Feierstein. He is with the middle east institute and former Principal Deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in the obama white house. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it. Guest pleasure being with you. Host let me begin with something from the weekly secretary ofording state Rex Tillerson and what he called the economic blockade in the persian gulf, the nation of qatar, saying theyre argumentative in consequence of the blockade, something that he says can be resolved. There is a resolution possible. Explain what happened, why there is a blockade, and what is the implications what the implications have been. Guest well, fundamentally this is an issue its a dispute that has been going on for a number of years. We have had flareups before. 2014, there was also a break in diplomatic relations between saudi arabia and emirates on one side and qatar on the other. It is about support for political islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as positions on iran and
Been criticized at times for similar, we need to dig deeper and understand, i dont want to use the word emphasized that we need to really put ourselves in issues of so these are decisions to understand how they understand were. But the reason why we needed it is not so that we can understand why their able and how theyre able to exploit drone strikes in order to recruit. Its so that we can understand how they operate so that we can undermine them. And understand what they are afraid of. So we can undermine them. The last thing that im going to say, and this is a model that is not just applicable in pakistan. He had Close Relationships rhetorically with mullah omar and mullah omar reporter intervened on his behalf, again in 2006 to keep them in a leadership position in South Waziristan. So does look like a pretty close operational relationship at least as far as it goes. For less than going to say just Going Forward is on the future of afghanistan, i could not agree more with what anand
Please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and well add them to our list. Email us at booktv cspan. Org. Back to ten Things Congress doesnt want you to know about how it does business. Number four, powerful members of congress in safe, noncompetitive seats often hold fundraisers outside their districts to increase their leverage over other members. Number five, Congress Spends more than 100 billion every year on well over 200 programs that are not authorized by law. And number six, congress routinely raids the Social Security trust fund to cover general revenue shortfalls. Guest well, if you look at the appropriation bills which have not been done the last two years because of the political dynamic thats going on and you go in and say were appropriating x amount of money and then you look at how many programs its actually up to over 350 billion now of programs that are funded that are not authorized by the congress, which tells you that theres an imbalance in congr