Transcripts For CSPAN2 Today In Washington 20110322

personal finances to manage their businesses online us we the marketing association and counsel of the better business bureau. have gone directly to customers these organizations have and ask what's important to them longstanding effective respective compliance programs leveraging to cover the so while there is that sensitive principles. any company that claims to information there are other comply but fails to do so could aspects of the information with face ftc enforcement for us that might not be if it was another company treated in the deceptive practices the program same more sophisticated way. -- progress is an exciting the work continues. one of the major benefits of the .. industry's self regulation is ability to respond quickly to changes to technology and business practices. but simple, recently some policymakers raised concerns that the the clich for advertising purposes could be used as the basis for employment to help insurance. i want to emphasize these are hypothetical concerns that do not reflect actual business practice but nevertheless industry is stepping forward to address these concerns and expanding our guidelines to clarify in and ensure such practices are prohibited and will never occur this of regulated and principles are the guidance of the federal policymakers which strengthened our independent commitment to the consumer privacy uniform choice. as we proceed on the dialogue is important to avoid mixed >> it's very clear that they really care about how their data messages to consumers that could is used. inhibit them from exercising the they want to understand that choice to the self regulator through clear, open, transparent that's already available. we have to ensure there is a single standard to make it explanations, and the more clear you are about that, the less simple for consumers who do not they want to be fed with want to add confusion to an already complex arena. choices. what mattered to them is i want to make it clear we are working with a browser companies something that was relevant that such as microsoft and firebox related to their experience, so when we think about that and the and chroma who are part of the principles-based approach, we look at what's flexible with our coalition to incorporate self environment, but also adapted to regulation and do not track other industries and businesses together. so in conclusion we believe the program creates the right of all sizes. >> i appreciate it. framework that encourages both i certainly have enormous innovation and privacy bring the benefits to the online services respect for the concept that and privacy protection to consumers. thank you and i look forward to any questions. data stewardship does that you >> thank you. or tick lateed -- mr. soltani. >> thank you. senator pryor and distinguished members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to articulated. putting that statement out front testify about online consumer is a high standard. privacy and the state of we have to figure out where that tracking. my name is ashkan soltani applies. mr. montgomery, you may have a specializing in security on the different feeling. >> not at all, sir. internet. as a background i served as a technologist in the division of i think an important question privacy and identity protection you asked earlier which is about of the federal trade commission and was the primary technical very clear notice that consultant on "the wall street information's been collected, so journal." i should note the opinions here nothing that is hidden under, are my own and don't reflect my you know, under a men knew, and previous employers. i think for the soft regulation in my testimony will discard program of which microsoft, by findings from my research about the pervasiveness of online tracking and the extent to which the way, is an important part consumers can control unwanted has an icon on every single tracking and conclude with a description of the proposed do advertisement that collects not track mechanisms. information, so the billions of the practice of using advertisements that collect third-party services is common information will have an icon on on the web today. them which will allow consumers i culver a study that we found to click on the icon and tell an average of 123rd party truckers on the top 100 most them who is collecting information about them. visited websites. >> that's the icon? one site use roughly 100 >> that's the icon in a somewhat different trackers that means when the user visits the expanded version. >> what's the chart underneath website, 100 entities are notified of the visit. it? >> that's an example of an ad the reason online tracking is that's running at the moment, effective and raises privacy and if you see in the top-right concerns is third party entities hand corner, that's a provasive can monitor the user's behavior ad choices icon that consumers on multiple of related web sites. in the study one advertising click on the icon, and they are service to track the users' web told about behavioral browsing activity to approximately 90% of the website advertising and one click they be examined read this company isn't alone in this reach. can opt out. >> does verizon get the action single social networking companies currently gather data across several million web today? [laughter] >> it is not, sir. >> okay. >> we think this is the sites. these companies have the position to infer a great more recycling logo and build than the user's interest on consumer trust. >> how is that find its way to sporting goods. the unique vantage enables them there now? is that a one-to-one to collect the vast majority of the browsing activity. relationship with veer verizon, or how does it work? it's important point of online tracking isn't limited to >> we've rolled out the program to our client base. desktop computers. there's more than 100 major little devices and smart phones clients already subscribing and raise privacy concerns because people always have them. client the have to give us permission to go ahead, and most of the clients agree with it. application s and services there's an underpinning running on the devices may have the ability to access precise technology reemployee that allows us to figure out who is location information providing tracking so that we can apply a third parties with a minute details about the user's habits. compliance mechanism to the process so if an advertiser every major with browsing has a privacy enhancing technology doesn't comply, we contact them that are not enabled by default and are often difficult to and call them out publicly and configure. even when properly configured ultimately, you know, that online tracking companies have information is made public and consistently decides ways to circumvent their function. -- as a result the browsers and >> consumer awareness about that consumers are losing the game of or some sort of campaign to make privacy whack-a-mole. many seek to temper the privacy people aware? how would you -- concerns by offering users a week to opt out of the be to >> yes. >> get the word out so to allow advertising however the speak. opt out typically only allow the >> great question. users to opt out of targeted ads in my testimony earlier, i and not out of the undermining talked about a campaign we developed with the internet trafficked. i don't think this is what most consumers expect. advertising bureau called privacy matters. that is already had 600 million following that not all companies engage in all my trafficking or offer an opt out. by my count only about a quarter of the truckers i'm aware of how compressions on consumers to existing opt out mechanisms. extend the campaign to teach today's consumer mechanisms fail consumers about who information is collected, the importance of to provide users with meaningful behavioral advertising, and the importance of having access to control industries have been free content on the internet working to establish an fueled by advertising. easy-to-use tool to control the, >> so do you still accept the tracking before to as do not notion that incidentally, i track. think it's a terrific step separate but complementary approaches have been advanced forward, and i congratulate you and i want to discuss them in for it, but do you still believe technical detail here happy to answer any questions you may have about them. you need a baseline law where there's a safe harbor from to conclude, online tracking is pervasive on the internet and an issue difficult for the users to understand even when they do prescriptive regulation? >> sir, i think what we feel is realize they're being attacked very, very important in this in the contract there is little that can be done. process is that self-regulation consumers need more transparency who is tracking them on line, is given an opportunity to work what information is being in this process, and if it needs collected and how it is being to work with the baseline law, used, shared and sold. we're happy to cooperate with there's a clear need for better you in any way to refine and privacy controls to prevent unwanted tracking in the industry isn't delivered. ensure compliance around it as to be effective, privacy long as the self-regulation can protections on line will require operate within it. the technology and policy working in tandem. >> but suppose -- i mean, if the thank you for inviting me to fdc were to certify that program date to be our hope my testimony here is helpful and i'm grateful for the committee has a or a similar program like that, and it's compliant with the fair technologist to príncipe gandy issues deeply technical in trade of people's information, nature. i look for to helping the understand the nuances and make given the way the net works and online tracking such an interesting and complex issue. i'm happy to answer any the modern technology that's available and the low cost of questions. collection and so forth, >> thanks. who's next? couldn't collectors of information outside of your program wind up doing a lot of ms. lawler. >> good morning and thank you for the opportunity to comment on the stick online privacy. damage broadly in ways that's - barbara lawler and i am the inconsistent with what you said chief operator at intuit. consumers ought to have? i ask my statement be put into >> just to clarify, you mean the record due to time constraints. data trackers who are outside >> without objection and will be. the program? >> the mission is to improve people's financial lives both >> precisely. >> i think that there are bad profoundly they cannot imagine going back to the old way of actors out there, and one of doing things. it is true for this mission we approach the current privacy the -- and we would absolutely debate. support any way that we could intuit izzie hillarycare uncover the bad actors who are corporation to their regulatory doing anything to harm regimes in the u.s. including consumers. >> well, since our approach is financial and health care principles-based, basically, privacy and privacy of tax return information. additionally we touch over does that give you the latitude 50 million people through the product. within which to be able to move? these people entrust us with the >> i think what's important is most sensitive data. right now we have over 5,000 the federal and state income tax return information, individual companies subscribing to the purchase transactions, bill self-regulatory process, and in payments and health information. that way, we've got 5,000 policemen out there watching for business accounts including employee payroll, accounts the bad actors, and in fact, interestingly last week, we receivable, vendors list, inventory and other business data. as more technology solutions discovered some fraudulent move to the cloud customers practice on the internet, and place more trust in us as we handed it over to the fbi for handle the sensitive data. further investigation, so -- and at intuit with default data storage principles that express we hear this all the time how we think about how we use amongst, you know, our member the that and offer guard rails to guide our judgment. base where, you know, they are looking out for that all the the central concept of the data time, so in summary, absolutely, stewardship as simple. would work with you any way we it's our customers' data, not could to ensure consumer privacy ours. we are and will be held accountable for the information and continued innovation. entrusted to us. >> mr. anderson, we shared with as you think about privacy you, with the company, you, the legislation, we encourage you to consider four things. one, principles based approach, drafts, the current drafts, and number two, focus on customers, as of with several of you, and never freakin' a data driven i'm wondering if you just might innovation and number four, global uniformity. share with us your sense as to first, we see the value and the where we are in that process incompetence of principles based now. >> from our perspective the privacy legislation. because we adhere to the various process is going very well. privacy regimes, this idea could we absolutely appreciate the work in tandem with silver to opportunity to be involved in the process. the three approaches, codes of we see the drafting process conduct and best practices. going in the direction that we a principal based approach is not prescriptive but enables hoped for which is to establish baseline principles in the law flexibility to offer data driven that we think are reasonable and solutions with an existing sector specific privacy law. industry can and should be able to sign up for. the principles based approach we are very encouraged by it. could shield a gap that exists between the different approaches >> appreciate that. while the same time lending with them. it's also more likely to be received and effectively adopted ms. lawler, what about you? >> we also like the direction in by all businesses of all sizes. which the proposal is going. it is more likely to be we are generally supportive. understood by the public it seeks to protect and the we like the principles-based principles based approach is more likely to achieve consensus approach, the safe harbor. over time in the international we look forward to working with context which will be essential you on refining the proposal as to the global competitiveness in the emerging digital economy. such approach could set forth in it was. >> is there a major hurdle in minimum set of requirements for your judgment? business and provide the fundamental core level of >> i would say that there aren't consistency for businesses and any major hurdles. consumers. codes of conduct based on the i think where we would like to work with you would be on the context industry sector, technology platform and other data drivers would build on top level of prescriptiveness on of the privacy baseline. certain areas on notice and quds of conduct can serve as the contracting. >> okay. free-market support for the regular receipts herber programs well, we look forward, obviously, to working that second on any relevant data through with you. regime must be focused on the >> there's very much that we do customer. at intuit, customers are the like in the bill, the proposal, heart of everything we do. so we think there's a lot there what we learned through extensive customer research is to work with, and in particular, that it's not about what we think is best for business or you know, we've talked a lot what we think should be done it's about keeping what is about today bad actors, and important to the customer at the there's companies represented in heart of the principles. this room that are high achievers, set very high third, responsible data used to foster innovation. standards, and i think what a consumers' expectations have principle-based approach outline changed as people are increasingly conducting their in the proposal currently helps lives on line. the volume and complexity of the us aim at the large mass of and the new world presents businesses, organizations in the boundless opportunities to middle that may not have the unlock a tremendous amount of data to create better same level of resources or just experiences and products for expertise and privacy issues customers. intuit's approach to data driven that you see at this table, and innovation is to irresponsibly so principles-based approach use the data entrusted to us by our customers to improve their using safe harbors as described in the proposal i think are a financial lives and products and services we provide them. real positive mechanism to bring last but not least, legislation the large masses into a higher level of privacy protection. must take into account the need >> well, we'll work with you on for the uniformity among the that. various privacy regimes. i've been noticed they need me in developing privacy back in the office, so i got to principles, they're needs to be the uniform approach. while so many laws and regulations are based on run and do that in a moment. essentially the same principles, i think colonel gadhafi doesn't the multistate and multinational companies are challenged by the differences among them. the essence of the data stored should cannot rely on just one element of our principle that must be comprised of all of them believe in that, so i have to go combined. uniform principles based vote. [laughter] you talked thoughtfully about legislation, customers and innovation coupled with responsible innovative and the first party endty and the compelling data usage. thank you again for giving intuit the opportunity to express its thoughts on this important subject. third party interacting, and it we look forward to working with makes sense, very logical, and you as you evaluate privacy we get it, but we've been legislation and to answer any questions you may have. struggling a little bit with the >> thank you, ms. lawler. cases where you have a first mr. calabrese petraeus mix before, try and carry and party such as facebook and members. thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of the facebook tracks behavior on american civil liberties union. another site, ect., and given we support comprehensive that want consumer had a first protection for americans' personal information including a do not track mechanism. party relationship with one of the new models of internet advertising has been to facebook, as long as notice is provided and choice is provided target ads adds a specific individual in order to make them for facebook to acquire the more relevant. the result has been a system where americans are routinely information, is that a point tracked as they surf the somewhere in between the first internet. americans assume this is no central record of what they do and third party? and where they go on line. we've been struggling with this however, in many instances that a little bit. is no longer the case. behavioral marketers, social >> [inaudible] oh, sorry. that's a great questionment i networks and other on-line companies are creating the believe in that context, profiles of unprecedented depth facebook, so facebook is a first party and a third party. and breadth that have the in the context when you enter personal aspect of our lives including religious and political beliefs, medical facebook.com into the url in information, purchases and your browser, that's the first reading habits. part of the browser. these profiles can legally be if you're on "washington post" shared with anyone including offline companies, employers and the government. and there's facebook apps this data collection is neither october gauge, that's a third benign or anonymous. party widget. individual profiles identify our mental health, sexual orientation or issues with i believe that falls under third wheat. they may indicate particular party data collection. volatility is. it's a little nuanced since then 92-year-old veteran richard you're interacting with the guthrie was built out of more widget. in the case where users than $100,000 by criminals who identified him from marketing knowingly interact with the widget. that could be a first party. lessons. kate reid, the recent graduate >> would the notice be the first has been identified by time when you first sign up, advertisers as concerned about this can happen or notice occur her weight. every time i go on the internet, each time, each page or how does she says, she sees weight-loss it work? >> i believe since these things adds. i'm self-conscious about my weight. i try not to think about it. are tied to identifiers, i believe perhaps upon the setting then the ads start leaking about of the identifier in the first it. party context, the notice could information that can be used for identity theft is on line but happen at which point that identifier could then -- so your beyond our control. one reporter asked the company to search out the information on her arm only with her name and cookie could be used to tie that activity to the third party e-mail address she says within context. we have to be careful here around forced third party 30 minutes the company had my interactions so when you go to a social security number. website and a video plays, that in two hours they knew where i lived. an ad pops up that you dmais, my body type, my hometown, my health status. you compel users require them to nor individual web surfing had interact in the third party context. its anonymous. i think we still want to frame many companies now provide a way it around meaningful to directly link your name and interactions with third parties that consumers are aware of, and mailing address to your web surfing habits. we might consider that okay, and companies know who you are on line. all of this information is other past collections is available for sale with no considered third party collection. >> okay. control. we got to work that through a particular concern of course obviously and see how we come is the government access. many civil liberties benefits of out of it, but obviously some of the internet ability to read this is, you know, does get into provocative materials, associate with them on mainstream groups, that nuance whatever you want to voice dissenting opinions are call it area, and it gets based on the assumptions of the tricky. i think the principle we want to practical anonymity and freedom from the government scrutiny. have guide us is also to do no because of disinformation collections these assumptions harm even as we are protecting are rapidly e routing. law enforcement routinely people, and i think, you know, purchases access to offline we're going to try to balance private database is full of that very, very carefully here, detail profiles on each of us with no legal process. so we will continue a thoughtful they could legally do the same process here of engagement with with on-line information. all of you to try and danny has in fact, online and offline database is of personal information are increasingly been doing a superb job of linked. we have no right to access the same databases or control how reaching out to everybody. there's a slight nepotism going they are used. solutions exist. on -- [laughter] the technology may be new but the problems are not. but my brother over at the congress and the states have commerce department as general passed many laws to protect americans reading habits and manager has been involved without my engagement at all, viewing habits and the offline world. they've done this on their own, more than 30 years ago the u.s. but i thank them for their input department of health education and welfare crafted basic privacy principles called the which is enormously helpful, and obviously we need to work to the fair information practice administration to figure out where we're going here. principles the have become the i hope we can get a product basis for comprehensive privacy laws and many industrialized where everybody is standing up nations as well as specific and staying this is good. this is something we can live sector laws in the united states. the department of commerce with, work with, and the recently called called for adoption of the principles to consumer is really given a set the internet. we endorse the use of the fair information practices as well. of choices and opportunities in addition, the private-sector here that they don't have today has developed innovative to make an intelligence-guided solutions like the do not track mechanism. these mechanisms need to be selection as to where they are backed by the force of the law. heading and what's happening to their information; and i think we reject any approach that is we can come out of there without solely on the self regulation by upsetting the obvious commercial companies. self regulation by itself is a interests that we all want to encourage and that are important failed approach. it has allowed the current data to us, so on that note, we'll collection practices to four . consumers want change. adjourn here today and look surveys show 67% rejected the forward to getting this thing into shape to get it enter idea that advertisers should be deuced. i'm working with senator able to match ads based on mccain very closely as you specific websites consumers know, and he has interest in visit. and 61% believe the practices this as we go, but i hope we get were not justified even if they to a point to introduce this in kept the cost down and allow consumers to visit plebiscites short order. i think we need to do it. i think we need to do it soon. for free. ultimately if this information everybody will benefit by doing collection is allowed to this, and i look forward to continue then capitalism could getting this accomplished, so build with the government never thank you all very, very much could, the complete surveillance for being here today. we stand adjourned. online. without government intervention, we may soon find this internet has been transformed from a [inaudible conversations] library and a playground to a [inaudible conversations] fishbowl and that we have ceded the core values of privacy and economy. thank you. >> that's a pretty far reach. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] it's a concept. i'm not suggesting they're reaching it's just a big statement obviously about the potential downside. [inaudible conversations] it's just you, us and that's it. that's all that's left. i'm sorry. [laughter] i want to probe a few things and then we will get you all out of here before too long if i can. so, mr. calabrese, you have sort of drawn this potential danger picture which is inappropriate to put in front of us, what's the appropriate response to that in your judgment? >> we've heard a lot of great responses to it i think we can begin with the do not track mechanism which again is that by law and gives people the opportunity to of doubt. it's not enough on its own. senator kerry, the principles you described, the devotee to give consumers control over their information is vital as well. do not track is a part of that but it's also about sharing information collected by the first party. because i want a party to collect my information doesn't mean i want them to use it for everything. i may want to limit that. >> is there a balance here in your judgment? between the obviously very important interest in your high lighting and also the sort of commercial economic interest we all have in maintaining the viability needless to say regarding the enterprise. >> they're absolutely is a balance. i'm sorry, go ahead. >> there is a balance. mauney fear candidly is right now there is no legal protection and there's a great deal of incentive. americans are the date the two greatest businessmen and women of the world. give them an incentive and say there's an economic incentive to attract people on line and they will do a good job of it. so we need to put controls in place to make sure the consumer is part of the process. >> how far do the controls have to go? if the consumer has knowledge, one of the problems is we have learned -- i don't know if i have the statistics here or not -- i don't think i do. we found hysterically when that people consistently say this is something i'm really super concerned about, but then didn't believe could tend to engage in practices on the internet that the line that a little bit. >> sure. i think part of that is the haven't had a meaningful choice at this point. it's been a sort of take-it-or-leave-it approach so it's hard to expect people to invest time and energy in something -- >> a lot of folks at the table would disagree they don't have a meaningful choice. >> sure, but the fact i can't point to the law that says i control my personal information makes it hard for me to tell the consumer they in fact do have that control. the company's promise is are important, but not enough. >> anybody want to speak to that sort of to balance? >> i'm happy to speak to it. microsoft is obviously involved in online advertising and is also provides tools to the consumers to help them protect themselves from activities they may view as tracking and also spam and things like that as well so we are sort of like this in the unique position of having to make sure we are looking at both sides of the equation. the testimony i submitted we did provide some statistics about the incredible growth of online advertising and pointed out that it really is fueling a lot of the content available on the internet today, and i do think that is important to make sure that is kept in mind as things in the legislation. at the same time, consumer trust is incredibly important to the company and we know that users want to be in control of the data that is collected about them and how it is used as well so we are endeavoring to make sure they have the tools available to them to make sure they are in control. >> what does that mean, tools available to them? >> what i mean by that, i will give you an example from internet explorer browser. we have a feature called trafficking protection we introduced this week with internet exporter and what it does is from the menu -- it's available on the product -- you can select the feature called tracking protection -- >> when you downloaded or do you select that every time that it comes up? is there an icon -- >> that's a good question. when you have installed the product there are menu items available to you to choose from. >> is that initial installation because i know sometimes when you download something you have a menu of the initial installation. sometimes it shows up more than other times. it can be more bold faced than other times, you can miss them sometimes, i mean, how does it show up? >> that's correct. it wouldn't be part of the installation process. you wouldn't be sort of asked to choose among the different settings at the beginning of the installation process. when you do is after you install the product you would choose from the menu of different controls. >> he would choose to go to the menu or does it schwab automatically? >> you would have to choose the menu -- >> it would have to go to the men you? it wouldn't be like a privacy warning the initial warnings where you have to say i agree to proceed forward. there wouldn't be a stop -- you can't proceed forward until you've answered it? >> that's correct. >> so a lot of people say well, that's not really an in your face the choice. >> we understand the perspective obviously. >> i'm sure that when you want to get somebody's attention you know how to do it. [laughter] we've been pretty successful lead doing that, yes. >> so does this rise to that level or does it not? >> it's a good question. i think that what we find is that people want to experience the full internet. when the use the browse our product. and they want to receive the personalization. to get by using the full internet. there are many people who want to have a choice and want to have tools available to them so they are easy to access the product. >> it's a question of how boldly is there. i mean, as you said, you know how to get people's attention. everybody does in the business. things keep popping up and you've got to figure out how to get them away sometimes and then there are things that don't pop-up and you can't find or they are harder to find. that is at the center of this to some degree that there has got to be some sense of fair play and transparency and accountability and that. at what point on the user experience should you be affirmatively giving users the choice to make a decision. >> let me ask in this area and someone else perhaps. before i ask that question that we come back if i can intuit. you kind of, ms. lawler, about the principles that you apply and they are admirable, but terrific, and you talk about income tax, defender links come all these things you manage. but isn't that a very different kind of relationship and business than some other businesses which therefore makes it easier for you to frame this >> [inaudible conversations] good morning everybody. i and we will get started. br early but i think most people are here. my name is cliff, and the president of the foundation for defense of democracy. i want to welcome you. to the experts breakfast briefing. easy for me to say. this morning we are going to discuss the muslim brotherhood. its ideology, its goals, strengths and egypt and around the world and the challenges posed to the u.s. foreign policy. he's the muslim brotherhood secular heterogeneous violence, as they did right al qaeda as the perversion of islam. as you know, these are the descriptions of james clapper, the director of national intelligence provided to the congress recently delighted that he's ronald all accounts but i always attend these with an open mind. >> this briefing is part of a series here at fdd to have a productive, thoughtful and yet civil conversation about the pressing international development and challenges and crises that we face. we are honored to have with us today representatives from the u.s. government from the diplomatic corps with and tanks in town and other people from the policy community. most viewed farda shah for the defense of democracy created just after 9/11 to do research on terrorism and the ideologies and the regime and movements of organizations that drive terrorism and help develop policies to defend america and the west than those who have declared themselves as enemies those who support do not agree on everything. they do agree on at least three fundamental principles no one should be denied basic rights including minority rights, women's rights and religious freedom. free and space nations have the right to defend themselves and an obligation to defend one another and terrorism, the deliberate use of violence against civilians to achieve political objectives is always wrong and must never be condoned. we note that this event is on the record. our moderator this morning is my colleague dr. jonathan vice president for the research. the fdd. he's the author of several notable books among them hamas versus fata, the struggle for palestine and he's the co-author of the newly published palestinian polls for policy makers can learn from palestinian social he served as a counterterrorism analyst the u.s. department of the treasury, he will send a doctorate from king's college london and he documented the history of the united states congress and its efforts to combat terrorism. let me remind everybody of c-span here please turn off your cellphone or at least put them on vibrate and i will now turn the microphone over to jon who will introduce the speakers again. thank you and welcome. thank you. and think to everybody for coming today. >> we are of course what facing profound change across the middle east. i think the initial conversations we've had here at fdd have been prompted by the changes that we have seen in egypt, the fall of hosni marrec began the discussion of what extent the muslim brotherhood could possibly take power in egypt but egypt is not the only country we are watching from home bought rain where the muslim brotherhood is watching eagerly with it is to be some reaction from another muslim brotherhood groups seek to gain power and then of course even in yen to become yemen we are giving the collapse of the government and the rise of the party. so we are seeing not only the traditional muslim brotherhood in egypt but the potential branches taking power across the broad middle east and so we brought several experts in today to talk about egypt and the global muslim brotherhood and what we might be able to expect in the future and certainly what we should be looking at in terms of the u.s. foreign policy. so, to my right is the senior fellow here, he is a former specialist at the director of operations and author of three books including the forthcoming god man and a ballot box. pardon me, pardon me. he has worked at the american enterprise institute and the project for the new american center and publishes about everywhere from "the new york times" and "washington post" and weekly standard. he was educated at johns hopkins university of edinburgh and the american university in cairo and princeton. then we've got tom joselyn who is also a senior fellow here at fdd. he's the director of the center for law and counterterrorism and the senior editor of the journal. in 2006, began an extensive review of 10,000 pages of classified documents from guantanamo bay and he's created a database and since published more than 100 articles on current and former guantanamo detainees. tom is also the author of iran's proxy war against america, a monograph published in 2007 by the claremont institute that details the sponsorship of the sunni terror networks and recently, put together a tremendous white paper on the muslim brotherhood for the senior legislators and it's been circulating around capitol hill and we are now in the process of turning that into a monograph and we hope our discussions can perhaps influence that final product. then finally to my far right is lorenzo. he held a fellowship at harvard university kennedy school, u.s. institute of peace and the fletcher school of law and diplomacy. a native of mullen italy he holds a law degree from the university of montreal school and a doctorate of congressional relations from the school of law the policy. he is the author of the new muslim brotherhood in the west published by columbia university press in the fall of 2010. so that's the panel for today. the way this will go is we will ask each one of our panelists beginning with lorenzo to speak for about five minutes to cover some of the fox they have the muslim brotherhood and its recent rise in the middle east and some thoughts they have about what we are seeing after everyone is done we will open this up to a broad discussion, and i would ask now to just remind you that when you do have a question simply turn your life like this and i will make sure you get a microphone as it is being recorded. with that again think you very much for being here and welcome. we will start with lorenzo. stat thank you, jonathan. it's good to be here. thank you all for coming. let us start with the latest development. we had an important referendum on saturday and according to most analysis the results for the brotherhood. the yes vote for the constitution will lead to a vote within the next six months and that will according to most analysts be the only to established forces. now, whether the egyptian vote for yes is more of an emotional desire for the immediate change of whether they favor the brotherhood that's the table. i would argue the former rather than the latter. but despite that there's no question the brotherhood activists and victory on saturday will be playing an important role in the egyptian political life and future elections that is fair to say. and i think the brotherhood understood the dynamics within according to the people i've talked to, their campaign for the vote didn't focus on the two big cities where you walk around most of the slogans you see composters milward si were for the pro-democracy forces and the no vote but the brother of focus on the provinces and pro-democracy forces that are prominent in "the new york times" and during the last are not that prominent so that is telling and how the brotherhood knows exactly what its constituency is and where its strength lies. i said the brotherhood will have a larger role. let's try to play devil's advocate and see what could be the problem the brotherhood will face with six months from now. the problem in the sea in the brotherhood as an almighty monolithic force is that it doesn't take into consideration some that do exist in the brotherhood. it's unfair also to overplay them but it's not questionable there are some divisions inside of the brotherhood and that for a long time the glue that at them together is the mubarak sentiment, but as things progress it is not unreasonable, i'm not saying it isn't likely that it's unreasonable to think that they will develop in different ways and i think the first big difference is the generational that exist and i would decide the brotherhood in the three generations. we have the old guard, the people who suffered persecution under the 60's people who were in jail, and there are the 60's, 70's and 80's last bush, it's the still control the organization. we have a second guard which is the people who become members of the brotherhood in the 70's. they joined during the university in the 70's and the brotherhood and donelson for the persecution of the 60's and they speak the language of human rights and democracy and of course the debate on how genuine the stock is is never ending but at least they do talk of the game what put it like that. then we have the third generation, 20 something, thirtysomething to some degree. and this generation also weighs more in line with the most part at least the second generation. so there are flips. some of them are simply power struggles and personal. the criticism is the first generation doesn't allow the second and even more the third generation to play a role in the group. they are tactical. we saw the differences between the third generation that wanted to participate in the protest movement and the first generation that at least at the beginning was very reluctant to do so. and i think to some degree there are ideological. as i said, the second and third to innovations take approaches that at least publicly are different from most of the first generation. .. whether law should need vetted by a certain body of sharia experts. on this issue the position of the third generation dominated. this is going to play out in different ways. it is not unreasonable to think we saw that in the past with the party. will be gone that direction? we don't know. the third-generation controls the levers of power, but there is some at least some discontent within the second and third-generation. the second that is completely disconnected, i was trying to make an elegant connection but apparently i can't. was about the global muslim brotherhood because there is a lot of talk about it and not a lot of clarity about it. whether it is an organization or not, what is the muslim brotherhood globally? i think it is fair to say that there is a body that does exist but that body doesn't really have the control over the activities of the different options, branches, call them what you will. i think it is fair to say that in some 70 or 80 countries throughout the world including the west, including the united states we have organizations that place their origins and have personal financial organizational and mostly i would say ideological ties to the muslim brother head in egypt and other countries. most of these organizations operate independently. there's no question that there is coordination. there is constant coronation we see it in different activities where groups toe the same line. they work on the same issues. they have the same talking points. nevertheless each one is better position to understand the local dynamics or the local environment according to the local dynamics and achieve their goals. there is a global vision that is very similar but it would be unrealistic to think that they brotherhood in yemen would have the same tactics and goals of the brotherhood offshoot in sweden. the reality is completely different. this network i think is looking at least to turkey has a very very important model. there is no question that the akp it has become at least publicly sort of the model for a lot of these organizations. we see that is pretty much brotherhood particularly and indonesia and egypt given the developments. what are the reasons for their success and they are claiming that the way they want to turn tunisia and egypt and other countries pretty much follow the turkish model, that is at least the public. that is feasible to some degree. we might want to do that but i think there are significant differences when people talk about applying the turkish model to egypt for example. i think there are significant differences that make me a bit skeptical. the first one is the enormous difference between the egyptian and turkish society and the turkish experience with democracy and secularism which has not been existing in egypt and the second is that the akp despite all of its flaws and unquestionably -- is never at fault in the '90s and the way, moved away from the old guard. the egyptian muslim brotherhood is not done that. we are still in a way 15 or 20 years behind the turkish revolution. so that i think where he see the big difference between egypt and turkey. i am probably pass my five minutes so i will stop there. >> thank you. i come at it from a little bit of a different perspective. i come at this as a terrorism analyst who basically builds biographies of terrorist. that is generally how i approach things. one of the things i notice very early on in my research which has been very intensive for more than a decade now is that you see over and over and over again the roots of terrorist to trace back the brotherhood and that goes right to senior al qaeda leadership. that goes right through many of the participants in the 9/11 plot. i can give you down to details one by one who was actually a muslim brotherhood member -- member prayed to becoming involved in 9/11 and that is not specific. is across the whole swath of the modern terrorist problem we face is a very good reason for that which is that the muslim brotherhood and its founding was very specific about embracing the notion that muslims should love death more than a love life and the common refrain above the brotherhood leadership believes to this day. if you think of the power that idea back in november of 2009 when major nut don went on a shooting spree at fort hood this powerpoint presentation surface in one of the things on the slide is a muslim should love death more than life. that echoed immediately to what hossanah bonnier began saying all the way back 80 years ago and that is really a constant i would say in which the way the brotherhood approaches things. in the west it is interesting. this is not a due discussion about the brotherhood and whether not the brotherhood is something that can be approached and engaged in a diplomatic way. it is a discussion we have had many times and i want to give you one quick example of what i think is very illuminating from that perspective which was back in the early 1990s that wes was looking at trying to see if we had a partner in the muslim world that we could reach out to in this happened in the u.s. and throughout european countries is sort of an intermediary with the muslim world and one of the characters many in the west settled on was a guy named to robbie. he was a very prominent figure in the international brotherhood movement, one of the most powerful movements. he got invited and went and saw pope john paul ii in rome. he got on a private plane and flew there. he had tight security. he was embraced and invited here to washington and talk before congress and talk to many think-tanks here. he was very eloquent and a guy who spoke in western terms. he spoke about democracy and spoke about women's rights and spoke about trying to embrace a new approach for the brotherhood's ideals and as all of this is going on at the same time you sitting down and shaking hands with pope john paul ii pope john paul ii he is asked of the number one bin laden and he returned to ms. terrorist incubator where the modern al qaeda as we know it first came and was born. that i would say is very stark example of what you are dealing with here and what you have to careful in terms of understanding so it is you are dealing with in these movements and you are dealing with in the brotherhood. a lot of the brothers internationally and agree with lorenzo that there are definitely fissures within the brotherhood movement both internationally and with that in different branches but you have to be mindful of who actually is controlling the power of the organization and the old guard, the first guard in egypt is the one who is controlling the organization there. so let's talk for second about the old guard and egypt. this is sort of the model that has renounced violence. well, is very clear if you actually read and just try and bring in as much as their writings in discourse as you can come he can see very clearly that is a tactical position. they renounced violence in egypt itself because they basically had their heads begin numerous times by them a mark -- mubarak regime. the idea that they have renounced violence as a whole or jihad as a whole is completely false and there is a lot of ways you can show that is false. first and foremost the egyptian muslim brotherhood is one of the principle sponsors and principle backers of hamas, which of course is one of the premier suicide bombings organizations on the planet so when somebody says to me that they are non-violent the first thing thing i say is our suicide law makes non-violent? of course they are not. when you look at their discourse on iraq, they have pledged their support for terrorists in iraq and said it is perfectly justifiable to go there and blow up american soldiers but then they actually when you look at what the brothers say, and it includes civilians in iraq as you know to them who is the truer civilian? they are all part of the military complex of a justify suicide bombings in iraq. when you go to afghanistan they justify suicide bombings there. it goes on and on and on so when we talk about the brotherhood renouncing violence we are talking about a limited tactical area where they have done so. meanwhile their ideology and sort of what they are pushing for overall and have pushed for since 1928 is incredibly similar if not wholly the same as al qaeda and other jihadist terrorist groups. to go through the ranks extensively i spent the last several months in the last 10 years doing and looking at what they believe in there is really no difference in terms of the long-term strategy of what they want to do. are their short-term tactical disagreements? zawahiri has written a critique in the brotherhood to participate in democratic elections but if you know so here he is criticized a lot of people publicly because he has maintained is also violent jihadist brand. he criticized the iranians publicly. he sent his daughter there for connections to other words you have to be careful how you deal with these public rhetoric on these issues and all that is to say there are many more common similarities between the brotherhood's ideology and what the global jihad is movements all about and the idea that non-violent is both false based on its own rhetoric, false in terms of its functions and faucet in terms of how it finances jobs organizations and something you have to approach very carefully i would say. this isn't to say there aren't elements within the brotherhood who are different or disagree. i'm sure there are as any human organization can tell you. is cliff said at the beginning even ftd is not a model and their people here that disagree on various issues. al qaeda when he came to 9/11 there were disagreements in the military committee so you have to put the disagreements and context in terms of who is wielding power and the ultimate thing for mayville to test for me when you are talking about the brotherhood is a very simple question, our suicide bombings non-violent and if of course they're not non-violent what are we talking about when we say the group is non-violent and that is the first i would like to get across. >> thank you time. that is a first-time ftd has been compared to the global muslim brotherhood. [laughter] >> i do it all the time. >> i'm going to focus very briefly on what i think egypt will look like if the muslim brotherhood does well. and my good friend e. brahimi often says he thinks the brotherhood in an election will probably win no more than 15%. i don't know if he has changed this usage going back to egypt. i think it is likely, i would be surprised if the brotherhood won less than 25% and i would not be astonished if it were to win as much as a 40%. and then you have to say well, what will egypt look like? the one thing i think you can say is that with the brotherhood is not going to be is it is not going to be the islamic salvation front and algeria. now we don't know a lot of what the islamic salvation front was going to be in algeria because the military aborted the entire democratic process once it became clear that the islamic front was going to do fairly well. but the one thing we do know is there were prominent members of the islamic salvation front who actually openly were in favor of using democracy to essentially abort democracy. one of the two most prominent members was pretty explicit and his disgust to say for democracy and everything that democracy brings he said it's very clearly that democracy and the holy law cannot cohabit. now this is not the case in egypt. in fact it is quite astonishing to see the extent to which the brotherhood has sorted default from that simple formulaic of ali -- i think the situation will be a hell of a lot more competition. that is not to say it is going to in any way, shape or form escape what i call the holy trinity of democratic expansion in the muslim world which is anti-semitism, anti-americanism and anti-zionism. wherever you see democracy grow mocks muslims you are going to see those three forces gain speed. that is i think an inevitable part of this process so i think you'll certainly see that in egypt if the muslim brotherhood does reasonably well well enough to become a big factor in egyptian politics. now what that means practically is certainly the brotherhood will make a play because this is where they, all fundamentalists view this as core mores of society. they're going to make a play for personal status law. they will try to ensure that personal status law in egypt is essentially sharia bound. now, actually in many ways that won't be that great of a change in egypt since sharia law in most places is already the dominant law for all personal status. so we are not -- for a lot of folks that is not going to be a big change assuming they can get it past. i don't know if they can get through an egyptian parliament. it all depends upon the numbers they get and the pushback that they have. obviously this will be a significant change for minorities because i suspect the brotherhood because it is a modern organization will not revert to a traditional view of these things are all personal status for cops to be governed by the church. i think it is sufficiently nationally experienced to say it will apply turbine including minorities. i think it is highly likely that the muslim brotherhood will push very hard for a renewal of the treaty within israel. this will get very complicated of course with the military, since the military in egypt is in great part -- and they make a lot of money from that peace treaty and they make a lot of money from bright star military exercises in egypt and they don't want to see that money go away from them or their family members. so you were going to have quite the attention however i think it is highly likely the brotherhood will push for a revision of that treaty nullification of the treaty because it is simply anathema to them and it will be interesting to see where that goes. i suspect the brotherhood will actually have not an insignificant level of support from secular parties in egypt, so it is possible that you will see that treaty nullified but again, it is going to be one hell of a ride because the military is going to i suspect pushback quite hard on that or see if there is some way they can arrange a deal with the united states that the treaty is nullified and they still get their money. so we will have to see where that goes, but i am sure they are going to go in that direction. i would expect the brotherhood to go after alcohol. muslim parties always do. i would expect them to go after the life in egypt's little resort and many resorts and in his private clubs, which if you haven't gone to them are really quite something. i don't know what progress they are going to make there. that is an interesting question and in turkey for example erdogan went after alcohol. he was beaten back and he was defeated, at least in istanbul where of course everyone is devoted to forms of alcoholic entertainment. their success elsewhere in turkey in the provinces has been greater but then again it must be said that in the provinces the prevalence of alcohol always there has always been less than places like istanbul and its mayor. so i think you are going to have a big push there. you will see the brotherhood without a shadow of a doubt try to go after the united states whenever possible. i think you will see them also whenever possible, to go after israel to demonize israel. i would suggest to you there that that is their position, it is not all that different from the position you currently have in egypt. you have got to remember that all things in life are evolutionary and that the views of the brotherhood has towards egypt actually -- towards israel aren't that different from any of the views you find easily expressed amongst secular elites which can be quite vicious, quite nasty and anti-semitic towards israel. you can definitely be absolutely certain that hamas and gaza are going to become big issues inside of any egyptian parliament. this will go hand-in-hand with the discussion of whether the treaty should be nullified. i do not know how that is going to go. it is going to be one of those great debate moments inside of each of. all i can say and i've said this many times, and i think it is a valid point that if the treaty survives, in egyptian parliament where the brotherhood and members of the secular elites are adamantly opposed to that treaty, but the treaty nevertheless wins in an egyptian parliament in that treaty has real force. it has the type of force that it never had with a treaty signed only with a dictatorship. so we will have to see where that plays out. i am skeptical that the brotherhood is going to be able to maintain the same type of unity. i would agree with lorenzo. i think it will be very difficult for them to maintain the type of unity they were able to maintain under the brotherhood. this is not to say one wing of the brotherhood will break off and turn into something that most of us could esteem. i sincerely doubt that, but i think the pressures inside of the brotherhood are quite real and i see no reason why if democracy, if the votes continue to hold a see no reason why the evolution of the brotherhood will not be similar to the evolution that we have seen elsewhere in the islamic world whether it be in iraq or i think most importantly and iran. parallels are interesting. iran is a special case because you actually have theocracy and i actually think the marriage of democracy in islam is going to create a much more complicated situation, so the secular profound secularization that you have seen in iranian society under dictatorship is probably going to be less in egypt that openly embraces democracy. the position of islam will actually be less threatened in egypt bennett has been threatened inside of iran. you are likely to see a more vigorous defense of islamic values in egypt then you have seen and iran though i must caution that on the democratic side of the ledger in iran you have seen people of profound faith defend islam and democracy quite powerfully and summon like -- one of the great theologic the illusions of our time a real revolutionary figure i think has led the way for folks and people like an exiled in the united states which is probably the most eloquent clerical ida shows the power that can happen in fact in people of devout faith marry up with democracy and you start having astonishing -- where the holy love begins and democracy begins and ends. these debates you will see in asia. there's there is no question about that and i would just suggest those are the debates we want to see years ago. we didn't see them 40 or 50 years ago because military autocracy cut the debates up. you stop having an organic development in the middle east because military secularizing military dictatorship stopped it they killed it dead and what we all hoped for was going to be the evolution of ben added turkish model and the arab world never developed. that is he didn't have the eventual evolution of an autocracy military dictatorship and the more liberal democratic society. turkey is not a liberal democratic society but -- progress which i don't think by the way despite his worst efforts is going to be a will to reverse. but the key here is that now you were going to have those debates. you were going to have real debate between people of devout faith, between islam is with extremely repugnant views between liberal democrats. they are going to go at it and we will see who wins. that is as i said, it is not clear but i would argue that that process is not only unavoidable but it is essential if we hope for these societies to actually one day become more liberal. >> thank you very much for three very interesting presentations this morning. i actually have a technical question to begin with here that i'm hoping one or maybe all of you can answer. we know that the brotherhood right right now in egypt is creating what they call the freedom and justice party. what does that mean exactly for the brotherhood? obviously we know the brotherhood is based out of egypt and now they are creating a party that looks like a lot of the other parties that exist around the region whether it is the islamic action front. are we going to see fissures between the broader brotherhood movement and this party? will there be a firewall? can you provide any color to that? >> that is a very difficult question because we don't know cusack and we didn't get a straight answer about the information of the party from the brotherhood at the very beginning. no we are not interested, yes we are interested in as we are filing and again doublespeak could be partially because of doublespeak just because different answer to a different audience. it could be because there is no one voice of the brotherhood. we don't know cusack we who calls the shots and they themselves don't know exactly who calls the shots. it is often said the people we see in the brotherhood are not necessarily the people who actually have power so somebody is not the most important person in the brotherhood. i think also there is a large cross-section of the brotherhood that has not been interested in politics. but more and dawa grassroots activity. you see that dynamic in egypt and many other countries including in the west where you see parts of the brotherhood that is deeply political and wants to be engaged in the political process whether to hijack it or not can be debated that others would simply say that the brotherhood should we like al-banna in the very beginning, something that focuses on providing islamic knowledge and politics is something that they brotherhood should concern itself with and i think you have a lot of people who are the people that built the support for the brotherhood in one way but that are not that interested in politics. >> can i comment on that? all i would say is that movement which the french nicely labeled neal fundamentalism, it began because they really didn't have an alternative. you got out of politics because politics, you ended up in jail and you were tortured or you died. so neal fundamentalism which aims at a society of change in society, changing mores was an outgrowth of dictatorship. we don't know whether it will continue to put -- focus on that when you do have a political option where you can express your mores politically because you know islam does have advantage in that, was to say they have greater clarity on the issue and what you believe your mores should have clinical overtones. we in the west have sorted defaults beyond that where we hold our deepest values to not necessarily have any political relevance. >> is interesting because we are interested on the point on the no other options. the key point here which i think is missed is that a lot of a west discussions of brotherhood treats al-banna as a distinct entity until he later led the organization and is widely known to be the intellectual forefather of al qaeda. if you study al-banna carefully you realize he was not in non-violent dawa. he set up a secret apparatus for violence in egypt that a red -- led to one of the islamic terrorist camps there. basically the thing that was distinctive about al-banna with the pressure of egyptian government on his shoulders was he was a cagey decision-maker a tactician who could switch gears quickly to figure out what was going to work and what wasn't going to work. you see that throughout the world. one of his senior intel officials who testified before congress said the brotherhood has adapted all these different tactics in every different country and alluded to this as well and see it as a point in their favor that somehow they were people of moderation but that is not really what they have done. they basically adjusted themselves to the reality on the ground up what is going on for they can use violence and hamas and gaza they use it. to answer your original question which was a political party in egypt and whether or not the brotherhood has become the party and what that will meet. i will give you a quick comparison of the two brotherhood political parties. we have seen some tensions between old and new guard in terms of the election process for secretary general of the group. there the old guard has as far as i can tell basically one for the time being. mainly because of the success of hamas and the thing there is when you have the hard-liners within the muslim brotherhood who have seen the success of hamas in terms of establishing itself as a political entity and a reality in gaza and they fought if any challenges from inside that would basically modify their approach. so there is one case study where you can see that there is the capacity for these decisions -- mike fissures within a political party and the muslim brotherhood. the second is that i will give you go is the islam party in yemen which is led by sheikh sin donahue is a designated al qaeda backer. he is a guy who's known in the treasury department as a longtime spiritual adviser for osama bin laden. is recruited jihadist to go to al qaeda training camps. is a guy who disapproves to my mind the idea that there are somehow this vast gap between the brotherhood and al qaeda. when you see it character like this. the islam party has not been subjected to the rigors of the democratic debate because of the way the pluto go government has acted and you have not seen as much of the tensions between different factions in the party. i don't think that the brotherhood in egypt is necessarily going to go that way. there is potential for a lot more disagreement in terms of basically working out how they are going to position themselves. in the long run though i don't see any other dense yet that the new guard is going to be the old guard since in jordan the old guard one out. >> just one thing on the brotherhood in egypt. i tend, graywith lorenzo that i don't believe this is a comintern. don't think the organization really does work that way. i think the local economy of brotherhood groups is really at times quite profound. that is not to say there is not a universal fraternity. i think there is. i strongly suspect whatever happens with the brotherhood it will have profound impact on the brotherhood abroad. there was a few at one time garza held by frenchman that the western experience of muslims which feed back into the middle east and fundamentally change the middle east. now, there is some evidence for intellectual ideas moving from the west going back to the native countries and having some influence. that is certainly true and iran. it is less true i would argue in the air for old though it is still true but i think the real intellectual generator is back in the middle east, so whichever way the brotherhood goes however it evolves, i would expect it to have serious ramifications on the brotherhood elsewhere. so, if the brotherhood is actually corralled by the democratic system, then i would expect that impact to be fairly significant locally. >> reuel hit on it point which is a discussion of what the brotherhood is as a international today. is an international -- i take take it be somewhere in between. it is not a top-down organization where the general guide in egypt directs all the parties and they do what he says however you can't dismiss it as a purely sort of movement in inward along and sort of a only have a common interest and sort of a club so to speak. you can see that in a number of the ways. you can see that with the flotilla that approach gaza back in 2010. if you study the roster the characters on the flotilla you can see brothers from all these different branches of the brotherhood from jordan and egypt and britain they came together for this event in a highly coordinated fashion. that suggests he may a greater degree of coordination between these entities and sort of a social club or movement. the second thing is you could see it and make the finance the organization internationally where they channeled money to hamas. is amazing to watch everything from the u.s. across the u.s. in the middle east where these organizations are capable of putting their money in the same coffer and they have and to know exactly how to get their money to hamas to fund these organizations. that is something that is come out of the trials we can see organizations set up deliberately with the help of organizations internationally in egypt and elsewhere to raise money for hamas. so i kind of come out in between the two. i don't think you can argue that based on what we know that it is a hierarchical organization. i don't think that is the way it works but by the same token you can't say it is a movement that is loosely affiliated. it is something in between which is basically how a lot of organizations are modeled. >> i think it is interesting that this conversation is propelling itself and we don't need to ask too many questions to prompt a good lively conversation here. i want to ask one other question though. i think i sense a little bit of difference between you lorenzo and you tom. we haven't talked about the muslim brotherhood here in the west. there has been a lot of talk recently in the media here. can you tell me very quickly how each of you view its operations here in the west and what thinks it has in the middle east and more broadly the change we are witnessing right now across the middle east? how does that impact the brotherhood in the west right now? >> it is fair to say pretty much in every western country we have organizations that the pattern has been a student organization created by a handful of experienced brotherhood individuals who left egypt for syria or other countries to escape persecution and a larger number of enthusiastic students. in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s that evolved into very large organizations nowadays. very large, very vocal and very visible and very prominent because they are often located whether washington or paris. at the end of the day we are a very small membership of a few thousand people at most in most countries. they all sort of contract and again it is the dichotomy of whether it is an organization or not. there is kind of an umbrella structure for exempla in europe, which is based in brussels not coincidently two blocks from the european commission. and they do interact all the time. they do coordinate their activities all the time. nevertheless in each country, each organization organization acts independently, free to choose its tactics, free to choose whatever the goals are in and it is not uncommon to see in some cases you have this division globally and in the west. the gulf war was the first one in 1981, a major event that really divided the brotherhood. you have some branches of the brotherhood on one side and others on the other and of bernard on this -- site in lost funding so you do have those divisions. when it comes to the links to the middle east i think it is very difficult -- i'm fully aware that we have only scratched the surface and it would the naïve and arrogant of me or anybody else to claim to know the full picture. i think some links to exist and it was very interesting when i was writing the book and doing interviews with the brotherhood in the west telling me there were no links with or to egypt and people in the shura council and egypt, the brotherhood in germany was here last week so it is different. we are only scratching the service nevertheless according to -- cairo being new moscow calling the shots and telling people in norway or canada how to carry on. there is a lot of independents with what the brotherhood france is completely different from what the brotherhood does in u.k.. look at how they act on the -- uif is very quiet about it in france. so the dynamics are very different. there's a common intellectual heritage and methodology that comes from the middle east but the brotherhood in the west has been able to adapt it in the west. there is a definite generational change taking place. we have people born in the west that are taking a lead in these organizations. our big difference, are they just better versed in talking a better game? difficult to say. would argue some organizations are going away from the brotherhood ideology to some degree. and others are not, not at all. when it comes also to at least the one point that brings them all together and this is where i agree with thomas isn't support for hamas. that is the one issue on which they do not compromise and it is the one issue that it caused them a lot of problems because the one issue where they have been publicly supporting violent action and that is caused them a lot of pr headaches and that is the one issue in which they do not compromise in raising funds and that is caustic and a lot of legal problems. the holy land case in the united states been united states been the most prominent example. that is where you see the more sophisticated kind of interaction. >> two things. reuel you mentioned in egypt there were three things you didn't think the brotherhood was going to get away from is anti-semitic anti-americanism. those are obviously the basic commonalities in all all the brotherhood branches but this is where i take a dimmer view than lorenzo on this issue in terms of engaging the brotherhood in the west. one of the characters who has been prominently talked about in this whole controversy surrounding him is ramadan who is the grandson of hasan al-banna. he investigates them carefully and he is the guy who firmly sets in the west, the guide who operates in the west and this is where i see a lot of what they say in the brotherhood ran ranches they have tactical decisions not something firmly rooted in their ideology and i want to read, i hated when people do this but i had to do it because paul berman said this better than i ever could. is an exhaustive study and afterwards he talks about commies is what is ramadan palm palm --'s final message and messages in four parts. the first is ramadan condemning terrorism. the third step is he understands terrorism so tenderly he ends up justifying it. the four step is he justifies it so thoroughly that he ends up defending it. that is exactly what i think you are dealing with. he is a fist up which is he says who are you to question about terrorism anyway? so i think that is a big part of the problem i see in a lot of the intellectual debate when you talk about these groups and what difference is they have between them how much of it is rhetoric for the time medication versus what is real ideological differences? biella suggest that i've debated from a don and i would suggest he could not have gotten to the point described by mr. berman in the book without growing up in europe. it is beyond a shadow of a doubt the man was not nearly be as personally vain or as warring if he had not spent so many years in switzerland. so, he would be vastly more interesting man and he would be probably be happier if he had actually spent more time in egypt. >> let me add one final thought. basically the way i see this all his criteria for these branches of brotherhood is a simple question which i address in my opening which is what is your stance on suicide bombings? you can't walk back from suicide bombings and announce them, then my guess is you probably are not a moderate islamic. i think it is something quite different from that. >> i am happy to have lorenzo and tom -- reuel you said we will have debates and you implied early stanford that this debate should be productive when they are actually given the necessity to defend positions on the argue back and forth but isn't it equally possible that the form the debates will take is not people sitting on a panel civilly disputing one another's ideas or writing op-eds or going on tv and radio but rather the debate to take for example in russia which has parliamentary procedures and voting or iran of course which is parliamentary procedures and voting or increasingly lebanon which has a history of parliamentary procedures and voting but in each of these cases the parameters of the debate are limited by assassinations. you can think of a good op-ed, you kill your enemy and that shuts them up pretty effectively. >> i mean that as a possibility. the only problem that we assume the worse for the brotherhood. the only problem with that is it is going to have to get by the egyptian military, so if it is going to take a policy of assassination, and i doubt it is going to go that way, because i think it would be nipped in the bud and a longer-term aspiration but if her were to go that way it would more or less have to be complicit with the military if the military is complicit in that then we are probably all coked anyway. i would expect there to be real debate. that debate is probably going to largely be screaming. i mean if we witness debate in the middle east, it tends to be on a volume and a range, which is significantly different than in the west. so, but i think that debate is nevertheless real. and i would expect those in egypt who like their a call, the women in egypt who like certain social rights, the businessman in egypt who like all the western tourism and the military men who like all the goodies to vigorously defend their positions in an egyptian way, and i think the brotherhood is not going to have an easy time railroading this through. with that said you know, if they do well, at the ballot box, they will be in a position to democratically see more of their agenda implemented. >> you keep talking about egyptian alcohol. i personally would like to ban egyptian beer. is rather terrible. >> actually i think it has gotten better because they actually have a deal with the turks and the turks came down to help them and actually i think the quality --. >> we are going to take a question from michael allen. >> thank you. two brief questions if i may. one on each of. some of the differences with turkey is in turkey the military was largely responsible for constraining and moderating the party and its predecessors. by contrast in egypt we have seen recently the egyptian military facilitating enhancements -- amendment committee and in the light of yesterday's results we seem to be saying the development of what some commentators have called mubarak is some. seemingly intent on re-creating the kind of adversarial political system that says both of them to varying degrees quite well at the expense of a secular democratic middle. how do you explain the rationale or what is the rationale issue understanding of the military's attitudes in a recent decision and secondly we have heard nothing about tunisia hardly at all. as they understand its leader is currently being held up in the west is the most moderate the most democratic of us liberal of all the parties and even more than morocco. and tanisha we know they have a strong military as we have been morocco a monarch who is ahead of the faithful so none of those red lines the islamist party in tunisia so if you could throw a little light on that in tanisha. >> tunisia concerns me less than egypt to be honest. not because of the military necessarily but because of society and i honestly think it is of course difficult to evaluate a society that wasn't free until a couple of months ago but i think the islamists have traditionally had only limited support. is tunisia going to be leverage some forces and participate in an election election and win some seats? probably come absolutely. will they be part of the system? probably but i don't see them making the kind of headway at the brotherhood in egypt would make where i agree with the assessment that the numbers we have talked about i really don't see that happening in tunisia. of course there are other parts of these that will be organized but it just doesn't have that he'll into niche in society. we talked about moderates and radicals get tunisia has been ousted in the west as -- a book about that democrats. rashid talks about democracy but democracy was invented via muslims. but when you read and i agree with thomas what ghannouchi talks about in terms of citizenship he talks about qualified and unqualified citizenship. muslims have a qualified citizenship with an additional couple of burdens which is to pledge of allegiance to the state which muslims don't have to do. they are not entitled to the highest positions in government. so with all the talk about democracy, you read the footnotes and it is not necessarily bad but ghannouchi talking about the age tk as a model for the last few years. that is where you kind of see in a way this more moderate wing of the brotherhood which is not exactly what we would be perfect lamel democrats but nevertheless ghannouchi and the second generation brotherhood is going be a cape p. way. >> ghannouchi i'm glad you raised because ghannouchi is a great example of the doublespeak and again you have to sort of a think as criteria for how you think judging these intellectuals and and and these ideologues and how they approach things and at the end of the day for ghannouchi what is he believing? does he believe in clerical rule or the sharia state were essentially these preordained clerics tell people i live their lives and is that consistent with any kind of former democracy and i would say in his view of the world no it is not so when we talk about democracy we are talking about something different. is basically how clerics are chosen within the organization and sort of how ruiz established. it is not true democracy opening up but on all these issues, i'm interested to hear what reuel has to say about this but there's a tension between the idea that these are some sort of detente with the egyptian mobile terry and islamists and a power-sharing arrangement i think is perhaps and i'm curious to hear what reuel has to say that perhaps one of the big problems we face in not opening it up for the type of discourse that sub bases in the long-term opening up the middle east to rilla forms. >> just a quick word on that is interested may. he is a western muslim hybrid and i don't think he knows what he please. i think what a lot of these guys they're making it up as they go along and you have to have an extreme tolerance for withstanding the blatant contradictions of their thoughts. those contradictions will paralyze you. he can obviously tolerate the contradictions of vastly better than we can but still we will see where he goes. i suspect, i'm not going to have a lot of work cut out. it is going to have a harder time. you can imagine he is interesting to listen to a unlike a lot of these guys and that is why he gets a lot of western attention because you can actually talk to him. on the egyptian military and the brotherhood, the primary reason is conservatism. as you said it is known that they like that relationship. i think the ndp is going to have to do a lot to survive. i think those folks are in deep doo doo. so they can't play to a liberal order. that is impossible. that oxygen is going to be sucked up elsewhere so the ndp has to go back to its traditional political game which includes the move -- move of brotherhood. so it probably is looking forward to the muslim brotherhood doing better. but again as she said this is mubarakism. why were the liberal soap pounded by mubarak? because they took up his terrain. they took up the terrain as the western eyes elite. they appeal to us. it was much more -- they were in some sense much more threatening so i think this is simply more less a continuation of that. >> thank you. we are going to take a question on the left side. if you could state your name and affiliation please. >> thomas you mentioned iraq and how the brotherhood treats suicide bombings there. which sunni party would you say corresponds to the brotherhood? what have they said regarding suicide bombings there? it strikes me as most suicide bombings are carried out by former al qaeda people with loose affiliation for al qaeda who are really folks seeking publicity and have almost no political role in the country. >> i agree with where you are coming from but what i'm talking about is the egyptian brotherhood, sort of justifies suicide bombings in iraq on their own theological grounds. on the west we talk about the terms of justifying only a defensive jihad. in other words some response to western aggression but if you study the data including what came out through wikileaks a series of declassified documents on the high casualty event you can see the suicide bombings are what drive a large numbers of muslim casually so there's a real tension and i agree with you in terms of on the ground in iraq. i'm outside of iraq where the general guide of the muslim brotherhood in egypt is bombings. they like to portray it as some clear-cut sort of tactic to use against western aggression but i would say a lot of times it leads to civilians being killed much more than anything else. >> is it still happening even at the stage where the al qaeda people in iraq have no following whatsoever except for their own? secondly and i may have missed this because i came a little bit late but we had a story from a reporter in cairo about the division in the brotherhood by generations and the younger generation truly is splitting with living with their grandparents and their parents and have a much broader outlook. >> do you find that as well? >> well again, i think lorenzo alluded to this earlier. i don't see see there are divisions in the brotherhood in the various branches and within the brotherhood in egypt. i agree there are different parties. what i always say is who wields the power? these younger brothers who do have a more sort of i would say comparatively speaking moderate viewpoint than the old guard if they were to take power and assert authority, you would see difference in the way they approach things but as lorenzo said i don't think we have seen the old guard in terms of the imagination of power there. is still it still going on in iraq? i think the brotherhood's rhetoric internationally from egypt has toned down in iraq because of the security situation there. what i was referring who are mostly statements really from i would say the post-2003 through 2008 meeting. certainly between 2003 and 2008 in 2000 on at camp uruza number of quotes justifying that violence. >> just to congregate things, to show how complicated the brotherhood is thomas is perfectly right. you can -- make your whale put down the people within the brotherhood that sub port and still support suicide bombing. certainly a few weeks ago a supportive suicide law means. nevertheless what is the local option of the brotherhood participated in elections and all the al qaeda people in iraq, many tapes were issued condemning the brotherhood in iraq for participating in elections. one of the many acts of treachery of the brotherhood that in iraq the elections. so it is very complex and internally there has been criticism of the brotherhood, within what we referred to as the global muslim brotherhood. criticism of the brotherhood in iraq were dissipating in elections but the defense of their position was listen we have to be pragmatic and what is best going to achieve our goals? not a random bombings that al qaeda is doing. then of course you have the rhetoric for public consumption and i'm sure their instincts which of course to use violence against invaders. no question that is the gut feeling. so it is very complex and always debated within the brotherhood and you never really know exact way where they are going to stand. >> i mean, it is obviously too soon to know but it would be interesting, to go to egypt and began to look at bookstores and familiarize visited by the brotherhood often. they are essentially brotherhood bookstores to see which books are actually selling well, selling like hotcakes. again i don't know the answer to that and if you were to say go to iran today and you were to see whether -- was selling well or numerous works by the marxist islamist father of the revolution, i think you would discover that no one is reading them. they have evolved, they have gone. those books have no relevance whatsoever to the vast majority of people and if you go to najaf you go into the bookstores and you will see that come many's pamphlet to live by, they are all stacked up and no one buys them. the iranians brought them over as an exporter no one would even think of reading them. so, we will see what happens in egypt with the brotherhood and we will see what happens in their bookstores, to see who was selling and who is not in that would he a good indicator of where the brotherhood really is now, to go and see what the book looks like. >> we have a question here in the back. .. story in a way what we've seen, but books are still very much published in the language if you find them in every bookstore everywhere you go in cairo. was published in 1979 in arabic and never translated into any other language so the question you ask is if this is their reputation as part of your history your kind of interest and want to refuse i don't think that what you are claiming their reputation of the public and you get some weird looks when it comes to that. >> just quickly i haven't been to the bookstores in cairo but i can see from consuming a lot of online propaganda and messaging what concerns me is when you will get even entities in the u.s., a lot of the more radical ideologues still have a prominent presence on line in terms of what is presented in the written form and also videos. that sort of what concerned me. and you can see the teachings on chehab and the military things are still prominent. you can see they have a relationship with pakistan who was a very strong affiliated muslim brotherhood intellectual. you can see this stuff on line easily and i can assure you one youtube in two seconds videos that are downloadable from the various brotherhood affiliate's. so in my mind, i don't know exactly what is in the bookstores in cairo but i know where they're pushing it everywhere else and it certainly doesn't have here to the non-violent message they like to say. >> yes. my name is gregg and i'm an independent consultant. my question is probably fourth lorenzo. the party was legalized a few weeks ago in egypt and of course former brotherhood members who long wanted legal representation of mubarak but never got it recently they got it. they seem to be attracting some young doherty egyptians who had, you know, democratic but also leaning so i'm wondering what impact the organization will have on the fortune of the brotherhood as they go forward with the election process in egypt. >> it's a very good question. i wish i had a better answer. i fink with the problem is we don't know the resources these groups have. my feeling is the party doesn't have that many resources. the brotherhood has that the fast grassroots apparatus, and first it was about fissures within the brotherhood is the law of the bottom line as resources are controlled by those. even people in the third generation are very prominent second generation like [inaudible] who left pretty much the brotherhood and they are kind of trying to find their own niche, but it's very complicated to see where and how they are going to be immobilized some support the resources beyond the perhaps small group of followers in cairo. it's part of the small committee of people who formed the apr foot movement, the revolutionary people. this may not be the young person. the gamal abdel, 50 something. but how is that movement going to translate into something like a viable political party at the polls in six months? that is i think problematic. that is why i still see the traditional brotherhood, which is the leadership under attack. last year the scheduled a protest by the younger people in front of the arab medical union where the brotherhood of leadership is. that's something unheard of where you have the young people protest against the leadership. we never saw that in the past. the pacify internally, and a lot of this -- it's difficult to say how much of this is a radiological. there is no secret that one reason a lot of people in the brotherhood is to get a nice job. you go to medical school and get control of the union and guess who has a job for you when you graduate? if you are part of the brotherhood there's a good chance to get a job and if you're not, you don't get a job. a lot of people cheering for that reason. and one even in the movement -- the discontent might be personal issues by the ideological, but my point is the leadership is still very much in the tradition of the first and second brotherhood and it would be a great choice for people to move away from them, not impossible, but in the short term if you break away, you're kind of on your own. unless you really strike an alliance with the islami force. it's kind of a brave new world out there. >> quickly, lorenzo brought up the old guard of the brotherhood in egypt. there is a good paper from the hudson institute in 2005 that talked about the new guard and highlighted challenging the old guard, and i asked this question all the time with the old guard is being supplanted or having a serious challenge, and in 2011 from the paper in 2005 and don't see any evidence that has made inroads to change -- >> [inaudible] >> exactly. >> didn't get elected. he got kicked out. >> a question from mark. >> no comment, but a brief question. we have heard a lot about we shall see or as the french say [inaudible] -- but clearly we need policy. we clearly need some policy suggestions. what i would ask you perhaps the three decisionmakers, lorenzo, doherty decision maker at the e.u. commission and council and the senior director at the nsc had the privilege of being the decision maker within the prime minister's office in jerusalem. what should the europeans and americans and the israelis do in confronting what is a consequential change in the middle east, and particularly with respect to the muslim brotherhood? >> i will go first. [laughter] thanks for that question, mark. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. it is a policy to some degree. there is a good argument for sometimes just not being too proactive and having to wait and see approach. i think you would be a mistake. i published two weeks ago and not hidden the "washington post" but i got criticized quite a lot for it. my point was trying not to make the brotherhood be this 10-foot giant, because my fear would be we are all thinking the brotherhood is going to take over, and we embrace it immediately fearful that if we don't, then we are going to be -- they aren't going to like us and we aren't going to find ourselves in a good position. i think that is -- and i see the temptation with its -- to stick to the e.u. i see that sentiment there and i think that it's all for two reasons. first they don't like us any we so it's not whether you increase the more not. it's their position they don't like us any way. second is as we discussed here i'm not so sure they're going to be dominating the political scene. it's going to be an important player but not dominating the political scene. so the week and see approach i think is the best one. you want to keep the channel of communication open. you want to perhaps play as much as you can. i don't think we have much influence, the plea in this kind of internal fisher's you want to establish the communication for the second and third generation. but i would take the line where you don't increase it -- increase it as it is happening, and you don't necessarily go against them. i think at this point if we were to take either route i think it's fair to understand that there is room for very tiny engagement for the most part every single policy position the brotherhood has that comes to middle east policies at odds with the e.u. wants. nevertheless, once confronted with certain pragmatic choices we talked about with israel, sure, other people can talk about what they are going to do that. but once confronted with the military and the spending if they take certain positions they're going to see their aid cut off from the u.s. it might change their tone. that's why i would wait and see by maintaining the dialogue. >> let's say one of the things that struck me about lorenzo's book was well done as he talked about the engagement of the western government with the brotherhood in terms of the frame i think he framed in the term the brotherhood organization and the west do not represent a majority of muslims. the very small organizations in terms of membership it's very well organized and they are very well motivated, where has the broad most muslims don't identify as far as we can tell with these organizations. when you go to engage in the organizations and talk to them as long as they're not violating any crimes you talk to a certain degree first and foremost you have to be cognizant of you are talking to and have a thorough study has paul did to say here's the line talking to. it's not -- in love with you see in the public discourse is to engage somebody and talk to them and whatever nice smiley face it on something that day is the only store you take away. you have to have a much more complicated and rigorous picture of who it is you are dealing with. but the second thing is that in terms of their ideology and their long-term goals, i think it's a very big mistake for the western government and anybody in the middle east to believe there's a sharp break between the brotherhood's audiology and the jihadists groups where again i keep coming back to the question what is your stance on the suicide bombing as part of the martyrdom that we face today. and if these intellectuals and public, you know, brotherhood leaders don't wholeheartedly disavow that, then you have to be careful in terms of how you engage and talk to them. >> actually, i think the israelis probably have the easiest position here because one, they shouldn't plan for dictatorship. they should increase the space transition in the middle east. they should remain deeply skeptical and suspicious and maintain a robust defense budget and they should realize in the short term they are screwed. >> that was uplifting. [laughter] >> we are beginning to run out of time, so what i suggest we do is i think we have a question from [inaudible] we have one from sebastian and one from michael. we will do is take your questions at once and try to wrap it up and try to end an ounce on time as possible. so let's start with what might and pass the microphone on very quickly and make sure everybody gets their final questions. >> [inaudible] with all respect for the speakers and the audience, i have one question, why i am invited here? >> would you prefer not to be? >> no, but do you know me? >> phyllis your affiliation and point of view in a few seconds. >> my name is ahmed. i have 25 years expertise and muslim brotherhood [inaudible] did you know they have their own university? >> i do. >> okay. so why you invited me here? just to listen to these gentlemen? >> would you like to ask a question? >> you are invited because we invite a lot folks here. >> in my respect, you are playing in my backyard. >> okay. we are going to pass the microphone, please. you're all in our invited to take part in the discussion and the was the hope for today. >> thank you. sebastian affairs. like to take the question to the next iteration. if lorenzo is correct that the old guard still dominates the muslim brotherhood and if thomas is correct that the old guard is still unprepared to renounce violence and suicide bombing, then what is the u.s. start towards the victorious muslim brotherhood election in europe? if they do not denounce violence? and just a comment, the analogy to the comment on the brotherhood that doesn't mean it's not dangerous. al qaeda isn't the common term so just because it isn't a common term doesn't mean we shouldn't be very concerned about it. >> well that was a perfect suggestion. because i wanted to comment on the common term. [laughter] as if the comintern was merged or something. out of a james bond movie. please remember all these communist parties before they came were perfectly flexible and social democrat and have all kind of great things to say about democracy, freedom and so forth. it's getting a bad name as the generation is dying off and so forth. secondly, fissures within the totalitarian movement and even regimes are commonplace. happens all the time. they killed them because they were so intense. in the case of italian fascism, he figured out early on that young happy fascists who want to believe in the revolution and so forth were for the communist party, and he instructed people in the communist party to recruit them, and they did recruit them, and a significant element in the post war italian communists consisted of at the time young fascists, ideological conscious and idealistic fascists who then converted to the other extreme. i mean, one must keep these various things in mind. when we talk about mass movements and totalitarian movements. and finally, the policy question. the policy question is very awkward for everybody to talk about because we've screwed it up for so long. the policy questions to support democrats and to support space revolutions. we have not done that. no country in the western world has done that, certainly israel hasn't done that, and so here we are. and now -- and that's what happens when you have a rotten policy for a very long time, that is to get yourself into the crises to which there is no good solution. we don't have good solution's right now. so i think we have to go back to the basics. but for god's sake, don't forget the history of the totalitarians , because it is a field history but it is important. >> final comment, gentlemen? >> just one thing on michael's and i agree on supporting democracy and i think the united states should also be forthright in saying what it stands for and it should have no illusion that by embracing the muslim brotherhood that you're going to moderate the muslim brotherhood. i will just say on evolution on michael's point, hosni mubarak launched 83 years ago. the soviet union is going enterprise lasted 72 years. there is what is being launched by the muslim brotherhood is not young. this is not a youthful radiology. it is an old ideologies. that doesn't mean it can't be vigorous. as michael was living proof, you can be of a certain age and still be vigorous. [laughter] but it does mean perhaps you are not at your prime. [laughter] so i would just suggest we are not dealing with something that is i would argue useful growth mode. i suspect the brotherhood right now is trying to hold onto what it's got to see if i can make progress. but i think we need to be -- we need to be careful about freezing the organizations from 83 years ago or even 50 years ago. >> i would just say - go michael highlighted in terms of the lack of policy, there's absolutely no strategic thinking in terms of the greater world. sebastian made the point a number of times as well and i agree there is no strategic thinking in the u.s. government on these issues at all, so there is no way -- within the various quarters of any given administration it varies between the different administrations. there is no consistent approach to these matters. so that's why we think highlighting policy problems is important because, you know, looking at this perspective if i were a policymaker today, you have to go back to basics. you have to start square one. it's important to establish the fact of who you're dealing with in terms of understanding who we were dealing with, with the believe, with the don't believe, how the characters a lot of times are able to use words to sort of defect criticism but then say something different to different audience, so the dynamic of where we see -- lorenzo vandiver talking about this before the panel -- you can see the difference between the muslim brotherhood english-speaking and arabic speaking website. these types of analyses i don't see any evidence any of this is being done in the u.s. government at all. with any rigorous degree. and i will see any evidence that there is any real understanding of this in the duplicity involved in understanding the characters and when you're dealing with, so that makes the policy formulation difficult. >> fighting it's the same way. before you do policy, you've got to know what you're doing policy on or about. and i can we are still at the level, though we don't know. during the research on my book, it was fascinating to see the lack of understanding of the entities here in the u.s. or europe how most governments don't understand the dynamics and the ideology behind the organizations. and because of the doublespeak and the hybrid political religious nature of the organizations which makes all of us on comfortable because inevitably you have to talk about religious issues. we are still at the level we don't have knowledge of the organizations and they're in theology. nevertheless, i think that we don't have the time to just sit back and establish the knowledge. we can do the policy on the go which is a scary thing to define understand not the first time in history we have to do that. and i think a policy of very cautious and huge debt and you were referring to my book what i talk about the policy of western options of the brotherhood isasi engagement without empowerment which is a very fine line. you cannot avoid talking to them. they do represent an important cross section in the west or political spectrum in egypt and other countries. but you do support the others that are genuinely pro-democracy. so that the engagement shouldn't transcended into empowerment, and that is life year to some degree it's happening where we are all kind of running around scared the brotherhood, the brotherhood and then we decide we have to make nice with them and that is the engagement. and in power met. so, building the knowledge base and having a smart engagement with where you can find room for very small, very limited issues on which you can find a tactical partnerships, though we are talking about iraq. that is the situation where some kind of positive outcome came by working with the brotherhood. beyond that, it's very problematic. no question about it and as i sit on every big policy issue in the middle east, the brotherhood issue is at odds with what the u.s. is but the reality. >> this is a question we are going to continue to wrestle with in washington and certainly here at fdd. on behalf of the defense a lot to think you all for coming and think c-span for coming out today and i would like to thank our panelists for coming. again i would encourage all to go and find the book god, man and about box and the book the muslim brotherhood in the west and also look for tom auslin's forthcoming book or monograph on the muslim brotherhood coming out at fdd. again i want to thank you for attending this briefing and please, check back to learn more about the briefings we will be having as the issue progresses. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

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