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More than ever seems in a permanent state of turmoil and its become and land of endless wars. Despite decades of intense and often wellmeaning american attention. U. S. Policy had more often than not been a failure. More often than not is too kind. If one accepts that the basic aim was to foster stability and a better life for the people of the region. Of course the ones ultimately responsible ot of questions about whether the United States should continue to be engaged in the region and if so, how. In this regard, the editors of seven pillars, Michael Rubin and Brian Katulis and their co contributors have given a gift. They identify seven factors that affect stability or not and examine what they mean and the role they play. The pillars that they identify art is long gone era ideology by the military, education, economy and governance. Ive found many of the authors perspectives to be unique and to begin looking at al old problemn new ways whether it serves as the basis for a bipartisan approach into the current political environment here is anyones guess but at least the authors are trying to provide factbased reality and analysis to encourage the debate is with us today is Michael Rubin who is a resident scholar and has a phd in iranian history and contributes to the chapter on legitimacy in the region. Next is Brian Katulis, a Clinton Administration veteran now at the center for american progre progress. Prior to joining, he moved to egypt and palestine where he worked on the issues for the National Democratic institute. He contributed the chapter on governance and then we have the fellow for the middle east at the Baker Institute at rice university. He researches both liberalism and the middle east into the interplay between religious authorities and foreign policy. He contributed a chapter on islam. We are going to try to keep the conversation lively and i will try to keep everybody from going on and on. We will talk for a while and then open to question from the audience. To start, im going to start with michael and ask you what is special about this book and what was lacking in the scholarship or the analysis that required this kind of approach . If we look at the last halfcentury of interaction by any metric like you said in the introduction, the u. S. Hasnt been successful and it isnt a democrat or republican thing. We want to get away from the analysis based on the political calendar. It is toif it is too easy and it work but more broadly some of the issues and drivers in the region in terms of legitimacy this common core assumptions that are all about Good Governance and that is what builds legitimacy but people are willing to forgo so they can have a Kurdish National flag over a certain building and its things we hardly talk about in the United States were in the region, the disruptive technology. How is that going to change things, how is foreign aid impacting the legitimacy and one of the broad issues that was most surprising to me personally when brian and i traveled across the region as many people we asked the question of what represents the most legitimate government in the middle east, people tend to Say Something like lebanon and its often thought about in the United States and many parts of the middle east as an adjunct disaster so we try to grapple with these from a more academic and less political or partisan approach. So, what is legitimacy and why is lebanon seen as more legitimate than other places . We need to abandon the notion that onesizefitsall and that isnt easy for the policymakers to do but ultimately, people wanted legitimacy for whatever, they wanted representation for whatever their identity was. What was clear however is people were increasingly finding themselves disenfranchised. It isnt just an issue with the antiiranian protest, but there just seems to be a failure of the traditional middle east which is why they wrote the chapter reimagine or reconsidering all of the ideology that is a play because take for example iraq. 40 were born after the 2003 war. War. More than 60 after the 1991 war which means no one had a functional memory of what life was like under Saddam Hussein among this swath of youth therefore they are no longer willing to accept h we might hae a problem from some of these sport of table but at least we are not Saddam Hussein. People are looking at this generation and succeeded many of these other ideologues in the region and saying they dont represent us. As much as we complain about politics, usually 90 to 95 and in places like iraq at around 12 or 16 and the fact of the matter is people are drifting and that makes it a dangerous moment. So, you wrote about governance. The form of governance that have been imposed on iraq since it was overthrown, do you see it working, maybe they have to come up with Something Else since they had to help iraq come up with Something Else . I first want to highlight the subtitle of the book what causes instability in the middle east, and they are warmongering. Thats a joke. To the question on iraq before this episode, if you see what has happened in the last week and then what was happening just a few months before that, people in the streets of baghdad and major cities in iraq questioned the political order that is in iraq protesting corruption for services and a bunch of things but quite frankly ithat quite fo around the region like we do together and quite regularly, there are the sort of things that impact every country in the middle east. This sort of crushing demographic social economic pressure and to answer the question quite clearly despite multiple elections the system is not helping the people. If you go back to the Human Development report from 16 or 17 years ago, the structural factors that contribute to stability are quite and in those 15, 16 or 17 years in, theyve gotten weaker and i think any place that iraq, and this is something where we do have our differences. He was in favor of the iraq war and i wasnt. He was against the iran nuclear deal. The one thing that we agree upon is to dig deeper and why we want to do this book and the chapter on governance. I talk a bit about iraq but not the National Government. I talk about the experiment that actually emerged under the Islamic State and i spent a couple of pages on it and it shows you the response of governance into discontent with a government that is not responding plants the seed of the sort oforthis sort of stabie saw happen in iraq under the previous payment instead of groups like the Islamic State exploited and i think we should have learned by now many years after the United States cannot fix these factors but its important to factor in the fundamental Building Blocks on what we are going to do next. Isis is a new phenomenon, and there have been the failure of governance and failure of leaders in the middle east for a long time. Why cant this moment did a group like isis have the opportunity to rise and have a profound impact . Its the multiplicity factors tied to this transition where you have a bubble and if in places like iraq they are not responding to it, people will rise up in different forms. The isis model which was shortlived and i dont think it had much legitimacy was created in response to an ineffective government and that there were more tools now in places like iraq there wasnt much of an open space for people to produce change, and i think the theory that was behind the iraq war in 2003 coming and we dont want to go back to that, but the theory was flawed in that we topple regimes and eliminate or decapitate the top then somehow freedom will spread and we know that hasnt happened, and i think why it excavated in particular is that you have a multiple fight going on inside of iraq into civil war first and system of governance that wasnt responding and that is the main point is that those conditions are still there. Iraq hes are still looking at the National Government with a caregiver government. Theres any number of millennial movements whether it would be the grand mosque of 79 or centuries before the. Monarchy versus republican and so forth, but what does this mean for the diplomacy if we are still limiting ourselves to interactions with representatives of government who are under siege whether they know it or not, are we missing the broader picture both in terms of diplomacy and intelligence when it comes to the middle east. What is the remedy to that. The United States has to deal with the government that is in power. How much time do diplomats spend outside of the wall of embassies versus talking and interacting in the local market as opposed we dont want to bring in the u. S. Policy too much, but one of aftermaths of benghazi is the walk down upon which they find themselves. When you go to beirut and we went together, the u. S. Embassy is basically living under the same security parameters. Thats an important and tactical point which i think for u. S. Policies they are quite likely at the end of a 40 year period that began with these events in 1979, the Islamic Revolution irevolution in iran,t invasion in afghanistan and a number of things that led to the u. S. Having its engagements primarily be focused on what our military does and look at where we are today discussing and worrying about the next move and what our military is doing. And to me this point that is important is our diplomats and the Diplomatic Service as guest in the last couple of years they are our eyes and ears in understanding the societal trend and we are flying a little bit more wind. The last point is i think it opens up questions whether the United States should actually be spending a lot of aid and money and other countries that simply lack the capacity to do this but neither is a strategy for thinking more modestly about the engagement of thinking about the outpost or the relative progress in places like tunisia so maybe a dollar spent in tunisia may ultimately be a lot better than other parts of the middle east, but we dont even have that discussion because we are reacting to the military moves and not how we diversify the portfolio. I want to follow up on that and his religion more important in the middle east today than it was before . It is very much so. One of the fundamental miss misconceptions is that we tend to assume that this has been the case of time. But if you go back 40 or 50 years ago what we di see is the dominance of the secular ideology and how the parties and groups were smaller and much more influential in terms of policy making and being able to affect other groups as a society or how they were acting in the domestic policy. But over the course of the last 40 or 50 years, things have changed dramatically. The iranian revolution. But more importantly, something that was mentioned, the secular ideologies great throughout the middle east and the 1960s and 70s. Fundamental issues where economic and they were under promises and the people were expected. This is what precipitated the rising significance of the religious groups and grown more violent extremist groups throughout the region. It wasnt just her own popularity within the Muslim Brotherhood 2011, 2012, 30 to 40 but more importantly, i think that they were able to dictate the parameters of the discussion in terms of the policy issues that were ongoing. The rise and influence so much so that they felt the need to bring in religion to their own discussions. Theyve come to power in 2002 and shes a massive petition that has been successful in terms of changing the political system in such a way that the secular parties are unable to determine the agenda and to discuss issues in a way outside of the parameters. If we think of this from the framework of religious competition that means you were political actors try to cater to this because people want more currency. But he has not been uniformly successful. But he has run into more trouble now and political pushback so do you see him using islam more as a Political Tool to advance his political career or do you think this is indigenous to the people of turkey. I cannot speak to his personal beliefs beyond my focus as a political scientist. What i can tell you is that religion is an important element of the political discourse and when we look at it over time it changes in terms of the intensity that he emphasizes in the political discourse is the period until 2001 when the party was first established. Religion doesnt play as significant a role that one is political prospects as a result of the Corruption Scandal and then gone losing elections to some degree that he started actually using religion because he wanted to bring in the more conservative elements. What we see dependent on the time it is possible. But its for other policies in the region. Going back to the issue that was mentioned about tunisia, i fully agree. What is underlying increase political groups once those issues are addressed first and foremost we are going to see a decreasdecrease that is more th. You used this phrase repeatedly and you talk about it in the domestic context of turkey which is spot on to understand that religion and islam and the point i wanted to make it isnt necessarily about the right interpretation of religion if there is such a thing but its about power and a second in addition to the domestic use of religion what i see right now is multifaceted and multidirectional competition for power and influence and say saudi arabia that has its own definition of my main point is the first point that this is about power and not the ancient hatred and interpretation of religion. It spills over into the media fights and all sorts of things and its something the book doesnt cover itself but we need to understand this is in addition to military moves and the terrorism and the competition in the struggle for power. Its how rapidly things are changing and if we look 40 years in the future and you have a complete new set of the majority that hasnt even been born yet, if it is the major is it going to be the mosque were social media and is it going to be for those leaders are populist leaders and if so how are traditional muslim scholars looking at this rise of populism and do you think that the way in which people are going to radically change come up with . Some of my research is trying to address this question for a couple of years ago we started a project to look into how the religious authority is distributed across the middle east and primarily Muslim Leaders and what they found is that there is a couple major findings. The. People still look up to them as religious leaders and they Say Something really important that has been rising and changing a lot in terms of social media or mosques, that is a change that was precipitated at the turn of the century. Its a little bit different it has a freemarket religion. It doesnt have the hierarchy. What it mean that means is evern be a religious leader if they willingly support or follow this with a group of collective scholars were up until the turn of the 20th century and they were the class as the religious authority but once they started dying off so to speak, there was a big war so this is when we see them early on in the modern world and this is a process for developing a. It emerge as a form of the hierarchy of authority. Is a force of stability or not in the region . It depends on what we mean by stability. It is an authoritarian way if we look at some other context it would be a force for instability because and push them to try to get more political space or change policies so it depends on the context. Its different than other religions and it depends on the political context and the factors and the circumstances in terms of what kind of role. In iraq and syria would say tanisha it is a seeming commitment for the democracy and in terms of the muslim democracy. One of the things we are witnessing now inside of iraq although it isnt being framed that way in the media is when we look at the most prominent is cognizant of what the opinion is convinced of thand instead of ld tis toworry about following it e if he goes out to far he risks being exposed to the young People Choose to not follow him and therefore we see a caution that hasnt been there since we lived under Saddam Hussein. That is the religious competition. These religious leaders are not blind to whats going on around them. They will cater to those because ultimately what it does for them they may be believers but religion is a tool to. Is that something that they should be encouraging . Ive been taking it as mostly government they said i think islam hates us but he used sort of interpretation that is quite dangerous catering to the public constituencies here im not making a comparison or parallel between the two but when the u. S. Did things like the point of irrelevance to slightly unhelpful because i dont think it should be u. S. Policy to encourage some sort of freeform it is a religion. Its going to have strands that are more extremist and reformist and its organic playing out. My friends who live here in america or europe they are different ideas of their own faith and religion and i would stay away from that as a use of engagement. There was an idea of muslim and engagement that a lot of my friends in the world sound a little bit offensive. One of the issues and experiments that is occurring in the region. It goes back over the millennia and when you talk to american officials about what they are doing in the model often times what you hear is its peripheral or irrelevant but intellectually and theologically what happened traditionally its more than what happened in saudi arabia in the spread of its being so dismissive of other trends because we see from our Vantage Point its peripheral. It should be first do no harm and we would disagree. I have a little bit of a different take. Im not saying religion but there is pervasive case of violence. Muslims being killed toda told e being told by other muslims. We have pervasive under development. A lot of issues and problems recently published books into these issues very critically but theres a great need for reform. It is patriarchy gender inequality. In tanisha there was a debate about introducing legislation for equal inheritance and the most Progressive Party opposed this legislation. There is reform in islam because they are still trying to in my opinion trying to come to terms with it, modernity and this is a big issue i think its a deepseated issue with the current state of affairs it is very difficult to come to terms with the part of th that part om and something i try to emphasi emphasize. Theyve been able to change the mindset not only of those considered but also on the secular side if you look at the issue a century ago the muslim world was much more progressive on this particular issue and many other ethnic religious diversity i will argue it was much more progressive century or two centuries ago. Because they were able to reshape the mindset of people in their society a story from one of our troops in research and tu can correct me if im wrong we met with officials is one that is give and take and we said what we are here from america and you might find this alarming are interesting but a lot of people are puzzled about america and one woman raised her hand and said. It isnt necessarily the case that is so taboo. They are identifying as the outlier of the continuing trend. It isnt just the individual level. These are important issues to build. Does this change have to come organically or is there a role for government leaders, how does the reform needed in how does it come about . Beanies individuals whether they are scholars were prominent speakers theres pushback from others in terms of their official stance being critical of what they understand from the debate. Iis that Education Systems where we are able to introduce critical analytical thinking. People in these countries i think it is very difficult. They thought of Something Like 120 million i think that it would go further back from the administration and aggregation in islam. They talk about the need for the reverse aggregation and put on the heaahead of the later versie people that are being most bold on the force of reform. Listening and understanding what we were saying before, the fact the tragedy that the ambassador who was killed, he was adept at doing this and as powerful as some elements in the military to understand the social dynamics on the u. S. Policy agenda is important and obviously its been downgraded. That actually started in the process of having as much focus of the diplomats do that started for a number of reasons and they want to pull back because they define the debate about the democracy with interference. I think they said when somebodys in prison we need to raise our voice and make it part of the conversation and be serious about it. They dont give organic space for people to debate religion or other and of the third point and its a simple one relates to what you said at the top is the war is actually one of the worst thing and unnecessary war that actually enhance the hardline interpretations of religion that a new style of engagement so try to learn the lessons from the last 40 years in this social and political space in understanding what is happening. Often times when we talk about reform but as the reformed monarchy, the reformed monarchy isnt a democracy and its for the people of the region are two Different Things and when there are two different types it can make things a lot worse. What role can the United States played its important intervention should be created by the way there is so much ingrained in political islam any kind of intervention by the u. S. And European Union is going to be deemed as problematic and thats why this kind of interventions into creating those issues should be done really carefully. Its going to make the issue very toxic. Whatever it says or does after that point onward. What happened for example in the case of iran when they say they are supportive of this sort of damned if you do and damned if you dont so shouldnt we use our ability to compel the government not to arrest people since they are going to be slandered no matter what they do. It should be done in a way that isnt going to undermine the bigger goal. There is a whole chapter in this book on the military which i actually found very interesting and a big point that was made the military in the region attempted 73 cents 1932 and succeeded in 39 of them but the point being that the military is often a force for instability. It also hinders down the point that a lot of these military suffered for the lack of training and equipment the United States has spent decades training the officer corps is it has weapons to a lot of the countries and is bad for not number two, they are under resourced when it seems like. Weve invested a great deal in afghanistan as well and now this chapter was fascinating so im glad that youve highlighted a couple of things that come into play one of the reasons beside from being destabilizing in their own countries it should have a big question. They seldom profess to what they say they are going to do and part of th of that has to do wih differences with regards to shame. Pakistan in 2007 you have a bipartisan approach the state of american diplomacy should be the military or cia thats although the decades in pakistan with that 7 milliondollar aid package makes it worse because the military which was about to get cut off as a part of the gravy train through the rumor mill through pakistan which was nonsense and also the mechanisms for the one thing that we have to deal with it doesnt make sense to resource the state department but when it comes to the military and egypt and pakistan there is what i would call a cycle of expulsion that we get money to have the local military fight but at some point the idea that if we defeat the islamic insurgents than we are cut off from the many so if you look at the egyptians, which is it they cant defeat it because they dont want to but its one or the other and with the military in general we were also in egypt together and you could argue making those corrections they needed to make but instead building a platform for Economic Development they protected their own unique interest with the previous decades that means that is just gratuitous from human rights. I do agree with what michael said what i was trying to say the last few years of us policy be really need to have a strategic posture to use military aid as a tool of engagement to produce stability and the things were trying to get at in this book if that makes sense. It has not succeeded in places like egypt. Internally it tilts the balance of power against freedom it reinforces which is a state center and the authoritarianism but Bigger Picture look across the region and hundreds of billions we have undersold or delivered and this is a serious question because in essence there is a dangerous dysfunctional dependence on the us military just this past week a lot of the militaries in the region themselves look at saudi arabia. How the hell did that happen if we sent them things like this quick so thats the main point there is this episodic and emotional debate it is important and a reflection of a lot of americans but also the tools if we cut it off then we read them the riot act and i think we need to have a step back from these tools to emphasize the other aspect. Because what we have done has not produce stability in the region itself. Anybody have questions quick. With the association of the u. S. Army i have a question about the arabisraeli conflict especially in the nineties there was a belief the middle east stability went to the conflict do you see that realignment of the arab and sunni states and what do you see for regional stability today quick. Decades remains even that diplomatic posture has altered that doesnt necessarily trickle down to saudi arabia or so forth but i alluded that whenever i travel i tried to do roundtables at universities because i have much less of the filter when i was in iraq i thought it was strange in a threehour session nobody brought up israel once with a broad up saudi arabia quite a bit but people are focusing on their own immediate problem it doesnt mean that its important not important but there is a greater respect than american diplomats have had. There is a shift but not realignment. There is a shift that it is not a high priority but i dont see the realignment that what many golf officials would say we have a relationship thats underneath the table with his real. But we will not come out publicly so long as this defense of injustice which i would add the pathway there at all and to the reactions to it our president trumps initiative or goal on heights. And those that condemn this and thats all you got but the main point is i dont see the realignment. And this pathway. I am with the middle east but not as much as any of you have. Talking about the middle east in your book with lebanon to iran. And those and that university of michigan. One quick comment and then a question. But when you say while we may be here with the religious extremist against another. You have to remember religion has been adopted as a tool to gain power. Not the other way around. But my comment is may be afghanistan. And doing it for purely religious regions. About the question is there are two historic ancient thoughts the religious divide between the sunnis and the shiites and the ethnic between the persians and arabs. I think im not wrong war between more people died between iraq and iran than any other conflict put together in those years. So my question is i think we see a little bit of that now because so in the long term with those two divides do you and then to say i will get that right half the time for and would say i only get that right about half the time. I simply dont know. The factors of persian versus arab. This is not a gouge. My mind went to when you raise the point to the question about iraq. What is going on side there. The centerpiece for the struggle. I dont know whether those things will be results. The centerpiece is from the bottom up in a sense and that struggle that is happening and i think exhilarating. It is not over. My guess now that were in a a decade is that that is actually going to accelerate when you look at the structural basic metrics. There is going to be some change. You actually see the nationstates either recombining. I hate to say tebiden was right on something but there really is three places. Nobody wants to give up their boundaries. Their Current International boundaries which to me is one atof the issues. The different ethnicities. Like i said, the kurds were promised a curtis dan they never got. They are spread over four countries and none of them want to give up like whats going on with turkey and syria. I guess, to you see a day like when a curtis dan exists. That things happen that the current boundaries get shifted to more natural coherent ethnicity. I will respond to that briefly. Generally speaking, i take a little bit of issue. Of course youre right when you look at a map of the middle east and you see a straight line, thats an artificial border. That doesnt mean its an arbitrary country. Most people live traditionally along the coast or along rivers. When you consider egypt and 90 percent of the population living along the nile. It doesnt matter where you draw the border. At egypt has a sense of being egypt. Iraq only became independent i think in 1932. Back in 13th century arabic literature, people talked about the concept of iraq. Lebanon and syria, long before they became independent. Id say the most artificial states are jordan, qatar, the emirates and kuwait. But that many of the others, we see this with how they retroactively has some basis in the legitimacy. That really isnt going to change much. The kurds are the largest people, if you will, have been dispossessed. The treaty of in the 17th century is what created the iran iraq for it. The problem with the kurds is are you going to have one curtis dan or could you have for . This notion we will have one, we have two romanians. One of which is called over. We have two albanians, one of which is called close above. You could see kosovo. I think its a lot less illegitimate than sometimes the grievance industry would have us accept. Can i add a little point to that . Arent we already seeing some of borders. Whether its coming over the border and syria and cleaning some land. The iranians and russians, who knows whats going to happen. Assad does not have control of his country. The israelis have now made formal claim to the is a difference between a and im not willing to argue whats fundamentally an unresolved border issue. That separate from existing recognized borders. When it comes to turkey, i think this is the major challenge. Can comment but when we look at the fact that cyprus remains occupied. Turkish civilian post office is sprouting up utto i would worry about the aof the erdawon. But we have an expert here. I think the International Context has changed. In terms of the legitimacy of changing borders. Everything is by and large by choice of certain people that want to leave. Turkey is expanding. Is the world ever going to see that are just as Turkish Occupation . By default right now, its occupation. Im not sure how far he wants to go with that . It depends on whether he can strike an agreement with and russia. The way it goes, it continues this way. I dont think there will be a lot of legitimacy. I think its important point you make. I think the issue that she is whats happening the fact though. Its playing now already rather than swhere the formal lines are. We havent talked at all about yemen on the panel. But to me, the interesting discussion about whats happening is that there can be a resolution to the conflict if you move beyond the politicized thing. I try to address this in the chapter on governance. If we want to be serious about diplomacy and other tools, understanding how different groups have defined their relationship to the Central Government or how regions do. Joe biden tried to do this 1015 years ago when he had the biden plan for iraq. A lot of this doesnt translate well back to our own politics and its not that meaningful. Because it has to be organic. This notion that was brought up about the colonial powers, yes they made mistakes but i think it would be a mistake to go back to that model and the defined borders. As i was saying about islam and reform, its organic. We have to watch and see how it develops. In a place like yemen, we have to understand texture. What are the factors of governance. Of course nationalism has developed over the past hundred years in somebodys artificial states. Thank you for these remarks. Its been wonderful. Youve covered a lot of topics in a short period of time. One thing that was mentioned briefly was on social media. And the influence technology in digital diplomacy and influencing conflicts. We saw both revolutions and surviving military coups. The influence of the Immediate Response on social media. Can you touch upon the digital response and how that may contribute to diplomacy. If i can start with this and try to relate it to the book. . I think the twitter revolutions, it produced enormous capacity for people to organize against something. To be against something. I see that dynamic on social media here in our policy debates. It largely uses a tool to disagree with a lot of people. But its not all that useful and im talking just in these countries. It has not yet, i havent seen a great test case or test study, building consensus and political movements. You look at our current president. He uses his role power to divide and to keep people off balance. My main point is, 78 years ago, these tools they developed were used to expand freedom. Now we are in this dangerous moment. Uae and other countries that arent democracies. In very repressive ways, they tried to squelch dissent and debate. I dont think right now, the u. S. Playing any meaningful serious role including in the case of iran. I think theres so much wrong about the nonpolicy. When the protests started again in iran early last year. I think all we saw was an oped at a rhetorical approach of this administration to talk about freedom of the iranian people. Maybe they were different moves. There were no serious moves to talk about how do we help iranians help themselves. To protect themselves and have youre probably more adept at understanding the technology but having a space for people to communicate with each other in iran. Precious tools of engagement with societies. We dont even talk about that now because of the nature of how bad our government is and debate. Back to michaels point that the permit shouldnt be, none of us have to be behind walls. You can connect with somebody conceivably in iran or saudi arabia. And have that conversation. I dont see those tools being used in diplomacy very well right now. First of all, when it comes to the diamond model. The United States traditionally hasnt done the our basic information strategy such as a this is to be truthful. Through truth, you build credibility. The drawback is determining what the truth is. After 34 days, the news cycle has moved on. Ive talked about people so afraid of doing anything wrong that the end up doing nothing right. Especially on the military side of this. That said, at the base of our counterinsurgency strategies is to win hearts and minds, the iranian influence operation strategy has traditionally been to throw something at the wall and see what sticks. One of the iranian moderate newspapers website ayaffiliated with says the goal of the americans is to convert afghanistan to christianity. Absolute nonsense. But then theres some contractor in indiana that put biblical citation atnumbers on sniper spoke and this gets picked up in the media and next thing you know its on al jazeera. That poor illiterate farmers said i didnt believe you were running propaganda but maybe theres something there and its just enough to get in the way of our strategy. Basically said, when i talk to people in the middle east, and ministers and so forth. Im using whats at. If its turkey, im using signal. Or if its iran, im using telegram. If we are still picking up the phone and calling people, its like dealing with a 20thcentury solution to a 21stcentury problem. So that ultimately goes into the practice of diplomacy which i think is hard to take. This has been a very rich discussion and im sure we could go on for probably another hour. We have to leave it there. Thanks to all of our speakers. Michael, brian, and khadir. Thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv continues now on cspan2. Teleon

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