number one for them to deliver a nuclear weapon any place, having one or two isn't going to make a lot sense. that's their doom. it's more worrisome that a weapon or technology could be proliferated to somebody who is anonymous and brings something like that some place in the world. and whether they actually take it there or just say it's in city x, do the following, the so-called blackmail approach to this. that's more worrisome, the likelihood of iran trying to attack the united states at home is probably pretty low on their calculus. the closing of the straits. people argue that that's equally detrimental to iran, but have you to remember what we just put them through with financial sanctions and everything else. the question is, when does their

cal skew husband come to the point where it says we have to change the game. that's the worrisome side that ago tishty, i think we generally average 14 ships and 17 million barrels a day through the straight. if that's the case, that's about 20% of what happens every day in oil. just a few days is a pretty significant activity to deny us. these are the things have you to sit down and work your way through. and like admiral fallon said, we're not in their head, we don't know how they're looking at these problems. it's difficult to say, this is what i'm going to do, and this is what they're going to do. >> this is a different situation for israel. that's i'm sure why this thing is super heated or seems to be getting that way. they can't range -- best intelligence i've seen, they had those weapons. >> it's interesting in the past

two weeks you've seen two israeli officials, one a senior israeli official both make the claim that the iranians would have the ability to reach the united states with a missile within five years or so. maybe they're right, maybe they're not. usually these things take longer than one would think. it was interesting the israelis felt it necessary to say this publicly. i read that as trying to get iran moved in categories in the obama administration from a general threat to one specific to the united states. perhaps in hopes that would change the way the u.s. dealt with the issue. i don't think that will succeed, but it is interesting. and i think general cartwright said the concerns is a weapon that comes in unconventionally. this is why you saw declare tory policy against north korea, where president bush after the first nuclear test, said it

wasn't the most successful issue we've seen, said if we find your material any place around the world we're going to -- that appears candid for an attack, we're going to treat it as an attack. you've not seen that kind of policy issued yet about iran. >> let's take some question from the audience. right here. >> wouldn't a change of regime in syria sort of be a better solcy because syria -- if iran lost syria, we would have to secure the wmd, there is wmd in syria, wouldn't that be a loss of face for ahmadinejad and, therefore, a loss of conduit for his terrorist activities in the middle east and elsewhere? >> who would like to take that? >> i'll start and let anybody

jump in. it would have an effect to say that you can tell now what that effect would be and how quickly it would manifest itself is difficult. it's this stackup of activities, how many things going together. it's the blind man approaching the cliff. you don't know quite where that cliff is, and where it will change. syria's clearly important to iran. clearly important to iran, and that regime is clearly important to iran. what the effect would be and overtime how that would manifest itself is pretty hard to forecast. >> you have anything -- >> no, there are very few countries that are standing tall or short with syria these days. iran happens to be one of the few. >> john, did you have a question? >> i want to take david's notion

that maybe iran would be a screw driver away from having a bomb. and could be very successful for a long time doing that, versus the notion that maybe there's an israeli attack, and there's a whole series things that come from that, that may involve us. if those are two possible scenarios, what does the middle east look like in five years time if that's where we are. either the iranians move toward having some sort of ambiguous weapons capability in five year's time. or there's an israeli strike that somehow involves us, and whatever secondary things come from that, where is the middle east then? taking general cartwright's notion that you can slow down a bomb but you can't stop one forever. >> well, let's take the first scenario, which is if they have an ambiguous capability.

i think you already see a number of other states in the region thinking about an ambiguous capability of their own. a few years ago, as the iranian capability rose. you saw the gulf communities announce that they were all interested in uranium enrichment as well. of course, just for peaceful power production purposes. they wanted to make it clear that they could also get this capability going. it's not clear -- the one to watch, most clearly is saudi arabia. which is again from wikileaks, the saudi king said cut off the head of the -- and the king of bahrain had similarly subtle advice. presumably, they could go out and buy a capability from pakistan, some other place.

whether or not they would want to risk buying a full capability or try to assemble all the component parts so the iranians knew too they were a screw driver away, i think that could be a likelihood. hard to predict what the middle east would look like after an israeli strike six months after much less five years after. i don't know how much the region would sort of readjust to normal. if you could call anything in the region normal five years out, when you talk to israeli officials about this, and you say, well, look, you'd only be delaying the capability as general cartwright said, their answer is, well, if we get two or three years, that's two or three years. and if need be we could go back and do it again. a sort of mowing the lawn kind of approach to the issue. i'm doubtful that they actually

could do this multiple times. >> right here. >> thank you. just a -- if you could elaborate on something that was briefly touched upon before, namely that even the iranian internal opposition looks favorably at a nuclear weapons program, or at least a nuclear program, is your sense gentleman that should there be one day a real regime change internally generated in iran, the region is more secular, whatever,comes, in we'l be dealing exactly with the same situation? in other words, still an irania weapons program? or would they be more inclined and in compliance, etguidelines cetera, et cetera. what's your sense? >> good question.

whati? >> i'm not sure about some the data here, what i've seen is some significant support within the population for their ability or being able to have a domestic nuclear capability, not weapons, not bombs. i think that's again a lot of fuzziness here. let's be more precise. i think there's -- i haven't seen anything at all that would tell me the general population thinks it's a great idea to have a nuclear weapon. i think the reality is, that time may be running against the regime in tehran. so they can play this game of a.m. by guity, they drag it out, and maybe they're stalling to build a capability'. if they get the capability, they're going to have to be in a box, if they ever try to use this, it's game over pretty

quickly. what does that get them? meanwhile it plays out and the israelis will probably continue to be nervous, and are going to do what they do, but meanwhile, what else is going on? there's a lot happening in this region. so as the sanctions begin to bite and as the oil spigots end up being closed as people are not buying, the other countries around the region are scrambling to figure out how they can take this market away from the iranians. and we have a. we have something that's in the wings here in iraq, where their output is stagnated for years, there are a lot of oil experts that have been working inside that country now to change that around. the potential is huge. the other countries, the uae is working hard on the pipeline. there's already a pipeline coming back. on and on and on. there are a lot of things going on, and meanwhile, inside iran times are getting tougher pretty

clearly. it seems to me that in their calculus, in their understanding of where they are time is not on their side. they're going to have to start doing something other than just yakking. and that doesn't mean they're going to go blow something up. i think if you think about the consequences, that's a pretty tough thing to chew. >> real quickly, i can't guess what's going to happen in five years, i think the trend here is that the intellectual capital to create a nuclear weapon is out there. and this problem that we're experiencing right now with north korea and with iran is not -- even if you take those two out of the equation is not going away from the world. it's just with the proliferation of knowledge that's out there, and engineering, this is not undoable. we think of this activity like we thought about it in the '50s

when we did the eisenhower buildup and all those things. they're going to make this exquisite weapon. there's no reason to do that, there's no reason to go to the icbm deliveries, there's no reason for that. that kind of knowledge is out there. this is not a problem that we will solve just by having iran change their mind. it's more a problem that we're going to have to handle. >> the bigger proliferation issue. >> yes, ma'am? >> thank you. i'm trying to understand the ramifications of iran with a nuke. would it affect the u.s. willingness and ability to keep the strait open to traffic? i mean, admiral fallon, you said even if they get one or two nukes it's not going to do anything for them. how do we convince israel that iran with nuclear weapons is not

an existential threat to israel. it would be suicidal for them to do that? >> we're not going to -- the israelis are going to convince themselves what they want to do, and it will be based on their perception of how they see the situation. iran, again with nuclear weapons, we -- i would expect would make it very clear that if these things were used that's probably one of the last things the leaders get to do. so we have a lot of national interests. and so do other countries. and one these things with the tide running against these guys now, is that there's a lot other things going on in the world. stop for a second and roll the clock back nine months or so. and it seems to me for six or nine months, there's very little

that you heard about. why? other things were going on. the arab spring, in the region, everybody's attention went to other things. we're in the height of the season right now. i guess it must be slow, baseball season's not -- hasn't begun yet or something. >> let me just ask you both this question. you're both spent time in the military, you know what military people are thinking. is there any school of thought amongst the military that we ought to take military action that this thing poses such a danger that if we find out they have a nuclear weapon, we have to go in and attack and take it out? >> well, that's a difficult question, because if the leadership tells us to go, it doesn't matter what we think. >> i understand that, and that's why i'm trying to ask this question. i'm trying to figure out what the military thinking is before

the political decision has to be made. >> as a former military person? >> yes. >> i don't see a lot of value in going in. you. >> know anybody that does, i guess that's what i'm saying? >> fox might, i don't know. >> i think there's a proportion to those who have had experience in what really happens in wars and what happens in people with those that have an awful lot to say about it. i -- that's not -- certainly not a preferred option. not anything that somebody that has real sense what happens in these conflicts would wish to have happen. sometimes you get forced into situations, but it's certainly not ones you're going to -- >> what about you, people you talk to. >> certainly, i've never interviewed any american, current or former military officials who had an opinion any different from what you just heard here, in fact what many them say is that they believe

that other methods, whether it is sanctions or covert action or whatever could probably buy as much time, maybe even more time than a military action. that said, the israeli view of this, at least from the israeli officials that i talked to in recent times is that unless the iranians believe there really is a significant military option out there, then they've got no leverage on the diplomacy, they've got no leverage elsewhere. they're sort in this dilemma, where they have to talk up the military option, and have a real credible military option, if they hope to gain the leverage not to use it. and i think the american concern is that while they would with happily build that up, this administration is quite clearly concerned, there's a good chance the israelis would actually go o and use it, if iran enters what the defense minister holds this

zone immunity. the program is buried so deep or spread out so far, that they believe there's no way that a military action would make it vulnerable. >> okay. you're up. >> i'd like to come back to the rhetoric and the reading signals points that were made a few minutes ago. history's full of example ams of misreading signals, particularly whether cultural differences or radicalized discourse, what can we do to ratchet the rhetoric down, the gun flapping as admiral fox put it? >> shut up. [ laughter ] >> actually, i think i read last week that the comment was made by netanyahu, exactly those words. i mean, just turn it off.

how do we get people to understand our intentions? often a challenge when you have lots of preconceived notions and 30, 40 years of bad history here. but being consistent, getting support from friends an allies in the region is helpful. having a demonstrated capability, i was never one to like to brag on our terrific people and what they can do. but we can sure demonstrate, and we certainly have demonstrated our ability. we have plenty of capability. shouldn't be even an issue. we don't have to keep -- >> we've been talking about -- does israel actually have the capability to do this? do we have the capability? i mean, if -- if we use nuclear weapons we would. but -- to stop it? >> oh, no. >> i mean, if they have the intent, all the weapons in the

world are not going to change that. >> because? >> the knowledge is there and they just build it back. >> over here? >> thank you. my name is nathaniel markowitz. my question is related to what mr. sanger was just saying, my conundrum is that given the course of diplomacy requires threat of credible force, the problem is, on the one hand, rigorous debate about policy is important for policy. if the vocal opposition to an iranian strike passes a certain threshold the iranians feel the threat is no longer credible. is it possible that having the discussion publicly is actually limiting the options that might even inning crease the likelihood that people think we have to make an attack? >> my two cents would be that it's certainly possible that that's the case, but probably unlikely. they don't know exactly what's

in our head any more than we know what's in their head, and that ambiguity tends to work in sour favor. you always build your add vir sayrery up to be ten feet tall because you have to. you don't want to take the risk of underestimating an adversara. it's not likely it's going to diminish the threat a strike. but i think following on the same threat is that while you want to tone down the rhetoric, you want to try to make sure and work hard to have an official channel that is really open for dialogue so that the a.m. bmbig can be addressed, there's a dialogue in an official channel that's always available so that when something goes awry, whether it's in the gulf between shipping or some other way, that there's clearly a way to diffuse it as quickly as possible.

the iranians have actually demonstrated a pretty good ability to manage escalation. i mean, they don't -- they really have stayed below a threshold that would precipitation a count ererattac >> just to add, if i could. to what general cartwright said, i think it's important that the end of the day, these are people, 70 million of them. they have aspirations and desires and there needs to be for demonstrated cooperation and a willingness to walk away from things that are detrimental to the region that there's something in this for them. so having some light atted end of the tunnel, not closing off all options, but letting them -- hey, we're willing to have you play a role in the region. you have a lot of capability, a lot of smart people.

it could be helpful if you decide to be cooperative in your dealings with your neighbors. >> when you think about how the iranians think about this, their view is, that they have indicated at many moments over the past decade an openness to talk to the united states, in 2001 after 9/11, an unrequited offer that got sort of faxed into the state department in 2003, and no one was quite sure what it meant, but it never went anywhere in the bush administration, again at one point in the discussions with the europeans, when the iranians said they were willing to not give up uranium enrichment, but only enrich in accord with their capabilities, their needs for energy. which would have put a significant limit on it, and they believe that every one these options has been ignored. and that's what president obama tried to reverse with his early outreach. the problem is, the outreach

happened just a few months before the iranian elections in june 2009 which were put down with such force. and after that, it froze all of that discussion. and it's never really recovered from that. >> all right. this lady has a question. and this will be our last question. >> thank you. you discussed the role of china in the big picture and how would that influence the u.s. policy, and u.s. national interests in the asia pacific and also in the indian ocean. thank you. >> good question. why don't we just go around the horn here, and that will be our last question. >> i think what you're asking is in relation to eiran, the chinee obviously need -- feel they need

and are customers to the oil production associated with iran, and other economic agreements that go on. so they're in a very difficult position here of how do they support not having a weapon be developed and not undermine their need for the energy resources that they're buying there. and trying to do the calculation of cost benefit right now as with other countries, what they'd like to see happen is a diplomatic solution to this activity, even if it included some sort of nuclear capability whether it be for energy or more. if that gets foreclosed, they have a very hard decision. and then they're going to have to think their way through that, to the extent they have to go some place else for energy if that were to happen, that would put pressure in the south

pacific. >> they clearly have their need for energy sources very high on the list. they have another issue too, and that's the adversity -- or aversion to activity by nations that could be meddlesome with internal affairs. so that's -- they certainly want to maintain the status quo inside of china. and one of the things that's clearly very unsettling to them is activity that's destabilizing to the population. so if they perceive that people are ganging up to instigate similar trouble in iran, iran today, maybe china tomorrow, who knows, that's a drag, a break on activity that we would with like to see move forward to get china to be more cooperative and helpful.

china decided, okay, we'll get our oil somewhere else, would with be a huge additional turn of the screws here with iran, whether they're ready to do that or not is probably up in the air. >> the obama administration tried pretty hard in 2009-2010 to come up with alternative energy supplies for china. they web with the and talked with the saudis, they web with the and talked with other supplier, iraq is getting up to production, libya as it comes back in. it's not clear that any that is really going to wean the chinese of this oil. the chinese now see a great opportunity. because i think they believe the iranians are going to have to sell their oil at a significant discount given the sanctions. and so a lot of the behind the scenes diplomacy, you saw some of this happen last week, was to try to get the chinese not to back fill and buy the oil the

u.s. and european allies sort of cut off elsewhere, that is going to be the big struggle of the next few months. >> one thought here and i'll shut up. there are different ways to approach this, one is to grab the allege d person by the neck and beat on them. which is taking the rhetorical screaming today and do it. the other is to look around and see how many tools can you prepare. things are changing, there are more options, more things we can do with other countries to help out in their economic needs, availability of natural gas in this country the. a lot of things are in play here, and emphasizing those things as things that could be helpful in the situation, rather than just -- we're going to beat them or not, we're going to blow it up or not. seems to me would be more useful for us. >> thank you, gentlemen.

[ applause ] the prime minister of libya is speaking at the carnegie endowment for national piece about the changes if his country since the death of moammar gadhafi. see it live starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span3. congratulations to all this year's winners of c-span studentcam documentary competition. the constitution and you shows which part of the constitution is important to them and why.

studentcam.org and join us mornings in april as we show the top 27 videos. and we'll talk with the winners during washington journal. cia director, general david petraeus spoke to the national security symposium association in washington, d.c.. they discussed what the future holds for both the cia and nasa. the reserve officers association is an advocacy group that works on behalf of reserve and guard members and their families. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen. you're in for a real treat to start off this national security symposium to play a patriotic interlewd. i give you the united states marine band.