>> what are the biggest challenges that face? is it scaling up or are there other things? >> mainly what i spend the most time on is improving. so there is a kind of war for talent in the area, and i'm sure all around. and just all of the challenges in the company. and we open up a bunch of new offices last year and all these things are going on all at the same time, and some of the things that are on my mind are things the subjects will cover today. ..

not because i think they want to. they find it of necessity they need to. >> i think it's good that yment events like that were the president invites either -- wants to have an open dialogue are really helpful. part of the interest for me and the other folks in the tech industry is the decisions made sure have big impact on our companies and what we're able to

do. s especially given the fact that people might not realize this, but more than -- 70% of the users are outside the u.s. so we have a whole people to the far corner of the earth who are also affected by all of these decisions. >> you bet. so you to interact with them -- >> it's pretty straightforward today. our primary presence is really here, and we just opened up an office in dublin last year. >> recently -- i'll start with an self-interested position. a lot of people are interested in that. recently the house passed a bill addressing the problem of called innovation act. and i'm pleased with thats passage through the house the bipartisan close 300 votes for it. the president of the united states issued a statement of administration policy supporting the bill as reported out of the

judiciary committee. have you faced patent litigation by so-called nonpracticing entities? >> we have. first, i want to thank you for your leadership and help on that. this is an issue that affects a lot of people -- has a lot of it adverse effect. there are so many things that are ridiculous about it. it's a rite of passage. we've gotten our first patent control lawsuit -- you can't make it up. we were sued alongside chip. i chipolte. it one of the five companies. >> no, i mean, we are always keeping our eyes on friends competitors in the burrito aisle. [laughter] i think that, you know, there are so many things, again, that

are kind of absurd about the situation. it's really good to be taken steps in the right direction on removing the tax on where tax on innovation, really. not just an economic one. it hurts smaller companies proportionately more. not the number of dollars having to spend on having to do these activities to defend yourself. in a start-up growing as quinnly as ours, it mind shares and how many hours in the day are your limited resource. and so all the time -- all the people we have to hire to defend these things. all the time the engineers have to spend on, you know, filing excess patent for the sake of having them. our times not making product better. >> and a company not even as far along the path as yours could be completely wiped out. >> yeah. it's pretty scary. it's a threat to ever getting the kind of venture capital you need get going.

there's a lot of discussion. you mentioned about surveillance privacy and the cloud as it relates to united states government surveillance activities. a lot of companies have experienced difficulty with their customers and other governments as a result of this have dropped box experience a difficulty with that? >> yeah. and all the internet companies have. for our part, we weren't part of any of the programs, you know, covered. but even so, they undermine this foundation of trust that people have with american internet companies like ours. again, in addition to the issues here in the u.s., and the concerns that americans have, people are even more up in arms outside the u.s.

a journalist in germany they throw rocks at -- they just throw rocks at you. they are upset about this. it puts -- it's sad it undermines our moral authority on these issues. there's a lot i can say about it. it affects our business and something i think we can do better. >> well, a lot of those governments are engaged in intelligence gathering activity as well. the problem i hear from a lot of companies and yours as well, you need to be able to tell when your customers here and abroad what it is that you're required to comply with. in term of government intelligence gathering. it's so is here your opportunity to tell us what you think would

like that see happen on the issues and tell us what you told the president, if you can. >> yeah. >> if it's not classified. >> sure. >> ting starts with more tran parent silicon valley. transparency in term of what happened and transparency in term of allowing internet companies to close even as a start the magnitude. there's a number of these kind of request the way we can disclose a number of law enforcement request which have a lot of similarities. i think it go along way. >> it's only small percentage. >> to say of all the 200 million customers you have or billion plus that facebook has. we only have the small-number request. the average person is not having the data. >> yeah. i think, you know, both in term of drop box and american found a

lot of things that have been revealed in the last year. more responsible. making more responsible trade-off between security and privacy. things like collection, obviously some of the access -- some of the things that happen with other internet companies where they're tapping to the infrastructure. i think, are a scary thought for a lot of people. >> in a remitted area, but on a different sort of issue with regard to privacy and data breaches, a lot of problems with a number of retail companies lately like target, neiman-marcus, michael's with high-profile data breaches. what measure does drop box deploy -- of your use ers? >> there's all kind of stuff. i think it starts with we do all kind of technical measures to

make sure that data is encrypted in transit. whenever you send something from your phone or computer to the servers. it's encrypted. the way we store it on the servers is encrypted. and a number of other -- if you run a business, we've put a lot more -- we created a lot more administrative control. you can see where your data is stored. where is it being shared, have a lot of sort of visibility and control over those kinds of things. and, you know, the list goes on and on. we do a lot of same things that the other big internet companies do to protect user data and have higher standards because it's people's most important stuff. it's the heart of it. all of my stuff in the drop box, we do everything we can to keep our user stuff safe. again, this is your most important information. >> absolutely critical. it if congress were to move forward legislation address dag

theft. what advice would you give us about where we should start and look to do? i think there's a lot of different aspects to it. even just the as far as -- disclosure and something happening, having one standard instead of a patchwork of standards by state is one improvement. >> i think over 40 states. >> rules that can be complex when you have one data breach that is sweeps billions of youers' information starting in one place -- >> yeah. >> make some sense. from your point of view as a business leader, how is it important that congress pass immigration reform? you said you were having a competitive environment there in silicon valley for talent. i know, about that. what are your thoughts there? >> yeah. this deeply affects us. even goes back to the -- to drop box.

my cofounder -- his parents immigrated from iran, and i just think about if they couldn't come and there would be no drop box. there are -- we have all -- our company is full of people who are either immigrants or children of immigrants and sort of a drop box standpoint we try to hire the best people from all over the world and obviously i think everybody in here agrees that situation is ridiculous we bring in the smartest people from everywhere and we educate them only to kick them out to compete with us. i think it's crazy. we know that. but, you know, personally, i think also the broader issue is also important -- >> you said sent them to m.i.t. they came to m.i.t. to learn great things, and we don't want them to take it wack to their home country or other country that importing talent and compete with us. better to keep them here. >> yeah.

and we spend so much time recruiting the best people and having conversation earlier that we have a bunch of -- we put out a bunch of applications. we know that not all of them are going to be accepted. a lot of people are waiting on pins and needles we have to turn them away to go -- >> do you these high-skilled stem graduates are creating jobs for americans as well. >> absolutely. for sure. >> how many employees to you have? >> 550. >> a lot is generated by people whose talent came from abroad and educate here and want to keep them here. >> that's right. you start out with the guys at the beginning; right? why yeah. >> the bill we pass through the house. we have 10,000 not just for the big companies in growing companies like yours that are looking for the talent, but make sure right out of school if they

don't want to go for a big company. i want to start my own business i want that person to be able to stay here too. >> yeah, i think, i feel lucky i got to grow up here. in a matter of circumstance and, you know, i'm sure most of the people in the room feel the same way. at some point we had some parent, grandparent, ancestors who was allow to the country. i think that it's a fundamentally american thing, and i think the trade-off we have chosen now don't make any sense. >> we want to encourage more americans to get in to stem fields as well, and lead to this. 50% of my have -- my son has done very well. but congresswoman eshoo and i are, not only the cocare of the congressional internet caucus but the first ever student app competition that encourages high

school students to develop apps. many, many years have had an art competition. we thought we ought to do something to appeal to folks who have an engineering vent as well. i know, you were involved in a recent initiative to encourage programming in school. what would your message be to young people? general? how can we spread it? >> first, thank you for that. i think it's a positive program, and a great message to send. i think about i was lucky to learn programming at the early age. it's been one of the best experiences of my life. i think technology is becoming more important and maybe where in the beginning you think about the dawn of the internet and things like the web and search engines find how we find information and then it was the internet is kind of totally -- total upheaval of the commerce and buy things online. but now the internet is affecting all of these other

industries. all of these whether it's transportation or the hotel industry or agricultural, education, these things are formerly software is the last thing on the company's mind. now these are all becoming software companies. so -- i know travis from uber was here last year. they're revolutionizing how people get around. companies are rev lose -- revolutionizing the housing market or where people stay. it's a super power. i think in coding you take something from nothing in a way that in a unique way i think should be a fundamental thing that everybody should learn. >> very good. >> well, the folks have been patient with all of my questions. i'm sure they have some as well. >> do we have a microphone somewhere? right there. we'll pass it around. who has a question? >> we have one over here.

>> steve with net choice. i'm one of the folks who got attractive drop box with it was free. i quickly needed more space; right. i'm one of the $100 a year customers and loving it. i -- you said it was a free service. $500 employees, somebody is pay them. i think it's a great model, you're in a good circle up there right now. the guy to your right is sponsored legislation to make permitted a moratorium against local governments taxing those monthly services. like i pay to drop box or internet access. and chairman gaddafi lot is trying to get it moved this year. come november, all of your services, all of our internet access is subject to 15 to -- 20% local taxes just like the telephone bill. make sure you talk about that at silicon valley and please thank chairman goodlatte for making

that happen. >> thank you, steve. that was not planned. [laughter] and we will, definitely, work on making permanent the internet tax moratorium. >> over here. >> thank you,. >> great work. i'm a drop box user. i've not paid yet. i keep moving stuff back and out when it gets full. but it's extremely useful for journalists. obviously. some challenges too, and some of those european journalists, i know i talked to about so. things they're facing are concerned about encription and how the data is moved back and forth. you mentioned 70% of the user base is outside the u.s. howhow come -- trying to take step to make sure it's not within the borders? >> in our case, and also in the case of other popular service like g-mail or others, we store

all of the infrastructure is in the u.s. and so it's been that way since the beginning. but now that might need to change; right. we've always had the customers in se, europe,ing a at a time that look, we want you to store our data here so your government can't, like, look in to it. before we were able to say that's ridiculous you shouldn't be worried about it. different conversation now. and so as we invest hundreds of millions of dollar in data center and infrastructure and so on, now our life just got more difficult, because we're going to be now -- now we think, okay, do we have to go bill our data centers and the people we hire. are they going to be in europe or -- we do something in and australia want their data over there and japan want their data there. and are we going have a distributed and complicated and

expensive infrastructure? i think that is a mess of economic loss. not the vision of the cloud. >> it's crazy. >> clouds don't stay stationary. certainly it's a concern for customers abroad and a big loss if unless we find a better set of trade-offs. >> you bet. >> hi. my name is luis from western america. i used to use drop box but then there's google drive, and all the other services that offers more free space, and now some companies are offering even more -- [inaudible] free space and 360 offers 10. what do you think drop box's advantage and --

compared to the other competitors? >> well, i think, you know, we've always had competitors even back when we started in 2007. and i think one people sort of might not come to mind all the space is not created equal. meaning the experience of a lot of services tends to be different. if you ask why people use drop box when there are all the other things out there, i think they comments they get back are it's simple, it works. it doesn't matter what kind of device you use. it supports all of them. your mac, android phone, ipad, windows whatever you have. and that is the experience is better. so, you know, it's up to us to keep that lead up. >> good morning. we've heard a lot of discussions --

excuse me. i'm betsy. trying to get the right balance between having a more come pleasant end regulatory structure that encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation while providing protections for consumers and privacy, i wonder, from your perspective, someone who had been involved with starting up a company, whether you found some regulatory barriers inhibiting your growth or whether you think the balance is hit just right. >> i think that part of things has been relatively straightforward. the venture capital community created some pretty good norm of how to get a company built up. then some of the relaxing some of the regulations, for example, for not going public or shareholder numbers that force you to go public and things like that. those limitations are relaxed and jobs like that. so i think when we sort of rank our concerns, it really, i

think, sort of from a value standpoint direct waste of resources. i think those are the top issues. i'm interested in the debate that is going on between the internet as a free and open space so we need more libertarian principles, but i'm going ask the question, what is the responsibility of company like drop box if in fact some of your yoursers are using it for nefarious purposes. how do you deal with that now and think the user should deal with that? >> well, i think, we have to deal with it the way every other internet company deals with it and name clear that all of our users have to abide by the law

and subject to u.s. law and, you know, in the case of bad actors, you know, in term of law enforcement there's a set of things we do -- the way we handled that. in term of copyright there's a bunch of protection we offer to copyright holders. it hasn't been that big of an issue. we read -- drop box in term of service or policy. we are proud of it. we try spell it out in plain earning list. it's another way we try to be worthy of our users' trust is be transparent about each of those kinds of situations. >> the question here in the corner. >> hi i'm gary. this is to the about with a you've been talking about but maybe your friends at the white house or friends on capitol hill, congressman, could look at the issue of internet of things and how you're approaching that with a global connectivity to

all kinds of billions and billions of devices and talk to each other machine to machine talk and presumably have some interconnection with humans along the way. have you thought about where it's going and how soon we might have any policy discuss about this internet of things issue? >> that's a discussion that has caught a lot of attention around the country and the world. it something is the congress -- we sometimes are behind the curve a little bit on these things. we need to have that discussion. basically all of the interconnectivity of devices and aspect of people's lives raise all kind of issues regarding freedom and security and we've got make sure that we keep the internet as free of regulation as we possibly can. but as was noted bay couple of other questioners, we have to make sure that we are still able to assure people the internet is not the wild, wild west of the

21st century. god question. and we'll get on the stick. it reminds me of the story about my son who went work for facebook. he now works with a lot of start-ups out in california, and when he was 14, yahoo! internet named him the most internet friendly member of congress. i was proud of that. i said bobby, yahoo! named me the most internet-friendly member of congress. he looked at me without batting an eye and said, mcgee, dad, that's sad. [laughter] >> he said if you're the most internet-friendly member of congress. the congress has a long way to go. >> we have come a long way in the last decade or so. we're proud of the fact that many members of congress utilize technology. but the industry always stays ahead of us and we're struggling to catch up. >> we have time for two more questions, perhaps. by the way, the last question.

today is data privacy day. >> all right! >> john stevenson. your product enabled a lot of people to move to the cloud to do things from multiple devices. what do you think the next interration of cloud computing is going to do in term of behavior, new product services, just the way we socially interact? >> i think we are still early days. i mean, obviously people know that mobile is a big deal. i think they underestimate the degree to which it is completely going change how we work. how we play, how we do all the every day things. we think about what people do with drop box. it's what you expect. it it's a easy way to share photographs and collaborate work, easy way to have all of your stuff, notes, everything with you whenever you are. we just --

we think we spend most of our time thinking about ways to make all of those things a lot better. i think in term of drop box. the way you use it with experience is like in a custom years or next year or maybe this year will be pretty different from how people use it today. >> thank you. >> my name is john smith. and the secretary spoke earlier saying there are more than 6 million technology jobs in the u.s. i ask what role you think technology can play in creating jobs in america. do you think technology can play a bigger role in helping to end extreme poverty in the developing world. >> thank you. >> yeah. technology is something you can turn scarsty. you think about the phone we have. they are more powerful than what the president had not too long ago. and i think it's a tremendous

equalizing effect that is amazing and i think for our part we are sort of in awe that a couple of people the engineers with an idea can find themselves reaching millions and millions of people and completely changing how people request do things. in term of creating jobs, i mean, certainly for every -- we have at lough engineers in the company, but for every engineer or designer product person for every two of them. we have three people in other functions. and so building the product is what makes it possible, but, you know, when you look at a company like google, facebook, or twitter have grown. they have huge ecosystems that have built and created a lot of jobs around them.

we hope to do the same thing. >> one more question and we'll wrap up. >> maggieen grey. i was wondering for you had any thought about the case a about megaupload. >> should i go first? well, i mean, i think i'm not -- like i'm obviously familiar with the site. i don't know if i have a lot to add about what has been covered. i think it's important to play by the rule and copyright and young i think it's probably a better question for them for the period in which they have done that, but i think the founder of the character is totally fascinating. [laughter]

he's got, like, he makes like, you know, dance music. he has a compound in knew new zealand. it's crazy. search for him on youtube and you'll be endlessly entertained. >> i agree with you on both points. [laughter] i have seen the 60 minutes story. it's fascinating but troubling that individual could benefit the way he has from other people's intellectual property right. we have to find a way that the tech community and the creative content community -- which more and more are merging in more ways. business deals and enterprises and so on. but we have to find a way to make sure underlying all that is the recognition people who are created with. are creating a new device or app that is used technologically or creating something that is really artistically great and beautiful. either way we need to make sure

they get rewarded for their creativity. that's got to be the byline. >> i would agree. [applause] >> so many people are of the opinion if the member of the

supreme court don't like something happening in the country, then it just reaches out and brings back in to the court. and starts opinions on it. which, of course, is contrary to the fact as anything could be. >> later today c-span radio begins a series of oral history interviews with former supreme court justices. this week from 1971 former chief justice at 4:00 p.m. eastern in washington at 90.1fm. online and nationwide on x m satellite radio 120. earlier this month the united and other countries began implementing interim agreement on the country's nuclear program. today in washington the hudson institute hosted a discussion on the agreement and the prospect for a long-term deal. this is an hour and a half.

[inaudible conversations] whether a is next after the joint plan of action is implemented. i want to welcome you to hudson and our live c-span audience as well. >> my name -- [inaudible] and a senior editor at the weekly stander. i want you to distinguish -- introduce quickly our distinguished panel here all the way to the left. our rather -- middle east security issue. my colleague the senior fellow at hudson where he districts the center on islam democracy on the future of the muslim world and coed or it of current trends and islamist ideology. ray to my the immediate left is

a senior fellow for middle east study on council on foreign relations and adjunct professor. i'm going ask ray to give a brief five-minute introduction to what he'll be talking about and he'll give another brief introduction and then mr. durran will dot same. from there we'll launch to a hope informal and casual conversation free wheeling and galvanizing e trust. and we'll move a 20 to 30-minute question and answer period at the end. i hope that you will arrive different point of interest and questions to ask our panel here. ray? >> sure. >> i'll just begin by discussing a little bit i hope everyone can hear me. the joint plan of action because i think it's a complicated agreement. people talk about the joint plan of action as, you know, for it,

i'm against it. most arms control agreement is complicated and has a number of provisions that one has to be aware of. for one thing, i would say it's unusual agreement because altogether it is interim in some of the measures that it prescribes, it does have, probably the most consequential page of the joint plan of action is the last page. where they agree on some principles that dwient final deal. some of the measures that are interim, such as suspension of 20% production a greater degree of transparency and access and i think they are important. they inject a measure of restrain in iran's otherwise nuclear trajectory. once you get to the final steps. it is suggested by the joint plan of action that whatever the final deal is agreed upon in the next six months to a year, that

final deal itself would a clause. an expiration clause. at the conclusion, expiration of the sunset clause iran will be treated as any other member of the npt. in essence it means if the letter of the agreement is followed through, then iran after a period of time, that period is being negotiated as undefined will have a right to not just indigenously enrich uranium but do so on a industrial scale. the other aspect, which i think is characteristic of most arms control agreement to be fair. there's no provision for enforcement after the final agreement is signed. it is suggested by the agreement that all sanctions are to be listed. i think the language uses comprehensively lists all sanctions multilateral and national measures. and therefore, if once the agreement is signed, we see some

measure of iranian violation it will be very difficult to reinstitute the sanction regime which has taken ten years to build across administrations. i have to say no arms control agreement has provision after the agreement is signed. i would suggest that those two provisions need to be re-examined. i think whatever comprehensive restrictions are negotiated should be doable and not subject to the clause. try to introduce some measure of suspending the sanctions not lifting them. therefore they can have a trigger clause and can be reinstituted should we see a measure of iranian violation. let me finally say about whether there's a final agreement possible or not. the way new iranian team negotiates president and foreign minister -- i think what they're mostly focused on is the duration of the comprehensive agreement. so i think they are willing to

give something on this -- even perhaps dismantling things in order to get as brief of a clause as possible. therefore they can move to production an industrial size capability. if that's their calculation. i think that was their calculation going to interim deal. they agreed to at lough interim concessions and restrictions in order to get the long-term principles that were perhaps beneficial to them. if that is the approach there might be a comprehensive agreement between the two. i don't think it will happen in the next since months. i think they both hinted at that. they're unlikely to get to the comprehensive agreement in six months, which will be july. the agreement has a trigger mechanism where they can essentially have another six months. i'm not sure if it's possible if the iranians get the right number of years in term of the expiration clause. i think that's what they're

focused on. i'll stop here and, you know, move on. >> thank you. i was asked to speak in light of what we're seeing today in the mid east as a whole how it might relate offer a sirn view with a quotation. you have a schism regarding the middle east now. you schism between sunni and shia throughout the region that is profound. some is directed or abetted by states who are in contest for power there. you have failed states that are just dysfunctional. and various war lords and thugs

and criminals who are trying to gain leverage or a foothold so they control resources, populations, territory. the few sight some example syria where, quote, you have an authoritarian government which is willing to do anything to hang on to power. and iran, quote, is funding terrorist organizations. trying to stir up secretary discontent in other countries and qoping a nuclear weapon. the statement may be familiar to some of you here at home. the ever the statement of president obama. he offered the characterization in the interview with david which was publish, i guess, about a week and a half aeg in the new yorker. a rather bleak view.

it describes a good deal of present reality. i would say it needs two -- or three supplements. and each of the various country in the term of conflict and dysfunction within the region have their own ideosin karattic feature. there's one aspect that serves as an organizing principle. that aspect is what the president began with, which is the sunni shy united conflict. t very old. it's likely to remain for a long time as the clauses are profound and visceral. in the long history the conflict had many faces and some have

been much more intense than others. this is one such phase. it's the most intense in several hundred years. another thing that needs to be noted about within the perspective home. look, they have usually been the winners. nay may wind up to be the winners of the present conflict. in for the moment at least they are lead by the islamic republican of iran are winning, for example in syria. which invigorated. on the other hand you have sunny states which oppose it which are

today have very weak and divided. the main sunni pushback is coming in the form of radical jihadist groups. the third thing way in which it needs to be supplemented is as follows. to the behavior of outside power. american power could put the skill in the favor of the sunny states. it has done so in the past. but on the face of the moment meshes disinclined to do so. there is one other outside power operative in this sphere at the moment. it's russia. since russia is supporting iran, that further tips, i think, the balance to the shiites. i think at the moment it's the general trend. it's being augmented in part by the negotiations themselves.

the longer they go on, i think it will be the case. and more will it be the case if the agreement is reached which is essentially we use iran with a substantial nuclear weapon break out the past. it reach the level of weaponry. the net effect will be the consolidate if legitimate the victory iran is seeking and the role iran claims for itself. the consolidation both in the eye of iran and also of the enemies. what will follow in it's too soon to tell how far reaching they'll be.

he's been there before. but i believe last time he was there was early on if not before the syrian civil war. and of course, have been in conflict with iran or turkey has been in conflict iran over syria and the civil war. in the present case, he did not go to iran -- tehran to try to persuade the iranians to reduce their support for assad. rather he went there to sign some new agreement trade agreements perhaps an energy the new energy agreement and negotiation about the price of oil and gas that is purchased from iran. there's also a proposal that a political strategic coordination counsel be set up, which both of

them iran turkey coordinate things. on the arrival and departure he declared the following. iron is my second home. it would appear that from this remarking, and from also the circumstances of the trip that thinks that iran has essentially won the struggle or at least this face of it. and must make his peace with it. others may soon feel the same. thank you very much. i would like to talk about the strategic perception of the obama administration as i understand it. there's been a revolution in american policy -- a quiet revolution forward the middle east that is has gone announced and worthy of more

gatt than gotten. i would characterize it as the gutting of iran containment. or almost the abandonment of iran containment region wide. i see the nook already agreement as part of the wider shift in the iran policy. if you go back not too long ago, just a few years ago in the bush administration for sure. even though it the earlier obama administration there was a view in washington of the region as being divide between the two different alliance system for sake of convenience but let's call it horizontal alliance and the vertical alliance. and the horizontal alliance was iran, syria, hezbollah, and hum mas.

in 2011 the heightened. and they came together in syria. it was the point where the two alliance systems clash. united states, i think, were the last 35 years has seen in the role in the region has been to contain iran. the rhetoric continues to talk that way. if you look at the state of the union address, the president talked about hezbollah and the need to contain them and the iranian acts throughout the region. but if you ask me what has been happening in syria, a major muscle movement by iran in syria -- a major intervention in the conflict by hezbollah and there's no record of serious american attempts to -- even public statements against it. the iranians are taking -- they're not just facilitating it

on the ground in syria. they're taking iraqi shiite taking them and sending them as malicious members to fight in syria. with no pushback from the obama administration at all. we have a rhetoric of -- we have the rhetoric of containing them in the region and the reality of not doing anything about it at all. turning a blind eye to. it why is that? i think there are two major factors that work there. one is just a simple decision that the president made very early on. exactly when we don't know. but tom donnelly, the former national security adviser said they ran a review of middle east policy and determined that the united states was over invested in the middle east. and the obama administration decided to pullback exactly how

far? not clear. exactly not way? also not clear. you can see it clearly in the body language of the administration and specifically with respect to sir yap. the one line of continuity is the desire of the president not to get involved. i think ?as the only organizing principle of what we've actually done as opposed to what we've said in syria. it is the president doesn't want to get involved. the minute you say that, you say we're going tolerate more disruption and a lot more conflict in the region you have to answer what are you going put in the place? you look across the region and think there's iran and you can see objectively we have some overlapping interest. we're all opposed to al qaeda, let's say. we want stability in the different countries. doesn't iran want stability in iraq? doesn't iran want stability in syria? perhaps question work with them. lo and behold the president

actually said this. there's a probing effort and investigation to see if maybe impossible to come to some kind of understanding with them. and the second factor that drives us is the focus of the administration primarily on the al qaeda threat. when you look at the region you say the major threat to the united states from the middle east. women, it's al qaeda and the sunny -- and perhaps question reach an accommodation with the iranians on that.

whether a lot of decisions made willie nilly or a strait go reach a talk with iran, it doesn't matter. it represents -- traditional containment as we have seen it. traditionally we saw ourselves as a leader of an alliance. we were alied with the vertical powers. in trying to advance interest against the interest of iran and its allies. the israelis today are much more -- their interest line up almost perfectly with the horizontal powers. we have moved very much against what the israelis and other members of that access think we should do with respect to iran. not just on the nuclear question but also on the regional issues. it's a major change in our policy. i don't understand why the administration feels that it's going really work out in the

long run. because assad carrying out wholesale raising of neighborhoods, torturing children, raping women, and so on. he's the greatest engine of al qaeda there is in the middle east. the idea how with can reach -- where we tamp it down together seems to be a completely losing strategy. i add one more point. sinned iran policy historically they really do aspire to the region. it's debated. i know, among iran experts. i think with the they see themselves setting themselves up as the dominant power in the region. and i don't think a con conciliatory u.s. policy is going to do anything to tamp down the ambition. in the end which are going to be sooner or later antiamerican,

antiwestern, and antistatus quo. >> thank you very much. thank you for establishing the structure in which i would like that have the rest of our conversation. if you believe the administration is abandoning a 35-year policy of a containment. do you believe that the new policy of engaging the iranian in this effectively balancing them against the saudis is questionable. we have to maybe we can look and say containment didn't work. a number of problems let me start with the nuclear question. i think there's a contradiction in our policy pointing a gun

saying drop it or our shoot. our body language is like this. we're starting to run the other way and say drop it or i'll shot. and the iranians are reading that perfectly. what we're doing is incentivizing them to wait this out. lengthen the negotiations to whittle away to break up the colation. we're going -- we have a much better chance of getting what we want from the iranians on the nuclear file if -- in my view, if we put together a strong coalition against them. we ourselves have split our own coalition. our president is going out and telling people in congress who want to be tough with the iranians they are warmongers. he's telling the -- he's saying publicly signaling publicly that the israeli are the biggest impediment to peace with the iranians. they are the peacemakers. the reallies, the saudis, the

hardliners in congress are the problem. like the analysis the ables analysis of the president it's not good alliance and not a good way of maintaining the pressure on the iranians. and one other fact there is just what i said. they're hose time to the international system. their rhetoric continues -- i think we're kidding ourselves if we could become a part. >> ray, do you think it's the best deal question get from the iranians? i think mike is suggesting question do better. but where do you think the u.s. policy and the iranians. >> i would say mike is always

correct to some extent. [laughter] when the united states and the administration and others are looking at the middle east, there is an attempt to recalibrate and move away from it. there's a propensity to wind down the existing war. have a nuclear agreement with iran, which impose some restrictions on it. because if you want step away from the middle east you need to resolve the issue in so some way. i think mike is correct in the view transplanted on the region which is profoundly divided against itself. it's a region always guided

against itself. the underlying divisions which means they last longer. in a radicalizing political environment they tend to -- if you don't have a syria policy you don't have a human rights policy. because, you know, you talk about the sort of a genocide taking place in the middle east. as long as the sectarian conflict takes place, as long as iranians and saudis line up on the different aspect of the complex. both sides will try to enhance their capabilities. at the time when you negotiate

the nuclear arms control region. they are creating a situation where iranians have a greater interesting and having nuclear arms. they don't have the balance at their disposal. they don't have the access to the market abroad that the saudis do. they don't have an conventional arms industry at home. the the way they try to negate the advantages they may have in term of inventory is unconventional weapons and missiles as delivery systems. .. ..

or the palestinian-israeli agreement are not being planted on a durable foundation thanks. one of the things that struck me is even here in the united states, we have debated this. we have debated, we have debated the regional issue in terms of sectarian terms and we recognize that sectarianism is an issue but does it have to be put in those -- is there no way to transcend sectarian ideas collected as long occurred to me that the saudis could make a reasonable argument which i think both you and mike into that which is put this southeast on a status quo power on the part of the u.s. backed status quo ordered the region and the iranians are a

revolutionary or revisionist regime so why have we put it in sectarian terms? will it always come back to that collects the why have we put it in sectarian sectarian terms collects the ethnic and lots of ways we have. we have understood it that way but also i think, but there a lot of powerful messages coming from the region as well from the iranians and maybe from the sunni side as well and less by omission i would say. >> i think if you look at it historically over the trajectory of the region, there's a powerful internal economic that has led to the revival of sectarianism and i say it was always there very powerfully and a dynamic that has led to its survival which has to do with the failure of modernity in the region and primarily on the sunni side for beginning in the 60s and early 70's when there

was a recognition that the new modern era of nationstates weren't functioning very well. which made people very receptive to the claim of say the muslim brotherhood that what was missing was islam. over time, there came to be many other parties reaching the same message except offering different versions of it. that is you have the 79 revolution in iran which also said the solution is islam only it's our kind. and so that sets things you know in motion in that direction very powerfully and then i think what has really given it very great figure is what happened in 2011 and you can see that particularly powerfully as michael was saying in syria are you where the sides are

explicitly now both sectarian. there is hardly anyone that has any weight that now speaks anymore in terms of it being a struggle that is not cast in sectarian -- but what powerfully happened was that when you had that arab -- that liberated their came to be yet another phase of the notion that something new is coming to the floor but it could have been possibly a democratic reform but what it seemed to be in so many places was testimony to the power of the islamic movements, so all of that has built it up and has nurtured the force of islamic sentiment but at the same time there is an agreement

that islam is terribly important that this agreement about which guide collects so i don't think that is entirely i think turbaned by internal developments. what is the case i think is and i would borrow a little bit from what mike was saying before that there was however the architecture of states of alliances still existed and was looked at in a different way by one of the main leaders of that alliance which was the united states. the tendency for us not to take an active role sees the dynamic to whatever parties are operative on the scene. >> if i could just add one thing i think one of the consequences of arab spring which we kind of touched on and we will touch on

is if the motion of state party party -- power and you see this in yemen libya iraq syria lebanon and when the state power begins to erode these multi-confessional multisector in states, most populations tend to revert back to their primordial identity whether it's the tribe or the religious sector so that further causes division and when it's such a release where state powers eroded everybody is kind of reclining themselves there is a lot of opportunities for both iranians and saudis who are fairly cohesive states to essentially try to assert their power in a symmetrical way. support the strike against that tribe and this community against that community so there's a lot more opportunity for a day reign ends to protect their reforms and the saudi's are getting into this game as well. i mean this is different from the 1950s.

there was a division between radical republics and conservative monarchies that state still could command the ability to impose order on their multi-confessional communities. the state powers erosion is a think a serious cause of internal instability that feeds external mischief. >> i'm going to mike and i don't know you want to respond and i would compel you to respond. [laughter] i want to put it in terms of something that i was thinking as i was talking to hillel when he gave me a strange look when i said yes we are speaking in terms of sectarianism and "the new yorker" article that the two he mentioned that i think this will come back around to this, why is the president of the united states talking about an interim shia and mike i think he said things about that before. i think you find that problematic. so if you could -- just the right, you do. i would make a distinction between what we as analysts

might identify as drivers in the region or factors on the ground and things that the united states government should talk about and focus on both in terms of making strategy and in terms of its public diplomacy. i think it's a mistake for the president or american officials in general to talk in terms of sunni and shiite. the minute we do that you can just imagine the commerce nation if i said to you, you know that catholics like you but the minute you put somebody in a box and suggest that they are positioning themselves for primordial identity they recoil. they say whoa they have a problem with islam such as on that level but i also think it's a mistake in terms of strategy. i think all that hillel and ray said about the russian state power, it's all true but in terms of strategizing the united states shields --

still should be focusing on states. those are they'll must have the most power and influence and influence and that is what the essence of international politics everywhere and in the middle east still in the state so that is when you think about. i also think my own reaming afire -- reading of our primary interest focuses on iran because they ran is a nuclearized state. the capabilities and intentions and nobody has, nobody has lethal capability married to the nefarious intent like the iranians so that is what we should be focused on. i also think we get into, we wrap ourselves into knots when we start trying to understand things in terms of sectarianism. anybody who has followed the middle east for any length of time knows that the alignment in the middle east have a kaleidoscopic quality. a big event will change and people will move and really

surprise. who would have predicted that saudi arabia and israel would be sending such identical messages to washington like they are now? if you looked at the sectarian rhetoric that saudi arabia and these two powers could never be in alignment, this happens all the time in the middle east. even in the iranian philistine -- alliance system even radical sunnis who hate shiites, they are aligned, they have been historically aligned with hamas and that relationship is complex right now. but the track record is fair. they have needed the elements of the taliban in afghanistan even though they hate the taliban. they had a working relationship with one sort or another with al qaeda in iraq. that has been well-documented by our intelligence services. their ally in syria also

streamed al qaeda fighters into iraq with the shiites to kill americans. so i think if we focus on that, it's not an enduring comedies are not enduring qualities in the region region. the alignments based on sectarianism are not the sort of big enduring aspects that you can actually base a strategy on long-term. one last point, it's just that the president has said several times we are not going to get involved in syria because that is a sectarian war and we would just be taking one side meaning the saudi side so we have branded our side, the saudi side is the sectarian actor and we have given the iranians a pass on this. the assad regime is a profoundly and viciously sectarian acts. he don't need to watch what it's doing the wave slaughtering civilians and you also have to realize the depth of it. so we have again in our own public messaging, we have ended up debasing and denigrating our

own alliance partners to the advantage of the iranians. >> let's come back to the position on that and i want to put this out to all three of you. it is important to do with the region in terms of states come in terms of american national interest and in terms of the best way to understand the region and if there is some movement right now from the white house to want to basically rehabilitate bush r. al-assad in syria because we have that regime than deal with nonstate actor sets one thing in the second thing that may come back to the gpa, look at the advantages that iran has. it's a state. the state institutions. imagine the white house believes because it has state institutions became engaged and deter with nonstate actors as much as you would like to with the al qaeda leadership. that is what drum strikes are

for. they can't engage the way a regime can so just to come back to the deal is addicted thing just to have a deal or is the problem insofar as we are strengthening the state system in the middle east? >> i think there is a critical inflection point here for the way washington looks at it and that has a lot to do with how you see the election of president rouhani. i think for many in the united states government and other governments, there is a perception that president rouhani is interested in having a nuclear agreement with some restrictions that are pronounced and is interested therefore

using that nuclear agreement to strengthen the position of pragmatic forces at home, and therefore once the position of the pragmatic forces are strengthen in iran and perhaps the iranian foreign-policy could be moderated in the middle east as such. so in that sense you kind of looking at the nuclear arms control agreement not just as a means of imposing some restrictions on iran's nuclear appetite but to rearranging the domestic politics of iran in terms of empowering the specific faction and therefore that faction will have a more responsible foreign-policy in iran. so the threshold question is how do you see the election of president rouhani? in that particular sense arms controls takes a very different perspective. i think it's very difficult for outside powers to try to adjust

the factual balance within iran. it's a country whose politics are opaque and so i think to manipulate the factions with iran is a very difficult thing. and then comes the very confuse power structure within iran with all these different actors with their own strengths and their own say. i think president rouhani wants an arms control agreement and preserving as much as iran's nuclear as much as possible but i think iranians are unsentimental about their nuclear policies and our -- but this is a kind of a longer context here. americans, american demonstrations going back to the 1970s were arms control became an important issue have always moved arms control and détente s. joined together.

while our adversaries the soviets and the iranians never really saw them together. the soviets could easily negotiate assault agreement and invade afghanistan. they saw no connection between the two so iranians could attempt to undermine the american presence in the gulf. they are not sentimental about this. we tend to view arms control as prying open a different relationship with the country and a different relationship with that country in the region. that is not failing install. it's just the way we approach arms control. >> hillel is going to ask you something specifically. do you think a nuclear, do you think that we believe and do you think the administration believes that a nuclear weapons program makes the iranians more responsible, that it calms them down to integrate? an agreement and a program, having the actual bomb would calm them down and make a more responsible actors.

see it's a little hard for me to say what the administration is -- because sometimes what it says is hard to understand altogether. but i would say insofar as let's say there is discussion that in the way it would would piggyback and away on your suggestion. would we be better off if there is still a vigorous state structure in the region that iran remains such a state and therefore there is a plus in trying to deal with it as such. and that we can deal with it as ray just said because there is a new leadership there. this seems to me, the most recent version of the long debate about what iran is. you know it was, and what it wants and it was --

it has been posed every six to nine months by henry kissinger. he says to the iranians you have to choose between being a state and eight -- and they have not seen the necessity of that as yet. on either ground, they have stated what they're one principle interest of theirs has a state as well as a movement and that is to see their region, the gulf in particular be evacuated by foreign forces, namely us. so in a way, that is their interest as they see it as a movement or is the leader of the shiite alliance and the question is, is that in any respect our

interest? it could be if we have decided that we no longer care about the region. in particular no longer care about the gulf and don't see any particular reason why we should be, what we have been for 70 years the guarantor of security of resources and so forth. on that basis we see a deal and whether it's facilitated or not by a nuclear weapons agreement i am not sure the agreement really matters. then the motive i think for seeking the agreement is something else rather, at some reason or other this administration thinks the interested most vigorous state as two. one is protect the homeland from terrorism etc. and the other is

to manage a global regime which restricts wmd. so i'm not sure we would even care on this basis whether we reach an agreement with them on nuclear weapons if there wasn't somehow this overarching claim that wmd matters to us. mic, is this how you see the larger regional strategy right now collects the white white house basically white house basically wants white house basically once the saudi's in white house basically wants the saudis and the reagans to balance each other out. >> you guys later, it's going to be tough going at first but then they would actually realize it's not in their best interest to slaughter each other and everything will calm down. but we are out of here. what is your sense of that? >> i think that is where had they had come by default it is a set before the single most decision they made was just a pullback and once you have made

that decision it means you will tolerate a lot more violence. with respect to the agreement might own feeling is that there will be no final agreement. i found great's comments very interesting about focusing more on the sunset clause than on the actual terms about enrichment and so forth and it might be willing to dismantle in a five-year sunset clause exists in the negotiators could say to the supreme leader, in five years time i can give you a full-blown nuclear program for nuclear sanctions and so on. it's interesting that i suspect that the positions they are going to have to take in the negotiations and the positions that are the minimum that we can except is going to leave a huge gap still and the president won't be able to cut that because of that. i think there is nothing more

permanent than the temporary. the temporary agreement is just going to be rolled over and rolled over and one of the reasons -- >> until why? >> we will have to see. the two things that could force the president's hands are action by congress or an israeli attack. he will work to forestall both. as you saw in the state of the union address we still want negotiation. everything that could stall is precipitous iranian behavior. if they overplay their hand and they embarrass them, what the president needs to be able to say at any given stage is there negotiations going on that are very difficult that are bearing fruit. i don't want to give up this opportunity to reach an agreement to avoid war. you don't want were not a lot more. we want negotiation so as long

as it's flexible enough that you can possibly make the case is something that is going on then they will go at that. steve i could say one thing about the architecture of this conversation. so much of everything that is being said about syria outside of everything else has to do with your perception of the american interest and american power. if you believe that america's interests are vital, then you have a certain allied but also an approach to american power. i think a lot of thinking in foreign policy intelligentsia within the administration is that exercise of american power in the middle east and the aftermath of 9/11 has caused instability, chaos and disarray so in some way the application and mobilization of american power has been the source of

instability. america has been presumptuous for too long in telling these local actors what their interests are and how can they resolve their interests. that is one view. that view is complemented by suggesting that american interests are not that substantial. to be fair, mike is a historian of eisenhower and i have dabbled with it. all the mac and presents have been frustrated by the middle east. all of the presidents have found the problems of the middle east intractable and frustrating but it matters. i think we are beginning to start thinking in the aftermath of the 9/11 engagement of the middle east at the problems are intractable insoluble and perhaps they don't matter. there'll these opportunities. also the region itself. that the point on that?

there is energy dependence. the persian gulf is going to become much less important. i think it's significant that not like it was during the eisenhower period. i think if you kind of, look at making a case for american engagement which i think is important you have to have two additional points to it. number one this particular engagement and chaos is going to be costly. number two, there is no -- you are embarking on a journey that is uncertain. i think you'll take a long time to sort itself out given the sectarian -- so you have to make a case for a costly american commitment to the region in today's environment. is it worth it hillel? >> i'm going to ask both of you to imagine -- address that is briefly or lengthy as you would like but i would like to move to a 20 to 30

minute q&a session. steve lippi follows on what ray said about the long-term difficulties in americans administrations has met with. we thought it mattered and in particular we thought this when it became very dysfunctional, we needed to intervene. one such moment was in 1990 and 1991. the aftermath of a iran-iraq war and iraq against kuwait. essentially it's what we were trying to do there was to restore order and we did restore order.

on the other hand, one can i think recently traced 9/11 to the matter -- manner in which we restored order. that is a created another set of problems so if you look at it that way then there is an argument that could be made every time you try to fix fix things and only creates a new problem and the problems get closer to home. i would say i think they view the situation we are in right now, we sort of can't live with it and can't live without its engagement because one can't say with great certainty that the problems of the region even if we are withdrawing from it will not come home to us either in the form of terrorism or in other kinds of problems.

that is an away how we can keep it away. we can withdraw far away from it and in a way it seems to me for president statements statements about the middle east suggests let it be on someone else's watch. but that i think is not proven to be a very successful approach in the past. mic, would you like to? >> banks thanks. so the question is, what we are scraping to the president and he may not have this attitude that is not that important. is that correct? >> well, before answer that by me just say it's certainly in a politically winning position. it's remarkable if you go back to syria and the question of september about whether we should attack syria there was a quiet but comparable bipartisan

agreement that it was a very unattractive prospect. obviously republicans and democrats express themselves differently on this but there is an anti-interventionist movement across the country and it's really striking at me when i talk to republican audiences how much the appetite for a more forward-leaning american policy has evaporated and john mccain is really an outlier now. it is also very striking to me when i talk to younger audiences they have an attitude toward american power that is very different from my own and even the younger conservative audiences. they really have the more libertarian rant paul attitude than i do. so the president, however much foreign-policy experts might not like the president it's not

harming him at all domestically. i tend to agree with hillel. i think sooner or later the problems of the regions will come after us whether they want want -- whether we wanted to or not. that's my own view but i would say something a little different about the president and that is the state of the current policies. if we conclude that pulling back from the middle east is a good idea i think there are better and worse ways to do it and i think that the way that we are doing it is making it more likely that we are going to have to come back in a unilateral fashion is then less likely through through the whole point about alliances and the building up of alliances and building up partner capacity capacity of other others is so disparate tools and instruments that we can use to alleviate threats without the direct application of a american force. i think that the way we are pulling back his strengthening

the most maligned elements in the region, iran and al qaeda and syria as a great example. i thought ray put it quite beautifully when he said if you don't have a middle east policy and if you don't have a serious policy don't have a counterterrorism policy. we don't have either right now. [laughter] >> you said you didn't care about human rights. see the other thing is i think there are other consequences to this set are important as well and that is the effect it has on our alliance partners elsewhere in the world. the japanese right now are very never szell wonders whether we are going to be there if they find themselves in a. identical to that you have to do it in such a way that leaves your major alliance partners with the idea that you are there for them and that you understand that what you are doing is

putting them in a difficult position and i don't think we have done that. seattle just say i do believe we should sing gauge but if you look at the american foreign policy in the aftermath of the collapse of the soviet union which was a fairly unusual period in american history. this was 1990. it tends to go into cycles even during the cold war, cycles of intense activity and entrenchment. there is seldom a balance in the approach to international relations. we are in a period of retrenchment. and for those, myself included and mike and others who believe in a more robust american engagement in the middle east you have to juxtapose that to the fact that we are in an era of retrenchment and the fact that the position of retrenchment may be identified with the present as well. it's a little bit inescapable. the success of this travel to

chicago san francisco and atlanta his position is politically uncontested. so that is just a period we are in. we are re-examining our role in international relations with an eye toward retrenchment. america does go through cycles and when entrenchment gets you into trouble you get hyperactive and when you are hyperactive you get into trouble and there is retrenchment and that is just where we are. i just wanted to add one more thing about what was mike -- michael was talking about, the disengagement. acting as responsible alliance leaders or responsibly towards our allies and maybe not former allies but what is peculiar about this is if we really do leave the region and we have good reasons for it, you can

leave in several ways. one of them is leave your former allies to figure out how they are going to do with their situation but you leave them free to do it. what we seem to be doing is leaving them to figure this out on their own and at the same time blessing their enemy. >> can you be specific about that? i think i know what you mean mean. >> obviously israelis have to figure out what having a deal with the new situation and the saudis and the jordanians have to figure it out. the egyptians will have to figure it out. or come up with a strategy that would deal with iran to the satisfaction of their security interests but we are adding to that burden sort of the

legitimation of iranian power and the power of its alliance. that is a burden we don't need to impose on them. that is what makes the characteristic of this withdrawal very bizarre. in various ways to turn the israelis and the traditional gulf arab allies as well. and syria whether it's regarding the nuclear program. >> you don't think it's terribly important to us -- >> why stop them? if it's not as big a deal to us. we are don't do that. thank you. why don't we open it up to some questions and answers? if you would wait i think we are going to add a microphone. we do indeed have a microphone circulating. just wait one second and i would ask you when you're asking a question that you make it a question and keep it short. this gentleman here.

my name is joe and i'm with the british broadcasting networks. i'm the pentagon correspondent. my question is for mr. ray and mike both. don't you believe that iran and saudi arabia they haven't both done anything to preserve american interests in the region and they have closed as we now know supported terrorism throughout the last two decades. even through september 11. do you agree with that on one more thing and you can answer this. if we have three elections in iran and saudi arabia what would be the outcome in both elections? if we have free elections in the islamic republic i am reasonably confident that the islamic republic would be rejected by a large swath of the population. i think there is an unusual gap

between the ruling elite in iran and the larger public. the ruling elite subscribes to a certain islamist ideology and has a certain vision along the masses that are cosmopolitan western oriented so there's a huge gap between the state and society in iran. i just don't know what elections look like in saudi arabia but i suspect in a free election in saudi arabia relies on the moderate government. mike and speak more authoritatively than i can because i don't know the complexities of saudi public opinion but i'm reasonably certain that the experience, the experiment is the islamic republic launched in 1979 would be a -- c. i just want to say, and i'm careful. i notice he didn't ask me but i'm always careful in answering that question. when we hear this talk going around washington a lot washington a lot but somehow the

iranians are naturally better allies than the saudi's and they think once that regime falls down that the iranians are naturally better allies which doesn't make sense to me. we would say that about any other people in the world that their opinions are more naturally moderate than the southeast are more naturally extremists. we are talking about different political issues in different cultural issues. that's one thing but to make the comparisons i think that is a touchy comparison that we need to rethink before we answer that. i'm sorry, but you had a question for mike as well. see i wanted to see if you gentlemen agree with this, that those states, iran and saudi arabia that have supported terrorist groups in the last two or three decades. supporting hezbollah or hamas even as you know. saudi arabia has supported the taliban and pakistan, hamas and

the madrasahs throughout the middle east. >> i would make a distinction, a big distinction between iran and saudi arabia. and i would say that saudi arabia in the middle east over the last decade, two decades, three decades, five decades has been a status quo power. and iran since the resolution, iran has been dedicated to overturning the power structures in the middle east and in particular the order that we represent that has been attacking us and carrying out a proxy war against our allies. our allies in the middle east are extremely attractive and do they have systems in keeping with their basic values of the united states? know but they are still our allies. they are stiller allies and there's a fundamental difference. there is no such thing in saudi

arabia, there's no saudi equivalent to the codes for sand there is no arm of the saudi state that does the kinds of things abroad with as much powee state. is interesting. it's not just the iranian president. one of the funny things that has happened since the nuclear deal or since the election of rouhani is a kind of equivalence not just between saudi arabia and i saudi arabia and the grand that you suggested but also between our political system and the iranians. we keep hearing you have your hard-liners and we have our hardliners. ray pointed out it's not equivalent. ray pointed out that it's a very difficult thing to calibrate somebody else's policies and

foreign policy. the other thing is middle easterners to manipulate us all the time. every middle eastern state has what i call barbarian handlers. these are the guys who came over as ph.d.s at the university of michigan and they go back. >> not the university of michigan. [laughter] seawell, wherever. they get ph.d.s and mls, they know us backwards and forwards and they are very good at presenting their okay can nondemocratic processes in their countries as a mirror image of hours and they do it and we are for it like you wouldn't believe. be the gentleman right here. see hi. i'm with webster university. i would like to ask dr. takeyh, iran was brave enough to somehow

predict that there would be a final agreement and its cycles. i would like to ask mike about insights that the justification with obama and all the things that he said that the process is working. and if you do decide on his prediction what would you say if a final deal is not reached? in other words what would be the prospects on what kind of answer he would have? b. as i understand it you are asking me to comment on the fact that we don't believe that a final deal could be read in six months to a year and so on. [inaudible] [laughter] >> i think the iranians get the

right cause they may be willing to make concessions on the technological character of the nuclear program because those restrictions will evaporate in a matter of five years to seven years. i think i would focus on what kind of a sunset clause and the duration of the sunset clause offered. you can rebuild facilities that are shuttered and dismantled and so forth. whether the international community will give them the clause they are looking for the international community has agreed that the arms control has an arms control which is unprecedented for arms control if you think about it. now the question is how long should the sunset clause last? a comprehensive agreement that will lapse at some point. >> in absence of that i will say

both iranians and the members of the p5+1 see no alternative to negotiations. table has been resistance -- an existence since 2002. it has been in existence when there has been no progress. it's been in existence when there is progress. i think the international community does not want to visit the option the issue of diplomacy. i don't think iranians want to leave the table because the table has some advantages that. >> do you think the agreement satisfactory to them? so long as they are at the table to shield in the program for military states israel would have you. we are in a situation where both sides have an investment in

perpetuation at the table and both sides want to make progress at the existence of the table itself has always been almost independent of progress. now there is a perception of progress that will be more deceptive than his prolongation so i suspect that i do think there is a possibility of the conference agreement along the lines that i suggested they get that but in absence of that i think negotiations are likely to perpetuate because nobody wants to contemplate an alternative to the existing process. >> hillel? b. i just wanted to ask ray a question. in a way, mike was suggesting they will stay forever. >> they have been there since 2002. is he from the iranian point of view and i can see why we might

want to keep it at the table if for example an interim agreement was that she put it a permanent agreement, because it would allow us -- we would be hovering in some zone fairly well defined by howard iranians feel about it and definitely? what would they gain what would they lose? b. i think if you look at the history of these negotiations there've been periods when the negotiations have not happened for six months or a year and both sides have tried to increase their leverage for perspective resumption of negotiations by increasing their nuclear resources and capabilities and the international community trying to have more sanctions regimes. i think there's a breakdown of negotiations that doesn't mean everybody walks away from the

table. everybody goes back to the pre-existing positions. the iranians would try to enhance their nuclear capabilities and the united states and the international community will try to enhance the sanctions and the ideas that they can return to the table. so i do think if there is a breakdown of negotiations that doesn't mean the table disappears. they might reappear when both sides increase their leverage. >> but, the two sides have been increasing their leverage but in the case of the iranians are leverage amounts to dramatically greater nuclear program than they had in 2002. so, if, if the negotiation right now everyone walks away from a table, they are walking away with being close to breakout capacity and that remains a frightening prospect. >> that breakdown capacity would

be -- [inaudible] >> harold? "the herald", gates is it too. all four of you seem to agree that america is pulling back from the middle east. since is the case, how do you explain secretary kerry's focus, his passion for the palestinian israel thing? >> imax, i try to allude to that. i think there are two problems that the united states wants to deal with through the medium of diplomacy. that's the palestinian-israeli issue. the question is whether those issues can be addressed when it's chaotic and disorderly and at odds with itself. an arm and a leg in the body is with cancer and it's true the secretary is made a lot of trips to israel and the palestinian

territories and will continue to do so. but i think it's a diplomatic attempt to resolve to complex which i think are going to be difficult to resolve and stabilize in the midst of a region that is so infused with turmoil. >> hillel? b. i would add and thanks harold, for the question but in a way john kerry's diplomacy or the frustrations diplomacy has three problems which i've identified. through the syrian negotiations and that seems to be directed to what they identify as the third problem, the terrorist problem. so, but as you said before that don't really have the syrian policy that could be effective and probably in a certain way, the other negotiations may fall down partially because of that. >> mike? b. i would just observe that is a contradiction in the policy

and they give explanations as to why they are doing this but it doesn't add up to a coherent view. as far as i can see. i would add just a couple of points. one is that it's interesting that those two issues the iranian nuclear question and the israeli-palestinian issue, those are the two issues that are most concerning to american voters. so if part of what you want to do is to reassure an american electorate that pulling back is not going to harm things that they care about, then remaining active in those areas would be a good domestic strategy. i'm not suggesting that that's all it is but it's an interesting aspect and also i think that the israeli-palestinian question is really a function of secretary kerry's own personal agenda as much as it is the president's agenda. i think this is the assumption well-known among all the, all

the parties to the negotiation that secretary kerry went to the president made the pitch. the president had attempted to solve the israeli-palestinian issue and came to the conclusion that neither party really wanted to do what he thought was necessary so he decided to pull back from it. secretary kerry wanted to do it so the president gave him some rope to go out there and see what he could drum up. >> another question? >> there seems to be one -- [inaudible] that was the syrian chemical weapons issue which was in a way similar to -- b. i'm sorry, could you hold on just one second? is there a mic?

sorry about that, abe. thank you. >> is this working? the attempt to solve the syrian chemical weapons issue separate from the syrian problem as a whole is in a way the third part of this policy in addition to the two that ray mentioned and that seemed to be similar in a sense in trying to solve something that was important because of the nonproliferation aspects on the basis of the issue. of course the president mentioned that in the state of the union and presented it as a success. just recently the administration has now started talking about some of the problems in that agreement, the fact that the syrian government doesn't seem to be as cooperative as it had

been. the pace is very slow and so forth and so on and i was wondering if any of you have any, to about that? what they made of this sort of change in the atmospherics surrounding that agreement agreement? the mic, do you want to start without? b. yeah i mean the administration was very careful while it was criticizing the outside regime for not delivering more weapons was very careful not to suggest there was any threat of force humming from the administration. the way i read that from moment one was that it was a way for the united states to leave the battlefield with honor so the president had box himself and with this red line comments to where he had to take action in syria which he did not want to take and which nobody in congress really wanted him to take. and he was going to lose the vote in congress as well.

putin very deftly offered him a way to leave the battlefield with honor because he claimed to his domestic audience and internationally that the threat of this force that resulted in a beneficial, very beneficial disarming of syria. until that moment syrian chemical weapons were not recognized by anybody as the key national security interests. they were a concern but they were not the central thing. it suddenly became central. and what that deal ended up being was a legitimation of the assad regime because it became our partner in this disarmament effort. it legitimated them the ally of the iranians and the russians and i see this as part of the general pattern that i describe of our rhetoric saying one thing that our body language saying it's up to iran and its allies. >> let's have one final

question. the gentleman right appear in the front and if you would keep it short short because we are running out of time. dive right into your question. >> my name is coffman and i'm a civilian, unaffiliated. where do the iranian nuclear negotiations go and some of the broader middle east policy issues go if number one the state and the senate this year and number two take the white house in 2016? conservative numbers? >> i am a uniter ,-com,-com ma not a divider. [laughter] >> that is where it started. >> i actually if you step back you would see that the iran policy that has taken place to a joint plan of action is largely a bipartisan policy.

the conceptual foundation of the obama demonstration was crafted by condi rice's state department the notion of two tracks, economic policies in negotiations than segregating the iranian problem with the nuclear issue. that was in 2005 inception and in an election construct was embraced by the administration all the way through -- if you look at the votes on the hill they were 99-0 so there was a large bipartisan consensus. the joint plan of action has created some divisions on that because right now the republican party at least in terms of the senate votes largely are skeptical of that. i can't say, there is nothing more permanent than continuity.

i suspect that large segments, just like large segments and aspects of the bush of administrations iran policy were preserved by the obama administration, just sheer continuity i suspect and aspects of the obama clause that maybe were served by his successor with much more skepticism i would say simply because it's gone on for so long. >> hillel? >> yes, i guess i would say it's true that there is a kind of shift over time in the bush administration from a more restrictive demand with regard to iran's. [inaudible] and that has been carried forward in the obama administration. the thing that seems to me as i

implied before is that the net result of that is a good fact which is that the iranian nuclear program has now become really very substantial. and which cuts into different ways. you have responsible people saying the only way to really stop and iranian nuclear -- is to insist on the following conditions. the removal of 16,000 centrifuges, the closure of what would be the minimum conditions and what they regard as fairly liberal conditions from the iranian side as it would permit them to now have what originally they were forgotten for the duration of the capacity. that is much harder to remove but it also makes them much more dangerous. that would be the either/or that

in 2017 a new administration would face. it would have to say, it would have to ask itself, at that point are we repaired to accept a nuclear iran in fact or stop its? >> i have to agree with rave more than i want to on this question of there being some continuity between the bush of administration which i served in and the obama administration. it is true, but i wouldn't call it a bipartisan consensus. i would say that there is then a lot of continuity among the foreign-policy elite. in general, the republican electorate in the republican party is more, much more hostile

to this approach on the iran question then is the democratic party. and, as this thing has unfolded in the way that hillel described i think that kind of rank-and-file distaste for the approach, for the results of the approach isn't going to be felt on the republican side. this will be a major, to the extent that policy will play a role in an election which is an open question, this will be a major issue. but how would but how what would we'll actually enfold is really unclear because of the rise of the rand paul libertarian strain of thought and in the republican party. we will just have to wait and see how it goes but to some of the i would say there is a greater belief in the benefits

to the united states and the world of a muscular american foreign policy on the american side side and iran is one of the test cases of at that, so there's a greater likelihood for republicans but it's not certain. >> hillel thank you and ray thank you and thank you to our audience and thank you to her c-span audience as well. thank you very much. [applause] ..