Mishal Husain: But the risk they're taking is the perception from their voters that all of this is going to take time. And they're taking the risk of their electorates possibly getting really frustrated with them.
Susan Rice: They are, but I don't think that's an immediate-term risk. It's a medium-term risk. And it's not just true about black economic empowerment, it's about the whole economic growth strategy, which is laudable and responsible and wise, on the whole. It's trying to balance providing for the basic needs of the South African people -- on the one hand, houses, electricity, water -- and, at the same time, creating a fiscal environment and a macroeconomic environment that will attack investment and trade and the things they need to grow the economy over the long term.
Mishal Husain: When we talk about U.S. policy toward the continent of Africa, is security now the overarching policy imperative?
Susan Rice: Well, security is obviously an overarching policy imperative for the United States globally and that includes Africa. I don't want to pretend that it's now suddenly an imperative and it wasn't before. It had always been. And, frankly, we faced significant security concerns and security threats in Africa long before 9/11. People tend to forget that it was in Africa, in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, where we had the greatest and most devastating al Qaeda attacks of any place prior to 9/11. This is when our embassies were bombed very tragically. And Americans were killed and Africans were killed and maimed in huge numbers. We face a global terrorist threat. A global security threat. It is real and present in Africa and in South Africa, as it is in other parts of the world. And we need to be cognizant of that and we need to pursue policies that recognize it. But you can't just pursue a security agenda in isolation. It's part of a larger whole. We need to work with governments and organizations in Africa to secure the borders, to know who's coming in and out. We need to share intelligence and work together to go after terrorist cells where they exist. And they do exist in Africa and they exist in particular in South Africa. We need to cooperate and coordinate so that we have an effective counter terrorism partnership as well as capacity among local authorities to work with us. That's one piece of the puzzle. But we also need to deal with the issues that contribute to terrorist presence and terrorist breeding. Where you have failed states, conflict zones, areas that are completely off limits to responsible authorities -- whether we're talking about Liberia or Congo or Somalia or Sudan -- that is a serious problem from a security point of view for the United States and for the countries in the neighborhood. When you have poverty, tremendous economic inequality, when you have young people coming out of school with no hope of jobs, no hope of a future, it's very hard for them to resist the temptation to become radicalized, to turn against their government, to turn against the United States that's viewed as the architect of globalization. So all of these are part of a larger whole that we need to deal with in our security interests.
Mishal Husain: What are things that concretely the United States can do to help governments that are trying to pursue programs that would lead to these kinds of basic stable economies, stable functioning states?
Susan Rice: Well, there's two sets of things the United States has to do. We have to help countries around the world and in Africa to build their own capacity to cooperate with us on terrorism. They need homeland security assistance just as we need to be investing more here in homeland security. And if they don't get it right at the end of the day it affects us as well. That's one piece. The other is the economic growth and development side of the equation and the social side of the equation. And that's why the whole set of instruments that we have to encourage growth and development are so important. It's why it matters that we invest in foreign assistance and do it right. The American people think on average, quoting the polls, we spend 10 to 15 percent of our annual federal budget on foreign assistance. The truth is we spend far less than 1 percent. And that is not enough if we're serious about helping people develop small- and medium-sized businesses deal with the health threats they face, etc. That's one thing. Opening up markets further to goods and services from the developing world. Letting people grow through trade and investment. Dealing with agricultural subsidies, which keep small farmers in so many developing parts of the world, especially in Africa, down. Looking seriously at debt relief. Participating in peacekeeping and conflict resolution so that we take failed states out of the area of operation for potential terrorists. There is a wide wrath of things that we need to do: economic policy, social policy, investing in health. The president's HIV/AIDS initiative is, in part, a good thing because it recognizes that HIV/AIDS is, as the previous administration said, does pose a security threat to the United States and we do need to invest in it far more substantially. So the health side of the agenda is very important too. And then, of course, encouraging, supporting, sustaining the spread of democracy is also important. All of those things have to be part of a comprehensive strategy.
Mishal Husain: This is a film that's made almost 10 years after the end of the apartheid. In a sense, it's a report card on the progress that South Africa's made in that time. You've been involved with Africa for so long. You know South Africa. What do you think are the biggest challenges for the next 10 years for the country?
Susan Rice: For South Africa. Well, I think it's many of the things we've been talking about. It's being able to sustain the political miracle of democratization and racial reconciliation through enhanced progress on the economic and social agenda. The South African government has got to tackle far more aggressively the HIV/AIDS pandemic, otherwise everything else it does will be for not. It's got to continue to maintain the sort of rational, responsible fiscal and macroeconomic policies that it has, while, at the same time, investing all that it possibly can -- as it frankly has been doing -- in basic human needs: education, electricity, housing, water, that sort of thing which is a ticking time bomb. And it's got to pursue the black economic empowerment agenda in an effective fashion. And it's got to strike this balance between moving fast enough to achieve meaningful results for the average citizen and not so fast that it blows up the sources of capital that it needs from aboard and domestically to grow the economy. So it's a huge set of challenges, but it's not impossible. And were it not for what I believe to be the big F on the report card, which is dealing with HIV/AIDS, the rest of the report card is actually, I would say, more As and Bs than Cs and Ds.
Mishal Husain: The challenges, though, do you think, are they bigger than the ones of the last 10 years?
Susan Rice: Only because the clock is ticking and time is moving on. They're the same challenges, but the longer South Africa goes without the benefits of democratization reaching the vast majority of the citizenry on an economic level the more fragile and potentially unsustainable that democracy is. And that would be a tragedy not only for the people of South Africa who have suffered so long and for Africa as a continent, I believe it would be a profound tragedy for the United States and the international community. Given our history and given our own struggles with racism and prejudice and slavery, South Africa represents for all of us a hope that one can move beyond that past, that one can reconcile no matter how horrific the abuse is of the apartheid regime, and achieve democracy that's sustainable. I think that matters a great deal to us as citizens of the world and to us in particular as Americans.
Mishal Husain: Susan Rice, thanks very much for joining us on Wide Angle.
Susan Rice: Thank you for having me.
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