Institution thats dedicated to helping prevent and mitigate violent conflict abroad. Its really an honor and a pleasure this morning to host a conversation with ambassador david hale on his new book. American diplomacy toward lebanon, lessons in Foreign Policy and the middle east. When you hear the catchphrase seasoned diplomat thats used to describe someone with deep experience, navigating the labyrinth he and political shows and complex negotiations in in distant lands, the name that first comes to mind is ambassador david hale. The ambassador is a Career Foreign Service officer and started in 1985. His postings have taken him from north africa and the persian gulf to the labonte and south asia. Ambassador hale was promoted to career ambassador in 2018. This is the highest rank in the u. S. Foreign service. Ambassador hale has been the ambassador to pakistan, lebanon and jordan. As well as a special envoy for middle east peace. More recently, Ambassador Haley served as the under secretary of state for political affairs. He was responsible for the daytoday management of all regional and bilateral policy issues and for the regional and functional bureaus at the state department. Ambassador hales book on lebanon, deeply complex country with enormous geopolitical significance provides us with a rich and timely resource for broader lessons about u. S. Engagement in the middle east and also about contemporary american diplomatic tradecraft. These lessons have come at a critical moment. We were just talking about this in the green room. We have a war in gaza, war in ukraine, crisis in haiti, war in sudan, instability of us the world and tensions are rising in the South China Sea with one of our near nuclear peers. If we needed to learn lessons about how to do american diplomacy better, this is the moment to do so. To elicit these rich perspectives, we are very privileged to extend a warm welcome to another seasoned diplomat and Foreign Policy expert, ambassador ed gabriel. He is a member of u. S. Ips board and will be guiding todays conversation, gentlemen. Thank you all for coming today. The u. S. Institute of peace is delighted to have a discussion with ambassador hale this morning and his new book. American diplomacy toward lebanon, lessons in Foreign Policy in the middle east. David served more than nine years and lebanon in three different posts including u. S. Ambassador there and most recently, the thirdhighest ranking position in the state Department Undersecretary for political affairs. In his book, david explores the legacy of u. S. Lebanon relations , focusing on the key episodes that started with the countrys independence up through the syrian civil war. I got a copy of the manuscript before the book came out. I have about 300 stick comes in that book. On important things that them passengers than ambassador hale said. I just found the book a must read for anyone involved in middle east Foreign Policymaking and the wider region. He underscores the most, the indispensable ability of the United States during its most tumultuous times. Also the intransitive of the u. S. As well. He goes on to talk about and predicts the destabilizing force of iran in the region. Welcome, david. Mr. Hale thank you. Mr. Gabriel let me begin with a few icebreaker questions if i may. Id like to set the context for todays discussion with two fundamental questions. Why did you write the book . In other words, what is it you want the reader to know . The second question is why in your view should lebanon matter to the United States . Mr. Hale thank you very much for the very kind introduction and thanks to all of you for being here and your interest in this topic. I wrote the book because lebanon had been a big part of my life, not just the nine years i lived there over 25 years but for other reasons, people i knew, events that happened in my career elsewhere involving lebanon, it has played a significant role for me and id like to say for young diplomats, its a great place to be an apprentice because in a lot of countries, when you are more junior, you dont really do the normal diplomatic functions you might think of as an ambassador. In lebanon, you do because all these different factions and there are 18 different religious committees in lebanon, all of them want their own relationship with the United States. All of them are clamoring for attention and implements with the american embassy. Inevitably, you are drawn in as a young officer into those conversations so you have to learn quickly how to conduct yourself and all of this is under the microscope of the media, even our young officers find themselves like it or not under media attention. It was a great education for me and i wanted to share some of that with readers because i also felt that over time, there is a lot of things america did well and a lot of things that didnt go well that may or may not have been americas responsibility but there were lessons to be learned in the conduct of our Foreign Relations there. Your second question was the significance of lebanon. This really comes down to geography in many ways. Geography, im sure everyone is room is familiar with but to remind them, lebanon is a very small country, the size of connecticut wedge between israel, traditionally americas closest friend of the middle east and syria often our most hostile antagonist. Demographically because of these 18 different religious communities, every cross current in the middle east, religious, cultural, political, economic, educational ideas of politics and what have you and language are woven into lebanon and repackaged and exported again. Many of these sects seek to have some kind of partner outside of lebanon in order to gain security or influence inside lebanon to enhance their power weather is this sunny Muslim Community seeking relationships with saudi arabia or relationship with iran and christians looking to the west. That is often a very positive makes but sometimes a very combustible mix as well. Mr. Gabriel in your book, i come away with one word, isolation. Can you describe for us the themes outlined in your book and the six episodes you describe about u. S. Involvement in lebanon, please . Mr. Hale i chose six episodes as a device in order to organize the book. These are six periods when there was a relatively coherent american policy series of events that i can unpack and describe. I started with the independence movement. Its a very littleknown chapter of american involvement in lebanon. The United States was instrumental in compelling the french who said they were going to grant independence to lebanon but everything they could to not do it by having special privileges for military access and so forth to lebanon. Fdr put his foot down. He insisted that degaulle pullout and they did. In 1958, when 14,000 marines were sent by eisenhower to draw a line in the middle east between the west and he thought soviet domination through the internationals movement but in addition to the 14,000 marines, he sent one diplomat. The marines didnt have to shoot in anger but having 14,000 marines behind you as an American Ambassador is pretty good. He was able to resolve the civil war underway their in lebanon to our satisfaction. The civil war began in the 70s and we sent an envoy to establish redlines between israel and the syrian troops that have moved into lebanon. And the 80s which were an unhappy period where reagan sent in 1400 marines in order to help the israelis extricate themselves from beirut, reminiscent of the situation in gaza today. Then eric mandate and our mission got muddied. We stayed too long and the marines ultimately became a target of iran and hezbollah. Into the 90s, we focused on the syria first strategy which we subordinated our interest in lebanon in pursuit of what we thought would be a peace deal between israel and syria that never occurred. Hezbollah gained a great deal of influence during that time and syria and finally the freedom agenda in the 2006 war which has lessons for israeli overreach and how you extricate yourself from war and how do you deal with asymmetrical powers and how do you deal with a proxy that hides behind civilians in a way that can enhance deterrence and security. The themes of the book, you mentioned isolation which is probably the primary theme. The primary take away from our involvement in lebanon is that we find ourselves for usually good reasons getting very deeply involved in lebanon. Often to protect a friend like israel, we would then overreach and it was complicated. In the words of phil habib whenever great envoys in lebanon, we would drop it like a hot potato and find ourselves in withdrawal and neglect with moments of extreme involvement would be followed by long periods of absence. My argument overall in the book and for us and policy in general and the middle east is we should do neither. The peaks of extreme involvement usually and unhappily. We shouldnt reach that high but also the valley of neglect so there is a constant level of reasonable and rational engagement to protect our interests. The conclusion of the book, i talk about problems of three sets of people, problems with ourselves in washington, the conduct of our Foreign Policy, problems with their friends, typically israel in dealing with lebanon and problems with their enemies which was syria now iran. The most interesting parts of the problems in ourselves is the self absorbed, self created difficulties we have that had to do with the fact that we are a democracy. As a democracy, we have trouble with staying power. I go back to the isolations. Our enemies stay. Our enemies dont usually leave office except feet first. Our president s come and go and our policies change as they should. They should always be a response to the needs of the American People and response to changing interest and changing facts. But they shouldnt necessarily be contradictory every 24 years and particularly in our policy toward karen, that is one of the major toward iran, its the lack of persistence and endurance, patient in dealing with adversaries in the middle east. Its a hallmark of american policy. The problems with their friends and there are lots of things in the book about bureaucratic games that people play in this town that undercut our own policies like the state department not getting with the program for the white house, the white house feeling the state department is not with the program and we should have our own back channel, this is a constant theme throughout our involvement in lebanon. Its very unfortunate. The problems with their friends is if you are a country like israel you dont want to live in the shadow of a threat from your neighbor but your neighbor has all the means to continue to be a threat to you, how do you deal with it . What we found in the case of lebanon is we were often in a situation of allowing israel to complete its military campaigns at that moment, try to advise them on how to extricate. How do you bring about a diplomatic approach that can bring this conflict they started to an end . A classic example is 2006 with condi rice observing in the archives that the israelis didnt know what they were trying to achieve in the 2006 war so they didnt know how to declare victory. If you dont know what your goal is commute dont know how to end so that became a primary goal of condi rice at that moment was defining success or at least an end. Also problems with our enemies and this comes to the question of todays news. Even the 1980 83 when the marines were bombed, to american embassies camaro marines were killed in quick succession and Ronald Reagan who is remembered rightly is one of the toughest of our president s when it came to Foreign Policy in use of force did actually nothing. There is no retaliation for all those marines or the american diplomats of our lebanese staff. There was a lot of talk inside the nsc about attacking the Iranian Revolutionary guard. Weve been able to prove they did it but there was no attack. I can get into all the bureaucratics between dod and state in the nsc that led to that result. That was the beginning of the problem. That was the first point of hezbollah. If you are an iranian leader and you observe this behavior pattern, were not only did we not respond to that against the iranians, we didnt respond against hezbollah and we started taking innocent american citizens, professors, journalists hostage off the streets of beirut. We did the irancontra deal and try to do a bargain. Right through the history of the iranianamerican relationships in which we really didnt hold anyone accountable on their end and i think it should be no mystery why they been able to gain the level of influence they have in the middle east today. In beirut, baghdad, damascus, the iranians basically can call the shots. At least on things that matter to them. Thats not our fault but our inability to respond to this threat contributed to it. Mr. Gabriel thank you. This spasmodic approach that you are describing is evidence i think in respect to the current israelia mosquegaza war. They are talking now about lurch back to the two state solution after it being dormant for so long. How do you rebuild consensus to mystically and internationally toward a two state solution . What would be your advice to the Biden Administration . Mr. Hale the two state solution is something that many in this room toiled on, myself included, for many years. I was a middle east peace envoy that served George Mitchell in that role and when he retired, i replaced him for two years. I worked very hard with abbas and netanyahu at that time was Prime Minister as well. Even then, the ingredients first two state solution were very hard to identify and bring together and create something new. After i left office, john kerry as secretary of state brought enormous energy and brainpower to the issue. After one year, he found he could not get a breakthrough on a two state outcome and theres been no serious effort since then. I would go back to my theme of spasms and oscillations. If you believe that it two state outcome is essential for stability in that part of the world, then you need to not neglect that goal. For a dozen years which has been the case and wonder why when you go back to it, its even harder. The climate in the region before october 7 was not particular conducive to this. God help us now. How you can create public support on either side for the kind of compromises needed, the reason we couldnt get an agreement during the obama years either through mitchell or john kerry is we could not bridge the gap between sovereignty and security needs. Sovereignty for the palestinians on territory but the security needs of the israelis and we tried multiple ways. We had everyone you could think of on the security on our side coming up with Creative Ideas and all kinds of offers of technology that we were prepared to make none of which could square that circle. After october 7, you thought it would be easier . Does one think the israeli public will be more inclined to compromise . The opinion polling i see is that the overwhelming majority of israelis do not accept the two state solution and believe that hamas would take over the west bank. Im not saying thats correct but that is a reality that has to be dealt with if we want to climb back into a negotiation that has any chance of success. The last thing that you want to do is launch a negotiation that will fall flat within weeks. That would lead and it did. Mr. Gabriel are you saying stay away from putting together a two state day after solution or whats your advice . Mr. Hale i dont think we can walk away from a two state solution. If the United States were to state they no longer believed in that, it would have ramifications for interest that would be very negative but i dont believe we can just jumpstart that process overnight. If i were in office now, i would be advising a couple of smaller steps in gaza to be working on. People talk about reform of thepa as if changing the Prime Minister would be weve got a new pa. It goes deeper than that. Inside gaza, we could be doing things to help reestablish security, Maritime Interdiction operations, things that can convince the israeli public their security needs are being taken seriously. The better performance in sinai against the tunnels, ramping up humanitarian assistance. Economic strategies and in terms of governance, duchess thank you and wave the magic wand and have a state emerge. You have to build it up from beneath. In a place like gaza, there are neighborhood associations, there are business associations, doctors, educators, people who have credibility at the neighborhood level because they survived and they serve their people and they are not political. Those people should be entrusted to begin to govern their neighborhoods and talk about what it is they want in the long run. The two state solution is talked about as if its something coming from outside whether its ramallah or washington or europe. Its got to be organic. Right now, i dont see how you do that except by starting at the most basic level with whatever remains after this campaign is over. Mr. Gabriel do you think part of the reason for the Biden Administration focusing among other things on the two state solution is that its partly to address the domestic audience who are very much against whats going on in israel today . Mr. Hale no doubt and thats legitimate. We are a democracy so we have domestic politics to balance our Foreign Policy. It has to be enlightened selfinterest. I would hope that once the shock and horror of what we see on our evening news or social media every day, once that has stopped that we can have a more rational conversation about was really going to help build enduring peace. Launching negotiations on a two state outcome next week is going to fail. Thats going to set back the entire concept for quite some time. You have to build toward it and that requires education and requires educating people its almost been a generation since weve had a serious peace effort on our part. You hav