Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Public Policy Today 20140926

It should happen . I want to go deeper into this question about working with our allies. It is the first thing that comes up in the times editorial. We have got to work with our allies and so forth. Of course, it is essential. But we have a really big problem because our allies are divided. Especially when it comes to the political strategy. Many of them are leading us in a direction that is likely to be disastrous. As you know, we have these two camps. This is apart from the longrunning saudiiranian leadership rivalry. Now, within the arab and sunni muslim camp, we have saudi arabia, the uae, egypt, and a few others, one group that has proposed a certain strategy. Lumping many islamists into the same category, into the category of terrorists, barring them from politics, media, civil society. There are a lot of things happening. Shadi referred to things happening in egypt. A Massive Campaign of repression. On a smaller scale, also in a number of other countries that i mentioned. This is being applied particularly to the Muslim Brotherhood for the reason that shadi mentioned, because the governments of these countries see the Muslim Brotherhood as the greatest political threat. And so the gulf countries have taken their own steps and they have also cheered on as president asisi has carried out the harshest crackdown in the history of the country. Several thousand people have been killed in demonstrations. As many as 40,000 have been imprisoned. To go back to that times editorial from today, it says that, and i think it is basically right, that isis got to where it is in iraq because it gained followers by exploiting the reaction against the sunnis. Where do we think that repression of islamists, of brotherhood supporters and not only brotherhood supporters, but many secular activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and so forth, where do we think this is going to go . I mean, that is the political strategy that our allies are recommending to us, that we support. Actually they want our support in the strategy of repressing that significant section of the population in a lot of these countries. Where do we think it is going to go . Except to generate more support for the very dangerous extremists that exist. And it is not only in iraq or syria but they exist in egypt and many of the countries of the region. Also, closing off the avenues that i discussed, of politics, media, civil society, and so forth, will divert energies in the direction of radicalization. And beyond that, in many countries, it is probably only a small number of people that would be attracted to join or actively support extremist groups. But i think it is even more important that you could have a large swath of the population that is not going to help the government fight the extremist groups because they have been alienated by the government and by a lot of the collective punishment taking place. There is another camp of u. S. Allies, generally qatar and turkey who say political islamists must be allowed full participation. But we need to be honest with ourselves. Even though these two camps are talking about political islam, the Muslim Brotherhood in starkly different ways, when it comes down to it, individuals and states in each of these camps are willing to work with islamists, willing to work with dangerous and violent islamists. There is not really a proislamist and antiislamist camp here although it is portrayed that way. If we look to the actions of all of the states, we can see they have been willing to work with one Islamist Group against another and so forth. It is not a principled thing. It is about politics and about maintaining political control. So what does the United States do about this . I think the administration has been doing the correct thing by refusing to be drawn into this regional polarization. By resisting this. I dont think the Obama Administration has fallen into this trap at this point of supporting one camp of allies against another. I think the u. S. Administration has tried to refuse to sign onto repression of political islamists in the name of fighting terrorism. They have been imperfect in that regard, but in general, they have tried to avoid falling into that particular trap. Of course, it is a pity, and its been alluded to, the u. S. And europe did not do more to support the growth of peaceful, political expression, the experiments of democratization that started to take place in the last few years. But i want to point out another failure of policy in the last few years, and that has been managing these allies. The fact that this region has been going through these tectonic shifts, massive changes over the last two years that made everyone feel secure and that the u. S. Has been, for our own reasons, been pulling back and saying we do not want to be the leaders, we do not want to be responsible for solving a problem like syria. We do not to be the ones coming up with a strategy and coordinating everyone. It is the sort of thing that we wouldve done in the past. It would have meant taking international leadership, diplomatic and perhaps even military, assistance, other strategies. We have decided that we did not want to do that. This left a lot of our allies feeling insecure, going out and taking their own actions. Shadi referred to the recent example, these air strikes on libya. I do believe there is fault on the part of the United States, that we need to manage these relationships with our gulf allies, turkey, and indeed, israel, in a better and closer way and we need to have strategies because we see that we are really getting into very dangerous situations by withdrawing to the extent we have. I have heard people say recently, that is all great, but right now we have a specific problem with isis. For expediencys sake, we are going to have to work with whoever we have to. Bashar alassad, president alsisi. Those things, like human rights, democracy, those will have to be in the longerterm. We will get back to all of that stuff. What i want to say is i dont think there is any long term. I think things are happening very quickly in this region. Who would have expected isis to, to come as far as it has, as quickly as it has in only a few years . The threat that u. S. Partners in the region, that some of our allies with whom we need to work, may actually, by the actions they are taking in their countries, but before they are giving each other, may be fueling radicalization and terrorism at a much faster rate than they are fighting it. That is a problem that the United States needs to take on right away. Its a problem for this year and next year, not for the long term. Thanks. [ applause ] i am going to stay right here because i know we are pressed for time and i only have a brief set of comments to make. I would do this more in the spirit of ginning up the discussion rather than making a formal presentation. My copanelists have done a good job framing the issue and i agree with their perspective. Let me say that right up front. Now what i want to do is to say which military steps i think are needed right now against isil. This is not to suggest this is a complete answer to the question or subject of the panel today. My colleagues have done a much better and fuller job of explaining how to think about a problem. But i want to agree with some of the spirit of saying we have an acute threat right now. Isil is an abomination. Im not suggesting that everyone would agree with me here, but i believe we need a fairly concerted military and political strategy, working with what i hope is a new Iraqi Government and National Unity, working with a Syrian Opposition that we have to cultivate, more than we have in the past, and come up with a serious strategy. The Obama Administration, in my opinion, has done a good job in ordering it steps correctly. Making sure kurdistan was not overrun by isil. If you have any doubts about isils ambitions . Why would they want to go into kurdistan if they did not have big ambitions . Not even their fellow arabs and they saw it as a target of opportunity. They will take what they can get, including close american allies, like jordan. I am not trying to suggest the entirety of the subject of todays panel is being addressed by my recommendations but i think we need to focus clearly on this question. Now that we have helped to fend off the immediate threat to kurdistan, now that we have done a nice job pressuring Nouri Al Maliki to step down as Prime Minister, in a realistic way to have a new government under another shia, and it has to be from his own party leading the government, but hopefully now getting sued me, and kurdish buyin. As that process plays out, in addition to the announced steps of spending a half Million Dollars on the searing Syrian Opposition, which is a good idea. And congress should approve it immediately as they return next week, and that is all i was a about syria for the moment. In iraq, we need to do three things. We need to be ready to step up air strikes. Shadi is right, it is not the complete solution, but it is one. We also need to help the iraqi army get ready to do its version of a surge into the sunni arab areas of iraq that are held by isil. It may not be possible this fall. But the iraqi army needs to be rebuilt and has to become capable and confident enough to do these things. I believe that will require american mentoring teams in the field with the iraqi army units. This could mean the kind of capability that we are moving towards in afghanistan, where next year we will have 10,000 people doing the sorts of things. I think that is what we need to envision for iraq next year. This may be a place in 2015 where the iraq and Afghanistan Mission look similar. Air power, intelligence, mentoring teams in the field, and special forces. The special forces peace is needed, i believe, because if we can do a fairly aggressive, combined set of action with iraq special forces, i think we can take down a lot of isil targets that should be done, in my opinion, without a lot of public forewarning or trial ballooning by the administration. They should go at it once they find a moment. Coordinate with the iraqis and catch isil by surprise and try to make headway against these targets in the early going. Because they are enmeshed in the area. It would be hard to get them out. We need to find every advantage we can. The iraqi army will have to do the longterm protecting of the population, the longterm uprooting of isil elements. But in the early going, we need to help them with special operations raids on key leadership, key weapons depots and so forth. We need this training with the syrians. It is overdue. Lets get after it. On the iraq side, in addition to air power, we need special forces working with iraq he special forces in an intense campaign for a few months to go after key isil targets. And then we need to do mentoring in the field with iraq units by teams of americans dispersed with iraq he battalions throughout the country. The combined american extra ability may be 5,000 to 10,000 people. It is not a big mission in the sense of combat units, but certainly will involve combat and casualties, but i see no alternative. I will stop there. [ applause ]. We are going to open up the floor for questions in a brief moment. I want to invite you to get in line at the microphone over here for the question and answer period. We will take as many questions as we can. I would invite the panelists to stay where they are if their microphones are working, and hopefully they are. We continue to invite questions. We are live in the twitterverse. We are collecting some questions and we will be collecting more. I would also like to refer you to the csid recent statement on isis, from which i will list a sentence or two the wonton brutality of isis committed against religious minorities and local populations in iraq and syria, as well as mr. Foleys murder, is in direct contravention with islamic principles and the Geneva Convention which states all prisoners of war further down, isis has been the most prominent upsurge in violence across the middle east and north africa jeopardizing populations. In all of these cases, one of the important contributing factors has been the unwillingness of key actors inside and outside of the region to support accountable governments. Csid calls for robust support for building reconciliation, respect for human rights, and proactive protection of civilians as the best anecdote to combat the rise of extremism. Democratization should not be sacrificed in the name of stability, economic development, or of defending the rights of any particular group at the expense of another. I worked in algeria for 10 years. If there is anything i learned from looking at that conflict, which inspired the creation of csid, i learned that violence begets violence. We are about to embark on new expressions of violence. That is why this panel is so important. Violence does beget violence. So we have to couch violence, state violence, all kinds, in a continue the text of political reconciliation and political healthy dialogue or the violence will make things worse. I would now like to open the floor to questions. We will take a group of three questions. First of all, give your name and affiliation. Try to make it a brief question or comment and directed at one of the Panel Members if it can be so directed. We will take a group of three and then we will open up the answers to the questions. My name is natasha. Im a freelance journalist. My question is to mr. Shadi hamid. How serious is the threat of isis in the u. S. . We can consider the beheading of james foley, that incident as a turning point in which isis declared that before they left the u. S. Alone, but now they are going to go after the u. S. And launch attacks. Can we take these statements seriously, is there a serious second question. I am from voice of america indonesian service. On the notion of the genus of isis branding i think you see in indonesia, many are saying just the fact the caliphate has been established should be supported and celebrated. The fact they are not perfect is something secondary. But i thought i heard dr. Esposito saying something about your turkish colleague mentioning Something Like that and the fact that you thought it was not something reasonable to accept so maybe id like your opinion on that issue. The second notion is the notion that the isis is a creation of the United States. This is something that was not mentioned in the panel but is something thats been circulating a lot in social media, especially in indonesia and i believe also in lebanon where the u. S. Embassy, through their twitter accounts have denied this as something that was said by Hillary Clinton in her book hard choices. So if you can talk about what kind of framework mind that would make people believe of this notion, id really appreciate it. Thank you. Third question . In response to mr. Ohannels remarks and in part to your statement violence begets violence. Id just point out if you look where the United States has become directly involved militarily over the last decade or so, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, somalia, south sudan, libya, it seems we have a sort of antimidas touch, anything that we touch turned to shit which doesnt bode well for the ukraine. Cspan has no eightsecond delay so be careful. I think it has an adult audience. I should have said it in french, perhaps. In light of this, shouldnt we try something new for a change and give these people a break and not interfere in the internal affairs of another id like to invite shadi to answer first. On the question of the threat on the u. S. Homeland, up until now, isis has been consumed by the near enemy, meaning in the region and particular, iraq and syria. Thats what theyre consumed with now what theyre putting their resources and effort into. That doesnt mean they dont have ambitions to attack the u. S. Or u. S. Interests at some later point. Theyve actually been rather explicit about this and actually issued various warnings against the u. S. To this effect, that i would be more concerned at this point about europe just because the number of european foreign fighters and this is a part of it thats really remarkable and will reverberate in european countries. Were talking about somewhere between 500 and 1,000 citizens who have gone to the country to fight, many french citizens. So in that sense were talking about almost like the u. N. Of like militants in places like syria and iraq. Many of them have european passports which means that its easier for them to return to their home countries and obviously european passport holders have more access to the u. S. So if its not a direct threat against a homeland or to our European Partners now, it almost certainly will be in the future. And very quickly, and two other points, actually, im not even sure what to say about the u. S. Creating isis because the kind of chain of conspiracy theorizing id have to go through right now is just too complex. And as someone who is used to conspiracy theories, having lived in egypt and focused on egypt for a long time, this is sort of at the egyptian level of conspiracy theorizing which is impressive. And then just on the last point of intravention, so does intravention work in these kinds of contexts . And obviously if you look specifically at iraq and afghanistan, the record isnt so good. But if you look at bosnia and kosovo and more recently libya and maybe im in the minority on this but i still do consider the intervention libya to be a success. It prevented mass slaughter as gaddafis forces were marching on to benghazi and displaced a terrible regime. If anything i put more on the blame of the failure to stay engaged in libya the day after. There wasnt very little interest from the international community. We said gaddafi is gone and we left libyans to their own devices and i think thats another thing that will haunt this administration for a long time to come and we also can say very clearly the failure to intervene in syria earlier on has led to this particular outcome. So intervention can be dangerous depending on the context but so can nonintervention. Its nonneutral. Nonintervention is a policy choice. So it should be treated as a policy choice and we have to judge it three years later and say this is the course the Obama Administration took in syria. Did it work or did it not . And i think its fairly clear. Im going to invite mike hanlan to answer it next but before we do that, he has to leave early. Hes been called away. Do any people in line have a question specifically for mr. Ohanlan. Would you answer the question, just you and any of the other questions that were raised . Thank you and apologies for stepping out after this but think its a very good question. Im glad i got help in answering it because its a daunting question and any of us who advocate doing more in iraq should have to face squarely the fact the american track record in recent times in the middle east is obviously mixed at best. However, i would say its better in afghanistan than what youd give credit for. What broke them was the soviet american, emirate, pakistani intervention to that decision followed by our decision to leave and then is when the mayhem really occurred in afghanistan, far worse than whats going on now. What is going on now may or may not have a happy outcome but the fact American Intervention made it worse is demonstrably wrong. In iraq, you have a harder case and i have a harder time coming back at you and since im on iraq, let me finish that point, no one will propose sending major combat units to iraq and i didnt and i wouldnt, largely for the reasons youre getting at with the question our track record hasnt been good enough and not clear iraqi wants us in those numbers but what got iraq to this point in the last couple years are the iraqis themselves, not working well across sectarian lines and specifically Prime Minister maliki deserves the lions share of the blame. So iraq and the intervention may or may not have been worth it and the evidence probably tilts against, i would concede that but the reason iraq is in a mess today is not because of the United States but because the iraqis themselves couldnt get along and sure, maybe theyd be better off today if wed never intervened in the first play and maybe udai hussein would be taking over his dads mantra in a succession strategy and can do that counterfactual some other time but the fact is limited amounts of military force as the iraqis themselves would request with iraq in the lead and the iraqi army in the lead is an option we have to look at very hard. Now that we have an Iraqi Government of National Unity in the making i think would be capable of engendering sunni arab support. There is that big if. This has to continue. A body has to complete the government and we probably cant do a fullbore support of that until he has completed that task in the coming weeks, i hope. But provided that ibadi does that and he wants our help and the iraqis support it and we play a supporting role. I think we have no choice because weve seen what happened in the absence of our role in syria and in sunni arab iraq. Thanks. Let me just quickly add that Hillary Clintons comments, whatever you think of Hillary Clinton, im not passing judgment on her, on this comment, were taken out of context. She was talking about blow back in afghanistan and thats been misconstrued to u. S. Support for al qaeda and there have been references to the u. S. Support for the Free Syrian Army thats been twisted around in the u. S. Support of isis and has been rk manipulation of information rather than any sort of admission by Hillary Clinton or anyone else. I would invite unless youd like to Say Something right now . John would like to Say Something and then take the next three questions. With regard to my question about caliphate and the Islamic State. Caliphate is something you look back upon with pride, but the vast majority of muslims do not look to the creation of caliphate. The Islamic State is a different story. In many muslim countries there is a desire for, among some, certainly the islamists, for some kind of Islamic State. But even there, its more complicated because ishadi said in the past we have no clear paradigm for what would call an Islamic State. Theres no single paradigm. In terms of today if you look at data by gallup and other organizations, they want democracy and not a secular state and some form of sharia and doesnt qualify as Islamic State but theres a certain influence. I dont think for many muslims the notion to the appeal of caliphate by isis resonates. And if you study would be the case and if it did resonate, to free them would be a hell of a lot more successful than it has been. And the final comment is with regard to the u. S. Policy and whether the u. S. Is behind this or that and its out there but part of the problem we have is on the one hand we tell a story historically that were the power and can go in and we celebrate when we can go in and do things so then you raise expectations about our being involved in what we could do. We also know that truth often is stranger than fiction and that is that often we discover the u. S. Has been doing things that at least in my generation we never would have believed the u. S. Would ever do and certainly wouldnt think of that today. We have to keep that in mind. And i once spoke at a university and a student said the c. I. A. Is doing this, this and this and they wanted my answer. I said you do realize you put out four options and there is contradiction to which the fifth student said thats their policy, part of their strategy, too. Youre not going to be able to, for those that are into that kind of mentality, youre always going to see that the u. S. Is responsible for anything you want to say the u. S. Is responsible for. My name is mohammed and with the center for egyption u. S. Relations. And i would like to thank the fourth speaker who left us now but the question to the three speakers here, we heard from him very clearly and seems that in the mind and whatever is written in the newspaper and so on that we need an action. He talked about intelligence help and armies and actually specific geographic areas and official forces and so on. But dont you think that really the root of the matter is that we are facing an ideological confrontation . This is a war of ideas. Deviated ideas maybe, fanatic ideas, and this is where the work has to be and this is what the superpowers should be thinking about, not only a short range bombing here or bombing there. Why was it absent at least from what i heard and what would you like to say about that . Thanks. Question number five, stacey . Hi, my name is Stacey Pollard and im a political scientist, also specialize in middle eastern politics but ive been doing research and consulting the department of defense for the last four years as well. And my first of all, id just like to say this is an excellent panel and feel very privileged to be here, thank you. My questions are for shadi and michelle. I had a semiquestion, i guess, for michael. I guess my frustration is with this specific discussion is that we hear over and over again this criticism that the United States, that the Obama Administration does not have a coherent strategy. And folks come to the table, they offer us a lot of information, you know, and its really helpful and provocative and then close the conversation with, but we dont have a coherent strategy and we need one and then we never get to hear that experts insights on what their Cohesive Strategy would look like. From my point of view, the United States is doing precisely what michael suggested. I dont see any deviation from the strategy that the United States has taken on or between the strategy that the u. S. Has taken on and what is occurring on the ground in iraq. Shadi, you closed talking about how you help that the Obama Administration does what you want it to do. What is that specifically . In terms of your recommendations . Michelle, i very much agree on the point that you pressured allies or managing allies. But how from your point of view, how does the United States because i think that this administration has worked on it its very difficult gain the leverage that it needs in order to do that. And thats all. Question number six. Good afternoon, im here representing shariff who couldnt make it from the nations mosque. This problem we know is massive. But the question i wanted to pose to this panel that oftentimes we dont address and professor esposito you did a great job in the miseducation of the muslims and i would equate that. Every person is educated to know this is not islam. But we never seem to address these individuals who step outside of the bounds of islam and equate them as criminals because thats exactly what their actions are. Islam teaches us to look at a persons actions and deeds. But i never hear that being addressed as much. Im getting to the question. Im saying also as person who was under the leadership, we were considered a radical group ourselves. But after 1975, we changed and came into a broader understanding of islam. We became more reform. And many of our members are judges, lawyers and everything else. What do you all see longterm and short term as a way to reform much of the mentality as the gentleman mentioned earlier that this is an ideological issue what do you all see that would change on a short term and longterm basis to reeducate many of these educated people who claim to be muslim. Michelle, can i start with you . On the question whether theres an ideological war with isis, yes, there is. But what is that ideology . Thats what i was getting through in my marks. Some of the allies want to pose this and even there are quite a few people in the United States picking this up that its an ideological confrontation between islamists and moderates or Something Like that. I and i think its a lot more complicated than that. As i said, theres an attempt to lump in islamists who were essentially peaceful, political and so forth with those who have been very violent. There is an ideological confrontation and the United States stands for certain things and should be clear about what it stands for but it shouldnt get roped into this kind of confrontation that our allies would like us to. On the other question, on stacys question about what should the United States be doing . And you asked regarding u. S. Allies how can the u. S. Gain the leverage that it needs . In my view, the United States still has a lot of leverage in these relationships. But it has chosen not to use it. That doesnt mean the United States can force that government to do what the United States wants it to do. It doesnt mean we can make things happen in other countries and so forth thats not what its about. But we can scrutinize our own actions. We can certainly first of all we cannot support actions that we think are are unconstructive. In this case, for example, actions by some of our allies that will build radicalization and extremism in this region. Thats one thing in not supporting them. In terms of actions that those governments take and so forth, look, theyre many of the governments in this region still depend in the United States at the own the day for their defense. So there is there is a lot of leverage there. I think at my own experience as a u. S. Official that very often u. S. Officials dont see this or they dont they dont conceive of it. And so its a matter, i think of sometimes thinking more strategically of finding leverage in these relationships and being willing to use it. But the general approach that the administration has had of we dont want to be responsiblen region, we dont want to have to be the one to put together the strategies is one of the things that led us not to use this leverage. It would be taking on more responsibility than we really want to. As she addressed your question about foreign policy. Ive written about this. But first of all, in 2012 many of us called for military intervention in syria. Targeted air strikes, the creation of safe zones, humanitarian corridors along with this serious effort to train and equip mainstream syrian rebel forces. That was a very clear policy prescription and it was something that was discussed for quite some time in 2012. It almost happened in 2013 and that i think was one of the key inflection points. It was late but last august we were preparing a launch military strike and instead we accepted a chemical weapons deal that helped legitimize and normalize the assad regime. The administration should not pretend that was a success. That was the start of a chain of event where we came to see asset as a partner and we lost any seriousness when it came to confronting the assad regime. But thats water under the bridge. Now 500 million is not enough to support main stream syrian rebel forces. Its a start. But i would actually tell people to check out ken pollocks long detailed very ambitious and provocative proposal in foreign affairs. And he lays it out in detail of building a syrian rebel army. He puts the price tag for 2 million to 3 million a year that might sound ordinary to the american viewer which is fine but we cant do a lot of this on the cheap. If we are serious about defeating isis then we have to rise to the occasion. There are proposals out there that are truly committed to addressing this. Just a couple of other examples and a little bit on the lower nonmilitary scale, we indulged, we have been complicit in with one of the most brutal regimes in the middle east, egypt. And we dont give them billions of dollars and we will for the foreseeable future and we had a legal obligation the day after the coup happened last year to cut our assistance we did not do that. And we sent a message that they could literally get away with murder and they did. What we saw shortly there after was one of the worse mass killings in modern history on august 13, 2013. And more generally and this touches on michelles point, we have to use our assistance as leverage. And there was no Bold Initiative in 2011 to say that were going to incentivize reform. Were willing to give additional Financial Assistance to those countries that commit themselves to a democratic process along specific benchmarks. And my colleague peter mandiville propose an endowment for reform which we fund it at 5 billion and building enough support to get to 20 billion. The basic idea was to say more for more. And to have tailored specific benchmarks for countries in transition. If they met those benchmarks over a period of time, they would be eligible for massive infusions of assistance. That would just be multilateral support for our allies. You have the world bank and inch m. F. You have a very big part of funding but there were no Bold Initiatives coming from this administration. It seems to me an administration that has all of the resources that it has, all of the analysts many of them with great knowledge and has access to academics and others. I can remember Anne Marie Slaughter speaking out. The administration came without those coherent policies. The fact that it didnt happen was another thing. Sometimes it means making very decisive decisions which you could screw up. If youre concerned about your legacy, you always dont want coming off afghanistan an iraq. You dont really want to get involved. I think the administration two or three years ago i think president obama wanted to look to Southeast Asia and not get into this retractable area of the middle east. I think that there are other things that come into play if youre really going to be decisive with a could herren policy and my two colleagues here have made some reference to it. Some hard stance has to be taken with people who are our traditional allies in terms of what theyre doing and what they continue to do. Whether its egypt, whether its israel, whether its saudi arabia, etc. And i dont think that theres the will to do that or maybe its also that theres also a realization to some of these steps that Congress Wont go along with it. There are a variety of reasons this administration has demonstrated which surprises me because i was a very strong supporter of president obama the very first time he ran. I think this is our last chance to really get some real stuff done based on his cairo speech. His inability to be consistent has been, you know, from my point of view really surprising and not realizing that theyre incredible costs there, that little blurb that i read at the end of the paper from grand fuller, i mean, these long term when you talk to people about longterm, a number of years ago we were with carnegie and someone from the Clinton Administration was asking us about africa. The guy smiled and he said president s dont think longterm, they think short longterm comes around rather quickly. I mean, it just does. You think back and its i put on a tshirt today that was given to me for my 50th birthday saying 50 and still perfect. That was given to me 24 years ago. But i wouldnt think that longterm went rather quickly. I think that if we look that not addressing palestine and israel, if we look at not addressing authorityism, if we look at the message that the eu says we can do whatever they wanted. And what the people that packed them new is write it out. And at a certain point theyll have to deal with you. Theyll have to say, we have to deal wit. But then to go and as it were legitimate that state with comments of were giving them aid, saying we recognize the election. We support, the will of the people. A lot of the people didnt like the president. As one member of Congress Said to one member of the Obama Administration, i could think president s that wouldnt get a majority in terms of percentages supporting them. Does that mean we think they i think obamas legacy unless he acts now will not be one that at least puts some precedents out there even if theyre not totally successful about the fact that the u. S. Is going to take a new look at his relationship with the region which does mean our allies have to be primarily responsible for the region in what they do and which means to be really strong on the things that they do that are devastating. Were not going to look the other day when slaughter takes place of the magnitude that its taken in egypt and also more recently in gaza. We have one minute left in the lightning round. Im going to take two questions. The discussion on the twitter here is really interesting. Im going to take two questions from the twitter sphere and ask two questions. What about the question of isis recruiting in the state . How should the u. S. Be dealing with isis competitors like hezbollah, al qaeda. With those quick answers we wont have time for those other three questions. The u. S. Knows it has done some of this. There must be more with local listen communities to begin with. But that said and one can say the same thing in europe that said unless you address conditions and unless the countrys policy looks better for some youth. Youre not giving them a reason not to be radicalized. And i think thats also part of it. You know, if theres a sense that u. S. Policy isnt, you know, is actually part of the problem, etc. Then you good situation for, you know, for some to just feel that they must act. I wouldnt exaggerate. We definitely have to be concerned about terroism in america than actually our domestic poll. Its not that some wont go timeout fight and there would be in our population to do something. But if you take a look at, you know, most polls. The vast majority of muslims is theyre so fully integrated, etc. You dont have youth who feel their alienated, dont have a job, etc. , in the way that you can have it in europe. Sentenc on the issue of isis competitors . Ill just say that sometimes there are really bad ideas in policy debates. I think one of them, and it really takes your breath away, and its this notion suggested by someone in the administration, if we kind of take a step back and let isis and other extremists fight it out, that both sides would end up weakened. And i remember when i first heard this, im, like, okay. But i cant imagine anything that has turned out to be more wrong. The opposite is true. They were both strengthened tremendously. This was their Training Ground fighting each other. They basement much better fighters over the course of that. This is sort of this is a sarah palin position. Let them sort it out. Steven wahl wrote this, essentially, which was, let them bleed which i still cant figure out. But the obama policy agreed with some of those situations and it durnt work that way. Thank you so much for coming. Id like to say that twitter is calling this a real power house panel and esposito having it done at his house. Its really being enjoyed out there. Thank you so much for cometing. This was a really special event. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. On American History tv. How president s make decisions with former white house chiefs of staff and advisors to former president s. And just before 10 00 p. M. , the president s and the c. I. A. With author and intelligence expert Melvin Goodman as he described the relationship between the white house and the c. I. A. From the truman years through today. Thats coming up tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan3. With live coverage of the u. S. House on cspan and the senate on cspan2, here, on cspan3, we compliment that with showing you programming. And on the weekend, six unique series, the civil wars 150th anniversary, american artifacts touring museums and Historic Sites to discover what arty facts reveal about American History past. The presidency looking at the policies and legacies of our nations commanders in chief, lectures 234 history with top College Professors delving into our past. Cspan3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Earlier this month, the former director of the israeli Missile Defense talked about the recent israeli Prime Minister effect. The air force association in conjunction with the reserve Officers Association and the National Defense Industrial Association hosted this event. Good morning. I want to thank you to this and next in our series of seminars on ballistic Missile Defense, Nuclear Terms proliferation and arms control. We have the head of the aeroyou system and ballistic Defense System in israel. He will be talking to us about some aspects of iron dome. I want to let you know that our Seminar Series continues on the 25th of this month with general kowalski who is vice chairman of strategic command. And we will also have scheduled Tom Dagostino and he will talk to us in a date to be determined. Our space series begins again. On the 19th of this month, the new Space Command will introduce our two speakers, congressman from oklahoma and the space committee. He will be joined by a highranking air force space 5 00 wiacquisition official who talk about sfpace acquisition reform and secured access to space for our military. On the 18th of this month, we have, as you know, a triad event in the American Navy club. I have 200 guests with 185 seats. So if any of you know anything about alchamey, let me know. I want to thank our friends for being here today and, in particular, i want to say hello to my friend, tom craco who is a fellow at georgetown, university. My sponsors from boeing and aerojet and also the Congressional Staff and i want to say thank you to all of our military folks 245 are here today that give us so much. I want to say thank you to the marshal institute which is here today filling, as they do, our event. I want to reach out and say thank you for cspan who are here today who will be broadcasting this event intermitteintermi intermitte intermittently, beyond as we go on. I hope those of you who are interested in attending our further breakfast, please give me an email. We welcome our dear friend from israel, uzi rubin. Good morning, everyone. Its always a pleasure to be here in this magnificent venue. This year, i was planned i was scheduled to be here two months ago. Bud then the war started and i thought better to postpone it because i would like to give you some kind of a summary. At that time, there was no summary. It was just a beginning. So now, things are im not so thur that theyre over, but there is a phase over. Its a good time to sit down and sum up what happened here from the point of view of Missile Defense. And i titled my presentation to you that 2014 gaza war, which im not sure its over, let me say. Im very sure its probably not over. And then i talk about the defensive. The strategy of the tactics on the other side. It can be a guest form. I would not forget our critics that during the war, woke up again and explained that it doesnt work. That. And then ill make some concluding remarks. Im not using any confidential nfrgs here. Ill gladly answer questions, but based on open source material. I want to stress geb the again that all the views and the opinions here are my own. They dont necessarily represent government, views and opinions. And some of my opinions are in israel, too. So after this preamble, lets go into the dutch. On july 6th, hamas fired a 20 long cease fire with some breaks during 20 months in operation below defense. The reason for that controversy, there is one school of events that its thought it was deliberate and planned. This will cause a lot of historians say things about the causes of the war. Hamas declared war on its own. We rarely express objectives he demanded the lift of the siege of gaza. And spelled out, it means opening all the courses. And a obligation to build an International Air port and International Seaport in gaza. Those demands are couched very smartly in humanistic terms. Good, better life. But if you go down to what they mean, they mean prablgtically a Southern State in gaza. So, with this gap or this distance between the positions, obviously, successive cease fires didnt hold out. Fire broke again after hamas broke up the cease fire no less than 11 times. Finally, an e jipt worker brokered the cease fire on august 26th and august 27, its Still Holding on, its duration. In about two weeks time, well begin fighting it. Let me stress that this engagemented had a ground come pain on two sides. Im skipping all of this. Im kons trating on south of israel, only. So we have act a massive amount of debt. We have two charts which look really similar. But this one is released by Israel Defense forces. This is palestine, not israel. However, if you look at the classification, they show both of us, hamas and us show 1715 kilometers. Let me say here what does short rangs, long range and medium range mean . The distance from the city of gaza to one of the main cities of israel is exactly the distance from Dallas Airport to where we are right now. So thats medium range. So everything is microscopic scale. Forget the american scale. So long range, 70, 80 kilometers. The distance of baltimore from here. Those are the classifications. Very quickly, let me go over the type of focus and, again, ill skip that so that some of the stuff from libya. The homemade rocket that are cooked in the gaza kitchens made with drainage pipes or irrigation pipes, they imported simple one. They had thousands of them. This picture is taken in iraq. The new thing that happened in the last year and a half, it was hamas established with the support of their own arms to operate rockets. When you go to a longend range, sugar and fertilizer dont work anymore. You need real stuff, you need chemicals. You need cases of pipes in highgrade steel. Mainly, you need the experts mainly to making a good rocket model. Before the regime, there were about a thousand supplying ifrg. Actually, it was a highway, underground highway. Everything could be imported into dwrks aza almost officially. What you see is the need to smuggle big workers. Much easier, ma teeshls you can smuggle instead of the whole rocket. And they established this industry. Islamic was more friendly. For a while, there was cooldown, two separate industries to see one of the factories here. Actually, its a fipishing factory. So lets go onto mediumrange rockets, 2045 kilometers now. Theyre making their on rockets of this type. The rock et, 2 main piece is 7580 kilometer rockets. This is made of 220 millimeters, about five inch excuse me, thats about six inch pipes. Those are propaganda. Those are talking about the variation of the same stuff from our point of view, its about the same. This is a simple launcher. Theyre also manufacturing a launcher. It can lift a piece of machinery. It shows you what level they can support. In is a very smart way of holding the rocket. Look at all of this folded machine metal. Remember that, we see it later on again. So thats the m75 that can reach beyond 11 here. They had a large number of them in the defensive field. They were largely taken out. Some of them remain and they may try several of them. Theyre imported but theyre finishing of some kind. The important thing is the difference is maybe 40 or 50 kilograms, a lot smaller. Now, the 160 kilometer rockets is still a mystery. Whats the origin . They were carrying rocket that is are actually locally made in syria. Thats the only one with this particular caliber. It was transport today iran and went down two or three ports. From there, it was loaded on the ship and then sailed to sudan. Supposedly, it was supposed to debark the rockets and take them to gaza. The shich was released, by the way. The rocket can go 160 kilometers. Maybe thats this type of rocket, bum heres another possibility. The debris was collect that had we say looks slightly different. I would say that i believe more this steelway. The numbers are very low. You can see here the drigs. There are another three, four, five, smaller organization. All of them brandishing rockets to some extent. Islamic jihad which is tied to iran. You can see the thousands here to medium range. All together, about 89,000 rockets. So this is, i would say, very significant development, which is an advantage to them and also a disadvantage. So all of this was at the start when the fighting started on july 26th. I have a copy of the recorded number of filings every day. They dont distinguish in motor bombs and rockets. One interesting thing is that the highest number of almost 200 per day is still lower than the largest number a year and a half ago. Almost 300 rockets on there. Youll see theres an eight day that was fired. We call that phase 1. The second period, again, the rate of the fire went up, but it changed its nature. It shifts here about twothirds of everything was rockets and about onethird motive. This was the other way, about twothirds motor and onethird rocket. Ill talk about that whern i talk about policy. Take it with a pinch of salt. 24r are several sources with different numbers and the numbers differ by almost 10 . I looked at all the numbers by police and it depends on who calls and who was called. I have several summation. This is the number i believe. Total rockets intercepted to 755. We lost 71, but only two to workers. We had 161 killed. So coming down to almost nothing. Here are the communities and stipds 234 israel. Youll see the numbers here. Theyre very impressive. You see the south of israel. Here, 370 rock ets. Those are not the rocket that is hit the city. Some of them fall in open fields. Hitting the lounge four times. And this didnt include the gaza strip itself. Theres one major city. So it received attention 182 times. The rest of the gaza envelope, about 20, 25 communities, all together. More than 2200. It takes weeks and months. You can learn from the filing. Obviously, one thing is sometimes filing few workers at some out lying communities a lot was attacked by the airlines into sianai. So the idea was, obviously, they fired again and again. And if they didnt fire, they say it. Itss a Great Success they say they fired rock ets nearby. I dont have to explain the significance of that. Obviously, there was this intent to harm our economy, of course. The main time was the prime time in the evening. So they had pictures at this time. That was a filing to our comrades. Psychological warfare. 8 00 was prime time. In the second phase of the woman between august 19 and 26, nay shipped the fire. The fire policy and the tactics. In the first few days of operation, you could see huge, huge, huge silvers. Dozens of rockets firing at the same time. They didnt succeed. I managed to handle whatever they sent. The size was coming down, becoming more thinner. They were comparing to contend. Single rock ets. Obviously, they were saving a munition. All kinds of strange things. An indian took the whole picture to his hotel window. Those launchers were low kated in places that we attack them and cause a lot of damage. I think its a hotel in gaza. They can ive the launcher from which that launcher is firing. This is residential, obviously. So huchl shielding was a tlib rat policy. And i saw on the news this morning, that hamas knows the your penal inquiry. So israel did a lot about it. These are Missile Defense and spoke very shortly about defensive to not use it successfully. This is a nay bor hood close to gaza and the israeli brder. Every single red dot, we see it. You take them onebyone and finally, you finish all of them. It goes into one of those four bubble launcherings. And this is another one of those members. The objective was not to take out launchers. It was one of those big launches. So this is the only thing i could find. Again, i could do a whole presentation on that. Again, i wont speak on civil defense. When we didnt get an alert, we were in no danger. Nothing came our way. I speak about active defense. This is based on published pla tier. So when i realized they launched the rocket into iraq, i realized the demona has defense asset around it. So this is one comment. Another comment, those records are to ill separate. I have no idea. I just illustrated that. So you see that most of israeli large communityings, but not guilty all had eye on defense at the service. The other point is it does got engage every single rocket thats come its way. Anything that goes outs of it is not engaged. It goes out to see and allowed to fall harmlessly to the ground. The scores. Again, here is a problem. There was a major population center. You can see very clearly how many filed, how many missed and how many were shot down. This is official information that was on number 34. Hopefully, they allowed it to fall down. Anyway, if you look at it here, 2 score is better than 98 . I think its the most attacked city in israel. Look at the numbers. About 40 . That mean that is its a big city. This reflects three years of operation. The strategy, the tactics and all the arrangement. Number four, if you take all of those cities and add them together, its about 82 run. This is a solid number, 73 a. I arrived at this number. I day rivalled it from some kind of sources. So the score wassed 90 and a lit m bit below. The closer you are to the social defier, the time line is shorter. The defensive shield was about 70 , which is also very good. Its four kilometers from the gaza strip. They fire two rockets, this time, most of the file was on single file. 90 , single file. It was amazing. Here is one of the pictures that i like because, you see, there was also a. Therm kind of sticking out during the explosion. You can go to youtube and spend nights seeing action from last night its war and let me look at some to look at some significant footage. This is the siren youre hearing in the background does not seem right. Some idea about the philosophy of the firing, especially in the beginning of the war in the first few days, you can see from this footage here. This was taken by a smart phone, which i think shouldnt be done. But it was released by the ideal spokesman. So i committed myself to show you. Whats the rate of 505. Perhaps the most significant ones are tell telaviv. This is rapid fire. You want to make sure no leakage. You can see one just for drama. Notice what they are doing. They are going to the end phase and hitting the target. The first one hits the target. And the second one, maybe you can show some more. Not again, but you can see the same thing from a different angle. So this brings me to the skeptics. You see all of these scores . Three people quite happy. They dont like to see this thing working. Id can give you a whole presentation just on the reason why they are not happy about it. Three textbooks are widely read. They came out doubt iing the scores are much lower. Mostly 40 . The question is you sold few casualties. But coupled with the fact, there are some that hamas makes the warhead smaller and theyre less little. So it makes some kind of a sense. You know. To argue those points, you have to go in. Lets take the first claim. This is richard loid. His books were read by the experts. They know his arguments and it shows here that if you hit the rocket from behind, its no good. If you hit it from the side, its no good. You have to hit it from forward. This is a picture from his publication about a month ago. Look at that picture. It is companies working. Heres loids picture. This is diving. So its obviously coming from behind. No good. No hit. Ill show you some examples. Here is a spectacular missile. Who launched this video and why . Huge rocket. Huge missile. That huge missile was a passenger flying straight 11 at 40,000 feet in the pacific ocean. Now you want to see a diving missile . Ill show you a diving missile. Diving. Into the ocean. This is a satellite launcher. And why this is going into the ocean . Its very hard to space. This is what you see with this two dimension picture. They are climbing very hard toward the tar gets. Optical illusion. Anything that you can take from behind when it goes above you, it looks like its climbing. Let me say that raphael engineers his work. Im kind of puzzled why he speaking on them. So so much for that. Lets look at the clachl claim. The best way to see the german race is to go back and this was taken from the sudan here. All of the sudden, two items coming up. Two explosions. And i looked to see if there was a third explosion. You see somebody took a time lapse. Here is the geometry. Its climbing up. Let me show you one thing. Its designed to intercept in the optimum geometry. Lets look at the number of casualties. Lets take three. A year and a half ago and the present conflict. There were 4200 rockets fired. The lebanon envelope was hit. Still, 53 people were killed and if you take the grim statistics of death, it mean that is you took about 79,le 0 rockets to kill. You had five batteries. So it takes 320 rock ets to kill one israel. So what happened. These are faster. No, same thing. There were more rockets, but hundreds of them fell on the strip. I dont know why hamas would do us this favor. Now you take your choice. Business graduates like numbers. And if you look at the numbers again,the ratio would still be the same. I say this. What am i saying. At least six days early today because of five. There is another damaging indicator. There is a special tax, a tax on real estate. The income from debt is financed only from debt insurance. Hes one and a half billion. Actually, every community that was hit, asking people psychological and people to feel more secure that are not alone government is supporting them. As i say, the government is about it. So you can get some extent from the numbers on it. In the second war, we had about 40,000 rockets, excuse me, 4,000 rockets. Low and behold, in gaza, 3200. For some reason, the number dropped down. Thavs a week after the end of filing. Now, people really should take it. If its not damaged, that means the rocket didnt hit. Okay. So this information dunts have to be concerned or calculated from equations. This is public information. In my mind, and im sure yours, too, obviously, those numbers are adequate. And, again, i love to plot these things. The number, the ratio climbing down, but not as steeply. I dont know why it should do it. But let me show you the security comment that took one of the hits and got a leak in its. Lets watch that together. This is destooined to kill. No small warheads. Few casualties. Well, i want almost to complete my presentation. There was a defense of about ten made from sub assemblies and commercialgrade comp limits. The kmeshl stuff, you can buy in radioshack. Apparently, intelligence was aware of that. This is u. S. Made. Waiting on those uabs on the way to telaviv. Let me congratulate them. I dont know about other parts of the board, but thats the first hostile tar gets. Mo a he took tar get ins 2003, but it was a little one. I want to conclude here. Some remarks. I dont want to go to conclusion because we do not know where we are. I cannot summarize the war because its possible that in two weeks time, well be in another round of violence. But what happens is between july 8th, these were subjected by the ones in 2006. I have no other words to say. We destroyed nine out of ten rock ets that came down. Think about that. Within its defending zone. Id think 670 men women and children and hundreds more older. Life went on with some limitations in most of israel. About 95 of israel. Safeguarded the international links. Therp safeguarded and secured daily life. I could see functioning under fire. It could be done. This was political, tremendous political meaning. Israeli government had the lead off. It was pleasured by funerals and by damage to important cities. It could carry on the military in the diplomatic field. And i think that personally, and all the people in israel, are indebted. All the team that created, engineering and cost effectiveness. When you fire a thing like that at 50,000, think about that, 50,000. About the price of a new car in israel, not in the United States. It is practically nothing. Think about the cost of one apartment is 500,000 that you save. Also i need to mention these air defense command. My friends 24 7, working around the clock to secure the defense of israel. I again wish to congratulate nato for the successful performance of patriot. I think i want to express my feeling and the feeling of gratitude of everyone in israel i know to the president , congress and people of the United States for the firm and generous support of israel Missile Defense and especially the system. Let the lives saved in israel, the people Walking Around today instead of being in graves be the reward. Thank you. First i want to thank you. We were in israel with a study and support mission the first half of august. All we saw was one puff of smoke in the air over tel aviv the first day. We felt good being under the iron dome and the other systems. Second, two brief questions. First, after all these years, nine years, for example, with respect to gaza, as an israeli citizen, how would you say giving up land for peace is working for you . Plan of peace . Giving up land like gaza for peace, how is that working for you . Second, with respect to our Missile Defenses in america, i know there are great defenses, but how would you evaluate as a professional our Missile Defenses in america visa vie what you have in israel . With your permission, ill sneak away from answering your first question because its a political question it. Chose engineering, not politics. I really feel uncomfortable about that. Of course, i have my opinions, but im here as a professional. Second question. There is a threat to the United States forces in the gulf area. Its the same threat facing gaza, about the same type of rockets, more of the same rockets. I think that and very effective weapons tested time after time, you still lack the lower tier equivalent. I think all of us even in the lower tier going with mortar bombs and the shelter and stuff. Yes . Bill sweetman with aviation week. The iron dome was developed can you put the microphone closer . I dont hear. Okay. Sorry. Speak into that one. Iron dome was developed quite rapidly. What would you say are the lessons for other Missile Defense programs from the way that iron dome . Im sorry. Again, i dont hear you. The lesson is okay. This was an amental si program. The United States knows how to arm emergency programs when they need. I think there is no problem. Today you take the best engineers, the best managers, you give them all the money they need and you dont ask questions. You go to accounting procedures. You cant do it on a regular basis for every program. Otherwise you lose control of anything. If it was specific program, you can do that. You can do that the United States and you can do it in israel. Have you seen any more sophisticated threats . Are they going to guidance on their missiles or using tactics like expressed trajectories to avoid iron dome or using mainly unguided projectiles . All the projectiles are unguided. There is another question there. Dr. Curtis from the u. S. Naval academy. My question has to do with the missiles that fall within the vicinity of the reactor. The what . The reactor. Nothing hit the damona reactor. I read some fell within the vicinity. Im wondering, is this an escalation target selection on the part . Yes. It is. Okay. Its an escalation. Not only that, the demona and gas fields. Nothing was surprising this was expected. Thank you, sir. Charles perkins. Two quick things. One, theres been a lot of discussion about how to prevent the next round, how to stop the smuggling. How dependent is hamas now on internal ability to manufacture inside gaza versus stopping outside sources . And secondly, although its not directly in our topic, in past years, youve begin us a very comprehensive look at the iranian Ballistic Missile program which is related to what was going on in gaza. There is a lot of concern about the phase adaptive approach issue here. I wonder if you could spend brief time talking about where the iranian Ballistic Missile program is going, since its being kept out of the Nuclear Talks . I will try to answer as succinctly as i can. Its a decision not to rely any more on fullscale rocket smuggling. They see us enriching their own proficiency, too. Its a matter of pride they manufacture them. They continue to manufacture them. How much they can to what extent they can smuggle depends on egypt and how successful they are, and today some smuggling continues. About the iranians, i cannot go into that because it is a presentation by itself. The iranian Ballistic Missile program goes on just as energetenerg energetically as before. They do the test, they dont announce it. The program goes on as before. All ambitions, longrange rockets, everything is there. You do wonderful work. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. On American History tv, how president s make decisions with former white house chiefs of staff and advisors to former president s ronald reagan, bill clinton, george w. Bush and president obama. Just before 10 00 p. M. , the president s and the cia with Melvin Goodman as he describes the relationship between the white house and cia from the truman years to today. Thats coming up tonight on American History tv on cspan3. Now, Corporate Tax laws, merges and inversions and how those factors affect companies, tax revenues and jobs. Specialists from the Cato Institute participate in the event hosted by the Cato Institute. Thank you for coming today. This is about a topic that appeared frequently in the news lately. Its about corporate inversions, which are financial reorganizations that place u. S. Firms under a foreign parent corporation. If youve been following the news in the last 24 hours or so, you see burger king is the latest example in a series of corporations that decided to do this. They like the fact canada has the queen on their currency. The republic that got its independence through a tax revolt has the highest Corporate Taxes in the world. Now, there are two Obvious Solutions to this. One is to lower the Corporate Tax rate which would benefit workers, consumers and shareholders. If youre an elected official and want more public money to play with, you can call these people who engage in corporate inversions unpatriotic. So we have three scholars here today. Two are here right now