democratic evolution. so at this point, things look pretty grim. i wish i could leave you with a more optimistic kind of a picture. i'm more optimistic for pakistan that i know more in depth because the fact that the military needed to take a constitutional cover itself for me is a step forward because it means that the constitutional cover is important. but otherwise right now things look pretty grim in the muslim world. okay. i went on more than i wanted. there's still 11 minutes, so we can have our questions. [ applause ] >> thank you, dr. farhat haq. we have a few minutes for questions. if you have a question, if you would please take position at one of the microphones down

front. there are two of those. looks like those are being switched on. feel free to come on down if you have a question. >> hi. i'm ryan. i was wondering from your perspective what the public reaction to the government's kind of crackdown on mqm in karachi, if that is seen as an overreach or if it is generally welcomed? why can they garner so much support in karachi if they're not a popular group there? >> thank you. thank you. nice question. mqm is one of the political parties which is very strong in karachi. they have had virtual monopoly.

they are a political entity with legitimate constituency, but they've also been a party that have engaged in a lot of criminal activities. they had run karachi and islamabad as a political machine on steroids. and so the military going after them and cleaning up some of that because there was a lot of kind of target killing that the mqm supported, et cetera. there is general support of that and even in mqm's own constituency has been very muted in coming out on the streets to oppose some of these military actions. so, for example, a couple days ago there were three or four mqm

workers that were killed by the rangers, which is part of the military, and the mqm asked for a general strike, and that didn't happen very much. there were a few places that were closed for a while, but then life went back to normal and that's probably the first time in mqm's history since the

yeah. hi. >> hello. i'm micah finer. i was wondering how would you compare pakistan or egypt's reaction to terrorism to the u.s.'s or would you even compare them? >> i think, you know, both pakistan and egypt, their reaction shows how what we say in political science all politics is local in a sense. and so for both of these countries, the kind of terrorism they have faced is very much to do with their own political histories, et cetera, and their geography. so for pakistan it's because it is, you know, right next to afghanistan and after the soviet invasion the jihad against the soviet union, et cetera, and all those jihadi organizations has meant that the government in pakistan has sort of had this kind of strange relationship.

they divide these groups into good taliban and bad taliban, for example. so the good taliban are the ones that help pakistani states, cooperate with them, and the bad taliban are those who do things like attack that army public school. so there isn't this sort of a very determined clear us and them. the them is then divided up into those who we can work with and those we cannot, and all of this because pakistan is very focused on its animosity with india. so anything that helps pakistan against india, pakistan is willing to do that. in egypt since the '50s, what is known in egypt as the deep state or the establishment, the political elite, many of them coming from the military, have seen islamists in general as the other. they have no, you know, kind of confusion about that, and so in earlier in egypt they had

engaged in lots of suppression of islamists and now we see the same thing. the only problem is that unlike pakistan, the islamists in egypt are much greater in number and much more moderate. the muslim brotherhood, morsi, who was the president for a short period of time may have made some strategic mistakes, but the muslim brotherhood as a party was generally much more moderate, and so for me it's really rolling back political evolution of egypt by so strongly coming against them. it's only going to create much greater authoritarianism and tyranny in egypt and the response to that tyranny is going to be we are in for a very bad time in egypt in the next eight, ten years because there will be more terrorism as a result of that tyranny.

>> thanks. well, in times of war like in the case of pakistan and egypt, don't you think it's a great thing for the military to stay put since you cannot have the civilian population take over in case of this crisis. don't you think it's a great thing and maybe we just have the army in the wrong hands. maybe the right people should be the ones in the army. thanks. >> yeah. that's a good question. that's a very good and fair question. because when you have this tremendous instability and anarchy, all you wanted is order, and if you have one institution that seems to be most coherent, organized, and able to deliver that order,

absolutely one would sort of say so why not military if military can come in and that's why a lot of pakistanis have constantly told the military to come in, to come in, to go to karachi to try to restore law and order and all of that. but there's -- but i think many of these situations were not as dire, first of all, as, you know, to demand the military intervention, but secondly, when you are putting so many of your eggs in the military basket, then you are really underfunding -- that's where i went to the earlier graph i showed -- the police, the police are on the front line. the police are tremendously under resourced in pakistan. they're not trained very well. they're not given much of the resource. much of the big share of the pie is eaten by the military in pakistan. as a result there's not enough left for other groups.

what it does is it continues to create this very lopsided kind of situation, and that's just not good for overall security of the country. so, you know, we're talking earlier about thinking of security not just in terms of, you know, law and order and military security but think about addressing demographic problems, problems of extreme poverty, educating your public. for all of that you need a more balanced, and what had happened in pakistan is that there is this imbalance, military has taken so many of those resources, and so in that -- that is why for me this is very worrisome, this soft coup, because it simply means military will continue to be that overdeveloped, overresourced, at the expense of other sections if that makes sense. [ applause ]

tonight on american history tv on c-span 3 at 8:00 p.m. eastern a debate on who was a better model for republican presidents, calvin coolidge or ronald reagan. then a tribute to former vice president walter mondale. later harry truman's decision to drop a bomb on japan. this new year's weekend american history tv on c-span 3 has three days of featured programming. beginning friday afternoon at 3:10 eastern pamela smith hill editor of "pioneer girl" discusses the life of laura ingals wilder comparing andféj' contrasts the tv show and book series to the real life of laura ingals wilder >> he chose to write about people, memories that would resonate with adult readers in

the early 1930s. as reviewers pointed out "pioneer girl" contains stark scenes of domestic abuse, love sce scenes gone awry. then the assassination of lincoln and kennedy are compared. and at 10:00 the 1965 nbc's "meet the press" with daniel p. moynihan who as assistant labor secretary authored a report on the causes of black poverty in the united states. >> i believe that -- i believe what president johnson said in his howard university speech you can't keep a man in chains for three century, take the chains off and say could you're free to run the race of life like anybody else. people have to be given the opportunity to compete with effective resources, and i

believe that we should make a special effort. >> and sunday night at 9:30, a visit to pershing park in washington, d.c. to hear about proposed designs for a new national world war i material for it's upcoming 100th anniversary. for our complete holiday schedule go to c-span.org. up next here on c-span 3, some of the 7th annual washington ideas to rule. we'll hear from commerce secretary, penny pritzker, colin powell, jose diaz-balart, a black lives matter activist and an executive with comcast. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> census bureau which is part of your domain the median income for american households was lower for 2014 than it was in

2013. twos lower when george bush left office than when he arrived and president obama is at risk of duplicating that. the immediate ran income is lower than it was 15 years ago. why have income stagnated for so long and is there a path that you can see forward towards consistently raising them again? >> so, ron, let's step back for a minute. wage growth and productivity used to grow in parallel and in 1973 that stoppeding the case. if you step back and say why is that? it's really this reduction in investment in what we call the commons. education, infrastructure, things that can keep america competitive. and keep our workforce competitive. so when we step back and think about what are we going to do about that and what is the path forward we have to think about how do we invest in worker productivity so that our workers

are globally competitive because what happened in 1973 was it was the beginning of globalization, the beginning of when technology advances$ñ&pd started to really impact productivity, and so we have to continue. so the path forward -- continue investing, which is something that's not the way we think about our budget. we think about our budget as just expenditures. actually we have to invest. we have to invest in our people, invest in infrastructure, invest in trade agreements, invest in innovation and entrepreneurship. i can go into the detail of all of those. >> let me ask you one question. you point out productivity has continued to grow even though wages haven't. are we talking about economics, technology, globalization or a problem primarily of politics the ways the gains in the economy are distributed? >> well, i think it's all of the above, right.

i think what we have to do is -- use politics to prioritize, if you will, and the prioritization is if you look at our r and d investment that's been flat since 1980 that's not going to help us when the rest of the world and other large economies are spending more and more money that puts us at a less competitive situation. so, you know, the path forward, to me, involves things like basic education, what are we teaching kids in school. how are we teaching them. how much -- why is connectivity so important. why is connect ed the president's program for kids in school so they have access to broadband so important? it's so that we can stay ahead. we have to invest frankly in immigration. we have a shortage of high skilled workers. there's an opportunity in terms of immigration reform to deal with that. but also there's an economic opportunity and a moral

obligation when it comes to skilled workforce. i mean immigration. second is we have to invest in just not our roads and bridges and we've all read the data about we're not investing enough but we also have to invest in high-speed broadband. 20% of households don't have access to high-speed broadband. how can we compete? more and more business is being done on the internet. you know, i was just at etsy -- >> what is that? >> etsy is a company that allows someone to start a business at home and run their business on a marketplace. it's a public company. you know, fast growing public company here in the united states and it's basically a marketplace for craft workers to sell their things. we've got to be able to have broadband for those folks to have access to the market. 90% of which are women. most of whom are staying at home. these are microbusinesses, so

there's a new definition of what business and productivity is that we're not connecting. >> let me ask you about one specific element of the agenda. in 2010 the president set the goal of doubling exports in five years. we didn't meet that goal. big part of the reason was the slow down in the national economy. i'm wondering what else you learned about trying a, to get more u.s. companies to export since few do now and b, trying to get those that do to expand their operations. what are the problems we face internally in meeting a goal like that. >> first of all, why is the goal so important? the goal is so important because we need an all above strategy. 90% of customers is outside of the united states whether i'm a craft worker or boeing. or a superhero. but the point is that it's not just about our market, it's also about being able to access the world's markets and the fastest growing markets. what have i learned? i went out and spoke, have

spoken with over 2,000 business leaders. what have they told us they want. they want market access, help us get market access, we want to sell our goods where we want. we need data. we need data about a specific market and a specific sector. what's the opportunity in india versus what's the opportunity in brazil for my particular good or services? they want less red tape. got custom processes need to be easier, went a single window we want a single form, we want a simp s simplified form. we at the department commerce took this input and put out a report for the 19 top markets around the world what is the demand in different sectors. we've also made more of our data available online so the average

person can access it. we've created screening tools online for exporters so that they can know, you know, better access exporting. we have our u.s. export centers, 105 centers around the united states whose job it is within your community to help you figure out which markets your goods and services are -- there's a market for them and where your goods and services are competitive. >> is there any target date of reaching the double for what the president is talking about? >> we misfocus on this notion when do we hit a doubling. the point is american businesses today need to be more global, they need to think global, because globalization and global competitiveness is what's happening. and so what we're trying to do is provide the tools and services to help a business whether you're a small business, like the craft businesses that i met at etsy or your ge or

boeing. >> making of farm markets the chinese president of just here in d.c. last week. when he arrived in seattle last week you greeted him with a speech that diplomats would describe as a full and frank exchange of views. among other things you said, i'm quoting, we and our companies continue to have serious concerns about an overall lack of legal and regulatory transparency, inconsistent protection of intellectual property and more generally the lack of a level playing field across a range of sectors and welcome. so how would you describe the state of our economic relations with china, particularly after this visit? >> well, i think that, you know, let's step back. china is the second largest economy in the world. and they have -- this is what i said. you took one paragraph out of what i said. >> notable paragraph. >> it was notable it got quoted a lot. >> any reaction from the president as you were talking? >> our president or president

xi? >> president xi. >> the group that was traveling with him, we had lots of conversations about these issues because, frankly, this is not news to them. they know it. and they keep saying they want to do reform. and part of my message was it's not just american companies that need the -- need intellectual property protection, your companies are telling us they are having the same problems. and so this is -- and the big message for the chinese was, look, the way you got here over the last 30 years is extraordinary. what they have accomplished, 600 million people out of poverty is amazing. but a lot of it was on the back of selling their goods and services around the world. global demand today is slow. we know that.

that's what you read, pick up any newspaper it's slowed down. they can't grow from where they are at today to where they want to be based on exporting their goods around the world. and they need to have a stronger domestic economy which means they need to develop a greater social safety net for their people and it also means that they need to develop things like intellectual property protection or courts, commercial courts of law which they have asked us to help them with. one of the thing we agreed to do is they really want serious help to create commercial courts of law. they created an intellectual property court because they recognize, they are becoming a mature innovative economy. they need these things. so it's -- it will benefit american businesses but they are not doing it for that reason. they are going to consider doing this or trying to do this because it's for their own benefit. >> one area president obama and

president xi talked about last week was a structured response to allegations of cyber attacks. but the president had a pointed comment. he said the question now is are words followed by actions. so what is the time frame for kind of thinking about whether this works, are sanctions still on the table if it doesn't? >> you know, i think that -- there's not a precise time frame. but what i would say is the message was clear, actions speak louder than words and what are you doing about this. and let's take an area where big progress was made. the bilateral investment treaty. that was really struggling to make progress, and leading up to this visit significant progress was made in terms of the sectors of their economy that they are talking about opening up. now is there more work to do? of course there's more work to do.

that will be the story of our relationship with china throughout our lifetimes. but there was progress made. so we have to acknowledge where progress is made and we also have to continue to work where there are challenges. they say they are very committed to -- one of the biggest issues i've been talking with them about over this year has been intellectual property protection. they want and need technologies from around the world. they have also some of their own world class technologies. they need this. they want to do it better. they've asked for our help. we've offered our help. now let's see what happens. we have to give that time. >> part of the world. you're on your way to cuba soon. by tend of this presidency what do you expect economic prescription between u.s. and cuba to look like? >> well, i think that we have to step back for a minute. remember it's what almost 55 years without a relationship with cuba. i think that the first thing

that we have to do aside from what's happened which is acknowledging that we have relations now is we have to build trust because having an economic relationship, first you have to trust each other and so part of my trip is really a fact finding mission and a relationship building mission. now where does that lead? part of that is very dependent upon the embargo legislation. right now there are at some -- there's a limit to how much the president can do by executive order. we're trying to do what we can because we want -- the kbacuban want a more open relationship, we want a more open relationship with cuba. the pace of that is dependent on two factors. cuba itself. you know, for example, their distribution systems are run entirely by the government. so they can decide how much of

our goods and services they want distributed. the internet is very limited capability and access at this point. i think only 2 million of 11 million have cell phones. i mean there's just a lot of infrastructure that needs to happen. so we have to put this in perspective. having said that, i've seen since the president's announcement in december 17th significant changing of attitudes here in the united states about the prospect of doing more business with cuba. there's a real warming up to the idea throughout the country and so i'm very excited about the potential. >> we're down to our last minute. i want to ask you about someone who you may have heard of, donald trump. donald trump said, has said i'm quoting china is killing us. mexico is killing us. japan is killing us. everybody is beating us. we have incompetent people negotiating trade. we're losing money at every single step.

we're not making good deals. i know the smartest guys on wall street. guys like henry kravitz. we have better that are great. would we get better deals with carl icahn negotiating. >> he promoted carl icahn to treasury secretary in the last 24 hours. >> i missed that. >> would we get better deals? >> i think that -- i think that is just simplifying the situation. let's take tpp. our trade representative is trying to close out the transpacific partnership. there's a ministerial going on right now in atlanta we're working on issues around dairy and autos and biologics.

it's hard. you've made a deal between two people. imagine trying to make a deal between 12 countries on 26 different chapters of issues. this is complicated. this is hard. and, remember, it's not about just one negotiator making the difference. it's also about all those industries in all those countries having a point of view about what you're agreeing to and how it's going to affect their equities. so that's what you're trying to do. and yet at the same time the president has set a goal of, i want a high standard agreement. we're not making just any agreement to have an agreement to check the box. we're trying -- what we're trying to do with the transpacific partnership is create a set of what are the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century. what are the kind of labor standards, environmental standards, intellectual property standards. what about ecommerce.

are we going to have a free and open internet or not. these are all issues that have not been addressed in one form or fashion in previous trade agreements. so it's -- this is complicated. i think we have terrific negotiators. very tough. and i'll put them up against whoever donald trump suggests. >> madam secretary thank you for joining us. [ applause ] >> next up, colin powell here with walter isaacson. >> thank you. iran deal, right, before the vote. you went on "meet the press" and said i'm in favor of it. why the timing and why were you in favor of it? >> the timing, i said it very carefully and at that point the

president had enough to, you know, override a veto but i thought we should do more than that so he could get over 41 votes needed to keep it going from a veto. the reason was it's a pretty good agreement and when i look at it the problem was to stop the iranian program now not the one that might exist in 10 or 15 years but the one that exists now. the verification system is perhaps the most aggressive identii've ever seen. when you get a country like iran that has something like 19,000 things running, centrifuges running and a plutonium

procession reactor, i thought it was a good idea. >> it wasn't a better thing to do. this was something that was good? >> it was good. the other problem was that we have been working on this for nine years our allies. if we had said no we don't want this deal the allies are going forward anyway. they already agreed to it. u.n. agreed to it. the eu agreed to it. it made no sense for us to back out. it made lots of sense to go forward. people are complaining well it leads a path to uranium enrichment open 15 years from now. 15 years from now is a long time. sentry fugue thesentrthe secent be functional at point. >> can we have a fundamental relationship with iran in terms of an alliance interest. >> i wouldn't speak of an

alliance. i've been burned by iran in the past. i have no illusion bgs the iranian regime. and i know terrorism and causing mischief all over the world is their operational strategy. but this was the problem that was most important to the world that they were getting closer and closer to being able to have the material needed for nuclear weapons and that's what i thought we should stop, that's what they worked nine years to stop and frankly that's what we did stop. i think it's a good agreement and worth the support of the american people. i'm sorry it got all tied up in politics. >> why did it become totally partisan? >> why does everything become totally partisan in washington, d.c.? i don't know. [ applause ] it became totally partisan and then of course netanyahu felt strongly about it and apec got involved. on balance the president was able to succeed in getting an

agreement in place and all of our allies are working with us and i think it does open up new opportunities but i'm not saying it reflect as new total relationship with iran. let's just focus on this particular thing, make sure they do what they are expected and promise to do and put a verification regime in there to ensure we can keep track of it. i talked to the head of our intelligence community. i've talked to our secretary of energy and they are confident they are can verify what's happening. >> so, you were confident. >> yes. as secretary of energy said you can't hide anything. i can smell uranium 50 years or 5,000 years after it's been in a place. it leaves a definitive signature that you can't hide. >> one reason it became partisan is a lot of your republican friends who think very much like you actually, i would guess, were in favor of this deal but didn't say so. do you have that opinion? >> i have that opinion but i

will never suggest they did it or not. >> why they did it or did not? [ laughter ] >> ask them. don't ask me. i don't know. i'm, you know -- i am basically still an entry officer not a politician. i've been with nuclear weapons since i was a young captain when i learn how to use them. my first assignment was to guard an atomic canon in germany when i was a 21-year-old lieutenant. as a core commander i was ready in germany to call-up nuclear weapons if the russian army came through and as chairman as the joint chief of staff i had 28,000 nuclear weapons under my supervision and i know a lot about this and i know what nuclear weapons can do. any time we can stop a program the way we stopped the program i thought that's a valuable result of this agreement and i felt i had an obligation from a military experience as well as my political and diplomatic experience to show my support for the agreement.

>> do we now have a confluence of interest with iran in stopping isil? >> i think both of us have an interest in stopping isil in that part of the world not just syria. it's spreading all over the place. but i would not say we're in alliance with iran. with iran over syria. perhaps most complicated issue i have ever experienced. and the problem right now is that we have to decide which is the first priority. in the military we're taught to identify what is the main attack, which is the most important thing you have to do to solve the overall problem and then there were other supporting attacks you might launch but there's also phase two operations you might undertake. right now i think the main attack we have to focus on is defeating, destroying, neutralizing, whatever words you wish to use isil and isis that's the real athlete to the region. i don't like bashar al assad. i worked with him, trying to

work with him i should say. he's a pathological liar. he's a devil. i would like to see him leave. while we're all hoping he goes away let's think through my old pottery barn rule what comes after him. do we know what happens when bashar al assad steps down. if he steps down voluntarily or pushed out. remember he represents not just the government in damascus he represents the aloites. we need to be careful before we get involved in his removal. we want him out. i want him out. i also want isil defeated as a first priority rather than focusing on assad. >> so you think the administration may be making a mistake by emphasizing assad must go as a top priority. >> i don't see anything wrong with that. in recent days the administration has been

modifying their priorities a little bit. maybe not today. we'll figure out a way. we'll work with our friends and allies. eventually he'll go. but i think you have to be extremely careful. we thought we knew what would happen in libya and egypt, we thought we knew what would happen in iraq and we guessed wrong. in each one of these countries the thing we have to consider is there's some structure, some government functioning whether we like its form or not, whether it's a dictatorship or not but there's a structure holding the society together and as we learn especially in libya, when you remove the top and the whole thing falls apart and nothing underneath it you get chaos and not only do you get chaos you get lots of people killed, lots of people leaving, fleeing as we see to get to a place that's safer and they are going to have a better life. germany. united kingdom. >> senator corker this morning cited you citing the pottery

barn rule with all due respect the pottery barn say you don't -- >> you're responsible -- >> i know. >> i didn't say it you said it. >> this is a long time ago. >> what i was saying if you break a government, you cause it to come down by invading or other means, remember you are now the government. you have a responsibility to take care of the people of that country. >> it got labelled the pottery barn rule. >> it's not bad. pottery barn company after fusing got a heck of a lot of advertising mileage out of that saying. >> let's get back to the foreign policy of it. he said we violated that by going into syria, going into iraq, going even into afghanistan, going into libya and then leaving, not knowing what we're going to do. first of all, was it a mistake to go into all of those places without a plan for owning it? >> there was a plan, the

execution may have been very weak in some of them but reality is that we went in say iraq and afghanistan and stayed long enough to create a government, but the government turned out the be not as successful as we thought they might be. >> so in retrospect should we not have? >> i don't do retrospect very well. what's the point of it? >> i take that at a yes. >> no. [ laughter ] walter and i have been doing this for years. everybody relax. we went to the u.n. on iraq because u.n. was the offended party and it got a resolution and we go have avoided that conflict if hussein had met the standards that the u.n. put before him to tell us about your weapons of mass destruction. >> right there, those would george w. bush have been satisfied leaving saddam hussein in power -- >> in my conversation with the president at that time, he made it clear that if