Regional issues relevant to u. S. Foreign policy in the middle east from israel and the palestinian territories in yemen and afghanistan appear beyond. To have a discussion about this, weve assembled a dream team 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 distlation of their 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. He was ambassador to yemen in the obama at ministration. Administration. From 20132016 has had many other crucial posts including deputy chief of mission including pakistan and the departments Counterterrorism Bureau and elsewhere in the region, ohman, lebanon and tunisia. Hes Senior Vice President of the middle east institute which is a leading think tank in washington. Immediately to his right is ambassador patrick fills who is peth 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 as well as other roles. Ambassador newman is the American Ambassador of diplomacy, served three times to algeria, bahrain and most recently to afghanistan from 20052007. He served prior to that in baghdad coordinating the political aspect os the military intervention at the time. He was deputy assist at that particular time secretary in the affairs during 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 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. [laughter] john during obamas second term. She was principles secretary of state for economic and Business Affairs and served among many other roles as deputy chief of mission in 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 luna 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 from young years in the Diplomatic Service to the senior years in the Diplomatic Service, i wanted to start the panel as follows to talk a little bit about whats happening inside the region. Then well get to whats happening between the u. S. And iran. And then if we have time well put it in the bigger geo political context. So to draw on your deep history knowledge of the history of the culture and obviously of our bilateral relationsle i wanted each of you to talk for a couple of minutes on the Power Dynamics that are taking place today within the region. 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. , 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 a 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 third, is iranian support for terrorism and how the region responds to those three perceived threats. Debra you want to comment . Thanks. The older threats are real and theyre perceived ond the gulf side. You have to take one thing into context. This is not a new development. I talked to many all of whom say it was the same. Weve been around in this area for the last several centuries. Weve 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 one is saudi arabia on one side which both have a disbute iran. And is seen as expansionist and he gem nistic in those states. All of whom have reacted the same way which is trying to find an outside protector. It was the british, the gulf states were prepared to how could i say, give up a certain amount of independence in return for their protection. After the british left, there was a bit of a hiatus because we were seen, the United States were the remaining super power who were seen supporting both saudi arabia and ian until the iranian revolution. They saw iraq as a valuable not ally, but a balance to both countries for years. Saddam husain 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 principle 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. An deaf it inly a threat perceived differently than other countries. The u. A. E. Years ago looks at iran, they just moved up the middle. But they 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 yoirning, and is perceived for more dynamic courses and in some cases particularly in saudi arabia and the u. A. E. Breaking away from the traditional conservative almost passive defensive approach to power and this sort of feeling mousse cue la chure and challenging much more so muss cue la chure and challenging much more die namics. At the same time you have monarchies defending monarchal systems. And theres a tendency to say in the west, monarchies, old news, a trash heap of history gone. Weve done that too back in the 960s when arab nagsalists came. Wrong. They outlasted all the other regimes. And they are doing it now in some cases. But doubling down theyve become more repressive. Theyre less tolerant, particularly the u. A. E. Saudi arabia of various kinds of criticism while liberalizing the social benefits. So its a mixture of on one respect very liberal regimes and our 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 of remaining are pretty good. 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. 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 say 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 arabia yeahs. Theyre all bunch of guys running around in bed sheets. But theyre very different. Omanis have better relakeses with the 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. 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 storm 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 arabia yeah war in yemen. This is in reaction to the human suffering in yemen but tools 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 . Thanks. And its actually its a very difficult pa lance 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 to the two sides to really understand one another and to and to coordinate and corporate is limited 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 world war ii that has been built around two core pillars. One is energy and recognition of arabia as the parment paramount 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 at every u. S. Administration has pursued going all the way back to the roosevelt administration. Republican, democrat, it doesnt really matter. We have a stressful situation where we have different differences. And those differences reflect about the rights of citizens, the interaction between citizen and state, the rights particularly for women, for other human rights Civil Liberties where this has 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 . 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 pers a new perspective in bahrain when i was there last because we tend to be very certain of our moral reck tude as we look as Something Like the murder of mr. Khashoggi. But what i got from bahrain from sunni and shiah. Hey, wait a minute, we absolutely depend on our security from saudi arabia. This crown prince is undertaking absolutely Critical Reforms that are central for the stability of the place. By the way, you guys have your relationship with russia even though putin goes around murdering dissidents in various countries. Why are you so hung up 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 difference consensuses and different views at looking at this thing. Debra i want to turn now for the u. S. Relationship with iran. Its been 40 years since the u. S. Hos tack taking in iran. Since then weve had no official diplomatic information or embassy in iran. Our interests are represented by switzerland. While there was extend contact, most communication today is done via press 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 . Badly. [laughter] debra ok. Next question. [laughter] its true, we tend to look at it very superficially. As they tend to look at us. Its a very long period. Debibblet that theres a 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 iran states although our the arab p with government is much better. In iran as in america, you have a deep division of people as to whether you ought to have relations as whether you ought to improve your relations whether thats a good thing. So when you get into negotiations, you have there as you have here a need to show that youre really doing something that work well. In order to pass fight 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 that they do things that the other side cant afford you to show and to pass fight 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. Debra afterwards youre going to answer questions about what it was like to live there. The u. S. Pulled out of the it. And they warned that they 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 reportedly wanted to list the sanctions in exchange for iran 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. Debra and if you disagree, all the better. I dont think question do it on our own. I dont believe that the American Government and 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. The p five plus one is probably the only vehicle alone, all the principle members of the u. N. Security council and the e. U. In effect trying to gang up on the wrong side. Gang up may be the wrong term but to Start Talking to each other because frankly, i dont believe that given the dynamics that ron was describing that theres any leeway on each sigh 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 into a train wreck with iran which could be very damaging with the worlds economy if that should be in the gulf because of what it would do. So i think it is 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 policys that are die metically opposed. Obama theory of the case that which affected in the Iran Nuclear Deal if jcpla was basically if you address what was the Key International concern about iranian behavior and that was its pursuit of a Nuclear Weapons capability, if you put in place an agreement to to address that, then over time by bringing iran into closer relationship with the community, addressing their economic concerns doing other things, you could then set up the possibility of getting the iranians to address