our mission continues, to provide an unfiltered view of government. already this year we brought you primary election coverage. presidential impeachment process, and help the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of cspan's public affairs programs on television, online, artisan on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation c-span's daily washington journal program or through our social media team, c-span created by private industry. americans people television company is a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. good evening. i am andrew, the director of

this institute of the international affairs. here the texas a&m university. i would like to welcome our special event tonight with kim, she will speak in a recent book black waves. in the 40 year rivalry that and reveled cultural religion in the middle east. i actually spent the reading weekend reading. i could put down. if you have not read it, i am sure you will try to get the book if you have not already after this evening but i would urge you to read it printed it is absolutely fascinating. it is very well written print is a narrative flow to it is very troubling i have to say but that's part of the book i think. i would like to announce unfortunately that are event in today's with them best or dennis ross who is another expert in the middle east is unable to come to conversation had a family emergency.

i was lecture wednesday evening will be postponed until later. kim is an emmy awarding journalist and writer who comes from a middle east for bbc in the financial times. reported from iraq and saudi arabia, lebanon and she covered the war between israel and hezbollah earning an emmy for international news coverage. she is also reported for the state department and on american politics regularly traveling with secretaries of state including hillary clinton and john kerry.. she has been published in the atlantic, the washington post, foreign policy and is currently a non-ic resident scholar at the carnegie endowment international peace at washington and her first book, the secretary, was new york times best seller. she regularly speaks and continues to speak on american television and radio and she was born and raised in lebanon. but she now lives between beirut and washington dc.

if you have questions, please write them on the cards, the bush school investors who have the blue blazer john, have with them, they have walked up and down the aisles but they will continue to do that. and then went to write the d questions, asked them to the file and they will pick them up ild give them to me and i will then go through them after the speech and then the two of them will sit up here and i will ask questions and then i will take your questions from the cards. please join me in welcoming kim to the stage. [applause]. good evening, everybody. >> kim: good evening everybody. it is truly a delight to be here this evening and thank you for this very generous introduction pretty thank you for hosting me here at the conference center and i think you to the institute

and the bush for hosting me and i see here in the front row my good friend, thank you very much for helping to make this happen. i am really delighted to be back in texas. i have not been here in a very long time. i must complain about the weather. [laughter]. it gives me at good excuse to return. i hope. i am here to speak to you about my recent book. step two weeks ago, black wave. as an e-book, is the result of a journey. every writing endeavor is an journey and many of you i am sure have written books, you know that it can be very isolating experience in a very intellectual lonely experience. this book is a journey but this one is also more than the journey of the writing citizen journey of 20 years of covering the middle east and it is in a way, the combinational also of

my experience going up in the region as a child of war. in beirut. i grew up during the civil war and the 80s. and i wanted to write a story about that region that was not your typical story about the region. and that has been written about the middle east i'm sure, many of you have read about the region and many of you are probably experts sitting here this evening. i'm wanted to write our story. because i have questions that i did not find the answers to read the books c that were out there. i wanted to answer the toughest questions about the region, there are also asked about what went wrong and what happened and why is the way it is. but i wanted to come at it from a disparate perspective and i wanted to come at it from our perspective from the region. i do think that is what is out there at the moment is not enough to explain why we got to

where we are. and i also a think that it does not do justice to the people of the region who have tried as well very hard to find a different path forward. the way you do i talk to my readings is that i try to make it acceptable to his white of an audience as possible. i'm sure many of you here tonight are experts but i hope that even for the experts, i can bring some different perspecti perspective. as to why the region is the way it is today. what drove me to write this book is as i said, the fact that i found out there was not much out there that really addressed what i found was the core of the problem. it took me a while to be for my finger on what it was, what was the core of the problem. what was the point at which things had changed. but what it wanted to do and a

starting point is to give you the conclusion. i know that it is the wrong way around but i do think it is important. i think that what i tryry to do with my writings, and the research that i've done is to go against some of the preconceived ideas that people have about them at least because of the coverage and headlines and just the intensity of the news that comes at us from the middle east. so i want to start by telling you some of the thing to know about, at least iraq. let's start like that. i want to point out three things. i would start by saying that iran asked saudi arabia despite headlines in the few decades that seem to indicate that's always been like that. saudi arabiabi and iran have not always been rivals. if not always been enemies. and we forget that. there was a time when iran and saudi arabia were countering

communism in the region. they were friendly competitors, allies in that endeavor and you had exchanges between the rails of the two countries and they call each other with titles, they were not necessarily the closest of friends but they were friendly. and they cooperated in a lot of ways. so that is one assumption that people make that it's always been like that between iran and saudi arabia and it was not. afraid to be here vented about it very often, most of them have killed each other. it will always be like that. sometimes you will hear that they have always killed each other. those are two things, for those of you don't know, i will supply. it's like the catholics and protestants. they are the two parts of islam, and when some people saw that

his heirs should be his relatives and thus became this u.s. and some should be the heir of some of the confidence of those actually became others. but even in the first few decades following those profit steps. those identities were not as nearly like that. they evolved over time. that's another priest conceived idea about the region. but even president obama said,d, and killing each other for millennia. i would like to point out that has not been like that. also does not need to be like that forever. that is what parts of drives the writing in this book is to remind us that there wasn't different task and therefore it can be a different future printed different past. the final and 30 misconception the people have particularly because of the constant droning on of the headlines.

they are focused on dictators. the boys in the throes of violence and intolerance. the cultural intolerances part of what defines the region. iin would like to tell you thatt has not always been like that. and that means it does not always need to be like that. so, what happened. i know that is the classic question. but i would like to give you a very different approach. because that question what happened to us, this conscious. we do repeat it like a mantra. for my own country of lebanon, all of the way to pakistan and saudi arabia to syria. for the past is really, a different country. it is one that is not admired n the horrors of the killings. it is more vibrant place without the crushing intolerance of

religious, and seemingly endless war. in the past is not perfect. had worse as well. but they weren't seemingly contained in time and space. in the future did still hold much promise. the question perhaps today in the region that is not necessarily a car too young to remember when the vibrant tolerance wase the norm. those were the ones whose parents did not tell them of the poetry in the shower and impacts on. it is a very different connotation the states. our market system they did to the bars of the roots are writing your bike on the banks of the river. all of these things were seen and possible today. but i think especially the question which surprise those in the west who state that he has

always been as it is today. and they is a complicated thing they think that the past is perfect. i know that sometimes in the united states, there are people that have nostalgia for a different time, from the 50s or 60s not forget the things that were wrong at the time. we tend to idealize the past. that's what drove me, i was idolizing the past but i really wanted to understand why things had unraveled. what was the starting point and it unraveled very slowly at first without people really noticing what is happening around them that it took on an unexpected force the last decade or 15ec years. there are many points in any country for any regions of history and explained what happened there are of course many turning points in the middle east in history.

whether it is the end of the empire and the follow last state after world war one. people would say that this is the moment when this when the world lost its way. some people will point to the creation of israel in 1948. the defeat of the arabs. as the moment where there was a real future. and others will skip directly to 2003 in the invasion of the iraq as the moment where everything became worse that had already been like that. and they were at each other's throats. they will fight to the death. and therefore because of the headlines, over the last two decades or so and vote that. it's inevitable. it is eternal, and apart from the inevitable in the internal, none of these explanations are completely correct on their own.

they are totally wrong. i insist on underlying debt but none of the speculations about what was the turning point in the region, really 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 of what happened, kept coming back to that one year. 1979. a lot of you will remember that year. the year of the hostage crisis. and also that year of the iran revolution or practice in november. at the same time, as the hostage crisis, you have another type of hostage crisis in saudia arabia. when they laid siege. and later that year in november

or december and and christmas eve, you had the soviet invasion of afghanistan. that those three events in the iranian resolution because the hostage crisis as a result. but the iranian resolution in the siege of the holy mass, and the invasion of afghanistan they were independent of one another but they became injured trying. the combination of the three were toxic. first of all, from this on these events, was born the rivalry. and as mentioned the two countries would take over and the reason why they shouldn't become enemies, might after what was apparent, no apparent reason why they should become enemies or rivals after the run revolution.

except for the fact that the saudis saw themselves as leaders of the muslim world. the two holy sites of mecca and of islam and medina. but they had landed in february 1979, they had grand ambitions. the unjust even, the community of xian. in his own country and beyond. see in two countries, one was saudia arabia and they suddenly trying to get leadership of the muslim world. not only change the politics of the region this started the slow growth of secretary and language and identity. he both countries yielded those identities in their efforts to dominate the region and rally

the people to their side. in the battle they reeled to start it religion and the pursuit is something very simple. in a world leader would understand that is real power. but that is the constant from 1979 to this day. it fastens everything. in its path and i believe they nothing has changed the world as deeply as and fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the wave that started after those events. other pivotal moments are alliances. the end or start wars. they bring an end they see the beginning of this movement of the politico ideology. 1979, and change the geopolitics. it turned countries.

it did more than that because these two countries started using religion as a pulp. it had an impact on culture and society. and so what 1979 did was in transformed society. and it offered cultural and religious references. and unleashed in 1979, they changed who we are in the region and hijacked our collective memory. .-ellipsi unleashed by events l, and when they rippled across not just years but several decades over time. people's memories of what came before. the iranian resolution does not

begin as an effort to bring democracy to the country, it's an effort to her where a lot of the leftists were involved.

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 his reactions across the arab world and initially they are not all a negative. a lot admired or some people admired how they had managed to rise on top and bring it to power in iran.

was interesting about the research i conducted for this book and i pointed out 1979 as a crucial turning point, was that i found everywhere i asked the question i found the reactions were very v validating. because i was met with a flood of emotions really, when it asked people in pakistan or egypt or in baghdad, tell me about 1979. out came all of their memories. in all of their emotions. no one asked them before. when you're leaving and such up he will and when you come to terms and really analyze what you're going through. and so some of these people thought yes, 1979, let me tell you about 1979.

let me tell you how that correct 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 move my job after 1979. and97 why. even people who were not born before 1979 had a story. it's a 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 peoples studies or living rooms as they poured their hearts out to me. i am a a journalist, i am not a historian or an academic. this is more than a reported narrative. i not only relied on our interviews with these countries we dug deep into the archives with my research

assistance. we looked at old footage, we read articles, academic articles that were at the time very interesting to see how perspective changed with time when you look at articles theye were after the iran revolution or the siege to see the assessment at the time and read about it now. when you put itir all together get a virtual library of the history of the region. i have 19 binders full of papers that tell the story because i thought it was important to be able to see in front of me the pictures, the writings, that articles, the headlines. imagine finding aim headline from 1979 were saudi arabia originally welcomed the iran and revolution. although they are sort of sorry to see the chicago, they were initially very concerned

about possibility there be a communist takeover of iran. those were the trends of the time, when they saw the guy that was rising to the top with somebody they could kind of relate to, he was a very conservative man. he wanted to bring that to the country and they welcome that. they said we hope we can cooperate on the basis of our common religion and understanding of how it should be applied to society. so when you look at these events, when you look at these details, you put it all together, you put together a puzzle. forgotten events, overlooked events, when you have the puzzle in front of you gives a very different understanding of very different reading of the last four decades in history. and it spans seven countries as i mention peering over egypt to pakistan saudi lebanon.ran, and

and it shatters some of those accepted i truths that we have even we have in the region. i can tell you that sometimes we forget that they have not always been killing each other. i grew up in the civil war in lebanon and it was never really used. it wasn't that kind of conflict. but today it is so accepted in our collective memory that we forget what it was like before. that rivalry evolved and mutated over time with consequences that really no one could have foreseen in 1979. now, there has been a lot written about the middle east, i know that. i am trying to present a different approach. you'll find a lot of poetry and literature, lyrics and music and cultural references in this book. because i think it is important also, to remember

the richness of this region and to humanize this region that has been so devoid of context and the headline so it isn't a book about terrorism is not a book about al qaeda it's not a book about isis nor is it a book about the dangers that violence of fundamentalist vote for the west. this has been everything you've already read everything you've already seen on television and the headlines. with all duegu respect my colleagues, even i sometimes, because that's just the nature of our o business and that's why i wanted to take a step back and write this book. this is the story of the people and they are very, very, very many whose voices have not been necessarily heard. who have been silenced but are not silenced because they continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness that has engulfed us in the region.

they areth intellectuals, they are poets, their lawyers, they are young progressives, they are arabs, our iranians, pakistanis, they are men and women with an equal number of women and men characters in the book because you do not hear enough about women in the region. even though they are very feisty, they're very strong they very powerful. you should see what is happening and iraq, lebanon and iran today with the women leading the protests against the corruption of the countries. they are mostly devout. my characters are mostly devout,, they pray, they fast, go to the mosque and they go to church. they still believe in separation of church and state. you can be a secular movement it's not an oxymoron. you can believe in the separation of mosques and states. these are progressive thinkers

who think of the vibrant ndpluralistic societies that are still there under that black wave. they suffered immensely at the hands of those that yield power and gone and are relentlessly intolerant of other people. some paid with their life. many of them and many are in the pages of this book like my friend and colleague. the saudi journalist who was murdered in the saudi consulate and in sample in 2018. you will find jamaal story in these pages starting from one of the first chapters in 1979 or right after 1979 when he returned to the u.s. or to saudi arabia from his days as a student in the u.s. then you will meet him again, a few chapters later when he becomes a journalist covering the g hods in afghanistan. you will meet him a few chapters after that again when

you return to saudi arabia, the narrative right after 911. he is the editor of a newspaper that gets fired for having printed very critical by one of his fellow writers criticizingin the very puritanical creed of islam that is practiced in saudi arabia. he will meet him in the last chapter. i was writing a passage about jamaal, the passage around the time of 911 when he disappeared and later found out he was killed. it was a very twist to the tale that i was telling about this saudi iran rivalry when i didn't expect that when i do think is described in that rivalry. the connections were not immediately clear as to why this was part of the larger story, but it really was. now, i've given you the conclusion or the concluding

thoughts and the ending with the soft n chapter. but of course this is in the novel, i told that it's being bred like a thriller. we know how it ends to some extent. we know what we are today, and it is not in a great place. but we don't know how it ends because i do believe that 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 and facing the bullets and continuing to take to the streets. including the women. the women and lebanon stand as a defense line between the men behindee them and the police in front of them because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than the men standing behind them by the representative oppression of the police. hethe women in the square ine baghdad are just absolutely incredible in how they are taking to the streets and

mocking the politicians call for the women to return home and their call for segregation in public places between men and women. they mock them and say you want to take us back to which century? we aree in 2020. now, i am giving you a little bit of the ending, some of the conclusions. but the tail actually begins just a few years before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean and lebanon. in my own country, which plays many times and unfortunate role in developments in the region. today again as well. but before 1979 on the shores of my country, there is a little-known episode that plays a crucial role in setting the stage for the r resolution. i would like to start the book with that because there is such an irony to the fact that this revolution that turned

iran from a kingdom to a bureaucracy, a revolutionary that was organized by secular leftists and modernists as you are now reminded of. the irony is that revolution, the revolution that brought the fundamentalist ayatollah to power, ultimately to two cities beirut and paris. the capital of arab and paris the city of enlightenment. it's not for the purpose of freedom and both of these countries, ayatollah khomeini may have died forgotten in the holy city in iraq. i'm not going to tell you too much more about how the story unfolds. but i loved about the research that 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 rule that the palestinian leader at the time played as well. in helping the iranian revolution come to be. the fact that the muslim brotherhood, which was still a power to be reckoned with two some extent in some of these countries, but was still in many ways a marginal political force. it's the muslim brotherhood looked to khamenei success and thought perhaps we could do this here. and even though they went to visit him. to see what he could offer them. those are episodes that are forgotten. but i think it is important to go back in 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. but 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 know to the leader of pakistan who are really at the heart of this book. their stories overlap in time, some of them know which other some of them don't. they cross paths, and perhaps they don't. they are all fighting for the same thing. they are fighting for a more progressive, more tolerant society, for more progressive more tolerant future. the storiess are contained within the other stories of historical events, so you end up with is a type of 1001 nights of mid eastern geopolitics. i would like to say that 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 really went back and forth between true despair but eventually settled on hope because there's no other wayec forward. one of the reasons as i grew up in a civil war for 15 years we waited for it to end. you could perhaps say we were crazy to wait for so long and not leave the country but it's not that easy to leave your home country you have to start from scratch somewhere else unknown, it is s hard, reliving your savings behind, your home, your belongings so he stayed in hopes one day things will get better. and that is the hope i see still today. egin 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 lots of factors that work against us. the arab uprising are not over and they are not a savior. they are only the beginning. the united states took some time to become what it is today. after the french revolution democracy was not instant result the day after. it takes time. and so i settled on hope because i look around me in the region, i look at young people, younger than me, people who have never known or probably ever heard about the days before 1979 and i see how they want to escape the ghosts of the past they want to build the different future they want to escape the ghosts of 1979. so while i have written this bookk for people in the west of the united states and elsewhere, who wonder what

went wrong in the region. while i did write this book for those who remember time before 1979 and ask what happened to us, i wrote it maybe especially for the younger generation who today asked their parents why didn't you do anything to stop what was unraveling? why did you let this happen? i was really amazed to see that same question posed in both saudi arabia and iran. bother countries had a different trajectory in different societies. but in both countries people are asking their parents why? why did you let 1979 happen to us like that. soso i hope that not only will the book provide you -- i hope will the book not only provide youh with a different perspective much richer perspective on my region and our societies but i hope that this book also provides clues

for the youngerer generation to help them find a better path forward. one that is not determined by iran and saudi arabia. this important to look back so you can understand what happened because as the danish philosopher said it's perfectly true that life must be understood backwards. but they forget the other proposition. it must be lived forward. and that is the only way to go. thank you very much for listening. [applause]

[background noises] >> thank you very much, kim. before i begin we have our own scholar of iran here who has written a remarkable book on religious statecraft if you haven't read it you should read it because it is a reinterpretation of the iranian revolution. i remember one summervo coming back from summer vacation mohammed was very excited he said i found a diary and the library at harvard of people, leaders of the iranian revolution. i found written evidence by, the leaders. they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons or anything else.

they did it because they 1 inch approved the leftist they were not in bed with the cia or the u.s. government. i remember his excitement in finding these diaries. very prominent people you've seen the headlines and iran. i noted that you used his book in your book because i kept looking at the footnotes. are the endnotes. and you were quoting his book. >> guest: was instrumental in understanding that period. an understanding how not only were the saudis and iranians trying to outdo each other but even within countries and within groupings people were trying to outbid each other to come on top. it is really always about power. >> i raise this and i understand why you didn't do it but i just want to raise this. the one country that was under the muslim brotherhood for 30 years is barely mentioned in your book and that isd sudan. he was educated he was a

brilliant scholar actually, intellectual, he went to school with economics i don't know what that did for the economy of sudan, he orchestrated the coup that brought on mod bashir to power in the summer of 1989. i remember, i was working for usaid for president bush one and we took out a bottle of shum champagne, after hours of course. [laughter] not paid for the federal government because better toast because he finally got rid of the democratically elected government which had stonewalled the relief effort in the middle of famine and a quarter of a million southerners died because of that. we said we are finally rid of this. i should have rememberedho the statement is when you think there's light at the end of the tunnels usually at train about ready to run you over.ra

[laughter] and i learned that very painfully because as time went on, we realized he was very dangerous guy. two and half million people died while bashir was president. so why didn't you mention it? if it's into your narrative perfectly. >> guest: i'm trying to find the one line where i do mention it. [laughter] outsideer very quickly it is very interesting, they go i have it. so there is a technical reason why. the technical reason is that when he writes a book that is really driven by narrative, it is really like writing fiction, for you have to keep the reader engaged. and if you have too many side notes and detours, it's hard to keep your reader engaged and hanging on.

that's why you couldn't put it down right? [laughter] i'll take that to the bank now. [laughter] but it is true, i felt terrible but i couldn't write more abouter yemen. yemen is another one of those stains on our collective conscience of humanity that we could let this happen. i felt terrible that i only had one chapter on syria. but there is it narrative i was following, wasn't agenda it wasn't a specific story by ignoring other parts of the story. but i was looking at the trendlines across the four years -- 40 yearsry and really trying to pinpoint the key moments in their cultural, religious or social. and pin them down in a specific country where they had happened.

so the rise of islamic militancy and then suddenly she killings and the first moment that happens in modern times, because i remember they have not been killing each other other forever and over the course of history they've killed each other less thenpe catholics and protestants except these are the headlines of today. in a moment where it happened was in pakistan, it was not even in the middle east so pakistan is a chapter where i explored that. so in every chapter there is a specific point, turning point or issue i explored it's only in the narrative. had this big corkboard on the wall where had the seven countries that i explore on the four decades. i had posted with the various happening in each of these

countries in the various eras kind of the trendline so i had to eliminate a lot. unfortunatelyid sue don was important but it did not fit the wider narrative. i do mention it in the book. [laughter] it's very important and it's part of what we have forgotten. even in the region. was an egyptian international secular, progressive thinker who was trying to fight back against this rise of tolerance that begins a sweep the country after 1979. he had fierce debates with muslims and other groups. pushed back against them in a public debate once. i would never accept that islam be insulted. i am a muslim and i will always be a muslim.

you could assault communism but don't insult islam. this is a progressive thinker talking. and then he said, when you ask for in islamic state, he speaks to his opponents, which one are you suggesting exactly as a model? this ishe the '90s. most successful examples, iran, saudi arabia and sue don have been failures. so this is an islamic thinker intellectual pushing back against morens conservative thinkers sink point to me one successful islamic state in our modern times. he goes on to say why the sudden obsession with an islamic state. for 1300 years, since the first century after the prophet only 1% of the people have advocated for a religious state while 99% have advocated for what we are calling for which is a civil state.

he was assassinated not long after. it's one of those key turning points where you see that, this man who is soft-spoken is mourned as a marcher of the nation. when he is killed by radical extremists. twenty years later, the same thing happens in pakistan where a governor is declared for defending a christian woman and he is murdered in cold blood in broad daylight no one dares anymore to come out and mourn him. and declare him a marcher of the nation. that is how fast things unraveled. >> host: one thing that is curious but interesting, is that she only make up 10% of islam. it is not 5050 or even two thirds one thirds it's 10% versus 90%.

>> guest: a bit more. >> host: 9010 somewhere around there. most of thef shia, the only majority country of shia iran 20% of pakistan is shia muslim. >> guest: thirty-five. the largest outside of iran is in pakistan. >> host: i actually brought up prince aga khan who is a leader of the sect l within shia islam and brought up to a diplomat once and he started yelling at me they are not muslims and on and on and on. so even within these great traditions there subsets i walked into a mosque in morocco is about 15 years ago

ig thought as an orthodox church because the chanting of the men is very similar to the chantingnd and an orthodox church. it's very beautiful. veryho mystical. >> guest: part of the heritage. >> yes that's exactly right, so the question is, how is it that a country that only makes up ten or 15%, whatever% you want, what it is as opposed such a formidable threat to saudi arabia and the rest. if you talk to the king of jordan or the egyptians private it is huge threat of iran. that's a small percentage of the arab world. yet there is the sphere of the muslim world, why? >> i think it goes to two factors in a nutshell. one is that after 1979 as i mentioned, ayatollah khomeini one and to appeal to the wider

muslim world he did not want to be an iranian leader he didn't want to justwo be a shia leader he wanted to appeal to the wider world. hehe did two things. one, he challenged the saudis with the holy sites of islam the iranians until recently still oftenen called for a joint to be custodian of the two holy sites. that drives the saudi's crazy. because that is where they derive a lot of their legitimacy, their power, a lot of their money as a well. it is very lucrative to be custodian of these two holy sites. at the time, and right after 1979 as a part of the preparation for that revolution of iran, ayatollah khamenei had very cleverly identified the palestinian

cause is one that would give him appeal beyond his h borders, beyond the shia community.th this is one of the episodes that gives the book where i explore that alliance between home any and the palestinians where he had been supported in 1967 against the israelis having felt betrayed by. [inaudible] who starting to make moves towards american camps and then makes moves towards peace with the israelis who's going to help me now? and so there are connections made with iranians in lebanon militants who are working towards the fall of the shop. they are trained, many are of them are trained in the palestinian camps in lebanon. and that is how that

connection unfolds. but khomeini had identified the palestinian cause as a way to transcend iran and shiite -ism as takeover for the sunni cause, the arab caused to appeal to people across the region as the man who could come in where the arabs had failed and potentiall potentially, as they put it, liberate jerusalem and regain lost arab land. stay when heve was very secular' and married to a christian woman. >> guest: it's about power. he had no problem greeting khomeini and he was the first leader, the first foreign leader to visit immediately after the success of the revolution. he was the first foreign dignitaries you want to call him that, who landed a week

after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by people in iran and they chanted today iran tomorrow in jerusalem. thirty years later, what happened in the interim is that iran worked very doggedly and strategically on maintaining its appeal to people outside of iran in the community. they discarded that and only paid lip service the palestinian cause. they had radical palestinian militant group. they have an outfit called the quds force. part of the islamic revolutionary guard, the quds force named after the mosque in jerusalem, the arabic word for -- named after jerusalem

i'm sorry it's the arabic word for jerusalem i'm getting tangledd up in might language here. the quds force is ironic expansion of force around the region headed until very recently by some soleimani who was killed in eight u.s. zone strike in january of this year on the orders of president trump. it was meant to liberate jerusalem for the palestinians and the muslim nation. people say qassem soleimani had gone through beirut, baghdad with untold devastation for people along the way. so the fear, the reason why saudi arabia feared iran, is because of its expansionist policies is because it appeals to a lot of people in ways

that saudi arabia does not. saudi arabia is firmly in the american camp while iran is in the anti- american camp. i will say one thing, both of these countries at this point need each other. as why think some extent the saudi's need or benefits from seeing iran continue to be a negative i player in the region because that means saudi arabia can continue to be america's best friend in the region. >> host: so you mentioned qassem soleimani's name, so i went to burisma that because it happened after your book was published. >> guest: his killing is not in the book but he is in the book. the last page of the last chaptercr is a description of a video animation put together by some online saudi outfit

that shows saudi forces at had qassem hull imani haggard and giving himself up to the that is their fantasy. realize they have to leave it up to the americans to do it. >> host: so tell us, i thought one or two -- not that you collaborated you didn't say the same thing. but the two most thoughtful articles after soleimani's killing, that i saw were one you wrote in a camper member where he sought. >> guest: the atlantic. >> host: yes that's where i saw you described with the u.s. needs to do now you are no advocate of soleimani via said if you just leave it this way it's going to be a real problem. you need to send additional messages. what is the effect of soleimani's death on the calculus? he was leading the

demonstration to get iran out of iraq, now he is leading demonstrations to get us, the united states out of iraq. >> guest: he is also visited thinking -- i think that it is important to remember that qassem soleimani did run a network of murderous militias around the region from iraq to syria to yemen. in while of course the thinking here the aftermath it's going to be war between the u.s. and iran, it was a sense in the region that it already is constant war and violence. there were a lot of people in iraq but also in syria that celebrated the demise, and in iran because we have seen the footage of people coming out inut mourning, but also a lot of people who were very relieved that this man, who led the crackdown against peaceful protesters in the country in

2009, 2017, 2018 that this man was finally gone. i think what is happening in the region now, is that all of the different parties that were aligned to iran, t proxy militia or closer allies are slightly more did catch allies are jockeying for position, trying to use this moment to come on top. that's what he's doing he's looking to see 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 central weakness and vulnerability into moments of strength. if you remember that after 2003, iraq feared it could be next. with damascus. and instead of cowering, they

seized the moment as well as they could come as much as they could, and now many years later, or until very recently, the excepted state of affairs was that the u.s. had really lost my rocket iran. because they were ready, from the get go to try to turn this to their advantage. think the same is happening i now i think they are trying to turn this moment after qassem soleimani joe moment where they can solidify their gains because they will not stop it choosing whoever's in front of them and sees what they can. except they are facing a lot of headwinds because of these protests you are seeing in iraq and lebanon. it's against iran stranglehold on politics of thiste region. >> host: you mentioned the women's movement. i might add the revolution of the uprising that led to the demise of president bashir and

sudan but is led by women. >> guest: the iconic imagege of the young sudanese woman dressed in white with big gold earring standing on top of a car leading the men enchanting. these are the examples i am talking about. she went in the foreign minister of sudan i just had a group meeting that is unheard of in sudanese politics. you mentioned women, but is there some connection between young people in the middle east and the demands they are making for reform and change and the opening up of society over democracy? because democracy is under attack around thehe world now. >> guest: democracy is under attack around the world. i try to avoid, to some extent, the word 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. i think we have to trust, i trust that we know what we once, and what we want is a more progressive, diverse, more tolerant future. fbut democracy as a cookie-cutter template doesn't work exactly the same everywhere. you have h variations. in representation and that whole system et cetera. i do think people across the region are connected in many ways. if you listen to the chanting and the streets of beirut, you will hear b them say. [inaudible] trump to iran one revolution does not there not talk about 1979 there time but the protest taking today their challenge and the corrupt, the miss management, the secretary is in.

so much our conversation has been very much on iran, lebanon, iraq, and g.i. and iran's role. but it is important to remember that there have been uprisings also in sunni iocountries, this is not a denominational thing. 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 t culture in the region. and saudis, although today they have a conference that once to appear as a reformer and does many things that feed into l the agenda of reform, a lot of saudis also live in fear of what their crown prince is doing. and that repression that's falling upon their country. tswomen activists who fought for the right to drive, it's a fight that's been going on for decades, a lot of the young activists and older activists

have found themselvesiv in jail, right before the crown prince or the king rather because the order still comes from the top where there decrees are signed at the top. they found themselves in jail for in the campaign for the right to drive just is that right was granted to women in the kingdom. because in in the cane kingdom of saudi arabia those grants are still granted by the king it is up to him to make that possible. so 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, cinnamon's are open, museums are open, deed dj parties, jazz concerts and all of that. that is the western model of culture the crown prince thanks he should bring to the kingdom. and youngre people in the country are asking what about our traditional arts and culture?

our traditional dancing and things like that. it's a bit of a crisis of identity i would sayay today. >> host: there is some evidence that saudi arabia, the crown prince prime minister is reaching out quietly to the iranians for some type of approach. is it possible that this war will end? at the very interesting theory that the united states seems to be pulling back even though the president ordered the killing of qassem soleimani, many of us supported say no you killed him let's get out. the united states may not be seen as central in the middle east were pivotal in the middle east. maybe the saudis say the united states is not reliable so will have to make something with iran? you see that happening and will the complexity of the middle east change?

>> guest: we've had the taunts in the region before. the '90s were a time in the middle east where we had fewer wars. we had no proxy wars in very few battles because the saudis and the iranians were actually on good terms. that made a huge difference. the saudis often rush towards the tonto or tox with the eye 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 as well as to the saudi's as a possible all out victory against hassan hussein, the saudis rushed to direct talks with the eye iranians. they exchanged visits, the saudi foreign minister went to iran, they iran and foreign minister went to talk ron i found it was taken in the

saudis even offered huge compensation to iran, billions of dollars if they would just bringd an end to the conflict. they didn't want to see an outright iranian victory. the iranians had requirements for the saudis could not abide by. and that included this issue of joint body for custody over the two holy sites. h that is something the saudis could just not handle. we have seen these moments of tox before and 19 the taunts was ushered in at the end of the war in the gulf war went again the eye iranians were worried about perhaps the iranians were defeated and they would have to deal with saddam. so they tried to find a way so they could keep iran on their better side. so the talk between these two countries is not impossible. however, they believe all the moments of the taunts were

used by iran to solidify the position. fornc a while the diplomats were smiling, the revolutionary guards were thinking they were called deeper into areas of the region, opening cultural centers that posed as a front for revolutionary guard activities. and he said very clearly that he would not be full to again. those are his words. he will not be fooled by the smiles of iran and diplomats anymore. does he want an all-out war? no. i think you want the status quo to some extent. he doesn't 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 illini that he's not an illini who will actually go to bat for t the saudis. there's two strategic american interests he will kill qassem soleimani but he will not necessarily come to their

defense of their threatened by iran. so the saudis need to hedge their bets little bit and there has been in direct talks between the saudis in iran is of the last few months. i don't see between them. or buy now with qassem soleimani, it's going to require real change in behavior of the authorities and iran. i don't see that happening a either. >> host: one other big massive change, i sought there is an article in the "washington post" p i don't member what year was, maybe five or six years ago, where one of the prince's and the royal family and saudi arabia said they have the same interest as we have. you would never hear that in the saudi royal family, anyone saying something like that. so israel now, is not the threat that it was before.

israel always saw egypt since the signing of the peace accord, but to have other arabs states seeing israel as a counterbalance to iran and therefore consistent with their own interest is a big change. >> guest: it is a big change. it explains why arab countries did not forcefully reject president trump's peace talks even though they made a slight and they may disagree with that. they put out a sharp statement at the arab league, but th the air believe does not serve much purpose. 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 focus to be on

countering iran. even if they don't, as i just mentioned, feel that president trump will necessarily come to their immediate defense if they are threatened by iran or they still feel this is the camp that will serve themer best. therefore they are willing to beue silent on such an issue as long as israel is also doing some of the countering of iran in the region. just today, i think i saw the headline that i iranians, the americans, and the israelis sort of o agreed that one would take on iran and syria and one will take on iran and iraq. that will serve in the best interests. see once you have a d lot of stories you did not put in the book. >> guest: yes, i do that's for another book. [laughter] >> host: that's what i was going to ask, is are going to be a sequel to this book? >> guest: i don't know phil be a perfect sequel.

maybe in a few years i can write what happened after this book. but before that i will write more before that. there are a lot of little gems that i found in the research that i would like to explore. i don't know which one will have staying power over the course of a book. 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? a novel set in the region, i'm not sure. there's one little incident, one that will story that i really like it's about safari club. the safari club was the name of an intelligence corporation. it's an intelligence group that brought together the saudis, the eye iranians, the

french, the americans, if i'm not mistaken and possibly the british. he was called safari club because they met in kenya at the safari club. it was a grouping of intelligence officers from these countries where the heights of the cold war they plotted and debated coups in various countries where they hewere worried about the advance of communism. i've always wondered what more do we know about this? i haven't really found the books written about it. see what i don't think they written many books about it. [laughter] but it i existed. >> guest: yes it existed there are some interesting aspects to it. i think it would be good to write of about that and then write a novel based on it. >> host: when i was in president bush's eye met with

all of the intelligent jeeps in egypt, ethiopia, uganda and libya. and libya was the most interesting because i meant for four hours with him. he left very quickly when the government was going down the tubes. but he was very powerful and he had a map of darfur for and that's why was appointed to that. there were 70 agents of the intelligent service in darfur for giving money and weapons out to the rebels because they didn't like bashir. i said wait a minute, you are handing out weapons? and he mention all of the leaders who i was trying to negotiate with. i realize the oversight we had made an american diplomacy i didn't realize how central libya was to what was going on. the best conversations i had were with the intelligence people and of course underwrote my history of sudan i could not mentioned in the notes where the information, came from. but it was very useful to

understand the complexities of the region. they keep shifting. they keep shifting. >> guest: i think there's a spy novel set in the 70s and the middle east it's very interesting. [laughter] >> host: there could be a movie "after words".at [laughter] >> host: so what are the moderating influence on iran a list for some time aside because for a while now certainly the regime is using this to reunite the population and the theocracy. that's not going tohe last forever. >> guest: i think it's already ended. after the killing of soleimani? 's? avyes there was a brief moment of unity i've seen iran in dispute the number of people who participated in the funeral of qassem soleimani in sothe large crowds. i am not an expert at video footage and things like that

but some people have disputed the numbers. i also think that in moments like that, people come out, outat of fear for what would happen to their country no matter what they think of the regime. out of fear theyea could be punished if they don't show up. it's a country that's run in an autocratic way, so shops were closed, you have to show it. i don't doubt that out of a sense of nationalism, people also mourned him. of course, i am not in a running expert i would like to make that clear. i have not spent enough time there. but when you look at what is happening in iran today, particularly what happened after the downing of the ukrainian plane, when 170 people died for the young promising iran in, canadians,

and various hyphenated nationalities. and the authorities very clearly, the revolutionary guards more specifically very clearly lied over the course of several days as to the fact that they were responsible. or lied or hid the reality and the truth from the president. the outrage that people expressed on the streets in the aftermath of the admission that this had been iran's faults. that tells you at how brittle things are. i am not one to predict the egfall of the regime at all. i also think it would be very chaotic. but i do think something is coming undone. you never know with what speed it accelerates. and you never know to what extent the regime is willing to go to, to hold onto power. whether it's the young people protesting, whether it is the women protesting against the

mandatory daily basis and award of c attrition against the regime's control over society, whether it is the labor movements that are organizing the country. i do think the challenges are mounting, if not to the regime at least to the regime's way of doing things. these are the moderating influence in society. >> host: i had a student from afghanistan tell me, and i looked it up and he was right. and the 1960s there were afghan woman in cabo wearing miniskirts. the perception that afghanistan was a medieval society for thousand years and they haven't made any progress, is simply nonsense. this is in the cities, not in the rural areas. r >> guest: i have seen this picture, i wrote an article about it as well to point out when you look at some of these

pictures particularly net country like afghanistan what wyou're looking at is the westernized elites. the minority. when you see pictures like that in a country that is larger and was at the time more modernized like egypt, then women in skirts was not westernized minority elites but an expression of choices made by more than a minority. what i like to make clear is that women in the middle east once, 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. and that is what we have lost, is the freedom to choose. which is what defines our society 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 went their fellow i ronnie and women to have the

choice to wear it or not. that's what people are protesting against. but when it comes to afghanistan in particular, we heard joe biden in the debate saying afghanistan is i will paraphrase a broken country that could never be put together. we take issue with statements like that. i think it is way too easy to dismiss a whole country like that, whether it's iran, iraq, similar statements were made at the time. and it ties in with that statement of they always kill each other, it's been that way for millennia. it's a little bit of a way saying we can't do anything about it we're not going to even try. that's not to say we are calling for you for intervention or invasions to fix us. that's not the solution either. butt ist simply too easy to dismiss us as people who can't

get their act together. we are facing tremendous odds and some of those odds include u.s. backing for dictators in egypt and other countries ofou the region. dictators who use preconceived ideas about the region and how is is a backwards place. it's either the modern looking man in a suit or the fundamentalist crazies. that is not the binary choice that is available to us in the region. i think we need to have more faith in us in the region. >> host: we are past our do in terms of the time we are going to have this talk together. w so i would like to thank you for being with us. we think of this is the center of the united states. but the rest of the country doesn'tt necessarily see it this way. [laughter] we appreciate you coming all

the way from washington, or beirut to us. thank you. sue met thank you so much for having me it's a pleasure to be here. [applause] [applause] [background noises] ♪ ♪ television has changed since he's been began 41 years ago. but our mission continues. she provided unfiltered view of government. already this year we have brought you primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all c-span public affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app. and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily "washington journal" program. or through our social media. c-span created by private industry, america's cable

television company as a public servant and brought to you today by your television provider. ♪ ♪ weeknights this week we are featuring book tv programs showcasing what is available every week and on cspan2. tonight, books on the middle east, first michael ruben and brian talk about the instability in the middle east, and where u.s. actions against iran may lead. then kim talks about the decades long rivalry between iran and saudi arabia. after that bill corrie 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. : :