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[applause] there are a bunch of people who need things but i want to see from the outset it is fantastic my parents are here and one of my boy is is wearing his favorite tie. what has bullfighting aside the regime and syria and with people wondering how and whether hezbollah may be part of a retaliation if there's a strike over the use of chemical weapons. the designation finally of the military weighing as a terrorist group within the european union there is plenty to talk about hezbollah in the hearing now and we will circle back to that but for the sake of context, let's start at the beginning. one reason i wrote this book is

because the lack of context that has been out there. there is so little publicly available in any fashion about the history of hezbollah's covert activities outside of lebanon. if you look at the literature and before i started into this, i did, there's lots of good stuff on hezbollah. but there's lots of good literature on hezbollah and almost all of it is about hezbollah as a political factor in lebanon, and it is a political actor in lebanon or about hezbollah's as a social welfare provider and it is. or about hezbollah's activities in lebanon targeting israel, crossing the blue blue line and of course it's that, too but it's also a global terrorist group and over the years has developed into an organized criminal syndicate and if you really want to understand what hezbollah is all about you have to understand that, too and that was missing from the literature. in fact hezbollah has multiple

identities. its social welfare, will shut and all that but it's other things. its lebanese, it's pro iranian, it's committed all but once to the decrees of the iraq clerics and to the fellow shia abroad and all these different things can sometimes pull so that you find hezbollah is sometimes operating along multiple identities, multiple strands that sometimes are mutually exclusive. consider for a simple as i am sure we will during the q&a how it might be that hezbollah that was already under pressure which was already under pressure because two of its senior people and not so senior people were indicted for the assassination why the special tribunal for lebanon held hezbollah could decide that it would be a wise move to side with iran on behalf of the regime which was

butchering its own people. a group that described itself as a resistance against israeli occupation suddenly fighting not south but east before, not the israelis but syrians and fellow muslims. this actually has real the implications not only for the public discourse but also for the discourse i find within government circles. back when i was at the end of finishing my book on hamas i was invited to the u.s. government conference unclassified but for the current and former government analysts only here in washington on lebanon and hezbollah. it was co-sponsored by two different parts of the u.s. government. and each panel was chaired by someone from the u.s. government. and almost every panel there was at least someone brought in from lebanon who said something like look, i know you americans and israelis say they've done terrible attacks abroad but we all know it's not true. it's only al qaeda.

so come on already. and i wasn't surprised someone might say that but that the u.s. government moderator's didn't challenge the statement, didn't say that's your perspective, here's another. my favorite was one person who said i know you believe there is someone out there who suppose that leaves the arched her arrest for hezbollah but i said this academic for lebanon and i got an audience with the secretary-general of the party of god himself and i asked him does he exist and he assures me i'm not a very nice person. so why pending an e-mail to this person which was very succinct and said now we are both right. he did exist but now he doesn't. i didn't see it but now that we are on c-span that person knows i wrote that. [laughter] after the conference started talking tepito -- to people.

to chileans and romanians and filipinos and kuwaitis and over the course of nine years conducted research that eventually became this book. if we are going to start at the beginning, we are starting 30 years ago. 30 years ago next month with the bombings in beirut. the law things of the marine barracks to - was over in 18 months period hezbollah carried a series of attacks carrying western interest first in lebanon and later in the region in the middle east in particular in kuwait and later in the west first in europe and eventually the western hemisphere in south america in particular 1992 and 1994 bombing of the embassy and the community center respectively. when it comes to the bombings, much of what is relevant than as relevant now and we understand that his brother-in-law who

succeeded him as the head of hezbollah's jihad organization, its international strike not only plant the bombings themselves but watched the bombing unfolded from a nearby rooftop antennas the pressure built up fled to iran. according to the new zealand officials i spoke to the irg sea helped them formalize and found the islamic jihad organization, the covert wing of hezbollah found as an umbrella group of which a variety of militant lebanese extremist groups were coalescing of the time in the 1980's. we now know only in retrospect the united states intercepted a communication september 26th, 1983 before the bombing from the ministry of intelligence and security to the iranian ambassador in damascus between the ambassador to contact a senior militant tied to

hezbollah leader one of the leaders and to direct him to take spectacular action against the u.s. marines. in the words of the commanders of the time, and i quote, if there was every 24 karat gold document, this was eight. the u.s. intelligence caught the officials instructing the leader to carry an attack targeting the u.s. marines in lebanon but the information didn't make its way to the bureaucracy and to october 25th after the bombing. fast forward to today. we were talking about the news that's been happening over the weekend. they are reporting german intelligence intercepted a call between senior hezbollah officials and an iranian officials talking about how shay assad was in fact behind last month's chemical weapons attack. by the spring of 1985 the cia finished a report about terrorism in lebanon entitled they would never let me get away with a title like this, wild wild west beirut. with the state department was writing about describing

spillover of the middle eastern terrorist activities into europe by hezbollah and other groups you had kidnappings, hijackings, activities throughout the region. seven bombings in kuwait in 1983 which led to the arrest which then and turned led to the series of hezbollah attacks around the world to secure the release. may 1985 attempted ssa assassination. fast forward many of the same groups of the jihad organization. iraq's organization and even the expect same people would team up again 25 years ago to target the coalition forces in iraq. things began to pick up the pace of the twa and the tragic assassination. muhammad ali who is one of the key hijackers and was wanted for the twa hijacking was later arrested in 1987 at a frankfurt

airport carrying explosives to the operatives elsewhere in europe in particular to paris you may recall the series that brought paris to a standstill in 1985 and 1986. compatriot was linked to the 1988 hijacking from bangkok as part of hezbollah's activities targeting gulf states that the time. then you have other operations in europe. one in 1989, german intelligence intercepted communications to the hezbollah handlers back home but couldn't figure not what he was talking about. references to buy a bmw and different types of mercedes and different types of bmw. they got a court order and found his code book. bmw was referencing jewish targets mercedes or american targets. he was arrested, served his time and was deported but that wasn't the end of him. he turns up several years later

in the western hemisphere doing things in south america and then there is a case involving him here in washington. and it's an amazing story. i will spare that not only because we don't have the time that because it's fantastic and i want you to buy the book. the ties to the united states by the way he is a thing that comes of time and time again model the in the two chapters that discuss the united states but throughout. while many people are very aware of the 1992 and 1994 bombings you probably are not aware that when they were making phone calls home sometimes they call directly from pay phones to the headquarters in lebanon and use a cutout which the argentinian had penetrated and sometimes they have the calls routed to lebanon through the hezbollah sympathizers and supporters in new york. you knew the clerk designated by treasury and i want to thank my colleagues who were here today taking the time to be with us

the plans for designated by treasury and you are probably aware of that and you may not be aware that until the designation they were making regular trips to miami florida with a long-term u.s. visa on his passport. over the course of the research project that ultimately led to this book i stumbled across amusing stories about the worldwide exports from code words to false documents a counterfeit currency from horrific terrorist attacks to hapless assignments with ridiculous consequences the story has it all and of believably it's true. consider flexible the scene where the hijacked cruise of twa is bouncing and back and forth and the plan would be reclaimed and as they are leaning out the window of the cockpit the guy that has the fuel about to refuse to refuel until one of the stewardesses produces her credit card and pays for the five to $6,000 worth of gas on

the credit card they tried to do it again right away and they just refused. consider that weeks before hezbollah came this close to blowing up the embassy in bangkok. a long operation that had been carefully meticulously planned and plotted over time and what the thwarted it wasn't intelligence. it was luck and it was the fact that the driver of the truck got into a fender bender with one of those three wheeled taxis in downtown thailand in the middle of a shower and fled the scene. the open the doors and they were overcome by the steps they realized something was wrong and when they opened those secure to the inside of this van de found

explosives and underneath buried under the explosives was the driver who had come with the truck that appears to hezbollah operatives didn't have driver's licenses or real ideas but they found someone, a rental agency the would rent the truck so long as the use their driver and the body was fined at the bottom. consider the hijacking of an airliner and africa are the hezbollah operatives travel on three different airplanes to get finally to the airplane he wanted to hijack heading to europe and he managed to decades before 9/11 smuggle his explosives of the airplane through a not terribly sophisticated means. the first airplane he got on and he just put his explosives in a box of pastries and stuck them and to what i have to assume was a very smelly gym bag.

the last plane he ran out of creative opportunities and just bribed someone at the airport to get his explosives on the plane. but i think my favorite is in the end of the southeast asia chapter involves the blue diamond a fair. you might have heard about this instance where a thai foreign worker for and the saudi prince got access to a safe and reportedly stuffed egg shaped gems into the vacuum cleaner bag, left the palace and mailed them to himself and fled the country. this led to a rupture in relations between the saudis and five thais for many years. at one point they had a press conference where the lead out what they said were most of the speed of the turn out to be talk. said the saudis said some people to investigate the case themselves. this happened to be at a time when hezbollah, saudi arabia wanted to assassinate the diplomats around the world. there is no evidence of a new

the three people they were about to assassinate or in fact saudi intelligence officers sent to investigate the missing blue diamond which you have to admit is than the hope diamond but they did. the best part about it when you make this stuff up. one of the gems for himself eventually found himself because he murdered some on death row he became an elvis impersonator. you can't make this stuff up. they circled around and back again and in the chapters we get into an interesting discussion about how the lebanese and hezbollah recruited the saudis and the lebanese and others at the shrine in damascus. in a leader house some of the final operational meetings

chaired by the head of saudi hezbollah himself to plan the final stages of the tower bombing was held at the shrine. the stride of custody is at the center of his lost the fight justification of its presence in syria, which it claims of large part is doing to protect shia and of the shrines. in fact hezbollah has along the operational history with a shy as well. and if we move more recently we now have a situation perhaps because of sanctions on iran and the fall with the price of oil. hezbollah is moving out into criminal enterprise is even more than it ever had before. and it has always been involved in criminal enterprises now moving narcotics from south america across the parallel described as highway ten to west africa and then laundering the proceeds in some cases back to

the united states to used car dealerships and then back to lebanon. there are so many ways the connections come back home. as i mentioned in february 2008 he was assassinated in damascus. at the time by the way both hezbollah and iran believe the syrians assassinated him but as a whole long to really get into in the book. right after he announces find israel this is how you want it, let it be open war and wasn't long before the israelis had to wait before the series of operations aimed specifically at avenging the death. and this had to be as he told the television station is significant is really personnel and current or former official. this has nothing to do with assassinating the tourists around the world. we will get to that in a minute. and the first what was in azerbaijan. those individuals were captured

and tried and convicted. they weren't released back home. the very same time that he was arrested on trial and convicted for this plot, his brother who is known as mr. lebanon because he won't leave lebanon was at the epicenter of a massive criminal enterprise here in the united states and the philadelphia area that started with malkoff and quds and astelin itself owns and police stations. by the way, i don't know why but every case i've seen with hezbollah the have stolen police stations. that's why you have a wii. [laughter] and from these stolen goods and stolen cars and phones to the weapons procurement and much more, at the same time the one brother was involved in this plot the other brother is involved in what became an extremely effective fbi sting operation not only here in the united states but abroad with

cooperating witnesses and others to beirut where they were told in private about the satellites hezbollah gets access to for the targeting with its rockets and the lecture they got on the nature and the number of hours a day of the counterfeit machinery that produces counterfeit currency around the world and at the very same time these two things are going on there were multiple plots one of them was in turkey and woman of the canadian said in this and that circles are not today because now we know the bombing involved at least two duals one a lebanese australian and one the lebanese canadian and again it comes back to the united states because we now know that the lebanese canadian who was involved in the plot, his father came upon the fbi wiretaps

related to the hezbollah cigarette smuggling self that was investigated and convicted in charlotte not carolina. it all comes together as you start digging deeper and deeper. hezbollah continues today to try to avenge his death but there is something going on as i mentioned they are deeply involved as we saw in assassinating the israeli tourists around the world. he told this reporter that has nothing to do with him. we want to assassinate a tourist here or there and that we can do any time he said. it has everything to do it hezbollah's role over the nuclear program and we get into this in some detail at the end of the book but that is an important thing to pinpoint because as we try to think about why hezbollah is doing what it's doing in syria there are two things people need to realize. the u.s. intelligence community

and the director of national intelligence and the counterterrorism center publicly said we assess the irony in hezbollah relationship is a strategic partnership with iran as the primary partner so if iran says we need you to do this not because the fund has bought and they have to do what they say because that's where they get the money there's that too there is a deep commitment. the quote in the book one of the senior officials says if you don't appreciate our sincere commitment to the concept to the rule of the jurisprudent then you don't understand who we are. i don't believe everything iran says the jump and say how high. you have to understand and appreciate this relationship to understand what's going on for another reason they're doing what they are doing comes down to another case in the am i did states also in the philadelphia area where the tool of lebanese

citizen with an import export company called power express' operating out of slovakia which is described as being a total front for the procurement. when he tried to get first m four is and then the muscles as he described it to take on the f-16s he was very nonchalant about how he would get them to hezbollah and after prodding he finally tells the source don't worry. we will market as spare parts to be sure. but the port in syria is ours. there are no inspections there. so another reason hezbollah is in syria is because it wants as ought to be able to stay in power. short of that it wants to have access to the airport and make sure that the traditional areas remain so that hezbollah can continue to get free shipment and supply to its own channels

that way. but perhaps the scariest thing that we've come so far was in some ways a successful bombing. i don't mean to minimize that because that was a successful attack. six people were killed and many more injured but what we learned even more intelligence and information its law enforcement and open source you can find it yourself was in the case in cyprus a week and a half earlier where he was arrested and tried and convicted for his crimes there helping to put together an almost identical to what for what happened a couple of weeks later in bulgaria. he first said he knew nothing about hezbollah and said well lowercase maybe i am hezbollah but he didn't know the reconnaissance that he was doing but then he said i knew that something weird was going on. he speculated it was probably to bring down a plane but i don't know. i'm just making assumptions that

leader he said, and i quote he was collecting information about the jews and this is what my organization is doing everywhere around the world as if to say what's the big deal it's just doing things against the jews all over the world. by the way this is all the time the european union as designating all or part of hezbollah as a terrorist group. here you are with an attack in bulgaria which is part of an attempted plot in cyprus which is foiled what happened at a time they held the presidency in the e.u. and we then found out before hezbollah dispatched him to cyprus on multiple missions to create a cover story and then covered up the, since the first sent him to other places as a courier to deliver or receive packages for the operators in places like turkey, the netherlands and france. these are not the only cases. he may be aware there are cases going on in thailand and nigeria where the operatives have been captured and are going to be on

trial which is rare and unique. let me end with one of my of their favorite stories from the book and i'm going to highlight this for my treasury colleagues. most of you have heard me talk about this already but as a assistant to the treasury this story is near and dear to my heart. as part of these penetrations the fbi managed to carry out in the philadelphia area or from the philadelphia area and went to africa and europe. one of the cases involved the sale of counterfeit money. and the individual was invited to go to beirut and to meet people and if he passed the test we could do some good business with counterfeit money. super notes, foreign currency, whenever you want. when the person came back to the united states, he received a photo album and the mail as hezbollah told him he was with pictures of him during the sites

in the beirut area. as instructed he picked off the cover of the album and looked at two examples of what hezbollah said was its best counterfeit. you won't be able to tell the difference, he said. unfortunately the individual was a source working for the fbi task force so they brought into the secret force and jttf and they came back and said we have good and bad news. this is not counterfeit. this is real money. they tracked the serial numbers and discovered that there was real money that you may buy as taxpayers paid the was u.s. reconstruction money sent to iraq. they are passing off real dollar bills we sent for constructions of the sources are to go back and are posing as a foot soldier for the philadelphia crime world she. and i'd just convinced they've watched too many episodes of the

sopranos because took line and sinker renting a mansion in miami the sources told to go back you think we don't know good counterfeit from bad? we do. he says i will tell you the story. we have a problem i don't know if you are aware but somebody assassinated. the fox was his nickname. the man that never sleeps was his nickname. but at least three different times became close but failed. a saudi arabia, france. you can read about it in the book. how did they find him? and so hezbollah is doing in after action assessment and one of their assessments is that maybe there was a penetration with the terrorist slash font. i'm not talking a slush fund for political parties or social

where welfare apparently has a law explains to the source hezbollah for years has had an ongoing operational where operatives whenever they could stole legitimate money around the world. they got onto a tangent one time they stole $2 million worth of swedish krona but it didn't go well and did not state what they've by pact to literally launder the money and take it out of the bills. the money goes to iran and sits quietly for a while and then is sent to turkey and lebanon and this is to quote the terrorism wanted to make sure he understood this was the real deal and maybe he said we know you are following the money. maybe they followed the money. i want to think a bunch of people and i wanted it quickly because and tremendously honored to have read here to get some comments on the book.

but i want to thank my agent and ron who is here representing me. jason who made this book readable. thank you very much. did a fantastic job. i published three books now and this isn't a shot at any of the other press. they were lovely but i've never had as fantastic and experience as i've had publishing this book with georgetown university press. if anybody is thinking and writing a serious book do it with a georgetown university press and everyone from the team up and down the chain it continues to be a pleasure. i've been in and out of government. full-time and part-time employees. that means i can't hold down the job but every time i've left government of come back to the washington institute that i consider to be my intellectual

home. it's an absolutely remarkable place where we debate and argue and this book in particular is a better product for all those discussions and the dates and the hallways and in the offices. i am a very lucky person to be a part of an intellectual community that is the washington institute. s fort to thank you all fo this book launch today. thank you very much. [applause] first of all, it is a great honor for me to be invited to say a few words in connection with the release of this very important new book. i had an advanced copy to glance at over the past several days

and i must say that it is a fascinating story written with strikingly vivid prose. it's a book whose intellectual foundations and sure will satisfy the specialists but who's storytelling skills will definitely appeal to a more general readership. so congratulations on a wonderful achievement that took many years of her research and skillful writing to bring about. matthew levitt's book is the first of its kind to focus specifically on hezbollah's worldwide clandestine activities which are largely criminal and terrorist in nature. one of the real services rendered by this work is the

spike it drives into the notion that there is somehow a distinction between hezbollah's military and political wings. a concept that is called on to buy various acquisitions, politicians and commentators despite denials, categorical denials by senior hezbollah leaders themselves. it's true that the organization provides social services to its constituents. it's true that hezbollah act in areas where it dominates as the state within the jurisdiction namely lebanon within itself is barely a state and federal. yet matthew levitt accurately and eloquently described the truth of the matter as follows.

hezbollah should be judged by the totality of its actions. it cannot be forgiven its criminal terrorist arm of the tent pursuit simply because of the same time it also engages in political or humanitarian ones. hezbollah's leaders insist the group doesn't maintain support networks are bound of the world let alone carry out attacks abroad. but as the schemes and plots documented demonstrate hezbollah camp and has mobilized operatives for everything from criminal enterprises to terrorist attacks well beyond lebanon's borders. now my own interest over the past 30 years and sorry to say has focused largely on its role

in lebanon and the immediate neighborhood. in april of 1983 it blew up with the american embassy in beirut killing and injuring a great many lebanese embassy employees who i had gotten to know well during a tour of duty at the embassy that had ended a year before. several american officials were also killed. in october of the same year hezbollah attacked the u.s. marine corps compound adjacent to the airport killing 241 american serviceman. a simultaneous attacks targeted french peacekeepers also with deadly results. at the time the u.s. secretary defense caspar weinberger created a commission of inquiry headed by retired admiral robert long to investigate the airport

bombing and develop a body of recommendations. as an army major i served on that commission. i must correct one piece of your very generous introduction. i was not the author of the long commission report. i wrote a chapter and contributed to several others that the author of that report was a truly great american. subsequently, hezbollah engaged in a campaign of murder and hostage-taking aimed at americans and other westerners in lebanon. a friend of mine that serving as united nations observer in lebanon was one of those that was seized. back in 2006i mentioned at a public gathering that i am one

of the very few people who knows the precise matter of rich higgins' death and if that if i were to describe that, everyone in the room with the second. shortly after that appearance, a person i knew that have developed close contact with senior hezbollah leaders tried to persuade me based on what he was being told that the person responsible for many of the outrages committed in the 1980's was not a person well known to the party's current leadership including secretary general. that effort to persuade me and i presume others ended abruptly in

february, 2008 when the killing in syria produced his canonization as a marker by his close colleague. no one should have any doubt about the murderous quality of this organization's leadership cadre. indeed i now work for part of the atlantic council named in honor of the most prominent of hezbollah's factums. that leadership has in my view one central mission to safeguard formally within lebanon but now on the syrian territory as well

the clerical regime in iran. this is the primary purpose of hesla's missiles and rockets to detour in the attack on iran and israel said such an attack took place. as i noted previously, was he's not in my view and i iranian this deutsch or employees. he is a true believer. although he will certainly yield to the desires of the iran supreme leader as i suspect he did when he deployed thousands of his fighters to syria in an effort to save the family rule he is highly regarded by the powers and iran. someone whose views are imported

and respect and wait in the end he has hijacked lebanon and a significant portion as one of the key purposes that are not lebanese. bye placing a major part of his militia at the disposal of the passan regime he's disassociated the policy of the government in which his party is a key member. and as such, has all but seceded from the lebanese state such as this hezbollah is not assisting the regime in consolidating an area west of the line running from jordan to turkey. when incorporating key cities and mediterranean seas frontage

one contiguous in part with the hezbollah dominated the valley of lebanon. although in my view we are not likely to see a formal drawing of the boundaries. what we may be witnessing is the emergence of a defacto state from parts of eastern lebanon and western syria. one in which the incompetent as of family may gradually give way to those who need syria as a logistical bridge to lebanon. obviously syria is now completely dominating the headlines in this country. our purpose today however is to mark the publication of the marvelous new book about

hezbollah. i will conclude by noting that iran's decision to employ hezbollah fighters to syria carries with it great risk. hezbollah's lebanon based determined and retaliatory capability represents an important, strategic asset for iran. saving the a sadr regime at least in a useful part of syria is a vital importance to tehran. jet in committing hezbollah to a fight that has because of the al-assad regime tactics become disturbingly sectarian in nature they have undermined the modicum of the lebanese stability required to secure that

strategic asset in the south of lebanon. this is why it's critical for iran and hezbollah to win out right in the syria at least in a part of the country that counts. this is why they are determined to win in a military victory regardless whether or not the u.s. administration believes a military victory is to be made by anyone in syria. this is why iran at least for as long as the nuclear issue and the potential is really attack remain outstanding has no interest in facilitating the political transition objectives of the june 2012 geneva

agreement. so, as we celebrate today the publication of a very significant book, detailing the scope and implications of his block's cool reach, let us also remember that iran and its lebanese militia are trying to bind the people of syria to iran's strategic objectives in lebanon and in the region. from the point of view of the supreme leader and his colleagues keeping the organization and business whose international deprivations have been so skillful the chronicled and described by matthew levitt as an objective of supreme importance. thank you. [applause]

>> excellent. thank you very much. very important statement. matt again congratulations to you. i would like to open a question and answer session with i think the topical question which is on the mind of about 100 people in the room which is given everything the we know the last 30 years about the action and hezbollah's relations in iran and syria what does hezbollah do if and when america strikes syria? why don't we go up and use the microphone. >> first of all thank you. we forgot to think one tremendously important group of people and that's the washington institute in terms to sleeve for years over this book. a bunch of you are here today

which gives me great pleasure as i want to call out steve, stephanie, julia, sam, mccaul triet there are a whole bunch more but i couldn't have done it without you. [inaudible] [laughter] >> let it go. [laughter] so, hezbollah has multiple capabilities. but contrary to what some think i don't think that either the hezbollah are irrational. they are quite rational but in the west we tend to impose our western sense of rationality on them. we tend to be a risk adverse and they tend to be not so much and rather aggressive. in the event there is a strike if it is perceived as being limited d-nd punishment for the use of chemical weapons which they are probably not happy

about the have their own history suffering significant losses o chemical weapons this is uncomfortable for them that they use chemical weapons. hezbollah has said if the strike is limited in their response would be limited. but if it's more of the inferno there is lots of rhetoric. if there is a strike that is seen as undermining the continued viability of the regime, i completely agree iran and hezbollah are all in and i think that they would use some of their capabilities that not only includes to bring what it's down to israel and not only in northern israel, hezbollah has restocking and resupplied many more rockets, longer-range rockets even those that are north of the river and can go further south of the rockets can go back but also of course the

kind of global terrorist infrastructure that we have been discussing today is available to it. the question is on top of the two-tier christa operational streams that we already discussed avenging the death by the foreign duke of former senior officials being part of the shadow war with the west by targeting the tourists entering a cost to israel what it's doing well there now be a third leg to that school where they will be instructed to do things also because of syria? if they already have these different operations going on does it really make that much of a difference if there is a further reason to do things? i don't think it means they will have more capability but at the end of the day the world as a more complicated place that was before 9/11. we still have to stop what did

they have to succeed once said the odds are in their favor but it's not a given that they will necessarily succeed. a final chapter of the book documents hezbollah and iranian forces. its plots that were not for yield but just thwarted and failed because they were like the keystone kops terrorists today. it's worth noting while hezbollah has capabilities and there is the reason why it is a threat it's also not 10 feet tall. at the end of the day hezbollah doesn't need much excuse to target israel. if there are rockets of the will be at least some targeting israel the will be limited because of the end of the day hezbollah and iran and the qassam regime do not want to invite the air force into this battle. the do not want to unite the west which is clearly not united right now in the decision to do more targeting on the regime.

>> thanks very much. briefly it is an excellent question obviously of what will hezbollah do. to some extent it depends on what is done. i think if it say pinprick operation, if it's a shot against shot across the bow, hezbollah will do exactly what the regime will do in that case. it will signal its contempt for the united states of america in the drive on and syria as if nothing has happened. i think if i were actually backing government and responsible for some of these things as opposed to just talking about them i would plan

for the absolute worst. no doubt as the time draws close to when the united states is going to be doing something to medically in syria there will be a series of the embassy drawdowns and restrictions. there will be a series of trouble warnings for american tourists and business travelers. i think it is inescapable that we plan for the worst. i'm inclined to agree with matt. i think the one thing that hassan nasrallah is able to do, the one lesson that he learned from his almost fatal experience

in 2006 is keep your all i on all. he's coming to take this into account as he teaches how to react to whatever it is the united states does. his central mission is to maintain the integrity of that strategic deterrence and retaliatory capability and southern lebanon. so whatever he decides to do, he's going to have to weigh the pros and cons of putting that at risk if he gets caught red handed as he has several times in the past. >> what's open the floor to your questions. if you could wait for the

microphone to head to you and identify yourselves for the viewing public and then pose your question. >> [inaudible] we hear about senator mccain bolstering the opposition silent ask both fred and matt what they think about the administration's failure to send the weapons promised months ago to the opposition and are we a point we can distinguish the so-called good from the bad syrian opposition and what would be the outcome of more in this point in conjunction or in parallel to any strikes and how hezbollah might react to that. >> all i think senator mccain is onto something here. i think and essentials adjunct

to whatever it is the united states does in the way of military strikes is to get really serious about supporting the mainstream opposition. it's not as if some critics allege nothing has been done. the question is one of scope, one of size. the united states does have a highly refined understanding of to this it wishes to support in the ranks of the syrian armed opposition. a highly refined understanding. the question is one of policy.

there is a fear, an understandable fear that some things supplied can fall into the wrong hands namely into the hands of jihadists al qaeda elements who are already on to the teeth in any event. so the question is deutsch you allow that fear to either stop supplying of the mainstream elements or restrict the flow? we didn't have such a fear motivating our policy during world war ii when we were airdropping the weapons into occupied france. a lot of those things found themselves into the way of the wrong hands. so i think what you're going to see this week unfold as the administration is going to be

questioned very closely in the senate into the house about the totality of its strategy, its objectives and its strategy toward syria. the question of arming and supporting the opposition is coming to be a key element of this. >> it's going to be a question of what kind of checks we can have them place. this was the case where there are ways to go about this in such a way that some of these individuals and groups or referenced that we do know about can get some of with the need. the cost to not doing that is that by default they continue to be the best armed and therefore the best and most effective fighting force on the ground for the rebel side and in that of

being invited in by the rest of the company simply because they have no other choice so we do need to find a way to do this so that we have checks and balances we need to work closely with our allies not so concerned about what will this go where there is more improvement that needs to be done there to but this is part of the package. >> yes, barbara up to the then we will move around. right in the middle, please. >> thank you both. i look forward to the book. i'm interested your assessment -- you talk about the keystone [inaudible] what is your assessment of the ability of this group

[inaudible] what is your evaluation on how they did in the recent fight in syria? was it just syrian soldiers and the opposition they faced up that high? what is the explanation of the organization after all these years to carry out terrorist attacks [inaudible] >> they say threat is combined with the intent and capability. on the intent side, hezbollah is all set and that makes a big difference because they are committed and they are believers. when given an instruction, they will follow through. but there has to be a shift over time heading to do that nothing the was the creation were hezbollah started shifting away from the terrorist organizations as such more towards the international financial support activities, logistics and focus more heavily on its militia and

the was 9/11. i go into that in the book in some detail. what that meant is that the militia became very, very good. it's not just the largest militia in lebanon larger, better armed, more disciplined than the lebanese forces but it's a very good. so in the syria it made a significant difference because they are well trained on these tactics and you have both within hezbollah the full-time cadres and the reservists to have a weapon in the closet and come out for training every so often and so they've proven very capable especially in the urban street fighting in syria. when it comes to the international terrorist capability, so part of it is that we have to be successful with retired and get through once. dewaal the have to be so good. and they've had a variation. they have some people that seem

to be very, very capable. the end of your people less so. what's surprising is they have some people that have been very people will in some ways and have shown operational security. then all of a sudden not. there was a case where an individual should operational security for almost the entire operation but at one point didn't pay a hotel bill and left and stiffed a 100 or $200 hotel will. if it hadn't been for the fact that this particular low-rent establishment haven't paid rent and a long time and didn't really want to bring that attention of law enforcement, they might have told the law enforcement this guy stiffed me with the bill and might have found this poor operational security and the havoc in iran, to back. the best example is the hezbollah operatives are arrested in thailand and the quds force operatives who were arrested just a week and a half later who were tracked down because they were hanging out

with prostitutes before they went to carry out their deed and worse from the operational security perspective allowed them to take pictures of them all and hang out together on their cell phone, which is how we found them at the airport. so on the one hand they are not 10 feet tall but on the other hand, the space trading in the types of intelligence, counterintelligence, operational security that it qualitatively better in some ways the types of operations and anyone else out there. and so as hezbollah puts it ahead it is going to do something that ultimately will happen. they are patient. and eventually, they will at least continue to try to do something to avenge his death and so long as he tells them to try to target the tourists, that will continue, too. ..

>> this was for you too. >> give me time to think. one of the few benefits, there are not many, to writing a book over this long a circle of time and i must say again, i had an editor who was pushed when he patience of job overall, you are able to talk to people and talk to them again and interview and vague and they and vague some more for

documentation and i was able to collect a not so small collection of the classified intelligence reports, american and many others and one of the things that comes out time and again from these declassified u.s. intelligence reports is the fact that there has never been a consequence and this consequence has led hezbollah to believe, they have cited over the years beirut bombing and other groups do too as an example of how this is effective and eventual u.s. forces left and there was no significant response. this i can say with confidence was a tremendous frustration for the fbi in particular, at the end of the day the fbi had to make sure what i like to call wentindictment, more detailed indictment then you would

normally have was issued before the statute of limitations ran out but this had serious consequences. part of it is because both has blood and iran, one of the reasons it is so effective is not only it seems to work and it is relatively cost effective, doesn't cost that much money but it is cost-effective in the sense that it doesn't incur a cost for hezbollah and iran both and this gets to our discussion of likely retribution if there is a u.s. attack in syria, being a little to do things that are reasonably deniable is really important to them. makes it more difficult for the world to have consensus, do we all agree on it and even if you agree for example that hezbollah tried to do cyprus, what do you hit? it wasn't lunch from a particular headquarters. it can be difficult to get agreement politically on that as

well so that buys some level of protection. [applause] >> i agree with all of that. i would say to the extent there have been cases or there may have been cases in the past where some specific retribution may have been exacted, sort of thing we are not likely to hear anything about now or ever. on the strategic level when we are thinking in terms of retribution, from the point of view of the united states we always have to take into account and is really on the line here. hezbollah has an impressive

array of weaponry in southern lebanon. that weaponry quite obviously is not aimed at the east coast of the united states. we all know where it is a team, we all know whose interests and equities are at stake so any thought the united states might give to smacking has below where it lives really has to take into account that aspect of things. >> let me just add in the agreement is not the case we have never done anything so i will direct you for example the south american agenda, the discussion of operation double talk and i will direct you to operation pink pocket and a lot of others, there are things that have been done. >> okay, thank you.

mike croft here and david right over here, we will try to get as many and as we can. >> i congratulate you on your research and great detail especially on the section on the hostagetaking in 1980 which you show in detail letters, not because of american policies in the middle east as some people say but because those were -- the question -- i would like to lead into that when you talk about dealing with hezbollah, fascinating chapter on the organization's financial and criminal activities in the united states especially seen from detroit and what the neighbors were doing raising money. you going to great detail on some of these operations but i

wondered, one of the things precipitated by the group's was the appearance of formal government provisions by congress in 1996 to provide financial support for terrorist troops. any assessment whether that had much impact or a chilling effect of applications in this, and the europeans to crackdown, and can you expand on the rationale for not doing so? >> dave pollak on the right. >> thank you.

first conference, the conference about the united states retaliated and get involved, there was one key case, part of the reason was the election of the president, the so-called moderate and we didn't want -- i was in government at the time. and with iran to consolidate and i am afraid that maybe in the process of repeating that history today and i would welcome any comments about that. my question is back to syria. what does that mean?

tell me about hezbollah, likely to end up being syria. how much more iranian support, war iranian pressure to do that, at what point, related to that, what could be done to change that calculus of hezbollah and iran and syria? >> in front. right there. >> a long time, a colleague, to your wife and son, a truly great american, and talk about what is next in syria and as formal law-enforcement the question many have is in terms of red

lines, what is their red line, those attacks in the heartland of america. >> why don't we take those questions? couple of them were 12 part questions. on the material support statute people in this room have been doing it for a long time that can speak better than i. but this has been a huge full. on the hezbollah i counted is interesting because most of the hezbollah cases in the united states, since hezbollah is deeply involved in criminal activity, prosecutors simply not to mention the age word, and terrorism and whatever money laundering, fraud, cigarette smuggling, mortgage fraud,

watering down, tax deviation they were doing, quicker and easier way to get the conviction. that has changed because it is seen as a utility involving exposing the activity but we had many cases and in the book i will talk about operations smokescreen, operation bathwater, operation bellbottoms, didn't make of the names that they are wonderful literary tool. there's a lot to discuss. in terms of the e.u. rationale this is one area where the book is out of date because when we went to press the e.u. was not willing to have a discussion, i spent the time slaving over the manuscript going back and forth trying to convince them to do something, the rationale comes down to a variety of things, some of them are concerned about retaliation and some are concerned, most of them were afraid, some were generally

uncomfortable, a part of a terrorist group and political party and one thing that was consensus among all europeans, if you designate hezbollah you are -- your influence over lebanese politics or your ability to prevent things from getting worse would be mitigated and they were desperate for those channels of communication so much so that right after the designation a senior hezbollah official said the e.u. restitution in lebanon there is no distinction between the military and political wings so you designated me a politician, something i will talk to. you said that because he understood that was europeans greatest fear. on the issue of -- absolutely true. we have on our web site the

institute, my fear is that while iranian moderates might be moderates domestically, i call for declassified u.s. intelligence report, the history is quite otherwise and they're assessing when each of the last two presidents came in when this was going on, that terrorism didn't stretch one iota so that was part of a larger political calculus. i don't know anybody who can answer outside of classified settings and maybe even in, any honest way, the question of how many, to what point, certainly tried to answer that, there are a lot of differences as high as 10,000, i find that less likely but there are a few thousand certainly, days out, and better trained, not reservists but make

sure there are people that come to protect against what the israelis see this as an opportunity to do something and having a hard time politically, they feel the need to protect the dockyard which has struck on one much -- occasion. one 9 is hezbollah put its reputation on the line. resistance against israel goes through damascus somehow. it is critical to them for the offside -- assad regime to win. no matter what happens as below losers. assad comes completely victorious which i find implausible has below will still be deeply despised by the majority of the sunni portion of the muslim and arab world for many years. this will not be soon forgotten. the more likely event that things continue as they are, eventually assad is killed or leaves or escapes to south

carolina or what have you, doesn't win his reputation, further shot down in lebanon and his standing is severely undermined. hezbollah has a massive ideological crisis because the islamic resistance is resisting fellow muslims. mike, who was my boss, hadn't seen anything about me. i think it is quite clear, i include in the book that we have always done the prudent thing which is plan, planning going on right now to be sure. my concern is this. the one thing that was consistent in the intelligence report over many years is the idea that so long as it is not seen by hezbollah that we the united states are directly doing things to undermine their true

core interests that they wouldn't attack as directly. they wouldn't want to pick a fight, they wouldn't want to put their cash cow and other types of logistics' to these procurement items and all the things we discussed at risk. hezbollah and others for a long time, behind is happening in syria and a special tribunal for lebanon, i think they see we are behind what is going on. i don't think hezbollah wants to pick a fight with us but it has the capability out there in the long term. even the cigarette smuggling seller, pictures of that in the carolinas and not shooting around with little hand guns but fully automatic weapons or sophisticated weapons, in before we had one case, one of the only cases i know of of by hezbollah guy who's not across the border from mexico who is possibly the

most dangerous hezbollah guy ever to be in the country so much so the fbi arrested him at the first opportunity to get him off the street when they put together a bigger material support case and went before the judge saying you have to deny bail because we're talking about assassinating people that he thinks turned against him. the fbi testified not in open session but questions for the record after the case several years ago that fbi sees hezbollah conducting surveillance in the country, and predominantly used to recruit that means hezbollah has off the shelf potential planning which is the modus operandi. if you never intended to use it there is probably a better way to train your future check forger and tax e evader and white collar climb raising money than having him serve a

federally. >> on the question of how many fighters are in lebanon, i have seen no truly reliable estimates but i heard john mccain on one of the sunday shows use the no. 5,000 which i presume he gets from somewhere. we have to add to that iranian provided iraqi militia men who are inside syria in considerable numbers. how to change the calculus of these characters it is important to understand what the calculus is and that is that indeed a military victory can be had either in syria at large or part of syria that counts for iran and hezbollah.

otherwise, otherwise the risks to has lohan fbn risk to the iranian enterprise in lebanon is so right that to commit hezbollah forces to syria for anything less is just nonsense. so i think we need to understand that despite our president's assurance that there is no such thing as a military victory by anyone this is one of the things the chairman of the joint chiefs have to take into account now as they devise an operation that

will be presumably authorized by the u.s. congress. if that operation is significant enough, if at a minimum, at a minimum it destroys or significantly degrades the ability of the assad regime to bring mass terror to syrian populations this could change the iranian hezbollah calculation the they could come to the conclusion that a military victory isn't possible peer. in a diplomatic sense, i know this is the ao mary pass, if there were an agreement between iran and all the rest of us on the nuclear issue, i think iran would a lot more attention to the prohibitively costly size of

the investment it is making in syria. if the prospect of an israeli attack or an israeli attack joined by the united states, if that goes away, i think it is inevitable that there would be a recalculation of some kind on the part of iran. >> try to figure out how we translate hail mary pass into arabic. we will work on that. one sentence questions, then we have to close. right here please. >> question with regard to another wing and the question is that is the policy that means nothing and could still collect money and collecting for the political wing bills to them.

>> how do we do that? >> e.u. designation, is it serious? of how the we do that without them powering al qaeda? >> if europe was intending on being in a freeze by definition they undermine their own potential to do that by designating part of the group and raising money and the other part but actually there's not a great history, a whole lot of money under various programs so that is not the most important thing. most important was the first instance, shot across the bauer indicating across in this case in this case political to hezbollah for connecting terrorist operations in the european union. hezbollah lobbied against this

so they are upset about it. there are tangible benefits. most importantly in all my travels back and forth with e.u. officials and state officials became very clear there were a small number of european countries, germans and president who were already doing plenty to deal with hezbollah. there were others who said weekend because this was not a designated terrorist group so we don't have the authority, this gives them the authority and gives us an opportunity to go to our counterparts and say look, now you have this authority and the european union said this is happening and you need to do stuff and the most important thing that will happen -- john brennan went to ireland and talked, the most important this is an investigation, that is absolutely the case and we will see that. is really set a date and will share out information with european tenure of the and there

interested in doing something about it and that creates a dynamic. you can sit on the information to do anything that someone gave to you. i think there are lots of ways and there are a few things on our web site talking about how the e.u. designation can be used to make a difference. look, what did i say? i don't see these as if/then statements. it is not the case that if we punish and degrade the capabilities of the assad regime and hezbollah that the beneficiary and necessarily al qaeda and jihadists. there are elements within the opposition who we can or should work with, part of the response to all of this has to be providing them with the tools they need to get the job done. one of the part-time government employee the eggs i did as a

counterterrorism adviser for the state department relating to the peace process at a time when we were bringing palestinians to jordan and training than to do what had to get done and tremendously successful. that this is being done at a smaller scale with syrians and there is what to do. so right now you are right, there are bad guys on every side of this equation. that does not need to be the case, there are good guys we can work within the rebel opposition and cannot allow the assad regime to get away with gassing his own people and cannot allow hezbollah to get away with crossing borders and bringing devastation to the syrian people and dragging that across the border to lebanon. >> final word? >> final couple of words. one of the real victories of the assad regime in the information

war it has been waging since march of 2011 since all of this started. it stability to get across the idea that the only alternative to our murderously corrupt activity is al qaeda. this is an incorrect notion that implanted itself in certain quarters of the united states congress. it is well worth keeping in mind. and network of strong between the syrian regime and connections, to facilitate these

movement of characters through syria into iraq, connection. i strongly suspect still exist. >> i want to thank fred huff and matthew levitt. i urge you to buy a copy of the book on the way out. and before the week is done. congratulations. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> here are some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. the body economic, recessions, budget battlers and the politics of life-and-death. sunday at 8:15 eastern and at 6:00 p.m. eastern we bring you a program from the booktv archives. in 1999 mark blowdone, author of black hawk down, recounted the 1993 u.s. special forces raid, that a:00, treasuries war, the unleashing of a new8:00, treasu unleashing of a new era of financial warfare.

>> alison stewart presented history of the first public high school for african-american students in the united states, washington d.c.'s dunbar high school on booktv. dunbar send 80% of its graduates to collagen in 1950 with alumni that includes the first black army general and the first black member of a presidential candidate. this is an hour and 10 minutes. >> to quote the jamaican musicians and activist, slavery is not our history. slavery interrupted our history. with that being said, roughly 6,000 years ago, excellence resided on the african continent and the schooling system created thousands of years before agreed to playland his university system. 1440-1442 a shares in the