Kenow today. He currently serves as ceo of Business Executives for National Security. He joined there in january 2020 following 39 years of distinguished military service and served for three years as the commander of the u. S. Central command and he prior to serving as the commander of Central Command he commanded the u. S. Special Operations Command and the special joint Operations Command in addition to his current role as the executives for National Security he is also a distinguished senior fellow in National Security at the middle Eastern Institute and we have the president of the middle east institute here. He has got to talk about the theme that has come up through other discussions this morning, which we are all aware of but werent exactly sure what to think about and i think a moment about 30 minutes we will know exactly what to think about it, about how we should think about Great Power Competition in the gulf so. Im delighted to introduce general joseph votel. He sent to this thank you so much its great to be on the job. Thanks for the rotation here. Thanks for your flexibility in scheduling. I give a speech up in new york a couple of weeks ago as part of my responsibilities with Business Executives for National Security and i gave one of these typical new york clubs out there a in a very dark and heavily paneled room and i was speaking from a podium and i asked my staff to please make sure there is a light there because it all looks good on the inside there and i need a little bit of light on that and so somehow that translated to my staff aide get a light from this guy and i know they reached out to him here and ive worked for to make sure. I will report back that you did well sir thank you very much and welcome to all of you and its great to be here and i know theres a number of former colleagues in the audience. I see representatives from the diplomatic corps here and partners, thanks for being here and good to see you all here. And of course paul salem from the middle east institute. And of righty of others from the department of state and department of defenses and other places. Is john goglia in the audience . I have a west point classmate i thought was going to be here. I had a few words for him as well. I will hold on to that. So i have to tell you a coming up on the 11th month anniversary of our entire inaudible . So ive been thinking a lot about that and i have what i would say was a pretty good transition in the military and ive got it association with the middle east institute. Thats what springing me here. I enjoyed that. Im engaged with Business Executives from National Security which has been a great opportunity to get to know the Business World and get to know a lot of businessmen and women for across the world and the country. One of my objectives as our top wish to stay engaged with young people. Im able to do that to a relationship with the combatting Terrorism Center up in west point and the gulf center up at Kennedy School and with the university of Pennsylvania Center for ethnics ethics and the rule of law. I also wanted to kind of get back and so i have been able to get on to the boards of a couple of veteran oriented organizations to include one which really focuses in on helping young enlisted veterans get into our best schools. Around the country. So all in all, retirement has been a great opportunity for me to invest my time and energy doing things that i think matter and are important to me. And if thats not enough, i would say that my wife also reminded me that marriages for love and not for lunch. And so i was invited after three or four months after row time to get busy. I think its appropriate as i speak here today on this topic, that we would recall that it was about 75 years ago this month, when president franklin dylan roosevelt met with King Abdulaziz bin saud in egypt with what would become a long relationship between the United States and saudi arabia and other countries in the region. As the story goes they talked about many things during this their only meeting. They talked about the common responsibilities as heads of states. They talked about their shared view that at the heart of things they inaudible to be farmers. And of course they talked about their fact that their own personal infirmities were obstacles that they had to overcome in their lives. Franklin delano roosevelt, fdr, that one of his wheelchairs for the king which became an object of pride for the saudis. They came to an agreement for training for saudi arabia, then surround a fledging cup country surrounded by strong nations intern for oil and Political Support in the region. All in all it was for better and worse, have injured for over seven decades. I think its a Fair Assessment, a Fair Assessment can be made that fdr understood he needed to engage, and compete in this area, to ensure our access to the region and support our interest. Todays topic is the competition in the gulf, my specific job is to talk a bit about the military aspects of this Great Power Competition. And well i think people understand the general notion of competition, if like many other conceptual military organs Security Concepts or ideas, think about things like the war on terror, by with and through, how we train our partners, regular warfare, the soft tactical approach to competition. It is often times difficult to define and understand. This is replaced the war on terror, as a principle strategic focus. Certainly has for the department of defense. Great power on competition has to come a driving force, and characterization of national interest. Department of fort forces, international relations, the support all of this. The Great Power Competition is more about in my view in my view, about prevailing, than it is about directly confronting. Correspondingly, it is militarily more indirect than direct. An argument is often made in my profession, on whether the power competition, is warfare or not. My personal belief, is that i believe it does belong in the tech somebody of issues coming into conflict. In my experience, in this country, this is an area where four Different Countries russia, iran, turkey, United States and others came together for a common purpose to defeat isis but as that was accomplished we began to divert in terms of all our interest and objectives and it turned out much more into a competitive environment over our original purpose for being there. Ultimately Great Power Competition is about the balance of power and the relationships that support maintaining influence. In todays environment Great Power Competition is also about domination of emerging technologies and means and the rules that got ethical, moral, and Legal Employment activities of these emerging areas. And contrary to what we may be seeing in our policy and in our public communications, Great Power Competition does not mean that alliances and partnerships are not important. They are more important, in my humble in pinion, in successfully prevailing in a geostrategic setting dominated by great par competitors winning in this environment also has different come notations. It is certainly about beating our adversaries to our enemies and we also tried to do that but more importantly in today strategic context, its a much more subtle approach. Winning in place several things, i believe. It implies maintaining a competitive advantage, are performing our competitors in business parlance, being seen as a great value, higher quantity, more decide and more reliable by our partners. Winning abuzz about protecting our interests, those that are essential in those that are. Important winning requests that we maintain our access and relationships and a level of influence that abounds the part that is favorable more favorable to us and to our competitors and advertisers adversaries. An example is our preferential access to passage through the suez canal. We remain the only country that has head of the line privileges there. Finally winning means providing decisions space for leaders through statistic advantage relationships, options, planning, available capabilities and the capacities to go along with all of that. My main takeaway for each of you today is that we must compete militarily in this region to support our overall National Security objective of maintaining competitive advantage against great power competitors. It does not necessarily mean that we do this at the same troop levels or operations as or locations that we have for the last several decades but it does mean a level of policy of planning president s relationship capabilities activities and reliance that demonstrates our ability to maintain that balance of power that is more favorable to our objectives than to others. Any discussion of the gulf and the surrounding region has to start with a discussion of our interests. I think there are five, that are currently present and will be well into the future. First we have to ensure that the region cannot be used as a platform for terrorists or terrorist organizations to attack our homeland citizens or those of our friends are allies. Secondly we have to ensure that instability in this region does not impact our interests in other regions. One only has to look at the impact of refugees flowing from a place like syria and the impact it has on europe, on immigration policies and ultimately on our country. Third we have an interest to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Fourth we want to preserve access to the critical lines of communication and resources of the region for us and for our allies and partners. And finally we want to maintain an overall favorable balance of power. Its fair to question these interests, but i think the more important aspect is a discussion of where they fall on the scale of critical tv from important to existential. I would argue that addressing terrorism instability and perhaps access are probably important but may not rise to the level of being existential to our survival as a nation. I would also argue that the polish ration and maintaining a federal balance of power if left unchecked, could be accidental to our security of those of our close partners. I think that the efficacy of an Iranian Nuclear weapons program, would manifest itself as an exit potential threat to the country of israel, and would largely be seen the same in our country. My point here is this, there must be a robust discussion of interest in this region and theyre critical itty as part of a National Security process. And we have to communicate this better to not only the region and to our great power competitors, but also to the citizens of our country. And secondly we have to recognize that interest in areas other than Eastern European in the indopacific are critical components of our overall National Security strategy. This is an area where Great Power Competition has and will continue to take place whether we wanted to are not. Some would argue that an equally critical contribution to winning the cold war plate out in the mountains of ghana stand with our support of the moon had jean, against the soviets just did on the Central Plains of europe with our large and longstanding military alliance. Today the waters of the middle east see a constant presence of Chinese Naval vessels do not realize recognize that you strategic implicate implications and opportunities of this region to the overall idea of competent competitive advantage against great power competitors is a mistake in my view. It is also important to look at current and emerging threats and influences affecting our approaches to the region most of these will be familiar to you but there may be a different twist here. I would really highlight six areas for you the topic of the day is Great Power Competition so we have to start there. Russia will not economically strong still poses a significant military threat to United States. They now possess longterm access in mediterranean through intervention in syria and continue to look for opportunities to supplant our influence and play a role as a deal maker, and peace broker in the region. When we step back from a partner, we should expect russia to step into that void. China is the more significant challenge. Their long term central driven plan to dominate emerging technology, expand markets and create military parity and where possible superiority poses a direct challenge the United States that must dominate our security strategy. Across the region they are increasingly military presence, with their influence and activity, principally as an extension of their belt and road initiative. Annually have to look at the china pakistan corridor, the linkages into the port of guaido year, and the routes to the port in djibouti to see an example of. This a second threat we influencing our approach to the region is iran. I view around as an injured animal protecting itself but capable of lashing out given the recent loss of Qassem Soleimani and tragic events surrounding the shootdown of ukrainian airliner by iranian forces, we should expect the ran leadership to be looking inward and consolidating their power. This may limit their region adventurism in the short term. In this is an opportunity to keep the pressure on the regime, which is still reeling from losing its promise prominent military commander and their own incompetence and shooting down a ukrainian airliner during theirs response. The new leader smile ghani m u d z ah h e d i n despite being soleimanis deputy for many years, will not immediately and may never carry the same gravitas and throw weight as his predisaster. I think it can also be argued that the quds force itself as an institution, may exercise more introspection on their part and this may or be an opportunity for us. We should expect that iranian proxies however will not likely deescalate and me for the most part test their independence from iran. We can especially expect to see this in lebanon, yemen, and iraq. The maritime environment will continue to be an area where iran will continue to exercise considerable layered capabilities, coastal defenses storms, fast boats, minds, and other soft light capabilities. And it appears by all accounts that iran is steadily moving forward to restore components of its Nuclear Weapons program that may have been delayed under the m u d z ah h e d i n. We should expect their missile capabilities will continue its long term trend of qualitative and quantitative improvement in iran. Finally i think its important to note that the arab gulf states have come to understand that in a conflict between iran and the United States, they stand to lose the most and are not eager to see this escalate beyond the stages that it has recently and would likely preferred to see as an overall trend of deescalation. A third threat, of course, is terrorism. Back to the future is a phrase that comes to mind here. Jihad is going local, explode doing exploding local seams, using local fighters, impacting local populations and creating local successes. Isis will continue to explode seems where it can, in and out of the region. The sahyel is a return of particularly vulnerable location. Alqaeda will attempt to use the instability of the region to reconstitute its external plotting capability. A four threat is a festering instability. The longstanding underlying tensions of the region corruption, poor governance, disenfranchisement, economic disparity, and toxic secretary narratives, among others are everpresent. Iraq remains in a difficult position. While there is not yet a National Push for a u. S. Departure, the protests continue under a new Prime Minister and weak government. Some have surmised that it may be difficult for the kurds and sunnis to block a concerted shia push for u. S. Departure. In this political sphere, iran will likely remain patient as we have at least temporarily replace them as a principal point of contention on the iraqi street. Siri is also at a difficult juncture and there should be significant concern about whether the regime could control an isis resurgence. While the conflict intention in the northeast part of the country seems to have subsided and productive and stabilized to some degree, the outlook in other areas is not good. In idlib is a significant disaster. In the last six months somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000 persons were displaced, more than 1200 had been killed, and only a relatively small percentage of the deescalation area recaptured. Progress is extraordinarily slow and bloody. And there is now an open conflict between turkey and syria in this area, with russia playing the supposed referee. Alqaeda linked, m u d z ah h e d i n continues to gain power and influence and appears to be growing into a syrian version of the taliban. Alqaeda grows more dangerous by the. De attacks against region sources in southern syria have returned to 2011 levels. And in this vacuum hezbollah is increasing their recruiting and isis will likely take advantage of the situation to grow their capabilities, membership and influence. This poses serious concerns about still possible over into jordan and along the israeli border. And we are all aware the situation in lebanon is not good either and will likely continue to get worse before it gets better. In this turmoil we should expect that hezbollah will take advantage of the situation to consolidate their position. And while currently unaffected the Lebanese Armed forces stands to lose as instability continues. A fifth expect impacting our approach in the region is other unsolved regional conflicts. The kingdom of Saudi Arabian is attempting to resolve itself created situation in yemen and is now at least focused on rebuilding regional comp cooperation impacted by nearly three year old fallout with quds quds neither of these will be resolved quickly but there must be resolved. We are on the precipice of an initial agreement enough to understand that could lead to further agreements on u. S. President s and more importantly inter afghan discussions aimed at ending the conflict. Finally we have to consider the few here at home. It matters. We are less and dependent on the resources of the region. The United States is now one of the larger exporters of the resources upon which we depended on from this region. There is fatigue on the home front brought about by lengthy engagements across the region that have expanded significant american treasure and i like it the intractable problems of the region that oftentimes the unsolvable. It would be a mistake for our friends in the region to understand how powerful the fatigue is. Not only are on our policy makers but in fact are the broader american public. And as mentioned earlier there is now a strategic imperative to maintain our competitive advantage against the revanchist russia and rising china. As many of you are aware the United StatesNational Defense strategy makes it very clear that maintaining our competitive advantage against these states in particular is our overriding objective recent guidance from the secretary of defense as recent as the last couple of weeks to our Service Chiefs and our Combatant Commanders makes this clear. So where does this leave us strategically . In my view all of the interest i highlighted earlier mccain relevant to one degree or another. Maintaining a favorable balance of power, however, maintains remains highly relevant to our current National Defense strategy of maintaining competitive advantage against great power competitors. Set more simply we need to compete in this region. If we dont are great power competitors undoubtedly will do so. Our competitors are filling in the white and replacing our influence and using that influence to support their borders strategic objectives. From a military standpoint we will need several categories of force to pursue our objectives. We will need a Security Cooperation component that works with our partners to develop their capabilities and assure integration among themselves and with us. This should ultimately be our militarys main effort. We will need we rotational ground air maritime and special Operations Forces to demonstrate resolve, exercise with our partners, protect vital United States assets, and interest if it and act that says to basing to contingency requirements. We will not need a new level of the state counterterrorism presence in the region to carefully watch and understand the evolving threat, train our partner counterterrorism forces, and where necessary address threats beyond the capabilities of our partners. And then we will require Response Forces based outside the reach of that camera ploy and respond to emergency and condenses contingency. Operations a mixture of these forces must be determined through careful stuff work but i do believe there is a sustainable and affordable level of military presence that we can achieve in the region to protect our interests and directly contribute to maintaining our competitive advantage. Secondly we need to normalize our operating methodology is in the region in other words we need to ensure we have measured in place to reduce miscalculation let me use areas agreed example despite a highly complex and crowded operating environment during the campaign against isis we were able to achieve our military objectives larger because we normalized how and where we were conducting operations and backed it up with the albeit an imperfect but inadequate mechanism to communicate with the russians i am absolutely 100 and convinced that this is not only saved life but prevented further escalation. The news and the media have recently carried stories of tensions between u. S. Forces in syria and Russian Forces in the east part of the country. Making sure expectations are clear and having the ability to communicate directly are incredibly important to mechanisms to maintaining influence and preserving interests and i suggest in the future this must eventually include around. Finally we should include we should also understand the significance and the advantage of small but highly focused and impactful programs to directly help our partners. A good friend of mine a foreign officer once told me that one of the best ways for us to help israel was to doubled down on our relationship with the Lebanese Armed forces. I believe this is the case to be the case and over the last 12 years of engagement the Lebanese Armed forces have increased our capability becoming more independent and professional and have become a more respected institution in lebanon. This was accomplished through a very personal presence of the ground on the ground in many cases less than 50 troops, very modest and targeted Foreign Military sales programs, and strong support from our country team despite concerns the administration of congress about his ball influence. There is a long way to go with the Lebanese Armed forces but this is very clear, where we should continue to compete. Small focused programs work. They keep our footprint small our mission well defined they are sustainable and affordable they and they are overwhelmingly popular with our partners in the region. Let me close by returning briefly to my main point, we have to compete in this region this is how we maintain the competitive advantage that our security and defend strategies call for. I think its a strategic imperative for us to do so and i think franklin eleanor roosevelt, saw this 75 years ago isis we are of enduring interest in the region and will well into the future i also acknowledge that these interest for the most part will most likely eclipse the interest we have expressed in other areas. Maintaining our competitive advantage against china isnt exist existential requirement for the United States, and for many of our partners around the. World i do believe maintaining a balance of power that is favorable to United States is a good approach to this region and it supports our overall approach of prevailing against great powers competitors. It does not mean that we need to be endlessly and substantially engage militarily. It means that the following we need to have a sustainable presence over time that is predictable for our forces and our partners in the region and that demonstrates our intent to protect our imports are important interests and its affordable and understandable but by or citizens. And secondly we need to exercise patience. None of this will be accomplished. Quickly we have to wind down ongoing conflicts adjust our posture and communicate our strategy and approach to our partners in and out of the region. Admittedly my time today is probably too short to justice to this topic. That grows more complex day by day. But i hope that ive offered you some food for thought for a former United States military commander who spent a lot of time operating and thinking about this region, i dont want that i dont expect that everyone here will agree with my segment of or my specific suggestions, but i do strongly believe that we do have to compete in this region to continue to preserve our Important National interests. And support our Vital National strategy of competitive that. Its thanks to your attention out for dear questions. applause it thank you very much. Thats a lot to chew on. I think one of the interesting problems we have is the president s been very vocal that, in his view, we wasted eight trillion dollars in the middle east. Even the Obama Administration wanted to rebalance its efforts away from the middle east and toward asia, and you are talking about competing effectively. When we are essentially in the view of two administrations is reducing our presence while the chinese and rip russians are increasing their presence. Are there ways that we can compete effectively while that balance is going on . In absolute terms . In absolute terms we will go down, in absolute terms they will go up. Even if in relative terms we will remain portended. The sense is we are in some ways on the way out and they are on the way in. How should we think about that . I think that is a great question. And i think its a real challenge for our people that operate in the region. I think we have to stop talking about what we are going to do in that this region not what were going to do in that region. We have to express our strategy in a much more wholesome manner, a much more fulsome manner i should say. Strategies about maintaining our competitive advantage against great power competitors. And we have to recognize that that means that we have to compete in the region where our great power competitors are located. But it also means that we have to look at the other regions where they also can compete. My point here today is that the middle east, the gulf, is an area where great powers are going to compete. We have always, that has always been the case and probably will always be the case going forward. And so we have to figure out a level of, a way to compete there. And i have offered a couple of thoughts in terms of how you might do that militarily. But i think when we say things like we are pivoting here, or we articulate our strategy only in terms of one particular geographic area, i think we so short the role that competition and other areas please. And i think we have to paint a picture that competing has to plague place on a global scale and not just in particular regions and i think a lot of our Strategic Communications works against us in terms of that. But one of the challenges is in some ways we are trying to cover the waterfront when we compete while our competitors are very selective. The chinese are very assiduously not trying to replicate what we do. They are trying to pick targets both in terms of countries and in terms of activities in countries. As John Mclaughlin and Christine Wormuth talked about earlier today they are careful not to be drawn into the middle east militarily. In some ways if we are trying to meet the chinese and then some for example in the middle east, and in africa, and in latin america and we see the chinese making inroads into europe, which keeps the eu from making consensus decisions the way that we might want them to, i wonder if it all becomes a little bit to do everything we think is important and to combat everything we see them doing in order to compete. What can we afford not to do . I think one of the key things we have to do is an wind ourselves from ongoing conflicts. China create some sort of political agreement, in afghanistan its a good way to begin to withdraw, drawdown our parents are presents their. I recognize that that is an imperfect approach. Its not going to satisfy anyone, but its not going to satisfy anyone if we dont try to move forward on. It the first thing i think we have to do, is begin to extricate ourselves, from these ongoing conflicts. The situation interact, and in syria, there was an opportunity i think, for us to begin to draw down forces there, i still think we should, the numbers there are not comparatively, are not that high. Frankly but it could be lower their, could be a way to do that as well, i think our focus, needs to be again we cant be everywhere, but i think our focus needs to be much more heavily into the Security Cooperation, area its buy within through its having capable connected region throughout their, that works with our partners, to develop their capabilities, make sure they are integrated with each other, i think one of the big challenges that we have in the gulf states, is the integration of our Missile Defense capabilities, there is a lot there theres a lot of the United States brings, but its not effectively integrated. Either with us or among themselves. This moving forward, and that is a difficult thing, we have begun the process of trying to do that, and i suspect that my successors, will continue to move in that direction. But that is how we begin to reduce the physical alliance of our forces, and take on more the burden, and i think we have to look for opportunities to do that. The special operations capabilities, i think is a good example. If you look across the region, there are a number of special operation forces, number of parties that are very capable, capable of handling the situation in their own country, and doing that in a manner, that reflects, universally were not there universally yet but, most part there are the numbers, the longer Term Investments in these things, i think can yield capabilities, where people can take care of their own problems, with a level of support, from us that is sustainable, and does not require a huge presence in the gulf. Well should we try to get other countries from in the region or outside the region, to take on something they are the red lines, that we should be prevent the other countries from coming in. What we talked about one on one of them, about combatting terrorists and terrorist organizations, i think looking at the maritime environment in particularly in the gulf, its an area where we should be putting more focused on our partners. And developing their capabilities, taking on the lead. This is an area where we dont have to, we dont have to be the lead in the combined task force. Others can do this, other western powers can do this. And eventually people in the region could can do. This shoe would we encourage the russians and chinese to get involved weve seen some incident is where the chinese have stepped up and let me some of the counter conspiracy efforts that took place several years ago, they stepped up and provided some assistance in that particular area. They may be some i think when we can figure out a way to try to corrupt uncommon things i think we probably should. We never really achieved that in a place like syria. We were prohibited by our on laws from collaborating, cooperating, coordinating with them, and the most we could do with the confliction. But the confliction being the lowest level of things that we can do. We should certainly try to do that. The wall street journal had a story this morning about the russians using essentially mercenaries to advance Russian Foreign policy. We are often fighting actors that use asymmetrical tools and were keeping within the boundaries of United States law, often within conventional warfare. Youve come out of the special Operations Community youve, done some pretty creative things. Are we to hide bound as we look at this series of challenges, do we need to be even more creative, even more outside of the box . What are some directions do you think we need to think about that we are not in order to deal with a very complex threat environment . Well you know, i think the idea of contracted security organizations is out there. Its something we have looked at in the past. My personal view is i dont think we have come to a conclusion on how we actually manage the command and control over those types of activities or where they start, and where they and, and where policy and our objectives fits into that. So im not yet completely comfortable with taking that approach. I do think that contractors can help offset the physical presence of military forces in certainly during some of the training, some of the supervising, and establishing some of the more institutional aspects of helping our partners develop their own capabilities. So i think those are things we ought to look at. I also think we have to look at leveraging the capabilities of some of our very best partners. You know, the 79 Member Coalition that we assembled to defeat isis contained a lot of small contingents and very capable contingents and i think we have to look for ways that we leverage that, we leverage them better. The other thing i think we have to look at is we have to look at leaders in the region and how they can bring others along. I look at a country like the emirates for example and i look at their special operations capabilities there and they are very well developed. They do function as a leader and they can bring others along with him. I think we have to look at how our strategy and plans incorporates that into this. We have about ten more minutes and i want to open this up to the audience. Barbara has another question about iran . Okay, barbara has a question about iran right there. Do we have microphones . The microphone is coming. There it is. Thank you. Thanks so much. Quds m u d z ah h e d i n from the atlantic council. General votel always a pleasure to see you. You used to compete, not contain. So i want to push on that in terms of how the u. S. Should deal with irans influence, it seems when we tried to contain iran, it just becomes more influential. So what advice would you give to u. S. Policy makers about how to compete rather can contain iran . Again im not sure im excluding the idea of containing irans activities here. When i talk about competing im really talking butter interaction with great powers. A recognize that certainly iran is as a Regional Power and has a historic long and cultural role in the region that it must play, must be responsive to. But i dont think that necessarily means we dont try to can train them. I think one of the things we have to do is we have to be very clear in terms of what our objectives are and what are expectations are in the region. I think my personal view is as i look back over the last 18 months of activities in the region, certainly during my time in service and since, and it seems to be there has been a constant struggle back and forth between the United States and iran to understand what each player wants out of this and we are going with this. And i do think it is extraordinarily important that we try to clarify this in practical terms as soon as we can. I think in many cases we are talking past each other on this and taking the heartened positions in this. While i do recognize that in some cases we have to do that, the lack of flexibility in some of that i think impacts us. One of the things i was almost always concerned about as sir m u d z ah h e d i n commander wasnt interaction in the gulf, a miscalculation in a maritime environment. And i do think i was never sure if that would be i was almost certain it would not ever be caused by our forces but i wasnt at certain on the other side and i never understood if that would be the actions of a rogue commander or if it would be the actions of an orchestrated iranian strategy if you will. And so i was very canteen to try to look at ways that we could establish a Communications Channel with them. I am heavily influenced by my experience in syria and i cant overemphasize to you how important that channel was to us. It wasnt actually anything orchestrated myself. It was actually done above and below me. But i had the ability to be a big player in the channel with the russians. And im using that as an example of why this is so important that we have a communication general to do this. I mean a key way and this is a point i tried to make in my remarks is that a key way to reduce our presence and other things in here is to establish a norm of activities in the region. A very clear articulation of things that we are after and clear mechanisms that are in place to communicate about this. And i think we have to press for those types of things. In the aftermath of assassinating soleimani how can you possibly get there . I dont know. Maybe there is. I think one thing is for sure on the assassination. I think the iranians are now very clear on where our red lines are. And what we are willing to tolerate and what we are willing not to tolerate. And again im a observer to this. Im not in the process and in the discussions right now. But i dont necessarily exclude that the situation makes it prohibitive for us to try to figure out a channel to communicate to the iranians