>> aaron is a tough act to follow. i'm honored to be on the panel and be back with the adl and abe and everyone here. good to see so many friendly faces. i'll try to focus just on two issues if i can. things that i feel are on people's minds. that i think is swirling around. and i'd like to try to address them head on. one is the issue of iran because i know that people here care very much about what's going to be on that issue. and the other issue is there going to be an egypt/israel peace treaty, is it going to last. it has been the center piece for the last 30 years. if i have time, i'll have a third issue. arab spring. but basically how america and israel maybe look at egypt a little differently. where the similarities are, where the differences are. but let me try to stick to those two points. i think on the iran issue, we

saw a convergence with the presidents and prime minister netanyahu's meeting in march, there were shall convergences on iran, but the fgaps were not closed. convergences was the president said containment will not work. and said this is america's problem to deal with. this is vital american national interest that has to be addressed. this is america's problem. because iran with nuclear weapons means an arms race in the most dangerous part of the world, the middle east. so this is something that was very important. and his concern that this will lead to proliferation, to

nonstate actors, to terror groups, and that's what the president said. and that is crucial. now, why containment won't work? arguing the containment school said we contain the soviet union, we'll contain iranian nuclear weapon, too. i think there are real key differences that the presidented by saying things won't work, i think he understands, a, the issue in the cold war, we had 500,000 nato troops in the middle of europe as a bullwark against the soviets. since the cuban missile crisis, we had hotlines from the kremlin in to the white house. we have mhave none of those thi when it comes to iran. and i'm not talking about the pact that you have a regime that has messianic impulses.

but even assuming rational actor, rational doesn't necessarily mean reasonable. read problem mcnamara's accounts. even with very rational actors and even with 500,000 troops and even with embassies and all these contacts, the chances of miscalculation were very high. and here we don't have any of the prerequisite infrastructure. and that to me says when there's not that communication, then the chances of miscalculations go through the roof. moreover in the middle east, we have local triggers for conflict with proxy groups that get funding from iran that we didn't have during the cold war. moreover, we didn't have a caves the soviet union saying we'll wife the country off the face of the earth. and certainly none of these things exist between tehran and jerusalem. so i think it's a more dangerous

situation and i think it's important therefore that the president spoke with containment not being a viable option. and by really saying that it's america's issue, he says we have to solve. and he talked about israel's right to defend itself by itself. and the fact panetta spoke more about the military option when he says we don't take things off the table and gave a speech last month explaining what he means in terms of a military option saying we will act if we have to. but it's a last resort. now, why do i say the gaps are pot closed? the gaps are not closed because of the asymmetry in military capability.

when you have more capability, your ability to wait longer is there. we heard steve simon talking about all the sanctions that will be enhanced on july 1st with the eu oil cutoff. i believe the currency has been devalued about 6%. that is very -- in most countries in the world, there are political consequences. a lot of iranian oil is sitting in tankers because they can't sell it. the sanctions are sharp and they will be sharper especially given the fact that oil accounts for most of iran's foreign currency reserves. as steve simon said to you about how iran cannot even access 60% of its reserves. that's important. but that gives america more of a chance to try to wait it out, to see maybe sanctions will bite because if you have more capabilities, you can wait

longer. if you're not a super power, and israel is the not, you're very cognizant of the fact that your capabilities are more finite. and, therefore, your window for action is tighter. you have a tighter time table. you would love to wait it out. but you're not sure you can. and it's that asymmetry between israel -- between the united states and israel that means these gaps are not closed. if i had one word, if you had to take one phrase from this talk, the clocks are not synchronized. and that is the concern because of this asymmetry in the military capability. now, israel's window close at the end of this year? we don't know. i tend to agree with aaron miller that there is no imminent attack. israel wants to see how it plays itself out.

there's now disproceed proceed massey. unclear if a deal will be done. israel's fear is that the iranians try to create a wedge, do just enough to encourage the united states that these talks are going somewhere but not enough that that will make -- that it will be decisive. for example, if iran agrees to ship out their enriched uranium at 20% enrichment, will israel agree that as an interim, some people say interim, withere is end, that iran can enrich at a lower level. i'm not a nuclear physicist, but the hardest part is nuclear fuel. anything certainly below 20% is hard to do. but that's only reactor grade fuel. to go up to high enrich uranium,

h will e uch heu is weapons grade. to go to 90% enrichment might only take a few months. for israel, the fear is you can't cut too close. because when you detect it in time and will you act on what you know if you do detect it in time. israel has some real concerns about that. and in the united states believes we will know how to detect in time and we will act on that knowledge. israel's not so sure. and so israel will have a tighter time table and it's going to have a higher bar for iranian action. so we'll see if thisdy low massey works. no one's ever gone broke being a pessimist on middle east did he employ massey, so you won't count on it, but it could be that israel will want to tell the president, look, we're not out to mess up your re-election. you're concerned that gas prices will shoot up. this will choke off a very weak recovery and could imperil your re-election at the time that

europe is going head long into a recession. we get that. we're not on you ut to mess tha. so this is a huge issue. the other element so that the iran diplomacy, there is an asymmetry here. on the issue of egypt/israel peace, the differences are clear that the united states is hoping for the best. israel fears worst. the u.s. believes people are flooding the square yelling for democracy and economic empowerment, how can we not be for it. israel's fear is that muslim brotherhood government will say whatever it takes to get into power, but ultimately it is certainly not committed to the treaty given all its statements over the last decade. the united states is counting on egypt's economic peril to say egypt can't afford to renounce the treaty, they have virtually no foreign currency reserves.

they were 35 billion. i think they're under 15 billion. apple computer is over 100 billion. saudi arabia is over 400 billion. so they need it. that's the only thing they have is the economics. so the u.s. is hopeful. the israelis are more nervous. mubarak was the linchpin for 30 years that has given israel peace. i keep focusing on economics. it's key if you think of how much israel used to spend on military spending, servicing of the debt, that was about 40% of its gnp. today it's 9%. if you look at the back of the envelope that's a $60 billion savings in one year. think of all the jewish philanthropy organizations you know.

israel feels it's a march into the unknown. it's whitewater rafting so to speak with a new egyptian government that is going to vote for president this morning. steve was charitable when he said it would be a bumpy right. whitewater rafting might be more like it. so i would say in summary that there's differencing views on where we are and what this means going forward. israel fears this new new middle east is something that is going -- that maybe in the long run is going to be good because you have peace between peoples, but in the middle east, you live in the short run. and you live in the intermediate run. and the short run and the long run may be decades and decades away. so i would say put the ray tables in the upright positions and fasten your seatbelts. thank you all very much. [ applause ]

>> good morning, everybody. it's an honor to be here. i've spoken to the adl group many times and i'm always so proud to see such a great group of people so committed to such a wonderful and important cause. so good for all of you. also i can't see my watch without my glasses on, but i can't see you with my glasses on. so i've got a double challenge here so i'll try and get to it. it's lovely being here with my colleagues and aaron never fails to provoke me into saying something. so i'll did himy best to be measured and not respond to every little thing he said.

aaron described the notion of being an idealist without illusions. and it's a pleasant sounding if not ringing idea. i prefer to think of america as a cup thku country is idealist ideals. and while there are always occasions when we cannot meet those ideal, nonetheless, it seems indispensable that we actually have them. it also brings a certain coherence to our foreign policy, one that unfortunately the notion of leading behind doesn't actually bring. everybody has heard of the expression situation apethics. god knows you're in washington, so you know that. but situational foreign policy really isn't one that succeeds. and when you fly by the seat of your pants in addressing the various challenges around the world and you don't have a southwest principles that an

mate you, you really are in kind of a difficult place because you don't actually know where you want to end up. and i think that's where we find ourselves right now. so let's think of that in applied fashion. and by the way, let me explain to you why i'm an idealist. some of you are younger, some of you you are still older thank goodness. but we represent a generation for whom at least the memory of world war ii is fairly alives certainly for me. and when i think about what america can do, i think about that. because you see, we never want to do the right thing. we didn't want to get into world war i, we didn't really want to get it into any conflict. winston churchill was absolutely right, we always do the right thing, but always after exhausting every other possibility. and we're in the midst of exhausting every other

possibility right now. why should we want to do the right thing and what is the right thing? well, i don't think that's a big mystery to most of us. the right thing is to live in peace, freedom, for individuals to have rights and responsibilities, for them to be able to change their governments as they wish, for there to be transparency and accountability. for minority, women, religious, to have rights protected by the state and for the state otherwise to not dictate too much else into the economic or private lives of the individual. sounds okay to most of us i'm sure with a few tweaks here and there. well, that's how we live for the most part. and i think that that's how most people wish to live. again, with certain tweaks to the parameters of it. but certainly that's how most people wish to live. and many don't. many particularly in the middle east don't. and what does that do when so much power is repossessed in the

hands of the leadership? it tends to breed resentiment and that's what we see in the arab spring. we had embraced the notion that countries with dictators were the ultimate instability and of course those dictators shared that embrace, but what you discovered is maybe it's a dick and i ha decades, maybe two, maybe accept, but eventually those dictatorships are unsustainable. and how they end is pretty important. but countries that have stable democracies with people who have the kinds of lives that i've described tepd to be not perfect but tend not to fights with their neighbor, end not to kill that many of their own people and that's a good thing. that's an ideal that we can fight for, that's an ideal that we can stand for. and we can't always fight for that's deal in every country in the world. we have to look for that unique confluence, we have to look for the unique confluence of

national interests and our ideals. and where we see tahat confluence, we should act. ideally we act with others and we use all of the power that we have, our moral, our economic, our political and if necessary our military as situation, but we always consider the fact that we act alone.situation, but we always consider the fact that we act alone. that's the menu of options that i believe exist with the united states. where do we see that confluence? well, i could turn directly to sear yar syria, but i know it's not front and center in the minds of everybody, but it is in mine sind hundreds of people have been killed since the great cease fire imposed. why did we care about syria? let me use to pivot for a moment and say we care about syria because we care about iran. and one of the problems that we face in iran is a government that is developing nuclear

weapons despite disagreements from some about what their intentions are. a government that is developing nuclear weapons and a government that are will survive anywhere military action, whether it is led by the united states or by israel or by anybody else for the simple reason that none of us have any intention of targeting the regime itself, but only the nuclear program. and that's unlikely i think most believe to lead to the fall of the iranian government and the fall of the regime, the system itself, of the islamic republic. and that at the end of the day is what's going to last. and what is going to return to the quest for nuclear weapons. so that's a bit of a problem for us. why is syria interesting. regard? syria is iran's most important ally. and while things are going reasonably well in its request for nuclear weapon, things

aren't going well in the middle will east. arab spring has not been good for iran. efforts to label it as an islamic awakening have been rejected entirely. part of it is that iran really doesn't have a good reputation for democracy or if for standing up for individual rights and most people don't like iran. so there were great hopes for example that after mubarak left office a year ago in egypt, that iran would be able to renew relations with egypt, there was a lot of talk about it, the military leaders talked about, iranians talked about it a lot. and it hasn't happened. to the contrary, the relationship is very frosty. needless to say, iran's relationship with its gulf neighbors has declined substantially over recent years because of iran's aggressive posture towards its neighbors, and we could go on. the only place where iran's got

a good thing going is in lebanon and in syria. it's got a good thing going in lebanon and about syria because syria is a client state of iran's. and bashir does iran's bidding in every single way. they most importantly are the main conduit for iran's exercise of power including to supply weapons and arms, weapons and cash to hezbollah, to hamas, to palestinian islamic jihad and to other groups whose initials i can't remember. so if assad falls, that will be bad for iran. iran will be entirely isolated in the region. that seems to me to be a unique confluence of our moral interests and our national interests to isolate iran. how do we do it? well, those are the kind of thing has get disgusted ad

nauseum in washington. i'll give you three short bullet points not involving boots on the ground in much the same way we helped nato and libya which did not involve a confluence of national and moral interests, but just moral interests. we can help organize the syrian opposition. we can stop talking about the sear began opposition as if they were crap. we can bring them together. we can help them create constitution, we can help them form a transitional government, we can form safe haven, can he with protect safe hey rens, safety corridors. those things aren't terribly difficult. do we run risks? yes. on the other hand, these are all

eminently doable things for the united states and if they weren't, by the way, you should be very worried because about we can't take on the syrian medical taker, i don't know what enemy we can take on. so that's one important piece. here's a second important piece. what are our ideals for iran? well, hers tthey're the same as everybody else. that the lairanian people that should live under a government that doesn't kill people, doesn't murder people in the street, doesn't sponsor terrorism, doesn't seek nuclear weapon, doesn't share their work with syria or with north korean. if anybody saw the photos of north koreans in iran recently. so we want a better government in iran. how do we begin to get there some ? first by action in syria and by having a clear vision what it is we seek to chief there.?

first by action in syria and by having a clear vision what it is we seek to chief therthere. we could have that clear vision. does that mean that we can achieve it? no. does that mean that we can cause the green movement or the expatriate iranians or anybody else to be more serious about getting rid of hatheir governme than they are some perhaps a little bit more. one thing that we could do is we could stop talking about this as if the main challenge is to deter the israelis from attacking iran. the p-5 meeting was a meeting dedicated to the notion that we must stop israelis from attacking iran this year at all costs. why this year? i don't know what you'll be doing in november, but i think that the white house is well aware what tell's be doing in november. that's why this year is so important. that's why november is so important. so that's really an important goal for us. and as we move to the next meeting in baghdad, the most

important goal should be that we don't compromise with the iranians in advance. if you've seen the "washington post" this morning, you've seen that we already offered a compromise despite the fact that the iranians vice president offered anything to us. that we don't offer a compromise, that we don't pay the iranians for complying with their international obligations, and that we allow the iranians to recognize that rather than july 1st being the end of the terrible sanctions that will be imposed on them, july 1s will be the beginning ofhe terrible sanction. and about things hurt now, they'll hurt a lot worse later. and we could allow them to think that united states might actually have all options on the table. why are those good things to do? because they're sin gone mus with our values. they're synonymous with our interests. and that's a good framework in which i believe we should do everything. thanks.

>> thank you all of you. those were very succinct remarks. i wanted to -- beg your pardon? i'll ask one question, i'll ask you to relate what you've been talking about today particularly as it relates to iran and what cav david was describing as a convergence but still having gaps within it. how would you tie in what's been happening over the last few days, very bluntly critical of the prime minister and ehud

barak in terms of their rhetoric on iran? what does what's going on in israel and yesterday in new york, in in terms of -- how does that tie in to the gaps between israel and the united states? >> he would say we need a little historical perspective on this. if you go back to 1981, and there's a lot of differences between '81 and iran today, but if you look at israeli decision making in '81, there's much more similarity than you would think. head of military intelligence was against the attack. you had leaders of the military defense establishment in israel that thought this was a mistake. and there was no defense minister. there were differences over the economy talks.

what i take from that story and again, not every -- analogies are never perfect -- is that do not underestimate political leadership. at the end, it's a political decision. and bagen basically imposed his stature on the government and brought them around despite the head of military intelligence. there's a touching story in it this that the junior coalition partner said i'm against this, it's a big mistake and israel -- it will hurt relations, israel's position in the region, i'm against the strike. and bagen had the votes in the government on october 28th, a full -- but the strike ended only being 9/11 months later. but one of the key reasons was that he said i want you to be happy withis decision. he also needed him as a junior coalition partner.

and we're not doing anything until he's satisfied. and he had the military intel people flood with in-he will against information. in the end, he comes around and bagen does the strike.will against information. in the end, he comes around and bagen does the strike. so for me the story is the importance of leadership at the top. and the ability of the leaders through galvanizing the political forces to basically overcome the opposition of his defense establishment. so i think here it's a little more pronounced because all this is spilled out into the public view, former head of the chief of staff, and you have to believe from my understanding that they reflect also the current security establishment, too. ultimately if you have a determined prime minister and determined defense minister as you had, i would not underestimate this duo to

overcome the objections within. but you point to something that's real, but if will history is a guide, ultimately it's the politicians who decide. >> go ahead. >> i have a different view. israel a tiny, tiny country 250 nu nuclear weapons. reseveral sh preemption has been -- it has the mentality of a small power. preemption has worked as a demonstrated success in '67, '81, '07. but that's where the similarities stop. the situation in israel, nothing like those situations seems to me. even '67. in large part because from the standpoint of the international community, this is a war of messity right now for only one country. only one country believes right now this is a war