Transcripts For CSPAN2 Philip Gordon Losing The Long Game 20240711

In as many questions as possible. It is my great pleasure to introduce todays speaker, philip gordon. He is a senior fellow at the u. S. Foreign policy here at cfr. For joining the council fill a special assistant to the president and white house coordinator for the middle east, north africa in the gulf region under president obama. He previously served the assistant secretary of state for european affairs. He is responsible for the relations of more than 50 countries in europe and eurasia along with nato, eu, and the organization for security and cooperation in europe. Phil has also had a distinguished scholarly career having written and coauthored numerous books on u. S. Policy and foreign affairs. Today we are here to recognize his newest book, losing the long game, the false promise of regine change in the middle east. Former u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers hails it as an examination of u. S. Regime change efforts in the middle east. The journalist robin white calls it must read for everyone interested in americas Foreign Policy. And let me note for all cfr members on todays call, that you should receive an email on september 17 provide you with the opportunity to receive a free copy of losing the long game as well as two other cfr books published this month. Ask you to all take us up on that offer. With that i went to introduce philip gordon. Zack its great to be here and look at the participants have a great group some looking forward too the conversation. Direct first let me say congratulations on the publication of the book and the praise received from early reviews. Begins with the question of why this book, fill at this time . As you said jim this is a history of u. S. Regime change in the middle east. Written in the spirit of trying to learn our history lest we repeat it. I really started to thinking about this in particular and im thinking about regime change around the world for a long tim time. I felt this needed a close look as i watched in particular the Trump Administration over the past couple of years formulate its policy on iran which started to look like gearing up for potential regime change. Of course thats not the stated goal but there a lot of proponents in and outside the administration pointing in that direction the policy seem to point in that direction. Before we what does down a perilous road like armageddon, may be the useful expression when have we done this before . How if we done it before question and where the lessons having done so . It turns out, which i did in the book it turns out this is not so unusual. We have had a regime change in the middle is about once per decade starting ironically enough with the coup in iran in 1963. And then you get afghanistan twice with the regime post child bond, obviously the iraq war. In that interventions by obama in egypt and syria. So its something we regularly have done. What i do in the book is look for patterns and lessons from that. The short version is that in every case no matter how we did it or why we did the costreduction be greater than we thought. It was hard to deliver the objectives and their masses of unintended consequences. Fair enough to the book losing the long game we delved into plus 70 odd years, it can history cloud for me whether you are making a broader argue of that regime change that never works anywhere . Or specifically does not work in the middle east . Good, sure. The book focus on the middle east for a range of reasons. Including for the fact the most part there is that forward contemporary debate about the middle east about regime change, i mention iran is clearly on the agenda. People clearly talk about it we recently pursued it and still want to pursue it in syria and allied countries the regime in saudi arabia and whatever for gutfeld to me like the most and kurt policy thing to think about. Its also i had the most personal experience. The first remark is not just a historical exercise but it is a reflection on her own experience the former Obama Administration pursuing similar goals on some of the countries i mentioned. But i do mention more frequently than in the middle east and elsewhere those reasons if most policy relevance today is where i have direct experience. Also relevant in a sense i argue its even harder to pull this sort of thing off in the middle east than elsewhere because of the nature of the states in the middle east. There arent longstanding coherent nationstates as in some other parts of the world. In other words other than turkey, egypt and iran, most of these countries where borders were artificially created. They cross chat religion, primes and groups. M elsewhere when you remove a regime in the middle east and create a vacuum and hook it up to greater within states and among states for this weather focus in the middle east. Quebec lets dive into the cases. I expect most people reading the book will grant you that the u. S. Invasion of iraq is not as well for less talk about a nether case you discuss in the book which is the intervention in afghanistan in 1980. That has the low Cost Initiative and undermine the soviet union at the same time. So i take it you disagree. So why is the conventional way wrong . Thats actually really interesting case jim. Think you are right. People have not really focused on this would instinctively say obviously the iraq war was a disaster and the cost is been off the charts. There other cases were successful. Especially the Intelligence Community paid the first intervention afghanistan is like the poster child affects the right word. A model of intervention or its not like the iraq war were you invaded theres casualties in massive cost of a trillion dollars. Afghanistan is a small amount of matter all told about a billion dollars you compare them to afghanistan and iraq. We achieve the objective of supporting opposition that would put pressure on the government. The objective with afghanistan at first to courses escalated over time. Theres always Fishing Creek so under carter even before the soviets were rated 1979 the injector was a quick on the background. And with the reagan the objective became weird going to drive the soviets out. Bob gates is that ca the time that theyre going to win. And then time out that enjoyed the soviets out were going to change the regime. There is mission and escalation. The point about being Obvious Success is people member didnt cost much. We got rid of the communist government and the soviet union collapsed. So what could be better . One of things that struck me as looking at this model how could you argue against it is that when you put it into full perspective it is not such a nobrainer this was a great idea. Unintended consequences manifes manifest. Its true we achieve the objectives that are just stated. But we also led to by pursuing the opposition a savage civil war that lasted for more than ten years, killed over a million afghans which is a tenth of the population at the time. Too many more into pakistan fueled this movement in motion that their supporters included by the way a psalm of bin laden could take down a superpower by fighting against it with another superpower which was us. See get this afghanistan, savage civil war with casualties and consequences. And then even after the regime goes that warlordism and we go away but they keep fighting until the taliban finally come back. Four years after the regime falls and institutes the utopia of chopping off limbs and destroying statues and keeping girls out of school and forcing them to wear beards and repressing the society and hosting al qaeda which ultimately affects the United States. After which we respond again by doing another regime change in afghanistan and theyve had to say that for the last 20 years for cost of a trillion dollars and so on. Sorry to be long about that. Snatchers interesting to think about the long term consequences are much greater then just looking at the immediate result of the regime change initiative. The other historical issues are the u. S. Supporting to the iran in 1953 and also the invasion of afghanistan in 2001. I want to focus on the other cases you look at still because you played a role youre in the Obama Administration when he is ousting when odyssey don when president obama first erase the redline in syria. Can you sort of take us quickly through those cases . Tell us what you saw as a practitioner . Sure that is really interesting as well. When i answered your question about what led me to it work on this reflected on before we do and iran maybe its worth doing with the rest of the pack. The other reason i wanted to give it a hard thing and do some research about it is as you say my own personal experience. Which is extremely ironic that barack obama would be involved in regime change in the middle east as well. Obama who is much as anything was elected because of his principal opposition to regime change. He arguably had a lot of other issues but he defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary she supported he was well placed against john mccain as he supported the surge early on, very early on. Raise questions such as the sort of thing im talking about pretty much chicago speech when his unknown state senator the written about some of your books when he says well, i am not against war. I am just against dom wars are will empower al qaeda and lead too all sorts of unintended consequences. Any turned out to be right. That is the irony of that barack obama instinctively posted this finds himself doing pursuing said this at the top or all of these regime changes are different theres a different motivation and lumping together. What is similar is the notion that the United States can decide that a particular regime is so problematic whether its repressive or threat to us going to remove it with Something Better in place. The three things obama is right about with libya and syria are hugely different in egypt was actually an allied country. We did not intervene at all. We use diplomacy but we can still say with that constituted the regime. In libya we did intervene in a war that again started with a different mission. And libby was saving lives, with the Un Security Council to do. So we ultimately decided to achieve that objective. And in syria we did not intervene military directly but with very different cases. And yet in each one, even barack obama, getting back to the notion that is a disciplined president elicit get it to asia not get bogged down in the middle east and certainly not go to war in the middle east finds themselves pulled into this motion that we fuse our power in one way or another to bring about positive transformation. It is tragic to say you look at each of the countries today we certainly fail to achieve that goal. See when lets walk to these cases. Well begin egypt rate of just envying militarily you yourself alluded to the question with your set of cases so walking quickly through how he now understands our decision and why that counts. C1 sure and its fair to ask why is egypt in there . Its not regime change for you can make a case that its not. The reason i keep it in this category is that once the revolution was underway, we did ultimately get to a point just to be clear here its when the United States sets out to get rid of the government and transform the political systems not even when you put one leader over the other within our syste system. It also transform the system. I think will admit we tried to do that in egypt. Once we decided it could not survive anymore and i cite the situation calling him toast. Once he was toast we decided to not only urge him and push him out with diplomacy, but support elections that we knew were likely very different political approach which change their regime and that since it did become u. S. Policy britt how did that happen . Thats part of your question. Of course it did not happen initially as barack obama gets elected and they figure how to get rid was the opposite in which again it was ironic they have the bush administration, george w. Bush determined to spread democracy use freedom and transform the region and pursue these goals. Even bush and the second term had more or less moved on an American Public was just not into it was just a we sort of decided democracy in the middle east and regime change was not our thing. Outside of our controls, get people in these country start to demand change. And that is obama he did not initiate this but you get the developments in the country and people start to think maybe this is possible. And then it starts to spread to other countries including egypt. That presented the United States with a policy choice. And the spectrum was not massive. But within the spectrum as an orderly transition or just decide look he is on his way out we should be on the right side of this. And i relate this in the book, and theres dont get too much into the weeds here but its interesting and relevant as a generational divide the habit the top of the National Security team of obama between those more scene here cabinet officials. Secretary gates Vice President biden and others chief of staff daily or more cautious and skeptical and the next generation is saying no barack obama trying to promote change for there was a policy choice and it came head when it came time for obama to address what he should do. Homes on the orderly transition side and ended up going in the latter direction. Subject lets talk a bit because some people would say that wasnt initially about regime change. Its about the responsibility to protect and those be violent suppression by colonel qaddafi and his government. You have a particularly unusual take on this. In august of this was a nato operation, a lot of pressure calls for some of the closest allies in europe to join in this effort. Again you came away saying bad idea we should not have done this. So walk me through that case. You are right and i have a different window on that. Considering the middle east for the white house. As across the mediterranean from europe and stressing about in this case there is a europeans pushing us to intervene. The classic thing i system iron especially someone with a long background on europe that it was a weird for me to it watch in one case u. S. Secretary of state be lectured to by the french and the italians for not believe in the military force. That is what happened in marc march 2011 when i went to g7 ministerial with secretary clinton in paris. We did not have a position yet because the u. S. Government this was a damned if you do damned if you dont typical policy call. Bunch of civilians intervening getting bogged down in a conflict or provoking even further division. But the fascinating thing on the european angle of that is the europeans felt like this is producing refugees paired we heard that from the italians. Britain felt the same way. Going to act in the u. S. Needs to be here. They were pressing us and urging us, those of us to live the 2003 iraq war and the germans dragging their feet and being berated by us definitely shoot on the other foot sort of experience. That fed into the decisionmaking back here in washington. And frankly important factor. It partly helps explain why this noninterventionist barack obama ended up intervening. Its the pressure to do so. Domestic media but also allied. You have your allies urging heavy air of allies urging us to activate in this case that would help swing secretary clintons judgment. You also have a generational divide on libya was a generational divide on egypt and president clinton was in the middle saying both. But a secretary of state hearing this constant pressure we need the u. S. To be a team player in you need to lead. That leans on the side of intervening and ultimately help here with interesting and sort of underscores theyre trying to occupy after you intervene with a cost of spending hundreds of billions of dollars taking casualty. They tried to get the opposite way for the u. S. But the unique capabilities to get rid of qaddafi can do without peacekeeping savvy forces and occupation libya should the risk of doing the opposite. So unless i caught the third case, syria. He moved with the white house. You portray this as a regime change. Think it comes as no surprise to you that a lot of people would argue just the opposite. The real problem institute serial is not regime change. We do not fully commit to a policy regime change. I do see that versus a misguided place of the case. You are right a lot of this happened while i was doing middle east. So it started like the other cases in 2010, 2011 people start to rise up as they had done against others. And elsewhere. Although there is a bit of a time lag with the other cases were more quickly and the syrians were watching what was happening and those other cases. Sue had a couple of years before i started to live with issue directly into thousand 13 were u. S. Policies did not intervene. I think obama was really keen on avoiding getting bogged down in the middle east conflict. The same lessons that he drew from my rock with unintended consequences. He even notes himself, he points out early on when others are starting to push the United States to intervene more and they could ensure a judge should overthrow said publicly commission a cia study the same sort of angle in my book. And they say the response is not very encouraging. I dont think its any secret obama was determined to avoid being pulled into a intervention or were seem change in syria. Over time, just like described in libya the pressure screwed. Part of the pressure what the ground and the humanitarian situation. Also the pressure from congress, media allies who want to do more and more and more. And ultimately that did lead the United States to increase its support for the opposition. What showed on this is what i have from all these cases and certainly the case of syria it showed that modest increases in military forces for support for the opposition does not really necessarily lead too a quick transition or a transition at all and the empowerment of pro American Partners or democrats for stability. It escalates and especially in the case of syria just different from libya and egypt because syria regime had backers in places like russia that were equally determined or more determined to counter escalate. I think you really have these scores and rebuts the notion that for modest resources or modest intervention or modest use of force we could have the most objectives like changing the regime. Once you started to do more in support of the opposition is the regime backers started doing more in terms of backing the opposition. All these cases show this not an example where sanctions led to regime change because the regime has too much to lose. No more modest amounts of military force. Course it wouldve been possible to do whatever it took to overthrow the regime. That would not have been possible with airstrikes of a chemical weapons in 2013 or more aid and more arms to the opposition. It would have been understanding that the escalation wouldve been required to be much greater than people imagined. And then a willingness and an answer for what you do once you get rid of that regime. Just like in every other proceeding case you create a vacuum that lead too a Competition Among Different Actors in syria. And Different Actors in the region. You would have to be able to answer what you do in that case. My last point on this just underscore because by the middle of this conflict it was clear to me as we were still trying to get rid of the regime i didnt know who would come to power in his wake. But i did know it was not going to be democratic opposition that we were most in favor of. You created the dynamic like this based on arming people theyre able to see his power especially with the support of the allies abroad. If that even gets consolidated most likely be the most violent and most extreme. So can i ask you one more question before we bring the rest into the conversation. In terms of questions about forced principles or basic analysis i will take your point that none of these operations achieve all of their objectives and some fail spectacularly. We grew up knowing what we did but tried to develop some sense if we had not acted. I know we can write history can happen anyway you want, but are you sure the United States to be off it had pursued different strategies in the middle east. Couldnt we have ended up with equally miserable track record complaining we did too little rather than too much . We certainly would. And they were described in all of these cases whichever approach we tried, the critics afterward say the opposite wouldve been the better one. Thats not just whether to intervene or not but how you do it. Give a big occupation force have a big critique saying get the argument. Certainly a fair question. He also say how can he be sure . I am not sure. These are all superhard calls. In all of the options were bad im the first to admit. All these cases the regimes were bad as well. Frivolously just because they had not thought it through. There were always very sound reasons whether it was geopolitical competition or concern about mass, these were terrible regimes that is not my argument at all. It comes down to whether you are able to achieve your objective and the other thing that is relevant and i want to get to in this context is the notion of, this is a very american thing. When the situation is bad there is always a solution. And dont just stand there, do something. I say that it is an american thing because theres something in the American Political Culture is great accomplishments the city has been so powerful for so long that it has often been the case that the naysayers were wrong i put the tremendous things like world war ii and democratizing our allies in europe and asia. We can get those things done. Theres a problem theres another solution we can fix it. Its an honorable and noble and positive attitudes also potentially dangerous one. I think it a number of these cases thats what i tried to shokin get you in trouble to disable the situation is bad, it cant get much worse. Lets fix it. I think clearly we saw that and i rockford the naysayers were wrong, right . They just do not have the confidence in American Power and leadership that they should. But not just the naysayers were wrong. Think the true in syria. I cant get much worse because its a terrible dictator, so do something. But if what you do and in the case of serious escalate awards or bring it to conclusion, makes things worse and it really is the worst of all worlds. That is why i think it is dangerous to think that if you are not happy with the situation, change it and see what happens. Finally this is what youre getting at in the alternative in the book a try to be honest in each case when i show the costs and consequences of what we did. I went up and talk about with the alternative to it was. It is never great. But think as a general rule and im happy to talk about it case by case, we are better off when we use situations like this some combination of containment and terms and diplomacy and engagement and armscontrol and development that we are when we decide were just going to transform the situation but Something Better in place. When you look around the world i cases were trying to transform the regime successfully and libya as opposed to places where we have decided to manage and engage i think it really strongly suggests to general rule a better approach. On really liked upon the thread that youve laid out and asked the question whether we can breaker regime change habit. On to ask myself one more question. This time elected ask members to join the conversation that they might have. I want to remind everybody this meeting is on the record and sergent take the first question will take the first question from gregory. Thank you very much highfill. You made a very interesting point at the beginning about the middle east having just a couple of real states and lots of artificial states. Do you think regime change is easier or makes more sense . Or has more longterm possibilities of good consequences unquote real states . Because we did, iran is a rustic, right . And we got 25 years out of that coup and 53. And you could say they had longterm at 25 years during the cold war many people might say not so bad. And egypt of course is a real state. One can go look at the pyramids. Ups and downs. But egypt is not a failed state. And not a major headache for us. Do you think that it makes sense to think about regime change in real states as opposed to artificial states . We do it yes hi greg. Two very interesting questions are the short answer is yes, i do. And please dont misunderstand that is not a way of saying oh regime change is easy we should start going about it. But in terms of easier guests in the sense give a greater chance of some form of institutional cohesion and a quote unquote real state. Think by that we mean time with institution some National Unity to hold it together. Then you do in artificial state states. That are just even more fractured. Every state is fractured along all sorts of ideological lines. There is fractured and more fractured. Once he removed the regime as horrible or oppressive as it might be, you really are creating that competition for power. We have just never been able to show a way around that. And not only that, particular in the middle east, you get that Competition Among the Different Actors within the states. And something you know, greg, all too well because of the fractures across the region you get Competition Among states. And its not just a people think about and focus on, rightly so. The countries are lining up, you have a similar sort of thing going on in yemen. Frankly any country and syria as well. States are lining up on one side and this time backing the regime. Underestimated and all this is the suny divide. She remove a regime even if you have the great benefit of not having a split you get the dispute among the islamists with turkey and Muslim Brotherhood in egypt on one side. And then the emirates, saudi arabia and the injection government before our eyes in libya today with the civil wars raging. So you say libya is in that category artificial. Im not longstanding nationstate with basis of unity. Yes i think it is that much harder. And again another reason that the precedents people have cited for where this works for you remember before the iraq war theres a vigorous argument for regime change their yet all of these arguments. It worked wellin germany, japan and other cases like panama and grenada we can get into that. Part of the issue states like longstanding institutions and some democratic precedents of a much greater chance to survive regime change doing in the middle east. Thats would very briefly because i said you raised a bunch of interesting things. Dont get me wrong i mentioned the iran coup caught the original sins also negative consequences. You are right that 25 years in the cold war is not that bad. Another one where one could argue it was a success and reasonable objectives were received. But just like i made case about afghanistan intervention, true got rid of a nationalist but we also in that episode really showed so many others how we start to spin the analysis around what we want to see. And overstate the threat and that theyre going to take iran into the communist camp. In retrospect its like it was vastly overstated. And by getting rid we definitely empowered a pro american regime to help u. S. Oil companies. We also destroyed any prospect of democratization in iran. But in place repressive dictators not only bad for the uranium public but fueled this anti americanism, the price for which we started paying in 1979 with the revolution and have been paying for 40 years since. So even in that case i would never say theres nothing in the positive ledger but the longterm consequences are pretty extreme there too. Sara next question. Will take the next question from george. Thank you very much for a very interesting talk. I am george with the university of california berkeley. My question is about the trump strategy towards iran today. Some argue that it is geared towards policy change on the part of iran three combination of military threat and economic strangulation. Others who find it not likely that the Iranian Regime is going to back off on eithers Nuclear Developments or its adventures and middle east, argued the real strategy is regime change as you indicated at the start of your talk. I am wondering, other than the fact that regime change really works, whether there is anything about the contemporary iranian situation that would leave one to be either pessimistic or optimistic about the feasibility of this strategy of economic strangulation and military threat leading to regime change. Rights. The reason with the stated pulsing iran is not regime change its behavior change. Im prepared to accept that at face value saying if the regime stops meddling in the region, stops meddling with the people and backed away from any Nuclear Ambition the Trump Administration site Mission Accomplished we are fine or not going to take in more steps to overthrow the regime. On the face of it, fair enough theres no regime change. But realistically i think that is the only real goal. Because the demands that are stated demands for that behavior change almost seem designed to be rejected. On the nuclear deal alone it is a deal that means zero enrichment get rid of everything theyve learned and done for the past 20 years has to last forever. It includes ballistic missiles, regional activities inspections whenever you want to wherever we want. Dont get me wrong, take that deal tomorrow it would be great. I also dont think it will happen. I dont think the Trump Administration will thanks it will happen. When you follow the policy and listen to the way they talk about it and trump said to let the iranians reclaim their history. And pompeo himself the secretary of state pompeo last year kind of admitted he was pressed in a podcast you dont really think this Iranian Regime can change you . He said but what can happen is people can change the regime. I think that is clearly what the strategy is. Maximum pressure is definitely increased and impose tremendous pain on the uranian economy and public. In fact iran is still doing provocative things in the region and is expanding its nuclear program. Some are explicit about it come some implicit, squeeze them and squeeze them and squeeze them until the people rise up. Trump support for protest and calls for protest really does look like that is the objective. So finally he also asked if theres any reason this can wor work, no im skeptical for all of the reasons that ive been talking about in these other cases. On these sanctions is just not the case there is precedent for sanctions for even tough sanctions that bring leading regimes to accept power. They just dont. That happens in the middle east against Saddam Hussein they were crippling sanctions and nofly zones and squeeze the country hurt the public and mightve constrained a nuclear capabilit capability. But he did not leave power to the set in the big army to get him. Qaddafi, huge assuring sanctions and were affected with the Nuclear Ambitions. But even sanctions plus bombing by nato did not agree to leave power. We pursued that by the way it so that we talked about in the book was to persuade them to go. He fought until he was founded a pipe in murdered with assault on video. Aside, crippling sanctions deficit into the core of the public he is not leaving power either. You can say the same about the military force. I think it is a fantasy to believe that sanctions however binding will have a regime including that regime to either be overturned by the population. We can take the next question please . Will take the next question from lindsey. Height both to be thank you for a terrific conversation is been a fascinating discussion. So i am curious about the consequences of your arguments in the inverse. The United States taken a number of actions to change regimes in the middle east. Taken overt and covid to preserve regime stability. Im curious if you see similar consequences happening over time or in regimes like that . Before they go talk in places like egypt and saudi arabia where we back the regime is supported it as opposed to getting rid of it . Yes. Look there consequences of that to pretty think when you compare them to the alternative they dont look so bad. Thats what made about managing problems and using diploma and engaging. The regime that were replaced were horrible people should not misunderstand my argument. Its not that we should not wish for even regime change but let me clear in our own i would love to see regime change. They didnt all sorts of horrible things to its people into the region so the policy question so we should wish for a different regime. Whether actions we should take like crippling sanctions and military force are likely to lead to Something Better. So if thats the case you could probably listed number of regimes in the middle east or elsewhere in the world where we would wish them to be otherwise. But unless we have a realistic plan to bring that about and not only bring it about but to then follow it up with something that is going to be more stable, peaceful, and have better relations with the United States are more consistent in the United States that many to think about it. Think whenever you find yourself criticizing certain regimes in the region or in the world, the United States deals with or supports even though it agrees they are problematic ask yourself about the alternative. And i think that helps understand why living with and managing shouldnt use the tools available to press them on depression and human rights. Or to align themselves with our interest or develop weapons of mass destruction or not invade their neighbors. I think there are a lot of things we can and need to do with our power. However frustrating we might be with some of these regimes that we support, contemplate the alternative. I say that again remind that strong statements from the white house or a weekend bombing or sanctions are not going to bring about that goal. If you are not happy with the regime youre going to have to do a lot more than that they did that and answer the question of what comes in its wake. He had some regrets about the libya operation he put some more in the category its the right thing to do we failed to follow up. I challenge that argument. That is the easy way to look at this after the fact that you dont question the operation itself. You say we couldve followed it better. Present obama rightly says with libya for going to do that you need to answer the question about the date answer for a few cannot answer the question of the day after you really need to think carefully about whether or not that should be your goal. We will take the next question from mark hanna. s vic mr. Haner please hit the mute prompt. Can you hear me now . Okay i want to thank you for writing this book and it will be valuable to have an insiders view on regime change. I want to ask a question about the International Precedents that is set for the United States as the ultimate rules maker and precedents after the rules based international order. Do you worry that other governments might look to regime change as a legitimate Foreign Policy tool or tactic in their region now that we have done so im thinking about iran backing the rebels in yemen. And think about china neighbors in their neighborhood that they might once an odious regime and their eyes change. To get into that in this book . A little bit. I do point out you could write an entire book about the costs and consequences of other countries attempts to change regimes in different regions and followed somebody similar traps as us. The british and the french, going to lebanon and 82. You mention the hood sees which has regime change and yemen within the saudi response is also an attempt to change the regime. I dont think anyone can quibble with the saudi objective of not wanting the regime to be in power. You could question the effectiveness of that regime change approach that led to what is now close to six years of a horrific war with horrific consequences. I do talk about non u. S. Cases examined in retail like the u. S. Yes there are nonus cases where this is backfired as well. The . Though is that yes there will be other countries i will pursue a regime change as they have in the past. But the reality is that in many cases, other country strategy for regime change entailed getting the United States to execute regime change. Most countries do not have the capacity to do what we have to do. I dont to disparage any small country by questioning it sanctions ability. But the United States as were putting out massive sanctions for you cannot trade United States if you do not do the following things, thats a pretty big deal. Even anger only say will put on our secondary sanctions. So we can allow ourselves as americans to think about pursuing such goals and other countries can militarily. Wednesday heres the red light and morgan change the regime if you dont do what we want is just not an option for most countries. So in that sense you mentioned iran, china, there are some countries in limited cases who might be able to pursue regime change policies on their own. They are nowhere near what we can do. And like i said if you look at it other countries when they set about to try to get rid of their neighboring arrivals its also through American Power. Given the british and the french in turkey and syria once turkey had decided that it was determined it did not occurred to the turks to invade damascus and overthrow the regime, they do not have the capacity for that. Ed did occur to them to set up a dynamic that would lead the United States to be anymore direct conflict with the regime and get rid of it. So in that sense i think if the they make clear that will get less likely to do because they do not have the military or economic to realistically pursue it. s two take the next question from John Sullivan greetings. Thank you very much for your presentation. I look forward very much to reading. I am John Sullivan i used to be the center for International Private enterprise. You about be surprised by my question. Which is have you looked at Ronald Reagans westminster speech as well as his speech on the opening of the National Endowment for democracy . He sets out, unfortunate dont think his predecessors have followed. But his idea was and he says in his speech, we cannot impose our system of government on the country. Rather what we must do his work with democrats within their companies to try to promote, help development of the country. I wish others had followed was curious as to your thoughts. Note would make a comment if he mustve looked at the work of Richard Cottam of the Landmark Book called nationalism and ira iran. He was actually a cia officer stationed in iran in 1953 who opposed the overthrow and pretty much laid it out. I was one of the students but laid out pretty much the consequences of that in terms of the longlasting implications which you have mentioned. I think it is fascinating. But thank you for your time. Thanks very much. You broke up a little bit but im glad you raised reagan. Because its an important peace of this in the sense that many people invoke Ronald Reagan as a proponent of regime change. The president show taking it successfully by confronting the soviet union. And invoke reagans policies and thats how he brought down the soviet union. We can do the same thing through sanctions and military activities in iran or elsewhere. I actually think the history of the cold war is not the time to get into the history of the cold war. But the lesson of the cold war i think is not how the United States can successfully pursue regime change. But its totally the opposite. The united chain did not there active 1950s rollback with the committee on the present danger and the desire to have unrest and overthrow the soviet government. But as a general rule and has containment and has accepted their certain problems that you cannot fix as a reasonable cost. So you try to contain them shape them use their diplomacy and arms control and there sometimes a better outcome to transform the situation directly and especially during regime change. Even Ronald Reagan. Beaufort people forget Ronald Reagan engaged the soviet union he wrote letters to the general secretaries of the communist party they were not that different from obamas letters to the Supreme Leader and iran about the desire to move forward and have pragmatic relations. So i think it is a myth to think somehow we won the cold war, we tried to do a regime change in the soviet union. Which came about of her time came out not because we arm the opposition for fermented rebellion of the people rose up and got rid of the regime. Came up the opposite way with the regime realized it was a terrible system it was losing geopolitically was losing economically and decided it had to try different approach. He pursued a different policies at home and abroad. So reckon i think is interesting because he is misused secretary pompeo gave his iran speech at the break in my brain california not with the densely to the notion that reagan was a big regime change her. I think if you actually look at the history of the cold war policies has containment and deterrence. Sue and thank you very much phil we have come to the end of our time pretty wanted to thank you for taking us through some sudden decades of history in the middle east. I want to remind cfr members on the call but you should have received an email on september 17 which gives you an opportunity to get a copy of phils book losing along game game for free production of the audio will be posted on cfrs website. Cfr. Org put on to thank everyone for joining us today. Thanks everybody. During a virtual author event hosted by bookstore in ann arbor, michigan retired nasa astronaut terry burks reflected on his time in space. Heres a portion of that discussion pace back and i talked about a lot of the different aspects of the launch. Personal just getting into your suit and how complicated that is in the process of getting strapped into a Space Shuttle is not exactly like going into your car and putting on a seatbelt. And the experience with launch development with the noise the views that i had in the sound of things happening a what it felt like, just the experience of the launch. Dental lot is a Fighter Pilot and test pilot. I thought i do knows getting into. And actually launching on endeavor was unlike anything ive ever done to say the least. So the launch chapters pretty cool. I like that part of the story. In another part of life in space you would probably expect is spacewalking. Again, getting in that suit their that you see me end, that thing is three or 400pound behemoth. It takes hours to get into. Astronauts is a decrease their pressure they have to worry about the same problem scuba divers have. That is getting the bends when youre changing pressure if you do it to quickly. So in hollywood you just throw your suit you go outside and start fighting the aliens. In real space the whole process takes hours for it is a long ordeal prints right talked through that and then what its really like to be outside your this big bulky suit you get this thin plastic visor in front of you. And on the other side of that is instant death. The threat level of getting outside on a spacewalk is a little higher than doing other things. The views that i saw i felt like at times i was seeing creation. Like humans are not supposed to see this this is gods view. And then i had to get back to work and plug in some or cables. To watch the rest this program got our website but to. Org search for the author or the title of his book how to astronaut using the search box to the top of the page.