 Good morning, everyone. Morning. Welcome to Norwich University. Thank you so much for participating in Norwich University's Fourth Peace and Waste Summit in person or virtually. My name is Yang Mokoo. I am Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director for Peace and Waste Center at Norwich University. I am so thankful to have this great opportunity to serve as Executive Director for this year's Middle East Summit. Yesterday, two keynote speakers and nine scholars and policy experts and two Norwich University students and two Dartmouth College students, they shared their unique insights about how to address so many difficult and entangled problems in the Middle Eastern region and the global community. So this morning, we will have two roundtable discussions. The first session will examine the complexity of the Middle Eastern politics and society. And the second one, we'll look into Western strategy toward the Middle Eastern region. Right now, I'm going to introduce a great scholar and professor, Dr. Roly Brooken, in the Department of History and Political Science at Norwich University. We'll lead this first roundtable discussion. Now, I turn it over to Dr. Brooken. Thank you. Thank you very much, Yang Mo. I wonder if we could give Yang Mo Dr. Koo a round of applause for his organization of this and the other panel. The title of this panel is Complexities in Middle Eastern Politics and Business Consultant and Vermonter Tom Peters wrote, quote, If you're not confused, you're not paying attention, unquote. And so I hope this panel, nonetheless, will leave you with better ideas, at least of what to see as complex and better questions to ask as you look at events in the contemporary Middle East. Let me introduce the panelists, and then I'll tell you what we're going to do for the next time period until 1040, 1040. Starting on the end, Said Gokar is a UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of Political... Oh, oh, oh. See, I can't see the name plate, so thank you, thank you. Yeah, if you could raise your hands when I introduce you just to make sure. Is UC Foundation Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga? He's also a non-resident senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in the United Kingdom. Gokar is the author of a book on the Basij, the paramilitary militia of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Richard Moss is associate professor in the Russian Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College's Center for Naval Warfare Studies. His current research projects focus on maritime dimension of Russia's Syrian intervention. He also specializes in US-Soviet relationship during the Cold War and as an expert on the Nixon Presidential Recordings. Professor Moss previously served as a government and contract military capabilities analyst with the Department of Defense and as a historian with the Department of State. The University Press of Kentucky published his book, quote, Nixon's Back Channel to Moscow, Confidential Diplomacy and Detente in January 2017. Dr. Guy Ziv on the end is associate professor at American University School of International Service where he teaches courses on US foreign policy, international negotiations, US-Israel relations and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. His current research project focuses on civil military relations in Israel. Dr. Ziv is a background in policy having worked on Capitol Hill and for Israel Policy Forum, a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that promotes American efforts aimed at resolving the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Dr. Diane Zuri is associate professor of security studies at the Naval Defense College of the United Arab Emirates. She also serves as a non-resident senior fellow and presidential advisory board member at Joint Special Operations University on McGill Air Force Base, Florida. Dr. Zuri earned her PhD in political science from George Mason University in 2015. Her dissertation focused on Iraqi political alignments and alliances after the fall of the Bath Party. Today, her major research interests are Gulf politics, US foreign policy, defense strategy and maritime cybersecurity. Prior to her work in academia, Dr. Zuri served as officer in the United States Air Force and worked in the aerospace and defense industry. She is also a 2001 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a 2006 graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Can we give a round of applause for our panelists? So I'd like, thank you. I'd like to start the discussion with a couple questions that I've prepared and then we will open the floor to questions from you all. We have microphones at both sides of the auditorium. First question, let's talk about Israel. Under the new Israeli government, under Benjamin Netanyahu is arguably the most extreme right-wing administration in that nation's history. Thomas Friedman has recently stated in the New York Times, quote, Israel today is a boiler with way, way, way too much steam building up inside and the bolts are about to fly off in all directions, unquote. How might the Israeli government's policies on settlements, judicial reform and the treatment of its Arab citizens cause internal and regional unrest in the near future? Hey, first of all, good morning, everybody. Can anybody hear me? This is working properly, great. So let me just start out by saying that when it comes to what we're seeing right now in Israel and if you've been watching the news, you've seen the demonstrations, this is very unusual. And the reason it's unusual is because Netanyahu is this is not his first rodeo. He's been, he's the longest serving prime minister in Israel's history. He's had many, many governments since the nineties, but this time things are different. And one of the reasons things are different is because a lot of Israelis who are not necessarily affiliated with the other side who might even be, who might have even voted for Netanyahu or for his Likud party feel that this particular government is has taken things a little bit too far. And more specifically, the kind of legal overhaul that this government is trying to instill is really gutting the courts and weakening the Supreme Court to the point where they feel like their democracy is threatened. Now, keep in mind, there are a lot of criticisms of Israeli democracy given the occupation of the West Bank and a lot of people find Israel's democracy to be flawed. And despite the fact that it is somewhat flawed, it is a democracy nonetheless and one that Israelis are reluctant to give up. And so what we've seen since the formation of this new government in late December is weekly demonstrations. And not only have the demonstrations not died out, we have seen more and more people joining the demonstrations. The momentum couldn't be stronger at this point as the government kind of digs in and is trying to pass these so-called reforms that, as I said, are really aimed at weakening the courts. And so the reason this is important is a lot of minorities, whether it's the Arab Israeli minority or the LGBT community or others who are not necessarily going to be safeguarded by the policies of this kind of far-right religious government, they need the court to stand up for them. And the court doesn't always do that, but it does more often than not. And so this is really kind of a test of where things are gonna head in terms of Israeli democracy. Now, one of the items on this government's agenda is not just the expansion of settlements, but ideally from the perspective of some of the senior ministers, annexation of at least parts of the West Bank, which would really make things life even more difficult for Netanyahu should they pursue those policies as well, given the Abraham Accords. And the Abraham Accords are seen as Netanyahu's baby. He facilitated these kinds of relationships. The Trump administration, of course, was able to kind of seal the deal with some of these countries, the UAE and Bahrain and others. But these very countries have also made it clear that annexation is not something that they're interested in seeing. They wanna see progress in the Palestinian front. This government has no intention of pursuing that track. And so things could be coming to a collision course very soon, even with the friendlier countries in the region. But for now, the number one issue that is dominating the Israeli political scene is the so-called legal overhaul and even the Biden administration, which was initially reluctant to weigh in on what is seen as kind of a domestic internal Israeli political dynamic is now increasingly vocal about its concerns over Israel's democratic future with President Biden having reminded Netanyahu on a phone call the other day that we share these kind of common values and one of those common values is like democracies, basically. And so this is kind of the current dynamic and we don't know what's going to happen. It's too early to tell whether the government is gonna fold, whether there'll be some compromises. There have been initial attempts to demonstrate that the government is willing to kind of tone down some of the pieces of legislation, but the demonstrators remain undeterred and unconvinced that it's sufficient. I actually want to talk about a regional impact of the Netanyahu new administration. If you think about it, Netanyahu has been labeled or is as one of the right conservative Israeli politician that has a very aggressive foreign policy regarding to Iran. Under the Netanyahu, as I said, we witnessed the Abraham Accord agreement between Bahrain, between UAE and Israel and is continuing to the Sudan and other countries. And it started to isolate Iran more and more. Since Iran, nuclear program are developing right now 80, 40% of uranium enrichment, the Iranian was very concerned about the new administration. You know, if you follow the news about the Middle East, you have written about the Saudi Iran deal broken by the China. In my humble opinion, I think actually one of the reasons that the Iranian and especially Iranian came to this conclusion that after two years talking with the Saudis, time to sit down and assign the agreement was the possibility of Netanyahu administration attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. The Iranian came to this conclusion that it's better to reduce the tension, the regional tension between the Saudi and between the UAE and Bahraini and just focus on Israeli. If Israel attack nuclear facilities of Iran, we have only one enemy that we have to focus. This is, you know, you can find it in history of Iranian foreign policies. If you have two enemy, three enemy, try to, you know, tactically come with the agreement with one of them and focus on the most important one. Another thing that is happening right now and guys talk about it, you know, this protest in Israel, if it continues, you know, you can imagine two scenarios. Netanyahu will create a regional or external, you know, issue to distract this Israeli, you know, public opinion. So the possibility of again attacking Iran is increasing. And if the Israeli will, the Israel as a country because of this protest is sort of weakened, it will provide opportunities for the Iranian proxy like Hezbollah, for example, or Hamas or a Palestinian Islamic jihad that try to expand their territories and undermine the Israeli as a state more and more. So if I want to summarize that, you know, we will, you know, in my opinion, we will see the possibilities of the regional conflict on unfortunately is increasing in any case scenario that you're thinking about. Yeah, so yeah, there's definitely been an uptick in far right rhetoric amongst the Israeli population and even very far right rhetoric that's anti-Palestinian coming out of government officials. So that's of concern, especially to the Arab States and the region who have brokered deals with the Israelis and they're very pragmatic deals. So the focus is on economics and on collaboration and on a way forward. But these deals are brokered at the very highest levels of the society, the elite. Underneath the elite, you have all the constituent citizens, many of whom are very, very passionate about the Palestinian cause, regardless of what the government has brokered. So it's very heartbreaking for many of the constituents within the other Arab countries to see what's happening to the Palestinian people. A lot of them are very pragmatic about it. They understand that to help Palestinians maybe the best way is to go through Israel. But when they see the far right rhetoric now and I quote people saying things like the Palestinians don't exist, this is very heartbreaking. So I don't expect the Abraham Accords to fall apart unless there's something extraordinary that happens, but I definitely don't see progress for instance with Saudi Arabia, for instance, brokering a deal like the Abraham Accords with Israel, which is the hope of the region is that Saudi Arabia normalizes relationships with Israel. But that's probably not going to happen so long as there's this far right rhetoric coming out of the Israelis. It's going to take some time. So I don't see anything going forward. I see it on pause until this is settled. But what you really have in the Middle East, I imagine a triangle where you have Iran, you have Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent maybe the other Arab states in the region and then you got Israel. And they each have different goals and when one pushes too hard the other two will align to balance that like you see with Saudi Arabia and Iran just recently balancing Israel. So it's a signal to Israel, all right? So you'll see a lot of this going on and there's a lot of friction in the system. There's a lot of hateful rhetoric and I foresee the Arab states hedging and just waiting to see what happens. From a Russia angle there's not much to discuss on that except maybe the kind of tacit agreement that the Russians have with the Israelis. The Israelis can strike Hezbollah or Iranian targets inside of Syria if they give the Russians kind of advance warning and don't necessarily target Russian held areas or where the Russians are operating. That kind of tacit agreement has gone back probably decades in the sense and has continued with some ups and downs over the last few years and during the Syrians of war. The Syrians shot down a Russian IL-20, one of their aircraft after the Israelis did a raid on Northern Syria and the Syrians were confused because it was the same attack angle. So there are definitely risks involved and there's always potential for crises but again that kind of tacit agreement that may be going on is I think that what Russia is looking for from the new Netanyahu government and it's kind of, it's entirely separate from domestic protests. It's separate from domestic Israeli politics as well. May I add something else? Yes. I want to actually, for the students especially, to think about the rise of religious extremism everywhere around the world. From India, Hindu nationalism, even in a monk of the Buddha, Buddhist in Myanmar that they are involved in genocide against Muslim to South America, Brazil, Bolsano, and Yoruba and Jalica in the United States. In Middle East, it seems from 1917, gradually we are witnessing the rise of religious extremism everywhere. You know, if you're familiar with the Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, who believed that the God died in 90th century Europe, the God is there. And for about 50, 60 years, the social scientists believed that the secularization is the destiny of all of the countries and all of the societies. Gradually they will be modernized and gradually they will be secular. But from 1917, something happened. In the Middle East, we are witnessing the rise of the Islamist radicalism, mostly because of the defeat of the Arab countries of Israel and the humiliation they went through it. But even in the United States, Jimmy Carter was the first president who bring their religion back to the politics. Climb that I'm a faithful man. And from Jimmy Carter, you are witnessing this rise of, the importance of the religion in politics became important in the United States. So it's not only, this is a trend, everywhere is happening. God is coming back to take revenge. I'm making a joke. But you will see it and you will see much more from this rhetoric, from the Israeli rise, religious, the more playing rule by the Haredi, by the Orthodox, by the conservative, to the Middle East, Sunni, Shia, to the Indian, to the Buddhist, to the Christian. If you think about it, even in Russia since 2008, the Orthodox Christianity is coming back and you know, I like with the Putin, they are trying to frame even Ukraine war as a war of the Orthodox Christianity versus, you know, the Western liberal idea. Although we know that the Ukraine is also part of the Orthodox Christianity and the Kyiv is one of the most important center. But they are framing it, that, you know, our religious values are under attack. So maybe you're asking yourself, why we are witnessing a religious extremism everywhere from Israel to democracy like United States or India? I was thinking about it, and I think it's related to the economic hardship. From 1917 again, you have a trend of new liberalism that gradually spread out through the whole world. And through that, you know, the life hold of the people everywhere get worse and worse and worse, you know. You can talk about it. This hopelessness of the people, you know, find opportunities for the religious organization or religious group to bring the idea that the God will give you the peace. And people are becoming poor, becoming more religious, you know, that's one explanation. The clash of civilization by Samuel Heintrich is another explanation that the identity became important day by day because of the globalization. But please think about it. Why, you know, all of this extremism, religious extremism are increasing. And when we talk about Israel, Iran, Saudi, even Russia, you can see the politics through this framework of the religion and politics. Thank you very much. Let me turn our attention to what Dr. Zori identified as one of the other triangle, the other eye country, Iran, and ask a question about Iran. For those of you who've been following the news to the extent that reports can get out from Iran, there's been a revolt against Islamic law and economic stagnation by younger men and women, folks your age and older. And the harsh response by the government, which has been brought to the world's attention, largely by social media, with more than half of Iran's population being under the age of 35 and thus having no direct knowledge of the 1979 revolution, this could be an existential threat to the current Iranian government. Do you see the protests as gaining in legitimacy and power within Iran and separate from that, is there the possibility of an Iranian spring happening within Iran and its immediate neighbors as a result of these protests? So I can start with that one. Anytime you see a revolution, there are actually stages to revolutions and there's a deep literature on this, if you're interested. But typically after a revolution, there is a power vacuum and this happens everywhere that there's a revolution because once an old regime goes away, you're left with sort of nothing to maintain that state. So imagine for instance, you take out the government here, you take out the leadership, you take out the police, so there's a power vacuum. And the question is what fills that power vacuum if there was to be a revolution in Iran? And we don't necessarily know, we've seen other places where the revolutions and we were very hopeful that it would be a revolution to democracy, but instead it was a revolution to something else that was counter to US interest or maybe it was worse in our imagination for the people that were in that place. So we don't know what would come after but I'll point your attention to one group that really hopes to take control and I'm not sure if that would be the best for the Iranian people, but there's a group called Mujahedin Al-Kalq, M-E-K. And this is quite a fascinating group. They were actually housed a victory base in Iraq for a while. They were kicked out of Iran. They were actually considered a terrorist. They were on the US list of terrorist organizations. They were actually taken off but they're an opposition group to the government in Iran but they were ousted. And so a lot of them now are in Paris and they're in the United States and Senator John McCain while he was still alive was a really big supporter of M-E-K. He saw them as having a lot of potential for going back to Iran because when a regime goes away you need a capable entity to run a state and they presented themselves as a sort of Western aligned alternative that we could fund. And this is something the United States does. They fund opposition groups in exile. Now I'll tell you this, there's a big problem with that. You might end up with a Franken state. That's what I call it. I'm borrowing from the literature but imagine you take the head off of a state and then you put a new head on. Sometimes that doesn't work either. So I don't think that, it's hard to predict the future. I have no idea what's gonna happen in Iran. I think there's sort of the possibility there could be a revolution but you wanna keep your eye on it. Look for that power vacuum. Look for what replaces the people and be wary of any sort of attempt to create a Franken state. Okay, I continue. A few things actually. You know, you talk about the guy, you talk about Israel, Iran is the second country. Again, for the students, if you want to understand Middle East, I really recommend to focus on four countries. Iran, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The four big player in the region. And there are differences but they are very important player. The second thing is about the concept of the label of the spring. Unfortunately, Arab spring was labeled, we gave it to the Arab movement, to the mass protest started in 2011 in Tunisia and spread out to the Egypt and later on to Yemen and Syria. And after 10 years, the Tunisia was the only country that transit from authoritarianism to some kind of the democracy, some kind of the fallout democracy. From 2009, this trend, this process completely reversed and right not to Asia, is authoritarian regime under a personalistic leader, a president that, so it was an Arab, actually, winter and not the spring. But the concept of a spring is beautiful. You know, there is something about it. Is it 2022 a mass protest is Iranian spring? And we talked a little bit yesterday but some of you are new. So I have to say, first, Iran is a revolutionary country, the country that some scholar labeled as a movement societies. It's a very shaky society in terms that there have been a lot of protests and revolution and revolt in the modern history of Iran. In 20th century, there are only two countries in the world that seen too big revolution. Russia, 1905, 1917, and Iran, 1905 constitutional revolution and 1979 Iranian revolution. This Iranian society has seen much more revolt and protest compared to the other societies in the South America and East Asia. So it's a very movement societies. It's very difficult to control it. It's like a wild horse. And the Islamic Republic tried to control that. Every time people find opportunities, they are coming and protesting. This is the last round that started from September. It's going on. Yesterday was an Iranian new year and for the first time after 44 years, at the time of the new year started, Iranian start to protest, chanting a slogan against Ayatollah Khomeini. We've never seen that. So the movement still is alive. It just needs to find the time. Why the movement is not able to change the regime is because of the massive security forces. We have more than 17 security forces from the militia called the Basij to the national police that is not really police, it's more security forces and the Revolutionary Guard, IRGC. and a lot of militia and paramilitary organization. Islamic Republic, in my opinion, has lost is, you know, every political system is based on mainly three pillars. Legitimacy, the ability to deliver and co-opt people and preparation. Islamic Republic has lost the legitimacy completely. They are not able is, again, we talk about the demification of a state. It's a very incompetent political system and the only thing that they are focusing right now is the security force. As long as the security force are behind Ayatollah Khomeini, the possibility of, you know, transforming this revolt to revolution is very, very difficult. But if the Ayatollah Khomeini pass away immediately or suddenly, yes, there is a possibility. Of course, we have to think about international context. Russia and China, we are going to talk about China later on, but Russia and China are supporting Islamic Republic, as Iran supporting the Bashar al-Assad. The last thing that I want to say, Zori, talk about M.E.K. M.E.K. is opposition to the Islamic Republic is the only organized military-trained opposition to the Islamic Republic. During the Iran-Iraq war, M.E.K. collaborated with Iraq against Iran, against the Iranians. And then, you know, they actually get involved in a lot of terrorist act. The United States labeled them as, put them as a terrorist organization for about 12 years. Right now, they are not terrorist organization. But M.E.K. has two problems. First, M.E.K. is a cult. Has all of the characteristics of a cult? There is a leader, have been appointed after he passed away, his wife, and they indoctrinate people as a cult. If you read the story about M.E.K. and how they are organizing their institution, you will be shocked. So first, the second, M.E.K. has a Islamic leftist ideology. You know, we talk about the Islamism as a political movement. Most of the Islamist movement are the right wing, are the conservative. There are some leftists, and M.E.K. is one of them. They are a combination, their ideology of Islamism and the leftism. And in my opinion, both of these ideologies is very dangerous, and if you put it together, you create something else. The third problem with M.E.K. is a very unpopular among of the Iranian. Inside of the country, there is very difficult you find somebody who support them. They don't have any social base inside the country. So in my opinion, even, I know why the United States are supporting M.E.K. They want to undermine the regime, but they don't have a chance to consolidate power, to take a power. If you compared in 1979 when Khomeini came to the power, you will realize Khomeini was first very popular. He was a Grand Ayatollah. He has a network of the mosque and the clergy and was able to mobilize it. M.E.K. doesn't have anything. M.E.K. has a small core military-trained group with a very dangerous ideology. So my advice is, you know, use them, but don't invest on them. I just thought maybe I would add a few comments from a U.S. foreign policy angle because that might be of interest to some of you who were too young when the Arab Spring occurred, but the Obama administration was caught off guard. You had these young revolutionary leaders in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East who were looking for U.S. support for their anti-authoritarian protests. And then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were caught off guard, and only when it became crystal clear that Ben Ali was on his way out from Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak was on his way out from Egypt, did they call, did President Obama call for an orderly and peaceful transition? And so what he was facing with here was kind of a balancing act, balancing our interests and our values. And that was kind of a key overarching theme, I think, in terms of the U.S. response to the very unexpected Arab Spring that many of us now refer to as the Arab Awakening. Given that that spring turned into a winner very quickly. What's interesting though is a lot of those revolutionary leaders were disappointed with how late we were in the game to call for that transition to power because from a purely U.S. foreign policy interest perspective we had dealt very intensively with Ben Ali of Tunisia for decades and Mubarak and other kind of authoritarian leaders. Mubarak was a regular guest at the White House for decades. And these were leaders who were seen as moderate, who were helping us in our so-called war on terror. And yet now we were asked to support the very people who were trying to overthrow our allies. And so that's just one kind of interesting perspective. You get a very different perspective from Israeli politicians back then who were criticizing the Obama administration from the opposite angle. Not for stepping in too late, but for abandoning as the Israeli side long time U.S. allies. And they were concerned that if the Obama administration was so quick to abandon Mubarak and Ben Ali and others, maybe he would do that with other allies as well. So very, very different kinds of political reactions to the Arab Spring back then. But focusing on what's happening in Iran today, I think you can look at kind of the United States foreign policy toolkit as having many, many different options. I mean, we've engaged in regime change very aggressively in the past. We talked about that yesterday. And so you have kind of a range of options from military intervention to funding opposition groups, providing logistical support to opposition groups to strengthen the economic sanctions, and then of course, doing nothing. And every single one of these options, and there are others that I haven't mentioned, has consequences. And so one of the even doing nothing has consequences. And so just something to think about when you're trying to kind of analyze this from a U.S. foreign policy standpoint and trying to think of what the United States can and should be doing, every single one of these options has potentially very consequential ramifications. Can I add something? Sorry. Let me ask, did you want to? Richard, please go ahead. Look at from the Russian perspective, what Guy was just describing as the contradiction between American principles and American interests. The Russians have highlighted this and consistently in their messaging for a lot longer than since the Arab Awakening or Arab Spring. The U.S. in Russia's view tries to sponsor what Russia calls color revolutions. You saw color revolutions in Ukraine that resulted in the ouster of a Russia friendly government. You saw the ouster in Lebanon of government and the Cedar Revolution. You saw these other aspects. And Russia views it as the United States meddling in the affairs of other countries. And sponsoring these color revolutions. So Russia then contrasts and says that it stands against these color revolutions and this meddling by the United States and it is in favor of a multi-polar world and that they try to support allies unlike the United States like with Mubarak, for example. Having the U.S. seen or being portrayed as having abandoned Mubarak or the Obama administration. Russia then contrasts it and uses it as justification when they intervene in Syria to bolster their longstanding ally. Though Russia's role in that, they do plenty of meddling on their own as we all know. And a lot of the justifications are kind of circular logic. Like if you look at the Ukraine example. One of the reasons they went to war last year against Ukraine is because they claim that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate. It was a coup that overthrew legitimate government of Ukraine of Viktor Yanukovych who is now living in Russia, incidentally. And they claim that there's not been a legitimate government since 2014 in Ukraine despite elections being held and accepted under international monitoring. But again, it's a question of Russia portraying itself. And as for Iran, I think Russia will continue to go to the hilt to back Iran. And I think they are very grateful for Iranian support, things like suicide kamikaze drones that they've been buying from Iran and using in Ukraine as they've depleted their stockpiles with their own precision strike munitions. And Russia will encourage the regime that the only way that the regime fails in Iran is if there's a relaxation of repression. Russia doesn't have any qualms about supporting repression. So again, they will fully back the Islamic regime in Iran to try to prevent regime change or whatnot. Also an important reminder from the 1979 revolution in Iran. Homedi was not even in Iran at the start of the revolution and the protests had been going and building steam for months and months and months. I think they started in 1977. 1977. Yeah, they started in 1977. You didn't actually have the overthrow of the Shah until 1979. It was seen as the relaxation of repression and the Islamic regime because of Homedi's popularity and clerical base, he was able to kind of co-opt what had been started by a wide variety of youth. So we still have the youth factor involved in Iran. It's a very young population, but again, from the Russian perspective, they will back that regime and will discourage them from any relaxation of repression. I don't know how that ends up. No, I want to add a few things, only very fast. First, in terms of the Arab Spring and the contradiction between American interests and American values, one of the topic was if we support dictator, this undermine our values, if we support protests, the Islamists will get the power and then it will undermine our security and interests. And they were right. If you have an election in any Islamic countries, and I think most of the Islamic countries, if you have a free fair election, Islamists will gain power. Lebanon. You know, there are Lebanon in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Naqda, in Syria, the opposition of Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen, again, the Shia Islamists who see. There is only one country. If there is a fair and free election, the Islamists have no chance. And it's Iran. Why? Because Iranians have experienced at 43 years of the Islamism as a political ruler. The other countries don't have this experience. The people don't have experience. The Islamists are a opposition group who gave you this idea or drove you a very beautiful utopia, but because they have not been tested, they have not been, you know, they didn't show their competence or incompetence. In Islamic Republic, we know that what is happening in Iran after the collapse of the Islamic Republic, the Islamists doesn't have any future in any scenario for the Iranian next political system. That's the first one. The second one, based on what we talk about Israel, you know, America and Russia, I want to talk, I want to bring it for the students, think about authoritarian co-optation, authoritarian learning and authoritarian collaboration. You know, since 2005, a new wave of the revolution called the Colorful Revolution from, you know, it's actually 1988 from Czechoslovakia, but the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was the biggest one. The revolution that usually people are coming, protesting the result of the fraud election, and then peacefully, unlike the traditional revolution, they occupy the power. After 2005, 2006, 2007 in Georgia, in Ukraine, the dictator tried to adopt, learn what is happening, and they tried to manipulate the election, they tried to build a counter-revolution measurement. So they learned and they adopted. They learned from 2009 in Iran, the Green Movement was part of this Colorful Revolution, happened after the fraud election. But the Islamic Republic, because they learned from Ukraine and Russia and in other cases, they were able to control it. After Arab Spring happened, the authoritarian learned how to deal with it. So authoritarian, the dictator usually are stupid, but they are surrounding themselves with, most of them, with the clever guys that work with them, gave the advice, and they learning, they adopting, they are not static, they learn and adopt and collaborate with each other. In terms of the Syria, Iran, Russia, if something happened to Iran, the Russia, until right now, you know, supporting, the China, not militaristically, but politically, you know, economically, as they support Iran. Iran support Venezuela, Russia support Venezuela. So you cannot see any case scenario just in isolated. You have to see with the other regional and international actors. Let me ask one final question of the panel that will then bridge the opportunity for you all to ask questions as well. When Americans think about the Middle East, their word cloud might contain three I's and an O. Iran, Israel, Islam, and oil. If you could insert one word to expand this word cloud that speaks to a challenge or issue that Americans should know about, what would that be? And if you could explain. That question, I thought about it a lot. And I couldn't come with the one word that I want to add, you know, if you think, all of us has a different expertise. So if I want to add another word to this, it's not a good thing to be honest. Everything that I talked about the Middle East was either sectarianism, was all the, you know, political instabilities, or authoritarianism. Most of the, you know, the only countries in Middle East that has a cloud democracy is Israel. Almost every other country is authoritarian regime. From my point of view is authoritarianism and thinking about why this region is so resilient to democratization. If I had to add one word to that list, it would be family. So in Arab countries, family is the building block of the entire society. And they are very, very conservative when it comes to the idea of what a family is. And their family ties are very deep within the entire society. So the entire governing structure revolves around the idea of your family. And so I have come to the conclusion that while some places from the Western view are authoritarian, when you're in the society, you begin to realize that one, some places don't meet the preconditions for democracy. Number two, there are some places that function very well, not as a democracy, but using family ties and ancient networks of governance that are very unfamiliar in the West. And this is quite functional in many places. I also think that the idea of, I'll leave you with one last thought besides family. I believe it's also possible in the Middle East to be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. And I think that's something that you're going to see come up in the discourse. It is possible to be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian. And I think that's the only way that that conflict is going to be solved peacefully. So I would think about it as families and pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian. I would say one theme that has been kind of consistent, Professor Roberts highlighted this yesterday. And we've talked about it on almost all the panels is interference, both internal and external interference in the Middle East. So whether it's America, whether it's Russia, whether it's Iran interfering in Syria or Israel attacking Syria or Syria attacking Israel, there is interference and a lot of this is the legacy of colonialism and these lines that were artificially drawn by various empires. But it is one of those, I guess it's maybe one of the root causes of the issues. And it gets back to the theme of the entire conference as peace possible. Maybe it is. If all sides agree to kind of keep to themselves and you have less interference from internal and external actors than maybe individual countries can get their houses in order and you can have peace. I don't know the odds for that. Like Yogi Berra said, prediction is hard, especially about the future. So there's that. And again, there are always going to be vested interests in various countries relating back to Said's theme about authoritarianism. Countries that are willing to repress their own people, kill them in the street, the 1500 you mentioned in the. Yeah, in two days. In two days, you mentioned that yesterday. So complicated problems. But again, all goes back to interference. Kind of unintended consequences. And I'll just quickly second what Dr. Golkar said here. I'm going to also steal your word here. Authoritarianism, I think, most accurately, unfortunately defines and characterizes the Middle East with the exception of Israel's fragile democracy, which, as I mentioned earlier, is moving in that kind of more authoritarian direction under Netanyahu's government. But authoritarianism repressive societies is the reality that I think so many Arabs and Muslims in Iran and to a lesser extent in Turkey are living under. So I think that's the reality that we need to deal with. Thank you all very much for your answers. I'd like to open both microphones up to folks who would like to ask a question of the entire panel or directed at specific individuals. And I'll start with Mark. Roland, I'm Dr. Michael Krauss. And I've really admired this panel or this entire piece summit. One of the insights, perhaps, my operational background is showing here. Iran, 23 million Aziris, 2 million Turkmen, X number of Baluchis, Syria, tribal, Iraq, Kurdistan, tribal, Saudi Arabia, certainly tribal. Could you give us insights on the potential weakness of Iran, for example, to the pressures of tribalism? And the redrawing potentially of some of the national states versus those that have a predominant population that is not in Iran's case Persian. And similarly, the Kurds in Iraq and, for that matter, Turkey, and then the religious extremism of some of the other nations. So insights on tribalism, how that plays with authoritarian regimes, and might there be an opening Allah for the particularism enhanced in tribalism. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's tailored for me. So first, as you said, Iran is a multi-ethnic linguistic countries. You know, we have Persian, we have, you know, Azari, we have Turk, we have Arab, we have Baluch, we have Turkmen. But you have to remind yourself that Iran is a, you know, historical state. There are a few historical civilizational states. China, Iran, India, Egypt. Iran is the first nation state created under the Safavid, almost with the same, you know, borders. A little bit, they lost it to the Ottoman, a little bit, you know, the Russian annexated the Kaskas area, Azerbaijan, and the Britain annexated the part of Afghanistan. But these entity for more than 2,500 has been always a political entity called Iran. The second I think, so the national identity is very strong compared to the some countries who created out of the, you know, the First World War, the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, like, you know, Transjordan, Syria, you know, Iraq, these countries all are created under the map. You know, so the national identity in Iran is very, very strong. Some of the ethnic group, like for example, Azari, has very inter, you know, connected with the other group, like Persia. That's the first thing. You know, the Baluchis are again part of the Persian and Iranian families. You know, the country's name is Iran, and Iran is a historical name. If you studied the name of Iran came from the Avista, one of the, you know, about 2,500 years old religious book as a land of the noble people. And that in terms of the linguistic, the Baluchis, the lore are part of this, the court are part of this ironic, you know, families. The other is part of the Turkish speaking language, the Arab, of course, the Arab. But first, there is a strong national identity. Second, all of this ethnic group are living on the borders of Iran. Imagine if, for example, part of the, you know, in the modern world it's very difficult and unrealistic to think that the Baluch are able to separate or the Kurdistan can be separated because Kurdistan is divided between four countries. And the separation is not a solution. The problem is we are thinking if we gave them the country to the Turks out of these four countries or the Baluch out of three countries, we will solve the problem. We actually, we create much more problem. In the United States, just think about your countries. The people are coming with a different identity background. I'm Iranian, there are some French, there are some. And we are becoming American, we are living here peacefully. Why? Because there is no political repression. At least, you know, there is but not too much. You have boys. But we need for the Middle East is not trying to change the border because it's very bloody. Some cities, for example, like Urumye in Tehran, in Iran, we have Persian, we have Turk, and we have Kurd. If we start this separation, it will be very bloody, you know, process. My solution for the tribalism is modernization and democratization. The Kurds here, the majority of them are based in Tennessee and Asheville. But they don't want to create new Kurds in Asheville. None of them wants to do that. Even, you know, the transition, they cannot separate the country. Why? Because we have a democracy and we have a modernized. If we try to modernize the Middle East, the trend started in UAE, in Saudi and other countries. I think people have less concern about the separationist movement. The problem is political repression, undevelopment, and violence. And we can fix that through the modernization, creating a modern, democratic, you know, respecting the rule of law and democratizing. And you have a contradiction between principles like self-determination and the Kurdish problem, largest ethnic group in the world without its own country. And they're, as Said just mentioned, they're in multiple countries, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran. And the principle of self-determination is one that the U.S. takes very seriously. But again, the interests, and you get to the outside interference aspect, you have the question, is can a Kurdistan kind of develop in a peaceful, non-bloody way? I don't know. Again, American interests are that you have stability and peace. At the same time, the principle is that the Kurds probably should have their own kind of homeland. And they do have a basis of it in northern Iraq. And they fought for it, and that should be recognized. The Kurds fought to take their cities and their villages back from the Islamic State. So they fought with the multinational coalition, and that should be recognized. And same in northern Syria, incidentally, which is one of the areas that's not under Damascus' rule is, again, the Kurd problem, which the Turks consider many of the groups in northern Syria to be terrorist groups who've committed terrorist acts in Turkey in decades past. And that was one of the reasons that Turkey got involved in Syria. Now, again, we have these contradictions, and you're not going to square the circle. I don't see a way. Even in Canada, you have actually the Quebec, the French, that they want to separate it. But the problem is self-determination. The other part of the country doesn't want to that. In Spain, you have boss that they have this same problem. And you have to think about the court. We think that the court or one united group is not. In terms of the linguistic, there are four different dialects that they don't understand each other. In terms of the religion, there are Shia, Sunni, Yazidi, and other religious group. So I know they are suffering in all of these countries, without any doubt, in Iraq less, in Turkey more, in Syria, in Iran. But the problem is not separation. Because if you start this process, this will continue like a cascade and create a bloodshed in the whole Middle East. If we need a peace, that's not the way to go. That's modernization and democratization, and try to give them both development and a voice. Dr. Nick Roberts. So thank you, everyone. I wonder if I can add a word to Dr. Brooken's last question to ask you guys a question, which is if I were to add a word that we haven't really talked about, it would be humans, human beings, live here. And what do human beings do? They create culture. And so if maybe to start talking more about peace in the Middle East and the culture in the Middle East, rather than what we've been talking about, all of the problems in the Middle East, can we talk a bit about all of the culture? So Dr. Zuri, you come from, you're living in the UAE. I mean, I'm quite certain you're living a royal life over there. Some of these cities, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, I mean, these are the height of modernity and peace, actually. I mean, incredibly safe cities to live in. You know, Iran, I'm not sure I've ever met an Iranian person who can't, off the top of his or her head, start reciting poetry. Israel, some of the best TV these days is being our Israeli series being made. We could maybe have a very friendly debate about who has the best cuisine, the Turks, the Iranians, or the Afghanis. But there's some incredible culture in this region. So I wonder, can we talk a bit about these types of things that are going on in the Middle East now, whether it's Israeli TV series, Iranian poetry, infrastructure in the Persian Gulf? Even if we go back in time, the leader of the Tunisian Revolution that kicked off the Arab Spring was a young musician who went by the name of Al-General. And so there's a whole lot of stuff like this that we can talk about. I wonder what some of your thoughts are about this. Thank you. I'll tell you something interesting about Abu Dhabi. So Abu Dhabi, I believe, is the only place in the Middle East that has a mosque named after a very famous Jewish woman. The name of this mosque, it's a mosque. The name of the mosque, Mary Mother of Jesus Mosque. OK? The Emiratis also have what's called the Abrahamic Faith Center. It's a synagogue, a Catholic church, and a mosque all in one. They just opened it. And it's a testament to the fact that each religion has its background in Abraham, the founder of all three. So there's some concerted effort in the Emirates to definitely recognize shared heritage. But beyond that, there's a concerted effort to get ahead in technology, to be modern, to provide a safe place for families to grow. And some of that comes with the things that in the West we tend not to like, which is surveillance. There was a murder in Abu Dhabi a few years ago, one murder, if you can imagine. And a woman was murdered. They caught the murderer within 30 minutes because they're being surveilled. Everything is surveilled. It's one of the most surveilled cities in the world. And that is not typically what we like as Americans, is all that surveillance. So there's a trade-off. That's something that I think can be hard to reconcile. But yes, the culture is fabulous. And I highly recommend that anyone that's interested in the Middle East visit and see these things for yourself. I'm coming from a very verbal culture. So I have always something to say. We have two different approach to look at what is happening in the Middle East, the state-centered approach and the society-centered approach. And because we are political scientists, so naturally we are talking about the state. The state is a big gorilla in our work. But I appreciate your question. Thinking about Middle East, I want you to remember, Middle East is very complex. And one of the complexity of Middle East, not in terms of the religiosity in different denomination, in different tribe, in different way of life. When we think about the denomination Shia, Sunni, and you know, Abadi in Oman, or when we talk about the ethnicity Arab, Persian, Turk, and et cetera, et cetera, but you have to think about the social life in Middle East. In terms of the social life, you have the very conservative Muslim. We call them Salafi Muslim. You will see them with the burqa, with the complete hijab. And you have a very modern people who are living like Americans, like Westerners. You cannot distinguish between them until they start to talk. Until they start to talk. They have accents like me, very thick. So you will realize, OK, this not. But in terms of the music, in terms of the movie, in terms of the cuisine, we are becoming very, very similar. Unfortunately, this McDonaldization of the world is happening that our music are becoming the same, our food are becoming the same. By the way, we have the best food. That's for sure. But yeah, I want you to remember this complexity. And the last thing that I want to tell for my American audiences, maybe you can't believe that. But in 1905, there was a man from Nebraska, Boscoville, who fought against the Soviet Union, the Russian at that time, and have been killed in Tabriz. And since 1905, have been named and remembered as a freedom fighter in Iran. We still respect this guy. There are a lot of books, a lot of movie about this guy. I'm not sure if you know that. But I want to remember that from 1905, there was a collaboration between freedom fighters everywhere. So remember that one, too. I would say there is some hope. Maybe wars can, instead of being rockets and bombs, maybe it could be more like the Hamas War between Lebanon and Israel. If you're not familiar with that, it's a great example. A town and one or the other was saying that they made the best Hamas, and they were going for the Guinness Book of Records largest preparation of Hamas. And eventually it got to the point where they were using construction equipment. And at the end of it, they would donate food to hungry people and like all over the country. And it was tons and tons of Hamas. So if there is a war to be fought, may it be like that. And we are out of that thought. We don't have any climb over the Hamas. That's Arab-Israeli conflicts. Professor Arnold. Yes, thank you. I teach military history here at Norwich. In fact, I brought my class with me today. And many of them are going to be in ROTC. They're going to be future officers. If you could just offer them maybe one takeaway that they could take home with them today about the possibility of regional conflict, what is something that they should pay attention to or something they should just keep on their minds as they move through their careers. Thank you so much. I mean, the only thing I would add, and this actually might also answer Dr. Roberts's earlier point, is it's probably a good idea to learn about the various cultures if you're going to be studying them, if you're going to be traveling there, even just on a quick visit. Because we have obviously our own ways of doing things. We have our own way of living. We have a tendency to really see things from a certain vantage point, which may not always apply to other cultures. So I teach a negotiation class, and I think one of the important elements of a successful negotiator is to understand who it is that they're negotiating with. For example, there was a lot of concern when our first female Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, was picked by President Clinton. There was a lot of concern. How is she going to even be able to go to the Middle East and meet with Arab leaders in these conservative societies? And it turns out that it was never an issue. And she handled it very well, and they handled it very well. And so I think just kind of knowing and understanding other cultures and kind of the do's and don'ts so that you're not offending others, I think is an important piece of the puzzle. There was one very kind of comical yet disturbing moment when the Israelis and the Palestinians were negotiating with Camp David in July of 2000. And the participants have just arrived. President Clinton goes into the cabin and then Ehud Barak Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Yasser Arafat are both motioning to each other to go in first. And Barak, who is kind of a very playful character, shoves Arafat into the room. And everybody's laughing. Including Arafat. And it turns out that that was seen as a slight and was very offensive to the dignity that Ehud Barak simply did not consider. Even though he's a smart guy, a brilliant strategist, but it just didn't even occur to him that he might be doing something that's very offensive. So that would be my kind of takeaway. Learn the culture, listen and learn before you kind of judge or do something that could potentially offend the other. Kind of a corollary to what Guy just said. Learn languages. Learn languages, you get insights into culture. You get insights into history. There's meaning and power behind words. So understanding how those things develop in different places is a great way to get on top of that. My language skills are not great. I joke, I speak, I dabble in languages. So I speak some Spanish, I speak some Russian. My English is okay, I think. I've been working on that for a really long time. But also there are cultures within cultures as well. So military, don't get so hung up within, I am an army air defender. So don't get so caught up in that that you don't recognize, okay, well, what does the surface warfare officer do in the Navy? What does a Marine infantry officer do? Kind of be able to bridge those. So in addition to looking out to the world, also look to within your organization and try to kind of learn the lingo and kind of the culture there. So that would be my advice. I would only add as an Americanist, you don't come to those countries with a blank slate. You come to those countries as an American with all the complexities that that presents and you don't have a choice for that. You may think you're the most well-intentioned humanitarian who's ever lived, but you go abroad with baggage that people will project onto you because of the history. And knowing then that history of the United States and interventions is really important to understanding how you will be perceived over there. And you don't have much of a choice on that, but you can educate yourself so that you can know what your own responses might dictate in terms of how they view you. Even some few phrases or words can actually open the doors for you. So I cannot speak a lot of languages. I'm trying to learn only a few phrases to meet when I'm meeting somebody. But in terms of the Middle East, I think, again, Dr. Robert said that poetry is a very beautiful window to the soul and mind of the Middle Eastern. Arab poetry, Persian poetry, Turkish poetry, and it's very important for us. We see the world through the lens of the poetry, and that's why it's very messy because, you know, but learn poetry, try to read and memorize a few. It will open the door to other cultures, to the Middle Eastern cultures. Do we have time for one more question for us, Sekou, or do we have to? I think we'll have one more question. Okay, if we could have one more really quick lightning round question. Got it, all right. Well, thank you guys for coming out here. I have a question just broadly to the panel. A few days ago, two members of the Likud party in the Knesset, Moshe Gaffney and Yaqab Asher, two longstanding members and political allies of Benjamin Netanyahu introduced legislation to make it illegal to proselytize within Israel, which is punishable by jail time. Given the Likud party is currently the largest in the Knesset and there's a decent chance that this bill is made into law, what are the implications for the United States-Israeli relationship, especially given the fact that the most stalwart defenders of Israel are evangelical Christians within Congress, and not to mention the fact that over 200 million Americans call themselves Christians. And I guess a follow-up question to that is, would Benjamin Netanyahu strike down this law as an infringement of free speech and religious freedom to appease and show support for his United States connections, or would he allow it to stand in order to support his Likud allies within the Knesset? So that is my question. Thank you. So I guess I'll quickly take that, because I know we're out of time. Netanyahu in the past, all his previous governments contained at least one or more liberal parties to kind of balance out center, left, or even a left-leaning party to kind of balance out the right-wingers that dominated his governments. This is the first time, or one of the first times, where there is no such centrist or center-left party. In other words, he is the liberal element. And in order, and I think Dr. Roberts kind of alluded to that yesterday, he is the most liberal person in this government. And he assured the international community, as well as the Israeli public, when he formed this government, that he's got his hands on the wheel, that he's the one who's going to be making these decisions. So I don't want to make any predictions about this particular bill or that bill. There's been a lot of rhetoric. Some of it is really just performative and not necessarily aimed at passing significant legislation. But I do think that this is a real test case for Netanyahu, and he's gonna really be, I wrote a piece on how this government that he established is he's creating a monster, this is a monster of his own making. And it's gonna give him a very difficult time as he tries to kind of navigate, placate his coalition partners, which he can't afford to lose, but at the same time, he does not want to turn Israel into an isolated pariah state. And I think this is one of many bills that we're seeing now that he's gonna have to put his foot down and say, we can't do this. Well, I wanna thank Dr. Gai Ziv, Sayid Gokhar, Dr. Diane Zuri, and Richard Moss. If we could give them a round of applause for coming in all the way, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you.