 Good evening and welcome to the Center for Strategic International Studies. I'm Andrew Schwartz, and I'm very happy to see all of you tonight I think some of our friends are still coming in. We do a little maintenance housekeeping around here now It's just sort of the state of the times. If there is an emergency and I don't expect there to be one We will have people directing you to the nearest exits. There are exits behind To the right of mr. Sanger here, so we'll make sure you get to where you need to go But general we don't expect anything bad Can we welcome general skokoff general Brent skokoff this year? Have to welcome one of my bosses, and I also like to welcome judge William Webster is here as well It's been a great day at CSIS today. We hosted Representative Mike McCall chairman of the house Homeland Security Committee to discuss cyber threats then we had Interior secretary Sally Jewel talking about The department's energy priorities and now we've invited Bob Schieffer and Carol Lee to preside over Jake Tapper and David Sanger's bar mitzvah I'd like to thank Bob Schieffer and the Schieffer College of Communication at TCU For their great partnership and bringing us these dialogues It's been about seven years that we've been partnered with the horned frogs, and we are proud of that relationship None of this would be possible without the generosity and support of the Stabros Niarchos Foundation We're so appreciative appreciative of them and all they do for CSIS Now without further ado, please join me with your applause and welcoming Bob Schieffer. I think everybody up here would be much more Comfortable if we were sitting out there in Brent skullcroft and judge Webster. We're sitting up here But be that as it may we'll we'll press on And we hope they'll have good questions. Everybody knows David Sanger down there Washington correspondent for the New York Times reported from New York from Tokyo On globalization on foreign policy It's been a member of times reporting teams that have won the Pulitzer Before covering the White House he specialized in Confluence of economic and foreign policy and wrote extensively about that Carol lead my left is the White House correspondent for the For the Wall Street Journal She was started out here in Washington at least at the White House for political, but she's one of the few reporters It's been there for the entire Obama Administration so we're glad to have here and then of course my friend Jake Tapper here. You all know Jeff Jake he's the anchor of the lead and it says a long and distinguished career here and I Think I want to start With Jake because I think the first thing we ought to talk about is what's happening in Israel and what the latest is and I know you just got off the air. So yeah, just bring us up to speed Jake on what happened? It's really fascinating. First of all, it's an honor to be here and it's such a pleasure Especially sitting next to my colleagues most unably mr. Schieffer The the exit polls according to their three Israeli TV channels that do exit polling Channel two is the one that CNN went with this year because they have they have a slightly better track record than the others they had Netanyahu and Likud with 28 seats in the Parliament and And and Herzog with 27 the other two networks have it even 27 27 As I'm sure you know the Israeli Knesset the Parliament has 120 seats So you need a coalition of 61 no party in Israel's history has ever won 61 votes. So now What comes next is first of all the actual poll results need to come out and then the president of Israel if there is no clear defined winner In terms of who had the plurality has to pick so already Who gets to pick which party can now has 28 days to form a government? the jockeying has already begun and Netanyahu has already basically declared victory even though the actual results haven't come in and Herzog and his Coalition with Cipi Livni Are pushing back saying this is more Likud Misleading of the public as to what's going on because this is very much a perception game in terms of the Israeli president Some not so surprising, but also just very interesting Results the third place it appears is the coalition of Arab parties About with about 13 seats and then the two secular center parties I have about 11 seats and 10 seats again. This is all just exit polls. So who knows So I really don't have official results, and I don't really know exactly what's going to happen yet And nor does anybody other than mr. Netanyahu apparently But it is it is fascinating and if it comes I think what would be most interesting would be if it turns out to be 2727 Well, then and I'd like to bring David into this too if if it winds up like this Who has the best chance of putting together a coalition? Well, that depends in large part on How some of these smaller parties end up as Jake points out the fact that this Arab coalition Slate Put together what 13 seats from the last that we looked at in part This was because of a legal change that was designed to try to keep them largely out Of the the NASA and so they came there were so many fragmented Arab parties, and so now they've come together in in one panel I Would have to say that if you had to bet right now You would have to bet that the machine that at this point that Prime Minister has put together Would probably cobble this together from the right and some of the some of the others But you know the president of Israel has no love lost at this point for Prime Minister Netanyahu, and I think if he can figure out a way that he could Begin to put into designate somebody else to try to put a government together But first I could do this with this combination with if the living I think he would be inclined to do that that would be hard to do if it's 28 27 it would be I think something he might be able to pull off if it was a tie Carol what do you think what are obviously the people at the White House most have been very disappointed? Yes Oh, they've no position about When the Prime Minister came out one was a yesterday of the day before and said he no longer favors a two-state solution Which obviously we all know what the US policy is on that What what was their thinking over there? Well privately their thinking is that they don't really believe he was ever really for a two-state solution and That was just his most explicit articulation of the policy. They believe he has held for a long time You know their View of this election. They've been very cautious about making sure they're not looking like they're weighing in on that but the White House Press Secretary and others in the administration made clear that what Netanyahu said was at odds with President Obama's policy and Secretary Kerry said that he would like to make another go at the peace process and that he hoped the while he wasn't weighing in on the election He hoped that the results would be in favor of peace a peace process and coming to some sort of resolution but the general thinking is that this election either way it goes is going to set the tone for relations between this White House and Israel for the next two years and They feel that if Netanyahu were not to be Prime Minister that that would be much more Beneficial to them because he while the disagreements would still be there. They would not be as Blustery as they have been under this Prime Minister and whose relationship with President Obama has significantly deteriorated what do you all think would be What happens if let's say that Netanyahu is able to put together a coalition and now you have The Israeli government saying we no longer favor a two-state solution What happens after that? Well to some degree Bob you have to think that every time that Prime Minister Netanyahu came here There was always this question of could they drag him into uttering the words that he was in favor of the two-state solution and he told many other Israeli politicians and some American officials at various times Before he came into office this time That he was he would not sign up for it. Then he did reluctantly Undergrade the national pressure. I think what's interesting about this election is that as it came down to the wire In the last three weeks you saw him move to Hardened positions on the two issues that were his signature issues. It was coming here to denounce the Iran agreement before it was negotiated But basically to lay out his his case Against it as he said it would pave the way to a bomb in his view rather than then block it and then to announce that he was not favor of the two-state solution and to Defend much more vigorously than he had even before his imposition of settlements in places that he knew would be A blocking of a negotiated solution It's just been fascinating when I spent I spent the first four years of Obama As the White House correspondent for ABC News and it was just fascinating to watch the relationship deteriorate From the very beginning I think when Vice-president I'm sure I'm gonna mess up the chronology here But there was a Biden trip to Israel and he landed and immediately new settlements were announced there was Netanyahu not being permitted to come through the front door one time an honor usually reserved for the Dalai Lama and In deference to our friends in China, of course the and then just just the Netanyahu what was interpreted by President Obama's Netanyahu lecturing Obama in the Oval Office and I think it's fair To say that that the respect that Netanyahu and Obama have for each other knows bounds But beyond beyond that It has affected the relationship. Yes the defense cooperation the intelligence cooperation that continues There is this undergirding of the two countries being allied But but the idea that it's irrelevant Which is something that you hear sometimes from Obama's Supporters that it doesn't really matter that these two don't get along of course it matters that these two don't get along and And and it's I think it had very bad consequences especially for Israel, but you know beyond the idea of The impact on us in Israeli relations How are you going to resolve this problem if it's not a two-state solution only it's to me It's like when we talk about immigration in this country and people say well, you know They're against any kind of Work permits or anything for all these you've got eight million people in this country. What are you going to do with them? You don't have enough buses to haul them out of here You can't build enough jails to put them in it. You have to be realistic have to figure out something In a realistic way to deal with it What do you do with these with the Palestinians if there is no two-state solution? well, I think one of the things that believes in the White House's view is that if Netanyahu were to prevail and Continue to be prime minister there's third questions about whether they would even try to restart the peace process Is it's not I mean there were questions whether they were going to do that anyways You know in the last two years and so I think that a lot of the policy that particular issue is really in flux If if Netanyahu stays and even if he doesn't where I think his The election is really impactful particularly if he wins for Obama is on the Iran issue because if he comes out of this As the victory as if it's a victory for him, then that's going to influence him with Republicans in Congress. He's may feel emboldened to go back and get views them further to try to scuttle a deal I mean that all of that the thinking in the and the administration was that if he went down in this election that then that whole Speech and all of those that his efforts to sway lawmakers in Congress would kind of become less influential and If that doesn't happen, then that may not be the case and I think that's where the real policy implications Where do you where would you see the next thing? What would happen next after that if if if We no longer or if Israel no longer favors of two-state solution You'd have a huge demographic issue for The Israelis because the Arab population is obviously growing a lot faster than the Jewish population isn't it at some point they would end up having to choose between being a Jewish state and being a democracy and So that's one of the reasons that many in Israel favor Two-state solution is a way to sort of preserve the concept under which Israel was first created I'm not sure a two-state. I mean a Jewish state is possible unless you have to say I'm not sure Well, it can't remember a professor of mine in college This is quite some time ago telling me that Israel cannot be the same size. It is now Jewish and a democracy in perpetuity like At least one of those things has to change and Right now it seems like the Israeli leadership the current Israeli leadership, and that's in Yahoo government Thinks that the status quo is the only viable option and unless there is a hue and cry for full voting rights or few full human rights in some cases for the millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank I Don't see evidence that that's not true I'm not saying that that's what I would pick if I were in charge of the world and got to snap my fingers and change things but They seem to think that this is this is it This is what this is the solution is they live in the West Bank and these people live in Gaza And we have as little to do with them as possible and They don't get to vote. Okay, let's talk. Let's talk a little bit about the Negotiations with Iran you followed that very closely David for a long long time Where do you think we are the word out of out of there today was that they think they're getting closer Iranians seem to say seem to be more positive and optimistic than the Americans. That's exactly right by the Iranians We're giving a very positive spin And you have to wonder was that because they were really getting closer Or because if it does fall apart that they wanted to establish a narrative that they were they were ready and the United States Was not so a couple of interesting features of this first of all politically Secretary Kerry has put himself in an interesting position Because he has gotten to the point now of being the day-to-day negotiator here rather than coming in as the closer which would be the usual kind of expectation and That's a tough spot because this is not the kind of negotiation where the president himself can come in and be the closer so Secretary Kerry is going to be out there all this week We expect that if there is no agreement by Friday and I could look foolish for this on Friday But I think it would take a miracle to have it all together by then he'll come back for a few days. He's got President Ghani coming from Afghanistan And then he'll probably go back and try to hit this deadline of March 31st a couple of big issues to go look for First of all, there's the continuing argument about the number of centrifuges that will be allowed to be spinning what you heard a lot about when Prime Minister Netanyahu came but in some ways that's less important than the questions of What they would do to configure those in a way that they could not turn out much Bomb-grade uranium and there are all kinds of ways Technological ways to go about doing that the advantage is you have the face-saving element for the Iranians that they're allowed to keep thousands of centrifuges But you have the technological limits on it. The difficulty for Secretary Kerry is that's a very difficult thing to explain It's very easy to go on TV and say you have left the Iranians with thousands of centrifuges And it's very hard for him to sort of come back and say but no if you understood the physics of this This is harder to make into bomb-grade fuel inspections are a very difficult issue right now because If you were really going to cut off the covert pathway You would need to have a far more intrusive inspection regime than we've ever seen in any country Including the ability to go on the military bases which the Iranians and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has opposed and Research and development is very important because the Iranians are working away on some very advanced centrifuges They'd like to be in the position that when this agreement expires whether it's 10 years or 12 years or 15 years from now And Bob has us back up here to ask answer the question. How did this all work out right? that at that moment they want to be ready to go with a very large capacity and The US wants to make sure that work on these centrifuges stops. So those are the big areas of disagreement Politically, I think almost anything that Secretary Kerry comes back with is going to be under immediate attack by the Republicans and some Democrats and so you have to think of this not as one negotiation, but three. There's the easy one between Kerry and Zarif there's the hard one between President Obama and the Congress and there's an equally hard one between President Rouhani and the clerics and the generals Well, I was gonna say that's part of why you saw the White House today playing down the prospects of a deal that they were Close and one of the reasons that they gave was because the big X factor is what? You know the ayatollah is at the White House thinks he's the ultimate decider And they don't know what he's going to do or say or whether this will fly with the Iranians leadership Iran's leadership, so That's and then there's the general Does the White House is very reluctant to raise expectations on something like this and any time you're getting closer To a deal like this. It's just all of the political forces start to really get cooked up again And you know they're concerned about that and they're really trying to manage that as But with this opposition that we saw you know beginning with this extraordinary letter That 47 of the Republicans signed which came up in the talks this week and which actually came up in the talks How is the White House going to be able to assure the American people that this is safe? And this is this is in their interest for us to sign on to a deal like this Well, that's gonna be a big heavy lift for the president. He said he'll do that one and if there is a deal but first he's gonna have to Get Congress to hold off on some things and I think in the administration's view that letter Gave them a bit of a reprieve because what was building as a very large bipartisan? Coalition in Congress around senator Corker's bill for instance, which would give The Senate an up or down vote on whether or not to prove any final deal That coalition is sort of fracturing and it started to fracture after Netanyahu's speech to Congress because some Democrats were Had felt those things were getting a little too partisan and then they doubled down on that the following week with this letter and You know not every Republican side of most of them did no Democrats signed it and that Helped the White House a little bit with this job that they have to do which is to get Congress not to Well, the president will veto any of those bills He's already said that but what Corker's been working towards is this veto proof majority and the view at least in the White House Right now is that that letter took some of the momentum out of that. Do you all is it your sense that? In the end that Congress will vote in some way on this I think Yeah, I'll have to vote on what to do about the sanctions But it's just a whether they they will approve or disapprove this. Yeah, I can't underscore enough Absolutely, I think so, but I can't have going up what what Carol just said about how much the cotton letter Hurt Corker's efforts to get a bipartisan majority veto proof To just to stand and say Congress needs to be part of this There there are so many Democrats who have serious concerns about this deal Not just the deal as it's being negotiated now, but the framework that was established a year or so ago The idea that the the deal cooks in it's already cooked in that Iran As opposed to in UN resolutions that Iran Gets to enrich uranium gets to manufacture plutonium and that again as opposed to What what you the UN would have required or the UN Security Council that Iran that there was this deadline Whether it's 20 years or 15 years as opposed to what the UN said which was It would depend upon Iran's behavior and then more could happen in terms of sanctions being lifted or whatever And the idea that the administration was was pushing forward a deal That was in the view of many Democrats weaker than what the UN had put forward Made a lot of them very very nervous I think what Carol and Jake just laid out is absolutely right But I think the president's argument is going to end up focusing on the question compared to what so what happens if we just walk away from this You know that was it Bob Gates who always used to say that the three the three words never asked enough in Washington are and then what and So let's do the and then what's here, which is which is Helps explain why the president finds himself in the position. He's in if there's no deal then The temporary agreement that was in place to allow the negotiation would expire on June 30th at that point The US would be free to ramp up sanctions as much as it wanted The Iranians would be free to ramp up their production of uranium and produce plutonium for the first time at the Reactor at Iraq as much as they want and then you're off to the races and this is why the White House argument was You know the Netanyahu Prime Minister Netanyahu when he came didn't offer an alternative proposal The wedge this puts the White House in though is that almost anything they negotiate will look better than letting the Iranians go off and produce whatever they're going to produce after June 30th and So it somewhat relieves them of the responsibility of is this the best deal you could get and that's the hardest thing For the president I think to explain can any of you Do any of you have the inside story of how this letter came about? I mean was this just one rookie senator who came up with this idea? Was this something that? senior members of his party put him up to I Find the whole thing. I mean, I know I'm showing my age, but when I came to Washington People just didn't do It just wasn't the way things worked and and and suddenly this pops up and 46 of his colleagues signed the letter along with it Does anybody have any idea how this thing came about? I did but that was an on-camera interview so The on-camera explanation is that he came up with this letter and passed it around but I share your Skepticism that this was the brainchild of somebody who'd been in office for 60 days as opposed to some larger movement And somebody said let's go with the decorated Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran and see if he'll be able to fill being charged Also having interviewed him several times He was remarkably when I interviewed him on message and concise Which usually does not necessarily suggest authorship Right, but but this is just conjecture. This is just conjecture. Well, you know, I You know, he was on face the nation Sunday, and I found him remarkably composed He he made a very good presentation and and he did not just give talking points. He actually Seemed to try to answer the questions the only question He really didn't give a definitive answer to was when I asked him to be planned to contact any of our other adversaries North Korea Which seemed like a logical follow-up I think he believes it I mean, I don't think any of the 47 who who signed it disagree with the letter Well, there are some regret, you know There were some regret about whether it should have been addressed to Iran's leaders as opposed to why not an open letter in the Wall Street Journal? The remarkable thing here is it's the jump the gun element of it And I think that Secretary Kerry has the best argument that he can muster right now is wait until you actually have an agreement Before you start criticizing the problem the administration is going to run into is that Come March 31st One of three things is going to happen either. There'll be no agreement which case we're off of the scenario I described before there will be an agreement But the State Department will say we're not ready to provide you with the text of it In which case they'll be doing private briefings in Congress Which I hope would leak to the four of us within 10 15 20 seconds If not, we should all be fired and the third option is that they actually do release the text and That's going to then change the debate because then both Democrats and Republicans will have something on which to base their critique And you know, there are some legitimate critiques out here But that's going to be a very hard question for the Secretary to decide whether to publish this that early And one other thing on the letter The one of the big concerns the White House had with it is that if Negotiations fall apart if Iran walks away from the table Their concern is that it gives them a reason to blame the United States for that and that their their view is that the blame game is very important because if Iran if Iran is not to blame for talks blowing up Then it's they won't be able to hold together the kind of international coalition that they've had to tighten the screws to put more pressure and And so that's one of the things that they were they were concerned about in terms of how that would impact I find it I just I find it impossible David knows much more about this So I defer to him, but I find it impossible to believe that Iran would walk away from this deal Yeah, the Iranians have a lot to gain from doing a deal here because they really won't I mean Rahani was elected to get rid of these sanctions and Their oil revenues were down by more than half before the price of oil dropped So they're under a awful lot of pressure To get the deal together and I suspect that they will try to do it but they do want to make sure Carol points out that if the deal doesn't happen the blames on the US and I think that's a significant well with your great follow-up question and then what Should Iran expect tougher sanctions if this deal falls apart? I mean that seems like that's going to be almost They would get tougher US sanctions But let's face it. This is like us trying to put additional sanctions on North Korea as we did after the Cyber tax is not a whole lot left for the US to sanction on Iran We've if there's a good sanction on Iran believe me somebody's thought of it in the past 36 years, right? So what's that leave it leaves the other part of the program that the US doesn't talk about when you ask us officials They say they came to the table because of the sanctions. Well Half right they came to the table because of the sanctions and because of the sabotage Okay, and the sabotage program against Iran is a long one you've read about some of it in the New York Times and elsewhere and it's been everything from giving them bad parts to giving them Bads bad computer code which destroyed a thousand centrifuges and Natanz so what that would leave the US and Israel is the option of trying to step up the sabotage Because doing something directly from the air Or on the ground would trigger another conflict and that's obviously exactly what the president's trying to avoid What happens now on on getting? Authorization for a military strike the next thing will this Congress give that to the president my sense of it Is that that's looking kind of remote it is looking kind of remote. I mean part of the reason why the White House, you know, they'll say that this agreement is not a treaty and doesn't require a questionable They don't want to send anything to Congress because the Congress can barely keep the lights on and beyond doing anything beyond that You know that gets past that it's just it's a real question mark And so any kind of very serious issue that the president holds close which you know You can I really can't think of and Jake you probably would agree with this There isn't a foreign policy issue that this president cares more about than getting something and a deal with it Ron, but if the the relationship between the Congress and The White House to me seems about as bad as it could get right now Yeah, it's worse than it's ever been back to the days when and John Boehner wasn't Even taking Obama's phone president Obama's phone calls. It's it's It's stunning. It's interesting. I mean the the administration looks at the the Tom Cotton letter And in through the perspective of the authorization for use of military force against ISIS and and And says so they want to micromanage Every single thing we do to try to achieve peace in a treaty But when it comes to war have at it, whatever you want to do in whatever country How do you square that? You talk to Republicans in the Senate and they'll say we want to the president to keep us safe and That thing that means waging war however, he needs to do it and not signing off on this on this treaty, but They don't even understand how the other one thinks the Republicans in the Congress and and this White House well and also Republicans in various camps. I mean I Think it'd be very difficult for John Boehner to get his Republican caucus united On a number of things and I think the same thing holds true In the Senate, I think that's true and to your question could you imagine an authorization for the use of force? in Iran, I can't But think about that. They're having a hard time for reasons that in both parties getting a continued authorization for use of military force that would help against ISIS here and In the Syria case when the president thought about and then pulled back from that missile attack It was clear that either Republicans or Democrats in Congress were going to approve that as well so You know the Congress is caught between wanting or the Republicans caught between wanting to portray the president is weak Not standing up for the United States enough and on the other hand not wanting to go the route that they saw President Bush take They don't want to vote either Yeah, and when you think about I mean they're both right and how they criticize the other the It is difficult discerning a coherent foreign policy objective And especially when it comes to use of force in the administration right now President Obama Clearly feels very ambivalent and torn about it I have no idea and maybe somebody here can help me understand what we're doing with our troops in Afghanistan I thought that they were supposed to have been gone by now But now we're being told that that's being reconsidered and then dates are being reconsidered in Afghanistan That's not a public discussion that the that the administration is having with Congress or the American people It's kind of just you know, you learn about it by reading the New York Times and and Conversely as you point out with the Syria escapade it wasn't as if the president Taking it to Congress was the clear option to do it looked like he was gonna lose that so even when the president's critics I think With reason criticize him for walking away from the red line. He was about to have happened to him what happened To David Cameron in the UK they were about to vote it down. Let's talk a little bit about Russia number one Do any of you have any information on where I? Have to tell you I heard one of the one of the late-night comics saying that they thought he had a move job But I think that was a joke to be candid he needs one the Let's talk about aid to Ukraine do you all see the administration and the Congress coming together on this issue Is there gonna be aid to Ukraine or not and what's going on there? Well on the lethal aid question the president's made it pretty clear that he doesn't see an advantage Doing this by the way talking about Russia and how to handle it when you're sitting 20 feet from Brent Scowcroft. It's just it's not a good idea, okay? Discount whatever I say or Brent cover your ears so president clearly does not want to go to the lethal aid and One of the reasons is that he believes we don't have what in the academic world They call escalation dominance anything that we provide it's a lot easier for the Russians to go and match I think the fear that I hear the most in the intelligence world these days is that President Putin's strategy may well be one of Make some advances Declare another ceasefire Proclaim that the Minsk Accord which calls the ceasefire is a brilliant solution pull back for a few months until the headline shift elsewhere Gain another hundred kilometers Declare another ceasefire and make this work until he's gone down and rejoin You know his land bridge with Crimea and that may well be a strategy and if it is I'm not sure it's one That the West in any way can actually stop I mean they're not a member of NATO the US is not and NATO are not going to come to great military aid I haven't heard a plan for the lethal aid to the Ukrainians that Sounds like it's convincing that it would change the nature of the fight Yeah, I think well there's there are folks in the administration who favor Militia right flying lethal aid particularly if this current agreement is significantly violated But the doing so raises a whole bunch of questions like you know how much how quickly would it get there and most importantly? how would Vladimir Putin respond and Those questions have been enough to give President Obama pause to this point But even if they were to get to a point where he was receiving, you know Have grew a very strong majority of advice from his advisors to do this. There's still a big chance He's a cautious president He's not inclined to do this kind of thing and there's still a chance that he would ultimately say no And you know by the way, you know, he was here with the angle of Merkel not that long ago And she opposes it and he it's one of his favorite leaders in the world that he gets along with her very well They have a close relationship and he values her opinion and listens to her pretty closely So that that is also influencing how he's thinking we will go. Let's go to the audience now For some questions, but let me just ask You to how is the war as we're gonna be thinking of your question? How is this whole situation with ISIS going? It's going as well as can be expected without ground troops, and I don't mean necessarily us ground troops But you have the Peshmerga you have what Passes for the Iraqi military the Syrian pre-army still not really any sort of force that that has plays any sort of role and You know the US had its first casualty In Iraq and the fight against ISIS it came from a bullet fired from The row of the Iraqi side of a camp and accidentally hitting an American soldier on guard duty So as of now, you know the air campaign Continues and the American people are scared of ISIS, but not necessarily engaged in the day-to-day and US troops aren't coming home in bags I think that they can they've the administration feels like they can they can ride this out until there is some sort of There is some sort of Cogent force on the ground. I'll tell you who needs that lethal aid though is the is the Kurdish fighters That's who could really stand the lethal aid that we're not providing to the Ukrainians. All right Well, let's go to the audience now a general scope Rockwood. Do you like to say something? make an observation Factual errors to be corrected Well, if you do feel free to right here in the green shirt. Yeah, thank you Good evening. Thank you very much for your discussion. My name is Lieutenant Colonel John Oakley I'm at the National War College here in Washington, D.C. and and I'd like you to address a particular issue Not a current hotspot, but a potential future hotspot and that's dealing with the Arctic We have a lot of nations which are calling themselves arctic nations or close arctic nations as China is so I'd like your thoughts on The future as you see it From your from your viewpoint on the Arctic. Thank you Well, I'm gonna have to say I'm kind of a fair weather soldier on this one This is something I feel absolutely nothing about but who can I make that clean? Yeah, all right Who would like to talk about I don't know a whole lot about it, but I would certainly say that You are seeing countries make claims and You know the joke that's going around is that if you get enough global warming, you know rolling You're gonna be able to actually have navies that will roll right right into the territory that you're you're worried about But I think it's sort of a long-range problem at this point I mean when you look at both the the Russian and the Chinese strategies right now The Chinese are much more focused on the South China Sea and the Senkakus We've seen the Russians trying to do greater patrols that will sort of intimidate the Europeans So I think you've got a it's a 10 or 20 year problem out, but I'm not sure that it's an imminent problem Understanding is that he actually would like to visit the Arctic before You never know what you're gonna get for an answer right behind you there go ahead Peter Harpre former diplomat current analyst. I the one I lose sleep over is This is the Southeast Asian Islands. Isn't it time for some adult supervision to formally divide up All those islands and prevent a major even a global war that could result from the failure to do so The big question is who provides that adult supervision? So, you know, the Chinese have made it pretty clear They want us to stay out The Chinese strategy for Establishing a presence there both the air defense zone that they Created and then the the naval zones they're creating Is one that I think the Asian pivot is designed to counter But it doesn't solve the territorial issue on which the US has said it'll only be resolved by the individual parties and You know, I thought today's news in the Chinese sort of gave you another part of this strategy you saw last week Britain and today Germany and France and Italy all sign on to this Asian infrastructure Bank which is an alternative to the World Bank or the Chinese portrayed as an addition to the World Bank Well, where's this infrastructure going their concept for it is throughout Southeast Asia so that they begin to establish Much more of an economic as well as a military presence It's actually fairly similar to what the Japanese strategy was in infrastructure when the Japanese economy could still sustain it when I was living back in Tokyo and I think that is going to be the longer term Problem here. I think the Chinese will continue to press their claims, but won't actually Take over much of this territory. I could well be wrong on it But that they're going to try to surround it both militarily and economically Okay, over here somewhere any ladies There's all men here There's one right there. Okay. I have actually two questions that are somewhat related. One is that I haven't heard you discuss our sort of path to endless war which we seem to be on and how that affects the economy and Also, I see almost no coverage of the fact that we have more refugees that at any time since World War two and Aside from the humanitarian disaster. This is creating. It's also breeding ground for terrorists Well the endless war I mean it's a it's a it's a good point. I just find me the major presidential candidate who's going to Stop it. I suppose one could argue that Rand Paul As a is is or Bernie Sanders if they ever were to get those nominations But I find it impossible To perceive Bernie Sanders getting the nomination and I think it ran Paul actually poses a strong Challenge as he potentially could I think a lot of people in the Republican foreign policy establishment will stand up and do everything They can to try to Not let him get out of South Carolina or Nevada during the primaries I think that where the parties are politically whether it's Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush are very supportive of the current defense budget very supportive of Involvement abroad in situations such as combating ISIS or the next field Which is going to be in Africa in terms of fighting terrorism there whether or not it poses a serious threat to the domestic to the United States homeland I Would just say realistically speaking. I don't think whoever the next president is and not this he's going to turn just Turn away and just suddenly withdraw. I just don't think that that's going to happen And there are no American quote ground troops on quote, but I think America's going to be involved a long long time and particularly the Islamic State has really tested folks like Rand Paul's Theories and you know, that's going to be an issue for him I think if that had he was really getting a lot of momentum in that view until the Islam until a year ago And and now that's a little bit dampened Your point about the refugee crisis is though is also very well taken that those are breeding grounds and whether it's in the Syrian refugee camps or what's going on in Gaza right now or any number of other horrific places you're right and More should be done. I mean the key to solving the refugee problem is get people to stop fighting. I mean, that's That's that's if we can do that then there won't be any more refugees. Yes, right here. Go ahead I Like to ask David, sorry David what about the reported failing health of the? Supreme leader in Iran some people have said that the Council of Experts could in fact pick The next successor to the Ayatollah and that he could in fact be harder to get an agreement with Well, you know, we don't know a whole lot about this system and This Council of Experts now has sort of a hard-liner who's been put in charge We don't have a full sense yet of What we know the Supreme Leader has allowed this negotiating team to go out and negotiate this deal He's done that sometimes in the past and they brought back deals a much smaller one in 2009 that he then rejected so he leaves himself open that option and That has to do with this vague constellation of IRGC generals and the coups force and other mullahs Who are influencing him to some degree, but he recognizes that The majority of the population at this point very much wants to get rid of the sanctions and doesn't really care about the details of the nuclear infrastructure as much whether the next Supreme leader Would have the same view is you know sort of hard to know and While they might take a harder line at the same time there They were very spooked by 2009 and the restiveness on the streets and that's their long-term threat the question back over here Peter Pennington JGB just a good bloke Earlier this week in this very room Senator John Warner or retired secretary for the Navy John Warner posed a question To the three heads of the sea services Navy Marines and Coast Guard He pointed out that throughout the Cold War There were always semi official unofficial links between the heads of the services here and their counterparts in Soviet Russia He asked the three heads did such links exist today There was a long silence a very long silence and eventually Admiral Greenert said He could talk to his counterpart in China any time There were no such links into modern Russia Would the panel like to put an interpretation on that? Well, I think that's probably right Would be my interpretation of that and I think I Think that just underlines the dangerous world that we live in right now, and I think I think Senator Warner is absolutely right. There used to be some pretty strong links and that was always a good not back channel, but it was it was a channel and It worries me now that maybe those channels are not as strong as they used to be in a few months A few years ago. You wouldn't have been able to even say that about the Chinese you remember that after the visits of the Dalai Lama and Arm sales to Taiwan we had about a two year down period where there was sort of very little military-to-military relationship which came back some in the last months of Secretary Gates time at defense and then through Leon Panetta's time But with Russia the chance for miscalculation is so much greater now That they are out doing these active patrols that we discussed before in some cases at least for the aircraft they've they've turned off some of their air identification as well and You know, that's that's how stupid things happen All right one last question right here Steve Winters local researcher since I Don't think we mentioned China particularly yet We had to talk here a few days ago right here and was mentioned that the China experts are Suddenly getting back to this idea that China may be on the brink There was a very striking article by David Shambau in the Washington the Wall Street Journal probably all familiar with In parallel to this, you know ISIS seems to be metastasizing all over the globe Is how how is the situation in DC with this paralysis and the government in effect? I mean or at least splits how is this a tenable situation faced with these Massive possible catastrophes that people are predicting for the near term Well, I mean, I would just say I would quote Bob Gates I would quote Leon Panetta the greatest danger to US security right now is our inability To make decisions and the whole decision-making process and the paralysis from one end in the disconnect between Capitol Hill And and and the White House. I think that is our foremost Security threat. I would anyone disagree with that No, I mean cyber security is obviously the one thing that they also talk about when they talk about big threats to this country Yeah, all right. Well, thank you all very much on behalf of PCU and CSI