>> to welcome you to today's discussion, celebrating the publication of joshua muravchik's new book "the next t founders: voices of democracy in the middle east." it it is immensely readable volume tells the stories of

seven leading democratic activist from the middle east, six, and one iranian. it should convince everyone that there may not yet been any democracies in the arab world, there certainly are democrats. and by the way, the book will be for sale in the back of the room, although we can only take cash or checks being a nonprofit organization we are not equipped to handle credit cards. but we hope you will take advantage of the opportunities to buy it. joshua muravchik's book inevitably raises the question of whether the kinds of people that he profiled are those who offer the best hope for a democratic future in the region. i suspect that few people, at least in the democratic world, would deny that these men and women are admirable and in some cases heroic. and some might claim that they are essentially isolated or

marginal figures. too small in numbers, too westernized, too secular and two shallowly rooted in their societies to serve as the vanguard of democratic change. according to this view, the religious historical and cultural traditions of the middle east make the region somewhat in fertile soil for western-style democracy. and therefore the more likely path to an eventual democratic dispensation would be the islamic parties are more culturally conservative leaders who can gradually bring their countrymen to accept democratic principles and practices by clothing them in more traditional garb. of course, this dichotomy is not as stark as i have just presented it. but it does i think helped to undermine the potential for serious and legitimate disagreements about which sorts of individuals and groups

democracies promoters should give priority to i think advance our cause. to discuss this question, we are very fortunate to have with us here today not only the book's author, joshua muravchik, but also three commentators who are highly qualified to discuss his book in the issues that it raises. let me briefly introduce all of the members of the panel in the order in which they will speak. joshua muravchik is a fellow at the foreign policy institute of the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies. he is the author of eight previous books, including "heaven and earth: the rise and fall of socialism," published in 2001, and "exporting democracy," fulfilling america's destiny. published in 1991. and he has also published almost literally countless articles in major newspapers and journals. he served as a member of the

state department advisory committee on democracy promotion, and he is a member of several editorials awards, including i am proud to say that of the journal of democracy. on my far right, doctor a sollie who spent many years as a practicing physician. is the president and founder of the american task force on palestine. he has testified before congress on palestinian issues several times, and in may 2008 he served as a member of the presidential delegation to the palestine investment conference in bethlehem. he is also the founder and chairman of the american charities for palestine, which works with the u.s. agency for international development to help meet the palestinian humanitarian needs. mr. cooper sitting next to my right is a senior director for the middle east and north africa here at the national endowment of democracy.

in 2005, he took a leave her in which time he served as senior adviser to prime minister abraham out of far he and his spokesperson for the iraqi government. from 1993 to 1998 he had been trekker of international relations at the foundation in london. he has also served on the board of the air organization for human rights. and though my far left, camera with us directs the project at the brookings institutions saban center for middle east policy. she had presented a middle east specialist at the u.s. institute for peace and a director of programs at the middle east institute. her most recent book freedoms on steady march of america's role in building arab democracy was published to great acclaim last year.

josh will speak for about 20 minutes and then our three commentators for about seven or eight minutes each, which should leave us plenty of time for questions and answers and discussion. so now it is my pleasure to call on josh. >> mark, thank you very much. thanks to you and the forum. thanks also to the national endowment for democracy and its marvelous president, carl gershwin, and thanks to each of the other panelists, each of whose expertise on the middle east far eclipses my own and i am especially honored to have been taking notice of my book. i was working on this book over perhaps three years, and during that time whenever i would find myself at a reception or a

cocktail party and someone would start a conversation by saying what are you working on? and i would reply i am working on a book of portraits of middle eastern democrats. every single time, my interlocutor shot back, that will be a short book. and i developed the response, don't underestimate my capacity for verbosity. [laughter] >> of course, with these people who tweaked me were pointing to the quite over whelming deficit of democracy. democracy, in the middle east. if you look at the count that is made by freedom house of what they call the electoral democracies around the world,

you will see that if you subtract what you might call the muslim middle east, the 23 countries, 22 members of the arab league and iran, together, you put them in one basket and you take all of the rest of the world, the likelihood of being a democracy and all of the rest of the world is 70%. and the likelihood of being a democracy among those 23 countries in the muslim release is zero, although you know, at the margins lebanon, iraq, there are some that are closer than others. and it is this startling contrast that i think led to my having to put up with so much teasing while i was writing this book. but the fact is that although there is no democracy in the middle east, there are democrats. first of all, we have public

opinion polls which show when asked the question, overwhelming majorities say they want democracy. granted, that we don't know always what the term connotes for them in polls, but then in addition there are people that we do no who are devoting their lives work to working and fighting for liberalization and democratization of their countries. and there are not enough of them, but we know much too little about them. and they are not unique. they exist in the hundreds or thousands. we wish they existed in the hundreds of thousands, but we also have a lot of evidence that their views are more widespread among the younger generation that is coming up than it is

among the middle-aged generation of the people that i have written about in this book. and these people are the analogues of the sakharov's or the glances or hovels or to put it in american context, of the major evers is, james meredith, rosa parks, and they're like who are also few in numbers, all of them at some earlier point in their struggles. in fact, one of the people i have written about in this book, a very fine and feisty saudi feminist who was a columnist in the saudi press until she was banned for her no holds barred

columns about women's rights and the deficiencies of males who resisted women's rights. often also wrote under a pseudonym, and one of the pseudonyms she used frequently was rosa parks. let me tell you a little more about some of these other individuals. the reason i want to is because not only are these admirable and brave people, and they are, they are at a point in their struggle which like rosa parks and major evers and the sakharov and walesa where they do what they do with great peril to

themselves. they have been to jail. they have certainly been subjected to relentless colony and abuse and insertable cases, their lives have been endangered and there have been attempts against their lives. but in addition to being brave, they are already making an impact on their respective societies that is not so small. and here is where i'm inching toward directly answering the question that mark but at the outset is to whether these democrats are really able to constitute a force that could have a historic role in their societies. the other woman in my book is a kuwaiti.

interesting thing i stumbled upon in interviewing both of these women and getting their life stories is that in both cases the driving energy behind their activism for women's rights was a sense that their mothers lives have been ruined by polygamy. in both cases, pico incidents, their mothers discovered after they were married that their husband already had other wives. and in both of these cases, these women as girls, as young girls love their mother as they both had devoted mothers and they had a sense that their mothers were always unhappy as a result of this. and in adulthood, this sense of

protectionist, of their mothers translated into their becoming fighters for women's rights. in the case of roloff, she led the fight within the last decade for political rights for women in kuwait. if you look across the middle east, kuwait is a hereditary monarchy, but it has more elements of democracy that almost any other or perhaps in any other country in the region. there is a relatively free press, and there is a parliament which has some genuine powers and is elected in genuine elections. except that until very recently it was for men only. and she led the fight to give

women political rights to vote and to hold office. and that fight reached its culmination in 2005 with the passage of a law that most elegant piece of legislative drafting, it amended the existing election law in kuwait by deleting one word, the word men. and by that stroke of the 10 women had completely the same political rights as men immediately on the spot, there was a press conference and reporters asked her what are you going to do now? and she replied, run for office, of course. and she did, and she came close but lost. and this year, she actually came

close but lost twice, but this year the parliament was deadlocked. be a mere dissolved parliament and called new elections which were held in may. and in those elections she and three other women were elected. this was not elected to seats that were reserved for women. all four of these women were elected by defeating then. and it was a landmark for kuwait that i think will also reverberate in other countries in the region. let me mention another example. and that is the iraqi i write about in this book. he was an act of this in the bath under bob youth movement. he had a small number of members and therefore use in a position of responsibility at a very

young age, but he got to see right up close the grievous brutality of the baath. it does happen that his best buddy in the baptist youth movement was a protége of one of the toughest, ugliest figures in the new regime and was given the role of warden of one of the worst prisons, and he invited him to be his deputy, which a position to position that he did not accept but in the course of his in that saw with his own eyes how bloody this new regime was. and that started him rethinking his commitment to baathism. he eventually left iraq. he lived many places. he spent two decades in germany and exile, and then returned to iraq after the overthrow of saddam hussein. you have probably all read about

him, because then in 2004, he became the first major iraqi figure to visit israel. and this created quite a stir, and in one of the many attempts against his life, his two sons were killed. his car was ambushed and it was shot to pieces. but he wasn't in it. his two sons were and they both -- and they both died. but he has continued to justify it and install wordpress, amazingly despite that kind of blow. he was expelled on the spot from the party for visiting israel and so he formed his own party, and outpolled jollity and has a seat in the legislature. and he also has gone back to israel several times. most recently in 2008, and here

is really the point of my story. this time when he returned from israel, there was an act in parliament that stripped him of his parliamentary immunity, and he was indicted for visiting the enemy country under a 1950s era law which is a capital offense, carries the death penalty. and he didn't bother us in the courts. and i think this is one of the most interesting indicators of the progress of democracy in iraq that's been almost unreported here, which is that he won in the courts. there was a decision in the course of the kind you would expect in an established democracy with a separation of powers in which the iraqi court struck down his indictment, struck down a 1950s law forbidding travel to the enemy country on the grounds that the

new iraqi constitution guarantees each iraqi freedom to travel. and the iraqi court said there for that old law is unconstitutional, the indictment is invalid, and the removal of parliamentary immunity is invalid. and he is back to going strong in parliament as a party of one, fighting for a secular liberal democratic division of iraq's future. a third person that i have written about is from egypt. he is a newspaper publisher who has not single-handedly, but who has been really the leader of a transition that has changed the press scene in egypt and restored a degree of freedom of the press in egypt that has not

been there since the time of the officers coup in the early 1950s when all the newspapers were nationalized. he started the most that he was able to do initially was to put out a a fortnightly, small english language paper which was a complete breath of fresh air for those who read it. it, in egypt. i got a little feeling for it on a visit i happened to be there a few years ago when the rare event, there was a full solar eclipse visible in egypt from the desert, and there was a lot of excitement about it. and the next morning, there were front-page headlines. it didn't say full solar eclipse seen in egypt. the front-page headline said

president mubarak uses the eclipse. [laughter] >> and he started a different kind of newspaper. and he was subjected to the kind of formal censorship for complicated reasons which i won't go into, but the center would just rip articles out of the paper and say you can't publish that. so he put up a website and would post the band copy on his website, which of course got more readers than it would have gotten in print. and in some years ago, he -- some very wealthy investors hired him as a publisher, and that daily has really pushed back the parameters in egypt to the extent that this year and

last, freedom house which has a separate survey of press freedom in the world, changing the evaluation of egypt from not free, vis-à-vis, the press to partly free. so that in essence is my answer to the question that mark put at the beginning, is whom should we look to as agents of democratization in the middle east. the people who are democrats, liberals, or those who are islamists. to me it seems obvious that the people who are going to be the force of democracy are the people who believe in democracy. and some islam is made, and if they do, they also deserve our

support, but i think it's worth taking the democratic proclamations of some islamists with some grains of salt. but meanwhile, there are these genuine democrats there who are fighting, who are taking great risks, and who as i just tried to illustrate, are making marginal but appreciable progress in changing the climate in their country. and i think they deserve our most enthusiastic and all out support. one last point. i think i have one minute left. this of course makes me unhappy with the obama administration's apparent lack of interest in democracy in the middle east, but this change can't only be

blamed on one side of the aisle. the bush administration, which started out gung ho on this subject, then very dramatically trimmed its sales and pulled back. and the bush administration did so because it panicked after the elections of 2005 when the muslim brotherhood scored well in egypt and hamas won the elections in the palestinian authority. but when i say panic, i mean that if you stop and look at the elections in the muslim world since then, almost everyone where there has been a contest between radicals or islamist and moderates, the moderates have been winning. last week in lebanon and before that in kuwait, and before that in iraq, and before that in jordan and morocco, and

pakistan. and most likely this weekend in iran, if we ever get to find out who really won. so the idea that democrats are nice but they are so weak that they offer us no hope, and the islamists are strong so we have to throw in with the islamists in the hope that somehow they will transform themselves into democrats seems to me to be a chancy strategy and also probably in the end a losing strategy. >> thank you very much, josh, for very clear presentation and giving us both a sense of your book but also at the end, speaking directly to the end forcefully to the question that i posed. now we would hear from our three

commentators. first dr. asali. >> first of all, i would like to thank the national thank the national endowment for democracy and the international forum for democratic studies for organizing this event and to allow me the opportunity to share with the distinguished panelists. i would like to congratulate joshua muravchik for writing this extremely revealing and valuable book. it is vital that through efforts such as this, the american public begins to see that arab and muslim world not simply as a collection of angry alienated resentful disempowered communities. but understand that there are courageous, forward-looking and democratically inclined individuals such as those profiled in this book. in this book, people will learn about seven men and women who in their own very different ways have challenged also, complacency and the status quo

in search of a brighter future. joshua muravchik profiles real people with names and faces whose personal stories reveal the ongoing fight for democracy in the middle east. it is waged in many different ways that reflect the unique political, social and forces that played in seven different countries. as i scanned the stories of these individuals to look for the reasons that placed them in this book, as next founders and voices of democracy, i thought that they shared several qualities in common. courage, which is the indispensable ingredient for leadership. commitment and perseverance, that stretched over decades. and a sense of mission that made them resist coercive regimes and rendered them immune to oppressive communal pressures.

the need to free women and men of the shackles of gender inequality is part of a larger need for a quality and right, and in this light, that it is in this light that i find the work and lives of them and the saudi families, and the kuwaiti families who work recently elected to the parliament, particularly compelling. they write about what other only write about. she has had the audacity to the enumerate 21 attributes of arab cultures and regimes that amounts to a bill of indictment. as she unflinchingly perceived with her criticisms, she is mindful that criticism of arab and muslim culture or regime is used by some in the west to denigrate all arabs and muslims. as she is equally aware that

internal criticism was in the arab world was used to defend the status quo. it is that the enfranchisement and empowerment of women is an issue of national interests. her argument that the failure to include women as full citizens limits a country's human resources which they can ill afford is one that no thinking individual can possibly refute. the five men portrayed in this book tell five different stories. from personal, unrelenting effort to expand the boundaries of rights and freedoms in the middle east. some of them have paid an unimaginable price for their work. it is important to learn about these people to understand that individuals can make a difference, but it needs to be kept in mind that systems are

far more important than individuals. as long as the dictatorship continues to define the majority of regimes in the middle east, we need to put the work of these courageous individual leaders in perspective. and to good use as we support the quest for systems that offer sustainable freedom, rule of law and the creation of accountability institutions. i would like to make one crucial point which is closely linked to our own work across the middle east by reaching an end of conflict agreement between israel and the palestinians. i do agree that democratization is helpful in the pursuit of all noble and worthy political roles. including that of peace. however, these two missions are not anonymous. they are parallel.

we know from experience that israeli peace can be achieved without the benefit of democracy. their peace treaty with egypt and jordan were achieved and continue to endure functions in the context of less than optimal democratic conditions. israel itself was in its own borders is a democracy, yet the situation occupied since 1967 is distinctly undemocratic. in spite of palestinian free elections and reforms, not least because the palestinians lack independence and statehood. peace is possible in spite of lack of democracy, but it is uncertain that it is sustainable. however, it is worth asking whether it is possible that a badly managed transition to democratic reform such as elections in the absence of other democratic institution building would under the wrong circumstances threaten the

sustainability of existing peace agreements. this is in no way an argument against elections or any other crucial elements of democratic reforms. but it is to suggest that the relationship between reform and peace is far more complicated and settled than is sometimes alleged. the lack of democracy in many middle eastern states in the third to truly empower the citizenry provide pluralism and create effective civil societies are important contributors to terrorism and extremism. however, there is extremism also need to be confronted through the pursuit of peace. democratization and reform to be sure both serve the prospect for peace, but similarly piece bolsters the prospect of democratization and reform.

the middle east must be a home to both, peace and democracy, but neither should be held hostage to the other. the problem facing the middle east and liberals and reformers is how to navigate the difficult waters between states on the one hand and even more liberal and reactionary propositions, mainly of the extreme on the other. it is difficult to attempt to move the arab world to the center towards democracy. by changing the cause of parties and organizations that would charge widely to the extreme right and which have no ideological or principled commitment to any of these values. let me be blunt. those liberals who support or defend radical islam must organizations because of shared grievances against israel and

the west are deluding themselves if they think that they can do so and sustained liberalism. the expense of muslims in iran mentioned in this book is particularly instructive. most arab liberals understand this, and therefore have sought to engage and challenge the regime and societies and find ways within the existing systems to press for the necessary reform. this is what the individuals covered in this book have done. this too is precisely where the west and the u.s. in particular can contribute most effectively by working with different arab states constituents and individuals to expand the space for rule of law. individual profile and josh was a viable book and callous others like him in the middle east have the ability and integrity to

help to lead the transformation of their societies away from our territory and towards democratization. a glance into a small subsection of those arabs and muslims who hope for the future lives. the united states and the rest of the world have a real stake in helping create the conditions that will allow such brave individuals and groups to take the lead in helping build a better middle east. thank you. >> thank you for the comment. next we will hear from laith kubba. >> thank you, mark. well, i very much enjoyed josh, reading the book, and you are an excellent storyteller. and i think it's very brave of you to try to explain to readers a very complex situation through

the voices and the narratives of seven people. and i think you did an excellent job in introducing the complex issues. i am not very sure if we have any clear answers to how the region is going. but certainly i think seven people, and i know all of them, i think i'll accept one have had one encounter or the other of international democracy. and of course, i know the topics in the regions, and i read with most interest and i learned a lot even about iraq and about through reading the narrative. so i think it is excellent and it is entertaining. but i think very much you baby through reading the introduction and the confusion you do make a couple of sound points, and the number one and the loudest and

clearest is that people do matter and that democracy was to come to the middle east and the florist floors, than we do need to look at people with the right qualities. and i think a second important message that change has to come from within these countries, and that it has to come within we had better look at the people who will bring those changes. but i think in your conclusions, i tend to agree with some of the main points you have made. and no question that their exposure to the u.s. education to the west is beneficial, and i think it is critical. however, i do believe that we need to look at how democracy can be called and what support we are to give to the region through more complex views. and there is no question in my mind despite the great picture that the region is heading

towards change. the fact that the media barriers have fallen down. we are living in a digital world, and the fact that the citizens themselves are more aware, their needs are increasing, their exposure is wide open. and i think that we have a different population, especially amongst the youth. and i do believe that the economies in all these countries are not sustainable without fundamentally forms. and all this puts the issue of democracy and reform on top of and what we're seeing in iran today i think makes the point. f. i want to follow-up the same style, excellent style that you have done and look in trying to tell the story and to talk about how democracy can be brought about in the region through the seven cases that you brought, i would appreciate between the heroes that you chose, and all of them are heroes if they are

all risktakers. i think they are all most interesting. they all have an element of being self-critical to their own cultural, to themselves. they are all self-assured. they evolved. i think all of these qualities are there. and that makes them very interesting to read, but from a democracy point of view, who is most relevant and who isn't, especially being the title of the book, founders and voices for democrats. i think i appreciate and look at the issue and see area. the first area where you have covered three cases, absolutely outstanding and i think they tell the story is the one in egypt, a journalist -- in egypt, he is a journalist, and very much you look at his biography how he evolved in this field,

very committed, consistent, integrity. i think you look at all of these qualities, and most important, he worked on a sector which is media knowing its importance, sticking to its ethics, really pushing the envelope in a very smart way here and you can say at the end of the day, this person advanced the freedom of media. he created one of the -- the first independent successful newspaper and is about to create the second one. and i think a second person, and i think again with his upbringing and the way he was raised, but you do look at the person who is a palestinian living both lives being under -- living in jerusalem having israeli citizenship, i think, or an id card, but at the same time has to combat violations of human rights irrespective of

where they came from. and this is very difficult road to walk. bear in mind, his people are going to a national struggle pushing for a palestinian independence, but you can also read through it despite this stuff, he has been adherent. another person, ken, her contribution, woman participation which is critical to democracy, you have illustrated will. i think the other two characters i would look at them more of pushing the envelope on the culture, which is broadly speaking related. i am not talking here about the political culture. i'm talking about the culture in very broad terms. and i think they would make outstanding examples of people who push for liberalism and individualism. and i think i can use them -- >> can you tell us which? >> the two i am referring to and

from syria who also pushed the envelope very much. you look at individuals who treasure their rights and their freedoms as individual, and who questioned the culture around the. and of course they have democratic inclinations. and i think they can be used as probing tolerant and probing yet environments. and in fact, they provide outstanding value. i think the most difficult to cases you have are the ones on iraq and iran. and the difficulty is born very much within the complexity of the two individuals you chose. and obviously it is not an easy task to try to choose one out of the 8 million iranians. and i guess one out of the case of the country, both characters

were maybe with good intentions and definitely i would say being young, attractive to ideals, walk into revolutions and coups and regime changes. and then they get exposed to all sorts of things while they are being part of these regimes. and then either they were forced out, kicked out, threatened, whatever it is, they move out. but the big question comes, and again i am basing the question because i think this is the implications are enormous, what do we do or how do we tackle forces within regimes that would reach out to the rest of the world and try to bring change. and i think here, i., based on my experience have seen how the baath party started with noble slogans initially and ended up eating one of the most it oppressive regimes in both iraq and syria. and again looking at how the

revolution in iran started with ideals and ended up sliding into being a tyranny, a religious journey. and when you look at these cases, you start wondering what a change of rhetoric be sufficient or change of position, or do we need to look deeper into changes and mindsets. in other words, changing the content of a container or changing the container becomes necessary. and i think those questions i don't have answers to, but what you have presented, as i said, certainly begins tuesday night that. if i have one last minute, if i want to sum up, and i say through reading the book i was trying to read your mind on how you see a democracy can be brought up to the region. and again, it is most difficult to try to supply such a complex question with a simple formula. but if i was forced to simplify it, i would not focus on the

individuals who i would pin all the hopes on. i think i would look at what we have currently really is strong currents of people pushing for democracy on one hand, and regimes that are stagnant, maybe they adapt a little bit here or there, but in essence they are stagnant and they are stagnant not because only a culture but because of security agencies because of the guns they have, because of the money, their control over the state. and i think our overall approach in supporting those voices that are pushing for democracy, need to look at beyond supporting individuals. we need to really open up the space. we need to use all the tools we have with international law to force some changes. and i think that would complement and give a breathing space where we did see many, many i think of those voices and examples for sure into thousands or hundreds of thousands.

>> thank you. i knew you would inject some controversy into the proceedings. now we will turn to tamara wittes. >> that you, mark. it is an honor to be here to help launch the next founders, not to because as you already heard, it's a wonderful book and a wonderful read, and not just because i'm fortunate enough to call josh a friend, but also because joshua muravchik is someone whose work i have read and admired from years back when i was in grad school. and since i've had the pleasure of learning from him for so many years, it's really a great delight to be here to help him send a new bit of his wisdom and insight into the world. today is also a lovely occasion, i think, there's a lot of continuity for me because it's the first time i've had the honor of being in front of a podium here at the net was five years ago to discuss an article

i had written on a topic very closely related, in fact, to josh's book, an article called the promise of and that article was published in a sort of point, counterpoint with another article that was entitled the false promise of arab liberals. laith kubba was on the panel also. and here we are. it is five years and one presidential transitions later. and i think in many ways in washington we find ourselves facing essentially the same questions that we were addressing five years ago. number one, is the small number of courageous isolated but outspoken liberals in the arab world, are they capable of making a meaningful difference in the week their societies toward democracy. and number two, is the united states able to help these individuals in any meaningful way, or does our support essentially proved to be a test of death for them in one way or another. i want to spend a couple of

minutes on each of these two questions because i think josh's book, through the rich stories that it tells of these liberal activists provokes us to try again and perhaps try harder for some answers to those two questions. now, five years ago in that other article in policy review, the author argued that liberal reformers in the middle east are quoted increasingly aging, increasingly isolated and diminishing in number. these liberals are losing battles to the hearts and minds of their country. now, if josh's book does nothing else, i think it demonstrates conclusively the falsity of that argument. the liberal paradigms that he profiled in this book are not aged. they are in middle age, and since i am in middle age that means they are not old. [laughter] >> far from being isolated, they are increasingly prominent in their countries. newspapers, on the airwaves of

the region, and many of them are winning meaningful and important political victories as josh outlined in his opening remarks in kuwait, with respect to the press in egypt, keeping very flawed government accountable over very many years to increasingly also, these activist are networking with one another across the region in a way that they weren't able to do it effectively 10 years ago, drafting and signing joint statements, coming together at conferences on reform in alexandria or beirut. coming together to confront their governments at regional meetings like the forum for the future. so where as 10 years, feminist were entirely isolated in their feelings and in their struggles, and indeed that sense of isolation comes through so strongly in josh's narrative of her life.

today, aspiring women politicians in kuwait, in saudi arabia, in oman, and the united emirates, had his lightspeed network of a mobile phone calls, e-mails, text messages, they are constantly in touch with one another relating anecdotes, incidents, bucking each other up when the chips are down. so it seems to me that there is something fundamental that has changed with respect to the position of liberals in the middle east today. and finally, these liberal reading lights are being followed as josh points out in his book by a rising generation of mobile lies and increasingly vocal, young liberal activists. so in some manner, these liberals have indeed become role models and they are being emulated. i think it is worth asking ourselves what the characteristics are of these activist that make them persuasive advocates or liberal ideas in their local context and that make them effective at

creating real change in their own societies. in reading through josh's seven profiles, the one thing that came through very clearly to me is that these individuals are patriots. they love their countries, and they have a sense of ownership over their nation and over future development. the story of the one who dropped out of graduate school when iraq invaded kuwait and put her professional and personal life on hold to help prepare and implement plans for the reconstruction of her country. and that great personal cost help the government in the west bank and gaza accountable for its human rights abuses because he knew that he had not just the right, but the duty, to help build a palestine that adhered to universal human rights printable, but that was the kind of palestine he wanted to realize. and he had a duty and a role to play in doing that. i think that what josh's profile

revealed real wonderful he is the extent to which the sincere and deeply felt love of country is essential to the impact that these liberals have. this patriotism is what empowers them personally to demand changes from the government and it keeps them in the game, even as they are painted by their opponents as western stooges, and encouraged to enjoy a comfortable, quiet life and western exile. i think this is very important because there is one point on which i have to confess i disagree with joshua. he says that these individuals, and he just said in his introduction, are the analogues of like the less a. in some ways that may be true, but i think that in one important way, the situation in the middle east today is very, very different from the situation facing those liberal dissidents in eastern europe. the communist chains of eastern europe were extra early opposed. they were extern only sustained.

they didn't have any fundamental domestic legitimacy. and the arab regimes in the islamic republic of iran do have some degree of domestic legitimacy. is weak. is impaired, for all of the reasons laith kubba stated earlier. but they are still very potent forces in the middle east. and both regimes and the islamist opposition use those sentiments of nationalism and anti-colonialism backed into these democrats. so the fact that the liberals that josh is profiling are patriots who give evidence daily of their commitment to their country. it allows them to reclaim that nationalism for liberals, and for liberalism. in a way that is very important. so they are powerful not just because they are disseminating liberal ideas in the middle east, because they act as

living, breathing examples of the idea that liberalism and patriotism are mutually supportive. they are not mutually exclusive, but mutualism is not a western support for fundamentally compatible with arab identity and iranian identity. the second question i wanted to address is that question of whether and how the united states can't effectively assess this group of liberal activists, or whether as it is known in washington shorthand, american assistance effectively the kiss of death. so the question is, if the u.s. speaks up in support of support or provide him with material support, is this helping or hurting their cause? and i think here we really come to an important issue which was raised by the previous commentators, which is that liberals are always in every society a small, elite group that is in many ways isolated from the grassroots.

it was true in revolutionary america. it was true in an indictment or a. it was true in eastern europe before the fall of the berlin wall. you would not have said that he had a mass following. we didn't know that until we saw it in the streets. liberals are not usually that popular because liberalism is not fundamentally a populist ideology. so the idea that by providing moral or material support, the united states is marginalizing liberals is at this point in the middle east i think not that relevant an argument. it may be relevant for some individuals and the region. some that are trying to building up local party, a mass movement, different people are differently situated. and different societies are often differently situated with respect to the united states. in a fully autocratic regime that has adversarial relations with the u.s. government, the consequences of receiving u.s. support may be dire indeed your

it may be very easy for such a regime to tar a liberal activist with oppressive, being a foreign agent. but in a country where the government already received american support, u.s. assistant may not only be more tolerable, more acceptable, if my government is getting u.s. money why can't i get u.s. money is the argument that you here for examples from many egyptian activists. but getting u.s. support in those circumstances can actually provide a degree of protection to those activists. the key point here is that there is no single a priori answer to the question of whether american support helps or hurts. we can't assume that we know this answer a priori. and we certainly shouldn't make a patronizing decision to withhold our assistance out of concern that it might have a negative impact. what we have to do then is

listen. we have to listen to the activists themselves to what they are trying to do, and to what they think we can do to help. and we have to understand that even in a given country, there maybe a range of answers that we hear. and what that means in terms of u.s. policy is that we have to have a variety of mechanisms available by which to provide rhetorical support, diplomatic support, financial support that are relevant, different instruments to different actors. finally, i think it is important to underscore one of the points that josh makes in his introduction to the book, which is that these individuals that he profiles are important because they are carriers of ideas. and josh notes that in the middle east, for many years, violence or the threat of violence has been the main currency of governance. in this context, liberal ideas

are crucial. even if they don't in the short or medium term produced liberal governance. even if they don't produce popular participation or government accountability. a central idea in liberal thought is toleration. the idea that different individuals have different conceptions of the good life, and that we should tolerate one another effort to realize our individual conceptions of the good life are different visions. and in this context, an, supporting liberals in the middle east is not only about achieving democratic justice, but it is also about developing a political culture in which disagreements are dealt with through nonviolent mechanisms, in which the fundamentally liberal idea of toleration is embraced and practiced. and that i think is a point that josh makes very well in this book.

and one that i think should lead us all be on the debate about democracy promotion to remember the importance of supporting liberalism, wherever it appears. thank you. >> thank you, tamara. thanks or all three commentators were very stimulating presentations. before we opened things up to the audience, josh, do you have any comments you would like to make at this point? . .

influential than you could judge right now by taking a poll, but certainly a big problem for us is that aiding eastern european democrats was easy because they and all -- and most of their countrymen were very pro-american. they looked to america as to a beacon of hope. and the middle eastern democrats are often working in countries that are very angry at america. it creates a whole different picture. so i certainly agree with that. i do agree that peace and democracy are on the one hand mutually re-enforcing.

on the other hand they're both desirable and separatable and we should be pursuing both. and that success will either be beneficial to the pursuit of the other. i'm not so worried about the possibility that elections will bring bad results. they may sometimes, but also i think bad results are part of a learning process for citizenry. and the country that hasn't has the process of elections and it usually takes a number of free elections before voters get more sophisticated about how to use their vote. and finally, thank you for your categorization -- i hadn't thought of it but i'm going to borrow it now for the next time

i present the book. it's very useful. and i think you were saying -- but you didn't quite say it sort of between the lines that the two figures in the book who are immersed in politics may be more problematic figures and i think that's probably fair and it's probably always true of political figures. and that there are -- because if you go into politics you sort of immediately are going to necessarily dirty yourself a little bit. and it often will happen at some moments there are political figures who are come to the floor who are much more tarnished than these two men in my book, but who will play a

truly important role and so i think -- to revert to eastern europe, i think of emory in hungary in '56 or in czechoslovakia, '68 or gorbachev. you know, all ofãthem were genuine communists who had spent their whole lives in the communist party without people moment they became the embodiment of reform forces that were tremendously important and i think, you know, in politicians we may get that. i'm fervent]" opening that we may see some analog in iran in which some politician who's been all this time a dyed in the wool

theocracy will seize the moment to present himself as the embodiment of the popular unrest and play a very positive role. >> thank you, josh. you might have added yeltsin to that list, boris yeltsin to that list of russians. i was thinking the same thing. but i think there are also is a more general question ofúñ peop who become democrats after starting out as committed to some kind of totalitarian or authoritarian view. there's always a question that's happened with ex-communists as to questions about the authenticity of their conversion and so on. and when they become a strong

voice for democracy and so on their previous history always makes you wonder about them a little bit. in any case, let me now open the floor to discussions. i think i'll take two or three questions in a row. if i could ask you to state your name and affiliation and if you're wanting to direct the question to any particular member of the panel, you might indicate that as well. first we have a microphone. right here down front. >> i'm from the center of democracy. why i really enjoyed the discussion but i have to put a few points to josh and to the commentators, also.

reading from the gallup polls which really is an eye-opener for many of us who work for democracy in the muslim world and in the arab world in particular, we find there is an overwhelming support for democracy and an overwhelming support for islamic law or shari'a, whatever it is, what you spoke about were people who are liberators in a sense of mostly people who represent very minor voices in their societies doesn't mean as is said usually the liberators are the minorities. from our experience in establishing a network of democrats in the arab world, which brought laborers, islamists and secularists, nationalists all together in its unique, you know, network we found out all of them -- the defining, i think, prescription for all of them that they all believe in democracy. and we found that there is a

unity for democracy among all walks of life. i wish you had touched upon some of the islamists who believe in democracy and maybe that's in chapter 2. thank you. >> my question is for the author, what would be according to the ideal conditions for the democrats to be influential and not isolated as they are? >> we'll take one more. >> first, josh, congratulations on the book. i read it and i enjoyed reading it. my question is prompted by your reference toge÷ rosa parks and

something that tammy was saying about the different culture. the fact that in the middle east the democrats are more isolated because of nationalism and anticolonialism. in the u.s., the civil rights movementlkk of which rosa parkss a part was able to play upon the contradiction that it was wrote about in the american dilemma between the american creed and the american reality. what is it that arab liberals can appeal to in the middle east that might enable them to develop an effective strategy? that was the core of the civil rights strategy. is there any equivalent of that piece. if there isn't they'd be up against a very tough situation. there will be larger changes, the changes in communications technology and so forth. is it the issue of women?

might that play this kind of a role or something else? i think it's something we have to give a lot of thought to. >> you respond and we'll see if the other panelists want to respond as well. >> on the question of why i haven't included islamists in this book and whether i will in a sequel, i would be really happy to do a sequel entirely about islamist democrats if you will introduce me to them. [laughter] >> i do know that there are islamist whose proclaim their devotion to democracy. but i don't know of cases where it's crystal clear to me what they mean.

that is there's been a lot of writing about the egyptian brotherhood after the release of their so-called new initiative in 2004. i believe it was. that did speak about democracy and spoke about the rights of women and un-muslims, and there was, i think, even a moment where the muslim brotherhood supplanted its slogan, islam is the answer, with the answer freedom is the answer. such then they've gone back to islam is the answer. and we've seen in the effort last year of the egyptian muslim brothers of a platform or a statement of views which they circulated a draft which was

largely based on a iranian system which is a completely nondemocratic theocratic system. actually, the first time i recall way back hearing of leif cuba and he was putting out a newsletter that was seeking a kind of liberal islamism. and i was terribly interested in trying to understand what this was. and if i'd be happy to write a book of profiles of people like leif but i think his own take on the world is so distinct that if you say there are fewer secular liberals -- there are fewer secular liberals, there's even fewer leif cuba's, i'm afraid.

i mean, we have a situation where in most of the cases the islamists are not in power. and they're facing regimes that suppress them and they say we want democracy but that in itself doesn't convince me that they're democrats because it's very normal for people who are suppressed and out of power to say they want democracy. it would be more interesting to me if there were to emergency some real statements of philosophy in an islamist context that somehow emergency these two. i think it's not easy to emergency because if i

understand what islamism means, and i'm not at all sure i do, but it's hard for me to understand in an islamist context how nonbelievers and non-muslims have equal citizenship or how you can have a full democracy if certain things must come from scripture and are sort of closed topz% discourse. but i'm open to being -- to being educated by you and having my understanding broadened and deepened. as to the question about the ideal conditions for the development of democracy, i don't think there are ever ideal conditions and we better not wait for them. we better start where we are today. i mean, it's not up to us as leif pointed out and if there's

going to be democracy in the middle east, it will be brought by middle easterners but i think it's incumbent upon us to do everything we can to encourage and support them in whatever ways we can and that they want our support. the conditions are never ideal because if you don't have democracy, you don't have ideal conditions. i said the ideal condition was when we transformed japan. that is if -- which we defeated much more thoroughly and occupied much more thoroughly than we did iraq. if we are willing to take over a country, lock, stock, and barrel the way we did japan and every single bureaucrat in the country has an american military figure

behind them saying now do this and do that, well, that worked in japan. but maybe in what made those conditions ideal is that we dropped an atomic bomb on them first. i don't know -- so i don't think -- >> i think we should make it clear you're not advocating -- >> right. >> no, i'm advocating the opposite. literally, there are analysts who say one reason it worked so well in japan was that japan was completely prostrate at the time we took over. and so we could sort of mold it like clay and my point is exactly, you know, we better not look for the ideal conditions because they may not be conditions that we want to replicate. and lastly, it's a very interesting question you raise

about, you know, what is the sort of the intellectual ground that this -- that the fight for democracy can stand on and take root in as the american constitution was for the civil rights movement. but i don't know that we need the analog because we have many other countries in the world where we've seen struggles for human rights and democracy waged successfully that didn't have this same kind of symbol or this kind of thing to hold onto that the civil rights movement had in the u.s. constitution.

and rather, you know, appealing to the same thing that the people who wrote the u.s. constitution appealed to, which was not an existing document but was a sense of natural law that human beings want to be free. they want to live with dignity. they want to be governed only with their consent, and i think talking from a universal perspective, that's all we got. but that might be enough. >> any other comments? >> i think i'd like to comment on your question. the civil rights movement is a movement that happened in one country so it is possible within the context have a country to come up with a unifying concept. in the arab world there's 22 different countries and some are

56 different countries so it is impossible to come up with a generalized view, an ideology to present to combine people and have them rally around it. i think the opposition in the islam arab countries that you're talking about is defined by the power of the status quo. if the status quo is for a prowestern country, then the opposition is islamic. almost not liberal regardless of the claims of the few. it is strident and antidemocratic by definition because it adheres to the tenets of islam. on the other hand, opposition in a place like iran now, which is an islam and antiwestern country is a more liberal by definition. so we need to actually specify for each country and rally around the -- what we might call the democrats in that country

and to oppose the policies in that country that are antidemocratic. so, you know, it has to be specified and both countries specific and ideology specific. we cannot also separate the governance system from the political realities of the middle east. the middle east right now is defined by a huge conflict that is unresolved. so back to the point that was made by patriotism. if these people who are democrats are not perceived as patriotic and defending something of value and worthy of the support of their countries, then they will be discredited. i think that's what happened to the liberal democratic movement is they were perceived as prowestern, not genuine and not connected to their countries. so the need, having stated that has to be country-specific. the need is to combine people who are for reform as they are

for moderation on international policy issues. if such a thing is formed and it is per received to be patriotic then we will have something legitimate that people can support. i don't think it has happened so far. >> i think that's an important question and just when you raise the question, the first thing came to my mind, without thinking about it too much, i do believe where the region is heading. it's not conditions are not complex because countries are so bad not because of life is difficult but because of development, lack of dignity. there is no real social contract of any kind that will preserve the minimum and you can get away with it and be isolated from the rest of the world but because the world is one today, i do not

believe this can last long and i'm far more optimistic about the future. when i look at the past and i look to the future and i'm mother optimistic. >> one quick note on this. it seems to me the statistic that josh started out is one that provides us is bit of an answer. if you live anywhere else in the world, but in the middle east your chance in being a democratic country is 70%. there is a global norm that has emerged and especially with the overwhelmingly youthful population of the middle east. and the fact of globalization and the fact that these young people have access to information about what the rest of the world is like and how the rest of the world is governed and what opportunities young people have in india, brazil and all these other countries that

developmentally 30 years ago were on par with the countries there. but they know in the arab world they slipped farther and farther behind. so this desire to join the rest of the world and be part of this global trend, i think, is a very powerful tool. >> thank you. are there other questions or comments? there's one here and then one in the back. >> i'm from east africa. originally i'm from somalia. i just want to share with you, which has given me some glimpse of hope in the subregion we were talking about. one was the launch of the arab -- what do you call the office for -- center for the training of human rights in doha with the office of the head

commission for human rights. and the ceremony which i attended i found an activist and i hope -- i'm not saying -- the circle will feature activists from doha, from kuwait, from bahrain particularly and women again with their traditional attire and some of them coming and speaking outñk frequently because it's largely focus on government and they went to training. but highlighting, pointing, out the deficit we're talking about in their own countries and saying together within the same hole where the government represents looking at them -- i stuck out one person named hassan who was from doha. largely i could say not that

much educated or articulated in his views but he was saying real issues in his country where his government -- at one point they said he should be removed from the meeting because he was not invited but the u.n. said, no he should be there and he should do it. so i think -- so that opened myself into thinking that there's some possibilities of the civil society groups. now, they can be having a real impact in some context and there's real things which is called arab commission for human rights on a parallel in the american commission or the african commission whereby there will be enough people to come to sit together and where the state fails, maybe the discourse in going there to complain to that commission.

one setback which i really wanted activists to focus on the emergence of a group are the human rights council which i just passed in geneva with russia, china, cuba legitimate human rights when they come out from the middle east and they want to participate in their political view. there was some kind of lining up of 12 or 20 cubans and others and they were lining up and just praising each other saying oh, you have done a great job. you participated very well. yeah in the world view it become -- what do you call it an abrasive view. so there's some opportunities opening up. and i want to opine open the space for religious things. first of all, the problem there lies fundamentally we must be

come up and say -- what i'm saying in the vicinity of those regions to have the place in public discourse because i know what's happening in my country somalia even the current president who has the same ideology as to the ones who are fighting against the humans is saying he's less islamic. he bros -- introduces shari'a but it's not enough. and they are disgusted by this and thank you. >> in the back there. >> i'm from chad.

i'm from chad. chad is in central africa. and we know that the most part of the country in this area are an authoritarian region like the middle east country. i would like to know to what extent the lesson learned from middle east countries should be used in africa. and that is my question. >> i have two short questions. one you said one shouldn't be afraid of bad results. but how should the countries react that promote democracies when the elections don't go their way? like in that gaza or hamas or

now in iran, you know, you have good arguments against the iranian election but there's still a high possibility that the majority of iranians still voted for mahmoud ahmadinejad even though maybe not with his high margin. so how should the countries that promote democracy should react and i would like to know from mr. kubba what makes you so positive when it comes to the future of the middle east? >> i'm speaking on a purely personal capacity and just getting back palestinian university and my question come from that angle. the why did he go to israel? from the point of view of talking about all these things that we're talking about, look as a patriot as long as israel.

and they will disagreed myself and am i wrong and why did he go and did he actually help the cause of democracy in iraq by doing so? second question, you said that the results of elections teach the citizens that vote something. well, they also teach outsiders something. and i was thinking of the palestinian elections and the tradeoffs that was pointed out. we're having the medium run has the u.s. learned something from those elections? and would the u.s. done something different before and after? ..

>> the first thing is i hope you'll come away from this, and if not, i really urge you to buy and read the book, with the sense that democracy promotion is not about elections per se. but that these individuals are promoting a set of liberal principles that they are trying to disseminate within their societies, and they believe that if their societies embrace these principles, then elections will be meaningful exercises in democracy. a lot of these countries have elections today, but i don't think that we would call most of them democratic elections. but getting specifically to the hamas case, i think this points at the importance of the point which is that there is an integral link in certain parts of this region between conflict

resolution efforts and efforts at democracy promotion. and iraq is also relevant here and so is lebanon from which i just returned. in the case of gaza, we had an opportunity that we failed to pursue. which was an israeli willingness to withdraw and turn over this territory to the palestinians in a period which they were preparing for elections. all of this was known. if that withdrawal had gone through, had occurred through a process of negotiation and agreement between the parties, it would have furthered the process of conflict resolution, it would have created a situation in which the removal of occupation was seen as an outcome of negotiation. instead, since it occurred unilaterally it was interpreted as the removal of occupation being achieved through the defiance and resistance of hamas.

and in that context i don't think the outcome of that election should surprise anybody. also we failed during the period leading up to this election to effectively promote democratic ideas and practices within the palestinian authority. so that its governance was corrupt and arbitrary and coercive, and it went to elections with a very poor record in that regard. so i think he's correct when he points to looking at process of democrat promotion in tandem when you're dealing with situations like palestine or lebanon or iraq where you have ongoing conflict. >> thank you. >> i pretty much agree. i think -- and also with a very significant point that was made. a lot of what is happening here has something to do with the very concept of dignity, a much

discounted concept in figuring out the politics of the middle east. i do not, i think the very concept of opposition in each and every country defines itself whether it's islamic or whether it is leftist or whatever in terms of people who are defending their dignity more than they're defending their housing and the children and the education, etc., etc. it is, it is not possible to divorce, say, the speech of president obama that he made in cairo the other day from this, you know, deep understanding of what makes the people have a real sense of grievance not just against the united states or israel, but against their own governments because of their deprivation of this concept of dignity, and that's why he talked to the people. i do believe this sort of approach would have consequences and would have a basis for

support for the democrats in who are sitting there waiting to be, to be supported. on the issue of the palestinian elections and on the issue of hamas, etc., etc., i think i have said in my notes it is not possible to build democracy, foundation for democracy by forces who by definition are idealogically committed, religiously committed against the concept of including others as equals. this is, this is a problem that the iranian revolution has outlined very cleary with all the forces that joined khomeini in his attempt against the shah successfully. the first people he got rid of were the democrats. i think this is, again, illustrating what hamas has done in the west, in gaza, and i don't think anybody should be

surprised. if you have a serious interest in democracy, you need to depend on the democrats, empower them and force the space available to them by their own governments. this is where the united states has a role. this is where the united states is uniquely qualified to help with democracy, is to force its way through the many means available to it to make it possible for democrats to function in these countries. it's their obligation to come up with the defining ideologies that makes them look patriotic, not sellouts. >> thank you. >> i'll try to respond. i think directly to the question raised what makes me optimistic, well, it's not because i believe democracy will come to the region because people think it sounds nice, it looks nice or for other secondary reasons. i think the trajectory of where

the regimes in the region are heading are one of three. either stay still and pressure will build up, or partial reforms and partial reforms, i think, will reach a breakdown as we're seeing in iran. you allow partial reforms, you end up ultimately yielding to more reforms. or if governments insist on holding on power, and i think some of them will, it will reach a break point. it will be messy. so i think what's driving and what will bring democracy to the region, maybe in a painful way, the pressure, the trial and error, but ultimately there is no alternative. the pressures that are building up because of the economy, because of governments can no longer control what flows in and out of the country, because they have a young population demanding. those, the current systems just cannot cope with it.

the level of corruption that exists within them, their inability to deliver services, necessary services, and i think i do not know when countries like gulf countries can shield themselves from democracy. the emirates, maybe kuwait, they can't shield themselves. but i think others like egypt oral jeer yarks i don't think they can shield themselves for long. >> thank you. and now for the final word we'll turn to our author, josh muravchik. >> thank you, mark. >> push the button, josh. >> oh, thank you. there were four questions, and i have quick answers. to the gentleman from somalia about the u.n. human rights council, the u.n. human rights council was created because the u.n. commissioner of human rights was such a disaster, and the human rights council has proved to be even a bigger disaster, and i don't think there's any solution to that because the very principle of

the u.n. is that all member states are equal, those that defend human rights and those that violate human rights even in the most egregious ways. and the best that i can imagine to do would be, you know, there is this die after now, ephemeral thing. if it would grow stronger, the most useful thing it could do would be to create its own human rights council made up only of governments that are democratic and that could e eventually in effect supplant the human rights councils. one takes human rights seriously, and the other makes a mockery. to the gentleman in the back who asked what africa can learn from the middle east, i think it's the other way around. [laughter]

despite the poverty and the other development problems in africa and tribal divisions within countries, we have currently about half of the governments of africa or upwards of a half are elected governments. so, in fact, africa has made more progress toward democracy than the middle east even though the per capita income in the african countries is considerably lower than in the middle east countries. so it's more a question of what africa can teach to the middle east which is that you don't have to have achieved wealth and development to start developing democracy as well. or in tandem with developing economically. to the question about the how to respond to election results,

i've often heard in the arab world that the united states was hypocritical because we supported elections, and then hamas was elected, and we department continue to give aid to hamas. didn't continue to give aid to hamas. seems to me that's just an illogical argument. i think we can believe in elections for all people, all countries, but if they elect governments that are hostile to us, that are violent, that are bad actors, then we will respond to those governments accordingly including that we don't owe them our money. that's not something that they are inherently entitled to, and we'll give our money to those who conduct themselves in a way that we think is, is constructive. and finally, to the question about why did lucy go to israel, i detected in the way you posed the question both a kind of moral question and an analytical question. the moral question, i think, may was that you didn't think anyone

should go to ez reel as long as israel was doing things that were violating the rights of palestinians. but if you took that standard and applied it consistently, that would mean that no arab could travel anywhere within the middle east. if he shouldn't travel to a country where human rights were being violated. so i don't think the moral side of this question really holds up very well. but the more interesting is the, is the factual side, why did he go to israel? and he is very passionate about terrorism, for one thing, and he was even before he was himself the, and his family the victim of it. and he was invited to go to speak at a conference against terrorism in israel, and he, he

didn't, he agonized until the last moment about whether he would actually go. but his feeling was that the israelis are fighting terrorism, we're fighting terrorism, and i'm willing to join forces in that fight. when i interviewed him at length, i realized there was another thought which is certainly heretical, but it's a thought that he wants to carry a banner for, and that's what tamara has spoken a lot about in this session which is liberalism. he although he comes out of the baath party, so he comes out of a very ill liberal position, and he was very influenced in his thinking by living in a western, secular, democratic state.

and that is his image for what he want for his country -- wants for his country. and as far as he's concerned, at this point the only country in the region that approximates that is israel, and he hopes that iraq will be the next one. and he believes that there is a substantial portion of iraqis who also yearn for this, and he's going to hold a banner for it. >> well, thank you, josh. thanks to all the panelists, and thank you to our guests for coming. i think this has been a fascinating discussion. [applause] >> joshua muravchik is a fellow at johns hopkins university school of advanced international studies. for more information visit

sais-jhu.edu. >> today, join the conversation on race relations with juan williams, author of eyes on the prize and npr and fox news analyst. live today noon eastern on booktv's in depth on c-span2. >> this summer booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> hi, i'm nick yesless by, i'm the editor in chief of reason.tv and reason.com, the web supplement to reason magazine, the nation's only monthly magazine of free minds and free markets. we've been around since 1968, we're a small libertarian magazine that's interested in things like free minds and free markets, open borders, drug legalization, economic deregulation, basically letting it rip.

laissez-faire across the board. i read a lot. for this summer my favorite book so far which is hitting bookstores in august is peter bags' everybody is stupid except for me and other astute observations. peter is reason's official cartoonists, he does long form reported comic essays for about the past ten years, and everybody's stupid except for me has already gotten rave reviews from places like esquire. it's a great read. other books that i've read recently include everybody must get stoned, rock stars on drugs which i reviewed for the new york post. it's a list and compilation and snippets about rock stars and their mostly misadventures with drugs. it's a fascinating read. it's a sobering book as well as a hell of a lot of fun all at the same time. i also recently finished clinton

yellen's babylon's burning, from punk to grunge, a long history of popular music starting in the late '70s in england and the u.s. and how the punk movement slowly spread and eventually transformed itself into a commercial enterprise in grunge in the very late '80s and early '90s, a fascinating read. i also recently reviewed joe scarborough, the msnbc hose called the last best hope. i'm a big fan of his on tv. i was disappointed a bit in the book which seemed a little bit superficial particularly in its stated goal of trying to offer a true alternative to a kind of big government program that's coming out of washington from both republicans and democrats. there's a few other books that i have in my reading queue, two of which are about ayn rand who is generally thought of as a really

bad us writer, but she is finally getting a long look from a couple of serious scholars. one of these books are due out in october, one is called ayn rand and the world she made by ann si heller, a very sympathetic and social biography and the other one is by jennifer burns, and it's called goddess of the market. it's really fascinating to see rand finally getting a serious evaluation from american intellectuals. rand in the '50s i've always felt that she was much more like, she always saw herself as a apart from the mainstreams of american society, but she fits in very well with a pro-individual strain that you see from other writers such as j.d. sallennier or on the left a number of intellectuals such as paul goodman, growing up absurd, and people like the lonely

crowd, david riceman's book, or the man in the gray flannel suit. rand is, rand has been doing extremely well over the past couple of months partly because of things coming out of d.c., but she's a writer and a figure more importantly who we should all study with care if we want to have a road map to why people are feeling the way that they are right now. and then because it's summer and i'm going on vacation in august, i always try to take a couple of novels to read, and i go back almost every year to balzac, the great french novelist. tell the story of moving into an industrial revolution economy, the move from the farm to the city and all of the great possibilities that that holds open for self-transformation. big fan. and the baldac i'm looking at now is the black sheep. and then later partly because my older son, jack, who's a high

school student read this for his upcoming sophomore year in high school, ha jin's war trash which is told mr. the point of view of a chinese soldier during the korean war. it is a haunting, sobering tale which gives us an insight into china which is clearly one of the countries that will be defining our lifetime and probably centuries to come. so that's my summer read, and i hope to get it all done by the end of, you know, by labor day weekend. >> to see more summer reading lists and other program information, visit our web site at booktv.org. >> uncle sam wants you, world war i and the making of the

modern american citizen. christopher capozzola, who was james montgomery flag? >> the man behind probably one of the most important images in american politics, the uncle sam wants you poster. he was a graphic artist working in new york in the 1910s, and in that period after the war had started but before the u.s. was involved in the war, flag wanted america to be more involved, and he wanted to come up with the perfect image that would get americans into the military, and he's the one who gave us this image of uncle sam wants you, that finger pointing out at the viewer. >> was he under contract to paren that image? >> at that time he was working for a magazine which was a popular magazine of the day, and he was under a tight deadline to finish and, in fact, he didn't have a lot of ideas. and so as the story as we know it particularly from his memoirs that he got an idea of just sort of coming up with a picture of

himself working from, from the mirror, you know, looking into the mirror and sort of adding a few years to the image, putting on a funny hat and a suit, and that gave him the magazine cover. and it was a year or so later that the u.s. army picked up the image and made it into a recruiting poster. >> but at the time he created it, it was not a government effort to recruit soldiers. >> no. it ran under a headline called what are you doing for preparedness, preparedness meaning getting ready in case the u.s. was drawn into the european withdraw. >> so was there a national effort in 1916 to get into world war i? >> there was. some people actually wanted the u.s. to enter, especially people like theodore roosevelt, for example, who really felt that this was an international crisis and even a humanitarian crisis of civilization and that the u.s. had an obligation to be involved. others just wanted the u.s. to be more prepared, to have a larger army, to have more

capabilities in case the world events dragged america into war. and then there were those who felt that this was a european program, that the u.s. should stay away from. >> but not a centralized government effort. >> there was no -- no, there was not a centralized government effort and, in fact, woodrow wilson tried to avoid this as president because he worried that, you know, he would end up alien alienating voters on both sides of the fence. >> then how did the u.s. get into world war i? >> well, despite wilson's efforts to keep america out of war, he made a series of decisions that slowly backed us into war, particularly by giving slight performance to britain, by not trading with germany, and then as the germans launched a sort of desperate last-minute gambit to win the war knowing that they're going to drag the americans into it. the germans thought that the americans didn't have a big army, they didn't have a strong federal government, and they

would never get into the war in time to make a difference. and that's one place where they were wrong. >> but prior to wilson's decisions, what were the grassroots' separate efforts that got us into world war i? >> well, among the people who wanted the u.s. to be more prepared in this preparedness movement was a group of people, most of them republicans, many of them disciples of theodore roosevelt who set up sort of volunteer military training camps. a big one was in platts burg, new york, and it was called the platts burg movement. often the elite college students of the day would spend their summers training to be military officers, and many of them did become military officers. and, in fact, after the war the rotc as we know it today really traces its roots back to this movement. >> so was there a grassroots movement to get into the war? was it, was the war popular before the americans got into it? >> the war was popular with some people, but i think one of the things that most people forget

about world war i was that it was verity -- divisive. and a lot of that division and contest has kind of been forgotten in the years since then. >> where did your book, uncle sam wants you, come from? >> the book actually started from a puzzling group of people. so in a footnote of another book i found reference to what were called slacker raids. and slacker was the slang term in world war i for draft dodgers. and slacker raids were carried out by a group of volunteers, mostly middle-aged men over draft age, who would go around in cities and small towns and try to track down the draft dodgers in their communities. and i thought, well, this is just unusual. people volunteering to enforce the draft, tens, literally hundred -- perhaps 200,000 people were part of this group, the american protective league. so i started by researching them, and then it became a bigger story about america and its federal government and its

first big world war. >> well, what was the effect on the federal government of world war i? >> it was, it was enormously transformative, and i think that historians have not paid enough anticipation to that because a lot of -- attention to that because a lot of the organizations that got very large during the war got smaller after. so the army got much bigger and then contracted, our budget got much bigger and then contracted, but it never went back to the small size that it was before, and that's an important turning point. and then the mind sets of a federal presence in everyday life were there for generations to come. so when new crises came whether it was the great depression or world war ii, then the first world war was a previous image that other people looked at when they looked back at what should the federal government do. >> and what was that previous image? >> it was an image that was of tapping into voluntary associations, civil society of the turn of the century, this is a time when people are active in clubs and fraternal lodges and trying to use that solen tear

sensibility to mobilize the population, to mobilize the nation at a time when the state itself may not actually be that big. >> so is that why you include the puffagists in this book? >> i do. and i think the war is a crucial moment for women's organizations whether they were suffrage organizations or not. first of all, you know, trying to find a place for themselves at a time when men are, men's responsibilities are clearly stated. but women have to find their own place and, in fact, again, hundreds of thousands of them volunteer in various organizations on the home front, particularly in areas that were marked as women's spheres of activity, food, conservation, and things in the home. >> why is it that there was, i don't know if it was a rise in anarchy, but a rise in domestic terrorism and instances of anarchists during this period? >> well, there had been, there

had been violence particularly around questions of labor actually for quite a while before the war, but world war i marks this turning point. and for me it's captured in the word pro-german which is a word that appears almost everywhere in the press during the first world war. but it may not have anything to do with actual germans. pretty much any subversive activity or violence or strikes could be labeled as pro-german. so then a lot of the labor radicals who had been around throughout the period of industrialization found themselves really under the gun. >> the term pro-german, was it used against a lot of people, and was it an effective tool? >> it was used against, it was used against pretty much anyone who was challenging the status quo. it was used against striking workers, it was used against african-americans who started to migrate from the rural south to the north, and it was effective in marginalizing and silencing them. in some pretty remarkable ways. >> christopher capozzola, uncle

sam wants you: world war i and the making of the modern american citizen. >> thank you. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals over the next few months.