afghan armed forces will be able to pick up security for themselves in a time frame that is "acceptable to the u.s." >> well, that partially will depend on us and largely it will depend on them. the commitment we make to ensuring that that comes about. i think there's tremendous us progress in some of their elite forces and special forces that conduct specialized operations and there's great reason for optimism there. as far as the rank and file of their military forces, there's more concern. part of the concern or part of the instability about its future is because folks in the region are not quite clear what our long-term commitment is. in essence, if you're in the region and you think the americans and nato are going to be gone in a few years, you start hencing bets and figuring it might not be smart for me to be too cooperative because the people who are going to be running this the taliban are going to make us pay the price. part of it is this is long-term agreement that hopefully will

be, the details will will benounces soon. hopefully will start to give some certainty about the role that the ifat countries are going to play in that region. >> what i'm trying to get at, in other words, you're saying that our remaining in afghanistan is more important than the desire of the american people to get out? >> i think the desire of the american people is a reflection of the fact fa we've lost lives and treasure there. and you cannot put a dollar figure on that in terms of the number of people that have seen loved ones lose their loves or be injured. there's a certainly fatigue at conflicts. . and i don't believe the time frame in afghanistan is an indefinite one. i think it's critical for public polesmakers to clearly and persuasively explain to the american people why our engagement is so important. not only does it honor the sacrifice and work that's already been done but it's important on a number of fronts. in addition to having a functional afghanistan that no long sert place where future attacks against the united states could be coordinated from

for example, our presence of in a strong and stable afghanistaning will provide us many more options to deal with increasing uncertainty in pakistan. >> and you say a strong stable afghanistan is a good strong stable possibility be? >> i don't think it's going to become canada but i certainly think it has the opportunity to create for itself a functional nation state. again, a lot of that will be dependent upon our commitment to helping them get there. >> you spoke about the importance of american leadership especially in the middle east. let me ask you and try to bringing in senator lieberman, as well. you speak about the u.s. helping to create a safe haven, providing food and medicine, communication equipment, and then you add "potentially weapons." now the word potentially does not seem to me a clear definition of american leadership. so what do you mean potentially weapons? >> what kind. >> sure, i'll answer that first. first of all, we have to ensure

that lover it is we ultimately we equip them or our allies is equip them, we understand the nature of who they are and their ability to protect these from falling into the wrong hands. they have to show us some increased structural capacity. you just can't give that over to a force that can become the weapons could fall into the wrong hands in a global marketplace. i think we need to see some progress in terms of the development, more organization around -- >> how long? >> well, it all depends on how long it takes for them to organi organize. it's a cash 22. >> where does american leadership come if? >> helping them get organized. we don't know who the opposition is, they're not well organized, well coordinated. some of that is what will we need to help them with. certainly they're disorganized and not well organized because two years ago, none of them were involved in this endeavor this this sprung up from the grassroots. i think you've got to the help create that capacity before you ultimately make a decision like weapons. it doesn't have to be the united

states. there are other nations in the region that i think would be willing to step into that void and help along with this effort and you may want to comment. >> senator lieberman, i'd like to ask specifically, you've spoken about support of the use of american air power in syria, am i right? >> that's correct. >>ing what about boots on ground? do you go that far? >> no, no, i don't. there's no need for american boots on the ground because there's very broadalness among the syrian opposition to take the fight to assad. i admire marco for the -- how explicit he's been. syria and how we're called on to do something there. this is a classic exhibit, an illustration of exactly what senator rubio was talking about, which is almost everybody in the region except iran believes that one assad's brutal slaughter of his own people has to stop, and

two, if he falls, it will be a devastating body blow to iran, which almost everybody else in the region wants to see happen. but no one else in the region will assert any leadership unless we do. that's what they told john mccain and me when we were there. and i agree with what will senator rubio said. at some point, we have to work to get the opposition better organized. they've come a long way in a year having grown up in a country where assad didn't allow nel opposition to take shape. but at some point, we simply have to say we're going to help them, we're going to give them weapons to defend themselves and that will make them strong and more organized. >> wait a minute, we are going to give them, the u.s.? >> we and the rest of our allies. there's a lot of willingness to be involved here, but no boots on the ground. about you, and frankly in our direct conversations with the

political and military leaders of the syrian opposition really what they asked for effectively all they asked for was weapons. give us the weapons to defend ourselves. we're not going to give up. but we will not be able to bring down assad unless the rest of the world helps us. >> you both talked about the link between syria and iran and i want to pick up a phrase from your speech, senator. you said if all else fails, preventing a nuclear iran may require a military solution. do you have in mind use of american military power to bring down that nuclear iran option. >> when you get into tactics of -- >> this is beyond tactics. >> i'm always very cautious and very respectful of the role the president has as commander in chief. my bigger point is ultimately we would hope negotiations would work. we don't have a track good track record of negotiations with iran. you would hope the sanctions

would either discourage them from continuing or empower some voices within that regime arguing they shouldn't go this far. we should try everything we can to avoid that, but there is the reality. i think we have to come to the conclusioning that an iran with nuclear weapons is an unimaginable thing. impermissible and that no option should be off the table because of that. i think the president has basically said as much in the comments he's made. certainly, yes, we are the most powerful military force in the world and it's difficult to imagine a successful engagement that doesn't have the significant u.s. engage.. while that should be discussed we're hopeful a negotiation will work. my bigger concern is that a reliance on negotiations would lead us to somehow postpone sanctions or walk away from some of the other things we're working on. >> one final question because i know you're both anxious to get back to work as we say up on the hill. >> not really about you. >> this is much more engaging than a postal report. >> i left that out of the

speech. >> one country about which c you've spoken very warm little is israel. and people talk about the possibility of israel taking direct military action against iran, perhaps even sometime this year. would you as a great supporter of israel back israelful that will kind of operation? >> the leaders of israel have the same obligation as leaders of any country be have, to provide for the you the security of their own people. i'm not in a position to dictate what they should or should not do. i think that the clear and more concise and per persuadable the american position is on this issue, the of less likely they may be to do something like that in the short term. ultimately, i think we need to be very clear as i've outlined in the speech that while we would prefer for gauche yoigss negotiations to work, we always want to the avoid armed conflict

as often as possible but the notion that iran would have a nuclear capability so horrifying that no option should be off the table. the clearer the united states is on that, the better off the region and the world is going to be. >> we've got time i'm told for two questions. i see about 20 hands immediately. but let me start here with gary. and in the middle there. you. go ahead. >> senator, hi. and thank you for your remarks, by. i'm garrett mitchell and i write the mitchell report. two things struck me at the outset of -- >> gary, please on the shortside. >> that you cite bob kagan's book. as you know, it's on obama's table also. and as a listened to the litany of things that you talked about, it seems to me that on the sort of fundamental issues, there's not a lot of space between your vision and the vision, for example, that president obama is talking about. so my question is, after having

been here for a couple of years and looking at this do you get the feeling that the distance between your vision, for example, and the president's visioning is on the fundamentals or is it at the margins? and is it a reflection of the notion that to govern is to choose. >> let me take the second question as well and you can answer both in the middle there, please. >> thank you. >> center for global development. you spoke about the western hemisphere and your hopes and concerns. i know you kind of omitted or you didn't talk about haiti and kind of u.s. involvement. i was hoping you can -- i know it's an issue kind of close to you and you've been very vocal about. i hope you can talk about your hopes for haiti and our future u.s. engagement. >> the second one i'll take first because i visited haiti in january. so i'm hopeful that will the situation will will continue to improve. obviously they have some

structural issues in that country. they've had their prime minister now been forced to resign. the president's been ill. there's been all kinds of rumors floiting around about wa the future of his government may portend. we always hope there will be establishment that the democracy that will take even deeper roots and become functional. right now the that country has an over -- an over abundance of ngos but certainly a deep ngo presence in the country and the government sometimes feel threatened by it. so the most important issue in hate at this time apart from the immediate aftermath of the earthquake is the establishment of long-term sustainable prosperity and for haiti, they're starting from scratch on everything from their educational systems to their transportation systems. but there is some good news beginning to emerge. there's an industrial park that the clinton initiative has been involved in where some americans are looking to go to some of the underdeveloped parts of the country and start to create industry which hopefully will create jobs and create the fundamentals for an

economy.other fundamental challenges haiti has, however, is property rights and who owns title to what land. it's hard to do business there. i think we could hopefully provide technical support in terms of creating a registry where people can register their property rights and the feeling it's going to be protected under rule of law. ultimately it's education. striking to me is it's such a strong societal value. families in haiti, even the poorest families you see their kids getting to school to school dressed in the most impemable uniforms. it's a reflection of how important it is for them. if we can empower the new generation of children in haiti to have a knowledge base where they can be employable in skills and trade and we can combine that will with the concern of some of the die support ra trained in the united states and florida, maybe you can see a little bit of re-emergence there and progress that so far has been slow in coming for a country that hasn't had a golden

age, certainly not in the last two or three decades. on the differences in policy, i always trial to keep foreign policy nonpartisan as possible. i think it weakens our hand in the world. maybe because i'm new here. when you deal with foreign countries and foreign relations t the nation has a whole has a stronger hand if our of points are responsibly stated. not that we should be engaged but rather how we engage. i think and maybe that's evolving. i think the president's administration is somewhat often had an overreliance on institutions, global institutions whether it's the security council or the united nations or to take the lead on some of these initiatives. i use libya as one example. we did engage in libya, pretty significantly on the front probably for the first 272 hours, four days and then kind of backed off and allowed our

allies to do much of the work. ultimate little it turned out fine. my argument was not that it didn't work out at the end. my argument is if the u.s. had been more engaged, the job would have been done sooner. you would have less militias running around than you have now. right now, that they're having a real challenge getting militias to turn over weapons. you would would have less destruction to the frap structure. you would have less injuries and death which ultimately is counterproductive for the society and we would have more influence on the outcome. i must tell you, i visited libya probably about a month after the fall of gadhafi and i was taken aback by the amount of pro-american graffiti on the walls and the people that would say thank you, president obama. thank you united states for what you did for us. and clear rec nice that thes had been involved in the effort. i applaud that. if we will done even more, i think we would have even more

influence on the way it's going to turn out. they still have a bunch of challenges. but if we had taken an even stronger involvement early on, the engagement would have been shorter, cheaper and more effective. that's an example where i would disagree tactically on the direction the president's taken and even now on syria where i think the region is waiting for american leadership. the friends of syria, i think it's 80 countries, close to 80 countries. but again, you need the center of gravity to instigate this coalition and move it forward with a defined plan in mind. in the absence of american power and influence and leadership, it's hard to do that. i think that's the case i would make to the administration. >> senator rubio, i wish, i really do, i wish we had much more time to continue this discussion and we're very, very pleased that you did the speech here at brooks. so pleased that senator lieberman could be with us, as well. >> i'm pleased you found my mainly. i couldn't have memorized the tony blair quote.

>> if you would all be seated until the senators leave, that would be much appreciated. thank you very much. the u.s. senate is on break this week. here's a look at book tv's lineup of programs. starting at 8:30 p.m. eastern, a discussion about the book life among the cannibals by arlen specter. at 9:25, john shaw talks about the senator everywhere indiana. and at 10:00, a book party with

former senator alan simpson and donald hardy, offer of shooting from the lip, a biography of the wyoming senator coming up tonight on c-span2. . >> vice president joe biden talked about president obama's foreign policy accomplishments. especially the killing of al qaeda leader osama bin laden during a campaign stop in many new york city. he then analyzed the strategies of republican presidential candidate mitt romney on key foreign issues. this was the fifth in a series of campaign speeches the vice president delivered on general election issues. it's about 50 minutes. >> good morning. it is such a privilege to be here with you all this morning. my name is sarah moe, and i am the campus coordinator of the new york university students for barack obama. and i am also a senior fellow with the campaign here in new york.

i began volunteering with organizing for america last summer as part of the summer organizer program in my home state of new hampshire. i thought that it would be just another internship but i was totally wrong. i got the opportunity to work with volunteers in my community and began building the neighborhood teams that would be the true heart of this grassroots campaign. i was so engaged by the work that i did that summer that i really couldn't imagine having to stop when i returned to school. so i connected with the people at the campaign office here in new york and was tacked with organizing a team of students here at nyu. i got together with pie friends who reached out to their friends who continued to reach out to others in classes and other clubs on campus. and we all worked together to create a full team of motivated students. this year, we have made thousands of phone calls registered hundreds of new

voters and made several trips to the important battleground state of pennsylvania. we know how important this election be not only for our generation but for the entire country. when president obama and vice president biden took office in january 2009, the united states was tangled in two wars in the middle east and our enemies saw our nation as weak after eight years of bad decisions overseas. 142,000 u.s. troops were stationed in iraq. and in december of last year, the president and vice president fulfilled their promise to bring all of these troops home. [ applause ] mpb osama bin laden was brought to justice almost one year ago. and both the president and the vice president have worked tirelessly over the past three and a half years to strengthen our nations alliances abroad. national security and foreign

policy are both near and dear to vice president biden's heart. as senator from delaware, he served as the chairman 69 senate foreign relations committee and has since continued to display his commitment to the success of our foreign relations as vice president. i hope that you all are as excited as i am to hear from the vice president himself today. and so it is without further ado that i am so honored to introduce to you the vice president of the united states, mr. joe biden. >> you did a great job. >> thank you so much. thank you. >> hello, folks. how are you? great to be with you all. [ applause ] great introduction. i just said i hope she remembers me when she's the vice president of the united states of america. ladies and gentlemen, it's great to be before such a distinguished audience at a great university. i want to start off by doing

what the ambassador will tell you you should never do -- apologizing. it's all jack lou's fault. i'm lame. some of you students don't know the president's chief of staff was the cfo here at nyu and also taught a public policy course. and so that's the only reason he got the job as chief of staff. he figured if he could deal with this great university he can deal with a country. it's great to see one of the great, great patriots, one of the finest generals i've ever in my 39 years of working in foreign policy and national security ever met, general wesley clark. [ applause ] great to see you, general. i want to state parenthetically, i ran for the united states senate when i was 28 years old. and no one in my family and my dad's had ever been involved in public life. as one of my colleagues said,

i'm the first united states senator i ever knew. and i ran at the time because i thought the policy we had in vietnam, i didn't argue it was immoral, but i thought it just didn't make sense, the notion of dominos and so on and so forth. and i came to washington as a 29-year-old kid. i got elected before i was eligible to serve. i had to literally wait to be sworn in because i wasn't eligible under the constitution. you must be 30 years old. and my image of the military commanders at the time was -- if you ever saw that old movie, if you ever rented it where slim pickens is on the back of an atom bomb dropping out of an aircraft yelling yippee kai yay and "dr. strange love" was the movie. but i have to tell you after all the time i've served in public office, if you ask me who the most impressive women and men that i've met in government in

the last 40 years, six of them would be men and women wearing a uniform. it's a different military. this guy is not only a great warrior, i mean literally a warrior, but this guy's a diplomat, this guy's an incredibly bright man, extremely well educated. he understands the role of the military within our system. and he understands the constitution. and thank god there's others like him that are still around today. wes, thanks for being one of those many folks who changed my impression from my younger years. it's a pleasure to be with you. over the past months, i've given on behalf of the campaign a series of speeches on major issues that this campaign, laying down the markers at least from our perspective, the president and mine, the distinguishing differences between the president and us on

a series of issues, issues that we believe affect the middle class and our country's future. i've spoken about the rescue of the american automobile industry in toledo, ohio. i've spoken about retirement security down in florida, about leading the world again in manufacturing in the quad cities area and about the tax system and the unfairness of it and how to make it fair up in new hampshire. today -- this is a fifth in the series of those speeches, and i want to talk about an american president's single most important responsibility. single most important responsibility. and that's keeping our fellow citizens safe and our nation secure particularly at a time of such extraordinary challenge and change. the poet william buckley yates writing about his ireland in the year 1916 in a poem called "easter sunday 1916" said, "all's changed, changed utterly. a terrible beauty has been born. the world has utterly changed

during your young life and your early adulthood. it's not the world it was in 1990 -- even as recently as 1990. and the question is how are we going to deal with this beautiful -- this beautiful change that also has with it fraught with so many potential difficulties? on this fundamental issue, foreign policy, keeping america safe, the contrast between president obama, his record, and governor romney and his rhetoric, in my view, cannot be greater. 3 1/2 years ago when president obama and i took office and stepped into that oval office, our nation had been engaged in two wars for the better part of a decade. al qaeda was resurgent, and osama bin laden was at large. the foundation of our national

security was on the precipice of a new depression. president obama began to act immediately. he set no-in motion a policy to end the war in iraq responsibly. he set a clear strategy and an end date for the war in afghanistan, which has been going on for close to a decade. he cut in half the number of americans who are literally serving in harm's way. he decimated al qaeda's senior leadership. he repaired our alliances and restored america's standing in the world. and he saved our economy. he saved our economy from collapse. with some very unpopular but bold decisions that have turned out to be right, including the rescue of the automobile industry, all of which has made us much stronger not only at home but abroad. if you're looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how president obama has handled what we inherited, it's pretty simple --

osama bin laden is dead and general motors is alive. governor romney's national security policies in our view would return us to a past we worked so hard to move beyond. and in this regard, there is no -- there's no difference in what governor romney says and what he's proposed for our economy than he's done in foreign policy. in every instance in our view, he takes us back to the failed policies that got us into the mess that president obama has dug us out of and the mess that got us into this in the first place. governor romney, i think, is counting on collective amnesia of the american people. americans know. americans know. but we can't go back to the future, back to a foreign policy

that would have america go it alone. shout to the world you're either with us or against us. lash out first and ask the hard questions later if they get asked at all. isolate america instead of isolating our enemies. waste hundreds of billions of dollars and risk thousands of americans' lives on a war that's unnecessary. and see the world through a cold war prism that is totally out of touch with the realities of the 21st century. on this and everything else, president obama in my view has demonstrated that he's totally in touch with our times. he's acted boldly, strengthening america's ability to contend with the new forces shaping this century, and to attend to the challenges and opportunities around the world that have been neglected over the past -- or previous past eight years. under president obama's leadership, our alliances have never been stronger.

he returned europe to its rightful place as a partner of first resort in dealing with global threats while at the same time reclaiming america's place in asia as an asian pacific power, a region where u.s. exports are producing new jobs and driving our economic recovery. we've forged a new relationship based on mutual interest with emerging powers like china, russia, brazil, turkey, south africa, all of which are helping advance american security. we reduced our reliance on nuclear weapons and achieved major arms control agreements with russia and brought the world together to secure nuclear materials from getting into the meadowlands of terrorists. we've isolated countries like iran and north korea, whose nuclear programs threaten peace and stability. and we've taken far more terrorists off the bloomfield in the last three years than in the