>> good evening. i'm andrew, the >> good evening. i'm anthony fauci, director of the scowcroft institute at the bush school of government at texas a&m university. i would like to welcome our special event this evening with wuhan who speaks on her recent book azar, saudi arabia, iran, the 40-year rivalry that unraveled culture, religion and

collective memory in the middle east. i spent the weekend reading it. i couldn't put it down it was so interesting. if you haven't read it after this evening i'm sure you will try to get the book if you haven't already and i urge you to read it. absolutely fascinating, very well-written, very well researched, there is a narrative flow to it and it is very troubling i have to say. i would like to announce unfortunately that our event in two days with ambassador dennis ross, is unable to come, he had a family emergency, so his lecture wednesday evening will be postponed until later. wuhan is an emmy award-winning journalist and writer on the middle east for 20 years for bbc, and the financial times. she reported from iraq, syria, lebanon and cover the war between israel and hezbollah earning enemy for international news coverage. she has also reported on the

state department and american politics regularly traveling with secretaries of state including condoleezza rice, hillary clinton and john kerry. she's been published in the atlanta, the washington post, foreign-policy and is currently nonresident scholar at carnegie endowment for international police in washington. her first book the secretary, was a new york times bestseller. the status regularly continues to speak on american telogen and radio. she was raised in lebanon but now lives between beirut and washington dc. if you have questions, please write them on the cards, bush school ambassadors with the blue blazers on, they walked all up and down the aisle, they will continue to do that and once you write questions, pass them to the aisle, pick them up, given to me and i will go

through them after wuhan speaks and i will ask her some questions. please join me in welcoming kim ghattas to the stage. [applause] >> good evening, everybody. it is a delight to be here this evening. thank you for the generous introduction. thank you for hosting me here at the scowcroft institute. i see in the front row my good friend, i am delighted to be back in texas. i haven't been here in a long time. i must complain about the weather. this will give me a good excuse to return. i'm here to speak about my recent book just out two weeks

ago, "black wave". in any book it is the result of the journey. every writing endeavor is a journey, many of you have written books. you know it can be an aggravating experience, very intellectual, lonely experience with every book is a journey but this one is more than the journey of the writing. it is a journey of 20 years of covering the middle east, a combination of my experience growing up as a child of war in beirut. i grew up during the civil war in the 80s and i wanted to write a story about that region that was not your typical story about the region. a lot has been written about the middle east. i'm sure you have read about the region, many of your

experts sitting here this evening. i wanted to write the story because i had questions that i did not find the answers to in the top books that were out there. i wanted to answer questions about the region that are often asked, what went wrong, what happened, why is it the way it is, but i wanted to come at it from a different perspective, the perspective from the region because i do think what is out there at the moment is not enough to explain why we got to where we are and i also think it does not do justice to the people of the region who have tried very hard to find different paths forward. my toxin readings, i tried to make it accessible to as large an audience as possible. many of you tonight are experts

on the middle east but i hope even for the experts i can bring something different answers in a different perspective why the region is the way it is today. what drove me to write this book is the fact that there wasn't much out there that addressed the core of the problem and it took me a while to put my finger on what it was that was the core of the problem or the point at which things have changed. what i want to do as a starting point is give you the conclusion. i know that is the wrong way around but it is important because what i try to do with my writing and the research i have done is go against the preconceived ideas people have about the middle east because

of media coverage, headlines, the intensity of the news that comes at us from the middle east. i want to start by telling you the things you know about the middle east are wrong. i hope you will allow me to start like that. i want to check out three things. iran and saudi arabia despite the headlines we see today in the last few decades that indicate it has always been like that, saudi arabia and iran have not always been rivals, have not always been enemies and we forget that. there was a time iran and saudi arabia you worked to counter communism in the region. they were competitors, allies in that endeavor. you had visits explained between the two countries. they called each other honorific titles. they were not the closest of friends but they were friendly and they cooperated in a lot of ways.

that is an assumption they may, that it has always been that way between iran and saudi arabia and it wasn't. the other one is a phrase we hear very often, muslims have always killed each other, in particular if you listen closely, sunni and shias always killed each, those are the two elements of islam. like the catholics and protestants, sunnis and shias or two sects of islam, they split after the death of the prophet mohammed when some thought his there should be his closest relative and those became the shias and others thought his there should be his closest confident and those became the sunnis. the first few decades following the profit's death those identities were not as clearly defined, they evolved over time.

that was another preconceived conception people have about the region when even president obama said they have been killing each other for millennia and it will always be like that i would like to take out it hasn't been like that and it also doesn't need to be like that forever. that is part of what drives the writing in this book, to remind us there was this past and there can be a different future. the final misconception people have particularly because it is the constant droning on of the headlines that are focused on tyrants and dictators, the region is always in the throes of violence and intolerant, the cultural intolerance defines the region. i would like to tell you it has not always been like that and doesn't always need to be like that. so what happened?

that is the classic question bernard lewis once asked but i would like to give you a different approach because that question, what happened to us, doesn't want us in the arab and muslim world. we repeat it like a mantra. for my country of lebanon to pakistan, from saudi arabia to syria. the past is a different country. it is one that is not mired in the horrors of sectarian violence, a more vibrant place without the crushing intolerance of religious zealots and endless wars. the past was not perfect. you had mores and coups as well but they were contained in time and space in the future did hold much promise. the question today in the region does not generally occur to those too young to remember

when vibrant tolerant society was the norm. those are the ones whose parents did not tell them of poetry in pakistan, it was a different connotation. or marxism in the bars of beirut or riding bikes on the river tigris. all of these things which seemed impossible. especially the question, it would surprise those in the west to assume it has always been as it is today. nostalgia is a complicated thing. it makes us think the past was perfect. in the united states there are people who have nostalgia for different time, 60s or 50s and forget the things that were wrong because we idealize the past.

i was not idealizing the past but i wanted to understand why things had unraveled, what was the starting point and they unraveled slowly at first without people noticing and then it took on an unexpected course in the last decade or 50 years. there are many turning points in any country or region that explains what happened and many turning points in middle east history whether it is the end of the ottoman empire or the last islamic caliphate after world war i, people say this is when the world lost its way, some people talk about the creation of israel in 1948 and the defeat of the arabs in 1967 as the moment there was a real fisher in the psyche of the

arab and muslim world. others skip directly to 2003 and the us-led invasion of iraq at the moment everything became worse that had already been like that. sunnis and shias killing each other, at each other's throes and people therefore because of the headlines the last two decades or so, it has always been like that, it is eternal. apart from the eternal none of these explanations are completely correct. the eternal part is totally wrong. i insist on underlying that but none of these explanations of the turning point in the region give you a complete understanding of why we are where we are today. as i dug deeper and deeper into

trying to find the answer i came back to that one year, 1979. a lot of you will remember that year is the year of the hostage crisis in tehran and the year of the iran revolution in february of that year, the hostage crisis was in november. at the same time as the hostage crisis you had another hostage crisis in saudi arabia in mecca when they laid siege to the holy mosque in the for two weeks and later that year in november, in december, on christmas eve you have the soviet invasion of afghanistan. those three events, the iranian revolution, the hostage crisis is the result of that in some respects but the iranian revolution, the siege of the holy mosque and the invasion of

afghanistan were seemingly independent events independent of one another but became completely intertwined. the combination of all three was toxic. first of all, from this confluence of events was born the saudi/iran rivalry. the two countries were friendly rivals before, no reason they should have become enemies, no apparent reason they should have become enemies or rivals after the iran revolution except for the fact they call themselves leaders of the muslim world. the two holy sites of mecca and islam and mecca and medina. ayatollah kemeny landed in iran in february of 1979 with

planned ambitions beyond just iran or the community of shias in his country and beyond. you had two countries saudi arabia, sunni, and when she sunni, iran, vying for leadership of the muslim world. that not only changes the geopolitics of the region but started slow growth of sectarian language and sectarian identities as both countries wielded those identities in their efforts to dominate the region, to rally the people to their side. in that battle they distort and exploit religion in the pursuit of something very simple that any world leader will understand, and that is raw power. from 1979 to this day, the

torrent that flattens everything. i believe nothing has changed the arab and muslim world as deeply and fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the way that started after those events. other alliances end or start wars. they see the beginning of fiscal movement and political ideology but 1979 changed the geopolitics, it did more than that. because they started using religion as a tool it had an impact on society, on culture and what's 1979 did was begin a process of transforming society and altered cultural and religious references. the dynamics that were unleashed since 1979 changed the we are in the region and

hijacked our collective memory. i was keen to have the words collective memory in the title. it is important to understand the processes unleashed by events like that when they rippled across not just years but decades. overtime people's memories of what came before, a lot of people in the united states forget that actually the iranian revolution did not begin as an effort to bring theocracy to the country. it was an effort to topple the shot where a lot of leftists and secularists and modernists were involved except ayatollah khameini road that wave and came out on top. the year 1979 and the four

decades that followed are the story i tell in "black wave". as i mentioned the rivalry went beyond geopolitics, descended into this constant effort to outbid each other in a holier than thou effort to show who was the real leader of the muslim world. they fought for islamic legitimacy through religious and cultural domination and changed not just within iran and saudi arabia but in countries that extended from egypt to pakistan and beyond. i couldn't include everything in this book because i tried to write it as a story, as a narrative. it is hard to keep a narrative on track if you include too many details and do many

places. i know you will say that pakistan is not part of the middle east. i have not forgotten my geography. what i wanted to do is show how the dots are connected across countries and across continents because is a tendency to look at them as only the middle east and pakistan and that dynamic as separate but they are very intertwined as well. pakistan's modern history is connected to events in the middle east, not only because of the jihad against the soviets that began after the invasion of afghanistan, pakistan played a crucial role and everyone remembers or should remember that that was us backed as well. that is why pakistan is central to the narrative in this book

as i look at how the iran revolution rippled out. there is a tendency to look at the iranian revolution in isolation. how did it affect iran or iran's role in the region but there is not enough effort to look at how it rippled across the region, how the sunni world reacted and interacted with it and other arab countries because there were a lot of reactions and they were not all negative. a lot of people admired, or some people admired how khameini managed to rise on top and bring theocracy to power in iran. what was interesting about the research i conducted for this book and the fact that i had pointed out 1979 as the crucial turning point was i found it everywhere i asked the question tell me about 1979 i found reactions were very validating to my thesis because people, i was met with a flood of

emotions. when i asked people in pakistan or egypt or baghdad, tell me about 1979, out came all their memories and emotions, everything they kept bottled up, question no one had asked them before because it is not easy when you are living in such upheaval to really come to terms or analyze what you are going through. they thought yes, 1979, let me tell you about 1979, how that wrecked my career or my marriage or my children's education, why i had to go into exile at that time, or how i had to lose my job after 1979 and why. even people who were not born before 1979 had a story because there is the beginning of an

understanding in the region about what that year has done to us. it felt a little bit like i was conducting national therapy for studies or living rooms as they poured their hearts out to me. i'm a journalist, not a historian, i'm not an academic but this is more than a reported narrative. i rely on interviews with people in these countries. we dug deep into the archives with my research assistants. we look that old footage, we read academic articles because it is very interesting to see how change -- when you look at academic articles written after the iran revolution or the siege in mecca and read about it now. when you put it together you

have a virtual livery of the history of the region. i have 19 binders full of printed papers that tell the story because i thought it was important to see in front of me the pictures, the articles, the headlines. imagine finding a headline from february of 1979 where saudi arabia welcomed the iranian revolution. they are sorry to see the shah go, they were concerned about the possibility of a communist takeover of iran. those with the trends of the time, islam was not the dominant story. they had somebody they could relate to even though he was shia, a very conservative man. he wanted to bring the koran to the country and they welcomed that. we can now cooperate on the

basis of our common religion and understanding of how it should be applied to society. when you look at these events and details, you put it all together, you put together a puzzle of known events, overlooked events, when you have the puzzle in front of you it gives you a different understanding, of the last four decades of history that spans twee 7 countries, i go from egypt to pakistan, iran, saudi arabia, iraq and lebanon. it shatters some of those accepted truths that even we have in the region because i can tell you sometimes even we forget sunnis and shias of not always kill each other. the two words were never really used. it wasn't that kind of conflict

but it is accepted in our collective memory that we forget what it looked like before. the saudi iran rivalry evil and mutated with consequences no one could have foreseen in 1979. there has been a lot written about the middle east i know that. i am trying to present a different approach. you will find lot of poetry, literature, music, cultural references in this book. because i think it is important to remember the richness of this region and to humanize this region which is so devoid of context in the headlines. it is not a book about terrorism. it is not a book about isis or the sunni or shia split or the dangers violent fundamentalists pose for the west.

this is everything you have already read or seen on television in the headlines, with all do respect my colleagues, even i sometimes, that is just the nature of our business and that is why i wanted to take a step back and write this book. this is the story of the people, there are very very very many, whose voices have not necessarily been heard, who have been silenced, but continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness in the region. they are intellectuals, poets, lawyers, young progressive clerics, they are men and women who have an equal number of men and women characters in the book because you don't hear enough from women in the region

even though they are feisty, strong, powerful, you should see what is happening in iraq, lebanon and iran with women leading protests against corruption and mismanagement of our country. they are mostly devout. my characters are mostly devout, they pray, they fast, they go to mosque, they go to church and still believe in the separation of church and state so you can't be a secular muslim. you can believe in separation of mosque and state. these are progressive thinkers who represent a very vibrant pluralistic society, still there underneath that black wave. they suffered immensely at the hands of those who wield power or a gun or are relentlessly intolerant of other people. some paid with their life.

many of them. some are in the pages of this book like my friend and colleague jamal khashoggi, the saudi journalist who was murdered in the saudi consulate in istanbul in 2018. you will find his story in these pages starting from one of the first chapters right after 1979, returned to the -- to saudi arabia from the us and you will meet him again a few chapters later when he becomes a journalist covering the jihad in afghanistan, you need him two chapters after that again when you return to saudi arabia as a narrative after 9/11 and he is the editor of the newspaper who gets fired for having printed very critical op-ed by one of his fellow writers criticizing the very austere puritanical creed of islam that is practiced in saudi arabia. you will meet him in the last chapter unfortunately.

i was writing a passage about jamal khashoggi's life, the passage around the time of 9/11 when he disappeared and he was killed. a very macabre twist to the tale i was telling about the saudi iran rivalry, one that i did not expect but one that i do think -- the connections were not immediately clear why this was part of the larger story but it was. i have given you the concluding thoughts and i have given you the ending with the last chapter but this is not a novel although i'm told it reads like a thriller but we know how it ends. we know where we are today and

it is not in a great place. we don't know how it ends. i do believe there is a better future ahead of us. i believe that because i look at the people who are protesting in iraq and iran and lebanon today who are again paying with their lives, continuing to take to the streets including the women in lebanon stand as a defense line between the police in front of them because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than the men standing behind them by the oppression of the police. the women are absolutely incredible in how they are taking to the streets, the politicians call for the women to return home, their calls for segregation in public spaces between men and women. they mock them and want to take us back to which century? we are in 2020. i am giving you a little bit of the ending. i have given you the conclusion but this tale begins just a few

years before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean in lebanon, my old country, and which plays an unfortunate role in development in the region and today again as well but a few years before 1979 on the shores of my country there is a little-known episode that played a crucial role setting the stage for the revolution and i would like to start the book with that because there is an irony to the fact this revolution that turned iraq, the persian kingdom, to a theocracy, a revolution that was cheered and organized by secular islamists, modernists as you are reminded of. the irony is that revolution that brought fundamentalist ayatollahs to power, in beirut

and paris, the capital of arab modernity and paris, the city of the enlightenment, the age of enlightenment. freedoms in both of these countries, ayatollah khameini might have died forgotten in a cold the sack in iraq. i'm not going to tell you too much more about how the story unfolds but what i loved about the research i did for this book is i learned a lot about the region. i found a lot of interesting gems hidden in the pages of our history. things that were surprising, the role the palestinian leader, yossi arafat, played in helping the iranian revolution come to be. the fact that the muslim brotherhood which was a power

to be reckoned with to some extent in some of these countries but was still in many ways a marginal political force, the muslim brotherhood looked to khameini's successfully even though they were sunni and he was shia they went to visit him to see what he could offer them. those are forgotten. it is important to go back in the past. it is important to look at the different pieces of the puzzle to understand why we got to where we are today. as i mentioned, characters like khameini and bashar al-assad don't lead the narrative. it is characters like jamal khashoggi, or the one who said defiant to the dictator of

pakistan, who are really at the heart of this book. the stories overlap in time, some of them know each other, some don't, they cross paths but are fighting for the same thing. they are fighting for a more progressive or more tolerant society, more progressive, more tolerant future. the stories are contained in stories of historical figures, so what you end up with was a type of 1001 nights of geopolitics. i would like to say the story is not over because as i mentioned we are still in the throes of upheaval and as i was writing this book i went back and forth - i settled on hope because there's no other way - one of the reasons i grew up in a civil war for 15 years and

waited for it to end because we were crazy to wait for so long but it is not that easy, you have to start from scratch from somewhere unknown. it is hard to leave your savings behind, your home, your belongings. we stayed -- that is the hope i see today in the region when i look around me. i know a lot of people in the united states have given up on the region but i urge you not to because progress takes time. we have a lot of factors the work against us. the arab uprisings are not over, they are not a failure. they are only beginning. to become what it is today. after the french revolution, it

takes time. i settled on hope and looked around in the region, young people, people who never heard much, and i see how they want to escape the ghosts of the past and build a different future, escape the ghost of 1979. i have written this book for people in the west, in the united states, and elsewhere who wonder what to offer in the region. i did like this book for those who remember the times before 1979 and ask what happened to us. perhaps i wrote it especially for the younger generation who ask their parents, why didn't you do anything to stop what

was unraveling? i was amazed to see the same question in saudi arabia and iran, they had a very different trajectory and different society. in both countries people are asking their parents why did you let 1979 happen to us like that? not only will the book provide you with a different perspective, much richer perspective on my region and our society but i hope this book provides clues for the younger generation to help them find a better path forward, one that is not determined by iran and saudi arabia. it is important to look back and understand what happened. the danish philosopher kierkegaard said it is perfectly true that life must be understood backwards but

they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forward and that is the only way to go. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much, if i may, kim as we have our own

scholar, and religious statecraft. you should read it because it is a reinterpretation of iranian revolution was i remember summer coming back, mohammed was very excited, found a diary at the widener library, leaders of the iranian revolution i found written evidence they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons. they will prove to the leftists with the cia and us government. these prominent people you see in the headlines, i kept looking at end notes and you

were quoting his book. >> it was instrumental, in the iranian this trying to outdo each other but even in countries and groupings trying to outbid each other. >> i raise this and understand why you didn't do it but the one country that was under the muslim brotherhood for 30 years barely mentioned in your book and that is sudan. hassan out to robbie was a highly brilliant scholar. don't know what that did to the economy of sudan.

in the summer of 1989, i was working for usaid for bush 41 and we took out a bottle of campaign -- campaign after hours not paid for by the government. we got rid of the democratically elected government which stonewalled release efforts, a quarter of 1 million people died and we are finally rid of this. i should have remembered the statement by scowcroft, when it is light at the end of the tunnel it is usually a train about to run you over. i learned that painfully. as time went on we realized r tarabi was a dangerous guy, to a half million people died when bashir was president. why didn't you mention this? it into your narrative perfectly? >> i'm trying to find a line where i mention it but rifling

through the book quickly, it is very interesting. there you go. i have it. so there is a technical reason. the technical reason, when you write a book driven by narrative, it is really like writing fiction where you have to keep the reader engaged and if you have too many side notes and detours it is hard to keep your reader engaged and hanging on. that is why you couldn't turn it down. i will take that to the bank. i felt terrible i couldn't write more about yemen, another strain on our collective

conscience, humanity that we could let this happen. i felt terrible that i only had one chapter on syria but there was a narrative, not an agenda, don't get me wrong. there wasn't a specific story that i wanted to save by ignoring other parts of the story but i was looking at the trend lines across 40 years and trying to pinpoint key moments, cultural or religious or social and pin them down in a specific country where they had happened. the rise of islamic militancy and sunni shia killings. the first moment when that happens in modern times. member i said they have not been killing each other forever. over the course of history they kill each other less than catholics and protestants except these are the headlines of today.

the moment it happened in modern times was in pakistan, wasn't even in the middle east. pakistan is a chapter where i saw that. every chapter has a specific turning point or issue i explore. i had a big score board on the wall, southern countries but i explore in four decades, posted with various events happening in each of these countries and various iraqs to detect the trend line. i had to illuminate a lot and unfortunately sudan was important but didn't fit the wider narrative. i do mention it in the book. it is very important and even in the region.

and and fighting back against, and having fears debates. and in a public debate once. and i would never suggest islam be insulted. don't insult islam. and which one are you suggesting as a model.

iran, saudi arabia and sudan have been failures. this is an islamic thinker, in the 90s in egypt pushing against more conservative thinkers. point to me one successful islamic state in modern times and goes on by saying why this session with islamic state for 1300 years since the first century after the profit, only one% of people advocated a religious state. 99% have advocated that to civil state. not long after this, one of those key turning points, as a martyr of the nation, when killed by radical extremists, 20 years later the same thing happens in pakistan where a

governor is declared an apostate for defending a christian woman it is murdered in broad daylight and no one dares to come out and mourn him and declare him a marcher of the nation, that is how fast things unraveled. >> one thing that is curious but interesting is shia make up 10% of islam. it is 10% versus 90%. not very much. 90-10. the majority country, iran, 20% of pakistan. >> the largest shia population

- some -- actually brought up. the leader of a sect within shia islam. he is really -- i brought it up to a diplomat once who started yelling, they are not muslims and on and on and even within each of these great traditions, i walked into a surface mosque in morocco, 15 years ago. the chanting of the men was very similar to the chanting in an orthodox church, very beautiful, very mystical. >> part of the heritage we lost. >> exactly right. the question is how is it a country that only makes up 10%, 15%, why does it pose such a

threat to saudi arabia -- you talk to king abdullah in jordan or egyptians privately, a huge threat of iran, it is a small percentage and there is this fear -- >> it goes to two factors in a nutshell. ayatollah khameini wanted to appeal to the wider muslim world. he didn't just want to be an iranian leader or shia leader, he wanted to appeal to the wider - he did two things. he challenge the saudis as soldiers of the holy sites, the iranian's often called for

joint body to be custodian of holy sites. that drives the saudis crazy. they the right a lot of legitimacy and power and money as well and very lucrative to be custodian of these holy sites. 1979 as part of the preparation, the revolution of iran, ayatollah khameini identified palestinian calls give appeal beyond the borders so that is one of the episodes that begins the book. between khameini and the palestinians, where having been disappointed by the loss in 1967 against the israelis.

he is starting to make moves toward american camp and peace with the israelis. who is going to help me now. and young iranian's, militants working - and the palestinian camp, that is how the connection unfolds. khameini identified the palestinian cause, to transcend iran. and to appeal to people. the man who could come in when

arabs, and in lost their a . >> arafat, and it was about power. he had no problem greeting khameini. and at the revolution, the first for and against terry who landed in tehran a week after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by people in iran and they chanted today iran, tomorrow jerusalem but 40 years later what happened in the interim is iran worked doggedly

and strategically in maintaining its appeal to people outside iran and the shia community. they discarded arafat and only paid lip service to the palestinian cause, the radical palestinian militants and they have an outfit, part of the islamic revolutionary guard and the mosque in jerusalem, the arabic word named after jerusalem and the arabic word -- getting tangled up in my language here. iran's expeditionary expansionist paramilitary force around the region that it until very recently by soleimani, many of you know that name now, who was killed in a us drone strike in january of this year on the orders of donald trump.

and and soleimani thought the road to toronto jerusalem went through beirut with untold devastation for people along the way. the fear, the reason saudi arabia fears iran was expansionist policies. appeals in way saudi arabia does not because it is firmly in the american camp where iran is in the anti-imperialist camp. both of these countries need each other. the saudis need or benefit from seeing iran continue to be a

negative player in the region. they continue to be america's best friend in the region. >> you mentioned general soleimani's name. i want to raise that because it was after your book was published. >> is going was not in the book but is in the book. the last, the last page of the last chapter is a video animation put together, online saudi outfit that shows forces liberating tehran from the regime, soleimani on his knees giving himself up to the saudis and realize giving it up to the americans to do it.

>> with leon panetta, after soleimani's killing, the when you wrote, it wasn't the atlantic where you describe what the us needs to do now, if you leave it this way, you need to follow up additional messages. what is the effect of soleimani's death on the calculus, he switched sides leading the demonstration to get iran out of iraq, now he is leading demonstrations to get the united states out of iraq. >> he visited riyadh, he blows with the wind. important to remember soleimani did run a network of murderous militias from iraq to syria to

yemen so the focus in the immediate aftermath was it is going to be between the us and iran. it was a sense that it is constant war and violence and a lot of people in iraq and syria celebrated the demise in iran and iraq. we have seen the footage of people coming out in morning but there were a lot of people who were very relieved, and the crackdown against peaceful protesters in 2009, 2017, 2018, 2019, this man was finally gone. what is happening in the region is all different parties that are proxy, militias, more detached allies jockeying for position to use this moment to come on top and that is what

our solder is doing and wondering if he can seize this moment to become the ultimate leader in the region. i will say iran and iran's allies in the region are good at turning moments of potential witness vulnerability to moments of strength. after 2003, in damascus. they seized the moment as much as they could. many years later or until very recently the accepted state of affairs is the us lost iraq to iran and they were ready from the get go to turn this to your advantage and the same is

happening now, turning soleimani to a moment to solidify their gains because they will not use violence to bolster what was in front of the menses what they can exit they are facing headwinds because of these protests in iraq and lebanon and the stranglehold on politics of this region. >> you mentioned the women's movement, the revolution, the uprising that led to the demise of president bashir in sudan and civil society. >> iconic image of the young sudanese woman dressed in white with gold earrings on top of the car, these are the examples. >> the foreign minister of sudan, unheard of.

you mentioned women but is there a connection between young people in the middle east and the demand they are making for reform and change, democracy - >> democracy is under attack around the world. .. democracy when i talk about the region because it has become associated with specific u.s. driven agendas. and i think people in the region want to set their own agenda and i think we have to trust -- i trust that we know w and one what is more progressive, more diverse, more tolerant future, but democracy as a cookie-cutter template doesn't work exactly the same everywhere. you have variations. in representation, in electoral systems, et cetera. i do think that people across the region are connected in many

ways. if you listen to the chanting in the streets of beirut, you'll hear b them say -- from tehran o beirut, one revolution that does not die. and they are not talked about 1979. they are very much talked talkt the protests taking place today that are challenging the corrupt leadership, the mismanagement and the sectarianism. and i know that our focus so far in the conversation has been very much on iran, lebanon, iraq and shia, and iran's role that it's important to remember that there have been uprisings also in 70 countries. this is not a denominational thing, and it is not only an anti-iran thing. a lot of people are also fed up with the influence that saudi arabia has had on religion and culture in the region. and saturdays, although today

they have a -- saturdays. although today they have a crown prince who wants to appear as a reformer and does many things that feed into the agenda of reform, a lot of saudi is live in fear of what the crown prince is doing and the repression that is falling upon the country. women activists who fought for the right to drive, this is a fight that is been going on for decades, a lot of the young activists and older activists have found themselves in jail right before the crown prince or the king rather because the order still comes from the top where the decrees are signed at the top, they found themselves in jail for having campaigned for the right to drive, just as that right was granted to women in the kingdom. because in the kingdom of saudi arabia those rights are still granted by the king. it is up to his magnanimity to make this possible. as i think that yes, in saudi

arabia can people are also yearning for a different future. they are getting a lot of what they have missed over the last few decades, with cinemas opening and museums opening and dj parties and jazz concerts and all that. but again that is the western model of culture that the crown prince thinks he should bring to the kingdom. young people in the country ask, what about our traditional arts and culture andr our traditional dancing of things like that? it's a bit of a crisis of identity i would say today in the kingdom. . >> there is some evidence that saudi arabia, the crown prince and prime minister is reaching out quietly to the iranians for an approach meant, is it possible that this war will end because it's very interesting theory, the united states seems to be pulling back and even though the president ordered the killing of soleimani, many of

his supporters are saying now you kill them, let's get out. so the united states may not be seen as central in the middle east or pivotal in the middle east any longer and so maybe the saudis say the united states is not reliable so we'll have to make it out sometime, if it does what the complexion of the middle east change? >> we have had the talk and in the region before between the two countries pray th. the '90s with fewer wars and fewer battles because the saudis and iranians were actually on good terms, that made a huge difference. the saudis often rushed toward the talks with the iranians when they feel endangered, when they

feel their position is endangered. it happened during the iran, iraq war where the iranians were on the verge or what it felt like to the saudis as a possible all-out victory, against who don sued oandthey went to toronto it mistaken, and the saudis offer huge confrontation to iran, billions of dollars if they would just bring an end to the conflict because they did not want to see it outright iranian victory. the iranians had requirements that the saudis could not abide by, that included the issue of a joint body for custody over the two holy sites and that something that the saudis could not handle. and we have seen the moments

before them in the '90s it was ushered in at the end of the iranian rack were, they were worried that perhaps the iranians were defeated and iraq war but now the have to deal with saddam so they tried to find a way where they could keep iran on their better side. the talk between the two countries is not possible, however, they believe that all the moments were used by iran to solidify its efficiency. while the diplomats were smiling, the iranian guard was thinking they are called deeper into areas of the region, opening cultural centers that post as a front for revolutionary guard activity. andy said very clearly that he will not be fooled again, those are his words, you will not be fooled by the smiles of iranian diplomats anymore.

does he want an all-out work, no. i think he wants the status quo to some extent, he does not want iran to gain too much more, he wants to be heard and contained but he also worries about president trump not being enough of a solid ally but he's not an ally who will go to bat for the saudis, there is to american strategic interests, he will kill soleimani but he will not necessarily come to his defense if he started by iran. the saudis feel they need to hedge your back a little bit and has been in direct talks between the saudis and iranians over the last few months but i don't see p's between them were full time. i think by now it is going to require real change in behavior of the authorities in iran and i don't see that happening either.

>> one other massive change and i saw an article in the washington post, i cannot remember what year but maybe five or six years ago when one of the prince's in the world family in saudi arabia said israel now house the same interest as we have, you never hear that in the saudi royal family saying something like that. so israel now is not the threat it was before, israel always thought egypt since the signing of the peace corporation, to have other arab states seeing israel as a counterbalance to iran and therefore consistent with their own interest, that is a big change. >> that is a big change. it's a big change, it explains why arab countries did not

forcefully reject president trump's peace plan, even though they mad may disagree with her,y put out a sharp statement at the arab league but it does not serve much purpose, the statement was literally to the palestinian because countries like saudi arabia want to stand president trump's good side, because they want it to be about the focus to be encountering tehran and even if they don't, as i just mentioned feeling president trump would necessarily come to their immediate defense if they are threatened by iran or talk by ron, they still feel this is the camp that will serve them best and therefore they're willing to be silent on certain issues as long as israel is also doing some of the countering of iran john in the region. i think i saw today that

iranians and the americans and the israelis have agreed that one will take on ira i around in syria and the other will take on iraq and that will survive. >> you have a lot of stories you do not put in the book. >> yes, i do, time for another book. >> so many stories. >> will there be a sequel. >> , i don't know which one is

always a challenge to see where you have the most information where you can work with i'm not sure, there's one incident and is about a safari club, the safari club was the name of an intelligence corporation group -- intelligence group that brought together the saudis, the iranians, before 1799, the french, the americans if i'm not mistaken and possibly the british and it was called safari because they met at the safari club in kenya. it was a bit of intelligence officers from these countries were the height of the cold war, they plotted and debated in various countries where they were worried about the advance

of communism. i always wondered what more do we know about this, i have not found any books about it. >> i don't think there's many books written about it. but i know it existed. >> it did exist. and there are lot of interesting aspects to it and i sort of think it would be good to write an article about it and write a novel based on that. >> when i was president bush 43 envo43envoy to sedan and i met h all these in egypt and ethiopia, kenya, uganda and libya and libya was a most interesting because i met four hours, he left very quickly when the government was going down the tubes but he was very powerful and he had a map in the peace agreement, there was 70 ages of the intelligence service and

libya giving money and weapons out to the rebels because they did not like bashir, i said wait a second, you are handing out weapons and he mentioned all the leaders who i was trained to negotiate with. i realize the oversight but i did not realize how central libya was to what was going on. so the best conversation that i had for the intelligence chief, whenever my history of sudan i could not mentioned in the notes where the information came from what it was very useful to understand the complexities of the region, they keep shifting. >> i think espy said in the 70s in the middle east. [laughter] it was interesting. >> there would be a movie. what is a moderating influence in iran, let's put some time aside, for a while now, certainly the regime is using this to reunite the populations

behind the theocracy. but that will not last forever because -- >> at 30 ended. >> at 30 ended really. >> i think it was a very brief moment of unity and i have seen some iranians dispute the numbers of people who participated in the funeral of soleimani in the large crowds. i'm not an expert and things like that but some people have disputed the numbers. i also think in moments like that people come out out of fear for what could happen to the country, no matter what they think of the regime. out of fear they can be punished if they do not show up because it's still a country that is run in an autocratic way so customs are close, shops are close, you have to show up, i don't doubt out of nationalism people also

mourned him. of course, i'm not an iranian expert, i would like to make that clear. i have not spent enough time there. but i think when you look at what is happening in iran today and particularly what happened after the downing of the ukrainian plane when 170 people died, full of young promising iranians and running canadian in various hyphenated nationalities in the authorities and the guard specifically very clearly lighting over the course of several days that they were responsible, they lied or hid the reality, the truth from the president ho the people expressd on the streets in the aftermath of the mission that this had been tehran's halt it tells you,

how brittle things are. i am not one to predict the fall of the regime at all, i also think it would be very chaotic but i do think something is coming undone and you never know with what speed it accelerates and you never know to what extent the regime is willing to go to hold onto power, whether it's the young people protesting or the women protesting against the mandatory on the daily basis and what is a war of attrition against the regime's control over society and whether the labor movement that is organizing in the country and reducing the challenges are mounting, if not for the regime but at least the regime's way of doing things. so these other moderating influences in society. >> i had a student from afghanistan tell me and they lifted up and he was right, in

the 1960s there were afghan woman's wearing miniskirts. the perception that afghanistan was an evil society for a thousand years and they had not made any progress in number identity is simply nonsense. this is in the cities, not in the rural area. >> i seen this picture, i wrote an article as well to point out when you look at these pictures, particular in a country like afghanistan, what you look at is a westernized elite, the minority. when you see pictures like that in a country that is larger and at the time more modernized like egypt, then women in skirts was not westernized minority but an expression of choices made by more than a minority. what i like to make clear is

what women in the middle east want, it's not the right to wear a miniskirt, maybe they don't want to wear a miniskirt, what they want is the right to choose. whether they want to wear the skirt or not, that's what we've lost the freedom to choose. which is what defined her society before. even in iran today, the women protesting against the mandatory veil, some of them are veiled and they weren't right choice. they want their fellow iranian women to have the choice to wear it or not. and that is what people are protesting against. when it comes to afghanistan in particular, we heard joe biden in the debate say afghanistan -- all paraphrase in the book, country can never be put together, we take issue with statements like that. i think it's too easy to dismiss a whole country like that whether it's iran or iraq,

similar statements were made at the time and it ties in with the statement of always killed each other, it's been like that forever, it's a little bit of a compound, it's a way of saying we cannot do anything we will not try. that is not to say that we are calling for you as intervention or invasion to fix us, that's not the solution either. but it's too easy to dismiss as people who cannot get their act together, we are seeing tremendous odds and some of those include u.s. backing for dictator. in egypt, and other countries of the region. dictators who us preconceived is of the region. they safety their means, the modernizing man looked in a suit

or the fundamentalist crazies. that is a not the minor choice that is available in the region. i think we need to have more faith in the region. >> were pastor do in terms of time we were going to have this talk together, i would like to thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much for having me, this is the center of the united states but the rest of the country does not know is lawyerly see it this way. we appreciate you coming all the way from washington or beirut. >> thank you so much for having me, it was a pleasure being here [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the c-span online store has booktv products.

go to c-span store.org to check them out. see all the booktv and c-span products available. >> the winners are in for this year's studentcam video documentary competition. we asked students what issue do you most want the presidential candidates to address in the 2020 campaign. we received more than 2500 entries from 44 states with more than 5000 students participating in with our winners telling us the most important issues are climate the most important issues of climate change, gun violence, college affordability, the opioid crisis, mental health, and immigration. now it's time to announce all of our first prize winners.

>> it doesn't matter which party you associate with. it doesn't matter for whom you end up voting. if you access to the internet, social media is going to influence your vote. we have to exercise critical thinking and keep an eye on the sources which is to follow. otherwise, the united states will just be the next official media victim. >> everybody wants action but nobody wants conviction. by reining in executive power we can't ensure the control wielded in washington remains balanced among the three branches of government. and so ask the 2020 candidates, how will you put a halt to the runaway train of executive

overreach? >> johnson & johnson, through misleading marketing, overprescribed opioids, and as a result, oklahomans became addicted creating this nuisance, this opioid epidemic. >> the more you get money from certain types of sources, the more you are beholden to though sources. and what you want to be is to be free enough to make decisions based upon what you think is in

the best interest of your district and the nation. >> in 2016, cambridge analytica collected data to influence the 2016 election from 87 million facebook users, of which only 270,000 had consented. this time we are not faced with music piracy. we are faced with personal information piracy. >> congratulations to our grand prize winners. >> none of us has taken form of video production classes and we all just got together as friends. friends. we did do this as part of a

class. so we're at the harker school right now and this is one of the top stem schools in the country. one around us is doing other projects and everyone is think about working for tech companies. but we were thinking that sometimes the our evidence with the tech copies, data breaches come all that stuff, without bringing a voice to the concerns of many, we thought it would be important. >> that helps were in silicon valley which is in center of all the tech change. >> our studentcam video documentary competition has awarded more than $1 million in total prices since 2004. the top 20 when winning entries will err on c-span starting april 1. you can watch all studentcam documentaries online at studentcam.org. >> yesterday, after the senate passed the coronavirus economic aid package, senators came to

the floor to share their thoughts on the aid package and the next steps the senate should take to address the pandemic. here's what they had to say, starting with republican senator james lankford from oklahoma. >> three months ago, no one in the country, in fact, no one in the world had heard the term covid-19. t the term coronavirus was around but most folks didn't use that because it wased connected to sars. in december 2019 an infection started in china and it spread rapidly through the wuhan region. by january there thousands of people affectedec before most of the world even knew it existed. not almost every country in the world has infections. we have hundreds of thousands of people that it had contact with