reckless accusations that the absence of our military forces are somehow to blame. the standoff spark no increase in violence. the political process continued. the parlor maintained a quorum. iraqi leaders convened by the president and others continued to negotiate across partisan and sectarian divide. a judicial panel was formed. meanwhile, our embassy work with all sides to prevent escalation. senior washington officials, the vice president, and others, made nearly daily phone calls to urge respect for rule of law and the political process. gradually, the tension defused. in the end, the main difference between these issues, the 1 in 2007-2008 and the 1 today, is

that in 2007-2008, the boycott lasted 8 months. this time, it lasted 2 months when we had no troops in iraq. i think it is useful to provide this comparison, because it offers context that, in my judgment, has been lacking in public discourse on iraq since the war ended. if you read the newspapers and listen to the media, it would suggest that as our troops departed iraq, so did american influence. our administration allegedly has shifted focus away from iraq. for example, it has been reported that our ambassador cannot get in to see the prime minister and our diplomats cannot leave the compound. here are the facts. our engagement has increased, not decreased, since the withdrawal of u.s. forces. embassador jeffrey has been in to see the prime minister a dozen times. that is far more access than our

ambassadors in other countries' debt. the speaker and many others are seen almost every day. movements from the embassy and our consulate have increased from more than 1200 in january of this year, about 40 a day, versus about 30 a day in 2011, when we still have troops in iraq. our engagement in washington has kept pace. the vice president has made multiple trips. he has also hosted a monthly cabinet level meeting on iraq, an extraordinary level of engagement by the second most senior u.s. official. i and other washington officials including the deputy secretary of state, deputy energy secretary, and others have made multiple trips to iraq during

this time. in virtually all of the meetings we had, including when the prime minister was here in december to meet with the president, we have made clear to our counterparts that a continued u.s. support requires a compromise along sectarian lines, the respect for the rule of law, and upholding the constitution. we know from these efforts and from this engagement that despite the troop drawdown, the demand from -- the demand for our engagement from iraqi leaders of all political stripes remains undiminished. i witnessed this firsthand during the very lengthy government formation process. the president and vice president were deeply engaged. when the deal was finally sealed, 1 photograph captured that engagement. there were four people in the room when that deal was sealed. that included a promise dirk -- prime minister maliki.

during the most recent political standoff, the u.s. was the only communicator with all the leading parties in europe. much of this engagement takes place quietly, unadvertised. but just because you do not see it, just because we do not say it, does not mean we are not doing it. we have also seen, i think, in recent weeks, significant progress. the number everyday cooperating on security threats iraq faces, on boosting and protecting the vital energy sector, and supporting iraq's emergence as a member of the international community in good standing and irresponsible regional actor -- as i said, there is progress on all of these fronts. for example, the oil production is now at $2.7 million a barrel.

we are heading to more than 300 million barrels a day. well exports have allowed revenues that passed a $100 million budget in mid-february. we have seen steps toward integrating iraq. the appointment of a non- resident saudi ambassador for the first time since 1990. visits by the minister of justice. visits to baghdad by a jordanian and turkish officials. a visit to kuwait ended a thorny dispute. there was an agreement to settle at iraqi debts to egyptian workers who fled during the first war. and now plans to host the summit in baghdad on march 29. while a run and iraq will inevitably be more entwined than we and many of iraq's neighbors would like, oh anything we have

learned is this. the vast majority of its leaders, including the prime minister, our foremost iraqi nationalists and resisted outside influence from any quarter, including a run. baghdad repeatedly has acted contrary to iran's interests. there has been pressure on shia militants. there has been patience, despite repeated pressure from teheran, to relocate the residents of a camp. all of this press israel. so is the -- is real. so is the peril. there are fundamental issues. finding ways to here power and holding all sides to agreement. stamping out violent extremists to launch attacks on innocent civilians and security forces, and foreign diplomats trying to do their jobs.

resolving longstanding disputes about internal boundaries. ensuring the necessary legal and the mantle for more are in place to allow the energy sector to flourish. the level of violence, while it has diminished, remains unacceptable to the iraqi people. enhancing and retaining the commitment to democratic principles is going to require hard work and constant vigilance. regional relationships remain tenuous, despite recent progress, and fought with mistrust. the specter of iran looms large. these and other problems are not want to be solved overnight. a little perspective is in order. given the country posted dramatic and very recent past, more than 30 years of dictatorship, international conflict, economic isolation, sectarian violence, just a few short years ago that nearly tore the country apart, discounting its progress towards a more normal political existence means turning a blind eye to the facts.

what about going forward? i would argue that we have the people in place and structures in place to deepen our engagement with iraq. our embassy and strategically located consulates will lead the effort to develop our strategic russia with iraq under the 2008 strategic framework agreement, which continues. in december vice-president joe biden and the prime minister tareq the first reading of the high coordinating committee since 2000 under that oversees a series of smaller committees that our lead from senior officials on both sides in iraq and in the u.s. on a broad variety of important issues on defense and security, energy, trade and investment, education and culture, politics and diplomacy, law enforcement and judiciary, services, technology, environment, transportation. this work is well under way. let me give you a few examples. to our office of security

cooperation, we are helping the iraqis acquire major weapons systems like helicopters, heavy artillery, f-16's. our goal is to have iraq protect itself from external threats. the judicial institute has provided continuing legal education for more than 1700 judges and judicial employees since 2010. the anti-corruption strategy is a work in progress and we provide training to anti- corruption bodies like the commission on integrity. we also help build the iraqi museum, preserve the historic site of babylon, and we continue to support the iraqi institute for the preservation of antiquities. we expect to bring iraqi students to the u.s. to study. for the first time this year since 1988 we have participated in the baghdad international trade fair. u.s. civilians features 85 companies with combined annual

revenues of over $1 trillion, the largest single country. presence in country if that sounds less light war footing and more like the type of programs we have in countries around the world, countries with only have normal relationships, that is the point. our goal is a close strategic partnership with iraq. but we also seek a more normal relationship between two nations bound together by shared sacrifice, by common interests, and by a commitment to a better future. while our war in iraq is over, i'll work in iraq and with iraq, a country that remains of the center of so many vital american interests, continues. with that, let me stop talking and start listening and take your questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much for your remarks, tony. i think we have some questions that will get right into that.

let me ask a few and then we will open it up to our audience. i think you are right, getting the regional politics squared away after almost a decade of attention and then the 30-year reign of sadaam hussein, the 1991 war, the run-iraq war, all these things. so give us your sense of what the strategy going forward is to make sure that this hard- fought security is protected? >> we have begun to seem iraq's integration into its region in recent months. the fact of the matter is after a period where iraq was frozen out, we are seeing important signs of thaw.

we have had now the saudis finally appointing an ambassador to iraq for the first time in years. travel to saudi arabia by the most senior iraqi officials, the progress with kuwait on resolving many longstanding issues. prime minister maliki in kuwait this week. a dispute over airliners that was complicated by sadaam hussein finally resolved. a commission going forward to work on the remaining outstanding issues. the jordanians and united arab emirates starting all to engage more with iraq. that is critical. grounding iraq in the region as a responsible actor is one of the key ways to stability and security. fiftha lot of this goes to resolving iraq's own conflicts. this is something we continue to work on day in and day out. the united nations working on this as well.

and finally, the vice president likes to say oil can be what holds iraq together, but we have a lot of work to do to resolve fundamental problems in the way they decide the allocation of resources and production resourceso production -- allocation of resources. regional integration, our experts to help build capacity, oil, all that will continue to stableize iraq -- to stabilize iraq. >> i think we are all watching that carefully. but let's stick in the regional neighborhood for a little while and give us your perspective on al qaeda and iran. >> in recent months in terms of violence in iraq we have seen

the violence from an iranian- backed shiite muslim groups has dropped dramatically. that's a function of iraqis have made clear to the iranians that violence from these groups is unacceptable and prime minister maliki told the iranians that it considered an attack on americans to be an attack on iraqi interests. the fact that our troops are gone, they say is a rationale for some of these attacks. we have also seen continued attacks from outside in iraq. the iraqis also have a real capacity the bullet over the years to deal with these problems. a counter-terrorism capacity that is effective answer is significant and security forces that are getting better and better. despite the repeated attacks by al qaeda in iraq and the violence they perpetrate, we have not seen pericycle of sectarian violence spiralled up again.

we have not seen sunni sara bareilles to the cause. -- sunni arabs rally to the cause. to the contrary, they reject it. as bad as some of these attacks are, when you look at the larger factors in that should be something that can be managed and hopefully eventually dealt with. and then, in terms of the shiite militia, some of whom are backed by iran, we have seen a significant lessening of their activities. it would be good if any groups that are actually reconcilable can be brought into the political system to actually do that, some are beyond that. in recent months that violence has diminished.

>> thank you, but let's stick in this neighborhood, because this is a tough neighborhood -- syria. how does the iraqi stance on syria evolved? the arab league summit is scheduled for baghdad. that will certainly be one measure of how closely aligned iraq is with the regional politics and regional diplomacy and u.s. interests in the region. give us your sense on the current view from baghdad as far as syria goes? >> let me for start with something you said. i mentioned the arab league summit is scheduled to take place in baghdad. that is the remarkable development, march 29. it is a summit that baghdad was up next in the rotation and it had been put off a couple years. it is a profound symbol as well as practical manifestation of iraq pose the increasing integration into the region. syria is incredibly complicated for iraq.

they have fears they could see sectarian spillover, that this could agitate the sunni population and create sectarian tensions in iraq. they are very concerned about it. as we have said on numerous occasions to iraqi leaders, the cause of instability in syria and what creates the greatest potential for the spillover is bashar al-assad. once the violence stops and he is gone, there is a much greater potential to avoiding what iraq hopes to avoid. iraq has supported the arab league consensus on syria. they voted for a saudi-backed u.n. general assembly and they stood at up to some iranian pressure on syria, so they are

in a difficult position. thus far they have been with the arab league. i think you'll see at the summit in baghdad the consensus further consolidating on the need to end the violence in syria and for assad to go. >> thank you. i have a few more, but let me start to engage our audience. i will ask you to wait until the microphone is there and then please identify yourself. and so, let's start right here in the front row. >> thank you. i'm with cnn, elise. i was hoping we could pick up on some of the threats, mainly the sectarian issue and how syria already seems to be affecting the government's position. while it has supported the arab league consensus, it seems to have done so reluctantly. that does seem to have gotten the sunni population in some areas upset and fearful, because they clearly are supporting opposition. do you anticipate iraq making a

very sharp break with president assad? and on the sectarian ankle, but there does seem to be still a lot of sectarian tensions in the country as evidenced by the incident with the vice- president over there. even though it did not break into violence, i think there are still lot of fears that sectarianism in the country and there are still lot of calls for federalism. at one time the vice-president supported. do you see various sects moving farther apart or do you think that al-maliki can bring them closer together? >> the fact of the matter is that iraq is a country that has been divided by sect and by ethnicity in the past. tensions remain significant. figuring out how to share power

across political blocs and also across sectarian and ethnic groups is an ongoing challenge. there's no doubt about it. there's also no doubt that it is conceivable that sectarian tension turned into violence and ethnic tension turns into violence. what is so important. is it important. the most profound development in iraq over the last three years is the emergence of politics as the basic means of transacting business and protecting interests. if you go back and look at each of the crises i mentioned over the election laws, over the the ratification process -- the debathification process, people thought the sky was falling and iraq was about to descend back into a sectarian violence -- each and every time. the iraqis stuck with the

political process with some help from us. they used it to resolve their differences and keep moving forward. based on that track record, not of just a couple months but for the last few years, i think that we can take some hope that this will continue and despite the tensions that you are right to allude to, they can be managed as long as the iraqis did with the political system. this is fraught with difficulty because of the concern of potential spillover and of who might follow bashar al-assad. despite those concerns, iraq has valley to the arab league consensus. the arab league summit is meeting in baghdad in just a couple weeks. and i think you'll see that

consensus hold. >> trudy rubin from the philadelphia inquirer. the iraqis who work for our military and our civilians were promised 25,000 visas by congress in 2008. you also know that there's been a terrific bureaucratic blockage over new security requirements. there are thousands of these people, many of them under death threats, and the numbers are not moving. although u.s. officials have told me for the past eight months that the numbers would increase, they are basically frozen. can you tell me whether there is ever going to be in a serious move to unlock that blockage, which certainly, don't you think would give future allies the reason not to want to work closely with us and to distrust us?

and many of these iraqis have had security checks and have worked for our military. i have received e-mails about the terrible conditions they are living in waiting for visas that don't come. >> trudy, we obese people. -- we both these people. -- owe these people. we have a debt to these people, an obligation to these people. they put their lives on a line for the united states. and we are cognizant of that. we are working on that and acting on that. as you said, it makes sense, because if we don't deal with the problem, it will have a chilling affect on the willingness of people around world to cooperate and to work with our missions. if you go to any embassy, by the way, around the world, a critical component of our ability to work effectively of the foreign service members.

it's more than that. it is the fact that they put their lives on the line. this is not something unmoved as fast as we would like. since 2007 issued 70,000 visas overall for iraqis. of those, seventh thousand were the special immigrant visas for iraqis who worked in some capacity for the united states. that is far fewer than we would have liked. one of the things that happened is security concerns began to emerge about the potential for extremist groups using the refugee program or the special immigrant visa program to get extremists into the united states. so we went back and look very carefully at the program if to make sure we were making good on our obligation and our debt especially to those who worked for us and that we were providing for the security of the united states. last two or three months my colleagues and i led by dennis

and john brenan have johnhours in the situation along with all the agencies working through this problem. what i can tell you today is i think we have a way forward now that will show demonstrable progress in bringing more people to the united states while making sure that our security is upheld. in the first part of the most recent fiscal year we actually issued more visas than all the previous fiscal years. so there's been movement. what we have done recently will demonstrate in the months ahead real progress with more people getting visas and that will become clear as we go forward. >> 114 visas were granted in february.

there are thousands on the waiting list. the 7000 also includes family members. there are far fewer in primary visas. so there are only perhaps a low 4000 member for primary visas even though 25,000 were promised. can you give more detail about what is going to be done now that is going to make the situation there and from the past eight months since officials have been allegedly working very hard on this all this time and yet the numbers still don't budge? >> all i can tell you at this point, trudy, is what weapons. my firm prediction is that you will see a significant step forward in the issuance of visas and people coming to the u.s. under the program in the months ahead, but in a way that also preserves our security. all i can say is to watch this in a few months. if i'm wrong, i'm sure you will let me know. >> let me take a second and impose a question. we spoke briefly about iraqi oil production coming up. that could have a significant impact on global oil markets as

the sanctions program against iran continues to have real teeth. give us your sense of how close --you mentioned encouraging numbers coming from iraq. give us your assessment? >> the potential is tremendous as well as the problems. we have seen real progress over the last five or six years in terms of. iraqi of up to about 2.7 million barrels a day. the trend, if it continues, and the projections are it will top 3 million barrels a day by the end of this year. we have done a very careful assessment. we have sent out a very senior officials including the deputy secretary of energy and others and we have a very good team in place at the embassy. they look at this carefully and worked closely with the iraqis. the good news is the potential over the next couple years is

probably for iraq to get up to maybe as much as 4 million barrels a day. that is the good news. the bad news is, absent significant investment in infrastructure and financing, it is going to be hard to move beyond that. and so, the iraqis need to do a number of things. first, they need to finally resolve the question of their oil law.. that is who decides on contracts, how the proceeds are distributed. a lot of this is happening as a practical matter on a day in and day out basis. but the lack a law continues -- but the lack of a law continues to cause tension with the kurds. there's been some suggestion of movement, but we have seen that in the past. second, if the financing system for the energy sector needs to

change. the profit potential needs to be made more attractive for the companies that would invest. many of them are investing on the basis of service contracts that don't give them the kind of returns they would get in other places. and openness to financing systems that are used around the world that are not in place in iraq also needs to happen. the good news is we have already seen progress that is significant. and has helped iraq tremendously. a $100 million budget this past year in export revenues. it has helped world oil markets and creates a greater sense of stability in those markets. they will make further progress in the months ahead, but you hit a ceiling at some point. . they are able to get beyond that ceiling -- and the jury is out on that -- then as profound strategic implications for the region, including iraqi production surpassing iranian production.

there are not there yet. >> thank you. let's continue with questions from the audience. sir. >> arms from the capital trust group. antony, if we bring into the account the future for conflict in iran, what are the consequences to the iraqi oil industry if there is a military attack on iran? can that make oil prices go up? can that make prices go up? >> the president has been very clear that we believe there is time and space for a diplomatic effort by increasing pressure on iran.

we're very focused on that. he has also made clear that we are determined to deter ran from obtaining -- to deter iran from obtaining in a weapon. we see sanctions on iran taking an enormous bite, more than $60 billion in projects that had ended. dozens of leading countries in the world have stopped business with iran. significant impact on the iranian economy. all of this will get even worse for the iranians in the months ahead as the sanctions that have been decided, particularly in europe, will begin to take effect. focus on dealing with the problem, the diplomatic process, because there is still time and

space to do that. >> we have time for one last question. >> thank you. when no that iraq has had a good starting point. but what will we see in afghanistan, it seems there is a mess there. how did you assess the drawdown process? >> i will leave afghanistan to my colleagues. let me just say this. when president obama took office, we faced three significant all-consuming challenges -- two wars in iraq

and afghanistan that had been going on for the better part of a decade, a research -- a surge in al qaeda. we have ended one war in iraq. we have taken on al qaeda. of course, we have dealt with osama bin laden and al qaeda is on its heels. and our alliances are in better shape. that has created tremendous space and opportunity to deal with other challenges that have emerged, including our relationship with china, with russia, with india, with brazil, in dealing with energy and the environment and other things. so if you step back and look at the big picture, the challenges we face when we took office and what we have been able to do to

reorient our foreign policy and to give us opportunities to make america stronger going forward, i think we're in a good position. it is understandable that we all get caught up in the day-to-day -- who did what today, who said what today, what violent incident there was, in iraq or afghanistan, and that is understandable and appropriate. but it is also necessary and important to try to step back and look at the longer picture, look at the trends, where is this moving? what do we see? and in iraq, fight to the day in and day of problems. the big trend is the emergence of politics as a way of doing business for all of the factions. that holds tremendous promise for iraq working through. in afghanistan, we see a trend line of was handing over

responsibility to the afghans for their own security over the next couple of years. thank you. >> let me thank our guest for his presentation here today. first, let us thank tony for his exceptional public service, which i think is now in its third decade. that is three decades of more than 12-hour days. but also, let's acknowledge that this is a time when the number of front burner issues on the national security agenda are at an all-time high. each of these are significant and challenging and withstand the there are many issues remaining in the u.s. relationship with iraq, a continuing agenda that will be worked. but we also want to simply note that, indeed, a major turning point was achieved late last year as the u.s. troops came

home. it does not mean that the responsibility moving forward is any less. but we want to acknowledge that and we hope that today's presentation, in exchange with our audience, has helped with that debate. but we thank him very much for being with us today. we know is going back to a desk with a lot of troubling issues in the in box. we thank you for your time today. >> thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the state department spokesman says the north korea's intention to launch a satellite into space next month is a direct violation of that country's agreement with the united states to suspend parts of its nuclear program in exchange for humanitarian aid. and she says that it affects the u.s. plan to provide food aid to that country. would be highly provocative, as are statement said this morning. the un security council resolution 1718 and 1874 very clearly and unequivocally require north korea to suspend all activities related to its

ballistic missile program, including rocket launches. and resolution 1874 actually says in the text -- it demands that it not conduct any further nuclear tests or any launches using ballistic missile technology. so our concern about this, as you know, coming so quickly after the league today agreement for a moratorium and inspections is that this calls into question whewhether they entered into agreements with us in good faith. we wondered whether a mission of this kind would be an obligation that. >> have they been told about the consequences if they entered into this agreement? you have gone to great lengths to decide -- to separate the

nuclear issue from the humanitarian side. at the same time, they made a distinct link between the two of them. >> yes. >> so without being inconsistent on your part, is it something -- since they took the step of linking them, is that something you can rethink now because they have violated our announced that they will violate the party agreement. >> as you say, we make it a practice not to link humanitarian aid with any other policy issues, particularly in the case of the d p r k. people,nt to enlishelp the particularly those that the regime has decided to neglect. this would call into question their credibility all the

commitments that the dprk has made to us, is making in general, including the commitments that we had with regard to the nutritional assistance, which includes monitoring food that would go to the needy folks and not to the regime elite. the launch would create tensions and that would make the implementation of any kind of an agreement quite difficult. it would very much imperil the environment. frankly, if they were to go forward with this launch, it is hard to imagine how we would be able to move forward with a regime whose word we have no confidence in and who has egregiously violated these national commitments.

>> it is very hard to imagine that, if we have a satellite launch, which would call into question their good faith and whether they keep any of the commitments that they may, that we would be able to have confidence in the monitoring arrangements that we're trying to make with them or that the environment would be such, would be sufficiently tension-free that we could actually implement those agreements. it is really hard to imagine how we would be able to move forward if this lot goes on. >> when did it become apparent -- was there any heads up given to you from the north koreans that they would make an announcement of this kind? was the statement really cobbled together -- cobbled together in the couple of hours before the announcement that have the north koreans been told what you just

told us about the assistance? >> first of all, here in the context of working on the leap day agreement, we made clear unequivocal in that we considered that any satellite launch would be a deal breaker. so on the front and, they understood that. we were called yesterday. we were contacted through the new york channel and advised late in the afternoon yesterday that they were likely to move forward with this. obviously, the individual who took that message was uninstructed at that time, but made very clear what he considered the implications of this to be. and then, just a few hours afterwards, the statement was released by the north korean news service, which is why we felt we had to respond almost

immediately. hence the notification you got at 4:00 a.m. from our perspective, there should have not have been any doubt in the north koreans might be for this what the implications would be if they would go forward. >> he explained the rationale. can you give us the gist of what their point is? >> i will let them explain this themselves. i will might characterize their view. >> you said that launching would be a violation of the resolution. but is it correct to view this as a violation of the agreement you made you -- you made on february 29? >> yes. >> it potentially shows that the

flow of iranian oil is continued. >> i have nothing that announcement or how it comes out. i deny have a particular comment on that. >> is the project of recovering the remains of u.s. servicemen in north korea, that was not on the agreement announced on february tanning -- february 29. was it also impacted by north korea's announcement today? >> i cannot answer that one. i will send you to dot on that one. >> -- to dod on that one. >> there will still allow inspectors? " we're not clear at this moment what this means in terms of the commitments they made. >> the north korean missile

launch is not linked with the humanitarian aid. why not? >> because the humanitarian aid from the u.s. perspective, whether it is in north korea or africa or anywhere else in the world is designed to meet a humanitarian need. we do not explicitly link political issues with the delivery of humanitarian food stuff anywhere in the world. the problem becomes, as you know, in order to get those foodstuffs in and to ensure that they get to the right people, in regimes like this, you have to work with the government. so that brings the question whether you can trust the government's word, which takes you to where i started this. so the issues are not linked and we do not consider them late, but there are complications as a result of dealing with a government that we're not sure now whether they are acting in good faith.

>> you mentioned this is a missile launch. now it is a rocket launch. is it being considered a missile launch or a rocket launch? >> the announcement talk about a satellite launch. however, as we know, it uses missile technology. it is the use of the missile technology that is an explicit violation of the un security council 1874. it is a matter of semantics. they say they are launching a satellite. we say you're launching it with ballistic missile technology which have been precluded. >> has the u.s. contacted japan or korea or any of the other six board members? if so, what has been the substance of this conversation? >> we have been. while you were being woken up at 12:00 a.m., when davies was

on the phone to each of the six party talks counterparts. he has now spoken with all of them by the time it was daylight in washington. he has not spoken with the north koreans. the only contact was the contact we had in new york last night. >> will you plan to contact the north koreans or meet with them in person? >> obviously, in the context of the six-party talks, the complications that we had in the wee hours, the agreement is for everyone to use their influence with the dprk to not do this luncheon recommit to the leap day agreement. >> they have -- it is almost

done after the meeting. do you put that on hold until either the north koreans say, never mind, we will not do this launch, or they actually do it? in which case, it is cancelled completely? how do we describe for the food aid is now? is attending? >> you can certainly describe the concerns that night articulated at the beginning here about whether they are acting in good faith and the fact that all those things need to be clarified. as you say, we were relatively far dance. dr. king was in wrong talking with the world food program about delivery and that kind of thing. but i think we will take a pause here and see what happens. >> it is on hold. >> i think you can say we need more reassurance now. >> having raised and announce

the february 29 agreement, given that it has taken 17 days for the north koreans to violate it as they have violated a great many agreements in the past -- >> they have announced that they may have air-launched or that they will have a launch. they have not actually had that lodge where we all need to encourage them to change course. remember that the agreement that was reached on leap day is something that we had been talking about on the nuclear side since august. we had been through three rounds of direct talks. we had other members working with the dprk. so there was nothing rushed or not thought through about that agreement from our perspective. it took a long time to work

through. and we have a change of leadership in the middle. i think that our expectation, obviously, on the day, when we issue our statement and the dp rk issued their statement, their statement was representative of the full intention of the regime and we could move forward on that basis. at the time, the secretary made clear that it was a first step. it had to be tested. we had to get the iaea in there to verify. at no time did we consider that this was a done deal or clear sailing and it was only a first step. obviously, it is of concern that we worked so hard together on the spur low statement, that we thought it would be a good first up to getting ourselves back to

a solid conversation with the dprk. and they knew from the beginning that a move like this would not bode well. >> my question about -- a question was not about whether it was rushed or considered. the question is more what is the utility of this particular agreement given the history that the north koreans have of violating many agreements. >> it is particularly given that history that we were so intent when the two statements were issued to say good first step,

but it has to be tested. the iaea has to get in there to verify appeared and only thereafter will we be able to decide what this means about the spots -- the prospect of getting back to the six-party, etc. even on the day, no one was jumping for joy and predicting that this was a massive turning of the page. that said, obviously, the statement that we had today from the dprk is really difficult to figure out where we go from here. >> has everybody been told to stand down? >> again, i think the stage that we were at, we were working with the iaea on how they might plan for their trip to inspect. that does not seem to make a lot of sense until we get a little

bit more clarity. but we will see. on the nutritional assistance side, we're dealing with the world food program and others on how the monitoring agreement might be breaths hear and see what happens. >> [inaudible] >> i said that it does not seem to make a lot of sense that the men they context of the potential that this deal might be abrogated, that we would expect the i a t a would be getting on an airplane now. -- iaea would be getting on an airplane now. >> why is there not utility in testing another one which would you give you iaea boots on the ground which is useful? >> that is a good point and i think we need to review all of

these options. all of this were woken up by this in the middle of the night. we need to figure out what makes sense. >> this is a new regime in north korea. is there any way that this is handled in a different way that north korea has handled before? it doesn't seem to make sense. you're not quite sure. we have heard phrases like that before. is it the same modus at brandeis? anything a little bit strange about this one are as is the way it often happens with north korea? " said another think -- i do not think we have any particular insight on what may not have changed in the inner workings,

even though have -- given how closed that system is. i do not think anything is particularly different. many of the individuals that were working on aspects of this deal in august of the same ones that we were working with the interviewer. they have the institutional memory on the d p r k side. but you know, obviously, there is question of what is going on. finish north korea. >> in the past, when you have done these deals, they never announced a missile launch in the middle of the deal. what do think it means that they went ahead and announced this just as you on the cusp of finishing the food aid deal? >> again, i am not in a position to analyze their motives. these are questions to be asked of them appeared from our

perspective, obviously, it is of concern. >> the six-party partners to ensure -- china is considering offering humanitarian aid to north korea at this moment. >> i am obviously not going to get into the substance of these individual calls. the sense that we had was that there was not anybody that was not caught by some surprise by this decision by the d [rk -- by the dprk. it is clear the this is not the way to go forward if they want to work with us. >> in the secretary sherman's meeting, will this issue be discussed this afternoon? >> she is meeting the are of a massacre? >> yes. >> i am sure this issue will -- she is meeting with the rok

ambassador? >> yes. >> i'm sure this issue will,. >> -- will come up. >> are you in touch with china? when you have new leadership and there's hope that things will change in north korea, what happened? >> i think we have already spoken to the chinese and we will continue to work with them. they are the chair of the six- party talks. so they have a particular relationship with the dprk and quite a bit of influence. i can remember your second question. >> this new leadership, you hoped things would change -- >> what is going on, as i think we mentioned with talking on our side, it is always a matter of having to test assumptions with the north koreans. clearly, that has not changed.

>> i am sorry if this sounds redundant, but given the significance of this missile launch issue, how would you describe the status of the february 29 agreements? >> i think i have spoken to that already. all the partners now are trying to encourage the dprk not to do this. they have not done it yet. they have said they're going to do it. it is not a good sign. >> next, katherine harris talks about homegrown terrorism. then islamic groups and their impact on politics. and lessons learned from the arab spring. >> beginning march 26, the u.s. supreme court will hold three days of oral arguments on challenges to the health care law appeared cited in several of

these cases from 1992, new york vs. the united states, it is about the rights of states to regulate commerce. c-span radio supreme court historical argument will air that case saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern. listen to c-span radio in the washington, d.c. area and on xm radio and online at c- spanradio.org. now katherine harris talks about homegrown terrorism. this was part of the annual leadership meeting in colorado springs. this is just over an hour. >> she now covers intelligence, the justice department, and the department of homeland security.

she predicts that the source of future threats. it was the first book of its kind since osama bin laden's debt to show what the next chapter terrorism could look like. she calls it allocated two 0.0. catherine was the first reported to call in this term. her investigation of al qaeda 2.0 exposes the threat of homegrown terrorism. and the profound influence of the first american on the cia boss kill list to capture. and wore out how we -- anwar al akali. at fox news, catherine and her team of investigative journalists travel across the united states and yemen to complete an 18-month investigation into al awaki.

the washington post recently described the documentary as an explosive hour. catherine is described as one of the country's top national security correspondent spent her reporting is prompting letters from capitol hill. the homeland security committee has now open an official investigation into the american cleric and whether he was on overlooked a key player in the 9/11 plot. catherine comes from a military family. sober national security reporting is deeply personal. she is not sitting on the sidelines like most correspondents. her family is feeling the impact. catherine is also the mother of two young children. in 2005, her family made

national headlines when catherine donated part of her liver to re-enter son peter. catherine is now -- to her younger son peter. catherine is now a spokesperson. catherine began her career as a london-based correspondent for abc news. she has reported from afghanistan, iraq, israel, and former yugoslavia, northern ireland, guantanamo bay, and new york city on 9/11. she's one of the few reporters to sit in the same military courtroom as the self-describe of 9/11 attack -- as the self- described masterminds of the nine deaths -- the 9/11 attacks. please welcome katherine

herridge. >> thank you for that kind introduction. i want to acknowledge the sponsors who made this event possible. good morning. thank you for being here. and for a deeply caring about our nation's security. this book, the next wave, began with a very simple question. after the attack in fort hood in 2009, one of my colleagues at fox asked me, catherine, how is it that americans who are old enough to remember 9/11, less than a decade later, have turned their back on their own country? that question give me pause. it's one of us remembers where we were when the twin towers collapsed -- each one of us remembers where we were when the twin towers collapsed. what i found through my reported, along with our fox specials union, is that every investigated thread lead back to an american, and war out

awaki. -- anwar al these are people who leverage our technology against us. whether they are e-mail or blogging or skyping, they are kind of like the facebook friends from hell. what most americans do not realize is that there is a documented case in this country every two weeks to three weeks. there have been more cases in the united states in the last two and a half years then we had in the first eight years after 9/11. just recently, we had a case in washington, d.c., a young man who had been living in the united states illegally for 12 years who was accused of being a suicide bomber. and his target was the capitol building. an important threshold has now been crossed. what is even more striking is

that he is not the first case of a suicide bomber in the united states. in january, a young man in florida faced the same accusations. the next wave was written in july -- published in july last year. this book has accurately predicted the future. it predicted the spike in homegrown cases. it predicted that an american citizen, the first american on the cia kill or capture less, would be killed at the hands of his own government. and it also predicted that the future threat of out-and other extremists would be yemen, somalia, and north africa, which charred shaping up to be afghanistan on steroids. -- which are shaping up to be afghanistan on steroids. this book is not an academic book print it is not a book that i wrote to impress the people

among the beltway. it is for people to pick it up and educate themselves about an issue that is one of the most price -- the most pressing facing our country. you can go behind the scenes of our investigation. you can sit in the courtroom with me at guantanamo bay or at fort hood. you can go through the documents with me as we connect the dots. and i can guarantee which you read in this book will not only shock you, but it will also expose some of the uncomfortable truths about the way washington works today. this story is literally book ended by scenes in guantanamo bay. as bob mentioned, i am one of the few reporters who sat in that corcourtroom. not 20 feet away from these men. and the first chapter is called

made in the usa. it is an overview of who these people are. it is not just anwar who was born in new mexico and went to school right here in colorado appeare. it is not the shooter at fort hood. jihad james and the jihad janes. it is a chapter that shows you how this white house was so reluctant to call for could an act of terrorism. fort hood was not a drive-by shooting. it was not a convenience store shooting. it was not an example of workplace violence. fort hood sets the classic definition for terrorism. it was an act of violence to promote a political end.

and one of the things i do in the book is i show you how washington works. i take you into a conference call. it is called a background conference call. when you are reading the newspapers, you often see quotes from senior administration officials. there are often from these background conference calls. reporters can get on the call and ask questions of people in the white house. but you cannot identify them by name. and i asked the questions in that call. and the white house admitted that fort hood was an act of terrorism. and then there was incredible pylon but the other reporters. you know what happened? the call ended. [laughter] chapter 2 is called the digital jihadist. there is a scene where i'm trying to get a message from anwar alawaki.

they are ultimately sent me to a file-sharing web site, which is really a porn site. so i get to the side and i opened it up and i am thinking, number one, i should not be here. and number two, i think the legal department will call me at any moment. [laughter] this is not a good situation. once i got to the file, what i found was that it had been corrupted by the person in yemen and that i needed a bit -- had by the person incripted yemen and detonated a password. there is a narrative. no group is better at measuring the best of the old with the best of the new. look at some of been laid in. in his final days, he wrote -- look at osama bin laden. in his final days, he used the

most primitive form of communication, a career. but he used that carrier to go to an internet cafe and the blow of his messages. -- and upload his messages. i know someone who had the courage to be the first government official to publicly identify the american as a threat to national security. the internet really is the driver of radical islam and radical ideas. it is a digital jihad. this was predicted by the u.s. government back in 2007 in something called the national intelligence estimate. this is the intelligence community's most predicted document of the future.

so this is not a surprise. and what you find in virtually every case here in the united states is that there is some kind of internet component. and one of the elements of my reporting that has drawn the most outside interest is that i do believe that there is a generational divide. people who grew up in social networking, people under 30, seemed to connect with each other in a way on the web that older generations do not. it is and more intimate connection. what i mean by that is that the former cia director michael hayden said that, in the old days, pre-9/11, there was a deal in the intelligence community that you had to have a one-on- one contact to get you over that threshold to violence. but after fort hood, that has

changed and has continued to do so. the individuals mentioned in washington, d.c., there is no evidence that he had any contact with a foreign terrorist organization. he seemed to be able to do it all on his own. the third chapter is called slipping through the net. i explain how this american slipped through the grass of the fbi after 9/11. 11 people do not realize that he was interviewed four times -- not a lot of people realize that he was interviewed four times after 9/11 because he had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers. what most people do not know and we reported at fox and has never been disputed by the fbi is that coming in october 2002, this cleric was held in federal detention by customs agents at jfk international because he was

on a watch list because there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. and he was released on the say so of an fbi agent, even though the award for his arrest was still active. anwar makes his way down to washington, d.c. in a few days, he appears in an fbi investigation where the same -- is one of the principal investigators. i know how the fbi works. that would have been the agent called to bring him in, especially if the war was still active for his arrest. that had to have gone much higher up because that is the way the bureau works. there's only one explanation they wanted to track him in the u.s. given his contact with the hijackers. the second and the evidence really supports the second is that the fbi wanted to work with him. they saw him as a from the contact. what i show in my reporting is

that this incident in 2002, the arrest warrant, the decision to pull the arrest warrant, none of it was shared with the 9/11 commission or with congress. just take a moment to think how history would have been different for these families in fort hood it hit -- if he had been prosecuted in 2002 and not allowed to walk away. also, in that chapter, i take you to the cia. you meet this new generation of analysts. these are people who have accounts crib they look at afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, somalia, north africa. and then i take it to the national terrorism center, very rare access. and you meet this new generation and the radicalization unit. they study how it is that americans have bought into this message.

chapter 4 is called justice delayed. that is where i really investigate how we will prosecute these cases, especially when americans are involved. one of the uncomfortable truths i lay out in this book is that the obama administration wanted to bring the 9/11 suspects, all foreign-born, to a federal court in new york city where they would have the presumption of innocence and full constitutional rights like any american citizen. yet they took an american citizen, the cleric, and they put him on a kill or capture list, effectively making the government judge, jury, and executioner for one of its own citizens without any due process. i am the first person to say that anwar alalaki is a you know what, a pretty bad guy.

they killed him in september, drones' striking yemen. there has never been a public accounting of the evidence that this administration used to make that trip determination -- to make that determination. i am sure there is good evidence. but if you want to build consensus for this strategy in the future, you want to tell the public that it is not an arbitrary decision when the u.s. government killed one of its own citizens. what i also lay out in that chapter is that there are cases in guantanamo bay that have almost all ended in plea agreements. these individuals, close associates of osama bin laden, have gone 10 years or less. some of them are already home. yet americans who are prosecuted in american court, in some cases simply for making threats on the

internet, are doing 25 years in prison. it is another disconnect. it is another one of the uncomfortable truths. because we still don't have a strategy. based on my reporting, i predict we will see more americans in the future who will qualify for the kill or capture list, who could well be better placed in guantanamo bay then in a federal court. in the fifth chapter, i've spent a little bit of time describing in detail. it is one of the most important elements of our reporting. it is called guess who's coming to lunch? it is a cheap title, but it is a reference to anwar alalki's lunch at the pentagon after 9/11. we were the people who broke this story. it showed that a man who had been interviewed four times by the fbi because of his contacts with the hijackers was a guest

of the general counsel at the pentagon. these are the top dod lawyers. he was invited to speak on middle eastern politics and islam. he was part of their outreach to moderate muslims. in the book, i have one of the invitations that we obtained through foya. i think it is good for people to read disinformation themselves and be their own reporter. what you see in the invitation is that the menu included pork. [laughter] i am not really sure how the lunch went, but i know that my husband, who is a west point grad, was so incensed by the sludge. he said, catherine, there people who would serve in the military for 20 years and they will never have the chance to have lunch in the executive dining room at the pentagon.

you see, there was a question that always bothered the 9/11 investigators. they always wondered why it was that kalik shiek muhammed would send two of his most important hijackers not only to southern california, but to the getups of san diego in early 2000. these two hijackers were extremely important to the plot. they were the advance men. they were the beachhead. they were battle-trade jihadists. yet they had never been to the united states before and they spoke virtually no english. the 9/11 investigators believed there had to be someone here to meet them. and the long suspected that someone was the cleric's anwar

alalaki. when they arrive in 2000, they ad a chance lunch with saudi. that was the first investigation -- they told me they were very suspicious of this chance meeting. and they hired an actuary to figure out what the statistical likelihood was. [laughter] i have to love bob gramm for that period of two hijackers having a chance meeting with the saudi who was widely believed to be a spy in the community. and he told me that the status issue came back and said that the likelihood was more than 5 million to one.

i am not a mad person, but that says to me it but i am not a math person, but that tells me that it is statistically impossible. that also tells me that the saudi hooks up the hijackers with the cleric's wing man, his buddy. and he drives those two hijackers from los angeles to san diego. i have been to their neighborhood in san diego. i can tell you that come in the 1990's, early 2000, this really .as the deepest darkest get ngho it seems an unlikely place for you to go unless you want to hide in plain sight. because the mosque where anwar alalki wasn't imam was a ranch style and assuming building. you will go right by it unless you know what your looking for.

i'm the kind of reporter who likes to talk to people. i like to hear their point of view. and we called the mosque because we wanted to hear what they had to say. they had been in the news after for could because of the connection to akak = = = -- to alalaki. go.ld my team, let's just when we arrived at the mosque, the demon came out and he saw us with our cameras and he hop -- the imam came out and he saw us with their cameras and he hopped into his car and sped away. let's go inside. so we went into the mosque and the front door was locked. so i walked around to the side of the building and there is a staircase leading up the back. as i walked up to the staircase, i saw a little door. when i opened the little door,

there was a small anteroom. it had only one entrance point. it was probably not more than 25 feet by 15 feet. it was the kind of place that you would go if you want to have a private conversation about important matters. i later learned that that was the very room where the cleric anwar alalaki met on a regular basis with the two 9/11 hijackers. he really hooked them up. when they get to it -- when they got to san diego, he down and replaced to live, got them drivers licenses, got the jobs at the gas station. by early 2001, he was on the move. he went to falls church, va. and a much larger mosque. you know what happened? he got some visitors in the spring. one of them is the san diego

hijacker. inouye who is with him? -- do you know who is with him? one of the pilots. when they go into his mosque, do you know what happens? they hook up with one of the cleric's contacts. it is like a mirror image of san diego. this jordanian finds them a place to live, settles them, driver's licenses, id's, you name it. by early may 2001, the jordanian goes to the apartment and he now finds that there are four people living there. the two hijackers i mentioned and they have to friends with them. you know who they are? their muscle hijackers who have just come in. and the four men say to the jordanian, we would like to take a tour of the east coast and see its six flags. can you help us with that?

and he drives them. ultimately, to connecticut and then patterson, new jersey. i am sure many of you know the significance of paterson, new jersey. it was really the final point in the united states for the hijackers. by late may, early june 2001, the landlord in paterson, new jersey reports to the 9/11 commission many years later that there were six people living in this tiny apartment. and each one of them was a hijacker. and then a seventh person arrives. and you know who that is? the other hijacker from san diego. almost half of the hijackers are now in a tiny apartment in paterson, new jersey. all with some kind of loose

connection to this american. when i reported that story, some of my fbi contacts say to me -- yeah, well, where is the smoking gun? i said, i do not know. is that not enough for you? [laughter] look at the phone and the banking records. what the phone records show is that the fax number for anwar wasaki's mosque in virginia found in the personal phone book of one of the 9/11 suspects in the apartment in hamburg, germany. that is where the plot was really finalized. the fax number is a lot more significant than a phone number because they understood that you were much better off sending sensitive information via fax because we were not good at intercepting that kind of

information. then they're like, well, so there was a fax number. it is a big mosque. everybody goes there. a lot of banking records to appear -- a lot of banking records, too. the hijackers were so fastidious about their finances. they had a utility deposit of $40, something like that. they told the utility company in arizona, please send it to this address in falls church, va. and you know what the addresses to? it is to the mosque. so you see, a man who ultimately became the leader of what i call al qaeda 2.0 was an overlooked player in 9/11 itself. his contact with hijackers were not a series of coincidences.

they were really evidence of a purposeful relationship. and i still talk about him as the leader of al qaeda 2.0 because it is one thing to kill a man. but thank you to these web, it is quite another thing to kill his ideas. in closing, before i take your questions, i would like to tell you about the epilogue in the book. we start and finish in guantanamo bay. and it is really something to sit in that courtroom with these men. it really is. because it is very educational, very instructive. i really believe that the best reporting is the reporting that you do with your own eyes. it was one of the final court appearances for the 9/11 suspects. as you know, they were at military commissions and then attorney general eric holder said they're going to n.y. and that was ultimately reversed.

so this is one of their final appearances. as a side note, i wish all of you -- if you read the book, you'll meet some of these 9/11 family members -- the fact that there has not been a trial for these people in a decade is criminal. these are people who read through their children's cellphone records up until the moment the tower collapsed because they had to understand their babies final minutes. and nothing has happened. so in the courtroom, there is al qaeda royalty. his family and osama bin l adin's family or friends. he was one of the guys who was

really moving the money. he is a little small man, very skinny. and he always insists on sitting on a pillow in court because he says the chairs are too hard. so he comes in and sits on his cushion and the courtroom is really stupendous. there are five long defense tables on the left-hand side of the courtroom. it was custom built for their trial. but it was $12 million or $14 million. [laughter] each table is almost as long as the tables you are sitting at right now because there is a spot for the 9/11 suspect and the other spot for a least one translator and they are often their at the tables with maybe six or eight or nine people. he is in the court and he has a legal pad in front of him. i see him and he is starting to fold it.

he and that making a paper airplane. he takes the paper airplane and he shoots it at one of the other 9/11 suspects. there were only three guys in court. one of the other ones is so crazy, it can be difficult to get him to work. he opens up this paper airplane. you can see these two and laughing. you cannot really hear them but you can see that there is something written inside the airplane. when i got back to washington, d.c. to one of my legal contexts who had picked up some information from the court security officer, on the inside of the airplane had written either the 9/11 flight numbers or the numbers for those jets.

just the symbolism of throwing a paper airplane with the flight numbers inside almost one decade after they murdered nearly 3000 americans. this is a real window into who these people are. it is a very dark window. i often say that people in the government to make decisions about these people, how they will prosecute them board decisions about how we will prosecute future cases either good -- ought to go sit in the 9/11 courtroom in guantanamo. half of an hour would be enough. then you really understand what we are up against. with that i would like to take your questions. [applause]

>> thank you for your presentation. recent news stories have spoken of the withdrawal of fbi train materials that have been found offensive to the muslim brotherhood in this country. along with other things you have mentioned from your reporting, the you have an assessment of how badly compromised the fbi is relative to having their eyes opened about allocate the 2.0. >> that is an excellent question. you can see the fbi has been very affective at breaking up lots inside the united states because in many respects this administration has been very aggressive at trying to target individuals through surveillance or through the web. almost all of the fbi cases that are broken up involve some kind of informant. the defense is almost always

that it was entrapment. the data shows the fbi has been very effective. on the other hand you're. is taken because there is a reluctance to call this what it is. as i mentioned with fort hood, it took almost two months to call it an act of terrorism. recently i was the reporter that broke the story that the defense department was trying to deal with these attacks in the context of workplace violence. if you are able to speak to fbi agents privately, i interview one in the book who is very generous to do that with me. they speak of their frustration. they speak of an administration and the opinion of this when aged that seems desperate to assimilate these people. it is not possible to do that. i may be old-fashioned, but i think if you are going to tackle the problem you have to call a

state -- you have to call a spade a spade. when you go into these web sites which are run by extremists, they mocked us. they mocked us for offering the olive branch. they mock us for trying to make peace. the first, security secretary tom ridge said to me years ago that he always thinks of the issue this way. we have watches, but they have time. >> thank you for your presentation. i look forward to reading your book. my name is matt arnold. the reason i bring it up. i find it very interesting your comment about how he went to school here in colorado.

apparently colorado colleges are a source of a lot of radicalization of the entire islamist movement. i find it interesting connection. a military officer. after today i will go back to serve my weekend. i am curious as to two things. i would be interested in hearing more about how the radicalization is being spread. it is all the wrong type of self actualization. the other issue is, i find it a very interesting struggle -- we in the military are struggling with this. this is a new kind of war. we are fighting people that exploit our weaknesses and

exploit that there is no said battlefield. we are sworn to uphold and defend the constitution. we take that oath seriously. the way that it gets exploited. the fact that they are attacking us on our home territory in ways that are a form of warfare poses a number of challenges. i was wondering if he might address that. that conflict between how we fight wars traditionally and how we deal with the new form of warfare on our nation. >> thank you for the question. on the colorado issue, i think many of you would be interested to know that he went to school in fort collins. he was a dual national. when he entered the united states to go to college, he came here and said he was a foreign

student, not an american so he could qualify for $20,000 in scholarship money that was paid for by the united states taxpayer. that is enough there, i think. in terms of the radicalization. i am not a scientist. what i can tell you is this generational divide is important. i really think there is a difference of people who grew up with social networking and the way they connect with each other on the web in a virtual way. it is far more real and intimate to them that it is to be. what you have at play often is what i call small group dynamics. what the web allows people to do is it allows them to identified like-minded people in a very quick way. in the old days, they used to congregate at the 7-eleven. this was actually the big congregation. for the hijackers.

it was actually the 7-eleven. no offense to the 7-eleven, it was just a convenient spot. you do not have to do that anymore. you do not have to physically travel. you can find people who share your very extreme viewpoints with you start putting in the right words. is very confirming. it is very confirmatory of the extreme points of view. you get a group of 30 people on the web and it all happen to believe that the moon is made of green cheese. pretty sure you are absolutely committed to the idea that the moon is created of green cheese. everybody who does not believe that is just not in line to what is really going on. i believe this component is very important. i also want to mention -- thank you for your service -- one of the most disturbing trends we have seen in the last two years

is the increasing the targeting of people in the military here in the united states. about 70% of the plots in the last two and a half years has targeted members of the military. the reason as somebody in the military family i find that stressing is these people serve and go overseas, in some cases they become targets at home. i have a theory as to why that is. again, it is not scientific. is based on what i see in my reporting. allocate a has tried to sell their message to -- al queda has tried to sell their message since they saw we were profiling people. they said we can play that game, too. we will find blonde blue eyed recruits. the started identifying people

and they started using the internet as a driver to that. here in the united states when they have been able to convince people of the ideology to become lone wolves, it does not seem like to have convinced them that it is ok to hit american civilians. because they have bought into a false narrative that the united states government is at war against their religion, they feel people in uniform are a legitimate target. that is my own assessment based on my reporting. what is troubling is there has been an acceleration in these cases. i mentioned earlier a man in the washington, d.c. area, this alleged suicide bomber. the target was the capitol building. he considered several military targets before he settled on the capitol building. initially he wanted to hit a building in alexandria, va. that

had military offices. he thought he would hit a restaurant that was popular with the military. you see it in almost all of the cases now. >> there was a recent case in las vegas where somebody walked in a restaurant where four or five military members in uniform, unfortunately an arm, made a great target. >> there was a case in arkansas, you may recall this recruitment center shooting. this was in 2009. that case was not processed as a terrorism case. even though he wrote a letter to the judge saying he committed that shooting on behalf of the cleric's group in yemen, the al- qaeda peninsula. even though he traveled to yemen for trading. he was prosecuted in state court like a drive-by shooting,

ultimately. thank you. >> hello. thank you it for your time. has your reporting and field any connection between local homegrown terrorism and iran and saudi arabia? >> what i found in my reporting, especially looking into 9/11 is that there are very many saudi contacts. this man and los angeles is a very troubling contacts. he was placed over in the 9/11 commission report, but not so in the joint congressional inquiry in 2002. one section in the book deals with has block. one year and a half ago when i interview people, they talked

about what extent it may have a network and said the united states. i say that in my reporting it is really an unknown. if you look at the structure of intelligence -- director of intelligence, he has telegraphed two very important things. first and foremost, he believes there has been a change in the calculus by the supreme leader and iran. they may be willing to strike here if there was a strike against their nuclear facilities. he said something publicly that people have only talked about privately for a long time. he believes there is an alliance between al-qaeda and iran. this is not a popular idea because the conventional thinking is sunis and shiites cannot work together. but this is a shock of

marriage, a marriage of convenience. -- a shotgun marriage, a marriage of convenience. he said whether this was an insurance policy, if they were attacked they might rely on al- qaeda's to retaliate, he said that was the belief of the u.s. government. thank you. >> hello, i am from boulder. i was struck by your comments about the messaging of the stories of fort hood and how they would not recognize the facts and avoid discussing what it really meant. it made me think about this story about the intelligence agencies saying they do not see a move by iran to build a nuclear weapon. to what extent do you think messaging is going on? how should we interpret the narrative's coming out of our and other administrations? what's a think it is important

to be your own reporter. take the information and try to assess it for yourself. there is a lot of messaging going on. it is always what they are saying and what they really mean. when i was reporting, people would tell me privately that i was making a very public case about why he should be on the cia kill or capture less. yet i found it bizarre that the u.s. government did not use all of the tools at its disposal to delegitimize him. when he lived in the united states, he was picked up three times for soliciting prostitutes and loitering around a school in san diego. there are police records that show this. there are much shots that show this. you can get a mug shot of almost any hollywood celebrity.

charlie sheen, lyndsay lohan -- but you cannot get a mug shot of the cleric. i never understood that. i thought that was such a powerful piece of evidence. he is picked up for lording around an elementary school -- i assume so. it is a disconnect. you have to see what is in the public domain. especially when it comes to iran. you have to use your own good judgment about measuring the message, not so much what they are saying but what they really mean. does that help? >> i think so. the commentary was they see iran building some capabilities but not developing an intention. is that a distinction without a

difference in your mind? if we could put it through your filter, what are they trying to tell us? >> my assessment would be it might be an effort to minimize the findings where they said they had serious concerns about the nuclear program in iran. i know from speaking with the former cia director michael hayden that he always felt iran was one of the toughest issues to brief on for the president in part because our general understanding of the regime is very limited. he said it was very opaque. you never understood where the leverage points were to try to convince them to abandon the program. when you have countries that have a limited intelligence view and you have a country like iran which is becoming more

isolated, which is part of your strategy to try to convince them to abandon their program, you increase the likelihood of a miscalculation. you have two parties with limited information about each other. i think that is part of it as well. my final point i would make on that is, recently leon panetta said he believed israel would hit iran in april, may, or june. one of my contacts said to me that the headline is we do not really know. we believe. the israelis are not sharing that kind of information. we are not in lockstep.

we think we believe but we do not know. that is a changed from eight years ago. >> thank you. >> hello. i am running for a delegate here in el paso county. i am a native of colorado. graduate of colorado state university. in 2001 my son was attending csu. we were told that foreign students get more money than he can. we were stationed in germany when the war broke out. there was a sell captured in germany north of us. one of the ladies had worked in the commissary. we had seen her many times. we were trained what to watch for. we got here in colorado and, oh

my gosh, i knew there was a pipeline coming up from mexico, but i began finding out and loveland, really? i. 76. is no longer just migrant workers from mexico. there are many people from different countries coming through. there are a lot of simoleons, iranians started coming in. how do we as citizens begin to understand who is friendly and who is not? >> that is a good question. one of the things i tried to tell people is when we look at this problem in the future, i tried to remind people that one of the goals of a group like al qaeda or extremists is to try to discourage us to use religion as

a dividing line. do you know what i mean by that? to be overly suspicious of people who are muslim, for example. i think when we went to create a dividing line, we have to ask ourselves, we have to tear ever won on one side and everyone on the other. they tried to use religion as a wedge. to use religion as a wedge is very un-american. your question is important. what we have seen in the last 10 years is a group like al-qaeda is the larger like a fortune 500 company. you have this homegrown component. in 2006 al qaeda made a policy decision to go after people from america and western europe because it blows the entire profile. one thing that law enforcement says to me often is it is more

important to look at who people are following the. then you understand who the followers are. it is a broad spectrum of people now. it is the baptist carlos bledsoe from tennessee. it is not black and white anymore. that is the problem. there is no easy answer to your question. thank you. >> good morning. i live in denver. for my day job work with the social networks and david -- digital advertisers doing data mining. it is amazing what we can learn about a person without knowing who they are. my question to you is, given there are over 100 million users for facebook and the other social networks are just as large, how do you balance our

ability to data mining disinformation to find the bad guys versus my desire not to have the government intrude into my private life? >> that is really the leading edge of where we are going. at what point does this hateful speech on the internet really cross the line where it starts to incite violence? the head of the george washington homeland's security policy group said to me recently, we ought to treat this material like child pornography did have filters. what good really comes of this material? the question becomes, what characteristics the you used to define that basket? to what extent do we want the government looking at people on the web all the time?

i know from my reporting that after fort hood, there was a facebook page up. you had to assume that when you fronted him on facebook you were really fronting an fbi agent. this is kind of the honey pot of how you gather information. you want to leave the sights set so you see who comes to them. the flip side is if you leave them up you could create a problem. an example of that was in a magazine. i do not know how many of you are familiar with "inspire" magazine. he was killed in the cia strike. i know from my reporting at the time, there was a consideration within the government to make him the second american on the cia kill or capture less. this digital magazine is very

selective. kind of like martha stewart living for would be jihadists. i am sure she would appreciate that plug. it is very western and friendly. the kind of thing you would pick up in the dentist's office. there was a debate as to whether -- there is a big build up for the release of the magazine -- whether they should leave it up and see who goes to it. or whether it would really cause a lot of problems and if they should take it down. the first version of the magazine when it went up, it was all crazy. it was garbled and on all of the dist forum's on the web. the british said, we do not care what the americans think, we are taking it down. we do not want to see who goes there and what kind of trouble it causes. you really hit the nail on the

head there. i do not know where we draw the line yet. one of the goals of the group is to fundamentally change the way that we live our lives. in an effort to protect against a tax in the future, do we want to hand these groups a victory that would not have already? do we fundamentally change the way we operate by fundamentally changing the government, monitoring their own citizens? it may be that we have to have -- this was an idea that was given to me -- we may have to have a policy debate about the likelihood of a small scale or medium scale terrorist attack in that would be the price of not having the government so into the business of its citizens. >> thank you. >> my name is joe hines from adams county.

given that we cherish religious liberty in this country and the struggle we are engaged and obviously has the strong religious component. getting back to one of the other questions, how should we as americans try to engage the muslim populations such that we can better assimilate them into our culture? the second question is related -- do you see the struggle as more of a criminal struggle or as a military struggle? >> i see it more as i think a military struggle and lost a criminal struggle. -- and last a criminal struggle. this is really a battle of ideas in the end. is about an ideology.

while i may see it as more of a military struggle, it is not in a -- is not a set of ideas you can newt. it does not go away. what struggles -- what troubles me is i think there is a real opportunity to lose intelligence. guantanamo bay was supposed to be closed by january of 2010. that has not happened for a variety of reasons. the compromise is that there has been no new detainee's there for several years now. one of the reasons that has happened is because we really no longer have a capture policy, we have to kill policy. people are very gun shy about interrogating people now because they're worried about whether they will be sued, whether a decision by the justice department under one administration will be thrown out the window by the next.

i know from speaking to individuals that people are very reluctant to get into that business. your first question, which is really a question about america, i come back to the idea that was given to me by britain's equivalent of their homeland security secretary. they are trying to not use religion as a divider. one of the great things about our country is you can practice your religion here unencumbered. that is not something i feel. it is a personal opinion i am expressing that we want to let go of. it hands them a victory we would not otherwise have. there is no denying the data the when you look at many of these cases, especially young men from the minneapolis area who have

gone to somalia to join al- shabab, many are naturalized citizens who came to the united states as young children. for whatever reason, and they'll never felt completely at home here. the case of the suicide bomber that i mentioned in washington d.c., this is someone who came here as a teenager and was here illegally for 12 years, never really connected. there is this element of disconnection. i'm not sure if i'm smart enough to answer that for you. that is my best shot. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, ms. herridge. wonderful job. >> next, a discussion on all -- on islamist religious groups on

arab politics. after that, the lessons learned from the arabs spring. then david ignatius from the washington post. >> our system is fundamentally not democratic in a number of ways. one of the ways is closed primaries. 40% of all voters can offer his fate in the primaries. so they have no say in who gets nominated. as a result, we get more and more extreme candidates on both ends of the spectrum. >> saturday night, linda killian rights that the most powerful bloc in the u.s. are independent voters and have decided every election since world war two. also, david brock on how the fox news president turn the network into an extension of the republican party.

sunday at 10:00, a syndicated radio host and his thoughts on the current state of american politics. booktv, every weekend on c- span2. >> the strong support we have in our region of the country gives us an excellent base to go forward on the day of november the fifth with, and we will go forward with at least the 177 electoral votes that comprise the state's south of the border. when you couple that with a few other states of the union, then you have the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency. >> as candidates campaign for president, we look back at 14 men who ran for office and lost. go to our web site to see video of the contenders who had a

lasting impact on american politics. >> there has been honest contention, spirited disagreements, and i believe, considerable hot arguments. do not anybody be misled by that. you have given here, in this hall, a moving and dramatic movement of how americans who honestly differ ranks and moves forward for the nation's well- being, shoulder-to-shoulder. >> now, a georgetown university hosts a gathering of scholars and policy experts to discuss the role of religious groups in the arab world after a year of political upheaval. we will hear about how new democratic governments are handling the rise of political religious groups like the muslim brotherhood in egypt. in this panel, a look at the arab spring from the perspective

of the bush and obama administrations. this is about one hour and 30 minutes. >> sank you for joining us again. this is sponsored by the religious freedom project of the berkeley center for religious affairs. >> i am a senior director of the religious freedom project. it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce the second of are three panels today. the panel the we're calling your keynote conversationally policy implications and the policy lessons that can be drawn from the connection between religious freedom and religious extremism, especially for those countries of north africa and the middle east that have been affected by the arab spring. the idea that religious freedom may be an effective policy

strategy for addressing religious extremism is not new. consider the policies that thomas moore designed for the island of utopia. he writes of oakwood there have been constant quarrels about religion -- he writes, "there have been constant quarrels about religion. then a new leader kim long who made -- a new leader came along homemade a new law." "if he failed to convince them, he was not allowed to employ violence or personal abuse." in his "utopia," the policy of religious freedom was the effective solution for the problem of religious extremism, religious conflict, and religious violence. but that was utopia.

what about the real world? to discuss that question, we are delighted that we have an all-star panel of experience policymakers who have something like 50 or so years experience between them making policy, not for utopia, but for the united states government. [laughter] and to lead us in the discussion of this crucial issue, we are thrilled to have willem oden was himself a policy all-star and who is a fellow with their religious freedom project. he is assistant professor at the lbj school public affairs and a distinguished scholar for

international security and law at the university of texas austin. is a fellow with the german marshall fund of the united states. he is referred as the of senior vice president of the love got to institute and senior director for strategic planning on the security council at the white house. he has also worked at the department of state as a member of the policy planning staff and as a special adviser in the office of international religious freedom and also had significant experience on capitol hill. it is a great privilege to have will who is moderating the discussion. >> thank you everyone for turning out on this lunchtime on a friday for what we hope will be very stimulating, baca, and insightful discussion. i am humbled to be in the presence of these three. i will not go through their

link the bios. -- their lengthy bios. the fact they have agreed to come together for a conversation his enriching. there is a tremendous amount of state track experience on this panel. our members together have served in seven presidential administrations, everyone literally since the ford administration. during that time, they presided over some tremendously significant geopolitical events and, relevant for purposes of it, have worked on some profound democratic transitions -- relevant for our purposes today, have worked on some profound democratic transitions. lest that description link its sound like they're senile, they are very young. [laughter] anyway, we will do a structured

conversation. i will be putting a number of questions to our panelists then we will turn it over to the audience for questions from our audience as well. steve, during his presidency, president bush spoke often of his belief that the peoples of the arab world both desired and deserved democracy. would you view the events of the arab spring as a cautionary tale? >> i think the place we have to start is the revolutions of the middle east are being made by the people of the middle east. this is their revolution. this is not made in america. this is not made by george bush.

one thing we can say is that president bush, looking at 9/11, he was willing to say that u.s. policy had been wrong for about 50 years, that it was premised on the notion that you could support tyrants and authoritarian in the middle east and get stability. we thought we needed that stability for oil and to keep out the soviets and all kinds of things. one of the lessons he drew from 9/11 was that that was a bad deal. supporting of the rotarians instead of getting stability, we really got -- supporting authoritarians, instead of getting stability, we really got terrorism. it was lack of hope that made

the middle east their recruiting ground for extremism. he came out and said that very clearly and that the right people to take control of their own future. that was not only the right the people, but also would come over time, lead to a real kind of stability, a stability based on democracy and freedom. and he was right. i think he takes some -- celebrates with the people of the middle east that freedom and democracy are finally coming to the middle east. people talk about hairspring have someone said it is not. it is arab awakening and we will have spring, fall, winter, up, down. it will take a long time. but at least we can say that freedom and democracy are beginning to be on the margin -- on the march in the middle

east and that is a good thing. >> dennis, it appeared at times from the outside like the obama administration was caught by surprise by the initial advent of the arab spring. can you reflect from your time there on the inside how this played out within the obama administration? what do you think the administration got right? what do you think they may be got wrong in responding to these events in real time? >> first, you are right. they were caught by surprise. no one predicted what would happen. in the summer 2010, the president signed out a decision memorandum that was to launch a

whole government review of our approach to the middle east. it was based on the premise that the reality of the region was creating an illusion of stability but not the factor of stability. the form it was in was not going to be sustainable over time. our relationship with some of our arab friends, of authoritarian regimes in traditional points of interest, or at some level, but the cost of association would go up. their ability to maintain it would become problematic. in the course of doing this review and taking a hard look at the lot of questions associated with our relations, when natalie had a lot of internal

discussions, we -- we not only had a lot of internal discussions, we brought in 30 activists from the region. i met with them. this was six weeks before mohammed said himself on fire and effectively set the region on fire. they were from every region. almost everyone of them had been arrested. they all had a huge stake in the league and commitment in transforming the realities in the region. at one point, i asked, how soon you think the change could come? they were from morocco, tunisia, egypt, yemen, bahrain -- meaning they covered the whole region. not one of them thought change

would come soon. this is six weeks before mohammed and zz set himself on fire. they looked at the situation like many of us did. as we look at this in the abstract, we said the this is not a sustainable reality. but when they looked at the reality trying to change governments that they viewed as having a monopoly with means of violence, a determination to keep themselves in power, a sense that they themselves were not organized in a way that was necessary -- that would necessarily produce change, they drew the conclusion that we would not seek change happen very quickly. so people who had the greatest stake in change themselves -- it was not that they represented geographically the region, but demographically, different age groups -- and they did not see it coming. and we can go through all the reasons why it eventually arrested. the fact that they did not see it coming does not come as a

huge surprise that we did not see it coming when it came. there were a lot of immediate dilemmas. there were debates. it represents the sweep of history. there were those who felt that, particularly when you looked at the tip -- at egypt and saudi relationship with small barack -- with -- at egypt and you saw our relationship with mubarak, a lot of people were calling and then saying, what about us? in policy-making, you have to

make choices between options many of which are not all that desirable. sometimes you choose the ones that you think are least bad. in this particular case, it was to try to convince that mubarak that his own desire to preserve a kind of egypt that he himself put a premium on that he should go to transition. even within the context of what i described, there was a debate on how to push that to versus how to manage these. the basic decision that in the end was made was a decision that would have the president speak to mubarak.

to try to manage a transition. again, when you look at the debate, you can imagine that the debate between those who are saying that it is not only the strategic interest of some of our friends in the region who will be highly unsettled because it looks like you're walking away from a friend of 30 years, but also there's the question of what will replace some? -- what will replace him? and what is the reality of trying to manage the transition? we are not the ones who are creating this. we're not the people -- we were not the two million people in the street. how much influence do we have? what is the best way to exercise this? there was a conversation that

the president had with mubarak that can only be described as a dialogue of the deaf. the president was saying to him, you know, you're a child of egypt. you're a patriot. you have done a great deal for your country. and now the greatest thing you can do for your country is to help manage that transition. and mubarak says, and these are words that echoed through my ears -- i have dealt with mubarak and he would tell me i was not leave, that i did not understand -- i was naive and that i did not understand. that i did not understand his people and he did.

the muslim brotherhood would take over. he would paint these scary scenarios. i would explain to him that it is hard to see how, if things did not change, he would face it anyway. the president to try to persuade him and he said you do not understand my people. you will see this will all blow over in a few days. and the president was saying to them, what if you're wrong? you could be wrong. and mubarak said, no. he was living in complete denial. i will say this.

after he made his initial speech, we got a lot of feedback from a lot of the people in the opposition. that night after he made the initial speech where he talked about leaving, that he would wait until september and that his son would walk-in, the mood was, all right, we have succeeded because he will actually leave. and every change to the next day when suddenly those who identified with him descended upon the demonstrators everything switched and the game was over. he still did not understand it. you still in denial -- he was still in denial. the administration got right that you had to manage transitions, but you also had

to realize the limits of how much we would be able to manage the transitions. the effort to identify with the spirit of what was in the street was right. one can debate the question of whether we should have done more soon. what is it exactly we could have done sooner? there was an effort made that i think was right to realize that we, ourselves, were unlikely to have the kind of credibility -- we were to associated for too long with the mubarak regime. i spoke with a number of egyptians who basically were saying what does the united states know about transition? poland knows something about transitions. chili knows something about transitions.

but when did you have your transition? and one of the things that we try to focus on early on was not just working with the eu, but working with a number of those countries that have had transitions to see if we could develop a common set of themes because that would have a greater likelihood of receptivity and accountability. could we have done more to help the forces that needed greater identity and organization? we certainly could have tried and i think we did to some extent. in retrospect, i am not sure. on the issue of what we could have been doing and saying publicly, we were basically right. on the issue of how we could have tried to orchestrate the others more or sooner -- maybe

we could have done more. on the issue of how we dealt, there were a lot of high level in treaties to them -- high- level entreaties. there was a need to acknowledge how they were responding, real freedom of speech. i think they were also creatures of habit. it was hard for them to break with that. the short answer is, getting this exactly right may be easy

to describe theoretically and hard to do practically. >> thank you. eliot, during this part of the bush administration, you had the white house point man on democracy and rights and religious freedom promotions and middle east policy. you heard steve reflected the bet on president bush's strategic vision for the region. as you look back at the bush administration, if you can add some reflection and self criticism perhaps, what do you think the administration got right and what could it have done on human rights, religious freedom in the broader middle east? >> self criticism. this is very chinese. [laughter] >> 1952 and the new head up to the countryside. [laughter] >> they look like undergrad, but their presence. [laughter] -- they are peasants. [laughter]

>> there was an effort to understand what happened, why did it happen? why this hatred? the hatred of what? i think he came to a view that was beginning to be more broadly expressed in the region from the 2002 arab development report that there was a freedom deficit in the region. what osama bin laden was against was the regime. you could see this as a problem in the political organization

of these regimes. we saw this freedom deficit. i think that analysis was correct. it led the president to the view that these regimes were knocked stable. -- were unstable. he did not say, mark my words, in a year, this will all be gone. but i think the fundamental analysis that these were not stable regimes because they relied exclusively on force was correct. i am speaking of the monarchies that have some legitimacy. but in these six republics, what do they have to say for themselves?

they were repressive and violence. and the ones producing it -- if you want to compare to china -- you cannot say, look over generations, how many people have been moved out of poverty. there's nothing in favor of these regimes except inertia. you could talk about why, in theory, they would all fall. but people have been hearing about that for a long time. in the arab world, the only regina had fallen was the one the we brought down in iraq. -- the only regime that had fallen was the one that we brought down in iraq. the president began to act on this. could we have done more? yes.

the pressures against doing more were very great. the united states government is not an ngo. and ngo which has the luxury of having one enters -- -- one enters -- -- one interest, religious freedom, the united states has many interests. the administration was pushing hard again for an israeli- palestinian peace treaty. the view of president mubarak solve this because he was very useful. indeed, the egyptians are still very useful.

i think this was a mistake. someone who was in cairo recently and met with secular and moslem brotherhood officials, they said, where remember fondly 2004, 2005, 2006 when you were pushing mubarak to open the political space some. i think the pursued a policy over 35 years to 40 years of greater pressure on these regimes, more political space would have been created which would have benefited us in that people would not just remember those years, but you were always on our side against these regimes.

and it would benefit them. what has happened now, regimes where there was no politics -- tunisia, libya, egypt -- now are open for politics and they have no practice. they have not moved slowly and steadily into greater degrees of political activity. they go from 0 to 100 m.p.h. and maybe if the united states had over five or six president, we go back to ford, maybe if we had been pushing harder all along, maybe there would have been greater political space and the shock of trying to develop it from nothing would be less. i have to make one more point. it would be especially useful to the people who the united states tends to view the closest

u.s. -- that is to say liberals in the general sense, people who want a kind of secular liberal state. they're the ones who have had zero experience whereas the brotherhoods in various countries seem to. when i would argue is that friends who bemoan the passing politically of president mubarak, one of the things i point out is we are where we are and they are who they are in part because of mubarak. he crushed the center. he played footsie with the muslim brotherhood. that is one of the reasons that the center is quite weak and got 20% in the election.

>> we have heard each of our panelists reflect in some ways in his own time in office. one thing that i am struck by is the existence of a thick, if you will, the policymakers from the freeze have for each other -- from both parties have for each other. for those who have actually been there, it is something else altogether. you do feel like you have a sense of what can and cannot be done. with that preface, let's give our panelists assess each other's administration. steve, if we can start with you, what would be your assessment of the obama administration's record so far on democracy and religious freedom in the arab spring.

>> i get a couple of questions and i see this one and i laughed out loud. [laughter] sorry, well, we will let do that. these are very difficult issues and one to give you one more been yet which is relevant to what eliot talk about. in 2005 -- there are experts here -- egypt those three elections and the first one is the presidential election and the second one is parliamentary and it is in 2005 and 2006 in two stages. i invite omar suleyman to come to washington. conte and i have dinner -- condi and i have dinner.

we said to him this is your chance. john bolton was there. there was a un dimension, for a lot of reasons. we said to general suleiman -- this is mubarak's chance. let's let diane out of jail and -- let the man out of jail and have an election. mubarak will win. have a free and fair election. he will win with 65% of the vote. have him campaign and have given -- have him describe to the egyptian people describe what he will do. we sat there for two and a half hours. and he said what about the security service? i said there will be demonstrations. don't crack down on them. we talk with him on how you have to work with your security

forces to maintain law and order but in a context of free and fair elections. he was taking notes. and they did a lot of that. and mubarak did go out and campaign. after that election, the egyptian press was saying egypt will never be the same. so we said, great job. you were on the road. go to the parliamentary elections. and the first round of parliamentary elections occur and the brotherhood, not surprisingly because mubarak had destroyed the center, the moslem brotherhood started to do well and mubarak got scared. and in the second parliamentary election, they crushed them with a vengeance. at that point, our efforts to get mubarak to preside a great transition ended. -- to preside over a transition ended. it is not that we did not keep

talking about freedom and democracy. what we got -- you don't understand our people. we tried your experiment and it blew up in our face. it is a hard business. one of the challenges for the obama administration is that, for those regimes that have not had a liberation, help those routines do a democratic transition before there is a revolution, not after. but i offer the been yeah m aboutub -- i offer the vignette mubarak. it is very hard. on the way out, he said, mr. president, i interest and what you're saying, but i am afraid. a man in his a pause, maybe 90's, trying to reform such a long way to go. but one of the things that the obama administration had the opportunity to do is to get these regimes to have some

legitimacy to lead their people to a democratic process without having the destruction of revolutionary change. >> i want to make a couple of comments. one is to offer further explanation on why there is not a center. and the second point i want to make relates to the lesson that steve was saying.

there has been a lot of focus within the obama administration about precisely what you're describing. having those kinds of conversations, you can see what is coming, get out in front of it and offering certain suggestions. but let me offer the first observation. mubarak very much did what elliott was describing. he was not alone in this. basically, all the so-called republics, they had no justification for why they were in power. they had no idea that explained what was their reason for ruling. unlike the monarchies, they had dynastic legitimacy. you can say that they have limits, but they have some legitimacy. they had none. because they had none, they feared those who create in narrative who would justify an alternative. mubarak focused on making sure there could not be an alternative narrative and it had

to be a by near a situation. in part, n.j. it had to be a by mary -- it had to be a binary situation. he did something along lines of what will it was describing because he did play footsie with the muslim brotherhood. they were extremely brutal. and the allied the muslim brotherhood as a party. -- they outlawed the muslim brotherhood as a party. they allowed the isthmus to come in a takeover. whether it is the lawyers are the doctors -- it was a mother who came to dominate.

this was ok from the mubarak standpoint. he give them an outlet. by the same token, and anybody who is under the roof of a secular or liberal, no possibility of emerging, no tolerance for them. so you look at what happened. basically, we're in a situation where you have one place that we have seen as being off- limits because the regime did not have legitimacy. in the mosque, you have freedom of speech. people in the mosque would stand up and say things. you come into the mosque in uc people who stand up and they

are not giving in. they knew had to play on the into the people felt and the fact that they did not have an alternative outlet. here was a mosque where you had a summons of freedom of speech were your allowed to organize -- you had a semblance of freedom of speech where you were allowed to organize. and the embodiment of social justice was seen because they were engaged in providing clinics to distribute food when there was an earthquake in cairo. who is out there distributing food and blankets? it was the brotherhood. it was not the regime. you would see no sign of the government, but you would see the brotherhood. they could do it in a limited way, but it could be seen. there is a bill 10 advantage that the eighth myth -- that the isthmus had. they are seen as being effective because they deliver some social welfare.

they are seen as non-corrupt and and bodying social justice, the antithesis of the regime. and they are allowed to organize. the secular liberal alternative is not there. they're not allowed to organize and their secular. and the regime as secular. the number generation is able to use the internet. they are able to present an opposition. but they have not had the time to create an identity, an agenda, a platform where they can think about had we now present ourselves and our identity to the public? they had all of the disadvantages in the early going and the isthmus had all these advantages. this was a region that was

characterized -- this is a subject political culture, not a participatory political culture. what has happened in the last year, one of the reasons i do not despair, although i am not feel uneasy about the way things are, the fact is that people in this part of the world today and increasingly see themselves as citizens, not as subject. and as citizens, they should have rights. as citizens, they can make demands. as citizens, they can have expectations. as citizens, the should be able to hold their government accountable. what they don't have is institutions that are there that allow them to express what citizens would express and it will take time to build those institutions. one of the things that has to happen, now, calling upon being citizens and they clearly have a voice and they will not give up that voice, it is important to create standards of accountability.

on our own, we cannot do this because we do not have the credibility to be able to -- it is able to blame things on us. -- it is easy to blame things on us. you'll not see one house built, one job created, and it will not address their demands and expectations. but there are things that can be done, but you have to build centers of accountability or the business will have all the advantages. -- or the isthmus will have all the advantages. one thing you can save is a sense of citizen -- you can see is a sense of citizenship emerging. you have to create a sense of inclusion. you have to create a sense that people have the means to participate and somehow shaping their own future and their own destiny. it is an easy thing to say.

it is a hard thing to do because you get back to what king abdullah said to president bush. many of them will say we understand. i will not identify these individuals now because they are in power. many of them say we understand. they don't quite know how to take the steps that will be responsive without unleashing a set of forces they feel will undo them. and there are not too many people in power who will take steps that will undo their hold on power. >> especially since you brought up the question of the islamists and the mosque and this shift in identity from subject to citizen, that brings us to the main topic today, which is the subject of

religious freedom. what is the role of religious freedom in the is ongoing transformations? when we hear religious freedom, his nut a -- is that a talking horse or is religious freedom a key solution to pluralism and to creating these institutions and having citizenship that dennis was talking about, especially for non-islamist muslims and minorities such as christians and jews? >> it seems to me a very difficult question. these are countries in which, for the most part, there was a fair amount of religious freedom -- for the most part. the restrictions on religious freedom are two kinds.

one, minorities, for example, in many of these countries, there are laws against changing your religion from islam to another religion. and then there were the restrictions that the state put on the muslim brotherhood and other expressions of islamist belief. now the systems are open and you can have something closer to popular sovereignty. it raises the question of religious freedom again. it is interesting. i rode a column in the monday "washington post" not as the worst example of difficulties, but it is a important. it is a place where every says, look, to news and has a really

good chance of making it. as a tunisian -- tunisia has a really good chance of making it. the movie "persepolis" was shown. this led to prosecution on the grounds it offended public morals. a film had a scene in which people in the movie had a visualization in her mind of god, an image of god. and i said that is a violation of the freedom of expression to go after -- for the state to prosecute. and it is wrong. and i had a level tunisian -- liberal tunisian friend sending me any missing, no, no, you are wrong. -- sending me an e-mail message saying, no, no, you are wrong. this is brand new to us. we are trying to build a liberal democracy. there are a million issues. one is precisely the kind of thing you're talking about. if you push those issues, you

americans, complete freedom of expression in the religious realm, then tunisians, none of whom want to see that kind of movie and who are conservative, they will say that this democracy stuff brings with it chaos and sacrilege and down the road prostitution, homosexuality. that is the line is given. he is not wrong, but he is not right either. what i wrote back to him was that the problem that you are seeing is that there is no limited principle. first of all, there are no two nations who want to see this movie? zero? and if there is only 20% of the country, they do not count?

and if the argument is that you cannot show a movie like that because the vast majority of tunisians but don't want to see it, don't the vast majority of them think that a woman should not be let out of the house without a burqa? is that not also true? is that ok? there is no limiting principle. that is my problem with that argument. i think that what you have, to some extent, is a competition among the freedoms that we want to see these countries adopt. you will see this happen where islamists will argue against secular parties. they will take you down the road and this will end in a place where there's no place for

religion in the public square and it will take you down to sodom and gomorrah. which will sell to millions of people in the region. but the answer to that, which you'll also find, we will not have freedom of religion for 25 years until things settle down cannot be right either. it is not a simple question. it is a complicated interplay. it is not like saying that every single freedom can now advance at the same pace and realize at the same pace because they're all interrelated. i think we do have a role here. the american-style of secularism is not their style. and i think we need to explain and defend the american model. a lot of people in the middle east and beginning to become, in tunisia also, to realize that it may be a better model for

them. we do not believe in majority rule, and a sentence, and a paragraph. we believe "under law." we have a constitution. it has three articles. we have a preamble about how the state is constructed and then we have amendments. we do need to say out loud that we do not view democracy as the ability of those 51% to employ is -- to impose everything they like what everybody else. that is not what we're like. >> to pick up on that, the religious freedom is very important to us. it is important as a value. i looked at the 10 amendments and the first one, thought, a

better check that. i thought it started with freedom of speech. for those of you that don't have your pocket constitution, actually, it shows that congress shall make no law making establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. and then at the end you have free speech and assembly and all of that. in some sense, it you have freedom of religion, the other parts of that amendment follow on it as corollaries. so freedom of religion is very important. lawyers say that hard cases make bad law. if we force these regimes coming out of their history as a first issue to deal with that question of how far does freedom of religion reach, i need to -- an issue that has bedeviled our country for two vendors, you do not have democracy. -- for two hundred years, you cannot have democracy.

it is very difficult to draw that line. we are struggling to do that after 100 years. if we put that on these governments as a first order of business, they will not make it. so what should we be doing? i think something short of that, something that will enable the resolution of those questions, but does not force them prematurely. and that is religious tolerance. that is where i would make the focus. one colleague said something very profound. he said, in the middle east, and neither arab nationalism nor political islam had a tradition of tolerance and pluralism. and that is what the middle east needs. why does he say that? because, if divinities cannot -- the middle east cannot solve the issue of power, then you have a situation where the

political authoritarianism of themubaraks will be replaced with religious the foreignism -- religious authoritarianism which is what you have now. shia beating on kurds and kurds beating on shia. and everything else. religious tolerance means you cannot impose your beliefs on everybody else and the needs to be space between the state and religion. the prime minister of turkey helped in that. a speech in cairo anchored a lot of islamists. he said, look, the state should be equidistant from all religions and no religions. and the state ought to run a system for all religions have a

place. but the premise of that will be tolerance. and i think that is what we need. because if there will be stability over the long term, there has to be tolerance in the element of democracy. so i would say tolerance. if we go to sectarianism, that is also an instability waiting to go rogue. > > dennis, religious freedom and the arab spring? >> i do not have really add to what they have said. i think they both captured it effectively and eloquently. the only thing -- it is may be a semantic way of saying what you just said. i think the critical point is respect for minority rights. again, when i was talking about

standards of accountability, are was tying -- i was trying to get to there being political standards of accountability. there are economic standards of accountability. when you reserve space for competition, that means you also have to respect the views and rights of others. there has to be the right there has to be the right of those who get -- those who get elected have the right to make laws, but they have to respect minorities. if they have respect for minority rights, then there will be tolerance. in the egyptian brotherhood read now, you see a kind of pulling attraction over exactly trying to define what the role religion will be in the state.

article 2 is the role of sharia, but there is a difference among those who feel that it should be much more omnipresent role and those who think there should be a separation. the extent to which i agree with both my colleagues appear on the idea that we have a role to play, i think i would add we would be more effective if we can build one amounts to a large number of partners saying this internationally and repeating it over and over again so it becomes a mantra. when it becomes a mantra, it then becomes something that the brotherhood will realize that the world is watching at a time when they want help.

and if they want help, they need to treat certain standards. and it seeps into the public street anyway. they have the psychology of being citizens, but did not have the existing mechanisms on how to act on that. >> one more question to our panelists before we turn it over to the audience. this is on a country that is not necessarily associated with arab spring, but some may say that the release seeds or not just in tunisia, but in iran with the green movement protest. i would like to ask the panelists -- helmet, we will begin with you. -- elliott, we will begin with you. given that the regime is defined by a kind of religious intolerance, do you think that religious freedom advocacy, whatever that might look like, maybe a way into the side door of promoting reform moderation in iran, especially for the iranian muslims who do not accept the regime interpretation?

>> i do. many people of iran have been inoculated against this form of political and religious organizations by having the horrible experience of living under it. i believe they would vote against this in a free election. that is why there will not be a constitutional referendum in iran asking people whether they want it anymore. it is something that will change when this regime someday foal's. i think many iranians will never know the exact numbers and tell

iran is free. but there are many who believe this is a corruption of she of islam -- of shia is long. -- of shia islam. they have essentially destroyed it by bringing it under control of the state and it ruins the entire system. it is not, therefore, surprising. the most important resistance from regime -- resistance to the regime comes from the clerical system. there are so many prominent shia leaders who refused to vote in the recent elections on the grounds that it was all such a corrupt political system. alton l.a. -- they -- they looked around and they realized

that, in some of the era of countries -- we have seen free elections in tunisia, egypt and had big victories. but the iran population is nearly disgusted with the kind of islam that the state is forcing on them. they realize that means the future of shia islam in iran. in the case of iran, generally speaking, the push for religious freedom is very helpful overall in arguing for a better future for iran. i am troubled by one part of this picture. that is the high. this regime has been a vicious and bloody and murderers when it comes to the high.

bahai. i do know whether the post- islamic republic of iran will understand that this is all part of the same disease $7 and -- disease of intolerance. one has to hope that this experience teaches tolerance not only for your own group, obviously, but by definition the real meaning of it, the they would go beyond that. and at least tolerance for those were not in your group. >> i would have given a

different answer. i think is actually right. having been informed by my colleague, my answer would be yes but in a sort of indirect way. i go back to the first amendment. congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. for 200 years, there has been tension between those. i think helps iran in the following way. the watchword is "free exercise of religion" and "free exercise of all religions."

that requires a tolerance of all religions. if you have a tolerance of all religions, you cannot have a state founded on a religion because it is inconsistent with freedom of religion and the free exercise of religion by all groups. that is really the issue in iran. we have a theocratic based regime. the region will have to conclude that that has not worked for the benefit of the people. and that you cannot establish a government on the basing of the slogan "islam is the answer." if your question is "what is the answer to all political problems and the question to how to found a political system," islam is the answer -- the region will have to respond no, it is not. in that sense, iraq is ahead of iran. and because of the remarkable character of ayatollah sestani because, when all of the political parties came, they said, tells what to do, he was the limiting power.

he said no. that is a political question. you need to work it out. i think that is the right answer. as part of this tolerance dimension, the second piece of that is the region will have to understand that a political system based on religion is not the answer.

>> i do not have a lot to had. one of the points that eliot made is exactly right. what this regime has done is given religion a bad name. in many respects, it is probably discrediting it for the future. it is one of the ironies. we have seen a militarization of the regime and powers being taken away from the clerics. it is also the quietest school of shia islam, which is the dominant one and is the polar opposite of what has emerged in iran. at some point, in iran, we will see a change. it is true that the focus is on the nuclear issue right now, for reasons that are understandable. i have not been trained initially as a specialist on the soviet union.

you can always tell someone's age when they are a specialist of a country that no longer exists. [laughter] i see with in iran what looks to be of an analogous situation to the soviet union in the early- 1980's where ideology, in this case, religion as they describe it, has lost its relevance as being an idea buyer rule, but there to cloak. and underneath the cloak, you have a corrosive reality that is eating away at this regime overtime. you can never know or predict how long it will take to emerge. its impact on iran on religion will be increasingly negative overtime. we will know -- maybe there will be an evolution from this regime. maybe that will happen first. but if there isn't, there could be a reaction against religion.

>> we will open it up to the floor for questions. the three stipulations for any questions is that you first identify yourself, second, keep it brief, and third, keep it civil. >> i really appreciated hearing the inside stories of talking m toubarak. -- talking to mubarak. there's this perception that no one in the u.s. government is trying to push these issues and i think this is important. i am a specialist on yemen and jordan. in 2006, yemen had its first real alternative candidate in its general election. and king jordan, i wonder if there are conversations there. king abdallah, he is our best friend there, but the regime is not legitimate. he does not have to perform pretend elections every four years and pretend that is the

basis of legitimacy. i wonder if their conversations there and if there are in saudi arabia, the other give religion a bad name country in the region. i would love to hear more stories on that. >> one of the problems you run into is that, while it is true that there are sometimes rulers who respond to these questions, which it probably see as lectures by the stupid americans, they respond by saying you do not know anything. you do not understand my people.

that happens. but what happens with equal frequency is the people say, absolutely, you are right. i am ahead of you. that is just for us. there was at a time when it looked like president solemn was moving ahead with democracy. he had an opponent in the elections and he had a couple of good years. but looking back, one could say that he had not read the constitution that said, this is it, i am there. he did it. we and others in a position to

give him money, the eu, the world bank, imf, etc. in the case of jordan, i am not sure. the most effective lobbyists for jordan is the king, as his father was. you can tell the king that he has not thought of and said in his most recent speech about the liberalization in jordan. he has a gigantic problem with the division between east pakistan and the palestinians. he has a system where, quite intelligently, the prime minister does not come from the royal family. he comes from politics. when people get annoyed after eight months, he is gone. the problem is that, if you do that every six months to eight months, year after year, people will begin to doubt whether the changes or the reform is a disservice. in the aftermath of the arab spring, i do not think there have been real reforms. he is worried about something that we're not worried about. this can be positive or negative. i do not think he is so much worry about what will happen between now and december.

he is wondering whether his son will be king of jordan. and he has to figure that out and it is hard. what would you tell him if your his brother or a close adviser in the royal court? i would argue that the game he has been playing for 10 years of a whisker to call fake reform will ultimately have to be -- of what can be called a fake reform will ultimately have to be jettisoned. >> i think eliot description and analysis is quite apt. in the case of sala, there were conversations with the obama administration to get him to accept transition.

in this particular case, it was coordinated very close they -- very closely with the grc states because they were providing him with the means to stay in power. he would make certain commitments and even everything was done at one point and then he would back away. this is a guy who stayed in

power for 30 years and was pretty good at maneuvering. that meant not only internally among the tribes, but also externally with choosing to have certain allies at certain points and choosing to have different allies at different points. in the end, he did do with the transition. there are some positive signs with this transition. there are still some open questions in terms of the way that his own family within the military.

but it is pretty remarkable to look at what the reaction to his elections were, including among those who had been fighting each other. there was a genuine sense that something profound had no happened. the problems are enormous. they had few resources. they are running out of water. and they still have separatist impulses in the south. they face real challenges. but the transition is underway now and it shows some promise. clearly, it needs support. the fact is that sala, in the end, did leave. it came at the enormous efforts

by people in the administration. the conversations with him were of high frequency and at high levels, including the president. your also striking a balance in these cases between what is the right balance between what you say in private and what you do in public. someone who has worked in the middle east for a long time, i can tell you with a high degree of confidence -- i say this at a time when humility should be the order of the day. we're not the authors of what is unfolding over there. we should first have a lot of humility. so when i said the falling, i am saying this not only with humility, but also with some sense of experience. you cannot limit what to do in private. in this part of the world, if it is only going to remain private, they will never take it seriously. how you balance would you say in private is part of the art. this is not a science. this is an art. you have to figure out what the right balance and the right moment -- when you say it, you have more than one audience. others will hear it. so you have to calibrate this. but if you can operate only in private, you will be effective. ultimately, what worked in getting him out was that, at different times, we've ratcheted up what we're saying in public. but we coordinated that with the others will have greater leverage in terms of moving him. having written a book on statecraft, i can say that an element of statecraft here, also realizing what you say in public, if you have other actors were key or pivotal in terms of helping you succeed in producing the outcome that you seek, you also have to orchestrate what

you're saying in public and not surprise them. this is not the individual leader your working out. it is also whoever is part of the efforts in managing the transition. i do not have much to ride on what elliott said about jordan. i think the king now is more conscious of the need to try to carry out reforms that will be seen and not just from an

outsider standpoint, but it has to be real. it is a tough nut to crack. the backbone of his regime also, as a recipient of about 80% of the revenues of the government. if your to open up the system and if you really create the kind of reforms that will allow

jordan to force overtime, you have to manage the fact that they get 80% of the revenue now. you cannot have them go cold turkey without unleashing forces that you do not want to see happen. this is one of these cases where you can do a lot in a laboratory that seems to make sense. but in the real world, where you have to carry it out, it is a very hard process to orchestrate. i do think that the king has got allot in the last year about ways to create not only reforms, but also to demonstrate the reforms are real. he is looking at models much more than was the case before. and the moroccan model, in some respects, because both of these -- because they trace their lineage back to their profit, they have a lot in common. he goes to morocco with one potential model. the king of morocco is an interesting example of someone who did look at what was happening and decided that he had to get out in front of it. what has emerged there -- again, there will never be anything that works perfectly.

but what has emerged there has some potential. at least i think the king of jordan is still trying to think that through. my sense is that he is genuinely wrestling with this and trying to proceed. but the context is a very difficult context. there are no simple answers for it. >> we may want to go to another question. >> ok. >> thank you for an excellent panel appeared one of the things i appreciated was how much each analyst takes a sincere role in religion. in recounting the story of the cia analyst ernie all may who, in the 1970's, religion as being very important in iran and said we had to look of this. but also he was ridiculed. how much in u.s. foreign policy shaped by a kind of widely shared secularism and they establishment. neither religion is irrational or irrelevant. is that still true today?

>> we will try to make our answers more brief. [laughter] there is an issue of what is secularism. i had a conversation with condoleezza rice. i asked her, do you consider yourself a secularist? she said, no, i am a religious person. the french have a view that the state has to sit on religion to make sure that religion does not intrude on public life. that is a model that i do not

buy. that is a model that i deny it -- that i do not think our country buys. and equidistance of all religions, but it tolerance of all religions. -- but a tolerance of all religions. i think the political establishment is somewhere between the american model and the french model. i think the american people are between the american model and perhaps something with a more active place for religion. i think the government has been

conscious of that. from 1989-1983, i was at the pentagon. i used to talk with what the turkish establishment needed to provide a space for religious expression by the population. i think that is something americans broadly agree on and the diplomatic community agrees on. at various times, i think that is the model we have urged on countries. you have to provide a space for your citizens. president bush used to say it to the chinese your people, at the end of the day, will never feel thoughtfully satisfied and you'll never get the best out of

your people if you do not allow some space for the exercise of religion and the exercise of the spirit. i think that is roughly where the united states government has been. >> i agree with what steve said. i do not think there is an impulse of people on the inside that has generalized you. -- generalized view. it is country by country. you have to look at the circumstances. i think the most analysts within the government do. i do not think they have a -- have an a priori view. having been someone who negotiated for a long time on is really issues, often times, i actually wanted to have religious/spiritual leaders to support the premise of tolerance and coexistence and speaking against violence. and i could not produce it ever. i recently met with an interfaith group from the area and it included israelis and palestinians. and for the first time, they said they would like to see if they can play a role. i said, you know, it is

interesting. historically, that has not been the case. indeed, i recall that, in the year 2000, the pope made a tour throughout the middle east. his representative came and asked us and wanted to create an ecumenical meeting where they could reinforce the importance of tolerance and they put together a meeting in jerusalem and it was a complete disaster. so it was refreshing to see an interfaith group come in the area and want to promote something. in answer to your question, in my own experience, i did not view it as something that was at odds in peacemaking. although i did not want this, the to become a religious, but because and you could not settle it. i wanted religious spiritual leaders to see if they could enforce the values of tolerance, not violence, and coexistence.

>> the gentleman in the back. >> two quick questions. what is the obama administration's view our assessment of libya moving forward? will democracy take hold in libya? if not, what are the challenges that prevent that? some have made the claim that the current administration is cooking the events in syria. what is your assessment there? >> dennis, i think that is to you. [laughter] >> first, i am not in the obama administration. i do not speak to the administration. they have plenty of spokespeople and i am not one of them. obviously, i was in the administration for most of what went on on libya, including the intervention and its aftermath.

i think there is a continuing hope that what will emerge in libya is a government that is largely rep. it will be a government -- largely representative. it will be a government that is representative and inclusive. when you speak to the people who are in the administration in libya right now, they're very much committed to trying to produce what would be a representative democracy. of libya was recently here and saw the president. when you speak to the people who are here in what is an intermittent administration in libya right now, they're just as committed to produce what will be a representative democracy. coming after gaddafi and in the absence of an institution's, it

is in some ways easier and harder. in some places, there are institutions that are not real and you're trying to take them and reform them. in libya, you're trying to build something of largely nothing. so there's the potential because of that. but there are also all sorts of splits within the country. there's no doubt that the islamists are trying to grain the upper hand -- time to gain -- trying to gain the upper hand. they're incredibly impressive. they certainly are saying the right things. whether they can deliver on them remains to be seen. but the administration is looking for ways to bolster and move things in a certain direction. on the issue of syria, i do not believe those were by design by

the administration. i think they reflect some news in the administration could it is not my understanding that there represent the views of the administration. >> we have one over here. >> in october, 1789, george washington wrote a letter on the french revolution. the revolution, he warned, is wonderful. but he also warned that it is of two great magnitude to be affected in such short space and with the loss of so little blood. 2 for bear running from one extreme to another is no easy task and should this be the case, rocks and shoals not visible at present may wreck the vessel. those looking an article about

people in tunisia having a demonstration calling for sure for sharia law. he did the french revolution right. it applies to our own day. >> and give you a firm may be. [laughter] we do not know yet. after all, the changes in government began roughly a year ago. they are very significant changes in many years replacing regimes that were there for 20, 30, 40 years. i think we also -- we know from the experience, for example, of indonesia and malaysia and some others, islamists tend to do best in the first election. they had the opportunity to organize because they come in the eyes of many people in the country, the stand for

integrity. there were not part of the old crop system. but then they get elected and they cannot produce in many cases. islam is not the answer. it does not tell you how to create economic growth, jobs. in its second third election, -- in a second or third election, they have to produce. but does nothing about what will happen in tunisia. i don't know. >> in the egyptian revolution, almost all the casualties were in the first 18 days of the revolt and the government shooting at demonstrators. since that time, it has been a remarkably peaceful revolution.

and they did conduct the freest and fairest election probably in the history of egypt. i think there are all the rest of and it could all go south. but i think you have to give the egyptian people some credit for what they have done so far. and we ought to give them such help that we can and they're willing to help because it matters how this comes up. remember, there is another revolution that was made in the name of freedom and democracy in 1979 and that it -- and that was the ring in revolution and it has been hijacked. -- and that was the iranian revolution and it has been hijacked. it matters to the people there and so does to us. thereby, we have to provide as much help as we can. >> this is the beginning of the story. we have seen the chapter one of

will be a 10-character short. we have a stake in what happens to it. i do not know what will happen. but i do not think that people who suddenly found their voice will lose it. i think we have a huge stake in figuring out a way to find standards of accountability. they have to deliver. at this point, they are showing signs the did stand they have to deliver. i think the same in tunisia. there was one interview i read of a woman in cairo for one of the poorest districts who said she voted for the muslim brotherhood because they were not corrupt and they built housing. well, when they get in there and they're not building housing and not creating jobs, i suspect they will have a problem. so the key is you have to have

repeatable elections. that is why the standards of accountability. we will see. we have a stake, but our ability to affect it is limited. >> the tolling of the bill tells us that we have to adjourn our panel here. will have to take a 15 minutes before the next panel. please join me in thanking your panel. [applause] >> the georgetown university panel included discussion on egypt and how american views on religious freedom do not easily apply it in arab countries. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> let me turn now to this extraordinary panel of experts. first, let me tell you what we have asked them to reflect on

and you will find remarkable similarities in the themes of this conference. this is just a few of the kinds of things we asked them to give some thought to. whether a regime of robust religious freedom which we posit, although they may not, is an essential component of religious democracy. robust religious freedom is likely to moderate the bill liberal radicalism of some of these religious actors or, is it to the contrary, more likely to unleash the liberal radicals and? -- radicalism? how can u.s. foreign policy, including our policy of advancing religious freedom best

foster robust democracy and religious freedom in egypt or, if you like, religious tolerance as well as the other countries affected by the arab spring? but me introduce our panelists. we will have a little conversation among ourselves and then we want to get our audience involved. first, samer shahata teaches courses on islamic politics, comparative -- note that islamist baltics compared to politics and political economy, egyptian politics in society and culture in politics in the arab world. he has served as acting director of mastercards in arab studies and his ride -- master of arts in arab cities and his writings have been featured in the

georgetown journal of international affairs. i'm glad that you have published here at georgetown. i've first -- i first met him on the newshour with jim lehrer and i was very impressed with what he had to say. next, will be julian schwedler. we heard from her earlier, an extraordinarily good question that had some interesting answers. her enters our political culture, protests and policing in jordan, neoliberalism, identity politics, and this is my favorite -- contentious politics. [laughter] where is their politics that is

not? and state repression. she has received awards and fellowships from the social science research council, the fulbright council, and the american institute for yemeni studies. she has conducted wide-ranging field research in egypt, jordan, and yemen and has traveled extensively throughout the region. finally, last but not at all is, sam tadros who was a senior partner at the egyptian union of liberal youth, an organization that aims to spur the idea of classical liberalism in egypt. before joining the hudson institute, he worked on the subject of the muslim brotherhood at the american enterprise institute and the heritage foundation on the subject of religious freedom. he has written for many journals, including "the american thinker" and especially

about the subject of liberal thinking in egypt. this is the first panel that i have moderated a former student of mine. glad to have all of you here. professor shahata, will you lead us off? >> i will preface my remarks that, unlike jillion and sandal and some of the other distinguished panelists, i don't really work on questions of moderation and extremism. in fact, i have my students read your work or religious freedoms or religious minorities. but i have done quite a bit of work over the last few years on the egyptian politics and specifically the muslim brotherhood. it is in that frame that i will approach the question that i have been asked to address. as you mentioned, there were three questions. i will try to briefly address them as much as i can in order. the first, of course, and these

is to answer, was whether a fully inclusive free and fair democratic system that makes room for all voices, including islamist voices is best for egypt and other air spring countries in the long run? obviously, the answer to this question is clear, at least for me. that is yes. in fact, any implication that limits the participation of islamist groups that seek to participate in formal politics and the political process by peaceful means, even those who hold views which we might consider it a liberal and even in some cases, as some of the groups are, detestable, any attempt to move in that direction is undemocratic. for that reason alone, the question is to be addressed in the affirmative. in fact, anything other than that represents a step

backwards, the failed logic of the past, a logic in which we supported mubarak because we thought the alternative was or as mr. sarkozy said in france that it is better to have africa than a taliban. the second question has to do with -- and i think the way i receive it was different than the way you perceive it and your question was harder to answer so i will tell you the question that i am understood. would a regime of liberal democracy including it here is to the principles of religious freedom of moderate or unleashing the illiberal radicalism of some of these voices? the difference is the emphasis on liberal democracy as opposed to a regime that highlighted religious freedoms.

that is a slight variation. my answer is, and i think this is somewhat similar to some of the excellent discussion and that was in panel 1 this morning, was i don't know. but i would hope -- and this is where i refer or defer to both joellyn and mohammad -- i would hope that inclusion in the political system, the political inclusion would force some groups, if not to moderate, at least be a black political parties interested in gaining those coming interested in winning seats coming interested in influencing policy and may be less like only ideologically connected to organizations that are not necessarily interested in doing these things. because if they are interested in participating in the political process, winning seats and votes and influencing policy, then you would think that they would present their message according to the median

boaters theory, present their message in a way that would attract the largest number of voters and their four it would be transformative in that sense. in addition to attempting to build coalitions, involving compromise and negotiation with other political forces, including ones that they disagree with. that also would have a positive affect. i think we have seen that with regard to the muslim brotherhood from the 1980's forging alliances on specific issues and in other cases as well, natalie and egypt, but in other places. and we have surprising -- not only in egypt, but in other places. and we have surprisingly seen that with some parties in egypt. moreover -- and this is something that dennis rauf and stephen hadley and elliott abrams -- i am surprised that i agree with so much or of some of what they said because my policy

is a little bit different than theirs. moreover, you would think that, in elections and participation in elections, that the voting public or electorate would make future decisions based on performance, based on whether these groups have delivered jobs, whether they have established better educational systems, health care that was not deteriorating, whether they generated economic progress as opposed to simply the idea that sharia is the answer for that islam is the answer. the the thing that is related to that question, i think, is not directly employed, but i want to .ighlight it a little bit th it does seem that there's an assumption that the type of government that is in egypt or tunisia or else will should very much look like the government

that we have here in the united states. and i think that is a false assumption. i think we should expect forms of politics and political discourse to look quite different. the key thing is whether these political systems, constitutions, institutions are robust enough to guarantee rights, including rights of religious freedom, not whether the system in the and is our model of the ostensible separation of church and state and so on. the third question that was posed -- and i will also takes the liberty to remove after i initially address it in another direction -- is how can the u.s. foster both robust democracy and inclusive religious freedom in egypt and other countries affected by the arab spring. i hope you're looking at the minutes because i am not. i think some of the key things to understand about this

question is that the legacy, on fortune lay, -- unfortunately, of the u.s. and other states in the region, supporting themubarak regime, is not a very good one. when most deduces looked at the united states, they see decades of support for they mubarak regime. they see little sustained criticism in the past with consequences of systematic human rights abuses, consistent electoral violations or repression. interestingly, if the u.s. did focus sometimes on some liberal activists when they were victims of the regime's route, -- the regime's wrath -- there were

20,000 or 50,000 egyptian political prisoners in jail at different times during day mubarak regime. other people who were present, including members of the moslem brotherhood, people are talking about one being a potential prime minister, the deputy guy who was unfairly tried in an egyptian military court and sentenced to five years in prison and served many of them and so on. no mention was made by u.s. officials of that injustice. it does not end on january 25 with the beginning of the revolution. you might remember that on january, -- a generous 25, secretary clinton said that the egyptian government -- on january 25, secretary clinton said that the egyptian government was stable. the following day, she calls on

all parties, meaning the protesters and the regime, to exercise restraint, setting up "a moral equivalency between the protesters and the regime's repressive apparatus." the following day, on the 27, vice president biden said that mr. mubarak was not a dictator and so on. in fact, we want to go even deeper with this, we can speculate that the message that ambassador frank wisner gave mr. mubarak was not the message that we were hearing the american administration presenting, which was immediate change now, but in order for an orderly transition to take place, mr. barrett is to stay in power to over -- mr. mubarak is to stay in power to oversee the transition. this is really a dilemma for the

united states as witnessed by the present ngo controversy and so on. there also has to be recognition that the u.s. has decrease to influence, not only in egypt, but across the region. an authoritarian state which does not allow citizens to have significant voice in politics and policy and which are allied with the united states and heavily dependent on u.s. foreign political and diplomatic support, the u.s.' has much greater influence than in government based on the will of the people. this gets to the religious freedom directly. this is more of a question, really. it does seem to me, possibly because the way the discourse of

religious freedom by the united states was seen and received in egypt in the past and so on, as a kind of colonial discourse, as a kind of discourse that was insincere and that championed one group, egyptian christians primarily and so on, at the expense of everyone else -- and i will be the first person to say the egyptian christians have and continue and may be increasingly suffered discrimination and deteriorated status post-egypt's revolution -- nevertheless, because that discourse was viewed as such, it generated a tremendous backlash among egypt. in fact, it might even counterproductive thinking about it now to continue to pursue re discourse that focuses exclusively on religious freedom as opposed to a more general discourse focused on democracy chemical citizenship rights, including within that, of

course, religious freedom. i will stop there. i was hoping or planning to say a lot more about islamists in egypt, particularly the muslim brotherhood. >> gilliajillian. >> i will try to move quickly passed some of the things that were mentioned. but to reiterate gregory and some point where there are some questions. i think the theme of the conferences in these two related these these, that exclusion would lead to moderation and exclusion would lead to radicalism. within that is the question of religious freedom. will religious freedom produce the kind of moderation? i think it is really important to separate the argument, the hypothesis, the propositions that repression pleas to extremism and inclusion leaves

to moderation. wheres not a continuum reduce repression will automatically lead to moderation and then it will go back again. there are different mechanisms that can work in each case. i will talk about some of these briefly. but to give a simple example, you can easily have a system become much more inclusive, have a large number parties, move to a more moderate direction, and have some of those that are still left extremists escalate what they're doing, escalate their extremism. so we could see more violence. the literature on repression leads us to expect this. when you have the extreme repression loosened slightly, you may have some holes, but you'll also see an explosion of overall violence. i think you need to separate these two propositions. the one that has to do with the religious groups is less about

the repression-producing extremism. a lot of that is clear. severe repression leads them to go underground. when they do now have a lot else they can do, not a lot of options, they can lead groups that otherwise would be strange bedfellows to work together. this is the basic logic for why we end up with resolute -- with revolutions. you have groups with leslie different visions of what so cited the -- what society would be. -- you have groups with widely different visions of what society should be. you have the unifying point of overthrowing the regime or a system entirely. as you lead to a more inclusive system, people can move to more what they're more individual agendas might be. you'll see islamist groups who may have some affinity in a repressive system. those differences will start to

pull apart. empirical, there is evidence to expect that. but also, this is not necessarily a question of islamic politics. one of the big points to one two addresses, in an inclusive system, you may not actually see extremists becoming moderate. but you might actually say and what i think is what democracy is moderates do not have a logic to ally with extremists anymore pinch of the motorists -- anymore. so the moderates will pull away. it does not mean that extremists might not necessarily also moderate. but very often, that is what you see.

points that i repeat is that neither one of these islamist groups have fought to overthrow the regime or had ever perpetrated violence on the regime. in both cases, they had been allied with the regime but also as opposition, but sort of friendly opposition at times. to hold those as cases of successful moderation misses the point that there were near the extremists in the first place. but what happens in a more inclusive system if you separate or eliminate the logic for motorists to have to ally with extremists -- for moderates to have to ally with extremists? the logic of alliances among these elites or different actors -- if not in the sense of social or economically, but in groups and movements. i think a more inclusive system changes the logic of those

interactions. the second side, which it is equally important, has to do with the constituency for those groups. in a more repressive system, when groups that are organized and do not have a whole lot of options and they might work together or they might be all underground subway, very often -- the underground separately, very often, the broader population will look for the group that is making the most extreme statements against the regime. but let's get the regime out. let's overthrow the system. again, this is a proposition that i will come back to any second. so the logic would be that, not only does an inclusive system take away the logic for moderates to have to ally with extremist against the system, it also introduces more possibilities for the general public at large. republic that wants to see something other than the incumbent regime now has a whole

range of things to choose from. if you have a more religiously- inspired regime, you do not have one goal to go to. now you have a whole range to choose from. historically, we see very significant differences between the islamic brotherhood and others. there are twin logics. the logic of alliances among elites and the constituency- supported base. it will not eliminate them entirely. even the best functioning democracies we have, we do not entirely eliminate extremists. but to isolate them. their french factors. there are not cases, a fuel. -- they are fringed factors.

they are not cases, if you will. i completely agree, i think religious freedom is to be front and center and i would even brought that to say not just religious freedom, but for leading -- but freedom of belief. you want to include in that not to believe in religion. in any kind of inclusive system, whether it is democracy, liberal democracy, our representative democracy or some other system, it is absolutely intent -- absolutely essential that that be front and center. i understood his point to say that the administrators were pulling more toward the french system. >> so sorry lisa becoming french. >> -- so our elites are becoming

french. >> for me, what is important about religion is not that it is confessional percper se. it is not religion. for me, i i think that religion as a confessionalism is a sort of world view. there is a moral understanding of what the world is, how it functions, and how it should function. what would be a better system? and religious freedom is trenton sector -- is front and center. in the inclusive system, it allows you to find symmetry in a certain component of that moral vision without having to be the same period a logic of trying to

give the moderate voices more platforms and more opportunities to express themselves is to allow more places to find the symmetries. to isolate the religious world views and the secular world views and find no do for alternative at all. it is absolutely acceptably. different religions and secular groups will find all kinds of common ground about moral issues. i think that is a significant virtue of inclusive political systems. i am jumping ahead. in some ways, i think that the confessional is some per se is almost up a phenomenal -- is almost epophenomenal.

i think it is that kind of space that inclusive systems can foster that will reduce extremism by allowing symmetry can be explored, where groups can talk to each other and have open debate and have discussions, etc. i found this in jordan and yemen appeared in jordan, i found much more moderation with the islamist party boss of because it islamists found a common ground with secularists. there are also political issues. rejection of day the electoral system -- of the electoral system is one. they had a joint press conference at it was a spectacle. it was spectacular the additional be sitting there in agreement with this issue. the unopened system creates the

spaces where we can say i disagree with you, but let's agree on this and pushed this issue together. and that is a positive thing for tolerance if we're going to talk about tolerance. it also brings up that moderation or extremes of -- or extremism -- listed moderation, is not -- you find that an inclusive system may not have to do with other kinds of issues. domestic, with the islamists, very conservative issues remain on women and the roles that women play, what candidates will be fielded, etc. criticism of certain foreign policy issues, notion of what is the best economic system, etc. to the extent we might find moderation in an inclusive system, don't assume that single

actors become uniformly moderate on all issues. on what issues are the group -- is the group moderating and on which ones not? in jordan, the issue of women's participation is a red line issue for the islamic action force. it is an issue in which they do not want to cooperate. they want to maintain that separate space. there is a lot to an accurate. i'm way out of order, as usual. [laughter] the last point, u.s. farm policy had a very similar reaction. there was a big u.s. foreign policy had a very similar reaction.

the u.s. has such a negative reputation in the region. jordanians tommy that, if the jordanian state told them that their children need to drink more well, they would all drink milk in the driveway. anything you have to push will be automatically suspicious. anything that the u.s. stands behind will automatically have a problem. by being supportive the processes in general, that means not lots of money to some things and very low money to other kinds of things. so what you needed? do need training in this? do you need us to help you learn how to be parliamentarian? what would you like from us as opposed to let us tell you now have to be good democrats. i think that will inherently

backfire, even if there is a lot of common ground. on one point that sort of i disagree that nobody predicted the arab spring. in fact, everybody predicted the arab spring over and over and over. all of us who have been working in the region, we know that's pockets of dissent for people just desperate for the moment. we did not predict the moment. so i am not saying we got it right. the idea that everybody thought they were repressive and nothing would ever change, i do not think that is quite fair either. i think it was something in the middle. >> i think what dennis ross said was that the obama administration did a review in which most agreed it was not sustainable. but it simply was not about to

change. but it was the rapidity and the surprise of the change, weeks after this thing was published that this guy set himself on fire -- there's probably more agreement than disagreement. >> as indicated, i am a former student of his. anything i say that you disagree with, you know who to blame for. [laughter] the two questions that were posed that i will comment on and then perhaps focus a bit on religious freedom at the moment and how it will progressiv. the first question is hard to

answer in the negative. the formation of the question takes into consideration perhaps all those criticisms that have been put toward the promotion of democracy under the bush administration or in general. inclusive free and fair and said consideration, this modern debasement of the concept of a free society should essentially mean the ballot box. but we're talking about something more than that. it highlights a system where we give room to others, indicating that no one will be sidelined in this process. it also signifies a recognition of a time frame. perhaps problems will be there in the beginning. but we're talking about the long run.

no one would disagree with such a statement. the second statement is perhaps a bit more problematic. the statement says that a regime of liberal democracy, including religious freedom, appears to moderate or unleash radicalism of some of these voices. there are a couple of assumptions in this statement. the first of these assumptions, of course, the statement indicates some qualification, some of the voices will either be moderated or will become more radical and not all of them. but there is an underlying assumption that there is a relationship between religious freedom or the lack thereof and religious radicalization. that this form of relationship is one of negative correlation.

the more you have of religious freedom, the less you have of radicalization. that assumption, however, needs to be tested with reality of the situation. as edmund burke indicated, it is circumstances and not abstract principles that foster any religious policy whether toxic to any human being. the question is whether there is a relationship between the emergence of islamism and clear discourse and between black or the existence of religious freedom more liberal democracy. looking at the past, looking at the formation of a cell see movement in egypt, the establishment of the muslim

brotherhood in 1928, whether at that time, the lack of religious freedom was important, whether it played a role in the formation of modern islamism or whether providing more religious freedom we wouldn't get the situation. we found a lack of importance of that factor. they have many complaints regarding the west. perhaps, effuses democracy, he will use it in the-. negative. the second assumption is also worth some consideration. there is an acceptance in this

statement of the claim by islamism to be an authentic representation and interpretation of islam. this islamism claims to be so, something that is obvious to anyone that that claim is correct or that we should consider it as true, something perhaps we need to think about a bit more. certainly, islamism is a modern phenomenon. in the case of the muslim brotherhood, those routes are hardly therefore hardly evident to 0.2. so why should we care about religious freedom and then? religious freedom is only a concept that yes, we should promote because they are good human values.

certainly not. there is a value in religious freedom in this debate. by religious freedom here, i refer to the billion people to bring religion to the public square, making religious -- i refer to the ability of people to bring religion to the public square, of making religious discourse. the reason why religious freedom would be extremely important in egypt and in other countries in the region would be because of the ability of individuals to think differently. and then to collectively form an alternative to these basic assumptions. if there is no religious freedom in egypt, that are not allowed to write --

if he is not allowed to criticize or offer a different interpretation of the islamic tradition, then the existing interpretation, the one dominated by the islamists, it will be the only one offer to the egyptian people. being muslim will only be defined by the way the islamists define it. for this reason, it is important to define religious freedom and to work on bringing religious freedom as an integral part of developing liberal democracy in the region. let me move with this to the present situation of religious freedom in egypt. religious freedom in egypt is hardly a happy story. there simply is not that much religious freedom in the

country. it does not saudi arabia. it is not iran. but the situation of religious freedom in egypt has been tipped by the dynamic and relationship between the religious establishment, the state, the islamists, and the general public. each of these have pleaded different factor or a different role in the lack of religious freedom in the country. but this is how they operate together in the vacuum of freedom, whether for religious minorities, intellectuals, and others to think differently. that situation is perhaps worsened much more after the revolution. we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of attacks against them. but the fact that there is an increase of attacks, it is the shape of those attacks appeared increasingly, we see that the general public has participated in those attacks.

your neighbors are angered by the fact that you're building a church or that some christian growth or some muslim girl has an affair with a guy of another religion. thconcerning the islamists and their role, i would perhaps look at two. in that regard. the first is how the muslim brotherhood has written very clearly about their view of the catholic church especially. the muslim brotherhood has been accused of not having programs. they have slogans, but not a program. they have given us a page and a half about the catholic church specifically protect page and a half is extremely interesting to read.

first, it says that it highlights an interest by the muslim brotherhood to take control of the christian endowments of the church. more interesting is how they define the church according to them. the church's role is to take its place along with other state institutions, enticing the culture relation from the west. the first should cooperate with different state institutions and egyptian civil society to prevent deviant cause. that reminds me of a model that has become perhaps less relevant in the world, that of a national church model. the discussion that the church has suffered under communism, sent by the ruling regime to

control official religious establishments and use it as a way to control the religious minority. i think that would be something interesting to watch in the future. and more profoundly comintern's of a islamic religious authorities, how the muslim brotherhood would be as an interpreter of islamic authority. the second interesting thing to note or dynamic to note in the future would be this relationship between the muslim brotherhood and society. whether the muslim brotherhood used the guys on the right were the guys on the more extreme, how they deal now with being challenged from the right. how will they do with the question of their possibility of losing their base to the more radical tendencies. so the relationship between the

muslim brotherhood and a sala cies will be important in the face a religious minorities and religious freedom in general. thank you. >> very good. thank you, sam. all three of you have given us a great deal to reflect upon. i would like to ask maneuver question -- ask an uber question and use it to eccentric the things you like. the notion that religious freedom means more than private it means the oism, right to bring religion into the

public square. it can meet a legend in politics, using your religious beliefs to make religious arguments for laws and policies, economics, other, form policies as well as domestic policies. it can may proselytism or trying to convince other people, convincing other people that you're religious claims are true and that they should leave the club there in and join yours. that is a big problem in the largely muslim countries in the world. it is not a new problem. it is not an unknown problem. the right to enter the public square -- here's the question. does egypt really need this to succeed as a democracy?

by success, i mean last. we don't get a collapse in a generation or even two or a return of a mubarak-like figure or chaos. how important is this aspect of religious freedom to success? this means not only freedom for coptic christians. to make christian arguments within egypt sounds a little bit far-fetched. but also for muslims to criticize the muslim brotherhood or to criticize openly without fear of recrimination and understanding of islam that they may consider to be simply falls without being accused of blasphemy or defamation of islam. in short, this is not just about minorities. it is also about the majority community and is favored members of the majority community. >> that is a very difficult

question. identify will even begin to be able to address it. i agree with this idea that religious freedom is not as simple as one might think. you have separated different dimensions of it. what i focused on and what is quite crucial at this moment, maybe because i am living in this particular moment with regards to the difficulties in a to bernau -- in religious freedom right now, that kind of the discourse is likely or has a better chance of succeeding than creating a kind of society or space that i think most of us would hope -- would become. >> if i could come back on that

very point. equality and the law is what you're speaking of. >> without regard to religious difference. >> yes. >> but including the right to religious factors to bring their religious views and to the public square, i would presume you would agree that it is unrealistic to expect muslims in egypt not to bring their religion or perhaps i am wrong. >> i think you're right. but think it definitely includes that. i do not think that that is the way to create the type of society that we want. one of the problems is that framing it in this way, a sectarian way, looking at individuals not as individuals, but as members of religious groups and so on, i think that -- and providing rights on that basis, does damage in one sense than good in terms of creating a liberal democratic society that we want. in addition to what i have put

ford and the point that you mention, in addition to the right to practice one's faith and come in the case of egypt, i think this means dealing quite specifically with the creation of a unified building law with regard to churches and mosques and so on. however, one could possibly then differentiate that level or that reach of religious freedom with this idea of conversion. that is a particularly sensitive issue with regard -- i have no problem with it, but many people do, right? so if there is a way, as it were, to frame it as religious tolerance, that may have a greater likelihood of success. >> stopped short of the right to proselytize and the right to

convert others or even the right to conversion. but it is an interesting question, how far can democracy go without grappling successfully with that at some point? >> when i teach courses on middle east politics, start the first class by saying that middle east politics is not limited to the palestinian- israeli conflict. the air spring is not limited to egypt. we have been primarily talking about egypt. i want to says of the vitamin. yemen, a couple of weeks ago, the leader stepped down. so yemen is one of these extraordinarily transitioning countries. it has a tremendous amount of religious diversity. it has a heretic shia sect. and you have a strong saudi-

funded and saudi-inspired sacked. you have all types of religious sects. in the case of yemen, it would be a mistake to put the question of religious freedoms front and center in the transition because there are all kinds of issues that power struggle that is left over from the unification that saw the crushing of a largely secular south and a very progressive voices there -- progress of oasis -- progressive oasis there. one of the most contentionus things is that there will go into the mosque in the north and

worship in their style. they stand there very quietly, but it is very contentious. putting those questions front and center in this kind of transition would be very decisive and exacerbate all kinds of tensions. it is interesting to pull that back for a second and let other kinds of questions come to the fore. i have a piece that is about to come out on aljazeera english where i am arguing that yemen should probably have something like a federated state rather than a unified and centralized state specifically to address some of these issues. when you have certain areas -- a village has a very strong association with a particular religious sect and wants to preserve that, pushing towards them that they have to be open to other voices and proselytizing in the public square will be very contentious

and problematic. i want to say that i do not have a particular position. all to emily, i would like to see on our world views tolerated and expected into debate. but in transitions, putting those issues front and center will be more problematic. a. it might be replaced to build bridges.

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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] of humanitarian food stuff. the problem becomes, as you know, in order to get those food stuffs in and to ensure they get to the right people in regimes like this, you have to work with the government, so that takes you to the question of whether you can trust government's word, which takes you to where i started this. so the issues are not linked and we don't consider them linksed but there are complications dealing with the government who

frankly we're just not sure now whether they are acting in good faith. >> you mentioned this was -- now you say this is satellite -- are you confident this is a missile launch? >> the dprk announcement talks about a satellite launch. however, as we know, it requires the use of missile technology launch satellite. it is the use of the missile technology that is an explicit violation of u.n. security council resolution 1874. so it is a matter of smant semantics. they say they are launching a satellite. in the back? >> that is u.s. been in contact with japan or korea or any of the other members and what has

been the substance of these conversations? >> we have been. while you were being woken up at 4:00 a.m., our special advisor on these issues was on the phone to each of the six-party talks counterparts so he has now spoken with all of the -- by the time it was daylight in washington. >> including the north koreans? >> he has not spoken with the north koreans. the only contact with the north koreans was the contact we had last night. >> do you plan to contact them or meet with them in person? >> obviously in context of the six-party talks, the confrontations that we had in the wee hours near washington, the agreement was for dwroverpb use their influence with the dpr donch encourage them not to make this launch and not to sly late

their international obligations. we'll see if that is the way this goes. >> getting pretty close to being done. does that mean you basically put that on hold until you and the north koreans say never mind, we're not going to this launch or they actually do it, in which case it is canceled completely? how do we describe where the food aid is now? is it pending? >> i think you can certainly describe the concerns that i articulated at the beginning here about whether they are acting in good faith and the fact that all of those things need to be clarifieded. they were talking with the food program about delivery. i think we're going to take a pause here. i think you can say we need more

reassurance announcement are >> the administration to have reached and then announced the february 29 agreement given that it has only taken about 17 days for, in your view, the north koreans to violate it as they have violated a great many agreements in the past. >> first of all, let me just say that they have announced that they may have a launch, that they will have a launch. they have not actually had that launch. so we all need to encourage them to change course. remember that the agreement that was reached on leap day was something that we had been talking about on the nuclear side since august and that we had been through three rounds of direct talks, u.s. dprk. we had other members of the sixth party working with the dprk for those kinds of commitments. so there was nothing rushed or

unthought through about that agreement from our perspective. it took a long time to work through and then of course we had changes, change of leadership in the middle there. i think that our expectation obviously on leap day when we issued our statement and the dprk issued their statement that the dprk's statement was representative of the full intention of the regimened that we could move forward on that basis, obviously at the time the secretary made clear that it was just a first step, that it had to be tested r, that we had to get the iaea in there to verify the various aspects of the moratorium so at no time did ke consider that that was done deal and clear sailing and it was only a first step but obvious ily it is a concern that we worked so hard together on these

parallel statements that we thought that would be a first step to getting ourselves back to a solid conversation with the dprk about meeting its international obligations and they frund the beginninging that a move like this would not be in keeping with that. >> my question was not whether it was rushed or whether it was not considered because it did take a long time. i'm sure you did consider it. the question i think is more what is the utility of this particular agreement given the history that the north koreans have of violating many agreements that they have reached notably the framework even more strikingly the september 2005 agreement banning all of their nuclear programs which was followed by their first nuclear test? >> i think it is -- plrl given that history, that we were so

intent when the two statements were issued to say good first step but it has to be tested. the moratorium has to be real, the iaea has to be there to verify it and only thereafter will we understand what this means about getting back to six party etc. even on leap day itself, nobody was jumping for joy and predicting that this was a massive turning of the page. that said, i think, of coursely, the statement that we had today from the dprk was, as i said, it is really difficult to figure out how we move forward from here. >> has ever just been told to stand down? >> again, i think the stage that we were at was -- we were working with the iaea on how they might plan for their trip

to inspect that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense until we get a little bit more clarity but we'll see on the nutritional assistance side, we were working with the world food program and others on how the monitoring agreement might be implemented. who might actually deliver. as i said, we need to take some breath here and see what happens. i said it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that in the context of the potential that this deal might be abgated, that we would expect the iaea to be getting on a plane now. so i think we need to talk to them an continue to talk to our six-party partners. >> they said they will violate one aspect, why is there not

utility in testing one of them? >> it is a good point. i think we need to review all of those options as we go forward here. you know, all of us were woken up by this in the middle of the night so we need to think about what makes sense. >> a general question. this is a new regime. a new administration in north korea. is there any way this is handled that is different from the way north korea has handled things before? anything that seems a little odd? you're saying it doesn't seem to make sense. you're not quite sure. we have heard phrases like that before. is it the same modus operanti? -- operandi? >> anything a little bit more strange about this one or is it just kind of the way that this often happens with north korea? >> you know, i don't think we have at this point any

particular ip sight into what may or may not have changed in the inner workings, you know, how that -- how -- i don't think that there was anything particularly different as our envoy ambassador davies has said, many of the individuals that were working on aspects of this deal in august were the same ones that we worked with in february. they have the institutional memory phenomenon dprk's side. obviously there was questioning going on as to what was going on in peeng i don't think. >> what do you think it means that they actually just went ahead and announced this just as you were on the cusp of finishing the food aid deal? >> again, i'm not in a position

to analyze their motives. these are questions to be asked of them but from our perspective obviously it is a concern and it doesn't make a lot of sense. >> your six party partners ensure you they stand on your side. considering offering the humanitarian aid to north korea at this moment. >> i'm obviously not going to get into the substance of each of those individual calls but the sense that we had was that there wasn't anybody who wasn't caught by some surprise by this decision by the dprk. so now the question is for all of the six party members to make clear this is not the way to go forward if they want to work with us. >> under secretary sherman's meeting, is this going to be discussed? >> she is meeting the r.o.k. boston? >> yes. >> i didn't have that but i'm

sure this issue will come up, obviously. >> new missiles involving the technologies and concern -- are you in touch with china and finally -- you hope that things will change -- the new leadership in north korea. what happened? >> well, i think i mentioned that we have already spoke on the the chinese and will continue to work with them. they are the chair of the six party talks so they have a particular relationship with the dprk and quite a bit of influence. and i can't remember what your second question was? >> when there is new leadership, do you hope things will change -- >> i think as we mentioned in talking to him, it is always a

matter of having to test assumptions with the north koreans and clearly that hasn't changed. >> still on north korea? >> yeah. >> i'm sorry. didn't the stance of this missile launch issue, how would you describe the status of the february 29 agreement? >> i think i have spoke on the that already. that we, you know, the concern, all the partners now are trying to encourage to dprk not to do this, to understand that we would consider this an abrogation. they have not done this. it is not a good sign. >> you think the agreement is still alive? >> we have grave concerns about that. >> next, katherine herridge of fox news on home grown terrorism and then president obama's remarks at a fundraising event and then your comments and calls on "washington journal." >> beginning march 26, the u.s.

supreme court will hold three days of oral argument on challenges to the health care law. citing several of these changes from 199 2, new york versus the united states. a case about the rights of states to regulate commerce. they will air that case today at 6:00 p.m. eastern. listen to c-span radio in the washington, d.c. area. nationwide on xm satellite radio channel 119 and online at c-span radio.org. now fox news correspondent catherine herridge discusses home grown terrorism. this was part of the annual leadership program of the rockies held in colorado springs. it is just over an hour.

>> she was first reporter to coin this term. her investigation of al qaeda 2.0 exposed the rising threat of home grown terrorism. how social networking was the life blood of the digital jihaddist. an american cleric who steers al qaeda in yemen. he is most active -- the most active and lethal of the terror network affiliates. at fox news catherine and her

team travel aid cross yes, ma'am on the complete an 18-month sbretion al-awaki who was linked to the failed attack on time square in may 2010 and the cargo printer bomb plot of october 2010. the "washington post" recently described the resulting documentary as an explosive hour. catherine is described as one of the country's top national security correspondents prompting letters from capitol hill. the homeland security committee has opened an investigation into the american cleric and to whether he was an overlooked key player in the 9/11 plot. catherine comes from a military family. it is deeply personal. she is not sitting on the sidelines like most correspondents. her family is feeling the

impact. catherine is also the mother of two young children. in 2005, she donated part of her liver to her youngest son peter for a life-saving transplant. she is now an advocate for organ donation. she is a graduate of harvard college. she began her career as a london-based correspondent for abc news. she has reported from afghanistan, iraq, qatar, israel and the former yugoslavia, northern ireland, goib and guantanamo bay on 9/11. she is one of the few reporters to sit in the same courtroom as khalid shaikh mohammed. please help me welcome catherine herridge to our program. [applause]

>> bob, thank you very much for that kind introduction. i would also like to acknowledge for the honor of speaking to you. good morning. thank you for being here and for deeply caring about our nation's security. the next wave began with a very simple question after the attack at fort hood in november, 2009. one of my colleagues at fox asked me, catherine, how is it that americans who are old enough to remember 9/11 less than a decade later have turned their back on their own country? that question gave me pause because each one of us remembers where we were when the twin towers collapsed, when the pentagon was struck and when the plane crashed in shanksville, pennsylvania. what i found with my reportering is that every investigative thread led back to an american.

anwar al-awaki. he is the leader of al qaeda 2.o of. this new generation of american recruits. these are people who leverage our technology against us. so whether they are emailing or blogging or scyping, they are kind of like the facebook friends from hell. this could not be more topical because what most americans don't realize is there is a documented case of home grown terrorism in this country every two to three weeks. there have been more cases in the united states in the last 2 1/2 years than we had in the first eight years after 9/11. just recently, we had a case in washington, d.c., a young man who had been living in the united states illegally for 12 years, was accused of being a suicide bomber and his target was the capital building. an important threshold has now

been crossed. and what is even more striking is that he is not first case of a suicide bomber in the united states. in january, a young man in florida faced the same accusations. the next wave was written in july of last year, published in july of last year and this book has accurately predicted the future. it predicted the spike in home grown cases. it predicted that an american citizen, the first american on the c.i.a.'s kill or capture list, would be killed at the hands of his own government. and it also predicted the future threat hubs for al qaeda and other extremists would be yemen, somalia and north africa, which are shaping up to be afghanistan on steroids.

>> i wrote this book in a way that you can go behind the scenes of our investigation. you can sit in the courtroom with me at guantanamo bay or fort hood. you can go through the documents with me as we connect the dots and i can guarantee what you read in this book will not only shock you but it will also expose some of the uncomfortable truths about the way washington works today. this story is literally bookended by scenes in guantanamo bay, as bob mentioned, i'm one of the few reporter who is sat in that courtroom with khalid shaikh mohammed and his

co-conspirators, not 20 feet away from these men. the first chapter is called "made in the u.s.a. accounts. as an overview of who these people are. it is not just anwar who was born in new mexico and went to school here in colorado. it is not just hassan, the alleged shooter at fort hood. it is the jihad janes, al shabob. it is a chapter that shows you how this white house was so reluctant to call fort hood an act of terrorism. fort hood was not a drive-by shooting. it was not a convenience store shooting. it was not an example of workplace violence. fort hood fits the classic definition for terrorism. it was an act of violence to

promote a political end. and one of the things i do in the book is i show you how washington works and i take you into a conference call. it is called a background conference call. when you're reading the newspapers, you often see quotes from senior administration officials. reporters are allowed to get on the call and you can ask questions to people in the white house but you can't identify them by name. i asked the question in that call and the white house admitted that fort hood was an act of terrorism and then there was an incredible pileon by the other reporters. you know what happened? call ended. chapter two is called "the digital jihaddist". it opens with a scene where i'm trying to get a message from anwar. he exchanged emails with the

shooter at fort hood and i made contact with someone in yemen. they ultimately sent me to a file-sharing website, which is really a porn site. i so i get to the site and open it up and i'm thinking number one, i should not be here and number two, i think the legal department is going to call me at any moment. s ns not a good situation. once i got to the file, what i found is it has been encrypted and i needed a password texted to me. i tell that story that there can be this popular narrative that these individuals are primitive hanging out in their cave sending their messages. no group is better at marrying the best with the old with the best with the new. look at osama bin laden. he relied on one of the most

ancient forms of communication. a courier. but he used that courier to take thumb drives to internet cafes to upload his messages. in this chapter, you learn how people are radicalized. i have deep respect for charlie alen. -- al. he is a legend. he is someone who had the courage to the the first government official to publicly identify the american as a threat to u.s. national security and what he explains is that the internet really is the driver of radical islam and radical ideas. it is a digital jihad. and this was predicted by the u.s. government back in 2007. in something called the national intelligence estimate or n.i.e. this is the intelligence

community's most predicted document of the future. so this is not a surprise. what you find in virtually every case here in the united states is that there is some kind of internet component. and one of the elements of my reporting that has drawn most outside interest is that i do believe there is a generational divide. people who grew up with social networking, people under 30, seem to connect with each other in a way on the web that older generations do not. it is a more intimate connection. what i mean by that is the former c.i.a. director michael hayden said to me in the old days, pre9/11 there was a view in u.s. intelligence community that you had to have one-on-one contact, kind of the mentoring thing to, get you over that threshold to violence to become a suicide bomber. but after fort hood that, calculus seemed to change.

and it has continued to do so. the individual i mentioned in washington, d.c., there is no evidence that he had any contact with a foreign terrorist organization. he seemed to be able to do it all on his own. the third chapter is called "slipping through the net." i explain how this american, anwar, slipped through the grasp of the f.b.i. after 9/11. not many people realize that the f.b.i. interviewed him four times in the first week after 9/11 because he had had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers. what most people don't know but we reported at fox and has been disputed by the f.b.i., in october 2002, this cleric was held in federal detention by customs agents at j.f.k.

international because he was on a watch list, because there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and he was released on the say so of an f.b.i. agent, wead amerman, even though warrant for his arrest was still active. he makes his way to washington, d.c. and in a few days, he appears in an f.b.i. investigation where the same agent is one of the principle investigators. now i know how the f.b.i. works. that would not have been the agent's call to bring him in, especially if the warrant was still active for his arrest. that had to go much higher up because that is how the bureau works. there are really only two reasons. one, the bureau wanted to track him. the second, and the evidence really supports the second, is that the f.b.i. wanted to work with him. they saw him as a friendly contact.

and what i show in my reporting is that this incident in 2002, the arrest warrant, the decision to pull that arrest warrant, none of it was shared with the 9/11 commission. or with congress. just give a moment to think how history would have been different for those families at fort hood if he had been prosecuted in 2002. and not allowed to walk away. also in that chapter, i take you to the c.i.a. and you meet this new generation of analysts. these are people who have accounts. they look at afghanistan, pakistan, they look at yemen, somalia, north africa and i take you to the national counterterrorism center. both very rare access. you meet this new generation. they study how it is that americans have bought into this message.