Line or they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar with some of these other issues that getting prevent sanctions now rather than waiting for the fifth year with the eighth or the 10th you. So thats the mindset we are dealing with. That to our reformists and i ago, do you know who these people really are . These reformist dont have any real power. They are in positions but they dont really wield it. Take a look at the council of guardians, the council of experts. Take a look at who controls the military structure and economic levers. When you start to see real changes there, maybe he will see a crack. Its going to take time, derek, going to take time. We are risking a lot so we have to be vigilant. And out of anything thats articulated about what we are prepared to do between now and then when we get to this point about checking the behavior, about having a deterrent, having a course of option. Because i think all of our economic cards are not viable. That are not good the ineffective snapback sanctions big Economic Issues we usually have relied on are not going to be there in the to box us to use. So this makes it more likely that if youre going to have a response that will have to be military. In my judgment, or no response at all. And i think with this administration and make some subsequent administrations, the option will be we will just excuse things the way and they will violate them to violate and they will violate, and well just live with them. You were talking about how Administration Figures seem to be hopeful that the machine will moderate. One of the things that concerns me and i think there is some evidence that actually the administration is happy to work with a hardliners. We have some indication lots of ways the nuclear deal if it isnt the irgc that controls the nuclear file in many ways that will lock in the hardliners. And there was a store in Foreign Policy a couple months ago after the arab officials were invited to meet with the president at camp david, john hannah did a piece for Foreign Policy where there were arab officials who are described a as the president seems to admire certain things about Qassem Suleimani, certain things about the quds force. You think arabs are pretty confident you guys could use something with. One of the things i want to ask you is who is, i think im we know who Qassem Suleimani is not whats in his head, first of all . And is he winning in the region lacks if you get asked to enter that ended mike i will ask you. One is, the iranian state, state apparatus, there state institutions are effective and are very good. And theyve got a tremendous amount of intellectual capital that is brilliant and sophisticated not just for the Nuclear Program but in other areas of the economy. They are and industrious people and theyve got very good culture, literature, art, movies, film. This is a rich textured complex sophisticated society. All those things make it actually more dangerous, okay, because it has institutional capacity, the ability to line its resources and get the most out of them. Thats one of the things that impresses the administration. Rational, contrasting it in some ways to our gulf arab allies. That is one of the things that impresses the white house. So this admiration for suleimani has manifested itself in a voice of europe. The u. S. Speed deepening the Radio Free Europe speak with yes. We sent him 211 million they put out a decent that solomonic is a pretty nice guy. Im sure a lot of people think dick cheney is a pretty nice guy or the thought that Osama Bin Laden was a pretty nice guy, but not to make any comparisons. [laughter] wow, i dont know. Just landed them both sides spent i reject you mentioning the Vice President the context spent i second that but i do want to become what do you call it, marginalized. Marginalized. s about to solomonic him is he winning . Hes a wakeup criteria for america. When we going to do . Now hes doing so these cookies to sell this in iraq after leading a victory parades selfies. He led the force into tikrit. All of these sanctions were before the sanctions were vote on. Hes been leading forces on the ground with u. S. Close air support in the air being able to provide air support to suleimanis forces. You cant say that. Qassem suleimani is not controlling these things. Others are controlling it and he basic is that he works for Qassem Suleimani. Drive i was put in charge of the tikrit operations. Using to designated terrorist organizations to conduct operations, expelling sudanese on these areas. Of sanctions violations. Suleimani espouse those able to travel, leading designated terrorist organizations in the fight against isis. Let me caveat that. The fight against sunnis opposed to the iraqi government, thats a bigger deal than isis. So this was a clear and hold strategy. Clear this is outcome hold the area so they can come back and. And then this blanket labeling of the sunnis as collaborators simply because theres no iraqis to get a forces to to protect them. This is a Qassem Suleimani in iraq has not built a force to take back mosul. Has not built a force to get back ramadi or fallujah. No, he is winning. Is made baghdad morgue depend on tehran than they were a year and half ago. Hes out in the open working directly with designated terrorists and t the bank that directly funds his organization was also be listed. Not to mention what is doing in syria and these other places. So he is winning and baggage is taken more money and now you just gave him the ability to buy advanced weapons. And he cant help but smile spirit this may, in fact, prolong the ensuing campaign from this infusion of cash into the iranian coffers because they provided tremendous Financial Support to underpin the assad pushing. Qassem suleimani is directed and coordinated the strategy across the region orchestrating involvement from hezbollah in syria correspond to the iraq issue malicious industry. Is directly behind the bombings, the federal bombings of refugee centers, of the destruction of bakeries and then send it in syria in order to impact the population. Hes conducted and numerous Human Rights Violations under his organization and under his direction and tutelage, and this was occurring in iraq. You have ethnic and so, assassination, torture all this at the behest and guidance on sola maney. These are the types of people who apparently some americans believe will be able to deal with and we admire. The president of iran and the military, the conventional military of iran is not involved in this strategic geopolitical objectives of iran. Which is to dominate the region. That is a province of two leaders, one is a supreme leader, executives Qassem Suleimani who is execution arm exclusively. The rest of leadership is not involved in any of that. And that is the simple way to understand what is truly taking place. So given the scorecard that has been achieved as i mentioned before, its indisputable that they have had significant measure of success. And the two of them enjoy the success. China, you were speaking before about the sort of moral core general a Different Things that churchill understood and that Margaret Thatcher understood as well. Where they could see which things were tending. If i can ask you which way do you think this is painting . What you think it means for the region . What they think it means for the United States and our allies as well speak was i think American Leadership by and large is impassive and disengaged from the region, and has resulted this endangered our interest, its endangered our allies. It has emboldened our adversaries. Russia and china are considerably more adventurous i think is what they perceived to be, what is somewhat new to them this week American Leadership to the degree that it is. The europeans have been capable of asking for people to suffer in terms of National Security for close to 30 years. So they understood about the european feckless leadership, talking about our adversaries. I think what is new to them is to agree that the degree to which American Leadership has stepped back and theyre clearly taking advantage of the. Im not helpless about this issue because i think weve been here before many times where American Leadership is a defining experience for this great country of ours. We started out with a lid who understood what he wanted and he was fighting a conventional military that was the best in the world, and it took him seven years and we eventually beat them back. Ive talked about the founder of our country. We had a president during the civil war that couldnt fight in of the generals to fight the war competently. And his leaders came to me. His closers can come and said look, we have got to make an accommodation with the Jefferson Davis government. Weve got to establish some kind of a corner in terms of somewhat able to us given the way the war is going. He would have none of it. None of it because he knew that was to destruction of the United States as we knew and every principle we have in this country as a result of the. He finally found a guy who could do something with it. Roosevelt and truman during world war ii to the decisions they made were extraordinary and their extraordinary leaders for making it. Had nothing to do with party. Rose that makes a decision watching not theism, and he decides that conjunction with churchill, that is likely to be sufficient having fought two world wars not to do some and i clambered aboard were to against this ideological leader that is not going to be sufficient to defeat the military cant even defeat do not see regime. That the only which prevent this from happening again is to defeat the german people. What a decision that was. And that resulted in millions of civilian deaths. And germany today is what, a flourishing economy, democratic society, and war is something not even on the horizon. Truman made a similar decision did it with what he was facing in japan. He had a weapon and would bring the war to them. He knew the costly to invade the island of japan having watched all the of the topping that took place. The people that thought, the cashews were rising and he made a very difficult decision to force the leadership to stop the war. He had to kill japanese civilian people to do it. Look at those decisions. Those are staggering decisions i think by people of character who didnt want to make those decisions. They are good people. They knew what they were doing but they believed this was a humane thing to do to stop this kind of calamity that has been imposed on the world by people of people. I think that leadership will rise in this country again and will continue to rise. Why . Because my faith in the American People. People give rise to that leadership. I want to ask quickly and that i was if i can do to for a question or two if we have enough time. I want to ask what are these sorts of decisions that the next administration might need to make, especially regarding iran but im not just talking about the iran nuclear deal. Im talking generally about come if were talking 36 years of the iranians of American Leadership not respond to iran, will this finally rise to the level american lid will need to respond to it . I think American Leadership really matters, and we sing a disaster of the absence of leadership in the middle east region and how it has alienated our friends and our frenemies in that part of the world. Even statements by the gulf cooperation countries, you know, in some way lukewarm support for the nuclear deal reflects a calculation on the part of this is going to go through and it doesnt do them any good to be outright opposition to it publicly. I think the next layer has to rebuild confidence in the region, build bilateral and multilateral relationships in the middle east, north africa. We have to deal with the sino moscow pakistan to be emerging in the world and influencing that come at a dont think we want tehran to be part of that sino soviet pact, but that seems to be where we are headed. I think we may need to think about declaring a Nuclear Umbrella in the region and providing private assurances for that in order to forestall the movement in what i see as a tendency towards consideration of Nuclear Proliferation by the gulf country, possibly even cairo. I think we Building Confidence in that we civil we mean and to go to back it up is something we needed to come and get me to be about pashtun we need to be clear who our enemies are impact of a friend. We undermined to me of those in reaching whether tel aviv, the gulf, cairo. So i think there is some major challenge there for the next administration because it takes a long time to repair those relationships. Mike, do you want we are already doing that though. The administration is saying this keeps iran from a Nuclear Weapon. While they assure the region that will provide you things to keep them from attacking you with one. That just doesnt make sense. We are already starting come you go to your gulf allies and tell them will help you build up your capabilities so that you be able to do enough to deal with this increasing iranian threat they were getting ready to give money back to come arms back to the editing if they dont cheat, allow them to develop a Nuclear Weapon in 10 to 15 years. General, if you can just quickly. Leadership can turn this around frequently because you start with what is the role of the United States facing a global secret challenge a as as we havd turkey to add to the American People and the articulate that to the world at large. And i think just about alone begins to let our adversaries and our friends know that American Leadership is back. Thats number one. And then your actions will always speak louder than your rhetoric. This is not rocket science. We have no comprehensive strategy to deal with radical islam, and with the two president s who have been dealing with this since 9 11 and we still do nothing comprehensive strategy to do the. Thats outrageous we could find ourselves in 2015 with that, but thats the truth of the. Im not talking about some muscular military strategy. Ive talked about a comprehensive charge accuses the tools and whats of them in the region to bring people together in a native type alliance we had to push back against another ideology called communism. Weve never done it. U. S. Leadership would help organize it and get the people in the region and others who are interested in this stability in the region and bald. We start to make some progress, the same thing with countering the iranians. As opposed to giving with china and russia, this doesnt have to be all about military muscle, but they have do some conviction you are willing to use some of military muscle. You have to believe there is an imperative that you going to do something, and what actions they do that. You dont abandon libya up you decide to take the regime to one thing the president , the new president takes over in libya, the one thing as this, youve got to be with us into the problem. I need to people to come over and train is a good divorce i can stabilize this thing. Ive got all these radicals running around with armed weapons who helped take down gadhafi. What we do . We stiffed them. Assessing a message . Of course it does. The iranians say we want to honor the accord. We give up our Nuclear Weapons. You were supposed to provide us with saturday. That was a treaty. Why are you not only that . We dont want to soldiers on the ground. We dont want you to place. What did ask for . Ask for weapons. We stiffed them. Those actions speak far louder than words. These are only people are asking for america to help them solve a problem they have themselves. The same thing with the Free Syrian Army became and 2011, no help. Clinton, petraeus, dempsey and panetta on a committed to the president in the summer of 2012 to help them. The president s jus to spend int know. Those actions just reverberate around the region and beset us with considerably more problems as a result of the. This isnt all that hard to do if you make up your mind of what the role is america place in the world, and im not suggesting that muscular military strategy, but it is about leadership. That it is executed effectively, 50 interagency actually are doing what theyre supposed to be doing if they establish real metrics and measures instead of obfuscating. The frustration with dod and data treasury and dea and elsewhere about this is very high. In fact, they do not want real option. Luscious move along. Luscious do enough and that shows a lack of leadership in real interest achieving affect the result to impact the enemy. In this case isis. It is the president s own strategy that he is not making sure is executed effectively. It will rebound on us at some point dramatically. It is already affecting the people of the region. Most of the things that have happened since the president announced a year ago is the lack of response and follow through in his own government. Thanks, charlie. Lets see if there are any questions. You have the microphone. The gentleman, if you can introduce yourself is probably one of time for questions. The Director Center of islam at the hudson in the two. I wanted to ask a question follows from mr. Harveys remark that we are trying to understand these people as we understand ourselves and one part about lack of understanding is a lack of imagination for what the quds floors, iranian and general might want to accomplish. You gave a very fine