not all socialists word that. not all muslims were dead. if the extremists were characterized as islamist which to me means someone who believes islam should be opposed on others, not just islam but their version of islam should be imposed on others including other muslims but unfortunately i am not sure that works. i got lectured by pakistani of being anti muslim because i talked the threat from islam. it is the threat we need to understand. is the threat in the largest muslim population in the world where i was privileged to be an

ambassador in asia. where if you go to a muslim boarding school and they are quite simple institutions there, usually very basic you find one with a three story dormitory at a fancy gymnasium. ideology is alien to indonesia. for many years it seems to me we followed a policy of the lesser evil. that seemed to create terrorists in saudi arabia and egypt were creatures of u.s. policy but with all those feelings we would be much worse off if saudi arabia fell into the wrong hands. i think it was obviously premature to refer to the arabs spring as a brand new season, but it is premature to refer to an arab winter. we can't afford -- there is an up herbal in the world and we need to find ways to influence it. what that people did demonstrate

was the willingness of arabs to brave great danger, incredible danger as they do in syria to be free of tyrants but that is not the same as being ready to increase the responsibilities of democracy. we lost an opportunity in libya. after the fall of gaddafi their retreat elections, both of which returned pro-western and moderate parties with a resounding defeat for islamists, those are the people who had the gun that came from the persian gulf in other ways. is now the law of the gun, not the law about. it would still be salvagedable and would have been if more had been done at the beginning to help create effective security forces. to nietzsche, i think is the most hopeful of all the arabs spring countries. it is reflected, some sensible

reaction from the electorate and deserves as much support as we end of the europeans can't give an europeans should step up to the plate on this issue. syria will take generations to recover from the divisions erected by -- created by so much violence and bloodshed. it might have been different if the conflict come to an end sooner. in that respect i think the real danger we walked into syriac was not the mistake that was so feared that we would somehow repeat that experience in iraq. we repeated the bad experience at bosnia where for three years we allowed the bloodshed to continue while the weaker side lacked for weapons and the end result was 200,000 more people dead in a country that was shattered and is now partitioned in all but name. i will leave it to my wiser panelists to see if there's a way to pick up on this. if we are looking for allies in

the middle east and certainly in critical ways israel is the only reliable ally. in certain critical ways, it is also important that because of our closeness to israel we end a being held responsible for almost everything israel does. i don't think everything is real buzz on settlement policy are all that constructive. is there a way to get to better understanding and more restrained? i would offer this one example which came during the gulf war, when i remember as we were thinking ahead to the possibility of war, it was assumed absolute given that if israel were attacked by iraq israel would respond militarily. it was also felt this would not be an american interest but there was a fatalism, no way to prevent that. the fact that israel was attacked pretty much continuously for 54 days and did not respond and the reason it

didn't respond easily convinced them, we would do everything necessary to take care of israel's security, and as much as we could have. we met -- we are treating us like a relative with a social disease. even the egyptians say when we were attacked we have a right to retaliate and your asking us to give up our right of self-defense and we pointed out in need to understand first of all, we don't send our patriot missile batteries to defend relatives with a social disease, we're not treating is alike an outcast. of clinton ally hosni mubarak said what he said about israel has the right to retaliate we asked him to do so. and the rest of that sentence and i don't think there will be much left to retaliate against after americans were finished.

thank you very much. [applause] >> a okay -- okay. just before i begin i would like to say st. louis was to me a man of deep wisdom, overflowing common-sense and great good humor and i think that is both a rare combination and one to be admired and if we can, emulated. and so i don't really feel deserving to be here, but i feel privileged to be here. our assignment, policy planning, the middle east in the context of policy planning which means

what are the big questions? what are the ones that underlie day-to-day policymaking, let me offer a few thoughts. i should add that before i begin, listening to paul talk about the difficulties, the downside of working in policy planning i remember a time when i was torn between accepting an offer to take that job and my current job, one of the people i ask advice about and i don't remember any of the negative stuff that he shared with you. so first question would be for me, how engage is the american public prepared to be in the middle east? the common wisdom is war weariness.

i worked hard at polls and i don't see any evidence that that is actually what this country is suffering from. what we are suffering from is a weariness of interventions that don't succeed. that is a very different thing and i think what you have seen this summer after the be headings and the massive shift in public opinion, so quickly, is some evidence for the view i am suggesting, that there is a willingness to stay engaged, if there is clarity, convincing clarity, what it is we are setting off to do. remember afghanistan is not only our longest war but we have spent in real dollars more money in afghanistan that we spend on the marshall plan and americans may not know that figure but

they have a feeling for how much -- general feeling for how much we spent and how much there is to show for it. my sense is the willingness to be engaged is there if the president or secretary of state can capture it. the second question or need it is i think we are very short on strategic patients in the middle east and paul referred to this, i put a lot of blame in this case on the word arabs spring, and as we saw with the pivot can do enormous concrete damage to policy but it is ongoing, amazing to me how a word with so little content can have some much outcome on the ground but

arabs spring did these people with a sense that things would change for the better fast in a linear kind of fashion. and undoing that is going to take a lot of doing, some director of policy planning needs to think hard about that. third, we are going to need, we badly need more diplomatic energy, and i think most people here -- i discovered to my surprise it is one of those facts that is true, we have more people in military bands than career diplomats, that has been a trend in both republican and democratic administrations for three decades and it is something we have to work to and wind. that said, i think how we behave

abroad, what we do, what we attempt to do has everything to do derive from how we think of ourselves at home. and positive change at home, and it is a very long time since we had very much to celebrate in terms of how we can be on our own domestic policy and no director of policy planning, no secretary of state can and do that but i think were i in office making policy it would be very much on my mind how far we can stretch ourselves given our record at home. fifth, we need a better

listening year worldwide. it has been a loss since the end of the cold war but in particular we need it in the middle east, we have far too few people whose expertise arab-israeli conflict as opposed to the arab world and we need people whose principal expertise is that. there is an awful lot of history happening and will come, a difficult issue that we need to be better prepared than we are now to deal with. finally, the president shown in the last few weeks that with the right threat it is possible to build quite fast an extraordinary coalition and we have seen it before. it is true that at hoc

coalitions are the third choice in international coordination. it had to be said one of the disappointing features of the last 15 years has been the steady decline of what we hoped for in the 90s and the second choice is partner should, the third choice is the ad hoc coalition. the ad hoc coalition is pretty much the best we can do outside the u.s./is really a conflict. and that relationship, the more realistic relationship with israel, we have gotten unable politically to distinguish u.s.

interest from is really interesting to prioritize u.s. interest. and i think too often for too long our policy has protected israel from the consequences of its own choices and a formula that doesn't have a happy ending. let me if i can just a word about syria which is clearly the biggest media challenge for this region. the achilles heel for the new policy is obvious, the lack of boots on the ground is syria. you can see three sources of boots on the ground in syria, the iraqi army, the kurds and the sunni tribes but you don't see a serious set of boots on

the ground in syria. the syrian opposition training, the timescale is according to the pentagon year-and-a-half, three to five month and a year to train. what happens in the interim? there is a piece of good news, potential good news, if we can discard the assumptions that directed our policy for the last three years which is that we need the outline of a political settlement we can take steps to cease-fire, and extraordinary accomplishments ever, has shifted realities the deeply, it

is impossible to imagine two parallel cease-fires for the assad regime and moderate opposition, stretched badly, overstretched that the and bleeding badly and both of which were enormously profit from such speeds with each other so they can focus on a common threat. what made me think this was conceivable is the same change in priorities holds true for saudi arabia and iran, who here each other and recognize a face now a common existential threat that they would like to deal with before it gets to their borders. there is an opening of,

tantalizing undeveloped -- that is there and as a last comment i will save the of the things that would be very much on my mind were i in this chair is their relationship with iran. if we lose the opportunity of this deal we lose so much more than that. a deal is fair, a deal is in the room, it might not be on capitol hill, it might not be in tehran. if we can get it a lot pulse particularly in syria becomes possible. >> and now.

torn between zach. >> thank you. hall and jessica's comments were interesting and created a kind of broad conceptual framework, jessica also raised -- maybe we will get into that. i want to do it differently. i want to do it more in a way that would reflect its sam were here. what would be the questions that sam would ask. i feel i can do that in part because sam used to ask a lot of hard questions, typically in when i was a negotiator i would see him -- he wouldn't -- he would have to offer judgments because he would ask the kinds of questions that would make me question my own assumptions and

that was sad. i don't know that i ever dealt with anybody who more consistently would ask us to question our own assumptions and i suspect at a time like we are in right now in the middle east i can't think of a better time to be questioning our own assumptions. there are a lot of assumptions about this region that have taken on a life of their own and if there was ever a point they seemed to be in doubt this was it. if spam were here the first thing he would say as a policy planning person, he would say be sure the decisions you are going to make in the coming days will be decisions that move were you want to go over time, don't make the decision that seems comfortable because this is the easiest path or the one that imposes the least price right now because many six months or a year from now you will regret the fact that you did that.

that is the essence of policy planning. how to be sure your day-to-day decisions are consistent with where you would like to be over time and that requires you to define your objectives clearly and requires you as you define those objectives to ask questions about your assumptions. if we take a step back, and want to do it -- we didn't talk about the average issue for good reasons because the region today reflecting i think a reality challenging what has been assumption that was once that was embedded in i would say the national security establishment for a long time, it is true, i finished the draft on a new book on the u.s. and israel and every administration truman through obama as a constituency and assumption that guided the middle east which was a few solve the arab-israeli issue and the israeli-palestinian issue you change the region and if

there was ever a time where that assumption didn't apply as today because if you solve it today it doesn't stop one bomb from being dropped in syria, it wouldn't have isis wouldn't change its approach. country by country iraq's problems are a function of business and so forth. is important to realize that but that can't be an argument for not dealing with the issue. if you look at the video, sam's preoccupation with this issue was driven by how we define american interests, how we define the reason and israel's interests. so i do want to deal with that issue at the end because we haven't dealt with it but let me sort of deal with two broad questions in effect. i won't be literate too long so

we will have some type of question. in the first case how to look at the region. sam would say what did we learn by looking at the landscape of the region right now. he would probably say did you pay attention to what went on in gaza? i noticed there were demonstrations against israel and europe but i didn't see demonstrations in the middle east. what does that tell us about the landscape? i would say it tells us the gulf states and egypt and probably morocco and algeria view the muslim brotherhood as their first threat. that doesn't mean the saudis don't view iran as a threat because they do land in effect what it says is you have -- and paul used this term, isthmus was

not necessarily is the right term but you have a spectrum and on that spectrum you have sunnis and she had defined as islamists and extremists, there are those who don't much respect the idea of civil authority. they don't respect the idea of individual states, they don't believe in effect in the very concept of pluralism because they reject the idea of tolerance, they don't respect anyone else's interpretation but their own. that is true whether they are sunni or she us. that might be an interesting starting point for us to think about how we decide we want to be working with. that is an interesting way of thinking about the region.

is probably conceptually an important place to start from. if we approach it that way we are still faced with the llamas because if you say those who are extremists, those who aren't islamists, we are still going to have those countries or leaderships the mic respect individual states to our authoritarian in character and they challenge our values somehow are you going to reconcile the fact that on the one hand we have those who fundamentally threaten our values and interests and those who might be with us right now, how do you reconcile that? i would say that is a tough one. i don't have an easy answer but i guess if we hope for pluralism over time we first have to deal with those who will never accept it under any circumstances. we first have to establish security and order are a baseline because there's no pluralism without a dance that

might mean i would work with egyptians and others who might think at this point may challenge us on our values but at least may be lining up with us in terms of who threatens the basic principle of pluralism overtime. i don't think -- i know we can't surrender our voice. we have to be honest with them. sam was the embodiment of as an investor, who would lay out what was important to us even as he was working with those who are our friends. one of the challenges may be how on the one hand you establish as a clear priority that we're going to deal with security first and that is in affect what the president is doing right now even while we recognize we have partners in this coalition, who we have differences with. is a kind of first things first

approach and that is going to be the basis on which we approach things. and i think on the issue of syria which you put your finger on it is true that today you see the strategy in iraq and by the way it is consistent with what i was just outlining. in syria and it becomes much more complicated. because you have to deal with isis because they are the first things first. the ideas that we can in any way partner with assad is beyond the pale because of what he is done. this is not a case where we challenge our values but a case where he has gone beyond anything that is acceptable. the question is can you follow the path of what jessica was raising. is the fatigue and sense of threat from bases in of to

create a convergence? i don't know. the short answer is i don't know. i am a big believer and this goes back to one of the points sam raise. of wanting guided sam more than anything else, don't fall in love with your own ideas and give you think you are right, that is fine, but why don't you test your ideas? what do you lose by testing your ideas? you don't lose a lot. i am being quite open testing certain things. if it looks like -- we shouldn't assume necessarily that having the sunnis with us is a given, it looks like we are drawing too close to the iranians which has clearly been sensitivity for the obama administration. if we want sunni tribes not just in iraq but syria, you have a syrian opposition that is

completely fractured but still largely based on sunni tribes to the extent to which they are going to be part of this they also have to be integrated into this. if they are prepared to accept and i would test the proposition they are prepared to accept a cease-fire as that would be one thing. one thing about assad, assad going after isis as an opportunity to go after is the syrian opposition that is not a basis. continues to do that. threw out this conflict has been much more willing to drop barrel bombs on those who are not a racist than those who are. he was willing to buy oil from those who were isis. while we think about this idea i think we have to do it very clearly. that is the point. whatever your idea is the clear idea is have a hedge built in. if you test this idea, you have a hedge and think about the consequences if it moves us in

the wrong direction as opposed to the right and that gets back to the idea of policy planning. the essence of policy planning is if you make a decision don't just think about first or consequences or third order consequences, think about where it is going to leave you overtime. let me say something about this now. let me say something about the israeli/palestinian issue. here i would say something else that would have guided sam. i can actually envision him saying this pretty clearly. when you look at your options, don't create two polar opposites. don't put yourself in position where you are going to solve the problem or do nothing because if you are going to solve the problem, if you can't solve the problem you are left with doing nothing and if you do nothing in this part of the world one thing we have seen is you have

vacuumeds, vacuums invariably get filled and we know who it fills the vacuums and that applies also in terms of israeli/palestinian diplomacy. the choice we have cannot be if we cannot solve the whole conflict right now there is nothing to be done and we will watch our hands of it because for one thing we know that will produce a much worse situation which later on if we try to do something about it, the challenge to us, the problem for us will be dramatically worse. in some ways that happened in syria. we applied that principle of we won't put. on the ground so there isn't much to be done and we have seen what happened. i will say in diplomacy between israelis and palestinians we can see the same implication. when you do nothing the vacuum gets filled. where are we today? i would say it would be

desirable to be solve a conflict. the prospect of solving the conflict will be close to nil. i don't see -- i would say even before what happened in gaza i was actually in the region that the end of june and i was struck very much by two different realities. you can be between -- you are talking about

i can recall a time were think the gulf was as wide as it is, although there's a sense of irony when i say that, because on the one hand if you look at, his approach towards hamas these days seems reflect shall we say a very high degree of skeptici skepticism. is not real keen on embracing them at this point. the israelis have the same view, but the idea that israelis at this point are prepared to take a big leap given what they see around them, the idea this point that he's in a position where he

can make what amounts to fundamental concessions and kevin lee think the mood of palestinians is and how he sees it, particularly given the anger level of the palestinians towards the israelis i think if this doesn't pass the test of being realistic. and if there's one thing that guided sam, it was the government about what you'd like to do. tell me about what you can do. if you listen to that video, you focus very clearly on the idea you don't give up. that gets back to the notion if you cancel the whole thing, you don't give up and wash your hands of it. so the question becomes now what can you do. and i would focus very heavily on what i have for a long time called coordinated unilateralism. which is to say to stand pat but focus on those things that could actually begin to make a difference practically meaningfully. yes, i'm israelis that i would like to see them make a settlement policy consistent with their two state approach.

did you say you believe in two states, then don't build and what you think is going to be the palestinian state. it undercut your credibility on the issue of believing in two states and there's no logic to it not commit to the fact it does a great deal to foster the delegitimization of israel internationally. if you are service about the states, then what about opening up area c which is 60% of the west bank and which would become it was over and over economic activity for palestinians could have a dramatic effect. i was struck by the fact again you could go back with poll that was taken throughout the whole middle east of 18-24-year-olds, it's worth looking at because what it shows, doesn't matter where you are, this concluded by the way to include the west bank and gaza but took 18-24-year-olds, and the one thing they're all focused on was not the idea of political

transformation which is where they were a couple years ago. this poll has been done over the last server years. their focus on having a job. what was the economic future. the country the most wanted to live in anywhere in the world was actually the emirates, because they saw an economic future there. so you could actually have an effect i think among 18 to 24-year-olds among palestinians if they thought it was an economic future. but there's not going to be an economic future if you don't open up area c come if you don't ease some of the restrictions. getting the israelis to do those two things just on the own i could sit here and say look, it's in your strategic interest to do this but the israeli psychology will be, e.g. give something for nothing all it does is foster the idea that you constantly give and you will never get. so here is a role for the united states. the role is let's see what you can broker between the two but if you can get the israelis

focus on these two steps, and i have other ideas, then what did you get the palestinians to do? because these would be things that would be measurable. today if you look at the polling, standing among palestinians isn't so great. any to deliver something. going to the u.n. a symbolically good and practically -- when what you and before i got here in general assembly to vote for the palestinians as an observer state at the u.n. and he was celibate when he returned and we played before sank so what changed? so the point is do something where people see there's a change. i don't just mean economic but a change to be consistent with the something gets significantly better for the future. that's the kind of approach that sam would emphasize because he would say, don't do something that makes you feel good for a day. is something that puts you on the path that gives you a chance

to change things over time. it's not only good policy planning, it's good advice. and when i sit and the tough questions about how we should be proceeding, i ask myself what questions would sam be asking? [applause] >> now is our chance to ask questions and i get to go first. so two interrelated questions. first, this we can president obama said that the united states had underestimated the strength of the isil and underestimated the weaknesses of the iraqi army, and that's how he got to this current quandary. so talk to me a little bit about how you do planning for strategic surprises. how do you step out what strategic prices -- surprises might be on the horizon and to what extent should our policies be based on hedging against

strategic surprises? second question, jessica mathews mentioned and iran deal might not happen. how do you do planning, plan b, without making it look like you've already given up on plan a? how do you make it look like you are thinking about the possibilities if your plan a doesn't work out without at the same time undermining planned a? it's not obvious this administration has got a planning process underway for what happens if you ran negotiations don't work out, and it's not obvious that during all those months secretary kerry is putting the effort into the talks that he had a plan for what to do if that didn't work out. so how realistic is it to think you can do some policy planning about plan b? all three of you. >> well, very quickly on the iran deal. i don't think that's so obscure,

or so difficult. everything will be banned if it does fail on how it fails. and why it fails. but if it does, i don't believe we will go back to the status quo. i believe there will be some kind of a muddling through framework and that that something is possible to be thinking about and working on right now, and i would guess it is being thought on and thought about and worked on. >> i think plan b is the sort of thing you need to work on with some degree of privacy and confidentiality, which is maybe hoping for peace in the middle east in washington but it's a reason to have that kind of private channel to the people who are working on plan a.

and -- i'm sorry, your first question was? >> strategic surprises. >> it seems to me that they should not have been such a surprise. there was so much evidence that extremists were growing in strength among the syrian opposition. one of your sister think tanks are, really tracked what was happening there. may be better than the, maybe sometimes uniqu you need producs they're not just from intelligence community, but i don't think that really should've been such a surprise. and the weakness of the iraqi army was something people been jumping up and down now with aaron farr for a couple of years, because practically every colonel who served with petraeus has been watching the firing of capable generals because they were in the wrong confessional persuasion. so i thought it was a striking use of the third person when the

president said the united states underestimated. i'm not sure, i'm not sure who underestimated, but maybe the white house did. i think this is something we could have seen coming. that doesn't entirely answer your question of how do you prepare for a surprise. that's in the way like having plan b, and it goes to one of the questions dennis was raising. usually to bring up the idea of a surprise, it will say, well, that's not likely to happen. [laughter] of course that's how big a surprise in suez and 73 and that's how we got surprise in pearl harbor and happens over and over again. surprises are almost historically something that didn't seem plausible at the time for some reason. i think what dennis described, sam's approach of, well, what are you as and when you see the egyptians couldn't hope to cross the canal, or what are you assuming when you assume the

japanese couldn't attack the u.s. fleet? what are those assumptions and how reliable are they? sometimes, i mean, i think there were some very deep secrets in japanese military planning that we probably could not have penetrated, but we should have at least been thinking given the pressure we are putting on japan at that point, thinking worst-case, and i don't think we did. >> i think paul's answer at the end picks up what i would answer, that one of the things you have to do is be asking yourself, you know, with good things go wrong? and if they go wrong what could they look like? and when i was head of policy planning with the baker, i had the advantage of also being part of a very closely knit group with him where he would ask,

among others, bob zoellick and i would sit down with him every 90 days and go over iraq, where are the opportunities that are out there that we haven't talked about, and where are the dangers that are out there that no one is talking about or thinking about. that doesn't prevent you from being surprise because the administration was surprised when saddam hussein went into iraq. one of the recent for that was because the top administration was consumed with german unification and nato that no one else, anyone who sort of charged with doing policy was focused on that and not on the of the question. even if you sort of try to institutionalize this you also have to ensure that when it's institutionalized, those who are raising these questions have a pipeline into the leadership. so the leadership, if it's consumed because there is, to use the appropriate time, term, there is a limit on the bandwidth, that has to be accessed for those asking hard questions. they can't be discounted.

i recall after 19731 of the lessons israelis learned was they needed to great the equivalent of what we call a red team. the problem is when you create that kind of a group, the minute they walk in with something, everybody discounts, we know that's what you're charged with doing. sociologically have a problem doing this. no one can ever guarantee against surprises but i think the more you try to structure things so that you're trying to insist they where good things go wrong so that you are positioned for that, and also by the way, where did things go right? because the benefit of doing things where you actually produce, the payoff there is really disproportionate. one last note on this and i agree with what jessica said, i think on the issue of iran, i find it hard to believe that the administration isn't thinking about the alternatives in no

small part because the administration has been quite pessimistic in public about the prospect of a deal. that was not the case on i think the israeli-palestinian talks were think secretary kerry action was hopeful and there were certain points where he had recently think to be helpful. so where you are pessimistic, presumably you're already thinking about what are the choices if this doesn't work out. i do think some kind of muddling through approach is likely. i also think by the way the iranians may have a default strategy. i don't buy those who say if there's no deal immediately the iranians will go all out. i don't think they wanted to. i think the iranian default strategy will say we're going to continue with some of the transparency. we will show you how reasonable we are and use that as it should to get the rest of the world to drop the sanctions without an agreement. >> let's turn to the audience or your questions, please. so let's start over here.

>> hi. thanks for the panel. dan with cbs. let's keep it with policy planning. i'm wondering about the independence of state department policy planning because it's not a university symposium and it's not a think tank. you work for the current administration. if you're doing that job think outside the box things the president wouldn't even want to hear? >> the answer is yes and no. [laughter] the answer is yes, you can. and a lot depends upon relationships. if the relationship that the secretary of state has with the president, if those around the secretary of state have been given a kind of charter, if those on the national sturdy council staff have been given kind of the charter, you can come in there and you can raise

ideas. i say no because if you do that to me times, then the odds of you being able to pursue the things you most want to pursue goes down precipitously. but the fact is you are not excluded from doing that, and i think to be fair, i've been a political appointee for four presidents and have access to three of them. i would say of the three that i worked for, there was never a prohibition on raising new ideas. in fact, i actually found legally a readiness, and openness to the. as i said, if you overdo it and you might not find the openness there on a continuing basis. >> i remember something that atchison said in his memoirs which paraphrase basically says, if you want to have new ideas, received by the president, you need to understand how he thinks

and you need to speak in language that speaks to them. if you tell them this is what we experts know, you have to trust us, the state department would become irrelevant, as it has at frequent times. >> the only thing i would add is that we all three of talked about the importance of being able to re-examine core assumptions. and i just want to underline how incredible he hard that is to do, whether you're in the government or outside it. core assumptions, it is just by definition, psychologically it is really hard to re-examine them. and it often tends to be the steps that gives you insight. it's just rare. >> keep it short, and. [laughter] >> fair enough. >> i did not here you, of

course. sam lewis did say to many, including myself, on several occasions that one should start by questioning one's assumptions. the united states is not embarked on a war -- stomach the islamic state. the islamic states any other shia are the shia who will mesopotamia for the first time in history and the iran she. so united states is now for the third time in a row deploying its forces, sending its -- signaling its allies to fight the enemy of iran. we did that in iraq by removing saddam. we then did kurdistan in more excusable circumstances. now we're doing it for the third time. now, on the iran side on the other hand, there were against the united states is really does. when these yazidis, the first

thing to do they came out saying we have to become anti-american here in yemen. that was their statement. they are -- >> question? >> the question is this. are we simply going right ahead with a notion -- what i heard the panel is, let's provide it. let's make a deal with the brand because that is of course naturally lead us to question the assumption that the deal itself is a mistake. let's of course try to enforce boots on the ground to fight against isis which happens to be the enemy of iran. and to do so with allies such as turkey, which is still a nato ally and qatar of cars and saudi itself how they got wahhabi ideology in places like birmingham, england and other countries haven't other thousand schools there. so the question is, are we questioning our assumptions? i think that. i think not. i think we ought to. and the united states, the

american public has seen us intervene in the middle east again and again with the very scant information, less information than i gather which is a hotel, and failing. so we are persisting in the sand as far as i can see. >> as usual, provocative. [laughter] spent i think it's more of a comment than a question, but the question is who is we? i think some of us are other, actual art prepared to question assumptions. i think, look, from my standpoint i was trying to suggest take a different view of the landscape with the region and then begin to shape their policies in light of that. that landscape i was trying to suggest was not a sunni-shi'a landscape. i'm suggesting quite the contrary, but you look at it from the standpoint of who are the radical as what extremists, to use paul sturm, who are on

both sides of the spectrum and build your policies with an eye towards competing with them. usually trying to strengthen those who in the first instance i think help to reestablish order without losing sight of the fact that you also have to be coming up to recognize there's a tension between your interest and your values, but if you don't have something to do so with you will not be able to promote worldism later on. >> i very much agree with that. i think we certainly shouldn't be lining up shia against sunni etiquette which often reduce it to that. i've never forgotten being was a debate on his first visit to the middle east, but right after i would call it the premature cease-fire in the first gulf war, and when he met with the saudi foreign minister and the prince was the ambassador to washington, kind of a second foreign minister, the two of them spent the entire meeting saying the worst thing you could do not would be leave saddam hussein in power. there's a shia rebellion going

on. you should support the shia. we are not afraid of them of iraq. they said there arabs and not persian, which is true. they thought through a bloody war. unfortunately, i think we ignored that advice, and, unfortunately, when the chance came for the saudi to support a more pluralist iraq in the last 10 years, what they did instead was to try to reimpose sunni domination over the country. that may be inevitable in saudi raid what i don't think, i would not give up on trying to get the saudis to develop influence in baghdad i would counter the influence of iran which is obviously pernicious and this helped to bring us to the situation, the secularism that the saudis basically walk away from iraq just a time when they could have done some good there. that's an example it seems to me what dennis is talking about working across the divide with people who at least in the case sure our interest, if not our

values. >> and one less question right here in front, barbara slavin. >> barbara slavin from the atlantic council. thank you for a really interesting discussion. i wanted to probe more on that divided the cheaper seats over iran policy with the sunnis, dennis. why does it have to be a zero sum game? especially now with the, threat of the islamic state. we've seen high level meetings now between the saudis and the iranians. we have a team in place in iran that has had reconciliation with the saudis in the past. is it possible to have an iranian nuclear deal and a common fight against the islamic state? x. >> barbara, i would say i we tested. that was my point. my concern up front, i know what instance are but we need to know, has something changed

because of the islamic state in terms of how the saudis look at things but if they have been you're in a different place. if it hasn't then you figure out how you manage that. >> just add one thought to the. i don't think the nuclear deal with iran makes them our friends, us their friends about. but what it certainly does do is it gives greater domestic credibility, legitimacy, to the rouhani government, which as you know i is a very, is in a very dicey position right now. they need to deliver. and their ability to interact with the saudis will be greater if they can deliver a deal and substantially less if they can't. spin and with that, i'm afraid we're running out of time because secretary burns schedule is quite tight and may i ask you

please to grab a drink and grab a box lunch in the back, come back to state and we will restart promptly. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> no more from the washington institute for. deputy secretary of state william burns speaks about challenges in the middle east and the u.s. strategy against isis. this is half an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> we are very pleased to have

the deputy secretary of state. it's impossible for me to call built anything but bill burns -- you want to hear me as well? can you hear me now? okay. i want to welcome deputy section of state the bill burns here. it's an honor and privilege to happen here. bill and i have known each other just a very short period of time. only since the mid 1980s. in he really is the kind of consummate diplomat. he has had an extraordinary array of different experiences. he's been ambassador in jordan and in russia. he has been the undersecretary of state. he was deputy secretary of state. he had different kinds of diplomatic missions what has been called on. he has been trusted by

presidents of both parties. he and i actually worked together i think in the administration of both parties. and he is, he's not just someone who is knowledgeable about how to make policy, but he is one of those rare people who approaches issues from the standpoint of thinking about them and conceptualizing about them, but then also acting on the ideas. and the ability to conceptualize and implement is a skill to rare, to rarely found. but bill very much embodies. so it's a pleasure to welcome him here, but i also, on behalf of rob satloff who couldn't be here as i mentioned earlier, and who was very pleased for us to be hosting this event, and also in the presence of sally lewis and her son richard, bill, we are pleased to welcome you here but we also want to present you with something.

i know you'll get no awards as you get ready to end your tenure as deputy secretary of state, but this is one that is to william j. burns, diplomat, strategies, patriot and recognition your distinguished service to our nation, september 29, 2014, washington institute for near east policy. it has a picture of bill in front of a dangerous -- the picture has in front of an area that is life minds behind him, and it quotes from theodore roosevelt. far and away the best price life offers is a chance to work hard at work worth doing. i get to give anybody who is more deserving. [applause] -- i can't think of anybody who is more deserving. >> well, thank you very much dennis, a good afternoon, everyone. i can't tell you both how touched and honored i am by

that, dennis, and i also happened to notice that the that reminds me of a time in her life, any of us dashed in of us dashed and neither does any greater but it's always an honor to be at the washington institute but it is a special honor to be introduced by dennis, someone for whom i've had great respect over many years. i've learned an enormous amount from you about what it is to be a diplomat and what it is to pursue our country's interests and our country's values, and how to do it with integrity and decency. so thank you very, very much. i'm also deeply honored to join all of you in celebrating the wonderful life and career of sam lewis, one of our country's most admired diplomats and peacemakers. from post-war naples to the 1973 afghanistan coup and from camp david to oslo, sam lived a life of significance and adventure that most diplomats could only dream of. and with sallie, he lived a life

of friendship and romance that would make woody allen weep. his texan charm, candor, courage, and common sense earned him the respect of countless leaders both abroad and here at home. he was as comfortable going jaw to jaw with counterparts in the negotiation room as he was going cheek to cheek with sharks on his many scuba dives off the coast of the sinai. he was a man who didn't just know where he and the country he loved needed to go. he knew how to get there, how to lead, and how to get things done. sam once called the peace treaty between egypt and israelan historic achievement in which he played an indispensable part, a mountain peak in a sea of sand. the same could be said about sam's own extraordinary career. generations of american diplomats have tried to learn from his example, follow in his footsteps, and scale the diplomatic peaks he conquered so skillfully over the years.