i would like to pose that question. .. maybe not forever but probably that long that the system of

taking a nobody and getting them a lot of money to the record and using a lot of money to market their record and turning them into the giant super star is still best served in the record industry with a traditional record label. so far all of the stuff i'm talking about, the cory smith of the world and people who've broken online, the radio and stuff, nobody has gone from nobody to a superstar purely using the internet yet. i fully expect something like that to happen over the next five to ten years. i think we will see a pure internet start during that time span. does that answer your question? >> [inaudible] si mccuish we need a microphone. sprick also carries an artist development dollars and where those come from. >> that is a tricky question. artist development -- when i feed with the definition of artist development is in the music industry i think of bands like u2, bruce springsteen, bob

marley, the famous classical rock acts. those guys didn't appear overnight. some entrepreneurs had what they called solid gold years and the sly and these guys and they waited patiently for them to develop over a period of three or four or five albums and most of those acts, some of them are probably the stars you love the most didn't break right out of the box perhaps likely be gaga. they broke over a period of time because you had visionary guys like herb alpert and gary moss or motown or chris blackwell from island records who have enough money from other sources and enough confidence and instinct to be able to wait for these artists to develop. so the criticism of labels right now is because they have so little money they can't afford to do any kind of artist development and to an extent that's true and that's one of their problems. they have a lot of trouble breaking new stars the artist development is kind of shifting

to more of a do-it-yourself thing. right now you have artists as i mentioned some examples but a lot of time the people to get discovered a become the next greatest stars have a lot of hits on their myspace pages, so you can sort of i know some people snickered like why are we looking for just some random gimmick musician who got hundreds of thousands of hits on their myspace page when we should be looking for the next bob dylan writing amazing songs in his bedroom and no one has ever heard of him? that's a bit of the price we are paying now. but nonetheless, i still feel that kind of artist development has become a do-it-yourself thing in a way. also the light industry is helping with that a little bit, too. yes, sir, over here. >> so it's pretty easy to understand how the jonas brothers and even early stage britney spears kind of artists would be able to generate revenue from their recordings, for the most part those recordings are funded at the early stage by parents who are

actually paying for their children. when you hit the age of 16 or 17 or 18 you've pretty much figured out how to download free songs and are probably doing it at that point which is the same time you're starting to listen to more indy contant so the money drops out right at that point. my question is whether that 16 year old and up audience, whether you see them getting to the point they are trained again and start to pay. [laughter] >> the answer is no. okay, next question -- no, but the answer is no. it's not just the 16, 17, 18-year-olds of today it is however many generations have passed since napster came along. the record industry complaints about this all the time. they say we used to train people that when a record would come out on a tuesday always on a tuesday that is when the new records come out, you guys will all go lineup at the tower records and would buy the stuff and that is how we were trained

to do it in the old days. makes sense, you know. but now nobody does that anymore. it just this new record came out, i will download it and over time they've done that. so, i would say the challenge to reach that audience, the 16-18 year old people who pretty much don't pay, i think that is a fair statement is other means. some of these other creative kind of means. the jonas brothers need -- okay, your city and jonas brothers made money because they were young girl begins. yes, but still there are tons of bands out there -- i could name a bunch, animal, collected, unfreeze mcgee, smart about leveraging popularity using free music online with something else that you're going to sell. if anything asks me what the future of music is, the future of the music business is the usually say is not something super interesting or sexy or high-tech like the free streaming servers, it is just a traditional thing. give away something for free,

create excitement, sell something to the person who's excited and that's kind of the lesson of the cory smith's of the world, too to read and i think that's possible -- there's a lot of different revenue streams out there, and just i actually think the generation of musicians, the ones whose fans are 16-18-year-olds, they've gotten used to the idea music is free. i think you ask them, the animal collective people for example, they're like this had indy and college students like now, they would say yeah, we give away our music for free. we pretty much think it's free. we don't tell a work record label that when we go on to work we sell money and we figure out ways we can make money off it. we own our own music so we don't have to give a sizable cut to the record labels so if we only sell 10,000 maybe that was more than a record label selling 500,000 in the old way. does that answer your question?

okay. let's go over on this side. yes, back there. i don't want to be geographically biased. [laughter] >> steve, first, thank you for coming and speaking. >> thank you. >> my question is regarding -- he said we haven't seen a superstar being born yet. outside of the label. so where would you classify the british leedy boyle or other stars who may have gotten their start from a tiny program that really spread like wildfire through the internet and became instant stores. secure referring to susan boyle, the second place finisher in britain's got talent. let me talk about this goes to the earlier question about artist development and use it where his artist development gone. it's interesting. as artist development and budgets and revenues and money have declined at the record labels the last ten years,

american idol has nicely filled the void and other shows like britain's's got talent. a lot of our biggest superstars right now, terry underwood, kelly clarkson, what's his name, daughtry, susan boyle -- a lot of them come because simon kabul is a talent scout from his negative attributes he knows talent so he has replaced these in a way you could argue he has replaced this flank of high paid a and our scout that record labels have traditionally for years and years. god knows how long that is going to last. to speak to the susan boyle examples specifically, susan cory boyle is a lady who does not look like a rock star or pop star in any way. i think that is probably diplomatic to say and it's probably accurate. and she sort of had these tunes on britain's got talent, has a

voice like an angel and was able to write before christmas become one of the biggest selling stars of the year last year and she saw something like 3 million records just in the last couple of months of last year. so, you know, i think that is -- i don't think that is an internet phenomenon purely. number one, it is a television phenomenon and number two, it is a phenomenon of, sorry, old people still buy records. i'm an old guy, too. i still buy compact disks and go to twist and shout and flip through and come up with a bag full of stuff and i think that she managed to be one of the biggest selling traditional artists of last year through doing that. so i actually think frankly she's an example of the old business and a way. yes, over here. >> my name is jennifer. i sort of flabbergasted that the didn't see this coming. it's one of those things i look

at the car industry as well. it's like we've got our essey you can put that next to your cd. [laughter] so i guess my question is how our -- and they are bleeding talent letting people go and it's a shrinking industry so how are the managing to cope with change. have they figured out how to deal with it or what is the prognosis as an industry on handling change? >> it depends on how you define day. the top people at the labels a lot of them are still the same people that were there ten years ago. doug morris, universal still runs interscope, edgar bronfman jr. who took over universal and left and started warner brothers, he's still there. all of these guys that made the napster decisions are still there it will probably go down with the ship assuming the whole ship goes down. universal will probably stick around.

these guys have $13 million a year ceo bonuses just like the car executives and the other people you mentioned. that's kind of the problem that i have with -- welcome everybody has a problem with gigantic ceo bonuses but one problematic of shoup which is certainly true in the record industry is it gives nobody who is in charge an incentive to innovate. if you have to $13 million a year salary largely based -- or more -- based on the old way of doing things, what possible incentives do you have to say hey, sean, be our new cfo or use bto or whatever, with possible incentive to you have to do that? you will just go down with the ship and when the ship sinks you will go okay, see you, i'm going to the cayman islands. so i think to an extent that is what is happening. as far as the other people, the rest of the talent flow were down in the record industry, you know, i don't have any sort of scientific analysis of that but i did a story a cure or two ago

called music business refugees for the rolling stones web site, and it basically talked about all of the people who had spent their careers in the record business, publicists, marketers, radio promotion people call all of the people had incredibly specialized skills for selling cds and promoting them that old way. one of them is opening a hotel in puerto rico, one of the ms studying to be a nurse, another one is in grad school to become a teacher. they are all -- it's kind of the reality of the economy. the record industry kind of went through it at first. yes. wheat for the microphone, please. >> thank you. since this is being taped for booknotes and you've got a book, i wonder if your publishing company has taken some of your own thoughts and your book is on things like nook and the new

technology that is coming out. and also, i would be interested in hearing what kind of suggestions to you have for a magazine industry like rolling stone. >> really good question and that's kind of a lot of the questions people use m i appearance is to nail me on. [laughter] because i did my book of the traditional way. i called up and -- and agent called me and i pitched ideas and he shopped it around the traditional publishers and free press which is a division of simon and schuster signed the book and gave me a deal, traditional deal with an advance and potentially recouping that whole thing. and so, you know, i don't think they are giving the book away. i don't think we're giving the book away and say steve, go on the road and try to sell yourself and make $4 million of these appearances, although, chris, that's not a bad idea. [laughter] so, anyway, basically i have to

sort of hedge your question and say to claim a phrase it is above my pay grade in that situation. but the other part of your question was what's going to happen to magazines and newspapers and stuff like that. you know, i don't know. i fear -- i am a free lancer who basically interviews people over the phone in my home office in my boxer shorts and i don't have any power in this industry at all. so what i fear is a lot of people in my industry and i mean the newspaper in addition to the magazine industry's are just going to make -- i see them making the same mistakes the record industry's did. you see them saying -- i think the problem, not so much a solution, but i think the problem, unlike for example, the music industry you can't in the newspaper industry and publishing industry you can't give away your main product for free and then sell something more expensive leader. there just isn't something that expensive to sell.

for a while when obama got elected newspapers started selling their keepsake front pages and they probably made a little bit of money. i read an article a couple of years ago that rolling stone turned its jonas brothers covered into a poster and sold it $10 a pop and this is nothing new, its traditional way magazines have always done things and they made some millions of dollars off of this because the jonas brothers were so hot. i would like to see more of that. what's that -- we will get to that. we might be starting to see that a little bit potentially with the iphone applications that hold -- maybe even the new ipad. i heard the iphone is trying to charge $2.99. and there's new things like a pay welford booze de.com, "the

new york times" is starting to charge for content. i personally don't think charging for the content again when people are starting to figure out how to get, when people used to get it for free i don't think it's the answer. the answer to your question is i don't know and i am worried but i think that these places will have to figure out a way to make money off of something else in addition to their content. it used to be advertising. that has gone away. maybe there will be a new phase in advertising. i don't know. >> thank you. >> we have time for one more question. >> as a superpower running his own business how is the technology changed the way you do your work how do you feel if you have responded to that? >> good question. it's interesting. i was looking at -- i am a self-employed free-lance writer and i ron basically a business of one, to actually because my wife is. as a free lancer and we incorporated our business largely to get better health insurance because we can do that here in colorado.

[laughter] it's all legal. it's all on the up and up. so in any case, for six years ago i would like to diversify currently i am on contract for rolling stones of that is my biggest client right now. but i like to be diversified as most self-employed people are. and i -- so i like to have a lot of outlets at the same time, for six years ago i was mostly writing for magazines and newspapers. i wrote for a lot of different newspapers and ibis just thinking i don't write for any new sleeper settlement occasionally if one comes to me i will write for one that newspapers have laid off their staff committee don't have freelance budgets, it's terrifying frankly. it's very worrisome in my field. but what i am doing is trying to diversify. i happen to write this book i think it a good time and unable to do some speaking engagements. i'm able to -- rolling stone is pretty committed to covering what is going on in the record

business. it is a timely subject right now so i am able to stick with that but i'm still trying to figure out the next thing. there's a lot of writers and my position looking at the internet and video blogs and stuff like that put the money is a lot like the record industry it's not totally there yet so i'm working on it. i'm trying to take my own advice but it is little tricky. thank you terrie autrey having me. [applause] >> steve knopper is contributing editor for rolling stone and author of four previous books including the complete idiot's guide to starting a band. to find out more, visit steveknopper.blogspot.com

in his book "the strong horse" lee smith, middle east correspondent for the weekly standard, argues that people in the middle east and to follow the strongest leader. the hudson institute in washington, d.c. posts this one hour and 40 minute event. >> good afternoon. welcome. i'm ted weinstein, ceo of hudson institute. i would like to welcome you and the book tv audience and the various other cameras here to the walter and its eastern conference center at the hudson institute for today's book form for the book by developing to

the to visiting fellow lee smith entitled "the strong horse" power, politics and the clash of fear of civilizations. the book has just been published by doubldday. i should say that "the strong horse" is an important new book and urge you to buy for those of you in the audience here it is available for purchase after the even for $20, for those of you in the tv audience is available online and in fine bookstores everywhere. now, lee, darfur autun to know over the years is a unique figure in washington. he brings a distinct perspective to the dialogue on middle east affairs independent of the inside the beltway discussions, prognostications and personality politics. lee as first and foremost a writer and thinker and his work as a distinctly literary touch. a real appreciation for the fundamental role of culture and history and politics and the deepest sense.

now, lee, born in san juan puerto rico and was back there just returned from his native puerto rico but grew up in brooklyn, if i guesses from the irish side from his father's side graduated with degrees in english and latin from george washington university before going off to do graduate work in classics at cornell university. his writing has appeared in such publications as grant street and the echo press and he was editor-in-chief of the village voice is voice literary supplement as well. he has since gone on too. the leading publications and the policy world including he is a frequent contributor to the weekly standard on the middle east affairs and he writes also for numerous other publications and is written for "the washington post," "new york times," sleet and just about every major publication online and in hard copy that you can think of. now as a native new yorker i guess as reporter freakin' new yorker i should say to correct myself, he decided after 9/11 to

try to figure out why 9/11 occurred. and rather than doing what most of us here in washington do, lee decided to approve and move to the middle east where he spent time among other places in cairo, damascus, dave brooch, tel aviv, the gulf, and his book offers an absolutely fascinating account of the people that he came to know intimately. their differing views of the arab world, of bin laden, hezbollah, hamas, whose aim, where the liberals and of the u.s.. in the character's departure to come across in the book are fascinating. the professor of the american university in cairo one of the more enlightened universities in the arab world, that the egyptian freethinker in a religious skeptic fascinated by will tear, the doctor whose feminist aspirations are crushed by the radical islam all around her, the christian whose role model was ratan at the call for

democracy in the middle east. now the portraits that lee paints and they are quite severe are set against the backdrop of the day including the july, 2006 hezbollah war. now, lee draws on his knowledge be called muslim prehistory setting the koran and its pu aenma the case at and by policy ms in bblican adminisns with israel, the u.s. or the west in general. instead he argues the problem as he sees it within the politics of their world is the notion and legitimacy that forces given within the politics. and lee will do a better job of presenting his own argument in a minute. and after lee speaks we have the real honor of ury from three distinguished commentator is men who know washington policy world and the world of arab politics very well we will first hear from elliott abrams who served

as senior director for democracy and human rights senior director for the near east and deputy national security adviser sandlin middle east affairs and the george w. bush administration. he also served in the ronald reagan administration as assistant secretary of state for international organizations assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian organizations where i actually interned for him my first real loss in washington in the summer of 1984. and latin american affairs as well. and he has served i'm proud to say he is an alumni of numerous organizations and within our own, he was a senior fellow with hudson institute in the 1990's before going on to become president of the ethics and public policy organization. elliott is currently senior fellow for middle east studies of the council on foreign relations here in washington. our other distinguished speaker and commentator is ambassador jeffrey feltman, assistant secretary of state for the bureau of near eastern affairs. a career diplomat, ambassador feltman served as u.s.

ambassador to the republic of lebanon from july, to as of four to january, 2008, which is a particular interest given the focus in this book prior to his assignment in lebanon he headed the coalition authorities office in iraq serving simultaneously as deputy regional coordinator for the cpa northern area. from 2001 until 2003, ambassador feltman served as u.s. consul general in jerusalem, first to the principal's office or the acting principal officer. and during his long and as i mentioned distinguished career in the foreign service which began in '86, he also served in tel aviv and he studied arabic of the endeavor city jordan and after joining the bureau of the near eastern affairs in 1993. i want to thank the distinguished commentators for being willing to share their insights and also for being willing to take questions from the audience. without further ado, but the past four to lee smith -- let me pass the floor to lee smith.

>> thank you to my friends who i see in the audience, some of whom i thanked and the book but will thank you again. to some of my american friends like andrew, mad and samantha ravitch. i also want to thank my colleagues at hudson, the board scholars and staff and especially today's moderator, hudson ceo kenneth weinstein. thanks for your support and advice, thanks for your loyalty and friendship and especially great and good humor. i'm also greatly indebted to my two fellow panelists this afternoon and not just for agreeing to participate to make this an interesting event but has a slightly honor and privilege to share with assistant secretary feltman and abrams not just because their efforts in the middle east have played such a single rule of american policy over the last nine years and also in my thinking about the region.

it was a -- as i read in the book it was a great time to be an american in the region. it was a privilege to be represented by u.s. government that had taken the side of freedom. i lived in beirut during the day of what we have come to called the seizure revolution where many lebanese were guarded -- regarding mr. abrams as the deputy national security adviser for the global democracy strategy and assistant secretary feltman when he was u.s. ambassador to lebanon as a hero of the sword and many of them still do, as to why. thus they are among the books spirits a dissipation from which they may and do course wish to distance themselves but there you have it. i want to be very brief, not just because i prefer to have you read the book than to hear me talk about it, but largely because i am as eager as you are likely to listen to mr. feltman and mr. abrams described the current career of u.s. policy and perhaps be made over it. after all, the labor and the field while i have merely observed what played out on the

ground. yet it was while watching the u.s. strategy in the middle east unfold that provided much of the impetus for this book. so "the strong horse" is about regional transformation as well as a transformation in my own thinking about a region. in particular, why did these good policies not succeed as intended or why has democracy not caught on in the middle east today? a convenient explanation is that these policies were indeed the right ones, that is support the democratic aspirations of arabs and standing against both islamist militants in the regions repressive regimes was correct. the problem rather was the bush administration failed and implementing them. no doubt the previous white house made many errors some of them deadly to americans as well as arabs. one specific piece of criticism is that the americans should have provided more security and earlier on the and the date. my more general criticism is this, however, which have taken

the arabs feared more seriously. we americans believed we were bringing democracy to the region will discounting as a far-fetched conspiracy theory the long-held conviction of many arabs that someday the americans would come to play divide and conquer that someday the arabs would set each other's throats. as it turned out into many places across the region that is exactly what happened. of course it wasn't america's hand that blew up mosques in iraq. zarqawi wasn't on washington's payroll when he slaughtered shia were acting on behalf of centcom when hezbollah killed sunnis in western beirut and in the mountains. it wasn't the bush administration that conducted a campaign of terror in beirut assassinated lebanese politicians, journalists and civil society activists in the u.s. department of state sentenced no opposition figures intellectuals, journalists or bloggers to prisons and syria, egypt, saudi arabia and

elsewhere around the middle east when they were subject to torture, rape and murder. it was the arabs who did this to other arabs. it was precisely this vicious political culture, the americans believed, that nurtured the hothouse flower like osama bin laden. the regime's were so relentlessly cruel to their own people that the only option the arab masses have for political expression was a version of islam as bloody minded as the regime themselves. and so the americans would give the arabs and other trees, democracy, freedom, by speaking over the heads of arab leaders and targeting the worst regimes starting with saddam hussein. ..

within families and even inside the arab individual. perhaps most importantly there is the clash between worldviews. where on one hand there is the democratic and progressive trend embodied in the venerable and extant tradition of liberalism and on the other the bloody and violent-- violent current represented by far too many of the seminal figures from saddam and bin laden, zarqawi, among

others. however, what i do believe there is a real clash between the worldviews, arab worldviews for the future and destiny of the region. unlike many i do not believe there is anything like a civil war in the arabic-speaking middle east. where the forces of liberalism pitted against the army resistance. wars are waged between men with guns and their outcome depends on how many, which way and at home those guns are pointed. hear the liberals, the moderates as a minority of unarmed profits are at a distinct disadvantage. i hardly mean to downplay the role of ideas but a significance of the men and women who advocate those ideas. for the protagonist of my book, my heroes are all men and women who have taken courageous dance. decisions that would seem unimaginably reckless to most of us against the region's political and cultural mainstream. young egyptian intellectual that

can refer to this fundamentalism is german idealism and his life ambition is to translate all of into arabic. a cairo dr. who wants all the freedoms america has to offer that as she says in her country or city and her language. the syrian father of three who while watching president bush's second and not earl thanked god for the leader of the free world he was in his words the only man who cared about the arabs. and then there is my friend. of former lebanese basketball star who went talking about hasan explained he mocks those who love life but the party of life will fight to keep it. and they will fight for it but they won't win, not right now anyway for at the moment at least the region is in the hands of those with guns, those who prize death. that said i should say something about the title. the phrases you will recall is osama bin laden, when people see a strong horse and a wee course by nature they will like the

strong horse. anticipate this will be confused with the notion that arabs understand only force and idea unfortunately incorrectly attributed to the bush administration. the fact is throughout history most of mankind has understood force. those lucky few who are fortunate enough to be able to live their political lives free of the fear of violence are largely concentrated on the capitals of contemporary western europe and along the east and west coast of the united states. the inhabitants of the arabic-speaking if they are not so fortunate. to say lebanon is held at gunpoint or syrian intellectuals have typically thrown in prison and tortured, the regional minorities like the shia, druze, alawite, christians kurds in jewish have often been the target of purges and political violence in the name of arab nationalism. the corporatist ideology that seeks to raise communal as well as individual difference is not to say that arabs only understand force but that

violence is a central factor in arab political life and it is impossible to understand the region without taking this into account. one more thing about the book's title. the strong horse not only punishes his enemies, he also rewards and protect his friends. sometimes by punishing their enemies. this seems to me and entirely objectionable notion for as the precepts derived from the most basic principle of human relations, to protect those whom you love from harm and to be prepared to do harm to those who will enter them. these principles are too often neglected by her policy establishment across the political spectrum. a culture that has-- for those who have made enmity towards us and their friends and allies clear. prospective relationships that would unbearably come at the expense of our friends and perhaps potential friends like many of the men and women today venturing and physical safety,

their lives on the streets of tehran. policies that go against the natural course of affairs, warming to enemies and freezing out allies are destined to fail. socrates reminds us that a dog knows well enough to distinguish friends from enemies. so should our policy establishment including not only policymakers but analysts, researchers and journalists. moreover such notions go against the american brain. the u.s. is a strong horse, in fact it is the strong horse not merely on account of our military might or even our technological prowess or the productiveness of our economy. indeed it is one of the great misconceptions help not only in the region but by many here in the u.s. that it is possible to distinguish between the values of culture holds dear and the goods such a society produces. so there are those who believe technology will help the arabs catch up to modernity the notion that the internet satellite tv and bluetooth make the modern world so attractive that young

arabs will do anything for a ticket in the globalization sweepstakes. all this is to mistake the glossy surface of our society for the thing itself, the ideas and values that give rise to our technological ingenuity, academic dominant some in the goods we toss off whether it is information technology military hardware or pop-culture. this we sell short not only arabs for failing to catch up but also ourselves. we sell short our core ideas and values, reason and empiricism the belief in inherent dignity of the human individual can forget the amount of bloodshed over centuries on behalf of these ideas but have allowed us to live our political lives by which i mean man at his most fully human living among other men, free of violence. our strength and have no other source than these ideas, these values. now i will turn the floor over to my co-panelist, two men due to my mind represent these values, american values and our

foreign policy as well as anyone. [applause] >> first, i want to echo what ken weinstein said. i've recently finished reading this book and it is a really interesting book, and i want to urge you to buy it. this is the important thing, can't did not say read it, he said by it. whether you read it is up to you, but i. [laughter] by many. it is a pleasure to be here with ken and lee and jeff feltman who i think i came to know mostly as an ambassador in lebanon where he think he provided a model of what good an and american ambassador can do if he understands how to use the resources and reputation of the united states in the department

of state fully. that isn't the last thing i am going to say. [laughter] but,-- i do want to divide my remarks which will be brief, into four categories and it won't cover the whole spectrum, but human rights, iran, syria and lebanon and israel and palestine. and talk about this past year. i was going to say, and leave it at that, that i think the u.s. record in the last year, the obama administration record has been disappointing on human rights. there hasn't been enough said about human rights and what has been said has not been said with enough though. we talked to egyptian democracy

activists and they have the sense that the american administration is not doing much for them and if one looks at things like the budget for the promotion of human rights and democracy. in egypt, it has in some ways important ways of being cut in the last year. i am not aware, although being on the outside they shouldn't necessarily be aware yet, of what the administration is planning for the next egyptian elections, which given that we are at or near the end of the barack. it will be an important election and what we will do to try to make them as free as possible is quite important. but i should add here, i throw this back to lee and i hope that

we get a chance to talk about it a little bit because he said in the book, and you said just now, this was a great period to be in the middle east. this is a great moment to be in the middle east, when the american government would seem to be promoting freedom and democracy. later in the book you seem to be saying this is a mistake. that the problem was mis- analyzed in washington, that the problem was quite deep in arab society. you said just now the vicious political culture, and the problem is arab society itself. i want to ask you to combine all of that or go if the policy was wrong, then why is it so great to be there when the policy is being promoted? on iran, obviously i am going to have trouble covering this subject in two minutes but i would say i think the administration had the iran

policy coming in and out iran policy would probably have been carried out have the election gone differently in june. but, for complicated reasons of its own, the regime in iran stole the election, and gave rise to a potent opposition movement, whose activities impressed us really every week now as we watch them and as we watch the risks they take. my criticism would be, and i'm not really sure quite what american policy is now, the policy seems to be okay, we won't engage. engagement has been put aside due to the events of june and since. but there is no new policy that has really been elaborated. trying to get sanctions in the security council is a tool, a

very important tool, but it isn't a policy and it also doesn't look as if it is going to work because of the chinese. so, what is the policy? here i would go back to lee's concept of the strong horse and i would just make one criticism. i have been very unhappy that the comments by the american villa terry leaders, secretary gates and admiral mullen and by the way this is not a criticism of the obama administration. this happened in 2008 as well. i have been very critical of their saying what a catastrophe would be if military force were used against iran. i don't understand that as a negotiating tactic. even if they believe that i don't understand why they would say it, and thereby reduce the pressure for negotiated settlement that the people running iran would logically

feel. now, more recently general petraeus, most recently general petraeus made a kind of countervailing statement in which he said you know we have plans for everything and we can carry out those plans when it comes to iran. that is a much more sensible message to be sending publicly to the ayatollahs. third, syria and lebanon, a subject very close to just's hard as it is to lee's and mine. the policy is not 100% clear to me again sitting on the outside or go there is i think a great deal of continuity here. it isn't necessarily, that is not meant to be a heart warming remark because i think the bush administration policy became too soft or was too soft on syria,

and i think obama administration policy is as well. to put it a different way, the syrians have been pursuing for years now that but the policy of repression, vicious repression at home, interfering in iraq, and we have the last six months general or tierno reminding us that if this continues, the alliance with iran and the arming of hezbollah, the keeping of the palestinian terrorist headquarters in damascus. after the killing of hariri, the united states imposed certain additional sanctions on syria and we removed our ambassador. but since then there has really been just about no price that syria has paid for continuing these policies. the israeli government is to blame for this in part because it was the negotiation commenced

by prime minister olmert that really opened the door for syria, which had been quite isolated, isolated from not only the united states united states but western europe. that the israelis opened that door. i think mistakenly. in the last year, not only have the syrians not paid a price for their conduct, but we have begun a kind of policy of engagement. we have had four or five or six high-level visits, including senator mitchell, more than once. engagement is neither good nor bad. it depends on what it pursues his. in the case of syria i believe it has produced nearly nothing, nothing positive anyway. the negative is not seen only in syria but of course in lebanon where the march 14 group won the election, but could not put a government together for something like six months, and

now has a government but isn't able to govern the country because of the power of the march 8 forces relying on syria and iran. this is obviously a tragic thing for lebanon, the reassertion of syrian power. here is another case where i think the united states has not, under two presidents, has not been forceful enough in dealing with the syrians. if you go back a few years, when the united united states was sug significant casualties in iraq, just about all those to hotties were going from damascus to the international airport so again this is not a criticism of current policy. it is a criticism of u.s. policy for the last few years and up to the present. finally on the israeli-palestinian question.

i have written a lot about this and i shouldn't go on at much length. i think the fundamental error being made today is the same error that was made toward the end of the bush administration, which is, the focus one might even say, the sole focus of u.s. policy as negotiations, getting a negotiation going but the aftermath of annapolis i think demonstrated that if the conditions aren't right of those negotiations won't succeed. the administration is devoting itself back to getting the palestinian and israelis to the table. it may get them to the table. the united states has a great deal of clout, but then what? i think it almost inconceivable that they will actually under current conditions reach an agreement, signed an agreement for reasons we can get into, but i think they are pretty far apart.

i do not buy the motion that they are inches apart and i don't see the ability to compromise the differences right now. i think there should have been, over the last 10 or 15 years, but let's go just back to the death of arafat. i think there should have been for the last five years anyway, much more concentration on building the institutions or the sinews of the palestinian state in the west bank, since the takeover of gaza by hamas. you would have to say just in the west bank. but i think there is progress. there could i think be a great deal more progress and even leadership on both sides. i don't think the reliance in american diplomacy on

negotiations-- let me rephrase that. it is sometimes said we need to get them to the negotiating table and if you just rely on billing palestinian institutions -- mike institutions. i would argue that repeated efforts of negotiations that fail actually will take a lot longer than steady progress on the ground. with that, i guess i turn it back to canon. >> i am sure ambassador feltman is grateful because he gets to keep his job so we will return to ambassador feltman. >> tank you to the hudson institute and inviting me to participate. it is intimidating for me to be sitting between two great minds like this and to very prolific commentators. and i will return the compliment because certainly when i was an ambassador in lebanon, it was

extremely important to know that we had the support of the white house in what we were trying to do when working with the lebanese and major that was always the case. it was always extremely to know the message that was getting out accurately, which lee smith always did so i very much appreciate being included here today even if i find it somewhat intimidating the train these two gentlemen. let me mention sort of u.s. priorities in the region under the current administration and on some of the individual issues. yes, we are trying to pursue a comprehensive peace in the middle east. we are supporting a secure and sovereign iraq. we are trying to secure a resolution to all of our differences with iran. its nuclear ambitions as well as a destabilizing role in the region, lebanon and iraq with the palestinians etc.. we are trying to countervail extremism and development

dimensions. we are manifesting president obama's commitment to building partnership with the citizens on behalf of more prospects participatory implore a slick site tidies and what this means is he is working on democracy human rights and economic development. finally, dressing the security and development challenges in yemen and this is not going to happen after december 25. do something that fairly early on we were asked to start doing policy reviews on him and so i would list those are not the only things we are working on but i would list those as priorities in the region and of course the approach to trying to achieve these priorities is i would say is partnership. it is working with allies, it is building new allies, trying to reach out. of course we have talked a lot about president obama speech in old, cairo. president obama has been willing

to change the tone of the u.s. relationship with muslims around the world and particularly in the middle east. the issues that we are all talking about up here are difficult ones and they are not going to be changed overnight. with a few, they are not going to be changed by a speech, by a few meetings or a few months time. but, we have opened up new potential for cooperation that did not exist before. let me talk about some of the individual issues that lee and elliott have mentioned. middle east peace. i said her goal was to achieve a comprehensive peace in the middle east. that means peace agreements, between israel and the palestinians, between israel and syria and israel and lebanon, but the two-state solution to the israelis and palestinians we believe is key. and we are working on this in

three different areas right now. one is the negotiating track. elliott has mentioned why he questioned whether there should be our priority right now. it is one of our priorities. it has not been easy, in part we did not really have a full year. netanyahu government was not prepared to start talking to us. there have been elections in israel. netanyahu government needed to come together so it was in may when the netanyahu government was ready to start talking to us about this and the palestinians waited until after august, when after the five top party congress in bethlehem so it has not been a full year we have been able to engage in both parties but do remember a year ago the israelis and palestinians were just coming out of a war. now, both sides have reaffirmed their commitment to a two-state solution and let's hope we can move ahead to the negotiating track but it is only one of

three that we are looking at as airlink, and mutually reinforcing. the second area is security. palestinians need security, the israelis need security, but the palestinian security performance , should i say good policy performance is absolutely essential to being able to move ahead on the negotiating track toward a peace track and the palestinians need to feel secure as well so i would put security as a second track. there has been frankly quite a bit of success on this track when you talk about security in the west bank. the third track is exactly what elliott was talking about which is the institutional development supporting prime minister salaam fayyad's plan to build institutions that are worthy of their name, that can mean that the palestinian state when it comes into being is a functioning accountable state in

which the citizens feel their needs are being met and they are being participated. these things we believe have to go together. if you neglect the security track it is obvious why it doesn't work. if you neglect the institutional track it means that you are creating conditions for what could very well be a failed state even if you succeed in negotiations, but if you leave the negotiations out, if you don't have a process, then there is very little incentive or interest for the palestinians to be working on those other two tracks, the ground up approach, so we see these three working together. and, waiting to try to get back into negotiations we don't think serves anyone except the extremists. on iraq, our strategic goal is in-- and iraq bit is sovereign,

stable and self-reliant. you have read a lot about the transition. the transition from a military led focus to a civilian led focus and believe me those of us in the state department know how closely this transition is going to be watched and how important responsibilities are on our shoulders of getting this transition right. there has been a lot of blood and treasure this country has committed to iraq over the years and we in the state department and the civilian agencies must be up to the challenge of managing that transition for a civilian led relationship. there is a lot of debate in the papers now about the upcoming iraq elections on march 7. i would say what this debate shows, are the sunnis disqualified, was that commission-- did david have legitimacy to disqualify the

sunni candidates? all of this debate shows that elections matter in iran. i believe it is basically a positive sign of how important the democratic process has been an iraq that you see a debate that is this strong in iraq today. on iran, you know, this is i think we would probably all agree probably the biggest challenge that we face in the region. the question is how does the international community work together to show that if a country openly defies its international obligations, refuses to play by the rules, how do you show that country that there are consequences for its behavior? now the united states in fact has looked at engagement as one way to address the diplomatic

challenge that iran poses to us and let me say to engage does not mean to embrace. to engage means using a different tool in your diplomatic toolbox along with the others that you may be doing to try to fix the problem. but i would argue that there has been a benefit of the president's commitment to engage, the president demonstrated, or the evidence the president has used in trying to reach out to the iranians, which is that we are not seen as blocking a diplomatic resolution to the problems of iran. the focus is much more internationally on iran and iran's behavior now and much less on, was there a chance for a peaceful resolution and the united states somehow just didn't open that door, didn't even knock on thatoo