good evening, i met director of the internet now international affairs at bush government here at texas a&m university. i'd like to welcome our special event this evening

with kimit gaddis, who is going to speak in her recent book, black waves saudi arabia,wa ron, and the forty-year right of rowley. i spent the weekend reading it but i couldn't quite put it down it was so interesting. so if you haven't read it, after this evening i'm sure you will try to get the book if you have not already. i would urge you to read it is absolutely fascinating. it is very well-versed or researched and there's very little flow to it is very troubling but that's the purpose of the book i think i would like to announce, unfortunately, the hour event in two days with and faster dennis ross, who is an expert on the middle east, is unable college station he had a family emergency. and so his lecture wednesday evening will be postponed to later. kim gaddis, is an emmy award to journalist and writer who covers the middle east and has for 20 years for bbc and the

financial times. she reported from iraq, saudi arabia, syria, opening, and cover the war between ebola and turning in many for national news coverage. she's also reported on the state department and on american politics regularly traveling with secretaries of state, including condoleezza rice with clinton and john carrie. she's been published in the atlantic, the washington post, foreign-policy, and is currently a nonresident scholar at the carnegie endowment for international peace in washington. her first book the secretary, was a new york times bestseller. she regulates speaks in continues to speak on american television and radio. 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 blazers on have with

them. they've locked all up and down the aisle, but they will continue to do that and when she read the questions pass them to the aisle they will pick them up of them to and i will then go through them after she speaks and the two of us will soon appear and i'll askes her some questions and then take your questions from the cards. please join me in welcoming kim gaddis to the stage. >> good evening, everybody! it is t really a delight to be here this evening. thank you for the very generous introduction, thank you for hostingt me here, thank you for the scope institute in the bush school for hosting me. and i see here in the front row, my good friend think you very much for helping to make this happen. i'm really delighted to be

back in texas. i have not been here in a very long time. i must find out the weather but this will give me a good wrist excuse to i hope. i'm here to speak to you it was just out a few weeks ago, black wave, as any book it's the result of the journey. every rating endeavor is a journey, many of you i'm sure have written books, you know it can be a very isolating experience, a very intellectual lonely experience. every book is a journey but this one is also more than the journey of the writing, it is a journey of 20 years of covering the middle east. it is in a way, the comp the nation of mike's variance growing up in the region as a child of war in beirut. i grew up during the civil war in the 18 and i wanted to

write a story about that yourn, that was not typical story about the region. a lot has been written about the middle east and i'm sure if you have read about the region many of you are probably expert sitting here this evening. i wanted to write our story because i had questions that i did not find i the answers to. in books that were

second the way i do my talks and readings is i try to make it accessiblesi to as wide an audience as possible and i'm sure many of you are experts and i can bring some different perspectives as to why the region is what it is today. what drove me to write this book is the fact i found out there wasn't much out there that really addressed what i found was the core of the problem and to put my finger on it was that was the core of the problem or what was the point at which things had changed but as a starting point i wanted to give you the conclusion and i know that is the wrong way around but i do think it is important because what i tried to do with my writing and research.

the knee-jerk coverage because of 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. i hope you will allow me to start like that. despite the headlines we see today and the decades that seem to indicate that it'sst always been like that, saudi arabia and iran have not always been rivals. been enemieslways and we forget that and policy to counter communism inin the regin by the royals of two countries

and they called each other honorific titles. they were not the closest of friends but they cooperated in a lot of ways and that is an assumption people make about the middle east that it's always been like that between iran and saudi arabia and it wasn't. number one is a phrase that we hear very often and if you listen closely you will see they've always killed each other. t those are the two in islam for those of you that don't know i will simplify. it's a little bit like the catholics and protestants. sunnis, she they split after and some people saw. some people thought they should be the closest confidant and those became the sunnis.

even the first few decades of the following, they were not as clearly defined. they evolved over time so that is another preconceived idea and misconception people have about the region when they said they've been killing each other for a millennia and it o will always be like that but it doesn't have to be like that forever. it's a different path and therefore there can be a different future. the final and third misconception people have particularly focused on tyrants and dictators.

the cultural and tall intolerance i would like to tell you that it hasn't always been like that and again it doesn't always need to be like that. so what happened i know was once asked but i would like to give you a very different approach because that question of what happened to us does haunt us in the arab and muslim world. we repeat it like a mantra from my own country of lebanon all the way to pakistan and saudi arabia and syria. for us, the path is a different country and one that isn't mired in the horrors without the crushing intolerance of religious zealots and endless wars.

they are too young to remember the vibrant societies those are the ones whose parents didn't tell of the poetry and it has very different connotations these days and debating marxism into the night or riding your bike on the banks of the river of tigris all of these things seemed impossible but the question would surprise those in the west who assumed that it has always been as it is today.

from the 60s were the 50s and they forget the things that were wrong at the time because we tend to idealize to understand why things have unraveled as the starting point and they've unraveled very slowly at first without noticing what was happening around them and then it took on an unexpected force in the last decade or 15 years. in any country or any regions that explained what happened, and there are of course many turning points and those in the

war in 1967 as the moment when there was a psyche of the arab and muslim world and others would skip directly to 2003 and the invasion of iraq is the moment where everything became worse that had already been like that and saudi arabia and iran at each other and everyone will therefore because the headlines the last two decades were invoked that it's always been like that and it's inevitable apart from the eternal, none of these explanations are completely correct on their own and it's totally wrong but none of these explanations of the turning point in the region give

you a complete understanding of why we are where we are today. as i dug deeper and deeper into trying to find the answer and what happened, i kept coming back to that one year, 1979. you may remember that as the year of the hostage crisis. it was of course also the year of the iranian revolution. the hostage crisis there was another type in saudi arabia when they laid siege in mecca for two weeks and later that year in november or december there was the invasion of afghanistan. those events that i focus on

because the crisis is a result but the siege of the holy mosque and invasion of afghanistan were seemingly independent and independent of one another. first of all, from this confluence of events was born the rivalry and i mentioned the two countries. it's why they should have become enemies or rivals after the revolution. they saw themselves as leaders of the muslim world and they werem also they had landed in

tehran in february of 1979 and also had grand ambitions beyond just iran and beyond just even the community of shieh so you had to countries, one sunni, saudi arabia, one iran and suddenly vying for leadership of the muslim world and that's what not only changed the geopolitics of the region but started slow growth of sectarian language and identities as both countries yielded those identities in their efforts to dominate the region and rally the people to theire side. and in that battle, they both yielded this in the pursuit of

something very simple that any world leader will understand. but that is the constant from 1979 to this day, the torment that flattens everything in its path and i believe that nothing has changed the arab and muslim world as fundamentally as the events of 1979 and the way that started after those events. other pivotal moments, undo alliances. they bring an end and see the beginning to the movements and ideologies. but 1979 did all of this. it changed the geopolitics and it turned countries into enemies but it did more than that because the two countries started using religion as a tool. it had an impact on society and

culture what 1979 did his began a process that transform society and altered the cultural and religious references. the dynamic that was unleashed in 79 changed who we are in the region and hijacked our collective memory and that's why i was keen to have the words collective memory in the title because i think it's important to understand the processes that are unleashed when they ripple across several decades. over time people's memories of what came before our bold but a lot of people in the united states forget that actually the iranian resolution didn't begin as an effort to bring theocracy to the country. it was an effort to topple the

shah where a lot of the modernists were involved except ayatollah khomeini wrote that wave and came out on top. the year 1979 and the four decades that followed are the story that i tell in black wave because as i mentioned, the rivalry went beyond geopolitics. it descended into this constant effort to outbid each other in this full-year than thou effort to show who was the leader of the muslim world. they fought for the legitimacy through the religious and culturalalio domination and chae societies not just within irrigon, not only in saudi arabia and in a more subtle way but the countries that extended all the way from egypt to pakistan and beyond. i couldn't include anything in this book because i tried to write it as a story narrative

and as you mentioned and it's hard to keep a narrative on track if you include too many details and countries and places. and i know that you will say pakistan isn't part of the middle east. i've not forgotten my geography but what i wanted to do is show how the dots are connected across the countries and even continents because there is a tendency to look at the middle east as only the middle east and to look a at pakistan and that dynamic as separate but actually, they are very intertwined. pakistan's modern history is very connected to the events in the middle east if only because of the jihadi against the soviets in the 80s that began after that invasion in which of course pakistan played a crucial roleem and as one remembers or should remember that that was a

war the u.s. backed as well. how did it affect iran or the role in the region and how it rippled across the region and how it interacted with other countries because there were a lot of reactions and they were not all negative and some people admired how they managed to rise on top and bring a theocracy to power in iran.

i found everywhere i asked the question and told me about 1979 and the reactions were to my thesis and meant to the flood of emotions. when i ask people in pakistan or egypt or baghdad tell me about 1979 out came all their memories and emotions and everything they kept bottled up this was a question that no one asked them before because it isn't easy when you are living in such a people to come to terms and analyze what you areer going through let me tell you how that wrecked my career or my marriage or my children's education and why i had to go into exile at that time or how i had to move

my job after 79 and why. even people who were not born before 1979 had a story because there was the beginning of an understanding in the region about what that year had done to us.. it felt atl little bit like i ws conducting national therapy sitting in people's studies or their living rooms and they sort of poured their hearts out to me. i am a journalist. i'm not in academic but this is more than a reported narrative i didn't only rely on my interviews with people in these countries. we dug deep into the archives with a my research assistance. we looked at old footage and we read articles, academic articles at the time because it's interesting to see how the perspectives change with time when you look back at the

articles after the iran revolution and to the sea the assessment at the time and read about it now. when you put it all together you get a virtual library. there are 19 binders full of printed papers that tell the story and it was important to be able to see in front of me the pictures, the writings, the articles, the headlines. imagine finding a headline from february, 1979 where saudi arabia welcomes the iranians resolution because although they are sorry to see them go, he was their friend and they were initially very concerned about the possibility that there would be a communist takeover of your on because those were the trends at the time, political islam wasn't the story. they saw the guy rising to the

top was somebody they could relate to and he was a very conservative man and wanted to bring the koran to the country. they welcomed that. you look at these details and put it all together. no events and when you have the puzzle in front of you it gives you a very different understanding and a very different reading of the last four decades of history and expands seven countries. i go from egypt to pakistan, iran, saudi arabia, iraq and lebanon and it shatters some of those truths that we have in the region because i can tell you sometimes even we forget they

haven't always been killing each other. i grew up in the civil war in lebanon and those words were never really used. as no one could have foreseen in 1979 i'm trying to present a different approach. you will find a lot of poetry and literature. music and cultural references in this book because i think that it's important also to remember the richness and to humanize the region that has been so devoid of context and the headline so it isn't a book i about terrorim or al qaeda. it's not a book about isis where

the sunnis she has split. it isn't even about the dangers that violent fundamentalists pose for the west. i needed to see take a step back and write this book. they have been silenced but they are not silenced because they continue to fight against the intellectual and cultural darkness that has engulfed us in the region. they are intellectuals, poets, lawyers, young progressive clerics, arabs, iranians, pakistanis, men and women that number of women

and men characters in the book because you don't hear enough from the women in the region and you should see what is happening in iraq and lebanon and iran today with women really leading the protest against the corruption and mismanagement of the countries. they are mostly devout. they pray and fast and go to the mosque and believe in the separation ofou church. you can't be a secular muslim and believe in the separation of the mosques and state. these are progressive thinkers that represent the pluralistic societies that are still there underneath that black wave. they suffer immensely at the hands of those that yield power or a gun and are relentlessly

intolerantss of other people. some paid with their life. many of them, some are the patrons of this book like my friend and colleague, the saudi journalist who was murdered in the consulate in istanbul in 2018. you will find the story in the pages starting from one of the first chapters in 1979 after he returns to the u.s. from his days as a studentt in the u.s. and you will meet him again when he becomes a journalist covering the jihadi in afghanistan. you meet him after that again when you return to saudi arabia and the narrative after 9/11 and he's the editor of a newspaper who gets fired for having rented very critical all bids by one of

his fellow writers criticizingee the puritanical creed of islam that is practiced inin saudi arabia. i was writing a passage around 9/11 when he disappeared and we later found out that he was killed. it was one that i did not expect but i do think is described in that rivalry. it's why this was part of the larger story but it really was. now i've given you the conclusion, the concluding thoughts and i've given you the ending in this last chapter but of course this isn't a novel although i'm being told it reads likeol a thriller but we know hw

it ends to some extent we know where we are today and it is not in a great place. butow 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 protesting in iraq and iran and lebanon today who are paying with their lives and including the women in lebanon who stand as a defense line because they believe they will be attacked less quickly than those standingng behind them by the oppression of the police. in the square they are just absolutely incredible in how they are taking to the streets and mocking the politicians call for the women to return home and the call for segregation between men and women they 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 i've given some of the conclusions, but the taleco begins in just a few yeas before 1979 on the shores of the mediterranean that play is an unfortunate role in the development in the region and today again as well. but a few years before on the shores of my country there's a little-known episode thatou plad a fruitful role in setting the stage for the resolution. and i would like to start the book with that because there's such an irony to the fact that this revolution that turned iran to a theocracy and that was shared and organized by the secular leftists as you are now

reminded of, the irony is it brought the fundamentalists to power over this with beirut and paris. beirut and paris and the capital of the modernity and the city of the enlightenment it's not for the freedoms in both of these countries ayatollah khomeini may have died forgotten in a cul-de-sac-d in the city in ira. i am not going to tell you to toomuch more about how the story unfolds. but what 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 and things that were surprising, the role that the

palestinian leaders at the time played as well in helping the revolution come to be. the fact that the muslim brotherhood, which was still a power to be reckoned with in some of these countries but was in many ways a marginal political force the muslim brotherhood looked to the success and saw we can do this year and even though they were sunni and he was shieh, they went to visit him in tehran to see what he could offer to them. those are all episodes that are forgotten but i think it's important to go back in the past because it is important to look back at the different pieces of the puzzle to understandk why we got to where we are today. but as i mentioned, they are not the keys that drive the narrative. it is thee characters like those

that said they are really at the heart of this book. the stories overlap in time, some of them know each other, some of them don't but they are all fighting for the same thing. they are fighting for a more progressive and a more tolerant society, for a more progressive and tolerant future. the stories are contained within the others of historical figures. ..

>>. >> you have to start from scratch it is hard you leave your savings, your home and your belongings. so we stayed in the hope that one day things we get better. hope that ithe o see today in the region when i look around me and a lot of people of the united states have given up on the region but i heard you on - - urge you not to because progress takes time. a lot of factors that work against usrsags is not a failure

only a beginning. the united states took some time to become what it is to after the french revolution it was not the instant result the day after. it takes time. so i settled on hope because i look around me in the region and people younger than me and people who have never known or haven't heard much of the days before 1979 and they see how they want to escape the ghosts of the past and they want to build a different future. they want to escape the ghosts of 1979. so this is for those in the west that wonder what went wrong in the region i did write this for those who

remember the time before 1979 and asked what happened to us. but especially for the younger generation who today ask their parents why didn't you do anything to stop what was unraveling? why did you let this happen? and i was amazed to see that same question posed both in saudi arabia and iran both had a very different trajectory. but in both countries people are asking their parents why. why did you let 1979 happen to us like that? so i hope not only will the book provide you with a different perspective, a much richer perspective on the region in society but i hope also provides clues for the younger generation to help

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

>> thank you very much. but before he began we have our own scholar here who has been a remarkable book on religious statecraft if you have not read it you should read it because it is a reinterpretation of the iranian revolution and i remember one summer coming back from vacation, mohammed was very excited he said i found the diary and the library leaders of the iranian revolution. i found written evidence by the leaders. they never intended to take over the embassy for theological reasons but they did it because they wanted to prove to the leftists they were not in bed with the cia or us governmentntle. i remember his excitement to

find these diaries very prominent. you seen the headlines in iran and i notice you use his book for your book. >> absolutely. >> i kept looking at the footnotes and you were reporting his book. >> it was instrumental to understanding that. not only for the iranians to dodo with on - - up to each other but also those that were trying to out each other it is always about power. >> the one country that was under the muslim brotherhood 30 years is barely mentioned and that is sudan. now educated in one - - and an intellectual scholar to the london schoolen of economics the

what that did for the economy of city and bureaucracy to the coupas that brought omar bashir to power in the summer 1989. and i remember i was working for usaid president bush 41 and we actually talk about the champagne after hours, not paid for by the federal government. [laughter] we had ae toast because we finally got rid of the democratically elected government which had stonewalled relief effort in the middle of the famine and a quarter of million people died as a result and we said we're finally remembered one - - done of this scroll croft if

it's a light at the end of the tunnel it's a trained about to run you over i learned that painfully because as time went on we realized he was a very dangerous guy and two.5 million people died while bashir was presidentrr. why didn't you mention this? it does fit into your narrative perfectly. >> and trying to find the one line where i do mention it. [laughter] it is very interesting. there you go i have it. there is a technical reason why. when you write a book driven by narrative is like writing fiction enough to keep the reader engaged if you are too many side notes or detours it is hard to keep your reader engaged and hanging on that's what you cannot put it down. right? [laughter]

so now i will take that to the bank but it is true. i felt terrible i couldn't read more about yemen. that's another one of the stain on our collective conscience on humanity we can let this happen i felt terrible i only had one chapter on syria not a specific story that absently wanted to say by ignoring other parts of theer story but looking at the trendline across those years and really trying to pinpoint the key moments either cultural or religious or social and then them down in the specific country where they had happened so the rise of islamic militancy and the

sunni and shia killings in the first moment when that happened in modern times, remember i said over the course of history they have killed each other less than catholics and protestants but these are the headlines of today. in the moment where it happened in modern times was in pakistan not even in thedl middle east pakistan is where i explore that so every chapter there is a specific issue i explore but it's all in the narrative we had a big court put on the wall where the seven countries that i explore in the for decades to detect the trendline so i have to eliminate and unfortunately sudanid was important but it didn't fit wider.

>> play do mention it. [laughter] >> but it is important and what we have forgotten. even in the region. and egyptian intellectual all secular progressive thinker who is trying to fight back against the rise of intolerance beginning to sweep his country after 1979 yet fierce debate with muslim thinkers from the muslim brotherhood and other groups and he push back against them in a public debate where he said i will never accept that islam be insulted i am a muslim i will always be insult was one - - always be muslim you can insult communism but this is a progressive thinker talking. and then he said when you ask for the islamic state, which

one are you suggesting exactly as a model? this is the nineties. there were no successful examples. iran, saudi arabia and sudan have been failures. this is the islamic thinker, intellectual pushing orback against more conservative thinkers by saying point to me one successful islamic stay in our modern times and goes on to say why the sudden obsession? for 1300 years since the first century after profit only 1 percent of people have advocated for a religious state why 99 percent of advocated for what we are calling for which is a civil statesi and then was assassinated not long after this and it was a key turning point where you see this man

is mourned as a martyr of the nation when he is killed by radical extremists. twenty years later the same thing happens in pakistan wheree a governor declares the state for defending a christian woman and is murdered in cold blood in broad daylight and no one dares any more to come out and warn himim to declare him a martyr of the nation that's how fast things unravel. >> one thing that is curious but interesting is the shia only make up 10 percent of islam it's not 50/50 or even two thirds or one third is ten versus 90 percent. >> a little bit more but not much. and most of the shia

20 percent pakistan. >> the larger share of population. >> and then and then i bring up the prince who is leader of the sect within shia islam and even the shia object and say he is really a heretic and i brought it up to a saudi diplomat once and he started to yell at me. you are not muslim..an so even within each of these great traditions there are some sex - - sub sect and then about 15 years ago and the chanting of the men was very similar to the chanting of the orthodox church.

>> part ofis the heritage that we lost. >> so how is it that a country that only makes up ten or 15 percent, why does it oppose such a formidable threat to saudi arabia? we talked to king abdullah in jordan or egyptians privately a huge threat of iran. it is a small percentage of the arab world but then there is a fear.nd why? >> it goes to factors in a nutshell. one is after 1979 ayatollah khomeini wanted to appeal to the wider muslim world much as the iranian leader not just she had that appeal to the wider world and he did two things.

one, he challenge the saudi's than the iranians until recently called for a joint body to be custodian of the holy sites that drives the saudi's crazy because that's where they derive their legitimacy and power and their money as well it is very lucrative to be custodian of the holy sites. at the time as part of the preparation with the revolution of iran ayatollah khomeini identified the palestinian cause of one that would give him appeal beyond borders beyond the shia community so this is an episode that begins in the book where i explore that

alliance between ayatollah khomeini and the palestinians and arafat having been disappointed offers a loss in 1967 and havingav felt betrayed by so.to is to make moves toward peace with the israelis. who will help me now? so there are connections made with iranians in lebanon, militants who are working towards the fall and many are trained in the palestinian camps in lebanon. and that is how the connection unfolded. but ayatollah khomeini identified as a way to

transcend iran and take over to the people across the regionra to where the arabs have failed and to liberate jerusalem. >> even though arafat was very secular and married to a christian woman. >> but it is about power. power. arafat had no problem booting khomeini. he was the first leader, the first foreign leader to visit khomeini immediately after the revolution. the first foreign dignitary , who landed in tehran one week after the revolution and was greeted as a hero by people in iran and they

chanted today and tomorrow and drinks to them. but iran has worked very doggedly and strategically to maintain its appeal to people outside of iran and the shia community. but they are friends with hamas and backers of thomas and the palestinian militant group part of the islamic revolutionary guard in jerusalem named after the arabic word for jerusalem it

is the iran expeditionary paramilitary force around the region until very recently was qassem soleimani killed in a us drone strike january of this year on the orders of president trump. it was meant to liberate jerusalem for the palestinians and the muslim nation except qassem soleimani saw the road was through beirut and baghdad with untold devastation for people along the way. so the fear, the reason saudi arabia fears iran is because of the expansionist policies and because it appeals to a lot of people in the way that saudi arabia does not because it is firmly in the american

camp will america's in the anti-imperialist camp. but both these countries at this point need each other as well and the saudi's need or benefit from seeing iranau continue to be a negative player in the region and then continue to be america's best friend in thenk region. >> you mention general qassem soleimani name because it happened after your book was published. >> his killing is not in the book.ut he is in the andhe the last page of the last chapter is a description of a video animation put together put together by a saudi outfit that shows saudi forces liberating from the regime and qassem soleimani on his knees

giving himself up to the seventies and then realize they have to give it up to the americans to dons it. >> i thought you were one with leon panetta but the two most lawful articles after qassem soleimanihe killing that i saw was one that you wrote i cannot remember where i saw it. >> the atlantic. >> you describe the us needs to do now. we were no advocate of qassem soleimani but if you just leave it this way it will be a problem. we need to follow up to send additional messagesre ihe a. what is the effect of qassem soleimani death on the calculus? because now we know i'll solder was leading demonstrations to get out of iraq now he's leading to get the united states out of iraq.

>> is also visited we odd hoping the saudi's would back him. first of all it's important to remember qassem soleimani did run a network of murderous militias around the region from iraq to syria to yemen. of course the focus here in the immediate aftermath this will be war between us and iran, a sense there already is constant war and violence and there were a lot of people in iraq but also syria who celebrated the demise and in iran. because we have seen the footage of people coming out in morning but also a lot of people who are very relieved that this man who led the crackdown against peaceful protesters and 2018 and 2019, that this man was finally gone. what is happening in the region now is that all the

different parties aligned to iran proxy militias or the allies that jockey for a position to use this moment to come on top and that's what they are doing. there looking at whether they the 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 the ability into strength. if youst remember after 2003 come iran feared it could be next with damascus. instead of cowering, they seized the moment as well as they could and now many years later or until very

recently, they accepted the affairs that the us has lost iraq to iran because they were ready from the get-go to turn this from their advantage and the same isva happening now turning the somehow into a moment where they can solidify their games because they will not stop the poems in front of them to seize what they can but they are facing a lot of headwind because of the protest you are seeing in iraq and lebanon and iran against the stranglehold on the politics of the region. >> you mentioned the women's movement of the uprising that led to the demise of president bashir.

>> yes the iconic image of the sudanese woman dressed in white with bagel tearing standing on top of the car leading the men in chanting these are the examples that i talk about. >> and the foreign minister of sudan i just had a small group meeting with her. that is unheard of in sudanese politics. we mentioned women but is there a connection between the end people in the middle east and the demands they are making for the reform and change for society and democracy? is democracy under attack around the world? >> it is. i try to avoid the word democracy when i talk about the region because it has become associated with specific usu. driven agendas. i think people in the region want to set their own agenda and i think we have to trust that we know what we want and

that is a more progressive and diverse and tolerant future. but democracy as a cookie-cutter template doesn't work exactly the same everywhereot. there are variations in the system and i do think people across the region are connected in many ways. if you listen to the chanting in the state of the root they will say from tehran to beirut one revolution that does not either not talking about 1979 but the protest taking place today that are challenging the correct leadership in the sectarianism there are

uprisings it is not only anti- iran thing is also set up the influence saudi arabia has with culture and the region and they have a crown prince who was to appear as a reformer to do many things that feed into the agenda of reform, a lot of saudi's also live in fear of what the crown prince is doing and the oppression of their country women activist who fought for the right to drive , fight going on for decades, a lot of the young activist and older activist found themselves in jail right before the crown prince or the kingse rather, they are in jail

campaigning for the right to drive just as if as it was granted to them because in the kingdom of saudi arabia those rights are still granted by the king. it is up to him to make this possible. so yes, and saudi tha arabia people are yearning for a different future with cinemas opening and museums opening and dj parties and jazzz concerts, but again, that is a western model of culture the crown prince things he should bring to the kingdom. and young people are asking what about our traditional arts and culture and traditional dancing? it is a bit of a crisis of identity in the kingdom. >> there are some evidenced

saudi arabia the crown prince is reaching out quietly to the iranians for approach want to is it possible the war will end because it is a very interesting theory the united states seems to be pulling back even though the president ordered the killing of solo money - - solo money - - qassem soleimani the united states may not be seen as central in the middle east or pivotal anydl longer. so maybe the saudi say the united states is not reliable so we have to make a parchment of some kind. do you see that happening and then doesn't the context of the middle east change? >> we've tried the talks we've had a parchment in the region before. in the nineties, it was a period in the middle east with fewer wars, no proxy wars very

few battles because the seventies and the iranians were actually on good terms. that made a huge difference. the saudi's rush with the talks when they feel endangered and their position is in danger it happened during the iran-iraq war when those that were on the verge of a possible parallel victory against hussein so the saudi's rushed to direct talks with the iranians and the exchange visits and the saudi foreign minister went to iran on the foreign minister went to tehran and they offered huge compensation, billions of dollars if they would just bring an end to the conflict because they didn't want to see out right iranian victory

they had requirements at the saudi's cannot abide by which included the issue of the joint body of custody for the two holy sites and that something the saudis could not handle. but inin the nineties ushered in at the end of the iran-iraq war and go for when the iranians were worried perhaps they were defeated but now they have to deal with saddam so they tried to find a way with a to keep iran on the better side so the talks are not impossible however the believe all the moments were used by iran to solidify its position. so while the diplomats were smiling the iranian revolutionary guard was thinking deeper into areas of

the region the cultural centers that opposed the front for revolutionary guard activities and that he will not be fooled again does he want the all-out war? know. he wants a status quo he doesn't want iran to gain too ucmuch more he wants it contained but he also worries about president trump is not a solid ally who actually go to bat for the saudi's he will push through the strategic interest for solo money qassem soleimani but not come to his defense so they feel they have to hedge their bets will be in direct talks over the last few months.

but i don't see peace between them. i think by now it will require real change and buy one - - behavior and the authorities of iran i don't see that happening either. >> one massive change i saw an article on the "washington post" and remember what year it was five or six years ago when the royal family of saudi arabia said israel now has the same interest that we have. nobody would ever say something like that so israel is now not the threat that it was before it only saw egypt signing the peace accords but to have other arab states and sunni states as a

counterbalance consistent with their own interest is a big change. >> itig is. and explains why arab countries did not forcefully reject even though they may feel slighted and then to put out the sharp statement of the arab league. and then lip service to the palestinian cause pick wanting to stand president trumps good side because they wanted this to be focused on countering to feel that president trump would come to their immediate defensive attacked by iran.

but this is the camp the men to be silence on such issues and then just today i see the headline and the israelis agree that they would take on iran and syria and iraq serving the interests perfectly fine. >> you have a lot of stories you did not put in the book. >> time for another book. >> so many stories. >> is there a sequel? >> hello there is the perfect sequel maybe and for years there are little gems that i

found in the research that i would like to explore i don't know which one will have staying power it's always a process as you dig into the archives to see where you have the most information that you can workre with to use this to raise a novel and that is the safari club. and that intelligence group that brought together the seventies and iranians before 1979 the french and the americans and it is the safari

club because they met in kenya and that is a grouping of intelligence officers and those that were the communist and always wondered. >> i don't think there's many books written. [laughter] >> but it existed. and that's good to write an article about and a novel based on that. >> president bush 43 envoy to sudan i met those chiefs several times if you pay kenya and uganda and libya and he

was very quickly when the government was going down the tubes. and had a map of door for - - with a peace agreement in darfur giving money and weapons to the rebels they did not like the sheer - - brashear and sadie were giving out weapons and all the leaders i was trying to negotiate with i realize the overstep of american diplomacy we didn't realize how central libya was. so i will a history of sudan i could not mentioned in the notes where the information came from but it was very useful to understand the complexity but they keep shifting.

>> and then a moviee afterward. >> was moderating influences. so they are using this to reunite the population that will last forever. >> there was a very brief moment of unity some iranians dispute the numbers of those that participated in the funeral of qassem soleimani in the large crowds not expert of video footage but i also think in moments like that people come out come out of fear for

what could happen inhat their country and the regime. this is a country still in the autocratic way. and you have to show up i don't doubt so i'm not the iranian expert i would like to make that clear. so what is happening in iran today and ara particular 170 people died, seeing those iranians in the authorities very clearly the revolutionaryec guard lied over the course of several days to hit the

reality that the president and the outrage in the aftermath tells you how little things are. i did not predict the fall of the regime at all. i also think it would be chaotic. but it is coming undone and with that speed itwi accelerates and with the regime is willing to go to, to hold onto power but the young peopleeo protesting against the mandatory feel and the war of attrition because it is the labor movements that are

organizing that the challenges are mounting and the regimes way and with those moderating influences. >> i had a student and afghanistan tell me and he was right come in the sixties of that evil society and they haven't made any progress it is simply nonsense this is the city's not the rural areas. i wrote an article about it as wellnt if you look at these pictures particularly in a country like afghanistan to the westernized elite when you see pictures like that at the

time more modernized that women in skirts was not the minority elites more than the minority it's not the right to the miniskirt maybe you want to wear the miniskirt they want the right to choose if they want to the scooter not. that's we have lost is the freedom to choose even in iran they were protesting against the mandatory veiled and they are veiled and where it by choice. they want the fellow iranian women to have the choice to wear it or not. that's a people protesting against the in particular and

joe biden and the debate said afghanistan we take issue with statements like that it is too easy to dismiss the whole country like that whether it is a ran those similar statements were made at a time he is in but that's not to say we are calling for the invasion to fix us that's not the solution and either but to dismiss us and we are facing tremendous odds and those include us backing in egypt

and those dictators with the preconceived ideas about the region and the modern looking man in a suit that is not the binary choice available to us and we need to have more faith in the region. >> we are past howard do to have the talk so thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> we appreciate you coming all the way from beirut for this conversation thank you. >> it was a pleasure to be here tonight. [applause]e]

>> superb. and what we need to do generally is follow his life the political context there is a political biography but standard one volume was such a wonderful job and donald says in his preface that this is a biography from lincoln's point of view because he doesn't have too much connection to the society and culture of era and was self educated and the ultimate self-made man and enters the president see the least prepared president we have ever had so i guess i'm

taking the opposite point of view so all the great he rose and history to stand alone to embrace the realm of experience from the very highest to the lowest and then shakespeare uses all the scraps of old plays and transforms them into something new and lincoln early on popular humor sometimes were dirty humor but memorizes very long poems by shakespeare and

it just because they meant something to him once you read a passage a couple of times he had it memorized and then to breakout the long soliloquy one of the great shakespearean and tragedies and on april 9 and 1865 when lee was surrendering to grant going from virginia to washington but today we would have said mission accomplished but i would rather talk about shakespeare i would rather spend several hours discuss

poetry from shakespeare and longfellow and others about death with the 750,000 americans who died in the civil war that's for his mind was. but then to identify with all classes or backgrounds.