To look more broadly and more deeply at the drivers of instability in themiddle east. From yemen to syria to interact, and now with ran , the region more than ever seems in a permanent of turmoil if it cant become a land of endless wars and tragically despite decades of intense and often wellmeaning american attention and the expenditure of billions of dollars, jewish policy has more often than not been a failure. Maybe the caveat more often than not is to kind. Its been an absolute failure if one accepts the basic aim was to fosterstability and a better life for the people of the region. The ones ultimately responsible for a countrys success or failure are the people who live there but the catastrophe of todays middle raises a lot of questions about whether the United States should continue to be engaged in the region and if so, how . In this regard, the editor of seven pillars Michael Rubin and Brian Katulis and their cocontributors have given us and get. Identifies seven factors that affect the ability or not examine what they mean and the role they play. The pillars as i identified in our legitimacy, islam,arab ideology , the military, education, economy and governance. I personally found many of the authors perspectives to be unique and useful basis to begin looking at old problems in new ways. Whether its used as the basis for a new bipartisan approach in the current poisonous political environment here is anyones guess but at least the authors are trying to provide some basic reality and analysis to encourage debate. So with us today, starting with my left, is Michael Rubin who is a resident scholar here at aei was a veteran of the Bush Administrations iran and iraq team and has a phd in iranian history. He contributed the chapter on legitimacy in the region. Next is Brian Katulis whos a Clinton Administration veteran, not the center for American Progress but with extensive experience in the arab world. Prior to joining, he lived in egypt and palestine where he worked on governance issues for the National Democratic institute. He contributed a chapter on governance. Then we have the children, was a fellow for the middle east of the Baker Institute at rice university. He researches both pluralism in the middle east the interplay between religious authorities and Foreign Policy. He contributed the chapter on islam. Were going to try to keep the conversation lively and ill interrupt to keep everybody from not going on and on. We will talk for a whileand then open it up to questions from the audience. So to start, im going to start with michael. And ask you what is special about this book, what did you think was lacking in the scholarship or the analysis that required this kind of approach. If we look at the last halfcentury of american interaction in the middleeast any metric in your introduction , the us hasnt been successful and its not a democrat or republican thing really what we wanted to do with number one get away from analysis on the political us calendar, thats too easy and it doesnt work more broadly to a fundamental rethink of some of the issues and drivers in the region. In terms of legitimacy for example there common core assumptions in the United States are all about Good Governance. That fulfills legitimacy but in iraq for example people are willing to forgo in some cases Good Governance just so they can have akurdish National Flag or shiite prayer flag over certain buildings. And we also wanted to identify and look at the impact of things we hardly ever talk about in the United States. Im sorry, in the region. Disruptive technology, hows that going to changethings. How is aid impact legitimacy isnt Good Governance, then these is foreign aid gear to the right thing and another conclusion, just the broad issues was surprising to me personally and brian and i traveled across the region was that many people if we asked the question what represents the most legitimate government in the middle east, people tend to Say Something like lebanon and yet lebanon is often thought about in the United States and in many parts of the middle east as an abject disaster and so we were trying to grab around some of these issues from a much more academic and less political or partisan approach. So what is legitimacy and why is lebanon seen as more legitimate than otherplaces . We need to abandon this notion that onesizefitsall and thats not easy for american policymakers to do. But ultimately, people wanted legitimacy or whatever their, they wanted representation for whatever their identity was, the problem is of course identity change with time. What was clear however is that people were increasingly finding themselves disenfranchised. Is it just an issue of the arab spring, its not just an issue of the antiiranian protests, but there just seems to be a failure of the traditional isms in the middle east which is why asked him wrote his chapter reimagining or reconsidering all the ideologies play because this example of the rack, 40 percent of iraqis were born after the 2003 war. More than 60 percent of iraqis were born after the 1991 war which means no one has a functional memory of what life was like under Saddam Hussein, among the broad swath of the youth. Therefore they are no longer willing to accept what we might have our problems from some of the Islamic Group for example but at least were not Saddam Hussein. People are looking at his generation which succeeded, Saddam Hussein and many of these other ideologues saying these guys dont represent us. We have in the United States as much as we complain about politics, usually 890 to 95 percent incumbency rate in congress. In places like iraq is 12 to 16 percent in the fact of the matter is evil are adrift and that makes it a dangerous moment. Brian, you wrote about government. The formal governance that has evolved or been imposed on iraq since saddam was overthrown. Is it working . You see it working . Do the iraqis have to come up with Something Else, does the United States have to help direct come up with Something Else . Requesting and i want to highlight the subtitle of the book is what really causes instability in the middle east and my simple answer after spending two years with Michael Rubin on this project, and neocons who are warmongering, its a joke. To your question on iraq quite obviously before this latest episode if you see what happened in the last week and then what was happening just a few months before that, young people in the streets of baghdad and in major cities in iraq questioning the very old order, thepolitical order in iraq. Protesting corruption for services and a bunch of things that quite frankly when you go around the region like we do when we did together and quite regularly are the sorts of things that impact every country in the middle east. This crushing democratic social pressure and inside of iraq quite clearly despite multiple elections, the Current System of governance in government is not helping the people and one of the points of this book and its not a new point is if you go back to the r avenue and Human Development reports of 1617 years ago is that those structural factors that contribute to stability are quite weak and in those 15, 16, 17 years and gotten weaker. And i think in a place like iraq quite clearly this is where i joke about michael but we do have our differences. He was in favorof the iraq war, i wasnt. He was against the iran nuclear deal, i was but the reason why we wanted to do this book and on the chapter on governance i talked a bit about iraq butnot about its national governance. I talk about this experiment that emerged under the Islamic State and i spent a couple pages on it and it shows you responsive governance and discontent with a government thats not responding plants the seeds for the sorts of instability that we saw under, happen in iraq under the previous Prime Minister that groups like the Islamic State exploited and i think we should have learned by now many years after the iraq war that the United States cant fix these factors but important to factor these fundamental Building Blocks for stability in our analysis. As you see today the hot takes on what were doing next and the cycle of escalation i think is quite dangerous. I think its a new phenomenon and there have been failures, a failure of governance, failure of leaders in the middle east for a long time. So why this moments did a group like isis have an opportunity to rise and have such a profoundimpact . I think its multiplicity factors and some of it ties into this interracial transition where you simply have a youth trouble that is crushing and if the governments in places like iraq are responding to it, people will rise up in various different forms. The isis model which again was shortlived and i dont think much legitimacy in the long run was created in response to a ineffective government and there are more tools now in a place like iraq under saddamhussein , it was a dictatorship. There wasnt as much of an open space for people to produce change and i think the theory that was behind the iraq war that in 2003 and we dont want to go back and make that but the theory behind it was flawed and simply if we topple regimes and eliminate or decapitate the top, and somehow freedom will spread and we never, that didnt happen and i think why accelerated in the Islamic State in particular is that you had a multiple likes going on inside of you ran, civil war first and then the system of governance that simply wasnt responding and thats the main point is that those conditions are still there. Iraqis are still looking at their National Governments with a caretaker government red. I would challenge the notion the Islamic State was all that new because we go back in history, theres any number of millennial movements whether it was the grand mosque in 1979 or what you want to go back acentury before that. What i do want to draw out and what ryan is talking about and theres any number of issues on governance. Beyond simply the monarchy versus republic and so forth but what does this mean for the nature of american diplomacy if we are still in many ways limiting ourselves to interactions with representatives of government who are under siege, whether those governments know it or not . Are we missing the broader picture in terms of policy and intelligence when it comes to the middle east . I would say weve missed the broader picture alive so whats the remedy to that . The United States has to deal with the governments that are in power to some extent. To some extent we have to deal with the governmentin power for example , how much time you diplomats send outside the walls of the embassies. Versus talking and just interacting on the local market area as opposed to simply interacting with governments and we dont want to bring in us policy too much one of the after mass of ben ghazi, putting the roots of that crisis decide is just a lockdown upon which american diplomats find themselves when you go to beirut, both brian and i went to beirut, the us embassy is basically running under the same security parameters during the civil war. At an important point, take tactical point. As she point which i think for us policy in the middle east we are quite likely at the end of a fortyyear period began with the events in 1979. The islamic resolution in iran, soviet invasion of afghanistan and a number of things that led to the us having its engagements primarily be focused on what our military does and look at where we are today. Discussing and worrying about what the next move and what will our military do mark to me this point that michael makes it just tactical but its important is our diplomats and that Diplomatic Service has been decimated in the past couple of years. There are i our eyes and ears in understanding societal trendsand were flying a little bit more blind. More broadly in the last point is it opens up questions of whether the United States should actually be spending a lot of money and other things in countries simply lack the capacity to do this, but maybe theres a strategy for thinking more modestly about our engagement, thinking about those begins or outposts where there is relative progress in places like tunisia so maybe a dollar spent in tunisia and time spent in tunisia may ultimately be a lot better than in other parts of the middle east, but we dont even have that discussion because were reacting to sort of mostly military bulbs and military centric moves and not much about how we diversify the portfolio. I want to follow up on that but bring peter into the conversation. It is religion more important in the middle east today and it was for and mark. It is. It is very much so what we need to go i think one of the fundamental misconceptions about the middle east in terms of religion, politics interplay is that we tend to assume that this has been the case all the time. But if you go back 46 years ago, but we will see is the dominance of central secularized governments, secular ideologies and how islamist parties and groups were existed and many of them but they were much smaller, much less influential in terms of policymaking, in terms of the to affect other groups in the society or how governments were acting in terms of Foreign Policy or domestic policy over the course of the last 40, 50 years things have changed dramatically i think. The iranian revolution was, the armed revolution was a big turning point but more importantly something that brian has mentioned , secular ideology has failed throughout the middle east and throughout the 1960s and 70s or 80s. Held as leaders. In terms of policy, the fundamental issues were political and economic and they failed to deliver on their promises, on what people expected. This is what precipitated the rising i think significance of these religious groups, islamic or later on. These fundamentalist groups and later on more violent extremist groups throughout the region. The key problem here, their rise was not just in terms of their own popularity. Within their borders. The Muslim Brotherhood in 2011, 12, 30, 40 percent of the vote but more importantly i think they were able to dictate the parameters of the discussion in terms of the policy issues that were ongoing. Their rise influenced secular groups, nonreligious groups, political groups so much so that they felt the need to bring in religion to their own discussion, to their own sort of policy proposals, so to speak. One good example i thinkis whats happening in turkey today. Erdogan and akp have come to party in 2002 and hes a massive politician but hes been so successful in terms of changing the political sort of circuit system in turkey in such a way that the Secular Party are unable to determine the agenda, political agenda. They are unable to discuss issues in a way outside of the parameters set by erdogan himself and one problem here is that if you think about this in terms of religious composition and the framers of religious composition, that means political activists boast religious and nonreligious will try to cater to the demand, their religious demand because people will want more of this kind of currency in political debate. But erdogan has not been uniformly successful. He was successful in growing the economy during the early years but hes run into more trouble now and hes run in to politicalpushback. Do you see him using islam and his religious beliefsmore as a Political Tool to advance his political career . Or do you think that this is just so indigenous to the people of turkey that every politician Going Forward is going to have to encompass religious beliefs more into their plans . I cant his personal beliefs, thats beyond my focus as ascientist. A role but once his political process were receding as a result of the Corruption Scandal first and later and other issues that have come up, losing in elections to some degree, then he started actually using more religion partly because he wanted to bring in some of the more conservative elements, especially among that kurdish voters in turkey and some of the nationalist both. Depending on the time, his use of political discourse, it depends upon the time. This is really important and is the same for other policy issues. Going back to an issue brian mentioned about tunisia, all the sudden tunisia is going to go much further compared to other parts of the world in terms of policy. Because it is a newly democratized context. What is underlying overall support for a lot of these religious groups, political groups, economic and political issues. Once those issues are addressed first and foremost, we are most likely going to see a decrease in their support levels. I think thats key. So are the tunisians is there anything on a followup on tunisia . Say what you want to say and. Uses phrase repeatedly use it using that religion. You talk mostly about the domestic context of turkey which is spot on. To understand people, leaders, use religion and islam in their own way. The point i want to make is this is about power. Its not necessarily about faith and the right interpretation of religion, if there is such a thing. It is about power. And secondly what i see in the middle east right now is multifaceted, multidimensional competition for power and influence. The use of islam by turkey, say versus saudi arabia which has its own definition and how it tries and uses islam as the birthplace of it. But my main point is the first point is about power, not about some ancient hatred and inessential as interpretation of religion. It is about leaders trying to stay in power by appealing to themes and compete with what they see as their adversaries or competitors and the reason. That is the most under ant allies and most interesting aspect of it because it spills over into media fights, and all sorts of things. And it is something that frankly, the book doesnt cover itself, but its part of the thing that america once a better Foreign Policy and approach. We need to understand this is in addition to military moves and he is of terrorism and other things, i key part of struggle in the competition for power. One of the things i action want to ask about is how rapidly are things changing. If we look 40 years into the future, and you have a complete new set of the majority of each population that hasnt even been born yet. Is religion mike a major influence for religion going to be the mock or social media . Is it going to be legitimate theological rulers for our leaders or is it going to be populous leaders. And if so, how are our traditional muslim scholars looking at this rise of populism and do you really think the way i wish people consume religion is going to rapidly change . Putting aside whether the United States can even keep up with that. Great question, some of my research is trying to actually address this question. A couple years ago we started a foundation trying to look at how religious authority is distributed across the middle east among religious leaders. Primarily muslim leaders, and what we found theres a couple major findings. One of them is, islam political groups, politically dishonest actors actually have great popularity. People look up to them as religious figures and religious leaders. This is something really important that has been rising and changing in terms of social media or mocks. I think that is a change that was precipitated at the turn of the 20th century, more than a century ago. Islam is a bit different it has a free market of religion, very much like prodded schism and christianity. It doesnt have authority or hierarchy. What this means is everyone can be a religious leader as long as people willingly support or follow these people. The group of collective class of islamic scholars, who were big for almost a millennium, the end of the ninth into tenth century up until the turn of the 20th century in islam. They were the class as religious authority. They were imminent to that religious authority. But once they started waning, once they started dying so to speak, there was a big void in terms of who was the imminent religious authority. This only see the rise of political islamists early on in the muslim world. This is a process that is evolving with the rise of social media. I dont know what is going to happen in 40 years, but definitely not the mosque. I dont think. I think they are changing fast and quick. On this there emerges some sort of social hierarchy of authority, i think it will be distributed. Is this on the forced disability in or not in the region . It means mention depends on what you mean by authority of stability. If you look at turkey its itself force for ability. If you look at some other contacts lets say early to thousands or 1990s in turkey again, it would be a force for instability. Because it was stirring up the opposition, it was pushing them into trying to get more political space in the pug nets of representation or change policies. So it totally depends upon the context, i dont think islam by itself is different than many other religions. It depends on the political context, it depends on the actors, depends on the overall circumstance in terms of what kind of role it has in these countries. So it depends on the context. In iraq for example, or syria, it can be instability. But say in tanisha, this point in time it can be a force for stability. At the seeming commitment for democracy in the words of russia issues and muslim democracy. I think this is now one of the major issues we are seeing inside iraq even though its not been framed that way in the media. That we look at the grand ayatollah who is the large most prominent shared religious figure, he is apparently extremely cognitive of what the popular opinion is, and instead of simply deleting it, he has to worry about following it. Because if he goes too far out on any of his friday sermons and announcements he risks being exposed to the emperor where no close. If the emperors im just young People Choose to not follow him we see a caution that really has not been there since he lived under Saddam Hussein. So that is exactly religious competition. These religious theaters are not blind to what is going on around them. They know its going on, they follow them, and its their discourse whether this is traditional religious authorities or oriented political figures. They know whats going on and they will cater to those needs. Because ultimately, what islam does, what religion does for them, they may be faithful believers but islam religion as a tool, its a political resource that you want to make use of and you want to make sure it helps you in terms of your power struggle. I think this is really the key point. From time to time this talk about reforming islam. Does that have any value . And ill throw this out to all of you. Is that something that the west should be encouraging . What does it even mean . Is it happening. Its an organic process i see is happening, in my own view when you say the west, im taking that is mostly governments and things like this. I dont think necessarily we need to play a role in that. I look back on, certainly right now we have a president who when he ran his candidate he said i think islam hates us. He used a sort of interpretation of islam which can be quite dangerous by catering into certain political contingencies here. Deeply hurtful people i think when the u. S. Did things like appoint special envoys to the organization of islamic conference, that was anywhere from irrelevant to may be slightly unhelpful because i dont think it should be u. S. Policy to sort of encourage some sort of reform of islam. It is a religion. It is going to have strands that are more extremist and more reformers. It is organic and playing out. Im not a muslim, but my friends who live here in america or europe, their difference or ideas about their own faith and religion and i would stay away from that is the use of engagement. When president obama spoke in cairo, there is sort of an idea of muslim engagement. A lot of my friends in the arab world found a little bit offensive, especially those friends who were christian or were not muslims of the tradition but not of faith. They wanted to be engaged as egyptians or Something Else. Let me approach us in a slightly different way, not surprisingly for my liberal friends. I think one of the issues where american policy is caught in the trap is due to our own navelgazing. One of the most interesting experienc programs to morocco when women are educated to be Community Prayer leaders alongside men. And morocco of course, has a theological and intellectual history that goes back well over a millennium. Except when you talk to american officials about what morocco is doing in the moroccan model, often times what you hear is that morocco is peripheral. It is irrelevant to the broader world. But intellectually and theologically what happened in morocco is much more significant than what has happened in saudi arabia. Saudi arabia course has the advantage of oil, which is why a much more minority interpretation spread. But we seem to be doing saudi arabias work doing for them when we are so dismissive of other trends. Because we see from our Vantage Point that is peripheral. Sometimes i would argue and it looks like you may disagree with me a little bit, but our own perspective from washington can actually get in the way. I agree with brian there has to be a limit to what we do in terms of this sort of religious debate. Even though we cannot ignore it completely. But on the other hand our first role should be first do no harm. Do you disagree with me . I dont disagree with you but i have a little bit morbid different take. [laughter] so i do think islam is in great need of reform. I dont think theres any denying to that. The muslim world has a great problem in terms of under development at this point in time. With violence im not saying religion causes of violence but there is a case of violence throughout the muslim world. If you look at the muslim world today, i cant member the figures, but they are eight or nine muslims are being killed today are being killed by other muslims. It is a very important statistic. We have pervasive underdevelopment under education in the muslim world. A lot of the issues and problems, one great book that addresses these issues was recently published by Cambridge University press about and underdevelopment. Its an important book that looks into these issues very critically. The point is there is a great need for reform. And religion, whether we like it or not, is being used or justified or used to justify ongoing trends. Issues and problems in the middle east. The great problem of patriarch to the great problem of gender inequality. In tunisia just last year was debated about introducing legislation for equal inheritance and the most progressive islamic parties. They oppose this legislation. What are you going to do with it . This is really important issues. There is a great need for reform in islam. Because i think, if islam or muslims rather are still trying to come in my opinion, are struggling trying to come to terms with it. This is a big issue, its a very deepseated issue that needs to be addressed. But with the current state of affairs its very difficult to come to terms with that part of the problem. Something that i tried to emphasize about how islam fundamentalist is so influential. They have been able to change the mindset, not only of those who are considered, but also on the secular side. A lot of these issues, if you look at the issue of lgb d for example, a century ago the muslim world was much more progressive on this particular issue for example. On many other issues, ethnic, religious diversity, i will argue that the muslim world was much more progressive a century or two centuries ago. This is really the crux of the issue. When i said this is so important, not so much because they have 30 or 40 popular support, but because they were able to shape and reshape the mindset of a lot of people in their society. We will make the same point, i think you mentioned lgbt in its a story from one of our trips. You can correct me if im wrong. We went out and met with officials, talk to people, which universities and i remember being in morocco, mohammed the fifth university. We asked to do a sort of town hall with university students. And it was one of these give and take. We said look we are here for america, you might find this alarming or interesting that a lot of people are puzzled about america today. So the students were asking whats going on whats happening here. Within we asked this question what is the difference about your generation from your parents generation. And one woman who had a head covering raised her hand and said some of us are lgbt and lesbian we talk about it openly. And then they debated for at least ten or 15 minutes whether they could bring someone home to their parents for example. And you pointed out that in other countries like iraq, its not necessarily the case its taboo. Is just that Younger Generation is starting a shift back. The question is whether it has been over 40 or 50 years, are the outlier or the signifier of a continuing trend. Its not just about the individual level, but Public Policy level. I think theres much more tolerance about many of these issues and there is right now. How many muslim majority countries is there a death penalty. These are important issues. Could you build a mosque in saudi arabia . Yes. Why not i can see excluding mecca for religious reasons or whatever but what about the rest of the country. I think there is a big problem. So does this change needs to come organically or is there a role for, i dont know, for government leaders, how does reform, you say reform is needed how does this reform come about . It is a taboo subject right now. It is very difficult to introduce this subject. In several countries, those people, individuals whether they were scholars are just prominent figures who wanted to ensure introduced debate and discussion about reform, they have been essentially captivated. Some of them have been penalized for other reasons. It is a pushback from government officials or other in terms of their official stance or being critical of islam. This is what they understand from introducing debate about the islam people. I think the fundamental issues, going back to social economic developments, and then you have good Education Systems where you are able to introduce Critical Thinking analytical thinking, you improve the quality in the country, you improve social economics, or economic developments, wellbeing of a lot of people in these countries. I think it is very difficult. We are in a think tank, so we are going to be scripted for a minute. Back during the Bush Administration around 2002, there is a case of the egyptian american sociologist who was in prison for what hes talking about in terms of reform and the Bush Administration had like 150 million of aid. Think if we go further back to the Reagan Administration and weight look at islam and there is a scholar, im forgetting his name. He talked about how reform should include the need for reverse habitation he would put some of the early verses before the later and he was executed by the mary regime. In that United States we have separation of church and state does that mean eight, we can ignore religion other countries and use our purse to create some sort of space of the people who are being most bold on the course reform, dont end up in prison or worse. That is an important point. Number one, listening and understanding. What we said before getting diplomats outside of the wire. The tragedy that Chris Stevens was killed he was powerful and the elements of the military to understand the social dynamics is important. Number two, keeping this issue of democracy of government and freedom. On the u. S. Policy agenda its really important and obviously it has been downgraded under president trump. I would submit that is a preexisting condition. That that actually started, that process of not having as much focus in terms of our diplomats do has started under the Obama Administration for number of reasons. We wanted to pull back and we defined this distorted debate about democracy equating it with interference of the sort russian did in our own economy. In our own government and things like this. You think this is something United States and still do . I actually think that what michael is saying if someone is imprisoned, whether its in saudi arabia, or other partners, we need to raise our voice and make it part of the conversation and be serious about it. Its not a bipartisan issue theres a reason it can be. Thats a human rights issues not necessary promotion of democracy. The strategic goal would be to create a safe space for the reform to happen. The end thats the main issue. If you dont have this of the top down in places like saudi arabia if you do that while youre maintaining your position as an absolute monarchy and dont give organic space for people to debate religion or other issues, its likely to fail. The third is a simple one. It relates to a set at the top, carol, war is one of the worst things and unnecessary wars that actually enhance the hardliners in a hard light interpretation of religion. It sort of extremist their feed off of this if theres a new style of engagement in the middle east. As i was saying earlier tried to learn the lesson for the last 40 years and especially the last 15 years or so and then talk about what sort of the right level of engagement and its mostly in this diplomatic political social space understand whats happening. I just want to clarify one thing or add to it i will do that later. [laughter] when it comes to reform, often times we talk about reform and when the middle east thanks about reform its apples and oranges. Take for example saudi arabia. What is the reform an absolute monarchy. Its not a democracy. Sometimes it seems our conversations in congress are on the spectrum and in the usa ideas and so forth regard to what is reform versus what is understood by the region are two different things. When the classic occurs between the two types of definitions it can make things a lot worse. On customer . Summer . Is he mecca so in terms of what role does can the United States play, i think its very important to understand that any kind of intervention, i think the spaces should be created but its the way their create is very important. Anti western ism is so much ingrained and political islam, or fund to list. Or even amongst seculars. Any kind of intervention by the u. S. , by your opinion and European Countries is going to be deemed as problematic. And that is why those kinds of interventions in terms of creating those spaces should be really very carefully. Because it was going to undermine. It is going to basically make the issue they are toxic. Whatever that person says or does after that point onward is going to be a problem. We have this debate during the Bush Administration because for what happened in the case of iran is iranian say even when we are not touching someone if we are not supporting when they are supported by the americans it sorted damned if you do damned if you dont. And so shouldnt we use our ability to compel government not to arrest certain people. Not necessarily tell them not to be arrest because her going be slandered to matter what they do. All im saying is it should be done in a way thats not going to undermine the bigger goal. They want to see us as an act instead of a scalpel, thats a problem. Two im going to ask him or than open this to the audience. Theres a whole chapter in this book on the militaries. Which i found very interesting. A big point that was made is military in the region have attempted 73 coups since 1972 and is succeeded in 39 of them. The point being the air force for instability not stability. It also hammers the point a lot of these military suffer for lack of training, for lack of equipment, the United States has spent decades Training Officer course, whether it is in turkey or egypt or wherever. It has sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to a lot of these countries. Was that for knots . And, how can you say so many of these militaries are under resourced when it seems like all we do is spend military aid . A couple points on this. Consider the collapse of the military in 2014. We had invested 25 billion in that. Of course we also invested a great deal in afghanistan as well. The chapter was actually fascinating so im glad you highlighted it. A couple things that come into play, one of the reasons why, aside from it being destabilizing in their own countries, military should have a big . Over them. They seldom professed to do what they say they are going to do. Part of that also has to do differencing culture in regard to shame. When a sergeant and basic training breaks down, when the drill sergeant breaks at a new recruit, the idea is sick poorly break them down and make them better soldiers. Likewise, and the navy when a chief breaks down someone its making a better sailor or pilot. But if honor is wrapped up in how you are perceived rather than what you do, this is going to an implication on your ability to actually correct mistakes. Putting that aside and bringing us to what brian was talking about, rightly so and having diplomats to be front and center. If you look at a country like pakistan. Pakistan, i think it was 2007, you had the amendment which was a bipartisan approach to say look, the state diplomacy should not be the military and it shouldnt be the cia even though thats what its been for decades in pakistan so they put together a 7 billiondollar package that made anti america worse. Why . Because the military was about to get cut off from this gravy train. It started going through the rumor mills and so forth that this money was meant to christianize pakistan which was nonsense. It was also an insult, all of the mechanisms for an insult. One of the things we would say we have to deal with across the board as we try to get this doesnt make sense to restore the state Department Said that wouldnt solve the problem they are stuck behind walls. But when it comes to military and egypt and pakistan, i think there is what i would call a cycle of extortion. In which we give money in order to have the local militaries fight the islamic insurgents. But at some point, the idea has gone that if we defeat the islamic insurgents we are never going to be able were going to be cut off from the money. So when you look at the egyptians and the Islamic State, which is it . The Egyptian Army cannot defeat the Islamic State because they dont want to or they are incompetent. Its one of the other. What comes the melter in the general such sick who issue. rather than improving the status of Egyptian Society i agree with what michael said is when i was trying to say before, the last 40 years and especially the last 15 years of us policy, we need to have a duty to questioning of using arms sales and military aid as a tool of engagement with these societies to produce ability and the sorts ofthings were trying to get at in this book. The cause it has not succeeded in places like egypt which weve talked about before. Internally, i think its tilted the balance ofpower against freedom and its corrosive and it creates , it reinforces what eventually is still a system and reinforces the authoritarianism which bigger picture, you look across the region and especially the hundreds of billions that weve either sold or delivered to gulf states and others, there needs to be a serious question because in essence when i look at it theres a dangerous and dysfunctional dependency on the us military approach. Look at it just this past week and a lot of these militaries are in the region themselves cant defend themselves and look what happened inseptember in saudi arabia. How did that happen if we sent them defensive systems and things like this and thats the main point is you see in washington theres this episodic and tactical and emotional debate which is i think in some ways is important, its a reflection of a lot of americans who say what the heck but its often not strategic. Its this tool of assistance or sales, if we cut it off, then we read them the riot act and thats it and theres no change. I think we need to have a step back from these tools and emphasize the other aspect because what weve done with all these arms sales is not produced stability in the region and inside the country itself. Anybody have any questions . We would just ask you to identify yourself if you have a question. The gentleman in the back. Association of the us army, i had a question about the arab israeli conflict that i think for a while especially in the 90s there was this belief that all roads to the middle east stability went through solving the arab israeli conflict. The shia realignment now between israel and some of the Sunni Arab States in the middle east, what do you see as the continued importance for regional stability of that conflict . What i would answer quickly is decades of incitement remain so even if governments and the diplomatic posture ofmany of the gulf states have altered. That doesnt necessarily trickledown to the various populations of saudi arabia and so forth. What i would say is for example brian alluded when we went to mohammed university, when i travel with brian or independently i will try to do roundtables at universities because they have much less of a filter and diplomats and embassies do and when i was doing something at the university in iraq, one of the things that was strange was in the threehour session no one brought upisrael once. People brought up saudi arabia quite a bit and the problems are moving so great through the region people are focusing on their own immediate problems. That doesnt mean the arab israeli conflict isnt important but i would say theres a greater and broader perspective throughout the region and perhaps traditionally american diplomats have had. Iwould say its a shift and not a realignment yet. I used to live in the west bank in the 90s, theres a shift in that its not as high priority but i dont see a realignment in that what many gulf Officials Say we have this relationship thats in the closet, under the table with israel mostly on intel and concerns about iran but were not going to come out publicly so long as as theres a sense of this justice, that the sense theres not a sustainable just resolution to the israel is arabisraeli conflict because i dont see a pathway there at all and if you look at the reactions to it , of president trumps initiative whether moving the embassy to jerusalem or the golan heights, it was muted in the streets but the official saudi arabia and other countries had conferences that condemned this and issued communiqucs and thats all you got but my main point is i dont see you realignment, open relations and a lot of these countries breaking out without any sense of a pathway to resolving conflict between israelis and palestinians. Anybody else . Did you see somebody i didnt . My name is bill chip, ive read a little bit about the middle east but not as much as many of you have. I thought when you talk about the middle east in your book, im not sure how far east and west you go but i think your discussion today is mostly focused on that littlearea from lebanon to iran. We cover different authors who bring us different examples but the cover iraq through iran,a little pakistan , Michael Fahey is the professor of education at university of michigan focuses heavily on north africa. One quick comment and the question, when you say that while we may be here tend to look at all these problems has religious issues, one form of extremism versus another we have to remember in many cases religion has been adopted as a tool to gain power, not the other way around and my comment is maybe the exception to that isafghanistan. Where i think religion is whats driving people trying to take over the country are doing it for purely religious reasons but thats the comment. My question is in the area you focused on, there are two ancient historic divides. Theres the religious divide between the sunnis and the shiites and theres the ethnic divide between the persians and the arabs and i think im not wrong at the war between more people died in the war between iraq and iran and have died in any other conflict all put together in the last 40 years and my question to you is in the long term, how do you see , i think we see a little bit of that now because in iraq in the long term do you see those two divides, which do you see as ultimately creating more stability or overcoming the other . One small factoid, the way after the city historically has been considered in the middle east was originally geographic. It shifted to linguistics , the point of this is that egypt on over to morocco was not always considered arab. In the middle east the sheer scale of the war if you put in what happened in syria, that may have surpassed the iran iraq war, certainly the great state of africa. The reason why sectarianism seems to be contentious right now in the middle east is only 10 or 15percent of the muslim world , maybe shiite but if you draw a circle about around the love aunt and the arabian pencil its about a 5050 parity which is why since the beginning of the century is that a sense that absolutely everything is in play but in conclusion what i would argue is that people who are hellbent on having a conflict will always come up for an excuse to have one and thatcan be political, that can be religious, it can be some other aspect. What i wanted to avoid with this and the reason we were doing a rethink is that we werent trying to come up with a politicalscience theory of where onesizefitsall. And in this case ill defer that im a historian by training, that means i dont predict the past, ryan would say i get thatright about half the time. The point of this is i simply dont know. I think its an interesting question in those factors of persia versus arab are there. What i would respond and this is not a dodge, i think my mind went to when you raise the point to the question that kel asked me about iraq which is whats going on inside there and i think the centerpieceof the struggle , i dont know whether this will be resolved and in some ways are quite large and big but the centerpiece of the struggle is from the bottom up. In a sense and that struggle that is happening is i think accelerating area the thing that people bought was over two or three years after the arab uprisingis not over. And my guess now that were in a new decade is that that is actually going to accelerate when you look at those cultural, just the basic metrics of where the societies are going, theres going to change and the question is whether that change is fast or slow, the pace of it or whether it moves in the right direction however you definethat or tries to go back 1000 years. And i think those internal tensions in society and what weve seen in the last year particularly, this rise of nationalism through the countries in the region is going to be where the first at immediate arena where it then impacts those other arenas youve talked about, arab, persian, shiite, sunni but people are going to look at whats more proximate, whose rolling them and whether those who are rolling them are doing so justly and with a sense of effectiveness and thats where i think it will be abig part of the debate. I spent a lot of time in the middle east the past 20 or soyears. I guess im wondering, im dont believe everything i learned in english and french when they carved up the Ottoman Empire and you just mentioned nationalism. It seems like thats an unheardof thing until recently. Do you actually see the nationstates either recombining, i hate to say biden was right on something but iraq really is three places. Do you see nobody wants to give up their boundaries, their Current International boundaries which to me is one of the issues that its a different emptiness cities and like i say, the kurds were promised the car to stand that they never got which theres faired over for countries and none of those countries want to give up. Its like whatsgoing on with turkey. And in syria, but i guess you see a day when like curtis dan exists, that things happen that the current boundaries get shifted to more natural coherent ethnicities . Our response to that briefly. Generally speaking i should take a little bit of issue because of course youre right, when you look at a map of the middle east and you see a straight line, that an artificial border. That doesnt mean its an arbitrary country so most people in the middle east lived traditionally along the coast or along rivers. So when you consider egypt and 90 plus percent of the population living along the nile, it doesnt necessarily matter where you draw the border. Egypt has a sense of being egypt. If i had to go back through any of these countries, iraq of course only became independent i think in 1932 but back in 13thcentury arabic literature will talk about the concept of iraq. People talked about the concept of lebanon or syria long before they formally became independent so when it comes to the artificiality of state, id say that the most artificial state are jordan, cotter , the emirates and kuwait. But that many of the others and we see this with how they retroactively extend back their national. Have some basis in legitimacy that really isnt going to change much. If the question is occurred, the kurds are the largest people who have been if you willdispossess. Thats not for countries because of world war i is of course the treaty in the 17th century is what created the iraq iran border but the problem with the kurds is are you going to have one curtis dan or could you have 4 and this notion that were going to have one, we have to romeo, one of which is called mold about, two albanians, one of which is called cozy though, we have 22 arab states and you could see some border adjustments, yes but i dont think theyre going to see a wholesale revision of the massive middle east as somehow illegitimate because i think its a lot less illegitimate than sometimes the grievance industry would have us accept. Can i just add a little point to that . Arent we already seeing some adjustment of borders whether its the turks coming over the border into syria and claiming some land. We have the iranians and the russians playing a huge role in syria,who knows whats going to happen. I thought does not have control of his country. Not even the thought, the israelis have now made a formal claim to the lawn. And dont we see already see changing borders . Theres a difference between wholesale adjustments and im not willing to argue when you had whats fundamentally an unresolved border issue thats separate from existing recognized borders, when it comes to turkey i think this is a major challenge for erdogan posing to the world but when we look at the fact that cyprus remains occupied ever since 1974 was, when we look at and droplets in Northern Syria, turkish civilian offices sprouting up, i would worry a great deal about the romanticism of erdogan and whether the world is going to be in a position to respond to that , whatever his true ambition is but we have an expert here so ill defer. This is a real problem is i think the International Context has changed, has moved on from what it was 60, 70 years ago. In terms of the legitimacy of changing borders, everything is said by and large on this by choice. As some people want to leave and the othersagreed to it. Im not sure what will happen in Northern Syria and if turkey is expanding, i think theres University Branches or faculties that are being opened. But is as the world ever going to see that as legitimate western mark. It by default right now occupation. By definition, but im not sure how far you want to go with that and it already may depend on whether or not he can strike an agreement with a solid russia in terms of what kind of autonomy will get there. That might threaten the turkish kurds so to speak. It remains to be seen but. The way it goes, it continues this way. I dont think theresgoing to be a lot of legitimacy. To his point, i think thats an important point you made. I think the issue is key and will be whether whats happening de facto, whats playing out already rather than where the formal lines are, we havent talked at all about yemen on this panel but to me, the interesting discussion about whats happening in yemen and whether there can be a resolution to the conflict, if you move the on the politicized thing is what was yemen before the conflict and doesnt hang together . I tried to address this in the chapter on governance about decentralization and i think again, if we want to be serious about diplomacy and using these other tools, understanding how different groups have defined sort of their relationship to the Central Government or how regions two and joe biden tried to do this 10 or 15 years ago when hehad the biden plan for iraq. Which again, a lot of this doesnt translate well back to our own politics and its not that meaningful its got to be organic. The point i make is this notion was brought up about bikes go and the colonial powers, they made mistakes but i think it would be a mistake to sort of go back to that model and try to redefine borders. Its as though i was trying to say about islam and reform, its organic. We have to watch and see how it develops and in aplace like yemen , we have to understand with more texture which is what we try to do in the book what are the factors of governance and political legitimacy inthe different Islamic Groups that they themselves can create these new arrangements. At half sort of more staying power than what we have right now. And of course the nationalism that developed over the last hundred years in some of these artificial states. Im sure im going to geta complaint from the jordanians for calling them artificial because of that matter. Hi im moishe nelson with grand porton, thank you for these remarks, its been wonderful. You covered a lot of topics in a short training time but one thing mentioned briefly was on social media and influence technology and digital diplomacy and influencing conflicts. We saw with revolutions and surviving military coups in one way or another in turkey, the influence of immediate responsiveness withsocial media. And you touch upon digital responsiveness and how that may contribute to diplomacy or even intensifying conflicts in the middle east . If i could try to relate it to the book, i think that the twitter and facebook revolutions as they were called in the arab uprising produced enormous capacity for people to organize against them, to be against something and tear things down and i see that dynamic in social media, that its largely used as a tool to tear after and disagree with a lot of people but its not all that useful and im talking just in these countries, ill get to your us diplomacy question. I havent seen a great test case or case study of building consensus and Building Political movements. You look at our current president , uses his power effectively to divide and fragment political coalitions at home and keep people off balance but my main point and i know some people are looking into this that seven or eight years ago, these tools were used to expand freedom, to tear down authoritarian rule. Now were in a dangerous moment with china, with arabia and other countries that are democracies. They are using these text tools to reimpose control and in very repressive ways. They cry to try to squelch dissent and debate and i dont see right now the us playing any meaningful, serious role in all of this including in the test case of iran and i hope michael disagrees with me on this point, i think theres so much thats wrong about the nonpolicy of donald trump, who knows what he just said 11 00 but when the protests started again in iran early last year , i think all we really saw was an up and and a polemical rhetorical approach to the administration to talk about freedom of the iranian people maybe there were different movements but there was no serious move to talk abouthow do we help iranians themselves , to protect themselves and have sort of vpn, youre probably more adept at understanding the technology but how the space for people to communicate with each other in iran, people who arent in favor of the current regime and talking about military led regime change, tools of engagement in society, we dont even talk about that now because of thenature of how bad our government is and our debate. So i think if we moved to a more functional space, less dysfunctional here at home it would be interesting to talk about how we can use these tools to engage broader sectors of society. Acta michael diplomats should be behind walls area guess what, none of us have to be behind walls because after this panel i can go connect with somebody conceivably in iran or saudi arabia or palestine and have that conversation but i dont see those tools being used in diplomacy very well right now. A few other ways to look at this. When it comes to the time model that every strategy could have a diplomatic informational economic components and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, the United States typically has done the model. The basis of our information strategy such as it is is to be truthful. And therefore true truth you build credibility. The drawback to that is that truth determining what the truth is as well at which point after three or four days the new cycle has moved on. Ive talked to people involved in information strategies in the Us Government who say we are so afraid of doing anything wrong that we end up doing nothing right, especially on the military side of this. That said, if the basis of our counterinsurgency strategies and problem areas is to win hearts and minds, the iranian influence operation strategy has traditionally been tothrow stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Theres one case in 2007 in which one of the iranian moderate newspapers i think, not ir which is a website affiliated with ross and johnny said the goal of the americans is to convert afghanistans to christianity and create a new andalusia. Absolute nonsense but then theres contractor out in indiana who put debacle citation numbers on a sniper scope and biscuits picked up in the local media and the next thing you know its an al jazeera and so forth so that poor illiterate farmer said i didnt incite a litter propaganda but theres enough there and its enough to get in the way of our strategy. Going more towards what brian said was getting off the walls, i had a conversation early on in the trumpet ministration with one was a very highlevel official. And basically said look, in the middle east when italk to people in the middle east , including principles, including Prime Ministers, foreign ministers, im using what that for if its turkey im using signal or if its iran im using telegraph and if we are still picking up the phone, its like dealing with this in 20th century to a 21stcentury problem so that ultimately goes into the practice of diplomacy which i think is hard to change. This has been a rich discussion and im sure that we could go on for probably another hour. We have to leave it there though. Thanks to all our speakers, to michael, tobrian. And to kelly. Thank you for coming. [applause]