>> there are also books that

i think this pushes us to the debate we need as a country and whenever i am agreeing with him over the years that means he gets in some kind of trouble. [laughter] but i hope it means a lot of people read his book and think about a. it is about restoring the source of american power and restoring balance to what the united states aims to do in the world and how it does it. thank keogh. [applause]

>> the public's fascination with frances cleveland she was a fashion icon they emulated her hairstyle and clothing and this is a dress from the second administration and in a way the most prized piece is the inaugural gown from 1893 and it stated the family and became the family wedding dress and was used by her granddaughter's. even her every day clothes were very stylish it would likely something you would wear now. the jacket, a bolero jacket

with beautiful felt it coming this is more evening appropriate, the bodies had a matching skirt with the beautiful lace anc plans and netting and a daytime best with a matching color, and this could be war with the short waisted skirts. >>

>> host: welcome to after words especially vali nasr it is a treat after seeing you all long time away. it is great to have you here and i did enjoy your book for different reasons i would go through that but thank you very much for coming here today. vali nasr is here with us from johns hopkins school of the advance studies and author of the book "the dispensable nation" american foreign policy in retreat". vali nasr a political commentator american iranian and has briefed president, congress, many

influential people and born in tehran and then came to the united states after having left after the revolution with a bachelor's and master's degree from the fletcher school and also earned his ph.d. from m.i.t.. well done. i will not go through your long list of accomplishments, they are special but i want to especially to draw attention to a great part of your book that is a time you spent working under richard holbrooke as part of the special office, special advisor on pakistan and afghanistan. now special adviser to the secretary of state. there are other offices and part of the problem that you lay out in your book that i found fascinating, the other works that you have done the

said shake revival, the rise of the digital class and you porto certain great events the rise of sectarianism. but you will couple lot of people with what was clearly coming with the potential of the era of spring but how fast it happened and where it happened and certainly where it is going. i also want to say it is a confession it is almost a fatal attraction to read your book. so we have observed many of

the inner struggles this is one of the revelations. some people like to think everything is fine and to it after a careful talking and analysis coming to decisions on policy we know that it is not quite that simple or easy to process. you know, the saying if you like sausage don't like it too -- to watch it being made but if you like policy you don't want to know about behind-the-scenes but if i look back over the last tenures we has been watching how sausage has been made and so much has been brought out into the open it is the art of political compromise and negotiation it is hard

to see it could have been worse but it is not always as pretty or tasteful as we would like not all is about principle something that you lay out clearly it is about power. about what the arab world calls and who you know, and what you can do and basically gets in your way. so with the time we have together i would like to go through some of these things i have a lot of questions that come to mind and maybe in two parts because the greatest value or contribution is on the time you spent of what you were

able to observe in your work the man had a reputation larger-than-life and was a very forceful actor on the scene it is always important and it influences but it reminds me when you watch how policy is made i just want to start here that you even have generals who are professionals who know how to operate in that environment and the like to sink it is conflict resolution with u.s. interest for those allies and friends. how do they negotiate? there is so much in terms of personal satisfaction even with the players involves it

is the most of. -- important that is the insight that we can be defined in many different ways insiders around our president or secretary of state and secretary clinton has their insiders every president has and sometimes they consult with the professional, sometimes they don't. sometimes the principles they operate on if it is the election and think about the interest groups it adds that layer that is very difficult to deal with. so let's start with the basic questions. you talk about the different influences of the military

of the professional diplomatic corps and the president and advisers and you have the intelligence community the same as the cia and i will come back to that comment and the vice president especially with this administration and with the bush administration insisted to play a larger role good or not, that is not the point* but that is another base to deal with so tell me, who decides the options? and who should be? who should have more of the input? >> guest: very good questions that you asked me come to afghanistan and pakistan with the obama if fenestration they had to

manage it was their war even though i iraq was president bush's war afghanistan was the obama is and what of the main issues is the overhang of iraq. so we started to look at afghanistan not really on the basis of its own merits but what does it mean? what our interests are and how do we come to some type of conclusion or closure in the way it protects us? restarted from the premise of the iraq. so it did x so therefore we should do why but we cannot do x because bush did why. and this was a problem i don't think they ever could go back to the campaign able to craft for the president and national security in niche that would not

constantly measured against iraq. said he was a good president because he would do exactly the opposite even looking at it up to now the claim to fame is bush took us into their region and we take it out. every time you talk about afghanistan policy thales compare it to iraq and that is a big problem. second iraq did produce the u.s. military as the two-time foreign policy because they did not cause the war it was the decision of the civilian of the pentagon and the white house and the state department and the war it -- the way it played out that general petraeus and that being a hero of the iraq war and the surge in debt being the military solution to a catastrophe caused that way

and as the expression -- expression goes they drink their own chalaza they can now thinking it deserved all the resources it could get and has the solution to the problem and definitely doesn't need diplomats or diplomacy. and thought it has reinvented the ending of the warsaw with world war ii we go to vietnam are varieties of war around the world but the diplomats and dip negotiating and to look at the balkans in vietnam kissinger are holbrooke were in charge and the military provided them to the with many to go to negotiations in paris with the backing of the military.

so it came to be a coin strategy not only the savior of the war with a counterinsurgency of what would end the war by america's global strategy to deal with terrorism and the pentagon came up to eat up america policies. so you're arrived in afghanistan with the iraq overhang and military has the enormous amount of influence on the strategy in very early on the president succumbed and therefore strategic review according to which putting troops in afghanistan was a smaller number in january 2009 that a larger number in the fall

but essentially he ended up accepting these solution was to export the strategy and at that point* general petraeus had said, but this was the united states mission for afghanistan and something general petraeus put on the ground. so we end up going to afghanistan taking the military of the forefront strategy the state department the civilians of the lighthouse and on a marginal and within the lighthouse the sensibility of said politically visors that this was a sensible way to go because it is too difficult for a democratic president to argue the way we had to find iraq and the

shaughnessy was basically to have this triumphant military coming out of iraq year judging may not be appropriate and therefore we succumbed to embrace of iraq and afghanistan. >> host: he is that the first president to be afraid to do with the military directly if i remember correctly, clinton had similar problems both lacking military experience experience, and again if you think of the democrats soft on war but there is difficulty is of the democratic president's approaching the military and clinton did and obama was reluctant but when you're in the middle of the war you will not argue. the other part of the problem, full disclosure

spending the last 15 years at the defense military that petraeus had a reputation reputation, almost like us star. >> like a superstar mini acquire that aura and he had a successful strategy in that was interested in your description when we look at the surgeon in iraq, we looked at it as our search, our success but yet that is not the whole truth third not what made it successful. i think of this in part because so much of my life that really they were ready to make this strategy work. >> guest: but here, and i do agree with the obama that he is not unique to be

pushed of the popularity and to be fair was quite difficult after iraq and that the president would argue but the devil is in the details and the president could have unleashed the state department and the civilians in ways that could have complemented or provided an additional layer, in particular and secretary clinton was much more powerful than the president. in the situation remained tense, she was often in the strongest character and the toughest character in the room. only being in the middle of the intelligence and security officials which dominate national security, she held her own and highly respected an extremely tough, but the way

it works out that the state department and also holbrooke could have made an important decision to balance and given his experience in vietnam but put in a position to say your job is not to make policy. you are not equal partners here. you were there to implement the civilian needs of the strategy. this is not about global diplomacy. the job of the state department is to look at building afghanistan agriculture because that is what it means. you need to go around to make sure many more countries spend money and we get support. but in putting into the american strategy is not welcome. it not just about strategy but where the balance is lost is the fighters became

the chief strategy that foreign policy in the middle east and we still see this argument in the region but essentially to the hands of the war fighters and in many ways the state department of hillary clinton and richard holbrooke tried to argue that he would be a mistake for the united states to put all of the aids in this region with a military solution that the president's heart did not believe and they should be given of far broader birth to think of the regional architecture, the peace settlement and a global engagement to provide for the and it to afghanistan to

enable us to lead with a political solution. if you look at afghanistan now, we did not win the war but in a way there is a lot of loose ends and basically we are saying we will just but the afghans and dylan and the taliban still no peace deal stoked -- still no consensus or agreement and we just pass the baton and if that was the case why do we do the search out of? reach them from the afghan army on the number one. the state department argues aggressively that we described in the book was because the white house was highly resistant to the state department making any

policy influence. and if that had not been for hillary clinton who continues they remained a very strong influential voice and was able to single-handedly carry the mantle with a variety of points, it was completely reduced to a military strategy. >> if i put this in some type of context the pattern is not original with obamacare that much of this better for worse was a pattern learnt with the bush and administration. leading up to the war in iraq and the pentagon was the source of everything you

want a strategy it is the pentagon if you want assistance it is the pentagon. it was the source of all knowledge and they pretty much with rumsfeld did not see any need to look to anybody else. is hard to say this but maybe it was a pattern that is hard to change out. it is not the whole problem but it raises serious questions the role that you have been conditioned. >> you are absolutely correct. because it came matt of iraq that the pentagon saved the day that is different from vietnam but the day was

saved by civilians with negotiations but in iraq there the ones that solve the problem and yes, that raises the important question if the obama administration is able to move away from the bush strategy and i make this argument if you look at iran , the drone strategy often the bush policy improved and better implemented but to have policy but is the domination of the budgetary the impact of the global image is the sense the image had been tarnished and the global stock demanding had been

affected and secretary of clinton did a lot to rebalance to give the state department to lot more visibility internationally by all so trying to do influence the decision making on war, i think she went along way because under the bush and administration the state department office that was largely humiliated and they were demoralized and to reach the point* where it was not even respected with public policy making and a major way and she decided to rebuild the state department influence it was tough for diplomacy as well so she spent her time continuously talking to

the general, with the white house staff and finding ways to reverse the attitudes of the state department and she left in a far better position and even in to this day the problem it finds is the reluctance in the white house to accept the state department primacy to set the global strategy and to be the employment of that global strategy in every issue other than war and that is a challenge even today and then and secretary clinton probably from that period from her previous predecessors we will see if

they can change in a significant way. >> host: that is the important observation and what troubles me is what they are right about clinton she does not tolerate fools she knew what it took you have to be assertive and make herself heard and had to build an institution that suffered in terms of its role and is perception and the fact it was not seen as a shaper that we will say the policy in your job is to carry out. it is not very helpful in terms of building the institution. but the couple other things having in my lifetime covers

several of these crisis including all of the iraq crisis we would always shatter if there was a hint the president would announce a deadline those are not a good thing. i don't know why you need the exit strategy degree have one in world war ii? what is the great urge but even now at the same time you have a search and sending more troops and announced the withdrawal begins in 2014 isn't that self-defeating? >> and i can say that from the first-time experience of that time period that we had a great deal of difficulty convincing people that they

were highly suspicious they would tell us afghanistan is not iraq and not only for men for what you mention that iraq is a flat country and it is very different from a insurgency that iraq has a much more educated society so there was a lot more to work with and in the region in the go to saudi arabia and turkey know they believed it was a good idea and they did not believe they would succeed they thought you would have another vietnam it if you

actually stayed with it it would be a 15 or 20 year war. so to begin we argued believe us. we will stand behind our strategy to trust american foreign policy and trust in our wisdom that we know what we're doing and you should support us and they would get you politely and not say anything that may go six months backed and by the way there is a deadline that the policy is only good for one year but then they say that makes all of the conclusions and arguments less credible than before so how do you do it? then we ended up to go back to withdraw them will be gone by 2014 so i saw we

were constantly talking to ourselves with their own media headline driven away never convinced anybody we concluded we are confused and lacked commitment and it is very dangerous for those countries to hitch their wagon to the united states because they don't know where it is going. you'll be gone by 2014 what we just wait for you to go then we will begin to think about our policy and what will happen in. you saw that even with actors and where we are everybody just keep still because we have announced of loud and clear by 2014 we're

gonna have not won the war we're not interested to change the political dynamic to force the regional actors to embrace to sign onto zaph and basically to leave afghanistan the way it is they know the fight is still there and so all we did in the region was tarnish our image and tarnish our standing and essentially create a situation then we wonder why influence has declined to. >> host: it is so not about afghanistan. it becomes yet another example of a failing policy. and the region argue against

a policy that it is too dangerous and then when said, was removed it was dangerous to let things drift to the way they did and dangerous to be the lead on a replacement that could be trusted in a we did i know you go to the region and the question is why did you give iraq to iran? did you think about that or realize what was happening? the sense that we gave up the shot and have given up on iraq to let the iranians takeover then we announce the of a straw from afghanistan and now what do we do next? you are right for different reasons that feed into the overall one ease with the

commitment and all the assurances in the world and still make it very difficult because the region is at a time this is a real crisis and they are facing challenges they have not had to face before internally is it about afghanistan war iraq or iran? one thing that tips the balance is syria. >> guest: you are absolutely right we're often faulted for mistakes and it is important but we have to learn from this and the problem is back from afghanistan the over

emphasis on military bet there were tactical mistakes made in the way house announcing the deadline with a political settlement if the president from the a political settlement if the president from the beginning told the military will get the coin but at the same time i am serious about the diplomatic end that would have a much more balancing effect that this is the sense united states doesn't just withdraw from iraq that leaves the region entirely and that is hard for allies like jordan and morocco to say we made mistakes and we stuck bayou now you came in and you literally pushed not only the shaw 30 years ago but mubarak out and they did

nothing after the day after he left a pushing him off with no engagement of democracy building and then perfectly fine with the ascendance across the arab world and yet he still thank you are the allied maybe it is self preservation to protect themselves from us which is a reversal and every time when i hear in the region is syria and egypt they're not engaged in these conversations and they openly tell the leaders in the region we will be gone from this region and that is encouraging a sense of gloom and doom in the region that

they are beginning to say we have to look for the option is that you have no america at all and it is really critical because he said the two most important arab countries to decide the future of the region and how spectacular they are completely disinterested in how this plays out it could be faulted for making mistakes but the fact we don't see any role for us or any sense of urgency to find a critical economic program with the imf to destabilize iraq and be a threat to israel ultimately to spread to the gulf and in my opinion is a colossal and

strategic mistake that you cannot blame on the military it is a conscious decision of the obama administration has made to downgrade the middle east so when the president goes to the region and is neither up nor down but has been there for a long time but not the real center of the issues and that he went to myanmar with the ruler but he has not been to a single arab country and that is heard very loud and clear that washington and just isn't interested and that is a

whole new chapter and remake tattersalls on the back to save you once to be but just because you are not up there doesn't mean the problems are solved and will come bayou at some point*. >> host: i don't mean this as an excuse for the administration but the problems are incredibly complicated. the failure is not the intelligence failure as such but a failure to be willing to take on difficult problems. if you like these examples we have long argued the muslim brotherhood was an open political system to be in a perfect world or perfect democracy to be able to participate there is nothing wrong with that but do we understand the

circumstances here dealing with? i don't think we're prepared to deal with the aftermath with the assumption it has been a much more open in society it will be easier to see a flow into a transition with the republic of the first days of the terrier demonstration those people disappeared among we were left with was the remnants of the old regime and the islamist who could operate in public but also only to put together a structure, a political parties to move forward.

that we thought we were so far ahead that we really were on the right side of history but the problem is the egyptians had helped them either. >> guest: that is true. i agree and it is very difficult to fix and we should not assume we could not fix it that with america's reaction to global transformation of his kind intellectually engaged trying to have an influence at the highest levels of government. we cannot influence egypt decisionmaking on the constitution but we could have the influence on the economic decision and we could coordinate better with saudi arabia that they don't give money to egypt of the before they are to sign a

critical deal with the imf. we could have better political cover to the egyptian government for economic decisions and we could be engaging said people through the secretary of state in the way we engage the polish or the way the germans tried to engage that you have to make these hard decisions. >> host: that is not the way to win the hearts and minds. [laughter] >> guest: but we have allotted stake in the other part is the region worries about when we do too much but it is equally worried when we are not engaged we need other regional actors

to stand for themselves and we don't have the opinion money goes to the other groups in egypt that it follows the laissez-faire policy. >> also the saudis and others who are giving many in those don't get a wrong with either. >> and requires us to talk about egypt and the saudis and to have a strategy this is our vision where we want to egypt to end up with economic reform that should come to this level or this stage and therefore we would like your support the secretary of state would go

to you jerusalem and we understood to have a plan in your head you keep embellishing with the original consensus of a particular idea you shop with the protagonist and try to move the region for word it would have been possible if they had serious conversation around economic reform and around job creation or constitutional reform. >> host: we tend to forget when we talk about economic reform and imf loans especially during get very worried because those things come with traditions had to end this subsidy that was tried in the past after

riots in those countries so there was cause for concern that as they impose these things the party in power is sorry they will not be in power anymore. but is a complication. >> i don't think they will make the tough decision without a promise of a road map so that is not on the table. >> host: let's move on but what we want to come back to begin with the whole government approach we could see with holbrooke and others with the state department to create what

the pentagon and one of the criticisms made is pursuing this they got carried away and were so busy thinking about all the problems and they lost control and perhaps were not able to push on the bigger issues. when i am thinking about what had been swift iraqi with the one office of the state department tending to be the sole source of the policy or thinking about what needed to be done was

that office trying to take on more than it could handle? >> the reason people buy in the weeds is that is how they were pushed to do in the state department would much rather have focus and not worry about agriculture and pomegranates but the nature of kuwait and demanded great new rarity because it is all about village level cooperation between civilians and the military. accommodating.en that we were accommodating. >> h were accommodating. >> host: the prd was the military, civilian, advisers military, civilian, advisers , and they had worked effectively in iraq but not effectively as afghanistan

because there were so few. >> and security issues and also in the nature of the two countries was quite different and i don't think the clearing of the taliban was of the insurgents but the problem is the office was created to put in the state department immediately enter cut by rivals in the warehouse and the president was reluctant to give holbrooke the authority he needed. the problem is not focused on too many things but when you come up with anything effective you run against the wall and it always took the charm to call of the secretary of agriculture but

he could not order that the white house wasn't helpful to say can you call that department they would not do it and in the way it is of bizarre position then you try to handicap practically and everybody very quickly understood the white house wants to cut holbrooke and therefore they began to play the same game but when it works it works really well so if the hat as a tragedy of a massive flood they allow for much more a rapid response connecting the usa to the navy or the embassy antacid is critical but it is good to think about what we should them render

judgment fellow cat if it makes sense to create that than from day one because of the personal clash. >> host: one more question before a move on there is another aspect that has to do with iran policy. quite a bit of a free lancer on the recommendation and thinking back in 2009 he was to move with iranian officials but what if they does happen to be in the right place? who is to stop me to say this will not be taken somewhere? it would be typical of the guerrilla tactics and it

might be the non holbrook side were very worried they would take the initiative someplace they did not want to go that there was the unwillingness. >> guest: there was that caution particularly among the president's domestic advisers who really didn't want to do too much and they wanted to run a tight ship that was goldilocks and risk and diplomacy because their objective was to ensure the reelection and to that extent, holbrooke was dangerous in that sense because he might put the united states and a place

rigged it could risk diplomacy and there would have to spend political capital and the administration was also worried it was pushed the issue of the negotiations to far ahead and then end up in this circumstance there would have to defend it so this was in the day wore spending $100 billion a month coming in the end the strategy was not governed or director and by finishing the war but the larger domestic policy that do what the military ones because that is part of the responsibilities with them we don't want to do anything risky where it would risk political capital and that is where you have to have a

whole brett llord his id is of the political settlement. >> and it could take control they could not say no to this or no to that but he continued to believe the strategy is wrong and when we exit we will leave the region without anything to show and it will hurt us and five years down the road you have another 9/11 coming exactly from that region and we'll be back to everything we talked about in 2002. >> we have done a lot of criticizing. president obama with his vision or lack there of is there anything he has done right?

>> the purpose of my book was not to criticize but there are things that they have to think about and look back when it comes to the middle east and south asia we have come to a point* we decided form policy doesn't matter with the 2012 election and we adopt the attitude doing less is better and we don't need to get into solving messy problems i think we make this more openly compare it to with on many foreign policy issues there are some

things i wanted to raise. how do we balance between civilians and military and set forth strategy interest and pursue it? are we at the right place? even if we're not at the wrong place it is time to get out and second we have ting build with the middle east quite a lot and for the better part of 2001 through 2009 we put it at the center of global policy than me make some rattle call decisions about departing in doing things are not doing things there are some decisions we do almost like sleepwalking and do you really want to be this

disengage with the arabs bring? maybe it is yes but we need to look at do we really need to think we're done? do we really want to take our relationship with pakistan completely for granted? are we on the right track? these are issues that will decide global afghanistan and as we have been preoccupied. >> host: the conclusion of your book to me by surprise because in the end you say this is gathering storm but in the end of what is the biggest issue for people who have not read your book will be a little surprised at what you identify is our greatest problem to come. >> guest: our problems

problems, our biggest problem with the global challenges china. the administration has argued misses completely separate from the middle east and we have a choice of the middle east toward china so that was interpreted to mean a bit towards or away and for a rumored to public intellectual for americans my eighth argument is not so fast. it is strategically vital is not separate from the china issue. it is another big mistake by looking at the asia pacific and the middle east is irrelevant the rather i think it is the arena of the

rivalry and the chinese are moving west from central asia to pakistan to set up countries that are of vital interest of civility there building pipelines, railways , so for the chinese middle east is a rising strategic concern and interest now we think these have nothing to do with each other. so mine was to say that it is well played but he should not think of asia but the presence ultimately is relevant to the rivalry with

china and also the people in asia to say they're looking at the middle east to gauge how trustworthy and how much damage we have? if we push mubarak off the pedestal and wash our hands what would it say to the allies there or thinking should rigo win against china and connect yourself to the u.s. when we refuse to lay down the red lines with syria and not get involved. . .