morning partly by having a look at revolutions in general and what they might tell us about the process that we're witnessing right now. i think really that nostrodamas himself could not have told about the change in the arab world all sparked by the single tunisian sidewalk vender who could not find any other way to express his indignation in a corrupt system. revolutions are dangerous creatures that can unleash all kinds of social forces that can take a revolution a long way from where it started. the french revolution of 1789 that boast inspired and terrified europe began with days of mass action, much like the days of anger that we've been

seeing today in the arab world. though the king and king were led to their death, it was not long before leading revolutionaries like pierre had their own meetings. liberty, fraternity, and equality were mere slogans as bonoparte led france in pursuit of imperial conquest. now, one of the areas of revolution i think that really had many parallels with what's going on today is the european revolution of 1848. in its size, development, and transnational character, the arab revolution most closely resembles the the revolutions that shook the continent at that time. there's many similarities

including a rapid spread from country to country despite each country's revolution having different character and circumstances. the revolts crossed social boundaries and attracting the middle class. governments appeared to cave in at first. too many university graduates were pursuing too few jobs, a condition we have in north africa right now. many of these folks making up the revolution forces both in 1848 and in today's north africa, and most importantly, no charismatic leader emerges along the line of castro or even a george washington. so bearing this in mind, what was the result of this kind of revolution? well, we can see at that time small concessions from the government led to a dwindling

interest in the revolution. when the casual revolutionaries gave up, the revolution was doomed. the revolutions of 1848 were dominated by a single political perspective, in this case, the west. by the summer of 1848, the forces of counterrevolution had time to reorganize and began clearing the barricades with the loss of thousands of lives. now, in two places, the revolts became larger wars of national liberation, hungary and italy, but in one year, they were both solidly defeated. in the end, all the national revolts failed, but they laid the foundation providing the inspiration for later revolts such as the paris revolt of 1871 and the russian revolution of 1917. most importantly, they signaled that the end of absolute monarchies were in sight. in this sense, failed

revolutions have an enormous impact decades later. now, it's been suggested in some quarters that the military weakness of libya's rebels can be overcome by modern weapons. it must be noted that every influx of arms into the region over the last searching ri was followed by years of violence. for example, it was an influx of arms that contributed to the breakdown of roar in darfur that resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people. now, darfur used to use a century's-old tribal system involving compensation in cash or animals to deal with incidents of violence such as murder, but this broke down when automatic weapons allowed the slaughter of people at the same time. they were overwhelmed by the

advances in killing technology. now, arms may be the solution to gadhafi, but they will not bring stability to north africa. those advocating the shipment of modern amples to libya's rebels ends up talking about whose hands they end up in. once arms a sold, abandoned, lost, stolen, or even given away, reports from the missiles already found their ways into al-qaeda and this should give pause to those backing the supply of arms to the libyan insurrection. the half-hearted endorsement of a no-fly zone by the arab league was taken by nato as a green light as a tax on gadhafi's forces. in reality, most of the arab league has kept a committed

distance from the conflict. egypt with its own internal crisis that has largely disappeared from the news lately appears unable or unwilling to exert influence over the efforts in libya. to the west, there's unverified rumors the regime is providing arms and aid to gadhafi. algeria does not want to see this wash up on the shores of tripoli, and this goes a long way to give dissent to like mindedness in algeria. they will not be haste why accounting out gadhafi. both nations have deep ties with libya which has flux united between their internal affairs. in the meantime, both are keeping their distance, but if gadhafi falls, it is likely that

both will attempt to exert their own influence on the formation of a new regime. now, the fall of tripoli would not necessarily mean the end of gadhafi or his regime. the libyan leader has the option of retiring on military basis in the desert where he enjoys solid support with access to fighters from neighboring countries, he or his successors could continue low scale attacks on libya's oil infrastructure that would effectively prevent any new libyan government from getting off the ground without substantial foreign aid. it would not be difficult to raise a tribal force opposed to what many libyans see as a benghazi-based government intent on depriving the western and southern tribes of power, influence, and funds. such a conflict could go on for years with predictable effects on oil prices in the global

economy. the rebels do not have the means and pobly not even the inclination to distribute oil revenues throughout the larger libyan society. should gadhafi feel he's losing his grip on libya, it's possible he could turn to asmet try call war fair especially with terrorism and leading the attack on his regime. we have no reason to suppose a rough government in benghazi is a force for restoring security in the region. a security force of any kind as well as the common goal of the removal of gadhafi. now, the question here is not whether al-qaeda will take advantage of instability in north africa, but whether it can operate there in any meaningful way. egypt is the historical cross roads of the world, and as such,

it's an appealing theater of operations for al-qaeda with ideological roots through there the works. al-qaeda could attempt to penetrate egypt and resume operations there, and it would appeal to some and the other egyptians in exile that formed much of al-qaeda. however, they don't appear to have any active cells in egypt. there's little appetite for a return in e just a minute to the dire -- egypt to the dirty back road war and the regime that dominated the 1990s. more importantly, the egyptians realize instability equals poverty and are deprived from important sources of foreign currency. al-qaeda still does not present a political alternative felt

beyond slogans. with insufficient agriculture production as well as threats -- sorry, with insufficient agriculture production, increasing rapidly population, threats to the water supply that pose dangerous, cultivation and power supplies, egypt is in need of a more thoughtful strategy than that applied by the extremists. there's many who desire shiria, but they question the band of traffickers that make up al-qaeda and north africa. opportunities will nevertheless be presented by al-qaeda through the conflicts that inevitably follow revolution.

foreign attention and resources will be diverted from their activities while arms and alliances will become available to strengthen their position. let me just turn to sudan for a moment. kabul together from scores of tribal groups speaking hundreds of languages, sudan is a center of the dissent, rebellion, and outright civil war since the first day of independence. while popular revolts are new on the mediterranean coast, sudan's people already overthrown two dictators, and with the conflict in darfur continuing despite a ce cline in media interests and a number of unresolved issues threatening the peaceful separation from the south and the north, sudan is now faced with the possibility of further disruptions to security arriving from its northern neighbors of egypt and libya. gadhafi's libya has played a

vital role in negotiating a peace settlement in darfur, and it is uncertain who would step up to fill this void. a small protest movement has been repressed so far, but there is enormous dissatisfaction who failed to keep the country together and lost most oil revenues to the new southern state. in the current situation, there's the possibility of both north and south sudan tunning into -- turning into failed states with enormous consequences for the large part of africa. the collapse of the gadhafi regime would have enormous impact in the states of the sahara including chad, maui, and niger. they are integral parts of the economy and employee hundreds of

thousands of migrant workers. they regard the region as the libyan hinterland and played an important and destabilizing role in the area particularly through his recruitment and sponsorship of the peoples whose an she want homeland is divided between half a dozen nations in the post colonial era. having long acted as a kind of sponsor for fighters battling regime regarding the presence as both inconvenient and undesirable, they are rallying to his cause. regardless of whether he wins or loses, there's immense concern in the nations to the south of libya that the fighters return to their home states to have a new round of rebellions and secure in the oil and uranium rich regions. the egyptian revolution is not yet history. in fact, we may have only

witnessed the first phase of a process that could continue for years, decades, or even generations. it's unlikely that egypt's officer core unquestionably part of egypt's e lite is willing to oversee the transfer of power from that same well entrenched elite of the masses. indeed, it's unreasonable to think this is the first instijt. in egypt, this is social revolution, and these type of things don't usually happen overnight. egypt's internal security services collapsed in the wake of the egyptian revolution and are in a difficult process of being rebuilt and restructured with a new mandate that promises to pursue security threats rather than repress political opposition. well, there are many cases of government violence against demonstrators, there's few incidents of violence against members of the security services

during the revolution. egypt does not have a taste for violent revolution, and such matters have always traditionally been handled by the nation's elite which is now largely from the military leadership. in question here is how effective will the restructured security service devoted as promised to foreign rather than internal threats will be in controlling domestic extremists? egypt managed to destroy its lateral islamist movement by employing a military force three times the size of the military both paid and coerced. this has come at a considerable cost for the liberty of the egyptian people, a cost no longer considered acceptable. the question remains rather a light enand less intrusive security presence will still deal as effectively with the

islamist extremism. now, gadhafi's libya is one of the major financial backers of the african union. these donations stopped now with significant consequences for the african union in somalia which already suffers from underfunding. there's no guarantee that a new libyan regime would renew such support nor likely another african state can step in and fulfill the short fall. subsaharan countries have not been partakes and even though they have close ties and influences with libya and will be affected by what happens there. the african union negotiations, i don't know if anyone heard they are going on. it got very little attention. they were basically treated as unimportant by the same nations busy taking out libya's air

defense system. they will have to shrug off a white man's burden that's become destabilizing. while it's true the peace keeping missions have an uneven record, it's also true african troops will not get better at this thing by sitting in their bushings. those living in the continent and those exterm parties dealing with parties there would do more than destabilize africa with bombs and rockets. in short, revolution is not an easy thing. most fail, and it would be presumption to assume revolts in libya or elsewhere in the middle east will lead to an inevitable success regardless of how success is interpreted. however, whether successful or not, the repercussions of

revolution can rarely be tamed making them recipes for insecurity. at best, they can be managed with a bit of luck. at worst, efforts to can tan or reverse social and political transformation are only copying the volcano. if it doesn't erupt there, it will somewhere else at a time of its own choosing. thank you. [applause] >> back to my role as moderator. we'll have time -- we'll take 10 minutes for questions, and if anybody has one, yes, please. yes, you, sir. there's a microphone coming. >> i'm a consultant on economic

development. you sketch the possibility that gadhafi would survive even the fall of tripoli by regrouping in the south, and i'm wondering how he would then pay for it? i'm looking at your own map in your own paper which tells me all the energy infrastructure goes out through the north coast. >> yes. >> how do you raise the money if you don't control the coast? >> he's been planning for this a long time. you know, we call him a madman sometimes, but he's not as crazy as that. what he's been doing is, you know, when oil was sold, it brings in revenues, of course, and he's been buying gold for years, and libya has enormous gold reserves now, and unlike a lot of nations that choose to store their gold in their gold reserves in secure places like switzerland or even fort knox

accepts certain gold reserves here, but it's all in tripoli, well secured there, and, of course, this is a mobile source of funds that he can take with him. now, of course, you can't spend gold as easily as cash, and it might be necessary to sell it at a bit of a loss, but he certainly has enough to keep a war going for years, so he's not short of funds that way, and he could endure the loss of oil production for some time to keep the war going. any questions? yes? where's the microphone? >> thank you very much. i was wondering, camielle you speculated on algeria, but it's always what country is next and who is next, but nobody saw

egypt or libya about to fall. can you talk about what's next for algeria over the next year or so? does it have the potential of the same uprising that other countries have seen? >> as i try to say in my paper, algeria doesn't -- i don't think it would wish a quick end to the civil war in libya today. if the libyan regime falls quickly, i think there would be a bigger demand for change inside algeria. the president has thought of a process of some changes, reforms inside his government, but i think the whole regime needs changing. people as some of the speakers have said before, people in the middle east are not content with superficial changes. they want deep rooted reforms

that will change a country from being a dictatorship into a democracy. i think with the fall of gadhafi regime inside libya, there would be a bigger demand for change inside algeria, but if it continues, a long civil war within libya, i think the algerian government could manage change without resorting to violence, otherwise algeria would fall into a civil war too. >> i just want to make a comment about algeria. speaking with the rebel leadership at the courthouse in benghazi. they say there's two core ash allyies.

a lot of the people in eastern and central libya i spoke to view algeria an believe that the government did not want to see gadhafi fall because it would threaten their own regime, and now as we've seen as bruce riedel was talking about earlier, we see algeria appears to be to therring, and i don't know if that's isolating algeria at all in this tiny alliance, and the other is beliruse military. >> yes, right here, please, fourth or fifth row. yeah, thanks, russ. >> thank you. i wonder about the chemical weapons that libya has. i made a quick search about it three weeks ago. media doesn't argue that much

importance to the chemical weapons. in 1994, it find an agreement that its going to reduce its weapons, chemical weaponing -- weapons, but then it asked for an extension until may 2011, and i've seen like 23,000 tons of cluster bombs right now is in libya, and i wonder where are they, and in no-fly zone, it's really hard nor gadhafi to use it, but what are the prospects of the chemical weapons? thank you. >> you mention cluster bombs, and that's not the same as chemical weapons. >> yeah, chemical weapons. >> as far as i know the only chemical weapon reserves he has is a certain amount of mustard gas in the process of being destroyed, and there's only a small quantity of this left and

basically the gadhafi's forces don't have the means to deploy this so that's why you're not seeing a lot of attention to chemical weapons. a lot were e eliminated in 2003 in order for libya to restore relations with the west. yes, please? >> [inaudible] >> would you like to take that, camielle? >> i think the regime that it knows it needs the change. the whole arab regimes in the middle east are feeling the heat with the arab spring uprising. they need to change otherwise they'll have revolutions like the one we saw in tunisia and egypt and other places.

however, if gadhafi manages to withstand the current uprising against all the odds,ic -- i think it will give encouragement to the rest of the dictatorship regimes in the middle east that they can also do the same and prevent change. i'm not saying morocco is a dictatorship, but i think the country has started a process of reform, but whether it is able to please its own citizens with the kind of reforms it's trying to produce is up into question. i think the monarchy needs major reform in the way it rules the country. many sectors within the morocco society are not happy with the process of change going on now,

but i believe the king of morocco has understood the message that he needs to change within the next few weeks and months and what kind of change he's willing to offer his own people. >> i just wanted to take the opportunity to ask graeme a question to share his opportunity when in egypt. there's the deep penetration of the patronage system right through egyptian society and the importance of this in keeping people loyal to the regime. now, this is something that would seem inevitably to be disrupted at the moment, but i wonder if just how do the reformers might be able to replace this system of more equitable means of distribution of the wealth or the funds of egypt in a way that would not be designed to simply further the

existence of a further regime. >> actually, that's two questions. [laughter] >> okay. >> the first question is over the equitable distribution of wealth. that has been the greatest problem of the reform movement in the last 15 years is that you had reform is in e -- reformists in egypt supported by the united states and supported by the world bank and the imf, and they have actually done on a macroeconomic scale a great job and receiving high marks. they went to being free and more open markets done through a series of prospects. one was they took all these interests that had been nationalized, and they made them economical and then sold them off. that was a very important step to which they did do, but the problem of the system was to make them economical, you then fired thousands of people and put them without work, but then

you made these economically good corporations. the problem with that was they were then sold to the regime, and those people took the benefit from the modernization program, the macrodevelopment. the egyptian government in response to pressures of the monetary fund, the world bank, and the united states reduced extensively the subsidy system to the poor so you created a dual problem in society where you were making certain groups of people very wealth and making the massive society have a declining standard of living. this, by the way, was the reason why you never saw much support within the armed forces for the economic reforms because the armed forces were concerned with security, and they saw this social deprivation of the lower classes as destabilizing. that is being addressed.

if you notice who was removed from the regime was the economic reformers because they were seen as destabilizing society. .. >> within the country because have the people in the urban masses without their identities. you will have a problem that sets up a system coming in that undermines today.

anybody who was in parliament be banned for five years from being in parliament which we did. and what you end up doing is disenfranchising all these local leaders who have local support and the question who replaces them? >> thank you very much, graeme. we'll take one more question. i take it everyone is satisfied. >> that's great. >> you have one there? okay. >> thank you. i was curious at the end there there was a mentioning of a african union and there's more reports of the endgame and libya being a safe space for gadhafi either domestically or internationally? >> i'm sorry, what was the last part?

>> whether the probable endgame is finding a safe space for gadhafi. >> as i was talking about towards the conclusion of my talk there, i really do feel that the african union should be encouraged to play a greater role not only in the libyan conflict but in the many recurring conflicts we see going in africa. foreign and in particularly western intervention is not the solution to every problem in africa. there is a tendency quite often for leaders of a african states rather than their former colonial powers so sometimes this advice is better taken. now to say there is no role for the west but certainly better training for e.u. forces,

peacekeeping forces and intervention forces, better funding for a.u. activities would go on to improving the ability of africans to take care of their own concerns. regarding the fate of gadhafi, i think there's a number of possibilities if he was to go into exile which i think what you're asking about. with uganda offered and a week ago i did a little article about this. they have already offered a refuge for gadhafi in uganda. they have a long history going back between uganda and libya. quite often a turbulent history that he is even seen libyan forces to fight in uganda at one point in defense of idi amin. at one point they took gadhafi as bit of a model.

and this is something that's not well understood here. is just how many african countries have really have leaders that have admiration or respect for gadhafi. and that's the kind of perspective we don't have here, you know, just i know from my personal experience in 30 years all i've heard he's crazy and he wants to kill everybody. that's not the perspective that africans have of gadhafi. they look at him very differently. and even south africa is even a potential place he might take refuge. you have to remember who is the person who broke the sanctions and embargo against libya? it was nelson mandela was the first person to fly directly into tripoli to express his gratitude to moammar gadhafi in his struggle against apartheid that africans have that we don't

know. there might be another nation in africa that might be willing to take him. >> just really quickly. i actually visited the african headquarters in ethiopia last week. and just to -- i didn't know too much about the inner workings of the au until i just showed up at their offices. it's a very thinly sourced thinly stretched organization that's currently actually a momentus transition. i'm working on an article for andrew publication terrorism monitor. i stumbled onto another topic which is the chinese government is actually solely funding and constructing the new african headquarters. the brussels au definitely is not but if the chinese have their way they're -- the chinese are actually hoping to transform the african union into a much stronger body. but i visited both the au and the offices which is the african union in somalia while doing some research.

and i could say that the communication amongst even the two au offices was a discordant. it's not a completely together organization that's very powerful or strong at least from the au functionaries that i met last week. >> okay. we'll take a one-hour break for lunch. oh, 30 minutes? okay. 30-minute break for lunch. eat fast and we'll see you back here. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> and then the panel will come back talk about the impact of the gulf. we'll hear the u.s. ambassador to the united arab emirates. on c-span we will have an update on the situation of libya by valerie amos. she's the u.n. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. she just returned from libya and she will be speaking in about 10 minutes and we'll have it live for you on c-span3. as this group takes their lunch break, we'll bring you the

morning panel so you can catch up if you missed some of that. >> good morning, everyone. my name is angleton howard. i'm president of the jamestown foundation and we're delighted to have you here today. i see many familiar faces in the room people who attended previous conferences. the time of today's conference is the impact of arab uprisings and the middle east and north africa. this is a very interesting time for us to have this conference. we start planning several months ago and it's been quite fascinating to see the great evolution of what's happened in the arab world -- what began on december 17th of last year with the tunisian street vendor unleashing a spark that set off a very -- a very contagious revolution that spread throughout the arab world, the repercussions of which we haven't, you know, often been compared to the revolution of 1848. regardless of that analogy and whether it's true or not, it certainly is a time of great

change in the region. in fact, you want have to look much further than the recent issue of foreign affairs magazine which said -- the cover of the foreign affairs magazine basically says the new arab revolt which starts with -- which starts its series of articles with these questions. what just happened? why no one saw it coming? what it means? and what comes next? so this is really, you know, these type of questions are really why we're here gathered today to try to make sense of it all. it's not -- there's no decisive conclusion to what's happening. but we're delighted to have the insight of many important speakers that spent time on the ground in the region some of them studied the region for quite a long time and always at jamestown you will find a conference that has a lot of diversity and views and the issues and opinions. today we'll be examining north african and the developments in egypt, libya and algeria and the afternoon discussion we'll be focusing on the developments in the gulf, which included iran's reaction to the developments in

the middle east and its impact on domestic and foreign policy as well as its impact on iranian ties to the gulf cooperation council. and last but not least, the last panel of the day will deal with the crisis in yemen which will address very important questions that has very important repercussions for the national security in the country. so we're very happy with all these people that are here today to present their discussions. as many much you there will be many different personalities and names that we mentioned. i would like to put in a plug for the jamestown publication militant leadership center. copies of it will be found in each of your folders. we encourage you to take out a copy and look at it and if you can subscribe and also i'd like to thank c-span for its live coverage of today's event. for those viewing our conference today live, you can learn more information about jamestown at www.jamestown.org and one

further comment i'm delighted that bruce riedel who is here today and former general michael v. hayden former director of the cia are now two members of the jamestown board. we're delighted to have their participation, involvement with jamestown's activities as the activities and the developments of the foundation continue to grow and we hope to have them involved in future conferences. so i'm going to turn the floor over to the moderator for today's discussion who is michael ryan, senior fellow of the jamestown foundation. >> i've learned from sitting where you are for years that the most important duty of the moderator is to be modest and not say very much so i'm going to try to do that because the two gentlemen that i have to my left, i think, have a lot to say and i want to give them the maximum amount of time to do that. so i'm not going to in my introductions repeat everything that you can find in your package about their background. they both have tremendous background and tremendous authority when they speak about

the topic today. i've followed them for years in my own life. and i continue to do so today. one thing i will mention that isn't in bruce riedel's little write-up here in your folder is his latest book "the deadly embrace:pakistan, america and the future of the global jihad" which i personally would highly recommend. you could get it in the kindle edition and hard copy and it's a great addition to his other book. so without further ado, bruce, would you like to begin? >> thank you, ron, thank you, mike, for those very kind introduction introductions. i want to thank the jamestown foundation for inviting me.

i want to plug the militant leadership monitor publication. i highly recommend it, one of the best publications for following terrorism available anywhere in the world today. i also want to say it's a great pleasure to be here with gary sick, one of the most foremost experts on the middle east. and on american policy on the middle east. and as we think about how to deal with the winter of arab discontent and the spring of arab revolutions is seminal response on the response to it are well worth taking another look at it. we have seen remarkable events in the last 100 days in the arab world. first, in tunisia, then in egypt, now in libya, yemen, bahrain, syria, amman and i can go on and on. there is a full day's worth of discussions here. i'm going to focus, though, on the impact of egypt, on events

in egypt and on what they mean for american foreign policy. i should begin by saying a word about the title. stability is, of course, an aneth ma. it's the "s" word to egyptian revolutionaries. it has been the code word for oppression, for dictatorship for the last 30 years in egypt. they are quite right in saying that. but we also have an interest in trying to see how the change will impact on stability. so with apologies to the egyptian revolutionaries, i think we should proceed forward. there are many ways to explain what is happening in the arab world today. one, of course, is demography. its enormous youth bulge, demanding jobs, demanding more than jobs. demanding the opportunity for a lifetime.

the slogans in tahrir square, we want jobs, we want to get married. very poignant about how prospects for enjoying life in egypt have become so dim for so many. 60% of the arab world is under the age of 30. the median age is 26. but it's not just demographics and it's not just about jobs. i think the revolt in the arab world is even more about something more fundamental. it's a revolt against the police state system, which is dominated arab politics for the last half a century, if not more. the mukhabarat state, to use its arabic name, rules every arab country from morocco to amman. some with a gentler hand than others but all with a mukhabarat state. it is a state within a state, a

state in which the inner state is accountable only to one person, to one man wholly. the boss, whether it was a king, a prime minister, a monarch, or whatever gadhafi chose to call himself at the moment. the system was beyond the rule of law. totally unaccountable. anyone could be arrested, imprisoned, missing, killed, without any redress. this system, the mukhabarat state, had grown over the years to massive size. in egypt, for example, the ministry of the interior employs 1.5 million full-time employees in a country of 80 million people. and that's not counting the millions of informants working for the police state. in syria, there are at least six

secret polices, all of them spying on each other as well as spying on the syrian people. various arab countries built elaborate guards to go with their mukhabarat states. the guards that guarded against each other in order to keep the rise in power. the driver behind the development of the mukhabarat states were many and varied. the arab-israeli dispute was an early driver. defeat in '48, '56 and '67 led to the creation of the police states. the cold war was a further driver. inter-arab politics became a driver and 9/11 became an enormous driver for the increase in the size of the mukhabarat states. and the united states after 9/11 was an enthusiastic supporter of the rise and development and enrichment in the deepening of

the mukhabarat state ironically exactly at the same moment that we began talking about democracy in the middle east. some of the mukhabarat states are what i call hard mukhabarat states. saddam's iraq. syria, gadhafi's libya. some are soft mukhabarat states. king abdullah's jordan, the gulf states. but they all share the same feature of unaccountability. now, the arabs collectively are demanding their freedom. the end of the mukhabarat state system. they want the rule of law. they want accountability. and egypt is very much in the forefront of this. egypt will be the leader as it has always been in the arab world. that is more true today than ever. if the revolution had stopped in tunis in january, we wouldn't be here today. it was the egyptian revolution

that led to the spring of arab revolutions. the drama of tahrir square, a televised revolution that you could watch around the world was one of the reasons giving egypt its special prominence today. but much more fundamental is egypt's role as the critical arab state. it is at the geographic center of the arab world. it has been at the cultural center of the arab world. the university has been the religious and cultural center of the arab world for over 1,000 years. its demographic weight alone gives it more prominence in the arab world. for 30 years, its prominence was ceded under honi mubarak under the center stage. and that is coming to an end as

well. and each is important that it's in the global center of the global islamic jihad. egypt has provided many of the key ideologic figures. today's egypt's revolution confronts numerous challenges. before we look at those challenges, though, it's worth pausing for a minute just to think about the last 100 days. with less than 1,000 people killed, egypt has been transformed from a country with a dictatorship of 30 years to a country where the dictator is under hospital arrest and his sons are under formal arrest. if someone had stood at this platform january 1st of 2011 and told you that would be the case by april, 2011, you would have

thought he was from mars. he would have been from mars, but that is what egypt has already accomplished. so as we look at the challenges ahead, we should not diminish the extent of what the egyptian people have already done. i think they face three or four major challenges ahead. challenge number one is to manage the transition to new political institutions and to new political process. they have to build an entirely new political culture, something which they have very little familiarity with. to help do this, though, egypt is also in a unique position. because it's had a revolution this year, and it's also add military coup at the same time. one way to think about it is that one foot in egypt is on the gas and the other foot is on the

brake. and this shows in egypt's political development now -- we see a certain herky jerky movement, that, i think, while disparaging and discomforting to a certain extent is also good for the long term because there's ballast in this system as well as momentum to change. it's clearly an uneasy partnership. the army is not enthusiastic about being the instrument of change. field marshall must be the most surprised person in the entire world. think of where he was in january. think where he is today and think of where he is taking his country. but to give him credit, so far he seems to be doing a fairly decent job. so far compared to other revolutions, egypt is surprisingly smooth. it's bumpy. there's no question. there's a lot of suspicion. there's a lot of dissent. there's some disorder but on the

whole, i would argue this is a surprisingly smooth transition so far. egypt is on track to hold elections this fall. some think it's too soon. the egyptian people have had heard their voice heard and they want it soon. egypt is also deep into the process of dismantling the mukhabarat state. literally. physically taking parts of it apart, ripping apart police headquarters, searching through documents, arresting former members of the mukhabarat state. even omar suleiman, egypt's spymaster for the last 25 years, is now being questioned by egyptian courts. it's a remarkable effort at trying to change the system. now, in the near term, this is obviously good news for bad people. tearing down prisons, letting prisoners go, dismantling the

security apparatus is a boon for al-qaeda and others. arresting counter terrorists like omar suleiman is a boon for al-qaeda. it's no wonder al-qaeda's ideologue in the arabian peninsula wrote that he has, quote, great expectations for the future. by i think one shouldn't be overwhelmed by focusing on the immediate. yes, this is a setback for counterterrorism. yes, this is an opportunity for al-qaeda to meddle but in the long run, and hopefully not too far off, developing a security force that is responsible, that is accountable and which obeys the rules and laws of the country is a long-term threat to al-qaeda and i'll come back to that in a minute. the second challenge egypt faces

is managing the inclusion of islamists in the political process. egypt has the oldest and best organized islamist party in the arab world the muslim brotherhood. many are fearful of what the muslim brotherhood intends to do in the future. some have suggested the muslim brotherhood is playing a very careful game of not really contesting the first election in order to secure the last election, the second time around. that may be the case. but i think it's far from clear that that is the case. the egyptian muslim brotherhood, i would argue to you, is a much smarter political party than that. it is one of the smartest political parties in the islamic order. it is careful to not overreach. it is careful to signal it does not intend to overreach. it has been careful to work with

the army behind the scene. it is despised by al-qaeda for all these reasons. al-qaeda is terrified at the prospect the muslim brotherhood could play an effective and central role in governing egypt. the muslim brotherhood itself is not monolithic. it's clear divisions between young and old are beginning to rise. its successful conclusion in egyptian politics in a nonviolent way offers remarkable hope for the future of the arab world. the third challenge egypt faces is, of course, revival of its economy and expansion of its economy. i'm not an economist and i don't pretend to be able to understand how egypt's economy can expand dramatically. there are innumerable challenges facing the egyptian leadership

today. trying to get jobs for all those who want them will be a herculean task. the near-term task is much simpler, trying to get tourists back. 1 out of 7 jobs in egypt is in the tourism market. and tourism market today is shattered. one of the reasons it's shattered is the united states travel warning. when the united states says don't travel somewhere, most people don't pay a lot of attention. insurance agents pay a lot of attention. they don't want to be caught in that situation. we need to early on revote travel warning on egypt and encourage the return of tourism. egypt's problems couldn't come at a worse time. there are a lot of loose talk about a marshal plan for egypt and the arab world. well, i got bad news for you. we're broke. there is no marshall plan in the

works. we may have one but there isn't going to be any dollars behind it. united states and europe are both in the midst of a global fiscal downturn. the tea party is not going to endorse spending billions in egypt. the challenge, therefore, is going to have to be in the realm of trade, not aid. and that challenge more than anywhere else will have to be met in europe, not in the united states. europeans need to see the trade enhancement with egypt and the rest of north africa as the area where they can really do the most to help. the fourth challenge egypt faces, its extraordinarily difficult foreign policy environment. first, look at egypt's three arab neighbors: libya, sudan,

and palestine. all three are broken states right now. libya is in the midst of a civil war with foreign intervention. hap-hearted civil war intervention. it looks like it could go on for the indefinite future. the sudan is literally breaking apart. after trying to be held together over the last 100 years, egypt, of course, was one of the most prominent supporters of the unified sudan. now it sees that dream as gone. and palestine is also divided. we wanted the two-state solution. we ended up with the three-state solution: hamas and gaza, fatah and the west bank and israel, of course. egypt now has on one border to the west a rebellion about which many of us know very little. and on the other side, a jihadist mini state in gaza.

egypt's sympathies are clearly with gaza. second, egypt also confronts of the border arab revolutions. egypt's old friends are changing dramatically. egypt's old enemies may be changing as well. third, of course, egypt has to deal with a very nervous peace partner. a senior israeli diplomat said to me just a few weeks ago, we liked being the only democracy in the middle east. we understood where everyone else played. we could predict what mubarak's egypt would do. we can't predict what egypt is going to do today. israel is fearful of the unknown. fearful of unpredictability. it already faces tense situations with hamas and hezbollah.

the prospects of another war in the middle east this summer are always there. and now israel faces the prospect that palestine will be admitted to the united nations this september. and many israelis predict, i think, wrongly -- many israelis predict a third indefada will flow from that. a challenging agenda but egypt is clearly preoccupied primarily with its own domestic problems. the best case outcome is not impossible by any means. i think there's a reasonable possibility egypt will produce a new elected government this fall. my bet is egyptians will choose moussa to be their new president. what passes for polling in egypt tends to support that argument. i think the muslim brotherhood will play by the rules, will be

part of the system. i think the army will, with some enthusiasm, give up the reins of power while it continues to hold on to many of its perks. we will begin the transition to the post-mukhabarat state. it will be enormously difficult. changing the culture and ethos of a security system is very, very, very hard to do. it won't happen overnight. but i think there is reason for confidence that it will happen. even in this best case scenario, of course, there will be difficulties, there will be bumps. if i'm right and moussa wins election, we may have the spectacle of his inauguration being played with the pop single in the background "i love moussa, i hate israel."

that will make managing the tensions between cairo, israel and jerusalem a lot harder. an awful lot can go wrong. revolutions tend to devour their own, bonapartism is always a danger. another war with israel between hamas and hezbollah could make the situation very difficult. there is, of course, the potential that al-qaeda and other jihadist extremists will try to play in these troubled waters. but there's also much potential for good here. a more vigorous egypt than mubarak's could assist in moving forward a real middle east peace process. it could help stabilize libya. it could help resolve the problem of gaza. it would be an example of reform and change working in the arab and islamic world. above all, it would be a symbol that twitter, not terror is the

way to transform the arab world. twitter, not terror transform tahrir square and that is extremely bad news for osama bin laden and al-qaeda. that is contrary to the whole philosophy of the global jihad. the challenge for the united states and egypt is to keep calm. don't overreact to change. don't overreact the unpredictable. support egypt's movements forward. but do it with a low american footprint. we don't need to have hundreds of thousands of -- hundreds or thousands of american aid workers suddenly descending on egypt. we don't need to highjack this revolution. we want to support it and help it. of course, the one thing we

could do to help egypt's government is to move forward on the middle east peace process itself. secretary of state clinton promised such a move at the last brookings u.s. islamic world forum just a week ago. i want the administration will live up to that. arab moderates have for years asked us to do more on this front as the single thing that we could do to help them more than any other. if you don't believe me, read king abdullah's new book "the last best chance for peace." let me just take two or three minutes to talk about one other revolution and that's the one that's brewing now in syria. syria may not be the hardest of the hard mukhabarat states but it's certainly pretty close. and change in syria, i think, is now beyond the tipping point. the demonstrations in homes this week demonstrate that the sunni

center of the country is now demanding fundamental change. there is talk of political compromise. i don't see how you can have political compromise with a mukhabarat state in syria. it is all-or-nothing. it is also a very, very brittle regime at the end of the day. because it is a regime that fundamentally depends on the support of about 13% of the population. it is a regime that has worked because it instills fear like no other mukhabarat regime ever instill fear. >> we all know when it did that in hamma in 1982. once that fear is broken, as it seems to be breaking now, fractures in syrian society are likely to come to the top. this will have enormous effects

upon all of the levat, lebanon, iraq, turkey, and jordan. >> the biggest loser, if syria devolves into full scale civil war, is iran and hezbollah. the second biggest loser is everyone else as we try to manage what happens there. but let's not cry for the asats. they deeply deserve to be sent to the home for retired dictators, the sooner the better. if egypt is the revolution that promises to show how reform can succeed in a peaceful way, i'm fearful that syria is the revolution that will show even more than libya how it can be done with violence. but at the end of the day, the spring of arab revolutions is not something controlled in washington. not even on massachusetts avenue. it's going to be dealt by the

arab peoples who have now decided it is time for the end of the mukhabarat state. thank you very much. [applause] >> i would like to hold the questions until both the speakers have finished and we'll have a free for all at that point. without any further ado, i'd like to go to our second speaker and you'll be speaking from your place. so gary sick, please. >> i'm too old to stand up that long. [laughter] >> i was very interested to hear bruce's talk. and i'm glad that he is an optimist. i basically am too but with some caveats and i think he had plenty of caveats of his own. i've, you know, watched some revolutions take place. even very closely watched some

of them take place. and, you know, revolutions -- well, as one of my old colleagues said, revolutions revolve 360 degrees. and that is, in fact, i think, what we're going to see in some of these cases. certainly it is what happened in the iranian revolution which set out to get rid of the shah and has now created a new one. and is behaving almost exactly the same way that the shah's government did after all of this time. the events starting early this year -- or starting in december really are unique. and, of course, they were way overdue in the arab world. there have been changes going on for years but there weren't, but when the dam broke, it really broke and now we're seeing a flood of activity that is really bewildering.

to find a parallel to the events that are going on right now, you certainly -- well, i would go back, for instance, to 1967 and the 6-day war. which if you recall, actually the six-day war humiliated the arab leaders. israel won very quickly and very decisively. it also -- not humiliated but it invalidated the whole idea of arab nationalism which had been the rallying cry and all of a sudden it was seen that these arab nationalists and these leaders like nasr were incapable of defending their own people, of defending their own land. and most of them got kicked out. in fact, if you go back and look, most of these dictators who are present in the middle east or were present in the

middle east until very recently actually followed along after the -- >> and we're going to take you back live away from the recorded portion on arab unrest and political unrest and the regional impact. this is the jamestown foundation here on c-span2. >> it's a real pleasure because i think i have a great panel. and also a very important topic as we all look at what's happening in egypt, tunisia, syria and libya and other places, i think one of the key questions on all our minds are, what about the iran issue? whether this upheaval in the region, what will the new power players be? who will be -- we heard earlier maybe it was bruce or gary who said is it iran, egypt and iraq? will they be the three big power players? so today the topic is certainly iran as we look at the dccc and we have a superb panel. a lot of expertise on iran and

saudi arabia and i hope they will touch on the issue on the sectarian divide because we can't really think about the region and specifically and as we think of iran without also paying attention on the divide. on that i will kack who i have to really think from being here. he took the red eye from san diego last night so thanks for making the extra effort to be here. and i'll turn it over to you. >> is it okay if anything up there? >> absolutely. wherever you want -- yep. >> especially having three hours of sleep on the plane. okay. thanks very much. thanks to glen, thanks for everyone that is here to listen to our panel. i'm based in the department of literature. so i want to start with a story, and the story goes something like this. a few months ago, i am listening to iranian satellite tv based in los angeles and we happen to

have one in our house. and a guy comes on tv. and during his various different interviews he does and ranting is really the bill o'reilly of the moment in southern california. he's very famous. he's very charismatic and suddenly in the middle of his interview, this guy from iran calls and this guy happens to be a member of the basiege, the iranian militia group and he calls and he calls him a servant of the imperial pig, imperialist pig, the u.s. and this guy fights back. there's an interesting verbal debate going on. and i'm watching this and it's fascinating and in the middle of the debate the basiege guy calls and says something, we will defend imam to the last blood in our body. i just remembered that term imam

was only used for khomeini, the guy who originally established islamic republic. remember this guy was charismatic. this guy was called an imam to bring the sunni-shia sides together. there was a whole philosophy behind that. when this guy got selected or elected into office in 1989 he was not called imam. in fact, many people even questioned his religious degree. they realized -- many people realized he was a midranking cleric and nevertheless he was a political figure during the heydays of the revolution but no one called him imam. but post-election iran, post 2009 election iran for the last two years this seems to be a systemic attempt to call him an imam. what's going on? for the students of max faber you clearly remember the history of revolutions, the story of revolutions. >> usually revolutions need a charismatic leader and they get

ro rootnized and the revolution loses charisma but idealizes its rhetoric but in 2009 that also happened when there was a mass uprising of mostly middle class iranians and also lower class iranians rising up and challenging the islamic republic on so many different levels and it was not just about elections. later on after 2009 -- well, all the way till late 2009, it really became the question about whether we want to actually have an islamic republic. because of that crisis of legitimacy, it seems that various factions of the islamic republic decided to reinvent the state. and one of the first attempts to reinvent that state was to reinvent the figure of him and making him into a charismatic figure. you see that picture right there is mr. khomeini and he's actually in his famous car

driving around in some of the cities in iran. and there is -- i don't know if you're able to see this, there are lights, a bunch of lights hitting his face and these lights are in the car. of course, the idea is to make him -- to glorify him and to make him look holy and, of course, this constant association between him, the way the government and the rhetorical discourses in iran have done is to associate him with imam khomeini so, therefore, you get the term imam homi. the islamic republic underwebsite a reinventi-- unde transformation. you're now beginning to see the name imam homi in the political discourse of the people involved in the iranian government on various different levels. you no longer hear the term ayatollah khomeini. you're now hearing him being called imam khomeini.

now, what really happened -- what does this have to do with the arab uprising. let me go briefly through a short history. after the election everyone knows there was this massive uprising and cnn was there. actually wasn't there but somehow there was a wonderful coverage of the elections. what it felt to many there's going to be a major revolution in iran. that didn't happen. the islamic republic was too creative for that and they came up with this idea of the soft war in order not to necessarily to simply do away and stifle the sense of the iranian society but also challenge what they perceive to be the u.s.-led velvet revolution in the country. and much of that really revolved around somehow making the green movement look as though they're stooges of the west. the green shura, the famous december 27th uprising really challenged again the islamic republic saying that the green movement was still there. we're challenging the government

but eventually in the -- i believe in february 2010, famously the intelligence agencies in the islamic republic were able to do away with the green movement of so many different levels. the street protests really waned away from that, a major event and the police forces were able to dominate the public spaces. now, in 2010, the government was able to -- and by the way, i took that picture from one of the hardliners website on facebook and it's a really cute picture. they were able to make the green movement not only stupid but simply basically the paid agents of the west. of course, that rhetoric did not really play well among the many iranians who did not believe it but nevertheless for the islamic republic, that was there. they had victory. they thought that the green movement was out of the picture. but then came the uprising.

and many ways it surprised the heck out of the islamic republic. just like anyone here in washington, you know, they were surprised what happened in tunisia and egypt. the islamic republic was also very much surprised. and especially was surprised when the green movement decided to revive itself come back and revent itself and mostly on line and when they came out with a new demonstration event on february 14th, on valentine's day, the government really got upset. they could not believe so many people showed up to that event. they thought they already had taken care of the green movement. but not necessarily. but on february 14th, we not only saw massive presence of opposition, actors in the streets of tehran in major cities but we also saw the government in many, you know, irrational ways reacting

repressively crushing the movement on the street level. now, one thing we learned from february 14th was that -- by the way, it was -- the whole february 14th event was organized as a way of revering with respect to tunisia and that's what happened in the arab streets and the regime was very surprised and the second most important thing was the use of reactive measures in order to stifle dissent. and a great example of that, of course, was for the first time they decided to rest the so-called leaders of the green movement. they were recently released and they still have them on house arrest by the way. but at the same time, when all of this thing was going on, all of these different uprisings were happening and popping up in different countries, the latest one, of course, is in syria, the iranian regime at least knew despite the fact it didn't know how to deal with these different events going on, the iranian

regime and the different factions within it realized two important things. one, the arab opposition movements first and foremost are not the same as the green movement. and they are not -- for two reasons. one is that the green movement made a lot of tactical mistakes including simply focusing on daily protests. this is something obvious with one of the successes of the egyptian uprising was that it went into the night and that really scared the egyptian government; whereas, the iranian government new the green movements really wanted to go home at night and really took the protests on the rooftop of the houses and to me it was a sign of weaknesses. the second thing is the organizational aspect. after february, 2010, the islamic republic especially the intelligent agencies of the regime realized that they have a majoral organizational weaknesses of the government. they could intervene and dissect and eventually they could di --

dissentgrate the line but happened but what they didn't predict is this virtual community could eventually come back and organize street protests on february 14th. but the islamic persian gulf also knew that, look, the arab states who were either unable to prevent these revolutions happening or uprisings happening in their countries were different or continue to be very much different than the islamic republic. first and foremost, you either have arab states that have roots in the military apparatus or officers, you know, who originally took power and mubarak who were eventually, of course, overthrown. the islamic republic is different. we're talking about four revolutionaries who know how to do their job. they know how to infiltrate. and they know the mentality of the green revolutionaries and they knew they had that advantage. and they knew they were not accountable to the western

countries the way tunisia and bahrain and egypt are still are. so there was this advantage that they had. nevertheless, they realized and they still do to this day that there's this uncertainty elements. they do not know how the heck this thing is unfolding in the different arab countries. and how this thing is fluidly developing in ways they cannot predict it just like the way washington is not able to predict what's happening in the various different arab country. so two steps the iranian regime -- different factions very much on agreement took. on a domestic level, they used reactive measures, mostly out of fear, quite frankly, 'cause they just simply thought that the inspiration that the green movement could have from various different arab movements could be very problematic for their status and the stability so they decided to go hardcore. very repressive stuff, jailing people even putting in prison the leaders of the green

movement and also they hyped up the ideological rhetoric, of course, and they are trying to also frame the movements, the arab movements as islamic awakening, islamic movements and so even many iranians and people who follow the regime did not buy their argument for obvious reasons. these are mostly -- i mean, there's a large secular tendency with these arab movements and the regime also realized and recognized that they did not publicly talk about it. on a regional level, an iranian government had a very ambivalent approach. it really did not have a clear policy, obviously, just like the way u.s. does not have a clear policy on what's going on with regards to the movements in various different arab countries but i would say it took first and foremost a cautious attitudes. it did not take too many risk especially in countries like bahrain or saudi arabia's shadow was looming, still looms and a country like yemen where also the u.s. has presence and same thing with bahrain as well. but it did also went with another approach, being

assertive in supporting its only arab ally, syria in preventing its fall in response to the popular uprising which continues to this day. in general, on a domestic foreign policy level, the post-mubarak iran continues to have multifaceted policy change look at the first one with regard to the various arab sunni states and the gulf state and my colleague is going to talk more in detail about it. that i feel and if you carefully read the progovernment newspapers and agencies in iran, you kind of get the feeling that there's an interesting new cold war happening now between saudi arabia and iran. and iran is fully aware that saudi arabia is actually -- has gained more power in various different levels especially militarily in respect to what happened in bahrain -- what has been happening in bahrain for

the last few weeks. the commanders recently just went on a number of different news reports and they plainly condemned the saudi arabian military's presence in bahrain. that didn't happen a few years ago. they had kind of a so-called mutual respect but things are changing. i believe this new arab uprising -- it's affecting iranian domestic policy with regards to saudi arabia mostly. and i think we are seeing probably a rise of a few cold war between iran and saudi arabia. it's just a guess but something that probably will resemble the 1980s. libya, foreign policy is before is ambivalent. they do not want gadhafi or with u.s. interference. with algeria they will stay neutral and they will not show much hostility but they will not be friends with algeria either. syria, full support. not much is going to change with a famous 2006 renewal of the

syrian-iranian nexus pact and with iraq i would say the same policy they are going to approach. with egypt i think some interesting things are going to happen. we're going to see new normalizations, new ties between the two countries. i would not see them as new emerging new allies like the way iran and syria have been for the last 30 years. but nevertheless, egypt is going to be an interesting case. how the country is going to establish new ties with iran. now, some final remarks, i think iran does not have a coherent policy. does not know exactly what's going on. and as a result, is testing the water as things kind of unfold on the ground. but make sure that you make a note that this protracted turmoil could provide an opening for increasing iranian's influence especially in countries perhaps in lebanon and iraq but this is all really at this stage is just a guess but if syria goes, i would argue this and here i'm very much echoing gary sick, that if syria

goes and assad is toppled expect a possible revival of opposition movements in iran because iran tehran has lost a great ally in the role. reaction to opposition will be guided with fractional politics within the conservative camps which will become clear in post-2012 parliamentary elections. keep an eye on the 2012 parliamentary elections because we're going to see how this arab uprising and the green movement in the way it was inspired of the arab uprising is going to change the iranian domestic politics in making it either go perhaps hard-liner, pragmatic conservative, and i have the faces of some people up there, and the guy in the background we do not know how he's going to react to the developing iranian politics, the fractional politics in months to come. but nevertheless, i would not

rule out mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad. we're going to see mahmoud ahmadinejad and his followers for years to come. he's almost created a cult of personality which is fascinating. and we are seeing that happening in the conservative camp right now in iran. but, of course, mahmoud ahmadinejad and his kind of protonationalistic populism in iran right now has its enemies. there's a great classic example of that. there's this hardcore, hard-liner islamist who says we shouldn't emphasize too much of nationalism and another character in the back is the current mayor of tehran who's very much of a pragmatic conservative and maybe he'll go with the current speaker of the house of the iranian parliament. i do not know. but what i do know is that whatever happens within this fractional conflicts within the conservative camp, they need to consider how they can influence the fascinating relationship

between the supreme leader and the paramilitary intelligence apparatus. and the question is, if homi passes away and if he dies and if there's a very serious division over the issues i just talked about especially the green movement, will a particular conservative faction come in to power and dominate? ..

>> where is my computer? i'm sorry. is it coming up? >> this is like the guy in the geico ad. technical difficulties but we're going to go ahead. >> thanks for your patience and thanks to jamestown for the kind invitation. delighted to be here today. going to fall on what babak ended up with. one of the key points he made at the very end which is sort of suggest there is no coherent every strategy. that's really my argument today. i want to dwell on why that is and what it means for iran's strategy looking at the region iran is only a people in neighboring states, particularly in places like bahrain.

the old rivalry that iran has always have with saudi arabia. it's important to bear in mind this iranian saudi rivalry is not something at an islamic republic created. it's always been there. the same can be said about the kind of bribery iran had with iraq. but really the point i'm trying to get to is the impact of the arab revolutions on the iranian strategy. my key question is what strategy did iran have and am looking at the gulf cooperation council states collectively. often? right now we're hearing the word gcc is angry about iranian intervention, mailing and so forth. my point is iran has never had of one strategy for the gcc states. rather we've had to follow on a bilateral level vis-à-vis the members of the gcc states. it's always worked for them. it seems to me right now the iranians are saying the same old

game can be played out in the next two months depending on how long this unrest uprising continue. the question is will that work. because there are signs already that gcc states are coming together. they are so afraid of what's happening. they're coming together. when gcc states talk about creating a confederation pulling the form defense policies together, that's not something every day. day. that telecommuters are extraordinary times. the question is what are the army positions, unlike a strategy is going to be good enough for them. so with that and i apologize in advance one of the most bland powerpoint presentations we will see after all those good pictures you have. i love this sheet by the way. that was a nice touch. [laughter] to key points to make, the first one as i said is no sign of a land to deal with the gcc states. the second point i like to me, and i'll get into each of these points as i go through the

presentation, is, is there one consistency you can detect from iran in these uprisings is the rhetoric. and you can say this is a kind of rhetoric you can expect. islamic republic at it's best if you can even say the iranians are in retaliate against the rhetoric that is coming their way from saudi arabia. there's nothing unusual. but as i said before the question is, is this enough for the iranian policy in the region? is rhetoric alone good enough? you again charged with meddling in the affairs of bahrain, even if american officials are saying iran is not the key driver behind what's going on behind bahrain, if iran has a role at all. and yet you're going about with your rhetoric talking upbringing of these there is regimes and so forth. i just wonder if that kind of a line is having it both ways, can be sustained in the face of the original of people. then i'd like to talk of the about the rift in tibet because

i am 4100 is going to hear there is remarked that i was told gary hinted at this division that is happening right now in tehran about what's going on in the region. there's no consistency in the conclusions the main faction in the iranian regime have a about what is going on. the supreme leaders people believe apparently from what i can gather reading the media out there, they believe in one sort of thing, ahmadinejad have a different take. a final point is this notion that can you come as i said, both support regional change is a champion of revolutions across the board and at the same time maintain you have nothing to do with anything that is going on in nearby states. with that said, let me go through the iranian strategy of our as i said, lack of it. look at those members of the gcc states or the gcc individually.

if you look back the last 10 years or so, you can see that iran has had good relations with countries like oman and qatar. they've had working relationship with united arab emirates, particularly the parents of dubai. my point is this bilateralism happen because of one simple reason. the inability of the gcc states to get together. not because anything i read it but the gcc states are divided. some do not want saudi leadership. others particularly in this moment in time with what's going on in bahrain are happy to have saudi leadership. they prefer that it seems over iranian meddling or perhaps iranian domination. but it's important to remember there hasn't been one strategy coming from tehran. iran has had six deborah strategy did with six independent neighboring states facing it to the south. i don't really want to repeat

much of what babak said because i am in agreement with what he said. there's no one wind coming from to run on these arab revolution. it's easy for us to talk about the iranians of meddling, being involved, instigating. but the reality is if you look from, they've looked at each arab revolution specifically. so as babak pointed out iraq has not erupted early protest in algeria. nothing. iran has to this day really had almost nothing about what's going on in oman. in the case for egypt, iran with one of the most enthusiastic supporters of getting rid of mubarak. so the idea that some sort of ideological driver behind the iranian attitudes towards what's going on is i think a mistake. if there is an ideology you can say it is the record. it is a cheap anti-american

anti-saudi rhetoric but it's not a very well thought watertight ideological blueprint to serve a iran or iranian interest in the face of these arab upheavals. that's the only consistency, frankly, if you look back, going back to middle a genuine to what happened in tunisia and so forth. and this debate in tehran about who is behind the arab rebellion and how iran should respond is very interesting because you can draw lessons from this debate and say for those in washington and elsewhere in the west, sort of look at the irony regime and say this is an entity, these are lunatics. they are waiting to start world war iii. if you look at iran's like that, then the debate inside tehran will sort of tell you something else. it will show you deliberations within, among a group of hard-liners, the same people who reunited when they were facing the great opposition movement. ahmadinejad people and khomeini,

this claim -- the supreme leader. listen to the debate right now about what is going on. in the arab world. on the one hand, it seems that mr. ahmadinejad believes that was going on on is an american plot. linking it all the wikileaks and everything else led to th the ab revolution say this whole thing was staged. america is doing this to secure a american interest, above all strengthening israel's position. if you listen to the rhetoric of ahmadinejad who placed this is some sort of an islamic awakening to muzzle people are rising up, there found the roots and by the way, this place again and again throughout the propaganda that comes from tehran, they are inspired by the 1979 iranian revolution. so anyways there's a strong domestic issue. they are trying to legitimize their own goal from the own iranian audience in saint what you could people of iran in 32

years ago it's only happening today, but you did it right, you did it early but don't get upset with these arab populations. they have finally caught up and joining us. that's the message. but i mean, if you for a second purchase of in the shoes of one of those small gcc states, half a million population to bahrain or about 250,000 qatar. and you listen to iranian rhetoric, and i don't think every machine does listen to their own rhetoric, you've got to ask the yourself would you blame the gcc states by dean would about what your intentions are? can anybody -- regardless of the nature of these regimes, can you blame the gcc states when they react the way they do but i don't think the iranian regime appreciates the volume of its own anti-gcc greater. it's very heavy. it is coming steadily. i think that last point there, i thought it was interesting.

you can find, you can find so many example of that kind of doubletalk coming to iranian officials saying on the one hand that they are supporting, in the same paragraph sometimes i in te same sense, they're supporting arab revolutions. they welcome arab revolutions. and at the same time saying with nothing to do with it. if you are gcc audience, or if you're really one of the gcc states, you are not going to be convinced by that message. you're going to put more emphasis on iran being a champion of revolutions. that alone i think is what is driving the gcc states towards her it is going right now. two major very strongly worded communiqués been in issued by gcc states the last week. we haven't seen that in history of the gcc in 30 years. but in 10 days or so that issued to very strong community. that tells you something about the mentality or the threat

perceptions and the gcc. when you get a tarmac of all places to back you up that tells you again, qatar having has good ties with islamic republic. okay. let me finally go into this slide here and take you to ask i don't know if it is the last one. i hope it is, but jordan in the gcc, what do i mean by that? i want to take you to the debate that was happening in iran a few months ago. and this takes us to the fashion dispute inside tehran. a man, the right hand man of president ahmadinejad was going around the world and talking about the school of iran comes first before islam. making a lot of people in tehran angry. saying what is this talk about? why are you sidelining islam and the clergy? that's a whole separate debate and i believe the ahmadinejad is

looking to prolong the state of his faction in power, looking around iranian society, he knows islam is as it is a spent force. they need to find some new ways of galvanizing. and the school of iran is supposedly one of the things they hope will galvanize, at least they used to so he is going around from albania to other countries talking about iranian persian heritage. forget islam for a second. this is about iran. one of the countries he visits is jordan. king abdullah the second of jordan gets this invitation to come to tehran. remember and the islamic republic narrative, jordan is a cia asset. right? this is the perception. cia runs jordan. and you go up to a man and unified the king of that country to come to iran for one purpose. ahmadinejad people as they always do don't budge. they maintained this man has been invited to come for a persian new celebrations in

march. but at some point, and this probably happened as a direct consequence of what the arab world is expensing, the uprising, particularly after the arab support, pro-u.s.-arab states supporting the crackdown by the fan in bahrain but it became untenable. and suddenly the media representing ahmadinejad said this visit has been canceled. but the point about this is that you have a fundamental it seems to be a disagreement between one man, mr. ahmadinejad, the president, the elected man, who is pushing constantly the supreme leader and wants more and more and more power. this is just one example of the power struggle. we are all so focused on the green opposition movement, but, frankly, the green opposition movement is in defense position

right now. they are not setting the agenda. the most interesting debate right now, dynamics, is the fight within the hard line between khomeini and ahmadinejad. as i said this was one example of the. the same jordan is now being touted by the gcc state as a country that could join the gcc. because jordan will bring with it 7 million citizens, labor, train, military force that can be a bulwark against the threat. and i would like to sort of wrapup by underscoring i guess this input which is to say that the iranians don't have a blueprint. there's a lot of frederick, and in my reading they underestimate the impact of their own rhetoric. this notion that you can say anything you want and call all these ruling elites in those gcc states as lackeys of the west,

and at the same time taliban don't recounted me. it's networking. and it's very obvious from what the gcc states are doing right now is communiqués, talk about confederation, bringing jordan into the group. these alternatives extraordinary sort of time that we are witnessing. and if that happens the lesson for us i guess is how badly iran played all this. because the gcc states, because of the fact iran didn't face one block, one enters representing all the gcc, but there was six small arab states that iran could play with, play against each other at times, and it did successfully with a qatar playing a qatar office saudi arabians and so forth. if the gcc states are forced into one another's arms, and they have more unity than they had before this represents a

major geopolitical loss for islamic republic. particularly if you look at the value that they collectively the gcc states would have in, for instance, bring about more isolation for the regime if on the nuclear issue for and seize the united states was looking for more, better effective cooperation and willingness on the part of the gcc states to play the part containing iran. so for the gcc states haven't really played a role except with the usual suspects, saudi arabia, but that's not a country that is how much do with iran in the trade front. how to get the a qatar, the u.s. on board. and i think as i said if this continues and if you seek gcc states remaining angry or nervous about iran, the outcome may well be in the short-term iran is weakened on its sudden flank it so that's just one scenario. i think without i start. thanks for the much for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much, alex. for years we've been waiting to

see gcc become a real body. so maybe there's hope. next the country we're all looking at, saudi arabia. >> thank you, ambassador i want to thank the jamestown foundation for organizing this event and for inviting me to participate in it. this time last week i was in riyadh had a very similar conversations with the ones were having here today. and i think there are -- there are two parallel lines of discussion here about saudi arabia, and at the end i think to make two parallel lines come together. one is the domestic situation in saudi arabia, and the other is -- did i just shut it down? is that okay? >> the other is, they are only related but they do come together at the end of his presentation. you may have read analyses, and

longwood in "the wall street journal," saying saudi arabia will be the next big, no of the arab spring. after all it's sort of autocratic country and geriatric leadership. youth employment bulge, it has all those characteristics. and a society that has no way to make, benefits its political will and make the government responsive to its decide. but, in fact, nothing happened in saudi arabia and it was not like anything would happen. the day of rage fizzled to a lot of reasons for this and i want to run through them quickly. saudi arabia is not like egypt or tunisia. i was in tunisia briefly last fall and it was infuriating. the laden hand of the governme government, the depression and the political energy was

palpable. in tunisia. saudi arabia is not like the saudi arabia is a very dynamic environment. and so it can't be compared to what was going on under the autocratic desolate who would seize power illegitimately or come to power by force in the so-called republics. now, first of all, king abdullah, the king of saudi arabia is personally popular. people like you. i like the refiled rows were ousted in egypt and tunisia. the family of which the king of course is a senior member were not, are not perceived as usurpers, unlike the shah, let's say. the family has been laboring since the middle of the 18th century to forge a unified country on the arabian peninsula. they finally succeeded at the beginning of the 20th. they are perceived as the people who put saudi arabia together and the glue that holds it together in an environment where you select certain elements or

geographic and tribal differences. they are the ones who hold it together. the al sad have the support of the religious establishment which is very powerful influential force in saudi arabia. you can say that, of course, they have the support of the religious establishment. not because of the partnership with mohammed that was responsible for the creation of modern state. but because they are employees of the government. they work for the state of saudi arabia and they make a good living but they're very comfortable doing it. therefore, they do what they are told. so you can to a certain extent discount the pronouncement of the most notable one of course being the father law that they issued validating desert storm. everyone knows people in saudi arabia and did not have approved of the massive engagement.

but what the king wants at the end of the day they can get. you can discount the value of the proclamation by the astonishing demonstrations are un-islamic and, therefore, prohibited. but, in fact, a lot of people believe that because they are taught from the earliest days in school that islam requires the bees to a just ruler and they are the enforcers in the upholders of that. furthermore, the saudi people just lived through, like only yesterday, a three-year period of violence, a people issue that's in the streets. during the al qaeda uprising that began in 2003. they lived through that. security barriers went up. they didn't like it. they didn't like of people in the street that disrupted life in the king of saudi arabia. that's not the saudi way of doing things and they didn't want to see a repetition, that

came with demonstrations and protest in the streets. in addition, don't discount the competence now and the determination of the saudi security forces. the government re- issued a proclamation saying that demonstrations and strikes are illegal and security forces were prepared to enforce the. and if there's one benefit to the saudi state from the uprising by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, is that the security force of saudi arabia are much were efficient and competent now than they were 10 years ago. they are good at what they do and they would not tolerating any kind of disorder industry, and they made that clear. it's true that saudi arabia has an impoverished underclass, but it is a relatively small slice of the population and they are far outnumbered by the citizens who have benefited from the

existing system. and benefit from it every day. through government jobs, state funded ventures, business ventures with the ruling family, scholarships. to the extent that people have succeeded in saudi arabia in education, and business, and professional life, that's a lot of people i like egypt and tunisia. they have succeeded as of the system, not in spite of it. and, therefore, they have no incentive to overthrow it. furthermore, unlike egypt, tunisia and yemen, saudi arabia house pot loads of cash, right clicks which is a powerful lubricant when you're trying to keep things to run smoothly as of the king demonstrate to the tune of more than $100 billion in those packages of goodies that he handed out just when all of this -- nothing to do with demonstrations in the streets, you understand. this was the king in the

stilling the benefits of the country's wealth on a deserving citizenry, and why not? now, you can say that this is essentially bribe money. well, that's a cynical way of looking at it. but, in fact, that's the way the saudi state has operated since 1938. right? the central government, i.e. faking, collects money and gives it out. that's what electricity and water are almost free even though they are short of both. right? that's why gasoline is like 40 cents a gallon in saudi arabia. that's why health care and education such as they are our free. that's the way the system works, what you just saw was one big fat manifestation of the way the country has words. and by the way, largely to the material well being of the population. for 70 years. that's what they do there. and, in fact, of course, the

worldwide increase in oil prices prompted by all these other troubles has enabled the saudis to hand out all these goodies without busting the budget. i believe this year they balanced the budget and $80 oil. even with the new expenditures. so $110 oil, they are in that city. they can get out as much as they need. so i don't mean to make light of it. these are serious issues, but i can tell you that the people are not in insurrectionary mood. and they -- to the extent that you talk to the people in saudi arabia, they are actually quite ambivalent about what we call, the term we use collectively for lack of a better word, what we call democracy. you talk to the saudis about opening up the government and

allowing greater citizen but his vision and elected parliaments, and all the others up and they talk about iraq. you say elections, they say lebanon. right? you talk about an elected apartment with real power, they say kuwait, right? they don't like it. they don't see that the well being of the body politics, of state, benefits from replacing the islamic system and that they have and the monarchy, which is generally good to them, with a system that produces only uncertainty, disorder in state paralysis. why would you want to do that? you add all these things up, plus of course the complete disenfranchisement of women who are real troublemakers in some of these other countries, and you don't have anything approaching critical mass for the kind of people in saudi arabia that you saw elsewhere.

and if you read the petitions, there were some petitions that situated, petitioned spasms. every few years and saudi arabia in which petitions are sent around. the petitions, the latest round of petitions were uniform in their collective call for modifications and improvements of the existing system. not for replacing it with a different system. and so perhaps, i think i found widespread sentiment for separating the job of tin from the job of prime minister. the king has been the prime minister. saudi arabia is a complicated country now. nobody can do both jobs, especially at the age of 87. and certainly people think the next king should not also be the

next prime minister. now, there maybe three or four teams in saudi arabia in the next 10 years, but this issue will remain because it goes with the territory. so finally, and by the way, i might say either long conversation last week with a friend of mine, who is well-known indie circles, he was the third him on the long list of signatories up one of these petitions. and he confirmed what i have been told by other people, that i circulate these petitions the relatively small handful of articulate dissenters in the kingdom are not under any delusion that tomorrow morning making and principal wake up every domestic that's a good idea, let's have it constitutional monarchy. know, what they're doing is they're educating, they're laying down markers for a politically unsophisticated populace. this is what you should want.

this is what you ought to aspire to in a modern state that is more responsive to the citizenry and whether some accountability they don't like it's going to happen tomorrow, but people -- there's no -- business sense of what concerted political action would look like in saudi arabia because it's been prohibited for so long. it's sort of similar to libya, right? and the reason there are furious arguments in saudi arabia, all the time intense debates about really obscure matters of religion, this is the argument. the government encourages those are just because they substitute for politics. so you don't have even with all the people educate outside of saudi arabia, you don't have a politically sophisticated citizenry. ..

>> because it came to be associated with the shia who did have some demonstrations immediately alien ated everybody else who wanted nothing to do with a potential movement to be traced to shia or conceived. in the midst of all of this was

the excitement in bahrain; right? i have to say the morning the saudi troops went in there it was before ten o'clock when i got my first call from the media saying what did i think and what was going on with the saudis sending troops to bahrain. i wouldn't talk to him about it because i refused to believe it. i was literally unable to believe that the gcc, which for reasons you just heard alex explain, could not tie his own shoes on strategic issues for years actually took a collective decision to intervene in bahrain. turned out i was right. the gcc as an entity did not do this the the saudis did this and got others to support it beginning with the uae. al exis correct --

alex is correct. they don't have a unified currency let alone a unified strategy because they are all so afraid by domination of saudi saudi arabia. when qatar endorsed what the saudis had done, you knew the extent of the collective alarm of bahrain which means of qatar. it set a very dangerous precedent. the saudis could walk into any of these little countries if thigh wanted to, and that's part of what they were afraid of. you may recall in the last six months as commander, david petraeus gave public speeches in which he essentially said this is snow white and the five dwarfs here in the gcc and there's never going to be one strategy, so we stopped trying.

we're going to create what we'll call bilateral multinationalism by dealing with the countries one on one because that was the only way to do it, and now this was not actually, i'm told this was not actually a peninsula shield force. this was a saudi force with a con tin -- con tin gent force. qliem, come on, who is fighting the war in afghanistan? we are; right? we have that and the same thing is true in saudi arabia. i was there last week and talked about to a lot of people about this, some directly involved in foreign affairs, and some not and for our their derchs about the direction of the country, they were unanimous that bahrain was going to fall to the iranians whether officially or not, and that's a red line, and that is not going to happen to

the extent that iran wants to come across the gulf, that cannot be permitted. i didn't hear one word of dissent from that notion or some people might think the saudis should have sent more troops or fewer or done it differently. nobody objected to that. in that sense, the issue was related because the perceived involvement of the shia in trying to stir up trouble inside saudi arabia was part of what kept the citizens passfied. now, all that said, i don't want to leave the impression that everybody is happy with the present situation in saudi arabia. i've been going there for 35 years, and in this present situation i found people more eager to criticize and speak bout what's wrong than i ever have in the past. a friend of mine said to me we

are the tea party. we're fed up. i was astonished. it was an open phone line. what was he talking about? he was talking about not the mon ash ky has to -- monarchy has to go, but that government offices, agencies, schools, hospitals, are inefficient, no accountability, no way to make the system respond to you, and that's what they want to change, and so they do think that it's possible to achieve that improvement within the existing system, at least they think that so far. i don't know what they'll going to think in 15 years although i don't think it will be that much different. we used to have a saying when i was in active duty in journalism. we used to talk about the idea if only the czar knew.

if he knew, he would do something to help us. there's a certain element of if only the king knew about this attitude in saudi arabia. he's a good guy, and he's just too busy to do it himself. i don't know how long they can maintain that, but i don't see a domestic threat to the saudi system no matter what happens all around them. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, very, very much. let me take advantage of my position up here and pose the first question to thomas lippman on saudi arabia given that king abdullah is the closest thing to a reformer in saudi arabia. what do you think a success looks like and will it have the capacity of making the kind of

change you're talking about and i think the saudis are asking for, not an upheaval, but more accountability and efficiency in government of the who is capable of that? >> i'm only answering the question because i already have a five year multiple entry visa. [laughter] this was a way to alienate people there which i don't want to do. look, there's only a dozen people in the world who know what kind of deliberations are going on inside the family about this, and i'm not one of them, and anybody in this country who tells you he knows is making it up or lying to you. the succession issue is in saudi terms imminent. some people actually think that that, those goody packages that the king handed out for sort of a farewell present to the people of saudi arabia, but there's more uncertainty than certainty

about this because of the age and state of health of the next people in line. i think it's a pretty safe bet now that although he is crowned prince, sultan will not become king because he's not capable of exercising the power of the kingship. the second deputy prime minister is one of the so-called sudary seven group who expressed and shown certain solidarity in the past. the fact he's second prime minister does not mean by a matter of law he becomes king if the two ahead of him were to die. he could. he may be the leading candidate, but under the allegiance law system that the king adopted three or four years ago, after king abdullah and sultan, subsequent successions will be determined by the so-called

allegiance counsel, and the best way to think about that is the way it's set up in the law it's in which the cardinals will go into the vatican, and you don't know anything about the deliberations, but eventually there's a puff of smoke; right? theoretically, any of the cardinals could emerge as the pope, but what happens, of course, is that pope watchers in the media and elsewhere designate certain cardinals before they go in. one of the six guys emerges as the pope. you can figure out -- you can name six princes. one more thing -- i think it's human nature. we can assume that the senior princes and members of the allegiance counsel, there's 35 of them, are engaging in a little family horse trading. i know i'm not going to be king, but if i vote for you, what job

does my son get? it's human nature. they are fathers, rivalries within the clan as there are anywhere else. in the short run, by which i mean the next 15-20 years from the american perspective, i don't think it matters much because any potential king is going to be somewhere between 5:30 and seven o'clock on your so-called left to right spectrum. there's no constituency within the royal family for taliban-style rule or radical democratic reform. >> okay, let's open it up to questions. yes, please, go ahead. >> hi, yes, i have a question for alex vatanka concerning his, i guess his premise that the ironnian state is based on rhetoric, and there's not a policy there. you provided a lot of evidence

to support your case of rhetoric, but do you have evidence to your point about the lack of policy especially when you mention the things like the ahmadinejad invieting the senior daneian king -- jordannian king or that ahmadinejad tried to get rid of the agency to set up his own intell agency. can you just respond to that please? >> actually, that's a very interesting point too what happened with the minister of intelligence who was -- whose resignation was accepted and suddenly was back in the cabinet, but the official mask piece for the regime kept the story saying the resign was gone, not removed it, but the fact he had to get 219 members to write a letter saying, president, take a step back from

the brink of, you know, stop the fight with the supreme leader. it's a plot. everything's a plot. to go back to the question about the foreign policy, why did i mention jordan? i mentioned jordan specifically because as i said, you can look at what's going on in terms of the debate in iran as the ahmadinejad faction looking at his own interests saying where can we move forward and keep the regime and somewhat appeal to the population? particularly after what happened in 2009. this is a faction that is looking at populist motives that might work for it. if you look back to 2005 elections, what was the basic message that got ahmadinejad elected? back to basics, distribution, and back to social reform. he should have no problem in dealing with what people wear,

how long the beards are and so forth, socialist stuff. in 2009, he didn't get the vote, and we all know what happened in 2009. looking for a come back and ways to set the stage for the ahmadinejad faction to continue and in the field of foreign policy, maybe what's happening right now is that ahmadinejad is thinking, okay, all my talking about the holocaust never happened, didn't really deliver anything for me. the arab world doesn't really like me. maybe i should radically change my foreign policy. school of iran is something that appeals to my population who had enough of islam after 32 years might also resinate in the region. i think that's where you are seeing the experiment. you have to remember how his hands are tied. he's playing this in a situation where he takes one step too far too quickly, gets a letter from the supreme saying put your

administrative intelligence back in there please because the supreme leader doesn't need constitutional restraint on him. he can just decide policy at whim. that's what i was trying to say. jordan reaching occupant to jordan to particularly say we want to break away from that whole rejectionist cap or not just limit ourselves to the hezbollah's of the region. he's trying to be his own man. you can see that in domestic policy and lots of issue and also foreign policy. he doesn't like that because he feels exactly the same way with the civil -- dialogue of civilization. this could come at his expense, limitation of powers. >> can i say something about that real quick? adding to alex's comment which i very much agree, but i think there's a possibility of two interesting things developing. one is a new development, the

possibility that we are seeing now in iran in the postelection iran of two discourses, one is the iranian idea to focus on iran for various ways to legitimize the state that lost a lot of legitimacy after the elections and the old discourse that is also islamic and of course the supreme leader who is supposed to kind of lead that image or that discourse on so many different levels. that is possibly happening right now and is coming up from the factional dwixes within the -- divisions within the hard liner or the iranian politics. there's another possibility which i think probably dates back to 1980, and it's an institutional one. the tension between president and elected office and the supreme leader, and we saw this happening in 1980 when the

tension was so much that eventually the president was kicked out, left the country, and he now lives in qatar, or the tension we saw with the reform is with the supreme leader, and now we are just seeing that old institutional tension emerging in different ways in post election with the president as a noncleric. i think it shows there are major shifts and changing happening within islamic republic at this moment. >> [inaudible] >> wait for the microphone. >> our speakers seem to agree that one salient development has been a more coherent g chiropractic c approach to the -- gcc approach to the challenge in bay -- bahrain, be it one led by saudi arabia. we see reports in saudi arabia

in the gcc role in negotiating a solution to the situation in yemen, and i would like your assessment of that. is that also a meaningful gcc activity or is it a saudi activity, and what does it say about the development of coherent gcc policy and the future of relations between yemen and the gcc? >> well, just quickly. my understanding -- i've tried to stay out of yemen, you know? i mean, really, but i do think the gcc states including the ones that border yemen, really have come to see the potential danger to them of state failure in yemen. it would inevitably have a

spillover effect if nothing else because when yemen runs out of water in a few years, there's a huge number of refugees coming across the border which would be unmanageable. this may be an example of where there is a collective recognition of an imminent threat. it doesn't cost the gcc anything to talk to people and try to negotiate or hurt the sovereignty of particular members. this may be an example where they try to perform a unified coherent function. there's a new general in the gcc who seems more inclined to go down those lines. >> if i could just follow up on what tom just said. i've been to yemen once from dubai, and i had all the wrong impressions about yemen. i literally was going back in time. the lack of water, substance abuse, dropping oil production,

you name it, they are faced from different fronts. you are one of the tiny gcc states that wants investment confidence and so forth and there's a wild card at the tip of the peninsula, you have to deal with it. i also say this. it's clearly something where saudi arabia took the lead. it's about money. the first deal that the gcc states put on the table on front of the yes , yemen opposition was rejected. some wonder if he was happy with the sum offered, but didn't feel it was enough for them. the other thing i say about this is look at the gcc involvement. here the is saudis would have been involved. they've always been involved in yemen. when i was in yemen, i was told huge sums of money shows up in yemen to various parties a saudi arabia parties in yemen. can i prove this? no, but this is the chatter in

yemen. saudi arabia must have played a role in that, and i think the other states probably didn't have a distinct view on yemen and waited. look at the way qatar played their role in libya versus other gcc states. if you have a common policy, how's come it's not playing out in libya, but plays out well in yemen? i think because in the case of yemen, the stakes were relatively low for the gcc state, and yet, there was a common threat perception, and the saudi arabia leadership pulled it off, but we don't see that elsewhere, just notably in libya. >> okay, somebody else here? all the way to the back here. >> one of the things that is interesting to us is with the impact on bahrain's domestic situation. there's large investments and so

on and so forth, but no mention or reporting of how the grass roots movement in the arab world can impact the minority groups and what they can do politically to mobilize against, you know, a regime they feel marginalizing them. most of the political groups that discuss are from a persian perspective and can anybody speak on how the minority groups in iran mobilize throughout the uprising in the arab world? especially the sunni muslims and how they respond to this? >> first of all, we have to be aware of the problem sources. i mean, i work on the arab-iranians for years. i still dare not to make it past many major judgments about the arab-iranians as one particular ethnic minority group in terms of the economy. also, we have to be very careful with regards to the ethnic

politics in iran, and also the religious minority politics in iran because they are extremely complicated. i guess in washington we have a tendency to look at politics in a region with terms of tribes and ethnic politics. in the case of iran, especially after the experience, we know that iranian nationalism has continued to play a major role. even at times an arab-iranian who lives there many times sees himself or herself as an iranian first, not perhaps an arab. with regard to that knowledge, if we look at it from that vision, then the question of ethnic minority issues is not the major theme especially in post election iran. it reinvolves with reform or making the government more accountable or making the government more efficient especially in the provinces with the minorities.

now, at the same time, we have to be very here careful because they are been way more discriminated than the arab-iranians or other minority groups, so, then, yes, i would say the minorities took more ethnic politics and the iranian government used that politics in order to justify itself as this benevolent government there to protect the unity of iran as a nation state where as coming to the regard of the small political faction, militant faction and the political movement that is right now in exile, the iranian government is not really that much worried. it is worried about the case and still is, and remember there's a saudi role here, and that's my argument about the cold war with saudi arabia. we shouldn't forget that aspect, the complexity of the regional

politics there. what i ask everyone here is to be careful with the ethnic politics in a country like iran. unlike iraq, iran had a powerful experiment with nationalism, and that is really good news for the iranian government. they don't need to worry too much about it. i don't know if that answers your question, but i just try to shake up the premise of the questions you brought up. >> if i could follow up slightly. one way when i compare is when you look at iraq you look at a country put together less than 100 years ago. you look at the iranian, somebody like me, half persian, do i ever consider this two components? no. the fact they lived 2500 years, and whenever there is a sign when they put one group of iranians against the other, it backfires. human rights, there's an accepting audience in iran. they want to hear about repressive methods.

they don't want to hear about, you know, some guy somewhere crediting a new map of the middle east all divided into various countries, but i also say this, there's an element right now that's timely to bear in mind. what was one of the charges? if you all remember, recently kuwait expelled diplomats for spying and the american military in kuwait. emotions were running high, and one of the things that kuwait newspapers said was to say if iran meddles in arab affairs or bahrain, we'll meddle in your affairs where the shian arabs live. they will not see the region go away because that's leaving, you know, behind, but the point is at times of heightened regional

geopolitical rival ris, you see these issues come up. iran is staid to be involved in the eastern province and the shias retaliate. this dimension does not have to be that big or a an ethnic dimension have to be big. it gets out of control. i believe including the west would be losing out. >> the gist of the footnote here, saddam hussein relied on the argument the minute he walked out was the moment iranians join hands, and that backfired. they were thought to fight hand in hand, but many became rngc members because they had family members still fighting, but let's be careful because i know

mr. biden, i love him, he's a cool guy, but focusing on ethnics is really too simplistic. i love biden. [laughter] >> other questions? yes, other there. >> hi, i have a question for mr. lippman, u.s.-saudi relations and the view of how u.s. stands over mubarak, how do you see that spanning out? also, how do you see the saudi in the longer run being more assertive in this region or keep up this assertiveness? >> this appears to be a down time between the united states and saudi arabia. i heard various explanations for it. unbeknownst to me, i wasn't aware of it. apparently the saudis were extremely unhappy at a speech that secretary clinton gave in

february about our corrupt arab leaderships which they thought pointed at them. we got down deep in the weeds of this. apparently, in his last days of state department spokesman, p.j. crowley, made a statement that governments in the region have to respond to and accommodate sentimentses of the people including saudi arabia. i mean, a gray gratuitous addendum as the saudis saw it. i don't think the saudis believed that the united states could saved mubarak presidency. i mean, what did they want us to do anymore than we could have saved the shaw, but there is a sense that we contributed to the humiliation and the or should we say the unseenly haste of which

we jetsonned somebody to be viewed as a good guy for a long time. you add up all these things on top of very lingering, but deep rooted sentiments that we, the united states, basically delivered iraq to the iranians, and people are pretty disenchapterred; right -- dis enchanted; right? that's not to say there's a permanent or sustained breach in the relationship. neither country wants it. neither country can afford it. we've been in bad situations in the past. the arms deal with go ahead and it will blow over. >> yes, please, go ahead. >> i wanted to ask the panel about that hack exappreciation

scratch a shia muslim and find an arab underneath. i wanted to ask about bahrain. it reminds me of iraq, but it doesn't mean they are proirannian. you can find iraqis who are veterans of the iran-iraq war who fought against the forces, and yet, they have no sympathy for the iranian state, but have admiration for the revolutionary shia leader. i wonder what you thought about that? the iranian people have essentially been silenced in this conflict in bahrain, so only the leadership and the gcc seem to be speaking, and so the bahrain shia have been silenced. i was wondering if anyone wanted

to comment on that. >> for what it's worth, i personally think, and i think i've seem people from the u.s. government sort of reflect this sentiments. it's a mistake on the part of the pro-u.s. arab governments to come out so quickly as they have done and label their citizens who happen to be shias first as shias and then as arabs. they are repeating the same mistake that they did in iraq. they effectively pushed all the shia elite into the arms of the iranians. if there's a vacuum, the iranians will fill it. this is a mistake. call them arabs first, and then the religious identity. not the other way around because then you give the game to the iranians. i think, as it was said expressed by certain u.s.

government officials, don't look at all shias in the region as agents of iran. bahrain is a unique case in many ways because in the cay of bahrain, there's one-third of the population of iranian di sent. people who left iran in the 1920s, and when i'm in bahrain, when they know where i was born, they play me persian music because there's a strong culture affinity in many ways. 30% of are iranian dissent, not just shia. i'm skeptic about the idea. >> [inaudible] >> yeah, i agree with you. i don't think -- iranian culture influence is far greater than the political message of the islamic republic which you have to go into sort of, you know, isolated pockets like hamas and

so forth and cultivated the ties, but often they bring one to the table. >> the whole aspect in 2005 when i visited southern iraq, i saw the pictures all over the place. i walked up, asked the iraqis what's the deal? we don't want an islamist republic, but he was a cool guy and looks like sean connery. [laughter] it was the supreme leader, religious spiritual leader, and unfortunately you will hear from the u.s. reporters or journalists who read into that saying this iraqis are trying to establish an islamist republic in iraq which was not the case. the famous guy,ed sowled revolution -- so-called revolution never

advocated that notion because his father disagreed so strongly with homain. we talk about diversity and that's the case throughout the middle east, and it's very sad, i agree with you, for the king of jordan to talk about it which in itself is almost a self-fulfilling prophesy, but could be a large myth to legitimize their own rules. >> just want to add one thing. i agree with all of that. if you go to the center of shia people, they say the same thing. yes, we're shia, discrimination is awful and prohibited from this and that, but we are not stooges of the iranians, we are proud saudi ashes. this is where they are compromising and the iranians are not, and to the extent there's a deep seeded opposition and loathing of israel among

people of all religious persuasions in the arab world, the sunnies are doing more than all the arab regimes. >> we talked about the whole bahrain question, and the one thing that didn't come up yet is why did they crack down so harshly? we know the par -- pair know ya, but i think it's also important to mention there's divisions within the sunni family in bahrain and factions in the family of bahrain and the supporters who wanted a dialogue and maybe come to a more reasonable approach, and the other side of the family, primarily the prime minister, who insisted on the crack down, and for the saudis, of course, it was a red line as you say. i don't want to take too much time. we have five more minutes i think.

>> one of the big strategic questions brought up this morning i want for you to address, and i'll put in a plug for ravok's piece, a piece with jamestown on iranian reaction developments in syria. that's the question about what would be the strategic impact on iran. should this odd regime fall, and, you know, babik, you can talk about it, but alex, strategic methods and what it means, and if thomas, if you can address how the saudis would react to the fall because it's like the berlin wall of 1989. >> quickly, yeah. i just wrote this piece a few days ago, and what i argue very much is echoing gary that is syria goes, iran will have a

major problem in the east mediterranean region especially in the case of the civil law that iran supports for many years and syria is the bridge for iran to have contact with hezbollah. if a sunni led government replaces, that's a major change. the sunni islamist faction in syria is to a certain extent, not sympathy to iranian. they did three day wars with israel back in 2006, still, they are suspicious of iran. having said that, i think iran would not lose syria. that's why so much in support, and even probably helping syria to stifle the center. that's one thing, and another thing is that at the same time, i think iran is confident that islam takes care of the defense. he knows syria will stay in power or at least the same

government stays in power. if syria goes, i agree with that point that gary brought up this morning that iran would have a major problem in the eastern mediterranean and would be a major loss to them, a major loss. >> just to follow up, syria is a great practical channel to hezbollah in lebanon. take syria out, and it's harder to deliver whatever it is you have to deliver to hezbollah, but i think the iranians have always had a pretty healthy, in my view, healthy view on where they stand with syria. this has never been an ideological issue. the regime has nothing in common in terms of ideology, a very convening marriage of convenience, and it was obvious when they started talking and making headways, for instance, about the return and so forth,

they can want say, oh, our syria friends, that's the price, and we can kiss this relationship good-bye. it's not a surprise, but i agree, it's a strategic disadvantage and as pointed out, particularly in saudi money, saudi coordination is what brings the new syria regime to power, that's a big loss for iran because you always have to seen the iranian-saudis. >> the saudis had it up to here with him permly. in an effort to pry syria back lose, the king did quite a lot in the saudi view. first, he took the investigation off the table. you don't hear the saudis say one word about that anymore. he invited bashar to the opening of the king abdullah's

university, and then went to syria on a public visit taking the saudi immediate yew with him. what was the response? to invite ahmadinejad and stand with him in a news conference and talk about solidarity forever and go back to lebanon. they have had it with bashar. the idea you replace him with a sunni regime with sort of any political structure is not unpowerble to the saudis. >> or the rest of the gcc. >> or the rest of the gcc; right. >> other questions? okay, last question, right there. >> [inaudible] >> microphone's coming your way. >> mr. lippman mentioned oil is a lubricant keeping saudi arabia running smoothly. could the society and government adjust back to a $50 per barrel

oil price if that were to happen over an an extended period of time peacefully? >> how much time you talking about? ten years, sure. you used to hear saudi people expostulating that, okay, so there's no oil, okay, we'll go back to the old way of life; right? right back behind goats and herd them across the iraqi border looking for water. no, no. today's saudis grew up with air-conditioned buicks and apartments. they would not how to live. >> close to dubai -- [laughter] >> remember what happened in the 1980s when the price of oil went below $10 a barrel. george hw bush went to saudi arabia in order to drive the price back up because west texas

was going down the drain. [laughter] that was then. they got enough money in the bank that they could absorb budgetary deficits much better than certain other countries we talking about for quite some time, and i think -- and they have the ability to control to a certain extent the way that that would work. the saudis wish to maintain solidarity within opec for their own reasons, but it would take quite a sustained price depression to cause them any real pain. >> well, with that, i'd like to thank our excellent panel and audience for listening and participating. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> taking a break here at the jamestown foundation. we will be back shortly with another panel this afternoon here on c-span2 on the impact of the middle east unrest on yemen. in the meantime, a portion of this morning's panel on the impact on africa. >> having three hours of sleep

on the plane. okay, thanks very much. thanks to glen and everyone here to listen to our panel. i'm based in the department of literature, so i want to start with a story, and the story goes something like this. a few months ago, i am listening to iranian satellite tv based in los angeles, and we happen to have one in our house, and this guy with the name comes on tv and various interviews he does and rapting is really the bill o'ria riley, and in the middle of his interview, this guy from iran calls, and he's a member of the iranian military group and he calls, and he calls them a servant of the imperialist pig, the u.s., and this guys fights

back, and this is a verbal date. it's fascinating. in the middle of the debate, the guy suddenly calls him and says we will defend in harmony until the last drop of blood in our bodies. this term was only used for human irk, the guy who established islam republic. he called to bring them together, and there was a philosophy theology behind this. when this guy was elected into office in 1989, he was not called emaum and they questioned his degree. many realized he was a political figure in the political

revolutions, but post election iran, post election 2009 iran for the last two years, this seems to be a systematic attempt to call him. what's going on? for the students, you clearly remember the history, the story of revolutions. usually revolutions need a charismatic leader and they get scrutinized, and through that comes safety and bureaucratic and so on and so forth. they lose charisma, but nan tans its ideological rhetoric. in 2009, that happened when there was a mass uprising of middle class iranians and lower class rising up and challenging the republic on so many different levels, and it was not just about the elections. all the way until late 2009, it was the question about whether we want to have an islamic republic. because of that crisis of

legitimacy, it seems that various factions within islamic republic decided to reinvent the state, and one of the first attempts to revine vent -- reinvent that state was the create the figure of homani and make him a charismatic figure. here's there actually in his famous car driving around in the cities of iran, and i don't know if you can see this, but there's a bunch of lights hitting his face, and these lights are in the car. the idea is to make him to glorify, make him look holy, and of course, this constant association between him, the way that government and different rhetorical discourses in iran have done is to associate him with homani, so therefore, you get the term. now, what's going on here? i just mentioned the islamic republic underwent a reinvention of state authority.

homani was to be the key figure in this to bring charisma back was a difficult task, but nevertheless, you see the name homani in the public discourse of the people involved in the iranian government on various different levels. you no longer hear the term, but now hear him called e homani. [laughter] the after the election, cnn was there, wasn't there, but somehow there was wonderful coverage of the elections, and what was felt to many is there's a major revolution. that didn't help. the islamic republic was too creative for that and created a soft war not necessarily to do away and stifle the sense within the iranian society, but also challenge what they perceived to be the u.s.-led velvet

revolution in the country, and much of that really revolved around to make them look like stooges of the west. the famous december 27th of uprising challenged the republic saying the green movement was still there challenging the government, but eventually in the 30 -- i believe in february 2010, famously the intelligent agencies in islamic republic were able to do away with the green movement on so many different levels. the street protests waned away after that major event, and the police forces were able to dominate the public spaces. now, in 2010, the government was able to -- by the way, i took that picture from one of the hard liners, the website on facebook. i thought tf a really cute picture. they were able to at least on some ideological level to make

the green movement look as not only stupid, but simply basically the pig agents of the west. of course, that rhetoric did not really play well among the many iranians who did not believe it, but nemples for -- nevertheless for the republic, they had victory and thought the green movement was out of the question. then came the uprising. in many ways, it surprised the heck out of islamic republic. like many here in washington, they were surprised what happened in tunisia and egypt. they were surprised, and especially surprised when the green movement reinvented itself, and mostly this happened online, and when they came out with a new demonstration event on february 14th, on valentine's day, the government really got upset. they could not believe so many

people showed up to that event. they thought they had already take b care of the -- taken care of the green movement, but not necessarily. on feb 14, we not only saw massive raw presentations, but we also saw the government in many, you know, irrational ways reacting oppressively crushing the movement on the street level. one thing we learned from february 14th is -- by the way, was whole february 14th event was organized as a way of revering or in respect to what happened in egypt and tunisia, and, again, the regime was very surprised, and the second most important thing was the use of reactive measures in order to stifle dissent. a great example of that, of course, is the first time they decided to arrest the so-called leader of the green movement.

they were recently released, and they still have them on house arrest by the way. when these uprisings happened and popped up in different arab countries, the latest of course in syria, the iranian regime at least knew, despite the fact they didn't know how to deal with the events going on, but different factions within it realized two important things. one, the arab opposition movements are not the same as the green movements and there are not -- for two reasonsment one is that the green movement made a lot of mistakes such as focusing on daily protests. this is something obvious with the successes of the egyptian uprises is that went into the night which scared the government, and the iranian government knew the green movement wanted to go home at night and took the protests to

the rooftop of their houses, and to them, that was a sign of weakness. second is organizational. the intelligent agencies of the regime realized that there is a major organizational weakness with the green movement, and they can manipulate, intervene, they could dissect and eventually they could destroy the movement on so many levels that it would be a virtual movement. that happened, but, of course, they didn't predict the virtual community could come back and organize a street protest on february 14th, but the islamic republic also knew that, look, the arab states who were either unable to prevent these revolutions happening or uprisings happening in their countries with different on continue to be very much different than the islamic republic. first and foremost, you either have states that have roots in the military practice, former

callers, or officers who originally took power, and mubarak who was overthrown, or monarchies. the islamic republic is different. these are people who know how to do their job, can infiltrate, know the revolutionaries. they had that advantage. they also knew they were not accountable to a number of different western countries like the way of tiew nay sha, bahrain, and egypt still are. there was the advantage they had. nevertheless, they realize and still do to this day is the uncertainty elements. they don't know how it's unfolding in arab countries, and how this is developing in ways they can't predict like the way washington cannot predict what's happening in various different arab countries. two steps the iranian regime

took on a domestic level and used reactive measures out of fear frankly because they thought the inspiration that the green movement could have from various muslims could be problematic for their status and stability, so they decided to go hard core, very reprisessive stuff, jailing people, jailing leaders of the green movement, and hyped up the ideological represent risk of course and tried to frame the movements, the arab movements, as islamic awakening and movements. people that followed the regime didn't buy the argument for obvious reasons. there's a large secular tendency with the arab movements, and the regime also realized and recognized it although they didn't publicly talk about itment on a regional level, the islamic government had a benevolent approach. they didn't have a clear policy obviously like the u.s. does not

have a clear policy on what's going on with the movements in various different arab countries, but it took a cautious attitude. it did not take too many risks like in countries of bahrain where the shadows looming and still looms and yemen where the u.s. has a certain presence and bahrain as well. it went with another approach being assertive in supporting its only arab ally, syria, in preventing its fall in response to the top of the uprising which continues to this day. in general on a domestic foreign policy level, the post-mubarak iran continues to have a multifaceted policy, but things have changed. look at the first one with regards to arab states particularly the gulf states, and my colleague will talk more in detail about it, but i feel if you carefully read the

progovernment newspapers and agencies in iran, you kind of get the feeling that there's an interesting new cold war happening now between saudi arabia and iran, and iran is fully aware that saudi arabia has actually beginned more power in various different levels, especially militarily in respect to what happened in bahrain or has been happening in bahrain for the last few weeks. the commanders just went on a number of different news reports, and they've completely condemns the saudi arabia government. that didn't happen before because they had a mutual respect. i believe this new arab uprising is affecting iranian domestic policy with regards to saudi arabia mostly, and i think we are seeing probably a rise of a new cold war between iran and saudi arabia, it's just a guess, but something to resemble the 1980s.

libya, foreign policy is imbev lent. they don't want gadhafi in the picture or the u.s. interference. with algeria, they will stay neutral not showing hostile by, but at the same time, not friend either. syria with support, there's a renewal of the pact, and finally with iraq, i would say the same policy they will approach. now, with egypt, interesting things are going to happen. we're going to see new normalizations and new ties between the two countries. i would not see them as new emerging new allies like the way iran and syria have been for 30 years, but egypt will be an interesting case how the country is going to establish new ties with iran. . now, some final remark . policy. does not know exactly what's going on. and as a result, is testing the

water as things kind of unfold on the ground. but make sure that you make a note that this protracted turmoil could provide an opening for increasing iranian's influence especially in countries perhaps in lebanon and iraq but this is all really at this stage is just a guess but if syria goes, i would argue this and here i'm very much echoing gary sick, that if syria goes and assad is toppled expect a possible revival of opposition movements in iran because iran tehran has lost a great ally in the ro >> and we'll take you back live for the fourth and final panel. this panel on demand increases moderated by ambassador edmond hall, the former u.s. ambassador. live coverage getting underway again on c-span2. >> good afternoon.

my name is edmund hall, and i am going to be moderating the panel, and i will take my guideline from bike ride this morning. i will say that scheduling yemen at the end of the day really is a challenge to all of us in some ways the most impeccable problem that the u.s. has to face out there. and also in some ways the most immediate, at least if you listen to the assessments coming out of the director of national intelligence. very, very immediate security concerns with out qaeda in the arabian peninsula. so we will get to those issues and others in the course of the panel. we have a, i think, a very nice balance on this panel. to launch us we have michael

gordon who is recently returned from five weeks in yemen, not only sauna, but outside of some of with a wide range of contacts. so he can start us out with some ground troops, and then we will turn to professor alexander echinacea from the university of michigan who has been studying islam in yemen for a long while. he will provide as insight not only on traditional islam in yemen, which is often, i think, misunderstood, but also a bit of its relationship with the qap. and then, finally, we have dr. bob beall coty from the department of state, the i in our bureau. and i am amazed that he is here given that his charges really understanding developments across the middle east and

explaining them to secretary clinton that he can have time to do all of that and then show up here is really a tribute to you, nabil, and we are delighted to have your perspective and your expertise to bring to bear, too. so, with that, i will asked michael to get as launched. [inaudible conversations] >> the title of my talk is crisis in yemen, orderly transition or civil war and fragmentation. there is going to be quite a

broad talk trying to cover quite a bit of ground, hopefully quickly. apple first examined the key challenges facing him and and then take a look at some of the primary players and groups that are playing a part and likely will place a -- play a part. the future of yemen and wait matt -- may well determine whether or not yemen emerges from the current impasse or whether it descends into civil war and/or fragments. let me begin by briefly talking about a few of the most significant and long-term environmental and other challenges that yemen is facing. no doubt many of you are aware of some of these, many of these. water scarcity i would rank as number one. the you ndp is labeled yemen as one of the most water scarce countries in the world. it lies in the san hellion belt which is experiencing climate change and changes in rainfall patterns.

this is impacting yemen. many areas receive torrential downpours. others receive no rain at all, but overall rainfall amounts have declined. a number of undp funded studies have cast implied the our offer will run dry within 10-15 years at current rates of depletion. that is at current rates, not taking into account the ever-growing population. so they will be one of the first cities to have to be relocated. there is also heavy reliance on diesel fuel to run the pumps for the wells. this is heavily subsidized by the government. this is something that is point to be difficult to continue in the future to humans many economic problems. population growth, the population has tripled. roughly 24 million has a population growth rate of three

and a half percent, which is the fastest in the region and one of the fastest and -- one of the highest in the world. one of the fastest growing capital cities in the world. population 50,000, roughly 50,000. well over 2 million now. likely approaching two-and-a-half million. declining oil production, yemen was never a major producer of oil, but the oil revenues are critical for the continuance of the state. they make up in excess of 70 percent of state revenues. oil production peaked in 2003 and has since declined by more than 50% while at the same time domestic consumption rates increased markedly. rising unemployment, overall rate of 35%. this is likely much higher, certainly much higher in south yemen. protest, the unrest, the impasse between the antigovernment

protesters and the government is certainly driving. many construction projects and international investments, recently you read it a saudi arabian investment is down by 80%. so this is certainly having an impact on the broader economy and unemployment as well. 50 percent of the yemenis live on less than $2 a day. rising cost of food is another issue. yemen imports roughly 80% of its food, so it is going to be heavily impacted by the global trend and rising commodity prices. and endemic corruption, transparency, international has consistently ranked yemen in its annual surveys as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. as the impasse between

anti-government protesters, the opposition, and government continues the prospects for an orderly transition decrease. now the stakes are considerably higher because you have elements of the first armored division as well as the republican guard facing off. on march 206th major general defected from the regime and joined antigovernment protesters in their calls to step down. he is the gentleman at the bottom and the center for out of there. the center of the photoperiod he deployed parts of his first armored division ostensibly to protect antigovernment protesters from further crackdown by state security forces. general muhsin is eight interesting fellow. to say the least. there is actually a profile of him in the militant leader

monitor that was handed out. he is a master of asymmetric warfare. he was key in recruiting many of the afghan, arabs that were critical in the 1994 civil war, short-lived civil war between the democratic republic of yemen and the republic of yemen. republican guard troops have taken opposing positions. the republican guard is commanded by a mad all the sulla, the president's son. the -- republican guard are protecting key assets which is also home to yemen's primary air force base and its fleet of mig-29 and 21. there are also predicting the presidential palace and most of the ministerial buildings. there have been clashes between the two forces. these were reported. a number of clashes. there have been at least four soldiers killed. these are clashes between the

republican guard, elements of the first armored, as well as the central security service, which is commanded by a brigadier. there have also been defections from the republican guard. reported defections, i don't have any firsthand information on that. reported in the south enlisted men and leaving. there have also been clashes between army units and the republican guard. these have been in the south. this is a very good basic tribal organization chart. by no means complete. it is just giving you an idea. it is missing -- i am no master of power point. understanding yemen trouble and patronage networks, especially in north yemen is one of the keys to understand what is happening and what may happen in

the future. president abdullah as-sallal has long relied on an elaborate patronage network to maintain support and coopt potential rivals anniversaries. yemen declining oil production and rapidly deteriorating economy have both impacted the president's government ability to continue to fund this patronage network to the same extent it had in the past. the transition from this soft coercive authority that the patronage network provided the government is certainly one of the causes for the unrest. these kind of -- this patronage network has a very long history. so the transition is more forceful tactics, on going for at least the last five to seven years. as we said, it is certainly a contributing factor to the unrest and revolutionary fervor that has spread across yemen.

not the only one who maintains and funds that patronage network. general muhsin also has his own patronage network. he supposedly has quite considerable personal of and can easily tap into this to continue to arguably by the support of key travel figures. so muhsin really does have the ability to come with this considerable personal wealth, to act as well as his first armored division that he commands to act as a kind of kingmaker. i think we're already seeing that. the kingdom of saudia arabia is an important player, arguably the most important player. they have long funded, helped fund this patronage network, and they also have their own network. this comes back at least 70 years. moving forward, these patronage

networks and more broadly the tribal alliances will be a major force in determining who governs yemen, north yemen in particular and will also contribute to instability. there are no easy answers for the economy of yemen, particularly given the declining oil production. so the patronage networks, unless saudia arabia continues to fund them or of their funding, they will have to be defunded and officially and want. they are also undergoing a realignment right now. so it is certainly going to contribute to instability. back to this chart. it seems to be quite a lot of confusion in the media, understandably so, about the hashid bakil, the hashid federation, the hashid tribe. the bakil federation is larger, but not as well organized or as cohesive. again, these are just a few, very few of the tribes.

i put on the right there under sun on, you can see general muhsin. they are not related. and then of course the all important family, the head of the hashid tribe and the larger the hashid federation. moving on to the south, and the areas that used to be part of the former people's republic of yemen, tribal identities and alliances tend not to be as strong as in the north. the predominance of the northern tribes, both in the economy and in in any society is one of the primary grievances cited by those in the south who are calling for secession. in the south antigovernment protests have in many ways merged with the secessionist let

protest. the secessionist ways -- wave that has spread across the south of yemen in the past four years is, perhaps, one of the greatest threats to the future of the unified yemen. south yemen has been the scene of some of the most violent protests. the clashes between antigovernment protesters, secessionists, and state security services. even before the current outbreak of anti-government protest, unrest in the south was running high with monthly and even weekly demonstrations, said ins, and it calls for general strikes. this has been mainly in aden. the seven mobility movement has continued its calls for secession. the southern mobility movement, as mm, is an umbrella

organization that was founded roughly in 2007. 2007-2,000 date. it is an umbrella group for a number of groups dedicated to the seven issues. since the outbreak of protests it has taken an even more active role in southern politics. the is a nebulous to say the least just by his very nature. a very difficult to ascertain wh any degree of certainty what the consensus of the group's it represents is. however, there were some initial statements going back to february where some of the leaders indicated that they would be quite happy to join a unified opposition government. since then, since the crackdowns have continued there seems to be some shipped with renewed calls for secession.

notably general knew but who is in the bottom left there, the demand in the white shirt just above. he has renewed his calls for a referendum on secession and the poll that was conducted. i believe it was two years ago. it suggested that more than 70 percent of yemenis, south yemenis would support secession. there have already been attempts to organize councils and transitional council's. the council in aden is being set up to deal with eruptions -- interruptions in basic services, essentially a first step towards establishing a seven controlled local government. it should be noted that most of humans oil wealth is in the former governance of the pbr why. apart from the oil and gas

field, almost all of the oil wealth and guess what is in the south. a small population relative to the north. so secession is not going to be taken lightly in all likelihood the northerners will fight. another threat to yemenis state police said this is the growing separatist threat. a vast area, roughly 40,000 square kilometers. a small population, but home to an oil and gas wealth as well as important will handling infrastructure. there have been widespread protests. this is usually a very quiet governments, but there have been protests. the southern mobility movement

is active in the hadramawt, particularly in mccullough where it has, in many ways, modeled some of its organizations that operate under the umbrella of the s and m and have adopted some of the muslim brotherhood and egyptian policies and ideasf providing basic services for the communities there. there does seem to be some kind of alliance between the secessionist and the groups in the hadramawt that are calling for independence of the hadramawt based on cultural differences. it is very difficult to work out

how organized the separatist movement in the hadramawt is, but there is certainly a separatist movement that would like to return to the autonomy that the hadramawt once enjoyed. there is also of faction within the group that advocates turning the kingdom of saudi. again, it's very difficult. i have not been there for a year. i was not able to return this last time. a very difficult to determine how popular that option is. close, cultural, and economic ties between hadramawt and saudi arabia. in fact, in many parts of the hadramawt, the saudi riyal is the defect a currency, not the yemeni. moving on, the threat of a kayak

and the arabian peninsula has arguably been given the most attention by the western media. i certainly don't want to downplay the threat posed by militants to anna yemen, the region, or even western countries. however, i think it is important to ask the question of who benefits. there are some questions, i think, that should be asked about the regime's and governments. the track record and tackling militants. on march 8th of this year at least 70 militants, some known members of a cap escaped the central security system. this release followed a somewhat

suspicious escape of 23 militants in 2006, one of whom was this your album a she who is a leader within aca p. he is in the white shirt there in that photoperiod so as i was saying, the record as a partner in the war on terror is somewhat mixed. that said, the increased instability in yemen and especially the economic damage being done by the impasse between antigovernment protesters and the governments will certainly benefit the aqap organization. aqap, like al qaeda central and the broader movement, has had great difficulty in engaging with those protesters who are calling for democracy,

transparent government, fair elections, or even the idea of elections. somewhat doctrinal a constraining the ideologies that informs aqap. it does not see democracy as viable or as a religious form of government. it's considered a form of shark, which is adultery. the idea is that all legislation should come from god. adamantine will benefit from increased operational freedom. despite the group seemingly being out of touch with the changes taking place across the middle east and particularly in yemen, they will benefit from the increased operational freedom provided by the unrest and in the case of yemen, the withdrawal of state security services and our forces for many of the region's. on march 30th it was reported that an islamic emirate had been

a part declared by an aqap. this followed the looting of a weapons -- it was labelled as a weapons factory. as acted to vet actually a reloading facility for ak-47 ammunition. not sure -- certainly following for aqap. that should not be dismissed. however, i think the idea of an islamic emirate is, perhaps, more propaganda, certainly more propaganda than reality. it need to consider the cultural terrain and traditions. one of the most important agricultural areas in yemen. women play a large -- make up a large part of the labour force and play an important part in the labour force. so following this call for an islamic emirate in that same radio message reportedly aqap encouraged all yemeni women to

stay at home unless they were accompanied by a male guardian. there is also going to be increased networking possibilities for aqap. aqap is likely to have many new possibilities to network with militants operating in the region, notably the to bob movement in somalia. they already have clear indications that they have established strategic -- strategic relationships. there are also going to at have more opportunities for cross border engagements. i'm speaking of the saudi border which is even before the outbreak of unrest and protest in yemen. largely unguarded. now many of these key units have been withdrawn, particularly in the north of hadramawt. there will be increased opportunities for smuggling both

operatives and weapons across the border. and access to more arms, acquiring arms is never a real problem. given that a number of police stations as well as arms depots have been looted there will certainly be more arms coming on the market. yemen faces a range of possibilities and scenarios. sadly at think many of them are rather graeme. the continuing protest in the government response have further eroded the course of power of a regime that was already quite weak. ball -- the government focuses on maintaining control and attes to restore and shore up support among many of the critical northern tribes.

yemen risks coming apart. i don't know how much of this kind of, this attempt to shore up support is focused on the idea that solemn will remain in power or -- certainly part of it is to ensure a successful departure for him. perhaps some of those close to him, but also possibly to ensure the continuance of parts of the government and to allow many of those that are close to him to remain in their positions. the economy that is now being enjoyed in many parts of yemen, particularly in the south also, which i had not mentioned, the northwest of the men and parts

of tujunga. a radical sect. it is in turn a fact of shia is on. following the 2009-10 war, they were able to assert a great deal of control. they have continued to assert even higher degrees of control in the area, and it will be very difficult to get them to give up or to it recover that control for the government. i've bring to a number of threats. i think the attempt or calls growing in number and fervor by many in the south to secede is perhaps the most serious threat to the continued unity of yemen.

there is arguably growing support in the south for the session as the sallal government response confirms and validates those groups that operate under the southern ability movement and the broader narrative of the south as oppressed, the south as different, the different country with a different history. as i said before, it simply -- it would be allowed to happen. there will be of repeat of the 1994 civil war, but probably much bloodier. the war in the north, the chaos that i spoke about before being caused by the realignment and eventual this funding of the patronage network, as i said, it will be very difficult to get them to give up to control that they now exercise in the region. fragmentation of the armed

forces. fragmentation of the armed forces, which we are already seeing in the fact, aliments and most of the first armored division and the republican guard are facing off. there are also other factions appearing. i mean, the yemeni army is more or less organized along tribal lines. many of these generals feel -- field grade officers operate fiefdoms where they can exercise a great deal of control. so i think that is actually a critical step -- a critical threat. going back, 1. i wanted to make is the importance of the region to stability in the region and arguably checking the

threat to saudi arabia. the province that borders the saudi province is home to a considerable number of religious minorities. there was a revolt there. saudis very concerned about the idea or the possibility of -- of i guess you could use the word radicalizing their own religious minorities there. to end on the somewhat hopeful note, the unrest in yemen could well bring about the kind of change that the country so desperately needs. it could well force a descent

into troop failed state status. the transition to an implicit government that allows for the participation of groups like the seven mobility movement, southerners and general. they have indicated that they would be willing to join an opposition government or some kind of transitional government. i have not seen that disputed. they are saying that at the same time as asserting more and more control. and this opposition government, i mean, if it were to address the grievances of these groups and the communities they represent, especially the grievances of seveners, it could well bring about, as i said, the kind of change that yemen needs and could act as a unifying force in yemen. yemen does not obviously going back to some of the challenges, environmental and development so that i was speaking about,

simply cannot afford a war. it cannot afford it in terms of capital or resources, and its army simply can't manage to fight a war against the secessionists in the south, all war against the who see as well as conduct counter terror operations. yemen does have a viable political parties and a history of the elections. somewhat flawed, but it is there. so it is not like libya where you had as some of the other panelists were saying earlier, 40 years of one-man and one system, if you could call it a system. that is not the case in yemen. you have viable parties and elections. also there remains a strong, i think, -- this is questionable, but potentially unifying idea or sense of what it is to be many.

that would certainly be encouraged if yemen managed to transition some kind of orderly -- manage some kind of orderly transition to an opposition government and have fair elections. also, though long promised adoption of federal system president sallal has talked about this for years and not done anything about it. this would allow right now the government a highly centralized. this would allow for a great deal of political autonomy, something that the south before it moved toward your calls for secession, they actually were advocating, particularly groups within the southern ability movement advocating federalization as a viable option and something that would encourage them to remain part of yemen. so this could certainly help ease tensions.

tribal government structures. these actually, the tribes are a double-edged sword. they contribute to instability in that they limit the coercive authority and -- of the central state governments. at the san time there is many hundreds of years of established tribal law that is focused on mediation, conflict resolution and and at limiting the spread of conflict and loss. this is something that i think should be encouraged. i think it is actually a contributing factor of stability right now, as i think dr. macgregor would say, with the situation, particularly in therefore, saying that there was a massive influx of weapons, speaking more broadly about the

situation in north africa in general, the idea that you have a massive inflow of weapons, increased instability, years of instability. yemen is one of the most heavily armed countries in the world. as yet while there have been high in levels of violence, i'm certainly not downplaying that. we are nowhere near, thank god, a somalia-like situation. not yet. and i think one reason for this is the presence of the tribes and the traditions of mediation and conflict resolution. so that is, i think, a good sign that the violence has been relatively limited so far. and just to touch on a few of the economic -- at the seven. >> leave any time for questions. >> that's fine. >> that's pretty much wrapped

up. yes, we have some point to touch on economic issues. >> we will be back with a question. [applause] [applause] >> okay. i know it is very difficult to be the last speaker. especially since you have already received such an exhaustive discussion of yemen that was provided. i would like to start out by saying thank-you to the jamestown foundation and in particular to clint howard for inviting me. i'm also expected to be here

because libya was mentioned. i started my career translating for a group of libyan students in the very unlikely place in the city of kursk. that is where they were sent, and i was the interpreter for the group. at that time already there were triple mitannians. yemen, i will discuss differently from michael in order not to repeat myself. at least a will try to do that. thanks god i am not a policymaker. after having heard such a complex analysis of all this events that are going on, i'm really happy to be an academic. when i can study a country without necessarily trying to come up with solutions to the problems of the country's, and

that is accrete, i think, advantage of academic, from my viewpoint. sometimes my mind wobbles about what will happen next in yemen or in libya for that matter. so, as for demand, i have a strong sentimental attachment to the country. apart there for the first time immediately after the coup d'etat in 1986. bodies were still on the streets by some corporate fate. they allowed me to enter the country to join the soviet yemeni historical and archeological mission. that was the first time i found myself in an arab country. i loved the place. therefore my approach to yemeni history will be a little bit sentimental. hopefully also entertaining because you need some entertainment. first of all, the human and

physical geography of yemen, it was mentioned. from the very beginning it occupied a very strategically -- by the way, the photographs are all mine taken in -- this photograph is taken in capital of on your left. it will be taken in 1998. and the other taken in 1999 after the unification. but, -- >> the full screen. >> okay. >> faster. [inaudible] >> there you go.

that's it. >> okay. so, as you can see, strategically important because it is located on the crossroads of ancient trade routes from the indian ocean to be next iranian basin. there is a strong difference between the tribal and to land and the nodes of trade and cosmopolitan coastal culture. this applies to both spots of yemen, to the north and south. what was, i think, only briefly mentioned, society is very stratified. in fact, it consists of cost. they are based on the professions and on the defense. to some extent you can compare this to the indian caste. when you ask a person's name, it's like he gives you his

genealogy or her genealogy. my name you recognize what a traditional stratum of the society belongs to. that makes all the difference. at least it was very important before the revelations. it still contains some force of social force and economic force. as mentioned already in this presentation, michael's presentation, there is a great deal of difference between north and south. in terms of cultural orientation, the amount that was mentioned is oriented primarily to the indian ocean trade to india, indonesia, the malaysian archipelago, and it is being part of yemen, unified yemen is in essence artificial. the abolished only up to the

revolution of 1967-68. they disappeared. human and physical geography, i mentioned the traditional occupational strata, which basically determines the way you are treated by the society. there is religious aerostar -- aristocracy. they descended from the prophet muhammed who are even genetically different from the local tribes as we found out during our physical anthropology studies. and then there are also the tribes that constitute the military and political crocks of the society. all of the strata including the upper strata are dependent on the good will for their survival. and the tribes at least in the south carry the weapons of the

strata. that makes a very important difference. in the north it's slightly different, but i don't have the time to get into that. here you can see, the folk dances from south yemen with uncovered faces, which is unusual. they belong to a very low stratum. no one cares whether they cover themselves are not. in the north -- sorry, and women of the upper strata they have to cover their faces and have to be chaperoned when they venture outside their household. in north yemen the city of pip which is a commercial node not far. you can see some troubled children with their traditional daggers. tribes and state, i think

michael discussed, and some detail the relationships. i will only focus on the very complex and delusive notion of a tribe academics. i would love to discuss such contentious issues. still can't arrive at a definition of the tribes that would be applicable of in yemen and in morocco, for instance. but what is important about yemeni tribes, they are all agriculturalists. they are peasants but trouble genealogies, practically no trends in and tried. as we see the tribes normally moving from one place to another. if they don't like the government they can move on to greener pastures literally. therefore, we can say that this crime is not as mobile in yemen, and therefore they are dependent on the state because if the state can send forces to the

territory they will have to abandon their livelihood. if they want to move before they are eventually brought back into the fold with the military force, and they cannot escape the reach of the state. and, as i say, the desire for independence of the tribes is tempered by necessity to secured state patronage, as was discussed in the previous paper. and so i will dwell on that. uneven composition of yemen, the tribes are more powerful in the north then they are in the south, partly because the southern tribes were deliberately and consistently dismantled by the seven communist regime. they prefer to call themselves socialists regime because they tried to abolish both the regional differences.

they named the provinces. number one, number two, number three and order to avoid all historical reference. they were just numbered. fifty-seven provinces. conflicts -- complex relations between the tribes and state. there is a rule of weak and unstable. superimposed on a relatively stable tribes. per analysis by sheila and her trouble order. this is indeed the case. the tribes are more resilient. they are more autonomous. they can exist without the state. the state cannot exist without tribes. tribes and state, between

autonomy, the delicate balancing act which i wanted to represent by this winter trying to show me his skills and working on the rail. it's a delicate balance between portion, competition, and fragmentation. it's been a defining point for the central political leaders in yemen. it appears the current president was quite good at manipulating this delicate balance and striking this delicate balance. -- tribal leaders crucial role as mediators between the central government. the tribe makes them a targeted. four confrontation by the state when it can afford it.

the state was able to avail themselves for the oil revenues to buy the oil fields, the tribes. as the oil revenues are diminishing, the buying power of the state is drastically curtailed, and that presents the current government with a significant problem augmenting the tribal allegiance. but channeling the essential resources extracted from the sale of oil means that the tribal shtick becomes detached from the constituency. basically becomes very wealthy and kate. i am trying to curtail. i mentioned that there are four to 5,000 significant shakes who received state salaries.

the numbers. five minutes through history of ancient yemen. [laughter] anyway. the history. okay. you mean. [inaudible] >> that is a very oriented approach. oriental list approach. okay. okay. agent civilization. i'll focus. it might be of interest. not your regular shia, because they have a different approach to who was right into was wrong at the beginning of islam. they can be said to be softer

because they do not necessarily concur. they are very politically militant, precisely because they cannot tolerate injustice. they think that if injustice shows itself it should be suppressed, and the person who marches out against injustice is the rightful leader of the community who has to prove his commitment to justice in the battlefield. that is why it accounts for the emergence of every able person who proves themselves on the battlefield and also proved themselves to be very astute religious scholars. i won't touch the turkish

conquest. that is the interruption of the usual history of yemen when the tribe of the north dominated. dominated the rest of yemen and it also coastal areas which were inhabited by the sunni communities. the ottoman conquest, which was not unlike any imperial conquest, the ottomans were seen as complete colonizers and aliens despite their islamic credentials. so they were fought against. the sunni submitted to the authority. they increased their reputation as the defenders of the independence of yemen.

so the relations. okay. i'll move on. okay. what's wrong? i think that's not all for some reason. the revolutions, in fact and i have only five minutes left. >> alexander, you have talked about the religious establishment. you also spoke on the sunni. could you compare that with the views of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and how that fits our does not fit into the demand picture. >> so the fallacies are opposed

to any manifestation of shiite because they consider it to be a wrong interpretation of islam. they are seen as being closer than the shiite of iran, for example. they do not necessarily concur with the first three successes to the profits from the c-span.org consider to be preservers. they also in the early 19th century there was a great yemeni reformer who tried to reconcile. he achieved success. so, the al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is very interesting. the view toward shia in general in principle is very negative.

at the same time they think that the who see -- and in this way i agree with the egg government. they are the stages of a run. you can read this in their manuals and this particular al qaeda in the caribbean peninsula. it's called the echoes of epic battles where they basically say that they are the stages of peron who once taught in still the institute of shiite. however, if you ask the president he would say, i'm not shia. he would distinguish himself.

and then the michael horton, the principal -- i think i'm running out of time. >> with i would suggest is we leave it there for the time being. making some comments generally and then go to discussion among the panel and questions from the audience. >> undp. sounds great. >> okay. [applause] [applause] why don't i speak from here so that we can make this more of our conversation. just one quick comment. first of all, on a qap, i agree. they do regard but some animosity. if they have the time they would probably be directing some of their operations. there have been tensions between the two on a couple of

occasions. basically the the one has much time for the other. i guess my question is, does this antagonism represent an obstacle to us at 19 inserting itself as a whole? >> no. i would say the main problem is with the time. the rank and file tribes are basically not fertile ground for michael horton. they don't like michael horton. when they tolerate some of their own children, so to speak. some of their own young man being yemen, but they try to control them. if they bring in a queue types from outside then they are generally not welcome. so the challenge for an aqap is how to better integrate into the

tribes, and they have a strategy for that, and that has had some success. it has not had enough time yet for them to really make inroads. as a result they are still somewhat on the margins. that is at an 19. for michael, one comment. basically a happy ending possible. i'd like you. i am optimistic that civil war and fragmentation are both avoidable, even at this late stage in the game. but it is an orderly transition possible? i don't think so. a transition yes, but it's probably going to be messy. it will be very orderly. it still beats any kind of messy transition pete's outright civil war, and i would not so what's a civil war as military. essentially it is not the whole country that will be consumed in

fighting one another over president sallal barre it will be the military that has already broken into two halves. if they go after each other that's going to be very nasty indeed. that is the thing to avoid. just to make a very quick comments, and then a few people who would like to take this. if you look -- essentially the transition that we are talking about now is on overdue. if you take the long-range view ten years ago the political and economic reforms we have been talking about should have been implemented. they should have been the focus of the international community. they were, but compared to security considerations and if you just look at the budget figures infinitesimal amounts going to where they should have gone verses the security fund.

what you had against that -- basically, a lack of interest in general reform, but you had to use security issues, the big one in yemen and 2,000 and in 2001, september 11th, and the iraq war with the flow of foreign fighters. there has been one issue after another that has diverted attention both in the country and outside the security matters. it that took precedence, unfortunately, over the types of reform that the long term would have guaranteed of more stable yemen and possibly could have averted the situation that we have now. if you go to the midterm, not the long-range, two years ago roughly irreparable damage to the regime became apparent. ..

>> the southerners, once they moved over from griping about how much they're abused by the central government to saying we've had enough, we want out of this union, even though they've had different leadership, basically, the south came a serious issue so lost the north, then lost the south, and then i

believe the tribes began going against him one after another with his own consideration. the leadership passing to the sums and essentially couldn't get the same kind of friendly am nimty with the father as he had with the son so his tribe, the consideration of which his tribe is a part, started going against him, but the leadership was sort of against him anyway, and them in the midst of that, al-qaeda decided we had a good time transiting through yemen, recruiting, and going north, but we need to set up a serious base in yes , yemen to operate in and out of yemen. one they had that, that

presented another major challenge to the regime. you lose the north, the south, the tribes, and the center and the south where al-qaeda's operating against you, and you really don't have much leg left to stand on. now, if you zoom forward to current events, the tunisia bug call it, the political tsunamis started with that, start in yemen next, even before egypt. just in yemen it was a slower more dangerous route than in egypt. once that spark started, you have the youth movement more or less, middle class, lower middle class, educated types who can organize civil society and use facebook, those people did what their brothers and sisters did in the other countries. small in number, they start off

a larger movement, and it just came after that with everybody saying, yes, this is the time to change. we can't stand this situation anymore. with all of that, on top of it all ring -- all, the military split. we were on a panel and said if he goes against him, then it's really time for him to go. that's essentially what happened is that allehamad leaves the regular army where his sons and nephews lead the special units that are better trained and equipped than the army, but they are also smaller and they are very family tied and very loyal and will shoot to kill as they have shown, but a confrontation between the troops and these

guys would be an interesting battle. it would be very bloody. i think in the end i'm not a military vat gist, but i think -- strategist, but i think the regular army would win. if nothing else, by sheer numbers. even now then we are still worried about the security aspects again, and rightly so this time because this is very immediate in the sense that the preoccupation is to avoid a big military clash in which thousands would die, but beyond that, you still need what was always been needed in yemen which is a transition with proper social, economic, and political reforms that could keep the country together and

could satisfy many of the demands that are being raised by the youth movement. so far the negotiations and mediations, i think, are probably giving in too much of what his preferences and desires are rather than to what is urgently needed which is his departure, and an agreement between the principle parties out there on a transition plan which is going to be necessariy. it's not going to guarantee immediate results, but it would be a start. i'll leave it at that. >> okay. shall we go to the audience for questions? >> hello, i'm sam from american military university. i think for an awful long time,

we, as westerners, have accepted the sage advice of those who give analysis of the tribes in a monolithic manner. it was brought up earlier by the panel that the tribes are essential to al-qaeda. we nod our heads. of course, the middle east has begun to show us the tribes are connected to the land. i'd like to ask you what tribes where for al-qaeda? >> you're asking all of us? >> the panel, absolutely. >> i can talk about one tribe, abeesa, which -- i can answer in terms of the publications of al-qaeda. one tribe is called abdeesa, and

it's had grievances against a neighboring tribe. >> [inaudible] >> and so it could host al-qaeda units as a leverage against the government as a tribe may kidnap tourists. in the same way they can host the groups that are against the government, and in that sense, they can use -- any tribe can use the al-qaeda as a bargaining chip in their constant negotiations, constant dance with the government, so abdeesa is for sure and the tribes of abian also. >> i wouldn't name any one tribe

because there isn't a one tribe that is wholly for our against. in any one tribe, you're going to find individuals who are more welcoming than others, so quap has had better luck south in the area, and there -- i mean, even if you take a tribe with the infamous son comes from, that tribe is split. i mean, they are not really of one mind or on al-qaeda in general. small geographic, it's more on certain turfs, but i would be reluctant to say this tribe is bad; this tribe is good.

>> i've been told that the main figures vying for power with sala all represents an elite struggle and the figures are using the people on the street as a card to play against each other, but with yemen, we're seeing an elite struggle, and i'm wondering to what extent you see the current guys to be able to forge some sort of transition that would speak to the grievances of the different groups and constituencies at play in yemen, or to the extent this is another phase, perhaps a different phrase, and then we see the potential for more serious break down, and if the former is what you see, where would this leadership come from? >> i can answer about my interviews about the intelligence, which was, of course, doesn't represent the whole nation, is that they think

that the sovereignists should be brought to the table, and they should form a transitional government possibly led by yassif of the former southerners. they think that also people who have long been in exile should also be brought in, that the northern rebels should be brought in, and the various tribal groups that have been marginalized by the leader. the northerners and the southerners should be represented, and then this transitional government should steer the -- and, of course, the federation also should be included. in other words, the intelligence

the government should be, the transitional government should be more represented, and that would secure the hope transition to the electoral period, but that's, again, the view point of the enlightened intelligence because, of course, they are other opinions, tribal opinions, which didn't -- i do not know well enough. >> i wouldn't say so much elites, but they're the traditional leaders of various parts of the country. what's missing in the picture so far is the youth movement which is the new factor. out of the youth movement, there are several good young leaders,

but they haven't had the chance to consolidate a base for themselves, and as such, they're expressing their ideas in the streets, but they are not technically speaking around the table where the transition is being negotiated right now. from the names mentioned, yes. i mean, to say elites makes it look like they are detached from their people. they are not. they represent the north and the south. they represent all jmp party and old parties, and these are all constituents in the country. you need to represent the north and the south. do you need to represent them with those particular individuals? maybe not. among those individuals, there's not that much good, frankly, but that's all you have for a transition. hopefully, with a proper reform program once they've sort of

taken over in some kind of a coalition national unity government, perhaps then other new young leaders could bubble up to the surface, but right now, they are a bunch of old guys, yeah. >> i think we have time for maybe two more questions. >> i think this is a question for michael. you mentioned sort of the economic considerations which you didn't have time to get to, and i'm just wondering, what are the commercial implications for however yemen ends up? you know, whether it fragments, or whether there is some kind of transition. what are your thoughts on that? >> well, i'd say they're considerable. you have the kingdom of saudi arabia just north, so i know the saudis are deeply worried about what is going on in yemen and how the up state may affect

them, -- instability may affect them. you have strategic check points between 3-4 million barrels a day, and hundreds of tons of cargo. in security in yemen will certainly have an adverse effect on regional security which is already a mar -- major issue. i don't know if that entirely answers your question. if you have a follow-up, go ahead. >> we have oil fields in yemen, and, of course, at the moment we are, you know, concerned about the situation and where we're trying to monitor it as much as possible so that's kind of where i'm coming from. >> right. well, there's already been a number of attacks on pipelines, oil handling infrastructure in general, oil pumps stations by i've heard both sides, so i

would say until this impasse reaches some kind of hopefully some kind of conclusion to lead to stability, insecurity is going to increase, and as i said earlier, oil is critical to the yemeni economy. you have a feedback loop as insecurity increases, more oil production goes offline, and up security increases further. >> i would just add the oil in yemen itself is dwindling fast anyway, so long term, i mean, if the oil in yemen today disappeared, it wouldn't have a mayor impact on the world economy because there's not that much of it left. transition and transports of gulf oil around yemen goes from

one state to the next. that could be a problem if the situation in yemen deteriorates fast and the waterways and somalia link up and play games in the waterways, that's going to be a major concern, and that will divert a lot of military assets and efforts to try to counter that. right now, that's not where we are, but it is something that you have to worry about. >> okay. last question. >> yes, thank you. i'm interested in your thoughts about the future role of isla and ahmadinejad and a future yemen. any thoughts of that? >> it's a very colorful beard. he's a rather interesting fellow. as michael said, what's interesting about him and

interesting in terms of his background and in terms of possible saudis interest in him, but frankly a colorful personality. he has the muslim brotherhood- type organization which is the more islamist force in yemen. he has been linked, his islamists plus tribals from the family and tribe, on his own, he probably wouldn't be able to take over. i mean, yemen has so many parties and factions and groups and tribes. he would be a force. he is a force now, but he's not, he's not someone to be feared in

terms of taking us all over. >> going to make one point going back to comments earlier about acap and the tribe in response to a gentleman's question back there. what should be remembered is that the tribes -- and this term is problematic, but i'm going to use it, and they are in no way a monolithic block as pointed out, but they have their own system of law. the idea that acap can impose law in yemen is just not likely, variety emaums have tried this, and it has not worked out well for them p >> okay. with that, i'll thank the audience for its questions, and

i'll thank the panelists for its presentations. [applause] >> i'd like to thank everyone for coming today, and we will be checking our website and have postings to c-span, so if you want to watch the pams online through -- panels online, it's on the website. thank you for coming and hope to see you again. have a safe trip home. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> tonight on c-span, a look at government transparency and the public's access to information. you'll hear from wikileak's founder and whether whistle blowers make the world a safer place and at what risk. >> of course, it is obvious that whistle-blowers make the world a safer place, and when we look at

the counterarguments, we see hot air. it doesn't mean everything in government should be exposed, but what it does mean is the system of breaking alleged laws is working, and that must be kept going that way, otherwise laws cannot reflect the reality that we are in. >> watch this debate from the frontline club in london tonight at 8 eastern on c-span. tonight on c-span2, a discussion on what defines corruption. you'll hear from law professors, the chief counsel, and a high ranking justice department official on what the courts deem corrupt and whether the american public would agree. >> charley rangel says he wasn't corrupt. he was arguing that he had not received any personal enrichment, no money, no actual

dollars had gone into his pocket, which was his definition of corruption. he didn't actually get any money. i think there's few regular americans who look at the host of conduct that mr. rangel was ultimately found to have engaged in and think that it wasn't corrupt. in that way i might differ from our keynote speaker saying it's not just about the money, but the prestige. >> watch this event from new york university law school tonight at 8 eastern on c-span2.

>> up next, a discussion on the future of sudan hearing from former presidents of north africa, all members of the yiewn nonof sudan and the former leaders discuss the current situation in the region and a look at the future challenges for north and south sudan.

the republic of south sudan is scheduled to declare its formal independence on july 9th. the united states institute of peace hosts this one hour and 50 minute discussion. >> important event on sudan and its future. just a reminder to please turn off your cell phones. [no audio] [no audio]

[no audio] >> international debt as well as constitutional reform and customary law, and we conducted workshops on how to protect electorals. it's a pleasure for us to host this event today, and to introduce our speakers, i want to welcome and introduce my executive vice president. >> thank you, david, and let me just add my welcome to all of you. we are just in the first few weeks of programming here, so bear with us for anything that doesn't work. we'll be our fault, and if it's

great, we'll take all the credit. as david mentioned, sudan is vital to our work, and i want to thank john anne the many staff people who travel between washington and sudan constantly. i know that because i sign their travel vouchers and they go and come and they are really doing remarkable work on the ground. it is intimidating enough to introduce one formal president, but the job of introducing three is almost overwhelming. i won't tell you too much about each because they are all so familiar to you in this room. he's one of the outstanding leaders and served as president for nearly a decade to --

as the successor of nelsonman -- mandella. i hope you join me in a warm welcoming. [applause] >> president pierre, president for a total of 13 years in burundi, the longest running burundi president, and i'm excited to tell you he was once a form usip grantee. would you join me in welcoming president buyoya. [applause] last, but of course not least, honored to have with us the man who served as president of nigh nigeria from june 1998 to may

1999, of course, in addition to all the wonderful things that president has done, he was also the enjoy on very difficult assignment from the u.p. to the congo, and he is part of this wonderful panel today, and i am just delighted that he could be with us. would you join me in welcoming him. [applause]

>> mr. president, ladies and gentlemen, i have been asked by my colleague to introduce the conversation, and as you know, we are the african union presentation panel on sudan, and we started to work in march 2009 on darfur, and then in october 2009, our mandate was extended to the world of sudan, and we have been working with the suda sudanese to follow up the

implementation of usip, and then we have been asked by the sudanese also to facilitate the talks on what is called the post cpa arrangement. maybe the best way is to tell you where we are on these matters, and then maybe that can kind of trigger a discussion, a question and answer, maybe this is the best way. first as you know about the implementation is we have come a long way. i recognize here those people who played a very important role

in the organization of the referendum, the professor -- [applause] we are working with them on the issue of the referendum and you know what happened. we could, with the contribution of everybody, have a beautiful and peaceful referendum and the outcome of which has been accepted by the sudanese and by the international community. i think these have been a very big achievement. the work that is now left in the implementation of usip. three matters. one is the issue, and this issue

seems to be the more complicated one, but what i can say is that we are working on it. we have agreed with the president bashir and the first vice president that at the end of may, our panel is going to make a proposal. after consultation with the sudanese and international stake holders. we hope that we've then come to an agreement. the second remaining issue is the issue of border.

there's a committee on border, and on the borders, there are two issues remaining. one is to agree on what is called disputed areas. there are five disputed areaing on the border, and there is a committee and a political committee, and the two are working on it, and we hope before 9th of july, we reach an agreement on those five disputed area. the second, the demanding issue is the clarification of the border, to know between the north and the south, there's almost 2,000 kilometers of border. we think that that may be the location exercise, we go on the

independence of the south. it appears it's impossible to complete in the time period relating to 9th of july. the third remaining issue the implementation is what is called consultation. in the two areas with the blue nile, it's been completed. now what is remaining is to come to a conclusion, then it needs a talk between the state and government. in the south, popular

consultation is not done yet because they have the election. the election is scheduled on the 2ndof may, and then we hope popular consultation is willing to take place. in the uc, also the exercise of popular consultation and we certainly go beyond the 9th of july. those are really the three issues remaining in the implementation of cpa. then there is the second state or state of issues are what we call post-referendum arrangement. the sudanese and south have been in negotiations on the issue for

citizenship, the issue of security arrangement, the economic arrangement, especially three important matters, oil, currency, and the debt. and also the discussions have also gone a long way. we are about to conclude the negotiation on the economic issues. we have had the many seminars even last week we were there, and we think that maybe we need one more session to come to a conclusion, and there is finally the issue with the parties don't

agree yet. on the issue of currency, there is the matter of redemption of the currency, what to do with the pounds which are collecting in the south. once in the south, you own the money. on the issue of debt, the parties have been agreed and they call it a zero option. it means that they take the responsibility to deal with the old debt of sudan, and the two parties then agreed to make a joint effort for debt relief. here in washington, it has been

one of our main discussion was on the currency. we talked about our debt, imf, with the creditors of sudan, and it seems that things are moving in the right direction. the very demanding issue is what the sudanese parties call the financial transition arrangement. in the other way, how to share the oil revenue after the independence of the south? related to this, is what will be the ownership of the oil infrastructure? those two matters are not agreed yet, and we have said that there

should be a special committee on a high level to try to have an agreement on these -- those issues. the other post-referendum arrangement is about security. you have also negotiating security arrangements. here, also, one issue is not solved yet. it is the future of the fpla soldiers coming from the two areas, what's in their future? there is not -- there is no agreement yet and the parties decided to continue to negotiate. there is also a discussion about

the third parties with the border after the 9th of july. we think that the most complicated issue will be the future coming from the south quarter. when the issue of citizenship, here also there is one aspect which is not agreed on yet. it's the transition period will weigh the sudanese and will choose and really apply for citizenship in the north or in the south. at the beginning, the parties

had discussion on the possibility of dual citizenship. they couldn't agree. then the state of, then they agreed to have a period after each party has legislation on the citizenship, then the people are willing to choose. those are a concern to join the south or the north. i think today we are in the proposed ref referendum as you see. we are moving on all the issue at the same time, and we hope

that before 9th of july, we have an agreement on all much those issues. now, we are discussing with the parties some of the issues which can be continued to be discussed even after 9th of july. for example, the issue of the border. it's where we are, and we have been discussing these issues here in washington. we have also been discussing the issue concerning the future of the two countries, especially the south after the independence, and there's a lot of concern about the mission they are building. the south has a lot of

challenges about security, development, governments, we have seen that there is a lot of riff in the international community. the international community is talking about how to coordinate all those good wills and to be able to help south of sudan. we have been discussing also the future of north sudan because north sudan we have to adapt after the independence of the south. they have started to think about the institutional review, how to adapt the constitution for

proposed independence of the south, and here it comes also the issue of darfur. the other matter has been dealing with is to try to implement the report we made on darfur in 2009. the situation in darfur has not made a lot of progress. there's negotiation in darfur which is going on unless now. there is -- what we have discussed, we have tried to start in darfur a political process, and there's a lot of discussion of how to coordinate in the process, and it's been on the center of discussion where the u.s. government especially,

and would hope that we are finding the way maybe to have a process, hoping that those two tracks will lead to the peace in bar fur. -- darfur. we are hoping to have peace in darfur, especially we see that darfur -- the lack of peace in darfur is having a negative impact on the whole of sudan. for example, on the issue of debt, one of the obstacle to solve this issue is the sanction, the u.s. sanction to sudan because of the war in darfur. when we are talking about

because the fundamental principle in our negotiation between the south and north is these principle of two valuable states, so two viable states. the issue of the debt is very important, and darfur is being an obstacle. darfur will be also an obstacle in these institutional reviews in the north because darfur is part of the north. we think that darfur, the peace in darfur has to come to the north and then organize. darfur is also having a negative

impact in the area of security. there has been accusation, i'm sure you have heard that, that that -- there has accusation that the south is helping the rebels in darfur, and the north is helping the rebels in the south. this situation, of course, can destabilize the relationship we tended to. if fighting is going on in darfur for a long time -- here we are in traying to -- trying to help the sudanese to move on the all good issues. i have to say that we have had

very good cooperation with the sudanese, the northerners and with the southerners. we are optimistic that the sudanese have the ability to solve their demanding problems. we are aware that there is a pressure of time because we are more -- we are less than three months to the 9th of july, but i think especially after the referendum, we can see that there is a strong particular way of the northerners and the southerners to move and to try and create what themselves have called two viable states, and in

two viable states it's important for sudan, the sudanese, and it's important for the whole regime neighboring sudan because sudan you know is the biggest country in africa bordering nine other countries, and if there is stability in sudan, it will be a big con continuation in africa. if there's instability, it will be the same. i think that's why the african union is very committed to helping sudan because sudan is very important to africa. i think the african union for the first time appointed three heads of state to try to move to

help the sudanese. this is the mission of the importance of the sudan for africa. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, president buyoya, and we can now move to questions, and i think all our panelists will respond to your questions. we have mics that we can pass around to those who have questions. if you just raise your hand with a question -- let's start here with steve mcdonald.

[inaudible conversations] [laughter] >> thank you very much for your presentation, president buyoya. i was in a luncheon last week where prime minister gave a presentation saying the government had approved and set aside the funding for further development and for building the pipeline and road up into southern sudan. can you comment on that as to how that's going to impact the flow of oil and the administration of the revenues from the oil funds? i know it'll be several years before that's a reality, but if you would comment on that, i would appreciate it.

>> [inaudible] >> why don't we take three or four questions and accumulate them. anyone else who wants to -- okay, we're going to take three or four more questions. >> okay. thank you very much. how are you, sir? of all the participants, i'd like to know in particular because this involves the african union, and i'm sorry to change the subject, but in particular are you satisfied with how that turned out, and secondly, about libya. you had an african union delegation attempt a peace agreement with mr. gadhafi and the rebels, so-called, and i'm

wondering where that is now in your course of answering questions. thank you very much for coming here today. thank you. >> asking about libya. [laughter] >> if you would, when you ask a question, identify yourself and your affiliation. >> thank you very much. i work with refugees internarcotic, and my -- international. my question is about the northerners and the southerners in the north and the talk about citizenshipment what is done by the panel or other international institutions to assure the people of the north and the south that after july 9th, there would be no violent acts against them because i was part of a team a couple months ago visiting the south, and every people we interviewed expressed

fear there would be retribution or lose their properties or their physical safety would be jeopardized after that day. thank you very much. >> okay, all right. get all three? >> i think so. >> this one on citizenship and insurance of protection. you can just sit there and answer unless you want to stand up there. >> we are trying to decide where i should speak from. [laughter] what's the view of the house? yes? it's better? good. on the matter of the pipeline, the issue of the ownership of

the oil infrastructure, pipelines and whatever else touches this, this is one the models that is still under discussion, and, indeed, they are regular in terms of the negotiations that president buyoya was talking about and particular subgroups that are discussing each one of these issues, including the issue of oil, but it's been agreed with regard to this specific issue of the ownership of the infrastructure, oil infrastructure, that that should be taken to a higher level political committee. it was taken out of this regular negotiating group because it's proved to be a bit of a challenge, so it will be dealt with at the higher political level, but, again, i would view as president buyoya was

indicating that like all the other issues in the economy factor, that this issue will be resolved by the end of may, but it is one of the issues that is essential to this discussion. we haven't discussed at all the matter of the possibility of other pipelines. in fact, i'm sure this is the first time you heard over lunch last week, but certainly, it's not that it's not in the context of the negotiations and take on the possibility of another pipeline, so the parties will proceed to decide this matter of

the ownership and so on because it relates to the matter of access and what kind of access therefore should people have to do that infrastructure. the issue of citizenship -- the matter has also been under discussion for some time, and, again, as president b urges yoya was saying one of the -- buyoya one of the principles both parties should avoid is statelessness. they must avoid that. secondly, it's been agreed by the parties that whatever the arrangements, whatever the arrangements, they have to include the possibility for the

sudanese to stay where they are now, maintain the property they have, keep the jobs they have, you know, and all of that. the general -- it's a group of arrangements which are said to have as the four freedoms that whether southerners in the north or northerners in the south, even if they are citizens, they become citizens of the other state. they should nevertheless enjoy them. to avoid statelessness and show that the people enjoy these four freedoms. those principles have been agreed, and