the current regime will fall at some point it is just a matter of land. and i do think that if the military strike was in a civilian manner of the casualties could be kept to a minimum so there may be an initial rally around the flag notion inside the country the deutsch was made clear this was going after the regime and the regime elements of repression in the siege and others that have been used against the pyrenean people that have been used to murder the people in tehran and other cities, then i do think would be easier for the united states and its allies that were involved to make their case to the people that this was in the long term interest. in terms of what would result and what would emerge, certainly you could have some sort of a coup in the shake-up or you've got other hard-liners and power, but i think it is hard to imagine a regime worse than the current one against the broad array of u.s. interests, and i

think it is difficult to argue if you got to the point you have a democratically elected government that followed that would want to continue under this crippling yoke that's been placed on the country of sanctions. the first thing they would want to do is to prepare the economy and bring back iran into the community of nations. they would certainly want to negotiate in good faith unlike the current regime so then you could have discussions about what capabilities could be trusted and maintained given the past programs but i figure would be much easier for the united states and other countries to have the negotiations with a democratically elected government. >> with the debate now settled -- i am not sure how -- would like to thank everyone for coming and encourage everyone to continue the discussion i think upstairs over diet coke and sandwiches. thanks you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

i am appearing here today as one spokesperson for the hundreds of thousands of marines, sailors, their families and loyal civilian employees who were unknowingly exposed to levels of toxins through their drinking water at camp lejeune in north carolina. >> one thing they have done over the years is they have obfuscated the facts so much, they told so many half truths and lies that they have admitted a lot of information to the media, and now if they were to

sit down with me, face-to-face, i could show them with their own and documents and counter what they've been saying. and they don't want to do that. follow c-span's local content vehicles throughout the weekend at book tv in american history tv to explore the history of literary culture of little rock arkansas. saturday starting in eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> you get calls going up and down the mississippi delta saying that they were now in revolt, and the next morning when thousand white men pour into phillips county to then

shooting down blacks. >> we don't realize what is going to happen. but they seem to and of course the crowd is with us now and the momentum is with us and pushing us. >> joint chiefs of staff chairman general martin dempsey is put to military leaders and psychological health care experts at a conference on the physical and mental well-being of soldiers and their families. defense health programs cost $53 billion annually. this is a half-hour.

>> i'm sure you know that. welcome thanks for the opportunity to speak with you this morning briefly. it is briefly. i hope to leave a few minutes for q&a, and i hope you have good ones. some of you know that whenever we do get a chance to speak regardless of the and you whether it is even you like this which is after the human dimension or whether we are talking about strategy or the budget, the hid gispert of my life. [laughter] of the things happen on this day in history and i do that because i think we have to remember we are sort of a continuum of civilization. we are not really the what might feel like a confronting any

problem there is problems we are confronting for the first time. hang in there. we've been through this before. but anyway, i will leave you to make that connection. in this day in history when i picked up this time is on march 45th of 1880 and just for the record right up front i wasn't around then. but in 18 a.d. the phoenix irish poets was born. is anybody in the audience has ever heard of shom opci will be really amazed how extraordinarily impressed we have one airmen that says he does know of him but he was kind of a rogue irish playwright of the 19th century early 20th century, and passion and writer, apparently strikingly handsome and you might say to yourself why is the chairman talking to

this group about a dashingly handsome irish poet? and a deceased irish poet at that. the answer is i want to make the point that old irish eyes are usually very good looking. [laughter] >> today was a boring day in history. [laughter] my aspiration is that you keep it that way. you do your part i will do mine. put up his life for me and then i will make a few points pertinent to this gathering. i tell people the reason i travel by the way is to get out of washington, d.c. and the oxygen back in my lungs. that's not an indictment on the quality of the air. it's some other than you might be able to figure out. the other one is because he's got to get out and feel what's

going on in the force in the world in order to really appreciate. you can read about it and learn about it and you can understand the process that drives it whether it is nato or the united nations or coalitions here and there. you can do that. but until you get out and touch and feel that, i don't think you can appreciate it and in particular its complexity. for that reason i carry images around my head not cover point slides to read some of you heard me about that. it's true. i like to have an image to capture my thinking and a particular time. not a bunch of words garbled on page in 16 font with 12 colors. so this is the image i carry around most often, although i have four or 5i actually carry around. and this one coming to me, and the bodies our profession. it embodies our profession because at its most fundamental,

but holds our profession a part is that we are trust on the slide there and the relationship that exists between men and women in uniform and their families and the society, because if you look at that picture with me for just a moment, the squad leader, and it is a squad leader to resign on the chairman of the joint chiefs, some images are joint, but this one isn't. it is joint command just happens to be army joined. i have other images of a pair of jumpers and air force hanging down under a cable in the can do cush rescuing soldiers. incredible stuff really. but this is an army squad leader in afghanistan. the sergeant doesn't like me to use this picture because of course there's a handful of uniform violations. no eye protection, sleeves or rolled up, the whole thing. but the reason i like it is you can see in the squad leader's

eyes the complexity of emotion that exists uniquely in our profession. fewer and courage wrapped up in the same head at that moment in time. certainty and uncertainty or confidence and uncertainty. it's right there in that picture in the squad leader's eyes. the other thing we notice is he's not worried about what is on his right or left and he's not worried about that because there is a young man or woman come in this case to see a rifleman to his right firing protecting him so he can do his job, and of course it is clear that the squad leader is taking care of that rifleman by taking the actions that he is supposed to take. so you also see that he has got a hand microphone in his left hand coming and he's calling for something. and i don't know what it is. you don't know what it is. it could be a matter of fact or indirect fire or close your support. but, based on the way you can see his face configured and contorted, you know he's asking for something that he really

needs, and he needs it pretty quickly. the other remarkable thing about our profession and our country, by the mechem is whatever he asks for, he's going to get.

and we have to commit ourselves every day. we don't just do it once or twice, with 24/7/365 coming and you do it while they are on active duty and while they are off. and unless we earn it every day, here is the point. we have to commit ourselves to this bond of trust every day. but more important, we have to earn it every day. the internet and the way you develop yourself so you can live up to the trust of the man or woman on your left or right. you have to be filled your support meds, your co-workers. you have to earn it every day. you know, i mean, that's it. do we get in the morning, put on the uniform or your suit because you are a member of the team working on behalf of these young men and women. you go to work and say to yourself okay is this just another day or is this another opportunity where i can turn

this bond of trust that marks us as a profession? if we do that, if we do that one thing, think about our profession as united with a common bond of trust and then commit yourself to urning it every day i don't care what happens to our budget or what happens to the other countries in the world that might want a bill to come to this, we will be fine. but if we lose that, it doesn't matter how much money we throw at ourselves. that's a fact. that is an ocean of the human dimension of the profession. so, let me link that idea, the idea that you are confronting today to my four focus areas. we have to achieve the objectives of the current conflict. what you are here doing is exactly that. you are helping us achieve our objectives by seeking a deeper,

richer and understanding of what has happened as a force over the last ten years of conflict. that is really when you were doing. and then come importantly, we are going to do that. we are going to do that the fact that ten years of the war has put enormous pressure on the force. and as a matter of trust, you believe you need to be year to help solve the problem. address the issue. secondly, develop the joint force of 2020. only a handful of us in the room or in the army, and i don't think -- welcome anybody in the room in the vietnam war? a handful. great. i came in right after. there's only a handful of us here who have really experienced, i think, with that conflict did to the human dimension of the force. and of course, we also added the complexity of switching from a conscript army to an all volunteer force in those years. we put enormous pressure on the

force. but we didn't have anything like this. we didn't have any appreciation for how do you build the lifestyle, the commitment, the hope, and therefore the resilience in the force? we just did it and kind of assumed, i guess, that it would all work out fine. now we did, actually, it worked out fine because most of the force was able to observe it. but i don't think we did ourselves any favors in those years, and i don't want to repeat that. i don't think anyone wants to repeat those years we took this marvelous fighting force in the united states army and the marine corps in particular the other services as well, put them back from vietnam and just kind of changed the entire equation. we have to understand there's other pressures. so joint force 2023 that force i just described coming out of vietnam didn't really recover. i would say it didn't recover until the early 80's, maybe even

the made 80's and when i say recover i mean it's a sense of pride and it's kind of clarity of who it was and what it had to do and its commitment to the professional military education to the heart training. we didn't recover until the early 80's. and, you know, it wasn't caused we sat around not interested in recovering but it took that long. we don't have that kind of time today. maybe that's my point. as we look because the world is changing so fast around us and so if we wait until 2020 to build the kind of strength that you are working to build into our formation it will be too late, and i fear that if we wait and not to address this now, not only will we not be doing ourselves any favors we won't be doing the nation any favors. the third one is the profession of arms. i already told you the profession -- if you have to think of one word to describe

our profession among all others is trust. what you are doing is getting together, share best practices to wring out the problems come to decide how we can do we need to do to determine how to do it smart and efficient in an environment of challenge, but also to keep the human dimension, to keep reminding ourselves this is about people. somebody said to me once, a four years from now i'm the chairman for four years because as you know i'm always one speech away from ending my career. [laughter] this won't be it. today is a boring day in history. but if i'm the chairman for four years, somebody said to me what you want people to look back and say about you, you know, ten years from now? and i said that's a really good question, one in which i probably should have thought about a little bit more. but off the cal fire said i want

them to say that's the man that got it right. i am and now of 37 years trying reminding me painfully -- by the way every day when i get out of that i remind myself and every time i crawled out of an airplane i remind myself, but the fact is it's been every day. every day i remember. you know, we tend to compartmentalize the things you don't want to remember that every day can remember those almost 38 years has been an absolute blessing. and i want everybody to feel like that. everybody can't be the chairman. everybody shouldn't want to be determined. above me give you some inside information. [laughter] so it's not just the life actually, you know, achieved the status as the senior military officer and the finest military of the world has ever seen. that's really not it. i have felt the same way if i was strapped at any frank at any time. it's just one of those professions we ought to feel good about. and it has to hold together on

the basis of trust and what you are here doing today is addressing that. and then the last one, if i have to make a case for keeping faith with ourselves and our families, our communities and the american people, did you probably don't need to be here and meter jul, because that is really what it's all about. that's almost redundant in a way, keeping faith and trust are almost redundant. so that is kind of my message to you today. this has -- when you're doing here has absolutely direct correlation to who we are today, but more important has an even greater correlation to who we are going to be in the future. and so, other than that and the pressure that i hope you feel now that i've told you that i'm ready to take your questions. >> we have microphones along the way, and we would like to make sure to get some of our junior enlisted us the opportunity to talk to the chairman.

go ahead, please. >> how am a proud tenure army wife retired after ten years of war and also the executive director of the foundation. i really appreciate your last statement keeping faith with the families. one of the i think challenges that we are facing and we've developed a lot of great programs around is getting a real time information from the ground, particularly as we are dealing with reintegration. the military or the mental health advisory teams that we have deployed in theater, i wonder if it is feasible to use something like that while we are going through reintegration, because what you're seeing with the families as the guice comeback, particularly this causes and the children, i think if we are able to have a mechanism to get that grassroots real time and up to and formed policies, which goes mental health advisory teams have done so well, that might be something that we can really leverage to

effect the programs and policies that we have so little money for now. >> i think that's a great idea. many of you in this room, particularly in the medical the geren doesn't have that power which is actually the right way to do it. but i certainly would expect that out of this conference, there would be and i'm sure you are doing is putting in four initiatives that you want to advocate, and then i will eventually have the opportunity to take a look at those with the chiefs and beebee heavy tanks.

it would be helpful if i knew what priorities would come these initiatives would be most useful to you all. and then, you know, the ones that have the most enthusiasm and appear to be on the past to produce the best benefit i will championing them, i promise that. thanks. just to reinforce that, i wanted to mention earlier, and i forgot, because you mentioned family, and the other thing about resiliency, this is dempsey's personal opinion, resiliency is a team sport, i know we have to build individual resiliency, but you also have to see it in the context of a team. why do i say that? many of you a cancer survivor about a year and a half ago, and i was going through this through cancer, what i learned for the first time in my life -- because i had been a very fortunate to die if he really hadn't really feel that anything. and so, in some way my body

hatfield me, you know. but i had a medical team at portsmouth, in my family, my colleagues, and i realized for the first time in my life i can't do this alone. i can't treat my own cancer, you know, and was a real eye opener for me. and i just want you to know that it to cancer for me to figure that out. we can't let our young men and women figure that out the hard way. yes. >> second marine division oscar. given as it relates to resistance and resilience work and psychological first aid, all the different services have their own unique version and given the increased joint nature of the work, what are your thoughts about unifying on the one conceptual model doctrine service white? >> i feel we may get they're some day. let me go from 30,000 feet down to 5 feet nine triet

30,000 feet, medicine seems to be one of the places that probably over time will be increasingly joint, and maybe even at some planned in the future joint at birth. the service chiefs aren't there yet and i wasn't either. on was the army chief, and i was guarded very jealously by authorities to credential and privilege and train and educate and told the programs to meet the needs of the land component. and i think it is actually a pretty healthy thing right now. so, i am at this point in time i am interested in where can we do things collaborative the that make us a little more interdependent but not the point that king joined madison as a foundation. things like electronic medical records and some of the things that relate to that young lady said a minute ago, information sharing, prescription drugs, it doesn't make much sense to do our own thing in that regard.

now, down to this issue, i don't know the answer naturally because i know what the land component goes through it i haven't called in on a target in an f-16 or 18 and understood the experience to really haven't lived beneath the surface of the ocean for six months at a time. there's a lot of things i haven't done that a lot of things i have, too, but a lot of things i haven't done. so what i would ask you to do is help us, the senior leaders of the military and our civilian leaders to understand what is the same and what's different come and find that to use a baseball analogy on that line the sweet spot because the resources or a factor. let's face it. and to the extent we can have a common operating picture this would be better off in the meantime i think what the forms are intended to do is to march us towards that by comparing

best practices and exposing new challenges and things like that. i don't know. i'm not at the point i think it needs to be all one program. but will probably get there. to the estimate i hope i didn't ruin your entire conference for that answer. >> and a brigade level and this is more army level but the ideal what teaching my soldiers at the level and then the battalions are teaching there's all the way down to the but

give me a call, would you because you to change something at that point. it is the right question. i mean, look, at some .1 of the things we always do as a mother to recover because we can, we are the most organized institutional the face of the plan at. it is both what makes us great, you know, you can't give us a problem that we can set up an

organization and get after that. it's just impossible. we are that good. it's also kind of our, one of our faults is that we tend to throw institutional or organizational design at problems as a first instinct. what do i mean by that? i'm going to come back to the mrt but some of you know i want to get after the profession as a study, and unbeknownst to me, some well-meaning subordinates had taken my guidance about really getting after the profession. they would set a school but west point and began to train a group of individuals to be professional -- i forget, there was an acronym come naturally, but it

>> good morning, sir. fellow cancer survivor. mine is a more global type question in terms of just preparing our soldiers, airmen, marines for their role in the world and we see a very changing

environment and an abolition of our role. so we've come far from the soldiers. how do you see your abolition in terms of not and the state department to better prepare our soldiers in the future to do with that? could that as part of the resiliency overall to know what the rollers. >> great question. every time i travel to places i've never been before, like brazil, it does occur to me that we have taken some and not environment consecutively for a decade or more. we've made the far officers in our terminology. but to answer your question, as they ink about literature and to develop and are leaders for future, the joint force 2020 we kind of have a pretty clear view

of what we need to be in terms of our attributes today. you know, so if you're in the army take off your dog tag and on the back is the seven army values. you go for your photographic college or officer evaluation report and it the officer efficiency report evaluation and you will see some action. i have two thoughts. not. one is so not sure those are the same we needed 2020. each of the services is doing its own internal look if you will to determine coming to behead the attributes rate? i will link to what she said in a very clever way and i appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to do that. i think one of the attributes that has become -- that i have become to value most at least in senior officers, but i would say that you have to begin to develop a such a good early on is adaptability because it just

seems to me to be clear that no matter how well we think we are organizing our force of training and equipment, it is almost in a way that wasn't true 30 years ago the way we are going to use the force will probably not be the way that young man or woman thought they were going to be used. in other words, we most often fail to predict the future. we take the organizations we haven't equipment we have and we apply them to a situation. what make that work isn't the organization or the equipment. it's the leader. in the later then has to take an organization and equipment at her elder science for the purposes intended and they adapt and accomplish the missions. so if adaptability, which by the way might be a kissing cousin of resilience in a way really come me know what i mean? if adaptability then it's an

important leader attribute for the future come your question becomes, how do you do that? have you built this thing called adaptability? i will use two words that she might say yup, he's in the early 30 years and is probably suffered some of the ill effects of that, but i think that one of the ways that we build adaptability in our subordinates is confronting them with change, failure and chaos. now i've had this conversation with the service chiefs. they say to me, chairman, you are telling us you want us to introduce change -- what was the second? failure and chaos in our training and education? i say yeah. they said we've got plenty about ready. we don't need to do more of that. but think about it. when i look back at myself and confront myself and say how did i become at that debow?

the answer was by being placed in unfamiliar circumstances, by being pushed to the point for young men and women today -- this is not an indictment. it's just what it is. it's kind of the youth soccer model if everybody gets a trophy. by the way, i am not against that. but what i am against is everybody gets a trophy all the time and everybody grows up thinking they are the best soccer player in the field because all of a sudden you get to high school and he failed to make your soccer team and you say that's not possible. without these trophies i got myself over here. [laughter] so if you just accept this as kind of early thinking about how we get your question, i think what we need to do is figure out, which are the enduring attributes. there are plenty of them. integrity, honor, courage. we're never going to change that

as a purpose of our profession and its elemental program. but there's others now i think. i'm pretty sure actually an adaptability is one and then you have to map to it the training and education. i'm suggesting to you the whitney map to adaptability is through the three challenges that i just described. and then we make sure in our training and education that we do that. we push people little further than they need to go. it's really about building my skills you'll been talking about is part of the conference center. as i said, these two phrases are actually kissing cousins of each other. okay, they have given me the hook. let me just thank you for being here and for taking on this topic. i think this is the third year now dashboard, great. i look forward to finding out what you've learned here and which are recommending to s. i promise you i will be an

advocate for it because i am committed to maintaining the bond of trust i described earlier. i wish he was very quiet and restful weekend. thanks very much. [applause] >> there's nothing good about paul's budget. the fact that the policy statements, where they've incorporated ideas has really been our ideas like welfare reform, medicaid reform, sending it back to the state where we think we can better serve the recipients. so a lot of good things in

there. tax reform policy is a thousand times better than the president's budget which never, ever, ever gets to balance. difference between paul's budget crisis in a reasonable timeframe that we believe the american people think is common sense. five years is for us. 28 years for his talents. it's important to show the american people here is what we need to do. but the fact remains you can get 218 votes for a budget at least i don't expect 218 votes. so we need to pass something in policy is a lot better than the president said we will support that. >> from what reagan was leaving his hotel after delivering a speech at the afl-cio. they can't believe he's this close. the agents are surrounding him.

the first one has jim brady the press secretary and had any falls down. the second one is the d.c. police officer turned around to check on the president's progress and gets hit in the back and pulled seven screens and hate. not the president is clear. he has an effective range of 20 feet to 30 feet. he can hit stationary targets for 20 to 30 feet.

>> for more about u.s. policy towards north korea, we talked to an analyst at the center forced to teach it and international studies. this is 45 minutes. postcode meets michael green during the years 2004 in 2000 by the service here direct for asian affairs at the national security council and is now senior adviser here in washington at the crisis for strategic international studies and are focused within his going to be on north korea. i'm going to ask the most basic questions. why should americans care about north korea clinics >> guest: it is a country with whom we are still at war.

technically we are still at war with north korea. technically we are still at war with north korea. technically we are still at war with north korea. south korea and the sun between the north and korea. south korea and the sun between the north and south is most heavily armed, heavily fortified region in the world and the rockets over the last 15 years they have been developing nuclear weapons. we worry whether iran will develop a nuclear weapons capability, north korea crossed the threshold and is now also developing missiles to try to deliver them and fire them at the u.s. eventually. but for the near term allies like japan and south korea. >> host: what do we note the new administration? >> guest: ball the size of kim jong il -- we don't know much. we don't even know how old he is. people think he's 28 or 29. he went to a boarding school in switzerland. he has been ruled out as the

great successor and great general to replace his father and grandfather, kim il sung. they've given him what looks like plastic surgery and haircuts so that it looks like his grandfather, kim il sung who led north korea into 1995. if you look at one japanese sushi chef who worked for the kim family and described him as having cool and evil eyes. people who went to boarding school didn't get to know him. oddly his parents never showed up for parents weekend. so it appears that he's very much been stamped and presented in the mold of his father and grandfather as the great successor, the great general and trying to show a very forceful attitude towards the outside world. >> host: our focus is going to be a north korea come u.s. interest in the korean peninsula and asia as a whole they are. based on that the president we showed you earlier was a nuclear security summit that was held in

seoul, south korea and that puts the focus on the relationship between the north and south goodbye to open up phone lines and invite you to take heart in the discussion. ask questions that twitter as well. always to be involved with my green. let's spend more time if you would on what is known as the nuclear threats. >> guest: well, the north has declared in 2012 the 100 universities kim il sung that they would become a full nuclear weapons state. when you look at all of the things they're doing is pretty clear what that means. they have plutonium that they have harvested from the facility in young duck, probably enough for six to 12 nuclear weapons and the evidence is strong that they are working on the evidence of the loan up to plutonium devices. the challenge for them now will be to turn them into weapons

that they can put on missiles. they also have in complete violation of a dozen agreements they've made with the international community been working hard on a clandestine secret program for in reaching highly enriched uranium, which is the other way to make nuclear weapons. it is not clear how far along they are. most would probably say they are years away from being customizable capability. and then they are working on missiles. they threatened to launch in april with the three stage. it is not technically working. they've had problems with it and it's aimed at the west coast, hawaii or alaska, maybe australia. but they have well over 200 node on missiles, which are two-stage missiles that can range japan for south korea and possibly qualm or fido bases in the specific paired >> april is significant because of the war?

>> sixtieth anniversary. >> the 60th anniversary of the korean war and a kim il sung in a country where the kim family, kim il sung, kim jong il and kim jong un are worshiped like gods. it is a system with a cultlike worship of the leader. so this is a very auspicious and import anniversary for them. >> this week, the general who is responsible for the u.n. forces on the korean finance the come and general testified on capitol hill by security threats they are. here's a couple clips from his testimony and let's begin with one in fact that talks about the ballistic missiles launched by north korea an international response. >> isn't there a general perception in this country and their country in any other

country watching our two nations that if they launched a ballistic missile, nuclear armed kurds are sure is that that we would respond in kind? is that not each owner perception? >> i would just say to you, i do not know what the responses would be right on that. >> i was asking you which he got the general perception was among observers of the process between our two countries. is there general perception that they launched a nuclear weapon towards our shores that we would most likely respond in kind. >> my sense, congressman is that is what fuels the anxiety and concern over the north koreans have been the capability and it's got to be dealt with in some manner. >> sub.green, pick up this a little more.

it's a concept between two states as they both have the technology that produces the standoff. seems to be an implication of another story. >> well, the north koreans haven't gotten much. their economy has basically collapsed. much of the population was that near starvation level and meanwhile the south koreans, the cousins who have problems with for 60 years to deliberate on one of the richest countries in the world, the south korean will now have the world bank. so north korea doesn't have much to point to. so nuclear weapons are pretty much indispensable to their legitimacy. they also view nuclear weapons as a way to stalemate us. if they get in a position where we have u.s. and north korea a mutually assured destruction as they do the soviets in the cold where they can make a lot of demands on us for a country that doesn't want to open a comment there or things they want.

principally money and food and things like that. so they can use this capability to show how strong they are in the day is something south koreans don't and to blackmail us. would they start aboard this nuclear weapon? would mean the destruction. i don't think they want to fight a war with us. i think they want to use it for legitimacy in black male. >> we will begin with philadelphia. this is milton a democrat there. >> caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i have a general question about the problems with korea faces, do you ever envision a day in the next decade or whenever that may be the two koreas will ever unite and become one again? >> guest: that is a really interesting question. the south korean president has started talking more openly about unification.

a flood of south koreans after the unification of east and west germany looked at how complicated that was, how expensive it was and they look north and realizing that there was anything larger cap between north and south korea in east and west germany is pretty nervous about unification. the general view was let's put it off. young got his started saying we need to think about unification. it may not be something they choose. it is possible to regime in the north because their economies collapsed, because the reason for existence could itself fall apart and if they collapsed on the presumption is they would become unified with north and south korea together. it is possible. i think the u.s. and south korea for some time have been planning for and preparing as much as we can for that to happen not because the noise starts to fall apart. >> host: bob hunter republican

line. >> caller: good morning, thank you. i am interested in the same question about the people they are starving to death. wouldn't it be better that we don't give anything to the government because the government takes everything themselves and don't give anything to the people? and the other question is, how strong is china and are they really interested in resolving problems with north korea versus the americas? are they just have their own interests? >> guest: your questions head on two of the hardest problems in managing this issue with north korea. so the north koreans do try to take food aid in any kind of aid and channel it to the army and

elite. so we in the outside world try to come up with food for children or supplements for old people to make it hard for them to divert it. we try to monitor but it's tough. the policy question is should we be giving food to the north korean people who are starting? the north korean regime is taking quite happy to have parts of the population at the subsistence level or near starvation because then they are afraid and in well and be intimidating and walkways that. should we punish people by withholding food? is a moral principle we should give food to people when they needed. the problem is how do you design it so the north korean government doesn't take it. china now provide somewhere around 80% of north korea's food and fuel. the chinese theoretically could pull the plug on this country. they won't do it and they won't do it because they fear chaos. china has enough of internal problems and they don't want

millions of north koreans pouring across the yellow river into china. they know what north and south korea to find and become a democratic country that would be very pro-u.s. for strategic reasons. so the chinese play a diplomatic role to encourage diplomacy but there's a limit to how much pressure they are willing to put on the north is they don't want the north to collapse and create problems for them and of course the north koreans know this and exploited to intimidate beijing. post it when the president was that the summit one of the widely published photographs that came out of it with this one, the photograph of the president looking through binoculars at the north. as i look at this, this question on twitter asks, will north korea continue to arm itself if it feels it is not under continuous threat from us and the neighbors be support at arm? >> this is a question that students often debate about a country like north korea. is the probability that they are

too scared? abydos where they develop nuclear weapons? maybe if we were jetliner less threatening they would feel more comfortable. the problem with the argument is north koreans fear ultimately their own people more than nice. the threat to regime is not the u.s. attack were south korea tab. the threat to the regime is they have no legitimacy and people rise up against them. so that means they want to do this anyway. the other factors they don't just hear the united states. they fear china, south korea, japan. we have tried over the years to reach out to the north of the obama administration and reach some kind of understanding that we are not a threat to them. because pretty much nowhere. the north koreans have made their own decision. whether we threat or attack them

or not, they want them for legitimacy and to blackmail us to get more aid. >> host: next up is tampa bay, florida. peter, independent line. >> caller: good morning michael and susan. graduate of florida a&m university who has traveled extensively worldwide. the ontarian and korean language related on the finish line. one of the things i'm curious about and maybe the cold war never died and we still have a war of words that we have philosophically of enlisting to a lecture by george washington university phd on china. my comment and i could appropriately to this philosophically in florida and cuba is how much you feel that travel and commerce will open up the north koreans and south korean engineers are being trained by the university of texas at arlington.

how much do you feel travel, education and more openness will ever occur with john yang and the west and i'll leave it there and let you respond. >> my own view is some exchange of peoples academics and so forth is probably a good idea. why? because i don't think this regime is going to exist forever. think sometimes the thought of the next few years in the next decade we can see the collapse in the north and south will have to unify. where will they come from to help north korea remains people and their livelihood in society up to the level of south korea? it makes sense to help north koreans understand the world and so forth. the effort will be very limited

because the north koreans do not want their society opened up. they don't want their people to understand south koreans of a much, much better life. i don't want to understand joining international community said they were very nearly control and exchanges like this. some people say if they turn to open the screen door in a submarine. the north koreans to him how to open sinking because they need to keep the stalinist control and propaganda to convince their people that their system is the only alternative. so we should try these things. we shouldn't give aper technology to regime will use, but if we can get to the north korean people and the longwood is a good one because someday they will unify and we need people who understand the world are the problem will be the government will constrain that said they don't understand about because that is how they maintain control. >> host: can north korea feed its own army? >> guest: not quite actually.

one of the many fissures and cracks in the system is coming from the army. they have over a million soldiers, over 100,000 commanders, special forces training suicide ashamed. that they cannot feed themselves. so north koreans to military maneuver, even the elite commando unit when someone is repelling down a cliff in the fall and break a leg, they are immediately discharged because they don't want to take care of their injured. they just give someone else. some of the army units have essentially been ordered to forage, to go out into north korea an extract food from the people they are. so they can't really feed the army except for the most elite units. the chinese by not asking where food is going are making it easier for the north koreans defeat the armies.

the most of the problem is the rank-and-file soldiers are under nurse. the average height of the north korean soldier is very, very short, somewhere around five-foot one from malnutrition. so they don't have enough food for the army, which could someday be one of the things that source to bring the regime. >> host: let's pull up another clip testifying for the house on wednesday. this is on a different kind of threat. cybersecurity. let's listen. >> work hand-in-hand with the military on the protection of our networks and particularly looking to interoperability. i've come to realize that cyberis the key war fighting domain and is important as our maritime and ground operations. and so yes, we have raised the

awareness on that and it is something we're looking at on a daily basis with iraq's military. >> host: that's the republic of korea, south korean. so what do your studies and what is the common thinking about their cybercapability? >> guest: the south korean, japanese and u.s. have been a little bit surprised at how quickly the north koreans have developed the cybercapability to hack into systems. as far as i know, military as howden and protected but you can do about it damage by attacking the infrastructure and communications. north korea is not a rich country at all, but they have maintained criminal syndicates throughout asia. they export drugs, counterfeit money. they are involved in all sorts of criminal duties. and richard speck should not have been too hard for them to hire and get the expertise on

how to do hacking and cyberwarfare. the north koreans for 60 years have use whatever advantage to matter how illegal or immoral to try to throw the west and the south koreans off guard. so it is a threat. you can hear and the overthrow of the have started developing the capability. >> host: there are a number of skeptics among the twitter community. who is a hearsay exemplifying pizzicato starving to death for decades are deathly afraid of them? just other novel starving to death. that's the key. millions have been kept by designed to starvation and subsistence level because that makes them placid and easy to rule. the elite in pyongyang have developing nuclear weapons and operating criminal syndicate around asia to keep the cash

flowing in. so some ways this is a stalinist state and a colt in some ways it is a criminal gang. i'm not as a serious threat. the north koreans in 2003 threatened to transfer the capabilities we didn't lift sanctions and do what they wanted. in 2007 in september they bombed the react during syria that was built by north korea that didn't create fissile material but they were helping students build a nuclear reactor. so yes they are a threat. sometimes even the weaknesses to them because they will be desperate enough to do things like health savings build nuclear react tears. the fact that much of the countries that starvation level doesn't stop the elite in pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons. that is why such a dilemma. what to do and people are starting? it's a tough moral problem, too. >> host: to the h.r.

specialist dr. michael green. next on texas city. good morning. >> caller: good morning. in your in-depth study of korea, i'm sure you have gone back to the time of the armistice that we admit that we never left korea and we kept our the captor imm overall the series. can you give me the year in which the military and military intelligence became the land over the development of gun emplacements that they actually send that up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief and the occupied the arms at that time who was so incompetent that he did not take those initial gun emplacements out because they've now develop to the point where if a war should break out, the entire city of seoul would be

destroyed. >> guest: in some ways you have to go back to 1953 when the armistice took effect. it is hard to believe in retrospect, but in 1953 americans didn't think we'd won the korean war. they were tired and wanted out. and so, we've reached an armistice cease-fire and the soviets and the chinese kept north korea and check for the most part in the cold war and we settled for a deterrent. we settled for maintaining forces in korea and japan so the northwind into attacking. but as you point out, the north koreans have been digging tunnels, lots and lots of tunnels. they been steadily putting artillery and missile. there's no one year when this happened. this is 1953 they been placing

weapons near the military is so in seoul. the 11,000 member came up late clinton, early bush. these were heartened. for the past 10 years or so we in the south korean military have dramatically improved the ability to quickly detect the missiles or shots are coming from and take them out. so in terms of visualizing quickly to preemptively take out the north koreans artillery and missiles would almost certainly provoke a war with massive damage to seoul, tokyo in the region. >> host: another ap photograph from the president's trip to seoul and it is described in the "washington times" at assad air base on tuesday with the departure to united states after attending the nuclear summit.

the question by twitter about the president they are. c-span junkie rice or asks, is the eight alien dollars space and south korea finished? can we really afford to spend that amount there and not here? is an eight lane dollars space? do this by background. >> guest: the south koreans are paying for a lot of this. we had a large base -- headquarters in downtown seoul at a place called youngstown. imagine a large army base in the middle of cleveland or west virginia or d.c. it was not popular. so we had an agreement to move our forces to a new base. these things are expensive to do and south koreans are accounting a lot of the financial burden. what do you some money home? yes, absolutely. but then you ask about this?

i think we learned several times throughout history that when we pull back and pull inward, we invite others to expand and eventually increased possibility of war, which of course costs much, much more in the long run. proving that in world war ii and for the korean war. for it before the korean war, teen ashes and said our defensive line and interest tanisha run in the line in feature at through japan and korea because he did not have to spend money in teen forces in. while kim il sung saw that as an open invitation to attack the south and we ended up losing 50,000 people, huge treasury. so you have to weigh the risks and decide how much insurance you can buy to make sure you don't spend a lot more in terms of western capitals on the road. i think the 20,000 some troops we have in south korea have been a very good investment. korea is a really dynamic democracy, not only in a shed, but bring foreign aid and

helping us maintain a better world. it was a good investment and still is. >> host: did the bush administration and food and energy subsidies in north korea? >> guest: are basic policy was to provide food to north korean people at even for a political was bad. what we asked of north koreans was that we have monitoring, but we could have people with cell phones, people who spoke korean, not just americans, but from the u.n. and so

the gambling city off of the chinese coast was arrested in

tokyo about six years ago traveling with some girlfriends to go to disney world in japan with a password. it's basically a playboy and he talks to the press and tells them is going on in north korea. he's been caught gambling and partying and so the regime even though he decides he can't beat the guy to take over for kim jong il. the uncle is basically running the country is actually that can't who has been made general in your bread we don't know very much about her at all. we don't have the north koreans. they don't very carefully controlled its not about the family. we can piece things together from different% propaganda and from some leaders putin and

prime minister smathers who is not done, but we don't know about. >> host: i have two questions about influence. we will start with this tweet. chris asks what is going on with reverend moon and the unification church and its influence in south korea at the world and our congress? >> guest: i am not an expert on unification church, but i do know that initially reprimanded in the unification church was quite hardline, like anti-communist and the unification of the two koreas under south korea was part of their goal. and sometimes 15 or so years ago , the mint family started changing the approach and started engaging and doing more things with the north koreans. the mess in pyongyang for negotiations, there is the unification church and the people from south tehran and

very sick dignities. i'm not sure they have much influence to tell you the truth. and they have a presence in the u.s. and elsewhere. at one point i think the hope is they could be a bridge between north and south, but because of the norse nuclear initial development, the north attack south korean ships and it's another thing, they're still pretty much a standoff between north and south. >> host: this e-mail from north carolina. what is the impact of the worldwide circulation of super dollar, a very high counterfeit allegedly made a good u.s. government to have been made by a north korea? >> guest: this is another bizarre subplot that sunday will make an action movie. the north koreans because they operate criminal syndicates and need cash to pay for their nuclear weapons materials, to bribe senior officials to keep generals happy have been looking for any way to get it.

the north koreans reached out to a terrorist from the real ira, the ira group that broke off from the ira and northern ireland and the real ira became basically criminal. so there was this network that involved hezbollah, the real ira and the north koreans and the north koreans through that qaeda holdouts plates, counterfeit plates to make the $100 superfit now. they then began changing their own currency because they are states of the colors would be the same as what they needed to counterfeit the u.s. $100 japanese 10,000 yen note and the chinese are indeed. there are parts of asia where people would not take the super note he kisses her superfluous counterfeit. there will worried about a decade ago in the treasury department that this would actually undermine the credibility.

it has been the u.s. and other countries have been successful and cash handling of criminal syndicates and enroll in the super note and have been much better at attack demand. we had a meeting with the north koreans in 2006 we told them he's got to step to the mess and the north koreans denied they were concentrating the super note, but they offered to help you decide if you give us your best counterfeit currency detection technology, we will use it to find whoever's doing this. so it was an apparently cynical move because this is part of their syndicate empire, which brings and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. nobody knows for sure. of these tens of millions. and that regime like north korea is a lot of money used to keep the elite royal to pay for chemicals, precursors and talk knowledge he needed to keep working on a nuclear program.

defeat the people? no, not their top priority. >> host: brooklyn, bernie democrat. >> caller: good morning. two questions. first i really don't understand we have 20,000 troops in south korea. is that really going to be a deterrent to a desperate or antirational north korea? and on the other end -- on the other side, china. who has more to fear from this country and begin antirational desperate north korea, china united states? and how does china feel? thank you and how does china feel? thank you and how does china feel? thank you south koreans have about feel? thank you south koreans have about half the size and we have 27,000 very, very capable, but obviously limited military capability they are. would it deter the north?

yes, it has for 60 years. we had hundreds of thousands come to 50,000 an hour down to 27,000. deters north korea because the north koreans know if they attack south korea they will be attacking american troops and that we will respond appropriately. and so, the point of having troops deployed in places like south korea is not that the 20,000 will single-handedly defeat the million man north korean army, but they are guaranteed to rescan in the game and north koreans cannot think they would attack korea, south korea or japan with impunity, that the u.s. is committing to stop them. it's worth and of course it's backed by a lot of airpower, naval power and other assets we have in the region. the question in china, who is more threatened? vero threatened in different

ways. the japanese had citizens kidnapped and are well over 200 missiles aimed at japan and north korea has the largest chemical biological arsenal in the world. so if you're japanese, you think you have the biggest threat. seoul, south korean capital is as close to the demilitarized zone as downtown manhattan to jfk or washington d.c. to do list. so the south koreans rightly feel they are under the greatest. china having a long border with north korea if north korea

mike syndicate they are a nation states run by this i shall study for currency, but the reason most nationstates are doing this is because frankly counterfeiting currency is that the board. it is not devorah. and technically we are in a state of war with the korea. we never signed a peace treaty. we're all means cease-fire, armistice.

propaganda. it wasn't unusual when i was there to talk about it they kind of two fled seoul and south koreans for creating many to

forfeit the water to go back. some of these ideas, it's just like out of a movie. but the bad thing about it it is not a movie. it's a reality. the government that has power, but as people. they truly don't have a consciousness that life in the south is better, the truly saves them both in the south are worse off than they are. and that's one of the reasons they don't price. i didn't really understand until after i read the book is a really really good wake up call. they hope to each family member get out. they really couldn't -- didn't understand how to make the adjustment. so what are we doing to help change that policy, to help educate them? do we have a voice of america or something like that to make them work consciously aware? >> guest: thank you for your service and i think the cause of experience is one that a lot of

americans who served in the army or air force particular in korea to get a full dose of this. you are a different kind of and affect. i remember that in the late 80s the north koreans at this and understand that was falling apart and essentially said it could fall apart in seoul. could this money. it's not an uncommon north korean attack date. there are more defect is coming out of the north, but it's still up in the thousands each year. and when they come out, they really -- most of them try to get south korea. they get help from the south korean government, but most of them suffer severe culture shock because they don't know enough. they are not used to basic things like going out and shopping in a 711 to buy lunch and the adjustment is difficult and it's one of the reasons why for south korea it is such a

vexing problem to think how you would integrate tens of millions of north koreans like this when their unified. we try to broadcast messages into north korea. they chanted. a lot of church groups working china and a lot of families working china with north korean refugees to get the word back into north korea or help people escape. the chinese tolerate this up to a point. one of the things they are doing that the problem is they are often forcing refugees back into north korea, which violates international laws. so, there are groups. there's a north american human rights group the district are interested in following this committed to try to help refugees assimilate and help people helping refugees get funds to support.

>> next on c-span two a discussion of the cato institute about how the u.s. should respond to iran's nuclear program. then u.s. foreign policy and korea

>> in march of 1979 kenneth c-span began televising u.s. house of representatives to households nationwide and today are content to politics and public affairs, nonfiction books in american history is available on tv, radio and online. >> i was standing in the lincoln bedroom last night and i couldn't resist getting on the phone and i called the secret service has the president, feel like going jogging tonight. [laughter] my wife and i were looking on the lawn around midnight. fully unclosed. but i've been studying him since yesterday and i think the weight of the president is to start out with mr. rogers, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhoods. many at the little john wayne.

you put them together and you've got george herbert walker bush. [cheers and applause] >> c-span, created by american cable companies and the public service. >> president obama today pledge to maintain economic sanctions against tehran to pressure them on their nuclear program. the president also said world oil production is high enough to make up for last uranium supplies. experts on iran nuclear weapons and national security debated u.s. policy on iran and the possibility of a military strike. from the cato institute in washington, this is three hours. [inaudible conversations]

>> we're good. all right. thank you very much. welcome to the cato institute. a name is christopher preble. and the vice president for foreign policy studies here at cato and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the new hayek auditorium into the newly redesigned cato institute. so welcome. we are very fortunate to have for this conference a terrific lineup. two panels. it is my privilege to be able to introduce them. i do want to thank the support for this project and really congratulate and thank mcauley, justin logan who is responsible for organizing it. i think many of you here in the audience of the bias, but for

those of you watching online for your benefit -- what's that? or an c-span, they can migrate quickly went to introduce the four panelists speaking in the order they will speak and then i would get out of the way and let them get started. our first speaker will be michael adler and reporter for john thrasher press covered the uprising in burma in 1988 and the reconstruction of kuwait after the first world war, the war in bosnia and moving in the german capital to berlin. he also covered with two in zaire. he covered the iranian nuclear crisis extensive label in vienna from 2002 until 2007 he was reporting from tehran, geneva, tripoli and other key cities on the opinion issue and is currently writing a book on diplomacy of the iranian nuclear crisis. the second speaker today is barbara slavin, and a senior fellow at the council and public

houses color of woodrow wilson center for scholars she authored that her friends, booze and enemies, i think on the u.s. but just that confrontation. she was assistant managing editor for what the national security at the "washington times" to does make may come it two guys name. pratchett -- is she served for 12 years his senior diplomatic reporter for "usa today" for she covers such key issues as the u.s. war and terrorism in iraq, policy rogue states in the arab-israeli conflict. she accompanied three secretaries of state on their official travels and reporters tell a friend chiron, libya, israel, north korea, russia, china, saudi arabia, all of the garden spots. arthur's speaker today is alireza nader. a senior analyst at the rand corporation. his research is focused on iran's political dynamics, the decision-making and iranian foreign policy. ..

reconstruction operations and policies purchased words a nuclear iran. the articles have appeared in many policy journals including

foreign policy and the national interest or via journal and others and he also has appeared on many television, michael? >> thank you for coming. >> if you can come to the podium. >> good morning. when i first was asked of the topic here today is the diplomacy work and when i was asked to do this before the meeting of the prime minister netanyahu in washington and they asked me to defend the concept of diplomacy to work i thought this would be a task but it is amazing how much things have changed over the past month in the month of march, and the first development was the rush into the war which seemed to be accelerating ground to a halt, not a screeching halt but a heart any way about the war when

netanyahu met obama. and what happened there is the president both gave a kind of statement the united states would eventually use if necessary and also said there was time for diplomacy. and the israelis have reluctantly come aboard with that and the day after the meeting of -- the day after the meeting of the two leaders, katherine who is the foreign policy representative for the european union sent a letter to the negotiator on the issue to say that she had accepted the talks which he had proposed earlier. these talks are between the six nations, britain, china, france, germany, the united states and russia called the p5 plus one

coming and these are the five council members plus germany, and they've been negotiating about 2,006. in the crisis that began in 2002 when i was revealed that iran had been hiding nuclear work for two decades. the talks hadn't gone very well. there had been several side posts along the way but not to go through the whole history what brings us up to what is happening now is in october of 2009 there was a meeting at which the two sides agreed where iran what she felt most of the enriched uranium it had made in return for getting fuel for the research reactor in tehran which makes medical isotopes and the idea behind that and the talks in general is a would be a confidence-building measure to should felt its uranium which makes them less able to break out to make a nuclear weapon.

at the same time they would have gotten a de facto recognition of continuing their enrichment, and that would set the stage for serious talks. that deal fell apart. then there were the two meetings. in geneva in december 2010 and a stumble in january 2011. at which the two sides tried to relaunch the process. this ended badly and a meeting at a stumble after the meeting in geneva where the two sides had expressed their opinions and discussed the nuclear issue that brought out a range of other concerns they had about world peace and the influence of capitalism in the world. the iranians can to the second meeting and instead of negotiating imposed conditions which basically killed the process and they were all the sanctions against them lifted and they would have an unequivocal right to the

enriched uranium. so this prevented any kind of deal in istanbul. and after that, pretty much you have a growing market world where there were concerns that israel was about to take actions with regard to the existential threat, and that is what was stopped at the beginning of the month. and now we had the talks coming up again. the talks are not taking place in a hopeless atmosphere where people are just going through the motions. it is a chance for a new start after the setback of going to the war. what is the chance of success that we saw? >> i think certainly that he five plus one in the united states are coming to the talks with low expectations, and the

success of the talks will probably be if a second round is scheduled. the second round would occur fairly quickly because the idea would be to start moving ahead with this is not the meeting at which there will be a dramatic breakthrough. this is in the meeting at which there will be fewer slot and a major confidence building measure. so the main thrust of what is happening is to start talking again. but once again, it is an atmosphere of saying we have stopped the rush to war. let's see if diplomacy can work. in the past there's been a set piece and justin said to me to come up with a suggestion about how things can be better. my suggestion which will never happen is that when they sit down the talks are scheduled from mid april. we don't know when they will be,

they will probably seen somewhere in switzerland. i think that that he five plus one should say, you know something, let's not get down to the talks until the afternoon. let's talk to each other. what is it like in tehran? they like the sort of approach. they want an informal kind of talk where everything is of little table at once. and i think the best thing that the united states can say at the meeting is how can we help you? we are in this together. let's try to work it out. i don't think that is going to happen but i do think that there is a determination at least on the american side to make peace talks work. so there will be an effort to do things in a way where the iranians can feel that there is a forum for them to talk at.

if there are bilateral talks between the united states and iran, iran very much wants to talk directly to the united states and feels that the united states is the country which is going to deliver the goods, and the beginning of the process from 2002 to 2006 the europeans were doing much of the negotiating and the united states wasn't presented the table, and the diplomats told me that they always felt the iranians were looking over their shoulders to see where were the americans to guarantee the kind of security guarantees, the kind of delivery of technology that would make a deal work. so i think the key sign of success of this meeting would be if there is a bilateral talks between the representatives and between the american representative. the toxin is simple and geneva, the last to talks there were no bilaterals between the americans and the iranians.

if we get through this first round, and if we get to a second round, which would have been fairly quickly, that is where the difficult things began because you want to have a confidence-building measure. this can't be, what would be smaller sort of confidence building measure? it might be something called a hearing to the additional pravachol where iran is agreed to one-year inspections of the nuclear facilities. it might be iran agreeing to give early notification when it is constructing the new facilities. right now iran will only disclose the facility six months before they are going to introduce the material. those, believe it or not come are the small confidence-building steps. the larger confidence-building steps -- would be iran enriches uranium right now to 3.5% which is the level needed for the nuclear reactor.

they also start to enriched to 20% because they didn't get fuel for the research reactor coming and 20% is a very close to the above 90% and we need to make a nuclear weapon because it's an exponential curve. the confidence-building measure is of the stopped enriching to 20% and ship out the 20% they've already made. this would really be a sign that we are in the process that means something and it is a sign that the israelis are looking for ways than it is a sign of diplomacy. i want to rap up because i've been asked to. after this would become a larger fuel swaps where they would ship out much of their low-enriched uranium and at that point i think the p5 plus one could move towards freezing sanctions. if that happens, we would definitely be in a significant process. of course the chances of that are low.

but the bottom line is that there is hope of a serious process which is on for seem to or three months ago and let's see how it develops. thank you very much. [applause] >> good morning. thank you, kato, for inviting me. i basically want to endorse much of the analysis. i think that the race has been halted 3i think president obama handled netanyahu brilliantly come he embraced him close and read him the riot act and said you are not going to start a war now and before my reelection, i hope for the reelection bid again if you look at the remarks that were made at the conference and when the two of them met and afterwards i think this is

clear. at the same time, we have seen some interesting signals from tehran and perhaps we will talk about that a little bit more as well. but not exactly -- i guess it is the way to put it. right after the comments made about the loose talk of war and stressing that diplomacy was the preferred option for dealing with the iranian nuclear program, ayatollah khomeini, the supreme leader, reiterated in 1995, in which he said building weapons would become quote, a great sin, and of "and he praised obama which is not something the supreme leader of obama often does for camping on the threats of the war. he said such remarks are good and indicate out of delusion. he also at the same time claimed that the economic sanctions that have been imposed are having no

effect. as we all know the sanctions are having a huge effect, and i think this is another reason why we might actually have a diplomatic option in front of us. for those of you who haven't been following it, these sanctions are unlike any that have been imposed since the 1979 revolution. they are the most draconian that have been imposed on any government. if you look in terms of the u.n. sanctions combined with the american sanctions coming european sanctions, the iranian banks are basically excommunicated now from the international financial system. there are very few banks in iran that can do any kind of transactions. iran is resorting to barter increasingly. i would refer you to the atlantic council website where we have a number of papers that are taskforce is done and a couple that deal in particular with iran's reliance on china and the barter transactions. hard-currency can't change

hands, so easily iran is sending oil to countries such as india and china and getting a credit and receiving back goods and services from those countries. the oil production is going down i think in part because they realize it can't sell the oil that it once and get the money that it once. it's down to 3.3 million minerals a day. that's down from 3.8 million barrels a day just a few months ago and 4.1 million a year or so ago. this is truly hurting the economy. the rebel, the currency has dropped in currency by about half against the dollar if it is a lot of discontent in the country. what are the signals we are seeking that it might actually want to deal with the united states and the rest of the he five plus one? the kind of things we follow if you are interested in the iranian politics and foreign

policy. march 5th the supreme court ordered the retrial of the former u.s. marine and the american who had been sentenced to death for supposedly spying for the cia. march 13th u.s. deported back to iran and arms dealer called in a sting operation in the republic of georgia a few years earlier pure was revealed the treasury department had begun an investigation into the former governor of pennsylvania and rendell and several others for taking money to promote an organization called the mujahideen. this is an irony an opposition group that's on the state department terrorism list that has been trying to get off the terrorism list for years and has been paying very well-known former u.s. officials great sums of money to advocate getting off the terrorism list.

they haven't gotten off the list. there was a past the march 26 deadline for the state department to rule. the deadline is gone and i would predict there will be no decision on this issue certainly before the nuclear talks. this is another signal because the iranian government hates this organization. it's believed to be responsible for assassinating five scientists over the last five years in cahoots with the mujahideen dubious we have the new talks their scheduled. i believe april 13th although there are still some april 14th, some question about the exact date and the exact venue. i agree with the analysis i don't think we are going to see a dramatic breakthrough but what we are looking for is to manage the situation. nobody's going to solve the conundrum overnight. the idea is to tap the program in some ways and do limits from introduce greater transparency will contain the israelis. i think the hope is to contain

israel, not iran right now. the would provide confidence that iran is not rushing towards a nuclear weapon. it would also help contain the u.s. congress which insists on passing more and more resolutions the with attempt to tie the hands of the obama administration in negotiating a solution. there is a resolution would forbid containment the was making its way through congress on till rand paul said this is a backdoor authorization for the war and we can't have it. it was remarkable that we have to rely on rand paul to prevent congress from passing ridiculous legislation but there you have it. there are a number of proposals to provide this kind of management of the nuclear issue and michael has referred to most of them. the center about iran halting the enrichment to 2035, which is

close to the weapons-grade. if iran will stop or slow that at the facility called built into the side of the mountain to it would slow that it would stop centrifuges the would be a major step. catherine ashton has said that she wants a sustained process of constructive dialogue with iran. this was in her letter ashton send a letter to the last october to read it took iran until to respond and then finally in march after the meeting between obama and netanyahu and ashton said they would be willing to meet. so she wants a sustained process of the constructive dialogue which means not a one-shot deal, not a one or two day session in istanbul, and nothing after

that. so we do need to see there are more meetings scheduled and they begin to get into the nitty gritty of the program and they are not just talking about principles and that iran is not simply presenting its whitney of grievances against the west which is what it has done in the past. a couple more things of the internal politics i think are useful. the iranians had parliamentary elections on march 2nd. they were all for your fare but the government declared them a great success and that 64% of the iranians had participated which is undoubtedly an inflated figure. there is the joke going around that 80% sat home on television watching and 70% so there is something that is all but nevertheless this victory allowed the supreme leader to consolidate the base.

he has won his fight with the president of iran in case you didn't notice, mahmoud ahmadinejad has been fighting with the flu leader of iran for the last year and he reached out of his rivals and appointed him to another five-year term as the head of something called the expedience the council which is a largely toothless group, but it's supposed to mediate conflicts between various branches of the government. of course he's a famous pragmatist and somebody who is identified with outreach to the west so this is another signal that the supreme leader can be a little bit more flexible in the negotiations. the goal is to prevent iran from developing a nuclear weapon and this was useful during the the netanyahu and obama talks that instead of talking about a nuclear weapons capability, which is what the senate

resolution discusses and they have been harping on for years, the red line now is a nuclear weapon and this is a lot easier in terms of preventing a conflict and also a lot easier in terms of negotiations. it gives a lot of leeway for the iranians to maintain an enrichment program but not in nuclear weapons program. that kind of definition i think is going to be the key if you're going to be able to achieve a success. there is a very good report that's out from the congressional research service just yesterday that talks about the fact we know they dispersed the nuclear facilities across the country but also the accounts they have centrifuges white leaders around the country so there is none to the program. you can bomb the known sites, you can kill a bunch for

scientists and you're not going to be able to destroy the ability to reconstitute its program to read and as many experts have suggested, bombing iran would be the one thing we could convince them they have to have a nuclear weapons program in order to deter future attacks so i feel we have seen some useful clarification in terms of the goal of the u.s. foreign policy in recent weeks. i personally think that if the united states and its allies feel in stopping iran from developing a nuclear weapon, containment is an excellent option. we have been containing the iranians for 33 years and i think we can continue to do so. iran is more isolated now in the region. i don't know if we are going to get into a discussion of its pulp mills with its neighbors. certainly it is very worried about the situation in syria. it's lost its cachet, its narrative as being the champion of the oppressed doesn't wash so

well when it is pressing its own people putting down demonstrations after its 2009 election and supporting the regime in syria, so i think we're in a relatively good place. the question frankly is whether the u.s. government is going to be able to come up with some creative ideas in what is for us an election year and whether obama will have the courage as well as ayatollah khomeini will have the courage to compromise, and i will leave it there. [applause] >> good morning. thanks for inviting me to speak today. i've been asked to basically talk about why diplomacy may not work with iran. what are the challenges? before i get into that i want to command people and experts, commentators and analysts who emphasize diplomacy with iran because i don't think that a

military strike against iran by the united states or israel would solve the nuclear crisis and i do believe that it would be very counterproductive to the u.s. interest in the middle east. and as barbara mentioned, there are signs, positive indications that iran is open to compromise engagement in the he five plus one in the united states. we just have the parliamentary elections in iran. the supreme leader ayatollah khomeini. the president is not as big a player in the irony in politics. so we can argue that iran and the decision making on the program had been streamlined. in 2009 and after that one of the difficulties in gauging your own and reaching a negotiated settlement was the fact there were so many players involved and they are often domestically opposed to each other for

example from the left and the right of the political system for trying to broker a deal on the uranium enrichment. so we can argue that he is now more confident going forward, and as barbara mentioned, he did praise president obama for discounting the war and emphasizing diplomacy. he has kept a less ideological former president expediency council. one of his head pfizer's has stated that iran is open to compromise, etc., etc.. we can't even list the number of other positive indications. and the hope here is that sanctions will put enough pressure on hammami that he will back down, and we know he's a reasonable man, he is a rational man that makes decisions on cost-benefit calculations but we

also have to look at fer ayatollah khomeini, what are his personal political interests, what are his ideological interests as the iran supreme leader, and more important, what is his world view -- how does he see the world, the united states and the nuclear program? and when we look at how many we believe that the islamic republic is engaged in an existential conflict with the united states. he believes that the united states has never accepted the islamic revolution of 79 and will never accept a revolution. he doesn't believe the united states is just opposed to iran policies on the nuclear program, ferc said, but he had stated the united states opposes the essence of the islamic republic to but i don't think this will change as long as he is alive. this is the way he thinks about the united states.

he pressures abated and the revolution, he was one of the revolutionary leaders. he helped overthrow the shom backend what is the u.s. domination of iran, so the world view is very much based on his experience. the islamic republic may even believe the nuclear program as an important military deterrent against the united states, even if iran doesn't to look in a clear within the fact that as a virtual capability to assemble a nuclear weapon as need be serves as a valuable deterrent for iran, and they've seen the united states over through the neighboring regimes like saddam hussein and katella and with relative ease, so the decision makers know that in the future the united states may take military action against iran to the regime circumstances for that right now are not very good

but it's not the possibility of the future and in addition how many believe the nuclear program is a sign of his regime's success. he sees the nuclear prevent as a success of the revolution. despite the years of sanctions and isolation of iran has faced and the sanctions we talk about now are nothing new in terms of them being strong and draconian but the sanctions for 30 years and how many believe the progress on the nuclear program show that it's able to resist the united states? when you listen to the speeches, this is a constant theme. he emphasizes the progress and the last speech was all about how iran is ranked number 11 in terms of scientific progress this is what he claimed, etc..

of course the viewpoint of a nuclear program isn't necessarily shared with in the political elite the figures in the the leaders of the green movement and the reformists may not see the nuclear program in a similar ideological and political terms. in fact, the isolation iran has faced the sanctions and hurts the agenda of the pragmatic conservatives and the reformists who want to liberalize the economy, open it up to the world and act in the political reforms but this is in the mind set. he's very much compared to the other figures and isolationist and ideological leader to read it's not clear how the public feels about the nuclear program. we hear that there is a sense of national pride and a lot of support for the aspect of the nuclear program. there's been a lot of polling done on the issue.

we don't know for certain how they feel. i would argue that yes, the regime has had some success in the nuclear program as a matter of national rights and that they say why should israel, pakistan, etc., the access to nuclear technology, and why should we not? and some crowley will argue that iran should have nuclear weapons so the question remains will he give in to the sanctions? and hoadly have hurt the economy, the currency has seized ululated and they've gone high. the average iranian is suffering the middle class. some of the scene of people that support democracy in iran and this is one of the unfortunate aspects of the sanction that it does hurt certain u.s. objectives.

but they are rethinking the position on the nuclear weapon he has admitted that the sanctions are painful but he's getting iran and its population ready for the long struggle for the united states and we will have to when we look at iran we have to remember that iran and the regime have survived a lot to have survived the revolution, the long war with iraq, the years of sanctions and insurgencies to read he's survived assassination attempts. he's not a man that could easily been coming and he has named this year and don't remember the specific of the year of national labor and promoting the irony in domestic productivity. he really believes in the face of sanctions iran can become more self-sufficient and then he points to the nuclear program

and the other achievements for this. in addition, unlike his predecessor ayatollah khomeini, he is not as open to advice from the political system. he has pushed aside people. he used to have dinner twice a week and he's not giving him advice. so he's relying on a small inner circle of the revolutionary guard officers and security people to give advice. and in a lot of ways he's cut off from the world. he believes that the united states is in geopolitical decline and the united states faces the client in the middle east because what he terms of the weakening but we call the arab spring the regime calls the islamic awakening trippi believes u.s. influence in the middle east is on the wane because the overthrow of the american regimes in tunisia,

egypt, yemen and instabilities of the country's look loranne said he believes that iran stands strong in the face of sanctions and that the u.s. faces these problems and at the time may be on his side. we could argue that he is delusional. he said that obama is accepting from delusion that we can argue that he is delusional. but that's what -- what we have in the and on this is the viewpoint of a man making decisions for the entire population so where does that leave the united states in terms of policy option crux i believe the next panel will talk about the options including the military option. not a lot of people would argue that even within israel as a military solution. if there's an attack against iran began to tilt the iaea. the regime can crackdown on opposition. there will be greater swell of

national pride. i don't think that they necessarily will forgive the regime because of an attack but it will put the regime or it could very well put the regime in a favorable position especially if they do not manage to damage the nuclear program very much. the military strike will also set back the u.s. objective of the democracy in iran and could lead to greater instability in the region. diplomacy is a solution, and barbara mentioned the goal is to manage the situation to prevent an armed conflict toward in terms of diplomacy if we are going to rely on diplomacy the situation can go on and on the next several years and ultimately there has to be a solution largest to the nuclear program, but a solution to the islamic republic and our

relations with the islamic republic to become would argue that ayatollah khomeini is in power in iran we will not solve our problems with iran. he doesn't have a normal relationship with the united states and he's going to do is everything in his power to undermine u.s. interest in the region to read the good news is that iran hasn't decided to weapon is its program. the u.s. intelligence community assesses the fear is no indication that the leaders have decided to what the mize the program and given the vulnerability of the regime, lack of legitimacy, the woeful economic situation in iran, the influence including its troubled, this gives opportunity to the republican hope for something better to emerge in the future because if you look at iran i think iran more so than a lot of countries surrounding it had the real

potential for the democratic system. also the democratic iran would be the solution to the nuclear crisis. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for coming and to michael panelists here. when we were originally drawling this by felt there was and be a terrifically difficult case to make that there is hope for diplomacy, and i agree with those on the other side of the table there is increasing hope i'm going to try my best to pour cold water on that increasing hope despite the fact i'm very much a supporter of diplomacy, i think i would support a much more ambitious diplomatic approach than is likely to happen but i will explain some of the obstacles in terms of american domestic politics and the sort of structural international reasons in the

system. i shall also reveal i was doing work on the iranian potential proliferation in 2006 and 2007. for the past year or so i've been working on the asia-pacific region so i'm actually having to put it back to the middle east as i think the administration is having to so i will defer on the recent developments to my panelists. you have to say though the good thing about the u.s. iran or western ivory ne diplomacy's there are really good metaphors. there are zones of immunity, closing windows, clocks running at different speeds. it's like all salvador dali painting of the nuclear proliferation. i want to reiterate pyrrophyte fever diplomacy as i review with the end and unrealistically diplomatic approach that is it causes me to doubt whether or not we will get where we want to

go. as i mentioned, she covered quite well some of the iranian obstacles to a diplomatic resolution of the problem. i want to focus on the u.s. domestic politics and structural impediments and suggest where we might go from here to prove me wrong. in terms of american domestic politics, the general africa some that i've been trying in the public and what might happen can't work. i think that is a fairly glum assessment and i hope i'm wrong about it. but that's what i believe at this point. as barbara mentioned, the congress attitude has been let's add more pressure on the existing and promise not to put any more pressure if concerns are made. in fact it's even stopped, the last part not putting any more pressure because central bank for example the congress didn't write in off and for iran to say

by the way, if you fulfill the 57 demands we are making we will move to sanctions. if you are looking at what congress is doing and say what are the demands and we could conceivably give a way out this. the congress stopped by and large even just trying at the idea. i think that is somewhat of an indication of the way congress intends to pay. i'm part of it as an institution they have really not covered themselves in glory with their participation in u.s. diplomacy towards iran. they want to appear very concerned to the constituencies about the problem and that's it. the one saving grace we may have is as an institution the are comfortably enough to annoy the grant of section 8 of the constitution which grants them the power to declare war iraq.

we used to do that as a country come to clear war when they decided that the war is appropriate. now we've converted to handweaving and the table pounding which i think is probably a good thing. so the congress to think again often does some bone headed thing to get its or in iran diplomacy. but they have not really provide it hoped for anything constructive to the agenda that the administration is following. for the obama administration assault he's got to give it credit they put its neck out there on the campaign saying that it was open to diplomacy. by 2009 just in the direction of diplomacy that i received a not terribly much interest in spending gobs of political capital on getting diplomacy with iran up and running in a way there will be fruitful. i don't blame them for that. it's not clear they have enough

political capital left particularly this year to get things rolling in for a full deduction and obviously we all noticed coming to the supreme court defaults of domestic priorities their spending and political capital. so i don't envy the position in which the obama administration finds itself. and i think to echo what some of the other panelists have said, any diplomatic process that has the hope of producing long-term results would be a long-term process of meetings after meetings after meetings the would be easy to demagogue the as the obama administration selling out. the campaign commercials rather write themselves. so there's perilous for the administration to come and for a variety of reasons i will defer to michael on this and hope he's right. i'm not sure there will receive

to president obama's message. i remain open to be persuaded that that's right, but i wonder whether it is. moving on to the sort of structural international obstacles i'm really indebted to reminding the insight to one of the panelists on the second panel who has a forthcoming people working mentions this topic but to start with the political science kids the relationship between iran on the one hand united states is in balance and material power. iran cannot conquer the united states. it should decide to it conquered iran. a big mess i don't support doing so but in terms of material power there is no comparing the two countries. if you look at things from kuran's perspectives any diplomatic deal would involve

making a loss of substantial security interests to iran. if you do this not only will we not do something on the one hand but we also agree. so how can iran trust assurances provided by a country that has overwhelming power, and indeed i believe it is still a uniform power in the system, how do you make credible assurances to the relatively weak state as the power that is if they decided to come could read nipigon those at any point. this is the point i think is not terribly fast by the administration or certainly by the congress. it's just very difficult matter how genuine the intentions to credibly country that a country with which coming from both sides there's been pleased and its relations the past 30 years.

this is something the important point to highlight and president obama in the recent interview with jeffrey goldberg of the land tick pointed to cases he thought diplomacy created a good results and he pointed of south africa and dennett libya. if you look at the libya deal and say we had to get ourselves a deal what does that say? it doesn't look like a good deal because the united states could easily reneged on assurances the were made of, for example, there were another political crackdown. iran has credibly denuclearized and it seems it has had just about enough of the dictatorial regime and cracking down on protesting civilians. so, i think getting our head around how to convey credibly security assurances is maybe my sort of sunday punch on the diplomatic deal. it works, so i want to reiterate

what someone perished of thought and i will context, on a fever. what i worry again what might happen can't work and what might work can happen. in terms of from here in robinette i will offer a couple thoughts about how to prove me wrong. when we win concessions to the u.n. security council to do another resolution sanctioning the iran and what have you, there is a sort of or else on the other side of that in terms of the people that have signed on to the deal. so. or else, we will force you to stop. and i think the rest of the world really doesn't have an or else on the end of the security council resolution. citing wish to get our mind around that if we decide this spring to be in or else, it's

great to be us and possibly a free small coalition. it's odd that lots of conservatives who have particular views about the united nations tend to endorse the idea that the security council sanctions should by an important way. i think we would probably have to make large probably prohibitively large concessions at the outset to get the iranians to believe we are serious about diplomacy. if you look at 737 come 1747, i think it is unlikely they will spend all right, as does indicate, and i think we would probably have to do something before the unilateral sanctions from washington or europe in order to convince them that we were serious. i also think there is probably a political nonstarter. if you can do something like get

them to stop in reaching 20% i would be able to walk back some of the things we're doing, not just promise not to do anything in addition but to walk back and do things. it would be a political nightmare. if they agreed to stop enhancing the facility, there would be terrific and i would take that as a sign that we should be willing to look back some of the things we're already doing. i've not heard it from the administration of the congress and i think you would be a political nightmare but the bear again i think you see the political influences concerning our ability to operate internationally. but in that takeaway i think is a 21 diplomacy to work, if you really think that what military option.

in order to get the train rolling in the first place in the second place realize this is going to be a long agonizing process. it's going to have lots of setbacks. i think i will just leave it there and then turn the podium over to chris to ask questions. saxby for a rematch. [applause] >> thank you everyone. we left about of time for q&a. maybe even before i open up to the audience, to any of you wish to respond to anything that was said by to the other panels? >> i have a question. >> with that i will throw it open. we have a rule, the rules in the auditorium are the same in the old which is when you ask a

question. including those that are watching on line. state your name and affiliation and frame your question in the form of a question. this from typically >> - machine and i am with the actions. you're talking a lot about four people mentioned the sanctions and that that's hurting the people of iran. but no one really talked about whether the sanctions even work and i recently read a report to read there were studies done but it never worked. my question on that is why are we pursuing a policy that worked

that's harmful and would be perceived. that doesn't seem to me to be a confidence-building measure. >> okay. thank you. so, the question is sanctions don't have a terrific track record. what is different about these sanctions if anything to read the of the south africa example for the sanctions did help get rid of the apartheid regime and that is usually referred to. we have sanctions because it is a substitute for the war and it's a substitute for diplomacy. people don't want to declare war mike in this country. even the congress, even some of the war gung-ho and neoconservatives are not anxious to have a war over the last decade so they have to think of something else. and they aren't really ready to make major concessions to the islamic republic. so what do you have? you have sanctions and they've

taken on a momentum of their own. this started under the george w. bush administration treasury department has become one of the most creative parts of the u.s. government in terms of devising ever more clever ways to destroy the economy. i was at a session with the former prime minister of israel earlier this week where he basically bragged that when he was prime minister in his talks with the u.s. treasury department the it already come up with the idea of expelling iran from what's called the swift which is the system that enables them to do transactions with foreign banks. he said this was an idea they were already talking about years ago. so, we are good at sanctions. we are obviously not good diplomacy and we don't want to go to war.

>> we are at a state of' iran and it's taking place in the sanctions and the covert operations inside of iran. it's taking place through every pressure short of the war and not the defense sanctions the purpose of the sanction is basically to get iran to talk. you can see the talks coming up as one way in which the sanctions succeed because the question of the sanctions they certainly are causing problems for iran but the main question is are they sufficient to get iran to strike a deal with us on the nuclear program. so, i think the jury is still out on how this policy ends, and once again the fact though we're having these new talks, which justin referred to the difficulty of getting forward and getting the real concessions, i think that the way that the west is approaching it is they want to start to

slow, and there are actually two plans out there for the diplomacy, one is the russian plan and the other is the american plan, and interestingly enough, the first step of the plan is that the united states would give security guarantees to iran and in return they would be freezing the sanctions. news bulletin, that isn't going to happen. i remember back into cells and four, two listened 5i got was called them on paper and it is a diplomatic brief on how to go forward and the europeans prepare it and one chapter was security guarantees. once the americans got a hold of that chapter disappeared. but that is not to say there couldn't be security guarantees of the end of the process, and in terms of it being a political nightmare, it is this whole thing is a nightmare. we are in a situation that is not going to end well. someone is going to be unhappy. it's going to end in tears in one way or another.

but i think despite the election and everything going on, if we can get a start to this process, you have a situation in iran where barbara spoke about, after the parliamentary elections, there is a possibility for the consensus in iran and it's a very pollyannas review by the way that a possibility for consensus in iran that didn't exist before the parliamentary elections because he has effectively led the lame-duck in the sessions and if there are businessmen, revolutionary guards coming and saying look we are having trouble doing business, can we do something to get out of this, there might be a way in which they could decide if they can get a solution they get to keep some enrichment or they can go forward with what they see is only a civilian program that would be a way they

might want to strike a deal. this is a best case scenario in a situation we would move very quickly to the sort of thing i miss talking about where you would cut the enrichment to 20% where it would be shipped out. i think you'll find of this first meeting is a success there will be a second meeting and will come very quickly because everybody is afraid of growing up the process and if that happens and there is a second meeting and there is a stepping down from 20% enrichment by iran and they start to move towards a fuel stop and then we would move towards freezing sanctions which is incredibly different because they're mandated by the conference, speak of a nightmare that would be about right nightmare to the way to sell it would be to say we're getting concessions on the side, this is the last chance to reach an agreement and that is a good way to see this the sanctions.

>> sanctions are blunt instruments. they do hurt certain u.s. objectives and promote certain u.s. objectives of the same time. in terms of curbing the u.s. objective of democracy in iran if that isn't the ultimate objective should be. sanctions are hurtful. the middle class is the same people that came out in the streets and other cities in 2009 to protest against the government. sanctions hurt our allies and that is within iran there's been reports that sanctions are hurting. the iranian community in the united states, canada and sweden, and it turns out promoting vigorous interest they have made the cost of iran's nuclear program hire if iran decides to what lies the programs it has to consider even more damaging sanctions. i do think that the sanctions

make iran rethink its policy is quite a bit, and potentially within the iranian government where you have the revolutionary guards officers involved in the iranian economy to be heard by sanctions and pressure the supreme leader. also i think the sanctions helped to contain iran if the developing nuclear weapons capability. it would be in a much weaker state and wouldn't be able to project power in the middle east as well, and sanctions finally show other countries who are thinking of violating the non-proliferation regime that there cost associated. so if iran decides to go nuclear and saudi arabia thinks we should obtain nuclear weapons and we look at iran and see the costs so that we sanctions are beneficial. i hate to say it, but there are benefits to sanctions. >> one quick to this discussion.

there was an article in the post a few weeks ago or a month ago there was a sort of an unnamed u.s. official talking about sanctions. what is the goal of the sanction. i forget the exact quote, but there was something like regime change and then people such a regime change is the goal? not regime change but to serve cause pain to the government in iran etc. and i think that is clearly what is going on is that there is an effort to create fear in the iranian government, the domestic political situation might be so offended by the sanctions that are causing pain across the call the, not just a sort of on your gcm officials were involved in the nuclear program. but you get a lot of bang for the buck out of the destabilizing government. and then i think again there was a walk back that can as well we are not regime changing, we are doing something else. but i think in the main brunt of the sanctions clearly it is designed to cause iran to fear

the destabilization and that fear of destabilization in turn to cause them to come to the table to attempt to give relief to where it doesn't fear the stabilization as much. ..

the. >> of low maybe not. >> keogh add don't scholar addressed to mr. logan. it seems diplomacy is the only viable primitive military attacks are a non starter. but it seems the constraint

on effective diplomacy from the political opposition and ask for your assessment of how much of an impediment is the opposition to the administration? net romney is starting to turn to the obama administration that is like pee wee herman tala n.j. mike tyson. i appreciate your assessments. >> the president said in his speech where he pointed out the only way you can get a country to not build nuclear weapons if the leadership decides not to. there is no permanent way to stop the nuclear

proliferation ember crow basically we have sanctions and other tools ultimately it is the decision of the government. there is no military solution hof although he said all options are on the table. we have seen it from me a beating the drums for a more aggressive posture them that of the administration. it will be hard to get anything accomplished anything with u.s. concessions broke the best we can hope for is to have the iranians slow the program one of the problem is they keep sticking their

finger in our eye and in january they announced they start to ennnounced they start to enrich uranium. it has already crossed israel's red line. if they could be sensitive to the politics and restrain themselves of the next report is not so alarming we could buy time to get through the elections. if obama is reelected and i hope he is proactive. >> there is an article that said don't believe about voters not caring about public policy. thinking they should go women over obama. i would be wary about taking

political advice from karl rove. it looked good 2004 but not afterwards. net romney appears to take advice to get the critique going. obama's tries to say of the people complained, what do you plan? >>guest: to have both war? he is planning on the iran -- iraq syndrome but if i am elected president i promise you have a war with iran, that is a different calculation. table pounding, and waving waving, apologizing for america but obama wants to have a precise discussion.

where there are not that will work but that is how i see it. >> it is hard for me to see. the lights are bright. [laughter] >> international center for terrorism studies. looking for the diplomatic solution, how do do with the persistent demand with questions of the military dimension of. >> winehouse iaea is trying to get access to a military site that iran may have tested the trigger for the nuclear weapon with enriched

uranium. the line has been drawn, a confrontation that is big in the june report, but none of this impact the diplomatic process. i have been told that. the reason is it is not new they're not cooperating or hiding from the iaea. there is a divorce between good diplomatic process and the investigation. whatever happens, unless they discover iran is working on a bond it will not affect the diplomatic process. >> from veteran

intelligence. >> please speak up. >> ica surreal aspect. there are two elephants in the room referred to by euphemism or not all one his domestic political considerations and with the israel lobby. and the president marching in lockstep. number two, it is widely recognized by the israeli and u.s. intelligence community and defense ministers are man is now working on a nuclear weapon. the phrase is it has not yet decided to work on a nuclear weapon.

we have the rhetoric to stop them. if they're not working on a nuclear weapon had restocked them? the defense minister of israel given interview 18 to january to agree iran has not decided to do a nuclear weapon? >> yes. how soon could they get it? it does not matter. >> what are we doing? what is the premise? they are not working on a nuclear weapon? >> to pickup on this, i wanted to ask how significant is it that the time of the

convention, obama's clarified the objective of u.s. policy to prevent a weapon as opposed to repping capability. how significant also that congress's language and their sanctions is very different. what is going on? >> i don't think obama's is marching in lockstep with this distinction is crucial per car ran already has a nuclear-weapons capability was scientist to 10 build bombs a uranium to may 45 nuclear-weapons if it decided to do so it could make a device to put it in the suitcase and deliver it. maybe not on a missile. it is a meaningless term although that is a term has been turnaround for years.

that is the most important thing. 90 yahoo! picked up the same nine rich afterwards referred to as a weapon not the capability. it means their man can do a lot of things as long as it doesn't build the weapon and facing action from the united states slim if distinction between the capability and a weapon is crucial and a big difference between u.s. and israel. hernandez not want to make one weapon but several.

iran was discovered hiding two decades of secret military work with the whole range of activities and when iran was unable to answer, that is when the investigation began. and iran has not cooperated fully. there is no smoking gun. the u.s. says they have not made the decision may be stopped weaponization from 2003. been never owned up to the work before that. her are legitimate questions about their intentions. their capability is legal under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. of the great concern is

putting which men with technology from missiles, weapons rising, at that point* all the ducks in a row and they have the break out. it is too late to stop them. president bush says it is unacceptable for iran to have a nuclear weapon. so for them to say they could get a weapon. i think the minister should have stake data position that is more forceful. the israelis are very uncomfortable with the definition. >> there are very real differences between the programs. israel is a small country.

in a tough neighborhood. surrounded by iranian allies with hezbollah and hamas and the iranian nuclear weapon or the capabilities to produce that as an extension low-fat. so there are a lot of to francis. the top leadership including matt -- prime minister not on yahoo! and ehud barak even virtual nuclear iran even with the iranian nuclear weapons capability that -- better able to handle not at stake as the israeli interest.

the president has stated containment is not his policy but he is also going up for reelection. a policy changes after presidents are elected. there's a possibility if it states could move toward containment. also other allies in the year at -- middle east and those of the persian gulf. >> we have two people. right there. arms-control assn i agree with this bill the of the obama handling of the pressure. it does seem in the process

he made it clear process -- promise if iran move to acquire weapons he would respond with military action which is a full throated endorsement of the bush doctrine. how does that hurt her is that heard in tehran but? does it confirm what they always thought? partisan make them think they're better organized? >> one argument 1/2 to have a realistic military option. if there is no military threats iran it will not come to the table. the program is motivated by insecurity and fear. so i don't think necessarily

the facilities is necessarily productive. that fat could come paul iran to weapon is the program. we don't know if sanctions have that effect. it could get to that point* if the regime feels it is in peril it could have the weapons capability as a solution. you have a very limited effect. iran is under the impression is reiterating that constantly is not necessarily productive. >> i have time for one more

question. >> with the sanctions would use the iran doing to push back? uc the iran takes out where iran is the battlefield with a proxy war? >> how would they react regionally? >> it is reacting to policies overall. not just specifically on sanctions but to iran is influential and hoping coming from afghanistan all

the very much against the agreement between united states and afghan government and inserting pressure and influence including the very limited manner. there are reports with the rebels in the north and dock write-up. this is not meant for the united states for what is supporting the u.s. sanctions regime. looking at the drawbacks there are things iran can do in the region when it is faced by sanctions. and still despite loss of influence and power for after the fact with the

straighter for moose is an act of retaliation, low-price is have gone up. a way to say if if the u.s. herds their economy, they can retaliate. it is not the same scale but they can retaliate. that is why the military option is not re a solution because of potential conflict would be very messy and could take years. >> iraq and afghanistan become major battlegrounds between united states and saudi arabia and iran. there is still bombs going off an iraq.

and afghanistan those of the easiest places for iran to play because of the long border. this is something we should be aware of this timothy please join me to thank our panelist. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> please take your seats.

if anybody is outside not aware, please demand. better to watch it live. if you're just getting here, i am the director of foreign policy steady here at the cato institute. we're pleased to have our second panel on the choices facing the united states. should diplomacy fail to prevent a nuclear raising iran, we have a very diverse panel and brighter soc for those who disagree together and we will fill fact today as well as of tsai will introduce the speakers' in the order of which they

speak then a setback and watch fireworks. rehab an insistent professor at georgetown university and the council from foreign relations. working as a strategist, office of secretary of offense and for his work on the outstanding entombment. technology transfer for which we had an event last year. and the handbook of national legislators with a coat editor and the consequences of nuclear proliferation. he has been published and in foreign affairs and good to know of conflict resolution, perspectives on politics and "wall street

journal" and new state cetera, commentaries featured on many broadcast outlets. the second speaker is the assistant professor at yale university research fellow at the center for international and area study. of member of the portuguese relations institute for crow he has great power steadies and currently leggett a book and of a series of security topics because of four and the determinant of the military competition, nuclear proliferation and successful occupation and a deterrent threat to. yes appeared in national security late last year and commentator has been but the

third speaker today is this year from the bush should ministrations and at the national security council 2008 and 2009 and addressed the iranian nuclear program program, syria, and other proliferation issues. barrel he received the medal for exceptional public service in addition but as term member on accounts of four nations for "forbes" dot com, "usa today", and in "national review" online.

and who also has elis -- availability to speak before and also now with the previously teaching at clark university and the author of fixing of the facts. also contributed nsa after proliferation to the book titled strategy in the nuclear age. a lot has written on politics and strategy and completed his post doctoral fellowship at williams college. clearly establishes the people on the panel to discuss military, containment options squaring off on iran. i will turn the podium over.

>> thank you very much for that introduction. i was here a year ago talking about my last book in the old auditorium. this is beautiful. we are here to talk about the iran nuclear program. there is an agreement and has the greatest national security challenge but there are only three raise this will be resolved. first, we can get it diplomatic seven -- sentiment or third but what we have to do to prevent iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

that would be a reason to believe that we can't. and interns' of reassure the national committee and iran's nuclear program is no longer a threat. but they have run record to say you can only help what provides. of diplomacy fail sometimes the united states bases this bedded nuclear-armed iran

but there are so many threats a difficult to address. nuclear-armed iran to be an proliferation from those who did not kit a response end arraigned -- rainman but it is foreign policy theory and major interaction pro but to have the nuclear coward to 10 this for rides to cover more of course, of diplomacy then that means with nuclear arms iran and israel in the future