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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With USC Professor Afua Hirsch; Interview With Rabbi Sharon Brous; Is TikTok a Threat To Democracy; Interview With Columbia University Professor Tim Wu; Subsidized Rent Stops Parisians From Being Priced Out; The Infamous Speech That Became A Symbol Of Premature Victory. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired May 04, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:59:45]

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, JOURNALIST, "NEW YORK TIMES": And the reason that immigration has gone down in the southern border is because of what Mexico is doing.

And I think one of the things that this really shows is that when you actually have a partnership with a country instead of vilifying a country that perhaps that might help you in the --

(CROSSTALKING)

CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Real quickly, do you think that these declining numbers are going to help Biden on the immigration issue where he polls very badly?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I don't. I don't think so. First of all, because I don't think people are looking at the border going up and down and really focusing on that. And the fact of the matter is that the border is still bad.

WALLACE: Gang, thank you all for being here. And thank you for spending part of your day with us and to those who celebrate even Kara, May the fourth be with you.

We'll see you right back here next week.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: If universities really believe in free speech, are they missing the point of the student protests?

AFUA HIRSCH, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: I do question how much the university administration understands the concept of free speech.

AMANPOUR: Then the renowned American Rabbi who went to the protests in search of a moral message.

RABBI SHARON BROUS, FOUNDING MEMBER, IKAR: The thing that gives me hope is the people who walk in-between the camps and say "Friends, we are not enemies, we are all human beings."

AMANPOUR: Also this hour, anti-social media. Is TikTok, really a danger to democracy?

TIM WU, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: But I wouldn't underestimate the propaganda angle. So we've got to stop playing the sucker.

AMANPOUR: Plus, what will it take for America to reclaim its reputation as a beacon for democracy?

ROBERT KAGAN, FORMER REAGAN REPUBLICAN: Americans have lost the fundamental love of liberty.

AMANPOUR: And from my archive, 21 years since Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, a warning from history about the day after in Gaza.

And why a luxury apartment became a bargain rental in the push to provide affordable housing in Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone.

And we start with the biggest anti-war protests on American college campuses since Vietnam. What began peacefully at Columbia University, a bastion of the historic Student Peace and Justice Movement has spread to campuses nationwide and across the globe.

Here in the U.K., in France, Australia, and Canada protesters have joined the calls to condemn the war in Gaza and divest from any connections with Israel's war.

This week in America ends with law enforcement entering campuses from coast to coast, making more than a thousand arrests as administrators call them disruptive and counter demonstrators accuse them of anti- Semitism.

As police were ending encampments and Trump and his Republican supporters were seizing on this as a campaign law and order issue, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, himself Jewish, stepped in with a lesson on history, on protests and the definition of anti-Semitism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): It is important to understand why these protesters are out there and they are out there not because they are pro-Hamas, they are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is now doing in Gaza, which is bringing unbelievable, not just to the terrorist organization, Hamas, but to the entire Palestinian people. (END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: He also spoke of the polls in America that show a majority wanting a ceasefire in Israels war on Gaza.

And also, the fundamental issue of constitutional free speech.

Afua Hirsch is a journalism professor at the University of Southern California. She's British, of mixed white, Jewish, and African heritage.

Afua, welcome back to our program.

HIRSCH: Thanks, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: I said all that because I think you're perfectly positioned not only as a professor on one of these campuses but your whole heritage gives you so much experience, lived experience as to what's going on.

What was the last message you had as you were leaving campus to come here to London at the end of semester?

HIRSCH: Yes. So, I taught my final class of the semester in which I am teaching my students to hold people in power accountable, to ask difficult questions, and to stand up for the truth.

That's the ethos of teaching, especially teaching journalism. And as I taught my last class of the semester, and as my plane was taking off for London, I was receiving messages from students who are witnessing riot police entering campus after peaceful protests and some of them being arrested and taken into police custody.

So that was really my last experience as I left the end of this semester and things have only escalated since then.

AMANPOUR: Now, at USC, the valedictorian, her name is Asna Tabassum (ph), who is a Muslim. She said, "I was hoping to use my commencement speech to inspire my classmates with a message of hope. By canceling my speeds USC is only caving to fear and rewarding hatred."

[11:04:53]

AMANPOUR: What have they -- do you agree, by the way? And do you think the administrators could have de-escalated just like on Brown for instance, even at Northwestern.

HIRSCH: I'm glad you mentioned Brown and Northwestern because it's a reminder that these students actually have reasonable demands. This isn't just an excuse for some kind of spontaneous anarchy.

It's hard to imagine how an undergraduate student who's made valedictorian presents such a great security challenge that it defeats the university administration and many of us and I include myself feel that that was used as an excuse to justify a totally legitimate attempt to try and pacify critics by removing her free speech. AMANPOUR: Presumably, I mean, America has a written constitution, unlike ours here in Britain, that guarantees free speech. The university seems to be completely, you know, floundering, trying to figure out where to draw the line.

HIRSCH: I do question how much the university administration understands the concept of free speech, and how much it understands the history of protests.

The point of free speech is that people have the right to say things that you might find uncomfortable or inconvenient. There would be no need for right to free speech if it was only protecting things we wanted to hear.

And the accusation that protests as disruptive seems to misunderstand the point of protest. The leverage that students have in a world where they don't have much power is that they are able to disrupt. And if you look at the history of protests, its aim has been to disrupt, with the intention of forcing people to hear demands and think about wider injustices.

And that's exactly what these protests are doing. Now there is obviously a responsibility for those in authority to protect safety. There has been a real lack of evidence that there was a threats to safety and security from the protests that happened.

And you know, when I speak to my Muslim students, they told me that they feel that this was really about whose safety matters more. Because the idea that some students feel uncomfortable as a result of the protests, and that that justifies arresting and using violence against those who are protesting, really suggests that this is about a hierarchy of power whose needs are more important and who's seen.

I mean when you look at the history of protest? Look at the civil rights movement in America, for example take the Montgomery bus boycott. It wasn't always the initial demands of protesters that rallied wider public support. It was the disproportionate policing and the use of brutality to crush those protests that actually end up having the opposite effect to the one intended and really mobilized.

AMANPOUR: But I want to ask you this as we talked about each side has to be careful not to delegitimize their cause.

So here's a Gazan born Palestinian analyst Ahmad Fouad Alkhatib who said, please adopt pragmatism as a necessary approach or ethos for actually getting things done instead of wasting time with slogan- driven and maximalist activism that does nothing.

Use your western privilege to actually help the Palestinian people and promote a pragmatic path forward by gauging Israeli and Jewish audiences.

HIRSCH: We don't look very much a protest and grassroots movement. And as a result, there's a tendency to depict them as these anarchic, disorganized, vague movements of these ideas the young people who don't really know what they're doing. I really would challenge that in this occasion. There is a very

specific list of demands these students have. And they are themselves historically literate and aware of previous experiences.

For example, the 1980s in two years a hundred universities in America divested from companies that were linked to the South African apartheid regime. That had a significant impact on the viability of apartheid.

These students are calling for disinvestment from Israel and companies linked to the Israeli military for reason that they believe in the potential of that demands to actually make a difference to the outcome.

(CROSSTALKING)

AMANPOUR: And final question, because this is getting a lot of take on campus and those who are listening. Benjamin Netanyahu is a master of seizing the political moment, right?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: What's happening on America's college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HIRSCH: I really resent the comparison. My grandfather lived through Germany in the 1930s as a young jew and he and many of his contemporaries became lifelong advocates of progressive politics. They were against ethno-nationalism and they were against the use of violence because of what they experienced. Those beliefs mirror exactly what these students are calling for.

I mean, I would say to someone like Netanyahu what does a protest against Israel's war in Gaza that isn't anti-Semitic look like. Because he is so quick to weaponize anti-Semitism to shut down legitimate scrutiny and accountability for Israel's actions.

[11:09:45]

HIRSCH: I am not dismissive of anti-Semitism. We all need to be unequivocal in condemning anti-Semitism. We also need to be unequivocal in seeing and condemning Islamophobia, where we see it.

I don't draw a difference or distinction between forms of racism, prejudice, and discrimination against minoritized groups.

My sense from the time I've spent in America as well as my life in the U.K. is that there is a great awareness for the problem of anti- Semitism and a willingness to take it seriously, which I applaud.

meanwhile, legitimate calls for a change in policy in the Middle East and the experiences, the lived experiences of Muslim students does not attract the same level of sympathy or awareness at all.

AMANPOUR: Afua Hirsch, thanks again for being on the program.

And coming up next, we continue this conversation with a renowned American Rabbi who went looking for common ground at the college campus protests.

And later Columbia University professor Tim Wu says its time the West stop playing the sucker on security when it comes to China and TikTok.

WU: Having China in control of one of the world's most popular social media/propaganda tool seems like a terrible thing, terrible idea.

[11:10:57]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: At a time of so much anguish and grief over the war in Gaza and the civilian death toll along with the lingering Israeli trauma of October 7 and so many civilian hostages still held captive, there are still those looking for a way to unite people and de-escalate the crisis.

Rabbi Sharon Brous has visited both Columbia and UCLA campuses before the police were brought in to try and find common ground.

She joined me from California to talk about what she witnessed firsthand and about the dangers of seeing the other in the most extreme way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to our program, Rabbi.

SHARON BROUS, AUTHOR: Thank you so much for having me, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Just first tell me, what made you literally get up and fly across the country to go to Columbia, and what did you see, and then also at UCLA?

BROUS: I see the protests as a kind of growing out of a legitimate anguish and sorrow and moral concern that this war must end. And what I wanted to see and understand is that I have seen many videos and heard personal reports from people I care deeply about on that campus about a growing thread of virulent anti-Semitism in that place.

And that is manifesting in people surrounding Jewish students, saying things like, we're going to do October 7th again and again and again. And chanting things like "kill yourself, kill yourself," calling people "Nazi bitches" while they're walking down the street, et cetera.

And so, I mean, this is truly a horrific new era that we've entered where we see the normalization of anti-Semitism in a very dangerous environment and climate. And so, what I want to do is both affirm the importance of public

protest as a way of collectively grieving something truly terrible that's happening and thinking creatively about what might be born out of this moment.

AMANPOUR: I kind of wanted to ask you what you actually saw there. My question to you is should the protest be viewed through the lens of the unacceptable behavior and the words of a minority? Because most people say it's mostly peaceful.

BROUS: Right. And what I saw when I was on campus at Columbia last Thursday was peaceful. And there are Jews who are in part of this encampment as well. There was shared food. There was clearly a sense of both belonging and shared purpose and shared grief in that space. And that is really critical.

And so, what I think is important is to acknowledge and call out where the language is violent, vitriolic, and maximalist so that there can be a protest movement that is a protest for peace, that is actually using the moral imagination that college students are so good at mustering to imagine what a different kind of future might be possible.

But there's a kind of gaslighting that's happening, Christiane, right now, when Jewish students -- when many Jewish students say that they don't feel safe on campus because some of this rhetoric is truly egregious and violent.

Now, what I saw on UCLA's campus on Sunday, which was essentially the equivalent, but this time with a calling in of extremists from the pro-Israel side and there was a conflagration.

And we are really lucky that it did not turn more violent than it was because you have a kind of fueling of extremism here.

And literally, I was trying to weave in between these two camps saying to people, look, we need to de-escalate. You need to go home. This is not helping anybody for you to be here. And God forbid, somebody gets truly hurt in one of these conflicts.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you then to react to Brown University. It appears that the administration, the president of Brown, the administration of Brown managed to de-escalate through talks and meetings and listening and talking with the actual students who ended up removing on their own, their encampment with university leaders saying that they would discuss and they would later vote on the issues, whether it be divesting or whatever it might be.

Is that a model that you would say should be taken up by more of these universities?

[11:19:51]

BROUS: This is absolutely a model. There have to be grownups in the room. And Christiane, I want to tell you what -- one thing that I witnessed

when I was at UCLA. There was a group of people there who identify with Standing Together, which is an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who are working together to build a just and shared future.

And one of the people who leads this group started chanting, "In Gaza and Tel Aviv, all children deserve to live. In Gaza and Tel Aviv, all children deserve to live."

And I saw something absolutely breathtaking happen, which is we're right in between the Palestine solidarity camp on one side and the pro-Israel camp on the other. And people on both sides started to clap and started to say those words because those words actually make sense.

And when you're fed a diet of extremism, you think the only answer is eliminations. For my people to have justice, your people must be wiped out. But it's not true. We have been fed falsehood. And in fact, they're -- the only response to this will be when Israelis and Palestinians figure out how

to build a just and shared future. So, that's the grown-up voice in the space. That's the de-escalation voice.

You're right to want justice. You're right to be concerned about safety. So are we. And our safety is tied up in one another.

AMANPOUR: I again was struck by what you posted on Instagram where you actually said, you know, I think -- if I'm not misquoting, you said, Palestinians are not Hamas. In other words, they are not that movement. Maybe there are some, but it's not all Palestinians.

And you were very, you know, insistent in your sermon to your congregation that these people, a people had to have the right. And as you say, this kind of -- you know, these wars, this kind

of division would probably continue until everyone's rights are legitimized.

BROUS: Yes, that's absolutely right. Palestinians are not Hamas. Most people just want to live in peace, put their children to bed at night. They want to have their dignity realized.

Palestinians deserve and need self-determination. If any people in the world ought to understand that, it ought to be the Jews, for whom self-determination was denied for so much of our history. And we understand the vulnerability that comes with living as a minority under another power.

They need and deserve to live with dignity. And that dignity and that self-determination is not going to come at the expense of Israeli Jews having out -- having their freedom and having their self- determination.

Both of these things are possible. And I think the work of the grownups in the room right now is to pull us back from the edge of the abyss and say, listen to the voices that are coming out of Israel and Palestine right now.

AMANPOUR: Rabbi Sharon Brous, thank you so much indeed for joining us.

BROUS: Thank you, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And coming up Seine-sational living.

What other capital cities can learn from Paris when it comes to affordable housing for all.

But first Columbia University professor Tim Wu says it's time to start taking TikTok's threat to democracy more seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WU: But I wouldn't underestimate the propaganda angle. And we've got to stop playing the sucker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:23:08]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

We turn now to something roughly half the U.S. population uses and what it reveals about China's creeping influence into the West, the video-sharing app, TikTok.

Globally, a billion people use it. But a so-called "perfect storm" has caused the U.S. to rule that TikTok must be sold.

Its intense popularity amongst the young. It's loathed (ph) across these political divide and it's a national security threat. Tomorrow, the Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Europe for the first time in five years.

But the United States has already set the tone with rare, bipartisan and swift legislation, which will either banned TikTok or forces Chinese owner Bytedance to sell.

Columbia professor Tim Wu says it's about time and that quote, "The democracies of the world have played the sucker for too long."

Tim Wu, welcome to the program.

WU: Pleasure to be here.

AMANPOUR: So what do you mean? Are you being a bit harsh?

WU: I wouldn't say so. I mean, I think China has a terrible track record when it comes to Internet rights and freedoms. And the idea they should be treated just like any other country, I think is wrong.

And so having China in control of one of the world's most popular social media/propaganda tools seems like a terrible thing, terrible idea.

AMANPOUR: What do you make of the national security aspect of it, which seems to be what pushed the U.S. you know, into such fast legislation and into the first such legislation in years.

WU: I mean, they have been talking about it for quite some period. You know, I think the national security concerns are hard to fully evaluate with all the class, without all the classified information.

But the general sense of having an embedded app in tens of millions of people's phones, which both collects data on it more data than anyone else and also can, you know, be shaped to present whatever kind of message you might want.

I mean, it's crazy. It's such an obvious propaganda tool. If you want to sort of steer people towards one view or steer another, it's not that hard.

[11:29:48]

WU: And look, I agree there's other outlets that have that. I mean, frankly, so does any media outlet. But for this to be in charge of a state that we are in effectively a contest with over the future of civilization is really intolerable.

AMANPOUR: And of course, they would say, hold on, we're not a Chinese state-owned corporation. 60 percent of our business is owned elsewhere. What do you say to that?

WU: Well, if you want to prove that sell TikTok. You know, Bytedance is always saying on the one hand, we're not actually a Chinese company. We do what we want, but we can't sell TikTok because the Chinese government won't let us.

You know, I think there's a very clear track record of Chinese tech companies having to do what the Chinese state says. Whether that's expressed in forms of formal control, there is this golden share. Or whether it's just the fact of founders going missing for periods of time or getting threats, it's clear that China exerts very strong control over its major tech platforms. And so I don't think Bytedance is by any means exempt from that kind of control.

AMANPOUR: Bytedance has been told to sell within nine months or face a ban in the United States. And Bytedance operates and is headquartered in China.

What is the result? Let's say this happens and somebody else buys TikTok.

AMANPOUR: The Western democracies need to be serious about this challenge in the struggle with China. You know, in many ways, the future of the Internet is the future of civilization. And we're in an ideological and, in some ways, economic struggle with China. And I think we need to take a little more seriously.

TikTok is sold to even another country that's more democratic, I think that's fine. And that sends a very important message, which you mess with the rights and freedoms on the Internet, you don't get treated like a normal country.

AMANPOUR: And what should Europe do? Has it done enough to stand up against TikTok.

WU: I don't think -- Europe has generally banned it for officials. I would call on Europe to take more seriously the issue of having a state with very different ideology than the western democracies. A very different ideology in control of one of the most important propaganda and surveillance tools in the world.

I think Europe needs do more. I think they've been soft-pedaling this a little bit and saying this is just an American overreaction.

AMANPOUR: Since you're a Columbia University professor and Columbia is the center of so much international gaze right now with all the protests. Do you think that some of the accusations about TikTok use amongst the young suggesting that it's proliferating Hamas propaganda and the like a, do think that's accurate and b, do you think that played into the congressional speed with which it passed this law.

WU: I've looked at the studies that have just that and I don't feel I'm expert enough to opine. But I do think there have been credible studies suggesting that TikTok material tends to reflect the Chinese Party states view of the world, particularly on Chinese-related disputes like, you know, Taiwan or Tibet or other places within China.

And you know, why wouldn't they. I think it's a serious danger. And I think it's not something we should just laugh it off. I should say during the Cold War, you know, goal of the Soviet Union was always to incite infighting in the West. And, you know, we got a lot of infighting going on right now.

AMANPOUR: Lastly, you know, many would say, particularly young people we've already seen them say, what do you mean banning TikTok? You know, this is how we get our information, our entertainment, et cetera.

And many would say, what about the open, free Internet able to sort things out and regulate itself. What's your answer to that?

WU: I'm a huge believer in the open and free Internet, which is why we have to enforce the principles by telling TikTok and Bytedance to find a different owner for TikTok.

If you don't enforce these principles, you know, they disappear and we've been sitting here allowing China, Russia, all these are Cuba, so forth, Iran, to violate all the principles of a free and open Internet. If there's no consequences, the principles become a joke.

Professor Tim Wu, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

WU: It's been a pleasure.

AMANPOUR: And of course, Bytedance is likely to challenge all of this in court.

Still to come, from the archive, a warning from history about the day after in Gaza, from the blowback I saw firsthand after the Iraq war.

But first how luxury apartments became bargain rentals in Paris.

We'll be right back with that story.

[11:34:16]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

As France ramps up for the start of the Summer Olympics, the competition is making Paris an even more coveted and expensive destination for millions of tourists.

But for people who live there all year round, skyrocketing rents have been forcing residents to move out for years. Now, local authorities are stepping in to stop Parisians from being priced out.

Melissa Bell explains how renting a luxury Paris apartment could actually be a great deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The view second to none, the location as central as they get. But this rent-controlled apartment is now Catherine's for just $800 a month.

CATHERINE CORTINOVIS, LA SAMARITAINE RESIDENT: Welcome. The first time I saw it, I was so emotional that I burst into tears.

[11:39:51]

BELL: And this is the building she was able to move into. Re-opened amid great pomp in 2021 after some 16 years of renovation, La Samaritaine is one of the French capital's most iconic spots for luxury shopping and dining, not to mention its five-star hotel.

But La Samaritaine was also obliged, as part of its reconstruction, to include 96 apartments for the city of Paris to let at modest rates.

JACQUES BAUDRIER, DEPUTY MAYOR OF Paris IN CHARGE OF HOUSING: If you let the markets act, we will have only empty houses, second homes for rich French people. If you want to stay a living city, with people and everything in the city, we must develop a lot of social holdings.

BELL: Across Europe, there is a danger of cities turning into museums and ordinary people being pushed out.

But here in Paris, there is the added particularity that this was a city entirely redesigned in the mid-19th century. And that's exactly what gives it its beauty, but also what makes it difficult for the city to adapt to the needs of the 21st century.

All the more so that in the 20th century, social housing was built on the outskirts, in the so-called (inaudible) where occasionally top architects were hired to design vast social housing and sometimes grand projects like (inaudible) that was built in the early 1980s.

But for all their occasional grandeur, estates like these were kept at arm's length of the chic streets (ph) of Central Paris which meant long commutes for those who lived there.

Then in 2001, Paris' Town Hall was won by the left.

IAN BROSSAT, COMMUNIST PARTY SENATOR: Our objective is social mixing. Avoiding ghettos for poor people; avoiding ghettos for rich people. And therefore, prioritizing social housing where there is not enough.

BELL: Private precinct owners wary of lowering house values (inaudible) says Ian Brossat just one of the hurdles that Paris' Town Hall had to overcome. In fact, the average price of a one-bedroom apartment in Paris has more than doubled these last 20 years and nearly tripled in some areas for two-bedroom homes, which in turn has made centrally-located social housing all the more important.

Already, it is one in nine Parisians that benefits. People like Zina, whose place in the Samaritaine development allows her to live close to the Central Paris Hospital where she works.

ZINA HADJAB, LA SAMARITAINE RESIDENT: As they say, it's an open-air museum, it's pleasant. It's really a good place to live.

BELL: An open-air museum that is now seeking to help those who keep its schools and hospitals running to be able to benefit from them too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Melissa Bell in Paris with ideas that work.

Still to come on the show. Former Reagan Republican Robert Kagan on Americans falling out of love with democracy.

But first from my archive, the disastrous power vacuum and the insurgency that filled it after the U.S.-led war in Iraq. And a warning from history about what happens next in Gaza.

[11:43:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended in the battle of Iraq. The United States and our allies have prevailed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That was 21 years ago this week, George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech when he declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. It became a symbol of premature victory and western hubris followed by years of continued conflicts and bloody insurgencies reshaping the Middle East and Americas role in it.

Now, with efforts to get a ceasefire in Gaza, the same questions about the day after loom large. Like who takes charge of security and reconstruction and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

From my archive this week, the reality I saw firsthand in Iraq as America and its allies dealt with the chain reaction caused by Saddam Hussein's defeat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: liberation brought laughter and later, laughter gave way to looting and the first signs of a dangerous security vacuum. And into that vacuum, a decision was made that most degree was a fundamental mistake.

Paul Bremmer's first major order as U.S. administrator, firing Iraqi army. In a protest outside occupation headquarters many of the fired soldiers and officers threatened to turn against the Americans.

And that seems to have happened. After long dismissing the insurgents as dead enders, the us is only now openly admitting their strength.

LT. GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY: Think it is very serious, right? These are very serious terrorists some of them clearly from outside the country perhaps increasingly so.

AMANPOUR: the U.S. military has not managed to crush them. Now, the Iraqis will try.

[11:49:43]

AYAD ALLAWI, THEN-IRAQI INTERIM PRIME MINISTER: We are mobilizing our police force. We definitely are mobilizing our army and the (INAUDIBLE) to confront the enemies of Iraq and the criminals and the terrorists.

AMANPOUR: The violence threatens projects the U.S. has started and the Iraqi government plans to pursue like democracy. The insurgency forced the U.S. to hand over power early before they could oversee a permanent then constitution or the first general elections as they had planned services are constantly sabotaged.

The Iraqi government now promises to fix what a 15-month occupation could not. This is what Baghdad University students told us seven months ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we didn't ask the American government to send us to the moon. No, no.

It's very simple. Our problems is very simple. Like electricity, the water.

AMANPOUR: but today, electricity is still more off than on as we found when we visited Gaital Jazeri (ph) sitting in his darkened art gallery.

"Before the war, we use to make $1,000 a day," he told us. "Now we barely make 200 a month."

No electricity, no security, no customers here. Wherever you go, people can't shake their worry no matter how fervently they hope the handover brings peace and quiet.

"Of course, we're all worried about the problems and in explosions says Java Sabi (ph). "When we leave our homes, we say the Muslim prayer of death. We don't know what will happen to us or whether our children will be killed."

Lives, democracy, the economy, reconstruction -- all held hostage by the constant violence. Those who have come to help are targets and so are their Iraqi colleagues.

Hassan, who translates for the U.S. army hides his identity against a certain death sentence, but he is defiant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to say something as an insurgent, that I will not -- they will not make me scare. All the (INAUDIBLE) are working. I will never get rid of my job with the Americans. Until they make this a place and make my country stable and secure.

AMANPOUR: To stop the violence and spur recovery senior U.S. offices say the porous borders must be sealed, networks of informal route used by the insurgents have to be closed down and safe houses have to be destroyed.

One U.S. officer tells CNN, this war has turned Iraq into a base for jihad and terrorism.

But even those like Gaital Jazeri sitting in his empty art gallery with no power says at least they are free to hope now.

"Saddam's departure made Iraqis free of fear", he said.

But feelings are complicated. at the Baghdad morgue, Dr. Nofu Shukus (ph) smiles when I asked him whether its better without Saddam.

He's come here to collect his uncle's body.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe it is better. It is better. But without American. If the Americans go out, the U.S. Army go out. It's better. But if they remained here? This is bad and very bad.

AMANPOUR: But the U.S. army is staying. It has to protect the new Iraqi government that has become a target as well. But the people hope by some miracle it will get better now they have

their country back, mostly because they think that it can't get any worse.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: But of course it would get much worse as Iraq became a hotbed for jihad and terrorism in the following years that blew back all the way to Europe and the United States.

As the world watches Israels war on Gaza, Iraq stands as a reminder for Israel and America of what could happen without careful planning and a just solution for all.

When we come back, former Reagan Republican Robert Kagan saw the stress test for American democracy as it was coming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: I think we just have to recognize that? It's not so shocking when you look at the entirety of American history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:53:59]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally this hour, as debates around free speech pulse through college campuses, the next presidential election in the United States could be about the survival of democracy itself. But how did we get to this point where illiberalism threatens the global role model of a republic.

Robert Kagan is a longtime policy expert who worked in the Reagan administration during the 1980s. His new book is called "Rebellion: How Anti-Liberalism is Tearing America Apart Again".

And I asked him how the U.S. made so many self-harming missteps.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: I think we just have to recognize that it's not so shocking when you look at the entirety of American history. These groups have always existed. What's happened now is they've taken control of the Republican Party, and they have someone as their leader who is willing to destroy the system. That's what he is, he's wrecker.

Americans have lost the fundamental love of liberty, the fundamental virtues that are required in our system. You know, it is not enough to only want freedom and liberty for yourself. In our system, you have to want it for everyone.

[11:59:47]

KAGAN: And if you don't have that sort of sense of liberal virtue, the belief in these universal values, then you're willing to allow someone who is going to destroy them to take power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And right after that interview "Time Magazine" released this cover story with Trump himself confirming those worst fears.

Asked about all this talk about ending American democracy he said, "I think a lot of people like it."

You can watch the rest of our conversation online at amanpour.com and find all of our shows online wherever you get your podcasts from.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching.

We're off next week, but back May 18th so see you then.