religions. if you have a tolerance of all religions, you cannot have a state founded on a religion. because it is inconsistent with freedom of religion and the free exercise of religion by all groups. and that really is the issue in iran. you have a theocratic-based regime. and it's the region is going to have to conclude that that has not worked to the benefit of the people and you can't establish a government on the basis of the slogan islam is the answer. if the your question is, what is the answer to all political problems and to the question of how to found a political system, islam is the answer, the region's going to have to decide on that sense to that question, no, it isn't. and in that sense, iraq is ahead

of iran. and because of the remarkable character of ayatollah sistani who in the early days after 2003 when all of the political parties came to him and said you know, tell us what to do, he was self limiting as to power. that is to say he said no, that is a political question, you need to work it out. i think that is the right answer. i think as part of this tolerance dimension, the second piece of that is the region's going to have to understand that a political system based on religion is not the answer. >> dennis. >> i don't have a lot to add. one of the points that elliott made i think is exactly right in iran. what this regime has done is give religion a bad name. and in many respects it's

probably discrediting it for the future. and it's one of the ironies that it is, we've seen in a decline in the power of the clerics under this regime, a militarization of the regime and power is being taken in a sense away from the clerics. you know, it's also as elliott was saying, the quietest school of islam, the dominant one, which sistani represents, is you know, is a polar opposite of what has emerged within iran. i think at some point we're in iran we're going to see a change. it's true the focus on the nuclear issue for reasons that are understandable. but there is -- i having been trained initially as a specialist on the soviet union and you can always tell someone's age, talking about it being long in the tooth, when

they are a specialist in a country that no longer exists. but the reason i cited as an interesting example, i see within iran what looks to be analogous situation to the soviet union in the early 1980s where ideology in this case, religion as they describe it has lost its relevance as being an idea to justify a rule. it's there as a cloak. under the cloak you have a kind of corrosive reality eating away and will eat away at this regime over time. we can never know and predict how long it takes for something like that to emerge. i think its impact on religion is going to be increasingly negative and we're not going to quite know when this -- maybe there will be an evolution from this regime. maybe that's what will happen first. if there isn't, then there could be a reaction and there could be a reaction against religion.

>> now we're going to open it up to the floor for questions. let me say up front that the three stipulations for questions are that you first identify yourself, second you keep it brief and third, keep it civil. right here. microphone is coming around. >> i really appreciated hearing the sort of inside stories of talking to mubarak. i think it's heartening to hear because there is often this perception that no one in the u.s. government is trying to push these issues. i think it's important. i'm wondering if you could share stories about other regimes in the region, have those conversations happened. i'm a specialist on yemen and jordan. in 2006, yemen had its first real alternative candidate in its presidential election. also in jordan i'm wondering if there are conversations there,

king abdullah is our best friend, very western but the regime is not legitimate i'm sorry to say. the fact that he don't have to perform pretend elections every four years and pretend that's what his basis of legitimacy doesn't mean he is widely supported. i'm wondering if there are conversations there, if there are with saudi arabia, the other religious -- give religion a bad name in the region, i'd love to hear more from that. >> let me start. one of the problems you run into of course is that while it is true that there are sometimes rulers who respond to these questions which they probably see as lectures by these stupid americans, they respond by saying you don't know anything. you don't understand. that happens.

but what happens with equal frequency is people say absolutely. you are right. i'm doing it, i'm with you, i'm ahead of you. when that is just, you know, pabulum for us. there was a period at which it looked as if president sala was moving ahead with democracy. he had a reasonably free election, he had an opponent in that election and had a couple of good years. but i think looking back one can say that he had not sort of read that constitution that said this is it, i'm there. he did it, did what we wanted him to do. we and others in position to give him money. the eu, world bank, imf and so forth. and in the case of jordan i'm not sure. that is, the most effective lobbyist for jordan is the king

as his father was. there isn't anything you can tell the king that he hasn't thought of and said in his most recent speech. about the liberalization in jordan, my own sense of it is, i think probably pretty close to what you were saying, that is he's got a gigantic problem with the division between let's say east bankers and palestinians. and the division of spoils in the government. he's got a system where quite intelligently the prime minister does not come from the royal family, he comes from politics because that means that when people get annoyed after eight months, he's gone. prime minister's gone. get a new prime minister. the problem of course is that you do that every 6 or 8 months year after year people will begin to doubt whether the changes and the reforms are serious. the king has promised in the

aftermath of the arab spring, real reforms. i don't think there have been real reforms. he's worried about something that we're not worried about. this can be positive or negative, that is i don't think he's so much worried what's going to happen between now and december. he is worried whether his son will be king of jordan and has to figure that out. i think if you try to think what would you tell him if you were his brother or a close adviser in the royal court. how do you maneuver through this over time. you know, i would argue that the game he's been playing really for ten years of -- i think it's fair to call fake reform, will ultimately have to be jaet sinned for real reform. give at any political situation on the ground that's easy advice

to give from washington and hard to implement in amman. >> i guess i'll add a little. elliott's description and analysis is quite apt. in the case of sala there were extensive conversations over -- in the obama administration, with him to try to move him out, to get him to accept the transition. it was in this case it was coordinated very closely with the gcc states because they were central to providing him the means of staying in power. it moved in fits and starts as was his wonant he would make certain commitment, then he would back away. this is a guy who had obviously stayed in power for 30 years and was pretty good add maneuvering.

that meant not only internally but also externally with choosing to have certain allies at certain points and having different allies at different points. in the end, he did go along with the transition. now, obviously there are some very positive signs with this transition, there still are some open question marks in terms of the weight of his own family within the military. but it is pretty remarkable to look at what the reaction to these elections were, including among those who had been fighting each other, there was a genuine sense that something profound had now happened. so look, the problems are enormous. they have few resources, they are running out of water. and you know, they still have

separatist impulses in the south, they have the hooties in the north. they face challenges but the transition that is under way now shows some promise. it needs the kind of support and the fact is, sala in the end did leave. and it came after an enormous effort of a lot of players including the administration and a repeated way, the number of conversations with him i can tell you were of high frequency and high levels including the president. and you know, you're also striking a balance in these cases between what's the right balance between what you say in private and what you do in public. as someone who has worked in the middle east for a long time what i can tell with you a high degree of confidence and i say this at a time when the truth is humility should be the order of the day, since none of us predicted what's happened because we're not the authors of

what is unfolding there, we should in the first instance have a lot of humility. so when i say the following i'm saying this not only with humility but also with some sense of experience, you can't limit what you do only to private. in this part of the world especially with leaders, if it's only going to remain private they will never take it seriously. how you balance what you say in public and what you say in private that's part of the art. this isn't a science, it's an art. with each leader it's going to be different. and you're going to have to figure out what's the right balance, what's the right moment. when you say it you obviously have more than one audience because others are going to hear it so you have to calibrate this. but if you're going to operate only in private you won't be effective. what worked, i think, ultimately in getting sala out was at different times we ratcheted up what we were saying in public. even then we coordinated that with the others who we felt had

even greater leverage in terms of moving him. so, having written a book on state craft i can say an element of state craft here is also realizing what you say in public, if you have other actors who are key or at least maybe pivotal on terms of helping to succeed in producing the outcome you seek, you also have to orchestrate what you're saying in public and not surprise them. it isn't just the individual leader that you're working on, it's also who else may be your partners in this effort to manage a transition. and that was very much the case in terms of finally getting sala to agree to go. i don't really have much to add to what elliott said about jordan. i do think that the king now is more conscious of the need to try to carry out reforms that will be seen and not just from

an image standpoint but in reality can be real. it's a very hard -- very hard nu nut to crack. the backbone of his regime also is recipient of about 80% of the revenues of the government. and if you really are going to open up the system, and if you're really going to create the kind of reforms that will allow jordan to flourish over time you're going to have to manage the fact that they get 80% of the revenue now, you can't have them go cold turkey without unleashing forces that in a sense you're not going to want to see happen. so again, this is one of these cases where you can do a lot, you know, in the laboratory that seems to make sense. in the real world where you carry it out it's a very hard process, i think, to orchestrate. i do think that the king has

thought a lot in the last year about ways to create not only reforms but also to demonstrate that the reforms are real and also he's looking at models, much more than was the case before. because both of these monarchies trace back to the prophet they have a lot in common and i think he does look to morocco as one potential model and you know, the king of morocco is an interesting example of someone who did look at what was happening and decided he had to try to get out front of it. and you know, what has emerged there, again, there's never going to be anything that's going to work perfectly, but it was potential. i think the king of jordan is trying to think through is that appropriate or are there others,

hybrids, he will try to pursue. my sense is that he genuinely is wrestling with this and trying to proceed but the constex very difficult context and there are no simple answers for it. >> steve, any more? >> you may want to go to another question. >> we've got right here, dan. >> i'm from the university ever notre dame. thank you for an excellent panel. one of the things i appreciated is how much each analyst takes seriously the kind of sincere and genuine role of religion in world affairs. it wasn't always so. in his book the eagle and the lion james a. bill recounts the story of the cia analyst ernie olney who in the 1970s saw religion as being very important and iran saying we've got to look at this, we've got trouble

on the horizon. but all of his colleagues ridiculed him and called him mullah ernie. so my question is, how much in u.s. foreign policy as we saw in the attitude toward mubarak maybe hanging on too long and so forth, how much is u.s. foreign policy shaped by a kind of widely shared secularism in the u.s. foreign policy establishment. a secularism which says either religion is irrational or irrelevant. how much is that still true today? >> steve, you want to take first crack. >> we'll try to make our answers briefer. there is, and elliott alluded to this. what is secularism. i had a conversation with condi rice. i said do you consider yourself a secularist. she said no, i'm a religious person. so what do we mean by

secularism. the french have a view, the state has to sit on to religion to make sure religion does not intrude into public life. a kind of secularism i don't buy. i don't think our country buys. i think the best one is what was talked about in cairo, an equa distance from all religion but a tolerance of all religions. i think probably the political establishment, diplomatic establishment is between the american and the french model. i think the american people are between the american model and something with perhaps even more active place for religion. but i think the government has been conscious of that. i will explain, my own experience, i was from '89 to

'93 i was in the pentagon, i co-chaired with the number two person in the turkish military a high level panel. i used to talk to him one-on-one how the turkey establishment needed to provide a space for religious expression by the population. and i think that is something americans broadly agree on and the diplomatic community agrees on and at various times i think that is the model that we have urged on countries. you have got to provide a space for your citizens. president bush used to say to the chinese your people in the end of the day will never feel fully satisfied and you will not get the best out of your people if you do not allow some space for the exercise of religion and the exercise of the spifrmt i think that's roughly where the united states government has been. >> elliott or dennis.

>> just add one quick thing. i think, i agree with what steve said. i don't think there is this impulse of people on the inside who have this generalized view. i think it's country by country. and you're looking at the circumstances. and i think that's the way i think most analysts within the government would look. i don't think they come with a view. one other point and it's not -- i think it's jermaine but not directly on what you're asking. having been someone who negotiated for a long time on arab israeli issues, oftentimes i actually wanted to have religious spiritual leaders support the premise of tolerance and coexistence and speak against nonviolence, and i couldn't produce it ever. and i recently met with an interfaith group from the area,

and included israelis and palestinians, and for the first time they said they would like to see if they could play a role. and i said you know, it's interesting that historically that's not been the case. and indeed, i recall in the year 2000, the pope went to -- made a tour throughout the middle east, to jerusalem and ramallah. and they came, his representative came in advance to us, and wanted to create an ecumenical meeting where they could reinforce tolerance and he put together a meeting in jerusalem that was a complete disaster. so it was refreshing to see an interfaith group come now from the area and want to promote something. in answer to your question, i didn't -- at least in my own experience i didn't view it as being something that was at odds with peace making though i

didn't want this to turn into a religious conflict because then you couldn't settle it. i wanted religious spiritual leaders see if they could reinforce the values of tolerance, nonviolence and coexistence. >> the gentleman standing at the back. >> from the naval post graduate school. what is obama's administration's view or assessment of libya moving forward, is democracy going to take hold in libya or if not, what are the challenges that prevent that. secondly, some made the claim that the current administration is cooking the intelligence on syria to prevent an intervention in syria. what is your assessment of that. >> dennis, i think that's to you. >> i'm assuming it's to me. first, i'm not in the obama administration so i don't speak to the administration.

they have plenty of spokespeople and i'm not one of them. i would say, though, i mean obviously i was in the administration for most of what went on on libya including the intervention and its aftermath. i think that there is a continuing hope that what can emerge in libya will be a government that is largely representative. it will be a government that you know, is not a government of tribes or sectarianism but a government that will be largely representative and inclusive. representing there are you know, that this is not a simple process to generate. the prime minister of libya was recently here and saw the president. when you speak to the people who are in what is an interim administration in libya they are very much committed to trying to produce what would be a

representative democracy. now, coming after gadhafi and the absence of institutions it's both in some ways easier and harder. because in other places, there are what i would describe as sort of institutions, they aren't real and they in some ways you are trying to take them and reform them. in libya you're trying to build something out of largely nothing. so there is a potential because of that, but there also are all sorts of splits within the country. there's no doubt that the islamists are trying to gain the upper hand. you talk to the people who are trying to manage the change themselves and many of whom by the way were educated here, they are incredibly impressive. they certainly are saying the right things, whether they can deliver on it remains to be seen. but the administration is looking for ways to continue to

bolster and move things in a certain direction. i would say on the issue of syria, i don't believe that what just came out, where there was some intelligence briefings, i don't believe those were by design by the administration. i think they may reflect certain views within the intelligence community. it's not my understanding that they represent the views of the administration. >> we've got one here. >> i'm a georgetown alum. in october 1789 george washington wrote a letter to governor paris on the french revolution. the revolution he warned he said is wonderful but also warned it is of too great a magnitude to be affected in so short a space and with the loss of so little blood. to forebear running from one extreme to another is no easy matter. and should this be the case, rocks and shells, not visible at

present, may wreck the vessel. i was looking at an article now iran about people in tunisia having a demonstration calling for sharia law, so i think back to washington going from one extreme to another he warned. you've got the french revolution. the words apply to our own day. >> i can give you a firm maybe. we don't know yet. the changes in government began roughly a year ago. there are very significant changes in many years replacing regimes that were there for 20, 30, 40 years. and i think you know, we also -- we know from the experience, for example, indonesia and malaysia and some others, islamists tend to do best in the first

election. dennis mentioned some of the reasons why before, because they have the opportunity to organize, because they in the eyes of many people in the country they stand for integrity. they weren't part of the old corrupt system. but then what happens they get elected and can't produce in many cases. islam is not the answer, it doesn't tell you how to create economic growth, jobs. so in a second or third election, then you have to have a second or third election f. there is one, then the tide tends to recede. will that happen? in tunisia, by the way if it happens in tunisia that proves nothing whether it will happen in libya or egypt. i think the truth is we don't know. >> let's say one thing. in the egyptian revolution, almost all of the casualties were in the first 18 days of the

revolt and they were government shooting at demonstrators. since that time it has been a remarkably peaceful revolution. and they did have conduct the freest and fairest election probably in the history of egypt. so you know, i think there are all the risks and it all could go south. but i think you have to give the egyptian people some credit for what they have done so far, and we ought to give them such help as we can and that they are willing to accept because it matters how this comes out. remember, there is another revolution that was made in the name of freedom and democracy in 1979, that was the iranian revolution and it got hijacked and has been the principle problem in the middle east for the next 30 years. so, how these revolutions come out really matters to the people there, but also to us. and that's why we need to be providing such help as we can.

>> i think this is a beginning of a story. we're seeing chapter one what if is going to be at least a 10-chapter book that's going to emerge. we're not the authors of it. they are. but we have a huge stake whan happens there. i don't know what's going to happen but i think a, i don't think people who suddenly found their voice are going to lose it. b, i think we have a huge stake in figuring out a way as i was saying to have standards of accountability because they have to deliver. and i think at this point they are showing signs at least in egypt showing signs they have to deliver. i think the same in tunisia. and you know, i go back to there was one interview i read of a woman in cairo from one of the poorest district who is said she voted for the muslim brotherhood