TDS Time Machine | International Diplomacy

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Now, whoever our next president may be will face many challenges, especially in the foreign policy arena, the greatest of which may be how to deal with the overwhelming volume of goodwill left over from still President Bush's let's call it two term democracy spreading jamboree.

To examine the bounty one of these lucky contenders will be reaping. We check in with our new segment, Fruits of Democracy tonight our latest democratic offspring, Iraq. Did you know our baby turns five this month and you're not gonna believe this. She's already having playdates. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad became the first Middle Eastern leader to visit a rock since Saddam Hussein fell of let's say natural causes.

Now. Obviously, a visit.

From the Iranian leader to Iraq prompts some concern, and still President Bush has a clear message he'd like the Iraqis to deliver to Akmandena John.

The message needs to be, you know, quit sending in a sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens, stop exporting terror at the international community is serious about continued isolating ron A.

Strong message to send.

But the Iraqi government owes us, I mean they owe their life to us. Certainly the President's message will be delivered. Here's Akmadenajohd getting off the plane. Obviously they're gonna hit him. No sugarcoating, just direct and stern.

Listen up.

Wait what okay? There appears to be kissing all right. Now here's where they execute him. No, he's being greeted by a child with flowers. Okay, a red carpet and a child with flowers.

Okay, okay.

To the untrained eye, that may appear to be gracious, maybe even a warm welcome. But I do want to point out that that little girl gave him chrysanthemums, and everyone knows he's an orchid.

Guy, so that's a bit of a q. Okay, that's a nice reception there.

Let's compare that to what happens when our president visits. He has to arrive unannounced under cover of night.

Is it me or did Alkata blow up the sun? But it's just nack time. Few, I say few out loud. Few.

Not a lot of people read that few, Not only Dogmadinnerjodd announce his arrival in advance. But he was able to drive the infamous airport road that our people can only chopper over, walk flack jacket lists outside the green zone, and visit some of Arok's holyest sites which we are not allowed into.

Uh hey, a rock, can we.

What are you doing?

It's your old buddy us.

Maybe we didn't make this clear, but uh, we think the guy from Iran is a bit of an AHM dick in a job. And we're out there all day with the surging and you're back there sharing sweetbreads.

With Johnny leisure coat. Did you think we wouldn't find out? I didn't want to.

I don't want to say anything, but uh, one phone call and you get this.

That's right.

We can put those statues right back where we found a mister, after we built you an entire green zone. We could have gone with any color, but you wanted green. We wanted lavender.

But no.

It would be nice when our sworn enemy visits your country that you give him a slight tougher reception than the one he gets at Columbia University.

As the president, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.

You know, it's things like this invasion clearly strengthening the hand of the person our president believes is the greatest threat to the world's security.

That makes me think maybe this whole thing was a mistake. I promise myself I wouldn't do this. We'll be right back. Don't look at me.

For those of us invested in the US economy who aren't able to consistently avail ourselves of the urgent contradictory mumblings of the CNBC oracles.

Times have been tough.

We're down in the dumps, feeling like perhaps this time there'll be no rabbit to pull out of the hat, perhaps a marria because time is over. But you know who's hearing none of that talk.

Our best power, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Your creation of America was the boldest possible affirmation of faith in the future, a future you have built with your own hands. People said it couldn't be done, but America did it. America is not just the indispensable nation. You are the irrepressible nation.

Now get out of bed, slugger and go out there and invade the subcontinent. How must we be when Britain is trying to cheer us up that place gets like two hours of sunshine a year. It's like a coffeeless seattle.

Not that we don't appreciate the effort. Clearly Brown likes Obama. So what type of relationship will they have?

Will they be unlikely partners like Bush and Blair, inspirational allies like Roosevelt in Churchill? Or will they have more of a cool black guy white nerd vibe.

To them like Hitch or silver Streak.

Gordon Brown's not gonna be copying Obama? Or is he trying to horn in on Obama's.

Mojo at this defining moment in history?

So this defining moment in history, what we mean is real change, Change is essential.

It is that American spirit.

It's the essence of America's spirit.

All of us are gonna have to work together.

Let us work together.

We have to seize the moment.

We should seize this moment.

What are you a Barack Obama cover band? Gordon hopefoot and the Yes we Can five. But in this buddy comedy, it was the white guy who taught the black guy something. Trime Minister Gordon Brown showed up to Washington like any.

Decent house guest, bearing gifts.

Brown brought Obama a penholder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti slave ship, the HMS Gannet, which is the sistership of the HMS Resolute, from which the Oval Office desk is carved. That is a fantastic gift, thoughtful, unique, entrenched with layers of deep meaning, the connect Barack Obama's ancestral past to the lineage of the presidency, interwoven with the centuries old special relationship between.

The United States and Britain.

It is a gift wrapped inside a present, stuffed inside a thoughtful gesture.

It is.

A hallmark urduccan. And what did our new president give in return?

Well, he gave the Prime Minister twenty five DVDs.

He gave the guy a DVD box set. Guys, are visiting head of state, not a PBS donor. You live in the White House, it's a museum. Give him some from your new house. Harding's chair, the Eisenhower's platoon, the taft toilet desk, more.

Of a necessity than a luxury. He couldn't move very fast. Of course.

The UK is just the tip of the Obama world reconciliation plan. We're also trying to reconnect with Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to meet and greet with Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lovroof.

I wanted to present you with a little gift.

Please don't be DVDs. Please don't be DVDs. Please don't be DVD's.

Missus Clinton presented the foreign minister with a little box with a button on it and a sign that said reset.

Please want to reset our relationship.

We worked hard to get the right Russian work.

Do you think we got it? I got it wrong?

And this says Shovin sharks. Oh and one more thing.

Putin's father was killed by a red button. Other than that, so did the button work? To reset our relationship with Russia?

We will do it together.

Okay, that's not gonna help.

Let me right back our top story.

New reports it could make our already icy relationship with the country of Pakistan colder.

A witch's frozen dessert treats ticked.

Two influential human rights groups are out with scathing new reports this morning about US drone strikes overseas. The group's claim more civilians have been killed in Pakistan than the US has acknowledged.

The new Prime Minister is not going to be very happy about all of this. Oh, I'm sorry, Pakistan. I didn't know you didn't like your citizens being sky sassinated on the whims of a foreign superpower.

We thought you were cool.

I guess it's unfortunate, but a good thing is I guess we can just lay low for a while and then just get back in touch with Pakistan when the wounds aren't so fresh.

You know.

Tonight, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawa Sharif is at the White House for his first face to face meeting with President Obama.

Awkward, boy, that's the sort of meeting when you really need old Bow in the room, you know what I mean, just to have something else to talk about, Like, yeah, I know.

Those drone strikes are up.

Hey, look he loves that bone though, he really loves going for that bone.

I'm looking at it. He's licking his own ass.

What were we talking about, munch? I tell you who Obama wishes he was right now, Secretary of State Carry because when this went down, Carrie had the good luck to be visiting our ally France. Carrie's timing could not have been better.

The timing could not have been worse, as us Secretary of State John Kerry stepped off the plane in Paris. He was immediately embroiled in an embarrassing controversy between France and the US.

Oh what do we.

Do France to cause a controversy?

What do we drink out of the bidet again? What happened? Did we all sparkling wine? Champagne? Again? We know the difference, We just don't get it.

Do we make a mockery of your most cherished athletic event by having an American win it seven times in a row through a sophisticated blood doping scheme?

That last one we did do? Actually? Is that what it is?

The National Security Agency spied on millions of French citizens, According to the leading newspaper Le Monde.

Oh that awkward good thing.

Are top diplomats on the case.

At the end of a day of rapid developments, mister Kerry offered this explanation.

Kerry said to the French quote, nations be spying, yo, This ambassador knows what I'm talking about.

Actually, that's a that's not really what he said. This is really what he said.

As President Obama said very clearly in a recent speech that he gave at the United Nations General Assembly. Just a few weeks ago, he said, we in the United States are currently reviewing the way that we gather intelligence.

By reviewing the way we gather intelligence, we mean from now on we are going.

To try and do it secretly in our defense.

Though our monitoring seventy million French conversations wasn't espionage. It's just French phone calls are all so hot. It's like a nationwide sex line. Even French people talking about their mortgage payments. It's all like almost when can we oh the two point five percent APR my loans day?

For youa de Basidan the other bank you must never color.

And by the way, all right, we're spying on France, not like we're spying on our other allies.

And what appears to have been a blunt and embarrassing phone call today, the Chancellor of Germany told President Obama to stop tapping her phone.

Ladies and gentlemen, my impression of how that phone call went, Hey, how are you Anela?

What do you mean? You know how I am?

Although it is impressive that we managed to put a tap on the actual Chancellor herself, who could have gotten close enough to do something like that.

I mean, it's oh my god, that's what it was. He was planting the bug. Unbelievable.

White House, You've got some explaining to do, White House.

I can tell you that the President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the Chancellor.

Is not monitoring, will not monitor. I think you're missing a tense there. You got your you got your present progressive there, and you got you got your simple future, but you're missing your past progressive aka the we were not where's your past progressive tense? Jake Harney, By the way, that joke brought you by grammar.

Grammar, Yeah, it's the rules. What make your mouth feel dumb? All right?

So, Pakistan, France, and Germany might have a few tiny reasons to be mad at us.

Will you go back from this? In Mexico, many remains angry over reports the NSA hacked into the former Mexican president's email.

The Brazilian president said she was forced to postpone a planned trip to the US following reports the NSA spied on her personal communications.

Complaints from nearly forty other countries over revelations that the National Security Agency has been spying on their internal communications.

So what are you guys saying? We have a problem?

We're somehow addicted to paranoid snooping on everyone and everything around us.

How dare you? I am so offended. I bid you good day, But as a parting.

Gift, if I could just leave this right here, it's a it's an innocuous toaster.

Don't use it just when you're saying things. If you could make.

Toast, we would rest of the world meet me at camera three.

So you guys are all upset.

We're spying on you and drone striking you, and you're really upset.

But I just have one question. Have you met us?

Meddling in your affairs for our national self interest is kind of our thing? What part of everything we've done since the Monroe doctrine? Don't you get I mean bugging your phone? It's pretty weak tea for us. Do you know how much cigar shrapnel Castro is still pulling out of his ass? Besides it makes you feel any better, Our government isn't doing anything to you that they're not doing to us. See right there, boom boom, they're spying.

It seems kind of redundant. I don't even know.

Okay, I didn't even know about that one.

Did not know about that one.

So look, world, you want an apology, fine, I'm sorry that you forgot that. We are kind of dicks. But you know what, all nations act in their own self interest. Don't act like you don't stink it does. And we know because we have a super secret program that goes through you. But by the way, Germany might want to ease up on the everything you eat and drink.

France.

You don't like our hubris now, you sure liked it when we were handing off the Vietnam war to us.

Hey, can you guys hold this war for us for just a little bit.

We just got something to do over in Algeria and Pakistan.

We know that some of those drone strikes were at your request.

And by the way, when were you going to tell us that Bin Lauden was crashing on your couch?

And you Germany? Yeah you do.

I really have to justify myself to a country that invaded Poland because they thought Poland was looking at them funny.

So get over it, or better yet, turn that fround upside now.

Don't think of us as an overly aggressive, paranoid superpower.

Think of us as what anyone's looking for in a partner.

Good listener, a great listener, the best listener in the history of the world. So before you say thank you, I would only ask one thing. Can you say it a little closer to that toaster.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Journal Show. My guest tonight is a put a Surprise winning investigative journalist who writes for The New Yorker and as the author of the new book War on Peace, The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence. Please welcome Ronan Pharoh.

Hello, Welcome to the show.

A pleasure to be here.

You are an overachiever in the journalistic world. So many people talk about all the stories that you're breaking. I mean, the Me Too movement was broken by your story, like I mean, it's what sparked a movement.

Well, they were very brave women who are sources. There were right activists who preceeded that, but I'm honored to have been a conduit for some of those stories.

They were tough to tell.

They were tough to tell for the women involved. They were also tough for you to tell as a journalist, Like, we read all these stories about Hobvey Weinstein and these people that he was hiring, and we have afraid Is that a point where you go like, maybe I shouldn't break stories. I'm just gonna tweet ten most likely things that people want to click on.

I mean, I'll do that too. Catalysticals are the future again, right, but it is true. You know, look, there was intimidation. There was a system designed to shut down these stories, and that affected not just me but a whole range of brave journalists going up against this thing. And sure, like the moment when you find yourself so deciding do I go home tonight because I'm getting staked out, and like if I do go home, I go in with my keys and I'm like looking under the bed and

The news that you just broke today, for instance, that just broke today is a story of how the Trump administration most secretly hiring an Israeli team of spies to dig up dirts on people who worked on the Iran deal?

Is that correct?

In fact, the same Israeli spies from a firm called Black.

Q, the same as the fabby wins.

Harvey Weinstein hired and in some cases using the same false identities and front companies that I heard from when I was getting stocked by these guys.

Wait, so explain to me just a little bit of the detail. So they were hiring these people not to undermine the deal itself, but to undermine the people who put the deal together.

Why So, that's the surprising part of this. These are policy wonks, you know, these are Obama advisors, and you know, we don't have all the answers yet, but sources close to this and documents that we obtained at the New Yorker show very clearly there was a seemingly political, in focus operation designed to smear them, seemingly all connected to their work on the twenty fifteen Iran deal.

It's interesting because this sounds less like a story you would hear in a first world country or country that claims to be pro democracy than you would in a country that's totalitarian. You talk about this in the book One Piece, the End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American influence. It really speaks to, in a way, what's happening with the Iran Deal. It seems like Trumpanese people do not care about the diplomacy that America conducts in the world. It's now just become war or no war,

Yeah, these stories all connect. Look, these are individuals fighting desperately to save a deal because they believe if we unilaterally as a nation back out of the Iran Deal, for all its imperfections, it's worked in its narrow goal of containing them for a time. And if we back out, their fear is it drives a wedge between us and our allies, and it potentially sends a message to North Korea and other rogue states that we don't want to be sending that they shouldn't come to the table. And

That's interesting because you spoke to every living Secretary of State, and you spoke about how America's diplomacy has been on the decline. This isn't something that started with Trump, but it may be accelerating now. Is this a sustainable way to conduct oneself in the world where it is military first diplomacy second?

Well, what I chronicle in War on Peace is in place after place when we sabotage opportunities for political settlements and peaceful ways out and we go in shooting first. It really comes back to haunt us Trevor again and again. We see situations where we end up lying down with warlords and strong men and unsavory characters, and then we have no leverage over them because we have fired all of the diplomats who could negotiate and play hardball in that way.

And if you look at the current situation, there are countries where America doesn't have a diplomat right now. There are countries where there is no one handling that high level negotiation. What happens that in that case?

Yeah, so you're exactly right, this is happening to a new extreme right now. Donald Trump has unceremoniously fired basically you know, ambassadors across the world, assistant secretaries that run some of the most sensitive regions in the world. So we have an understaffed, unmanned diplomatic operation. There is precedent for this before. We've seen other administrations, democratic and Republican sort of sideline diplomats and see how disaster it is.

It's life saving, it's integral, and it's currently crumbling. It's a fascinating book. You're a fascinating man. Thank you so much for being ever appreciate. Raw Peace is available now, gold and Fire, and everybody give.

It right back.

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