 Well good morning. Good morning to everybody. Thank you for all coming here to the US Institute of Peace. I'm Michael Yaffe. I'm the Vice President for Middle East and Africa programs here at the Institute and so it gives me great thrill to welcome you and to welcome our honored guests and speakers for today and for what it looks like to be a very exciting program. At the outset, let me remind you one thing. So cell phones off if you don't mind and and let me introduce for those who are new to the Institute about the US Institute of Peace. We were founded in 1984 by an act of Congress that was signed into law by President Reagan with the idea that we to establish an Institute for the study of peacebuilding and the application to peacebuilding and in that capacity we basically started out as a research house focusing on peacebuilding and over time moved into the area of becoming applying what we learned on peacebuilding into the into the regions of the world where there is conflict based on the idea that a belief that peace is possible and peace is practical and so we take what we learn from the field and apply it take lessons from it and informs our research which also helps inform policy and We've been doing this now for over 30 years a lot of our work has been done in the Middle East with people on the ground and What the other capacity that we have served here for the last 30 years is as a convening place a place that brings together thoughtful people for discussions leaders from the region leaders from the US government and it is in this the mode today that we are going to convene a discussion on What is happening in the Middle East? So what we're going to do is we will have four speakers And we will have each of them asked We asked each of them to do a short introduction Followed by some questions from me and then we'll open it up to the audience for your questions as well So let me introduce our four speakers to begin with is Robin Wright to my left Robin is a fellow here at the Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center We share her jointly as well as a staff writer for the New Yorker. Robin has been a writer in many journals around the country including the Washington Post New York Times Sorry, Los Angeles Times and for CBS and has written prolifically has written several award-winning books and Most recently Robin had just returned from travels in the Middle East into the Gulf into Levant Into conferences on the Middle East in Europe and it was largely actually that it was her travels that began to us To think about let's have a program which can bring together people who have written On the issues that are going on more recently and those who have been to the region recently as well for their views Next to Robin is Bruce Rydell Bruce is a well-known figure on the study of the Middle East Having served over 30 years at the CIA and then since subsequently has been a scholar at the Brookings Institution where he's written several books most recently a book on Saudi Arabia and To those of us who were actually in the government when Bruce was in the government He was always the font of wisdom that we look to on the Middle East So I got you yesterday Got us pretty far And next to Bruce is Mona and Jacobian Mona most recently joined the Institute of Peace as a senior advisor On Syria and Middle East and North Africa issues This is her second time at the Institute for In her career. She has served in many different capacities most recently at USA ID as a deputy assistant administrator focusing on the Middle East and Prior to that she was a an associate at the Stimson Center and Had actually also served a spell at the State Department in the intelligence research unit as well And then finally Aaron David Miller who I've known for a long time Having both served on the peace process of though him in a much more senior capacity Aaron is currently the vice president for innovation at at the Woodrow Wilson Center and director of Middle East programs there and Prior to that Aaron had a very distinguished career principally at the State Department Serving six secretaries of state To advise them on Middle East issues and the Middle East peace process and has served at the deputy special Middle East coordinator in the 1990s principally under the Madrid Oslo process so a Very distinguished panel lots of wisdom lots of views So what I would like them to each to do is to give introductory statements to principally how you are seeing What is going on in the Middle East? You know we look to you with ciphers in the sense of helping us to understand What is what where we are now and how do you see? Things going on in the future I'm stopping from saying giving a long elaboration. What's going on? I think you know each of you will address some of the issues as you present your talks. So Robin, please. Thank you, Mike I'm a journalist. So I think in headlines and I want to give you ten headlines this morning I first landed in the Middle East on October 6th 1973 and in my 44 years covering the Middle East I have never seen the region so dysfunctional so divided and so politically precarious The issues are so profound that I think we have to begin asking five very existential questions The first is can the 22 Arab states actually survive long-term? After the damage so extensive to both their publics and their polities Can these states be? reconstituted after the destruction that has destroyed destroyed not just homes and businesses, but institutions Third, what are the political and social consequences from the reconfiguration of? populations that includes everything from ethnic cleansing to the movement of displaced people and refugees fourth one is We all now recognize that the only political or viable political solution is decentralization of power But what does that do long-term in terms of creating? Fragmented societies whether it's de facto or de jure leading eventually to some kind of partition and fifth how will a new generation of warlords who have now been in power in in For seven years in some of these countries and have a vested interest in the continued dysfunction of their states What impact will they have in? Continuing or perpetuating destabilization so my second headline is that the political spectrum today is also more Polarized than at any time since many of these countries be gained independence the split was reflected in the attack in Egypt Last week where more than 300 people were killed in an attack we believe by the Sinai province you see the the the political spectrum is defined in Egypt today by Former Field Marshal now president sisi and just changed the initials and ISIS jihadi extremists on the other end The truth across the region is that there is very little political middle ground the middle the groups that tried to emerge after the Arab Spring or earlier centrist groups have Failed to gain traction whether it's through the repression and silencing and Imprisonment by governments or the because of their own ineptitude and competence and egos The third headline and that follows from the second is the region faces an unprecedented generational challenge and It's something that we've again seen play out since the Arab Spring you see this tension between the 21st century generation that is connected that is educated that is the majority in in most of the Arab countries and Up against old elites who are not willing to seed power It plays out in a place like Saudi Arabia, which Bruce is going to talk about But I think we may well see it exploded once and I think we may well see explosions down the road The fourth headline is that the ISIS caliphate may have been vanquished But jihadism is far from over in the absence of political and economic solutions in the absence of Strong institutions jihadism will still have an appeal in part because there's very little else For ISIS the battlefield has now shifted they're into three different places in Sinai province where last year you saw 150 attacks and over 370 deaths in Libya where last year you saw 138 attacks and over 800 deaths and in Afghanistan where last year there were over a hundred attacks and 800 deaths These are places that ISIS franchises branches are showing that they Are still a force to be reckoned with And there are also big questions I think about the re-emergence of al Qaeda and we can if anybody's interested you can ask about it the fifth and six Headlines are related The fifth is that there are no winners in any of these political wars in any of these crises in the past We have been able to envision a way out of wars whether it's the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Iran-Iraq war now It's really hard to figure out obvious solutions that are at once acceptable to us and Viable on the ground and that's a real problem And there's also very little leadership offering viable alternatives It's not only a Travesty, it's a real tragedy a tragedy and rather pathetic the sixth Headline has to do with sectarianism and I think it's really interesting that there's a kind of role reversal for the first time In certainly modern Islamic history and perhaps in Islamic history altogether There's this role reversal is reflected in the fact that for for centuries Sunnis dominated whether it was politically economically, socially the the Arab world Today there is a real quest among Sunnis for leadership I've interviewed over the last three years, you know hundreds of Sunnis in leadership positions on the streets who who Complained that there is no idea. There's no party. There's no country. There's no individual that is defining the agenda and giving direction Whereas the Shiites in a place like Lebanon they used to be the shoeshine boys and the farm workers and today you find that they Are organized they have direction They have purpose and they feel they have leadership and now his bullet has branches or activities in Syria Iraq they claim they've withdrawn, but they still have a presence and an allegiance as well as Yemen My favorite line about the region is that the Sunnis are the new Shiites My seventh headline is that and this is about Syria, but and I'll leave most of it to Mona But my bet is that that Bashar al-Assad will be in power for the next four years Until the next presidential election, which is in 2021, but he is hardly one I Suspect he may be more vulnerable in peacetime than he was in war in part because he'll have fewer allies who are going to rush To bail him out. It's the same phenomenon. We saw in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal the US was willing to help militarily, but once the Soviets withdrew You know, there wasn't the kind of aid and enforcement that really helped Afghanistan make that transition and because of Syria's instability it will have an impact across the region when you look at a map whether it's Turkey Iraq Jordan Israel Lebanon that That Syria has always been the strategic center of the region It's always been the spoiler and because of its instability over the long haul I think that has major repercussions across the region and even a post Bashar Syria could be very vulnerable When you look at Syria's history of coups The eighth headline and again, I can't resist just weighing in for a second on on Saudi Arabia And Muhammad bin Salman has taken on the three Rs. He's taken on the royal family It's cohesion and the principle of ruling by consensus, which was the glue that Stuck a very fractious and ever-expanding family together. He's also taken on the religion of Islam You know with no credentials. He's talking about fostering promoting a moderate Islam and You know, I do not see this ending up well for him even if his language appeals to us and Finally, he's taken on the Saudi role in the reader region and Saudi Arabia's Aggression in an attempt to influence the region has only led to deeper instability When you look at the it's destroyed GCC unity. It's launched a war in Yemen And it's created a political crisis in Lebanon my ninth headline is about Iran and Which of course I can't resist weighing in on Iran is today More powerful in the region that at any time since the 1979 revolution It is no longer a pariah in many many parts of the world. It has lost ally It has it now has allies in power in Baghdad and Damascus and Beirut It even though I said there are no winners I will borrow Garrett Nadas phrase as he says it puts it Iran has lost the least it is still vulnerable because of The pressure from the United States on the nuclear deal But in many ways the rhetoric from the Trump administration is a gift to the theocracy Because it's revived Persian nationalism and my tenth and final Headline is that the Trump? administration is popular among many Arab autocrats but I also think that the administration has made a terrible mistake by investing so much in just a couple of countries and that I'm not optimistic long-term that the Trump administration's a Middle East policy is going to go anywhere And it may actually particularly if tomorrow He moves on Jerusalem It may backfire in ways that are quite costly Thank you for inviting me it's a pleasure to be here For 40 years. I've been a professional Saudi watcher. It's a very niche market 37 of those 40 years it was a very predictable market. It was very stable You knew everything that was going to happen You could easily say who would be king in 20 years and you would be certain you were right In that sense it was in some ways even kind of a boring place the last three years It is not boring anymore. It is extremely volatile. It is extremely unpredictable And I would use one more word it is dangerous But it is fascinating and it's fascinating largely because of the rise of the 32 year old crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Saudi Arabia today faces three very important and fundamental challenges First is an economic challenge oil prices at where they have been for the last four or five years Means that the Saudi cradle to grave welfare state is unsustainable They do not have enough money to give the Saudi people what they've given them for the last 50 years or so Give you one example in the three years since King Salman ascended to the throne in December of 2014 Saudi Arabia has spent one-third of its reserves Now you don't have to have an MBA from the Wharton school to figure out what that means Five years from now the door is going to start closing and there's not much they can do about it I used to say the good news is that the Saudis at least recognized They had a problem and had a plan to deal with it But increasingly I don't think they have a plan to deal with it all or at least they don't have a plan that they're prepared to implement They did try to cut subsidies this year That didn't go down well with the Saudi public. They reversed themselves overnight. In fact, the subsidies are now even a bigger boom They did try to reverse cut down on public sector employment the vast majority of Saudis who quote work work in the public sector Many of them don't work at all, but they get a salary They tried to cut salaries that didn't work and they reversed it the hard economic problems that they face so far They have capitulated to the street and concerns about stability Which has meant that they've gone on to work on softer social programs Concerts and things like that now a few of these programs can't actually raise money if Saudi women do drive I Remains to be seen how many Saudi women will actually want to drive they win want to have the right to drive whether they will actually drive Is another question Potentially a half million chauffeurs could be sent home to South Asia and they would no longer have to send their salaries to South Asia That's a good idea, but it's certainly not going to reverse the overall problem the Saudis have Similarly the notion of opening up a Ramco. There's a lot of potential there, but it also means providing some measure of Transparency about the Saudi oil economy and in particularly the question of where do the proceeds from a Ramco go? We all know the answer to that But do the princes really want to have it all spelled out in public remains to be seen One of the biggest problems with Saudi vision 2030 doesn't address at all is defense spending in 2015 which is the last year for which we have reliable figures Saudi Arabia had the third largest defense budget in the world the third largest in the world only the United States and China spent more on defense in 2015 In per capita terms what that means is that Saudi Arabia spent roughly $7,000 per person on defense expenditures. That's an enormous burden Saudi vision 2030 does say it wants to address this and says that by 2030 Half or maybe even some versions 80% of all defense spending will be spent on Saudi industries When Saudi Arabia can produce an F-15 airplane, it'll be a fundamentally different place than it is today This is this is not going to happen They may be able to reduce expenditures by not buying more equipment from the United States in the UK They probably will have to do that in any case But they're not going to be able to build a defense industry over the next 10 or 15 years This problem defense spending is related to the second major problem Saudi Arabia has which is national security Saudi national security for 50 years or so was for the most part risk averse The Saudis seek to intervene in the region subtly behind the scenes Usually with their checkbook Often with a checkbook in which the check never arrived, but nonetheless people thought it would arrive someday That's changed Saudi Arabia now is a much more aggressive power It intervenes. It's using its military first evidence of that was pre King Salman was the intervention in Bahrain in 2011 But we've seen it now heightened since Muhammad bin Salman became defense minister and before he became crown prince It went on to become crown prince. I'm only gonna focus on one example and that's Yemen When the war in Yemen began Muhammad bin Salman called it operation decisive storm The only thing decisive about it 30 months later is the decisive damage. It's done to the Yemeni people 11 million 11 million Yemeni children will be stunted for the rest of their life Because of malnutrition leading directly from the Saudi blockade Thousands tens of thousands of Saudi of Yemeni children are at severe risk this month Unless the blockade which was tightened after the Houthis fired a missile at King Khaled International Airport is substantially reduced For months we've been hearing I've been hearing I'm sure others have been hearing from Saudi and Emirati and other coalition Diplomats and leaders that they have a plan that something is coming That they will defy their enemies and it came to truth last week the Houthis and Ali Abdullah Saleh famously broke Fighting broke out in Sana and by Monday. Ali Abdullah Saleh was dead. It turned out that the strategy had no plan There was no plan by the Saudis to intervene to help Ali Abdullah Saleh and he ended up dead in the back of a pickup truck It's very symbolic of overall Saudi foreign policy. They decided to Blockade gutter, but they had no plan to really blockade gutter. They wanted to overthrow the al-Thani Monarchy, they had no plan to overthrow the al-Thani monarchy. There are ambitious programs Which is Robin hinted at often sound appealing, but there's nothing there there when you get to the bottom of it And Ali Abdullah Saleh who more than anyone else in the world should have known better made the disastrous mistake of listening to the Saudis I think Robin also had a very good point about role reversal The Saudis have been used to being the dominant power in the region today Their clock is being cleaned by the Iranians everywhere you look with the possible exception of Bahrain but I think that's a ticking time bomb the Iranians are Exceeding where the Saudis are on the losing side Syria Iraq Lebanon in Yemen Third problem they face is a succession problem succession in a absolute monarchy is always the Achilles heel of a country It's true of Western monarchies. It's true of the of the imperial Russia It's been true of Saudi Arabia as well Saudi Arabia Began Saudi Arabia as we call it now began in 1744 This is actually the third Saudi kingdom the first and second died largely because of succession politics particularly the second The second only was around for a little more to over a half a century of the 13 Successions 11 of those were contested that allowed outside players to break in Saudi Arabia has solved that problem for the better part of 60 years by having succession move among the sons of Ibn Saud It was a very predictable pattern But of course it had a sell-by date sooner or later. You're going to run out of the sons of Ibn Saud King Salman decided to accelerate that process Unnecessarily he could have let crown prince Mukherin stay in office, but he removed him without explanation then he removed Muhammad bin Nayef That has raised Significant questions about cohesion and legitimacy in the royal family The way in which Muhammad bin Nayef was removed in particular broke down the whole question of cohesion in Saudi politics In Saudi politics for 50 years if you screwed up if you were a bad governor if you Mishandled things you were given a golden parachute You were reassigned or reassigned to a position that had no real Responsibilities, but your honor your dignity and your integrity were protected the manner in which Muhammad bin Nayef was removed Damaged all of those things. He was accused of being a drug addict If he was in fact a drug addict, it's because he got addicted to painkillers after the third al-Qaeda attempt to assassinate him That's not a normal path to addiction To smear the most genuine hero in Saudi modern history is a very dangerous thing to do now Muhammad bin Salman can do all this. It's easy actually his rise to power has not been Difficult because daddy's there daddy takes all the heat King Salman has all the legitimacy a Saudi could want to have he is a son of Ibn Saud and he is the creator of the Modern city of riyadh. He's also the policeman of the Saudi royal family for the last 60 years He knows where all the bodies are burnt buried There's one senior American official said to me King Salman provides air cover for his son, but once he dies the air cover is gone the best of More than a hundred Saudi senior officials on November 4th And then they're subsequent Incarceration and then they're subsequent to shaking down in order to get out has only furthered the process rule of law has broken Down there is no rule no one knows what they were charged with and no one knows on what grounds those who were released were released It creates an atmosphere of uncertainty You put all of these problems together in Saudi Arabia today. Maybe maybe I'm not saying it will be but maybe on the verge of the perfect storm How they will manage all these problems is hard to say I'll just say one last word about the relationship with the United States The relationship with the United States will be 75 years old next year in 1943 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Invited Ibn Saud to send the delegation to Washington He sent the future King Faisal and the future King Khaled And it was a remarkable visit and the Saudis came away Convinced of what FDR wanted them to be convinced of which is the United States was the power of the 20th century Today the Saudis have invested all their hopes in the power of the 20th century in Donald Trump And more importantly in his son-in-law Jared Kushner a dead man walking waiting to be indicted That's not very smart foreign policy. I'll stop on that point Wow, you're a tough act to follow Thank you very much Mike and good morning to all of you It's actually a real honor to be seated among such an esteemed panel I was asked to talk about Syria and I think what I'll start with is an echo of a point that Robin made which is that Syria has been really the prominent preeminent source of instability in the region Over the past six and a half years of its conflict given its geostrategic Centrality to the region given the states that it borders and I think if there's one thing that we should have learned from the last six And a half years it is that it is virtually impossible to contain the reverberations of Syria's conflict and We should expect the these reverberations to continue out into the foreseeable future impacting not just Syria But the region more broadly I think there are two key developments that we need to keep an eye on in the coming months that will I think have a real impact on the Middle East and potentially ceding additional turmoil and and and conflict the first is the winding down of The military campaign against ISIS Somewhat counter-intuitively. I think what we're seeing is as the military campaign against ISIS winds down We are seeing new conflicts come to the fore. We've seen it in Iraq Certainly with the Kurds and the Kurdish attempt to have a referendum We are certainly going to see it in Syria as well in particular. I would point to four potential emerging conflicts in Syria The first is one that could happen between the Syrian regime and the Kurds The Kurds have gained quite a lot of power and territory on the ground in Syria given the very important role They've played in battling ISIS It's estimated that the Kurds control perhaps 25 percent of Syrian territory And yet as Bashar al-Assad Consolidates his hold on power. He has said repeatedly that his goal is to retake all of Syria So this potentially poses a real conflict will Damascus seek to retake Kurdish territory the second and somewhat related is a potential conflict between the Syrian regime and its allies Russia and Iran Against the United States given our alliance with the Kurds And in particular the role that we've played in Raqqa and elsewhere The Syrians and the Iranians have both termed Raqqa and occupied city and have expressed their Intentions to push the United States and the Kurds out The Syrians are talking about the US presence in Syria as being illegal And I think what else is also important to note is that the Kurds backed by the United States Have not only important territory, but important resources Water Gas fields these resources will be essential to Assad for consolidating his control on power And so there could be I think a temptation to make a play For those areas that are controlled by the Kurds, but backed by the United States Third I think is a conflict between Turkey and the Kurds Ankara has expressed repeatedly its alarm at the prospect of a Kurdish Territory autonomous region along its border. It has likened the Syrian Kurds as a threat even greater in their view than ISIS and so We can easily imagine a scenario in which the Turks Decide that now is the time to make a play and to push back at Kurdish autonomy in Syria. They've already talked about and Made noises about pushing back against Afrin A Kurdish cantan in the northwestern part of Syria And so I think that's an area to keep an eye on and finally and I think in some ways perhaps most importantly A potential conflict between the u.s. And Iran We have certainly seen those fault lines exposed With the defeat of ISIS It's notable that the last city that was held by ISIS Abu Kamal on the border between Syria and Iraq It was retaken by syrian regime forces With the help not only of iranians backed militias on the ground in syria But iraqi pmf as well. I think heightening or sort of exposing if you will this rift In addition most recently general McMaster national security advisor noted that In his view 80 percent Of Assad forces on the ground. He termed iranian proxies who are essentially in his words Seeking to establish a land bridge for iran to the Mediterranean So I think this sets up the potential again for a fourth and potentially quite quite dangerous conflict The second key development That I think will contribute to middle eastern turmoil Is that I think we are seeing the syrian civil war enter its endgame And I would agree with robin That it's quite likely that the regime will Consolidate and maintain its hold on power at least through elections and potentially after But it is a weakened regime It is a regime that is very much dependent on iran and on russia And it will wield control over a very fractured and violent syria What I find most important though and most interesting about this endgame that we are witnessing Is that we're beginning to see And and I would agree there are no outright winners in these conflicts But we're certainly beginning to see a shifting power dynamic As a result of what's happened in the past six and a half years of the syrian conflict What does that mean? I mean we're looking at I think a situation in the region that is far more chaotic as others have noted But one that's also incredibly uncertain Where these new power dynamics have yet to play out New red lines will need to be written Strategic deterrence amongst traditional enemies will need to be redefined I think we're seeing this in particular with for example, hezbollah Which is emerging from the syrian conflict. I think far more emboldened it has transformed into a more regional power With by all accounts an even more bristling arsenal and a battle hardened Army more or less We are hearing a growing concern from the israelis about hezbollah and its growing strength And that could precipitate conflict Either in syria or potentially in lebanon We also I think are seeing a triumphant Iran emerge from from the syrian conflict as I noted the the discussion of the strategic corridor that is being established across syria Iran is more entrenched in syria today than has ever been the case across all spheres military economic political And this constitutes I think a new sort of regional threat not only to israel who has certainly also expressed concerns About iran establishing a permanent military presence in syria, but also to the gulf and to the united states And and I think what's most dangerous about this moment Is that it's still unclear How these how this new deter how these new deterrence will be established Who is going to write these new red lines in ways that avoid conflict or will it entail Entering into new conflicts before this new order in the region is established And then I think the final point I would make is is again looking at this end game in syria Is the ways in which bashar al-Assad will attempt to continue to consolidate his control in the country We've seen efforts for example to bring lebanon more fully back into syria's orbit It was in fact a move to Have lebanon send an ambassador to demascus to reestablish or normalize relations between lebanon and syria That provoked at least in part the drama over prime minister sad hariri's Resignation as it was called from from riyadh and so forth We are seeing on the ground demographic re-engineering that the syrian regime is undertaken moving populations That traditionally were not Present in certain parts of syria and this could certainly Be the spur for for conflict and finally we're seeing syria's neighbors begin to Push syrian refugees back into syria as certain parts of syria The conflicts that have recedes from certain parts of syria We're seeing this for example in southern syria with the establishment of a de-escalation zone And large numbers of syrian refugees some Of their own volition opting to return, but I think also growing concerns That some will be forced back and this is also the case. I think uh from lebanon So why don't I I leave it there and and pass it on to anaron. Thanks First of all, it's an honor and privilege to be here with bruce robin mike and more than friends and colleagues for many years I want to do something different, but very quickly. I want to identify Five or six characteristics of what I consider to be Trump's foreign policy. It's impossible to separate What the administration has done over the past 10 months from from the broader Conception of foreign policy and I think while I agree that analysts need to begin Understanding the middle east in order to understand options They often miss the reality that as far as american policy is concerned It's really important to focus on in this case trump land Because that will in fact determine I suspect What the administration does In the days ahead. I'll begin with one basic observation for self-protection I've worked for republicans and democrats and I voted for republicans and democrats The dividing line in my judgment for an effective us foreign or domestic policy Is not between left and right liberal or conservative or republican and or democrat It's between dumb on one hand And smart on the other and the only thing that matters or that should matter For america is which side of the line. Do you want america to be on the dumb side? Or the smart side? I have many suggestions As to as to how we can try to remain on on the smart side, but I come I come as a as an analyst Not as an advocate And that's even in these current circumstances where the temptation to personalize To demonize is so great. I think frankly that's one of the problems that we all Need to avoid. I'm also very focused these days on presidents And what it takes to make a great one I published a book a couple years ago called the end of greatness Why america can't have and doesn't want Another great president and I think the issue of presidential greatness As far far from the current reality as it is Is something that is is still resonant and relevant and important For those who care about the future of their republics So let me make quick six observations And I know robin wanted me to close with an observation on jerusalem Which I will do uh number one I think if you look at the last 10 months it may be counterintuitive But what you see is an administration that is in my judgment inherently risk averse When it comes to the projection of american military power Anywhere In in the case of the middle east. I think that risk aversion has been quite consistent You see a policy toward afghanistan I would argue it's a policy of losing of not losing rather than winning but by and large It's one that didn't didn't Trend toward a major surge It was actually quite modest and according to the afghan analysts here Some argue it it was the best that they could have done under the under the circumstances if you look at the president's decision in april And the relative proportion and nature of the strike in the wake of asad's Use of chemical weapons. He was presented with at least a half dozen options as obama was presented with Including a comprehensive strike at Five or six syrian airfields probably jim mattis recommended the president They chose a very proportional one-off strike and we haven't seen much In the way of unilateral military action in syria by the united states subsequently I think that pertains at least until today And it may pertain in the future risk aversion with respect to confronting the russians or iran or The asad regime in syria proper proper and iraq the late national security advisor michael flinn Famously went down and briefed the press and put iran on notice. I would argue that that is Has not been the case. The rhetoric has exceeded at least to this point our intentions To roll back or contain iranian influence frankly anywhere I haven't seen a fundamental change in yemen other than continue to enable a disastrous saudi policy there In the gulf i would have predicted by now any number of potential confrontations either on fast boats Or as a consequence of interdiction of Ships bearing arms to yemen none of that has happened None of it now whether or not this Supposed tough policy will ultimately emerge. I don't know. I've been told they have one But with respect to what has actually happened on the ground Risk aversion not risk readiness prevails and I would argue that's true not just in the middle east Even with respect to north korea the rhetoric has far exceeded What they have actually done and frankly that it's a good thing second This is an administration that is transactional in character not transformational. This is not bush 43 This is not michael man obam terms Termed foreign policy as social work. There is absolutely no indication inclination or proclivity To get into the business of nation building Both in terms of spending large amounts of money deploying large numbers of american Forces in afghanistan in iraq and in syria and investing more in what I deemed Trillion dollar social science experiments in an effort to fundamentally rearrange era politics With the us as the primary agent or agency and this transaction the president prides himself in being transactional man I would argue even that is more theoretical because i'm not entirely Clear jerusalem may well be the preeminent example of this. What in fact we are getting in return For any of the support that we have provided and this is not just with respect to the israelis It seems to be true across the board including Saudi arabia and egypt Three i think you see a pattern Across the board not just in the middle east of the dominance And prevailing notion that domestic politics and personal ego and orientation Exceed sound and wise foreign policy decisions. I think you see it everywhere I wasn't sure in the beginning that iran and jewslam would go the way of the tpp and withdrawal from From the paris climate change agreement and uh policies on immigration the three issues that resonate most Uh profoundly among the president's base these three immigration get out of tpp And get out of this disastrous climate change agreement. He campaigned on these two things I believe perhaps under mmn t madis mcmaster Tillerson and kelly That iran and jewslam would somehow be exempt From this but Will we may find out tomorrow on the issue of jewslam whether or not that's true and on iran it's really hard to say What will happen to the jcpoa? We'll learn jewslam's fate tomorrow and next month probably assuming congress remains semi-functional we may see some New legislation encumbering or not with respect to the jcpoa. I just don't know the answer to either of those questions But there's a high probability That in fact campaign commitments and ego and when I say ego, let's be clear The president The president's persona is reflected in the foreign policy both in our foreign policy both in tweets Conversations and the way he conducts himself. And I think this notion of a willful The willful president who is determined to distance himself from his predecessor in every possible way that he can Is a a major part of the way the president looks at foreign policy for Reaffirmation it's true in asia and but not in europe and it is definitely true in the middle east Reaffirmation of american partnerships with key allies It seems to me that in the case of iran israel and egypt the president made a fundamental decision to distance himself from The daylight that the previous administration sought to Willfully impose both in egypt and in israel and I think you see that There's been an enabling uh, both of the the israelis and the saudis Lesser extent on on el-sisi, and I'm not sure I I've got the expertise to try to determine why that is But clearly when you look at the fact that his four predecessors went to either canada or mexico As their first Foreign foray this president chose to go to israel and saudi arabia Which is usually where american ideas go to die You don't go to you don't go to the middle east On your first presidential visit. He did and he was enabled. He was fetid He was flattered and I think to a large degree That explains Uh a lot these were safe trips Paradoxically they were safe trips, and I think they've resulted in a in a large degree of enabling Among at least for both of those allies Five human rights. I've argued with john mccain about values being our interests I wish it were so an interest being our values But the reality is they rarely are american values and interests and policies are constantly at war with one another This administration. I think has chosen to elevate that to a new level embracing authoritarians from erdogan To cc to uh salman and and of course mbs Uh Not even going through the motions in individual cases. They have interceded in north korea and in egypt But I think it's fair to say and again this administration is I understand the perceptual problems But this is a point that we need to come to grips with Particularly in terms of syria and the absence of you know, uh intervention by the Previous administration in the face of mass killing and mass slaughter over the course of the last century It has been the exception not the norm where the u.s. Has interceded should I go through the cases with you? The nazi holocaust cambodia rewanda darfur sudan syria thorough hingea With the exception of cosovo in bosnia with the exception of coso cosovo in bosnia Not only the united has the united states not interceded but neither heads the international community the notion of never again Simply has not been fulfilled And we need to come to grips with why that is And be honest with ourselves about our values. So in that respect this administration falls neatly I suspect in the tradition of many of its predecessors finally Um, let me close the administration has taken a preternatural interest in the arab israeli israeli palestinian problem I do not understand it to this day The president has reposited the authority for this issue to his son-in-law, which is in itself an extraordinary act Marginalizing alienating and virtually eliminating the secretary of state and the department of state where this issue has traditionally resided So The outcome of this is unclear to me. I'm not entirely sure I understand the motivation On jerusalem. I think there's a reasonable chance although the tsunami of um Is building over the last 48 hours the saudis and i asked bruce about this earlier only last night in the person of the ambassador here Issued a statement mild by comparison The oic was in jidda with a much tougher statement that turks are now threatening to break relations With the israelis the palestinians of course are on the warpath the egyptians the jordanians have all weighed in whether or not this will be enough To dissuade the administration not from and by the way, it's not moving the embassy the jewslam embassy act of 1995 Does not mention the notion of moving the embassy and I wish journalists would stop Identifying this is what of what the law requires the law requires that the united states begin to take steps to open an embassy In jerusalem open an embassy in jerusalem and the waiver the national security waiver Uh is designed to waive the financial penalties That congress imposed on the state department up to 50 percent of its building and acquisitions funds Would be compromised unless the department of state Ends the process of opening an embassy That's a that's a very important distinction. So when the president waves tomorrow if he does wave He's waving those financial penalties if he doesn't wave He has to find a way to make sure that the department has the necessary funds to continue To support its building and acquisitions because from a security standpoint He could make our installations vulnerable abroad. What he'll we what he will do. I have no idea Finally i'll close with one point the two-state solution is not dead It's the least bad option for resolving the conflict. It is not dead. However, it needs three things You give me these three things and i'll give you a reasonable chance that you could have a two-stage solution one Leaders who are masters of their of their political constituencies not prisoners And who are prepared to make the kinds of tough decisions require Required second a degree of ownership on the part of the israelis and palestinians that they care more about this issue than we do It's the notion that in the history of the world nobody ever washed a rental car You don't wash rental cars because you care only about what you own and there's insufficient ownership and finally An administration that effectively knows what it's doing and is prepared to apply ample amounts of honey and vinegar In a mediating role you give me those three things. I'll even take two of those three things And you could have a serious negotiation that actually could produce a conflict and an agreement Thank you for that. Thank you to all of you As I listened to you I I I I was writing down some of the Adjectives as you talked about this region and they all many that begin with you Unpredictable uncertain unclear uncharted Add to that instability dangerous chaotic turmoil And transition So I want to just I just want to ask one question to you and given our time I would then open it up to the audience to let you each Ask your questions and it's kind of like a more of a big picture question We are seeing a transition no doubt in the region and a lot of that is because of the difference now In power relationships among the states themselves Um the transition between this as as was mentioned of the Ascendancy if you will verand as the descendancy of Saudi Arabia In in this big picture was there's also been this question principally since the arab spring about the viability of the state system in the region itself And whether or not the border should be changed whether or not Even the model of the nation state is the right model for the region itself So I'm asking you to try to Understand how you frame how you picture this transition as you're trying to figure out You know, how are things are proceeding from there? So robin. Let me ask you that question first Well, I think one thing that's striking is that if you talk to any whether it's the refugees From a conflict or people who are still inside a conflict. They will say. Oh, yes. I am a syrian or Um, I'm a libyan or an Iraqi But how they define being a syrian an Iraqi or a libian can differ profoundly in ways in terms of what they think the relationship should be with the state What the state should guarantee in order to for them to invest and believe in them and they're so we we have these Real challenges in figuring out what is it that people Want from their state? How can you repair the relationship after all? this Of physical and political and You know, I've been looking at this issue of what the map of the region looks like now Since the arab spring and I did a map That's new for the new york times in 2012 based on what people in the region were telling me And it became very controversial. Um, people started calling it sykes pico right And when it was really what people were telling me rather than what I thought But what stunned me was I look I was asking people what the region would look like 10 or 20 years down the road And a lot of it happened within a couple of years Because of ices because of the the conflict that broke up has broken up libyan into different parts Um, you know, it's so important that we ask this question because the presumption Basis of us foreign policy is that we want to invest in the states as they are And the former iraqi ambassador to washington said to me Several times but have said it over the last nine months That the only people who want to hold iraq together are those who don't live in iraq And which is a kind of scary idea and I'm not advocating for partition I'm not sure that we are going to with the exception of the curds We're going to it's ever going to be that neat the question is do these states erode or Deteriorate to the point that they're not viable and then what do we do now? We've learned from the lessons of india and sudan And yugoslavia that there are real consequences of breaking up states as we know them And so that's not an attractive alternative Per se but it is something that we need to begin asking ourselves. What is viable? How do you Help states either become 21st century Respond to the flashpoints that have have led to either political breakdowns or civil wars And I think none of us are asking that so I think it's the key question Everyone's trying to dodge it and for administrations that are only in power for four years or eight years Nobody wants to be the one to open that can of worms or pandora's box That may take you know generations to play out and be the one blame for it So it's not an easy question But it's the one at the end of the day that underlines all the conflicts All the issues we challenges we face in the middle east I'll just address the question Could the arab spring come to saudi arabia because i'm asked that all the time My answer that is simple king of dulla answered that question as soon as the arab spring began He took 130 billion dollars out of saudi arabia's reserves and spent it on Measures to make the saudi people happy 130 billion dollars is an awful lot of money and it went a long way in a country where there are only 20 million inhabitants So he clearly felt that the arab spring could come to saudi arabia And if you look at the demographics saudi arabia has all the same problems that syria, iraq, egypt had What would happen if you had serious popular unrest inside the kingdom who would put it down Well, traditionally we would have expected that there would be two institutions that could operate to restore law and order The ministry of the interior One in 20 saudi's gets a salary from the ministry of interior that shows you how big a bureaucracy this is Or the saudi arabia national guard The problem is that those two institutions are now being governed by people who are complete amateurs Have never been in this position before how good they could be they may be brilliant They may be the best people picked. We just don't know they're amateurs I Predict that as long as the king is around These issues will be kicked down the road more or less successfully. I don't know what's going to happen when the king goes I've already hinted there could be a very serious succession question There is no saudi way of removing a sitting king Except by the consensus of the royal family and the wahabi clerical establishment One king in the modern era has been removed king saudi it took a decade for that to happen And it ended when the national guard surrounded the royal palace and pointed the tanks barrels at the at the Royal palace and said you have 24 hours and the wahabi clerical establishment said and we're going to ex-communicate you He left went to cairo Not a very good bet A couple years later. He ended up in athens There is no way of removing a king very easily So in the combination of could there be an arab spring absolutely Is there a force that can deal with that? Questionable and we have a succession problem coming up in which there's no particularly good solution And you don't have 130 billion dollars anymore that you can throw at this problem like you did in 2011 So just very briefly I guess for me I I understand the argument about you know fears of a of a potential breakup of the of the middle east over time I am actually more convinced at the looking at frankly the resilience of these borders given all of the tensions that they have been subjected to and Even with isis and the breakdown of the of the border between iraq and syria for example The the ways in which all of those borders have been reestablished for me. I think the issue is less about a breakup of the middle east and more revolves around the question of governance And new models of governance that need to be developed ones that are highly far more decentralized ones that seek to Restore the social contract in a way that's much more sustainable I mean I think in some ways this is it was the breakdown of the social contract that gave rise to The arab spring in the first place those issues have really not been fully addressed what I find more compelling and more concerning is relations between states And again as I noted in my opening comments and this notion that we are At a moment of a complete reordering of relations between states that there are new power dynamics emerging That we really that the region has not fully comprehended Nor is it clear what direction those dynamics are going to go in and I think that makes for an incredibly dangerous moment in the region right now Um in 2011 in the spring I I was really hammered because I dared suggest that the arc of history when it comes to transformative change is a very long one The late fuat adjami talked about the prejudice of low expectations and I I really tried to avoid that But I did try to look at how and why states change Um It was the first century roman historian tacitus who said the best day after the death of a bad emperor Is always the first day And that's been the story of the arab spring the best day after the death of a bad emperor is always the first day Uh the headlines in this region are bad and so are the trend lines I would argue to you that you have three functional states and they're the three non-arabs Israel turkey and iran they're all stable domestically. They all have tremendous economic potential They all have militaries and in very intelligent intelligence organizations Two of them have well one has an exceptionally close relationship with the united states The other is a member of nato and the third is an outlier Still The issue is not between good and bad anymore from an analyst perspective in this region It's between functional and dysfunctional and the reality is if borders don't change it's and I agree with mona. I think Borders probably won't change. There's been a pre-turn natural respect for borders in this region that sometimes Impresses and even stuns me Saddam was an idiosyncratic Arab leader truly idiosyncratic You can talk about the egyptian intervention in yemen or syria's intervention in lebanon, but Nothing was designed to fundamentally change or alter Borders and I suspect that's going to remain the shell will remain stable Allah sikes pico to some degree. My mona is right. It's the governance issues That will prevail. I only conclude by saying that Since 1950 only 22 countries in the world Have maintained their democratic character continuously According to freedom house 22 countries This is a very small club the notion of stable Functional coherent with all of their flaws and asterisks Democratic polities and I just do not understand. I do not see how this region Gets out of the trap of being the most angry dysfunctional and broken region In the entire world I just don't see it and while I haven't abandoned my hopes. I have to tell you one thing I I ain't got no more illusions I abandoned those when I stopped working at uh at the department of state Okay, thank you. So let me open up the uh the question period to the audience and uh, I'll take first question in front row And please identify yourself if you will. Okay My name is Maya orms be it and actually my question. Maybe it will add a little bit of a hope My organization provides education for in the Middle East virtual education And 70 percent of beneficiaries are Syrians Refugees internally displaced and so forth So what they're craving for what they're demanding and demand Greatly exceeds what we can provide is English language computer coding engineering classes they want western education um How to harness this power i'm uh seeing a lot of parallels with my generation I grew up in russia when under the veil of like Evil kind of stability. There was a craving for um freedom for access to the same You know the rights for for education for jobs and freedom that uh other People have in the different countries. So, uh Making these parallels and gleaning under this veil of What the government does Into the generation like generation rift What what can we do with this power? Taylor when we take a couple questions in light of the time and So Woman in the back there with the bread there. Thanks Matt Hi, my name is Jen Eldridge. I'm with the state department This question is for robin and in bruce may have thoughts as well But i'm curious about one of your three rs was religion And you mentioned king salmons push to modernize Islam as it's practiced in the kingdom But that you thought that that probably wouldn't turn out so well Curious to if you could expand on that a little bit and talk about kind of the interplay with the clerics as well. Thanks Who would like to take the first question on the panel? Just a quick So i'm glad you raised it because i think this is one issue We didn't really get to touch on in great detail and that is the refugee crisis in the middle east Which is really unprecedented. I mean it is certainly the worst Displacement of people since the end of world war two In particular the number of syrian refugees and and unhcr the un Agency for refugees Estimates that the average stay of a refugee in a host country is 17 years And so you're pointing to education and again, of course, we've talked a lot in the past about the dangers of a lost generation These are very real I served in the obama administration in that time at aid did a lot of work on refugees and host communities And in particular, it's notable that these refugees do not live in camps They live in and amongst host communities and it is really essential That for example host communities make space in their schools for syrian school aged children The jordanians have actually done quite a lot with this with the jordan compact in which they've acknowledged the presence of refugees And noted and made pledges to accommodate all syrian refugees in their schools I think what's unfortunate is is the recent decision by the trump administration to withdraw from the migration compact Which really I think was acknowledging much more broadly What this challenge is the greatest displacement crisis with 60 million displaced across the world There are answers to the questions you pose, but it requires creativity. It requires flexibility in funding It requires a willingness to break down stovepipes Between humanitarians and longer-term development experts and we certainly were finding Even in the short time that we were engaging on these issues. There were there were some successful models, but I think Again, this is going to be a long-term Challenge and it's going to require A willingness on the part of the international community and the donor community To to look at new and creative approaches to the challenge of syrian refugee children Well, let me just say I want to address that question as well because I actually at the end of the day I'm optimistic about the region long-term. I think there is such an enormous appetite for change Which is why we saw the arab spring why we saw people try to resist bashar asad And it's partly education was was the key factor because you found The majority of the population being under 25 or 30 for the first time that over half Were literate may not have high school degrees But they were literate and that took them beyond their neighborhood their villages their city their their country even And at the same time and that included girls So, you know big difference and When you empower or educate half half of your society And you blend that with access to technology which Which empowers them gives them voice and the third factor that was at the same time and gives me hope long term Is that the idea of diversity? We no longer have the embrace of one truth whether it's religion or one way whether it's politics That um 20 years ago. You had one independent Satellite television station in alga's era today in the aro world You have over 500 independent satellite television stations that have different Uh programming whether it's religious programming With clerics issuing different fatwas or talk shows political shows women shows soap operas You know, it's just the the the embrace of the idea of diversity And that i am important the individual has a voice that all of that changes the problem is that the that generation doesn't have the experience the networks the The parties um the resources to translate and so we're seeing this awful messy transition That we're partly responsible for having empowered, you know, the autocrats to stay around for so long On erin's point and i'm going to say this because I happen to know we graduated from the same university the same year Um and so I know that the year we were born there were 57 countries that were members of the united nations today There are 194 when I learned seventh grade social studies the the map was as it was and that's how we all assume it was going to be It changes and I think we need to kind of understand that there may be more changes ahead On the question of religion and I really deferred to bruce on this but my point was that You have a 32 year old Member of the royal family saying oh, we're going to go to moderate islam And you wonder what the wahabi clerics who have been the source of legitimacy for the kingdom for so long Think about that and a lot of them are old toads, you know um And don't you know are not part of the modern world and and mbs actually arrested a couple of clerics who were Either moderate or open to you know Different ideas and so my point really was about mbs being the one who gave a stamp of approval And so it's going to happen. I don't think it's that easy, but I deferred to bruce on that um In the world of saudiology, uh, the darkest corner is the clerical establishment What the clerical establishment the so-called wahabi clerical establishment Um, I'll just make a brief pitch read my book the wahhabism Is a very poor term for defining saudi islam as a dispractice, but we'll use that since it's widely used We don't know what's going on in the wahhabi clerical establishment American diplomats don't have any way of going to mecca to meet the wahhabi clerical establishment What we can say is this of the um top 10 twitter accounts Uh in the kingdom are all owned by senior wahhabi clerics So this notion that there's a vast popular rube out there that wants modernization and change I don't think is really consistent with the little bit of data that we have That said the kingdom has been changing And king faisal and especially king abdulla deserves credit for it king faisal introduced the idea of giving Women a chance at education He did in a very dramatic way by sending his own Daughters to be educated and king abdulla For his many faults and he's been faulted for a lot of things put women's education on steroids To the extent to which there are more women in saudi arabia with phd's than there are men That has to bring about change and that is bringing about change And I think some of the changes that the crown prince has introduced with the support of his father reflect that groundswell within the saudi educational system The wahhabi clerical establishment has been very quiet about what the crown prince is doing The people who've been arrested so far are what I call the usual suspects People who've been arrested every time there's there's a little bit of unrest in saudi arabia the same group of clerics are arrested Whenever that he goes down they're let loose again They're not particularly dangerous to the kingdom the clerical establishment the real wahhabi clerical establishment the descendants of muhammad ibn al wahad The al shaykh family have been very very quiet about what's going on The only thing that they have endorsed enthusiastically Is the struggle against gutter Because gutter is the only other wahhabi country in the world And the saudi wahhabis believe that the guttery wahhabis don't practice wahhabism correctly Again, I'll leave you to look in the book as to what the origins of that conflict are all about Well cutler former foreign service Following up on the point of gutter We hear now more and more oh the gcc is dead on the other hand Let's say a couple of years from now. Where would the gutter guttery problem be? And uh, is there really any role we can play in in in resolving it? uh, vinsul faso independent consultant um I want to I want to get your thoughts on the emin issue. Um, especially what we've heard from ali abtasala um I guess my question is about where this saudi emirati policy is going to go Are a lot of these salafowers going to split? I know it's unknown And are we going to see I'm wondering how The u.s. Support for saudi arm sales To saudi arabia The close relationship How complicit is the u.s. In this yemen policy? And just briefly I guess in terms of these the latest saudi purge ever seen with mbs Um, I'm kind of wondering if there's going to be a new wave of authoritarianism In saudi arabia I'm not saying that mbs is going to be an asa or an asad or a saddam usain But is there a worry in the region that? There's going to be a consolidation of power maybe bruce. You can maybe comment on that. Thank you Um, let me ask if there's a non saudi question for our panel. I'll take it as a third question So non saudi question Okay, sir ellie brennan Is this on it's on Mike I came in here thinking about north africa And I guess my simplest question would be Should we have a distinct north africa policy that's separate from the middle east? and The kind of background to my thinking is wide-ranging, but I guess it could be more broadly thought can we have Unified middle east policy I work in agricultural development And so I appreciate mr. Ridell highlighting the the issues in yemen And so i'm just trying to think if an approach in algeria is going to work in yemen is going to work in iraq Because just looking at the map There's there's ways of thinking about it in terms of religion and language Culture I'm thinking about in terms of climate and transport systems but I think I mean fundamentally or In terms of american foreign policy You have to think about the military approach and you know The maghreb is not part of sent com and I think that's important Getting to mr. Miller's point about Uh these awful things that happen Essentially, it's the military that's going to be going in and taking care of those That's the kind of first In those crises. That's the rate limiting step for our foreign policy and so I guess originally when I came in my question was it should we have a distinct north africa policy from the middle east Um, thank you. Thank you So Bruce minister, I'll start. Um Truth and advertising as you probably know brookings has an office in doha So I spend an inordinate amount of my life in doha And what has struck me most about this crisis is that I actually now feel sorry for gutter What I've noticed in talking to gutteries is that the saudi's and the ua and bahrain have produced guttery That never existed before and are rallying behind the amir If their goal was to get rid of the amir, and I think it was They've failed spectacularly. Can the gcc be put back together again? Probably This is not Humpty Dumpty. I think we can probably put the cracks back together again. It was never all that Coherent an organization. We've been trying And for 40 years to get the gcc states to adopt a integrated air defense system Which doesn't seem to be that hard to think of they still don't have it But I think the cracks can be put back together again once the saudi's and the amirates decide that they've gotten enough of what they wanted Do they want something about the world cup in the end? That could be the biggest sticking point I don't know even there. I think you could probably come up with a solution salla Saudis and the amirates do have differences over their policy towards yemen But they both did seem to back the idea that the solution was to break the rebellion in half and get salla to defect As I said earlier, they don't seem to have had a plan of what to do if that came about And they weren't very good in hiding what they wanted to do in october, for example l arabia, which I read Constantly every day. I know everyone else gets their news from l arabia Just like I do published a very strange article saying that the coalition had allowed russian doctors To come into sana to perform a lifesaving operations for ali abdallah salla Why why why would they do that and secondly? Why would they publicize it? Well, it was sending a signal to salla But the hooties read the signal too They also read al arabia and what did they start doing they started shutting down all of Ali abdallah salla's military facilities outside of sana and restricting his actions inside sana They had a plan they knew exactly what they were going to do when when he broke and they've carried it out Where does it go next? I don't know. That's very hard to say Gets to your larger question about yemen. Yes We are complicit It started in the obama administration and has continued in the trump administration We are complicit in the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe It is american munitions. It is american spare parts is american expertise american technicians With a little help from our british friends that keeps the royal saudi air force in the sky if tonight President trump told the king That stops tomorrow the air war ends tomorrow. It cannot go on So here's my pitch to all of you contact your senator Tell your senator to vote against the next arm steal that comes before the senate The last arm steal that came up a half a billion dollars munitions deal Failed narrowly passed by two votes One of those was senator warner in virginia if you're a virginian. Here's your opportunity Right senator warner no more arm sales to saudi arabia and united arab Emirates until they stop the war Can I offer just a brief comment on u.s policy? I think I think it there's a need for a moment of clarity I spent 25 years working on middle eastern issues and rarely Did the issue of what us interests in this region are emerge and policy What is policy? Policy is an effort to determine what in essence your interests are and to find The right instruments and modalities To carry those interests out What is the end game? What do we want out of the region? And it and we can no longer afford to wander We're like some modern-day gulliver Wandering around in a region that we don't understand tied up by tiny tribes whose interests frankly are not our own Across the board and we lack a certain degree of agency and will if we were actually determined to have an effective policy that Correlated means and ends we would define what our core interests are now. I would give you my three They're provocative and controversial, but they pertain to american security and prosperity Because american security and prosperity has to drive The fund the fundamental conception of american policy Number one is preventing an attack Catastrophic one on the continental united states if you can't prevent protect your homeland You don't need a foreign policy. It's the organizing principle There are ways to do that without waging discretionary wars in faraway lands Number two, even though we're weaning ourselves off of aropydrocarbons. The rest of the world is not So energy security from these sources are critically important and maintaining maintaining access to them will remain Critically important particularly through the gulf which creates the need for stable relationships with the oil producers, however Anomalous their values May be with respect to Hours and finally the third core interest and believe me the pursuit of arab is really piece However important it may be Is not a vital american national interest. I mean it would be great if we could resolve this But I think it's going to be very hard Is the prevention of the emergence of a single regional hegemon That aspires to expand its influence with a nuclear weapon Which makes it even worse. I would argue to you those are our three core interests And since we can't transform the region and we can't extricate ourselves from it You're left with a middle course of action, which I call transaction It's drilling down on these three core interests and trying to figure out a way to protect them And somebody needs to have a an honest conversation. I think In order to to at least understand that if we're going to be involved in this region, we have to change the way we Do business I know that leaves american values And the issue of ethics and morality and foreign policy kind of at sea in a drift. I appreciate that And I wish there were a way to Add that in an operative way. I'm not entirely sure we we found it Well, I'm afraid we are reaching the end of our time together on this conversation I don't think it's the last conversation on this issue to say the least But I want to thank our panelists for their very informative for their very candid Conversation and for their for sharing with us their views and we look forward to sharing future conversations with the all of you I'd like to thank robin for helping to organize this conference. I mean this uh, this this Uh panel and this discussion as well as garrinata who also was quite instrumental in organizing this I would only end also by reminding everyone that usip is a independent agency a non-partisan agency So we don't necessarily advocate that you uh contact your congressman and senators and so on But uh, you will put that back on bruce if you will Um, so again, thank you everybody for coming out