Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140923

Of this government. Mr. Ahmadinejad managed to isolate iran diplomatically, and mr. Rouhani is in reality bringing iran out of diplomatic isolation. So, yes, they are succeeding, and the western media is not paying attention. They should. They should, to begin with, start reading what mr. Rouhani has said all over the years. Back in 1999, iran, you know, the Islamic Republic, experienced its most serious political unrest. That was the Tehran University unrest which spread to the entire country. Which politician do you think it was that went to the public and supported the revolutionary guard, and the Police Suppression of the students movement. It was mr. Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani systematically called the students foreign agents. Mr. Rou manny systematically at the extreme National Security council was banning newspapers. And now, people are expecting that mr. Rouhani, of all the people, is going to allow freedom of the press . Why . Why . This is what i believe is the mistake of the western press, that they do not Pay Attention. They do not take a look at the history of those individuals. And, therefore, they have expectations which is totally immature. Some younger people in tehran have this kind of expectation. This is why they voted for mr. Rouhani. But you cannot blame them. They are young and they are naive. Here in washington, people are not so young, but naive. This is one of the complaints that i have when it comes to u. S. Government view of the rouhani cabinet. I think they succeeded in making 98 of the discourse about the nuclear issue, and convinced most of the west that the only issue worthy of discussion is to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons. Without nuclear weapons, with purely conventional arms, hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the last 150 years. 200,000 people slaughtered in syria, 800,000 in rwanda, tens of millions in world war ii with pure nonnuclear weapons. I think we need to dramatically and unequivocally restore the focus to the human rights question. When saranskis wife was traveling, she said there was a huge map on the wall and one of the state Department Officials said with all due respect, you dont really expect us to relegate your husbands release to all of these important geostrategic challenges. She said what you dont understand is that those issues wont be resolved until my husband is released. I think that were aware of the information. There are lists of hundreds and even thousands of Political Prisoners. But many people dont get the link between internal freedom and external peace. And just real quick about the issue of the letters to baghdadi. I think speaking up for human rights also encourages those movements inside of iran. Theres nothing more fearful for a dissident than feeling alone and isolated and not cared about by the rest of the world. But we can do an enormous amount to increase the strength of dissident movements inside authoritarian countries simply by speaking out and supporting them. This helps give them the em pe tus to rise up against those who throw them in prison. I think thats another issue that the west doesnt understand. I agree with michael about missing what has become conventional wisdom of the arab spring. Its fantastic to look back at the predictions of supposedly smart people, in 2009, newsweek said that the best thing for syria was a wise and charismatic leader, assad. And kerry said he was for peace, prosperity and stability. In 2011, the israeli newspaper said syria was an island of stability. And the edone minutes said about ali, that his regime was far from over shortly before it fell. You look at p. J. Crowley talking about egypt as a rock of stability and island of stability. Secretary clintons famous remark on january 25th, that our assessment of the Egyptian Government is stable. All of these were falsehoods, and just dangerously wrong. In no small part because i dont think they were listening to the dissident movements. And the double thinkers is always bigger than we think in the Foreign Countries and dictatorships. Yes, greater emphasis on human rights is called for, but that shouldnt mean less emphasis on the nuclear issue. If this regime should get nuclear weapons, the amount of repression and carnage we could see under that Nuclear Umbrella for the remainder of this century would make whats going on now seem very small. No question it would be an infinitely larger danger. But the corollary is people underestimate the regime in power and supporting terrorism throughout the world and undermining every single gulf country, and funding terrorism as far as the eye can see, and repressing millions of people for decades. Thats an absolutely untenable and unforgivable situation that we need to work faster to undo. Weve got some questions. Again, introduce yourself and speak into the microphone, if you would. Thank you. Im mary ann. We run an Elearning Institute for iranian civil society. My question, or comment is about michael ledeens point that in 2009, americans intelligence or policymakers were saying things like, these guys are going to win, we dont need to do much of anything. I question that, because president obama, in one of the very few things he said when people on the street were chanting for him to do something, say something, you know, the slogan was, barack obama youre with them, with the regime or with us. When he did respond, he said, we really dont care which one wins, it doesnt make any difference to us. He had just taken office and reportedly sent a couple letters to khomeini. I question that the mood was one of optimism. If anything, i think it was a movement with inconvenience and wrench in the works, with the Incoming Administration thinking they could achieve with khomeini. A lot of iranians in civil society, people we work with, feel a big sense of betrayal from america because of that. I just wanted to voice it here. Thats a good point. Do you have a comment on that, michael . Yeah, i think everything is true. I agree with nk you said. Of course the iranians feel betrayed. They were betrayed. They have a right to feel betrayed. At the same time, the consensus at that time was that this is a huge thing, the uprising, the june uprising, and it continued and went on and on, and they said, theyre going to win. Its not easy to be wrong, systematically wrong about everything from beginning to independe end. But were trying. Actually, in that case we did pretty well. This is part of the discussion. It raises a point that id like to tease out, if i could. Getting back to what you said about strategic clarity versus moral clarity. Theres a view on, i would say both on the realist right and multikurt turlist left, that moral clarity is an impediment to strategic clarity. That once we strive, and this is a piece that came out on friday in the New York Times, on oped, that i will be writing about it in my column this week, that if we talk about whats going on, including the Islamic State, in moral terms, the language of good and evil, we get away from the possibility of good strategic thinking. I would argue its the opposite that moral clarity is necessary with strategic clarity. That also means the following. When youre deciding whether to, for example, support the Green Movement in 2009, when youre deciding three years ago whether to support the nationalists in syria, the equation becomes, well, what can they do, are they just pharmacists who would be given guns and couldnt accomplish very much. Should we be supporting whats left of the nationalists in syria, or should we not. And that gets to the question of whether you have a moral obligation to support those people who are fighting for values we hold dear, even if they may lose, as i think was the case, we thought, years ago, or if we just support them if its clearly utilitarian. Do you understand what im getting at . First, they said the moral choice turns out to be the pragmatic choice, too. The oped in the New York Times was outrageous. You know, the dissidents in the soviet union said the happiest day was the day the president was called evil. Finally somebody had the audacity to speak to the blinding truth about that incredible evil. I think that too many times today, i think what it boils down to is a loss of confidence in our own values and own civilization and our own power, in fact. There are many differences, obviously, but american policymakers like to set up to a nuclear superpower, which spanned 11 time zones and killed millions of people. Kissinger said dont bother with this human rights nonsense, were trying to contain the soviet union which could start a holocaust. You could compare that to iran today, which doesnt have a fraction of fraction of the nuclear power. In vienna, or geneva, or wherever, human rights are not even on the table. Thats outva jus on both moral and security and strategic grounds. Lets go to dana here. And then well go back on this. Dana marshall. The question is really more of a challenge. I think of myself as sort of both moral view of this, and im very moved by what youre saying about not forgetting the human rights aspect of this, but theres a part of me that really wants to challenge you. What do you do about this . The west has been deploying for decades some pretty severe sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Weve heard a lot about this, but its had the effect of starting a negotiation again, good or bad. Lets leave that to the side. So my question is, for those of us who cannot have a colloquy with the foreign minister of iran, and for those of us who think a letter or two, how effective is let me challenge you, what do we need to do . How much do we put on the table . How much do we really put i mean, honestly, not just saying, oh, you know, lets put this as the last talking point. But, you know, what do we really pay to move this agenda forward . And how likely is it that we will be joined by those areas which are even closer to have more leverage . Well, look at reagan and the soviet empire. And i think you can answer your question, just from historical events. When reagan started speaking out against the soviet empire and saying its day in history was finished, people yelled and screamed at him. Said he was dangerous. When Jackson Vanick was up for grabs, you cannot imagine how many leaders of various important communities inside the United States came to people who were advocating it, and saying, dont put the soviet union with its back against the wall, youll make things worse. Things will get worse. Exactly the things that people like david hears every day about whats going on inside iran. Yet, as we now know from all the dissidents, speaking out made life better. Its important for dissident groups inside the soviet empire, it was a crucial part in bringing down the whole soviet system. If we could bring down the soviet empire, how can anybody doubt that we could bring down this hollow corrupt regime in tehran. It doesnt begin to compare. And yet, whenever we have this discussion, people will always talk as if, its big, its powerful, its massive, theyre brilliant, whereas they make mistakes all the time. Can i just make one point about iran . Keep it in mind, iran on paper should be one of the most successful countries on earth. They have everything. When we sit down and draw up a checklist of what does it take to be a successful, flourishing, booming, democratic country, iran has it all. Even an educated middle class. Even women with some sort of significant role in society and so on. They have it all. Now go into the major strits of the city and what do you see . Record numbers of suicides, prostitution, you name it, all those indicators of social melees and failure. These people, brilliant as we invariably think of them, have wrecked a country which was very hard to wreck. Very hard. Sort of like venezuela in that regard. Venezuela, in my journalist days, i was sent to venezuela, and everybody i talked to, you cant wreck this place. Food drops out of the sky. Everything on the trees grow twice as fast, et cetera. So iran is one of these countries where it really takes a lot to wreck it. They wrecked it. You know, i think so support the opposition. What are we waiting for . Right . Its right to support arubbia, borgere, and the rest of them. Its strategically right. And it will probably work. No one everyone is afraid of them. Everybody thinks that crack pot and crazy. And yet its track record historically is pretty good. Sometimes it works. Im happy that we have you here. Because theres a certain generation. Americans Foreign Policy making community. They experienced the cold war. One of the things that, you know, some younger people in government have forgotten is the thinking process. A process that began as an arms agreement. And then it encompassed human rights issues. Most unfortunately, those brilliant people who are in government right now, in the United States, did not think of a similar model for the Nuclear Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of iran. Maybe because it was not a priority. Maybe it was because they had no recollection of how things were done in the cold war period. Then, of course, its very unfortunate. I agree with dr. Ledeen. Just look at the iranians. The iranians are successful every place in the world except for inside of iran. That tells you about the system called the Islamic Republic. Theres something you can do on a personal level, and then on the more diplomatic and national level. A few weeks ago, my Organization Advancing Human Rights relaunched movement. Org which links dissidents from dictatorships with help. Its like craigslist for human rights. Thousands of dissidents from 92 countries in the first few weeks have come to the sites, asking for legal help, pr help, some of them want a song written about a dissident in prison, whatever your skill is today, you can go to movements. Org and find someone from large dictatorships. Weve had songs come out of it with lawyers connecting with Syrian Refugees and so on and so forth. I think we need to revive the spirit of rabblerousing. I came up with this idea to rename the street in front of the chinese embassy. I drove the Chinese Government crazy. A bunch of pronunciations. It got in their face. The House Appropriations committee voted to change the street in front of the chinese embassy. Just as they did in the 80s. You know, the fact that the foreign minister can claim ignorance about a political prisoner, we can undo that. Why is the street in front of every embassy not named for a political prisoner. Its a small step. Its symbolic. I think it had some effect on the soviet union. The press covered it massively. It was in every major western newspaper. Suddenly the chinese were put on the defensive and they had to answer once again for their for this outrageous violation of human rights. On the national level, i think just traditional things like raising the name of these Political Prisoners in meetings. When you go negotiate in geneva or vienna, you cant say, well, well get to the human rights later. Thats not true just of iran, but all throughout, when the president went to saudi arabia. Of course, were going to raise human rights. It turns out they ran out of time when they went to this bureaucratic dictatorship. So number one is, raise the name. A guy like ahmed said the fact that he was on the cover of the economist saved his life. First the judge said with this picture youve signed your own death warrant. After ten years in prison, he said this picture saved my life. So attention, attention, attention. And then linking any improvements in to the iranian economy is a critical lever. Which is widely underappreciated. Lets go back to the north a little bit. Im mark. I wanted to talk about the Green Movement. Im a believer that the Green Movement is not dead. And the iranians are very smart waiting for the right opportunity to get out into the streets when they feel its appropriate. But my question is, what can the west or the u. S. Do this time around when the opportunity comes. Because im a hundred percent sure it will come again. Its just a matter of time. What should i do this time around to support the people . What specific things can they do . So, one of the things that the Islamic Republic cannot control is spontaneous uprisings. They can infiltrate any political organization. They can infiltrate even the smallest cell. Intelligence services have learned all their tricks of spy craft from the kgb, you know, they know what theyre doing. Theyre very good at this. But they cannot predict and they cannot control and contain massive uprisings, spontaneously breaking out. However, massive uprising is in need of communication, amongst those who participate in the uprising. But theres also a need for further mobilization of the public for a specific cause. There you need public broadcast systems. The Islamic Republic television is one of those highly censored institutions, of course, because it has Strategic Value for the regime. And most foreign broadcasters to iran, theyre extremely cautious in their coverage of the green revolution. So one of the things that could be done, and should be done, is to provide not only support, you know, from the media, only when things happen, but also prior to it. We do not have a single media, not even voice of america, which is trying its best, is not providing opportunities for iranians to have political debates, to question authorities within the system. There is no form for debate. It is something that the regime itself is trying to prevent very actively. There are a number of other countries, that broadcasting on them would be willing to provide those services. I think there is lot that can be done when it comes to the media. You also need to look at ourselves. Mostly iranians. One of the reasons why the green revolution was defeated, of course, was because of the divide between the leaders of the movement and the followers. Chairman mao used to say, a husband and wife may share a bed. They may share they sleep in the same bed but they do not necessarily dream the same dreams. That is the problem between the leaders of the Green Movement and followers of the Green Movement. Leaders wanted to reform the system, followers wanted to get rid of the system all together. In egypt one of the reason the mubarak regime collapsed is they said were going to stay on the mu bar a system. The leaders actively urged their own supporters to go home. So they could sit and negotiate in the dark of the night. But, of course, as soon as the people have gone home, those leaders of the Opposition Movement had nothing to negotiate with. And they became themselves captives of the regime. So i think from the u. S. Side, and those who are interested in a Better Development in iran, media and communication, i think we really need to think hard, if this regime is capable of reforming itself. Thats a valid question to ask and something we need to discuss. The main thing is that the leaders of the United States have to stand up and embrace these things. Had reagan failed to embrace the dissident movement, it would not have become what it became. And since we now have an administration who does not seem at all interested in endorsing, supporting, embracing an antiregime movement in iran, quite the contrary, all the evidence that i see is that this administration wants to work very closely with iran, and coordinate with iran, and have a big deal with iran. And so on. As long as that continues, no iranian is going to risk his or her life to bring down this regime hoping or anticipating or expecting that he or she will get american support. That support has to be explicit, outspoken and continuous, and it has to come from all the top diplomatic and political leaders of the administration, starting with the white house. A question over here. Im with talk radio based in prague. Ill just bring a small position to what mr. Alfoneh said about iran, inside and outside of iran, for exchanging ideas. Thank you. And i thank you. Its a great job, which is being done at the radio station. It provides Radio Broadcasting to eastern europe. Iran is facing similar problem. And i think that a great job is being done in prague. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Im a consultant to apac. This is not the main focus of this particular meeting, but i would very much appreciate hearing from the members of the panel what you think will happen with a nuclear bomb in iran . The thing in the talks. Ali, why dont you begin on that. Unlike many people in washington, i am not so much concerned that here you have somebody who just lies, who is just deceptive, makes promises that this person is not ready to keep. I actually think there are three different approaches in iran when it comes to the nuclear issue. All of them strategically agreed that the nuclear bomb is desirable. You know, mr. Rouhani believes that, his cabinet, that group, they believe that. And so does the Supreme Leader khomeini. However, each group has a different approach. They employ different tactics in order to achieve the strategic world. Mr. Rouhanis goal is to achieve it in the longer term, because they believe right now iran is on the verge of bankruptcy. Sanction relief is urgently needed to keep the system afloat. On the other hand, you have the revolutionary guards. The revolutionary guards want to get the bombs as fast as possible. And they believe fundamentally that it would end like pakistan. You know, iran would be forgiven and sanctions would be removed. Exactly because iran at that point would be a Nuclear Armed state. And no one would like to see any country bankrupt, you know, nuclear power. The argument the revolution guard is making. Mr. Khomeini is oscillating between the two power centers. The second day he extends support to the line of mr. Rouhani, the second day he supports the line of the revolutionary guard and said he does not believe in a passive outcome of the negotiation. I think he on the one hand understands the rouhani argument, that right now iran needs to give concessions in order to get sanction relief, but on the other hand, mr. Khomeini cannot afford to lose or alienate the revolutionary guard. People like in 2009, he needs the support of the revolutionary guard in order to suppress the pup lick, the dissidents. So this is why we see him oscillating. The difference between these three groups is not so much strategic, but tactical. How to achieve it. I believe that as soon as the worst sanctions are removed, as soon as irans economy has stabilized, then we will see tendencies where mr. Khomeini is backing the lines of the revolutionary guard. So rouhani would not give up his obligations and things would change. These are some of the expectations that they have right now. Which is very pessimistic. Ill say just a word on this, even though its out of my role as moderator. Because im really with the study of this being done by a number of people here at fdd. I think one of the things we have to worry about at this point in the negotiations is that rouhani will be well, two things. One is that rouhani will pretend to have made significant concessions, and the Obama Administration will pretend to believe them. And one way this might happen is whats being talked about by mark dubois as the sunset provisions. The idea that you would say, okay, how about this. You will not have a Nuclear Capability during the life of this administration, but the next administrations not going to be our problem. One hopes that those who are thinking about running for office in 2016 are well aware of this. The sunset provisions would essentially tie, and you could say, correct me if you think im wrong, would tie irans hands, or at least make the breakout period reasonably long no more than a year but only for a few for the next few years. At that point, everything comes off. There would be no more restrictions on iran than there are in japan. That seems like a plausible and distressing narrative that we could see unfold as early as this november. Where this agreement that holds it off for this administration is spun as a good deal. A deal we should all applaud. In fact, were just now, the one thing that might stop it, and i think ali has mentioned this, is the Iran Revolutionary guard corps, and khomeini, who michael said is not young and healthy, he may have a different time frame. He may think, i dont want to wait. I want this now. And i dont see any reason why we cant have it now. I throw that out foreyour discussion, or the discussion of the panel. If you think im wrong, please say so. Were happy to disagree in this forum. Just bring down the regime and then you dont have to worry about it. Next question . Yes, go ahead. Whats being played in iran is simply good cop, back cop, but it goes exactly the same. They know exactly what they are doing. And this administration, and many other western administrations, play a role [ inaudible ] and we dont have to worry about it, or theyre not going to change anything anyway. Which of the two things are going to play. The iranians are moving forward with a nuclear plan. In fact, i think theyre holding it back just for strategic reasons. But what do you really think . My question, though, is, on this side we have the people who really want to see america being reduced and have less influence in the world, but the breadth is more of a kind of thing. They have been playing along all along with this game. What do we do to wake the press up . This is the only way out of it, with what we can do. You know, the government is whatever the government is. But we as organizations, as individuals, from my point of view, somehow the press has to be involved. What would that be . Michael . Well, the first thing is to be realistic about what a journalist can or cannot do inside a totalitarian regime and survive. Years ago i went to grenada on the First Anniversary of the American Invasion of grenada. And i went with a tv news crew. And the correspondent, we were walking in the hills outside a big city there in grenada, and he came across some man, and they obviously knew each other and they embraced. And he said, so good to see you, how are things . And the guy said, the local person said great. He said now theyre not going to torture me anymore. And the correspondent said, what do you mean torture . And the guy took off his shirt and turned his back and you could see the scars on his back. The correspondent said, how long have we known each other, five years, ten years . Ive been talking to you and you never mentioned this. Why did you never mention it . And the guy looked at him like he was a madman. Right . And you cannot expect journalists inside countries, where people are routinely tortured, killed, locked away and so forth, are going to have reliable sources, theyre going to tell them the truth about whats really going on in that country. It cant happen. That completely the way things are. And they have to be changed. But that takes us to an even bigger problem, which is the educational system. Which is, we have i mean, when you look at people talking about the world right now, your heart sinks, right . Because they dont know anything about anything. And the words they use, talking about the world shows you that they dont know. And they dont know, because they have been dumbed down by an educational system which doesnt which only teaches them certain kinds of doctrine rather than information so that they can think through by themselves and arrive at their own conclusions. I mean, when the candidate for president of the United States talks about 57 states, and you say, well, ha ha, that was a slip of the tongue. Then you go on to all the other things that that same person has said over the last sixplus years, and its just astonishing. And it becomes the characteristics of a whole generation. Excuse me if i vent on this. When i was in the white house, when a draft reagan speech started to circulate, all of us eagerly jumped on it. First, because if you get input into president ial speech, thats policy. Thats what policy is, a president ial speech. And secondly, we didnt want him saying some stupid ignorant misguided thing. Obama, never mind policy. Obama said so many wrong things, false facts, got so many things wrong about the world, just as a matter of simple respect, people were obviously not doing that for him. Thats not happening. And there are two possible reasons for it not happening. One is hes made it clear he doesnt want it to happen. Hes going to write his own damn speech and if you dont like it, shut up, or get yourself elected, right . And the second is, they dont know. So they dont know that when the president goes to cairo and says muslims brought printing to the middle east, that its three times wrong. Not just wrong, but wrong trebly wrong. Chinese brought it. They sold it to the middle east. They sold it to europe. Portuguese jews brought it to egypt, the first printing press, around 1492 when portuguese jews brought it to cairo. So totally wrong. Wrong, and then wrong, and then wrong, all right . So when you ask the question, here we have these journalists that talk about the world that alarm you, and alarm me, obviously, if you want to fix that, you have to fix the schools. And thats a really big undertaking. Bring your microphone so we can hear it. The breadth is the distribution of people. [ inaudible ]. But there are some who know and choose not to call the president or police or any of those things, and somehow that is the part of the problem that needs to be addressed. Some know, and theyre quiet. Thats a question that i dont know if you can resolve here. Briefly, theres so much information thats out there already. I mean, every minute theres a new Youtube Video of a slaughter in syria. By assads forces. We see caesar, this guy who came with the hood and shows tens of thousands of photographs of people starved and tortured and killed. And it doesnt move policies seemingly. For a lot of reasons. Fatigue, isis is worse, and so on and so forth. So i think it requires we all write opeds frequently, and im often frustrated at the little impact an oped has. Even in the New York Times, its within a couple of hours that people forget about it. We have to think of a way to use information and push it, and impact people who can make policy decisions. But im not sure that its just, we need a bunch more journalists covering good things. Even when we do know, we often fail to act. Thats a spiritual and a moral failure more than a lack of information. And i guess thats a much tougher thing to, you know, broach. I would just say, one thing, and that is, its in a way worse. Because anyone you hear on nbr saying, i have been to iran 12 times in the last five years, you know that means they have not done anything to seriously offend the regime in all those times. And, therefore, as brave as they may be, you have to take with a grain of salt what theyre saying. Nobody at this table is going to say, im going to go apply for a visa, im going to get a notebook and go to iran and fill them up and see whats going on. Journalism is in a crisis today. A total crisis today in terms of what can be reported, what can be said. And its also coinciding with the crisis in that theres no Business Model for journalism anymore. This is really a subject for another panel, or many more panels, but theres a lot of theres really a lot of noise and very little signal. Lets go back there. The ambassador in vienna, so i know what the game is. In the negotiation. I believe the cornerstone of every Democratic State is free. [ inaudible ]. You have pakistan, india, china, russ russia. Whats going to happen to the regime. We have to break it down. How realistic is that we have free elections in iran . That brings up a democratic government, then you can sit and negotiate. Democracies dont go to war with each other, they talk. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Ambassador. Your country has gone through very, very harsh historical times. Just like ours. And an argument you have experienced even greater harshness than our country has in many, many ways. Most unfortunately, many of the intellectuals in my country draw the wrong lessons from what happened in central and eastern europe. Many of them still live in the world of utopia. Those who are in power right now, they believe in establishment and continuation of an islamist ideological regime in power. And many are deceiving themselves that there would be some kind of communist utopia at the end of the rainbow, where the iranians can find peace and prosperity. This is, of course, very, very unfortunate experience in your part of the world. It shows us that this is certainly not the path iran should follow. Concerning the helsinki process, how realistic it is, i think some parts of it can be imposed on iran. If the u. S. Government genuinely takes spread of democracy, prop oh gags of democracy as a model very seriously, that so be tied to the Nuclear Negotiations. This is one of the issues that we really need to talk even more with Obama Administration about. We also need to make the leaders in iran understand that a democratic transition, a slow democratic transition would even be in their own interests. Because a violent turnover of the regime and the system would be much worse for the entire system, for the country, and for the current ruling elite. We are witnessing a gradual maturity among large parts of the opposition. Particularly in the United States. Where even those who are victims of the regimes abuse human rights. For Political Prisoners. Those who have lost family members, they say we do not want revenge. We do not want revenge, we want justice. Justice is different than revenge. There are those who genuinely are talking about south africa model. Those who say that keep even your money, all the money you have stolen, keep it. But make iran a democracy. Open it up. So pressure from within, and the opposition abroad, they say justice for us is more important than revenge. And we care more about the future, a brighter future, than about correcting the injustices of the past. And external pressure. There are those negotiating with the regime in tehran also Pay Attention to the plight of the iranian public that i think would be a combination. And we certainly do need to learn from your experiences, mr. Ambassador. I just want to follow up on that a little bit. The agreement on this panel in regard to human rights is probably not widely shared nowadays, in the sense that i think the Obama Administrations not made human rights a priority. Rand paul leading contender in the republican side certainly doesnt think human rights internationally should be a priority. The u. N. Human Rights Council has become a forum for human rights violators. That is accepted by most of the world. And major transnational human rights organizations also are very selective about human rights. Thats why your organization came into being. So this is a challenging time to make the case for by the way, the arab spring has not become we have not seen human rights flowering from the soil, as some had hoped. This is a particularly challenging time to promote human rights, as a moral with moral clarity, or as a strategic clarity. No doubt. You got to the heart of the challenge i face every day on capitol hill, and in the state department. Its just too frequent to hear. You blab on about this democracy stuff, but better cc than the brotherhood, and better assad than isis. And you just go down the list. Better than abdullah than what waits in the wings. And i think that people in policy making circles, and even amongst the general public dont understand what tyranny does to increase radicalism. They dont have to question, where did the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood come from in egypt. 30 years of corrupt and brutal dictatorship, which decimated any political discourse, which wrecked the economy, that helped give rise to the Muslim Brotherhood. And isis in syria is in no small part a consequence of the combination of brutal dictatorship for the last decade and a half, and western inaction to stop it. So the quicker we understand that opening these societies is absolutely critical to the fight against islamic radicalism, the sooner well act on the human rights issue as well. Thats not to negate the importance of simultaneously combating a liberalism in large parts of the middle east, fighting on all levels. I mean, when you poll the egyptians or jordanians and ask, if people leave islam, what is the punishment, 80 say you die. That requires cultural reeducation, social reeducation. And that is in no small part will come from within these societies. Identifying true moderates, not fake moderates, its absolutely crucial to our own safety. And until that link is recognized, were going to keep this vicious cycle alive, where the west supports the brutal dictator who represses his own people. The only place you have a modicum of freedom is at the mosque. And when i lived in imbaba and radicalism festers and grows and grows, instability increases. I think were repeating the same mistakes of the past. Go back and read the case for democracy, its all in there. It sure is. And the other thing is modesty. As we judge vulnerability, to see whats coming next, and forecast whats happening. And the brotherhood reminded me of that. I dont know anything about the brotherho brotherhood. But in any case, when they came to power, i asked all the experts on the came to power, i asked all the experts on the brotherhood, okay, whats going to happen now . What should we expect . And almost all of them said, this is it, theyre in for x generations, two, three, four, because they have been preparing for this for 80 years, and theyre ready, and theyre organized and so on. Well, as we know, they failed in two months, three months, four months . Something like that. I mean they failed almost at once. And these were the great experts who told us that the brothers were going to rule for generation after generation. Were not very good at figuring out whats going to happen next. Its not easy. The experts on the brothers have the advantage of knowing at least what the brothers have intended, which is a big part of good intelligence. But for him to say, dont think that anyone has a reliable crystal ball or even a good magnifying glass, you have to keep fighting, you have to keep at it, and thats why policies of the sort that were talking about here, which combine moral and strategic wisdom are so value and so important, and its always very discouraging to me, when we get National Leaders as we often do who dont appreciate that and who run from it in the name of a false realism which in turn is based on this conceit that we can see the future when we cant. A very precise example. Ask yourselves, people say, well, there are no liberals in egypt or saudi arabia. Well, ask yourself the question, where might liberals be if they had been the recipients of tens of billions of dollars. Rather than funding these bureaucrats and these pirates, just imagine if a fraction of that support went to actual dissidents, as small a number as they may be. That would only help their ideals spread more rapidly. The same is true for countries like saudi arabia, the president just signed 50 billion worth of arms to a country that doesnt let women travel without a mans permission, what message does that send, does that give hope to democratic dissidents or does that completely rip out the rug from under them and keep in power these dictators which only help foster instability and radicalism in those societies. We were talking earlier about the spiritual and moral failures that we can control here in a democracy, about the media in particular. Probably one thing that nobody wants to hear about and i dont really want to members of the jury it, is that among the american kmuchbl, sometime sometimes its real, sometimes its manipulated, particularly in the guise of the National Iranian council, in that all these people who had to leave the country because of a lack of freedom are now being sold this line, this association that the best thing that we can do for our homeland is to not support sanctions, to not talk about human rights, to not talk about Political Prisoners, that its all a game, that its all meant to create war and bring suffering to the iranian people, so when we talk about moral and spiritual failure, we as iranianamericans are are not doing our part, unfortunately. And i would even wager that more than half of iranian americans are falling prey to this propaganda that is being developed right here in america. I spent a week in iran one time meeting with diplomats from morning until night. I would always ask each one of them, and say i just met with soandso, and they would number two he makes money from shady sources, he has no influence inside iran or number three, hes connected to the regime. And i was just flabbergasted for the past seven or so years, i have only worked with dissidents in the middle east, and it really matters all this undercutting and back stabbing and fighting. When jews were fighting for jewish dissidents, they got 200,000 on the steps of washington im just an outsider, i just pretend to be an iranian because i grew up in l. A. The iranian government, this particular government is very adept at causing fractures and splits among iranians outside the country and utilizing, i would argue, and you would too, what seems to be the more united voice. Its not that hard to cause suspicions among the community been youre clever about it. At some point i finished university and i started speaking in public about iranian politics and every time i would deliver a public lecture, there would be an iranianamerican in the front row, he would never ask any questions, no exchange. At some point i said, okay, im just bored, i need to have some fun. So i went over to him and i said, hello, you know, and very, very polite exchange of words and i asked him, so, could you please tell me how many spies you have here in denmark . And he looked at me and said, you know, we dont need any spies, iranians come to us and report on each other so much, that we have the administrative capacity too there is some truth in it and its a part of our problem as an Iranian Community that we dislike each other very much. And yes, there is systematic infiltration attempts, infiltration attempts, when we organize a Poetry Reading anywhere in europe, somebody is going to stab you with a knife. And if your friend and your fiance go to a Poetry Reading, you dont expect to get stabbed by a knife. The group that is in control of the embassy is also organizing a compete at which there are body guards and armed people who are taking care of the situation and nobody gets stabbed. So the regime provides safe alternatives, even for cultural activities for the Iranian Community. To make things even more interesting, the regime manages to establish Opposition Movements, so it is the intelligence itself controlling even the opposition. This is big brother. These people have been reading over too well. Thats one of our problems, but as a community, we need to be stronger, we need to be stronger and we need to even if we believe someone is working for the regime. A may be our family member, it may be a distant family member, but he too is our family member, that is why we need to be stronger and we can defeat the regime because we are better. Im going to ask everyone to spend just one minute to sum up, state if you can the one policy change or legislative initiative that would be most helpful in regard to the situation we have been discussing today . Ali, do you want to start with that . Try to enter into negotiations with human rights in iraq, thats the one policy negotiation that i genuinely hope that president obama and also the administration coming after that will take up appropriate consideration. That means unless you get agreement for concessions on the Nuclear Portfolio and on the human rights portfolio, sanctions will be increased and the pains will be greater for the regime and for the people. Thats correct. Thats unfortunately, one of the side effects of sanctions, but in longer term, the iranian public will benefit. I would say yeah, speaking out precipitously, whether its tight or not about hue man rights and making a strategic goal ending the regime and not keeping it in place without nuclear weapons, because even if that comes about, its very dangerous not just for thor rannians the entire world. Support the dissident and freedom movements inside iran and start at the top, from the president on down, every top policy making spokesman for the American Government and go to international meetings, whatever they may be about, whether its olympic games, or Nuclear Negotiations. With lists of Political Prisoners and demand their release and keep demanding and keep at it. Let me ask all to thank our panel. And thank you all for coming. Well be in touch about another session before too long. Thanks again. Voters go to the polls in sticks weeks for congressional midterm elections. Up next on cspan 3, a look at how National Security issues could influence the november elections. Then, a discussion on the u. S. Tax code. Well also bring you a meeting with Asian American journalists. Later, remarks from house intelligence chair congressman mike rogers. On the next washington journal, a look at the role of the National Institutes of health and medical research, their funding and their vomt in combatting outbreaks like ebola. Well hear from dr. Francis collins, nih director. We continue with patricia grady, and dr. Griffin rogers, director of the National Institute of diabetes and digestive and kidney diseases. And Northwest University is next on our big ten bus tour. Washington journal is live every morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Next, a conversation on how National Security issues could affect the midterm elections. Well hear from journalists and former pentagon and state Department Officials, cq roll call and the nyu school of law hosted this 90minute event. Its my pleasure to be here and lets introduce the distinguished Panel Straight away. From the audiences far left, a gentleman whos probably never been described as far left before, carly simpleson. Next to him is rachel kleinfeld, shes at the Carnegie Endowment for international peace. She not only comments on Foreign Policy, but she helps shape it by serving former serk tear of state hillary clinton, one of her advisors on the Foreign Affairs policy board. Next to her is steve ludock, who is the professor at Washington College of law and coeditor in chief of justice security. The amount of recognition has been sort of the go to place on Foreign Policy. To my left is jerry seib, who is the Washington Bureau chief for the news line. The leading interpreter of nbc news poll, one of the few mustread columns here in this town. And on the end is my colleague tim starks, who is a defense specialist and writes the 5 by 5 blog for cq roll call. And he has a long history as previously covered intelligence for 60 roll call. So he has a lot to contribute to our panel. Thank you for coming and joining us on the last summer evening of the year. Let me start with jerry seib. Last week you wrote fear is back and how it may influence the upcoming election. When we put this panel together, i think we would have said that there was probably no roles in National Security. I think thats changed a bit. I think theres panel consensus that there wont be a big roll. But can you deskrcribe what youe seeing in the polls and if theres enough percolation period . I sort of look at what happened over the year as a sort of an art that go this is way, that the country and the Obama Administration are sort of bumping along with the president kind of in sync with American Public opinion on the question of the summer, which was we dont want to get involved in syria and iraq. And his answer was no and the American Peoples answer was no, though they werent exactly rewarding him for being in sync with him, they were sort of punishing him for doing exactly what they wanted him to do. But one thing that happened, was that was a release of the beheading video of james foley. What we 230u67bd in our polling is that event grabbed the a there was more attention paid to that event in terms of the way people responded to questions asked and what theyre paying attention to this afternoany ev you name it, there was more people paid attention to the beheading videos than anything we have tested for the last five years. It was a galvanizing moment and it changed attitudes. So when we asked should the u. S. Military be involved against the Islamic State, and this was just a couple of weeks ago, 60 of the people said yes. Slightly higher among democrats and independents, but across the board there was a sense, we got to do something. But the caveat there is, i think theres still a limited appetite. And when we asked people do you want to be more involved or less involved in World Affairs, that number that the u. S. Should be more involved in World Affairs has ticked up but not a lot. I think the reason i think we have all said amongst ourselves as we have talked about this that i dont believe this question of whats the u. S. Role in the middle east, whats the strategy against the Islamic State. It is going to be a huge election because both parties are deeply divided on this. You look at the house last week, in the training of Syrian Rebels, for example, conservatives split amongst themselves, theres not a paerl position for the democrats or the republicans so it makes it hard for a party to gain traction on an issue like that a. And theres the political powder keg involved in it. Rachel, you mentioned that the security explain why. I would love for National Security to play a bigger role in general, because i think were a democracy, the American People should have a say, but our congress is not now organized for the American People to have a say, its highly gerrymandered. Its pushing districts to the fringes and the way that the votes are are being juryrigged is similar, so you get a Veterans Affairs vote with an iran sanctions vote stuck on to it. Or a pull troops out of iraq vote, with an iraq funding vote stuck together. These were gotcha votes, the only reason these votes were being struck chured so there could be an attack ad, because of that kind of jergerrymanderi of the disstrict. Theres going to be attack ads at the midterms and you get hurt in the polls. The politics of this issue suggests to me that we need to pull back on how politicized it is until we can change the politics and i think we have, what, eight more years until the census happens again. But that debate cant wait eight years, but as your colleagues are pulling this day pointed out, you know, the move against the Islamic State for the purposes of this conversation well tall it that, its using an authorization for an old war, the president declared over. For a new war. So steve, Congress Needs to act and the president seems to agree on that. When are we going to get that debate . Well, i think before congress can actwe were talking about the day before about how this congress had the house had what this year, which, you knowi think until after the midterms, so i think the rest of the conversation about what should congress do before the midterm is now mute. But thats put the president in a very awkward spot. On the one hand president obama is deeply committed to a to some kind of meaningful dialogue with congress, but congress isnt there, literally. So the question comes, as the i think the president s going to feel increasing pressure to go it alone, simply because of a matter of logistics, we have to go it alone. So the real question becomes, what happens after the midterm. Is the president going to work with congress on some kind of new amf there,s a lot of support in at least circles in the moderate parties, we havent heard the white house formally endorse it yet or step away from it. But i think congress has to confront that and thats one of the first things on their agenda when they get back after the elections. Does the president have enough authority to act right now . I think he does. But to jerrys earlier point, before the beheadings, the American People, i looked at the major polling, the two usa today polling, 48 of the people said the economy and unemployment was their top concern. Followed by health care 42 . The budget deficit 38 , education 31 . National security down to 19 , immigration was 14 below that. But the beheadings were and what happened was, because congress planted the insession only 12 days after the summer recess, the beheadings compressed the calendar in terms of what the president could do and what Congress Really wanted to do. And what Congress Really wanted to do was pass a short time extension to the budget and get out of town and focus on the elections. But i would take a little bit of difference with rachels point. I dont think that congress doesnt want to take up votes is a new concept. That the districts are more gerrymandered than ever, and i agree with you and i theys an unhealthy time. But when you read back during lincolns time, 1862, 1863, they avoided votes because it was too political then and it hasnt changed since. Before we go any further, well have to have a debate about who were actually fighting and even an informed citizen like the very confused without a score card on who actually are the threats, so i would like to bring tim starks in here, no sooner had the president finished speaking about Islamic State action then you had clapper and the Intelligence Community briefing lawmakers about what they considered more dangerous, and more pressing threats to the United States. And youre right, its very difficult for the average person to keep track of these groups. Its difficult for the Intelligence Community to keep track of these groups. Theyre capable of morphing quickly away in public view, maybe its a little bit slower process. And people forget that al qaeda in iraq is sort of a forebearer of the Islamic State thats become such a big threat now. The by partisan policy committee is going to be releasing a report tomorrow that does have a chart of where all these groups are. They say that looking at 2008 compared to now, al qaeda and its affiliates are operating in 16 different countries, which is about double what it was in 2008. And that doesnt even include some wild cards that could popup or theres a big deepening of a conflict in palestine, that might become a dare a danger to the United States. Plus one that was getting a lot of attention this past weekend, thats one that clapper said is in the vicinity of as dangerous as the Islamic State. Yet you still need to root out al qaeda in the thats one that we need to worry about more than the others, they have a track record of actually trying to carry out these attacks on the United States and inspiring them here among homegrown terrorists in a way that other groups dont quite have since 9 11. So thats another big one. And then there are a whole variety of other groups enduring states of power, al srhabob and some of them are weakened but they can be revived and go back to the Islamic State where they came from. Jerry, you mentioned, you pointed out last week that the action against the Islamic States may inspire some of these other groups to step forward in an opportunistic way. I think if you talk to u. S. Officials, theyre worried about the Islamic State to some extent. But in terms of the nearterm danger, one of the things they worry about more are the groups that youre talking about, but also the fact that they may have an incentive that they didnt have a couple of months ago to launch an Islamic State. That the sucking all the oxygen away from other groups, if youre running al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, if youre running al qaeda, you have a need to prove relevance, youre here, you still matter, how do you do that . Maybe you pull the trigger if you can, on a big strike against the u. S. , maybe not necessarily here, but maybe in europe. But you make the point, hey, guys, were still around too. I think that is a legitimate concern. Its also sort of a testament to how much the Islamic State has changed again, in this short period of time. You raise the question, who are we fighting against . Theres also the question of who are we fighting with against the Islamic State and do people see the threat, saying i think theres disagreement here of whether islamer state poses the biggest threat or not. I think thats part of the confusion that has everybody feeling a bit nervous. The bottom line is, as you said, the one thing thats clear in our polling that you get a sense of just from listening to the conversation on the hill in the last couple of weeks is that to the extent americans had decided steadily over the last seven years that the threat, the 9 11 kind of threat against them and the homeland has reseeded, thats reversed in the last month. Are they heading the most significant up tick or driver since 9 11 . I think so. You look at just based on our public polling, you cant see a similar spike, you see drifts up and down in the fear factor, but nothing like what happened in august. So you have a spike in fear, you have multipronged threats, you have a congress thats not debating. Im starting with steve on this, because congress is given way on the sitting president on the war action. Arent we experiencing a slow motion confidence yes and no, and i think the yes is, in some ways were in the same constitutional crisis that we have been experiencing since the rise of unilateral war making, i think, no, at the moment, that this isnt sort of different in degrees, because at least for the moment the president has plausible, if not self evident statutory argument fos make. The president has at least his advisors have the authority to go after isis for the moment because of the statue that congress entirely because isis is the successor to and inheriter of al qaedas legacy. Thats a dubious argument, we can hash it out and it will bore everybody to tears, but its not implausible. The moment that this becomes a real constitutional crisis, where congress clearly endorses the notion that the president should react but refuses to provide the authority. I think that could easily happen, but im not just sure yet its going to be with isis. Youre releasing a the varying views on the right on weather the president should seek the authority. We were releasing a paper on isis and whether or not an isisspecific aumf would be appropriate. We traced the history of aumf, pointing out that we only declared war twice in recent memory and the reason that most war actions have been in the form of a specifically designed aumf, we break out the five constituent parts of that and say if the congress is not convinced of the president s legal arguments, that isis grew out of the 2004, that even though hes dead, theres this break from core al qaeda, that you cant make a case, then Congress Needs to well, first the president should be proposing an aumf, but if they dont approximate president koumtd look at these various groups and know that theyre out there. But i would be remiss if i didnt wish when you read both of them together, you really get a good sense of whats happening in the Legal Academy. A speech at my alma mater this week on constitution day, i guess it was last week, and he talked got how the constitution is under stress. Over the last decade because of the various machinations from the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration, and gave various examples which i wont go into. But i think theres some merit in that argument. I agree with steves point as well. So i do think its worth stressing the very different constitutional question that the question today is not what happens when you have a president gleefully defy an act of congress on a regular basis on the grounds that the statues are unconstitutional. The question here is what happens when a president who is convinced that some force needs to be used to quell a threat to the United States, where congress apparently agrees, where there seems to be more than a majority in both houses that support some form of legislation, but they just cant get their heads together, whether for political reasons or for logistical reasons or for other reasons. Thats the constitutional crisis that worries me. Which is not when you have congress saying one thing and the president saying something else, thats going back to the founding. Its when you actually have complete agreement among the political branches but refusal to do what the constitution actually requires which is some point the path to legislation. I might just take slight issue with you on that, because i think, while there might be a consensus for action og something youre debating, theres still a great all the factions between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that its easier for congress to just not do anything. Its easier for them to say, you know what . Let the president go right now, until something gets out of hand and they dont like what anyre doing, i dont think they call it a constitutional crisis, its certainly an interesting constitutional dynamic, i think role call, we had a story today that said this would be the most donothing congress of all time, unless they pass Something Like 100 bills in the lame duck session. So it does give you a sense of how so just, you know, its interesting how much you see, you know, a president go to congress and say i want something until he starts thinking about the ramifications of congress saying, we dont like it quite the way you do, and theres a cia director that shall go unnamed, there was a period of time where the cia was trying to be a little bit more open and public about wanting to work with congress, all of them say we want to work with congress, but they were making a little bit of effort. And he had been saying this in public, and i asked him what do you think about the authorization political thats coming out. And he used some curse words about how much he didnt care whether Congress Passed an authorization bill. Something subtle happened in the last few weeks in regard to the relationship between the executive and the legislative large. And president obama, to his credit i think came out and said i think i have the ability to act here on my own. But i invite you in congress, to please authorize something, get with me here, do something. Now the executive branch and some of us have been doing this for a listening time and the tendency of the executive barrage to say to the legislative branch stay as far away be me he didnt say that, he said please authorize something so theres a sense that were moving together here, i ask you to do this. And they didnt really, they authorized training and arming Syrian Rebels with no dollar signs attached and quit there and went home for elections. I think theres a different dynamic between the two branches. In kos slow in 199, congress had a vote on whether to authorize air strikes, if i remember right it was a tie. The house was split 215216. Were not talking about a house that had legislation before it and rejected it. Were talking about bills that arent going to the floor. I think this gets to jerrys earlier point about the interestinging polling in which the American People were saying question want you to do this and when he did it they didnt reward him for it. The American People are looking for somebody that can do something successfully abroad and so you get this back and forth about we want you to do something, but we dont want you to fail again. Thats an even bigger dynamic, is this loss of faith in the American Government to act effectively from both parties. From what jerry said, part of the reason i think that that happened, which i give credit to the president for doing that, because thats a healthy way of signaling to them, lets Work Together is because of what happened last year on the syria situation. So it was, as described by a colleague of ours, sort of like two teenagers trying to figure out whos going to ask the first one out on a date. He didnt really want to put forth an aumf proposal. Congress didnt want to reward him by giving him one, the compressioned time schedule didnt allowed the congress to do their duty and do it. Query what happened happen to congress if it was an Election Year and congress lasted through october and november, who knows . But its very clear to me that by saying what he said, hes very open to an aumf, and i think they realize that there is this vigorous debate in the Legal Academy about the efficacy of the 2000 aumf and theyre very open to a isis specific aumf. There was a speech last my where he said the same thing, he said i invite congress to work with me on a new aumf, and he never put forth a proposal and not long after, defense officials testified to congress and said were happy with where we are. Its certainly a very different situation than it was last year. No doubt the constitutional law professor would be interested in what other constitutional law professors have to say. Lets go back to august of last year, did obama make a mistake in not forcing that vote . He asked for the vote. This time it was we cant do business as usual, it was very forceful. 11 days later, late at night on a saturday . Well, look, it was a pivot point, i think almost everything has happened in administration Foreign Policy since then is to some degree or another judges against the backdrop of what happened that week in august and the white house doesnt like to hear that, but i think its true in terms of relations in congress and its probably even more true in the way that people abroad see the u. S. And see the Obama Administration. I think that what the president has done on the Islamic State and the Coalition Building associated with the decision to gone the offensive is starting to pull back some of that, but i still think it was a big moment and i think it did affect lots of things that happened in the years subsequent. Having been involved from afar, but closely in that vet, there werent the votes, they just didnt have the numbers. So they didnt want to bring it to a vote. And they didnt have the numbers because the constituent male was running against that vote, i dont remember the numbers for every single senator i was talking to. But it was 9010, it was overwhelming. So there wasnt a beheading video at that point. And you have to eventually go back to the people if you are a member of congress. You did say the American People are uncertain that there would be a successful, that we will have a measure of success. And i want to go back to something that you have written about, which was that the u. S. Has done a poor job of getting militaries to become more functional, that these ad hoc coalitions can fail because of the regime mentality. Whats the prospect of success of this coalition . Im not privy to the classified documents on this one and i really hope that it looks better than it does from the outside. From the outside, most militaries are not set up the way our military is to actually protect the people of your country and the territory of your country. Most militaries are set up to protect the regime or to make money. Based on that, we give them money, we try to train them, but their fundamental purpose is different than what we want them to be. And thats a real problem if you want them to be in a militia with you to go after a bad guy like this. In some of these states that are were dealing with, you might have seen some confidential information, are you we need the coalition to win. And the one thing we havent talked about here is leadership. Any president in his sixth year and in the future, her sixth year needs to regroup, needs to reassess the people around him or her. And there needs to be a clear vision for the next two wears and this is one of those classic cases in point where the president needs to lead and he needs to lead and make a case. And jerrys point, tims point about this sort of deploying all the varying constituent parts for the funding bill. Theres a lot of different types of folks voting along party lines. That actually is an opportunity. The right type of winning legal argument, or political argument for us to be in. I think the Administration Needs to be more forthright and honest and direct about who this coalition is and what theyre going to do. I know thats going to be very hard, because theyre going to be doing things they cant talk about. But the American People when we go to war are used to turning on cnn or their favorite cable show and seeing the crosshairs and bombs going off. But were not seeing that a so were like whats going on. So theres an emotional aspect that the people arent getting, theyre hearing were at war, theyre not hearing were at war. Do you think we need a legal frame work . If you look at, and we alluded to this, about the kinds of countries were talking about enlisting in this coalition against isis, when youre talking about the assad regime in syria, when youre talking about iran, the question is actually how do we go to bed at night comfortable that our enemies are all of a sudden not so bad enemies. We do need a new frame work, it would be nice if we were able to insert some kind of leverage and put some strings on the aid were providing. But we need them at the moment perhaps at least as much as they need us. As long as thats going to be true, its going to be very hard for us to impose conditions and thats going to create a very bad incentive structure, that the kind of support we need, especially in the middle east is going to come from countries who are not going to say, oh, well do it and well improve our human rights efforts. Or well do it on the conditions of the other things you want us to do. Theyre going to get as much leverage as they can. So were in a relatively weak position, i think we need it. When obama backed down september 10th or 11th last year, he said she was dispatching john kerry to talk to russia, our partners, he says, to talk about the difference in one year since then. John kerry this morning, i want to go back to steve and well talk a bit wonky here on frame work and things. Kerry seemed to be describing the Islamic State as a state. That they control territory, that they have a funding flow, et cetera. Was that the beginnings of an argument . Gosh, i dont know. Whether the u. S. Government is on the precipice of recognizing is a very dangerous proposition. Because recognizing any entity as a state first of all is recognizing they have territory, which presumably is going to piss off the authority that claims that territory. But it also violates all kinds of International Law that i cant imagine that we have sovereignty, the ability to act in selfdefense. So i dont know if that rhetoric is designed in order to sort of hail in some kind of move to recognizing some kind of state hood or some kind of clearer focus that there is a group that were going after, in the just because theyre a scatter terrorist group, because they are members ofer other group. They control wide swathes of territory. Its a territory that gives them a larger base of operation, it makes them more secure from action by other countries law authorities, so i dont know if this is anything different than a nomenclature change. Colleens point about the people not being able to see the sort of normal imagery of war. I think the consequences are so dire, that, you know, the last thing we want, just to draw the analogy, this is the one bridge that we wouldnt cross during the civil war. Lincoln would never recognize the confederacy as the a country, because the second you do that, you confer upon them legitimacy that the whole operation wants to deny to them. The fact that our partners in jordan and turkey, today were seeing a lot about problems with refugees, a lot of reaction, just in your wheel house, do we have not a lot of time to make an effective push back to ease this refugee crisis . The refugee crisis, were seeing it now on our tvs, suddenly its real to us. This started a year ago, two years ago, with the start of the syrian war, three years ago now, at the beginning it was a trickle and its a serious issue in lebanon and turkey, jordan, the destabilization of the states is quite real. But remember there are little boys and girls growing up in those refugee camps, what are they seeing, what are their parents doing . What are they seeing on their tvs . Seeing their parents helpless does something to a child. The more theyre in those camps, the more youre going to see a generation of norm mall si. The kind of violence that causes in people, the impulse control that that changes, you dont wanting generations growing up in refugee camps and not being able to work. And i think were seeing that in this generation in the middle east. We want to be dealing with this soon, and we have been trying, secretary clinton started putting money into humanitarian action there and were probably going to need a lot more. What kind of a drain is that on a country like jordan . I have no idea, im not jordanian. But i can only imagine from what i have read and what i have seen and when i talk to my friends in the military and i servied for 3 years so i have a lot of friends in the military, that its debilitating, if you just look at the number of people in these refugee camps ready to cross the river in the last week, from the pictures coming out. It makes katrina and the numbers of people fleeing new orleans look like not much. And they with respect being, you know, shot at and werent afraid that, you know, american isis group ask going to come after them. So i share rachels concern, i also agree 100 with what steve just said. I dont think secretary kerry meant literally that theyre a state. I think it was more of a colloquial expression. Tim, talk about, has any of this had the idea of the refugee problem in the briefings last week, was that coming to the fore . Oh, sure, yeah, its a big part of what some of our future expenses might be. So in addition to the humanitarianism pact, theres a sense that this is something were going to be wrestling with as a cost of this new military action against isis for a long time to come. Were already talking about 75 million i believe that the pentagon said last month, right when we first started ramping this up and the refugee crisis can really, really add to these type of costs. It all right was doing it in syria, when syria was getting out of control and now its getting worse and spreading, its becoming even more of a problem. And the lawmakers have to do something. I think theres something even bigger happening here, the combination of the refugee crisis and the fact that isis is claimed as you said, huge swathes of territory, whole countries are being changed here t border between iraq and syria does not exist anymore. The demographic composition of lebanon has changed, the demographic composition of iraq and syria is a mess. So none of those states, as were peeking now, and certainly over time are going to exist the way we thought of them two years argue, five years ago, ten years ago certainly. What are the consequences of that . Well, i think one of the consequences of that is that the adult states in the region need to step up. The real countries, egypt, turkey, iran, israel, saudi arabia, i mean adult countries that are real countries that have functioning governments are going to have to step in at some point, not just the u. S. , at least in my opinion. And what form that takes, i dont know. But these other states are not going to be able to take care of themselves. They practically dont exist now. At least not in the form we have always thought of them. I was thinking about the builter ironies about the situation of this president , the president wanted to get out of iraq, getting back into iraq. Also the president of iran, saying that his predecessor or the incumbent had put two wars on a credit card. Were doing that again. Tim, you want to talk a little bit got how unsustainable that is . Yes, i mean once they come back after the elections, i dont mean the lame duck, but once they get back in the his and senate with the new congress, thats going to be a very major component when we look at what happens with the overall budget, the defense budget, the mandatory cuts that have been in place, theres been this attempt to move everything back into the budget. Thats being completely reversed. There might have to be, there might be arguments for why it has to be. But its a weird position that this president s going to be in that hes going to be doing a war on credit cards. We have many National Security issues and were going to move on to them in a second. But im just go back to jerry on this one. Do people in the administration acknowledge that the president may wind up being in the spot that dempsey indicated he might be in, and that robert gates said that you cannot turn back the Islamic State or these various groups without some sort of come bbat boots on the groun . I think what general odierno said, which got a little mangled in the interpretation, he said yeah there need to be boots on the ground if youre going to roll back military, which is what the Islamic State is, to take back territory, they dont have to be american boots, but they meet to be anybodys boots. Youre talking about the adult states in the region, and the syrian free army, up to the challenge . Well find out. I dont know. So if any of you have discerned an answer to any of that, to these questions, please let us know in the questions period. So National Security is broader than what we have been talking about for the last 35, 40 minutes. And lets talk about other manifestations of that and the politics. Youve written on security about a possible realignment on the issue of private sky rights to National Security. And how theres an attempt of the nsa roll back of was an indication of a possible emerging new a alliance and i think that everybody here has something to say about zblachlt and this goes back to the point that we heard before about isis consuming all the oxygen. One of the things that isis put off of the radar was i think this was an issue that obviously was sparked last summer by the snowden revelations, and there was a clear impetus for at least some change in the house, in the senate and it wasnt the good oldfashioned leftright divide. I talked a year ago about one of the things that we saw in the surveillance conversation, was the not unpredictable align mmpblt of the liberal wing of the direct party i and so there was a vote last summer to defund the program that lost in the house 207205 and we can look and say some republicans deforgeted but it was right down the party lines, it was anything but. I think this is a possible moment that just hasnt happened yet and i think part of what isis has done is push it even further into the distance. But at some point, by next Spring Congress is going to have to pass some kind of surveillance reform. Because the statute at the heart of the program for better or for worse, were going to have to have some legislatuelectrica out of congress. The house has already passed the usa freedom act. And theres a bill that the white house has aimportapparent signed off on. The big question is there going to be a meeting of the minds before the senate goes home . At the end of the day, though, i think the real question is it going to be the democrater the republicans, or is it going to be the wing nut coalition. Hes one of them, against the more conventional parts of the parties. Well see, i wrote that a year ago and were still there. Do you think this is political alinement that can get something done during the lame duck . I think things are moving so quickly that we have no way of knowing. When steve wrote what he wrote, he was exactly right and a few months later he was exactly right. Then you had the beheadings and you have isis, so all these things are happening, and i think whats happening is youre seeing for example the libertarian wing of the Republican Party pulling back on some of their statements, some of their desires for stecertain policies, you see rand pauls suit against the nsa, thats tabled for now. But that serves a political purpose too. So i think whats going to happen, and god forbid any terrorist attacks happens here in this country, im assuming for the sake of my point that it the doesnt, youre going to have a renewed sense of realism starting with the new congress. We need some form of surveillance. Let get the adults in the room. We understand what youre saying, we understand what youre saying, but this is going to expire in may. We need some boots on the ground in iraq, not us, probably for now, but who . And how do you really actually vet these folks . Are we any good at vetting these folks . We saw what we did in iraq and in afghanistan, Training Afghan National Army people, iraqi army people, we had green on green, we had blue on green, we had all sorts of various insider attacks and thats going to happen and thats going to dampen the spirit of what were doing, but we cant let it quench the resolve to get it done at the end of the day. Theres one act that we havent talked about. Its the Million Dollar question if theyre going rand pauls lawsuit, theres already been arguments in the federal Appeals Court in new york. Theres a very important, albeit largely overlooked charge in colorado to the much larger intelligence gathering program, its entirely possible that the more that the political branches get their feet on these parties the more the court will be pressed into some kind of action. Im not holding any breath that the Supreme Court is willing to no greater liberal than chief Justice Roberts who wrote the majority opinion this june, a case about searching cell phones, chief Justice Roberts wrote about how much different qualitatively the data is in the stuff we store on our cell phone versus what we carry on our person. If the court really needs that, congress may drag its feet long enough to leave the courts no other option than to you get a multiplicity of opinions along the way. We get a decision from the second circuit. Theres another appeal brought by Larry Clayman here in d. C. Its going to be argued by next fall. Sometime by this spring were going to have two court opinions. You know, its going to percolate, its going to take a while. I guess all im saying is that if Congress Really goes the narrowest route possible which is just to look at 215, i think the courts may actually feel compelled to doing something. This is why im a law professor and not a poker player. But i think that the District Courts is split on the Fourth Amendment question, which is to say do americans have the right to privacy in their telephone metal data. But theres a narrower way out to say Congress Never actually authorized the program. So without the constitutional issue, we can say its not authorized by statute. That fits quite nicely with congress having to act anyway by next may. The much harder question, is the section 702 challenge. Thats going on in colorado. Which allows the collection, if someone calls me a Foreign National its a little more complicated than that. The question is whether is the collective happening, the way that 70 2k works isa it authorizes certain intelligence that it sees to basically mass collect information going through foreign servers so long as they are targeted not u. S. Persons, reasonably believed to be outside the United States. The result is, they cant target a communication that they know that youre a party to. But the way that technology works, its just inevitable, everything going through these fiber optic cables, theyre going to collect millions and millions of u. S. Persons anyway, so theyre probably picking up your phone calls accidentally. The reason that we have talked the bulk of this conversation got foreign threats and fear of terrorism, is it possible that once again privacy concerns will be overwhelmed by this wave of concern about terrorists . I think particularly the Younger Generation doesnt share many of our privacy concerns, and so i think it will be interesting to see where it goes. But i think a lot of issues are being overwhelmed by the talk in washington that as someone who lives in colorado are still very live in the states, so the immigration debate has not gone away in the states, it is still very there and among some of the subsections of the population, it is very sail yenlt. Honduras, guatemala, kids coming up from el salvador, i was stuck in dallas getting my plane rebooked and the woman behind the counter was talking to me about honduras and about what she should go down there and help with the kids, because she was with the church. Thats the kind of things people in texas are thinking about. Congress has certainly been kicking the can for a long time. The courts are getting involved to a certain extent. But theyre going to have to pick those issues backs up. And to make a really broad annal squli, tomorrow im running an International Conference on violence. One thing we know about violence from mexico is that when you have a series of cartels that are fighting each other, and a government comes in and fightings with one of them, you actually dont just weaken that one cartel, you start violence between the cartels, because ones weak and now everyone else wants their turf. You start succession crisis within the one youre attacking so you get more slils there. And you have state on cartel violence. You basically metastasize the violence. Were about to do that in the middle east. When you look at what were doing in the middle east, the one group were going after versus all the rest, were about to pull a mexico two years ago, and the American People are going the problem hasnt gone away, but has it faded as a concern for people as evidenced in your poll . The Child Migrants and immigration . Immigration . No, not faded at all. If you ask people what they worry about, the immigration worry is very high on their list. It kind of comes and goes and there was a tendency in washington to conclude, i dont know what, two months ago that congress wasnt going to deal with it, so check it off the list for the year, put it on the back burner, but thats not, at least the polling suggests thats not the way americans look at it at all. I think its very much on their minds and thats not to say that there is a consensus about what to do about it. You know, i think the country is almost as divided as washington on that question. But in terms of what do we worry about . Its still very much there. And lawmakers worry about it too. Absolutely. And this will be one of those interesting what happens if the Senate Changes the way people might change on surveillance performance, the senate is a little more conservative on the notion of going after the nsa. Because the senate has more traditional security than republicans and some of the more libertarian oriented house members. There material differences between the version of the usa freedom act, i hate that name, that passed the house and the version introduced by leahy. Virtually all the differences were down in favor of privacy as compared to the house bill. Its much more it changes the status quo much less. And so if tim is right that a change controls the senate means a weaker bill, i think thats going to be a big loss for the privacy and Civil Liberties movement that seem to be sparked. The legislation is not going accomplish that much compared to where we started. Do you agree . The only thing i would add is they may not be around depending on where things play out. They may be tamped down. I agree with the name. Its silly. The institution is better at the pentagon. I think that you are talking about the immigration piece. He is the secretary of Homeland Security and folks were asking him, how many people from not south america and not mexico, but across the boarder and how many terrorists were coming across the border and he had to agree that there were folks from yemen and other countries that came across. There is nothing that isis was trying to come into mexico and pay across the road. They dont have to cross the river. Assuming no terrorist attack in the spring when we have to take a look at the reforms to fisa. You might be right that the house version prevails and you might see that, but its way too early. Too early to tell how it would play out. The fact that we are on what happens in the spring underscores just how all inclusive isis has been. I would never have thought this bill would not be done. This was a jenda item number one. He got that signed on to the bill and on the conference before the midterm. The fact that this is up in the air proving how much isis has taken over. Or opposite pages of the debate, they have somewhat come to the same place. On intelligence issues, you can hardly get them on the same page. All of a sudden they were moving close to each other and arrived. Lets move on to a couple other hot spots. They are extraordinary. Are we overselling the opposition . You have to ask the two copresident fist thats what they are, i suppose, that question. I guess i would cynically answer just about everything that has been promised for 12 years. Im not sure why this would be different. However to the extent that the administration and you have anything that followed president karzai it is still plausible. If thats your standard, this is progress that appeared to seem possible a couple of weeks ago. I think the hard question is what is the understanding of security arrangements and is there a status of forces agreement that is plausible and will it exist and if it does, will the u. S. Go on . Those are questions that start to be discussed. Nowhere near being resolved. Put your fragile state hat on and talk about afghanistan. I happen to know him as a close friend. I hope this works out. He is worried for his dads life. He has good reason to worry. They tend to freeze conflict and the best Case Scenario is a frozen that came out and you give everyone time to breathe and the status of the disagreement and start getting the functioning government. A very smart man and how to put these back and makes shrewd judgments like bringing it on to his ticket which he needed to do. If anyone can, he can. I dont believe in putting our eggs all in the basket. I think as america we need to look at how you shape the institutional a changements there with the status of the agreement to ensure peace because the history of these things is that conflict can break out overtime. Sounds like a little bit of optimism. Im glad we have it on this panel. Let me throw this out to everyone. Has europe and the u. S. Reached the limits on the restraint of Vladimir Putin and should we worry about that . No, i dont think we have reached the limits on the restraint. We will work with you on where we are at. They played a very optimistic game when we were looking this way and pushing forward on that. We are in that position again. We are distracted and our lawmakers are out on the road. Should we be worried . If you asked 50 people walking down the street, show me where the ukraine is on the map. Most couldnt. Most people couldnt show you where washington, d. C. Is on the map. Or who is the vice president. They would come up with a different name. People understand the videos. People understand terrorist events. I dont think the American People have that much of a concern about putin being putin and doing what putin was designed to do. Reach out and try to grab more territory. The fact that that is true will motivate congress. The president i think now reamizes what putin is about. I think if you put the same question to jerry, i dont know where its going to end. There is a point where sanctions are so extreme they have a law of unintended consequences. I dont know how far you can push it before they back off and of course the iranian equation that fits into that as well. I would have thought that the shoot down of m 817 would have been the beheading episode of this conversation. Just to say that the shoot down was the spark that ignited it and finally got folks to actually Pay Attention. They have got the American Publics attention for about three or four days. Certainly they have the european attention for longer, but the question will be here unlike in the isis context. What are they going to do and are we going to follow and bolster up what the other sides do. Ask them what europe would do is the more fraught question these days. I think its rare, that would have been the moment. Some of that is common sense, but how dependent europe is on Russian Energy compared to what we are. Its easy to be ahead of europe. What are the interesting things about ukraine and how people might be relating to it