The same conclusion appeared in this time to pick a side, stop supporting hamas dared us to iran, we need the maximum sanction, the maximum enforcement of Nuclear Restrictions than the maximum international support. One way to justify additional sanctions is to renounce the nuclear deal, doing that would cause europe not to support distinction in many in the world would even say iwan was free to reopen it Nuclear Program without inspections or restrictions. Fortunately, the world is based, is blessed with an almost, beyond possible use Natural Resources and that is our supply of people coming from tehran. We can impose the maximum sanction without even mentioning the iran deal and then we will have european support as we point to almost 500,000 dead serious civilians, a direct responsibility of tehran as we point to the terrorism around the world, as we point to how they treat their own people and the execution of those of the lgbt communique. There is no shortage of reasons to support to impose sanctions on iran and if we do enough, and they will come begging to us to have negotiations on all the pending issues, including the inadequacies of the nuclear deal. Thank you. [applause] another member of congress has been very active on these issues as congressman hank johnson, a good friend and i would like to welcome him. [applause] thank you, mr. Chairman and good afternoon to the visitors here today. Thank you for having us. I want to extend my apologies, not my apologies, on the loss of your dear son and i would say the dispute involving a palestinian state of homeland before we can have peace in the middle east, its my opinion we are going to need to solve the israelipalestinian conflict and it will have to resolve in a two state solution, one state for the palestinian and another for israel. I think once that is done it is going to go a long way towards defusing a lot of the radicalism that is in existence in the middle east. That issue of course is not the only issue and its not the greatest issue are the greatest threat to america. Before i begin my talk, let me say how much i appreciate the Hudson Institute, an organization committed to dialogue and understanding. I commend the Hudson Institute for its dedication to American Leadership in the Global Engagement for a secure, free and prosperous future for the disciplines that defense, economics, health care, technology, culture and International Relations as well as the rule of law. I think before we can begin to talk about peace in the middle east or the suppression of violent extremism, that is really threatening to the whole world, that weve got to look at the issue of islam and islam is not a religion of hatred and violence, but it has been used by forces that cloak themselves in islam and then proclaim to represent islam, distorting its teachings. I think we must respect islam, the world second largest religion, one of the three abraham that religion. I think we must respect that religion and we must respect those who want to be peacefully apparent to that religion, but we do have a group for mayor saudi arabiabased, the walkoff list sect of islam, which is the state religion of saudi arabia, which is the greatest exporter of ideas of violent extremism on the face of the earth in my humble opinion. What autism, and so we can address the issue of saudi arabias support for wahabbism and the violent jihadist philosophy is, we will continue will murder ourselves further into the mud. We can wean ourselves further into the dependence on oil which seems to be the driving force of our policy towards saudi arabia so they can deal with this issue of wahabbism to a greater degree than we do now. Thank you. Mac first, israel is contending with a deepseated hatred, nurtured actually by leaders and nurtured over many years because theyve seen the text books as has occurred in mosques and schools and newspapers and televisions. This has to stop. As one witness told our committee, incitement is the term we usually use. What we mean is teaching generations in young people to hate jews by dehumanizing them. That is what we seek to address here. That is at tailor for us act seeks to address here. The other aspect of this is people are being lured to tourism by more than just words. They are being lured there by this concept of pay to slay, by this inducement, that is financial reward that says the longer the sentence, the more people that are murdered, the greater the stipend that goes to you when you get out, poster family in the meantime purpose to your family if you murdered yourself murdered yourself undertaking this act of murder. We want to ensure we do this right and send a clear message to the palestinians. The payments are at the terrorism are unacceptable. On iran, the u. S. Has got to respond to a full range of threat, not just the Nuclear Program because we see in syria and iraq along western sea. Now the cuts were says in the higher gc taking advantage of this fight against isis and moving and brutalizing mncs so much territory and irans terror proxy is amassing troops along israels border in the north along the east and iran continues to acquired destabilizing conventional weapons, but also intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. The administration has taken a realistic approach on iran recognizing the full range of these threats. This is what we have been messaging in a bipartisan way on this committee. This is what the chairman and i. , mike mccall, elliott ingo and i have been talking about as we push these policies. Congress and the Administration MustWork Together to confront these threats while ensuring iran never develops a nuclear capability. And i will add another point here because that approach was evident just over a week ago when the administration implemented a provision that Congress Passed in july has Michael Mccaul shared with you designating irans powerful revolutionary guards under the terrorism sanctions he had advocated. This has got to represent the beginning of a cooperative effort to turn up iran and this week the house is going to do its part by bringing up by legislation on the house floor we passed out of committee targeting irans Ballistic Missile program and targeting hezbollah, the regimes leading terrorist proxy. On qatar, it has a disturbing history, a facilitating radicalization and a broken promise to reform its behavior. In 2014 for instance, saudi arabia, uae, bahrain, they said qatar was interfering with their internal affairs promoting extremism through al jazeera and other qatari mediated networks and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. After that they promised not to harbor persons with powerful agendas towards the poll states and promise not organization with the legitimate indiana and peered qatar has failed to live up to its words which is why saudi arabia, uae, egypt admiring cut ties with qatar this past june. Shamefully until may of this year, qatar was also hosting senior hamas financiers. After representative and several other members including mr. Sherman, introduced legislation increasing sanctions , qatar expelled those senior hamas financiers. Given the history of false reporting, broken promises, i am concerned this is a type of the come in on a strategic shift away from supporting hamas. Though how must take serious measures to fundamentally alter its policies. No more bait and switch in no more backsliding. We need real commitments from qatar to end its permissive attitude and actions toward violent extremists. And on our hamas therell come a continuing impediment to peace and security for the middle east is hamas. This Deadly Terrorist Organization continues to work towards israels destruction. Massis other human beings by hiding their tunnels under schools. Ive seen them myself, so has chairman mccall and other members of our committee here and we saw them as recently as our last trip to israel in august. Hamas is responsible for the murder of other israelis than 25 americans. Representative mast legislation further isolate hamas. Its very simple, anyone who funds will provide support to hamas should face u. S. Sanctions. Hamas is a Foreign Terrorist Group especially designed specifically by the United States as a global terrorist group. I mention one last issue i wanted to bring up and that was the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to push back against extremist ideologies like this one. It is a movement staunchly hot aisle to secularism. It is steeped in antisemitism. In many cases they exploit Democratic Institutions to further their sectarian and, having no intention to share power. There are no means of benign movement and must be effectively countered by employing moderate voices including more effect of broadcasting. We must go after its leaders, does that meet the criteria for individual terrorism sanctions. So, i would just now like to thank all of you, thank you forgiving the opportunity to me and my colleagues, especially to be with you to address you today. Good work on your Development Time implementing policy. Thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] yeah, definitely. [inaudible conversations] yeah, definitely. Good afternoon, again. We have a very distinguished panel to hopefully inform you and entertain you. Hopefully. At the end, i would like to introduce rate to introduce rates akita, who i would say is the leading scholar i do want to get in trouble, but a leading scholar in iran and of course many other distinguished attributes. That is one of them. Then comes bill wechsler, who was Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for special operations in combating terrorism. Sounds like a terrifying title. Then comes my friend who served as an added take ambassador to the u. N. , United States ambassador to iraq and United States ambassador to afghanistan , all with distinction of course. Then comes general wald who was former deputy of the u. S. European command. Then comes ambassador alberto fernandez, a Career Foreign Service officer whom ive heard fantastic things about food. They ran a Brilliant Program to counter al qaeda propaganda. Am i right . Wake up. Anyway. Hopefully. Then comes hello fried kitten, director of the hud and Institute Center on islam democracy in the future the muslim world. So he is of course a great authority. Anyway, we are going to start off today are fascinating, hopefully, discussion. Since 9 11 of course the u. S. Said we have big enemies in the middle east, one being terrorism and one b. Iran. So, im going to ask the piano to comment each and hopefully briefly an interesting pleased on how you see it, starting with you. Brief and interesting. Well, i look at the brief part right, hopefully. Terrorism is a strategic option of the iranian state. It is actually they have does a proxy and also there was a time terror muslim was considered as a weapon of considerable Strategic Deterrence because right now the iranian case is that if the United States accuses us of terrorism, we will respond with terrorism against American Forces in iran and elsewhere. That argument has been persuasive to a lot of people who essentially do not want to confront for fear of iranian terrorism. So more sausage or a sheriff political violence, terrorism has been remarkably effect it to the islamic republic. You can say a little bit the iranians are backing the who these again in. Are involved in syria, yemen, iraq, certainly iraq. They are involved in bahrain, throughout the region. It is sort of imperialism on the cheek because on one hand it is a very grand imperial project. On the other hand by relying on proxies of surrogates, also chiefly executed because at the end of the day they dont have to sustain its own national armies. Also, i ran to suffer from it own version of the vietnam syndrome since the iraniraq war from 1980 in aftermath and has no problem with the shiites calling arab sunnis to maintain some measure of that. No problem with members of hezbollah dying in syria. None whatsoever. Of members of hezbollah which you know is shiite in lebanon. The most effect is groups. As a result of all of that. Iran is getting closer every month to its greater strategic objectives across the region not only to have control over lebanon, but increasing control over iraq and over syria to project power elsewhere and disrupt sunni governments throughout the region. At the same time, the other side beside the arabian terrorism is the jihadist terrorism, most notably the Islamic State and al qaeda, which are on the heels right now. As secretary panetta said earlier today, they are not going away in any way shape or form in the way we have to continue to combat them is both through military means and also through looking after the longstanding political challenges that aggravate in iraq and elsewhere, but also through what the panelists talking about the terrorism, the finances and ideology thats still in too many places contribute to the growth of these jihadist groups. You say that basis is not going away. Do you see as the sunnis for example will be a new isis group you see them spreading into africa or where do you see isis going . Isis in the son of a system of whatever its name should be will expand because of the ideological religious component of the view of the caliphate and also local dynamics. The local dynamics as you said in terms of iraq are excluded from the future of their country and similar local dynamics where they have achieved a lot of interest. The real challenge of the United States perhaps goes without saying, but i will say it, does our unlike any other terrorist groups in that once they have a place that gives them sanctuary and they can act with impunity, they will do external attacks. Weve seen it again and again. We saw it in duty and, at the msdn, yemen, syria appeared in every one of those days, people of the United States government and Intelligence Community would say this group is only interested in local issues. We see no evidence of them planning for external attacks and were always surprised they went to external attacks. We need to understand its the nature of these groups to do this. Right now do you see these groups having a place to operate from . They are local pockets. In all these countries, syria, iraq and of course libya is still one of those dangerous terrorist groups we have. Okay, sal. Two greatest threat being iran. Share, on terrorism, i think one of the issues that we do not pay enough attention to his base support terrorist groups directly such as hezbollah or hamas. Some of these militias that now exist, including one that is lied many years ago, but irans policies create certain sense is to sunni extremism and terror and takes advantage on one hand, but the firefighter to come against in iraq against the population creates extreme circumstances and those find a home. And then i ran comes de facto by a member of the coalition tries to defeat those forces. But it uses the defeat to extend its influence into those areas. They have been devastated because the the actions taken against isis, but now there are sunni militias we assume they are all shia. They are not. There are some that are now a sunni militias working with iran to control those areas. We are very good at going after, we should, such as a says or al qaeda, but we are not that good at what we do after so the threat does not reemerge such as politics, economics, selfgovernment, participation and powersharing and has very cleverly used counterterrorism to extend its control. At the moment in syria, prices between the kurds and iraq and the bad that government has created an opportunity for them to bring kurdistan, general sulaiman of the cubs forest has been the architect between the iraqis and the kurds in the militia forces that they control has been heavily involved in the fight against the kurds. In fact, last night there was a meeting between the kurdish passion marga and the Iraqi Security services in iran that force to be represented, but also the militia forces that iran controls end a lebanon representative from the meeting and also presumably from the cubs forest. Iran has made great progress influence in iraq generally, but there was a pocket where the kurds particularly the barzani kurds wanted to bring them to heel. It is very important in the aftermath of what the president has announced to the strategy that the iranians are pushing forward, not being restrained, not being deterred, but they are being more aggressive and its very important in my view that we look at these militia forces in iraq and i dont know whether anyone from the pentagon or congress. Its very important that we demand that those tanks are not allowed to be controlled or owned by the militia forces. They either need to be turned to the iraqi forces are ready to disable them. The roster with the passion mode go, too . They have some equipment, less capable equipment than the iraqi forces, the regular iraqi forces and some of the equipment acquired from the iraq he forces because the the abandonment of the weapons forces in the face of isis and by the current government. This is an important issue. We dont want another hezbollah in iraq, these militias to create an hezbollah that that they can do burden sharing when they run into difficulty, use these people as they have been doing with hezbollah in the area and sending also iraqi militias to syria and had been burning asking shiite and pakistani shiite to minimize their role in terms of vietnam because its expensive to reduce the cost to do your dirty work and that is what they have been doing. I agree with the notion that terrorism and iran and part of it is separate from each other, but they are part of the same problem and i believe that for the longerterm, iran wants to dominate the region and throw us out of the middle east, whether hegemon and the larger goal of hegemon and the u. S. Is the balance that is focusing to make iran a normal state and an abnormal state that is in part a state, the structures of this state, but the resolution that seeks to spread and be promoted and used to dominate the region by defeating irans effort of hegemony i think we should succeed and not and it wont be easy and then we can make progress to make iran a state. The Prime Minister of iraq, dont coordinate with uranian forces, dont fight with them, how do you see the administrations actions . He doesnt listen to us when we asked him for a referendum and made an alternative offer but we think larger, more broadly than just being unhappy with this nonbinding referendum shouldnt be a surprise to anyone, more or less public opinion. What about the other 7 , what did they . Because of that disappointment we have not been Strong Enough or engaged enough, we need to make it clear all use of force must stop. Negotiation must begin immediately. And where are we so to speak in this. I would think we need to be given especially in the light of the president s strategy, i would have thought we would be more active pushing back rather than watching as the iranians expand influence into another zone was outside of this part of kurdistan. I think he would like to have a situation they would look to iran rather than looking to the west court to the United States to have relations with his real. Those are the uranium objectives. They have been very effective, very clever in pursuing that objective but it is important that we havent put a coalition together for an effective pushback strategy for really extending uranian entanglement in a protected conflict so they are disciplined by being overextended as we did to the soviets in various years, to relearn that message. You have so much experience, you thought about this a lot. I wonder how you see the issue of iran and terrorism and what you think about what is out there. The previous speaker mostly i agree with my sense, i said this before several years ago, we are in this the rest of our life. It depends how old you are but we are going to be doing this so this is not like isis goes away, take a breath and start over. This is the beginning. I dont think the status quo in the middle east will ever be the same again. I dont think it fits. I look at countries like my favorite, the Arab Emirates or saudi arabia or israel actually having a common interest which is hard to say publicly, has not been very wellreceived a lot of times and those common interests are starting to build. I think the status quo in the middle east will never go back to the way it was, the kurds to me, hard to argue with what they have done. They have shown responsibility and defend their territory and that is going to be tough because we want everybody is yearning for going back to a united iraq used to be. I have a tough time it is ever going to happen so you have people like secretary matus or tillerson and others saying stick to your own lane, i get it, but i would think i know they are thinking, we have not articulated a common view of what the end state made b and people have a tendency to yearn for the way it used to be and go back to the status quo and even though there is tension it is tension by virtue of presence and we do a few missions over iraq, i dont think that will happen again. I think the growing threat in africa, we worked on this back in 2001 when we started talking about it and people said a typical military guy turned kerosene on a fire but it is happening. We need a broad it will be very difficult, the whole issue is connected, no doubt about it. So longterm we are going to have to look at what the middle east could look like realistically, we need to box in Bashar Alassad, box him in, he will get rid of himself eventually. Let him sit there for a while. I think we need to counter uranian sending arms to syria or terrorists, they need to be countered and i think we need to commit the United States to a long time in the middle east in a big way and work with our friends from the emirates and saudi arabia and jordan and others and egypt for that matter, this is probably a doable end state we have to see the end in 20 or 30 years. Ambassador . When we look at iran and terrorism, when we make that phrase we are starting off making a mistake because we were saying two big issues. We too often focus on iran, the worlds greatest sponsor of terrorism and fail to see much broader ambition and action iran is doing on the ground, terrorism is one part of it. One of the challenges we face is that we meaning the United States are misaligned in this challenge. He ran is tactically flexible but has a strategic vision. Iran works with sunni extremists and al qaeda and despite the sunni extremists and jihadists in other places, there is even an uranian militia, uranian supported militia made up of leadership in iraq of iraqis, they have tremendous flexibility in the tools they use, terrorism is only one of them, war is another one. Political issues, political subversion is another one so this is uranian ground game which is occurring is one which we have traditionally been misaligned and not ready to challenge so we talk about things like interdicting weapons and stopping terrorism, that is a small part of what they are doing. Part of what they are doing is guys threatening people, guys giving people bags of money, all kinds of ways they are advancing a political agenda in the region and we are all too often seeing the challenge in a 1dimensional way and of nationstates and relationship with our friends in the region is paramount but only a small part of what the uranian offensive looks like. When we reduce it to terrorism, violence on the ground, we are missing this whole other panoply of hybrid war, political action, subversion, bribery, corruption, this is a broader agenda, our own ground game in order and challenge some wrappers and picking them from afar, looking at things like fpo designation or money, small elements of a much broader array of uranian tools they are using. The eyes of our allies in the region like saudi arabia and egypt for example, they are well aware of the uranian role in the middle east. They are but part of the problem is they have been consistent in what they are doing. We are starting from behind until a few months ago, we had an administration that talked about sharing the middle east, equilibrium in the middle east, which would mean a percentage gained by iran in the region and that is what we are seeing. How do you feel about the Trump Administrations policy . They have said the right thing, a week and a half ago, they said the right thing, the focus, the question is the ground game, the question is that granularity in detail on the ground that you need to do the challenge not just by passing some laws or talking about money coming in. That is a small part of it. Can you really have a ground game with half the state department that is part of the ground game. The work of development, politics, relationships, the work of the Intelligence Community, all of that has to be part of our response to what they are doing. I would not trivialize things, they are not a small part, theres a whole bunch of big parts, not just going to go away on their own. I know you didnt say that. Last time there has been a great deal said that is true and needs to be said, i wont go over the same ground, from the earlier discussion, the flexibility of the uranians referred to by saul and so forth and it looks like just simply machiavelli and, unscrupulous nurse. And there is a lot of it but also, it is worth noting that there is a kind of way in which for example use of sunnis, the attempt to have alliances with sunnis goes to the foundations of the regime and perspective of the Ayatollah Khomeini who was an admirer of his predecessors on the sunni side, the Muslim Brotherhood in particular. Partially because they laid out an object, the foundation of a new Islamic State that would be redemptive of muslim history and that went so far as being translating works from arabic into persian particularly works the same to be the leading intellectual figure and the persian translator was the present supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini so there is a kind of from the uranian point of view it doesnt need to be machiavelli and. On the sunni side it doesnt have to be machiavelli and or cynical. There is a way certain parts of the sunni radical movement, the shiite radical Movement Working together for the greater good. Since that is the remarkable thing. To join in this little country, the host of the Muslim Brotherhood, played a warm, maintain warm relations with iran with, this peculiar, more friendly relationship of radicalism has a home in some respects, that is not important for dynamics in the region. Last thing i want to say about our policies in the region, trust in whats where it matters a lot and when you lost it, hard to reconcile facts with words. We had quite a lot of work, little action and the most recent thing was in the same direction, the president announced a new policy in iran, the most notable object, 48 hours later, took care cook from our allies so maybe that was all that could be done, but for the future the only way in which the region will have some confidence is if we do something hard, clear and tough. Do you agree with that, ambassador . We need to play the long game as well as the four year cycle. Do you agree that we should somehow stop them from taking care cook . We needed to know clearly and remember that the uranian supported ones were moving north even before the president s announcement. Anyone with the following in iraq could see something was going to happen. We needed to be in a position to say these are our redlines, our parameters and it is not clear that we did that or if we did that it doesnt seem to have been fulfilled. You have something to say . It is important with any big declaration, we have a good declaration in iran, and action plan, have an action plan, strategy, timelines the rest of the bureaucracy, operably organized and staffed, and people held accountable, and i think conceptualizing the problem, we have done that well but implementing the strategy, developing a detailed strategy and implementing, more attention needs to be paid. Politely speaking . We see in the case of iraq, the certainty one can point to. You agree . I do. If we wind up with a result of 93 less, lets turn to syria now. There was a fantastic Development Last week, the Trump Administration policy from what i can see is to leave aside in power, do you think it is a good policy. I dont think theres an option at this point because of the civil war condition syria is in. The dirty little secret is the only way syria in my view, others can comment lauren formidably can be stabilized is for outside auxiliary force to impose a piece like happened in lebanon and Syrian Forces went in and imposed peace and that is the way to impose the demarcation model. I dont see evidence of that, syria will remain the mess that it is as we see today. The window of opportunity to deal with assad has closed long ago. And areas we are looking at now absent of external actor coming in a way that is highly unlikely, either the regime supported by iran and russia slowly continuing to progress across the country or quickly doing so. That is where we are and among the questions for us interests, in the aftermath, iran will have a lot more access in the south to be able to cause problems with allies of ours like jordan and israel and how do we confront them and deny them the ability over the long run to take advantage of that. A real good point. It is important strategically about containing iran, to make sure iran doesnt have land access to iran, across syria, lebanon to the mediterranean and our syria strategy should be informed by that objective which means we need to maintain a presence in syria and develop a strategy for increasing the costs for iran on the ground, the ground force is mostly iran or uranian backed elements. That ground force has great vulnerabilities. We can increase the costs of maintaining or expanding the hezbollah force for areas of syria. To block the ground access as i mentioned on the one hand, but, although immediately a settlement to get rid of bashar is not in the cards but over time as the cost goes up, there are a lot of syrians who are not happy keeping bashar there, both uranians and russians and some syrians may be. The cost for us would be much lower than the cost for them, for the other side. We need to exploit that symmetry and relative burden. You believe we should leave troops in iraq too . We strongly need to maintain a military presence. President obama made a mistake. If we get our forces out, iran will become more dominant and entrenched and the possibility, when i was ambassador in iraq we got rid of al qaeda in iraq and we killed the head of al qaeda in iraq but when we left, the vacuum that was created, malik he became more sectarian, independence of russia at present and oppressed the sunnis with disintegration of syria come you got isis emerging and it is possible you get a new version of extremism and terrorism emerging and if we dont play it right in syria. My view would be if you want a comment about what it should be i say keep Bashar Alassad in syria, keep the iranians out, tell the charlotte side you have to live there the way it is and you wont have a good life because theres nothing coming in, you drop another barrel bomb out of syria, last time you will have an air force, you are done. We should have never let that happen, we could have taken out his total air force easily. Bashar alassad, congratulations, you have a comfortable prison for the rest of your life. Russia, by the way, if you start flying Bombing Missions against our troops, that is the end of it, period. We need to say this is the way it is going to be and we will do this for years. The uranian i would keep them from supplying. Talking about every time they do it i would go after the and israelis do exactly right. When was the last time anybody went after israel for taking out a system going into syria . Never. I thought the red line is they dont want transfer of weapons from syria to lebanon. That is part of and they dont want them in syria either. What is the difference . I dont want them in there, dont want to be threatened. The mediterranean from iraq, turkey. We need to do something. You are not happy with the policy . No. Im not trying to criticize i wouldnt criticize matus or anything. Ices but just a manifestation of a broader as we all know isis just happens to be one of those farm teams for the pros. Anyway, thats what i would d. As i said i think our audience would put you into start. Ambassador . I think what are the challenges of course we face is we are dealing with the legacy issue of deeply immoral cynical policy by the Previous Administration regarding syria which brought about a Nuclear Agreement floating on a sea of syrian blood. So we are not, we are limited. We have difficult challenge in the hand that weve been dealt now, but ambassador khalilzad talked about the land bridge to the mediterranee. Thats going to be decided in the next few days as somebody drive towards the syrian iraqi border and if its the syrian army then they will have a land bridge. We have a problem we have a challenge and a problem. The iranians of course have not only forces in syria but they have many proxies including the syrian regime. Who are our proxies in the region . We have, in syria we have proxy which is powerful, important, and deeply problematic, which is the fdf ypg, et cetera, which is militarily significant and militarily important and has all kinds of political and ethnic question marks. We are talking about this syrian kurds. The question is our relationship with the syrian kurds, we need to either put up or shut up, you know . If they are unclean because they hold up pictures of that terrorists couple, then fine, then we will act a certain way. But if not, we need to find a way to use them as proxies, make them less kurdish, more accepting of arabs, less like a pkk, more of a useful tool for us especially in the very immediately would want to block iranian ambitions in the next few weeks and months. Absolutely. I will just endorse, i understand our time is up. The only thing i want to say is this. With regard to syria, i think the general has the right perspective on it. What i fear is were going to be between two other alternatives. One is a kind of slow management of the situation. Assad will not control things but neither will we. There would be nothing to solve, which will create the conditions for some major miscalculation arising and the thing i hope youre thinking about, what happens if the iranians launch some kind of initiative against jordan, against israel and so forth. Where are we going to be been . We will be there to protect them. Okay. I hope you found this interesting. Id like to thank all of our panelists. I thought you were terrific. We could go on a lot longer but im getting a sign from the front row that were supposed to stop it so thank you, audience. Thank you, panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] house ways and Means Committee leaders share kevin brady and democratic congresswoman Suzan Delbene will discuss an upcoming tax reform proposal, another key legislative items for the rest of the 115th congress. House ways and Means Committee chair kevin brady will sit down first to discuss the priorities for 2018. Real clear politics washington cochief carl cannon will moderate the discussion on 2017 political changes on capitol hill. We expect this to get started in just a moment life here on cspan2. [inaudible conversations] while we wait for this discussion on the republicans tax reform plan to get underway, we will take you now to and look at the discussion on the pentagons investigation into the death of you servicemembers recently in niger. Thanks for the opportunity to speak you but the recent events which claimed the lives of four americans [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] it looks like things about to get underway in just a second but theres house ways and means chair kevin brady on the right and we expect this discussion on the tax reform proposal republicans have put together to get started in just a moment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] thank you all for being here this morning. I am president of real clear media group. We are pleased to have you here today and have a Great Program to share with you all. I would like to thank our sponsor, chevron for bringing this to