea, the North Koreans stated an expression of personality of Kim Jong-il. So if Kim Jong-il leaves, wow, things are going to be different.
That’s not the case here. In many ways, President Mubarak has been the face of an Egyptian state controlled by elements in Egyptian society, certainly elements of the business class, the armed forces and so on.
So his leaving would be an important thing that in terms of what’s happening in Tahrir Square where this is in a broad trajectory of Egyptian history, this may not be the climactic moment that we view it to be right now.
KING: And does history and you’re understanding of the region lead you to believe we will transition toward free and fair elections, some form of democracy, maybe not in the form we have in the United States, but some form of relatively open, free and fair democracy; or do your instincts say the more likelihood is another military dictatorship emerging after a military government?
HAYDEN: It’s hard to say. And you’re asking someone whose in the intelligence field, so he’s going to probably hesitate to give a crisp, clear answer, try to create, as I said earlier, left and right-hand boundaries of the discussion. It is quite possible that this could evolve into an Egyptian government that’s more open, more transparent, more responsive to Egyptian people, trading in, perhaps, it’s stability, which at times looked an awful lot like stagnation, for opportunity which carries with it the danger of chaos.
And so, this is something the transition is going to have to be very carefully managed. I think the key point is going to be who ultimately is going to be responsible for this transition.
KING: And I assume you think that will be military.
HAYDEN: I think it will be. I think the military has a broad role to play. It remains to be seen how active they might be. They might be quite content, in fact, I think it would be a preferred position, to be in the background, again, in their own way setting the limits with regard to the evolution.
But I think if they’re looking after their own best interests, there will be an evolution.
KING: Inside Egypt, what is the likelihood, in your view, of a more radical, a more Islamist government emerging? You’ve heard people talk about if Mubarak steps aside, the Muslim Brotherhood will seize power. Is that possible?
HAYDEN: Of course it’s possible. Is it likely? I wouldn’t say that it was likely, but it’s a danger.
Look, history tells us when you go into situations like this, when societies enter into these kinds of circumstances, the trend line, the trend line is at the center of the political discussion to move in a more radical direction, particularly if those who started this are frustrated from the beginning.
So there’s always the danger of the longer this goes on, the more chaotic it becomes, the more radical elements begin to take control of this movement.
KING: What about a domino effect? We know there have been other demonstrations in the region, we’ve had change in Tunisia, but will this have a domino effect in Jordan? In Yemen? In Saudi Arabia? What about Iran?
HAYDEN: It has effects. I mean it clearly has effects, we’ve already seen that. But these are different. Each of these are different societies. King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, for example, is well regarded by his people. So for that matter is King Abdullah — in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia, both kings highly regarded in the Gulf.
An accelerate of this process in Egypt has not just been political but economic. Those economic dire straits don’t exist in the Gulf states. So I think you can separate this. Yes, there will be effects, but I’m not one to predict there’s an automatic domino effect.
KING: Is it an example of technology driving a lot of these things — social networking, the Internet? We’ve seen in Iran in recent days, and certainly to back to after the elections when they had the uprising, trying to tighten the fists on information flow, arresting people.
HAYDEN: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. And everyone is now trying to — let me give you a thought that makes this transition in Egypt perhaps more difficult than it would otherwise be.
In our history, we would expect we could get hundreds of thousands of people in an organized demonstration in Tahrir Square, but that’s a product of months if not years of preparation of quite cells organizing, of leadership developing, of leaders emerging, of platforms being constructed.
That didn’t happen. This is a product of Facebook and Twitter. What actually happened is that we’ve skipped over the organizing step.
So now one of the real questions that we have is who are those folks, whose leading them, what do they want, and who does the Egyptian government talk to. None of that’s clear.
KING: This is the most volatile neighborhood in the world. What does Osama bin Laden make of this? What does al-Awlaki and al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula think of this?
HAYDEN: Well — well, they certainly take some celebration that someone who has been a long-time friend of the United States is going through these kinds of circumstances. I think they — that would be heartening to them.
But when they step back and look at this strategically, this isn’t the creation of the Caliphate. And although we talked earlier there may be some dangers about this moving in the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood, that is not for ordained.
And in fact, one of the things that perhaps would be most damaging to their vision of the future of the Arab or the Islamic world is for a more pluralistic, more participatory government to evolve in Egypt.
KING: And so how does the United States adapt to that? Is the era of putting stability, security, oil, economics ahead of democracy and human rights, is it over completely? Is there some middle ground the United States needs to get to?
HAYDEN: John, these are always — always tough choices. And good people from both parties and multiple administrations over the years have to make these serious kinds of tradeoffs.
You ask me about Mubarak leaving and what does it mean for a variety of things in the Middle East, but the first thing is it’s hard to imagine the Egyptian government that would be more supportive of peace with Israel, more supportive of our objectives with regard to the Palestinians, more supportive of our world view with regard to al Qaeda than the Mubarak has been.
Now, on balance, this is movement in the direction of democracy, this is a good thing long term. But in the short term, at a minimum, the Egyptian government is going to be distracted from those kinds of common goals.
KING: And what do you think now — what would you be looking for, I’m going to circle back to where I began, what would you be looking for in the chatter, both as something that was encouraging, if you heard a lot of it, you would say we’re going in the right direction, or the flip side, if you heard a lot of it, you would say we have a problem here?
HAYDEN: Boy, that’s a great question.
What I would like to see is — this is going to end up as a negotiation. What I would like to see is some clear definition as to who the negotiating partners are going to be. Who is it on the government’s side, which is still a bit of a mystery even though we had these events today, and particularly, who is the negotiating partner on the side of those people in Tahrir Square?
The more clarity we can get on both of those things, the more predictable this is going to be. And frankly, I think that’s better for us
KING: General Hayden, thanks for your time.
HAYDEN: Thank you.