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he discusses the future the middle east and the role of the u.s.. his remarks are part of an event hosted by the atlantic counsel. he spoke for about an hour and

15 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> is it's a great pleasure to welcome you all this afternoon to the atlantic counsel. i am fred kempe president and ceo and this event marks the beginning of an important new initiative that the council introduction in the first public event around our first ambassador in residence at the brent scowcroft center for international security at the center. there are a lot of reasons why the atlantic counsel was delighted to have been able to bring on board israel's former ambassador to the u.s. michael oren starting february 1 so we are getting him here just surely

after he began at the atlantic counsel. in the press release that we circulated late in january i said the following. quote ambassador oren brings to the council the powerful mixture of a top historians knowledge, the highest level diplomats experience and a best-selling author's skills. and i think you will see a taste of all of that in his opening comments and the q&a today. he is a person and not only knows how diplomacy is done and sometimes how diplomacy shouldn't be done, not like him of course but generally the trend in solving the problems in the middle east but also knows the historical context more richly perhaps than any ambassador i've ever known. we faced a crucial moment in history the middle east and as i think you'll hear today ambassador sub one is a creative and sometimes provocative out-of-the-box thinker. during his year on the council

ambassador oren will address topics concerning america's future role in the middle east along with cutting-edge resource -- research on israel's regional partners. first and foremost please join me in welcoming ambassador oren. [applause] second before i turn the podium to him jimmy and thanking speaking out-of-the-box thinkers the founding donor for a new center at the atlantic counsel american center. it was also her idea to pioneer the idea of ambassadors in residence at the council and she has supported two of them could pressure marshall at her center and michael oren at the scowcroft center. she couldn't be here today but she center greetings. and finally thanks to the brent scowcroft center who supportedism --

the investors work at his time here. there are far too many people in this audience to call attention to all of them. we have ambassador senior officials from the u.s. government, officials for many the embassies around town. thank you so much all for being here. so now to the program ambassador oren will kick us off with some opening remarks after which a couple of initial questions and then turned to the audience. michael. [applause] >> thank you craig. thank you very much. thank you for crediting with the ability to solve all the middle east problems. i don't believe my mother would have done that. good afternoon everybody and thank you for coming out. thanks to the brent scowcroft center on security and the atlantic counsel. i'm delighted to be a part of your extraordinary organization. the director here at the scowcroft center. the incomparable adrian who is

not here this afternoon who is a great visionary and outstanding human being. susie and michael gellman into my former colleague at the israeli embassy dan odell toma welcome the distinguished colleagues to the diplomatic community. i, as an historians i'm going to start with a little bit of history for you. some of you may know this. the middle east as a chios to teach a concept an american intervention. the term was coined in september of 1902 by alfred thayer mann who was a former naval officer u.s. navy, and naval strategist. mann's major concern was warships and guarding international see ways guaranteeing access to trade. now in those days trade extended from the near east of greece in the balkans to the far east of japan china siam as it was then

known and en route passed through the suez canal and the around the arabian peninsula and to define those nebulous areas between the near and far east mann devised a new term, the middle east. in its most distinct characteristic of this area from the perspective of a geostrategic strategist was its most, almost total absence of strategic significance. indeed the only strategic value of the middle east lay in its location. there was an area one had to cross while going from one area of importance to another area of importance and it would take another decade before the british navy realizing the affordability and abundance of middle east oil decided to convert their entire fleet from coal to oil. it took another 40 years until the height of world war ii

before the american navy began to look to the middle east to quench its thirst for energy. america's growing post-war dependence on middle eastern oil coincided with the collapse of the british and french empires in the middle east. the process to which america replaced these former colonial powers to place over a very short period of time. you could trace it from the annunciation of the truman doctrine in 1947 to the suez crisis in 1956 and that period coincided with the advent of the cold war in the middle east. just as britain and france back in the 1850s joined to stave off russian encroachments in the crimea into the middle east so to give the united states a century later labor to prevent soviet encroachments in the middle east. but the alliance in the middle

east cold war were never completely and fully drawn. on one level there were the pro-american mostly traditional monarchies versus the radical states of egypt iraq syria algeria yemen and libya that at any given time the monarchies were also loggerheads. sometimes the saudis were at blogger -- loggerheads with the -- the arab-israeli conflict also cut across these lines. so in theory it was a proxy war between the united states and the soviet union the united states supporting israel in the soviet union supporting the arab side at different points it pitted a pro-american israel nurses are pro-american jordan and a pro-american saudi arabia so the lights were never completely drawn. again it was the arab-israeli war of 1973 that enabled secretary of state henry kissinger with singular vision

and drive to lay the foundations of a weekend today call in retrospect the pax americana. the keystone to kissinger's efforts was egypt. it was a move from the soviet to the american sphere. it signaled the rapid decline of the soviet union as a serious challenger to american hegemony in the middle east. the pax america, officially began with the 1979 peace treaty between egypt and israel. this treaty established the precedent for later peace treaty between israel and jordan as well as for the 1993 oslo accords between israel and the palestine liberation organization. it also set the precedent for later peace conferences whether it be in madrid or in annapolis. the people of the middle east became accustomed to the assumption that only the united states could play the role of

effective mediator in defense pro-soviet states like syria would host over 30 visits by secretary of state warren christopher in the 1990s which was extraordinary. as the soviet union disintegrated so too did its military presence in the middle east. remember that great blue water fleet of the soviet union back in 1973 that went eyeball to eyeball with the american fleet? that virtually disappeared. between the sixth fleet in the eastern mediterranean and the fifth fleet in the persian gulf american military power went virtually unchallenged. with the exception of the youth recordist kalashnikov rifle american arms gradually replace soviet arms throughout the middle east and american investments predominated. paradoxically, though the pax americana ushered in decades of almost uninterrupted american

influence in the middle east it wasn't very much of the pax. it also inaugurated decades of american military conflict in the middle east something of what you can call a 30-year war beginning in 1979 with the takeover of the u.s. embassy in tehran and it continued with the ill-fated american intervention in lebanon in the 1980s, the reagan administrations armed confrontations with the libya and iran terrorist attacks against american targets, kidnapping of american internationals and often there are execution. american missile tab -- attacks a proxy war followed by a row war in afghanistan which is en route to becoming america's longest conflict in the region after the barbary wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. this is all a part of the middle

eastern wars will in which the united states had various degrees of involvement including the 1982 invasion of lebanon and the iraq-iran war. pax americana indeed. now these complex exacted an immense price both in terms of morale and matériel from the united states and much like the british and the french before them americans began to lose their stomach for maintaining their middle east hegemony. middle east enemies were hardly passive. since 9/11 middle eastern terrorists have tried to carry out some 16 major terrorist attacks on american soil, one of them not far from here the café milano and of course there was 9/11 itself which is a military historian you could make a case could be the most effective in terms of its cost benefits, the most effective military operation in modern military history. with little training and four

hijacked planes, 19 terrorists from the middle east succeeded in killing 3000 civilians and dragging america into two wars that cost the united states well over 10,000 dead and over a trillion dollars and left the american people very war weary. cost benefit. a case could also be made for citing 9/11 as the high watermark of the pax americana. a year later president bush created the quartet comprising of the united states, the u.n., russia and the european union, the quartet which effectively ended america's 30-year monopoly over middle east peacemaking. indeed america's repeated inability to achieve peace between israel and the palestinians first under bush and later under the obamas restriction was both a symptom and a cause of the waning of the pax americana.

the other milestone in the deterioration of america's preeminence in this region are well-known. it begins with a rather ignominious retreat from iraq the looming withdrawal from afghanistan the reluctance to aid syria and rebels by a toppled the shah are al-assad, the inability thus far to remove chemical weapons from syria. about 94% of those weapons remain in place. the zigzagging of american policy towards egypt hastening and celebrating the downfall of hosni mubarak a close american friend of 30 years. the perceived in the region embrace of morsi and egyptian brotherhood followed by a recoil from lcc and the military elite. the eagerness of the obamas administration to reach a negotiated solution to the iranian nuclear issue, the great consternation of israel and

other pro-american governments in the region. the effects of sequestration on america's ability to project power in the middle east. the withdrawal of the uss truman from the area. the coldness for traditional allies such as bahrain and a willingness to show distance with saudi arabia all the while flouting america's newfound independence for the middle east oil sources. the refusal to take a leading role in the toppling of gadhafi in libya or in repelling al qaeda's libyan allies. the fading of president obama's intensely close relationship with turkish prime minister erdogan. i could go on. i won't but i will say that like in nature geopolitics abhors a vacuum in the middle east power vacuum has left, left in america's wake has been filled by other countries.

now the cornerstone of the pax americana though it's widely thought to be the u.s. israel relationship with which we have some familiarity with what i will tell you that the cornerstone of the pax americana was the u.s. egyptian relationship and that egypt has now in recent times been hosting military delegations from the russians. the chinese delegations have also been circulating around the middle east. people of sense a vacuum. the french have stepped up to what they see as a vacant home plate in the middle east. now impression's in the middle east are absolutely cardinal and the people that uphold them are not going to agree on anything but i'm willing to wager that if you were to ask sunni shiites iranians israelis druze they would overwhelmingly agree with the proposition that american power in the middle east is on

the wane and that the age of american preeminence is over. the house that henry built is tottering. but can we distinguish between an impression and a reality? is america's son in the middle east indeed setting and hear the answer has to be far more nuanced. now the key to the future as technology. i apologize for the tautology but it's true and with all due respect to russia china and france, american technology remains regnant throughout the middle east. russia can send a couple of old destroyers to montague but russia's naval presence pales besides that of the united states in the middle east still. secretary of state kerry not let broth, not fob uses mediating to israelis and palestinians in taking diplomatically serious

and iran. keep in mind that the pax americana was always heavy on americana and light on pax, little has changed in the middle east except for the fact that today more middle easterners are killing more of each other and killing fewer americans. in fact with fewer boots on the ground or even ships at sea the u.s. is killing numbers of middle easterners by remote means. for all of their war weariness it would be a big mistake i believe for any party in the middle east to target americans. in short, it is surely premature to speak of a post-pax americana in the middle east but it is not too early i think to speak of a post-middle east america. distinguish between the two. an america that will seek to streamline its commitments in

the region to revisit old alliances while seeking new ones and an america that will balk at acting at the -- as the middle east exclusive or primary policeman and firemen. that much has changed. but here too we may have to wait that judgment also may prove premature. those of us from a certain generation fred may remember 1975 and the american withdrawal from vietnam and the iconic image of those helicopters being pushed off into the sea. back in 1975 america couldn't withdraw its forces from vietnam and be pretty confident that the viet cong weren't going to follow americans down to l street in washington d.c.. there is a sense that i encountered during the terms of my service here that america's could go home from the middle east and turn its back on the middle east and pivot away from the middle east and that the

leafs may prove illusory because the middle east is not like vietnam and the middle east can follow america here. i do not believe that disengagement entirely is possible. pax americana. >> finished? thank you. [applause] >> wonderful introductory remarks. a lot of meets to dig into and follow up on. i will come back to post-pax americana and post-middle east america and come back to that. before i do that however, as much as you have gone into history in your remarks, some people in the audience might not know that you have gone even further back in history of the

united states in the middle east going back to 1776 and you provide an overview in your most recent book power faith and fantasy about the u.s. involvement in the middle east. i wonder if you can go into that in sort of a cliff notes version here? that is why ask for the cliff notes first. this comparative analysis between middle east and the founding of the united states and how the u.s. development has influenced the middle east development and at some point i think we will also get into what that has to do with the civil war and the statue of liberty but let's start with you. >> our view is american middle east has had profound impacts on shaping one another. the middle east was

fundamentally involved in the founding of the american constitution. i knew that would get you. it's actually very simple. i mentioned the barbary wars. the barbary wars where america's first foreign wars fought outside of its own shores against middle easterners against the pirates that are today libya tunisia morocco. they didn't have a navy and they couldn't have an avian avian must say the central government to collect taxes to have a navy so the question became integral to the debate over whether not to have a constitution. if you go into the constitutional debates every state the barbary wars are there every page, extraordinary. we are going to lose our foreign trade. the middle east fired the imaginations of american authors like melville and mark twain freedom fighters like frederick douglass and john f. kennedy.

it had a huge influence and cultural and economic influence long before the advent of middle eastern oil. america was the main exporter of oil to the middle east mostly in the form of kerosene. but the united states also had a no less transformative impact on the middle east and mostly not economics but through education. american-built the university of beirut and the american university of cairo and universities in turkey through which american educators imparted american ideas and perhaps the most influential idea was the idea of nationalism and independence. those ideas percolated through educating classes first through middle eastern christians and into the military and to understand there is a direct link between america's

educational moment and arab nationalist ideas. the arab awakening and the struggle for air arab state independence throughout the 20th century. nasrism which has a huge impact on the arab-israeli situation in the 1967 wars and we are still trying to get ourselves out of it so much can be traced back to america's involvement in the middle east and i believe it's unappreciated. >> we had a conversation before we came in here and because i'm a great lover of historical and it is you have to share two of them with this audience if you would. first of all the impact of the sobel war on the history of egypt and after that the history of egypt's impact on the statue of liberty.

>> at the risk of sounding reductive the middle east would not look like the middle east today for were not not for the american civil war. the north blockaded the south and the southern cadre which was vital to the economy written in france was cut off. the only other place in the world that had cotton of a similar quality was egypt so that price of cotton went up 800 volt. the egyptians have a lot of money and started to build a thing called the suez canal but in 1969 southern cotton came back in the egyptian economy when bank reps. they went into our rears and it led to the british occupation of egypt of 1882 which ended in 1956 with the suez crisis. nasser emerges as great hero of the suez crisis so much so that nine years later he tries to take on israel and the 1967 war and ice said earlier we are dealing with the outcome of the

war and the final disposition of the west bank gaza jerusalem prayed all this can be traced back of course it is civil war. the parallel of course to that has to do with the military delegation sent by tecumseh sherman of civil war fame who was the chief of the u.s. military in the 60s. each of wanted to modernize its armies and break away from the empire so it turns to the united states who was a neutral power back then and comes to sherman and since a group of his buddies some of them former confederate officers who he had known her must point to egypt. they went to egypt in the modernize the egyptian army but at the same time they created schools. in the schools they imparted american ideas. nationalism, patriotism, democracy to egyptian officers and it's not by accident that the people who led the first great revolt against the british was the egyptian military.

they are still doing it today. i will probably disturb people by saying you can trace sec back to american involvement in the 60s and egypt talked about reductionism. egypt went to encrypt because of the return of southern cotton. they had a plan to put a beautiful statue at its entrance and the statue showed a failed arab woman holding a torch. you can see the designs for it. they took on a brilliant french sculptor to do this and then they ran out of money. bartholdi still have the designs of use able to sell it to a frenchman who gave it to the united states and brought it to new york to an island at the entrance to the new york harbor but they didn't have anybody to put it together because it was built and came in many parts. he remembered all these american civil war officers who yet met

in egypt and he brought them back from egypt to put together the statue of liberty. so the statue of liberty's concept and its construction were both related to america's involvement in the middle east. >> i just want to give you a little bit of a taste of what we have opened up the atlantic counsel to. [laughter] spin out i'm not ambassador i can hock my own books so available at fabulously reduced rates. >> i'm sure the amazon numbers are going up even as we speak. i wouldn't mind fast-forwarding a little bit to your comments on post-middle east america. i have a couple of questions and i will go to the audience and we'll go back and forth between the audience and myself a little bit. you talk some about energy but perhaps you could go a little bit more deeply. the role of oil and energy in

the picture that you are painting of pax americana in the middle east but also now the potential impact as you see it of the u.s. energy revolution. as you said the u.s. was exporting to the region and importing from the region. we are now facing another change in terms of our energy relationship with the region and i wonder if he could talk a little bit about how you think this might influence the issues you are talking about. >> look back at the history of presidential doctrines about the middle east and a percentage of all presidential doctrines since truman have to do with the middle east. the carter doctrine had to do with protecting the free flow of energy and oil from the middle east. specifically from the persian gulf region whether it be from the threat of soviet encroachments later from iran and even some of america's

military engagements. people forget the flagging operations at the latter part of the reagan administration where american warships were fighting fighting -- firing on iranian boats and iranian coastal installations. forgotten. this have to do with protectinprotectin g american energy sources but over the course of the subsequent decades the percentage of america's oil consumption that was imported from the middle east decreased. i know by the time i came on my job in 2000 minus ambassador was down 11%, very small. today it's almost negligible and the notion that america might have to exert force to protect the free flow of energy out of the persian gulf area today would be a far more remote assumption then it would be in the 1970s and 1980s. having said all that doesn't

mean that the middle eastern oil is not vital to other countries in the middle east including a country like china and america's economy is inexplicably tied up with that of china. so albeit indirectly the american economy remains a deeply attached to the middle eastern oil. it may not need the first step a strategic issue but it's certainly financial issue. >> don't see the energy boom in the united states is going to significantly shift the u.s. approach to middle east? >> i think it will ship it less of a strategic interest to more of a financial interest. >> president obama in his state of the union when talking about the middle east didn't talk much

about the transitions that we were all focused on before the arab awakening, talked more about nuclear iran and increased negotiations and of course syria what is your view of how policy has evolved during the obama administration and do you see an underlying strategy behind this shift or how would you explain what we are watching? >> the obama administration came out of the gate in 2009 with a very robust and highly specific outreach to the middle east. if you look back at the cairo speech in june 2009 which in many ways was the foundational document for the obama administration's outrage, it was perhaps the most sui generis document in the annals of american foreign policy.

it's the only instance i know of in which which the president of the united states at address the adherence of the world faith. you can't imagine the president getting up in addressing the world methodists are going to prom in addressing the world's catholics but he went to cairo and address the muslim world. that in itself is highly unusual. addressing a muslim world and not addressinaddressin g the citizens of muslim states i think inadvertently conformed to an islamist notion of states being illegitimate and there is only one legitimatlegitimat e state which is the universal muslim state and that outreach in retrospect has proved less than successful. you don't see many echoes of it in more recent statements by the president and by his administration. events in the middle east have simply outstripped the ability of just about anybody to

formulate a cookie-cutter one policy fits all situation. you can't. the events have transpired so rapidly and so radically in the middle east and so differently whether in egypt or syria or bahrain. we talked about libya. i would challenge just about anybody to come up with a single policy that's going to address all of these. having said that there's points to criticize whether it be syria or egypt in rogers backed. in terms of america's -- to the middle east there should've been a deeper breath taken before pressing for mubarak's removal. i wonder whether today thinking back with america having built

built -- being involved in syria in an earlier stage perhaps the jihadists influence would have been preempted, would have been lessened. but all that is what they call in the united states monday morning quarterbacking. >> its monday and we are looking to saturday. let's look actually ahead. what is at stake and after this question i will talk to the audience and pick up what people in the audience have on their minds. what is at stake in the negotiations with iran for the region, for the united states and for israel and i know that's a big broad question and i will let you narrow it down. but i'm just wondering from your standpoint and with your historical view what is at stake in these talks? >> everything. everything. it's the future of the middle east.

there is, are we now at the tectonic shifts point where again we are in a post-pax america, mode. are the negotiations implicitly recognize, a certain hegemonic role for iran in the region and what would that hegemonic role look like from an israeli perspective, from the perspective of the most gulf countries and today there is a greater confluence of interests between israel and the gulf countries than at any time in the last six decades because we agree on egypt or agree on the peace process and the fundamentals of the peace process but most of all agreed on the iranian threat. in iran that maintains not a

nuclear weapon but the ability to make a nuclear weapon in a short period of time presents an unsustainable threat to the region. it's a threat that is multifaceted. it's just not a threat of iran being able to put a nuclear work had a top one of the missiles it has that could hit any cap it all in the any city and i just watched a video clip of the iranians put out what they would do if they were threatened by israel and other countries and they show missile striking not just israel but american allies throughout the region and they are very unequivocal about this. that is the least of the threats and the bigger threats come in the form of providing nuclear umbrellas to terrorist organizations that could either attack israel or other pro-american countries in the region with relative --

if we strike back at hezbollah for example with that precipitate is an iranian breakout? it becomes a big part of their capital in an immense break on latitude. beyond that terrorists could get access to nuclear capabilities and you don't have to worry about rockets. you have to worry about nuclear being delivered through ship containers that will be traceable or three tracks. it's a entirely different magnitude of threats. that is what is at stake for israel and other countries in the region. the big litmus is going to calm at the end of the six-month negotiating period where the united states which is a big country far away from the middle east not threatening national annihilation by the iranians

which has immense capabilities that no one in the region has it doesn't have enough aircraft carriers by the way or b-2 bombers. if the united states can strike a deal with the iranians israel and the gulf countries are going to add some cells, is this something we can live with? america may be able to live with it. the question is are countries in the region going to be able to live with that? it's going to be a very tough thing. speaking you go through to parts of that decisions first of all from the israeli standpoint but israel would have to measure things go or word in this direction with the u.s. which could not just be a nuclear deal of some sort but a normalization of relations whatever that means. from an israeli standpoint and interestingly one of the things we are going to do at the atlantic counsel his work on the

relationship between the countries. how has this shift is already the relationship between israel and the gulf and with all the barriers which we know about cano's actually be removed and could one have a step change in those relations? >> one would hope so. again the influence of those interests are very confluent today more so than at any time in past. whether that confluence translates into open, more open relationship remains to be seen. israel has had relations of one type or another with several gulf states. most of them are quietly pursued that with other gulf states it's been a much colder distance in the great example is saudi arabia. there really hasn't been formal contact and it's something that i think would be in the interest of all of these countries to

pursue and hope it can happen in the future. >> and as you are saying deciding whether or not they can live with whatever happens with iran. what are the factors one would have to measure if you are gulf state and what are they factors one would have to measure in the israel standpoint and are there differences in those factors and are those factors pretty similar >> i think you would have to receive material dismantling of the nuclear iranian program. we had in unusual event a week and half ago for the first time i recall israel and iranians agreed on an aspect of the program. israeli and iranian spokespeople both came out and said president obama's claim that parts of the iranian nuclear program had been dismantled in the interim agreement was not true. you have to be hard pressed to

see what part of the nuclear program were dismantled. the 20% stockpile of enriched material was oxidized but that is only 185 kilograms of material. they have six or 7000 kilograms of enriched uranium that is not being dismantled. there are no facilities being dismantled and there are no inspections of major military sites. now they are beginning the detonator sites but parchman is the largest military base that remains beyond the axis of inspectors. so you have this material dismantling of centrifuges. we would have to see a shipping abroad of a large segment. right now all of the 3.5 to 5%

stock bio. we would have to see the shutting down of key facilities, the cessation of work on the heavy water facility. there would have to be some concrete evidence that the iranian nuclear program had been been -- and that would be accompanied by rigorous and invasive inspections. >> lots and lots of questions so that may go straight out here and then i will try to get everybody in the order that i see them. the energy policy research foundation. i have a couple questions. one is if you look i don't think a lot of us fully understand the technology and what's happening north america but we could easily get to 2020 or 2025 in which the open access capacity goes to seven, eight, nine

barrels a day and there's a problem between iraq and saudi arabia and how they divide that up so i'm curious whether you have thought about how those rivalries may take place with a collapse in prices. it's going to be interesting in the second part is this problem of appearance between the reality of u.s. strategic interests in the persian gulf. because it's true that the western hemisphere is like me to disconnect from the crude flows but it's also true that the gulf is still important and there is a major event or disruption prices will still go up in the u.s.. because of the nature of the world oil market most of the adjustment to the world oil price will have to take place in the u.s. and oil prices are very high. the prices are highly subsidized in the middle east so one question i have for you as is the diplomats how do we manage this appearance versus the

reality? within the congress within the american political structure we are going to hear more and more, why do we need to worry about this? we are disconnected but i would make a strong case we should but how do you manage that political phenomenon is of great interest. >> all give you a very short answer. i agree. probably the shortest answer i've given in weeks. i agree with you and i've spoken mostly about the impressions of american power and the willingness to inject power in the middle states as well. you can push the helicopters over the side and go home which is an illusion. security and strategic aspect of the flow of matter and eastern oil will not impact america's economy and the impact america strategically. even though america's dependence upon middle eastern oil is very much on the way.

the. >> thank you ambassador. jeff steinberg. i would like to suggest maybe a slightly different narrative as to what's going on with u.s. policy in middle east right hell and get your thoughts on it. have we possibly come to the point where we have got to basically face up to a number of strategic errors that weren't hate in shaping u.s. policy. did if we fail to see the long-term dangers of the spread of neal salafism in a nonterrorist form and miss the significance of that? did we have an overly optimistic and basically false notion of the role that the muslim brotherhood might play as the reform faction within political islam and is there also some kind of possible re-think about the actual viability of being

able to achieve through diplomatic means a just, two-state solution to the israel-palestine issue? of course you know as a historian that at the time and chairman administration recognition of israel secretary of state marshall and the joint chiefs of staff warned about the dangers of partition and envisioned the united states role being reduced to a military presence and losing a lot of leverage. my question is ,-com,-com ma is the u.s. possibly going through a kind of correction of some deep and fundamental misjudgments that formed u.s. policy over period of time and maybe we are doing some correctives to come back and try something better? >> let me answer the first part of that. perhaps we could take a crack at the future of clinical islam. we are seeing a difference in tunisia and egypt and i wonder

if you were -- if you have some historians view >> i wish i had an hour and a half to respond to this to cover some of the core issues. of course america has made mistakes in the middle east. of course israel in just about any country you name has made mistakes in the middle east. and probably the biggest problem is being able to view the middle east not from the outside but the inside and there was a great civil war general and i'm not big on the civil war, who traveled the middle east in 1972 and came back and i said i think the most insightful remark ever. you don't judge the middle east by its own terms but judge it by american terms we will be condemned to always misjudge. a great remark but i want to

respond on several levels. george marshall 1948 made a number number of predictions about the future of america's role in what was then known as the palestine conflict. one was that the united states would have to send 300,000 soldiers to defend the jewish state and that the jewish were incapable of defending themselves prepared for cut off oil to the west in the west would fall to the soviet union and the jewish state would emerge as the osha fixed date and be aligned with the soviets. all three of those were wrong. for starters and you can make a strong case that rather than diminishing american influence the middle east in fact america's involvement in the israel palestinian israel arab conflict has enhanced america's standing in the middle east. to this day -- nobody else can.

you can actually turn that argument on its head. did the united states underestimate the impact of political salafism for islam? yes and it's not just america. there's a strong tendency particularly in the american press to downplay the emotional and intellectual power of islam. there is a basic journalistic narrative in the united states that people turned to islam only out of despair and not to coast it imparts positive values. in and a sense of meaning in life. but beyond that every of administration comes into office with its own worldview. the obama administration came in and of go back to the cairo speech. i always go back to the cairo speech. president obama's addressing the islam world and he said it's good to be authentic lee muslim but if you are muslim and

democratic and observe democratic norms than we have a basis for a strong alliance and a new relationship. and look at the middle eastern leaders to whom the president reached out in a significant way. erdogan, morsi. who are these people? these are people that authentic islamic roots had been elected democratically very much in form with the image of the cairo speech. was it a good decision? it may be too early to tell. it's like the french revolution. it's too early to know whether was successful but it was the administration's approach. i think the administration's reaction to all cc was very significant in that way. i can really go on about this but i will conclude with one small and it dealt. as an investor you get asked pretty much the same questions. you urs about settlements in jerusalem policy.

toward the end of my term someone asked me question i had never received before and for a while it took me aback. what is more difficult, explaining america to israelis or israelis to americans? [laughter] any israeli diplomat will have the same answer periods much more difficult to explain america to israel. america's -- americans get to israel except for difficult situations. they get the countries defending itself and its western-style democracy. they get it. israelis and not just israelis but people look at the middle east and look at america and look at the faith-based and value-based foreign-policy and scratch their heads. the congress passed a piece of legislation that says the united

states cannot support a regime that is overthrowing democratic in elected government. it doesn't rule democratically. they don't get that. then you have to explain that this is america and even during the period one of the most difficult periods during my time was the winter of 2011 in tahrir square where people in israel and not just israel were looking at the events surrounding the beginnings of the arab's ring and saying do you know where this is going to leave? americans and democrats republicans cnn fox everybody was wildly enthusiastic on what was going on back then and when it was my job to explain to israeli policymakers that a million people in the streets of cairo demanding democracy from what was essentially a

dictatorship resonates with the american narrative. there is no way americans wouldn't get excited about it. america is what america is and this is something that is hardwired into this country. i happen to think it's a beautiful thing but it's not always readily understandable to people in the middle east. >> thank you. i met relations student at the university -- not only in terms of money but i'm wondering whether you could identify whether his a core conflict in the middle east if the united states should focus on most importantly in order to bring security to the middle east the iranian complex the iranian nuclear complex, what should the united states focus on is the top agenda? >> if you are sitting in the oval office how would you tell

the president to use set his priorities? >> the middle east is caught in three cyclones of instability right now. there is the ethnic cyclone of the sunni-shiite. there is the cyclone of modernity versus tradition and the cyclone generated by the breakdown of the arab state. depending where you look different cyclones are hitting. in syria i think you have all three of them going on at the same time and i think that makes for a violent situation. american policies in they say this with all due humility have to look at which of these storms they can actually grapple with and can make an impact on to lessen the damage of. in the case of syria right now i don't know much more than the

united states can do then to further lessen as much as possible the suffering of the syrian people. in the case of egypt were the main structure there is between modernity and tradition i think that require some deeper thought would be the united states can impact that situation as well. but overwhelmingly the paramount question/threat to the region is iran and its nuclear program. and whether and i'm going to reiterate something i said earlier whether any deal can be reached with the iranians, the iranians need this program. they need it for not just their hegemonic aspirations and they have hegemonic operations. there are two militaries that defy the world into theaters of operation. one is the u.s. veteri european

command african command and the iranian military. they have lots of asp rations with the iranians but they need it for a regime survival. they saw what happened in libya and they saw what did happen in north korea and they drew conclusions from that. to give up this program would be very difficult particularly with the absence of a military threat that doesn't exist right now. if in that as a fake if an agreement can be reached with the iranians the countries of the middle east are going to have to determine whether they can live with that or not and what would happen if they don't. that is going to be i think the paramount strategic interest of the united states. >> thanks for that clear answer. the ambassador from the swiss embassy, it's great to have you with us. >> thank you ambassador and thank you michael. there was an op-ed in "the new york times" today and you might have seen it that picks up on

some of the questions of u.s. leadership in the middle east and elsewhere to which the administration's response by looking at all the things we are doing in the middle east in syria and the negotiations with iran and the secretary kerry and the middle east peace process but the thesis of the author of the op-ed is if you're not willing to project power than your diplomatic efforts may also not be taken all that seriously. ..

>> if i understood you correctly, we hated that this was the last chapter on this assessment? >> thank you. thank you, sir. it is true that it is too early to tell. but we know that in the aftermath of dramatic wars, american people often appear of isolationism. and this is not particularly an exception. there is no way of knowing whether this is a permanent alteration or a passing phase. we don't know. but what we do know is that there is a direct connection with with a willingness to of power and the americas to wield

the diplomatic influence. there's a lot of criticism with policies certainly after the invasion of iraq. but in december of 2007 more than 40 nations sent their top leaders really in a matter of weeks. and i asked myself whether that can be done today. to that extent and with that level of participation. and you could say any number of criticisms on the a policy, i think that they made a case today's but those are trees to obama. and i trace it back to the creation of the cartel where america unilaterally give up and

that begin with the bush administration. but it was a known thing that bush was willing to use power. and certainly the most emphatic example i can give you is what transpired would transpire surrounding the terminal in turn chemical arsenal in syria. the president came out and said that he was going to use force and then it turns out that he went back to congress and the administration was very sanguine about the congressional support for the. and that sends and i equivocal method to declare the redline.

and it said that it was not going to happen to think the you can wield the same amount of diplomatic things to be a part of it. >> thank you for your patience. >> no one said anything about the palestinian issue. >> we will come back to it. >> nevertheless, we went through the discourse without really mentioning this conflict. even making this u.s. policy that is engaged at this time with a negotiation over palestine. in your free to speak your mind

and could you tell us what kind of advice he would give the israeli government is how best to maneuver from now on? >> let me say that first of all i mentioned that the inability of the united states to bring about a resolution to the palestine conflict or ask ask of it, the palestinians are particularly important to maintain the settlement back in 2010 and it has also impaired america's influence and created the waning pax in the middle east. what i would recommend to the israeli government is avoid policy steps that would impair israel's image and among the

american public opinion to do the utmost to try to exhaust all diplomatic options and that will help us to conceal measures on both permanent solutions. and this is part of what happened in 2005 to a large extent. but that doesn't mean that palestinian leaders have to make these majors concessions to lose risk if that proves incapable.

and that can minimize the damage with a reputation in this includes the democratic and jewish state and also enables us to be able to protect ourselves in the west bank or elsewhere. >> i'm doing my best to help people. >> don't you think that would help in dealing with the iranian nuclear program and it doesn't have any nuclear weapons? >> we admit that they don't have any nuclear weapons. israel is part of this and i'm correcting the negative. the policy going back 50 years is that it's not the first country to introduce nuclear

weapons in the middle middle east. and i think there is no chance that this policy is going to change in that way. but i actually don't see the relevance of the question. america has maybe thousands of nuclear weapons and it didn't protect the united states on 9/11. and whatever israel's capabilities are in is not going to protect israel and hezbollah, which according to the imf intelligence last week that somewhere in the order of 170,000 rocket. and so what will the capabilities in that field due to make any difference at all? israel is a tiny country. and all talks are completely irrelevant. especially in dealing with the

government, which i don't think is rational even where the cold or when. my answer to you is no. that won't make any difference. >> thank you. >> hello, i have two questions. i may take you back to when he mentioned the involvement of the united states in the middle east, this includes the palestinian and israeli conflict and he was able to make a case. but in this have another flipside that is responsible mib

the focal attraction of extremist people than they are responsible for this? and then there is the single uprising or faith-based popularity of the area which would be a threat to israel. >> i asked you whether americans support engagement. but american engagement of the key mediator in the israeli and palestinian disputes. that render america more vulnerable to these extremist elements? and i think that it will show that america was vulnerable even when i was exceeding stunningly

in the peace process after 1993 and americans were the targets. and then i think that extremists elements in the middle east will find no shortage of excuses in the united states. and i think that we look back at the record it will show this. the overwhelming majority will not be held by america's policies for israel even if remediation is part of the conflict. americans were kidnapped in lebanon and many of them were executed. i mentioned obliquely some of the terrorist attacks that have been attempted on american soil. the details of the attacks remain classified and again they were not held by american support by israel because

america is america and that represents what america is. and what is the greater threat to israel? the of people throughout the middle east with the iranian nuclear program and the answer is unequivocal. and the upheaval in egypt and the civil war civil war in syria, its impact on jordan has forced policymakers to rethink their assumptions of the middle east that they have maintained and it has posed new challenges and the peace border with egypt has been an open border and it's no longer an open border. they are building a similar high-tech northern border that has been acquired so it could spill over and it can't be

ignored. it is perhaps the greatest single challenge that arises from the arab spring and it is vital to israel's security and it's not the israeli injured leading border but the iraqi border among other things. and that is very important. but all of that pales to the possibility that it is on the record saying that the destruction of the state as part of this and that it is going to require military capabilities with available terrorist groups and it can trigger this and here is where they will find themselves profoundly part of the unstable middle east worried about nuclear arsenals and it's

so overshadowed in this way for 2011. >> thank you. and please, let's take these last two questions and then we will move on. [inaudible] >> do you think is a really government is pursuing these negotiations with an actual goal of a peace deal. you think the same is true for the palestinian leadership? did they really actually one a deal to come out of this, or is the value simply and having the conversation in carrying the demand that they do? >> well, we will pick up this question. thank you.

>> he spoke at the beginning of the impact of event on the united states. how would you answer the question put in the following way. what is hegemony without peace done for the u.s. interests in the past 50 years? >> let me go back to the question about israel and palestinians. as ambassador i participated in many of the rounds of the peace talk and certainly all of the meetings between the prime minister and president obama and the prime minister and secretary of state clinton as well. i can only assure you in the most emphatic terms that yes, the israeli government prime minister is committed to moving ahead in reaching peace with the

peace agreement and understanding the price. but there are certain points where the price becomes prohibited. and benjamin netanyahu has been clear about what he constitutes a something that is prohibited. one would be a two state solution that leaves the border open to the type of smuggling that has transformed gaza in southern lebanon to large missile pads. i don't think that any country in history has ever been faced with this and pointed it out as israeli neighborhood like this. he is unwilling to let that happen on the west bank. and now we are particularly adamant about the need for the solution to be a permanent legitimate peace revolution and that is why we are part of the jewish state.

and you have an israeli state will not be a legitimate recognition state, which is going to open the door to end this. and the support of the jewish state is the weight you get peace. people should understand more deeply. on the palestinian side, they are sincere about reaching peace and i think that on the palestinian side, and i tread lightly here, there is a greater question of not whether they are willing but whether they are able and i've read this as a historian looks at this going back to 1937.

thirty-seven, 47, 2000, 2008. 1979. and they were unable to deliver because they didn't have this ability to be threatened. and the palestinian entities they are almost all of the notables and we'd love to have those.

arafat said to bill clinton that the radicals will kill me. and full circle. so i think that on the palestinian side there is no way to diminish the opposite roles that benjamin netanyahu and some of his ministers will encounter if this was possible. there is no shortage of people within the government or the party. and i sincerely believe that if it goes to a referendum, the israeli people will approve it. and your question is what is american hegemony? it helps america's interest over the last 50 years.

and here you are asking the impossible conundrum. and it was about the book of jonah. and you have to go to nineveh and they say that if you don't have these come you will be destroyed. and he realized that this is a no-win situation. and if they do or repent, three years later they are going to say, nothing happened. what if he goes there, then jonah will fall to decide. it's what i call the paradise of prophecy. it's a no-win situation.

and you can ask the same question about the maintenance of american hegemony in the middle east. and the paradox will be there. we will maintain this and there is no conclusive answer to your question. and the decision-makers in the real-time comment something that i've learned to appreciate. and they have my sympathy and often my respects.

and there are also consequences. consistently over the past half-century and even beyond. american policymakers have come down on the side of maintaining this in the middle east and i think that there's a lot of humility to very powerful minds and i think some good hearts and you have to give them credit. >> let me just say a couple of things. the book of jonah to the civil war. i just want to say thank you and also i would like to welcome you for coming. thank you so much for coming.

[applause] >> coming up on c-span2, a former nsa official following the edwards noted leaks. and this includes violence in south sudan. >> president obama welcomed françoise hollande to the white house. we will have the ceremony live on c-span3. in the obama's host a state dinner for the french president. >> the new c-span.org website has an incredible library.

we have national coverage of politics and history and nonfiction books. this includes coverage on your computer or smart phone. look at the top of the page. the new c-span.org makes it easy to watch what happens in washington today and find people and events from the past 25 years. >> coming up next, former contractor edward snowden for the nsa. william nolte was a part of the event at the institute of world

politics. >> let me thank john. john could not be here and both he and his wife have given credible reasons why they are not here. and i hope it's not so they stayed home and watched the opening ceremonies. although i am a contest with some friends of mine to imagine the most embarrassing thing that can happen intelligence is an integrity-based profession.

and the integrity and the courage of people as well. and this lecture gives me an opportunity to repay my debt. and this includes being alive and cherishing his memory today. i have my set of nerves coming on and when the institute first made this offer i declined. because at the very least i am not an expert in counterintelligence. and i don't think this is a really good idea. and then john talk to me about doing this and i had second thoughts. my second thought is that this is a really bad idea. because this is a lecture that should be given by one of ryan's

colleagues. by someone who has worked in this tough field. and it is someone who has advocated with greater attention and greater respect for her. for counterintelligence and the american intelligence profession. and i still struggle with the thought that advocating for counterintelligence should be a problem. it is an absolutely integral part of any intelligence process. sometimes to engage my students when we are discussing the nsa, i raised the hypothetical that knowledge he has moved to the point for nsa to do one of its core missions. protect american codes and ciphers or exploited the codes

and ciphers of other countries. and i asked them if technology do that and you could only do one, which one would you do. i think that they have picked the other mission. and i have to say that that is wrong. and it goes back to what i have said some time ago. as a young historian i was having lunch with david and i said something to the effect that the nsa was misnamed. it was the national security agency. and we didn't do security. and david said if you could only do one, which one would it be? and i've always kept that either were thought in my mind and hope we never reach the point where it becomes a reality. and i think that that same question about the role of counterintelligence versus what i sometimes refer to as positive

intelligence, only to make the distinction clear for people coming from the outside to have that same sort of quality. what is the point of collecting this information if we can't protect the sources and methods and processes that allow us to bring this to the decision-makers? what is the point of a world-class intelligence structure if we don't match up structure with counterintelligence capable of projecting the confidentiality of that information and those sources. the question is asked whether secret intelligence can take place in a democratic society that places high value. one question that should be asked is whether the democratic society has forged over time rules to regulate and oversee intelligence officers and should permit individuals and institutions to declare themselves above and beyond legal authority.

and we are probably in something like the six decade, as far as i can see, in which the counterintelligence has been saying take your pick. underfunded, under noticed, or even disrespected. i've never gotten around to researching this, but my guess would be if you went back to 1950 and before, the resources expended in the united states probably came pretty close to matching what we spent on the other aspect of intelligence. and certainly the original pioneers came in and thought that their first job was protecting american codes and ciphers. it was something of a byproduct to them. and i think you can find it in the popular culture as well. some reflections about. if you look back to motion pictures in the 40s and the 50s, counterintelligence agencies and military civilians were the good guys. and how did i know that?

there were guys like jimmy stewart. men going after not even communists, which says a lot with the script. and we all know how the culture changes. the protagonist in motion pictures and novelists were less inclined to be the good guys and doing really perverse things, the civil liberties and other kinds of fun stuff were actually part of departments and institutions that were out violate civil liberties. as cultural shift marks more than counterintelligence and whether one places that with the warren commission or the war in vietnam, from 19 xts with intelligence the represents the and deprives him.

after that 2.5 hours of that, i can't figure out and institutions in american life that is not implicated in the conspiracy. and there are two people that really can't resolve their issues. and the backdrop to that is the conviction and it will suffer at the edge hands of those for communists agents and all people that thought that this did not exist. that's not even talking about going into the death of the crucible.

i've often thought that if i had to do this and my only choice was the crucible or the scarlet letter, i would actually discover hawthorne in this way. [laughter] and so how did we get here? first of all we did have a culture shift in the perception of intelligence and counterintelligence that was just part of that. never trust anyone over 30 was a motto of my generation along with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. the tides of that culture swept over us under some degree still there. the good news, and i will touch on this more as i go along is that it eventually subsides as well. the counterculture view of intelligence would benefit a lot of screenwriters and was a trilogy of poster people, joseph mccarthy, j. edgar hoover, if

you were a script writer of a certain persuasion, could you ask for a better trio? now, the reality, of course, is that reality is more subtle than sometimes hollywood makes that. hoover, had he resigned or died in the 1930s would probably be considered one of the great figures in 20th century chronology. and in washington in 1942, won a few people that oppose the relocation of the japanese on the west coast was j. edgar hoover. but the reality is if you stay in a government job for 50 years and assume it's your personal property, they will take over and that's a very real lesson. and as for nixon, we all know of the strange twist associated with that in better figure. and as for mccarthy his critics often for trade him as a representative of a midwestern populism that often produce

demagoguery and responsible figures. the former professor has long noted that mccarthy probably produced more anti-communist and i think there is a great deal of truth in that. my first paying job in high school was shelving books in the silver spring library and one of the subjects that was fascinating to me at the time of the books and the literature on the atomic spider was the most interesting thing in the world in this industry of books, half of which that said that the rosenbergs were innocent and the others were villains and the other habits i bet chambers and mccarthy were national heroes in the rosenbergs were guilty. so moving forward a bit here

remember a day when i'm sitting in my cubicle and talking with frank, who is one of the first hires in 1930. he was pretty close to 80 at the time. and when he suddenly tilted his head rather dramatically, i thought that i was waiting for a medical emergency. but instead he spotted my bookshelves and he was reading this and said you know that he was guilty. don't you? and i thought that the weinstein book came close to demonstrating that. which he said ask your boss about this. and then he walked away and this tells you how fresh of a face that i was. i said, mr. wilson, what do you know about this. and he looked at me like personal had made a serious

mistake and said as and two gentlemen of? [laughter] and i said no, he was just in and said that i really ought to read into something called verona. he actually went ghost white and said oh, my gosh, you mean this and i said yes, i do. and he said, do you know someone named bill kroll and i said no, i don't. and he said, well i think you're going to meet him and within a couple of days i was meeting with him and one of the last of the cryptologist, and i was being briefed into this remarkable system. we tried several times thereafter to declassify this within the nsa. and each of those efforts failed. they failed because people were in the agency and i assume with good motives and insisted that to release this to the public it would destroy the agency

equities by releasing these sources. i had failed in the interim program but it did seem to me that if the source that issue was that if you use a one-time over, you are looking for trouble. and maybe the agency can survive this disclosure. this is where christopher andrew, giving a talk on the origins of the administration certainly felt from his prepared text that by the way, if you think this will change that has geography, wait until they come back. and i raised from the hall and found a payphone and some of you may need an explanation of what that is. but nevertheless, i called him and told him what happened and

another bill and i believe that our british cousins have gotten tired of the nsa dragging its feet on this. in and a few years later it was declassified for we now know with the exception of very few things, the rosenbergs were guilty. that there were soviet spies and people who deny it and when your handler has written a book about how he handled you, those denials don't seem altogether credible. but we also learned from that experience that two presidents and a decade or so of american national security policy were subject to ridicule as part of the historical story that was factually implausible. and in fact with the nsa did a nice than 30 years on and i have great affection for the place, what we did was value our

equities above the good name of the united states of america. and that is in all of the intelligence services need to think about from time to time. some of the damage of counterintelligence came from outside. some of it was self in foot. the discussion on this continued with a factually incorrect discussion only because it was far far too late. and this should be a continuing lesson for all. so where does that leave us now as far as the state of counterintelligence? i had several moments over the last decade where i thought tsunami that i talked about earlier -- i was very pleased with the creation of this under the prevention act. but after a decade it is clear

that it suffers from the same shortage of authority and structure and resources that they suffer as a whole. i'm glad to see my old friend here tonight. i was excited several years ago when he and jennifer sends published this and i thought, here is the intellectual underpinning for a resurgence of counterintelligence in that movement has yet to appear. i was encouraged by the creation of the advanced research project agency for intelligence and i would hope that it would lead to a manhattan project as i referred to it on counterintelligence and the 21st century. and in fact when i approached it with such a proposal lack of interest was apparent. when i later said this was a senior official, i was told that we just needed more training. so maybe the timing has come to try again to get that manhattan project going.

there are other things as well but have said that we are getting at. intelligence national security alliance produced a paper on counterintelligence a few years ago. and that has not happened and you still see some of these structural problems. at the time of the wiki week's disclosures. the intelligence committee hosted at one of our meetings a dod counterintelligence official. when one of the members asked how the dod was dealing with this security involved in the case, his reply was that you have to ask the security people. i got back to my office i called a friend and security quickly told me that the problem was the counterintelligence people are messing around in what was clearly a security case and this was clearly a self-inflicted

wound. i sat through a briefing even more recently just before the edwards noted an article started to appear in which they said that one of the problems with the counterintelligence was dealing with the structures of the interface with security counterintelligence and information technology security. when i blurted out that if you're going to name all of those, i was spanked. i didn't want to be spanked. i wanted some recognition that these old structures are getting in the way of getting it done and that there was so much going on between these various functions, why should they talk to each other? that is rather extraordinary and i will point it out anyway. and i thought about this over the last two months.

i always thought of this as being mike shanahan and i could've said the late mike shanahan. [laughter] and saying that i don't have a problem with my defense. i have a problem with my defensive line and my linebackers in my back. now, you have a problem with the whole. and i think that's the problem that we have as well. we have 20th century structures dealing with a 21st century environment and that is not going to work. and i'm very pleased that the nsa has now went organizations with counterintelligence and security functions and i don't think that that has to be the model for everyone. structuring the 21st century is going to be less important than process or you can put people where ever you want structurally and communicate well and you will get past this. i still have these great fears

to think that that is really a metaphor. it is a metaphor of an industrial model and yet we think that those are very real. david said over a decade ago that in a 21st century contest between barack raised bees and networks, networks will win. i looked at our government and our intelligence community and i think that we are more bureaucratic than networks. and that did not help either. and to so let me add a few thoughts on the prospect for abusing this. first of all, and we all know this woman a national discussion or conversation is going to continue. and i don't intend to give mr. snowden any credit for this. you can just as easily argue that john brown with the harpers ferry raid deserves credit for

bringing to the country's attention the issue of slavery. hudak in 1859 didn't know that slavery was an issue? and i sometimes think even beyond that that we had better building codes after the chicago fire but i have never seen if that was the case. but part of that would be where we talked about with mr. snowden. but let me not go there. i would prefer to see an orderly review of our national security, including intelligence and counterintelligence. staying in contact with the group in washington called the american security project, which is very much the staff of this former commission and i look back at the reports of a decade or so and i think that we missed a terrific opportunity. it calls for a series comprehensive review of our 1947

his rearview and it never came to pass and it was like be looked at, everyone told me, in the summer of 2001 in fiscal 2002 and then window what happens. instead of this orderly and thorough thing, we had postcrisis legislation and we all know what that means. as i also tell my students, the most dangerous thing you'll ever hear in washington is a group of congressmen standing around with cameras in the rotunda thing that we must do something. and that is a very frightening prospect area to how we do such a review? i think that we could do worse than look at this methodology. to make an attempt to define the environment that we think that we will be in the next 10 to 15 years or it defined a strategy to deal with that environment. and then look to see if our instruments match either the strategy or the environment.

i looked around at a lot of our national security systems and i don't see that matching of tools and the problems that they face. my two students here, mike and christina, christine england. oh, yes, the big country. we have a program with air force academy to bring graduates to these public policies. and they are very good sports and the common and talk about this. the answer is zero. something is wrong when we spend millions of dollars on instruments that we don't want to use. and i hate to pick on the air force but i could easily do the same sort of thing with the

other military services and i think that we could easily do the same thing in the intelligence services and we are simply not adapting our tools to the environment that we face. and the issues that we face in the future are among those that are defined in large part by the information environment that we face. edwards noted, target, who else got hacked? that still drives an awful lot of the national purity. some of us are old enough and may remember the founder of the whole earth catalog. they gave an interview in wired magazine in which they said the most important event of the last 20 years was the playing out of this law. okay. so most important i could argue.

i used to talk about it playing itself out and it hasn't happened. when i see articles all the time that they put a slowdown because we have finally reached the limit on how many circuits you can put on a business and i find articles that say, oh, okay, old school. this is happening in nanotechnology and biotechnology in the predictions that it's going to end, i think it quantitatively balances with those that are waiting for a whole new cycle of it. intelligence and counterintelligence really have to deal with that constant changing volatile information environment and when i talk about that is three different aspects. first of all, privacy. and the worst thing and i told a group of officers the same thing, the worst thing that the

intelligence community can do in light of this is to think that this whole controversy is about us. it is not just about intelligence. it is not just about the nsa. it is about people living in an information environment that we use all the time that we don't understand and occasionally comes up and scares the heck out of us. and i think that is something that we have to talk about. i asked people what concerns you more, i think a fair number of reasonable people would save what happened at target. the nsa is something that affects my credit and i think people have been very concerned by that. several years ago we were interviewing candidates at the national intelligence council

for a national intelligence officer position in one of the things we asked the mall was named the top five expert in your field of the intelligence community. one of the applicants said that there are no experts in our field as far as the intelligence community goes. the good news is he did not get do the job. though we had already spent several hundred thousand dollars consulting with those people. and we had to deal with serious issues of academic people not wanting to come into the cia headquarters or get a clearance and all of the stories that in part because of privacy issues. and one of the things i'm absolutely sure of is that in the 21st century we are not living in the same privacy environment that many of us grew up in and then us grew up in and then her us grew up in an apparent screwup than in up in ann arbor and parents grew up in. here again, in popular culture. how many novels in the 19th century or movies had characters

who are escaping from something? criminal charges, their families, job, debt, and how did you get away from that? you simply went west. and the chances of being apprehended were very slim. a couple of years ago, some of you may remember this, and author challenged the country in a piece in the magazine that he was going to go and contribute $10,000 if anybody could find him and this was a skilled computer professional. within weeks there were blogs all over the country of people coming together without any leadership to find this guy. he did a very good job. in about two weeks before the clock ran out, someone approached him in an airport and said are you the guy from wired magazine. and it is very hard to get off the web and the grid. think about that in their own lives. suppose you go home tonight and

decide you want to get off the web. you want to lower your profile. what he would do? well, i can give you some suggestions area pay cash for everything. don't own a smart phone. turn it off when you're not using them. do not own a gps. all kinds of fun stuff. if you have a computer, make sure it's an apple product. this is not a commercial. but it's funny when a matt u.s. cybercommand how many apples are at home. and so if you do use the internet, never allow servers to share information. delete your cookies, change passwords regularly. never write down your password. let me ask this audience how many of you have never ridden on a passport? okay, that is pretty good. that is really good. you clearly have a better memory than i do. because i have so many of these

things and good for you. i expected no one to answer that. i assume you're telling the truth. if you're not, then we you don't have to take a polygraph test. i'm really impressed with that. so we are going to have to deal with different expectations of the in the 21st century. and what that is, i do not know. it is going to be the deputy director of science and technology, several papers in which he talked about the erosion of privacy and if you find those articles today on the internet, they are all labeled as dia official attacks or the cia official calls for the end of privacy. he is a scientist. he wasn't recommending anything. he was simply observing. and it is true. it is true. we have eroded our privacy and i

have prepared these remarks before the president made his address with what he was going to do it so i'm not going to comment too much and we can touch on that. but one of the things that struck me most was by the end of march government the government have to come up with an alternate solution to nsa storing all this data that a store. so we don't want him to store it on, the phone companies don't want to store it. so by the end of march before taxes are due, we have to come up with a solution here. and i described the as coming from a thelma and louise decision-making process. there may not be an outcome at the end of it. there may be a quest area and the second i would say that the options for change in the next year or two involved regulating

things versus overseeing them and i am all for oversight. oversight seems to be the flexible mechanism for control and i often describe what we are going through the internet or the web, the information is a wild west environment. i really wanted to see them get a major piece of cyberlegislation and i'm far less confident of that and far more concerned that we will legislate this with the wrong thing. or the thing that we aimed at to never develop where they were hamstringing ourselves. and so this is something that we don't know that we will get regulations on and i don't know whether the legislation can do much benefit. the oversight to me offers greater flexibility and i joined the nsa in the late 70s when oversight was new and in retrospect the only thing that i think was missing was people

wearing black armbands saying that the nsa was the cause of death in this senate select community. and i was at so many times my goodness, we will never be able to function like this. and then they would say things like that redstone function like this, how are you going to deal with it. and you know, every industrial democracy provides some sort of parliamentary or judiciary oversight and from my point of view part of the is trying to say that i think that congressional oversight is one of the great achievement in american intelligence history. we were the intelligence community be today without mike rogers and others as well? i am so glad that these folks are on the side of the intelligence community and its very clearly important at this time. and so i am going to pass on making remarks with a civil

liberties board and i will take questions if you like. we have to be very brief as well on security. they hinted that we needed to redefine the link between counterintelligence and security. and we need to know how we are going to do this in the 21st century. i have been polygraph and i have had background investigation and this includes providing people the names of my neighbors, anyone who has been through that process knows how to go. so how many of you really know your neighbors? so when someone shows up and says what is he really like, you are going to stare at them. i've had them twice sure but my house and ask what i am like. show is we didn't tell the truth because i kept my clearance. does this make any sense? i don't think so. and we need to get some more of

this going on. i'm going to ask one more possibility and come up short. the army prosecutors in the men in case have the highest mark for their attempt to prosecute manning under the 1970 espionage act. and frankly they couldn't get it done in terms of aiding any foreign power, i think the answer has to be that they are honestly not getting it done. ..