thing that if that was a real person, maybe that wouldn't be good. when you talk to most kids they will say i know it's not real. the other thing that is even more dangerous is that reactions of parents to those things if little mary or johnny carson on the floor and there's a television show and somebody is brutally murdered and the parents get up and get another beer, they are going like mom and dad weren't affected by that i guess it is no big deal and again it comes back to the responsibility of adults to constantly be monitoring. you say this is pretend and this is horrible. we don't like this happening in real life. but you get up and get some potato chips what are the kids going to think? so this is something that parents need to teach people coming and the x box and the tv shows it's not just the effect of the kids it is the parent's interpretation and those machines on the kids. >> i want to thank the panelist. [applause] >> "after words" with guest host judith of the national defense university. this week yasser and his book that this information. the former senior adviser to ambassador richard holbrooke repeals that the foreign policy plan supported by the late ambassador and former secretary of state of of the clinton must is regarded by president obama for political reasons. he argues the conflict over the afghanistan policy has weakened america's ability to shape policy in south asia and the middle east. this program is about an hour. >> welcome to "after words" and especially vali nasr. it's a treat to see you after a long time away. i did enjoy your book for perhaps different reasons i will go through that but i wanted to thank you very much for coming in today. vali nasr is the dean of the school of the advanced international studies at johns hopkins and the author of the book "the dispensable nation," which i have here, american foreign policy in retreat. vali nasr is an american political commentator, scholar of contemporary islam. he has briefed president, congress, many influential and not so influential people. he was born in tehran in 1960 and his family's can't the united states after the evolution. he has a bachelor's and master's degree from the fletcher school of the diplomacy and earned his ph.d. from ny t. i won't go through your long list of accomplishments but i would draw attention for a great part of your book spent working under richard holbrooke as part of the special office, special adviser on pakistan and afghanistan to the secretary of state. that is part of the issue widely held in your book that i found fascinating. other work that you do come a share revival, how the conflict shape the future, forces of fortune, the rise of the class and what will mean for our world come and utah certain great events that didn't come, the rise of sectarianism although i didn't always agree with the full-scale war but i have to say i think it will give a lot of people what to what was coming and the potential for the air and spring. i have to say that we have all been surprised about certainly where it is going. i also want to say before i get started i guess i have almost a fatal attraction to reading your book if you have watched and i have observed many of the inner struggles for me one of the revelations of your book the struggles that go on in the making of policy as few people see most people like to see that everything is fine, the great minds come together, the great leaders and after careful talking and analysis come to decisions on policy and i think you and i know that it is not quite that simple. it's simply not that easy of a process. sometimes some students say if you like sausage don't watch it made. if you're interested in policy you really don't want to know too much about the behind-the-scenes, but you know when i think back in the past ten years in particular regardless of the administration we have been watching how sausages being made. so much is being brought out into the open that it's been i think it's made the art of political compromise as a negotiation within the government let alone to forward a policy much more difficult. it's not always as pretty or as tasteful or as a thoughtful as we would like to read and it's not always about principle. sometimes it's about power and influence and with the arab world calls so much what you know and who and basically getting your way. so what i would like to given the time we have to get three's to go through some of these things. i have a long list of questions of course that come to mind. and there are two parts because much of the book -- and i think the greatest value and contribution is on the time spent as a participant you were able to observe in your work with kohlberg and how he works. the man had a reputation larger than life and was a very forceful actor on the scene. it's always important and it reminds me that when we watch how the policy is made i don't mean to talk too much on the front pity and i just want to start here that you do have a professional diplomatic corps as professional diplomats that know how to operate in that environment. and you like to think the goal was conflict resolution and peace without war in the u.s. interests and those of our allies and friends, how to make decisions and how to negotiate, and it's not. so much in terms of personal satisfaction and their vision is the most important and sometimes it is where you think the power is that it's not and that is the dark side of i think a lot of this. there is also the problem insiders define in many ways where they are a down the the president or the secretary of state, secretary clinton certainly has hurt in fighters. every secretary of state has. sometimes they consult with the professionals. >> sometimes the principles they operate on think about the election, think about the interest groups you don't want to aggravate. it has that layer it's difficult to deal with. let's start with very basic questions if we can. you talk a lot about the different influences based on the military feeding into this picture and the professional diplomatic corps and the friends of the president and his advisers, and you have the intelligence community and certainly that's to say that the -- cia. and the vice president and also especially in this administration has insisted on playing a larger role. whether that is good or not is in the point. it's another base to deal with. so, tell me who decides the options? how are these options laid out, and who should be -- who should have the input if you would? >> very good questions you asked. when we came to afghanistan and pakistan which was the big war that they had to manage that iraq was present in boesh's war. i think one of the main issues is the overhang of iraq. so we started actually looking at afghanistan not really on the basis in terms of what does it need, with the interests are, how we come to some kind of conclusion and closure in a way that is good for the region and protect us? we started from the premise of iraq. so in iraq therefore we should do why but we cannot do x because bush had done what he and this was i think a problem to begin with and i don't think the administration ever was even going back into the campaign able to craft a national security in edge which wasn't constantly measured against iraq. so he was a good president because he would do exactly the opposite of flesh. he would look at it up until now the claim to fame is bush took us into the region and we are taking it out so every time we talk about in afghanistan policy we literally end up comparing it to iraq and i think that is a big problem. the second is that iraq did produce the u.s. military is a two-time foreign policy element because they are not the ones that cause the war. they cause the decision of the civilians in this pentagon and the white house and some in the state department and the way that the war played out, but in the and the military became the savior. general petraeus and that up being the hero of the iraq war and the surge in data being the military solution to a catastrophe caused by civilians. and the military as the expression goes they drink their own kool-aid too much. so they can help thinking that it deserves all the resources it can get. it has the solution to the problem. it really doesn't need civilians, definitely doesn't need diplomats and it doesn't need diplomacy. and it really has reinvented the ending of the war. so in a little more to you go to viet nam, you go to the balkans, the war around the world, a fight the war, the diplomats and negotiating and when you look at the balkans war in vietnam, and you know, kissinger and holbrook were in charge. the military was providing them with muscles so they could go to negotiations in paris or dayton with the backing of the military. in iraq there was no negotiated settlement. so general petraeus and his team and the military can't say that the savior of the world was a client strategy. and it not only was the cedar of the war and meaning the counterinsurgency which he was the architect of but it can be america's global strategy in dealing with terrorism and failed states and the pentagon if you would team up to eat all of america's middle east and south asia policy. so you a ride in afghanistan with iraq's overhang and the military has an enormous amount of influence on the strategy for afghanistan and very early on the president succumbs to that and the strategic review according to which they decide to put troops into afghanistan first the smaller number in january, 2009, then a larger number in the fall of 2009, but essentially he ended up accepting the solution to afghanistan was to export the strategy for iraq or afghanistan and at that point of the general petraeus was head of centcom but largely this was the united states vision for afghanistan and general petraeus is put on the ground on the clean operation. so we ended up going into afghanistan and essentially taking the military at the forefront strategy and the civilian, the state department, the civilians of the white house essentially and within the white house the sense of devotee of the domestic political what visors for the president said this is a sensible way to go because it is too difficult for the democratic president to argue with success which is the way that we had to find iraq and was difficult for the democratic president as young as president obama was to basically tell this triumphant military coming out of iraq. but the strategy may not be appropriate for afghanistan and therefore we sort of succumb to increasing direct from afghanistan. >> host: if he's not the first president to be afraid of dealing with the military directly if i remember correctly, clinton had similar problems both of them lacking military experience and careers if you ever look in the military you think of the old image of the democrats and soft on the war, not really good on this. there's been some difficulties in the democratic president's approaching the military. mostly it's been giving them what they want, which clinton certainly did, and i think that obama is reluctant to take them on but you're not really going to argue and i think the other part of the problem and, you know, the disclosure having spent the past 15 years of the national defense university and seeing a lot of the military, petraeus had a reputation that several of our generals acquired this kind of aura of the superstar and he had a very successful strategy. when we look at the surge that was so successful we look at it as ours. yet that isn't the truth. that isn't what made it successful. i think of this in part because so much of my life has been looking at things where really iraq was ready to make that strategy work. >> i agree president obama is not unique in being pushed by the surge of military popularity and to be fair it was quite difficult after iraq and the way that they emerged as heroes the president would sort of our do with that, but the details of the president could have unleashed the state department and the civilians in ways that could have complemented or provided an additional layer in particular secretary clinton was much more powerful than the president and the military. i mean, in situations she was often the strongest character in the room and the toughest. the only civilian in a number of intelligence and security officials which dominate the national security team or the president. she was highly respected, extremely tough, but i think the way that it works out is that the state department, in particular holbrooke who could have played an important role in battling the military given the experience in vietnam and the balkans were put in the position to say your job is not to make policy. you are not equal partners here. you are basically there to implement the civilian needs of the coin strategy. as a, you know, this is not about global diplomacy. the job of the state department is to look after building afghanistan's agriculture because that's what it means for your job is to go round the world and make sure many more give support. but the input is not welcome. it's the period about war strategy. i think where the balance is lost is the war fighters became america's t chief strategists not just an estimate largely we still see this withdrawal argument in the region wary essentially passed from the hands of the diplomats to the hands of the war fighters, and in many ways the state department fought very hard against it. hillary clinton and richard holbrooke tried to argue that it would be a mistake for the united states to put all its eggs in this region on a military solution to the president actually in his heart didn't believe and that they should be given a far broader birth in thinking about architecture, a peace settlement , global engagement that would provide for a framework for the end to afghanistan that would enable us to leave with some kind of a political solution to the if you look at afghanistan now, we didn't win the war or a wife at a settlement. so, in a way, there are a lot of loose ends. we are basically saying the war continues as before except we are just going to let the afghans do it. and the taliban are still in full force. there is no peace deal, there is no international agreement or consensus on the endgame in afghanistan. we are just sort of going to pass the baton to the afghan army. it was the case why did we surge at all? we could have done the training of the afghan army from day one. the state department argued part of the fighting that has been -- and i described in the book is because the white house was highly resistant to the state department making any policy input to they would like him to be the employ mentors. and if it hadn't been for i think hillary clinton, who continuously remained very strong influential voice and was able to single-handedly carry the mantle and also have an enormous amount of influence that a variety of points, largely the entire afghanistan issue would have been completely reduced to military strategy, and the pentagon would have become a defector's the department. >> host: if i put this in some kind of a context the pattern is not original with obama that much of this for better or worse was a pattern learned or imposed in the bush administration and in that case leading it to the war in iraq and after words was the source of everything. you what strategy it's the pentagon, you want intelligence on matt, the pentagon was the source of all knowledge and programs and this is pretty much rumsfeld and the people working under him did not see the need to look to anybody else. it's hard to say this but maybe they got used to this pattern that became so heartened that it's hard to change that. maybe that's part of the problem. it raises some serious questions in terms of the role that you have been conditioned or taken and you don't want to concede it. >> guest: you are correct because we cannot fill in the pentagon saved the day. the day was saved by civilians and negotiations in paris. but in iraq they were the ones that solved the problems. that actually raises an important question as to whether the obama administration has been able to move away from the bush strategy. and i made this argument about when you look at iran and the drone a strategy it is often bush policy improved and better implemented but there hasn't been a real effort to reinvent american foreign policy pivoted one thing that is important is the domination of the military did impact america's global image. so when president obama came in, it was the sense that our image in the region had been tarnished, that there are -- our global standing had been affected, and i think secretary clinton did a lot to rebalanced that in the sense that by giving the state department a lot more visibility, by also trying to even influence the decision making on the war in the white house i think she went a long way of writing that problem. under the bush administration, during the rumsfeld clash, the state department lost and was hugely humiliated. the building was demoralized and it reached the point where the state department literally wasn't even respected any major way, and i think she decided to rebuild this department's influence in the u.s. government it was a task of diplomacy as well. so she spends her time continuously talking to the generals, talking, you know with the white house staff finding ways to reverse the attitudes that had been billed as you mentioned about the state department and she left the state department in a far better position than she founded. even today the continuous problem the state department fines is the reluctance in the white house with the pentagon to accept the state department said in america's global strategy. and then being the employment of that global strategy in every issue other than the war. and i think that is a challenge even today. it was a challenge than and secretary clinton was in that period they are getting further than the previous predecessors and i think we will see if a successor can change this trend in a significant way. >> host: this is all important observations and i think what troubles me as i look at this you are right about hillary clinton she doesn't tolerate fools easily. she was very clear, she knew what it token. you have to be assertive and make yourself heard. she had to rebuild an institution that had really suffered a lot in terms of its role and the perception. the fact that it wasn't seen as a shaper but more and implement her to tell you the policy is and your job is to carry about that isn't very helpful in terms of delivering the institution and supporting its mission. a couple other things having in my lifetime covered several of the crises including watching everyone fight over all of this that we always used to shutter if there was a hint the president was going to announce the dead line. they are not a good thing. i never understood exit strategy. why do you need an exit strategy? did we have a strategy in world war ii. what is this great urge, the strategy if you announce at the same time for example with afghanistan they are going to have a surge and sending more troops and you are going to announce the withdrawal begins in 2014 or whatever, isn't that self-defeating? >> guest: it was and i can say that from first-time experience of that time period that first of all we have a great deal of difficulty even convincing people the idea was good for afghanistan. people in the region are highly suspicious. they would keep telling us iraq is not afghanistan. afghanistan is not iraq not only for the reasons that you mentioned that the mind set that iraq uses different but it's a flat country and it's much easier to think of claims. the taliban are very different from the insurgency. the taliban also have strategic deaths in pakistan. iraq has a much more educated society to get its military has more. there was a lot more to work with. nobody believed was a good idea to take the claims. they would succeed. a dividend of having another vietnam. but you actually stayed with it coming he would end up with a 15 or 20 year war. so to begin with, they didn't believe us and we argue with them no, no, believe us we are going to stand behind your strategy. you should trust in american foreign policy and in our wisdom. we know what we are doing and you should support us. they would look at you very politely and not say anything. and then we went six months back and announcing this policy there is a deadline they would say you and your policy is only good for one year they would say no, no, no, we are going to succeed in one year and then they would say but that makes all of your conclusions and arguments even less credible than before because we know that this isn't a one year game so how are you going to do it? as soon as this was done we ended up going back and saying we are starting the troop withdrawal and we are going to be gone by 2014. so, what i saw is it is almost like we were constantly talking to ourselves, this largely america headline driven it sounded good. it never convince anybody. in fact by the end what i saw is they concluded that we are confused and lack commitment. it's very dangerous for those countries to hitch their wagons to the united states wouldn't you just wait for me to go and then we will begin to think about our policy and what's going to happen. you saw that even among afghan actors. i think actually where we are in this region is everybody is just keeping still until we are gone. by 2014 we are gonna. we haven't won the war. we are not interested in changing the political dynamic on the ground by forcing a peace deal and forcing the regional actors to embrace and accept the peace deal and sign onto it so we are basically leaving afghanistan the way it is and they know nothing has been finished. they know the fight still there so by and large all we did in the region is tarnish our image and our standing and essentially create a situation where a devotee has written us off and then we wonder why we are influenced on declining. >> host: if you look at this it's just so not about afghanistan in this sense. afghanistan becomes yet another example of a failed policy. and in their regions lives. in the region the argued against the policy on iraq. and when we did get rid of saddam hussein once we move to was dangerous to let things drift the way they did. it was dangerous not to insist immediately on a replacement that could be trusted, that they hold things together. what we did in effect -- i know you go to the region, i go to the region and the question is always why did you get iraq to elon. didn't you think about that? didn't you realize what would happen? and this sense that they have upped the shah. we didn't stick with him. we've given up on iraq and let the iranians taken over. we've abandoned the mubarak and then we announced the withdrawal from afghanistan. and now what are you going to do next? how can we trust the united states? you are right for different reasons these do feed into an overall uneasiness with our commitment and all of the assurances in the world still make it very difficult because the region is at a time i know we always say this but this is a real crisis and they are facing challenges they haven't had to face both internally and what is going on. is it about just afghanistan? is it about iran nuclear? i think one of the things that is tipping the balance is syria. >> guest: i think you're absolutely right. >> it could be chalked up as a mistake and i think it's important as you say it's not about afghanistan. >> the overhang of iraq and the emphasis on the military that the tactical mistakes made in the white house in terms of announcing a deadline not subscribing to a political settlement. i think the president had at the beginning told the military you were going to get the claim that the same time i'm really serious about a diplomatic end. it would have a more balancing effect. but i think there is the sense that they denied the states isn't just withdrawing from afghanistan and iraq militarily. it actually wants to leave the region entirely. and that particularly hard for the allies in the gulf and jordan and morocco who are basically saying you need mistakes -- made mistakes and we stuck by you. now you came in and you literally pushed not only the shah 30 years ago but he pushed out mubarak and then did nothing for eject the day after he left it was almost about just pushing him off with no engagement in democracy building and economic reform. then you perfectly fine with the ascendance of fundamentalist power across the arab world. yet you still think you are our allies. and maybe self preservation almost puts them a position to begin to try to protect themselves from us, which is sort of universal. and every time they see american leaders what i hear in the region as you talk to americans about syria and egypt and they are just not engaged in these conversations. the very openly tell leaders in the region they're putting. and that is the encouraging sense of gloom and doom in the region to say we have to look for options b. it's not just that you have a bumbling america. you won't have any america at all and i think that to your point, and egypt is really critical. these are the two most important arab countries they will decide future of the region summer spectacularly completely disinterested they would be faulted for making mistakes but the fact that we don't see any role or sense of urgency as to whether it would assign a critical economic program with the imf or the fact syria could be delayed could destabilize iraq, lebanon, jordan, turkey, be a threat to israel ultimately spread to the gulf, that is quite baffling and in my opinion it is a colossal strategic part of the united states. the downgrade them as a strategic focus. it doesn't deal with syria. it deals with an issue that is neither a or down. >> they are letting them agree to an election. he hasn't been to a single arab country to the arab spring and that is heard a very loud in the country that washington is just not interested in this region. and that is a whole new chapter and we may have ourselves on the back and say just because you are not in there doesn't mean that the problems are solved and they won't come and bite you. i don't mean this as an excuse for the administration. but the problems are incredibly complicated. now, in a way the failure isn't an intelligence failure. it's not a military failure. it is a failure to be willing to take on very different problems. if you look at egypt as an example, maybe we made a mistake in recognizing. all groups should be able in a perfect world and in a perfect democracy if you will to the level to participate. what is wrong with that? but do we really understand the circumstances that we are dealing with? in other words, i don't think that we would prepare to deal with the aftermath. look at egypt even if it's always been a republic. it's been a much more open society. islamists have never had a tight hold. to flow to a transition and into the republic devotee or first or doing for in the streets and the first days of the demonstrations. that didn't last long. the people that cannot in the streets disappear and what we were left with or the remnants of the old regime and the islamists who for the first time to operate in public, great, but they were also the only organized body to be able to put together a structured political parties and know how to have to leave to move forward and did. this is the same story so maybe there are other countries but i don't think -- we thought that we were so far ahead. they were as they called on the right side of history the the problem is the egyptians haven't helped us to help them either. >> we shouldn't assume that we could fix egypt. but if we compared america's reaction to the global transformations of this kind come even intellectually engaged with trying to have an out, the highest levels of government, we cannot influence the decision making on of the constitution but we could have an influence on the economic decision making. we could coordinate better with saudi arabia said they don't give money to egypt a week before they are suppose to be signing a critical deal with the imf. we could provide a better political cover to the egyptian government for economic decisions. we could be engaging buddy egyptian people to the secretary of state, the white house in more ways that we engage the brazilians, the polish or the way the germans are trying to engage the public in greece. >> host: they aren't exactly a model that i would want to follow. >> guest: but the point is that we have a lot at stake and also the other part of it is it is expected the region were these when we do too much and it's often equally worried that there are down sides to this when we leave it to other regional actors to fend for themselves and we don't have an opinion. money goes to the wrong actors. money goes to the groups in egypt. they have no opinion following the lesser party to control our friends giving money to the solaces as well as to the brotherhood. >> it requires us to be talking to them about egypt and requires them telling the saudis that look, we have a strategy. tell us if it is wrong or have your input but this is our vision for where we want egypt to end up. we believe economic reform should come at this level, at this stage, and therefore we would like your backing and your support. when we wanted to do this seriously, the secretary of state would go to cairo 22 times and two darussalam 23 times and to riyadh, and we understand that you have a plan in your head, and you go and talk to the leaders and keep embellishing it and create a regional consensus about a particular idea then you try to move the region forward. it was impossible for the united states to have had serious conversations with regional actors around economic reform in the region around job creation, of constitutional reform. >> host: i think we forget every time we talk about economic reform certainly the country's especially egypt and jordan did very, very worried because those things come with conditions. you are going to have to end reforms and subsidies. how can you end subsidies for bread or any of the necessity when the was tried in the past and has had major riots in both countries? so it's probably cause for concern and they have elections coming up. the party in power is worried they won't be in power anymore. a day without a promise of a road map for word and they have to believe it. so that isn't on the table and it is much easier to take 5 billion from qatar and libya. >> host: let's move on to some others. these are such good issues. but there is one thing i want to come back to again come in and that is what i think you described it as described in your book is full of government approach to solving the problems. and many say that what holbrooke and others want us to do in the state department was to create an effect what the pentagon had been so successful doing before them a couple of government as a form, state department of holbrooke would be the person in charge and one of the criticisms made is that in pursuing this holbrooke and the people working with him probably got carried away. they were so busy in thinking about all of the problems down to the weeds, down to this list that they lost. they lost control of the problem and perhaps were not able to push on the bigger issues as hard as they probably should have. it almost looks like what happens with the iraq, could the one office in the state department intended to be the sole source of our afghan policy or in the thinking about what needed to be done was your office trying to take on more than it could handle? >> guest: i think the reason people regarding the leave is because that is the way they were pushed to do. the state department would much rather have focused on the peace process and not worry about agriculture and pomegranates and these small issues. but the nature of the claim demanded granularity so it's about the village level cooperation between the civilian team and the military team. so, this was a vision that was obviously accommodating the equine vision. >> to say that they were the teams of military, civilian, advisers on agriculture had worked effectively in iraq. >> verso few security issues and also as you mentioned in the nature of the two countries it was quite different. and also i don't think that the clearing of the tel dan was ever as effective as the insurgents, but you see the problem was it was immediately undercut by the rifles in the white house and the military and they were reluctant to give holbrooke the authority that he needed to run things. some of the problem was not that we were focused on too many things. it's that when you came up with anything effective, you ran against and it always took the personal appeal and charm and their way of doing things through the call of the secretary of agriculture and ask him. but the white house wasn't helpful and they said can you call this department or call that department and they wouldn't do it. and in a way it created our position and then you try to handicap it collectively. and everybody above the government very quickly understood that the white house wants to cut holbrooke at the knees and therefore they began to play the same game but then this worked, there were times when in pakistan and had a tragedy of the massive floods. this office because it connected the different parts of the environment allowed for much more rapid response. the connected usaid to the navy to the embassy, and which is critical, but i think the problem is good to think about whether these kind of offices work. but i think we shouldn't render judgment based on structure. we should also look at whether it makes sense to create them. and then from day one put your shoulder to making them fail because of the personal clashes and battles. >> host: let me ask you one more question before i move on to the big question. and it's my last won a promise on holbrooke. there's another aspect here and it has to do with the iran policy when it comes under the discussion of the iran policy. he was quite a bit of a free lancer. and his recommendation -- he wanted to do his own initiative towards iran. and i'm taking back to i think it was sometime in 2009 to be he wants to act on his own and meet with the high iranian officials which is absolutely forbidden. but he says what if it happens to be in the right place? and i happen to talk to him, who is to stop me and say this isn't going to take us somewhere? i think somewhere it is described as typical of the guerrilla tactics and it might be that the non-holbrook side of the government is very worried that he would take some kind of initiative and someplace that they really didn't want to go but there was a certain amount of on willingness to perhaps let him out of the buildings. >> guest: they're definitely was particularly among i would say the president's domestic advisers who didn't want to do too much even afghanistan or iraq or iran and he wanted to run a tight ship it was a veteran nfl of because the objective wasn't solving the problems. it's dangerous in that sense because it might actually put the united states in a place where it would have to risk diplomacy. it wasn't just on iran. the administration also was extremely worried and the political settlement to far ahead and then they would end up in a circumstance where they would have to defend it, so i think that's what i'm saying, this foreign policy even though we were in this big war even though we were spending $100 billion on this war in the end. it is by the logic of winning are finishing at war but the larger domestic politics which basically said, you know, do what the military wants because then that's popular and the responsibility is with them. we don't want to do anything risky where the president has to risk political capital. he would basically shut down his idea about the political settlement. >> host: they were not sure that they could. to say no to this and that the strategy is wrong and it would exit faster and when we exit we are going to lead the region without anything to show for this war and it's going to hurt us more and in five years down the road you will have another 9/11 that comes from that region and it goes back to everything we talked about in 2001, 2002. we've done a lot of criticizing with president obama and what he's done and the vision and lack thereof. >> host: the book wasn't necessarily critical but i do think that the vital thing the americans have to think about and look at because i think particularly when it comes to the middle east and south asia we have come to the point we decided foreign policy doesn't matter. we are sort of adopting an attitude that doing less in the region is better and we don't need to get into solving messy problems and we can focus on issues at home. we ought to sort of debate this much more openly come coherently so it think the president has done well in many areas of the foreign policy with asia, latin america, and one can say that his success but two things i want to raise, one is how do we make foreign policy, how do we balance between civilians and military, how do we actually set forth strategy interest and pursue it and are we have the right place and my sense is that even if we are not at the wrong place, it is time for us to get out. we've tangled with the middle east quite a lot over decades and still for the better part of 2001 to 2,009, we've really put this at the center of our global policy. and then we also are making some very radical decisions about that region, about departing things, not doing things, and these are some very big decisions which we are doing almost sleepwalking right now. do we want to be disengaged in the spring of the answer is yes but let's really look at it. do we really want to go through zero and think we are done? zero troops in afghanistan and say we are done? do we want to take our relationship with come captivate to pakistan completely for granted? are we on the right track? i think these are issues that are going to decide a global standing. and also, security issue. as we've been also preoccupied with for more than a decade. >> host: the conclusion of your book took me by surprise. it's taken many people because in the end, you say there is a gathering storm, you identified a lot of problem issues. but in the end, what do you see as the biggest issue that we have to prepare ourselves for because i think it will surprise -- people that haven't read your book yet are going to be a little surprised at what you identify as our greatest problem to come. >> guest: our biggest problem is global issue in china pity the administration has argued that this is completely separate from the middle east coming and we have a choice of either middle east or china. so the term pivoting towards asia was towards asia and pivot away from the middle east. they think about it from ruler to public intellectual americans want to wash their hands of this. so my argument is not -- the middle east is strategically important and vital. we have a lot at stake but it's also not separate from the china issue. it's a mistake. it's another big mistake to think that china is in the asia-pacific. and the middle east is completely irrelevant. but rather might think the middle east will also be in the a reena moving west and they move from the middle east and central asia. they look at the arc of central asia to pakistan come in here and abroad if you want to call it. i said that countries that are of a vital interest to the stability of western china. they are looking for markets, building pipelines, roads into this region. so, for the chinese come in the middle east is a rising strategic concern and interest where we sort of think these things have nothing to the teacher repeated as a primary choice between the middle east and china. so am i able to sort of say the focus in china is well played. but you shouldn't think of asia's only east asia. you should also consider that your presence in the middle east, decades ultimately is relevant here to the rivalry with china, and i think also at another level this is important i think people in asia, and the book i've heard from many in asia who say they are looking at us in the middle east to gauge how trustworthy we are and how much stamina do we have? succumb if we push mubarak off the pedal school -- pedestal what would it say to the allies there that are thinking should we, you know, go against china and connect ourselves to the u.s. when we refuse to lay red lines and get involved when we are conflict at first in the middle east and what signal is sent to china or what signal does it send to north korea? .. it seems to me that your recommendations are counterintuitive to where i think many americans want to go. i don't think that they are reaching