Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kim Ghattas Black Wave 20240713

Director of the schoolcraft institute of internationalst here at the texas a m university. I would like to welcome our specialco event this evening wih kim ghattas who will speak on a recent book, black wave, saudi arabia, iran and the 40 year rivalry that unraveled culture, religion and collective memory in the middle east. I have to say i spent the weekend reading and did not quite get the right but cannot put it down because it wasnt so interesting. If you have not read it afterre this evening im sure you will try to get the book if you have not already but i would urge you to read at grade its absolutely fascinating and well written and well researched and a narrative flow to it anded its troublingi have to say but thats the purpose of the book. I would like to announce unfortunately that our event in todays with ambassador dennis ross who is another expert in the middle east is unable to come to College Station and had and so hisergency lecture wednesday evening will be postponed till later. Kim ghattas is an Emmy Awardwinning journalist, writer, who covered the middle east for 20 years for pbc and financial times. She reported from iraq, saudi arabia, syria, lebanon and covered the war between israel earning an emmy for International News coverage. Shes also reporter and the state farm it and on american politics, regularly traveling with secretaries of state including condoleezza rice, Hillary Clinton and john. She has been published in the atlantic, washington post, Foreign Policy andn currently a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in washington. Her first book, the secretary, was a New York Times bestseller. Ms. Ghattas regularly speaks and continues to speak on American Television and radio was born and raised in limited but now lives between beirut and washington dc. If you have questions please write them on the cards, the bush school investors who have the blue blazers onn have with them theyve walked up and down the aisle but they continue to do that and then once you write the questions, pass them to the aisle and they will pick them up, give them to me and i will then go throughgh them after mr. Ghattas speaks and the two of us will set up here and i will ask for questions and then take your questions from the cards. Please, join me in welcoming kim ghattas to the stage. [applause] good evening everybody. Its really a delight to be here this evening. Thank you for the very generous introduction and thank you for hosting me here at the annenberg conference center. Thank you to the school dropped institute and the bush school for hosting me and i see here in the front row my good friend thank you for helping to make this happen. D im delighted to be back in texas and i have not been here in a very long time and i muston complain about the weather but this will give me a good excuse to return, i hope. Im here to speak to you about my recent book just out a few weeks ago, black wave. As any book it is the result of a journey. Every writing endeavor is a journey, many of you i am sure have books and you know it can be very and isolating experience and an intellectual lonely experience. Every book is a journey but this one is also more then the journey of the writing but a journey of 20 years of covering the middle east and in a way the combination of my experience growing up in the region as a child of war in beirut and i grew up in the civil war in the 80s and i wanted to writend a story about that which is not your typical story about the region. A lot has been written about the middle east and t for many of yu have read about the region and youre probably experts sitting here this evening and i wanted to write our story because i had questions that i did not find the answers to in the classic books that were out there. I wanted to answer t classic questions about division that are often asked what went wrong and what happened and why is it the way it is but i wanted to come at it from a different perspective and i wanted to come at it frompe our perspective frm the region because i think what is out there at the moment is not enough to explain why we got to where we are and i also think that it does not do justice to the people of the region who have tried as well, very hard, to find the different path forward. The way i do my talks and my readings is i tried to make it accessible to wide of margins as possible. For many of you here tonight are experts on the middle east but hope that even for the experts i can bring you different answers in a different perspective as to hyy the region is the way it is today. What drove me to write this boow is as i said, the fact that i found out there wasnt much out there that addressed what i found was the core of the problem and it took me a while y even put my finger on what it was was the core of the problem or what was the point at which things had changed. But what i want to do as a starting point is give you the t conclusion and i know that is the wrong way around but i do think its important because i think that what i try to do with my writing and the research that ive done is go against some of the preconceived ideas that people have about the middle east because of Media Coverage and because of headlines and because just the intensity of the news that comes from the middle east so i want to start by telling you some of the things you know are wrong and i hope youll allow me to start like that. I want to point out three things i want to say that iran and saudi arabia, despite the headlines we see today, despite the last few decades that seemed to indicate that its always been like that, saudi arabia and alan have not always been rivals. They not always been enemies and we forget that. There was a time when iran and saudi arabia were twin pillars in u. S. Policy to battle communism in the region. They were finally competitors, allied and they had physics exchanged between the royals and the two countries and they called each other with honorific titles and they were not necessarily the closest of friends but they were friendly and cooperated in a lot of ways so that is one assumption that people make about the middle east today than its always been like that between iran and saudi arabia. It wasnt. The other one is a phrase that we here bandied about very often was husband have always killed each other and its particularly if you listen closely you hear sunnis and shiites have always killed each other. Those are the two sects in islam and i will clarify but like the catholics and the protestants. Sunnis and shiites are the two sects in islam and they split after the death of mohammed where people thought the heirs were the closest relatives and those became the shiites and some thought his heirs should be the closest competent in those became the sunnis. Even in the first few decades following those identities were not as clearly defined and they involved over time. That is another preconceived idea, misconception, the people have in the region when even president ial obama said they been killing each other for melania and it will always be like that but id like to point out it hasnt always been like that and therefore it doesnt need to be like that forever. That is part of what drives the writing in this book is to remind us that there was a different path and there can be a different future. The final and third misconception is that people have particularly because of the constant droning on of the headlines that are focused on tyrants and dictators is that the region has always been in the throes of violence and always been intolerant and that cultural intolerance is part of what they find in the region and i would like to tell you that it is not always been like that and again, that means it doesnt always need to be like that. So, what happened, what happened to us connect thats the classic question that Bernard Lewis asked that i would like to give you a very different approach. That question what happened to us does haunt us in the arab and muslim world. We do it repeatedly come on cha and for my own country of lebanon all the way to pakistan from saudi arabia to syria and for us the path is really a different country and it is one that is not mired in the horrors of secretary and but more vibrant place without the crushing intolerance of alleges zealots and seemingly endless wars. The past was not perfect and it had wars as well but they were or seemly contained b in time ad space and the future did still hold much promise. The question perhaps today in the region does not necessarilye occur to those too young to remember when vibrant society was the norm and those are the ones whose parents did not tell them of the use over [inaudible] and has very different connotations these days or debating marxism late into the night in beirut or writing your bikes on the banks of the river tigris in baghdad. All these things we are saying would seem impossible today but especially the question would surprise those in the west who assume that it has always been as it is today. Is a complicated state and makes us think the past was perfect. I know that sometimes in the United States are people who have nostalgia for a different time and from the 60s where they forget the things that were wrong at the time because we tend to idealize the past. That is not what drove me. I was not idealizing the past but i really wanted to understand why things had unraveled and what was the starting point and they had unraveled very slowly at first without people u really noticing what was happening around them and it took on an unexpected force in the last decade or 15 years. There are many turning points in any country or any region histories that explains what happens and there are, of course, many turning points in the middle east history whether it is the end of the Ottoman Empire or fall of the last islamic caliphate after world war i and people will say this is the moment when the muslim world lost its way and there are some people who will form to the accretion of israel in 1948 and subsequent defeat of the arabs in the sixday war in 1967 as moment when there was a real fissure in the psyche of the arab and muslim world. Others will fit directly to 2003 in the u. S. Innovation of iraq as the moment where everything became worse that had already been like that, she days and is shiites kill each other, saudi arabia and iran at each others throat locked in a fight to the people because of the headlines of the last two decades or so invoke that its always been like that and its inevitable and eternal and apart from the eternal none of these excavations are completely correct on their own. The internal part isnt totally wrong and i insist on underlying that but none of these exclamations about what was the train point in the region really gives you a complete understanding of why we are where we are today. As i dug deeper and deeper into finding the answer of what happened to us i kept coming back to that one year,we 1979. A lot of you will remember that your and it is the year of the hostage crisis in toronto and it was also the year of the iran revolution, hostage crisis was in november and at the same time as the hostage crisis you had another type of hostage crisis in saudi arabia and mecca when [inaudible] laid siege to the holy mask and mecca for two weeks. Later that year in november of or in december on Christmas Eve the soviet invasion of afghanistan those three events and i focus on the iranian revolution because the hostage crisis is resolved and needs to resolve in some respects but the iranian revolution, the siege of the holy mask and the invasion of afghanistan were seemingly independent events and they were independent of one another but they became completely intertwined and the combination of all three was toxic. First of all, from this confluence of events was born the saudi iran rivalry. The two countries were friendly rivals before but there was no immediate reason why they should have become enemies right afte after it was apparent, let me correct that, there was no apparent reason why they should become rivals after the iran revolution except for the fact that the saudis saw themselves as leaders of the muslim world and were custodians of the two holy sites of mecca and medina. But Ayatollah Khomeini who landed in to ron in 1979 also had grand ambitions beyond just iran and beyond just even the community of in his own country and beyond. You had to countries, one sufi, saudi arabia, one shiite, iran buying for leadership of the muslim world and that is what not only changed the geopolitics of the region but started the slow growth of secretary in language and identities as both countries wielded those identities in their efforts to dominate the region and to rally the people to their side. In that battle they both wheel wheeled, destroyed and exploit religion and the pursuit of something very simple that any world leader would understand and that isaw raw power. But that is the conflict from 1979to this day, the torrent that flattens everything in its path. I believe that nothing has changed the arab and muslim world as deeply and fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the wave that started after those events. Other pivotal moments undo alliances, they and or start wars. They bring an end when they see the beginning of movements and political ideologies. But 1979 did all of this, and change the geopolitics turned countries into enemies but it did more than that because these two countries started using religion as a tool and it had an impasse impact on society and culture. What 1979 did was again a process that transform society and altered cultural and religious references. I think its important to understand understand the processes that are unleashed by things like that when they ripple across not just years but several decades. Over time, peoples memories of what came before, and before a lot of people in the United States forget that actually the iranian revolution did not begin as an effort to e bring theocray to the country. It was an effort to topple the shah, where a lot of leftists and secularists and islamists maters were involved except Ayatollah Khamenei road that waving came out on top. The year 1979 and the four decades that followed are the story that i tell in black wave. Because as i mentioned, the rivalry went beyond geopolitics. It descended into this constant effort to outbid each other in this wholean youth about efforto show who was the real leader of the muslim world. They fought for islamic legitimacy through religious and cultural domination, if they changed societies not just within iranian, very obviously,y not only in saudi arabia in a more subtle way, but in countries that extended all the way from egypt to pakistan and beyond. I couldnt include everything in this book because i really tried to write it as a story, as a narrative, as you so well mentioned. Its hard to keep a narrative on track if you include two new details and to many countries into many places. And i know that you will say that pakistan is not part of the middle east. Ive not forgotten by geography, but what i i wanted to really do is show how the dots are connectedte across countries and across even continents. Because there is a tendency to look at the middle east is in the middle east, and theres a tendency to look at pakistan and the indian subcontinent as separate. But actually they are very intertwined as well. Pakistans modern history is very connected to events in the middle east. If only but not only because of the jihadi against the soviets in the 80s that began after that soviet invasion of afghanistan in which of course pakistan played a a crucial roe and, of course, everyone remembers or should remember that that was warned that the u. S. Backed as well. And thats why pakistan is central to the narrative in this book, as i look at how the iran revolution rippled out. Again, theres a tendency to look at the arena revolution come to some extent in isolation, how did it affect iran irans role in the region. But theres not enough effort to looking at what rippled across the region, how the sunni world reacted and interacted with it and other arab countries. Because there were a lot of reactions across the arab world and initially they were not all negative. A lot ofot people admired or soe people admired how khamenei had managed to rise on top and bring theocracy to power in iran. What was interesting about the Research Data conducted for this book and the fact i have pointed out 1979 as the crucial turning point was that i found everywhere i asked the question, tell me about 1979, i found the reactions were very validating to my thesis. Because people, because i was met with a flood of emotions really. When i asked people in pakistan or in egypt or in baghdad, tell me about 1979, out came all their memories and all their emotions, and everything thathit kept almost bottled up. This was a question no one had asked him before because its that easy when youre living in such a people when youre living in such upheaval to come with terms or analyze what you are going through. So many people thought yes, 1979, let me tell you about 1979. Let me tell you how that wrecked my career or my marriage or my childrens education, why i had to go into exile at that time, or how i had to lose my job after 1979, and why. Even people who were not born before 1939 had a story because there is a beginning of an understanding in the region about what that year has done to us. It felt all of it like i was conducting National Therapy sitting in peoples studies or their living rooms as they sort of poured their hearts out to me. Now, i am a journalist. Im not a historian. Im not an academic but this is more than a reported narrative. I didnt only rely on my interviews with people in these countries. We dug deep intoou the archives with my Research Assistant we looked at old footage. We read articles, academic articles written at the time. Because its very interesting to see how perspectives change with time when you look back at academic articles written immediately after the iraniv revolution or they seized in mecca to see the assessment at the time and read about it now. When you put it all together you get a Virtual Library of the history of the region. I have 19 binders full with printed papers that tell the story, because i thought it ws important to be able to see in front of me the pictures, the writings, the articles, the headlines. Imagine finding a headline from february 1979 where saudi arabia initially welcomes the iranian revolution. Us because although they are sort of sorry to see the shockoe, he was their friend and do initially very concerned about the possibility see the shah go. Those with the trends at the time. Political islam was not the dominant story. When they saw the guy who was rising to the top with somebody they could kind of relate to even though he was shia, a very conservative man, he wanted to bring the quran to the country and they welcome that. They said t we hope we can cooperate on the basis of our common religion and our understanding of how it should be applied to society. When you look at these events, look at these details, you put it all together. You put together a puzzle of no events, forgotten events, overlooked events. And when you have the puzzle in front of you, it gives you a very different understanding, a very different reading of the last four decades of history. It spans seven countries as a nation. Fo i go from egypt to pakistan, e iran, saudi arabia, iraq and lebanon. It shatters some of those accepted truths that we have. And even we have in the region because i can tell he sometimes even we forget that sunnis and shias have nepalese been killed in chile. I grew up iniv a civil war in lebanon and those wars were never really used. It wasnt that kind of conflict, but today it is so accepted in our collective memory that we forget what it was like before. And that saudi iranian rivalry evolved and mutated over time with consequences that really no one could have foreseen in 1979. Now, there has been a lot written about the middle east, i know that, but im trying to present a different approach. You will find a lot of poetry and literature and lyrics and music and cultural references in this book because i think it is important also to remember the richness of this region and to humanize this region which is been so devoid of context and headlights. This is not a book about terrorism. A it is not a book about alqaeda. It is not a book about isis nor is it a book about sunni shias. It is not even about the dangers that violent fundamentalists pose for the west. This has been everything that youve already read, everything youve already seen on television and in headlights. With all due respect to my called ask, even i sometimes because thats just the nature of our business and i think thats why i wanted to take a step back and write this book. This is the story of the people, and they are very, very, very many, whose voices have not necessarily been heard, who had been silenced but who are not silent because they continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness that has engulfed us in the region. They are intellectuals, poets, lawyers, young progressives, clerics, they are arabs, iranians and pakistanis, men and women have equal number of women and men characters in the book because you dont do enough from women in the region. Even though they are very feisty, very strong, very powerful. You should see whats happening in iraq, lebanon and iran today with women really leading the protests against the corruption in the mismanagement of our countries. They are mostly devout. The characters are mostly devout. They pray, they solved, they go to the mosque just like you go to church and you can stillve believe in the separation of church and the state. You cant be a secular muslim its not an oxymoron. You can believe in the separation of mosques and states. These are progressive thinkers who represent a very vibrant Pluralistic Society that are still there underneath that black wave. They suffered immensely at the hands of those who wield power and who are relentlessly intolerant of other people. Some paid with their life. Many of them. Some are in the pages of this book, like my friend and colleague, the saudi journalist who was murdered in the saudi consulate in istanbul in 2018. You will find his story in these pages starting from one of the first chapters in 19 19 rigt after 1979 when he returns to the u. S. , returns to saudi arabia from his days as a student in the u. S. You will meet him again a few chapters later in peshawar when becomes a journalist covering the jihad in afghanistan. You will meet him a few chapters after that began when you return to saudi arabia as a narrative right after 9 11 and he is the editor of a newspaper who gets fired for having printed very critical oped by one of his fellow writers criticizing a very austere tyrannical creed of islam that is practiced in saudi arabia. Fortunately, he will meet him in the last chapter. I was writing a passage about Jamal Khashoggi his life, the passage around the time of 9 11 when he disappeared and it was later found out that he was killed. It was a very macabre choice to detail that i was talking about the saudi iran revelry, one that i did not expect the one that it do think is inscribed in the rivalry. The connections were not immediately clear as to why this was part of the larger story but it really was. Ive given you the conclusion, the concluding thoughts and ive given you the ending with this lastst chapter but, of course, this is not a novel, although i am being told that it reads like a thriller. But we know how it ends to some extent. We know where we are today, and its not inre a great place. But we dont know how it is because i do believe there is a Better Future ahead of us. I believe that because i look at the people who are protesting and iraq and iran and lebanon today, who are again paying with their lives and facing bullets and continue to take to the streets, including the women. The women in w lebanon stand asa defense line between the men behind it and the police in front of them because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than the men standingke behind them by the repression of the police. The women in Tahrir Square in baghdad are just absolutely incredible in how theyre taking to the streets and mocking the politicians call for the women to return home and their call for segregation in Public Places between men and women. They mock them and say say you want to take us back to which century . We are in 2020. Now, im giving you a little bit of the indy. Ive given you some of the conclusions but that cant actually begins just a few years before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean in lebanon, in my own country, which plays many times an unfortunate role in developments in the region. Today again as well. But a few years before and i97 consider nine of the shores of my country there is a littleknown episode that played a crucial role in setting the stage for the resolution. And i like to start the book with that because there is such an irony to the fact that this revolution that turned iran from aun persian kingdom to theocrac, a revolution that was chaired an organized by secular leftists and islam modernists as you are now reminded of, the irony is that that revolution, the revolution that brought the fundamentalist ayatollah to power owedo its alternate birth to two maxis a centcom beirut and paris. A root, paris police, and paris, the city of the enlightenment. The birthplace of the age of enlightenment. If not for the permissive freedoms and both of these f countries, Ayatollah Khamenei may have died forgotten in a culdesac in the holy city in iraq. Im going to tell you too much more about how the story unfolds, but what i loved about the research that it did for this book is that i learned a lot about the region. I found a lot of interesting gems hidden in the pages of our history, things that were surprising, the role that theti Palestinian Leader at the time Yasser Arafat played as well in helping the iranian revolution come to be. The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood, the sunni Muslim Brotherhood which was still, which was a power to be reckoned with to some extent in some of these countries but was still in many waysri a marginal political force, the Muslim Brotherhood looked to khamenei said six hits and thought we can do this here. Even though they weren sunni and he was shia they went to visit him in tehran to see what he could offerld them. Those are all episodes that are forgotten. But i think its important to go back in the past because it is important to look back at the different pieces of the puzzle to understand why we got to where we are today. But as i mentioned, the characters like khomeini and aside are not the key is the drive the narrative. It is thes characters like the television anchor in pakistan who said defiantly, no, to the dictate of pakistan, who are really at the heart of this book. Their stories overlapot in time. Some of them know each other. Some of them dont. They cross paths, perhaps not, but theyre all fighting for the same thing. They are fighting for a more progressive, a more tolerant society, for more progressive or more tolerant future. The stories are contained within the other stores of historical figures, and so what you end up with is a type of 1001 nights ot middle eastern geopolitics. I like to say that the story is not over because as i mentioned, we are still in the throes of upheaval pic and as i was writing this book, i really went back and forth between true despair but i eventually settled on hold because there is no other way forward. What one of the reasons why, i grew up in the civil war. For 15 years we waited for it to end and you could breath say we were crazy to wait for so long and not leave the country. It is not that easy to leave your home country. You have to start from scratch summer else, unknown. Its hard to leave your savings behind, your home, your savings, your belongings. We stayed in the hope that when things would get better. That is the hope that i see still today in the region when i look around me. I know a lot of people in the United States have given up on the region, but i urge you not to because progress takes time. We have lots of factors that work against us. W the arab uprisings are not over, and they are not a failure. They are only beginning. The United States took some time to become what it is today. After the french revolution, democracy was not instead, the instant result the day after. It takes time. And so i settled on hold because i looked around in the region. I look young people younger than me, people have never known probably never heard much about the days before 1979, and i see how they want to escape the ghosts of the past. They want to build a different future. They want to escape the ghosts of 1979. And so while i have written this book for people in the west, in the United Statesn and elsewhere who wonder what went wrong in the region, while i did write this book for those who remembem the times before 1979 and ask what happened to us, perhaps i wrote it especially for the Younger Generation who today ask their parents, why didnt you do anything to stop what was unraveling . Why did you let this happen . And i was really amazed to see that same question posed in both saudi arabia and iran, two countries that have very different trajectory with very different societies. But in both countries people are asking their parents why, why did you let 19 sam nunn happen ikus like that . And so we hope that not only will the book provides you i hope not only with the book provide you with a different perspective, a much richer perspective on my region and our societies, but i hope that this book will also provide clues for the Younger Generation to help them find a better path forward, one that is not determined by iran and saudi arabia. It is important to look back so that you can understand what happened. Because as the danish philosopher kierkegaard said, it is perfectly true that life must bebe understood. But they forget the other, that it must be lived forward, and thats the only way to go. Thank you very much for listening. [applause] thank you very much, if i may, kim. But before i begin we have our own scholar, my friend, mohammed, was written a Remarkable Book on religious statecraft, entitled if you have read it you should read because its a reinterpretation of the iranian revolution and i remember one summer coming back from vacation, mohammed was very excited. He said i found a diary at harvard. The leaders of a rainy revolution. I found written evidence by the leaders they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons. They did d it because they wanto prove to the leftists t that the were not in with the cia or the u. S. Government. I remember his excitement in finding these diaries. Very prominent people. You see the headlines and iran. And i noted that you used his book in yourk book because i ket looking at the footnotes or the endnotes and you recording his book. Yes. It was instrumental to understanding that period and understand how not only with the saudis and the rain is trying to outdo each other but even within countries and within groupings, people were trying to outbid each other to come on topic it is really always about power. I raise this and understand why you didnt do it but i just wanted to raise this. The one country that was under the Muslim Brotherhood for 30 years barely mentioned a book b and that sudan. He orchestrated the coup that brought Omar Albashir to power in the summer of 1989, and i remember, i was working for usaid for president bush 41 and i remember we actually took on a bottle of champagne after hours of course [laughing] not paid for by the federal government. We had he tells because we finally got rid of the electedically government which had stonewalled the relief effort in the middle of the famine, and record of nine died as result of that. We are finally rid of this. I shouldve remembered the statement of briscoe cropped,t when you think the flight at the end of the telecom it usually aa train about to run you over. I learned that very painfully because as time went on, we realized he was very dangerous guy and 2. 53 people died while bashir was president. So why didnt you mention this . Because it fits into your narrative perfectly. It doesnt trying to find. Te one line where i do internet. [laughing] rifling through the book very quickly. Because it is very interesting. There you go. I have it. So there is a technical why. The technical reason is that when you write a book that is really driven by narrative, it is really like writing fiction, where you have to keep the reader engaged. And if you have too many sident notes and detours, its hard to keep your reader engaged in hanging on. Thats what you couldnt put it down, right . [laughing] so thats ill take that to the bank know, but its true that i felt terrible i could write more about yemen. Yemen is another one of those that is on our collective conscious as humanity that we could let this happen. I felt terrible i went one chapter on syria, but the was the narrative i was followed up, not an agenda, dont you be wrong. There was a specific store data outside one to say by doingy other parts of the story. What i was looking at the trendlines across 40 years and really trying to pin point the key moments either cultural or religious or social and pin them down and specific country where they had happened. So the rise of islamic militancy and sunnishia killings. The first moment whenth that happens in modern times, because remember i said sunnis and shias had that been killing each other forever. In fact, over the course of history they have killed each other less than catholics and protestants accept that these are the headlines of today. But the moment whatt happened ws in modern times is in pakistan. It i wasnt even in the middle east. Theas pakistan is a chapter whee i explore that. So in every chapter theres a specific point or turning point or issue i explore, but it is all in the narrative. I have this big corkboard on the wall where had the seven countries that i explore in the four beckett and id post its with various events happening in each of these countries at the various eras to soar detect trendlines. I do eliminate a lot and, unfortunately, sudan was important but it didnt fit the wider narrative. But i do mention it in the book because very important, and is part of what we have forgotten. Even in the region. An egyptian intellectual secular progressive thinker who was trying to fight back against this rise of intolerance that was beginning to sweep his country after 1979. He had fierce debates with muslim thinkers from the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups. And he pushed back against them in the public debate once, where he said i will never accept that islam be insulted. Im a muslim. I will always be a muslim. You can insult communism or socialism. Dont insult islam. This is aes progressive thinker talking. And then hee said, when asked fr an Islamic State, he speaks to his opponents, which one are you suggesting exactly as a model . This was the 90s. 90s. There were no successful examples. Iran, saudi arabia and sudan have been failures. So this is an islamic thinker, intellectual in the 90s in egypt pushing back against more conservative thinkers by saying, point to me one successful Islamic State in our modern times. And he goes on by saying, why the sudden obsession with an Islamic State . For 1300 1300 years since the t century after the profit, only 1 of people have advocated a religious state. While 99 have advocated for what we are calling for, which is the civil state. He was assassinated not long after this. Its one of those key turning pointshe where you see this man who is softspoken, is more as a martyr of the nation when he is killed a radical extremists. 20 years later the same thing happened in pakistan where the governor i is, declares and at e state for defending a christian woman and he is murdered in cold blooded broad daylight, and no one dares to come out and more him and declare him a martyr of the nation. Thats how fast things unravele unraveled. One thingel thats curious bt interesting is this year only make up 10 10 of islam. Its not 5050 or even twothirds or onethird. Its 10 versus 90 . A bit more. A a little bit more but not very much. 9010, i thought somewhere aroundnd there. Most of the shia, the only majority country shia, this of course is iran can 20 of pakistan is shia muslim as you point out. Thirty, 35. The largest shia population outside of is in pakistan. And then you iraq. N and some of the i actually brought up the prince who is the leader of the sect within shia islam and even the she objected, hes really a heretic. I brought up to a saudi diplomat once and he started yelling at me. They are not muslims, and on and on and on. So even within each of these traditions, there are some sex and, of course, like an of light. I walked into a mosque in morocco i think about c15 ago. I i thought it was an Orthodox Church because the chanting of the men was very similar to the chanting and an Orthodox Church. Its very beautiful and very mythical. Part of the heritage wef have lost. Is exactly right, exactly right. The question is how is it that a country that only makes up ten, 15 , whatever percent that you want, why does it post such a formal threat to saudi arabia and the rest you talk to King Abdullah in jordan for the egyptians privately, theres this huge threat of iran. I mean, its a small percentage of the arab world and yet theres this fear of the muslim world. Why . F echoes to two factors, i think it goes what is after 1979 as i mentioned, Ayatollah Khomeini wanted to appeal to the wider muslim world. Want to be just an every leader. He didnt want to be just a shia leader. He wanted to appeal to the wider, and he did two things. One, he challenged the salaries as soldiers of the holy fights of islam. Until recently they often call for a joint body to be custodian of the two oocytes and that drives the saudis crazy. Because that is where they derive a lot of their legitimacy, the power and a lot of their money as well. Very lucrative to be custodian of these two holy sites. At the time time in 19, right r 19 some nine 19 said in that part of the preparations for the revolution of iran, Ayatollah Khomeini had very cleverly identified the palestinian call as one that would give them appeal beyond his borders, beyond the shia community. And so this is one of the episodes that begins the book where i explore that alliance between khomeini and the palestinians where Yasser Arafat,av having been disappoind by the loss and 1967 against the israelis, having felt betrayed by anwar sadat who is starting to make moves towards American Camp and then makes moves towards peace with the israelis. Arafat thanks who is going to help me now . And so there are connections made with iranians in lebanon, young every news, bulletins are working towards the fault of the shah. And they are trained. Many of them are trained in the palestinian camps in lebanon. Thats how that connection unfolds. But khomeini had identified the palestinian cause as a way to transcend iran and she ideas in and take over the sunni, the arab part to appeal to people across the region as the man who could come in with the arabs that field and potentially, as they put it, liberate jerusalem and regain lost arab lands. Even though arafat was very secular and he was married to a christian woman. Yes, but it is aboutti power. Arafat had no problem greeting khomeini and he was the first leader, the first foreign leader to visit khomeini immediately after success of the revolution. He was the first foreign dignitaries come if you want to call them that, who landed in tehran a week after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by people and iran. And they chanted today tehran, tomorrow jerusalem. To but 40 years later what happened in the interim is that iran has worked very doggedly and strategically on maintaining its appeal to people outside iran and outside of the shia community. They discarded arafat and believe it always only paid lip service to the palestinian cause but their friends with hamas, backers of hamas, the radical palestinian militant group. Outfit called the quds force. Part of the Islamic Revolutionary guard, the quds force, and after the mosque in jerusalem. Sorry, named after jerusalem. The arabic word for come named after jerusalem. The arabic word for jerusalem, sorry, getting tangled up in my language is here. The quds force is irans expeditionary expansionist Paramilitary Force around theex region headed until very recently by Qasem Soleimani. Im sure many of you know that name by now. Qasem soleimani who was is skid in the u. S. Drone strike in january of this year on the orders of President Trump. The quds force is meant to liberate jerusalem for theni palestinians and the muslim nation, except that people like Qasem Soleimani thought some of the road from tehran through to listen went through bear wrote, baghdad and aleppo with untold devastation for people along the way. So the fear, the reason why saudi arabia fears iran is because of its expansionist policies is because it appeals to a lot of people in ways that saudi arabia does not because saudi arabia is firmly in the American Camp while iran is in the anticamp. I will say one thing. I think both these countries at this point some out need each other. I think some extent the saudis need or benefit from seeing iran continued to be a negative i player in the region because that means saudi arabia can continue to be w americas best friend in thees region. You mention general soleimani is named as i want to just raise that in your book because it happened after book was published. His killing is not inn the book but he is in the book. All over the book. The last page of the last chapter is a description of a video animation put together by some online saudi outfit that shows saudi forces liberating tehran from the regime and Qasem Soleimani on his knees haggard giving himself up to the saudis. Thats in a fantasy. In real life they have to leave it up to the americans to do it. Tell us, you wrote i thought one ofne the one or two most leon panetta, not that your collaborator and you didnt say the same thing but two most thoughtful articles after solo monies killing that i saw were one that you wrote an account member where i saw it. The atlantic. Thats right. I was in the atlantic where you describe what the u. S. Needs to do now and you were no advocate of soleimani but you were saying if you just leave it this way its going to be a real problem. You need to follow up to send additional messages. What is the effect of Qasem Soleimani death on the calculus . We know that solder has switched sides turkey picky was leading demonstrations and now hes leaving the demonstrations to get us, United States out of iraq. Is also visit riyadh ing the hope the sound is would back him. He blows with the win. I think for some support remember that Qasem Soleimani did run a network of murderous militias around the region from iraqd. To syria to yemen. So while of course the focus here in the aftermath was all my goodness this is going to be war between u. S. And iran, there was a sense in the region that in many ways it already is constant war and violence, and that there were a lot of people in iraq but also in syria who celebrated the demise. And in iran. And it iran because weve seen the footage of people come out in morning but there were also a lot of people who were very relieved that this man who led the crackdown against peaceful protest in the country co2009, 2017, 2018 and just now 2019, that this man was finally gone. I think what is happening in the region now is that all the different parties out our allyti to iran that our proxy, militias, close or close allies or slightly more detached allies are jockeying for position trying to use this moment to come on topic and i think thats what sadr is doing. Is look at how the wind is blowing and wondered whether w e can seize this moment to become the ultimate theater in the region. I will say that iran and irans allies in the region are very good at turning moments of potential weaknesses of full ability to moments of strength. E if you remember after 2003, the u. S. Invasion of iraq, tehran feared it would be next with damascus. And instead of towering they seize the moment as well as they could come as much as they could, and now many years later, or until veryil recently, the accepted state of affairs was that you said billy lost iraq to iran. Because they were ready from the getgo to try to turn this to their advantage. I think the same is happening now. Theyre trying to turn thisth moment after Qasem Soleimani to sum up a moment where they can solidify their games because it will not stop at using whoever is in front of them to see what they can because they are facing a lot of headwinds because of these protests you are seeing in iraq, in lebanon and iran against irans stranglehold on the politics of this region. You mentioned the womens movement. I might add the revolution, the uprising the led to the demise of president bashir in sudan was led by society but women the iconic image of the young sudanese woman dressed in white with big gold earring stands on top of a car leading the men enchanting. These areen examples that im talking about. And the foreign minister of sedan, i just had a meeting with a small meeting with her. Thats unheard of in sudanese politics. You mentioned women but m is the some connection between young people in the middle east and the demands they areas making fr reform and change and the opening of society and for democracy . Democracy is under attack around the world. Democracy is under attack around the world. I triedo to avoid to some extent the word democracy when i talk about the region because it has become associated with specific u. S. Driven agendas. People in the region want to set their own agenda and i think we have to trust, i i trust, thate know what we want. What we want is a more progressive, more diverse, more tolerant future. But democracy as a cookiecutter template doesnt work exactly the same everywhere pick you have variations. In representation and electoral systems, et cetera. I do think people across the region are connected in many ways. If you listen to the chanting in the streets of beirut you will hear them say from tehran to beirut, one revolution that does not die. And youre not talking 19 scenario. The talk about the protest taking place today that are challenging the corrupt leadership, the mismanagement and sectarianism. I know our focus so far in the conversation has been t very muh on iran, lebanon and iraq and shias and irans role, but its important to remember that urban uprisings also in sunni country. This is not about nomination of thing. It is not only antiiran thing. A lot of people are also fed up with the insolence that saudi arabia has had on religion and culture in the region, and saturdays although today they have a crown prince who wants to appear as a reformer and does many things that feed into the agenda of reform, a lot of saudi is also live in fear of what their crown prince is doing and the repression that is falling on the country. Women activists who fought for the right to drive, a fight that is been going on for decades, a lot of the young activists and older activists have found themselveses in jail right befoe thee crown prince, or the king rather, because the order still come from the top with the decrees our site at the topic they found themselves in jail for having campaigned for the right to drive just as that right was granted to women in the kingdom. Because in the kingdom of saudi arabia, those rights are still granted by the king. It is up to his magnanimity to hemake this possible picks i thk that yes, in saudi arabia and, people are also yearning for a different future. Theyre getting a lot of what they missed over the last few decades, with cinemas opening and museums opening and dj parties and jazz concert and all of that,an but again that is the of culture that the crown prince thinks they should bring to the kingdom. And junk people in the country asking well, what about our traditional arts and culture and our traditional dancing and things like that . Its a bit of the crisis of identity i would say debate in the kingdom. Theres some evidence that saudi arabia, the crown prince is reaching out quietly to the iranians for some sort i of a rapprochement. Is it possiblee that this war will end because, its a very interesting theory. The United States seems to be pulling back, and even though the president ordered the killing of soleimani, many of the supporters are saying now tt you killed him, lets get out. The United States may not be seen as central in the middle east, or pivotal maybe, and so may be the saudis say that United States is not reliable so well w have to make agreement sometime with iran. Do you see that happening and with theio complexion of the mil is a change . Weve hadav a taught before detente. The 90s were a time in the middle east where we had fewer wars. We had no proxy wars or very few battles because the sides and the iranians were actually on good terms. That made a huge difference. The saudi is often rushed wars or talks with iranians when they feel endangered come when they feel their position is in danger. It happened during the iraniraq war with iranians were on the verge of what it felt like to the salaries as possible pullout victory against the saudi is rushed to direct talks with the iranians. The exchange visits, the Saudi Foreign minister what to iran. Theey Iranian Foreign minister went to tehran if im not mistaken, a facade is even offered huge compensation to iran, billions of dollars, if they would just bring an end to the conflict because they did want to see it outright a draining victory. The iranians had requirement that the saudi simply could not abide by and that included this issue of joint body for custody over the two holy sites. Thats something the saudis could not handle. But we us in this moment of detente before. The 90s detente was i should do at the end of the iraniraq war and the 1990 go for when again the iranians were worried perhaps the iranians were defeated and the iraniraq war and that it would have to do with saddam. They tried to find a way where they could keep iran on their better side. They talked to these countries. Hamedd Bensalem Police all the months of detente were used by iran to solidify its positions so while the diplomats were smiling, favoring the revolutionary guards were sinking their claws deeper into areas of the region, openingeg Cultural Centers that posed as a front for revolutionary guard activities. And he will not be fooled again. Those are his words. He will notga be fooled by the smells of iranian diplomat anymore. Does he want an allout war . No. I think w he wants the status qo to some extent picky doesnt want iran to gain too much moree he wants to curve and content but also worries about President Trump not being enough of a solid ally, that is not an ally who actually go to bat for the studies. He will pursue american strategic interest. He will kill Qasem Soleimani but he will not necessarily come to soldiers defense if it is threatened by iran. The saudis feel the need to hedge their bets levit and the have been in direct talks between the saudis and the iranians over the last few months but i dont see peace between them or a full detente. I think by now with it will require real change in behavior of the authorities in iran. I dont see that happening either. One other big change, massive change, i saw it, there was an article in the washington post, i cantt remember what t was but it was maybe five or six years ago where one of the princes in the royal family in saudi arabia said that israel now has the same interest as we have. We never hear that, the saudi will family, anyone seen anything like that. So israel now is not the threat it was before. Israel always saw egypt, since the sign of peace accords, but to other arab states, sunni states see israel as a counterbalance to iran and, therefore, consistent with her own interests, that is of a change. That is a big change. It is a big change. It explains why arab countries did not forcefully reject President Trumps peace plan, even though they may dislike it. Even though they may disagree with it. They put out a sharp statement at the arab league, but the arab league doesnt serve much purpose. The statement was Just Lip Service to the palestinian cause, because countries like saudi arabia want to stay on President Trumps good side. Because they want this to be about the focus to be on countering iran, even if they dont feel that President Trump will necessarily come to their immediate defense if they are threatened by iran attack by iran. They still feel this is the camp that will serve them best and, therefore, theyre willing to be silent on such issues, as long as israel isls also doing some f the countering of iran job in the region. Just today i think i saweg the headline that iranians, the americans and the israelis have sort of agreed that when will take on iran and syria, and one will take iran and iraq. So you have a lot of stories that you didnt put in the book. Yes, i do. I do. Time for another book. As well as going to ask. Is there going to be a sequel to this book . I dont know itll be a perfect sequel. Maybe in four years i could write what happened after this book. But before that i hope i will write more before that. Theres a lot of little gems that i found in the research that i would like to explore. I dont know which ones, which one will have staying power over the course of a book. Its always a process. You try to test your thesis and dig into the archives where you will have the most information that you can work with. Do i maybe want to use some of this to write a novel set in the region . Im not sure. There is one little story got a really like, its about the safari club. The safari club was the name of an intelligence sort of corporation group,on intelligene group that brought together the saudi so, the iranians before 1939, the sounds, the iranians, the french, the americans, if im not mistaken, and possibly the british and it was called safari club because they met and ten at the safari club. It was a grouping of Intelligence Officers from these countries where the height of the cold war, they plotted and debated coups in various countries with a worried about the advancement of communism. I always wondered about what more do we know about this . I havent really found any books written about it. I dont think there are many books written about it last night but i know it existed. Yes, it existed, it existed, and there are lots of interesting aspects to it. And i think it would be good to write an article about it and then write a novel based on tha that. When i was president bush for a threesome on what to sedan i met with all the intelligence chiefs in egypt several times, ethiopia, kenya, uganda and libya. Libya was a most interesting one because i i met four hours with him. He left very quickly when the government was going down the tubes. But he was very powerful and he had a map of darfur. Thats why was appointed to do with darfur in the peace agreement. Were 70 agents of Intelligence Service in libya in darfur giving money and weapons out to the rebels because they didnt like bashir. I said wait a second. You are just any of weapons . He mentioned all the leaders allies tried to negotiate with. I realize the oversight weve made an american oversight come to realize how central libya was 12 is going on in darfur. The best conversations i had a with intelligence chiefs and, of course, when i wrote for his accident i could not in the notes where the information came from, but it was very useful to understand the complexities of the region because, and the keep shifting. They keep shifting. I think theres a spy novel set in the 70s in the middle east, very interesting. There would be a movie afterwards. [laughing] what are the moderating influences and iran, lets put some time aside because for a while now certainly the regime is using this to reunite the population behind omani and the theocracy. But thats not going to last forever because had already ended. It always ended. I think those very brief moment of unity. I have seen some iranians dispute the numbers of people who participated in the funeral of Qasem Soleimani, you know, the large crowds. Im not an expert at video footage and things like that but some people have disputed the numbers. I also think in moments like that people come out of fear for what could happen to the country, no matter what they think of the regime. Out of fear they could be punished if they dont show up because this is still a country that is right and an autocratic way. Classrooms are closed. You have to sure. I dont doubt out of sense of nationalism people also mourned him, of course. Im not an arena expert, i would like to make that clear. I have not spent enough time there, but i think when you look at what is happening in iran today and particularly what happened after w the downing of the ukrainian lane when 170 people died, full of young promising iranians, canadians and hyphenated nationalities, and the authorities very clearly of the revolution occur specifically very clearly lied over the course of several days as to the fact that they were responsible, lied even or hid the reality, the truth even from the president , rouhani, the outrage that people expressed on the streets in the aftermath ofr the admission that this had been irans fault, tells you how brutal things are. Im not one to predict the fall of the regimem at all. I also think it would be very chaotic, but i do think something is coming undone. And you never know with what speed it accelerates and you never know to what extent the regime is willing to go to hold onto power. Whether it is the young people protesting, whether it is the women protesting against the mandatory fail on a daily basis fondly what is a war of attrition against the regimes control over society, whether it is the labor movements that are organizing in the country, the challenges are mounting, if not to the regime, at least to the regimes way of doing things. So these are the moderating influences of society. Host this was in the the pictures particularly in a culture like afghanistan is what you are looking at westernized elite. The minority. When you see pictures like that in a country that is larger and was at the time, more modernized like egypt. Then women, was not westernized minority. But the expression of choices made by more than a minority. What i would like to make clear is that women in the middle east want, is the right to wear miniskirts. Maybe they dont want to wear a miniskirt but they wanted the right to choose read with her they want to wear the skirt or not and that is what we have lost is the freedom to choose which is what defines our society. Even in iran today, the women are protesting get the mandatory fails. Some of them are veiled and they were my choice. They want their fellow iranian women to have the choice to wear it or not. That is what people are protesting against but when comes afghanistan in particular, we heard joe biden in this debate say that afghanistan is a paraphrase, can never be put together. We take issue with statements like that. I think it is a, too easy to the dismissible country like that. Whether it is iran or iraq. Similar statements were made at the time. And with a statement of satanism, always with each other, it is a little bit of a copout. We cant do anything about it. That is notin to say that we are calling for u. S. Intervention or invasion. That is not the solution either. But is simply too easy to dismiss that. As people who cant get their act together pretty for facing tremendous odds. In some those audits include u. S. Backandforth dictators. In egypt, and other countries of ethe region, or perhaps the dictators who use preconceived ideas about the region and how backwards they are. These are demanding the modern looking man in a suit for the fundamentalist crazies. That is not the binary choiceil that is available to us in the region. I think we need to have morenk t faith in us in the region. [andrew]. Where pastor do in terms of the time theyre going to have this talk together. So would like to t t thank you r being with us. Kim thank you very much for havingg me. Tara[andrew]. We think of this is the center of the United States. [laughter]. Fully appreciate your coming all the way from washington or from beirut to here. Thank you. Kim thank you so much for having me it is such a pleasure to be here. [applause]. [background sounds]. Weeknights this week, we are featuring tv programs showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, books on the middle east, first Michael Rubin and brian, they talk about the instability student instability in the middle east. And against iran may lead and then kim, talks about the decades long rivalry between iran and saudi arabia. After that, cory a retired Career Foreign Service officer, who served in the middle et