Afternoon or good evening, depending on wherever you are sitting right now and joining us for this session. May peace be upon you. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the second event of the embassy of afghanistans listen and peace series. We are glad to be hosting this event on lebanons agreement and partnership with the Atlantic Council. A wonderful partner of the embassy in washington, i want to offer a very warm thank you to the Atlantic Council for their help in organizing this very important discussion. And all the great work that they are continuously doing. Furthermore, i would like to express my gratitude to doctor patricia, and doctor daniel. For taking this time to share their knowledge and insight with us today. , and busted or i think you not just for joining us today but for all of the great work you have done in afghanistan over the years. Its an honor to have you with us today, thank you for moderating and guiding us through this conversation. For those of you who are not able to join us for our listen and peace event with the United States, we focused on columbias havanas process so far. I want to take a moment to reflect on some of the most Critical Incidents we have learned so far. As we continue our journey to learn more about the priest process all around the world. The first main lesson has been how critical consensus building is for securing lasting peace. We know that piece cannot just be crafted between those who hold guns. Peace nest dates all of Society Coming together and working in harmony. This means involving women not just as an issue on the table but as a party to the negotiations. This means involving youth in the future of our nations who must have a stake in the piece that we are forging. This means including people from all backgrounds from every social economic level from every ethnic group and from all corners of the country. Inclusivity it is critical to durable peace. This is not just in line with our democratic values, it is a National Security imperative. It is the only path to lasting security, the second main lesson is that Peace Process sees our core process east because they are just that, a process. Securing a feasible settlement is just the beginning. We need to ensure we create an environment where the culture of peace can be nurtured, and the agreement achieved can be implemented. Negotiations may have begun ten weeks ago, but we have been working to build peace on multiple fronts for over the past 20 years. From building up our democratic institutions, to promoting economic development, to increasing access to health and education. Although theres an urgent need for secession of violence, on a national ceasefire. We know that the rest of the process cannot be rushed. We know that there were hard work that it requires. And we are ready for it. We have been seeking peace for a long time. We have yearned for it, planned for it, and fought for it. With the type of commitment that comes from knowing what is it like to live without it. The each flower signaling a change. The start of the school year, exams, summer vacation, and so on. Its my hope that one day the scent of fear will not overpower everything else. And we will gain we will once again have the freedom to, as the american say, stop and smell the roses. Soon under the healing light of compassion and perseverance, peace will bloom. And i am sure that nothing could ever smell more sweet. It is my absolute pleasure to pass this off to todays wonderful panel. So that they so that we can begin to learn about the lessons within the type of agreement, and how we can apply them to make sure that peace is no longer just a dream for lessons like todays, will be bringing us one step closer to making that dream a reality. I thank you all. Thank you so much ambassador, for the warm introduction. Ambassador, it is a true honor to collaborate with you and to join jointly host this event with you as well as the embassy of afghanistan and washington d. C. During such a crucial moment for afghanistan and the Peace Process. I am the assistant director of the counselor southeast center, i would like to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world to this conversation about lessons that can be learned from the 1989 agreement. Which ended 15 years of civil war in lebanon, and how they can be applied to the ongoing Peace Process between the Afghan Government and the taliban. Joining us today is an esteemed panel of experts, among his many shots is the former arab league such special envoy for lebanon, and former un special and envoy for afghanistan. Doctor patricia, the regional director of the middle east and north Africa Division at the International Republican institute. And doctor daniel, associate professor of Political Science and of International Public affairs at columbia university. We thank you all for lending us your time and expertise today. Just to give a quick run down for our viewers of how this conversation is structured, we will start by discussing some general lessons that we can take away from the agreement. Regarding the field of conflict resolution more generally, then we will discuss how these lessons both can and cannot be applied to the ongoing Peace Process in doha. Then we will move on to some questions from the audience. So for our audience, please summit your questions through the queue and a box, and we will try to get to as many as we can. To get a started the agreement instituted a number of religious grounded power sharing mandates. That said the documents states that these structures were intended to be an interim arrangements of sorts. Supported by the mandate that legislation would be passed down the road to amend and eventually remove the religious spaces for power sharing in the government entirely. As it is well documented, this never ended up happening, and the agreement makes no explicit mention of when or by what point these reforms should occur. Given that these open ended and original temporary arrangement soon became permanent features of the lebanese government, how might this case inform our thinking about power sharing agreements in general . As a long term method of conflict resolution. Hello, thank you very much indeed for inviting me to participate in this discussion. Like everybody who got involved in afghanistan, i have a lasting really lifelong interest and what happens in that country. And keeping my fingers crossed like everybody else, to see that these negotiations have started a few weeks ago. Which succeed where others have not. Im a little bit surprised looking at the ties agreement. I think there is very little to learn from it. Because it is very very specific to what in lebanon where. The thing which is important to understand, for any Peace Process, the best conditions for Peace Process to get somewhere is for the people who are doing the writing and the respective sponsors. To agree that they havent won, that they cannot win, and did that they are generally looking on compromise. And an agreement. That is what happened in lebanon in 1988, in 1989. Why 1988, why 1989 . Because it was very clear that the cold war was ending, and everybody was trying to get ready for the post cold war period. The parties in lebanon and also their sponsors. All from the factions inside lebanon, they were ready to deal. I was lucky enough, to be directly involved in the process at that time. Because a lot of much much better reform, dealt with this process before and didnt get anywhere. So the circumstances were ready for us to make. We made a deal, and also, the other thing thats different from afghanistan is that we actually return to that is what we did, there was a big hope, and also a commitment by the agreement, that while going back to it existed before the syria war. As you said, as a temporary measure, and then we will have we will end these systems that existed since 1943. Which is the independence of lebanon. We never got that, and ever since lebanese have been extremely critical of the fact. Now they havent been able to work out something different, and better. Perhaps this is enough for the beginning. Certainly, thank you. I know you had some thoughts on those questions, if you care to jump in. Taking into account, he talked about theres little to learn, but i do want to sort of Say Something about the principle of the approach, an approach that is based on power sharing. And my reaction is just that you know while it is ideal to have a political system thats inclusive insensitive, to the diversity of a country, like afghanistan. Efforts in my view may exacerbate and perpetuate division. So i just wanted to think about that, from a procedural perspective in particular, i think enshrining divisions and power sharing structures is somewhat counterproductive to state building efforts. Again, trying to learn from the experience of lebanon. Also, counterproductive to the states survival in some way. Once you set a structure in motion, i think it becomes the norm, the reference, the even if its intended to be temporary or interim. By default would perpetuate itself. So for me, rather than a temporary solution, there should be Building Elements that are part of the ultimate concept or the solution. Conceptually speaking, rather than procedure, i think interim range meant tend to satisfy the factional interests and mindset when they tend to satisfy them, tend to reinforce them. I think im not just lebanon, but iraq in particular. When you think of a setup that was supposed to be inclusive, but in reality, and ended up catering to the factional, and the moment you have an arrangement that breaks down the composition of a nation, a national identity, into identifiable groups. Like sunni arabs, kurds, i think you have effectively rather than empower them, disempowered those who arent included. I say this because in iraq in particular, a good third for example of a population in baghdad. Were mixed marriages, and represented sort of the creative progressive core of the middle class and the cosmopolitan cost. In some ways we shouldnt really confuse that upper city with problems. So i will leave it at that, i had much more to say but i will leave it at that. May i jump in with a comment. One of the things we have noticed a lot in the case of lebanon, one of the complaints is often that the attempt to formalize different obstructions, will essentially keep those in place. And it will make people think of themselves as one particular thing amongst all the other things they happen to be at the same time. This is more comment of the lebanese system. The idea that christians have to think of themselves as christians, sunnis have to think of themselves as sunnis, and so forth. In some sense it is almost obligatory since people had to think of themselves when theyre coming to the table. The challenge is that, it keeps people in that mold and makes it more difficult at any rate to think of themselves other than something us such such group. Sometimes the challenges we have to think of, formalizing these differences makes it more perpetuate themselves in the future. At least in part because the people writing the rules will themselves if you think about, sometimes we call them ethnic entrepreneurs, the politicians that we empower on the basis of the rules of the time or going to want to perpetuate the rules that keep them in power. To the degree that you wish to make this a more open system, a system that can adapt to changing realities and demographics, it is useful to perhaps think about building those sorts of rules at the same time that you are building the groups that are relevant at the time of the agreement. Thank you. I think that is a good segue into the next question which is more focused on the Civil Society post east and, subsequent to 1989, there remains a Civil Society watchdog that is working to obtain justice in lebanon for crimes committed during the war. Doctor, could you speak to the development of the civil sector, and how it has or has not fulfilled some of the gaps in Transitional Justice and accountability after 1989. And secondarily, what lessons can Civil Society generally take away from the lebanese case then supporting the Transitional Justice in post conflict setting . Patricia, by the way, i want to say that the first thing is i want to say, you know, more than 20 years after militias laid down their arms, the lebanese today live in a sort of officially sanctioned museum. Its discourage them from looking back. The only official initiative that was conducted to establish what happened after 1975 was a government report that was released in 1992 that estimated the number of victims of the war. Without a more comprehensive to seeking process, there was no meaningful reparations program, no updated history curriculum, preventing even schoolkids, which is the new generation, from engaging in Critical Thinking of the multiple narratives and that are in circulation. As well as that potential for radicalization which remains in an environment that is here. Secondly, there has been, as a result there has been very little public debate, about its origins, consequences, even the syrian occupation, many of the same leaders remain in power thanks to a sweeping amnesty law that was passed at the end of the war which prevents prosecuting ordinary militia members and politicians. My second point is that one of the most devastating consequences of this 1991 amnesty has really been perpetuation of culture of impunity that permeates all aspects of life in lebanon, the absence of accountability for gross violations and the selective approach to criminal justice, much of which is the result of political power sharing agreements. This has really robbed the victims of justice, the failure to hold perpetrators accountable has really eradicated civil trust. I say this because, i will explain in a bit. As a result the militias that fought and remained themselves of Political Parties continue to rule and ruin the country. As a for profit elite that operates a system that abuses every system. The most tragic thing about the civil war in itself is that it is not a tragedy in the consciousness of the lebanese, and then there is the current context which is after banking crisis, economic collapse, mismanaged pandemics, impunity of the political class, the context is deadlocked. It is dominated by one Political Force which is the main power broker, iran and his boa. That is leading the this creates a cement ceiling in terms of the potential action of Civil Society in regard. In both cases, because of the limits of the states and this has to do with the control that the war lords have and that hezbollah has that they exert over the states, the accountability drive is limited to what is permissible. Or at least within the bounds of acceptable. You have examples as well, one that comes to mind was the former vp and his return. Describe discreet efforts of brave groups who are defying this status quo as well as those are documenting that missing and disappeared, Civil Society is really has not been capable of holding those responsible for civil war abuses accountable. Because they are part of the post war arrangement. The only thing that Civil Society can do is investigate, document and wait. Research and advocacy work is being carried out by a number of Civil Society groups, including victims groups, researchers, academics on issues of justice. They have mapped violations that happened, mass killings, forced disappearances, to indicate a pattern of violence. And theyre doing analysis for humanitarian law. In terms of lessons, there needs to be recognition in some ways of limitations that are in place. Have the tools that are used to perpetuate them, much of Transitional Justice, this is going back to my original point, it depends on the existence of civic trust which is absent. I would like to make a final point to compare the two civil societies, they are often accused of being a Foreign Agent. Either of being a Foreign Agent or departing from social religious norms. In lebanon the former is more prevalent if in afghanistan the latter. In the case of afghanistan, what needs to happen is to underline and integrate more rights based activism. Even among solidarity groups, especially where some of this work like on women and children can be leverage. In some ways experience of to the zika is very instructive. Theres also the issue of coordination of monks and jews doing the same work but not doing the Work Together because of difference between religious or political belief. Where right spaced culture is happening, we should enhance it and that should be the foundation. Thank you for that. Given this context where there is this concrete ceiling of how much Civil Society can do and they being in a role where they should be holding people, institutions and groups accountable but then paradoxically they are also a part of the system which may involve some of these groups. I think that it would be interesting to hear a little bit about your research on the political participation and what lessons more generally we can take away from your research on the collaboration and peace by the sectarian conflict. A little bit of background for those who dont know my research, a lot of this work deals with Public Opinion, a lot of surveys and experiments in lebanon but also a syrians which is interesting side. One of the core takeaways i have in this research is that fundamentally theres a lot of lebanese underlying a lot of lebanese political behavior. A lot is over shouted by the discourse and the sectarian practice as well as holistic practices. People seem quite content to have religion play a broader role, that should be familiar to a lot of people who study much of those like world, many people want some sort of role for religion in the government, but at the same time people are very content to have very democratic principles. There does not appear to be any sort of contradiction in the minds of most people in lebanon, that you can have religion play a role in Public Affairs and democratic practices. Theres no reason you cannot have both. The hard part is in a place like lebanon, much of what we see, wet we might criticize as antidemocratic, anti liberal, who are undesirable, they tend to come from the sectarian aspect of it, rather than some differences over doctrine or basic religious norms. So a lot of the same principles people subscribe to cross communities. But those tend to take a backseat to basic political competition between groups. A part of the challenge there, a lot of that is guided by patronage based practices that key politicians empower who are able to win over supporters able to win over supporters in the way that would be different from the policies we like to see instead. So the development of the electoral system and the representative system in lebanon tended to be overshadowed by these practices some of which politicians can access and a lot of bankrolling comes from abroad so there is iran or saudi arabia to maintain power without necessarily representing the ideals of the people they claim to represent so there is a bit of a disconnect between what the citizens would like to see and the sort of politicians they end up with instead. And its not to say that this is a story of saints and sinners, very few saints and sinners their, most are just ordinary politicians doing what politicians do. But they are responding to a system which allows them to hold power in a way that does not necessarily represent lebanese would like to see their government performing. That is a broad overview in terms of identity politics. It is a big feature of lebanon but a lot of those can be thought of in the context of how do you get people into office, a lot has to do it holistic practices which gets you people in power that are not necessarily the ideal types that many of the voters would like to see. Thank you, i think in the context of bringing these different parties and power, into the folds, also presents an interesting question. Mr. Brahimi, you alluded to this earlier which is essentially to say that by 1989 when the agreement was signed, the signatories in lebanon demonstrated a strong mutual interest for ending violence and a readiness for peace. There is a clear sense that the parties were ready to negotiate, they were ready for peace. Are there any notable factors which supported and catalyze the readiness for peace amongst the parties . What might they tell us about understanding the environment when its ready for the negotiated peace . Let me just first say that i would not speak of the religious affiliations. Religion, its taken as a part of the identity and influence of the religious elements the the christian identity is split into 17 different groups. Without holding anybody responsible for all the atrocities that have taken place in lebanon, that was not really part of the conversation. For political reason, one man only accused of all sorts of things, he has been released and he is now back as one of the main players and the political scene in lebanon. That has not been, it has not been part of conversation. And syrian society, they have wonderful organizations, very highly sophisticated, very representative, very often not sectarian at all, but i am afraid that the influence in the politics is very limited. Its extremely interesting to see the Popular Movement as what is going on for one year now, they have completely against identity politics. They really want to jump into the 21st century. But they have not been able to. They havent been allowed to. Another point is that, of all the traditional groups and factions and so on, there is one that is the youngest and newest of them. That is playing today, it is the biggest and strongest role in the political life of lebanon. Im sure that our afghan friends would benefit from taking a look from what has happened in lebanon. And in spite of huge differences of the situations between the two countries, life and the war, people wanted to end the war. The idea was that once you end the war, and you will allow the lebanese people to come together, they have come together. And then shout out a new dispensation. They havent done so. They were unable to move away from other system that has been put together in 1943. As a matter of fact, it has become worse. For example, with the sharing of positions in the government, in 1943 it was about the main positions, prime minister, president s, speaker of parliament, here is the major ministry, now it goes down. You have so many drivers from that faction, so why not drivers from my faction . So i think that their system has become worse. The will of the people is totally ignorant. How are the people of lebanon going to impose their will on the leadership of these factions that are fighting one another, hating when another, we how things come to a crunch, they are all together. We have the christians, the sunnis, they are all together in protecting the system. And with help from outside, i dont know if it is going to be available or not. The ident the identity politics make it extremely difficult to move forwards. This is what has happened in lebanon. One year of mass demonstrations, beautiful alternative between everybody. Everybody in the streets, whether it is muslim or christian, who is sunni, not sunni, nobody cares about that. But they havent been able to move one little step towards it is not ending. At least asking political questions. Or they have not been able to speak all the time about all the stealing that has taken place. All the huge corruption that has taken place. But things continue as they were. From this point of view, i think if the afghans had created groups to study what has happened, and see how they can avoid it. Thank you, thank you. I think that is an excellent segue for us to shift gears and talk a little bit about afghanistan before we move into taking some questions from the audience. For those who are joining us on school, submit your questions through the book you and abe ox at the bottom of your screen. We will be getting to them shortly. So, like i said, shifting gears a little bit, we spoke about Civil Society earlier. And i think an interesting question that is definitely relevant to that different contexts in which we are operating right now versus the context of the agreement is social media and digital campaigns. Patricia, could you speak a little bit to how social media and digital campaigns might factor into afghan Civil Society and their role in the Peace Process or generally the way that traditional print media wouldnt have been able to in the context of the agreement. There isnt much to say about this except that the one thing we need to give credit, to give the Afghan Government credit for compared to other countries in a similar situation is the media an extent to which the afghans have been able, afghan Civil Society has been able to express itself freely through social media. There does not seem to be much government censorship or repercussions for opinions stated that our countering the main tendencies. Activists are very vocal on twitter and facebook. We know that. We have many instances where digital campaigns have gone viral. My only recommendations would be, these should be supported and leveraged and amplified as ways to kind of, you know, let groups express their concerns and make their voices heard in some ways. May i Say Something here . Please. You spoke earlier about impunity, in afghanistan they want to kids up blankets decision of not going after anybody. They said, can we have an amnesty . An amnesty for everyone who participated in the wars . And i think it is they tried it again during the constitution arrangement and then again it was foreigners who were there at submitting. And we respectfully told them no. As you know the United Nations cannot participate in anything where there is a blanket amnesty passed for misbehavior. But when parliament was elected, of course you have the sovereign parliament, and they voted blanket amnesty for everyone. And at any rate, it is a big question that afghanistan has to learn from past experiences, you can deal with this problem and passed missed behavior and corruption only if you have the rule of thumb. The rule of law requires three things, good president s, good and well run police force and most importantly, a good judicial system. In lebanon you have a beautiful constitution and everything but you dont have any of those three. Justice is not there. I think that if foreigners want to help countries coming out of conflict, this is where they should concentrate. Not on elections that create more divisions. Look at afghanistan. Creating this law of rule, that is paramount. I hope that if this negotiation goes on, go somewhere, i first think that the new afghan position will work out on the rule of law. Thank you, on the subject of foreign intervention, you have done some research on the case of foreign intervention and how it affected the attitudes of voters in the 2009 lebanese parliamentary elections. Could you maybe give us a quick rundown of your findings on the research . And perhaps shed some light on how we might interpret the support of the United States, nato and allies, both for the democratic process and the democratic system and its progovernment position in the peace negotiations, if there is indeed a relationship there. A lot of the work that i have been doing with lebanese but i have also done work on that election. The thing to start off with, when we talk about foreign intervention, we tend to project their own views on two others. The views we tend to have here we object to the partisan intervention on behalf of the democratic process so heres the short version of whats coming out of the research, which is people dont object to the nonpartisan intervention. They dont have any major problems with non partisanship. But there is a very simple story here, there is nothing very surprising here, they dont like partisan intervention on behalf of their opponents, and theyre happy to rationalize it on behalf of their own side. That means partisan intervention in one form or the other polarizes political opinion. So intervention by one actor on behalf of someone tends to make that Group Supporters happy and the opponents unhappy. So you can think about this as a Glass Half Full versus a glass half empty problem, a glass half empty, why bother supporting the democratic process if we are not getting applauded for being good citizens by supporting the democratic process. The Glass Half Full version is that it is great in some instances, people are behaving the way you would expect them to, they are not going to give people lavished with praise, with intervention on behalf of the democratic process or the country as a whole because thats what you had hoped internationale committees doing. Instead what it means is that it is not going to be an impediment on the basis of Public Opinion. To the degree that you can get a truly nonpartisan or neutral intervention, you are not going to find problems on the basis of Public Opinion barriers, or objections on the mass public. It is impossible for the community to focus on how the technical aspects that political leaders in terms of the implementation of these. In that respect, it is great, there is not going to be a barrier on the process of Public Opinion, the process of course is hard to put together a non partisan intervention. Even a sort of things that we think of his nonpartisan, this import for the democratic process, that is something that you yourself happened to support. You can see heather various ways of interventions can occur that are going to be problematic for the communities. The degree to which it matters is simply, the degree to the International Community can find a way to mitigate the concerns that various actors would have been a degree to which their intervention upsets the balance of domestic. It does matter if its nato or the United States, other than the part that they happen to be doing it. It really is and to the degree they can discover they focus much more heavily on the intervention itself so the Research Conducted people behave or react the same way as they would if it were turkey or russia so we focus on the antiamericanism they care about the intervention part this is something that is possible given the sort of geopolitical set up of our world so thank you. That is a fantastic overview, thank you. As you rightly state that more provocative question out of all of that is what does it mean to have a neutral intervention, its obviously not something that is possible given the geopolitical setup of our world s. Thank you. With that i would like to turn to some of the questions that have come in from the audience. It looks like we have one which is for any of our panelists, it says, could this become the hezbollah of afghanistan . Which i think is essentially to say could they become a state within the state and similar sort of function . Thats for any of our panelists. Feel free to jump in. Maybe doctor brahimi can go and then i will follow. If you want. It is up to you. Should i go . Go ahead. What i wanted to say is that i might be a little bit provocative with my response, but in some sense, you know, it is linked to the discussion we had before, given that it is lead in some ways to the entrenchment of hezbollah because they were one of the entities which were not disarmed for a number of reasons. The only one, actually. Yes, the only one. The agreement allowed the party to keep its military intact at the result of which is that it began to construct a state within the states, in my view, hezbollah is as much the negation again i am being provocative, this is the taliban for afghanistan, i think these indications are facts on the ground. That dilemma is as follows, the longer you allow these arent non state actors to exist, the more they become entrenched, negating the country. If you conflicts with them they defeat you, in both case they are existential threats. Theres no ready solution, if you choose to accommodate them, they will get more entrenched and acquired ability so in some ways, as much as there is no solution within that closed system that is today in lebanon, one may see that external intervention maybe the only way out. Im throwing this out. If i had afghanistan again im being provocative, not let the u. S. Get out. If you take the u. S. Out, it could become lebanon. And a closed system without a u. S. Presence will lead to the taliban taking over. May i add something . Has florida was very very sad. What happened is that syria was over run in lebanon many years. And had brought in iran, the iran constructed hezbollah, so hezbollah was this entity, if this was in 1991. Syrians came in with this idea that these people are fighting israel. So weve them alone. And iran has had hezbollah force. That is what happens. In afghanistan, the teleban controls 95 account tree in 2001. They were in the big cities, but nobody stopped to ask where they are, what they are doing. I think they had ideas but they wanted to see if we could reach out to the taliban now and they were silenced by everyone. It was unanimous. Iran, russia, the United States, the northern alliance, even know, taliban is gone. Forget about them. I think that was a huge mistake, so i think what we are facing now is the people who ruled afghanistan, 95 of them were thrown out by foreign powers. You have to deal with that, not forgetting with the background this. The second thing is that hezbollah has a huge support from outside of the country. They are the only faction in lebanon that has that much support in lebanon. That also counts, if we come to an agreement, can the taliban count on such strong outside support while everybody else does not have that support. That is a question you need to ask. And if you are telling the taliban that the americans are here, and the basis of this negotiate is the argument between the taliban and the americans, so what are you telling them . What are you telling them then. You are telling them to wait until may, and then you will talk to your brothers. But in a totally different framework, so you see all of these things, it is easy to get outside powers, even as strong as the United States, it is easy to get it. It is complicated to get out in the right manner. I think the United States and the murders serration would have to think very, very seriously before walking in there. For themselves, they have to think about this. But also perhaps to give a little bit of bought to what happens to the afghans, the afghans did not invite them. They came in, they helped a lot. But before they leave, they have to give a little bit more to what they are going to do. Let me jump in quickly, it to second the point that you have raised, one of the core distinctions between hezbollah and the taliban is simply going to be the extent of foreign support for hezbollah, that probably just exist in the same way for the taliban. The relationship between hezbollah and syria was very much one of convenience where purposes of the conflict of israel, although the support coming from iran is fairly substantial in the way of resources, whether it is the government itself or private. Hezbollah is a lot of things, one of which is of militia and one is a Political Party, service agency, a degree that they can draw so much funding from abroad, it allows them to continue to provide those services that people lead. To the degree that funding dries up or the support they get from abroads, that starts to deteriorates or vanish, they turn into a Political Party just like any other one. They will not have nearly the same clout within the system, a lot of that is based on their ability to fund a lot of the services that other parties cant provide and the state can provide. To the degree that the taliban looks like his bullets, because they will get resources from elsewhere. Otherwise they will go to war, have some elections, but they wont be doing the same way that has bullied us. One more point, it is extremely important. You see, the elephant that was not in the room was syria. It was interesting, they were following what was happening, but it was not into feeling that syria and the elephant that was not president was really everybody called syria damascus, every single night. And when the agreement took place, the first thing we had to accommodate a lot of syrians and the lebanese and even though as soon as, you know, the tides was the president that we elected was assassinated two weeks later. And there came a president who made a new agreement, a total new agreement with syria. That was as much the base of what happened after that. Full this is a lesson, how are you going to structure an agreement to end the civil war and build a new dispensation in the while people in what is happening so in the case we have to think of pakistan, we gotta think of russia and also offer others like india. So as you are negotiating, you got to make sure that those forces feel are supporting you and a lot making it more difficult for you to get a good deal. Thank you, thank you very much for that. Unfortunately i think that we are running low on time so to all of our panelists, again, thank you very much for your expertise, for your time and i will pass it over to you to close us out. Thank you, harris. Thank you all and the ambassador for the partnership of the embassy here in washington on this very important conversation. This of course is happening in the media backdrop of the chenille via geneva conference and also another her vic barr meeting which innocent lives were once again amid the Collateral Damage of this ongoing conflict and so understanding how we come to piece, to build a statement across is maybe the most important question for the World Community just as it has been and im proud to play a part that. In the last four months we have issued a major vote on how to combat illicit finance and illicit its part of that agenda. You can find it on our website along with highlevel conversation between president and just last month, a wonderful conversation featuring First Lady Laura Bush and first lady focus on womens rights and afghanistan. All of this one is available on our web page and we look forward to engaging all of you especially our scene panelists and feature programming at the atlanta council. Be safe and for those of you in america, have a very happy thanksgiving from all of us at the south asia center. Thank you. Weeknights this month, we are featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. And tonight we hear the experiences of three women who reflect on their time working on the apollo space program. They share how they overcame challenges and the rose with nasa. Watch beginning at eight eastern and enjoy American History tv every weekend on cspan 3. Next, a look at Health Equity and how it might be addressed under the Biden Administration and beyond. Axios most of the 45 minute discussion. Hi, welcome to Health Equity in the next 40 years. I am caitlin owens, Health Care Provider and axios. I am joining you for my home in washington, d. C. Thank you to usa facts for making todays event possible and welcome to all of our audiences joining us from facebook, youtube, twitter, linkedin and from axios. Com. You can follow along with to