To have a discussion on such an important and wide ranging issues, we have assembled a Real Dream Team of diplomats with experience in the region. Im going to introduce them briefly. And trust me, introducing them in a time efficient manner requires a lot of distillation incredible accomplishments across decades of u. S. Foreign service. Im going to start on my left, your right with ambassador gerald federstein who a veteran in the u. S. Foreign service. Now retired. He was ambassador to yemen in the Obama Administration. Principal Death Penalty for near of state eastern affairs. Deputy chief of mission in pakistan as well as senior posts departments Counter Terrorism bureau. Hes Senior Vice President of the middle east institute which is a leading think tank in washington. Immediately to his right is ambassador patrick faros, who is president and executive director of the u. S. Qatar business council. He has a 35year Foreign Service career with many distinguished post including his u. S. Ambassador to qatar. And as advisor to the commander in chief for Central Command which is the u. S. Military command with coverage of the middle east region. Hes also been deputy chief of mission in jordan and in United Arab Emirates as well as a counselor in syria among other roles. Ambassador Ronald Newman is the president of the american diplomacy and served three times as ambassador to algeria, bahrain, and most afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. He served prior to that in baghdad coordinating the political aspects of the military intervention in iraq at time. Assistantth penalty time during that the clinton administration. And has had other senior roles. I think you get the idea theres a tremendous amount of collective expeer tease on the experience on the middle east and adjoining areas here. Last, but not least closest to me to moderate this is Debra Mccarthy who served as u. S. Ambassador to lithuania. Not in the gulf. Lawrst. John during obamas second term. She was principal secretary of state for economic and Business Affairs and served in important in greece and nicaragua. And as Deputy Assistant secretary for narcotics and law enforcement. She is going to take it from me in a moment and moderate a conversation for about 45 minutes with our expert gets before we open it to all of you. For your questions, youll see people going around with note cards. Please pass your questions and theyll bring it back to us. And chad and caruna will bring it to to pose to our panel. Thank you again to our guests and we look forward to our conversation. [applause] well, i feel very privileged to be moderating the dream team. By the way, the dream team was the Basketball Team from lithuania. I wont go into that. As you can see with the vast experience they have all across the middle east, deep experience the young years in Diplomatic Service to the senior years in the Diplomatic Service, start with the panel as follows, to talk a little bit about whats happening inside the region, then well get to whats happening between the iran. Nd and then if we have time well put it in the bigger geopalestinian context. So to draw on your deep history knowledge of the history of the culture and obviously of our bilateral relations, i want to the ask each of you to talk for minutes on the Power Dynamics that are taking place region. Thin the and specifically to talk a little bit about how iran is perceived by its neighbors in the gulf. So jerry, would you like to start . Gerald thank you, debra, im delighted to be here with all of you today. The basic elements of the Power Dynamics in the region are particularly the competition between iran and and the major states of the of the g. C. C. , the gulf, saudi arabia, United Arab Emirates and iran and israel as well. So when you look at when you look at the reach of the region of what youre looking at really is the reaction of the other states to what is broadly perceived as irans expansionist programs in search for hegemony in the region and the reaction of those states what they see as the threat from an expansionist iranian state. And that, of course, plays into what were going to be talking about later on in terms of u. S. And iran and the other states. So three aspects of iranian behavior, very quickly. One is the Ballistic Missile programs. Second, is iranian interference in the internal affairs of its neighbors, and in the gulf context that means yemen and bahrain. And then third, is iranian support for terrorism and how the region responds to those three perceived threats. Deborah you want to comment . Thanks. Real and threats are perceived on the gulf side. You have to take one thing into context. This is not a new development. To many gulf leaders, all of whom say it was the same in the days of the shah. Weve been around in this area for the last several centuries. Weve always looked at iran as a predatory power, someone trying to control us. So this is not terribly new. In fact, if anything for the small states of the gulf probably within the last century or so have gotten more difficult because there are now two predatory powers, one is saudi side, seen as hedgeomanistic. In those states. All of whom have reacted the same way which is trying to find an outside protector. Early on it was the ottoman, it was the british. States were prepared to how can i say give up a independencet of in return for protection. After the british left, there was a bit of a hiatus because we were seen, the United States the remaining super power who were seen supporting both saudi arabia and iran against their interests until the iranian revolution. They saw iraq as a valuable not ally, but a counterbalance to both countries for years. Saddam husains iraq was seen acceptable except kuwait. When we took him out we disturbed the balance of power. So iran is the strongest country in the gulf far and away and without outside protection would be the old the principal threat to the gulf states. However, this is not to say that there are not other threats as well such as saudi arabia. Ok. Thanks. Thanks. Definitely a threat although perceived somewhat differently in different countries. U. A. E. , looks at iran, they just moved up the ladder of paranoia. But remember even paranoids have real enemies. But there are things that are changing in the gulf. The leadership of the states in several cases has changed and is perceived in more dynamic courses and in some particularly in saudi arabia and the u. A. E. Breaking the traditional very conservative, almost passive defensive approach to power and sort of feeling the musculature so oldllenging much more dynamics. At the same time you have a real doubling down of monarchies monarchical systems. And theres a tendency, particularly in the west, to say, oh, monarchies, old news, gone. Heap of history, weve done that too back in the arab nationalism came in. These people are done for wrong. They outlasted all the other regimes. Onalist and they are doing it now in some cases by doubling down theyve become more repressive. Theyre less tolerant, u. A. E. , particularly saudi arabia, of various kinds of liberalizing the social benefits. So its a mixture of on one respect very liberal regimes and Christian Churches are open. Jewish centers are open. Various places. And internal repression if you get out of line. But theyre all still pretty popular. I would say their chances of good. Ing are pretty you could get into various different cases. And nothing is guaranteed. But the chances of them surviving in this form of government rather that they are not moving to democracy. And they are doubling down on not moving. And for them, the lesson of the arab spring is, this thing is awful. Look what happened when you pulled down these regimes. You got chaos. You got bloodshed. Youve got all kinds of disruption that is still going on, a lot of loss of life. And thats not a pretty picture and we dont want to go there. And the last thing i would just note in passing is, without trying to bring it up, is that these countries are very different from each other. Theres a tendency in the u. S. To, you know, see the smaller gulf states as being very much you know, theyre little saudi arabias. Theyre all bunch of guys running around in bed sheets. But theyre very different. Better relations with iranians. They have historical differences with each other. I wont go through them except to say that the notion that they are similar in how they regard their citizens and how they work with each other and how they work with their own people, the idea that that is the same in each of them is in fact, completely incorrect. Deborah thats a good point. Let me turn now to the relationship the United States has with saudi arabia as we build up to other things. We have a Strong Defense and security relationship. Many have criticized the u. S. For overlooking saudi political and human rights abuses. The u. S. Congress attempted to pass excuse me, a resolution to end military involvement in saudi arabias war in yemen in only the human suffering in yemen but also in reaction to the khashoggi killing. Can you give us an inside view of the u. S. Saudi relationship . How does it work . And in particular, how does our diplomacy balance security interest with our support for human rights in this part of the world . Gerald thanks. And its actually its a very difficult balance to strike because, as ron said, were dealing with political systems, with with systems of government in society that are very different from ours, where the where the ability of the two sides to really understand one another and to and to coordinate and corporate is cooperate is limited. What we have with saudi arabia is a relationship that goes back at least to the end of world war ii and in some ways even before the end of world war ii that has been built around two core pillars. One is energy and recognition of paramountia as the producer of oil in the world. And therefore a major anchor for Global Economic security. And then the other aspect, the other pillar is what we have done with the saudis over the course of these past 70 years, in order to promote Regional Security and stability, partially in terms of building up saudi arabias own defense capabilities. And the second aspect is how we work with the saudis to promote to promote Regional Security in places like afghanistan where we work very closely together. All the way through to the gulf to syria, to iran. So these have been Core Principles that every u. S. Has pursued going all the way back to the roosevelt administration. Democrat, it hasnt really mattered. We have a stressful situation where we have different significant differences. And those differences reflect particularly our different views about the rights of citizens, the interaction between citizen state, the rights particularly for women, for other human rights civil hasrties, where this created real tension and friction between our bilateral relationship. And so the question is how do you address that . How do you balance between the partnership that we have preserved for all of these years against what has been this kind of fractious period in our relationship . And in my view and in the view of the Obama Administration and now the Trump Administration, we need to look at what the core u. S. Interests are in the region which are primarily the stability and Energy Pillars and to to what extent or the other do you then press on these human rights. My own view is that we have not pressed as much on the human rights side as we should recently. We should take the khashoggi murder more seriously than we have. We need to correct that balance. But i also believe that at the end of the day, we do need to recognize that preserving a good, strong saudiu. S. Relationship is important for us to achieve our broader objectives in the region. I just wanted to add a note a perspective i got in bahrain when i was there last because we tend to be very certain of our moral rectitude like thek at something murder of mr. Khashoggi. But when i was in bahrain, what from a mixed group, sunni and shia hey, wait a minute, we absolutely depend on our security from saudi arabia. This crown prince is undertaking absolutely Critical Reforms that are essential for the stability of this place. By the way, you guys have your relationship with russia even though putin goes around murdering dissidents in various countries. So why are you so hung up and in danger of destroying this relationship and bringing us into danger as well over one killing here when you tolerate multiple killings over there . I dont say thats the view we should take. I just lay it out for you to understand that there are senses and different views, ways of looking at this thing. Deborah i want to turn now for the u. S. Relationship with iran. Its been 40 years since the u. S. Hostagetaking in iran. Since then weve had no official diplomatic relation or embassy in iran. Our interests are represented by switzerland. While there was extensive during long negotiations, most communication via pressone statements and announcements. Ron, you lived in iran as a younger officer and also were the director of the iraniraq office. Youre one of the few who actually lived inside the country. Can you talk a little bit about how, from that perspective with such limited contacts, how can we manage our relations . Ron badly. [laughter] deborah ok. Question. Ron its true, we tend to look at it very superficially. As they tend to look at us, too. Its a very long period. The debility that theres great splits in view within iran. And there are people for whom the revolution a key peace of the revolution is maintaining the ideological friction. So it creates by the way, i had a great time in iran. I really enjoyed the people. And people who go visit iran tell me they find iranians far more welcoming to americans passing through than many of the states, although our relationship with the arab better. Nt is much one of the problems in our inations with iran is that iran, as in america, you have a deep division of people as to whether you ought to have whether you ought to improve relations, whether thing. A good so when you get into negotiations, you have there as you have here a need to show that youre really doing something that works well. In order to pacify your domestic critics. And of course, since the same situations exists here, that sets up a situation in which for each side a successful negotiation is one in which they have to show that theyve done really well, which usually means the things that the other side afford you to show in order to pacify their critics. So thats not an impossible situation as the Nuclear Agreement showed. But it is a very fraught situation in which to hold out negotiations, making it particularly fraught when you have an approach that says well tell you what we want and we really dont need to talk to you again. Deborah afterwards youre going to answer questions about what it was like to live there. Pulled out of the jcpoa and other parties have remained in. The e. U. Has warned they may start withdrawing from the deal. This past fall there was a report that president rahani and President Trump and with the support of french president macron were moving to an reportedlyhich included lifting of the u. S. Imposed sanctions in exchange irans agreement to remain a nonNuclear Weapons state. What do you think of the prospects of the u. S. And iran getting back to the table . Go ahead. Deborah and if you disagree, all the better. Can do it onink we our own. I dont believe that the American Government or the iranian government have any formulas whereby the two of us can get there. Its got to be what mckart is trying to do, but i suspect very strongly, its got to be on a grander level despite france despite its glory. P5 plus one is probably the around. Icle all the principle members of the u. N. Security council and the e. U. In effect trying to gang up on both sides, gang up may be the wrong term but providing cover for both sides to come to the table and Start Talking to each other. Because frankly, i dont believe that given the dynamics that ron was describing that theres any leeway on each side to make the necessary even cosmetic concessions that would permit us to come together and have a serious conversation. And what would be worse would be coming together with each side having expectations of the other and not having them met. And frankly, without going into too much detail, i think were heading to a train wreck with iran which could be very damaging to the worlds economy in the gulf because of what it would do. Iranians demonstrated it spades. In so i think it behooves us and perhaps the iranians to try to get more International Intervention to make something work. Ill take a little bit of issue with pat and take a slightly more optimistic view. And that is, if you look at the obama policy on iran, and if you look at the trump policy on iran, what you would see are two that were pretty much diametrically opposed. Obama theory of the case that nuclearcted in the iran jcpoa, was basically if you address the Key International concern about behavior, that was its pursuit of a Nuclear Weapons capability if you put in place an agreement to address time, byn, over bringing iran into closer thetionship with international community, addressing their economic concerns, doing other things, set up thehen possibility of getting the address these other issues that i mentioned earlier,