live in a diverse world and that we cannot impose our will on those partnerships. frames, i would like to look at how -- what are the lines of attack? how is mitt romney going to go after the obama record? and vice versa. first, mitt romney is going to argue that obama it is a declinist. because he is not willing to assert american exceptionalism, that he believes in the american decline. that china is taking over. we're willing to cede power and

leadership. in libya, but we did something called leading from behind. that is not good for america or the world. second, he will try to argue that obama is naive. and talk about how obama wanted to engage with our enemies, believing that trying to work things out in dialogue, even with countries like iran and venezuela and north korea, that that is a naive approach, that our enemies are going to always try to take advantage of us, negotiation is the only way they can be influenced is by assertion of american power and action rather than dialogue. he will try to characterize obama has not even that regard. and then the world -- as naive in that regard.

he will say the successes, especially the killing of osama bin laden, were not because of anything obama did, but because they follow the prescription established by the bush administration since 9/11. the successes are not due to him, but because of the framework had been established prior to him taking office. i think those are going to be the main lines of the romney argument against obama. where is my slide? what are some of the arguments that -- the issues he will use to try to support these lines of argument? obama tried to close guantanamo bay. this was not leave, wrong, he was forced not to do it by congress and public opinion.

as i said, he tried to reach out to ahmadinejad and iran to try to deal with the nuclear program. he was rebuffed. romney will say this showed america's weakness and lack of resolve. obama has cut the military budget. another sign that he does not believe in american exceptionalism and that we should be spending more on the military, not less. he will argue that we have not been a firm ally to israel and this is evidence of obama's failure to support our allies can be a global leader. he will argue that we have fallen behind economically because we allow china to dominate and we have not been tough enough on china. early on, he said, we are withdrawing too quickly from

afghanistan. we're not listening to our military commanders on the ground. we are doing precipitous withdrawal and that he would listen to the commanders, to try to maintain the gains we have made since our troops were inserted after 9/11. he has backed off of that position quite a bit since then. but that was one of the arguments he had been making. this is part of the money -- the evidence that mitt romney will use to try to support that frame that i mentioned earlier. one of the problems with this -- what are the problems with his argument? in many regards, he and a lot of the republicans, politicians and strategists, were really eager to run against not the obama new has been present for the past

3.5 years, but the obama who was running for president back in 2008. they want to run against this inexperienced young person who had never been any role of national security leadership before, who made these statements without engaging. unfortunately for them, obama's 2012 version, has a strong record that he can use to deflect all those charges relating to weakness. here are a couple of them. removing u.s. troops from iraq as promised, winding down the war in afghanistan, neither of those places, while they are not stable and secure, they also have not resolved into crises. successful international intervention in libya.

marshaling of a very tough sanctions against iran relating to its nuclear program. being on the right side of history in the arab spring and not -- and allowing the protests to take place. the decimation of the al qaeda central organization. a strong record on counter- terrorism. a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty with russia. a balanced relations with russia, china, emerging powers. we do not necessarily did everything we want comment they do not get everything that they want. but we have good relations where there is dialogue and agenda that is constantly being worked on. this is a fairly strong record that does not show weakness, it does not show a decline or an

erosion of our place in the world. those are some of the reasons i don't think this is going to be an effective line of attack. killing bin laden and the successful campaign against al qaeda really blancs those questions of weakness. nobody is going to want to listen to minor issues whenever a president took these actions. finally, the american u.s. leading to, police the world against all the evils and asserting our values and ideas across the world, it does not jibe with the america that is fairly war weary. the lives of our troops, time of and a general sense that we need to focus rebuilding

home, that it undercuts the residents of a lot of these arguments. -- resonance of a lot of these arguments. both mitt romney and obama are both internationalists, i believe. does the president have some vulnerabilities? the answer to that is yes. i think a lot of them relate to the economic argument. i think that mitt romney will try to pitch obama on foreign policy in ways that resonate the story he is trying to tell about problems with the economy. for example, europe, while obama has very little that he can do about that, virtually nothing, he will argue that obama pursues

a european-style welfare state with excessive government debt and spending. look at what is happening in europe and that is a model of what will happen here. likewise, i think the idea of a rise in china is something that unsettles a lot of people. it feeds into economic anxiety. mitt romney is not the president, so for him, talk is cheap. bashing china, unfair trade practices, saying they are not devaluing their currency to make american products cheaper, the inability for us to infiltrate as much of the market in china, the idea that china is a growing power on the international stage, all which feeds into a little bit of u.s.

economic anxiety. fear about being overtaken and that our jobs are going elsewhere. obama says some tough things about the chinese as well, but this is the disadvantage of being president. he has to balance our concerns about china's activities with other things, like getting support in the united nations for actions with respect to iran, the north korean nuclear program, and a whole host of issues. he has less liberty to essentially-china. mitt romney can say what he wants. once again to office, totally changed course and it won't matter. -- once he gets into office, he can totally changed course and it won't matter.

the issue for defense spending is a bread and butter republican fang. defense spending is the only type of government stimulus that republicans like. a jobs program. we spent more than we need on defense, in my view. president obama, in his efforts to come up with a budget package to reduce our long-term debt bank has committed to reducing military spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years. mitt romney says he will reverse all of those cuts and add to the military, make the army 100,000 bigger, increase our shipbuilding, increase our procurement. that is a pretty costless thing for him to be able to say.

i do not think he will be penalized for being a reckless spender for doing that, but it is good for jobs. people live in communities with defense contractors or shipyards, that is a potent economic argument that mitt romney will be able to use effectively. i think finally the issue of u.s.-israel relations is gone to be an important one. -- going to be an important one. obama got off to a bad start when he made the demand that its the israelis freeze their settlement activity outside the '67 borders. that was bluntly rejected by netanyahu government and led to the termination of the arab -- the palestinian-israeli peace talks. they have not been able to be restarted.

now i think mitt romney, in some regards, does not understand the diversity of the jewish vote on this issue. there are many jewish voters who have reflectively defended in the criticism of israel is bad and will support candidates who do that. there are others who have been somewhat disappointed with some of the actions of israel. not unconditional supporters. there is some diversity of opinion among jews on this question. i do think the bad start that obama got off to resonated with some population. it shows up in the polls. obama got 74% of the jewish vote in 2008. recent polls show some erosion.

that could hurt obama, i think, especially the jewish vote is concentrated in a number of important states. florida is a swing state. you have an older jewish population there, who would be more sensitive to these difficult questions of u.s.- israeli relations. obama is approval ratings in israel or very low after this incident. beverly rebound in the last couple of years, partly because of obama -- they have really rebound in the last couple of years. resolutions of the united nations, had a strong position on that. some of this recent statement about having to use force against iran, if necessary. in some ways, he has rebounded very nicely. i think he will have problems with pockets of the jewish

population. ok, what is obama going to say about mitt romney? obama, unlike his economic platform,, i think he is going to run on his record of achievements in foreign policy. he is going to make the argument that mitt romney's foreign policy as a return to george w. bush. he left office very unpopular with respect to his foreign policy. obama will argue that he inherited a mess, at a less secure world, and he has made it more secure. mitt romney is advocating the same policies as george w. bush and will try to paint them as being reckless, too quick to use force, and the like. one more direct line of attack that was tried already was mitt

romney did make some statement saying that he did not think we should galavant the world and spent billions of dollars trying to find one person. he criticized obama's statement that he would go inside pakistan after bin laden. obama will try to track that out to show that mitt romney is not tough on terrorism. i think he will try to make the argument that mitt romney is trapped in the past and maybe making -- his statements that russia is our number one geopolitical cell was mocked by a lot of people in the foreign- policy establishment, including a lot of republicans. the arms control agreement was -- had very strong bipartisan support. they were kind of surprised i did mitt romney making a

statement like that. are we rivals? sure. are we upset about their autocratic tendencies of late? absolutely. but does that make us a number one geopolitical foe? of return to the cold war? most people might see that as being somewhat out of touch. we might hear something about that. what are some weaknesses in the obama's argument? it will be hard to disqualify mark -- mitt romney as not been qualified. he still benefits from the notion of just because you are a republican, you are going to be strong on national security. he is intelligent comment he has been -- he is intelligent, he has led large organizations, people think of them as a good

manager. the obama campaign talked about this argument that mitt romney would not have tried to go after bin laden the same way that obama did. i do not think that worked all that well. that line of attack probably will not be a very effective. does mitt romney have all of the -- an incumbent has the air force one a fact. mitt romney cannot do that. obama it is consistently gone to make himself -- or take instances when he is gone to try to be a strong leader, demonstrating himself as being a global figure with the authority of air force wind, making national-security decisions, things like he did going to afghanistan and announcing the agreement to withdraw troops.

having the nato summit in chicago recently. these things are going to keep taking place over the course of the election. there could be crises or things that makes foreign affairs issues that don't go the way we might like, like economic crises in europe. the incumbent is then held responsible for those things whether or not he had anything to do that. that is a mixed bag, but that advantage accrues to the president. i think mitt romney's caucused this is not going to play well in a world -- war-weary nation. we will see him town that down to a large regard. he will keep advocating military spending. he will not make a lot of noise about afghanistan or iraq, but he has said enough on that record to hurt him a little bit

during this election campaign. to the extent that mitt romney has advocated things that make him sound a lot like george bush, american exceptionalism argument, morphing into bush is not a good way for him to go. the public's recollection of the bush years on international affairs is not a good one. the idea that we should've kept troops in iraq longer, even though the rockies no longer wanted us, troops and state -- iraqis no longer wanted us. strangely enough, i think republicans really feel like iran is an issue goes to their view to their benefit. obama is a week, he is not willing to use force, he is

willing to reach out to ahmadinejad. the president has a pretty good record here. it is one that the american public is pretty comfortable with. he has used covert action to try to box up the nuclear program would cyber warfare. he has organized international community's to the extent that president bush could not. tougher and tougher sanctions come up some of which will take place in the next couple of months. this has brought iran back to the negotiating table on this issue. i do not think the american public are eager to get engaged in a third war in the middle east in this decade. ironically, where republicans thought they would be able to

use iran to fit their paradigm, i think it fits the obama paradigm pretty well. returning leadership, working in conjunction with our partners, keeping the idea of force on the table, but using diplomacy, using diplomatic sanctions to try to achieve our objectives. i think it is beginning to show roots in iran. the public is going to support that approach. that leaves us with the two individuals, at the american public is going to find that they would both be credible national leaders. they certainly have a different outlook, which will be explored during this election campaign. u.s.-israel relations, china on trade could be vulnerabilities for the president. mitt romney's framing of the world and his ability of obama

-- may be of advantage to the president. that is my analysis. i would be happy to take -- engage in dialogue with you. [applause] >> we are open for questions. we ask that you wait until the microphone to get to you. don't be shy. >> let me start back there. >> in regard to america's military role throughout the world, the things the american public's patient is going to give out? -- moody's think the american public's patience is going to give out?

>> i think that has a lot to do with energy. our alliance with israel, but the need to have lots of troops there to have stability, a lot of that has to do with our desire to have secure flow of oil. we are becoming more and more energy -- less energy dependent on the middle east. we have new sources of production in north america. mexico. other sources of even oil in north america, russia, elsewhere. we're beginning to find ourselves to be able to wean ourselves -- we are less dependent on middle eastern oil.

as long as we, you know, our economy -- i think the american public will understand that investments that we make, which. -- we believe provide stability and security, that is something we book continue to have to do. >> -- that is something we will continue to have to do. >> i think this gentleman was next. >> i am curious, there are scheduled cuts in the military better coming up. republican party seems a bit split on that. some are not too worried about it, others do not want to see it. where do you think mitt romney is going to come down on that? >> let's get everything on the table. president obama, a part of issue at about the deficit should be

handled has put down half a million -- half a billion in cuts on the table. if you recall, we ever having the debt limits debate around this time last summer, nobody found that pleasant, what was agreed upon was that if congress did not cut, find another $1.20 trillion to cut from the budget over the next 10 years, automatic spending cuts, in addition to what was in the budget already, would go into effect. half would be on national security, and half would be on domestic spending. those cuts have not been made by the congress. the super committee that was created flopped. therefore, this automatic sequester is scheduled to go into effect in january. that would mean an additional

$500 million of cuts over the next 10 years. combined with the once they're already in the budget, that would be a trillion dollars. there are not a very many democrats or republicans who are eager to see those cuts. the problem is, this is law. they are going to happen until a budget deal is made. very few folks think we will be able to do that before the election. to what extent that becomes a campaign issue, i do not know. mitt romney will certainly say that he is against the sequestered from going into effect. we should make all the cuts on this domestic side. at some point, it means medicare, health care spending,

medicaid. it does not talk about that very much, that that is going to come up. if you are for a large increase in defense spending and you are for canceling what obama has put on the table, you are proposing medicare cuts. mitt romney will swear that is not true. it is not a credible argument. if it comes up, and if you are not for any defense cuts, you are not for any increased taxes, the only way to do the spending will be a large-scale cuts in medicare. that is how it is going to play out during the election. go ahead. >> [inaudible] >> i wonder whether the issue of whether the war in iraq was a mistake will come up in the campaign or will people to try

to forget about that? >> well, i think it could possibly could come up. i tried to allude to some of those concepts in my top. obama will try to paint mitt romney as having supported all the policies of george w. bush and the iraq war -- i will note that there was a recent bombing , there are still problems in iraq. i do not know if we will rehash. i do not know if we even rehashed in the 2008 election. i think it will, in terms of

obama trying to link mitt romney to have the failed policies of the past. >> i have two questions. one is a question of weakness from the left. a lot of people believe that obama might be an anti-for president. in 2008, they voted for him because they expected pace. some cable would argue that heat -- some people would argue that he has been very active with drones, taking out bin laden. i wonder if that could weaken his position on the left. it is not that they would vote for mitt romney, but they would not vote at all. this weakness might resonate with those who believe that his economic policies have not been as friendly as people hoped.

from the right, the other side of being pragmatic is not having a clear vision. the two big threats in the world are pakistan and iran, and possibly russia. i am not sure how much progress is made on any of those. one thing that some republicans might say, he could push more aggressively with oil in america. oil prices are down to $60 a barrel. >> a lot of questions. let me see if i can get some of them. gas prices, when they go up, it is always bad for the incumbent president. bill clinton would talk about the relationship between the number of cents added to

the gas price and how would affect his approval rating. fortunately, for obama, some believe the gas prices would hit $5. a kind of peaked at $4. maybe that will be -- will continue throughout the summer and we will not have extraordinarily high gas prices come november. that is an issue that depends on where the prices at the pump in the 30 days before the election. environmental versus domestic production is a classic democrat-republican issue. we had this argument frequently. obama's record on domestic production is pretty good. he will say that he has increased domestic production of the course of his tenure,

whether you are responsible for it or not, you get credit for it if that happens. the republicans will argue that that is everything that bush did. obama got to take advantage of that. obama will argue that he has worked on domestic production. i think the fact that canadian oil, the new sources in mexico, all becoming less dependent on oil from our enemies. obama old be able to make an argument. mitt romney will makeromney will argument we need less reliance on oil from the middle east and russia. in terms of counter-terrorism issues and the left, the idea that obama in 2008 ran as an anti-war president and has not

fulfilled those promises. i think the probe -- problem obama is based on a lot of issues with respect to what people thought is that people attached to obama what they wanted to hear and did not listen or were willing to look the other way with respect to parts of his record they did not find appealing. his talkncts liked about bringing the parties together and having a less confrontational idea of politics but did not listen with respect to a new health-care plan and other things that were not on the top of their agenda. with respect to the left and counter-terrorism, when i listen to the obama campaign, he said

he would use force to go into pakistan to eliminate the terrorist threat. maybe people on the left were not listening to that part but to me he projected that he was a president who would be willing to use of force to deal with direct threats to our security. what he has done has not surprised me personally and i am not, i do not agree with the criticism from the left about him and not, let's put it this way, trying to make this a more peaceful world. obama did get our troops out of iraq. he escalated the war in afghanistan but against the will of the military and he set a

time line for the surge to end and is drawing that conflict down. he has resorted to sanctions rather than the use of force to do with the iranian nuclear program. i would counsel folks on the left to are disappointed in the obama record to look at the totality of the issues and not just the things that may be an know you -- maybe annoy you about the last four years. please. >> i wonder if you could comment on the route recent national security leaks from the political aspect and the national security perspective. >> from a political

perspective, i think republicans are disappointed. they wanted to make obama as a naive, a weak leader and here we have a cyber war, drone strikes, al qaeda leaders getting knocked off every week, and obama essentially conducting a covert action campaign that republicans would have been proud of under the bush administration. i think that frustrates them to a great degree and the claim about leaks is a way to try to take some of the luster off of that. that is the politics of that. i find it a little difficult to get excited about this issue.

dick cheney would go on "and meet the press" and say things and argue that since he had declassification authority whenever he said it, that means it was no longer classified. there is a little bit of ye doth protest too much with that issue. and said, i had a security clearance and i worked on legal cases where individuals did not fulfil their obligations. that is a serious issue. having been a government servant, i cannot countenance individuals taking it under their own authority to believe what they think should or should not be in the public domain. i believe we keep too many secrets. we classify too much and we have too many people who are entitled to have security clearances.

i am not one who believes in closed government but i i feel strongly against this leaking and it is a prevalent part of our national security establishment. this is true before and after obama. can we get some ladies to ask some questions? we should hear from you. we will go here. >> two questions, to what degree given the media focus on the swing states, to what degree do these issues resonate more or less in a swing states? given you have talked about their campaigns, and the possibility exists that the pacs may follow different

directions, will they go in a different manner? >> a lot of what i got in terms of trying to construct the romney narrative, looking at his website and an article that karl rove wrote about how to beat obama in the fall issue of foreign policy, and he is running one of those big pacs. in general, the pacs are going to, there is a some biotic relationship between them, whether the legal lines are crossed i do not know but i think that if you're going to see certain things coming out of the romney campaign, you see a lot of them coming out of the super pacs. they might try to do something and if the campaign says that worked well, you might see the campaign following them.

in terms of the specific foreign-policy issues, having more resonance in certain states, i think, yes, for sure. for example ec trade -- you see trade policy being a much bigger deal in the rust belt then in the south or the west. there is a big jewish vote in florida, so there are israel issues and things like at that have more resonance in florida and new jersey becomes a swing state. there are other pockets of ethnic populations, for example the moslem vote is becoming stronger and the hispanic vote is a huge vote and they are interested in immigration policy. more to the meanleans

domestic rather than national security. immigration will be a big issue in the campaign. that is going to be discussed in a lot of the western swing states. the woman in the pink. >> would you comment on syria and the relationship of russia? our view, i know we are watching it, but could you encapsulate that? >> is a difficult situation. in terms of the campaign, the difference between the candidates is that romney has agreed with senator mccain we should try to arm the opposition in syria to counteract and make it more of a fair fight with assad. the administration has not gone

that far over the. we do not know what they are doing colbert lead. -- covertly. in number of years ago israel invaded syria and knocked out a nuclear project which they believed was a nuclear weapon. after that, syria invested a great deal of money in anti- aircraft defensive. after a day we were able to knock out gaddafi in debut, our ability would require much more longer and deeper investment and it would be more difficult to do without injuring civilians. it's wanted to try to use military force, and i think there are few experts to believe that is a good idea, it would be more difficult and more costly. libya is pretty clear

geographically and etiologic the -- ideologically where the lines were being drawn. in syria, the opposition is more diffuse, less organized, and not as geographically identifiable. that makes it harder to provide a safe haven of corridors or even transfer weapons. there is concern about some of the opposition to be more in the direction of the fundamentalist extremists. you would be taking on a risk in providing advanced weaponry to them because they might be used for terrorism, possibly against israel or make its way to hezbollah. i do not have any easy solutions. i think what is happening is that more and more pressure is

going to be placed on russia to take a more responsible action. maybe a possibility is we have a non-assad regime that is still pro-soviet. maybe the opposition would not be happy but we will get assad out and be more representative. maybe the russians could live with that if they were able to sell arms and have this relationship. in terms of what i have been talking about, it is easy to geo- russia your ngo hig political foe but in the real world they have power whether we like it or not. here is an instance where having a more positive relationship with russia is

potentially giving us some leverage or some ability to engage in diplomacy, to address this particular issue. yes. we will get to you next. there is a gentleman here. >> what is the position on north korea? >> i think the position on north korea has been stable throughout the second bush administration through obama. again, talk is cheap for the challenger. being able to say we have a growing threat and the president has not solved the problem, president bush could not solve the problem, either. our ability to influence the north koreans is very low.

they have a huge amount of weaponry they could use against south korea. some sort of unilateral attack or even a strong western attack against nuclear facilities would end up in a lot of lives lost in south korea. that is an option that none of the parties or presidents have felt was on the table. in many ways the only game in town is trying to get to the koreans to the bargaining table and a lot of that, china has the strong leverage against north koreans. north korea is a leadership transition. in an autocratic, closed states like this, what that new,

younger, inexperienced leader is very beholden to the military and is in need of seeming strong to his domestic population. you might see a lot of rhetoric and provocative actions that come out of north korea. but i do not see president romney or president from the doing differently about it. -- president obama from doing differently about it. >> the federal debt is going to catch up with us. it caught up in germany and spain. what is going to happen? >> our debt problems are not as extreme as europe. in terms of the way we look at things, comparing apples to apples is our debt to gdp ratio. how much is our debt compared to

our economy? if we have a smaller economy, that is what makes the difference. our debt, our total debt, which is approaching $16 trillion, i could stand to be corrected but i believe it is close to around 60% of our gdp. right now, what we are looking at in places like greece and ireland and spain is debt to gdp ratios that exceed over 100%. the feeling is if we get to that point, we would be in a serious crisis. now, left untouched, leaving the defense budget growing, leaving the expansion of medicare, especially, is going to explode in the next couple years as

medical care keeps getting more expensive and baby boomers who are in their 60's and still healthy, in 20 years they are going to be 80 and not as healthy. there are a lot of them. even social security is a flipping in terms of its in not bringing in as much in contributions. the explosion can come in the next 15 years from now when our debt to gdp ratio which start approaching over 100% and get into a danger zone. we have a short-term debt problem. we have a medium-term one and then we have a long term. it is a very clear that every person involved in this says we need to take action on our long- term debt, we need to bring the

trajectory of our spending down and there is a debate about whether we need to bring our rate of taxation up to meet that. what is going to happen in november, after the election, i guess it is really january when it happens, is a tax-maggedon. the sequester would take 1.2 trillion dollars out of the economy and it is the expiration of all of the bush, obama, bush extended by obama at tax cuts, which over 10 years, if you take the totality of them, and nobody thinks all of them will go back to the way they were in 2001, we are talking about $five taxes.ion in

another 1.2 trillion dollars in spending. people believe that could put us into another recession. there will be a tremendous incentive, especially once the election is over, for some sort of political deal to be made between the parties. i think both parties are waiting to see who will be president so they will know what the relative bargaining strength is going to be. if romney winds, the republicans hold onto the house, then the final plan is going to be more spending, domestic spending cuts, and less taxes. if obama wins, it will be tilted with more taxes, more defense cuts, and a little bit less on the medicare spending. but i believe there will be something because under current law, but things are unsustainable in the long term.

everybody knows that. >> we have time for one more question. >> i believe this might be a former student so i am worried. >> that is correct. you mentioned that obama may benefit from the perception of being on the right side of history according to the arab spring issue. i have heard from strategists on the right that perhaps this could be interpreted as obama abandoning strong american allies, in tunisia and egypt. and that the recent elections of islamic-based political parties may in fact leads to anti-american policies in the region and abroad. do you think that romney will attempt to make that argument? if so, will it resonate with the american public? >> an excellent question from a

former student. obviously learned a lot. [laughter] so, i think on the mubarak issue, which is what you are talking about, i think those americans who feel that the united states can somehow impose its will and get the desired effect it wants on every international issue might find that argument to resonate. but those votes are -- folks are probably voting for romney already. what were we supposed to do? were we going to support egyptian tanks rolling into cairo to suppress popular, unarmed protesters? i think that is preposterous.

if somebody is going to try to start making that argument that we abandoned mubaraks, and then at the same time making an argument that somehow we should be more active to get rid of assad in syria. he is not an ally, but nonetheless it is not all holds together. that said, the question of islam and what direction the arab world is going to take, and fear in some regard that when these countries gained democracy and are able to vote, they are going to bring in governments that want to the more governed by islamic principles than previous ones. the question will be, what does that mean? obama in some ways is taking a risk and a chance in believing,

again, what he to do otherwise is not clear to me. but st. we are going to see what happens in this election and what we want to do is take the islamists at their word they will be committed to democracy, with a more islamic flavor, and hope they start looking more like a turkey than iran. iran is shia, but we do not want these countries to devolve into these autocratic, theocratic, anti-western entities where there is no true democracy and a harsher version of islam is being pursued. we would like to see more of a turkish model which is a commitment to democratic principles and if people want to be governed by laws that are more in accord with islamic practices, so be it.

it is their country. that is what democracy is. we do not know it -- which way it is going to tilt. there will be more of them, obviously. i think the position the government should be taking is, let's see where it goes. let's do what we can to support these governments and in courage them to head down a democratic path, to liberalize their economies and be supportive and if they head in the other direction to use coercive measures to try to influence them. but this is about the people who live in these countries and our ability to shape this outcome to one that would be a perfect and

in our interest is actually extremely limited. how that plays out in the campaign, i am not sure but i do not think governor romney is probably going to go there because there are not any good answers. thank you for your excellent questions and a great session. i really enjoyed it. thank you. >> thank you, professor schanzer. we have three more series coming up. june 27, discussing civility and public discourse. on july 11, talking about gender issues in the elections. and on july 25, we will have daniel talking about network politics. thank you for coming and for c- span

host: caller: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> at 9:30 eastern, a forum looking at progress in afghanistan. and on c-span 3, vice president joe biden speaks to the annual meeting. >> coming up and 45 minutes, a discussion of the supreme court ruling on the 2010 health care law. pettitte o'clock 30, the american association of state highway and transportation -- at 8:30, the american association of state highway and