[Fareed Zakaria:] Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria. It's been a week full of news the housing bailout, more troops for Afghanistan and we'll get to all of it. But I noticed something I thought was significant. On her trip through Asia, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that our policy of economic sanctions against Burma Myanmar has not worked. The reason I think this is significant is that I'm hoping it is the beginning of a rethinking. There's a standard U.S. policy toward any regime that we don't like. There's not much we can do about it, and we can't change the regime's policies. But we decide we can't just sit there, so we slap sanctions on the country. Now, look at the effects. In Cuba, 50 years of sanctions have allowed Fidel Castro and his brother to wrap themselves in the mantle of Cuban nationalism and stay in power. In Iraq, sanctions destroyed the middle class, leaving a civil society composed of criminals and religious zealots. In Pakistan, which we sanctioned for their nuclear tests in 1990, two generations of army officers were deprived of any contact with the U.S. and grew to be anti-American and in many cases, pro-Taliban. In Iran today, sanctions have allowed the regime to claim that they are heroically battling efforts by Washington to strangle the nation and its aspirations. So, how much more evidence, in the form of misery for the people and power for the dictators, do we need before we conclude that economic sanctions are a feel-good policy that have had only bad effects on the ground? Now, on the program today, Pakistan's Imran Khan. You'll want to hear what he has to say. The activist politician from that nuclear- armed nation paints a scary picture of what's happening there. Then, Secretary Clinton's trip to Asia, critiqued by some of the region's best minds. And America's top economists rethink Obama's economic plans. Stay with us.
[Zakaria:] Right now, people often say Pakistan may be the most dangerous country in the world. Keep in mind that it is a nuclear power. Its leader, President Asif Ali Zardari, is, by most accounts, not in control of the country's military. Meanwhile, Pakistanis are furious at the United States for many reasons, chief among them the many civilians who have been killed by bombs dropped from American drones coming across the border from Afghanistan. And then, this week, a controversial peace deal along that troubled Taliban-infested border in an area called the Swat Valley. The Pakistani government agreed to enforce Sharia law, strict Islamic codes, in exchange for a halt to violent attacks by radical Islamist forces there. Joining me to talk about all this is the Pakistani politician, Imran Khan. He was once known as perhaps the greatest cricketer in Pakistani history, but nowadays he is a politician, a vocal opponent of the Pakistani government, and a critic of U.S. policy in the region. Imran Khan joins us from his home in Islamabad. Welcome.
[Imran Khan, Member, Pakistani Parliament And Political Activist:] Thank you, Fareed.
[Zakaria:] Imran, you have been, for the last week, in and out of the Swat Valley, the place where this peace deal, or this truce, has been reached between the Pakistani government and what people here are calling members of the Taliban, jihadi forces, militant Islamists. What do you think of this peace deal?
[Khan:] Well, Fareed, I think that the government had absolutely no choice but to go through with this peace deal. In fact, the elected government of the frontier province, they had recommended this quite a while back, but Asif Zardari, the president, was too scared to endorse it. So that's why it was not being implemented. But the situation there is such that there was no choice with the frontier government. There's no police left in the Swat Valley. There are no courts functioning. There are 400,000 refugees from the area. There doesn't seem to be any end to this conflict. So in the end, they had to accept this deal.
[Zakaria:] But is this a capitulation to some very nasty forces in the region? Or is this something that you think can be the beginnings of some kind of political stability there?
[Khan:] Well, Fareed, I mean, the whole area is a mess now. The entire border actually, the bigger mess is the tribal agencies. From Waziristan right up to Bajaur, we have now basically a tribal uprising against the Pakistan army. And the worst thing is, there is no end in sight. There is no end to this war. This could just go on and on.
[Zakaria:] So what you are saying is really that the Pakistani military has lost control in the area entirely, and that, at this point, this is a kind of wild west, no man's land, which is a very scary prospect. I mean, does it worry you in terms of the security for Pakistanis in Islamabad, in Karachi, in Lahore?
[Khan:] Fareed, my biggest worry is that the Obama administration is going exactly the same way as the mess made by the Bush administration. It's like the line from "Alice in Wonderland." When you don't know where you're going, every road takes you there. We don't know what's happening. We don't know what's the end of this. We don't even know the objectives of this war. And all we know is that this insane aerial bombing these drone attacks, killing innocent people all it's doing is, it's inflaming the whole area. And this insurgency is turning into a sort of freedom struggle now. It's complicating our lives in Pakistan, because the whole area, the Pashtun belt is getting radicalized, and the space for moderates is shrinking all the time. There has to be a change of strategy. There is no military solution to this.
[Zakaria:] And, Imran, what would you do? What would you do if you were the Pakistani government? And what would you do if you were the U.S. government?
[Khan:] If I was the Pakistani government, first of all, I would shed this impression that I'm a stooge of the U.S. administration. Unfortunately, Musharraf was considered a stooge. And, sadly, when democracy came to Pakistan, with great expectations and, remember, after the elections, for three months there was complete peace. There was a cease-fire, because people expected the democratic government to start dialogue. Unlike the military generals who who have always used force, they expected political dialogue to settle this issue. Unfortunately, the current president, Asif Zardari, is looked upon even a bigger stooge than Musharraf. So things have gone from bad to worse, because no on trusts him. So if I was there, I would immediately I would tell the Americans that military is not an option. You only have to ask the Russians. Look at the experience what the Russians went through. They killed a million people in Afghanistan still, they lost the war. So, how many people are going to be killed from this insane aerial bombing, these drone attacks which have proved that all it has done is it's made the situation worse. It's even weakened the Pakistan government, with Dianne Feinstein's statement that these drone that they're taking off from bases in Pakistan, the drones. So, I'm afraid the society is just getting more radicalized. And for Pakistanis, the worry is that, with the financial problems, the economic problems in the U.S., maybe a year later they will pack up and leave. Hell, we are sitting we are going to have a Frankenstein on our hands, because this radicalization is just growing in our country.
[Zakaria:] And what should the Americans do? Should they just say, "Well, you know, we have all this intelligence about these al Qaeda groups, and they're planning various attacks. But we just can't use the military, because the political repercussions are too great and we just hope that it'll die down"?
[Khan:] You know, unfortunately, the whole way this war was fought that is where the whole thing went wrong. I mean, the Americans should have isolated al Qaeda from Taliban. Taliban had nothing to do with terrorism. Yes, they were fundamentalists, but they weren't terrorists. And so, actually, by attacking the Taliban and then not moving in and setting up a good governance system, making the lives of the Afghans better, unfortunately, what has now happened is that, in this mess, there's no chance of development. Even if they now pour in a lot of money for development, you have to have peace to get the money in, to get aid in. How is anyone going to get any aid into the tribal areas now? So, the same applies to Afghanistan. And, unfortunately, I think, whatever anyone says, the only way forward is dialogue, which is what Hamid Karzai is now finally saying, that you have to start talking to the Taliban. Bear in mind, Taliban were never the enemy. The real danger was always posed by al Qaeda. So even now, the Pashtun should be won over through dialogue and not through this bombing. And then they should try and isolate al Qaeda, which I believe can be done, but it's going to be it's going to take time. It's not going to be you know, it's not a short game anymore.
[Zakaria:] Do you have any faith that Obama will adopt a different strategy? Have you had any communications or messages that give you hope?
[Khan:] Well, the hope still lies that he will have the intelligence to understand that this is a failed strategy, that when you are in a hole, you stop digging. So what I'm hoping from Obama is that he will, somewhere along the line, realize, as the British have, that this war is not the option in Afghanistan. They have to understand the psyche of the people, their history. And they're repeating exactly the same mistake as the Soviets were doing. So what I'm hoping is that Obama will somewhere down the line change the strategy. And mainly, really, this is a country Pakistan is that faces the biggest catastrophe if this war goes on.
[Zakaria:] We will be right back with more from Imran Khan from Pakistan.