Transcripts For CSPAN2 Nabeel Khoury Bunker Diplomacy 20240713

Tunisia and representatives from bahrain, iraq, jordan, tunisia, turkey, yemen, the netherlands, norway, australia, zimbabwe and ecuador so from the four corners we come to hear you. We also welcomed the Board Members and founder of the programs here at the Atlantic Council and finally we look in the u. S. Government private companies and nonprofits i predict a rich and substantive question and answer session following the discussion on the stage. Open to everyone. This richness of the discussion will be enhanced by the absolutely superlative interviewer to draw the kernels of wisdom today. Tom friedman needs no introduction but for fun i will remind you you can read the analysis of the Foreign Affairs and the new york times, an analysis for which he has won the pulitzer prize. Hes the author of several books focused on the middle east and one of which from beirut to jerusalem where the textbook and work as an undergraduate. The full bio is available and is printed out here. Now let us turn to the man of the hour. Nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Career Center for the middle east in addition to reading his work on the website you can read it on his own blog, middle east corner. He retired from 25 years in the Foreign Service and 2013 the rank of minister counselor. He taught at the National Defense university and Northwestern University and his last posting he served as a deputy chief of mission at the u. S. Embassy in yemen. In 2003 during the iraq war served as the spokesperson at the Central Command and earned his bachelors degree in Political Science from the American University of beirut and his masters and phd in the university of new york and albany. He has published articles on issues of leadership and development, the middle east journal, journal of south Eastern Studies at the International Journal from the middle east studies. When posted to yemen in 2004, i do recall a conversation that i had at the time of a mutual friend of ours, former ambassador to the united states. The u. S. Was lucky to be able to send them out because of the fluenfluid arabic and understang of the culture for display in the country. But he corrected me. No, he said. The opposite is true. Arab american diplomats have a much harder time because everyone in the country expects them to do favors for them and make exceptions for them and they dont get the respect is another diplomat because they say we dont have to listen to him, he doesnt know any more than we do. Hes one of us. In addition, he said when your government does something that the locals dont like, they hold a diploma personally responsible for not preventing it. So, we are eager to hear your thoughts on being a diplomat in the middle east and during the era of the volatile middle east relations. As a reminder of the ground rules for the discussion today are as follows. We are on the record and if you would like to join the conversation about what we hear coming use the hash tag ac middle east. Please come to the stage and the floor is yours. [applause] this is a great audience in eacp for me to be here with you. Thank you for that great introduction. The first thing an author has to say for other offer and they are on the sale. Hes always drawn to this because of that its reflected here in this book and this is a fascinating perspective. For starters if anyone here doesnt know you as well as i do, tell us your story. How did you get from lebanon to the senior position in the u. S. State department . It was all a mistake. [laughter] first of all, thank you for stopping in for lunch and some after lunch conversation and a special thanks for agreeing to engage me in conversation today. Something was done several times over the years [inaudible] i took him to meet a friend of mine, a very secular cleric as secular as they come and he invited us to dinner at this place but what we didnt know if he had the grandson of at dinner as well so they are conversing for a good couple of hours. The leaders and the provoker is in a country like this which back in 2003 was hot and still is hot. The book drove the occasion for the discussion today and begins with a poetic verse called you have your lebanon and i have mine. Bigger city, coexistence, harmony and the reality back then 100 years ago or more of the audience of secularism and sectarianism and corruption. He might as well have written this yesterday. The situation has not changed. In fact, it has gotten worse because the corrupt political elite has not only ruined the economy, run it to the ground, but theyve run the country to the ground. The environment is in terrible shape. I think that if he were alive today he would say all this time and nothing has improved. But it als book also ends with y short poem by a palestinian poet and he talks about himself as a palestinian poet in exile in stone as letters and messages to deliver but she no longer knows who they should go to or where. Something that i identify with. Much. Coming in from lebanon it gives me a deep feeling not just for lebanon but for the entire region and so whenever i worked in these countries by the faith of the issues and try to bridge the difference matter how wide the gap. In baghdad in 2003, it was certainly wide. Host so in the title you were reflecting on this before the transition that i lived through as well. An america whose presence in the middle east was embedded open and integrated with societies to an america that hid behind the walls basically as diplomats and embassies. I was actually there for the moment when it started. It was april, 1983 and i was in my apartment at 106 p 1 06 p. M. E blast happened so powerful it knocked off the transistor radio from my desk. The transistor radio. I ran out of my apartment and i saw the smoke cloud in the distance it as i got closer and closer they would be blown in half. I dont know if it was ryan crocker in embassy or someone else or what happened, but he said a man drove a truck up the front stairs of an embassy and blew it up. Two things i always remember about this, one i said you mean he killed himself. It seemed incredible to me that someone would commit suicide. But at the time how incredible it was and there was no perimeter of the embassy. You could walk up to the front door, ring the doorbell and there would be a marine inside. A few minutes late later the diy about the title of your book. I was in istanbul and i dont know if any of you have seen the u. S. Embassy but think fort knox but only more secure. So, i was out there for an interview. It used to be at the heart of the old building in the opening part of the marketplace. I was interviewing u. S. Diplomats. He said that this embassy. It is like a fortress. And he said that when they blew up for consulate in istanbul it was so secure they dont let birds fly their. They wrote a column called when birds dont fly because where birds dont fly, people dont meet. You live in a transition from being open, integrated, the bridge from america to these societies to working out of embassies indistinguishable from military bunkers what was that like, what has that meant, what are the implications of it. It was an open source o openf facility, opened door. We no longer have those. We used to have them all over the place. It was a nice, beautiful villa village. We had one sleepy policeman and a kiosk by the door but nobody ever asked anybody and that handles the witch that branch was supposed to be the tough branch came to one of my roundtable discussions at the center and engaged in a former congressman. After that, i visited him in his home. He would come by from time to time. The discussions were always intellectual, friendly, never any sense of hostility. The only thing was a on the trip to alexandria he said i was with president mubarak this week and he said [inaudible] i said we are engaging in conversation. He said keep doing what youre doing. So, this kind of openness quickly changed and it is shifting a come into the turmoil that created the popular reactions to the u. S. Policy in the region which over the years i remember because i was a spokesperson mainly with the media that is the reason we opened up the office of outreach in london i became a wellknown figure in i remember coming back from baghdad to london and baghdad sometimes i literally had to carry guns because we would drive out of the green zone and people didnt have time to send protected so my friend, colleague at the time working there worked for the dod and would always carry a gun and put a gun in between us and say this is for you just in case. We have a veteran here who remembers. He took to the shooting range with him to practice and you feel what happens is diplomacy of course has shifted him to feel the danger. There were 27 rockets that hit the building as i was hiding under my bed. You become a soldier and say people dont understand the diplomats particularly. They faced the same dangers as the soldiers in the battlefields of. Cant come into the embassy to see you and you can go out in most places without having an armed guard. In yemen i used to have not only a bodyguard and driver but also a security car for peopl carpeth guns going behind us. I have my own personal car so i had to take my own security at times and told them i just want to go out and meet people you dont worry him i will let you know where i am. We used to go out to the villages and i can tell stories i used to have a british friend, a diplomat and i would go in her car because where is the american cars were. Theres Something Special about american diplomats because the french and their births and chinese and they are not attacked unotattempted to surmod up at our embassies are. So, one has to ask. It is the region but its also something we do into the image of the project and its usually an image of stupidity and arrogance that they feel its good for the americans. When other russians or chinese or french. In reading this section, i noticed a certain melancholy between so many things that went wrong and some things that went right for you ende but you endef saying it also waited between the jacobin period and more democratic ones. Do you think that is what we are seeing in different ways and different places, saudi arabia got a version, morocco you have a version struggling to find its way towards . I used tha i used that line when i was a spokesperson at baghdad. I didnt think it is a good idea, but i did my job. As a spokesperson, i was lucky in that way. I never worked with official talking points. I listened and responded to the academic in me about me to go into broader areas and not just say this is our policy. So, to me it detests the fact that most of it is ruled by dictators and as we see in the streets in beirut and baghdad want to get rid of this structure. So i want to get rid of that but at the same time, i understand it rubs them the wrong way. Theres something about the troops marching into the capital that react viscerally so to look on the Positive Side as a spokesperson what could i say. What i would say is think of it in the longterm, big arab world needs to revolt against dictators like that. Many people would tell me that they didnt want to demonstrate against the u. S. Because part of them said. I said think of the french revolution. It goes through a very ugly period. Now of course it wasnt the u. S. Coming on horseback. So whether it is a force from outside or inside getting rid of a bad dictator it has to be a good thing in the long term. In the short term youre going to go through hell probably. Host what is the difference between the arab spring of 2010 and 2011 and the kind of manifestations we are seeing in beirut and baghdad right now . They are quite similar and seemed to have more to say just about different if the tyrant, whoever that was where its about what kind of Pluralistic Society we want to have, is that right or wrong . It was a cakewalk compared because of many reasons and partly they didnt have the same kind of diversity. But what you have in places like lebanon we cant talk about because of the devastation but you have for the first time a genuine peoples revolt. This isnt about nasser or israel or the u. S. This is about people linking hands across religious sectors. Christians are more divided than anybody else right now. With a genuine feeling that this corrupt elite they want the whole thing changed. So the Positive Side of this is that it is genuinely felt across the spectrum. The negative side of it is lebanon doesnt have a single dictator that you can just stop and start fresh. You have 12 within the well armed militia manning all of them, how do you do that, you put them on the love boat and ship them off or somebody. The problem is the various interests, political interests get in the middle and scuffle should be or could be a very serious, very thorough reform plan that is somebody is boys enough in the leadership in lebanon today. They could announce a serious plan instead of wrangling this minister and minister, that is what they are arguing about. I told some friends of mine in government i said forget about the person. You could put them in the position of Prime Minister. Thats not important. The par per bit as important ass is how you change the system from sectarian corrupt to a proper democratic republic. That is our plan. We heard you and we have to start implementing it tomorrow. They dont want to get rid of the advantages come in baghdad the problem is they havent solved the problem of who runs the state into the arrangement at least if you are not going to destroy the militia but kerry, you at least need to have a good political understanding. There is a side to it and i look optimistically in the longterm. The era of youth has risen and they are going to stumble and they are going to become the revolution but i think they finally get it. They are getting abused by the corrupt political elites that eventually has to go. Host do you have any hope or wha wish that i hoped for regarding syria . That is such a sad story. It is a real disaster it could have been helped into could have been assisted at the right time there was too much thinking and hesitating before acting you come to the table and have to have something. We havent been at the poker game since 2015. The best is very much in and assisted by russia and iran and lebanese hezbollah. The top and he wouldnt have lasted but a few weeks without all of this support. That support. So, okay, he is asserting himself but somehow the humanitarian aspect is going to take time to fix itself for people to be able to make a living and be able to eat and feed their kids and keep them warm. But then they are going to go back to the back of the regime. If you could do it politically, i would love to see one arab dictator say enough is enough and see how we can do this. I developed some rules of the middle east reporting. If you answer yes for the diplomats and military officers you felt really understood the region and why . What was it a day afte the day e others didnt . Some are just completely lost and others th in the region flod through them. In baghdad and then again in yemen and also teaching at the college i interacted with a lot of lieutenant colonels. Oh that lebanese american not that im plugging that he was the head of when i was at the embassy. He came over for a visit. I took him over in 2004 and the war had just started between the hutus in the north. We were waiting outside and they asked what was going on in the north. Is that something we should be involved in . I said the short answer is no, not militarily, this is an internal matter. They tried to convince us that iran was there and we looked up down and sideways, iran was not there. Its an internal matter and they should be able to settle through diplomacy i said we can help, its not International Terrorism its not al qaeda. We can help diplomatically by trying to either mediate directly or invite friends to mediate. Or certainly we can help. The system has to work for everybody. Otherwise if the government fights and fails to convince the booties then the southerners will want to secede. And then it will be worse than afghanistan and then you may have to come in. And he took that to heart. When he came back to washington he lobbied on the hill for us. To get more aid money for yemen. Then he was someone who truly understood that fourth should be the very last resort. And there are preconditions to why young people become radicals in the middle east. And that we should help government and a friendly way succeed and become more democratic and observe their peoples human rights. The problem has been consistently throughout. We never got out of the cold war mentality which is get in bed with a dictator, with the military regime because of the security collaboration that is easy with them. And then we can fight soviet influence later on, other bad guys in the region. Up to the minute when they abdicated and signed off on the agreement. We, some of us in government and i dont name names, and there were different points of view within the state department and certainly in the white house. We are still trying to convince people who were trying to change the system change the regime regime, but lets keep the security establishment most was run by his nephew and son because we work with them again we were never able to let go, sometimes i think that certainly this administration forget it when it comes to understanding anything, they have very narrow vision. But obama, very intellectual man. He certainly understood the region, and understood the transition and 2011 and before when he gave the famous cairo speech. The need for democracy with a young people in the region june once. He wanted to be of assistanc assistance. And yet when they arose, he hesitated. He was afraid to jump in and he used that same phrase, leading from behind. So it was going behind them. Afraid of repeating the 2003 baghdad mistake. And more importantly, he stayed in bed with all of the vile security apparatuses in the region. I will never forgive him for what he did to yemen, which is the hand of the yemen files of saudi arabia. And he facilitated the siege, the complete siege, air land and sea on yemen. Which was starving yemeni children and spreading disease. Going along with that instead of realizing that this is not with the young people of yemen once. This is not the direction yemen should be taking. So now we can blame trump all we want for what hes doing, but the problem in the yemen started with obama. And sometimes i think of him as a trapeze artist who swings from one to catch another. You have to let go of one to catch the other, right . And you have to have the faith that you can leap and reached to grab onto the other barr. And it is shifting, it is like that for u. S. Policy. You have to drop the ball you have been holding onto, which is all the bad guys who claim they are helping you against terrorism meanwhile they are out creating terrorism. Jump onto a new way of dealing with the region. Which is trusting the young people. One of the real positive stories and you saw that when you came to visit me in morocco and it is in the book. The Civil Society i saw in morocco, and this was in the 90s really inspired b. And when i went to yemenite found reflections of that society. That is what we should be encouraging and working with. And look at the budgets and you will see. Host in talking with your colleague, when people asked the administration why didnt you invest more in tunisia, he was saying the answer was there are no terrorism there. And we havent how do you put, this is a two questions one reminds me of the line from the wizard of oz, are you good witch or a bad witch. Which is it good militia or bad militia because on one hand i get it its their story and all of that. But what gives you the right to take over the Central Government too . I dont understand the story well enough. Guest sometime i am accused by friends because ip the media a lot and im very harshly criticize saudi arabia and i do not criticize the houthis enough. I am a hoochie supporter. One time in egypt i was accused of being a naturalist. I went to meats, this is not in my book because it just happened recently on my way to lebanon i met with who do you leaders who lived there and can go back and forth for obvious reasons, and as we were talking about things i told them first of all i was there to get to know them. Secondly to see if i could advise them and point out some positive things they could do to change the situation. They made the first mistake militarily. And then it was after that the euphoria, and the thinking they can move on and take the whole country. Which was stupid. On this of course provoke the saudis into launching their war. So the first mistake. Secondly they have had control of much of north yemen for the past five years. They have not ruled well. They have been abusing the rights of the media, there is no transparent system either economically or judicially, and i told them, we were meeting with their spokesmans home and i said sometimes people accuse me of siding with you too much because i expressed sympathy. At the end of the day you are yemeni, you are not iranian. There is this obsession with the Trump Administration that we are fighting iran and yemen, and we are not. But you have a lot of mistakes in your biggest mistake is that you are arab, and they all laughed. I said unfortunately you are ruling the area you control like any other arab Party Dictator or militia. They are certainly full of faults, the end of the day, they are not al qaeda. They are not wanting to go out and kill americans, its sin not work outside of their borders. They want to control their country, yes and that is bad because they should understand the tribal structure and does not allow for that. They are now being forced into a corner. When they started out there is zero iranian interest in yemen are the hood sees. The members of parliament in tehran did not know who they were. But as saudi arabia intervenes and as the war went on, they had to go more and more to iran. So the assistance is there in the longer it continues, the stronger irans influence will be, mainly through has belong experts, the technicians that iranians dont send many of their own people but they send money. And to the extent they can smuggle in some equipment they do smuggle in equipment. But is not anywhere near what we give the saudis who are after all invading yemen. And have been in control between them and the emirates for much of the south. And what have they done . It is not assist Success Story there either. Sell at the end of the day is the houthi good militia . Theyre not al qaeda, they are not the lebanese army. Host wasnt right for the administration to assess the us out assassin a Qassem Soleimanis b2 i thought it was very poor judgment. First of all we forget about the lying in the imminent threat which was not the case. This at the end of the day was a political assassination. It means you picked a personality in the leadership position, and thought that if you got rid of it, you would improve matters. And the fact is you made matters worse by doing that. One because removing a person as important is cell money was, doesnt really change the picture. Iran is hiding leaders and within seconds of his death he was replaced. And they have a good cadre of people that can run these organizations. For good or bad we are not talking value judgment we are talking strategy. And what is the goal . If the goal is to change irans behavior for the better, you have done the opposite by killing him. I think partly they didnt understand your point is well made on your pc is an overrated general. But, the fact is for all of his mistakes and all of the bad things he is done, he is very, very important politically, militarily, culturally. Hes important to those people we consider enemies now but we somehow want to fix the relationship with. I dont think, certainly i dont think the president understands that, and i doubt the people around him, i mean the people who gave him this option, then later said they didnt think he would pick it. And why put it is an option of the first place . There is a certain psychological elements. I talked about american troops in baghdad. Killing somebody like that who was up, whether we like it or not, very important. He almost had a halo around him. For people in lebanon and iran. Certainly in iran. That you should understand is going to generate hatred and is going to generate acts of revenge. And i dont think weve seen the end of that. Just that bombing of the base there, that was just a token to fire off some rockets. I think we will see more acts of revenge. Host before he go to questions we havent mentioned the conflict between palestinian yet. Where does it stand would you say in the minds of the region right now . In the minds of u. S. Diplomacy . In the minds of u. S. Diplomats . How we address that problem now. Guest first of all is a conflict it is that a dead end. And i felt it was at a dead end ten years ago or i dont see any real hope over there anytime in the near future. As far as the diplomacy, the u. S. Diplomacy, i always used to try to be as honest as possible. I would always say the u. S. Has failed despite many, many attempts to establish peace between israel and palestinians, has failed, the whole world has failed and the people of the region have failed. So dont just criticize the u. S. I fully understand, i dont want to say the u. S. Has blind support but unconditional support over israel over these years and now. It does not work. And even if the arabs arent talking about israel and palestine all in time, doesnt mean they have forgotten about it. Host dont let friends drive drunk. Guest if you can call it a peace plan of this administration, it is not a peace plan. Its a joke and everybody sees it for what it is. There is some personal economic commercial interest involves there and thats what seen in the region. And frankly thats what i see it. So i dont take it seriously at all. Be one before go to questions have one last one for me. Ive got the lamp in the genie to rabbit. I gave you three wishes for american policy in the middle east. What would they be . Guest okay american policy in the middle east. Be one you get to be king for a day, you get to redesign our policy,. [inaudible] because that is embedded in this book, give us the ultimate take away. You get to redirect our policy, what should we be doing . Guest one of the reasons i started with poetry and end with poetry in the book is the need to understand, you understand the arab world and the middle east much better through its poetry and threats literature. Then through the speeches given by politicians. Regardless of the color of these politicians. One of the strange things i did as a diplomat in the middle east was send cables about silly topics that were considered silly by some. I sent the one and wrote a power about palestinian children with song. And he talks about this hero seven years old, ten years old standing up to israelis soldiers and tanks. [inaudible] i summarize and i sent it in a cable to washington saying poetry and politics. I said forget the twohour speech, read this. Because these people are the intellectuals of the error world. The poets. They have their fingers on the pulse. They understand how people feel. Host you want to listen to the broader. Guest and get into the culture. We have had some very good diplomats over the years who really understood the culture, do the language, read some of the literature, i dont know these days. First of all they are not being listened to. Host tumor wishes, quickly. Guest the other wish is to finally abandon the autocrats and the dictators. And understand that the air rubs, much like any other people in the world desire freedom, desire democracy. Dont listen to racist things like the arabs dont understand because they cant deal with that. Thats a people want they want to live with dignity. For the large part they are not being treated in a dignified manner and the security apparatuses that we work with. And so when they see us, propping up these regimes, the anger is directed towards us. And i wish we could finally make the break and say we are in with the wrong crowd and we need to cultivate a different kind of constituency. And help the people who genuinely want to improve the record of human rights and democratic practices. And do away with the corruption, frankly. That is my second wish. Host okay i would even stop there at real minds of my second rule and that is we always overestimate ideology and underestimate governments. How are people governed on a daily basis. If there abuse, humiliated, insulted, it does so much more that all these others and its really driven home to me. I actually cover the last day of voting in the egyptian election. It was over like a ten day period at the last day i went with the egyptian route ported cairo and we went to an Elementary School it was an all women voting station. We stood outside and we interviewed women as they came out. Everyone of them was covered. And every one of them said they voted for the muslim except one. I asked them why did you voted they said better sidewalks, better streetlights, more jobs, more security, more healthcare. There wasnt one who said if i see another woman and a bikini on the beach in alexandria im in a blow myself up. And it was just so telling a lesson of just what your point is. In afghanistan we were lined with a criminal syndicate. Thats how the people saw the government. Is there any wonder that we consistently underestimate the relations between government . The government is so much more important than ideology and thats what comes out of the poetry. Inc. That is exactly right. Host ill give you number three later. Just introduce yourself. Im an intern at the German Embassy and i am particularly interested in the situation in lebanon. And i would be interested in first of all why you think that protests that are so genuine and ongoing and peaceful are not present both here and in europe. Second of all, how do you think the rest could get involved and third what is your prediction for the situation there. Guest the problem with, and i was explaining a bit earlier what spots out as a genuine that goes across secretary and lines it goes against a corrupt abusives system, really ought to be changed. It immediately gets pulled in different directions, different parties send them into the streets and they claim they are with the protest it when they get something they want, or the protest is about to give them something they dont want, then they pulled their people out. Or worse they send their people in to create chaos. I think there still is a strong genuine desire for change. Its very tricky though. I have friends in iraq were telling me before the americans have an obligation they should intervene. I said thats the last thing you want. Especially in a country like iraq where, thank you very much, we are in charge of the country. We were in charge for ten years. And look at the mess we left behind. Look at afghanistan. So in lebanon we have to be very careful, sometimes wellmeaning americans in lebanon starts holding seminars and give speeches. And here also, dont touch the people in the streets. You have to be very careful when you poke and approach a hornets nest you have to be very careful where you poke it. [laughter] i think behindthescenes, this is not a place where we should step in strongly. A light touch is better. In the end, i think in lebanon definitely you do not want to provoke. And i have friends in government and sometimes we exchange views. And i said the last thing we want to do is use of force against the demonstrators. Because it will blow up into something far worse than what you have right now. I think as complicated as a lebanese situation is, some people and government have their own think tank. Or invite some of the young people who are demonstrating and really put their Heads Together to come up with this serious reform plan that may take away some of their illgotten gains. And everybody in lebanon has gotten ill begotten gains. But that is the only way out. It seems to people sometimes if the country really matters to you. You are running it into the ground. You really need to consider how due uproots a system like that. In a sectarian system how do you stop worrying if you have enough shiites or mennonites in the government. Its a difficult thing, but it is doable. The lebanese inmate tries to help, i send ideas to people and sometimes they listen to me. I am doing a phd in international relations. I want to look at democracy and our countries. If i may i want to find out, this is actually true for persians two. Because when you look at the persian history you always have somebody at the top which tells everybody you go to this, you go to that. And i think in 2020 it is still the same thing. Did you really think that the middle east is capable of having a westernstyle democracy as we have in the states, or france, or the United Kingdom . Or should have its own style of democracy . Guest all i can say is go back in history and you look back at the iraq revolution. Look at the history in the middle ages and see how western culture used to be. A used to be far worse. So we look now and we say the persians, and the arabs, they dont understand democracy. That is not true. They are human beings just like the need for freedom is a very human thing. And everybody wants it. And everybody can get there. But the air of world they are going through what you went through in the middle ages right now. And hopefully it wont be as bloodied as the europeans. I dont despair and id dont think they need to be told what to do. They need to be given a chance to tolerate one another, live with each other and agree on a new social contract. And you need new social contracts in every country. Host im just gonna go around the room over here. You give a very excellent presentation. One thing you havent talked i havent heard is economics, job creation, rule of law, because when i travel to the region and ive been going to the region for the last 40 years. People say i want dignity but i went economics, i dont keep begging. Guest absolutely and lebanon again is perhaps a microcosm and good example. Supposedly the lebanese ran out of money and could not pay their un dues. But after that they were denied the vote because of two years and around not paying their dues, somehow they said wait a minute we have some money here. They just paid. So now the vote has been reinstated. There is a lot of money in lebanon but it is in the wrong hands. The middleclass is bit impoverished impoverished. The poor people have been driven to almost hunger. Its very bad. But the rich people are doing very well. And many of them happen to be in thoughtful positions. What is needed is precisely i think Prime Minister was banking on 11 billion from the conference going on in europe to help save lebanon. You dont need an injection of cash. Particularly in a corrupt country like lebanon. I used to say that in yemen and say please dont give him any money. Do projects, encouraged to industry new businesses. And exactly what you need in lebanon is a more productive economy. What you have is a pensee scheme that is large. Where banks and People Exchange money have been shuffling their money around. And not producing new jobs. The very basic services, if you do that if you can provide the electricity and the water people need, you know its been years since the war ended in lebanon. And they havent been able to fix that, why because they dont want to fix it. They cant even pick up the trash and deal with the trash. If you do these basic services and do them well, you would be creating jobs. Nowadays technical jobs. Things that require some thinking and some expertise. But absolutely, you need to move the economy from just moving cash around to producing things like agricultural industry, business, but the young people who are unemployed back to work. Thank you americans ask i agree with most of what you said but im surprised about your analysis of Qassem Soleimani. You dont think it was a mistake by the Current Administration even though we all know and they are rocky government admitted he was the mastermind behind the attack of the u. S. Embassy in iraq a few days before the demonstration came. His killing actually gave a boost to the iranian reformist in the iranian government. Gives a boost for the people who look at fighters along the hands of the militia. We know he. [inaudible] he was taken the plane to iraq. So probably, getting rid of the man is a symbolism. Theres a lot of people in the middle east to somehow ironic that both dictators you talk about are benefiting actually from. [inaudible] they are orchestrated and planned by this socalled foreign powers and cia profits in usa. Its ingenuous uprising. So my question to you how do you think the Popular Uprising in syria and lebanese at the same time, how would that affect the syrian issues we see economically do you think the lebanese demonstration will somehow affect positively or negatively on the syrian. Guest you can say as much as you what about Qassem Soleimani i am not arguing if he is a good manner bad men. That depends on where you stand. So your symbol of upheaval is somebodys symbol of a way to get to heaven. And part of the problem in the middle east as we all think that god is on our side. And we kill each other trying to prove it. So you no good luck. Killing tran to maybe he deserved to die, apparently he welcomed that he wanted to be a marcher. So we gave him the opportunity to become a marcher. But i hope it does not turn into a bloodbath for everybody else. So just because you think somebodys bad does not mean you need to kill him. In a war, somebody facing you with weapons as something. And when you pick on a person and you say this is an important leader for these people i am going to get rid of him, does that change irans policy toward syria . I doubt that very much. You have to know whether you are fighting a war then by all means put all your resources and go fight the war. Or are you engaging in diplomacy to try to solve a problem and therefore dont go picking on people because they could do the same thing to you. And if he comes out or his successor come after an American General of some sort that they consider equivalent, what will happen then to think . That is a bad way to go. Host okay right here thisll be the last question but he will have plenty of time to sign books. I want to followup on the question Qassem Soleimani know that he is killed, what is the feeling about his killing . And also what is positive and negative scenarios in terms of iran retaliation. Guest like usual as i was saying if you are on his side, the socalled resistance access which includes a lot of parties, militias, individuals, certainly beyond. For those people, it is a tragedy, his killing. And they want revenge. For the people on the other side that hate him and hate what he represents, it was a great feat. Thats the environment should you are in. U. S. Unfortunately is very polarized right now. But thankfully its not towards weapons and explosives. But politically. If you really hate to rub or you really love trump, and you somehow get rid of in a friendly way somebody from that side, does that change anything . Can you get rid of everybody you disagree with, no. You have to find some accommodation, some way out of this. In the middle east we would never end if we kept saying you killed my grandfather i killed your uncle, it will never end. One of my lessons is meant middle east if youre doing a report everybody wants to own you if they cant own your they will try to destroy you. Nobody puts her arm around you and says thank you for your freethinking honest analysis. I just want to say i appreciate your honest analysis. Its here in this book. Everybody lets have around of applause. [applause] he will be signing books after words, and if you dont buy one, i know who you are. [laughter] thank you very much. Book tv has covered several programs about impeachment. Including that of president bill clinton. Former independent counsel ken starr who is now part of president trumps Impeachment Defense Team discusses his 2018 book content about the investigation into printed president clinton. Heres a portion. How do we in a free society that believes in rule of law and accountability, keep the president and those around him or her honest . Right . And if there is serious allegations of wrongdoing, are we simply going to say, which is the case in some countries, excuse me our chief executive, whoever he or she might be, is above the law. Not in the united states, and i think thats part of the glory, its unpleasant as all get out and especially not fun for those wrapped up in it. And of course for president clinton, hillary, chelsea, this is a horrible episode to go through. So on a personal level, yes lots of cost, but in terms of who we are a free people in the constitutional democracy, isnt it reassuring to know that truly no one is above the law . To access cspan and sees on impeachment this is our website cspan. Org impeachment. Our weekly Author Interview program that includes bestselling nonFiction Books and guest interviewers. Last week Peggy Orenstein examine the role in the lives of young men. Coming up Andrea Bernstein will chronicle the trump and kershner families rise to prominence. And this weekend on after words, Financial Times columnist and cnn analyst argues that Tech Companies are failing the public. Silicon valley has a real problem. Theyre very good at taking credit for the wonderful things they do, and they have given up all this technology, entertaining, productivity enhancing to a certain extent, but they are not so good at taking responsibility for the downsides and theyre not so good admitting they didnt do it all themselves. These technologies were basically built on federally funded r d. Think about the internet. Touchscreen technology, gps, these are things that came out of the pentagon actually. Tax dollar that were commercialized by the valley. See a very similar to thousand eight crisis you have privatization of profits but socialization of losses in so many ways. At. After words airs saturday at 10 00 p. M. And sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific on book tv on cspan2. All previous after words are available as podcasts and to watch online a booktv. Org. Now it is my pleasure to introduce harvey sullivan. He is a freelance writer based in washington d. C. He is the author of three non Fiction Books a day by day look at the pop culture moments that made history. He has written articles for dozens of publications including the boston herald, los angeles time, Hollywood Reporter and variety. Todays book tells the story of the roundup, of more than a