ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
GWEN IFILL: Hello, and welcome to the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
I'm Gwen Ifill, joined around the table by Dan Balz of The Washington Post, Kim Ghattas
of the BBC, and Peter Baker of The New York Times.
The troubles around the world have led to an obvious, yet unanswerable question: How far
is, or should, the U.S. be willing to go to help?
There are as many answers as there are experts, presidential candidates, and presidents.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: (From video.)
We're stepping up the pressure on ISIL where it
lives.
And we will not let up, adjusting our tactics where necessary,
until they are beaten.
GWEN IFILL: If you ask French President Francois Hollande, the demand is for action -
military and diplomatic, accelerated and immediate.
But what is the U.S. actually
considering, Peter?
And what does this 65-member international coalition the president
keeps talking about - what does that look like?
PETER BAKER: Well, the 65-member coalition looks like this.
There's the United States, and then there's everybody else.
(Laughter.)
Basically, if you look at what's happening in Syria, 95 percent of the
airstrikes have been conducted by the United States.
In Iraq, it's been about
two-thirds.
We put together these numbers in order to say the world is behind us.
But it includes, like, Lithuania, which arrests somebody, or Slovenia.
GWEN IFILL: I remember having this same conversation when George W.
Bush talked about the "coalition of the willing."
PETER BAKER: Exactly.
The coalition of the willing - which had 45, I think, is the number he used to throw
around, something in that range - it really just means other nations are - you know, they
might provide us a little intelligence.
They might arrest a bad guy they catch coming through their borders.
They're not really participants in what we would think of as a military coalition.
That's really still the United States and a handful of other countries that actually
participate militarily - France now stepping up its part in that.
Now, what does France want?
France wants, you know, more vigorous application of this.
It didn't bomb in Syria for the most part prior to the Paris attacks.
Now it's bombing in Syria.
But it's using targets that the United States has provided.
It's using midair refueling the United States provided.
It's using intelligence that the United States is providing.
So it's still really a United States coalition.
But what President Obama wants to emphasize is it's different than what Russia is up to,
because Russia, he says, has a two-nation coalition, being Russia and Iran.
And he's trying to isolate them in the world.
GWEN IFILL: Do Americans, Dan, have the stomach for this idea of heightened
international intervention on our part?
DAN BALZ: In the wake of the Paris attacks, there is a greater appetite for this than
there has been prior to that.
Some of the polling shows significant support, not just for airstrikes but for ground
forces, which is a change from what we had seen, you know, coming out of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
This kind of ebbs and flows.
I think that the closer you get to a substantial - the idea of a substantial number of
ground forces, which really nobody is talking about except Linsey Graham, the more people
would react against that.
But at this point, because people are afraid, they want a robust response.
GWEN IFILL: And, Kim, on the campaign trail, we see Hillary Clinton trying to find a
tightrope to walk between her history with the president and his incredibly - one again
increasing disapproval.
How is she doing that?
KIM GHATTAS: So far Clinton's team feels that there is no strategic advantage to putting
distance between her and the president because her messaging has been mostly focused on
the economy, and she praises his work on trying to get an economic recovery on the
campaign trail; so does - so does her team.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, she's going to have to watch very, very carefully what
is the mood in the country and how much do the president's disapproval ratings increase.
At some point she has to walk that fine line between continuing to approve of his
economic - of his work on the economy and distancing herself from him on being more - by
being more assertive on foreign policy, without sounding too bellicose either, because
she still needs to appeal to primary Democratic voters.
GWEN IFILL: Which is why we call it a tightrope, exactly.
(Laughter.)
KIM GHATTAS: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: Before we go tonight, I want to ask you each a question for everybody who's
about to get up from their computer from watching this and go out Christmas shopping or
holiday shopping.
Books.
You're all reading.
What are you reading?
KIM GHATTAS: I'm reading a nonfiction book, Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous
Situations, by Jules Evans.
And it's fascinating.
And I was not a very good student when it came to philosophy when I was back in high
school and at university, but it's a great, lively way to see how philosophy actually
applies to your modern life - you know, being resilient, being stoic, enjoying life as an
epicurean.
It's quite - it's quite nice.
My other - my other recommendation, if I may, is Orhan Pamuk, A Strangeness in My Mind.
I think it's great tale.
I just bought it, and it's - he's one of my favorite authors.
And it's a great tale about memory and identity and -
GWEN IFILL: Adding to the list.
KIM GHATTAS: Good, good.
(Laughter.)
I'm glad I could give a good recommendation.
GWEN IFILL: Dan?
DAN BALZ: The book I most recently finished is not a new book.
It came out a year ago.
It's called Thirteen Days, Lawrence Wright's account of what happened at Camp David.
It's an incredibly well-done book, not only for what happened at Camp David but for the
sweep of Middle East history and portraitures of - portraits of the characters who were
involved in it.
I'm reading a fiction book called Finale by Thomas Mallon.
I had read last year Watergate.
He does historical fiction.
This is about Ronald Reagan, and it's - he's a great writer.
GWEN IFILL: Peter.
PETER BAKER: I love the Wright book, as a matter of fact.
I thought that was a great book.
I've just finished Jon Meacham's new biography of
George H.W.
Bush, Destiny and Power.
It got a lot of news, as we all know, recently because of what Bush 41 had to say about
some of Bush 43's advisers, particularly Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.
But what's really the meat of the book is a portrait of a president we had come to not
like at one point and now today history is treating much more kindly.
And we look into his presidency through the venue of his diaries, which haven't been
exploited as well as Jon Meacham has done until now, and the interviews that he gave Jon
Meacham over the course of the last few years in retirement, when he clearly decided to
be a little bit more candid.
So it's a - it's a really interesting book.
GWEN IFILL: I've just finished reading a book that's been out for a while called All the
Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
And the best part about that book, reading it against the backdrop of us talking about
going to war and fighting an amorphous enemy, is to read a novel about World War II where
the lines were clear, where the enemy was clear, and how much different things are now.
It was an amazing time.
Go ahead, finish.
KIM GHATTAS: Going back to World War II, I mean, I just read 1945, the Year Zero, by Ian
Buruma.
And you know, those were terrible times.
It was clear - more clearly defined, but it does remind you that we have been through
worse times and we got over it.
GWEN IFILL: We have been.
Hand to hand.
Thank you, everybody.
That's it for now.
We'll see you the next time on the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
