And also I think the rise of other, you could say, destinations for international jihadis mean that Pakistan isn't necessarily the place where people from all over the world who want to engage in these activities gravitate to. They're going now to places like Syria or Yemen Libya, elsewhere.
If you want peace and well-being to be in place in the Middle East and you want terrorism to be uprooted, then there's no path other than the presence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, you saw that in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen that the power that was able to help the people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen in the face of terrorist groups was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Countries in which immigration will be suspended would include places like Syria and Libya.And we are going to stop the tens of thousands of people coming in from Syria. We have no idea who they are, where they come from. There's no documentation. There's no paperwork.
I think what happened with 9/11 is that people sort of felt that it came from nowhere. Whereas I think now we understand the roots are very deep. I say it's like revolutionary Communism, something that is going to have to be knocked out over a very long period of time. This strain of extremism continues to be very strong, whether it's in Afghanistan, or Somalia or Yemen, or any of these places.
Armed drones have become Barack Obama's way to engage in terrorist-infested hellholes without putting 'boots on the ground.' For years, the CIA has been running a secrecy-shrouded program of targeted killings in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, and more recently in Somalia, Syria and Iraq.
We understand that ISIS is a group that's growing in its governance of territory. It's not just Iraq and Syria. They are now a predominant group in Libya. They are beginning to pop up in Afghanistan. They are increasingly involved now in attacks in Yemen. They have Jordan in their sights. This group needs to be confronted with serious proposals.
I don't want to be president. Like, "Today your job is Libya, Japan, unemployment, the government shutdown - oh, and by the way, Yemen, Syria and Jordan. That's your job today. And you'd better get it right."
Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan). In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO. It is unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt.
China has been trading technology and systems with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, North Korea now for years and years. Indigenously? No they're not going to have one. But they're getting dangerously close to having one. We can all have reason to suspect. Why would they not if they're trading with these countries?
I think no country is going to be immune from the Arab awakening because the Arab awakening is driven by deep human longing for dignity, for justice and for freedom. I think that applies to young people in Saudi Arabia as much as to young people in Egypt, Tunisia, or Yemen, or Libya, or Syria. If I were in Saudi Arabia, I would be getting ahead of this and looking for ways to appreciate those aspirations and align my country with them.
Even as we implement the nuclear deal and welcome our Americans home, we recognize that there remain about differences between the United States and Iran. We remain steadfast in opposing Iran's destabilizing behavior elsewhere, including its against Israel and our Gulf partners and its support for violent proxies in places like Syria and Yemen.
I think there are hard-liners inside of Iran that think it is the right thing to do to oppose us, to seek to destroy Israel, to cause havoc in places like Syria or Yemen or Lebanon, if they don't change at all, we're still better off having the deal.
I do not think Syria can achieve international recognition in the future - even if they work through a successful political process, you know, the international community simply is not going to accept a Syria led by the Assad regime.
I dream about going back, but I know that it isn't easy. Thirty years of being in Europe has changed my life. I am not the Kurd from Syria anymore as I was before. Kurdistani Syria developed somewhere, and I developed elsewhere. I think we will not find each other easily again. If I go back I will be a foreigner in my own country now. But of course it remains a dream to make another movie in Syria, and I am waiting for that opportunity.
Look what's going on: the Iranians are spreading military capabilities throughout the region; look what's going on in Yemen, Hizbollah, their cooperation with Assad, terror activities the world over, undermining regimes and states.
I've also worked with various producers and artists around the world, which has helped with my international recognition. We've sold a lot of albums online in places like Norway and France. Sometimes we track my hits online daily and we are getting regular hits from people all over the place.
There are contradictory tendencies in American society. There's a huge range of activities that one can engage in that mark it as a quite free society. It's also true to say that the powers that be have so much control over how people think that there are fewer and fewer people who make use of the rights and information available to them.