radio apps and be part of the conversation through the daily washington journal program or through our social media feed. c-span created by private industry. america's cable television comedy is a public service and brought you today by your television provider. .. >> good evening. i'm andrew, the director of the scowcrof director of the scowcroft institute of international affairs at the bush school of government here at texas a&m university. i would like to welcome ourve special event this evening with kim ghattas who is going to speak on a recent book, "black wave: saudi arabia, iran, and the forty-year rivalry that unraveled culture, religion, and collective memory in the middle east" i had to suspect the week in reading it. i didn't quite get through it but i t couldn't put it down, it was oh interesting. if you haven't read after this evening i'm sure you will try to

get the book if you haven't already but i would urge you to read it. it's absolutely faceting, very well written, very relevant research. there's a narrative flow to it and it's very troubling i have to say but that's the purpose of the book i think. i would like to announce unfortunately that our event in two days with ambassador dennis ross who's another expert in the middle east is unable to come to college station. he had a family emergency, so his lecture wednesday evening will be postponed until later. kim ghattas is an emmy award-winning journalist and writer who cover the middle east for 20 years for bbc and the financial times picture reported from iraq, saudi arabia, syria, lebanon,n, and she covered the r between israel and hezbollah earning an emmy for international news coverage. she's also reported on the state department and on american politics regularly traveling

with secretaries of state including condoleezza rice, hillary clinton and john kerry. she has been published in atlanta, the "washington post", foreign policy, and is a nonresident scholar at the carnegie endowment for international peace at washington. her first book, the secretary, was a "new york times" bestseller. ms. ghattas regularly speaks, continue speak on american television and radio. she was born and raised in lebanon but she now lives between beirut and washington, d.c. if you have questions, please write them on the cards. the bush school ambassadors who had the blue blazers on have with them, they walked up and down the aisle but they willy continue to do that and then once you write the questions, ask them to the aisle. they will pick them up, give them to meiv and i will then go through them after ms. ghattas speaks. the two of us will sit up here and i'll askqu you some questios

and then take your questions fromom the cards. 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 very generouss introduction and for hosting me here at the annenberg conference center into the scowcroft is and the bush school for hosting me. i see in the front row my good friend thank you very much for helping to make this happen. i am delighted to be back in texas. i haven't been here in a long time. i must complain about the weather but this gives me a good excuse to return. i am here to speak to you about my recent book just out a few weeks ago. as any book, it is the result of

a journey. every writing endeavor is a journey i'm sure many of you have written books and you know that it can be very isolating and very intellectual and lonely experience. it's a combination of my experience as a child of war in beirut i grew up during the civil war during the 80s and i wanted to write a story that wasn't your typical story about the region. a lot has been written about the middle east and i'm sure many of you have read about the region and are probably experts sitting here this evening. i had questions i did not find

the answers to in the classic books that are out there and i wanted to ask the questions about the region that are often asked what went wrong and what happened and why is it the way it is but i wanted to come at this from a different perspective it's not enough to explain how we got to where we are and i also think that it does justice to the people of the region who have tried very hard to find a different path forward. in my talks and readings i try to make it accessible and i'm sure many of you here tonight are experts on the middle east but i hope that even for the experts i can bring some different answers into different

perspective as to why the region is the way it is today. what drove me to write this book is the fact i found there wasn't much that address to the core of the problem and it took me a while to even put my finger on what it was or what was the point at which things had changed but i want to give you the conclusion and i know that it is important because i think what i try to do with my writing and research goes against some of the preconceived ideas that people have about the middle east because of the knee-jerk coverage and the headlines and the intensity of the news that comes at us from the middle east so i want to start by telling you some of the things you know about the middle east are wrong

and i hope that you will allow me to start on that. i want to point out three things. i want to start by saying iran and saudi arabia, despite the headlines we see today at the last feand thelast few decades o indicate it's always been like that, saudi arabia and iran have not always been rivals. they have not always been enemies and they forget that. it was a time that iran and saudi arabia were to counter communism in the region. they were friendly competitors in that endeavor. they called each other with titles and they were not necessarily the closest of friends but they were friendly and cooperative in a lot of ways so that is an assumption that it's always been like that between iran and saudi arabia, and it wasn't.

it's always going to be like that and they've always kill each other. those are the two that simplify. some people thought that his error should be the closest relatives and some people thought that it should be his closest confidant and that eventually became the sunnis but even the first few decades following, those identities were not as clearly defined. it evolved over time and so that is tha another preconceived ides and misconceptions they will havbothhave about the region evn

president obama said he had been killing each other for women wanting millennia the final misconception people have particularly because of the constant droning on at the headlines that are focused on tyrants and dictators is that the region has always been in the throes of finance and intolerant, but total intolerance and i would like to tell you that it hasn't always been like that. so, what happened i know that is the classic question that bernard lewis once asked if i would like to give you a very

different approach because the question what happened to us does haunt us in the arab and muslim world. we do repeated like a mantra from my own country of lebanon all the way to pakistan from saudi arabia to syria. for the past it is really a different country. it's one that isn' isn't mightir thamired in thehorrors of sectae vibrant place without the crushing. now the past wasn't perfect but they were contained in tiny manned space into the future didn't hold much promise. the question perhaps today in the region doesn't necessarily occur to those that are too young to remember when vibrant parliament societies were the norm, those are the ones whose

parents didn't tell them. they have very different connotations these days and debating in beirut. they would surprise those in the west but assume it has always been as it is that is not what drove me. i wasn't idealizing the past but i wanted to understand.

it unraveled very slowly at first without people noticing in the first decade or 15 years. there are many turning points in any country or any regions in history that explain. it's the end of the ottoman empire and fall of the calipha caliphate. the u.s. innovation is the

moment when everything became worse that had already been like that. sunnis and shiites in iran at each other's throat. over the last two decades or so it's always been like that. it's for the inevitable and eternal it is completely correct and the eternal part of these explanations greatly if you a complete understanding of why we are where we are today. as i dug deeper and deeper to find the answer of what happened, i kept coming back to the one year, 1979. a lot of you will remember that year as the year of the hostage

crisis. it was of course also the year of the iran resolution, the hostage crisis was in november. at the same time as the hostage crisis in tehran, there was another type of hostage crisis in saudi arabia that led to the holy mosque for two weeks and later that year in november or december on christmas eve h thee was the soviet invasion of afghanistan. those events, and i focus on the resolution because the crisis as the result of god but the resolution and the siege of the holy mosque and the invasion of afghanistan were seemingly independent of one another but they became completely

intertwined in the combination of all three. first of all, from this confluence of events as i mentioned there was no immediate reason why they should have become enemies. except for the fact they were leaders of the muslim world and custodians of the sites of mec mecca. in tehran in 1979 also had grand ambitions beyond just iran and the community in his own country

and beyond. so you have two countries, saudi arabia, one shia suddenly vying for leadership of the muslim world and that is not only the change of the politics in the region started slow growth of sectarian language as both countries yielded those identities and their efforts to dominate the region and rally the people to their side and in that battle, they both distort and exclude religion and the pursuit any leader would understand and that is raw power, but that is the constant from 1979 to this day. i believe nothing has changed as

deeply and fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the ways that started after those events. other pivotal moments and or start wars. they began a process that transformed the society.

i think it's important to understand when they ripple across not just years but several decades over time people's memories of what came before. but it didn't begin as an effort to bring theocracy to the country. they rode that wave and came out on top. the story that i tell the

rivalry went beyond to the politics and the efforts to outbid each other in this holier than thou effort to show the leader of the muslim world they thought the islamic legitimacy through the religious and cultural domination. but the result may not in saudi arabia in a more subtle way that countries that extended all the way from egypt to pakistan and beyond. i couldn't include everything is so mentioned and it's hard to keep the negative on track if it includes too many details and countries and places. i know that you will see pakistan isn't part of the geography, but what i wanted to really do is show how the dots

are connected across countries and across even continents, because there's a tendency to look at the middle east is not only the middle east and a tendency to look at it them as separate but they are very intertwined as well. and of course everyone remembers or should or that it was the u.s. backed as well and it's central to the narrative to the book as i look at how the revolution was pulled out again.

to look at how it rippled across the region and how the world reacted and interacted with it. they were not all negative and a lot of people admired for some people admired how they managed to rise on top and bring the theocracy to power the fact that i pointed out in 1979 as a crucial turning point was i found everywhere i asked the question i found the reactions were very validating to my thesis. i was met with a flood of emotions.

tell me about 1979 and out came all the memories and emotions and everything that they kept bottled up this was a question that no one had asked them before because when you are living in such an upheaval to come to terms or analyze what you're going through so some people thought yes, 1979. 1979. what they tell you about 1979 and held wrecked my career or marriage or her children's education ochildren's educatione at this time and how i have to lose my job after 1979 and why. there's the beginning of the understanding in the region about what that fear has done to

us. it felt a little bit like i was conducting actual therapy with peoples studies and poured their hearts out to me. i am a journalist, not a historian or academic but this is more than a recorded narrative with my interviews of people in these countries. they dug deep into the archives of my research and looked at old footage and read articles, academic articles written at a time because it is interesting to see the prospect of change when you look back at the archives after the iran revolution or the siege in mecca and read about it now. when you put it all together you get a virtual library of the history of the region i have 19 binders full of printed papers

but told the story because i thought it was important to be able to see in front of me the pictures, the headlines. imagine finding a headline of some february 1979 where they welcome the iranian revolution because the port authority key was their friend and they were initially concerned about the possibility that there would be a communist takeover of iran because those were veterans at the time because it was not a dominant story and when they saw that he was rising to the top and somebody they could kind of relate to and they welcome that and said we hope that we can cooperate on the basis of the common religion and understanding of how it should be applied to the society.

when you put it all together you put together a puzzle of no event, forgotten event and when you have the puzzle in front of you it gives you a very different understanding, a different reading of the last four decades of history and expands seven countries as i hai mentioned i went from egypt to pakistan, saudi arabia and lebanon and it shatters some of those truths that we have in the region because even we forget they haven't always been killing each other. i grew up in the civil war in lebanon and they were never really used. it wasn't that kind of conflict but it is accepted in our collective memory that we forget what it was like before. and that rivalry evolved and

mutated over time with consequences that no one could have foreseen in 1979. now there has been a lot written i know that, but i am trying to present a different approach you will find a love of poetry and literature and cultural references because it's important to remember and humanize the region that has been devoid of context in the headlines so thi this isn't a bk about terrorism, it isn't a book about al qaeda or isis. it is and even about the dangers that the fundamentalists pose for the west. it's about everything that you have already read and seen on television. with all due respect to my colleagues even i sometimes because that is just the nature

of our business and why i wanted to take a step back and write this book. this is the story of the people and they are very many whose basis hasn't necessarily been heard, who have been silenced but are not silent because they continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness in the region. they are intellectuals, poets, lawyers, iranians and pakistan pakistanis, they are men and women, they have an equal number of women and characters in the book because you do not hear enough from women in the region.

for the corruption and mismanagement of the countries. they are mostly devout. they pray, they go to the mosques just like you did go to church and you believe in the separation of church and state. it isn't an oxymoron. you can't believe in the separation of mosques. these are progressive thinkers that represent the very vibrant pluralistic societies that are still there underneath the black wave. they've suffered immensely at the hands of those that 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 as my colleague, the saudi journalist was murdered in the consulate.

you will find stories in the ane pages starting from one of the first chapters break after 1979 when he returned from his days as a student and then again a few chapters later when he becomes a journalist covering afghanistan. he is the editor of a newspaper that gets fired for having printed very critical criticizing the puritanical creed of islam that is practiced in saudi arabia. fortunately you will meet him in the last chapter.

.. the connections were not immediately clear as why this was part of the larger story that it really was. i have given you the conclusion, the concluding and the ending with the last chapter, of course this is not a novel although i'm being told it reads like a thriller. but we know how we didn't to some extent, we know where we are today and it's not a great place, but we do not know how it ends because i do believe there is a better future ahead of us, i believe that because they look at the people who are protesting in iraq and iran and lebanon today who are paying with their

lives and facing the bullets and continuing to take to the streets including the women and lebanon stand as a defense line between them and to behind them in the place in front of them because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than the man standing behind them by the repression of the police, the women in the square are absolutely incredible and how they're taking to the streets and mocking the politician calls for the women to return home and their calls for segregation and public places between men and women, they mock them and say you want to take us back to which century, we are in 2020. now, i'm giving you a little bit of the ending and similar conclusion but the tail actually begins just a few years before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean and lebanon, my

own country which plays many times and on fortunate role in development in the region antedate as well. in a few years before 1979 on the shores of my country there was an episode that played a crucial role in setting the stage for the resolution and i would like to start the book without because there is such an irony to the fact that this revolution that turned around from a persian kingdom to a bureaucracy a revolution that was feared and organized by sekulow leftist and modernism as now you're reminded of. , the irony is that that revolution, the revolution that brought this fundamentalist to power to two cities of sin, beirut in paris. beirut, the paris, the capital

and paris, the city of the enlightenment, the birthplace of the enlightenment. it is not for freedoms of both of these countries he may have died forgotten in a cul-de-sac in the city in iraq. i am not going to tell you too much more about how the story unfolds but what i loved about the research that i did for the book, i learned a lot about the region, i found a lot of interesting gyms headed in the pages of her history, things that were surprising, the role that the palestinian leader at the time played as well. in helping the iranian resolution come to be. the fact that the muslim butter under brotherhood which was still a power to be reckoned with us to some extent and some of these countries but was still

in many ways a marginal political force in the muslim od looked to his success and thought perhaps, we could do this here and even though they went to visit him in high run to see what he could offer him. those are all episodes that are forgotten. but i think it is important to go back into the past because it is important to look back at the different pieces of the puzzle to understand why we got to where we are today. as i mentioned, the characters are not the keys that drive the narrative, it is the characters like the television anchor in pakistan who said defiantly no to the nature pakistan who are really at the heart of this book. their stories overlapping and time, some note each other, some trespass, some not.

but they are all fighting for the same thing. they are fighting for a more progressive and tolerant society, for a more progressive and tolerant future, the stories are contained within the other stories of historical figures and so what you end up with is a type of 1001 nights in eastern geopolitics. i would like to stay the story is not over because as i mentioned we are still in the thrones of the people. as i write this book, i went back and forth between true despair but i eventually settled on hope because there is no other way forward. what one of the reasons i grew up in the civil war for 15 years we waited for it to end and you could perhaps say we were crazy

to wait so long and not leave the country but it is not that easy to leave your home country. you have to start from scratch, somewhere else unknown, tarred, your savings is behind, your home, your belongings. so we stayed in the hope that things would when one day get better. that is the hope that i see still 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 that work against us. the uprising is not over and not a failure. they are only beginning and the united states took some time to become what it is today. after the french revolution, democracy was not instant, the instant result the day after. it takes time and so i settled on hope because they look around

me and i look at young people younger than me, people who have never known or heard much about the days before 1979 and i see how they want to escape the ghost of the past, they want to build a different future, they want to escape the ghost of 1979. so while i written this book for people in the west in the united states and elsewhere who wonder what really went wrong in the region, i did write this book for those who remember the times before 1979 and who asked what happened, perhaps i wrote it especially for the younger generation who today ask their parents, why did you not do anything to stop what was unraveling. why did you let this happen and i was really amazed to see that same question posed into

countries that have a very different trajectory in a very different society. in both countries people are asking the parents, why did you let 1979 happened to us like that. so i hope that not only will the book provide you with a different perspective, much richer perspective on my region in our society but i hope this book also provides clues for the younger generation to help them find a better path forward, one that is not determined by ironic and soldier rabia, it's important to look back so you can understand what happened because as a philosopher said it is perfectly true that life must be understood backwards. but they forget the other proposition that it must be

moved forward and that's only way to go. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much. before i begin, we have our own scholar of iran mohammed who's written a remarkable book on religious sage grouse, if you have not read it you should read

it because it's a reinterpretation of the iranian revolution. i remember one summer coming back from a vacation, mohammed was very excited and he said he found a diary in the library of people and leaders of the iranian revolution, i found written evidence by the leaders, they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons, they did it because they wanted to prove to the leftist that they were not in bed with the cia and the u.s. government, i remember his excitement in finding these diaries very prominent people and you see in headlines and around. i noted that you used his book in your book or the endnotes

they were turned out to each other but within countries and groupings they were turned to outbid each other to come on top, it's really always about power. >> i raise this and understand why you did not do it but i want to raise this, the one country that was under the muslim brotherhood years you barely mentioned in your book, he was educated, brilliant scholar actually he went to school economics, he went to school with the economy of sudan he was in the summer of 1989 we exit

took a bottle of champagne "after words" of course, not paid for by the federal government, we had a toast because we finally got rid of the democratic elected the government which had stonewalled a relief effort and a quarter of a million southerners died over the result of that. i should've remembered the statement when you think there is light at the end of the tunnel, there's usually a train about to run you over. i learned that very painfully because as time went on, we realized it was very dangerous guy into a half million people died while he was president. so why did you not mention this because it fits into your narrative perfectly. >> it does, i'm trying to find the one line where i do mention it. [laughter] rifling through the book very quickly, it is very interesting.

>> there's a technical reason why, when you write a book that is driven by narrative, it is really like writing fiction where you have to keep the reader engaged into many say no to detours and that's why you cannot put it down. so i will take that to the bank now. , it is true, i felt terrible that i cannot write more about yemen. it is another one of those pain on our collective conscience as humanity that we can let this happen. i felt terrible that i only had one chapter on syria.

but there was a narrative that i was following, there was not a specific story that i absolutely wanted to say by ignoring other parts of the story. but i was looking at the trendlines across the 40 years and really trying to pinpoint the key moments, cultural or religious or social and pin them down in specific countries where they had happened. so the rise of islamic killings, the first moment when that happened in modern times because remember, i said they have not been killing each other forever and over the course of history, they killed each other less than catholics and protestants as of the headlines today. the moment where happened in modern times was in pakistan, it was not even in the middle east.

so pakistan is a chapter where i explore that, every chapter there is a specific point or a 20-point or an issue where i explore, told the narrative and i have this board on the wall where he had the southern countries that i explore in the four decades and i had posted with events happening in each of the countries in the various eras to track the trendlines. i had to eliminate and unfortunately sudan was important but it did not fit -- >> i understand. >> but i do mention it because it's very important and is part of what we have forgotten even in the region. in egyptian intellectual sekulow progressive thinker who was trying to fight back against the

rise of intolerance that was beginning to sweep his country after 1979 and he had fierce debates with muslim thinkers from the brotherhood than other groups. and he pushed back against them in a public debate once where he said i will never accept that islam be insulted, i am a musl muslim, i will always be a muslim, you can insult communism and socialism but don't insult muslim. this is a progressive thinker talking. then he said. when you ask for an islamic state, which one are you suggesting actually as a model, this is the '90s. there were no successful examples, iran, saudi arabia and sudan had been failures. so this is the '90s in

egypt pushing back against more conservative thinkers saying point to me one successful islamic state in our modern times and he goes on basing why the sudden obsession with an islamic state for 1300 years since the first century after the prophet, only 1% of people have advocated for a religious state all 99% have advocated for what we are state. so he was assassinated not long after this. it is one of the key turning points where you see a man who is so outspoken as a martyr of the nation when he is killed by radical extremist. 20 years later the same thing happened in pakistan where governor is declared in epic state for defending a christian woman, he is murdered in cold

blooded daylight and no one dares anymore to come out and mourn him and declare him part of the nation. that's how fast it unraveled. >> one thing that is curious but interesting that she only make up 10% of islam, it is not 5050 or two thirds one third, it's 10% versus 90%. >> a bit more. >> a little bit more but not very much. >> 90 - 10 i thought somewhere around there. most of the shieh only the majority, iran, 20% of pakistan -- >> 35, so the largest outside of iran. >> is in pakistan. >> yes and then iraq. >> some of these actually brought up prince of a con who

is the leader within shieh islam and even they objected, they said he's a here today not and i brought it up to a saudi diplomat once and he yelled at me and said they are not muslims and on and on. so even within these great traditions, their subsets and of course -- i walked into a surface mosque in morocco about 15 years ago in the chanting of the men was very similar to the chanting and orthodox church. >> part of the heritage that we lost. >> that is exactly right. so the question is, how is it that a country that only makes 10 - 15% whatever% you want, why does it pose a threat to saudi arabia -- you talk to the king and jordan are objections, there

is a huge turnaround. there is a small percentage of the arab world and there's a fear of the muslim world. why? >> i think it goes to two factors, in a nutshell, after 1979 as i mentioned, he wanted to appeal to the wider muslim world, he did not want to be an iranian leader or just a she leader, he wanted to appeal to the wider world. and he did two things, and he challenged them of the holy sites in muslim and the iranians until recently so often called for a joint body to be of the two holy sites. that drives the saudis crazy

because that's where they derive in their legitimacy and power and a lot of their money as well. it is very lucrative of the two holy sites. right after 1979 or as a part of the preparation for the revolution of iran, they had identified the palestinian cause as one that would give him appeal beyond his borders, the on the community. this is one of the episodes that begins the book where the alliance between the palestinians having been disappointed in 1967 against a israelis and having felt betrayed who is starting to make moves towards american camps and

makes moves with the israelis, so who's going to help me now. so there are connections made iranians in lebanon, militant who are working towards the fall and they are trained, many of them are trained in the palestinian camp and leno bu in. he had identified it to transcend iran and take over the sunni part to appeal to people across the region as a man who could come and where the arabs had failed and potentially

liberate. >> even though he is very sekulow and greater christian woman. >> it's about power. he had no problem greeting who o he was the first one to greet him after the revolution. he was the first foreign dignitary if you want to call him that who landed in tehran a week after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by the people in iran, they chanted today i wrong, tomorrow jerusalem. but 40 years later what happened in the interim, iran has worked very rapidly and strategically in maintaining its appeal to people outside around.

they discarded the affect and really only paid lip service but their friends with the radical palestinian militant group. and they have an outfit, part of the islamic revolutionary guard, it's named after jerusalem. and it's named after bruce lum, the arabic word -- sorry and getting tangled up in my languages. i runs expeditionary expansionist paramilitary force around the region until very recently, i'm sure most of you know soleimani by now he was killed in a u.s. drone strike in january of this year on the orders of president trump, it was meant to liberate jerusalem

for the palestinians in the nation except that people from soleimani from tehran to jerusalem to beirut with untold devastation for people along the way. the fear and the reason why they fear i wrong is because of its expansion policies it's because it appeals to a lot of people in ways that it is not an american camp while i wrong is in the anti-materialist camp. i will say one thing, both of these countries at this point somehow need each other, i think

some extent, the saudis need >> so you mentioned general soleimani is name as i want to just raise that because it happened after book was published. >> his killing is not inme the book but he is in the book. >> he's all over the book. >> the last page of the last chapter is a description of a video animation put together by some online saudi outfit that shows saudi forces liberating tehran from thehe regime and qam soleimani on his knees haggard, giving himself up to the saudis. that's in her fantasy. in real lifee they have to leave it up to the americans to do it. >> so tell us, you wrote i thought one of the one or two most -- to leon panetta, the two most thoughtful articles after soleimani's killing that eye

salve for onene you wrote an account number where i saw it. it was in atlantic we described what the u.s. needs to do now. you would not advocate of soleimani but you were saying if you just leave it this way will be a real problem. you need to follow up to send additional messages. what is the effect of soleimani death on the calculus? because we know that solder has switched sides. he was leading demonstrations to get iran out of iraq. now he's leading the demonstrations to get us, united states out ofit iraq. but he goes back and forth. >> he visited riyadh in the hope the would back in. he blows with the wind. first of all it's important to remember qasem soleimani did run a network of murderous militias around the region of iraq to syria to yemen. while of course the focus in the immediate aftermath was its is going to be war between u.s. and

iran, there was a sense in the region in many ways it already is constant war i and violence, and there were a lot of people in iraq but also syria who celebrated the demise of -- >> and and iran. >> and in iran because we've seen the footage of people coming out in morning but the will a lot of people who were very relieved that this man who had led the crackdown against peaceful protesters in the country, that this man was finally gone. what is happening in the region now is that all the different parties that are allied to iran that our proxy militias, close, closer allies or slightly more detached allies are jockeying for position trying to use this moment to come on top. i think that's what sadr is

doing turkey's look at how the wind is blowing and wondering whether he can seize this moment to become the ultimate leader in the region. i will say that iran and iran's allies in the region are very good at turning moments of potential weakness and for mobility into moments of strength. if you remember after 2003, the u.s. invasion of iraq, tehran feared it could be next with damascus. and instead of towering, they seized the moment as well as they could as much as they could, and now many years later, or until very recently, the accepted state of affairs what the views had really lost iraq toha iran. because they were ready from the get-go to try to turn this to their advantage. i think the same is happening now. they're trying to turn this moment after qasem soleimani into some of a moment where they

can solidify their gains becausl they will not stop at using violence to bulldoze whoever is in front of them and sees what the can, except that they are facing a lot of headwinds because of these protests that you were seeing and iraq, in lebanon and in a rant against iran's stranglehold on the politics of this region. .. >> leading the men in chanting. these are the examples i'm talking about. >> and the foreign minister with sudan, i had a small meeting with her, unheard of in sudanese politics. you mentioned women, is there some connection between the

young people in the middle east and demands they're making for reform and change and opening up a society and for democracy? because democracy is under attack around the world now. >> democracy is under attack around the world. i tried to avoid to some, tent the word democracy, when i talk about the region because it has become associated with specific u.s.-driven agendas and i think that people in the region want to set their own agenda and i think we have to trust that i trust that we know what we want and what we want is a more progressive, more diverse, more tolerant future, but democracy, as a cookie cutter template doesn't work exactly the same everywhere. you have variations and in representation and 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 them say, to beirut, one revolution, that does not die. they're not talking 1979, they're very much talking about the protests today that are challenging the corrupt leadership, the mismanagement and the sectarianism and it's focused on iran, lebanon and iran's role, but it's important to remember that there have been uprisings also in countries, this is not a denominational thing and it's 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 saudis, 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 saudis also live in fear of what their crown prince is doing and the repression that is falling upon their country. women activists who fought for the right to drive, this is a fight that has 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 kin, rather, because the orders still come 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 it was -- 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's up to his magnanimity to make this possible so i think that, yes, in saudi arabia, young people are also yearning

for a different future. they are getting a lot of what they've missed over the last few decades, with cinemas opening and museums opening, and dj parties and jazz concerts and all of that. but, again, that's the western model of culture that the crown prince thinks he should bring to the kingdom and young people in the country are asking about what about our traditional arts and culture and dancing, things like that. it's a bit of a crisis of identity i would say today in the kingdom. >> there's some efforts that awed rabe, the crown prince, the prime minister, is reaching out quietly to the iranians for some sort of a reproachment. is it possible that this war will end because, i mean, it's an interesting theory, the united states seems to be pulling back even though the president ordered the killing of soleimani, many of his supporters are now saying, you killed him 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 t saudis says the united states is not reliable and we'll have to make an approach of some kind with iran. if it's happening, what happens to-- wouldn't the complexion in the middle east change? >> we've had day detente. the '90s were in the middle east where we have fewer wars, no proxy wars or very few battles because the saudis and the iranians were actually on good terms. that made a huge difference. the saudis often rush towards detente or talks with the iranians when they feel endangered. when they feel their position is in danger. it happened during the

iran-iraq war when the iranians were on the verge of what it felt like from the saudis for an all-out victory against saddam hussein and so the saudis rushed to direct talks with the iranians. they exchanged visits, the saudi foreign minister went to iran and the iranian foreign minister went to tehran, if i'm not mistaken and saudis offered huge compensation, billions of dollars if they would bring an end to the conflict because they didn't want to see an outright iranian victory. the iranians had requirements that the saudis could not abide by and that included this issue of a joint body for custody over the two holy sites and that's something that the saudis could not handle. but we have seen these moments of detente before and the '90s, the detente was issued in at

the end of the iran, iraq war and 1990 gulf war when the iranians were worried that perhaps the iranians were sort of defeated in the iran, iraq war and now they have to deal with saddam and have to try to find a way to keep iran on their better side. so detente between the countries was not possible, however, they believed that detente was used to solidify their position. while diplomates were smiling, they were opening cultural centers that posed as a front for revolutionary guard activities and he has said very clearly he will not be fooled again, that those are his words. he will not be fooled by the smiles of iranian diplomates anymore. does he want an all-out war?

no, i think he wants the status quo to some extent. he doesn't want iran to gain too much more, he wants it curbed and contained, but he also worries about president trump not being enough of a solid ally, that he's not an ally who will actually go to bat for the saudis. he will pursue american strategic interests. he will with soleimani, but not necessarily come to defense. saudis feel they have to henl their bets and there have been direct talks between the saudis and iranians over the last few months, but i don't see peace between them or a full, a full detente. i think by now, with hamid bin salman, i don't see that happening either.

>> one big change, massive change, i saw an article in the washington post, i can't remember what year it was, maybe five, six years ago, when one of the prince's in the royal family and in saudi arabia said that israel now has the same interests as we have. i mean, you never hear that in the saudi royal family and anyone saying anything like that. so israel now is not the threat it was before, israel always saw ecombipt-- egypt from the signing of the peace accords. and the sunni states seeing israel as a counter balance to iran and therefore, consistent with their own interests, that's a big change. >> that is a big change, that's a big change. it explains why arab countries did not forcefully reject president trump's peace plan,

even though they may dislike it, may disagree with it, they put out a sharp statement at the arab league, but the arab league doesn't serve much purpose and the statement was just lip service to the palestinian cause because countries like saudi arabia want to stay on president trump's good side. because they want this to be about the -- the focus to be on countering iran even if they don't, as i mentioned, feel that president trump will necessarily come to their immediate defense, if they are threatened by iran or attacked by iran, they still feel that this is the camp that will serve them best and therefore, they're willing to be silent on certain issues as long as, you know, israel is also doing some of the countering of iran job in the region, and just today, i think i saw-- i saw the headline that the iranians and that the americans

and the israelis have sort of agreed that one will take on iran in syria and one will take on in iraq and that would serve saudi arabia's interest perfectly fine. >> so you have a lot of stories that you didn't put in the book? >> yes, i do, i do. that's for another book. >> that's what i was going to ask. >> so many stories. >> is there going to be a sequel to this book. >> i don't know if it will be a perfect sequel. now, maybe in 40 years i can write what happened after this book. before that, i hope i'll write more before that. but there are a lot of, you know, little gems that i found in the research that i would like to explore. i don't know which one, which one will have staying power over the considers of a book, you know, it's always a process as you try to test your thesis and dig into the archives to see where you have the most information that you can work with. do i maybe want to use some of

this to write a novel set in the region? i'm not sure. there's one little incident that i-- one little story that i really liked and it's about the safari club. and the safari club was the name of a intelligence sort of cooperation -- corporation group, an intelligence group that brought together the iranians, saudis, french, americans, british, and they met at the safari club. and it was a group of intelligence officers where at the height of the cold war they plotted and debated coups in various countries and they were worried about communism. what more do we think about it.

i haven't found any books written about it. >> i don't think there were books written about it, but i know it existed. >> yeah, it existed and there were interesting aspects to it and i sort of think would be good to write an article about it and then write a novel based on that. >> when i was president bush 43's envoy to those in sudan i met with intelligence in egypt eat othiopi ethiopia, kenya, uganda and libya was the most interesting one. and he left quickly when the government was going down the tubes, but he was very powerful and he had a map of darfour and i was appointed in the peace agreement and there were 70 agents of the intelligence service in libya in darfour

giving out to the rebels because they didn't like bashir. and i said wait a minute, you're handing out weapons and he mentioned the leaders who i was trying to negotiate with. i realize the oversight we'd made in american diplomacy and i didn't realize how central libya was. and the best in the intelligence piece and i could not mention in the notes where the information came from, but it was useful to understand the complexities of the region and they keep shifting. they keep shifting. >> i think a spy novel set in the '70s would be very great. >> it would be a best seller and a movie afterwards. >> there would be a movie. what are the moderating influences there are in iran, now, let's put some time aside because for a while now, certainly the regime is using this to reunite the population behind khomeini and the

theocracy-- >> i think it's ended. that was a brief moment of unity. i've seen iranians dispute the number of people who participated in the funeral of qasem soleimani and the large crowds. i'm not an expert of video footage and some have disputed the number. and i think sometimes people come out of fear what could happen to their country no matter what they think of the regime. out of fear that they could be punished if they don't show up because this is still a country where-- this is run in an ought autocratic ways, so they're closed and you have to show up. i don't doubt out of a sense of nationalism that people mourned him. of course.

i'm not an iranian expert i'd like to make that clear, i've not spent enough time there, but i think that, you know, when you look at what is happening in iran today and particularly what happened after the downing of the ukrainian plane. >> oh, yes. >> when 170 people died, full of young, promising iranians, iranian, canadians and very hyphenated nationalities and that the authorities very clearly, or the revolutionary guard specifically very clearly lied over the course of several days as to the fact that they were responsible, lied even or hid the reality, the truth, even from the president rouhani. the outrage that people expressed on the streets in the aftermath of the admission that this had been iran's fault, tells you at how brittle things

are. i'm not one to predict the fall of the regime at all. i also think that it would be very chaotic, but i do think that 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 on to power. but whether it is the young people protesting. whether it is the women protesting against the mandatory veil on a daily basis or a war of attrition over society. whether it's the labor movements organizing in the country. i do think that the challenges are mounting, if not to the regime, at least to the regime's way of doing things. so these are the moderating influences in society. >> i had a student from afghanistan tell me, and i looked it up and he was right, in the 1960's there were afghan

women in kabul wearing mini skirts, that the perception that afghanistan was an evil society, you know, for a thousand years, and they haven't made any progress and there was-- was nonsense. this is in the cities not the rural area. >> so i've seen this picture and i wrote an article about it as well to point out when you look at some of these pictures, particularly in a country like afghanistan, what you're looking at is the westernized elite. the minority. when you see pictures like that in a country that is larger than-- was at the time more modernized like egypt, then women in skirts was not westernized minority elite bye choices made by more than a minority. what i had like to make clear is that what women in the middle east want is not the

right to wear a mini skirt, maybe they don't want to wear a mini skirt. what they want is the right to choose whether they want to wear the skirt or not and that's what we've lost is the freedom to choose, which is what defined our societies before. even in iran today, the women who are protesting against the mandatory veil, some of them are veiled and they wear it by choice. they want their fellow iranian women to have the choice to wear it or not, and that's what people are protesting against. but when it comes to afghanistan in particular, you know, we heard joseph-- joe biden in the debate say that afghanistan is a, you know, i'll para phrase, a broken country could never be put together, you know, we take issues with statements like that. i think it is, a, too easy to dismiss a whole country like that, whether it's iran or whether it's iraq, you know, similar statements were made at

the time. and it ties in with that statement of sunnis and shias, always killed each other and it's been like that for millennia. it's a bit of a cop-out saying we can't do anything about it and we're not going to try. it's not saying that we're calling for u.s. intervention and invasion to fix us, that's not the solution either. it's simply too easy to dismiss us as people who can't get their act together. we're facing tremendous odds and some of those odds include u.s. backing for dictators, in egypt, in other countries of the region where there was mubarak or-- dictators who used preconceived ideas about the region and how it's a backwards place, to say well, it's either me, modernizing, the modern looking man in a suit or you know, the fundamentalist crazy. that's not the binary choice

available to us in the region and i think we have to have more faith in us, in the region. >> well, we've-- we're past our due in terms of the time we were going to have this talk together, so, i would like to thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much for having me. >> this is-- we think of this as the center of the united states, but the rest of the country doesn't necessarily see it this way. we appreciate you coming all the way from washington or beirut to college station. >> thank you for having me. it was a pleasure being here tonight. thank you. [applaus [applause] >> week nights this week, we're featuring book tv programs showcasing what's available every weekend on c-span2. tonight, books on the middle

east. first, michael ruben and talking about instability in the middle east and u.s. actions against iran may need. kim ghattas talks about the decades long rivalry between iran and saudi arabia. and a retired career foreign service officer who served in the middle east for 25 years talks about u.s. policy in the region and the recent confrontation between the u.s. and iran. watch book tv this week and every weekend on c-span2. >> please with em-- welcome tarra westever in conversation. [applaus [applause] >> hello ther