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GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
GLENN: Back with
Jared Cohen. The name of the book is children of jihad. I've
got to tell you, I don't think I've ever felt better, I tell
you what.
Stu, besides the unleash women, what have I said since the
beginning that is the key to understanding radicalism in the
Middle East, the key to understanding everything that's
going on in the Middle East? What is the one word that
describes all of it that if you don't understand this, you
don't understand anything?
STU: Humiliation.
GLENN: No, the reason why I want to point that out is
because you went to where? Oxford and -- I never went to
college and I got that. I just, I feel better. I feel
better.
STU: He did do it, what, 18 years faster than you.
GLENN: Okay, all right, let's not dwell on that.
COHEN: Young people in the Middle East, I'm really delighted
to hear you say that. Young people in the middle east need
satisfaction on two realms, in the education realm and they
need satisfaction in the social realm. If you go to the
Middle East, the public schools are a disaster and there's
nothing for these kids to do opt street. They already are
being socialized in a society where they are not satisfied
in either of those realms. So almost every young person with
the exception of the elite is already wandering around
looking for educational opportunities and looking for social
and recreational opportunities. Why does a young kid's
parents send them to a religious medrosa? Not because they
are fanatical necessarily. They teach, it's a safe
environment. Even though they are just memorizing the
Qur'an, it will bring them status as opposed to going to an
empty classroom and having no meal. In the recreational
realm, you know, a lot of these extremist -- and what's
Al-Qaeda's youth strategy? They offer young people an outlet
for adventure, a sense of belonging, a heroic aftermath and
ultimate an expensive field trip. Hezbollah's no different.
Why are the majority of these young kids protesting in
downtown Beirut right now even though they are not blowing
themselves up is because they have never been to Beirut
before.
GLENN: So what is your solution here?
COHEN: For me the solution isn't necessarily to try and win
hearts and minds. The solution is if you look at these young
people desiring educational opportunities and social
recreational opportunities, it's not so much about winning
hearts and minds as much as it is diverting these
impressionable young people away from the recruitment
process into the alternatives that they desire.
GLENN: Okay. But the State Department just -- and this is
such a -- this is mind boggling to me. The State Department,
we had, you know, money being funneled over to, you know,
democracy groups and money being funneled to people who want
freedom in Iran. We cut that. I mean, we're being left with
very few options here. In Iran in particular, we've got to
help people stand up for themselves and foster this and yet
our own State Department doesn't want to do it anymore.
COHEN: The politics of there are very complex. I mean,
there's a lot of diversity of opinion in terms of what money
should or should not be spent towards promoting democracy in
Iran and how it should be done. The one thing I can tell
you, if you look at the Middle East and people often say to
pee young people in that world don't want democracy and I
often push back and say that's garbage. If you want to know
if young people buy into democracy, go sit with them in an
Internet cafe. They are online. They are using false
identities and finding all kinds of creative ways to
circumvent their regimes and circumvent their parents and
circumvent their societies so they can express themselves.
The number one television show in the middle East is not
Al-Jazeera, it's star academy and the biggest customers are
Saudi. They like it because they can call in and text in and
generate their own media. What these young kids don't buy
into is the word democracy, how it's been translated to them
and what it's been associated with. But if you talk to them
about all the different components of democracy, if you talk
to them about how they are actually practicing --
GLENN: I get this and I think most people do. What's
happening to us is we're being pushed into a corner. I think
bombing Iran the worst thing we could possibly do. The
people of Iran are just like us. How do we encourage them to
do what we can't do and that's topple their regime? What
should we do?
COHEN: I'll tell you the biggest problem in Iran right now
is that young people there can tell you exactly what kind of
society they don't want, they can tell you exactly what kind
of society they do want. These young Iranians cannot tell
you for the life of them who they want to lead them. They
cannot find a single leader to gravitate around and so
without a leader to mobilize them, they are not going to go
to this. That's part of it. They are also terrified as a
legacy of the student riots and what happened in 1999 but
also a lot of them have lost confidence in the reform
movement. So if they go to the streets and risk getting
arrested or detained, who in the government are they
actually trying to influence? They don't feel like they have
an advocate in the establishment right now.
Now, I believe that the next leader of Iran is going to come
from this youth generation. We don't know who it is. So the
most important thing is to keep these young kids wanting to
resist and right now a lot of these young people are
resisting socially and recreationally. It sometimes filters
over into political resistance but what they are doing
socially and recreationally is inherently political.
GLENN: Give me one thing because we've got to run here. But
give me one part that I find fascinating. Tell the nose job
story.
COHEN: Well, it's funny. I was driving with an Iranian girl
that I had met in one of the Iranian cities and we were on
one of these late night streets where young kids are drag
racing and on roofs of cars, you know, drinking and flirting
with each other and I kept seeing girls with bandages on
their noses. Literally everywhere I turn. And I said to her,
does everybody in this country get a nose job? And she looks
at me and said, oh, those are fake. I said, of course it's
fake. Why do you think I'm asking, does everybody get a nose
job. And she said to me, no, what I mean is if 20 girls have
bandages, 19 of them are fake because they do it for status
and prestige.
GLENN: They're getting -- so it's like selling bandages as a
status symbol?
COHEN: Yeah, precisely.
GLENN: That's insanity. You tell me that they're not like
us. I mean, except we would have a little polo pony on.
COHEN: I would love to just throw one more thing in about
the nuclear issue, if I may.
GLENN: Yeah.
COHEN: Iranians support, overwhelmingly support the nuclear
program in that country not because they support the regime
but because they support Iraq. They lump weapons and energy
together in the same category of advancement. Now, the
advantage we have with young Iranians and the nuclear
program is that while it's a priority to them, it's not as
much a priority as the bad economy, the pollution, the
crime, the lack of help, the taxes they are not supposed to
have to pay but they do have to pay. And so the strategy,
you know, to get these young Iranians, it's not to get them
to abandon their support for the nuclear program. It's to
get them to focus on hire priorities and what these Iranian
young people haven't been shown is the opportunity cost of
the nuclear program. They haven't been shown, here's what
you're not getting because your regime is supporting a very,
very expensive nuclear program that's driving your country
into isolation.
GLENN: All right. Well, a fascinating read, children of
jihad. Jared Cohen, thank you very much. And are you going
back?
COHEN: To Iran?
GLENN: Yeah.
COHEN: No, I'm actually banned for life. So I don't think I
can --
GLENN: Banned from?
COHEN: The irony is I end up getting trouble in all these
countries. I was getting threatened by Hezbollah, so I had
to leave. I was picked up by Syrian intelligence and I
wasn't allowed back into Iran afterwards.
GLENN: And so Hezbollah threatened you?
COHEN: By text message.
GLENN: In the McDonald's? Outside the McDonald's? Good,
good. All right, thanks a lot. You bet.
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