it is that the task of judging is quite interesting. because ultimately, judges are the guardians of our system of law. and yet at the same time, they are subject to a system of laws. so in the two years i was in office, representing the department of justice, learning -- during which time the president nominated and confirmed about 200 judges, and we made a list of about 30 justices nominees or so for an eventual vacancy, the overriding criteria, the overriding question that we asked was does this judge have the intellectual humility to interpret the law and yet still be subordinate to the law? .

>> independence from what? political pressures? partisan politics? majoritarian impulses? all of the reasons why it justice o'connor and breyer to cry state elections because it is all of the reasons why we have the judicial independence in the federal system. but judicial independence comes with a certain cost, that is the danger they judge once in the room we get what we call [unintelligible] which is the arrogance that comes with the judicial office that will lead him or her

outside -- act outside the bounds of a lot. what checks are there in this democratic system to that kind of encroachment of judicial power? this type of intellectual humility, the role of judges is more exemplified by justice o'connor and breyer even though they were nominated by different president. both have that the center of respect for the role of the judge, and that is all you can ask for in selecting a judge. i like to say investing in the long term rather than investing in the short term. you want to be a warren buffett because you can always ask a nominee what he or she would do in a particular case or in a

controversial issue or any political movement. what you get as an answer is short term speculation, not giving you a sense of how good an individual is as a judge that appreciates his or her role in a democratic society and has the philosophical framework to guide decision making in the long term could i will trade short-term cases always for a long-term vision of the appropriate role of a judge in a democratic society. that is why we have the system that we have, the built in tension between the president as eight nominate car and the senate as the advising center in the federal system. you have this ongoing question at the state level, should we have elected judges or appointed judges? if appointed, by whom? once appointed, are there

mechanisms whereby they can be recalled from office? how long should a tenure be in for what reasons can they be removed from office? those are all the same questions that at the state level they are struggling with to answer in our constitution, which is how we go about selecting, confirming, and reporting charges for acting like judges? >> what the framers of the constitution did for federal judges was to say a federal judge serves not for life but for good behavior. that means the judge can be refused -- can be removed by impeachment. we have not had the supreme court justice removed. proceedings were brought against justice chase, but at the end of the day, he was not removed. others have been, unfortunately,

a few times. the framers also provided that you can't reduce the federal judge's salary during the so- called term of office. states all have limited terms of office for their judges. it has been suggested by people from time to time that we ought to limit the terms of federal judges, too. that would take an amendment in the constitution and that is very hard to come by, i must say, so it probably will not happen. >> i want to pick up from your opening comment. with regard to looking at the selection. i am from texas. tom phillips is a friend. i am not here to defend the process of judicial selection in

texas, but there was [unintelligible] defending judicial elections, basically because of what i might say is a fairly well justified mistrust of texas governors. it is of the way the state political system runs, and the argument is that this writer would like some input. you mentioned very forthrightly and candidates that all the names on the list were republicans. i am wondering in looking around for the kind of selfless judges you describe how many of them were democrats as against republicans? now that we have an obama administration, does one expect any republicans to make the list. up women was william brennan

from eisenhower. -- presidents pick members from their own party is certainly for the supreme court, by and large for what the constitution calls the inferior of federal judiciary. how the answers -- how do any of you answer that riders saying, look, what you believe this one to do is substitute an opaque form of politics for a transparent form of politics. >> that is so wrong. under a system that i helped design for arizona, we set up a bipartisan commission of citizens to consider applications of people who want to be a judge. when there is a vacancy, they let anybody apply.

this application and those records are open to the public. anybody can find out who has applied. when they interview these people, they are open to the public. they asked that the person wants to be considered file forms and answer questions. that is also open to the public. the commission is not dominated by lawyers. there are a handful of lawyers on the commission paid by and large, it is citizens and they have to be of both political parties. i do not see how you could be more open than that or more fair. the commission has worked very well in making recommendations. they at least have to give three names and both political parties to the governor. we had a republican governor who appointed a democrat to the supreme court. i think that is about as far as you can get. maybe texans are different. [laughter]

i should know, i was born in texas. i wish more states would do it fairly. >> i think the letter writer has put his finger on something. the reason this stuff got going in the first place and the reason that elections were brought in, people did distrust the political process of gov. appointment. those were somewhat different days. i think it was jimmy walker when he became the mayor of new york -- maybe it was not walker. he ran on the reform ticket. his slogan was, "i am my own man picco he did not know who he was going to appoint the police chief. that was a different era. maybe, but there is no perfect

system by any means. i was pretty careful to focus my remarks on the campaign contribution aspect of this. when i grew up in california, there was an elected system of a kind, but the governor would appoint to fill a vacancy and then there was a retention election. there was rarely a contest. it just didn't happen. missouri has a system like that. there are many different ways of scanning the cat. but i think what we are afraid of now is that when you look at all ways, it has gone too far, particularly with campaign contributions. i said that in a way of picking up what viet said.

they are just appointing republicans. well, the democrats just appoint a democrat. that tends to be true. i can't do much about that. even my campaign contribution remarks is part to me of a bigger problem, and that bigger problem, if i am asked, what is the biggest problem facing the judicial system, these are the words i used. it is not the campaign contributions but the campaign contributions are a manifestation of it. it is the people, more and more, think of judges as the junior league politicians. although the messages that come to people -- all of the messages that come to people tell them that. think of the cases that you have read in a newspaper in our court that were not 5-4 and did not

involve a major social issue, which happens to be about 5% or 10%. how often do you read about any of the 40% of the cases that are unanimous? how often do you read an article about a judge, that like the articles 40 or 50 years ago, did not have in it clinton appointee, reagan appointee in parenthesis afterwards? the message is that the public gets far, these are political people deciding things for political reasons. that is so far from the truth, but it could become the truth. i find it a big problem. you say, well, judges are human. there is no perfect system. to talk about it in terms of politics is a distortion.

it is a serious distortion. my problem is to go back to those people in front of me every day. it seemed to me that there are many fronts that are a necessary to use to attack this problem on said that those people that are in front of us every day will continue to have faith in a system that depends for its existence on their faith. the faith, there is no way to predict how the judge will be paid. is in turmoil. walker the report for a judge? zero. -- what are the rewards for a judge? zero. that is an exaggeration, but near zero. it is internal, not external. i just wrote a dissent, and it depended heavily on reading of a record of 1000 pages of what

happened in the state of arizona. was i to to that record? was i honest in what i said? i know and maybe a few others know, but you don't, nor does "the new york times." i have to live with myself. but i live in a system which continuously, in reality, praises me for being honest. they don't talk to me but i hear them. do you understand what i am saying? it is building an institution and it takes years to build that institution, decades. that is our report, to work in an institution like that. there are hundreds, thousands of judges that are not of the supreme court that don't get to talk to audiences, who don't

get to have a mystique that goes with that title, and they have to act every day exactly the same way and get the same kinds of rewards. anyway, you see the point. i want you to see why i worry about this erosion, and it is there, of confidence in the system. [applause] >> i suspect you are tired of being reminded of your first- ness. i am interested in your last- ness. you were the last person appointed to the supreme court that did not go to harvard law school. [laughter] do you think that it is simply an interesting factoid or does it say something about a perhaps too narrow casting of the next?

>> i think it is desirable for presidents selecting supreme court justices to look beyond harvard and yale, if i may say so. and to look much more broadly and to not require that the only people considered are those that have served on the lower federal courts, as a district court and appellate court judge. i think some diversity of background and experience is a good idea on the u.s. supreme court. all nine of the justices are products of the u.s. court of appeals. i guess most of them are harvard and yale, are today? >> what about stanford? >> it used to be stanford.

i think there is good to have some diversity out there. >> the last sitting justice, when at the time of his appointment, was living west of the appalachian mountains was anthony kennedy. justice breyer mentioned he was born in california. i think it is fair to say that when you were appointed, you were from massachusetts. >> i grew up in san francisco. >> do you think it would be a good idea if there were judges or more justices west of the appalachian mountains, and should president obama be concerned about that kind of regional diversity when there is a next day conceit? >> i can remember when justice

byron white decided to retire. he was from colorado. the supreme court during my years there had a number of faces involving water right issues and disputes in various states. if you live in the west, and it is about water, it is important. you would be amazed how justices who are just a product of these of the mississippi do not understand water law out in the west. this is a specialized area. i was very concerned when byron white stepped down because i could see the immediate effect of people on the court who just did not understand those issues. i would love to see a few more from the west, to tell you the truth. >> justice breyer seeded justice

white? >> [inaudible] >> or with american indian law. >> look, i'm from san francisco. if you want to know that has an effect on a person is where you went to high school. at the time, it was there. >> he fixed the qualifications. >> thank you. [laughter] >> do you want to weigh in? >> no. >> empathy is important. what about the confirmation process? has it become too much of a quasi-ritualize the circus either to the senate judiciary

committee or to the reasonably vast numbers of the public who will watch these confirmation ceremonies? >> we were confirmed. we were appointed. you get it? 'ed' at the end. asking me or sandra day o'connor about the confirmation process is like asking for the recipe for chicken outlet came from the point of the chicken. [laughter] >> i will take a crack at being the sous-chef's. the primary part of my job was to actually died nominees through the confirmation process, -- actually guide

nominees to the confirmation process. it was a very interesting experience. we have one rule. it proved the point of your question. never take the bait. it is political theater. don't take the bait. they will ask you questions, there are ways to answer them, but don't lie and take the bait. are you in favor of affirmative action? categorically, discrimination is unconstitutional and illegal in our country. making a gesture based on race is bad policy. that said, questions arise all the time about how to apply this. there will be harsh questions about personal finances, demeanor and the like, it is just a ritual whereby it that

you could show that you have the temperament, the ability to rise above it all, i think you will be confirmed. if you do take the bait, it is a doomed confirmation process. >> i can tell you one thing about my own. i bet this experience is shared. it is stressful. i am sitting there on one side of the table and there are 17 senators on the other side. also, it is on television and i am really used to that. luckily, i was really bore -- i was really boring and people kept turning it off. [laughter] they will ask what they want to ask. they are the ones that are elected, i am not. if they ask too many things that people do not want them to ask, somebody else will be elected.

what i see this as is, and i knew perfectly well if the people -- the people looking at the television images, if enough of them don't like what they see, i won't be confirmed. i was, luckily, and i think people are pretty tolerant to tell you the truth. i think americans are trying to find out who the person is, and if they will be fair. i have confidence in a sense that the vast majority are not looking at this ideologically and want to know more or less who this person is. it had a happy ending for me. i was confirmed. if i had not been, this is a window of democratic input into

the selection of a person who will go to a court from which he is almost impossible to have him removed, and yet that person will have a lot of authority and ability to make decisions that will affect millions of americans. we don't want, for the reasons i have said, to have such a person as a judge because they would be easily removable. he or she is there to protect people from these swings of opinion. in the normal constitutional compromise, we have a way, in a democratic system, of having an input into this process, leading to the selection of a person who is removed from democracy in the nature of the job. that is not a terrible compromise. if you don't like the system as it has evolved, or if you think

it is far too much in the direction of kabuki theater, the solution to this is to explain this to people through the bar and the other institutions of molding opinion in a democratic society. if people begin to share that opinion, it will change. if they don't, then it won't. nothing i could say would make a difference. >> i expect that senators love senate hearings on supreme court justices because it is carried gavel to gavel on television. they can get dressed up and ask intelligent questions, and they love it. think of what they would have to pay for that if they paid for it in normal circumstances. it is not going to change, believe me. they just love it. that is why the senate never had

public hearings. this is a product of our tv age. on the plus side, and there is very little on the plus side -- [laughter] americans get to see for themselves and little bit of the character and presentation of the nominee. that may be their only chance. they may never have another chance to see this person and form an impression. to that extent, i would think people would like it. >> we are talking about supreme court nominations. two other lasts before we turn to questions, i think that i am correct in saying that justice o'connor is the last person appointed by the supreme court

who had run for elected office and elected to elective office. i think you were a majority leader in the arizona senate and the last person appointed from a state court. justice breyer, i know, from he having visited when i was teaching at yale law school three years ago and he was in my class, he spoke in a notably and movingly heartfelt way about your service on capitol hill as counsel of the senate judiciary committee. i think the view of the last person appointed to the supreme court whose experience has been on capitol hill rather than the executive department. as we talked about various diversity's, whether it is regional, the school you happen to go to, with the court benefit

from having successor sometime to justice o'connor who would actually run for elective office and won elective office and actually experience the problems of elective office, and would be benefit in the future from having somebody who had worked on the hill of rather than say, in the office of legal counsel prove >> things being equal, absolutely. absolutely, of course. i think that is a reason why the justice o'connor is very much missed. >> especially the health, because the hill is a strange creature. state capitals are strange. if you focus your study on the american government as the institutions and never experienced the congress -- i think you can study the

president and the court without experiencing it. >> is congress stranger than the executive branch? some might say the executive branch in a number of ways is pretty strange, but people in the department of justice made just think more naturally to people in the executive branch as potential judges than people who have been in this crazy legislative world. >> remember, the lawmaking power of which the primary task of judges to interpret the law is in the legislature. unless you have a special appreciation for that process, you may tend to be more formalistic in terms of the view of the law of legislative process rather than a more experienced view.

it very well may be that we should not see how lot is made. it may well be that that inside, which a lot of people have, it may be useful. >> i think that we ought to turn now to questions and comments from the audience. there are some microphones, and if you would go to the microphone and i will call on you. please identify yourself before your question or comment. >> richard gordon pickett justice breyer. justice breyer, we have a company with a huge verdict they filed an appeal. during the course of the appeal, there is an election to the court.

a man who was not on the court runs for a seat on the court and except $3 million from the defendants who are about to be heard by the court, which constitutes two-thirds of what the man got during his entire campaign. he goes to the court, sits on the court, here's the appeal and votes in favor of his contributor. somehow, this is allowed to happen and actually gets to you. where all the standards? where is the process for accusal for this gentleman? should there have been standards proo? shouldn't you lead a bit more on that? >> your point is would it be

important to have recusal standards in the state's? that was my point. yes, there are all kinds of institutions to deal with it. we all follow the a.b.a. standards, everyone of us. there is no secret. the standards are complicated, of course, but there is one difference in the supreme court with respect to refusal then there is in a lower court. when i was on the court of appeals, let's suppose i had a close question of refusal. i might as well refuse myself, frankly. they could always get some other

judge. it doesn't matter, there are loads of judges to get in to decide this case. in the present court, it makes a difference. there are nine of us, there is no way to get somebody in. when there is a close question, really think about it, and then if i think the duty to sit is greater than the reason for recusal, i will set. you are not free to decide everything to recused. the standards are identical. quite often, when i am having a tough time, there is nothing preventing me from consulting with experts. there is nothing from preventing me talking to my colleagues about it, which i sometimes do, and all of us do that. i think it all works out in the court. with the exception that i

mentioned. maybe he thought, why not? i don't have that luxury where i am now. >> watching all of the coverage surrounding the current nominee, i must admit, i have been somewhat confused. given the dictionary definition of impartial and the importance of a diverse supreme court body, you mention that today, with regard to that now infamous quote about the current nominee being a good choice given her particular racial, economic, and gender background, i wonder if

any of you would like to comment on whether or not -- where you fall on that side of the debate, whether that is a good thing or a bad thing? >> aristotle started first, right? he said the rule of law is the rule of reason. what is the rule of reason with the ability to convince another person of your own state of knowledge? we are in sort of a unique culture in that we all recognize and respect the individuality of personal experiences, and each one of us and this individual in our experience. but we also recognize and respect knowledge. where the difficulty comes is what does one mean about the word empathy? if by and the use simply

recognize that we are all individual, we all carried to the table experiences, then fine, that is all part of being human and being understanding. and to reason through lot of cross differences like that is not only legitimate but desirable in selecting a judge. but by personal experiences or specific empathy, you mean that there are certain barriers that one cannot cross intellectually in order to achieve a rule of reason and therefore the rule of law, then it seems to me that that would not be only illegitimate but on just in a system -- unjust in a system of democratic law. we are human. i know there is sand in the

world. that does not mean that we can aspire to sin. likewise, it seems to me that even though judges are human and sometimes are overcome by passions or prejudices or whatever in order to -- so they don't violate their oath of office, we shouldn't aspire to it as a criteria. they have said this publicly, that neither president obama ordered judge sonia sotomayor mean it in debt-, unjust sense of the word -- mean it in that unjust sense of the word. >> i work for a district judge that spoke quite often about

the importance of an equitable consciousness as well as what he would refer to as blind rule following. it seems to me you might be stacking the deck in favor of a very particular model of law and not being sufficiently sensitive to the importance of context. in this human realities that will emerge in any given case -- and this human realities that will emerge in any given case. >> seven of those justices agreed. >> the question is, what would aristotle have thought about this story?

>> my name is richard horovitz. one of the programs we have at duke is a public law program to promote a public understanding of law and its relationship to society. we have educational goals for the public. justice breyer made a very compassionate and compelling case or description on how a judge -- what their minds that -- what their mindset should be when approaching a case. how do we get the message across to the public so that they understand that when they hear these confirmation hearings, when they see judges, it is not about winning or losing a certain issue that may be of interest to them but a process that is critical to our government? the supreme court is one of the

few institutions that is still held in very high esteem by the american public. can they be helped to this? >> i understand this is being televised. it may become some americans will watch it and understand better what the role of the courts is and what should be. >> sanra spent an enormous amount of time on this. her answer and mind to this is, as abstract in general as it sounds, the only way to do this is when someone is in the 11th grade of high school by the end of that year, he or she understands the rudiments of how democratic government works. she has kathleen jamison working on films, explaining supreme

court cases and she will explain it. she is and 44,000 classrooms, which is fabulous. then she has some of the project going with teachers. it is such a big country. you at duke is a tiny bit necessary part, and so are we. what we have tried to do, and she does it as much as anybody, is every chance you get, even if it drives people to distraction, repeat what it is basically that we do. repeat what it is to be a judge. plea with people to go to their legislators and ask them to require sex. over and over and over. then prepare materials said that the lawyers, and there are a million in this country, on law day, can go to the judges and

say that it is all here, the questions and answers. i want you and me to go to the ninth grade at that high school over there and the lesson plan is here, and the teacher can read it the night before. there is a television film with it, and the kids will love it. that requires so much work on the part of so many people but i think there is just no other way. >> this is my cue to mention a website. >> is also a cue to mention one of the conversations that will follow this. one of the things that justice o'connor pointed out rather shockingly is that one presumably unanticipated consequence of no child left behind was the demise of civic education in public schools.

my daughter teaches at harvard graduate school on civic education and this is the topic that kind of upsets her. it is just vanishing from the american school system. >> it is very sad. >> i am a proud president of los angeles. [laughter] -- resident of los angeles. my question is about public service. i am really curious about tenure and your opinions on the tenure of supreme court justices. i believe the european union has a tenure of 15 years. what justice o'connor has been doing is just wonderful. you of the first supreme court justice i have laid eyes on.

i have learned a lot about the court from you. i wonder if it would not be a win-win situation for our country if supreme court justices had a fixed tenure of, say, 20 to 25 years and then after, you could go on tours like this. >> have you tried to change the constitution lately? it is tough. >[laughter] >> i know that that is a long shot. i believe if there were campaign preps by the nine of you, it would be an engaging conversation. as great as the greatest teachers and principals are, you as examples of our judicial system is on parallel. >> justices can step down.

i did. maybe it will take care of itself. >> let's say you had an 18-year term. it would be fine. it would make no difference whatsoever. you have to have a long term. you don't get used to the job until three or five years. it is a job where experience helps. 18 years? fine. i get very nervous when people want to find statutory gimmicks in order to get around the problem. this is an area where you have to think clearly and simply. i would be very nervous that some gimmicky stature. i would think that the way to do it is a constitutional amendment, and there we are. i will tell you an interesting story. a very, very old judge -- it was

either holmes, but don't hold me to it. the court said that judge field who was awfully old, will you please go to tell him that it is about time for him to step down? homes goes to see him at his house. do you remember when you were first on the court? the judges pointed out to you that a justice has gone along in years and he was having a hard time keeping track of these arguments. it was about time for him to retire. they asked you to go to him and explain that to him. field looked at him and he said yes, i remember. and a dirtier' day's work i

have never done. [laughter] >> justice o'connor, if i recall correctly in your decision in michigan affirmative action case, you said that one of the reasons you thought that we still need affirmative action in some form is that in order for our institution's to have legitimacy, they needed to reflect the diversity of the population. do you think that also applies to the judiciary, and to what extent? does it apply to the supreme court? should that argument have any place in the debate over the current nominee? >> i think it is helpful in our country, that people can look at

the supreme court bench and have some reason to think that it is somewhat reflective of our society. with no women on it, i did not think it was paid with one woman on it, i thought it was a very small beginning. we are getting another one. i think that helps. we have a nominee that is also hispanic. that will probably encourage hispanics that live in this country. we have an african american on the bench, and that is probably and encouragement to african americans we are not totally the rest of some diversity on the bench at pointthithis point. it is up to the president. they are perfectly capable of that.

i think that is one of the concerns that any president would have in selecting someone. >> when you are offering advice on potential nominees for the district or circuit courts, to what degree did diversity concerns of the kind just described feed into your judgements? >> a different kind of analysis than michigan obviously. judicial positions are not entitlements as they are in education processes. the decision is not based -- it is a political decision. it is for the president and the senate to judge. that said, president bush had this rather opaque standard called affirmative access. nobody could articulate what

was. -- what it was. nobody really articulate what it was. the way it worked in practice was something like this. we go into the president and say we have this seat that is open in new orleans. here is the name of the cabinet that the committee recommends, and it happens to be a white male. resident will lower his reading glasses and say, are you sure? we will say yes. he starts asking us question. who did you look at? who are the top three besides this guy? if they turn out to be all white males, he will tell us to go back. we will come back and a similar name comes in. he says, fine, if this is the

best recommendation, i will trust you, but i want to make sure that you have not been tunnel-visioned into this decision. those other kinds of questions that are asked in a very practical manner. >> justice o'connor, you have done a tremendous job in making the importance of the judiciary and important issue for all of us in civic education. the answer for civic education is transparency often. justice breyer, i would like to know why the supreme court does not make its arguments available to the public through televised arguments. >> they are available, just a

question of when they are available. why do we not have television in the supreme court to have the oral argument? >> right. >> i think because most people think the negatives outweigh the positives at the moment. the positives are obvious positives. it would be quite educational for people to see. they would see that some of these issues that they think are so obvious one way or the other are far from obvious. i would like to think that in that respect, a very minor issue that turned a to be important about the terms limits issue. my goodness, that was an interesting argument. jefferson fought one thing, madison and hamilton the other.

there would be a tremendous educational value. why not do it? there are arguments on the other side and i can tell you what they are. the arguments on the other side in the supreme court are people would worry because of the symbolic value of the court, at that the television would be in every courtroom of the country including all of the criminal case when you have concerns about witnesses and jurors. the second argument, it would not be understood very well. this oral argument is only 5% of what goes on. most of it is in the briefs. and the third, what our job requires is not to focus on those particular individuals in the cases. that is probably the most important thing. the nature of our job is to worry about the 300 million people that have to live under this rule of law.

those people are not in that courtroom. there are two lawyers, a plaintiff, and a defendant. people focus on individuals. you meet somebody, you relate. you see them in a picture, you relate. you see and hear about them on the radio, less. on the tv, you can hardly keep your -- there are concerns. which with those concerns balance out, i do not know. we are moving in a direction where more and more is on television, and maybe people will adapt to it more and more. for the moment, that is all i

can say about it. >i obviously have not convinced you. [laughter] i forgot one. psychologically, it is important psychologically. every one of us, while you are there, i am there, not one of us thinks that we are doing it any minute what 99% of the people think we are doing, which is doing what we want. i think i am not. we are atrocities. that is what we think of. we are -- we are trusties. some of us may think if we were to vote for something with the implications of change, we know not what, be careful.

that is called being very conservative about working major changes on this institution. it is not a logical argument. it is a psychological argument, but i would not understate its importance. >> the architect of the supreme court was a talented man one of the features he put in the court in the courtyards to hold the beautiful lands up were torrance. it is because justice moves slowly. why? because is better to be surer than sorry. ok? >> i think we see -- i think a speak for all of us. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> in a few moments, the future of the republican party. after that, and look at i ran's nuclear program. then a review of supreme court decisions from the recently completed term. >> this week, a look at the life and career of supreme court nominee sonia sotomayor through friends, colleagues, and former classmates, including a childhood friend.

saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> during this holiday weekend, the notable americans on c-span. stories from inside the white house, domestic policy advisers, from richard nixon to george w. bush, honoring president ronald reagan. ken burns his career and an upcoming series on america's national parks. and a reunion of the apollo 8 astronauts. there is more books and authors on c-span 2. featuring books on the american revolution, including john ferling. and p.j. o'rourke, his passion

for cars and americans need to drive like crazy. and, the current challenges facing africa. find out what is on any time at c-span.org. >> how is c-span funded? >> private benefactors. >> i don't know. >> it is not public funding. >> probably donation. >> i would say from me, from my tax dollars. >> 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span is a public service, initiative. >> a discussion now on the future of the republican party and other political news of the day.

the editor at large for the magazine. let me begin with the headline. you say that this falls short of a serious energy policy. host: can you elaborate? guest: barack obama has said to this day that we cannot drill our way out of our energy problems. that is true. there are other things besides drilling for oil that we need to do. but drilling for oil is one thing we definitely need to do. it is a necessary but not sufficient solution to our problems. we have a remarkable amount of

oil but we can get at. when barack obama it is artificially sustaining the of the industry's -- the automotive industries that do not pay as well as the oil and gas industry and are not as central to our economic life in some ways, he is doing everything he can to make it difficult to drill for more will. most of the safety and environmental concerns that people have about oil drilling do not have much merit, i think. if you take the global warming argument out of it for a moment, it is idiotic not to drill for more oil in the united states. host guest: that is right.

india and china alone and are going to outstrip us in terms of greenhouse gases very quickly. i think china already has. china is building a cold-fired -- coal-fired plant every 10 days. they have no interest in agreeing to capping or limiting their production of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases. anything that we do on this front is remarkably negligible. it will have the unintended consequence of outsourcing carbon-dependent jobs to countries where it is cheaper to use them. at the same time, the obama administration and others will say that cap and tree does not do much on its own. it does a lot of bad, but not much good on its own. they will say that we need to lead the world by example.

that is undermined by the fact that for 30 years, we have made it very difficult to drill for oil and natural gas in the united states. no one has followed that example. if you tell someone in brazil, saudi arabia, or the united kingdom not to drill for oil because they should follow our noble example, they would laugh in your face. the production of greenhouse gases will continue whether we pass this or not. we're just cobbling ourselves. i would put the emphasis on nuclear, carbon sequestration, agricultural policies. but cap and trade strikes me as a profoundly wrong way to pursue this stuff. host: congressman waxman will be with us for an hour on monday.

we will ask him about that. this book came out two years ago. in the book, you say this. guest: if ople want to read more about the book, they can go to c-span.org and look up one of the speeches i gave on the book. the basic argument of the book that i make is essentially that fascism was always a phenomenon of the left. the national socialists, mussolini was a socialist. i argue that american progressivism that was a

progressive revolution was part of the same moment and intellectual life. american progressivism borrowed great number of ideas from the same occurrence that led to italian fascism and vice versa. the argument in the book is for people who know nothing about it. it is not that i think american liberals arnaz these -- levels are mab -- liberals -- i am not saying that think american liberals are nazis that want to put people into camps. case in point is the barack obama campaign. he ran as a spiritualized figure. there was all of the messiah talk. there was this deification of the masses. his volunteers were told not to talk about issues.

instead, they were told to testify about how they came to obama in the way that one would talk about coming to jesus. michele obama talked about fixing people's souls. this is very much keeping with italian fascism and others on the left. the idea that we can find spiritual sustenance in politics was central to the obama campaign. there is this idea that we must rally behind the charismatic leader, putting aside all of our differences. still to this day, barack obama talked about putting aside etiology while he hasn' an incredibly ecological movement. i made all of these predictions about where liberalism was going in terms of economics.

we see big government and big business getting in bed together. we saw wal-mart getting in bed with big government. all of that was written about a year before i knew who barack obama really was. host: he is also a contributor to the fox news channel. we have a telephone call from here in washington, d.c., on the democrats' line. caller: most of the crude oil we get in the united states is not fit for consumption in the united states. that is why we sell the majority of it overseas. it would be too costly for us to purify to use it here. conservatives are the ones that believe that people ought to be kept at certain levels and if

they break the law, they should be in jail. they are more of the mind where individuals should be held to a certain standard. liberals are more likely to work with people for results instead of, with a stern. of view about how something should proceed. guest: those are interesting points. on the oil part, i do not think he can speak as if all of the oil iunder the control of the united states is all unsuitable for american production. i do not think that is true of the oil in the gulf of mexico. it is true of the oil-field in the upper west that has an enormous amount of oil in it, but it is mostly in shale.

it is very expensive to get out and is not cost-effective yet. on fascism, that is an odd argument. i do like the idea that conservatives believe that people who break the law should go to jail whereas liberals do not. i am not sure how that fits into the fascist paradigm. i am perfectly plaid to take the rap as a conservative that we think that people that break the lock should go to jail. host: would you put barack obama into the same category as barack obama? in terms of his ability to excite the public and communicate a message? guest: it certainly seems that we so far. there are very few politicians that you can think of like that. ronald reagan was one, bobby kennedy was another. i think barack obama fits the mold that he is true to his

word that he wants to be a transformational president. i do think he has a healthy ego about his own role in society. there is a practical aspect to this period as inspirational as he is rigid there is a practical aspect to this. as inspirational as he is, those things are less important trade is not a big thing that a president can get a rally going. he has to be able to implement policies that are successful. as a candidate, he is very similar to ronald reagan in that respect. they are different illogically. as a president, remains to be seen. it is beginning to look like he has written off more than he can chew. if the policies fail, if the economy keeps getting worse, if

we have crazy inflation, i do not think it matters how inspirational he was. the policies themselves will swamp that. host: do you tweet? guest: i do not. i never thought that the world was suffering for a lack of outlets for me to express my opinions. host: she is asking if you recall george w. bush a fascist. guest: of recall many aspects of george bush -- in the book, i say that he flirted with fascism. i do not think that george bush implemented a police state in the united states. people who think that would have to explain why barack obama has

not continued that since he has adopted almost wholesale all the policies enacted by bush. host: we have a telephone call from oregon. caller: i am concerned about the aspect of drilling again. i come from down below loss angeles before. -- i come from down below los angeles before. i have dealt with the pollution there. it is mostly from automobiles. i am concerned about how we do not fade away from the situation that is killing us, in a sense. if you look around the world, we're going down the forests everywhere. we are dissolving the filtered situation of the planet. we are pleading on top of that. i get frustrated when people

want to delve back into drilling. look at the skillpills that have contaminated areas. do we have to compete that much with the rest of the planet? do we need to set an example before we destroy the whole ecosystem to where none of us are doing any good? guest: i think he very well expresses the mindset that oil is sort of the poison running through mother earth. 1. i made in the piece is that hatred of oil pre-dates any notion of global-warming. the idea that oil is the lifeblood of capitalism and therefore bad, comes before we

were even talking about the fear of a coming ice age. i understand those concerns. there are legitimate environmental problems. deforestation is one of them. the state of the oceans is abysmal. it is important to tease out some of these things. the danger of oil spills has been greatly reduced. i concentrated on offshore drilling. the safety and environmental record of the oil platforms is astounding in terms of what man can accomplish these days. it is much safer than 40 years ago with the santa monica oil spill that launched the environmental movement in this country the oil tankers to need work. one reason why drilling on our

own soil makes sense is because " . if you look at it as a more practical issue that we are not going to convince the rest of the world, simply never going to convince the saudis, the mexicans, the canadians or the british to stop drimming for oil. what will get people to stop drilling for oil is when we find a better fuel than oil and right now we don't have one. oil is a really great fuel for the things we use oil for. the clean hydrogen fuel cells and all that that makes oil or much of oil obstacle ellett --

obsolete but we're not close to that yet the >> and you point owe you traveled to the gulf? when did you go down there? gues went out there at the middle of last month. i had to do some sea survival training. i had to get in a helicopter simulators and crashed into a swimming pool. i had to learn how to make a flotation device out of my jumpsuit. i have been to anwar as well. what impressed me was how deadly seriously these people take environmental safety. people are talking about good jobs. nancy pelosi said the bill was about jobs, jobs, jobs. i think that was a good indication that it was not a bout jobs. these green jobs are mostly

part-time, short-term jobs weatherizing grandmother's attic. on the other hand, these are excellent jobs for people who are not college educated. as the classic blue collar job. we're not killing the oil industry, but we are certainly not letting it grow. host: our next call is from bill in virginia. caller: i want to move over to health care. can you define what a subsidy is for me? guest: a subsidy is when the government raised the cost of something either directly or indirectly. a subsidy is when the government

defrays the cost of something either directly or indirectly. caller: the dictionary says it is a gift to a person or country. the other night, president obama was asked a question about the possible taxing of the premiums that employers and employees pay for health insurance. he began his answer by saying that you need to understand that the money we pay for health insurance premiums is not taxed. that adds up to a huge subsidy for workers and employers. that is so incredibly illustrative of the way that liberals think. just because they cannot tax the money i spend to provide myself with health-care, in their minds, that adds up to be a government subsidy. it has been eating at me ever since i saw him. [laughter] guestcaller: as soon as i heardm

say that, i went to the dictionary and looked up a "subsidy." i will hang up now. thank you. guest: i agree with you entirely. the mainstream view supports where you're saying. the idea that you hear from barack obama often when he talks about spreading the wealth or tax cuts for the rich under bush being a massive transfer payment from the port to the wealthy -- from the poor to the wealthy or bill clinton talking about people's spending the money wrong, the liberal mind-set works from the basic assumption that there is a defined pool of wealth out there that belongs to the government. the government gets to decide how it is distributed. the conservative point of view

is that there is a defined amount of oil out there, but is created by individuals. we have laws that say certain amounts of it can be taken away from the people that created it for good public purposes. the left as a completely opposite view. it is the government's money and belongs to the collective and they get to decide how to dole it out. not taxing something from the liberal perspective is considered to be a subsidy. that being said, i am not as opposed to removing of the tax benefit on the health care benefits thing. i think one of the things the bush administration recognized and what the obama administration is coming to realize is that it is crazy to have a system where your lifeline to health care and everything else comes through your job.

the idea that health care or insurance benefits come through your job is an anachronism from world war ii. in order to attract the best workers, employers would provide other benefits in lieu of wages. that system made a lot of sense and the days when you would stick with one job for four years -- for 40 years and then retire. people now switch jobs many times in their lives. the idea that every time you do that, you lose all of your connections to insurance and what not makes a lot less sense. i am for a major overhaul of health care, but not socialized medicine. that would involve liberating the markets so that the health care is stuck to the person instead of the job. host: this is eight weeks --

this is a tweet. andre is on the phone from new jersey. caller: we had just suffered eight years of a terrible government regime in george w. bush. for obama to get us out of this situation, how can he be critically judged so far with less than a year in office? we elected bush in. we had to live with his decisions. why is it so hard for the american people to come together to dig out of the situation with the president and follow his lead?

guest: this is a democracy. i seem to recall quite a few people complaining about the way that bush did things when they thought he was wrong. i think the way barack obama is doing things is wrong. i see no reason why in a democracy we should not say that when we think those things. the idea that we cannot judge what he is doing it seems to be unpersuasive. he has put forward major policy proposals. he has dedicated trillions of dollars to certain ends. he made predictions about how the stimulus plan would work. it is not working the way he said it would. the idea that everyone should stay quiet while he tries to dig us out of the problem, the metaphor only works if everyone agrees that the way he is doing

it makes sense. if you are in a collapsed cave and designate someone to did you out but all he does is make papier-mache dolls, you tell him to stop. it is an obligation and not a luxury to say that the policies are wrong. i may be wrong. that is part of democracy. the democrats have pursued still-devised policies that have more to do with any ideological and political agenda than they have to do with getting us out of this mess. host: you can read more of his work on line. the link is also available through c-span.org guest: it is much easier to rule out the guys who will not be.

host: give your general observations about sanford. guest: he should just go. he is an embarrassment. one can have all sorts of arguments about whether cheating on your wife should disqualify you from public office. they are all moot at this point. he has made an unholy spectacle of himself with this movable feast of in bears' offense and seminars on in relating king david -- on emulating king david. he is not that important to his state or the party. host: there is a new peace in the "vanity fair" on sarah palin. have you read it?

guest: it seems to be a rehashing of familiar things. i think all politicians that and see a path towards the presidency think about it seriously. i think she is indisputably ambitious. i do not mean that in a bad way. most politicians have to be ambitious or they would get out of politics. i think she is taking it seriously. host: someone is saying that the early odds on favorite is mitt romney. guest: i have met him several times. he is a friend of "national review." i am not completely sold on him. in many ways, he fits the criteria for the gop. he can talk seriously and in depth about economic policy. that is a strength of his.

he is a grown-up. he is a serious guy. he has been vetted in the public enough times. even though he is a mormon, he is married to one woman and he is sticking with her. the gop has a long history of picking the guy whose turn it is. we picked bob dole because it was perceived to be his turn. the same thing with john mccain. there are a lot of people who think it is his turn. the lesson of barack obama it is at this stage of the game, it is entirely possible we do not even know the name of the person that winds up getting the nomination. host: will sonia sotomayor be confirmed by the senate gu? guest: yeah. caller: can you hear me?

host: hell are you doing in little rock? -- how are you doing in little rock? caller: it is hot down here. i am a true independent. i am a bit of a conservative. i have to tell you that the lines have been blurred between liberals and conservatives. mussolini was the father of fascism. he said this. he said that the definition of fascism is a government that merges with corporations or corporations that control government, either one. the government controlled by a corporation was the bush government. now the obama government is

controlling the corporations. both are fascism. they are two sides of the same fascist coin. guest: that quotation is often pictured. you got most of it right. he was referring to something called corporatism. that is a real political doctrine that was popular in the united states and europe. it comes out of catholic thinking in the 19th century as a replacement or alternative to liberal democracy and free- market capitalism carried the corporatism does not entirely refer to big corporations. that is something that the left often tries to say. it means labor unions, and guilds, universities, the church, the big institutions in society. the idea behind corporatism is that all of the big players sit around a table and figure out

how to work cooperatively for the greater good. ::zz . we do see it with barack obama, getting wal-mart at the table, the health insurance companies at the table, basically the government and the labor unions own general motors. the idea behind all this is that we need to move beyond competition and where everybody sort of works together, that we all try our hardest, we can make this the best yearbook ever the that sort of mindset i think defines american liberalism and too much of american conservativism or at least the republican party, this idea that -- too many republicans think you're a conservative if you're pro-business. conservatives shouldn't necessarily be pro-business, they should be pro-markets. i think a lot of that has been

lost and some was lost in the bush years as well. i'm very concerned about what we're seeing because when you have corporateism, the big players sitting around the table, the people who get screwed are the small business, the forgotten man in that famous phrase. screwed on the small businesses and individuals. that is what we saw with the new deal. that is what we're seeing today. host: we want to welcome our radio listeners and viewers. host: there you go. guest: i was not planning on bringing up ron paul, but there are plenty of other people i was not planning on bringing up. i like him.

i liked having him in the primary. it was nice to have a libertarian. he is not my favorite kind of libertarian. he is a useful voice to have in there. i like these big fights on the right. that is one of the things that keeps us healthy. we're constantly revisiting our dog, and questioning where we should come down on things. ron paul has some friends i do not like. he has dabbled in some ideas i do not like. i do not like the way talks about foreign policy. if you listen to him, he would think that the republican party -- you would think that the republican party from eisenhower to ronald reagan was an isolationist party. that is nonsense. i have much less problem with having ron paul in there that i had with mike, to huckabee.

huckabee really is different. the beauty of a libertarian is that no matter how bad his personal views may be, they do not matter as much. the libertarian would not want to impose his views on people. with mike huckabee, was sold it for me was because he said he was in favor of a nationwide ban on smoking because he does not like smoking. that bothered me more than anything that ron paul could have said. caller: hell are you doing today -- how are you doing today? the thing that really upsets me the most is that term fascism.

if you look in the webster's dictionary, is where the government helps corporations. i have been fussing about that. i am active in the republican party. they have asked me to run for the state house. it would have involved moving so i turned it down. one thing you said that i really like is that we are entitled to speak up. i am retired from the oil and gas business. donald rumsfeld gave saddam hussein the material to gas the kurds. we gave that to him under reagan.

we supported him. my first complaint was why should we just give it to them? we should have sold it to them during my second complete was why we were harming both iran and iraq. that was none of our business. even though i agreed with some of the things you said, my biggest complaint is that fascism is what we saw. towards the end of the years, all of my friends agreed with me. i have one friend that has street kids in the military. i cannot repeat what she said about bush. she was one of his strongest supporters. host: the book is called "liberal fascism." guest: there was a lot in that call.

i do not think even webster's says that fascism is the marriage of corporations and government. that is part of it, to be sure i have a whole chapter on fascist economics. fascism is born from a specific moment in international politics. i mean politics in the broadest sense having to do with culture and literature. in many ways, it was a response to international socialism. that was based on the idea that your objective class status defined to you were. workers of the world unite, as it says in the communist manifesto. the workers in different countries and bond greater than their culture, nationality, or language. it was not popular enough to win over people in germany, italy, and other places. a lot of workers in places like germany, italy, and united

states liked the ideas of socialism. they liked the precepts of socialism and the redistribution, but they did not like internationalism. they did not like the idea of paying but service to moscow. they liked the idea that said you could be a socialist and a german or an italian. mussolini was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in italy. he never abandoned his love of socialism. he realized his path to political power would come with promising socialism but also a populist nationalism terry and the merger of government and business is incidental to

larger idea of nationalizing and spiritualizing the group collected towards national teams. that was what was at the heart of fascism. a lot of people say that big government and big business in bed together is fascism. it is not good. it is not something i like, but it does not stop the conversation. it merely starts it. host: earlier this week, "the new york times" pointed out these facts. the house approved the requirement last week that american utilities generate more of their power from renewable

sources of energy. china is on track to pass the u.s. as the world's largest market for wind turbines. the point is that they are further ahead in many respects on clean energy. guest: there is nothing wrong with green energy. the problem is that you could quintuple the amount of energy produced by solar and wind. it was still make up a tiny fraction of our energy needs. it is no surprise that china wants to get into this business. they better reasons to get into some of the green stuff than we do. their air quality is so abysmal. the idea that we will somehow turn the midwest and the coasts of the united states into giant wind farms to power ourselves out of our problems is far more

fanciful than the idea that we could drill our way out of our problems. host: in this piece, he writes the developing alternative energy sources makes sense. host: mary is joining us from kalamazoo, mich. caller: i have been a liberal democrat all my life. mr. goldberg, i have been a detractor of years. i voted for barack obama. i consider it the biggest mistake i have ever made in my entire life.

i went from someone who defended my party to someone who is extremely angry at my party. i will never vote for them again. i live in michigan. i have looked around my state. all this talk about building windfarms, instead of contacting local domestic firms to create these, they have contacted with companies in spain. when the governor of pennsylvania was going to build a wind farm he went directly to madrid. china has the resources to develop all of these technologies because they are of very wealthy country now. they will continue to burn coal. they are purchasing up huge stores of oil and other products to protect their own economy.

we are bleeding our economy drive. the democratic party is saying that we will have to subsidize china, india, and other countries not to pollute when they will definitely continue pleading. i believe my party is so corrupted that they are seeking to destroy our economy. that means destroying our lives. guest: whether it is purely corruption or just an aspect of it, there is a correction of an environmental constituency in the democratic party that is seeing this as an opportunity for political treats. it is also in the ideological obsession. the idea that this the greatest hoax ever perpetuated is a reference to tom friedman from "and york times -- from "the new

york times." even if it were not true, he thinks that global warming is forcing us to do these smart things. i think that is idiotic. it is forcing us to do all the things you are describing in terms of outsourcing vast quantities of economic activity and job production to countries of laughing at us for going down this path. host: we go to martin in nashville, tenn. caller: you keep talking about being a conservative and stuff like that. i wonder what you think about the union workers supposed to take tax cuts. guest: i do not know that union

workers -- i think we would disagree on the net benefit of unions in certain industries. i do not know how to respond. i think the premise is balls. host: reed is joining us on the republican line. caller: thank you for the opportunity to speak. i have a question for your guest. i wanted him to comment on a higher level aspect of politics. i would like to get a comment on what soft tyranny is and how the democrats are chipping away at our rights. it is like they keep coming up to the table with this rotten meat. we all know that we will not eat it. they will not even eat their rotten meat. but they will play this game and

that somehow conservatives are holding society hostage@@@@@ h z . can you comment on how tocqueville commented on how soft tyranny is going to chip away at our rights? >> guest: sure. tocqueville talked about how he would rather have his liberty constrained on some of the big things than on all the little things of life. that makes sense. sometimes on big things, the cower tailment of liberty makes sense. the draft is one of the greatest curtailments of individual little bitty -- little bitery ever con veesked of but in times of war it's sometimes necessary. what is not necessary is all these nickel-and-dime

encroachments on personal liberty we see them rolling out. you know, "aren't those politically correct people funny, ha, ha, ha," but over time it's death by 1,000 cuts. cuts. in this bill, there is a rule that says you cannot sell your home unless someone from the federal government comes and makes sure that you have made it energy efficient first. that is going to impose costs of varying degrees on americans. the federal government is deciding when and how you can sell your own home. 1. i make in the book is that the classical orwellian 1984 vision will probably never come to the united states. we are at liberty-loving people.

there is still the possibility of the brave new world vision for people have pre-packaged and joy and happiness delivered at their doors. it would render what c.s. lewis calls now and without chess men wit -- men without chests. the bigger danger is the idea that the government will do all these things for you. it will sap initiative. that is a far bigger danger. i think we are heading in that direction. host: chris is joining us from florida. caller: i want to make a statement and then i will hang up. you always hear about the conservatives saying it is the liberals. the conservatives had china with

nixon. there was the star in vietnam. what does that say to people in the war? q. are rewarding them. if the government could make money off the taliban, they would be doing manufacturing for us if it were up to the republicans. you talk about gun-control and how is the liberals. it is the brady bill. that was president reagan's chief of staff. there was aig. you started buying up these companies. the medicaid b program is a socialist program. host: brady was president reagan's press secretary. guest: he was shot in the head and his wife became an activist. it is ludicrous that to say

somehow republicans are in favor of gun control because of the tragedy of brady. i challenge you to look at voting records. the idea of trying to make republicans hypocrites on that is silly. some of the things he alludes to are things that i have criticized. i am not sure where the point of all this is. i hear things about bush and republicans and who am i to criticize liberals. the argument that because bush was wrong makes it ok for obama to be very wrong is a deep policy. host: good morning. caller: i disagree with liberals being fascists. i find that funny. under your definition of fascism, with corporate lobbyists writing legislation

being approved by congress fall under that definition? do you think the vacuum in the republican party is because of dick cheney picking himself as vice president? guest: i would not go as far as you go, but i do think there was a big problem with the primaries. we did not have the incumbent that represented the bush years in the race for everyone to key off of and criticize. there was a vacuum in the political process that did some damage to the republican party. i did not say that liberals are fascists. i said that liberalism is really progressivism and has some resemblance to fascism. i will stand by that. i wrote a whole book on it. in terms of lobbyists are writing bills being fascism, the greatest example of that came

under woodrow wilson and fdr. the trade associations and industry representatives wrote all the codes that covered themselves. it seems that american liberalism remains a cult to the new deal. people forget that the new deal was the greatest single instance of corporate fascism in american history. you still have the left worshiping it and trying to repeat it again. host: good to have you here and we hope you come back. >> i would love to. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," james hutson from the library of congress discusses the history behind the declaration of independence and how it is protected and

displayed. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> in a few moments, a review of iran's nuclear program. then a review of supreme court decisions. then after that another chance to see jonah goldberg of the "national review". >> these places remind me of national cathedrals that donors would build wings on hoping to go to heaven the >> walter kirn would like to see a few changes to the higher education system.

>> i think elections should be on the web the i think that these wonderfully concentrated iletsdzb -- islands of talent and wealth and erudition should be opened up to the larger society, not cultishly kept separate. >> walter kirn, "the under edcation of an overachiever" sunday at 8:00 a.m. -- 8:00 p.m. >> during this holiday weekend, notable americans on c-span. stories from inside the white house. domestic policy advisors on their presidents from richard nixon to george w. bush. honoring president ronald reagan. ken burns on his career and upcoming series on america's national parks. a tribute to the late writer john updike,ing two-time winner

shall -- of the pulitzer prize. and more books and authors on c-span 2 with three days of book tv, including historian john furling taking calls on our first president live from mount vernon sunday on "in-depth." and "driving like crazy," p.j. o'rourke. and the -- maathai on the current challenges facing africa. >> up next a zussder discussion of the potential threat. posed by a nuclear iran, the political situation there and recommendations on how to stop iran's nuclear weapons program. this lasts about an hour.

>> you guys sitting on that side, the podium kind of blocks you the >> good morning. thank you joining us here at the heritage foundation for the discussion on iran the

for those in-house we do ask that courtesy that cell phones and other electronic devices be turned off and we remind everyone we will post this program on our web site within 24 hours for your future reference. hosting is james jay carafano, the assistant director for our shelby institute for foreign policy studies. he is a member of the army college advisory council and he has authored several books, among them "g.i. ingenuity" and

the heritage book "winning the long war, lessons from the cold war for defeating terrorism and preserving freedom." join me in welcoming my colleague, jim car afano. >> thank you for having me here at freedom. i will introduce the panelists. they're going to speak for about 10 minutes or so each and then we should have a half hour for questions and dialogue the this project started with a single question. as a historian it's interesting. history is remarkably consistent. virtually every nuclear weapons test, the first test really caught the world by surprise. people in many cases generally knew what was going on, they expected it to happen someday. but nobody actually guessed when the soviets, for example, would test their first thing. so what immediately happens in

the wake of this surprise, whether it's the april surprise, the october surprise, or whatever, is countries immediately scurry to figure out how are we going to deal with this? even though they knew inside someday this is coming. so the question is what if we all get it exactly wrong? what if we all wake up and one morning on c nmple n they announce iran has tested a nuclear device, whether for peaceful purposes or not? people immediately ask themselves what do we do next? that's the question we put to our research team, what do we do the day after the we have three panelists the first is ken katzman, senior analysted where the congressional research service and -- but ease pearing in his personal capacity and not speaking for c.r.s. or any member of congressional -- congress. he joined c.r.s. in 1991 in the

aftermath of the liberation of kuwait. he has twice been detailed to the house foreign relations committee. and ilan berman is vice president of the american porn policy counsel ill and an expert on the middle east, asiaa and the russian federation the he has provided assistance on foreign policy and national security matters to a range of government agencies and offices. he is an adjunct professor at the defense university where we share offices that we never use. he is the editor of the journal of international security affairs, the author of articles, books and most recently edited "taking on tehran, strategies for confronting the islamic republic" finally, jim phillips, our senior fellow for

middle eastern affairs here at the heritage foundition the. he is a member of the committee of the present danger as well and also on the board of editors of the mideast quarrelly. i'll turn it over to ken. . about the current unrest in iran to set the stage for the discussion of the nuclear issue and the report which i was generously heritage asked me to comment on although not as a

formal member of the working group. what has struck me, though, in a lot of the press reporting of the recent events in iran particularly in tehran is the idea that major rifts in the regime are new. having studied iran since a few years after the islamic revolution when the u.s. government did a lot of hiring of people who knew something about islam and islamic fundamentalism in the transition from sort of the u.s. government focus on the cold war to, you know, islamic fundamentalism, we often forget that serious rifts have occurred throughout the history of the islamic republic of iran. we had nearly the entire senior level of the regime was almost decapitated by a series of bombings in june 1981. the leading figure was killed, the president mohamed was killed, the prime minister in

these bombings. we forget that ayatollah khomeini dismissed a president, dismissed and ousted in 1980. we had in 1986 the famous merckty affair which was involving the u.s. overture to iran in the context of the iran-contra affair. in which there were many arrests of people close to centers of power. we had the removal of ayatollah month certificate ri as khomeini's designated success accesser in 1989. that seriously shook the regime. we had a serious rift over whether or not to end the iran/iraq war in 1987-'88 when iran was losing, and there were many senior figures that said, no, iran should continue. that was a major rift. in 1999 we had major student riots, several killed.

just in 2000 we had -- 2004 we had the council of guardians which vets the candidates, basically disqualified almost all of the major reformist candidates for the parliament, and there were sit-ins and various protests right from within the regime, so the idea of a rift in the regime is new i think is not correct. ayatollah rafsanjani was actually a key figure in many of these rifts. he is a very, very clever back-room operator. he tends to lose elections. he did win for president in '89 and then again in '93, but that was after khomeini died and, you know, the people were looking to regime stalwarts for continuity. he did win as president but after he left office as president in '97, he's consistently lost. and, of course, he lost to

ahmadinejad in 2005, so he is not popular. he is a back-room operator almost pleadly. completely. all of these senior figures in the regime the reason why i think they're going to contain these rifts and heal these rifts is because they fear that if it completely gets out of control and complete chaos reigns, some outside group will emerge and take power. could be reformists from, you know, out of the turmoil, could be somebody in the rev guard, could be somebody from outside. conceivably an opening -- i don't think so -- but potentially an opening for, you know, the young shah who's here in great falls and tends to appear on television when there's turmoil, and when there's not turmoil you sort of never see him. but there is tremendous fear that if they don't heal this rift, some outside group may emerge, and they would all lose.

some other things i've heard that i strongly disagree with, i've seen some reporting in the last few days that there are rifts within the revolutionary guard and the baa siege that's put down the unrest, you know, i wrote a book on the revolutionary guard from 1993. i do not see that happening. i do not see major rifts in the security forces, i do not see factions emerging there. that said, i think there is potential. i would not rule out that that could happen. had the protests really mushroomed and posed a very, very serious challenge to the regime i do think you would have seen what you saw during the, when the shah fell which is the security forces refusing to fire on the population and fracturing and splintering. i do think you would have seen that. you did not see that, however, because i believe the protest movement that emerged after this

election did not, contrary to what i've read in the papers, it did not really attract a broad following. it attracted the reformists, the urban, educated, generally young intellectuals in tehran, but it did not spread wildly to the other cities. there were some protests in the other cities, but not major. i did not see new segments of the population joining these protests, i did not see the bazaars shut down, i did not see major strike action, i did not see a call for a general strike, i did not see people coming in from the villages to join these protests, i did not see the urban poor from tehran even joining these protests, so i don't think that these protests were actually that serious a challenge, and i was one who during these days was saying that this will subside if they do not attract these new segments of the population, and

they did not. why did this, why did the protests not grow? why didn't they attract new entrants? because i think there was some doubt as to whether the degree of fraud. i mean, basically, one is asking someone in iran to imagine that there is an 11 million vote fraud committed. you know, could happen, but that's an awful lot of fraud. what i'm looking for is to see if anyone in the election system in the interior ministry from the election commission comes out and describes, you know, the fraud. if we don't see that and we've not seen it yet, then i would have to say maybe, you know, that there was some, that the election was not as errant as maybe the protesters thought. i'm not saying it was, you know, i make no judgments on the election. i'm just saying 11 million votes is an awful lot of fraud, a lot of people would have had to have

been in on it, and eventually if it was completely fraudulent, i think we will know it. somehow. just briefly to finish up, you know, obviously, i work for the congress. i'm not commenting on anyone in congress, but the congress, you know, obviously in the last congress there was several initiatives to increase sanctions on iran, and my colleagues will get into this more on the nuclear issue, but the protests have given some new impetus to some of these ideas that have been in congress for a few years such as sanctioning companies that sell gasoline to iran. this is an idea that's been around for a few years, and now it has passed in a form, in a version of a fiscal year '10 appropriations bill that's been incorporated. there's a major sanctions bill introduced by mr. berman. he has said he's still holding to the position that he's not going to push it right now

because president obama's policy is to reach out to iran and still seems to be the policy. but that bill is out there and may attract new support. there are other ideas e emerging such as sanctioning, trying to get other companies to stop selling telecommunications jamming and internet monitoring gear to iran. these are some new ideas that arose out of what we've seen. some other ideas, some members are interested in looking at, you know, iran's connections with china, latin america, russia, some of the other countries that have been somewhat skeptical about sanctioning iran or ian entering -- even entering alliances with iran, so some in congress are interested in looking more closely at those countries, so the unrest has manifested in congress not necessarily directly on the unrest itself although some resolutions have passed, but rather on going back and maybe advancing some of the sanctions ideas that have been around

anyway and, perhaps, pushing those over the goal line. think i'll stop there. >> thank you. ilan. >> thank you very much. it's a pleasure to be back at heritage. it's been a couple months, so i feel like a refresher's needed. as someone who was part of sort of the formal set of experts that looked at this problem set, i thought it would be useful to sort of contextualize how we thought about the iranian nuclear problem, and i think it's useful to think about the fact that, you know, iran, the eye iranian strategic challenge, the challenge iran poses to the united states and countries in europe and countries in asia is not just about the nuclear program although that's sort of the long pole the tent as it were. on the nuclear program, the

assumptions are, the ground assumption that we started from was that iran is fairly well along on the process of creating an offensive capability if it wanted to, and obviously that's an important caveat. but iran is clearly laying the architecture for doing so. you know, in february of this year the international atomic energy agency issued its board of directers report, and it said that at that time iran had amazed what it estimated was -- amassed what it estimated was a metric ton of uranium who could then be weapons use bl. so when you hear officials whether in europe or in the united states talk about iran crossing a threshold, this is what they're talking about, the raw material that's eventually necessary to weaponnize. that's why organizations like the institute for science and international security which is sort of politically certainly not a fan of very robust

sanctions, not a fan of military action against iran certainly talk about the fact the way they're looking at this modeling exercise iran will attain at least a latent nuclear capability. not nuclear weapons capability, but nuclear capability in 2009, quote, under a wide variety of scenarios. so the lesson to draw home here is iran is working very diligently, and you have all sorts of other telltale signs. iran is now spending what's estimated to be over 6,000 centrifuges, and by 2014 they plan to have 50,000 centrifuges, so this is sort of an acquisition program, it's a program that's moving quickly, and the expectation is that over the next year, maybe less than a year, certainly a year, two, three years we're going to see a very, very mature nuclear capability which could be weaponnized if they made the decision to do so.

the other things we were thinking about in framing this discussion was the fact that there are programs that are running parallel to this that have a lot of implications for the idea of iran acquiring a nuclear capability. one is, for example, the ballistic missile program. iran, the mainstay of iran's ballistic missile arsenal is the shihab3. they'd had that for a long time. over the last several years they've increased both the cat and the trajectory of the missile, expanded the range, and they began transitioning from liquid fuel to solid fuel missiles which are more mobile. so last month they tested a missile called 2, and that was deemed successful, and the reason it's significant is because it is a extended-range, nuclear-capable solid fuel missile. so, you know, they're at least creating the potential in their

strategic arsenal that will be able to mount those warheads on missiles and deliver them. and the third is sort of where these two programs are heading and where they may intersect. and that's the space program. iran is a couple -- well, three or four years now ago became the world's first muslim space-faring nation. and iran has tested very regularly, had commercial tests of satellites since. the problem with that from a sort of policy analyst perspective is that even though that's benign in and of itself, the technology that you need to boost a payload into space is almost identical to the technology that you need to add a third stage to a medium-range missile to make it an intercontinental ballistic missile. so what you're seeing is this sort of triangulation of a series of programs that may be isolated in and of itself, but they could have a synergistic effect. so that's what we were thinking about when we looked at this

idea of what the nuclear program looks like and what the strategic threat@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @r >> i'm not sure the title of the report is accurate. because under at least certain scenarios, there's not necessarily a day after, or a point at which they test. we know for a fact they're nuclear. there play be a slow process. there's several scenarios. a breakout scenario like with north korea in 2002, where the north koreans came clean and told their american interrocketers, but yes we have the agreement but now we have this program. that's a scenario. there's also what i think you're going to see in the region is

assumed nuclearization. that they're working along these tracks that at some point there's going to be a assumption that iran is nuclear, even if it doesn't do anything overt to demonstrate. the macro trends you're beginning to see from this is sort of what framed the discussion for what we should do about it. we're looking at four macro trends. i play leave some out. when i think about it, i think about four. i think t y w you're seeing is a pretty substantial shift in the balance of power regionally as iran rises, as the united states is at least perceived to be receding in terms of strategic influence, withdrawal from iraq, preoccupation with afghanistan and pakistan, there is a sense that there is a shift, and it may not be tectonic, but it's certainly present and felt robustly in the region that iran is on the rise and america's on

the decline. and so when we think about, you know, what needs to happen, one of our policy recommendations, and jim will talk about this is sort of, you know, what do we think about, what should we be doing to the region to signal the permanence of our presence so iran doesn't think there is a day after, not in the nuclear context, but a day after america in the sense where it's unfettered in the region? the second, i think, macro trend that we're all concerned about was this idea that the fact that iran's nuclearization is not going to happen in isolation. you're essentially looking at not one nuclear iran, but potentially many. in terms of historical context, in the fall of 2002 in the run-up to operation iraqi freedom, there was one nuclear aspirant in the persian gulf, and that was iran which had just been disclosed as having a clan clandestine nuclear program.

today there's 14. tunisia, morocco, yemen, and the list goes on. jordan, turkey, the list goes on. and some of them undoubtedly are seeking this capability because they have legitimate energy needs. turkey, for example, has a really severe energy deficit, and they're looking for a nuclear program as a corrective for that. but i would venture to guess that a lot of them including many of the countries of the gcc, including yemen which doesn't have much by way of running water so it's not so in dire need of additional sources of energy are doing this from a strategic perspective. they're essentially looking for a counterweight to to the emerg, what they see as an emerging iranian bomb. so this has a great deal to do with, obviously, the balance of power in the region, but it has to do with the fact that our strategy when it comes to the iranian nuclear program has to be robust enough not only to

deter and contain iran, but the other countries that are lining up behind iran. the outcome's going to be the same. we are on the cusp of a very serious proliferation cascade in the region, so our strategy has to be serious enough to deal with the latent as rations -- aspirations of these other countries as well. the third sort of macro trend i think we were looking at was the impact that this program will have on the pace of freedom within iran itself because i think -- and no one's ever done this, so i posit this to jim. this may be a good study to do. but if you rhine up the caron -- line up the chronology of the timeline of what's happened to individual free speech and personal freedoms and representation within iran, they line up fairly closely, and i think the lesson here is as iran gets closer to nuclear capability, it feels freer to deal as it will with its

internal population. you see this in the accelerating pace of closures of religious newspapers, in persecution, just in the tone of the public statements you have. so i think in a very real sense the pace of the iranian nuclear program and the pace of the freedom of iran lead in opposite directions. the harder it's going to be for protests like you see on the streets now of having any sort of chance of not only succeeding because as ken illustrated it's a complicated process, but as having any hope of attracting international attention because the lesson of tiananmen, for example, in '89 is the fact that the international community doesn't meddle in the affairs of nuclear powers, so i think this is an important idea the regime is playing with as it attempts to secure long-term viability. and the fourth thing we were all concerned about is this idea

that the iranians may come to the conclusion based on current u.s. politics and current international politics and, frankly, recent press debit is -- precedent is that it's possible to essentially create a situation where they appear to be so marching towards the bomb that we just start to assume that iran's a nuclear power, and there's noog we can do about it. there's obviously a healthy school of argument that says that is, in fact, the case, this is a program that's gone on for a large number of years, and it's impossible to roll it back completely, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. the current negotiations with north korea are an example of this. on again, off again, i understand, but when north korea declared its nuclear breakout in 2002, that was not the end of the story. that was the start of a fairly ro must diplomatic process to try to convince them to give up the program. it's had more failures than

success, but the takeaway is that the international community did not assume this was an irreversible step and started working fairly robustly on things that you can do to try to convince the north koreans that the pressures of continued nuclearization far outweigh the benefits they could have. i'm not sure we're quite there yet, but it's a useful model for how we approach iran. >> thank you. jim? >> i'd like to give you a thumbnail sketch of a recent study we've done which is the original reason for this panel, iran's nuclear threat, the day after, and i should stress that this was written before the elections although we concluded that it really regarding the nuke around question it didn't matter really whether president ahmadinejad was reelected or not because there wasn't that much difference on a nuclear issue with the former prime minister. in fact, mousse i have report

edly was present at the creation of the iranian nuclear program in the mid 198 os, and according to documents he personally approved the iranian outreach to the pakistani nuclear profiteer a.q. khan. so we don't see it would have made a big difference in substance on the nuclear in question. it would have made a difference in terms of tone and atmosphere, but ultimately the only vote that counts in iran is that of the supreme leader, and he hasn't changed, and that policy hasn't changed. the obama administration remains committed to its engagement policy. president obama has said that this will involve bigger carrots and bigger sticks, and he famously mentioned in his inaugural address that we will extend a hand if you unclench your fist which was an offer

made generally to the world, but specifically to iran. and, unfortunately, as we've seen in recent events the iranian regime continues to have its fists clenched tightly on the throat of the eye rain kwan kwan -- iranian people, and the sad truth is the regime doesn't want better relations with the united states because they're aware of their history and that is the two revolutions in the past were boarded after the western defeats. and they fear that would pose a growing threat not only to the base of their power, but would undermine the legit maasty of the revolutionary ideology and weaken their claim to leadership of the muslim world. and i think these are not minor factors in their thinking. tehran's strategy now appears to be to run out the clock, and they've accelerated their --

this diplomatic strategy is meant to stave off effective sanctions while they continue their mans. -- plans. the world's foremost state sponsor of terrorism will soon or eventually have one of the most terrifying weapons, and the basis of this special report is that we think the united states should do a lot more to prevent this disaster from unfolding and if iran does attain nuclear weapons, to take converted action with allies to contain and deter it. very quickly we realized it's not just the iran program in isolation, but as ilan said once iran opens this door, this pandora's box, there will be a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the middle east, and that's not exactly the most stable region to begin with. so i'll just quickly coover the ten recommendations we came up with in this report, and if you're watching at home it's available on our web site and

also in our iran briefing room which is a web site attached to the heritage.org web site. our first recommendation was to adopt a protect and defend strategy aimed at neutralizing iran's nuclear deter rent. we need to strengthen deter reasons against the threat once it emerges by deploying enhanced missile defenses, especially to our allies in the region, israel and other countries threatened by iran. the u.s. navy also needs to be ready to deploy missile defense cruisers at appropriate places and times in the event of a crisis. and given iran's growing ballistic missile capability, we think it will be very prudent to invest in missile defense. not only for regionally-deployed and local missile defenses, but at home because the u.s. must be

seen as providing robust missile defense for itself because a secure america adds to the credibility of our backing for our friends and allies in the region. secondly, we said that the u.s., washington should warn that any threat to use an iranian nuclear weapon or the actual use would be responded with with devastating force including a possible nuclear missile response. u.s. warnings should come after strengthening the u.s. military posture in the region, and this could lead to expensive and difficult long-term deployments, we mentioned it would be possibility, the possibility of a permanent deployment of two carrier task force in the persian gulf and other military activities. and also it's important that washington develop and refine capabilities for nuclear forensics in order to identify

the possible culprit or culprits behind a sudden nuclear blast that maybe a terrorist group would set off at some point. thirdly, we think the u.s. should mobilize an international coalition to contain and deter a nuclear iran because that threatens many countries, particularly in the persian gulf. and so it's necessary to maintain a strong u.s. naval and air presence there to deter iran, but also to step up intelligence cooperation, military exercises and strategic cooperation with the gulf cooperation council which is an organization of countries in the gulf set up in 1981 to defend, provide collective defense against iran, but also with israel, turkey, and other friends in the region that are threatened by iran. fourthly, i think the report recommends that the u.s. should make clear american

withingness -- willingness to block oil exports in the event of a crisis because iranians tend to use the threat of closing the strait of hormuz as one of the weapons in their quiver to try and intimidate the other members of the gulf. we think that the u.s. should not only press for other persian gulf oil exporters to develop alternative means to export the oil by building pipelines that avoid the strait of hormuz, but also it would be very helpful if they could build up their excess oil capacity to cushion in the event that a crisis comes regarding iran's nuclear program. fifthly, we think the administration should review contingency plans for a possible preventive strike to disarm iran, and this should not be taken off the table. tehran should not think that just because it's acquired a nuclear weapon that it's home free, and by stressing the increased risks following the

attainment of a nuclear capability, it may lead an irann@oáh@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ r the economic frunt. the mullahs have really miscalculated in their economic policies, there's a lot of corruption, mismanagement, they've been hurt by the fall of oil prices from the high of 2007-2008, so sanctions could get more traction. it's doubtful that these sanctions will be able to arrive at at the u.n. security council because russia and china essentially act as iran's lawyers, but they should get as much as th can at the security

council but look outside the framework for the most effective sanctions and that's on denying the iranian regime foreign investment, subsidized trade and loans in order to make clear the trade-offs that iran must consider as it goes forward with this nuclear program. seventh, we thought we should be strengthing the proliferation initiative to prevent iran from acquiring the materials and technologies necessary to sustain their program. unfortunately, they probably have most of what they need already, but psi greatly focused, more focused on iran could avert shipments from other places that still could have an impact on that program. eighth, i think the administration should launch a public diplomacy program to explain to the iranian people the very high cost that the policies of the regime impose on them in terms of economic

policies. and up until now the ahmadinejad regime, i think, has had monopoly on explaining the nuclear issue, and many iranians see it as just a question of nuclear power. president obama and before him president bush made it clear that it's not just the electricity-generating capacity of nuclear power that's the problem, it's the military program, that that civilian program masks. ninth, we should not just narrowly focus on iran, but must continue efforts to discourage other states to acquire nuclear weapons, and that would be to condition the extension of a u.s. nuclear umbrella to new allies as requiring a stronger non-proliferation commitment, especially if it's going to involve the deployment of missile defenses. and then lastly, i thought,

well, the panel concluded that it's important not to give up on efforts to dissuade iran from considering its nuclear program even after it requires a nuclear weapon if it can be convinced that it really doesn't do that much for it in terms of international security, in fact, could bring new threats, could bring new targeting from a whole slew of other countries, not just the u.s. or israel, but many other countries will be targeting sites in iran. that that could eventually lead a future government to step back from the iran, from the nuclear capacity, and we should reinforce the validity of the libyan path. that is that iran should know that it has an option to step back from the brink, and if it incontrovertedly surrenders its

nuclear materials and could go to a weapon, that it has the option of being welcomed back into the international family much like libya did. so let me just end it right there. >> great. so we're going to quickly go to the audience and just very simple ground rules, if you'd just raise your hand and wait for me to recognize you, and if you'd just announce your name and affiliation. so while you're thinking of your questions, we're going to do a quick lightning round. i love the john mclaughlin thing. in 60 seconds or less we're going to jump in a cab, go to the white house, you get a minute with the president. what do you tell him? >> oh, my goodness. crs, we don't make my recommendations, but what i would say is i think iran is in a weak position right now. the internal turmoil has made them, perhaps, more willing to compromise, to religious their legitimacy. the u.s. has a window in which

iran is weak, and my view would be to take maximum advantage of that weakness to press for a nuclear deal on very favorable terms to the united states. >> okay. >> well, i have a somewhat different perspective. it seems to me i've looked at iran for a while, not as long as ken has, but for a while, and it seems the conversation we've been having over the last several years is misleading in the sense that the nuclear program tends to be a red herring when we think about iran. we're concerned over the nuclear program, but if you transpose that onto another country, say luxembourg or what have you, portugal, you don't, simply don't have that kind of concern because the threat of the iranian nuclear program emanates not from the technology, but it 'em mates -- emanates from the regime that will ultimately wield it. we're concerned over the intentions of this regime, its involvement in international terrorism, its continued,

continued source of instability for iraq, for afghanistan, and so i think what's happening within iran now is certainly a hopeful sign. it may not be a hopeful sign for very long, but i think it's an opportunity to refocus on the center of gravity in this whole debait. >> so what does the president do? >> i think right now the most important thing the president can do and he's done so at least to some extent is try to create that empty political space within iran so there is an opportunity for opposition forces to organize, and a part of that has to do with the fact that he has to articulate to the eye rape yang regime -- iranian regime a deal, any other deal is not unequivocally supported by the west. there are things that could derail that deal such as brutality on the part of the regime towards the people, such as, you know, another tee tianan square, this time in tehran. i think it's very important for us not to ignore the human terrain. >> jim? >> i would just say that i think i would tell the president that

the goals that he's set for the engagement strategy could only be accomplished in the event of a change of regime because i think this regime is committed to attaining a nuclear weapon which it sees as a way of preserving itself in power because it fears its own people for good reason. and secondly, if i expect the administration will continue on its engagement strategy regardless, and i would say it's important to set a deadline on that because otherwise iran will just run out the clock and, you know, kind of engage in pseudo negotiations. and thirdly, i think that, you know, president obama's been very mindful of the iranian narrative ant -- about iranian-american relationships, but i think he should keep his eye on the ball of the american narrative and realize that ultimately iran's policies will only change when the regime

changes and that, therefore, we should put aside ourselves -- ourselves on the side of the iranian people, and i think he's starting to come around on that but i think was very slow in the beginning. >> right down here. wait for the microphone please. >> csic. three former centcom commanders have all three suggested that we should learn to live with an iranian bomb much the way we learned to live with a soviet bomb under stalin and a chinese bomb under moo see tongue, and i'm just wondering where you would come out on this. these are three guys that understand the problem, and they say we should learn to live with it obviously in exchange for some geopolitical deal which

would include hamas and all sorts of things. >> okay, well, i'll start. i think where you stand depends on where you sit, and i think it's interesting that you sort of identified these generals, very knowledgeable, very worldly generals, but they all come from centcom. i've spent some time working for centcom, as i'm sure you have, and they tend to look at iran as a management problem. when they look at the middle east, the assumption is that the iranian nuclear program is so robust that it's impossible to derail completely, and there are, you have to manage it. and there's obviously ways to make iran more predictable. the way i see it, iran has a little bit of dual character. so when centcom thinks about what to do with iran, it tends to think about how to make iran more a country and less a cause. if the regime is a country, you can deer the it -- deter it,

contain it. i think what's going on within iran suggests that the situation is fairly fluid, it may play out in the way ken suggested, and i think it probably will, but there's obviously a great deal of things that are moving pieces on the street. and so we should be certainly thinking about management, but we should also be thinking, i think, a little more holistically about the main fault line in the regime which is the fact that half of its population is under the age of 24, and how do we exploit that? >> good morning, gentlemen. with all due respect, i'm from iran. first and foremost, you have to understand the culture of iranian people which is different from other nations. you cannot compare iranian culture with other countries. transportation no similarities. now, my question, my comment is when a regime is deceiving its own people for the past 30 years it has been deceiving its own

people, has been brutalizing its own people, has been embezzling the national wealth, what do you expect to do with the west? if the west is really serious to get rid of the nuclear issue and terrorism, international terrorism which is being supported, funded by the iranian regime, if the administration is really serious to put an end to it, it has to throw its full-fledged support behind the iranian people, and the window of opportunity has been open since june the 12th. and the young people in iran are on the streets. they are completely different. we are different. we love you people as opposed to the arab nations which the governments love the united states and the west, and the people hayes. the eye -- iranian people love the administration, but the government does not.

now, i recommend you to go and read ken cut lin's book on page 243 it tells you all, you cannot deal with this nasty criminal regime, none whatsoever. you have to go for regime change. help the iranian people now that are on the streets yearning for regime change. mousavi is an excuse. i was born, raised or and educated in iran, and i've been living in this country for the past 34 years. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ken, would you like to respond? >> well, i guess my problem is we're sort of dealing with the iran we want. i mean, there's no secret, i mean, i think everybody in this room, everybody in the u.s. goth wanted ahmadinejad to lose the election. we don't really know what happened, but it seems like it's going to prevail that he won the election. we have to really sort of, i think, deal with the iran that we have. the protesters are very visible,

they get a lot of attention, they have a lot of resources, but they are not a majority. they are just not a majority of the iranian population. and i think we have to just sort of deal with it as we haven't. >> [inaudible] >> well, okay. [laughter] >> we are for regime change. >> thank you. my name is mike. among your recommendations there is one item, refuse to give up on efforts to persuade iran to abandon its nuclear capability. my question is how can you convince iranian government that it is in their own interest in view of the following two facts: a, three countries -- israel, india and pakistan -- continue to possess nuclear weapons, and, b, among the member countries of the axis of evil one country

which did not possess nuclear weapons was invading the other country, north korea, is now a nuclear-armed country, and it is not invaded. >> jim? >> i think that's a good point, but i would distinguish iran from those countries, at least from israel and india, because iran did sign the nuclear proliferation treaty whereas i don't believe they did. but as you mentioned, i think the regime sees a nuclear weapon as a guarantee of survival, and it would only change its cost benefit calculus if it was convinced that continuing on the nuclear path would subject it to an intense economic sanction so intense from the outside world that it would plunge the iranian economy into even more chaos and threaten its power even more quickly. the problem is at the security council sanctions are such a

slow-moving process, and they're diluted and delayed by russia an@@f @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ >> the time is running out on that. i'm not optimistic they'll be convinced by these pressures. >> still with righter. a general question for the panel. the president of iran is sometimes portrayed as somewhat of a nut case with holocaust denial w direct threatening of israel. and general comment this is seem off the charts. do we really think he's that or a good poker player with some very good bluffs going on?

>> those that were followers of come mainy feel that ahmadinejad is just not worthy of that -- of that mantle. of that succession to the presidency and he's seriously isolated iran to the point where it is hurting economically and vulnerable to economic sanctions. and to go back to some previous questions, my view is instead of focusing on changing the regime that maybe the best focus to

achieve u.s. objectives would be to redouble our efforts on the sanctions issues which i think we're hurting the regime, particularly last july, to the point where perhaps they were reconsidering their strategy on the nuclear issue. >> a question back here. >> you mentioned that 11 million folks would be a a hot. you said those people on the streets are not majority of the iranian people. what do you say to those? >> he cannot hear you. >> what i'm asking is when we -- we read the report, the other reports and also when we go back to 2005 and ahmadinejad has 5 million votes and the second, then the other one has 17

million. people were suspicious and now we have 24 million. how do you see these trends? >> again. i'm in the there. it is impossible really to speculate on bha what happened. 2005, you had a much different feel. janne was in the field. he was a conservative then he moved to the reform cament camp. he atracts votes from different places. i think spec leating about how the vote should have come out and saying since it casme out a certain way it therefore, has to be fraud, i don't particularly find a convincing methodology. for me to say this was a complete fraud, i would need to hear it from people that oorged the fraud and i think if there was that fraud, we will hear from them eventually.

>> 7 million from 2005 and this year, and he mentioned the economic and foreign policy, how could that happen? >> well, i mean, we're extrapolating since certain things happen, the votes should have come out a certain way. i just don't find that methodology convincing. some would say that -- george w. bush play have lost the 2004 election because iraq wasn't going well and he won. i don't think we could say that iranians should have voted the way we think they should have voted. we have to look at hard evidence of the voting process itself. >> we have five minutes left. we're going through the lightning rounds and go through a series of questions that people want the answers to. really quick answers. we're exactly at 11:00. the first question is, the iranian government could be more or less willing to negotiate in

good faith in the future? >> no. >> i with would say. i would say, you know, president ahmadinejad has already made it clear in the future his policy will be more harsh. he's digging in and really -- the person that accounts as the supreme leader and his ideas haven't chinged at all. i think that's right. >> ahmadinejad made the comment even before the participants came out that he sees a mandate to be what he says is more solid. we know what that means. >> he'll have to compromise. the supreme leader will force him to heal the tremendous rifts in the regime itself. >> is u.s. engagement policy going to continue? yes? >> yes. i think it is going to continue and it is going to fail. >> will other countries in the region go nuclear if they either assume or iran demonstrates

nuclear capability? >> you want to start? >> yeah, i think that -- i would look at turkey egypt and saudi arabia, especially saudi arabia who play have some kind of arrangement with pakistan. >> without question, i think you're looking at, in those countries in particular, you're looking at programs that are gaining speed and gaining steam very rapidly. i think the strategic calculation is what i laid out. >> what was the question? >> will other countries go nuclear? >> no. i think the united states will get them under an umbrella and head that off. >> will israel in the next 12 months attack the nuke here infrastructure in iran? >> no. >> because? >> because the pent 0 gone will tell them not to. if i knew the answer i would be a rich man upon >> i would say, i think the chances of israel striking at the program ra higher than

people in washington generally think. i don't think the israeli government could afford to sit back with the regime that not only denies the holocaust but the getting together the tools if a new holocaust. my final point is there's two commandos at the top, prime minister netanyahu and barack obama. and commandos tend to be bold. >> and quickly. from the israeli perspective, looking at the outcome of the election, woo will that make an attack more or less likely? >> that's a tough question. i would say -- i would say probably more likely, because it is going to become more clear faster that the diplomacy is not going forward. >> most importantly, thank you so much for coming in and participating in the event and join me in thanking the panelists who are really good.

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>> speakers include dick thornburg and acting slisser walter delinger. this lasts about an hour and a half. >> welcome to the washington legal foundation annual supreme court briefing. and i'm chief counsel of the legal studies division. we come together live for free enterprise. we welcome you who joined us online and joined us in person as well. the foundation has been around for 32 years. we're a public interest law and policy center which started at litting group and has branched out to being an organization which publishes in seven

formats, communicating to the public and press and a number of different sven hughes and puts on programs on these and web seminars as well. our file 24 briefs this the court the supreme court this term. won seven and lost five. and drew of one of them. and also filed petition in support in fin cases, which four were granted. we have got three that were still waiting to be determined the next term. we're pleased to have with us today, as our mod rater, as we almost do for this program the honorable dig thornburg.

>> there are others of note, and there are allegation that is would be forth coming on the nomination of judge so the to morrow. and i'm reminded the bartender philosopher who created mr. dooley once observed that the supreme court follows the election returns. we know that's not literally true of course but we did have an election last year. and -- it'll certainly affect the court. most notably president obama will be the -- is the appointing authority for vacancies over the next four years. and we can imagine a quite different scenario for -- for appointments if john mccain would have been the president. but then again perhaps judge -- justice souter play not have resigned and but -- there are a lot of things there. but the court yesterday

completed its october 2008 term. we had the all-star lineup to share views on its activities. to assess the consequences of a number of 5-4 decisions in key cases, read tea leaves about future directions the court play take and make sense out of this varied crop of decisions. i'll introduce each of our participants and -- in the order this which they will speak and turn them loose. to my left, tom goldstein of aiken gump who serves on the faculty at stanford and harvard and is responsible for the popular and widely regarded blog keeping track of the court. and to my immediate right, the former acting solicitor-general and visiting professor at harvard frequently appears before the court in this capacity as a private