they looked at this and worked closely with the iraqis. the good news is that the potential over the next couple of years is probably for iraq to get up to maybe as much as four million barrels a day. the bad news is absent significant additional investment and financing it's going to be hard to move beyond that. so the iraq es need to do a number of things. the first thing is they need finally resolve a question of their so called oil law. that is who decides on contracts. how are the proceeds distribu d distributed. a lot of this is happening as a as a matter of fact matter. not day in day out. the lack of a law creates tension. it continues to create uncertainty for potential investors so that's one thing that needs to happen.

there has been some discussion of movement but we've seen that so the jury is out. the financing system for the argue sector needs to change. the the profit potential needs to be -- many investing now on the basis of service contracts, that's going to need to change. and open this to financing systems that are used around the world that are not in place in iraq also needs to top. the good news is we've seen progress. that's significant. that helped proyk. 100 million budget. it helped oil markets. creates a letter sense of facility in those markets. but you hit a ceiling at some point and if they are able to get beyond that ceiling, as i said the jury's out.

that has profound implications for the region including iraqi production. iranian as well but they aren't there yet. >> thank you. let's continue with questions from can that make oil prices go up? >> i'm not going to speculate about the special conflict. that we believe that there is time in space for the diplomatic effort to succeed in dealing

with the international community's concern. and we're focused on that. he has also made clear that we are determined to prevent ryan, no getting into containment. right now the focus is on the diplomacy. we're seeing sanctions on iran taking an enormous bite, more than $60 billion in projects stopped or ended, dozens of leading companies in the world stopping business with iran. significant impact on the iranian economy. all of this is going to get even worse for the iranians in the months ahead as sanctions that have been decided, the central bank will begin to take effect. right now i don't want to speculate, all i can say is we're dealing with a problem

through a diplomatic process. >> we have time for one last question. >> thank you. i'm with phoenix tv. i have a question. we know that iraq having a good start point. what we see in afghanistan, what we see there is a mess there. how do you address the drive-down and also today, what's your reaction to that? >> i'm going to leave it to my colleagues. i'm sure it will be discussed. let me say this more broadly. when president obama took office we faced three significant all

consuming challenges. two wars, in iraq and afghanistan, the better part of a decade, a resurging al qaeda and alliances frayed to the breaking point around the world and we put enormous effort led by the president and the vice president, into ending these wars responsibly. we ended one in iraq. we're on a clear path to end another in afghanistan. we've taken out bin laden. and our alliances are in better shape with old partners and new partners than they have been in recent memory. that created krez space and opportunities and other opportunities that emerged including our relationship with india, practice zil, many other things. so if you step back and look at the big picture of the

challenges we face when we took office an what we've been able to do, to kree orient our corner policy, to give us opportunities to make america stronger going toward i think we're in a good position. it lease to what i sass talking about earlier. it's understandable that we get automatic up in the day-to-day. who said what today. whether it was iraq or ofg afghanistan. it's also necessary and important to try and step back and look at the longer picture. look at the trens it. what do we see. in iraq the big friends, despite the day out problems the emergence of politics as a way of doing business for all of the iraqi blocs and factions, that's a significant development. and in afghanistan we see a

trend line of us handing over responsibility to the afghans for their own security against the next couple of years. thank you. >> let me thank our guest for prison presentation today. he -- let us thank tony for his public service which i think now is in its third decade. that's three decades of more than 12-hour days. but also let's acknowledge that this is the time when a number of front burner in us on the national security agenda, are at an all-time high. and each of these are significant and challenging and we understand that there are many issues remaining in the u.s. relationship with iraq. there is a continuing agenda that is going to be worked but we also want to just note that indeed, a major turning point

was achieved late last year as u.s. troops came home. doesn't mean the responsibilities moving forward are any less but we want to acknowledge that, and we hope that today's presentation and the exchange with our audiences has helped with that debate. but we thank tony blinken. we know he is going back to a desk full of lots of troubling issues in the in box. we thank you for your time today. >> thanks very much. [ applause ]

>> more live events coming up today. join us at 3:00 eastern for a hearing that lookings at the impact and treatment of traumatic brain injuries. federal state and private efforts to prevent and treat such injuries will be examined. that's live at 3:00 eastern here on c-span3. a look at the republican presidential field a day before the illinois primary. we'll show you as much of this as we can until the hearing on traumatic brain injuries gets under way about 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> ken blackwell is joining us from cincinnati, ohio, he's the platform committee vice chairman of the republican national committee g. morning and thank you for joining us. >> good morning. good to be with you. >> so as we look at the race for the republican presidential nomination, two candidates are rising to the surface in the polls, mitt romney and rick santorum. which one of them has a better shot when it comes to really appealing to the conservative vote?

rick santorum says it's him. mitt romney says in the end republicans will support him. how does conservatism play into this race? >> well, i think conservatives want limited government, want economic growth and job creation. and so this comes down to a debate about the size of government, its intrusion and i think the candidate that can best articulate not only a platform but a vision to getting back to constitutional governance is going to be the one that picks up the lion's share of the conservative vote out there. and this is a horse race. people talk about momentum, they talk about delegate count. but at the end of the day it's about who can hit 1144, that's the magic number of delegates, as this campaign moves toward tampa. so, it's a horse race now.

illinois this week is going to be a major prize for a candidate although it's proportional allocation of the delegates based on performance throughout the districts within the state. >> ken blackwell is also with the family research counsels wrl he is a family empowerment senior fellow. if you would like to join the conversation. here senior numbers to call. republicans, 202-737-0002. independent callers, 202-628-0205. a story in the washington post says more in the gop want newt gingrich to step aside for the party's sake. you said friday morning i'll be with you in tampa and going all the way to the convention. ken, is this good for the party? >> well, look. it's part of the process. i think those who talk about muscling folks out of the race are a little bit naive. at at the end of the day the

voters speak and the voters will, will be done. right now there is no clear path for santorum or romney to the 1144. and so newt understands the process, if he stays in he can be a major influence as this moves towards tampa. i'll tell you, but he has to be realistic, this course of step aside will expand rapidly if in fact he doesn't have a substantially better showing in some of the upcoming primaries. >> at what point is it time for a candidate to get out? >> when that candidate and his followers decide that they want to get out. sometimes you have folks who say look, this is for the good of the party, this is not about me pursuing my ambition no matter

how fleeting those ambitions seem to be. this is what's good for the party. each individual candidate has to come to that decision point at his or her own time. i don't think that people are going to be able to push gingrich out of this race. he is a veteran of a lot of political wars, he's a standardbearer, and it's only when he perceives his disadvantages outweigh his advantages of staying in. you know, people speak. primaries are a dialogue among the party faithful and so they are speaking to each one of these candidates. nobody has locked this down. nobody is the run away favorite. as a consequence, santorum, romney and gingrich are still in the hunt. and if this goes to tampa, i

don't anticipate that you're going to see ron paul get out because his collection of delegates can be pivotal and influential in tampa. >> a couple things have changed since the last time there was a presidential election. the citizens united decision that allowed super pacs to pour money in the races and individuals to give an unlimited amount of money, do you think that has changed the scenario? we heard from presidential candidates in past years say when the money runs out that's when you get out. newt gingrich isn't facing that yet. >> well, he's not facing that yet and i'm a big believer in money is political speech in our political process. what i push for is absolute and complete transparency in a very timely fashion so we know who is speaking in any political

debate. this time in this primary. i think there are people who will allow their voices to speak through their dollars, but they're not stupid. so at a certain point people will stop speaking through dollars through candidates that don't stand a ghost of a chance. that will have an impact on the individual candidate's decision to stay in or to get out. >> olivia joins us on the phone, a democrat in birmingham, alabama. good morning. >> caller: good morning. my thing is, first, i need to you know, make a suggestion to c-span before i go on and move on to what i need to say about the republican candidate. >> okay. >> caller: why you all didn't have just women, a line for women to call in what they think about the republicans issues on women. you should have a line for women. okay. thank you. what i want to say about the gop

candidate. being african-american and a woman, the republicans are not speaking to my issues or african-american issues that i heard. and santorum is the only candidate maybe with newt gingrich sometimes, that i see come on all the stations regardless of what political party he comes on msnbc, cn viewers on fox news. and another point i wanted to make. what is this with newt gingrich. all of this i want to be the american president. come on, let's get real. as an african-american i am so sick and tired of this anti-american what you all are saying, president obama is american president. i feel bad because i went out and voted, my vote counts. we came up trying to vote and we whatever trying to do this. do not talk down our vote.

everybody vote is important. i voted for president obama and i'm not anti-american. i'm american black woman and i want to be appreciated that. thank you. have a blessed day. >> thank you so much. and you have a blessed day also. this election is about which direction america will go and the balance of it is third century. will it be a government driven by a big central government, the federal government, will it be a country that is totally dependent on the federal government to manage its economic affairs or will it return to the original notion of limited government and optimum individual liberty driven by an understanding that in america our limited government system works economically when we have strong families. one of the things that you know

if you look at just centuries and centuries of authoritarian government is that when you see them concentrate power is when they do two things. either destroy the family and silence the church. so we at the family research council believe that religious liberty is essential to a limited government model and secondly, and primarily economically, we believe strong families are important to economic growth. human capital general rated by young people getting married, staying married and having children and educating those children are hallmarks to our economic prosperity in the future. >> ken blackwell our caller olivia said she doesn't feel that republicans are appealing enough to women, african-americans.

we have a story says that women's vote could prove pivotal in the illinois primary. how should candidates make sure they get the women sflot >> i think you speak to those needs. and the issues and visions of women. sometimes we partition american aspiration along gender lines and racial lines too finely. most people want the opportunity to make a better life. and as a consequence i think those candidates that are talking about how to keep families together, how to grow this economy, create jobs and opportunity, and speak to the issue that every mother, grandmother, aunt want and that is to create educational environment where their children

can have a better -- have a chance at a better life through quality education. all you have to do is look across this country and see that women are in the forefront and the forefront of the school choice movement. they are basically saying we want to create an educational system that expands choice, empowers parents and provides the opportunity for children to have a quality education and a better life. >> ken blackwell with the family research council. serves as platform committee vice chairman with rnc. he was the republican nominee for the governor of ohio back in 2006. he served as ohio secretary of state and the state treasurer and been the mayor of cincinnati. that's the city where he's joining us from this morning.

>> caller: they can do the same

in this country if foreign countries will pay more for the food we're manufacturing, it will go overseas too and we will starve. >> thank you, caller. what we have here is a classic clash as the caller outlined between two models of government. let me use this example. there are those who see government as the mechanic. government can fix every problem that we have and in order for government to be a better mechanic, it has to get larger and larger and more intrusive. then you have government as the gardner. the government nurtures freedom. it nutures opportunity. it lets individual initiative

and good men and good women in free markets create a better life. there is a fundamental clash that will be played out in this race. the president given to his activist instincts wants a larger, more muscular government and so if you begin to look at his policies, government is the mechanic. and so government tries to run through central government policies energy reduction and that doesn't work. it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. when we let markets work and free men and free women operating in those markets on their initiative, we in fact have the resources in this country and the individual and collective genius to be energy independent as we go forward.

that's the sort of big vision that the caller is talking about and there will be a clash of these two models. the tinkerer versus the gardner. i think it's going to be a turning point in how we finish out america's third century. >> joseph, republican in albany, georgia, good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. >> good morning. >> caller: on the gas issue, four years ago they all want to say bush fault, bush fault, bush fault. now since obama is president, now they want to say it's not the president's fault, it's not the president. they have nothing drilling in other places off the gulf coast and if they could get more of that crude out of the ground, the gas prices would go down.

to me it just -- i'm tired of hearing them saying it's not obama's fault. his policy is making it his fault. same thing with the pipeline. he's not allowing drilling. there could be a lot of jobs in this country if he let that pipeline go through. >> let's leave it there, joseph, and get a response. >> well, look, i think it goes back to the clashes i just talked about. ever since the 2008 convention when the republican platform pushed all of the above strategy in terms of energy production in this country, that has been the clash. the president has basically seen a path toward alternative energy sources by penalizing those who produce energy and gas in this country. as a consequence, we see gas

prices at the pump going up and up and up. and that impacts all classes of voters. let's go back to a previous caller, women who in fact drive to the soccer games, drive the kids to school, drive to the grocery store. they see that pump price going up and up and up. and that is something that is on the minds of women across the board. everybody has to understand that the vote of women is in play for both sides. if you look at the president's popularity and most recent polls among women, it's not going up. a lot of people are saying a lot of pundits are saying that this is a weak group of republican candidates and they're going to

hand the president a walk to re-election. well, the recent polls are not saying that. his numbers are going back down. they're moving in the wrong direction. that's because at the end of the day, people want to see gas prices come down. they want to see job opportunity s go up and less intrusive government in their lives. >> there was a poll that shows romney and santorum are stirring less enthusiasm than john mccain did at this same step in the campaign process four years ago. among those polled when asked if they would vote enthusiastically for mitt romney, 35% said yes. rick santorum, 34%. newt gingrich, 28%. the enthusiastic category. john mccain, four years ago, it was 47% had said they would vote

enthusiastically for john mccain. ken blackwell, does that concern you? >> it really doesn't. at the end of the day there was a different mix of candidates and at this point in the competition, john mccain was clearly the preferred candidate. that's not the case now. competition whether it's economic competition or political competition is good. this is a vetting process. this is the opportunity for those who aspire to be the standard bear to speak to the grassroots across this nation. at the end of the day if you begin to look at the top line numbers, the republican candidates are actually starting to do better in the competition against president obama and so as a result, this whole notion that there's a devastating

impact on the candidates on the republican side as a consequence of the competition, i think is misleading. we will see a stronger republican candidate as we get to tampa. now, i told you earlier that right now there's no clear winner before tampa, i actually happen to believe that there will be a clear winner before tampa and i doubt that we will have a managed convention and competitive convention on the floor when we get to tampa as republicans. right now there's no clear path and nobody should be muscled out of this race. >> phyllis is in nashville, tennessee. democrats line. welcome. >> caller: thank you. for the good of our country, i have two points. it is incumbent on the american people to allow