Transcripts For CSPAN2 Kim Ghattas Black Wave 20240713

Good evening. Im andrew, the director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs at the bush school of government here e at texas a and m. University. I would like to welcome our special event this evening with kim ghattas who is going to speak of the recent book, black wave saudi arabia, iran and the fortyyear rivalry that unleashed collective memory in the middle east. I have to say i spent the weekend reading it. I didnt quite get through but i couldnt put it down it was so interesting. If you havent read it after this evening you can get the book if you havent already but i would urge you to read it to be at its fascinating and very wellwritten and very well researched. There was a narrative thats very troubling. I would like to announce that our event with ambassador dennis ross is another expert in the middle east is unable to come to college station. Hcollege station. He had a family emergency and so kim ghattas is an awardwinning journalist and writer covered the middle east for 20 years for bbc and the financial times. She reported from iraq, saudi arabia, syria, and covered the war between israel and hezbollah earning an emmy for International News coverage. On the state department and on american politics regularly traveling with secretaries of state as well as condoleezza rice, Hillary Clinton and john kerry. Shes been published in the atlantic, the washington post, foreignpolicy an and as a non resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in. Her first book the secretary was a New York Times bestseller. She regularly continues to speak on American Television and radio and was born and raised in lebanon but now lives between beirut and washington, d. C. If you have questions, please write them on the cards, the ambassadors that have the blue blazers on dave walked up and down the aisle that they will continue to do that and then once you write the questions, pass them to the idle and they will pick those up and ge give m to me and i will then go through them after she speaks. The two of us will sit up here and i will ask some questions and then take your questions from the cards. Please join me in welcoming kim ghattas to the stage. [applause] good evening, everybody. It is a delight to be here this evening. Thank you for the very generouss introduction and for hosting me here at the Annenberg Conference Center into the scowcroft is and the bush school for hosting me. I see in the front row my good friend thank you very much for helping to make this happen. I am delighted to be back in texas. I havent been here in a long time. I must complain about the weather but this gives me a good excuse to return. I am here to speak to you about my recent book just out a few weeks ago. As any book, it is the result of a journey. Every writing endeavor is a journey im sure many of you have written books and you know that it can be very isolating and very intellectual and lonely experience. Its a combination of my experience as a child of war in beirut i grew up during the civil war during the 80s and i wanted to write a story that wasnt your typical story about the region. A lot has been written about the middle east and im sure many of you have read about the region and are probably experts sitting here this evening. I had questions i did not find the answers to in the classic books that are out there and i wanted to ask the questions about the region that are often asked what went wrong and what happened and why is it the way it is but i wanted to come at this from a different perspective its not enough to explain how we got to where we are and i also think that it does justice to the people of the region who have tried very hard to find a different path forward. In my talks and readings i try to make it accessible and im sure many of you here tonight are experts on the middle east but i hope that even for the experts i can bring some different answers into different perspective as to why the region is the way it is today. What drove me to write this book is the fact i found there wasnt much that address to the core of the problem and it took me a while to even put my finger on what it was or what was the point at which things had changed but i want to give you the conclusion and i know that it is important because i think what i try to do with my writing and Research Goes against some of the preconceived ideas that people have about the middle east because of the kneejerk coverage and the headlines and the intensity of the news that comes at us from the middle east so i want to start by telling you some of the things you know about the middle east are wrong and i hope that you will allow me to start on that. I want to point out three things. I want to start by saying iran and saudi arabia, despite the headlines we see today at the last feand thelast few decades o indicate its always been like that, saudi arabia and iran have not always been rivals. They have not always been enemies and they forget that. It was a time that iran and saudi arabia were to counter communism in the region. They were friendly competitors in that endeavor. They called each other with titles and they were not necessarily the closest of friends but they were friendly and cooperative in a lot of ways so that is an assumption that its always been like that between iran and saudi arabia, and it wasnt. Its always going to be like that and theyve always kill each other. Those are the two that simplify. Some people thought that his error should be the closest relatives and some people thought that it should be his closest confidant and that eventually became the sunnis but even the first few decades following, those identities were not as clearly defined. It evolved over time and so that is tha another preconceived ides and misconceptions they will havbothhave about the region evn president obama said he had been killing each other for women wanting millennia the final misconception people have particularly because of the constant droning on at the headlines that are focused on tyrants and dictators is that the region has always been in the throes of finance and intolerant, but total intolerance and i would like to tell you that it hasnt always been like that. So, what happened i know that is the classic question that Bernard Lewis once asked if i would like to give you a very different approach because the question what happened to us does haunt us in the arab and muslim world. We do repeated like a mantra from my own country of lebanon all the way to pakistan from saudi arabia to syria. For the past it is really a different country. Its one that isn isnt mightir thamired in thehorrors of sectae vibrant place without the crushing. Now the past wasnt perfect but they were contained in tiny manned space into the future didnt hold much promise. The question perhaps today in the region doesnt necessarily occur to those that are too young to remember when vibrant parliament societies were the norm, those are the ones whose parents didnt tell them. They have very different connotations these days and debating in beirut. They would surprise those in the west but assume it has always been as it is that is not what drove me. I wasnt idealizing the past but i wanted to understand. It unraveled very slowly at first without people noticing in the first decade or 15 years. There are many turning points in any country or any regions in history that explain. Its the end of the Ottoman Empire and fall of the calipha caliphate. The u. S. Innovation is the moment when everything became worse that had already been like that. Sunnis and shiites in iran at each others throat. Over the last two decades or so its always been like that. Its for the inevitable and eternal it is completely correct and the eternal part of these explanations greatly if you a complete understanding of why we are where we are today. As i dug deeper and deeper to find the answer of what happened, i kept coming back to the one year, 1979. A lot of you will remember that year as the year of the hostage crisis. It was of course also the year of the iran resolution, the hostage crisis was in november. At the same time as the hostage crisis in tehran, there was another type of hostage crisis in saudi arabia that led to the holy mosque for two weeks and later that year in november or december on Christmas Eve h thee was the soviet invasion of afghanistan. Those events, and i focus on the resolution because the crisis as the result of god but the resolution and the siege of the holy mosque and the invasion of afghanistan were seemingly independent of one another but they became completely intertwined in the combination of all three. First of all, from this confluence of events as i mentioned there was no immediate reason why they should have become enemies. Except for the fact they were leaders of the muslim world and custodians of the sites of mec mecca. In tehran in 1979 also had grand ambitions beyond just iran and the community in his own country and beyond. So you have two countries, saudi arabia, one shia suddenly vying for leadership of the muslim world and that is not only the change of the politics in the region started slow growth of sectarian language as both countries yielded those identities and their efforts to dominate the region and rally the people to their side and in that battle, they both distort and exclude religion and the pursuit any leader would understand and that is raw power, but that is the constant from 1979 to this day. I believe nothing has changed as deeply and fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the ways that started after those events. Other pivotal moments and or start wars. They began a process that transformed the society. I think its important to understand when they ripple across not just years but several decades over time peoples memories of what came before. But it didnt begin as an effort to bring theocracy to the country. They rode that wave and came out on top. The story that i tell the rivalry went beyond to the politics and the efforts to outbid each other in this holier than thou effort to show the leader of the muslim world they thought the islamic legitimacy through the religious and cultural domination. But the result may not in saudi arabia in a more subtle way that countries that extended all the way from egypt to pakistan and beyond. I couldnt include everything is so mentioned and its hard to keep the negative on track if it includes too many details and countries and places. I know that you will see pakistan isnt part of the geography, but what i wanted to really do is show how the dots are connected across countries and across even continents, because theres a tendency to look at the middle east is not only the middle east and a tendency to look at it them as separate but they are very intertwined as well. And of course everyone remembers or should or that it was the u. S. Backed as well and its central to the narrative to the book as i look at how the revolution was pulled out again. To look at how it rippled across the region and how the world reacted and interacted with it. They were not all negative and a lot of people admired for some people admired how they managed to rise on top and bring the theocracy to power the fact that i pointed out in 1979 as a crucial turning point was i found everywhere i asked the question i found the reactions were very validating to my thesis. I was met with a flood of emotions. Tell me about 1979 and out came all the memories and emotions and everything that they kept bottled up this was a question that no one had asked them before because when you are living in such an upheaval to come to terms or analyze what youre going through so some people thought yes, 1979. 1979. What they tell you about 1979 and held wrecked my career or marriage or her childrens education ochildrens educatione at this time and how i have to lose my job after 1979 and why. Theres the beginning of the understanding in the region about what that fear has done to us. It felt a little bit like i was conducting actual therapy with peoples studies and poured their hearts out to me. I am a journalist, not a historian or academic but this is more than a recorded narrative with my interviews of people in these countries. They dug deep into the archives of my research and looked at old footage and read articles, academic articles written at a time because it is interesting to see the prospect of change when you look back at the archives after the iran revolution or the siege in mecca 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 of printed papers but told the story because i thought it was important to be able to see in front of me the pictures, the headlines. Imagine finding a headline of some february 1979 where they welcome the iranian revolution because the Port Authority key was their friend and they were initially concerned about the possibility that there would be a communist takeover of iran because those were veterans at the time because it was not a dominant story and when they saw that he was rising to the top and somebody they could kind of relate to and they welcome that and said we hope that we can cooperate on the basis of the common religion and understanding of how it should be applied to the society. When you put it all together you put together a puzzle of no event, forgotten event and when you have the puzzle in front of you it gives you a very different understanding, a different reading of the last four decades of history and expands seven countries as i hai mentioned i went from egypt to pakistan, saudi arabia and lebanon and it shatters some of those truths that we have in the region because even we forget they havent always been killing each other. I grew up in the civil war in lebanon and they were never really used. It wasnt that kind of conflict but it is accepted in our collective memory that we forget what it was like before. And that rivalry evolved and mutated over time with consequences that no one could have foreseen in 1979. Now there has been a lot written i know that, but i am trying to present a different approach you will find a love of poetry and literature and cultural references because its important to remember and humanize the region that has been devoid of context in the headlines so thi this isnt a bk about terrorism, it isnt a book about al qaeda or isis. It is and even about the dangers that the fundamentalists pose for the west. Its about everything that you have already read and seen on television. With all due respect to my colleagues even i sometimes because that is just the nature of our business and why i wanted to take a step back and write this book. This is the story of the people and they are very many whose basis hasnt necessarily been heard, who have been silenced but are not silent because they continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness in the region. They are intellectuals, poets, lawyers, iranians and pakistan pakistanis, they are men and women, they have an equal number of women and characters in the book because you do not hear enough from women in the region. For the corruption and mismanagement of the countries. They are mostly devout. They pray, they go to the mosques just like you did go to church and you believe in the separation of church and state. It isnt an oxymoron. You cant believe in the separation of mosques. These are progressive thinkers that represent the very vibrant pluralistic societies that are still there underneath the black wave. Theyve suffered immensely at the hands of those that wield power or a gun or are relentlessly intolerant of other people. Some paid with their life, many of them. Some are in the pages of this book as my colleague, the saudi journalist was murdered in the consulate. You will find stories in the ane pages starting from one of the first chapters break after 1979 when he returned from his days as a student and then again a few chapters later when he becomes a journalist covering afghanistan. He is the editor of a newspaper that gets fired for having printed very critical criticizing the puritanical creed of islam that is practiced in saudi arabia. Fortunately you will meet him in the last chapter. The connections were not immediately clear as why this was part of the larger story that it really was. I have given you the conclusion, the concluding and the ending with the last chapter, of course this is not a novel although im being told it reads like a thriller. But we know how we didnt to some extent, we know where we are today and its not a great place, but we do not know how it ends because i do believe there is a Better Future ahead of us, i believe that because they look at the people who are protesting in iraq and iran and lebanon today who are paying with their lives and facing the bullets and continuing to take to the streets including the women and lebanon stand as a defense line between them and to behind them in the place in front of them because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than the man standing behind them by the repression of the police, the women in the square are absolutely incredible and how theyre taking to the streets and mocking the politician calls for the women to return home and their calls for segregation and Public Places between men and women, they mock them and say you want to take us back to which century, we are in 2020. Now, im giving you a little bit of the ending and similar conclusion but the tail actually begins just a few years before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean and lebanon, my own country which plays many times and on fortunate role in development in the region antedate as well. In a few years before 1979 on the shores of my country there was an episode that played a crucial role in setting the stage for the resolution and i would like to start the book without because there is such an irony to the fact that this revolution that turned around from a persian kingdom to a bureaucracy a revolution that was feared and organized by sekulow leftist and modernism as now youre reminded of. , the irony is that that revolution, the revolution that brought this fundamentalist to power to two cities of sin, beirut in paris. Beirut, the paris, the capital and paris, the city of the enlightenment, the birthplace of the enlightenment. It is not for freedoms of both of these countries he may have died forgotten in a culdesac in the city in iraq. I am not going to tell you too much more about how the story unfolds but what i loved about the research that i did for the book, i learned a lot about the region, i found a lot of interesting gyms headed in the pages of her history, things that were surprising, the role that the Palestinian Leader at the time played as well. In helping the iranian resolution come to be. The fact that the muslim butter under brotherhood which was still a power to be reckoned with us to some extent and some of these countries but was still in many ways a marginal Political Force in the muslim od looked to his success and thought perhaps, we could do this here and even though they went to visit him in high run to see what he could offer him. Those are all episodes that are forgotten. But i think it is important to go back into 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. As i mentioned, the characters are not the keys that drive the narrative, it is the characters like the television anchor in pakistan who said defiantly no to the nature pakistan who are really at the heart of this book. Their stories overlapping and time, some note each other, some trespass, some not. But they are all fighting for the same thing. They are fighting for a more progressive and tolerant society, for a more progressive and tolerant future, the stories are contained within the other stories of historical figures and so what you end up with is a type of 1001 nights in eastern geopolitics. I would like to stay the story is not over because as i mentioned we are still in the thrones of the people. As i write this book, i went back and forth between true despair but i eventually settled on hope because there is no other way forward. What one of the reasons i grew up in the civil war for 15 years we waited for it to end and you could perhaps say we were crazy to wait so long and not leave the country but it is not that easy to leave your home country. You have to start from scratch, somewhere else unknown, tarred, your savings is behind, your home, your belongings. So we stayed in the hope that things would when one day 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 a lot of factors that work against us. The uprising is not over and not a failure. They are only beginning and the United States took some time to become what it is today. After the french revolution, democracy was not instant, the instant result the day after. It takes time and so i settled on hope because they look around me and i look at young people younger than me, people who have never known or heard much about the days before 1979 and i see how they want to escape the ghost of the past, they want to build a different future, they want to escape the ghost of 1979. So while i written this book for people in the west in the United States and elsewhere who wonder what really went wrong in the region, i did write this book for those who remember the times before 1979 and who asked what happened, perhaps i wrote it especially for the Younger Generation who today ask their parents, why did you not do anything to stop what was unraveling. Why did you let this happen and i was really amazed to see that same question posed into countries that have a very different trajectory in a very different society. In both countries people are asking the parents, why did you let 1979 happened to us like that. So i hope that not only will the book provide you with a different perspective, much richer perspective on my region in our society but i hope this book also provides clues for the Younger Generation to help them find a better path forward, one that is not determined by ironic and soldier rabia, its important to look back so you can understand what happened because as a philosopher said it is perfectly true that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition that it must be moved forward and thats only way to go. Thank you very much for listening. [applause] thank you very much. Before i begin, we have our own scholar of iran mohammed whos written a Remarkable Book on religious sage grouse, if you have not read it you should read it because its a reinterpretation of the iranian revolution. I remember one summer coming back from a vacation, mohammed was very excited and he said he found a diary in the library of people and leaders of the iranian revolution, i found written evidence by the leaders, they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons, they did it because they wanted to prove to the leftist that they were not in bed with the cia and the u. S. Government, i remember his excitement in finding these diaries very prominent people and you see in headlines and around. I noted that you used his book in your book or the endnotes they were turned out to each other but within countries and groupings they were turned to outbid each other to come on top, its really always about power. I raise this and understand why you did not do it but i want to raise this, the one country that was under the Muslim Brotherhood years you barely mentioned in your book, he was educated, brilliant scholar actually he went to school economics, he went to school with the economy of sudan he was in the summer ofords of courset paid for by the federal government, we had a toast because we finally got rid of the democratic elected the government which had stonewalled a relief effort and a quarter of a million southerners died over the result of that. I shouldve remembered the statement when you think there is light at the end of the tunnel, theres usually a train painfullyun you over. Because as time went on, we realized it was very dangerous guy into a half Million People died while he was president. So why did you not mention this because it fits into your narrative perfectly. It does, im trying to find the one line where i do mention it. [laughter] rifling through the book very quickly, it is very interesting. Theres a technical reason why, when you write a book that is driven by narrative, it is really like writing fiction where you have to keep the reader engaged into many say no to detours and thats why you cannot put it down. So i will take that to the bank now. , it is true, i felt terrible that i cannot write more about yemen. It is another one of those pain on our collective conscience as humanity that we felt terrible d one chapter on syria. But there was a narrative that i was following, there was not a specific story that i absolutely wanted to say by ignoring other parts of the story. But i was looking at the trendlines across the 40 years and really trying to pinpoint the key moments, cultural or religious or social and pin them down in specific countries where they had happened. So the rise of islamic killings, the first moment when that happened in modern times because remember, i said they have not been killing each other forever and over the course of history, they killed each other less than catholics and protestants as of the headlines today. The moment where happened in modern times was in pakistan, it was not even in the middle east. So pakistan is a chapter where i explore that, every chapter there is a specific point or a 20point or an issue where i explore, told the narrative and i have this board on the wall where he had the southern countries that i explore in the four decades and i had posted with events happening in each of the countries in the various eras to track the trendlines. I had to eliminate and unfortunately sudan was important but it did not fit i understand. But i do mention it because its very important and is part of what we have forgotten even in the region. In egyptian intellectual sekulow progressive thinker who was trying to fight back against the rise of intolerance that was beginning to sweep his country after 1979 and he had fierce debates with muslim thinkers from the brotherhood than other groups. And he pushed back against them in a public debate once where he said i will never accept that islam be insulted, i am a musl muslim, i will always be a muslim, you can insult communism and socialism but dont insult muslim. This is a progressive thinker talking. Then he said. When you ask for an Islamic State, which one are you suggesting actually as a model, this is the 90s. There were no successful examples, iran, saudi arabia and sudan had been failures. So this is the 90s in egypt pushing back against more conservative thinkers saying point to me one successful Islamic State in our modern times and he goes on basing why the sudden obsession with an Islamic State for 1300 years since the First Century after the prophet, only 1 of people have advocated for a religious state all 99 have advocated for what we are state. So he was assassinated not long after this. It is one of the key turning points where you see a man who is so outspoken as a martyr of the nation when he is killed by radical extremist. 20 years later the same thing happened in pakistan where governor is declared in epic state for defending a christian woman, he is murdered in cold blooded daylight and no one dares anymore to come out and mourn him and declare him part of the nation. Thats how fast it unraveled. One thing that is curious but interesting that she only make up 10 of islam, it is not 5050 or two thirds one third, its 10 versus 90 . A bit more. A little bit more but not very much. 90 10 i thought somewhere around there. Most of the shieh only the majority, iran, 20 of pakistan 35, so the largest outside of iran. Is in pakistan. Yes and then iraq. Some of these actually brought up prince of a con who is the leader within shieh islam and even they objected, they said hes a here today not and i brought it up to a saudi diplomat once and he yelled at me and said they are not muslims and on and on. So even within these great traditions, their subsets and of course i walked into a surface mosque in morocco about 15 years ago in the chanting of the men was very similar to the chanting and orthodox church. Part of the heritage that we lost. That is exactly right. So the question is, how is it that a country that only makes 10 15 whatever you want, why does it pose a threat to saudi arabia you talk to the king and jordan are objections, there is a huge turnaround. There is a small percentage of the arab world and theres a fear of the muslim world. Why . I think it goes to two factors, in a nutshell, after 1979 as i mentioned, he wanted to appeal to the wider muslim world, he did not want to be an iranian leader or just a she leader, he wanted to appeal to the wider world. And he did two things, and he challenged them of the holy sites in muslim and the iranians until recently so often called for a joint body to be of the two holy sites. That drives the saudis crazy because thats where they derive in their legitimacy and power and a lot of their money as well. It is very lucrative of the two holy sites. Right after 1979 or as a part of the preparation for the revolution of iran, they had identified the palestinian cause as one that would give him appeal beyond his borders, the on the community. This is one of the episodes that begins the book where the alliance between the palestinians having been disappointed in 1967 against a israelis and having felt betrayed who is starting to make moves towards American Camps and makes moves with the israelis, so whos going to help me now. So there are connections made iranians in lebanon, militant who are working towards the fall and they are trained, many of them are trained in the palestinian camp and leno bu in. He had identified it to transcend iran and take over the sunni part to appeal to people across the region as a man who could come and where the arabs had failed and potentially liberate. Even though he is very sekulow and greater christian woman. Its about power. He had no problem greeting who o he was the first one to greet him after the revolution. He was the first foreign dignitary if you want to call him that who landed in tehran a week after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by the people in iran, they chanted today i wrong, tomorrow jerusalem. But 40 years later what happened in the interim, iran has worked very rapidly and strategically in maintaining its appeal to people outside around. They discarded the affect and really only paid lip service but their friends with the radical palestinian militant group. And they have an outfit, part of the Islamic Revolutionary guard, its named after jerusalem. And its named after bruce lum, the arabic word sorry and getting tangled up in my languages. I runs expeditionary expansionist Paramilitary Force around the region until very recently, im sure most of you know soleimani by now he was killed in a u. S. Drone strike in january of this year on the orders of President Trump, it was meant to liberate jerusalem for the palestinians in the nation except that people from soleimani from tehran to jerusalem to beirut with untold devastation for people along the way. The fear and the reason why they fear i wrong is because of its expansion policies its because it appeals to a lot of people in ways that it is not an American Camp while i wrong is in the antimaterialist camp. I will say one thing, both of these countries at this point somehow need each other, i think some extent, the saudis needonts best friend in the region. So you mentioned soleimanis name, i want to raise that is not in iraq because i happen after it was published. Is killing is not in the book but he is in the book. The last page of the last chapter is a description of a video animation put together by saudi outfit s the regime in soleimani on his knees giving himself up to the saudis, they realized they have to give it up to the americans to do it. Tell us, you wrote one or twu collaborated, you do not see the same thing but the two most thoughtful articles after soleimanis killing that i saw were one you wrote and i cannot remember where i saw it. It was in the atlantic where you describe what the u. S. Needs to do now, you are no advocate of soleimani but you were saying if you leave it this way itll be a problem and that you need a followup additional messages. What is the effect of soleimanis death on the calculus because they know he switch sides because he was leaving demonstrations to get iran out of iraq now hes leading demonstrations to get the United States out of iraq. He was hoping the saudis would back him. He blows with the wind. Its important to remember that he ran murderous motions all over the region. And oh my goodness is this going to been the u. S. And iran, there was a sense in the region that in many ways it already is constant war and violence and there were a lot of people in iraq but in syria who celebrated the demise. And in iran. Yes i wrong because we seen the footage of people coming out in mourning but also a lot of people were relieved that they put the crackdown against Peaceful Protesters in the country 2009 in 2017 and 2018 and just on 2019, that this man was finally gone. I think whats happening in the region now that all the different parties to iran that are proxies, militias, close allies or more detached allies are looking for positions to use the moment to come on top. I think thats what they are doing, hes looking at how the wind is blowing and whether he can seize the moment to become the ultimate leader in the region. I will say that i running around allies in the region are very good at turning moments of potential moments of vulnerability to moments of strength, if you remember after 2003, tehran feared they could be next with damascus and instead of cowering, bases the moment as well as a card, as much as they could and many years later or until very recently, they accepted the state of affairs that the u. S. Had left iraq to iran. Because they were ready from the getgo to turn this to their advantage. The same is happening now, the train to turn this of soleimani into a moment where they can solidify their games because they will not stop choosing violence of whoever is in front of them and sees what they can, they are facing a lot of headwinds because of the protest you are seeing in iraq and lebanon and around against tehrans strangle hold against the politics of this region. You mention the Womens Movement and i might have the revolution of the uprising of president bashir the iconic image of the young woman dressed in white with big gold earrings standing on top of a car, leading the man enchanting. And the foreign minister, once again i had a meeting with her, is a woman, unheard of in the politics. So you mention women, is there some connection between young people in the middle east and the demands they are making for reform in change in opening up of a society and a democracy. A democracy is under attack around the world. Democracy is under attack around the world, i try to avoid the word democracy when i talk about the region because it has become associated with specific u. S. Driven agendas. And i think people in the region want to set their own agenda and i think we have to trust i trust that we know what we want and what we want is a more progressive, more diverse and more tolerant future but democracy is a cookiecutter template does not work the same everywhere. You have variations in representation in the whole system et cetera. I think people across the region are connected in many ways, if you listen to the chanting industry to beirut, you will hear them say. [speaking in foreign language] to beirut one revolution that does not die, theyre not talking about 1979, theyre talking about the protest taking place today that are challenging corrupt leadership, mismanagement and the secretary is in. I nor focus in the conversation has been very much on iran, lebanon and iraq in irans role but its important to remember that there has been an uprising in sunni countries pray this is not a domination of thing. Its not only an antiaround thing. A lot of people are also fed up with the influence that theyve had on religion and culture in the region. And 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 saudis also live in fear of what their crown prince is doing and their oppression is falling upon their country, women activists who fought for the right to drive, the fight thats been going on for decades, a lot of the young activist and older activists found themselves in jail right before the crown prince or the king rather because the order still comes from the top were there spying at the top, they found themselves in jail for campaigning for the right to drive just as the right was granted to women in the kingdom. Those rates are still granted by the king, its up to his magnitude he too make this possible. I think that yes, in saudi arabia, young people are also yearning for a different future, theyre getting a lot of what they missed over the last few decades, the cinema is opening and museums are opening and dj parties and jazz concerts and all of that. But again, that is the western level of culture that the crown prince thinks he should bring to the kingdom. I know people in the country are asking what about our traditional arts and culture in our traditional dancing, it is a bit of a crisis of identity i would say in the kingdom. There is some evidence that saudi arabia, the crown prince and Prime Minister is reaching out quietly to the iranians for an approach meant, is it possible that this war will end because its very interesting theory, the United States seems to be pulling back and even though the president ordered the killing of soleimani, many of his supporters are saying now you kill them, lets get out. So the United States may not be seen as central in the middle east or pivotal in the middle east any longer and so maybe the saudis say the United States is not reliable so well have to make it out sometime, if it does what the complexion of the middle east change . We have had the talk and in the region before between the two countries pray th. The 90s with fewer wars and fewer battles because the saudis and iranians were actually on good terms, that made a huge difference. The saudis often rushed toward the talks with the iranians when they feel endangered, when they feel their position is endangered. It happened during the iran, iraq war where the iranians were on the verge or what it felt like to the saudis as a possible allout victory, against who don sued oandthey went to toronto it mistaken, and the saudis offer huge confrontation to iran, billions of dollars if they would just bring an end to the conflict because they did not want to see it outright iranian victory. The iranians had requirements that the saudis could not abide by, that included the issue of a joint body for custody over the two holy sites and that something that the saudis could not handle. And we have seen the moments before them in the 90s it was ushered in at the end of the iranian rack were, they were worried that perhaps the iranians were defeated and iraq war but now the have to deal with saddam so they tried to find a way where they could keep iran on their better side. The talk between the two countries is not possible, however, they believe that all the moments were used by iran to solidify its efficiency. While the diplomats were smiling, the iranian guard was thinking they are called deeper into areas of the region, opening Cultural Centers that post as a front for revolutionary guard activity. Andy said very clearly that he will not be fooled again, those are his words, you will not be fooled by the smiles of iranian diplomats anymore. Does he want an allout work, no. I think he wants the status quo to some extent, he does not want iran to gain too much more, he wants to be heard and contained but he also worries about President Trump not being enough of a solid ally but hes not an ally who will go to bat for the saudis, there is to american strategic interests, he will kill soleimani but he will not necessarily come to his defense if he started by iran. The saudis feel they need to hedge your back a little bit and has been in direct talks between the saudis and iranians over the last few months but i dont see ps between them were full time. I think by now it is going to require real change in behavior of the authorities in iran and i dont see that happening either. One other massive change and i saw an article in the washington post, i cannot remember what year but maybe five or six years ago when one of the princes in the world family in saudi arabia said israel now house the same interest as we have, you never hear that in the saudi royal family saying Something Like that. So israel now is not the threat it was before, israel always thought egypt since the signing of the peace corporation, to have other arab states seeing israel as a counterbalance to iran and therefore consistent with their own interest, that is a big change. That is a big change. Its a big change, it explains why arab countries did not forcefully reject President Trumps peace plan, even though they mad may disagree with her,y put out a sharp statement at the arab league but it does not serve much purpose, the statement was literally to the palestinian because countries like saudi arabia want to stand President Trumps good side, because they want it to be about the focus to be encountering tehran and even if they dont, as i just mentioned feeling President Trump would necessarily come to their immediate defense if they are threatened by iran or talk by ron, they still feel this is the camp that will serve them best and therefore theyre willing to be silent on certain issues as long as israel is also doing some of the countering of iran john in the region. I think i saw today that iranians and the americans and the israelis have agreed that one will take on ira i around in syria and the other will take on iraq and that will survive. You have a lot of stories you do not put in the book. Yes, i do, time for another book. So many stories. Will there be a sequel. , i dont know which one is always a challenge to see where you have the most information where you can work with im not sure, theres one incident and is about a safari club, the safari club was the name of an Intelligence Corporation Group Intelligence group that brought together the saudis, the iranians, before 1799, the french, the americans if im not mistaken and possibly the british and it was called safari because they met at the safari club in kenya. It was a bit of Intelligence Officers from these countries were the height of the cold war, they plotted and debated in various countries where they were worried about the advance of communism. I always wondered what more do we know about this, i have not found any books about it. I dont think theres many books written about it. But i know it existed. It did exist. And there are lot of interesting aspects to it and i sort of think it would be good to write an article about it and write a novel based on that. When i was president bush 43 envo43envoy to sedan and i met h all these in egypt and ethiopia, kenya, uganda and libya and libya was a most interesting because i met four hours, he left very quickly when the government was going down the tubes but he was very powerful and he had a map in the peace agreement, there was 70 ages of the Intelligence Service and libya giving money and weapons out to the rebels because they did not like bashir, i said wait a second, you are handing out weapons and he mentioned all the leaders who i was trained to negotiate with. I realize the oversight but i did not realize how central libya was to what was going on. So the best conversation that i had for the intelligence chief, whenever my history of sudan i could not mentioned in the notes where the information came from what it was very useful to understand the complexities of the region, they keep shifting. I think espy said in the 70s in the middle east. [laughter] it was interesting. There would be a movie. What is a moderating influence in iran, lets put some time aside, for a while now, certainly the regime is using this to reunite the populations behind the theocracy. But that will not last forever because at 30 ended. At 30 ended really. I think it was a very brief moment of unity and i have seen some iranians dispute the numbers of people who participated in the funeral of soleimani in the large crowds. Im not an expert and things like that but some people have disputed the numbers. I also think in moments like that people come out out of fear for what could happen to the country, no matter what they think of the regime. Out of fear they can be punished if they do not show up because its still a country that is run in an autocratic way so customs are close, shops are close, you have to show up, i dont doubt out of nationalism people also mourned him. Of course, im not an iranian 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 the downing of the ukrainian plane when 170 people died, full of young promising iranians and running canadian in various hyphenated nationalities in the authorities and the guard specifically very clearly lighting over the course of several days that they were responsible, they lied or hid the reality, the truth from the president ho the people expressd on the streets in the aftermath of the mission that this had been tehrans halt it tells you, how brittle things are. I am not one to predict the fall of the regime 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 its the young people protesting or the women protesting against the mandatory on the daily basis and what is a war of attrition against the regimes control over society and whether the Labor Movement that is organizing in the country and reducing the challenges are mounting, if not for the regime but at least the regimes way of doing things. So these other moderating influences in society. I had a student from afghanistan tell me and they lifted up and he was right, in the 1960s there were afghan womans wearing miniskirts. The perception that afghanistan was an evil society for a thousand years and they had not made any progress in number identity is simply nonsense. This is in the cities, not in the rural area. I seen this picture, i wrote an article as well to point out when you look at these pictures, particular in a country like afghanistan, what you look at is a westernized elite, the minority. When you see pictures like that in a country that is larger and at the time more modernized like egypt, then women in skirts was not westernized minority but an expression of choices made by more than a minority. What i like to make clear is what women in the middle east want, its not the right to wear a miniskirt, maybe they dont want to wear a miniskirt, what they want is the right to choose. Whether they want to wear the skirt or not, thats what weve lost the freedom to choose. Which is what defined her society before. Even in iran today, the women protesting against the mandatory veil, some of them are veiled and they werent right choice. They want their fellow iranian women to have the choice to wear it or not. And that is what people are protesting against. When it comes to afghanistan in particular, we heard joe biden in the debate say afghanistan all paraphrase in the book, country can never be put together, we take issue with statements like that. I think its too easy to dismiss a whole country like that whether its iran or iraq, similar statements were made at the time and it ties in with the statement of always killed each other, its been like that forever, its a little bit of a compound, its a way of saying we cannot do anything we will not try. That is not to say that we are calling for you as intervention or invasion to fix us, thats not the solution either. But its too easy to dismiss as people who cannot get their act together, we are seeing tremendous odds and some of those include u. S. Backing for dictator. In egypt, and other countries of the region. Dictators who us preconceived is of the region. They safety their means, the modernizing man looked in a suit or the fundamentalist crazies. That is a not the minor choice that is available in the region. I think we need to have more faith in the region. Were pastor do in terms of time we were going to have this talk together, i would like to thank you for being with us. Thank you very much for having me, this is the center of the United States but the rest of the country does not know is lawyerly see it this way. We appreciate you coming all the way from washington or beirut. Thank you so much for having me, it was a pleasure being here tonight