there in the office, to make tough decisions all three have referred to, there is a sense of yeah, it's hard. one thing to pop off on an op-ed thing. for those who held the position critiques can be more pointed because you feel you have a sense of what actually can and can't be done. with that preface, i would like to give our panelists a chance to assess each other's administrations, not personal grading, stephen, what would be your assessment of the obama administration's record thus far on democracy, religious freedom and arab spring. di dennis, you'll get your chance as well. >> i get a couple questions that willis going to ask and i sthses one, and i laugh out loud. look, these are very difficult issues and i want to give you one more vignette that is

relevant to what elliott talked about. it's not been written a whole lot about it. in 2005, there are experts who can correct the dates. egypt goes through elections and the first one is the presidential election and the second is parliamentary in 2005 and '06, in two stages. so, i as national secure advisor invite omar suluman, president mu bbarak mubarak's first this line. we and condi go to dinner. we said to the general, this is your chance, this is mubarak's chance, let iman out of jail, let him run and run an open, free and fairly election, mubarak will win, he will win

with 69% of the vote. who cares that it's not 73 or 85. have him campaign and describe to the egyptian people what he will do, we sat there for 2 1/2 hours, and he sat well what about the security service, he said there will be demonstrations. don't crack down on them. and we talked about how you have to work with your security forces to maintain law and order but in a context of free and fair spaelection. they did a lot of that. mubarak did go out and campaign. the egyptian press was saying egypt will never be the same. so we said great job you're on the road, go to the parliamentary elections and first round of the parliamentary

elections occur and the brotherhood not surprisingly since mubarak destroyed the center, and it was the only vehicle for expressing dissent left, the muslim brotherhood started to do well. and mubarak got scared. and in the second part of that parliamentary election, they crashed down with a vengeance. and at that point, our effort to get mubarak to preside over a transition ended. it's not that we didn't keep talking about freedom and democracy that the president didn't keep making the case with mubarak, but we got in spades what dennis talked about, you don't understand our people, we tried your experiment, and it blew up in our face. it's a hard business and one of the challenges for the obama administration is for those regimes that have not had revolutions, the monarchies which as elliott spoke out, have

legitimacy and are trying in their own way to reform. one of the challenges for the obama administration is to help those regimes actually do a democratic transition before there is a revolution not after. but i offer the vignette about mubarak, it's very hard. and final post script, in the last meeting that president bush had with king abdullah of saudi, and where he talked again, once again about reform and applauded king abdullah's reform, on the way out to the van when abdullah left, he said mr. president i understand what you're saying but i'm afraid. i'm afraid. man in his 80s, maybe 90s, trying to reform but such a long way to go. so it's very hard but one of the things i think the obama administration has an opportunity to do is to try to get these regimes that have some

legitimacy to lead their people to a democratic future without having to go through the disruption of revolutionary change. >> can i -- >> please do. >> i want to make a couple comments. one is to offer further explanation on why there isn't a center, elliott started it and i want to add to what he was beginning to describe and the second point i want to make will relate to the last thing that steve was saying, there has been a lot of focus within the obama administration on precisely what you have been describing and indeed having precisely those kind of conversations which is you can see what's coming, get out in front of it and offering certain kind of suggestions. let me offer the first observation. mubarak very much did what elliott was describing, because -- and he wasn't alone in this.

bin ali did the same. all the so-called republics had no justification why they were in power, they had no idea that explained what was their reason for ruling. unlike the monarchies had dynastic legitimacy. there was a semblance of legitimacy. they had none. because they had none, they feared in a sense those who could create a narrative that would justify an alternative. so what they did is what mubarak focused on was making sure that there couldn't be an alternative narrative and it had to be in binary situation, him or the islamists. in part for our consumption, not just ours, but also internally, because he sought to create a sense of fear about that alternative and he played upon what has been historically a sense within egypt in particular about the great value and virtue of stability. now, he did something along the

lines of what elliott was describing because he did play foots with the muslim brotherhood and islamists. they cracked down hard, they were brutal. they outlawed the muslim brotherhood as a party. they allowed the islamists to take over the professional syndicates. egypt has an interesting history in terms if you look at the judiciary back to the 1920s. this developed a semblance of independence and they allowed the islamists to come in and take over. you look at all the professional syndicates, the lawyers or dock, to it was a muslim brotherhood who came to dominate. this was okay for mubarak's standpoint because in a sense, this was the way he lived and let live with the muslim brotherhood, he gave them a kind of outlet. and yet, by the same token, anybody who is under the rubric of secular and liberal, no possibility of emerging, no

tolerance for them. you look at what happened. basically we're in a situation where you had one place that was seen as being completely authentic, and off limit, precisely because the regime didn't have legitimacy, which was the mosque. in the mosque you had freedom of speech, so people in the mosque would stand up and say things and you can mang you come to the mosque and see people who stand up and not giving in. and all -- they knew how to play on the anger people felt and the fact that they didn't have an alternative outlet, here was the mosque where you had a semblance of freedom of speech, you were allowed to organize, so the brotherhood could organize, where the embodiment of being non-corrupt was seen and the sense of being in a sense also the embodiment of social justice was seen because they would engage in providing clinics, they would distribute food, when there was an earthquake in cairo, who was out there

distributing food and blankets? the brotherhood, it wasn't the regime. every natural catastrophe you would see no sign of the government but the brotherhood. they didn't have to provide for the whole country, they could do it in a limited way but it would be seen. so what emerges? it's not just the case in egypt but why there is a built-in advantage the islamists have. they are seen as being authentic, because first of all, they are islam and that is in a sense indigenous. secondly, they're seen as being credible because they stand up and say things. thirdly, they're seen as being effective because they deliver some social welfare fourthly they're seen as non-corrupt and embodying social justice, the anti-thesis. first of all they bear a stigma, the regime is secular. they're not allowed to organize. so when the time comes and

they're able to use the young generation is able to use social media and internet they can organize around a principal of opposition, but not where they had the time to create in a sense an tididentity, a platfor how do we present ourselves to the public. they have all the disadvantages in the early going and islamists have the advantages. there is one very interesting change in everything that has happened if we use the work awakening. and that is this was region that was characterized in an academic setting, this was a subject political culture, not participatory political culture. what happened in the last year, this is one reason i don't despair, i'm not feeling easy about where things are, the fact is people in this part of the world today increasingly see themselves as citizens. not as subjects. the citizens they should have

rights, as citizens they can make demands. as citizens they have expectations, as citizens, they should be able to hold their government's accountable. what they don't have and this gets to the point elliott was making as well, they don't have institutions that are there that allow them to express what citizens would express. and it's going to take time to build those institutions. and one of the things that has to happen now playing upon their self-image of being citizens and the fact they feel they have a voice and they're not simply going to give up that voice, is important to create standards of accountability and again, on our own we can't do it. we don't have the credibility to do it and it's very easy to blame things on us. but the more the narrative of blame is the one that is adopted, the more you're not going to see one house built, one job created and it won't address where the demands and expectations, so there are things that can be done but you'll have to create standards

of accountability as it relates to the regimes where the islamists will have all the advantages. last observation which gets back to what steve was saying, it's essential and the administration has done a lot of this, has done it in a lot of different leaves and there have been sustained conversations especially with the whole range of our friends about the one thing you can see is that in the region you see a sense of citizenship emerging. and you're going to have to find ways to respond to that. you have to create a sense of inclusion. you have to create a sense that people have the means to participate in somehow shaping their own future and destiny. it's an easy thing to say, a hard thing to do precisely because you get back to what king abdullah said to president bush. many of them will say we understand. i'm not going to identify the individuals who say this now because they are in power, many of them will say they understand. but they don't quite know, even when we make suggestions, we

suggest ways we and others can be helpful, they don't quite know how to take the steps that will be responsive without unleashing a set of forces that they fear will undo them. and there aren't too many people in power who are going to take steps they think will undo their hold on power. >> thanks. dennis, especially since you brought up the question of the islamists and mosque and also the shift of in identity from subject to citizen thatthmain t gathering here today a question of religious freedom. elliott, i'll put this question to you first i'd like the others to reflect on it as well. what is the role of religious freedom in these on-going transformations? has -- when we hear religious freedom, is that a greater role for islamism which will be regressive or is religious freedom potentially a key

solution to pluralism and creating institutions and habits of citizenship that dennis was talking about especially for non-islamists muslims and minorities such as christians and jews. >> why do they get the easy questions? it seems to me a very difficult question. these are countries in which for the most part there was a fair amount of religious freedom, for the most part. the restrictions on religious freedom tend to have two kind, one, minorities, for example, in many, many of these countries there are laws against changing your religion from islam to another religion. and then there were the restrictions that the state put on the muslim brotherhood at

other expressions of let's call it islamist belief. now the systems are open and you can have something closer to popular sovereignty. it raises a question of religious freedom again. it's interesting, i wrote a column in monday "washington post" that criticized tunisia, not because it's the worst example at all of difficulties, but because it's so important because it was the first and is the model, a place everybody says tunisia has a really good chance of making it. the movie persepolis was shown, this led to prosecutions of those who showed it on the grounds that it offended public morals, because there was a scene in which one of the people in the movie had a visualization in her mind of god. an image of god.

and i said that's a violation of freedom of express to go after -- for the state to prosecute. and it is wrong. and i had a liberal tunisian friend say no, you're wrong. here's why. it's very hard, this is brand new to us, we're trying to build i think he would have said a liberal democracy. and there are a million issues. and one of the toughest issues is precisely the kind of thing you're talking about. if you push those issues, you americans, complete freedom of express in the religious realm, then tunisians, none of whom want to see that kind of movie, and who are conservative muslims at base, they are going to say, they are right, this democracy stuff brings with it chaos and

sackrilege, homosexuality, that is the line that is given. you know he's not wrong but not right, either. what i wrote back to him was the problem with what you're saying is there is no limiting principle. first of all, there are no tunisians who want to see persepolis? zero, if there is 20% of the country, they don't count? and if the argument is you can't show a movie like that because the vast majority of tunisians don't want to see it, suppose the vast majority think women shouldn't be allowed out of the house without a burqa, is that okay too? there is no limiting principle. that is my problem with that

argument, that -- so i think what you're going to have is to some extent a competition among the freedoms that we want to see these countries adopt. you'll see this happen in election campaigns, where islamists, generally will argue against the secular parties, will take you down the road that will end with french style secularism, where there is no place for religion in the public square and take you down the road to sort of sodom and gomorrah which will sell to some millions of people in the region. but the answer to that which is okay, fine, we won't have freedom of religion, for 25 years until things settle down, cannot be right, either. so i think it's a complicated interplay. and not a simple question of

sort of saying well, every kind of freedom you can think of should now advance at exactly the same pace and will advance at the same pace because after all, they're all interre a role. the american style of secularism is not the french style. i think we should be trying to explain and to defend the american model, because i think a lot of people in the middle east are beginning to become in tunisia also, familiar with it and realize it may be a much better model for them than the french model, but also we don't believe in majority rules period end of sentence, end of paragraph. we believe in liberty under law. we have a constitution. it has three articles to begin with about how the state is constructed, then ten amendments, about freedom. i think we do need to say repeat edly and out loud that we don't

view democracy as the ability of those who get 51% to impose anything they like on everybody else. that is not what this struggle is all about. >> steve? >> i want to pick up on that, i think the religious free doims extremely important to us as a value. i looked at the ten amendments, the first amendment and i thought to myself i better check that i think it starts out with freedom of speech. and for those of you that don't have your pocket constitution with you, actually the first amendment says congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. only then do you get free speech and assembly and i think because in some sense if you've got freedom of religion, the other

parts of that amendment follow on as corollaries. freedom of religion is important but hard cases make bad law. and if we force these regimes coming out of their history as a first issue to deal with that question of how far does freedom of religion reach, an issue that has bedevilled our country for 200 years, you will hobble their democracy and i think that's elliott's point. it's very difficult to draw that line. we're struggling to do it after 200 years. if we put that on these governments, they won't make it. so what should we be doing? i think something short of that. something that will enable the resolution of those questions but does not force them prematurely and that is religious tolerance. and that is where i would make

the focus. washer, who is known to a lot of you, i was on a panel with him a month or so ago, he said something i thought was profound. he said in the middle east, neither arab nationalism nor political islam had a tradition of tolerance and pluralism. and that's what the middle east needs. now why does he say that? because if the middle east cannot solve the issue of tolerance, then you're going to have a situation where the political authoritarianism of the mubaraks is going to be replaced by religious authorityism, either shia oppressing sunni and both of them beating up on the kurds and everybody else. that is the threat. so what does that mean? we, and elliott is right, we have a role, we need to be

pushing for religious tolerance, for an understanding that majority rule does not mean you get to impose your values on everybody else. and that there has to be some space between the state and religion. and interestingly enough, the prime minister of turkey helped in that in a speech he made in cairo that really angered a lot of islamists, because he came and said look, the state should be equi distant from all religions and no relidges on believed at the state ought to run a system where all religions have a place, but the premise of that is going to be tolerance. and i think that's what we need because if there is going to be stability over the long term, there has to be tolerance as an element of democracy, because if we go sectarianism, that is also an instability waiting to go

viral. i would say tolerance. >> dennis? >> religious freedom, islamism and arab spring. >> i don't have much to add what either elliott or stephen said. i think they both cal tptured i not only effectively but eloquently. this is not a difference, probably not -- it may be simply a semantic way of saying the same thing steve just said. i think the critical point here is respect for minority rights. if what -- again when i was talking about standards of accountability i was trying to get at the idea there are political stan darsd of accountability and economic standards. one of the political standards of accountability, preserve a space for competition. when you preserve a space for competition, you have to respect the views and rights of others. so there has to be, you were both saying this, it's not

majoritarian rule, they have to respect the rights of minorities. if there is respect for minority rights, by definition there will be tolerance, this i think will be a really -- this is a hard slog and we see it by the way in the egyptian muslim brotherhood right now. because you see a kind of pulling and thrashing there, over exactly trying to define what the role of religion is going to be as relates to the state. everyone may say article two, the rule of sharia in egypt and the law but there is a difference among those who feel that it should be a much more omnipresent role and those that see there has to be a separation and the extent to which i agree with both my colleagues up here on the idea that we have a role

to play, add i think we will be more effective if we can build what amounts to a large number of partners saying this internationally and repeating it over and over again so it becomes a mantra and if it becomes a mantra, then it becomes something the muslim brotherhood in particular will realize the world is watching at a time when they want help. if they want help they have to meet certain standards, but also their own seeps in the blood tds stream with their own publics, as i said, they have of psychology of being citizens but not the existing mechanisms how to act on that. >> i want to put one more question to our panelists before we turn it over to the audience as well. this is on a country that is not necessarily associated with arab spring but arguably some might say the early seeds of the arab spring were not just in tunisia

in late 2010 but iran with the green movement protests. the headlines on iran have to do with the impasse over the nuclear weapons program. i would like to ask the panelists, elliott we'll begin with you. given that the nature of the iranian regime is almost defined by a particular brand of religious intolerance, do you think religious freedom advocacy, whatever that might look like might be a way in the side door of promoting reform moderation, better path forward in iran especially given the relinr religious minorities? >> i do, i think the people of iran have now been inoculated against this form of political and religious organization by having the horrible experience of living under it. they have seen what it means in

terms of intolerance and repression and corruption. and i believe they would vote against it if there were ever a free election. which is why there is not going to be a constitutional referendum in iran asking people whether they want it anymore. so i think it's something that will change when this regime someday falls. i think there are many, many iranians we'll never know the exact numbers until iran is free, but who believe that this is a corruption of shia islam, and i think it is and a great change from the way shia islam has been practiced for the last couple of centuries. they've really i think essentially destroyed the system of having emulated leaders, by bringing them under the control of the state which ruins them and the entire system.

and it is not therefore, surprising that some of the most important resistance to the regime comes from koom and clerical establishment, in fact there were several prominent shia leaders including grand ayatollahs who refused to vote in the recent elections because it was such a corrupt political system. ultimately, they look around, i'm sure, and they realize that in some of the arab countries, we've seen free elections in tunisia, egypt, islamist parties win a free election, big victories, but in iran, the population is disgusted with the kind of islam that the state is forcing on them