 Well, good afternoon, welcome. There is such a thing as a free lunch in Washington, it turns out. This is the fourth in a series that the New America Foundation, AEI, and CNAS have put together in preparation for this important election, focusing on national security. This is the final event, which we'll look at the Middle East broadly speaking. We will have, on September 19th, we're going to have representatives of the Obama and Romney campaign come to a more of a debate. That will be in Phoenix, Arizona, and then also, again, on October 10th in Washington, DC. This event has been simulcast by cnn.com, so thousands of other people will be watching this event as it livestreams. Very grateful to our partners at CNAS and AEI for being part of this partnership. Really thrilled that we have Ambassador Dennis Ross to speak to us today. Ambassador Ross has had an incredibly distinguished career in Washington, working most recently as the NSE Senior Director for the Central Region under President Obama, special advisor to Hillary Clinton, focusing in particular on Iran. The point man in the peace process for George H.W. Bush's administration and the Clinton administration, director of policy planning under President Bill Clinton. He served on the Reagan NSE. He's written one of the, or perhaps the best book about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Missing Peace, which came out in 2004. He's president lead counselor of the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. He's going to talk to us for 15 to 20 minutes to sort of set the frame for the discussion. And then we're going to turn it over to a very distinguished panel, Daniel Plecker, who's Vice President of Foreign Policy and Defense Issues at AEI, who is also for 10 years a professional member of the Senate Foreign Relations, staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a graduate of CICE, who writes frequently on the Middle East. Mark Lynch, a professor at GW, who has also just come out with two books. One is the Arab Uprising. Another one is an e-book on FP, The Islamists in a Changing Middle East. He's also a fellow at CNASS. He's also a partner with New America on the Middle East Channel and well-known to anybody who covers this issue. And then Doug Olavant, finally, also a fellow at the New America Foundation, one of my colleagues at the New America Foundation. Doug has a very interesting background, PhD in political science. He's a retired Army officer, a Lieutenant Colonel. He was instrumental in writing the Baghdad Plan in 2007, which helped bring peace to Baghdad. He's the NSC Director for Iraq under Presidents Obama and Bush. He was also most recently Senior Coin Advisor in RCE East and Eastern Afghanistan. So with that, I'd like you all to welcome Ambassador Dennis Ross. Well, thank you. I assume you're all here for two reasons. One, there was a free lunch and two, it's much cooler in here than is outside. You know, I thought I would try to frame the issues, Peter, as you said, and there is a distinguished panel here that I assume will pick up on some of the things I say, pick apart some of the things I say, or pick some entirely new issues from the things that I've raised. And let me sort of start. You had the, you made a reference to the Arab Spring and not to be picky to begin with. But that is a very common term that has been used. And I think it's probably a term that is completely miscast. It always somehow creates the image that there was going to be a transformation, there was going to be a quick transformation and we would see a very quick flowering of a new Middle East. Well, that was just never in the cards. We are witnessing something that is profound. There's no doubt about that. I think the more appropriate term to use is awakening. Now some people here might quibble and say, well, George Antonius wrote a book about the Arab awakening, I think in 1938. He was focused very heavily on the idea that there was now a new era of nationalism built around an identity that was shaped not by religion but by language. He of course was himself a Greek Orthodox faith and he wanted that sense of identity to be built not on religion, but on language. He certainly was reflecting a kind of analysis that embodied what was a very small elite that might have existed within Damascus at the time. But it didn't reflect the region at all. There was a guy named John Kimshi who wrote a book called The Second Air Awakening and that was very much about the competition between Nasser and the Bathis in their effort to see who could become the embodiment of pan-Arabism and that too reflected much more of an elite phenomenon and not what in the end turned out to be a societal phenomenon. I would suggest to you that the awakening that we're seeing today is something that is much more societal in character. It's built around, I think, a function of an awakening coming from what is both the reality of the internet and social media that allows people to see their own situation and compare it to others. And that very much contributed to what we're now seeing. But it contributed to what I would call is really the kind of key new factor here. It's not just that it's societal. It's that in much of the region we now see people who see themselves as citizens and not as subjects. Now as citizens they have the right to make demands. As subjects it was the regime that made demands on them. As citizens they have a voice. As subjects it was the regime who had the voice and they had to listen. As citizens they have dreams, they have expectations, they have a sense of possibility, they have hopes. As subjects it was the regime who defined for them what their expectations were going to be. And as citizens they can create accountability so that governments have to respond to them. And as subjects of course the only accountability was the accountability that the regimes themselves created. Now this I think as a dichotomy is useful for trying to understand what's going on at least in a significant part of the Middle East. It also is a reminder of why this was always going to be a process that was going to take a long time. Because there is a sense of being a citizen but the means, the institutions, the mechanisms to create the accountability that goes along with being a citizen, those have to be developed. Those have to be shaped. They have to have a kind of legitimacy. And that all says that this is going to be an ongoing process. We don't know exactly how it's going to unfold or how long it will take. But it's going to take time. That's the one thing we know. And the other thing we know is that this process is going to be one that is marked by ups and downs and it's certainly not going to be linear. Now who is going to have an advantage in the beginning of this process? Particularly if you're going to have elections. Well, the answer is the Islamists. This was always going to be the case. They were in a position where they had organization and also again if you look at some of the regimes and it is interesting that most of the monarchies have not been subject to the same level of upheaval that we're seeing in the rest of the Middle East. And there's a reason for it. The monarchies at least have some claim to legitimacy, some semblance of legitimacy. The non monarchies don't. Why was Mubarak in power? What was his claim to be in power? What was the idea that was the basis on which he ruled? Well, it was to have power. And these republics, which is effectively, I mean you put it the word in quotes, these republics lacking legitimacy. The one institution they couldn't take on was the mosque. So the one place you were free to speak, you were free to organize was in the mosque. And the people who spoke freely in the mosque, well, they didn't submit. They stood up and they acquired credibility as a result. And you look at Egypt and you look at the Muslim Brotherhood, here's an organization that has been built over time. It has an identity. It used the mosque. It created a following. It connected to all segments of society, but it especially connected to the lower impoverished segments of society. It acquired an imagery of embodying social justice because it created food distribution centers. It created clinics, a network of clinics. It looked effective compared to the regime. When you had an earthquake in Cairo, who was out there distributing food and blankets? Well, it wasn't the regime. It was the Muslim Brotherhood. So the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists had an identity. They could connect with all segments of society. They looked effective. They had credibility. They embodied social justice. They weren't corrupt. And in contrast to that, you had secular forces. Well, for someone like Mubarak, the one thing Mubarak didn't want was an alternative to him. He created an image that the world faced a choice. It was him or it was the Islamists. And they embodied the kind of bogeyman. And he wanted to make certain there wasn't an alternative. So if you were secular and liberal, the one thing you couldn't do was organize. And so the secular liberal forces didn't have a sense of identity. They weren't in a position where they could organize. They obviously didn't have any connections to the lower classes. You're talking about Egypt where 40% of the country lives on $2 a day or less. And elections come, and the secular forces don't have an agenda, don't have a platform, compete among themselves. And if they're going to emerge in Egypt, it's going to take a long time. So it should be no surprise that in Egypt and other places, the Islamists have won the elections. I mean, Libya is the one interesting exception to this rule, and we don't need to get into Libya now and how it contrasts with the other places. But the point is, you have a reality where the Islamists are the ones who emerge in the early going. And the real question, again, let's focus on Egypt. The real question is, what do they do? How do they build? Are they going to focus on shaping a narrative that is geared towards delivery, or are they going to focus on developing a narrative that's based on blame? Are they going to be inclusive, having been an exclusive organization, at least from a standpoint of discipline and hierarchy? Are they going to think about how they attract others? Are they going to somehow recognize that there is a reality where there are citizens, and they're going to have to find a way to respond to them? What is the focal point of their governance going to be? I think this is an open question. If you look at President Morsy at this point, one of the things that you're seeing is he is saying a lot of the right things, but of course we don't know exactly what he's going to do. He certainly made a move on the parliament, but then he seemed to back off of that. And you see a kind of uneasy relationship beginning to emerge between the presidency and the military. And we're going to have to see what, again, is going to be the point of departure. Now, the extent to which the focus is on delivery, as opposed to laying blame, as opposed to creating a politics of identity, to the extent to which it's on delivery, then there's certainly going to be a need for help. The real issue, I think, for us, the US, as we look at what is going to be an ongoing struggle, what is going to be an ongoing process, is what are the principles that ought to guide us? At one level, to the extent to which there's probably going to be a need for help if there's going to be delivery, there ought to be some ground rules. But we even go beyond the ground rules for help, I would simply say. At a certain level, the more we can be true to a set of principles, I think the better it's going to be. And what are those principles? Well, the principles ought to relate to there needs to be respect for minority rights. There needs to be a respect for half your population, meaning women's rights. There needs to be a political space that is maintained so you have repeatable elections and you have a political space where there can be competition. And there needs to be a respect for international obligations. The ground rules for us in terms of being responsive and being supportive of providing help ought to be you live up to these kinds of ground rules, meaning you respect minority rights, you respect women's rights, which I think will also be critical if in fact there's going to be any sense of delivery. If you suddenly see the cops in Egypt all leaving, I wonder how many in the private sector internationally are going to think this is a good place to invest? If you're excluding half your population because you're not respecting women's rights. Again, I wonder how effective you're likely to be. If in fact you're not going to respect the Peace Treaty with Israel, and by the way, respecting the Peace Treaty with Israel doesn't mean that you'll hold a referendum because that's obviously a device to change it or end it. I wonder again, who's going to think, gee, this is a good place to be investing? So there are both practical reasons to stand by and create and promote certain ground rules, but I think there are also certain principle reasons for the kind of policies we'd like to see emerge and certainly what we'd like to see emerge in Egypt. So those kinds of guidelines I think ought to be shaping us. So that's sort of observation number one as it relates to the Arab Awakening into Egypt. What about Iran? First of all, many people I think may have thought that and certainly the Iranian leadership seemed to think that the Arab Awakening was going to be an opportunity for them. All America's friends were going to lose, and therefore the Iranians would be able to gain. Well, on the one hand, that was going to be hard because this is a time when people actually are discovering their voice, and at the very moment that many in the region are discovering their voice, the Iranian approach of course is to squash any independent voices. Number two, the more they basically support the regime in Damascus that is killing Sunnis, here again that's not exactly been a calling card for creating a greater sense of attraction to Iran at this point. And I would add to that, I think that there, I don't think there's many in the region that think it's a good idea for Iran to have nuclear weapons. I think the objective of the administration, which is prevention, not containment, is the right objective. The real question now is can diplomacy succeed in producing that objective? At this point it's becoming increasingly difficult, not because the pressure isn't being applied. And I would just say parenthetically, anyone who thought that the only way that you were going to persuade the Iranians to change their nuclear program was by offering them inducements doesn't understand the nature of the regime. The fact is they want a nuclear weapons capability, and the only way that they're going to be dissuaded from pursuing it was if the cost was too high as they measure the cost. Now the good news at a certain level is there are an unprecedented set of pressures that have been applied to the Iranians. And they're feeling, there's no question, they're feeling the cost and they're feeling the pain. By the same token, the way I think they approach things at this point, they look at the diplomacy of the 5 plus 1 and the character of it, which is step by step, is not that appealing to them on the one hand, but also on the other, I think that they fear, or not fear, they believe that the six at this point are more fearful of diplomacy failing than they are. And if diplomacy is going to work, that equation has to change. They have to see that actually the six don't fear a failure of diplomacy, number one. And number two, I think there has to be a greater clarity as a way of conveying that message. And what I mean by that, so long as the approach is step by step, I think almost by definition it means that you're talking about a long process. Now the truth is a long process would be fine if we had time, because you could think about the reality that the pressures that the Iranians are under are real and they're building. The problem that we face right now is that there isn't necessarily a lot of time. Partly because the Iranians continue to enrich, but more because from an Israeli standpoint, the Israelis are looking at a program that acquires the kind of characteristics that will make it increasingly difficult for the Israelis to exercise a military option and have it have an effect. From an Israeli standpoint to face what is an existential threat, which is what the Israelis see, and not have the military means to deal with it, is something that no Israeli prime minister would easily accept. Not just this one, any Israeli prime minister. So on the one hand, the pressure is building on the Iranians, and if there was enough time, it might be able to change their behavior on the nuclear program. On the other hand, there isn't a lot of time. So how do you reconcile the issue of pressure and the need for time and the lack of having time? Seems to me the way to do that is to clarify the situation by, in effect, using your diplomacy to focus on what's the outcome you want on the nuclear issue. The outcome you want is one in which the Iranians accept the fact that they can have civil nuclear power, but they also accept that the limitations that are going to be put on their program are such that they will not have a breakout capability. If that was the focal point of diplomacy, and if we were to go ahead and offer a proposal to that effect, if the Iranians in fact only want civil nuclear power, then you find a way out of this through diplomatic means. If it turns out that, in fact, what they really want is a nuclear weapons capability, then you also expose them because you put on the table a proposal that's designed to give them what they claim they want, which is only civil nuclear power. And if they accept it, you basically have solved the problem, and if they haven't accepted it, then you've exposed them. I think it's very important to clarify this situation because if it turns out that diplomacy is going to fail, and force ends up being used, force needs to be used in a context where it's very clear that, in fact, diplomacy was exhausted. The Iranians have demonstrated, in fact, what they want is a nuclear weapons capability, and they brought this on themselves. I think the key at this point, therefore, is to focus the diplomacy less on the step-by-step approach and much more on what would be an end game as it relates to trying to resolve the nuclear question. I don't know how much more time I have, but I'd like to cover at least two more topics. OK. All right, Syria. Anybody who's paying attention to what's going on in Syria knows that today there's actually quite a bit of fighting in Damascus. The one thing that seems clear is the longer this goes on, the worse the situation gets. The fact is, time right now does not look to be an ally when it comes to what the future of Syria is going to look like. The longer this goes on, the more central authority is likely to break down. The more the sectarian divide becomes so hard and it may not be bridgeable, the more you're likely to face some kind of partition or worse within Syria. So the question becomes, what can one do to try to accelerate the process of Assad leaving? Because as long as he's there, what I just described is almost a given. And I think the key here is not a huge surprise. What does it take to change the balance of power within Syria, and here I mean both objectively and subjectively. At one level, it requires the Russians changing their posture, which if you listened to Lavrov's press conference yesterday, that doesn't look like it's in the immediate offering. Although I would suggest that here the more the Arabs make it clear that the Russians can have a relationship with Bashar, they can have a relationship with the Arabs, but they can't have both, maybe that will affect the Russian calculus. I think something else that has to happen is that the Russians need to understand they can play a major role and preside over the transition, or the rest of the world also simply will stop coming to them. Because I do think making themselves this kind of focal point where everybody's coming to them is actually something that appeals to them and isn't exactly giving them a reason to change their posture. So one thing that has to be done is what can be done to try to alter the Russians. A second thing that needs to be done is what can be done to try to reach out to and appeal to the Alawis. They continue to represent the base, not just the base of the regime, but the base of the security forces. And so long as they feel that they're in a situation where their survival is at stake, they're not going to change their behavior. I do believe that the Saudis and others who have all sorts of interesting ties to the Alawis ought to be offering a set of assurances, that the longer that they stay with Assad, the less any assurances can be offered. If in fact they're prepared to leave Assad, if there's a defection there, then one of the things that can be done is you can give certain guarantees. Unfortunately, the longer time goes on, the ability to act on those guarantees is going to disappear. I think there are other things that can be done in terms of trying to add to the sanctions, make it very difficult for those who are connected to the regime to travel, and even those who aren't, if you know, the kind of sanctions that can be imposed on travel to and from Syria may have some effect. But I also think we have to at least think about whether or not you can create some kind of safe haven in the north with Turkey as a base. A safe haven was created in northern Iraq in 1991, and it didn't necessarily produce this big mission creep and expansion that many people fear. But I think at least this is something that ought to be looked at because I do think it would have an effect in terms of trying to change the balance of power, at least psychologically, if not objectively speaking. All right, let me also say something about, I know you wanted to talk about Turkey and maybe we can have that, and the others may pick that up, or we can do it in the Q&A. But the one topic that no one ever seems to talk about is the peace issue between Israelis and Palestinians or between Arabs and Israelis. This seems to be something that with the Arab awakening and with Iran and with Syria, with everything going on in the region, it's the one thing that no one pays any attention to. Now the one thing I feel confident of is that the issue won't go away. And if it's not going to go away, then one also has to think about what you can do to deal with it. The problem with trying to deal with it today is that the, I would say, let me put it this way, the public's on each side completely disbelieve in the prospect of any kind of change and any kind of outcome. And at this point, I think the Israeli public doesn't believe that the Palestinians believe in a two-state outcome. They think that the Palestinians believe in a two-state insofar as they think in terms of a Palestinian state and the binational state, obviously not too appealing to Israel. And the Palestinian public basically feels that the Israelis will simply never give up control and never really accept their independence. So what you have now is disbelief on the part of both publics. What you have now is a conviction that even though a two-state outcome might be desirable, neither side believes it's ever going to happen. And so long as that's the reality and that's the context, to believe that a political process, which I believe is essential because there's no such thing as a unilateral outcome. There's no such thing as a peace agreement that's based on unilateral steps. You have to have a political process to produce some kind of an agreement. But at this stage, any political process is going to lack any credibility and therefore it needs to be invested with it. So the only way to do that it seems to me is to try to change the dynamic. And the way to change the dynamic is to try to get each side to take certain steps that would convince the other that they actually are committed to a two-state outcome. So as long as I have the podium, I'm going to offer a number of points for each side to consider. On the Israeli side, I would suggest the following points. One, again, if the issue on the Palestinian side is they don't believe Israelis are committed to a two-state outcome, take the following kinds of steps. Number one, provide voluntary compensation to settlers who would leave the West Bank. That would send an immediate message. We're not about trying to fill out the area. In fact, we're going to create incentives for those who would leave. Two, build housing for the settlers who would leave. Again, that would be a statement. You're not only accommodating those who would leave, you're making a statement about where you're putting your focus on building. And by the way, for the settlers, if you were to poll the settlers from Gaza who left, what you would hear from them is that they were not taken care of. So start now to take care of those who would leave. Three, and here I'm going to quote Dan Meridor, who is a member of the current Israeli government, he raised the question, he said, what is the logic if we're four two-states, what is the logic of us building in those parts of the West Bank that even we believe will be part of a Palestinian state? Where we should build, what he said, is where we should build is only within the blocks. Now, it's true that there's not an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians on the sides of the blocks, but that's what you'd negotiated about. And if the Israelis were building only in the blocks and not outside the blocks, it would again send a message to the Palestinians that they actually are serious about a two-state outcome. Four, open up Area C, which is 60% of the West Bank, to economic activity for Palestinians. Basically, Palestinians are excluded from economic activity and presence in Area C. And if one of the messages was that you were going to expand this and you were going to allow Palestinians much more activity economically speaking in Area C that doesn't pose risks on security, but it immediately sends the message that Israel is in fact about easing control, not adding to control. Five, increase the Palestinian police presence in Area B. Area B is 21.7% of the West Bank, not that I focus too much on the details, but it's 21.7%. Here Palestinians have police because they have responsibility for planning and zoning, but also they have responsibility for civil law and order. Allow more Palestinian police to be there. And on the sixth step, Area A, which is 18.2% of the West Bank, where Palestinians effectively have civil and security responsibility, the Israelis on occasion will still go into Area A for security reasons. Work out a set of security criteria with the Palestinians that if they meet those security criteria, there won't be any more incursions in Area A, and if they don't meet those criteria, then the incursions are justified. So those are six steps that the Israelis could take that it seems to me would send a message to the Palestinians at a minimum that they are not about, that they in fact are about a two-state outcome, and they are not about simply maintaining and adding to the character of their control. What about the six steps on the Palestinian side? Since I'm offering symmetry here, I'm going to offer six steps for the Palestinians as well. First step for the Palestinians, put Israel on a map. You can't find Israel on any Palestinian map, not on its website, not in the textbooks, not in any Palestinian authority document. I once asked one of the Palestinian negotiators, why is Israel not on a map? And he said, well, we don't know what Israel's borders are. I said, you know what you want them to be, put it on a map. If you want to send a message that you're committed to a two-state solution, that would be a pretty good start. A second step for the Palestinians. Since the Israeli public believes that Palestinians, when they talk about two states, meaning a Palestinian state and a binational state, why don't you start talking about two states for two peoples and say and acknowledge that there is a historic connection to the land and to Jerusalem for the Jewish people? I know Palestinians may fear gee, maybe that raises questions about our rights. If you're so confident about your rights, you shouldn't have any problem in terms of acknowledging that the Jewish people have a historic connection to the land. A third step is stop celebrating everyone who kills an Israeli is a martyr. You know, if you really want to send a message of coexistence, every time you treat anybody who's killed an Israeli as someone to be celebrated or someone who is to be venerated, this is hardly the way to do it. A fourth step for the Palestinians is start conditioning your public for peace. It isn't only the Israelis who have heart steps to take. Palestinians have heart steps to take too, but that's never acknowledged. Acknowledge the fact that if peace is going to come, both sides have to take heart steps. I know from a Palestinian standpoint, they feel they're the weaker party, they're the victim. But the fact is, the more you treat yourself as a victim, the only thing you guarantee is that you perpetuate your reality as a victim. A fifth step, a few years ago, Abu Mazen said, where does it say that Palestinians should live in squalid conditions? And what he was getting at is, why not improve, why not build the refugee camps? Put permanent housing in there. Well, nothing was really done, but in fact, it was the right idea. You don't have to say anything, just start building permanent housing in the refugee camps. It will be its own statement. It will send its own message. And the sixth step for the Palestinians is build your state. Build the institutions of your state, because you're about building your state, not encroaching on Israel. And the fact is, where you should focus is on the institutions of rule of law, because that's not only good for you. We'll also send a message to the Israelis about the kind of neighbor you intend to be. Now, there are 12 steps. They're not exhaustive. They're not necessarily the only steps. The parties themselves could come up with different ones, but they would provide a very useful agenda for the two sides to talk about with each other. They're not to be an alternative to a political process, but if in fact the two sides were to begin to take these, to talk about these kinds of issues, and to work out some kind of orchestration where they would coordinate the steps they would take, you would change the dynamic and you would actually build something that's highly unusual in this part of the world, a virtuous cycle. And it would feed on itself and it would invest a political process with credibility. It would give people, the publics on each side, a reason to take a second look. Maybe it won't restore immediate belief, but at least it will create a basis on which to take a second look. And if the two sides aren't prepared to do that, then maybe we should be finding a way to broker moves in this direction, because if you don't change the dynamic, it's very hard to see how any political process is going to be launched, and it's very hard to see how any political process can go anywhere. All right, well, that's an overview of at least four issues and at least an outline of ways to think about them. I'll stop there. Thank you, Ambassador Ross, for that incredibly rich overview of those four issues and we're going to open it up to a discussion with a panel who can comment on those issues as much to say. Perhaps we can start with Danielle, who's written extensively about Syria and what to do there. Is there something missing from the discussion that you'd like to inject? Thank you. Thank you for throwing me that softball, Peter. First of all, let me say thank you to our partners, the American Enterprise Institute has really enjoyed and profited from, as I think the public has, this partnership with the New America Foundation and the Center for New American Security and I want to underscore it's been a lot of work for everybody and I think a wonderful result. So thank you to everybody. Syria, you know, unfortunately, I think pretty much everything has been said on the question of Syria. The real problem is what's been done or in the case of the United States, what's not been done. But I think that it provides lessons for everybody in thinking about the region. If you think about American foreign policy and American strategy and national security, which is what this whole series has been about, one of the things that I think is very helpful to countries who are both allied with us, countries that are opposed to us and even countries that fall somewhere in the middle as so many do is a sense of what it is that America is looking for in foreign policy, what our standards are, what it is that guides us, what are our principles. And if you watched, I think what you would have seen in Libya is a set of very beautifully articulated and ultimately executed principles on what to do. The problem is that that set of principles that was articulated by President Obama seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with what's going on in Syria. I think that's a source of profound confusion, not just to many of us in Washington, but to people in the region as well, all of whom see themselves in roughly the same light. We are, in fact, the grassroots. We are standing up against the illegitimate, to use Dennis's, I think, very elegant formulation, to standing up against an illegitimate set of dictators and trying to take back our destiny, trying to turn ourselves, in fact, from subjects into citizens. And in the one place where, frankly, you haven't heard that much over the last few years, Libya, to another place where you've heard a lot, a country that is for, at least for Iran, the linchpin of their entire regional strategy, we have a totally different set of policies. I think you're exactly right. I'm going to keep this very short and sweet. I think you're exactly right. Safe havens are a possible question. I think it's also fair to suggest that it is not difficult for us to avoid mission creep. I think there's more we can do. I think there's much more we can do vis-à-vis arming the rebels. But most importantly, we can have a set of principles that we actually wish to see articulated in the region and which we support with concrete policies. And more importantly, still, that we do not that we do not derogate to the Saudis and the Qataris to execute our foreign policy. I'll keep it there. Mark, any reaction on the Safe Haven idea? I mean, I think that, generally speaking, I mean, I would actually disagree unsurprisingly about this in that I think one of the important things to keep in mind about what's happening in Syria is that, obviously, Syria is not Libya. It's a very different situation. And having a set of principles, and I think Dennis and Daniel are both completely right, that it's important for foreign policy to be guided by coherent principles. But you don't have to then mindlessly repeat the same response in every case when the cases are very different. In the case of Libya, you had a situation where there was a very strong argument to be made for an intervention in the way that we did. You had international consensus, the UN resolution, backing by the Arab League, and a situation on the ground which was highly conducive to the kind of indirect intervention which we were able to do via air power, working with an opposition that was in control of territory and was in a position to actually help to shape the nucleus of an alternative state. And Syria, to this point, has had none of those things. And I think that I think we've heard a lot of people, and people with whom I agree, by the way, saying that we need to do more to help Syrians, we need to do more to try and bring, as Dennis said, a more rapid end to the Assad regime. But I think the core disagreement is not over whether that outcome would be desirable, but about whether different kinds of American intervention would make that more likely. And I think the assessment has been, I think correctly, that direct American intervention would probably extend this, make it far bloodier and make things worse rather than make it better. If you look at what's happening on the ground right now, what you see is actually the playing out of a situation which I think is highly unsustainable for Assad. I think the momentum is against the Assad regime. And I think that as horrible as what's happening is, and as much as we have, what we've been trying to do, has taken more time than we would like to see it play out, I think that this is actually what we need to be doing, trying to maintain momentum towards what's going to have to be the end of the Assad regime. Doug is a former Army officer. What are the pitfalls and problems of arming the opposition, if any? And what are the, and in terms of creating a safe haven, how, what are the mechanics of that? Creating a safe haven is hard. Let's establish that. In a place that's hostile, if you don't have control of the ground, it's hard. It's not impossible, but it's hard. Arming the opposition, again, who is the opposition? Do we really want to, to give arms to people that we don't know what their motives are? We don't know what they're going to do with the arms. But I want to back up a frame and kind of weave together everything that we've heard here. I think everyone has, at least from my perspective, has a piece of the puzzle. I think the ambassador is absolutely right, and his point mirrors Marx. The momentum in Syria is moving in a direction that the Assad regime can't last. Unfortunately, the longer that drags out, the uglier that's going to get. The more the sides are going to be polarized, and the more that we're going to see a sectarian divide, that'll be very, very hard to bridge in the post-conflict era, which, you know, those of us who have Iraq experience know all too well. I think Marx is right that this situation is very, very different than Libya, that Libya provided a much easier case. But I think we can't ignore what Danny has to say, that Syria is actually really important when it comes to US national interests in the region in a way that Libya simply was not, that Syria is a linchpin state for all kinds of issues, for Lebanon, which impacts Israel, for Iran and their aspirations in the region, and Syria should be a state that we should be more focused on. I was intrigued by what Ambassador Roth said about reaching out to the Saudis to perhaps produce some guarantees for the Alawites, and maybe a way forward here is to talk about protection for all civilians, because I think when we talk about Syria and we talk about protecting civilians, it's often seen as protecting Sunni civilians, and the Alawites have their own, you know, justifiable fears, Ambassador Roth. You know, look, I think the key for Assad has been to try to create from the beginning a sectarian reality. When this began, it was completely peaceful. And he was the one who immediately tried to turn it into something that A wasn't peaceful, and B was not national but sectarian, because he wanted to play up on the fears, not over the Alawites, but all the minorities. And the more he did that, the more he felt that that would cement his base, and he would also create for the Alawites a sense that, look, as long as I'm here, you survive, and as soon as I go, you're finished. And we have to, you know, A, it's been up to the Syrian opposition to try to create a sense of inclusiveness and to make it clear that their image of Syria is not sectarian but national, that they're the way, when they view a transition, they view a transition that's designed by definition to be inclusive and not exclusive. But I also think that there are those who are supporting the opposition in the Free Syrian Army who can do much more to communicate this. It's not just up to a Syrian opposition which it's itself somewhat fractious, which is probably an understatement, but it's also up to those who are supporting them to reach out to these different minority communities, but particularly the Alawites. And the reason I focus on the Saudis, because the Saudis are sort of the embodiment of the backing of the Sunnis, and they also have a history of a relationship with the Alawites, not just with the Syrian, not just with the Sunnis within Syria. So I do think if there was a way to reach out there, you would also begin, I think, to break this kind of hole that Assad has had. It's partly practical, it's partly psychological, but there has to be something that is designed to change that what I was referring to before is kind of the balance of subjective power. Let's turn to Egypt, if any of the people in the panel had comments to make in the general framing sense. Can I actually build on, because actually, I think what Ambassador Ross just said about Syria, I think it's actually very useful as a microcosm for the region as a whole. I mean, going back to the very beginning of your remarks, talking about the Arab awakening and not liking the term Arab Spring, actually, even though I prefer the term Arab uprisings to the Arab awakenings, but I think you could actually make a case that there was something identifiably called an Arab Spring in roughly December through March of 2011, and what really unified it was this notion that this was an extremely unified Arab movement where you had this very tight connection between different arenas, it's largely peaceful, and there was this overwhelming expectation of success, and you could see this playing out across the region pretty much in a unified, coherent, unidirectional way, and then what happened was that right around March or so, that momentum was broken, and it was broken in part by the monarchies of the Gulf who managed to prevent change from coming to their own countries. It also was changed by the introduction of violence, by the introduction of sectarianism. I think Bahrain was extremely important in this, in introducing sectarianism into the equation across the region, and basically what you get then is what I would consider to be intentional regime strategies of introducing sectarian polarization and violence as a way of blunting momentum, basically dragging this protest movement down into the mud of this kind of bare knuckle, bloody, violent political conflict, and to some extent it worked, and I think that what it managed to do was to break the momentum and the sense of inevitability of change, but at the same time, I don't think it works over the longer term, and I think that this is really the tension that we see in a place like Syria and across the region as a whole, is that I think those strategies work in the short term, they can stop that onrush, that snowball of inevitable change, but at the expense of losing the loyalty and losing the faith of your people, and I think a case like Bahrain, for example, is a place that is gonna be in deep trouble over the coming years because what allowed it to survive in the short term is precisely what will doom it in the long term. I think that the same thing is playing out in Syria right now, where the use of violence and sectarianism, precisely the things which have allowed Assad to hold on to control, have largely lost him the loyalty of the population, significant portions of territory, and any hope of ruling effectively in the future, and so in a sense if we think about this and try to separate out these kind of short term trends at the longer term, where we wanna see these things end up, I think that might help to introduce a little perspective on kind of what's stable, what's not stable, and where we think these trends might be going down the road. Daniel. I'm not as concerned about what we call it, so let me be frank, we can call it whatever we want, everybody can call it whatever they want. I do think that you're right, that there's a thread that runs throughout the region, and that clearly this has been very, very aggressively manipulated by regimes. I think that was all foreshadowed over the last decades when they suggested, you know, it's my way, or it's the Muslim Brotherhood slash Fatah al-Islam slash whatever the heck it is, we can see the mirror image of that in the Gulf actually, where they try and create these two choices. It's one of the reasons why there's so little middle ground in the region, there are so few diverse political parties that offer different options, there's also one of the reasons why in the Egyptian election we saw that the Tahrir liberal opposition was unable to formulate a platform for itself or put forward a candidate or a persuasive option for people, and it ended up being really the choice that Mubarak actually suggested it was going to be, which is disappointing in many ways. But I just wanna come back to this thread question in another way. One of the things that disturbs me a great deal is that we were so willing to accept the status quo ante. I mean, I can count on more than one hand the number of members of both political parties of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who went to supplicants to shine Bashar and his father, have his alasad shoes back in the day, and showed any amount of concern to involve him in the process and make him feel like he was part of the international community, and to woo him away from whichever particular thug was backing him at the moment. Now, I think we need to think about the obverse in the same way. We have interests in this outcome, and the fact that we are willing to sit aside and nitpick a little bit, not unfair nitpicks, but nitpicks nonetheless, these questions is, I think, a huge mistake for us. Whether or not this is about us or it isn't, and I think that everyone will agree it's not about us. This is a region in which we have interests. If the conflict in Syria continues, we could very well see. We've already seen the involvement of Lebanon. We've already seen fighting going on there. We haven't talked at all about Jordan. Washington doesn't want to talk about Jordan, but Jordan is a country in which there is a king that is basically a client of the Americans and who is at real risk as well. We have interests in the outcome, and yet our position is very unclear. All the principles that you laid out, Dennis, at the outset, but I think that we all know and are aware of are not clear in the region because they are not articulated through our policy. I think that's a big problem for us in the future when this settles down. Three years ago, if we'd had this conference, Iraq would have been front and center. Doug, having spent many years of your life there, what's your prognosis right now for Iraq? Yeah. As you know, I'm one of the most sanguine people in town on Iraq. I believe the regime is moving forward. It's not as efficient as I would like it to be. It's slightly more sectarian, slightly more authoritarian that I would like it to be, but looking at the region as a whole, given the type of bare knuckle politics that emerge in the region, it is a parliamentary democracy, maybe borrowing more from Romanian politics than we would like, but it's a parliamentary democracy, and Maliki is a elected leader who's gonna have to stand for election again in 2014. If people don't like his policies, he won't be the prime minister anymore. It is moving in the right direction, and of course it's increasing oil production, which as some of us know, last month eclipsed Iran's production for the first time. I think that's a significant event in the geopolitics of the region. Iraq in ascending state, Iran at least until it comes out of this crisis, the descending one. That's an important linchpin for some, some ones of hope. Nowhere near as neat as any of us would have liked it to be. Certainly nothing like we envisioned in 2003, but not a bad place to start, or at least not a terrible place to start. Would the panel like to comment on Ambassador Ross's observations about the time frame on Iran with the sort of ticking clock on the Israeli side? No. He's the expert. I think everybody sees, I mean, I think everybody sees the two clocks, not unlike you do, although I think we probably disagree about what it is we might do. Well, what's the area of disagreement? Well, that's a really long conference. I think there are a whole set of agreements. I think I actually think that what you said about, and I wrote it down because I agreed with it wholeheartedly, now I can't read it without my glasses, about the perception being that the six are more fearful of the end of diplomacy than the Iranians are, I think is absolutely true, and that was indicated when half day through the technical discussions, we all of a sudden announced, no, we're back. So I think that that's a correct impression, but the fact that the administration is day by day filtering out more small sanctions is an indication of how far we could still yet go in terms of the diplomatic and economic tools that we could bring to bear. I think there's a lot more that we could do to push this a lot harder and to appear a little bit less desperate. And finally, on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, are there any thoughts? That seemed like a very, the 12 points seemed inarguably good points. I don't know, if Doug's the most sanguine guy in town on Iraq, on Israeli-Palestinian, it's easy to join the consensus of pessimism. I actually see no prospect for a movement on Israeli-Palestinian peace-making anytime in the near future or in the medium future. And I think largely for the reasons that you laid out, I think that the parameters of what people think of as a two-state solution have largely faded away. So there's an impulse clearly to try and re-engage and to change that and to push that, but in the absence of any real conditions on either side, on the Israeli side or the Palestinian side, to move off of the current equilibrium, it's hard to see how that changes, quite honestly. One thing which I do wonder, to bring it back to the earlier part of your conversation, is at what point the Arab uprisings do hit the Palestinian territories. It actually strikes me as one of the surprises of the last year and a half that Abumaz and Salam Fayyad have largely avoided, the kind of sustained popular mobilization from below since they share many of the characteristics of the kinds of Arab regimes that were challenged. And I think that is one potential game changer in terms of what might force the two parties off the equilibrium, but that won't come from us. That will come from events on the ground. And that almost looks like the kind of locomotive rushing towards us. I'm very curious your thoughts on that. I'm uneasy about having events suddenly define what your choices are. I'd rather try to shape the landscape than have the landscape impose something on everyone where if it does then the choices are gonna be a lot less desirable and they're probably gonna be fewer. So it's precisely because I think there's a kind of stuck equilibrium and there is this profound disbelief that I think you have to change the dynamic. And again, a reason I focused on the issue of the disbelief and the fact that it's tied specifically to both publics at this point being convinced that the other's not serious about two states. So that's why I said, all right, if that's the perception, what could you do that could alter that perception? That's why I came up with the 12 points. But Dennis, could I ask you, do you think that they're wrong to have that belief? No, I think that it's one of the reasons that you have this. You know, look, each side can make a very good case as to why they perceive things the way they do. And the problem with this conflict has always been there is a profound sense on each side that they're right. And this is a conflict where in fact it's not a case of a right and a wrong, it's a case of two rights. So the question is, how do you reconcile the two rights? The two states for two peoples is the ultimately, in my mind is the only answer. And if you're stuck and you can see that something is likely to happen at some point and you're not going to like it when it does happen, then you have, it seems to me, you ought to think about, well, what can you do that could somehow, again, change the circumstance, change the context. If you, you know, I once wrote a book on statecraft and I said, you know, most people take as a given that when you shape an approach to a particular foreign policy issue, you always create the relationship between objectives and means. And actually, when you look historically, you'll find the norm is to have a big gap between objectives and means. And when you have an objective that you can't achieve, then what you ought to be thinking about is, well, how can I change the circumstances? And what means do I and others have to change the circumstances so what isn't possible today can be possible over time? And I just think right now, if we sit back and continue on the path we're on, we're going to find that our choices shrink. Before we open it to Q and A from the audience, does anybody else want to add to any of this? I just think overall, what we have here is a case study in the limitations of American power to contour other people's politics. We can remove a leader. We can remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq. We can remove Qaddafi in Libya. If we really chose to, we could remove Assad from Syria. But for that matter, we can exercise a military option in Iran. But what the politics look like after that is entirely unforeseeable or largely unforeseeable. And we need to be very, very cautious about exercising a military option. And in places where we don't have that, as Egypt and Tunisia have taught us, what happens at the end of a political end game is not necessarily what we would have chosen and our ability influence it may be severely limited. Arguing against that, I mean, Libya has turned out to be sort of okay, at least as far as we can tell. Is that the sort of assessment of the panel? I mean, Libya and Tunisia have both turned out, no, I don't want to be over enthusiastic, but sort of okay, as you use your phrase. But I don't want to be too valuable here, but I don't agree with you, as I'm sure you would expect. I think our ability to shape things is much greater than we ever are willing to admit. And that the tools that we employ are ones that are singularly useless. We've spent $50 billion in Egypt over the last 30 plus years. And none of that resulted in a more diverse political system, a system that ultimately was stable, a system that embraced private enterprise, that embraced human freedom. Those are pretty important priorities for American foreign policy, and yet, I can tell you, looking backwards over our aid programs, they were pretty much near the bottom of the barrel and rarely succeeded because no one was invested in them. I think America's ability to shape things according to broad and important principles is there because those broad and important principles are shared by everybody. There are no people who say human freedom, eh, not really, thank you. I'd like to do less well. I'd like to take more from the state. These are things that I think can work for us and that we invest much too little in as a matter of foreign policy. I guess I would have to say that I fall on the lens of we're less able to shape these societies, but that's basically been what I've seen around. If you look at Iraq and how much did we shape Iraq versus how much did Iraq shape the occupation, I think it's a pretty clear balance. And if you look at a place like Egypt, I mean, I think that your point is very well taken in that there is this very important, a very profound struggle against despotism, against corruption, against the kinds of overbearing and incompetent state which the Mubarak regime represented. But I think that one of the key questions that we're all going to face coming forward is that the way that those desires and ideas are manifested are almost certainly not going to be in what we think of as a pro-American or a liberal key. And so we're going to be seeing the rise of Islamist movements, at least in the short term. And I think that the way Ambassador Ross laid out how we should deal with them, I think, is a very good way of thinking about it to not panic when the Muslim Brotherhood wins the presidency of Egypt, wait and see how they perform, what they do, how they relate to others, what kinds of institutions emerge. And I think that in some ways this has been a very important non-barking dog so far, the extent to which that we have not had a collective freak out about the course of events in Egypt. And I hope we can continue that relative maturity of the American response, because it is going to be a long process of institutional formation and political competition in places like Egypt. And I think we as Americans across the spectrum need to have the patience and the willingness to have, to take the time and then have the patience it's going to need to keep our eye on the ball for the long process of transition. And it's not going to be easy. I would just add the following thought. The stories that are being written in the region are being written by the people in the region. We're not the authors of it. So the reality is we're going to have to figure out how we relate to these stories, because the truth is we do have interests and we can't be indifferent to what happens there. And we have to somehow keep in mind what the interests are, even as we understand that the nature of the story is going to be one that the people who are writing it want from their own standpoint to be very much owning. And we have to, you know, we have to think about even as we approach our interests and we use the means at our disposal how we relate to them in a way that is, you know, as consistent as it can be. I mean, it's really easy when you're theorizing about these things to say, you know, we're going to do, we'll be very consistent, we'll always act the same way. When you're confronting choices on a daily basis, you have to sometimes make choices that are not, you know, are not the most desirable. You're, it's an old saw that when you're making policy, oftentimes the options you have available to you are not the ones you would have chosen. So you're picking what is frequently the least bad of the options. I do think keeping in mind our principles and our values as a kind of load star is going to be a pretty good way to shape what we do over time, but we're going to have to be somewhat flexible. We're going to have to be somewhat supple. And sometimes we're going to have to give hard messages because in fact we do have interest to protect. But I think the more we can stand by the certain basic principles they will serve us pretty well over time. Great, with that we're going to throw it open to questions and answers with the audience. We have precisely half an hour. If you have a question, please wait for the microphone. Questions are encouraged, not statements. Please identify yourself. And where are the microphones? Come over here, okay. Over in the front here, general Kimit. We'll start with him. Microphone, do you want to start with the microphone? No, it's too big. He started off from the microphone. Do I? No, that's too big. Do I want the microphone? It's too big of a room, I think. Even for someone as authoritative as you. Dennis, you started off early when you talked about Iran on the notion of diplomacy fails that will give us the cause belly for military action. And that the administration has said prevention is preferable to containment. Persuade me of that. Tell me why prevention, which would include a military strike with its attended second and third order consequences and unintended consequences, tell me why that scenario is something we need to convince American people to approach rather than a containment regime. Why is the first superior to the second? Let me answer it in the following ways. I'd start by making the first point. If force has to be used, what I was trying to get at is you have to demonstrate unmistakably you tried everything short of that, genuinely so. Now having said that, I think the key problem with containment is it won't work. There are several different levels at which you have to think about this. The Obama administration will have been the third administration that has said Iran can't have nuclear weapons. It started with Clinton, then there was Bush, and then there was Obama. So in the aftermath of three administrations saying it's not to mention the world having also said it, if Iran then acquires it, our ability to go to others and say, look, it's okay, we'll give you our assurances. You don't have to worry about the fact they haven't because we'll extend our nuclear umbrella to you. I think in the first instance, no one's gonna accept that. So containment from the standpoint of trying to prevent others from going nuclear, and I would say the Saudis are a good bet to do it. Not, people will say, well, they don't have the infrastructure, and I would say, yes, they have the money. And they'll use the money to acquire it for all sorts of reasons because they're not in their, in their mind, they're in a fundamental competition with the Iranians, and to be at a disadvantage militarily and psychologically, and even in a sense, scientifically, is not acceptable to them. So what you're gonna find is that containment doesn't stop other countries from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability in the region. That's point one, point two. This is not the Cold War, where each country, in the case of the U.S. and Soviet Union, each of us knew we couldn't strike first and disarm the other and prevent them from striking back. So we had, you know, the old balance of terror. In this part of the world, there's gonna be a very strong impulse to believe that if you don't strike first, all is lost, and you'll suffer catastrophic losses that can't be recovered. So you're gonna have countries in this region acting on a hair trigger in an environment where conflict remains the norm, not the exception, where it's not just that they have imperfect intelligence. It's also where their communication channels, either in many cases, are quite limited or they don't exist. Between Israel and Iran, no communication. We had communication channels with the Soviet Union, and we came closer to nuclear war on more than one occasion, not just in the Cuban Missile Crisis, than we realized at the time. You can easily imagine conflicts emerging in this region that move very rapidly, where if suddenly, you know, the Iranians decide that they're gonna raise the alert level of nuclear forces, if you're sitting in Israel, you're gonna say, we have the time to wait to see if something happens, or someone can intervene to stop this. I'm afraid you're gonna have the risk of a guns of August scenario in steroids. And it means to me, when I look at containment, it means containment fails, A, in terms of not preventing others from going nuclear, B, it then doesn't deal with what you need in terms of ensuring that if you're gonna have a nuclear armed Middle East that you're gonna be able to prevent a nuclear war in the Middle East. So it's not that the use of force is a low cost proposition, it's that if we end up having a nuclear armed Middle East, we run the risk in my mind of a very high probability of seeing nuclear wars take place. Lady in front, you identify yourself. Yes, my name is Amal Moudelli, I'm with the Wilson Center. I have a question about the elections and these issues. I wonder if between now and the American elections, we're going to see any movement at all on these three issues, four issues that you are mentioning. And do you think that these are going to be important issues in the elections? And if President Obama is elected, do you see a different approach to the Middle East peace process, to Syria, to Iraq? I mean, what kind of policy should we expect? Thank you. That's worth me. I think that's for you. Well, first I think that the American public is focused much more on domestic issues than there are on international issues. We've not seen international issues at this point grab much attention in the campaign, but maybe they will as we get closer to the election. Obviously I think that depends on developments. We, if things deteriorate further in Syria, which I think is likely, that may become, there may be more prominence to the issue. Clearly what's happening in Iran, I do think may yet could yet change before the election. So I think the short answer to the question is that we've not seen it be much of a campaign issue at this point, but they may yet become campaign issues. And I also think that, again, developments oftentimes will have to oftentimes provoke responses. So you could yet see something done between now and election time. After the election, I think I believe, I wouldn't, let me put it this way. I don't think that the basic approach on these issues is fundamentally gonna change. If there's a second Obama term, I think the basic approach is likely to remain largely the same. In the case of Egypt, the administration, I think has established a broad approach. I think in the case of Syria, it's also established a broad approach. I think it has been working without us to ratchet up the pressure. And I assume that, again, depending upon the circumstances, it will try to do more. I think it wants, it's clear, it wants to try to accelerate the departure of Assad. In the case of the peace issue, I suspect that here again, it's gonna depend on what the administration perceives it can do, what the circumstances are, before it decides what other steps it might take. Secretary of State was just in, was just in Egypt and was just in Israel. And one of the points she made is that she thinks it's important to try to get back to a negotiating process. So I think that that kind of effort will be ongoing. And yeah, in a Romney administration, do you think there would be substantial changes or more just more continuity? I'm not a spokesman for Mitt Romney and I don't have any affiliation with his campaign. So I'm basically in the same position as everybody else, looking at what he says and guessing a little bit about policy. I mean, I agree. The American people are focused on one, two, three, four through 10 on the economy and jobs. And I think that the campaigns are going to reflect that. Is there a deus ex, at least ex American machina that may force a change? Of course. I mean, you know, if Israel pursues a military option vis-a-vis Iran, but there are others as well that could happen. I think we've talked a little bit about. So something could happen. I don't know. What I do know is that Governor Romney has articulated a strong belief in an American role in the world. A less of a willingness to sit back and let events develop. Does that necessarily mean a radically different policy? Jesus, I hope so. But I have no actual idea. We don't know who his secretary of state is going to be. And a lot does depend on people. I think there's one additional factor that's important. I think that, and I know my colleagues are going to disagree with me, but I'm going to say it anyway. I think that there's a level of mistrust of American intentions at this point, a level of mistrust of what America will do in support of our friends and against our adversaries in the region. Let's even start with Israel and say that I think that the level of trust between this administration and the Israeli public and their elected representatives is very low. If Israel had a higher level of trust in an American government, would they feel as compelled to do what they need to do on their timeline vis-a-vis Iran? I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that there might be a different one where there's someone different in the White House. Do the countries of the Gulf feel that way as well? I suspect that they do to a certain point. They certainly hint at it when you talk to them. Are they right? That I can't answer. You'll have to ask me in December. Mark. I would say that I liked Denny's response because I think we all just have to kind of guess at what a Romney administration would do because they certainly haven't said. I mean, basically, there's no policies on offer other than this kind of very vague, oh, we'll be bold, we'll be literally. And being literally is, it makes for good rhetoric, but doesn't give you any real clue as to what kinds of policies Romney would actually pursue. So it's very difficult to have a debate about it. The only point that I wanted to make was actually about the Syria thing. So I think there is a widespread belief in kind of the Middle East and in the Syria policy community that the election is what is holding Obama back from intervening, that there will be no action from the White House until after the election. I think that's really misguided. I mean, my belief is that the White House is probably not pushing to intervene in Syria because they think it's a bad idea and that they're not going to do so not because of the election, but because they don't think it's a good idea. Now, if developments on the ground change, then that will probably change the administration's response, but I don't think it's gonna be driven by the election. Beyond that, it's very hard to imagine, as you said, any bold new initiatives happening between now and November on sort of issues of choice, like a new Israeli-Palestinian peace process initiative or Iran or that sort of thing. Gentlemen, back to your right. Yeah. Thank you. My name is Sayed Erikat from the Palestinian newspaper Quds. My question is to Ambassador Ras with that did luck with the Palestinians and Israelis. There's a great deal of talk about unilateral actions. The Palestinians going to the UN, but the Israelis, some talk, are talking about possibly withdrawing from 60% of the West Bank and let it be whatever it may be. And second, what is your reaction to the commission report written by Edmond Levy and how should that impact or how should the United States respond to that commission report? Thank you. On the first question, I'm not a big fan of unilateral moves simply because I think what they foster are more unilateral moves that aren't usually positive. It isn't to say that there aren't circumstances where nothing else can be done where you could see some unilateralism, but I think fundamentally as a principle, unilateralism doesn't work. And one of the reasons it doesn't work is it either adds to the sense that when the Israelis, for example, withdrew from Gaza unilaterally understood why they did it, but when the Israelis take those kinds of steps, it creates the impression that they're the only ones who have responsibilities and the Palestinians don't have responsibilities. One of the reasons you want mutuality is because you want both sides to have to feel they have to do something and they have to act in a way that demonstrates to the other and to themselves that they're prepared to take certain steps. So I'm not a fan of unilateralism and whether it's, you said, on either side, I don't favor it on either side because I think it, as I said, what it ends up doing is, in the case of the Palestinians, when they take, when they go to the UN, what it does is it convinces the Israeli public that what they're about is trying to either delegitimize or impose outcomes that, in the end, make it impossible to negotiate. So I'm not a huge fan of unilateralism. As for the second question, this is something that's been done internally. The government in Israel hasn't even responded to it yet. It flies in the face of the last study that was done at Sharon Commission and I'd like to see how the Israeli government will respond to it. This lady over here. Hi, my name is Kristi Kaufman. I'm an army wife and that's the reason I'm here because that small percent that actually has skin in the game in regards to the kind of policies that we pursue. Can the panel give a sense with what we've done, the past two administrations in the past 11 years, how that has impacted the thought in the Middle East of how we use our military and how, again, we're a little tired after doing this for 10 years. Is there a sense that we will make decisions based on how we've used our military in the past 10 years, how much we'll use it or anything to that effect? I mean, it's one thing, how we think about it back here, I don't really have any kind of sense of how they feel in the Middle East on the past 10 years of our involvement with the military and how that might impact the way we use it in the future. I don't think anyone in the Middle East with the exception of a few protected minorities gets really excited when the US Army shows up in their country. No one likes their country to be occupied, full stop. Even if you didn't like your previous government, even if those soldiers are in some way, shape or form, protecting you, no one is still a fan of foreigners and uniforms being in their country. So I think what the region thinks of the United States military in general, although I'm sure US pilots are very popular in Libya right now, but in general, they're not really excited about that. Is that going to change the way in which the United States uses its military force? No, I don't think that's going to have any impact whatsoever. I think that's going to be purely decided by domestic politics on occasion and consult with our allies. And it's a volunteer military. I fully understand it's been used hard. I have lots of time overseas myself, but that's what the military is there for. And if administrations decide that a military option is required, they're going to use it, full stop. But Doug, if you look at the defense budget, the only part of the defense budget you know that's growing is special operations forces. It looks like the conventional army is going to be deployed less. Is that correct? That is certainly the conventional wisdom that the future is special forces and drones and the Navy checking China, which leads me to believe that's probably the least probable outcome. But that is certainly the conventional wisdom at the moment. Great. Meg, the person right next to you. Thank you. My name is Ibrahim Hussain. I'm an Egyptian-American living here in Washington DC. Danielle mentioned about trust in America. I'd like to go a step more than that. In Egypt, and I'm sure it's in the region, the name of America is in mud. America is seen. Unfortunately, that happened to Mrs. Clinton, Alexandria, my hometown. It's very regrettable and very poor. What I would like to ask the panel, should America do some affirmative action to make up for 30 years of supporting Mubarak and continue to support the... Any time we tolerate the revolution, but we don't come up with a past strong statement such as abolish the debt, the Egyptian debt, change the military aid to civilian and development aid, and other measures that shows that America believes in its own principles, freedom and justice and human rights. Okay, Ambassador Roth's mark. Any comments on that? You know, I think what I was saying before is I think we should be very clear on our principles and our values. We should state them. We should work to establish, I think, something else. I think it's very important for us, not on our own, but with a large number of countries internationally, to shape what I would call standards of accountability. Because in the end, what's going to matter is ultimately not what we do, but whether the Egyptian people create the kind of accountability which I think they want. And they're gonna deal with, I think, governments that will, if anything, will try to fuzz that issue. And you want repeatable elections. You want elections to be based upon what governments are doing to respond to real needs. And the more that we and others can keep repeating that there has to be a respect for minority rights, there needs to be respect for women's rights, there needs to be the right of free speech and freedom of assembly and of the media, which means that you maintain the public space for competition. And there needs to be, as well, the recognition of living up to international responsibilities. The more that becomes a kind of standard that everyone just repeats over and over, almost like a mantra, the more it'll be within the bloodstream of the Egyptian public, which ultimately is what's going to allow them to create institutions that really will foster accountability. And I do think that's the key to having Egypt realize its potential. Anybody who's spent time in Egypt, as I have, knows that Egypt is not only an extraordinary country, but as Egypt goes, this is the one country that will affect the region much more than any other. So I would say what I just said not only reflects our values, but I think it also reflects our interests. I would only add, Ibrahim, and as you know, the Egyptians themselves are deeply divided over the future and over, and so basically whatever the United States does is going to anger or antagonize some faction in the Egyptian public. And I think that this approach of backing institutions and backing principles rather than specific outcomes, I think it's the only way that we can possibly guide ourselves through the coming transition. And I do think that the United States has been quite clear in wanting to see a transition to civilian rule, to trying to convince the military to step back, to try and see a more inclusive Egypt. And I think that's really the best you can do in this condition. There's a lot of really, really crazy ideas out there about what American policy is in Egypt right now, and this has been the case for an awfully long time. And I think at this point, it's very, very difficult for any message like the one you're suggesting to get through in a clear and understandable way. So at this point, I think the best we can do is just to try and focus on those big principles, civilian rule, respect for minority rights, universal freedoms, that sort of thing, and keep an eye on the longer game to try and build a new relationship with Egypt. I think that's the best we can do at this point. So, gentlemen, over here. Hello, my name is Omid Fatai, work for the Air Force. I had a question from Ambassador Ross. I don't understand when you talk about your belief in containment not working for Iran. I still don't understand what possible reason this hair trigger mentality would work in the case of Iran, knowing full well that the Mullahs will have to believe that any sort of action would result in just total annihilation of what's most sacred to them, which is holding on to power. And, frankly, the example that you said about this hair trigger mentality hasn't come to fruition in the case of Indian Pakistan. And I'm just curious as to what in the example of proliferation, actually Kenneth Walters had a great article in Foreign Affairs talking about this perception that proliferation will happen in kind of a tidal wave hasn't been true either. So I'm just curious, I'm kind of perplexed actually, what your rationale is behind that? Well, I thought I explained it, but obviously not well enough for you. First, the difference between Indian Pakistan is even though they have a rivalry, just as the United States and the Soviet Union did, they also have channels of communication. They've actually worked on confidence building measures. That doesn't exist between Iran and Israel, and it's very unlikely to exist between Iran and Israel. Israel, it's true. I'm not saying that I believe that if Iran gets nuclear weapons, that suddenly I think that they're gonna use them. I think they want nuclear weapons because they want to be a hegemon in the region. But I think it's precisely because of that that the Saudis will actually get nuclear weapons, not withstanding what Ken Walts says. Ken Walts thinks that you haven't seen, and I know him, because I used to be a Berkeley myself. He's had a longstanding theory that proliferation actually fosters stability. This is not new for him. He's been writing about it for 30 years. Now, that theory applies on a certain international basis, but in the Middle East, I think it's not gonna work that way. According to history, the Saudis would not get nuclear weapons, and I'm suggesting to you, when they have told everybody in fact that they will, and I think precisely because they would see themselves in a huge disadvantage vis-a-vis the Iranians, and this is a subjective reality for them. Therefore, they will turn it into an objective reality. When they get it, others are gonna feel that they have to have it too. Turkey is a member of NATO, but it's interesting that about six weeks ago, Erdogan said after the Iranians had tested, Amisley said we need to develop these kinds of missiles as well. So I think in fact, the logic of what Ken Walts has said isn't going to apply to the Middle East, and you're actually going to have proliferation. And when you have countries, these countries, in a situation where in fact, as I said, they think if you strike second, it's too late, I think they will be on a hair trigger. That's what I mean by a hair trigger. The idea that you can afford to sit back and not worry because you've got now a nuclear deterrent, and therefore, even if something happened, you can strike second, they won't feel they have that option. So if they don't have that option, they're likely to be in a situation where they're launching an alert. Are they going to have all the kind of safeguards built into their systems that we've built up over time? I wonder about that. So my point is I think the risks are very high, and therefore it makes sense to have a posture of prevention, not containment. I also believe, and this gets back to what I was saying earlier, that the best way to ensure that diplomacy succeeds is for the Iranians to believe that we don't fear its failure, and the sooner they also understand that we're prepared to go to the heart of the issue. You know, we have accepted the fact that they will have civil nuclear power. They claim they only want civil nuclear power. If that's the case, then we ought to make a proposal that allows them to have civil nuclear power, but constrains it in a way that prevents them from having a breakout capability. And if what they say is the case, then we'll actually have a diplomatic way out. And if it turns out it's not the case, then we will expose them, that in fact what they really want is a nuclear weapons capability. The lady over here on your right. Hi, my name is Diane Halley. I'm a co-founder of an organization called New Story Leadership for the Middle East, which brings five Israelis and Palestinians to Washington DC every summer to tell their stories to the Washington public, and to try to build a shared story in terms of shaping their landscape back in their region. I wanted, a number of them are here today, and they'll be speaking at a congressional forum this Thursday at 10.30. I wanted to ask Ambassador Ross, in that context, you spoke about changing the dynamic in Israel and Palestine specifically. And what is your experience and your opinion on youth involvement in changing that dynamic from the Middle East? Thank you. Well, it's clear that the older generation hasn't succeeded, so I would very much like to see more activism from below. I also think that what you're trying to do is exactly the right thing to do. It becomes the new term of art as narratives, and I use it as well. There was actually back in the days when we were trying to promote people-to-people ties, there actually was an effort at one point to bring Israeli and Palestinian universities together, and actually to create a common curriculum, as it related to history, to see if you could have the two narratives merge into one. I think the more that you have younger people who are capable of seeing that the other side is in fact shaped by the same kinds of fears and hopes that you have, the more it becomes possible to build these kinds of common narratives. So I think the kind of program that you're involved with is precisely the kind of thing that ought to be done and we should see more of. We have just three minutes left. Would any of the panelists like to just sort of have any closing thoughts or anything that we didn't address? Well, then we'll take, okay, this, sorry, forest of hands goes up. Why don't we take a few questions down here and then just these three gentlemen here? And questions very brief, go three minutes. My name is Hassan, I was born in Tehran. I have a global bridges for humanity organization. It seems to me that Iran has been portrayed as a problem in that part of the world and my question is this, since they are part of a problem, could they be part of a solution if we accept them as the new kids on the block versus the Israelis that they've been taking care of our interests over there? Okay. I'm Stephen Stern on emerging leadership that might shape things. It was a question from Arab Spring time. Who would be at the table? We have Morsi who's perhaps a shaping influence. Can you speak about others that might be emerging and what about the role of Turkey? Jim Fippard, I would like those who propose to provide weapons to the opposition in Syria to consider it in the context of the law of unintended consequences, thinking of what happened in Libya with arms going down into Mali and the outgunning of the Mali army being the reason or the given reason for the coup and the fact that a large portion of the country is now in the control of the rebels and al-Qaeda. Easy questions. Pick and choose. I disagree about, I'm much more optimistic about Libya, I think than you are in terms of what the outcome has been and the process, but I share deep skepticism about what happens if you begin arming what we still, what we call the Free Syrian Army. I just think that this is an extremely fragmented and disorganized opposition with lots of factions once you start pouring weapons in, which is already happening. You begin empowering the men with guns, you have no control over them. The idea that if we give them weapons, we will then have influence over them, strikes me as deeply flawed, there's no reason to believe that they will stay bought just because we're giving them weapons and as a rule of thumb, if you're saying to yourself, well, if we don't give this guy a gun, he might join al-Qaeda, you probably shouldn't give him a gun. On the question of youth and the like, I think one of the things which I think is really clear is that this is a generational transformation that's happening in the region and I think that there's a great deal of just absolute impatience with, and I would go so far as to say contempt for, the kind of the truisms or the assumptions or the taken for granted of the way the Middle East has worked over the last few decades among this rising generation. They simply have no patience for the kinds of things that we say to each other and the kinds of things that we take for granted and I think that we are going to see these new, this rising generation acting in all kinds of unpredictable ways across the region, but not necessarily in the ways that we would like to see them act and I think that this is kind of the disruptive role of youth, I think is something that we should be very prepared for as we're going forward in all of the arenas that we're talking about from Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict throughout the entire region. I liked your question about Iran being the new kids on the block. If it were a new Iran, that would be fine. The truth is that the Shia of the region, whether they were in Iraq or in Bahrain or in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, have no one to speak for them except themselves and the current government in Iran. That's a bad way to be. It would be wonderful to see a creative, productive, democratic, secular system in Iran. I wish we could get there without military action or at least some way. Of course, I want a smack mark for what he said about guns and al-Qaeda because it's not an end or choice. I don't think anybody who's suggesting that we arm the Free Syrian Army. I already have one, but not here, but not here. It's not a choice between al-Qaeda and the Free Syrian Army. It's a choice between a future of Syria that is better managed and one that devolves into a civil war with lots of different factions, including al-Qaeda. I hate the idea that we're saying we have an interest that we see Assad, we want him to go, we don't want to be involved, but by the way, you guys who do want him to go, we don't want to help you in any way. Well, maybe it's okay if the Qataris and the Saudis and the other supporters of the Wahhabis help you because we won't. That for me is the ultimate problem. Turkey, I can't believe we didn't talk about it. Big help. Maybe another session. And we'll have it. We owe it because it deserves an entire session by itself, very important to the future of the region. I'm gonna mostly agree with Danny, which kind of shocks me. I couldn't agree with you more that it would be wonderful, and I'll echo Danny's points. Iran that was able to stand as a model state for the Shia in the region would be a wonderful thing. It's not happening under this regime. I'm hoping for Iraqi influence, and Iran to bring up something new. Concur with your point on unintended second consequences in Mali. You have to understand these are going to happen. Now, even knowing that, do I still think we should have done Libya? Yes, so you'd have to budget in non-catastrophic second order effects happening somewhere else in the region. That doesn't mean that you don't act because bad things could happen. Last thing, I'll just add one point. I wanna pick up something that Mark said. It is true that I think that the youth are going to be more of a force, and they are quite impatient, and it isn't gonna be the traditional formulas that are gonna work on them, but they also have to figure out how they're going to act politically. They have, they help to produce the change, but they don't have a strategy for what they're going to do with the change, and they have to do their homework in terms of finding a way to reach out to large segments of the society that they've been disconnected from. They have to find a way to organize themselves and create a coherent agenda and a platform with an idea that they can present and sell as something that, in fact, is the basis on which to offer governance. I think they can do that, and to be fair to them, they really didn't have the opportunity before. Now they're gonna have the opportunity and part of our responsibility is to help ensure that, in fact, that opportunity doesn't get preempted, and that means ensuring that you don't have new forces of coercion that are there to preempt choice and make it very difficult to compete politically. That's one of our challenges for the future, and it's going to affect us, I think, for some time to come. Thank you. Dagol Ovan, Daniel Peck, Mark Lynch, Ambassador Ross. That was brilliant. Thank you.