amendment and only -- that only deals with registration. e ranking member has brought up some interesting points. that's why we do have the courts, to settle those, but i think here tonight, we need to think of what this simple amendment does is stop duplicative areas within registration and gives a better hand for our retirees. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from new jersey has 30 seconds. mr. garrett: thank you. i thank the gentleman from georgia for his support and i yield the remainder of my time to the chairman of the committee and congratulate him for his great work on the legislation. mr. lucas: cftc, when finalizing the rules for registered investment companies deferred almost entirely to the s.e.c. to regulate them system of this amendment is in line with what

the cftc has already done. i urge my colleagues to support the commonsense amendment. let's just do what's reflected here. i thank the gentleman for his input and yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from new jersey -- your time is expired. the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new jersey. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. . in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from new jersey will e postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from oklahoma rise? mr. lucas: mr. chairman, i move the committee do now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion that the committee rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the committee rises.

the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: mr. speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union, having had under consideration h.r. 4413, directs me to report that it has come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chair of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee had under consideration h.r. 4413 and has come to no resolution thereon. for what purpose does the gentleman from oklahoma rise? mr. lucas: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on h.r. 4413. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the

gentleman from pennsylvania rise? mr. thompson: request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute, revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, last friday on june 20, members of the pennsylvania congressional delegation joined together to protect pennsylvania farmers by fighting back against another regulatory overreach by the environmental protection agency. i, along with senator patent toomey and representative scott perry, barletta and shuster, filed a brief with the u.s. court of appeals for the third circuit in philadelphia. in a case that centers on the proper scope of the e.p.a.'s authority under the clean water act and the chesapeake bay watershed. over the past decade, regional and state-led conservation efforts have substantially reduced agriculture's ecological footprint within the watershed. today farmers continue to improve land management practices and remain the best stewards of our natural resources, which their livelihoods are dependent upon. these -- despite these successful -- success story, the e.p.a. is seeking to seize

from the -- for the federal government powers traditionally held by the states and oppose burdens on farmers and taxpayers. the e.p.a. has continued a full y pursuant to put ford mandates that threatens the livelihood of our farms and businesses. it is an abuse of power that cannot and will not be tolerated. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of absence requested for mr. fitzpatrick of pennsylvania for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request s granted. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? mr. thompson: mr. speaker, i move that the house now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted. accordingly, the house stands adjourned

>> i'm serious. i said because i will never miss a vote to make a difference, but if i have a choice between a procedural vote in my child's parent teachers meeting, i'm going to the meeting. here is the point.

at the luxury i had. how many of you would like to be able to do that? [applause] i'm no different than anyone of you, for real. i'm not trying to say joe biden did good, no, i had the ability to do it. you all want to do it, and i could make a choice, and i was stateent the people in my would understand, because i was confident. the reason i tell you the story is i think that's how almost every american thinks. i think if they only could, they would. look.ks, the fact of the matter is, too many people, when it comes down to making the choice between doing that here and teachers meeting are going to that championship game or showing up at that debate, or being there just when your child is sick, having to choose between doing timeand their job, not one

, but like many of you, my family has been an incredible consumer of health care costs. my sons were critically injured. my daughter was in traction for a long time. both jill and i teaching. but we had the option. we could choose who could stay home. i could operate from my home, assuming there were not a critical vote. at the point is, those kind of choices, most times it comes down to not losing your job or not, it comes down to subtle things. it's about, if i don't stay and help finish the project, and not go to my daughter's parents night, they are going to think i don't really want to work hard. they are going to think i really don't care about my job. your employer is not demanding you do it, but if i don't stay -- look, i have some really

incredible people working for me over the years. one time we had something like had a lawscholars, i firm of 65 people as chairman of the judiciary committee. almost everyone graduated in the top five percent of their class. really smart, smart people. ambitious people. during a really difficult hearing, having to do controversial hearing, judge bork. goingg man, and i'm not to mention his name, one of the young men who had done most of the research in the background, he was having difficulty at home because he was spending so little time at home for the previous six months and reparation, he had difficulty in his marriage. started, myhearing

chief of staff was a wonderful guy. he came to me and said so and so has a problem. i said tell him if he comes in to work, he is fired. not a joke. i wasn't being noble. it was the right thing to do, but beyond that, it was important. he could do it from home. he could be on the phone. he could let us know. he had to be assured that it would not affect his advancement. that's all employers have to do sometimes, is let you know that these subtle choices -- you don't have to have some massive policy. particularly if you are smaller. >> you can watch this white house summit on working families later tonight on c-span. and in its entirety at our website, www.c-span.org.

the next, a former adviser to the iraqi prime minister's office and retired u.s. military official who served under general petraeus discuss the escalating violence in iraq. event,sted this two-hour the american task force on palestine. >> good morning, everyone. welcome. greetings to the national audience. we look forward to a lively discussion about the most topical subject. when we started preparing for the subject, we had no idea how exhilarated things would be on the ground -- how accelerated things would be on the ground. last 24 hours, john kerry is

in baghdad as we speak after visiting cairo and amman. the american general reported that the iraq he army is in shambles and cannot stand up to face the most more formidable isis. during the past couple of months, the situation has become untenable with the erosion of the power of the central and thent in baghdad empowerment of the rebels, both in syria and iraq, which have gathered together under the name

of isis, islamic state of iraq and syria. they have crossed the border recently and in no time at all have rolled over major cities including the second-largest become iraq. they have an unstoppable force. nothing could stop them and needless to say this has generated a great deal of interest in the region, in iraq and in the united states. this president of the united states, president obama, who is so averse to military intervention, has found it impossible to avoid iraq again, after he was so happy to leave it. that's why you have mr. kerry there. that's why you have actual forces as experts in iraq to see

how to mount what the president thinks is a major new threat to stability not in iraq, but one that could spill over into the region, including jordan. so something needs to be done. it has become clear that the government in iraq has failed on so many levels to hold together its own people because of the sectarian policy that has become factionsen opposed by of shiites who are in power but not in favor of such a policy. important, not for what happens just in iraq. it is important for its impact on the region and the superpower that has been in charge of the region for a long time and now has been trying to engage

obviously was a great deal of challenge. put a racke able to to put iraq together, then the region would avoid one of the major awaiting in a confrontation between sectarian and religious factions across the middle east and beyond. shia and sunni confrontation will last for decades, if not longer. if they actually ignite in iraq. they have started in syria and lebanon and other places, but this mega-conflict can only be allowed to become a definer of the coming decades if it is not checked in iraq. it is the challenge of this administration and the people in toq and neighboring regions put together a new government that would allow a more fair and

acceptable participation of all segments of society. we have put together for this event an excellent group of experts on the subject. i will be introducing them one at a time as they speak. we have been very lucky to have them available them selves for us and we are grateful to all of you. johnnk i would start with alterman. he is the big new burzynski chair of the middle east at c i s and he has served in government at the state department in the past, has been a very active member of the think tank community for the .ast decade at least

he has participated in policymaking as well as the hamilton baker commission to assess the previous problems with iraq. , so don't sayic anything or he might hear you. treasure,tional really. we are very proud to have you here. john, the way restructured this is that we will have -- every speaker will have 10 minutes of presentation and we will ask a question after that. rounds we will open it to questions and answers by the audience. lively conversation and i'm sure everybody is ready for tough questions.

makel first invite you to your remarks. >> thank you very much for that warm introduction. -- heing you forgot was is the genuine national treasure. the only thing i can think -- i can say about the introduction is i'm sorry my parents are not here because my father would have loved it and my mother wouldn't have believed it. i just want to start by remembering somebody today, my colleague died yesterday. we disagreed about a lot of things, perhaps nothing more than iraq am aware we disagreed bitterly oftentimes. but he was somebody who i valued for his insight for the strength of his believes and for his intellect, which was never in question even for those who disagreed with him. so it is perhaps especially fitting to talk about iraq

today, and i think our thinking was starting to converge, which is either since i'm getting smarter or he was coming around. i think americans are strange in the world. we have two national characteristics in the way we look at foreign policy. one is we are inveterate optimizers. we always look for the best option, and the deep cultural tendencyur optimizing is the popularity of consumer reports. we love ratings. we love seeing what is the best. the think we have approached iraq consistently looking for the best outcomes. we look for the optimal outcomes. the other piece of american psyche that feeds into iraq is the belief that every problem has a solution. to problem is just you were get a solution. there are lots of possible solutions am a and you look for

the best solution and then move on because you have taken it from the to do file and put it in the done pile. att strikes me is as we look what is happening in iraq is, in both our belief that everything has a solution and there is a best solution, we are very different from the other countries in the region. it seems to me that what we've seen in the last several weeks as virtually all of iraq's neighbors think the continued whateverwith isis or you want to call it is actually in their interest. i think it is most obvious for syria, where the government of bashar al-assad would love to show that this fighting and is the syntel battle -- existential battle against a bunch of bloodthirsty jew hotties who will take no quarter -- bloodthirstyjihadis.

for the iranian who see this as a helpful way to take pressure makef syria, as a way to the government of iraq more reliant on iran than an rd is, and here is iran which is used to be considered a troublemaker in global affairs being perceived to have some solution they can offer the world. the fact that there is a struggle against that actually helps the iranians. the gcc states it is actually help fill -- helpful to curb the excesses of shia triumphal zen iraq and having them under pressure, to give sunnis a place at the table. the kurds are happy to have the central government preoccupied with things in other parts of the country so they can consolidate control and they're happy to have a necessary

element to help keep iraq together because it helps british bargaining in all of this. i think maliki himself is a guy who is not afraid to fight. if you remember back to 2008 with this charge of the knights , american military buys are stodgy was nuts to go against malicious in the south of iraq when he wasn't totally prepared and it was thoroughly risky. part of iraq which is most firmly under his centralize control. away from a shying fight. it seems that if you're looking we all problem, which consider a serious problem, we have to consider the fact that virtually every surrounding state, jordan being a notable exception, but all these people surrounding the conflict actually think the conflict is helpful in some way.

a lot of people want to fight. that makes this an especially difficult problem. if you are looking at it from an american diplomatic perspective, if what you're looking for is you want to fix the problem of iraq, then you start focusing on the need for iraq is an inclusive government and it has to be more democratic. i think it gets you into negotiations that all the combatants have an interest in avoiding. the cause all the combatants think when you get to those negotiations, you want to be in the best position you can be. so now is not the time to do it. the time to be in those negotiations is after the fight has gone on for a while. where thes to me that orientation of american diplomacy has to be is toward the diplomacy of this rather than going to the politics of it. it feels to me like the politics

of this, the internal politics in iraq are not yet ripe for solution. there may be different role for the leadership of the shia national or the community. that's going to take time. remember that when maliki took nine months to put together a government, but as we think about prioritizing, what we do and how we do it, to my mind the important thing is what secretary kerry is doing now, which is working with all of the antagonist, all of the external sponsors, persuading them that in fact it is not in anybody's they get stronger. that the problem of foreign fighters, arab and western fighters and others coming into this region are actually against peoples interest rather than in favor of them, that the u.s. actually has states that will act to protect its interest is the important element am a rather than what i fear some people want to do, which is

let's talk about using military instruments to keep them from winning and let's get a political solution. it seems that both of those things put the cart before the horse. what we have to do is build a broader consensus for what it is we are trying to do. notes, he iste's going to talk a little bit about the durability and what happens. thatbody is making a bet they cannot win. , think it is a dangerous bet because even if they don't win, sustaining that, embedding themselves in that part of iraq ar a longer time is actually detriment to the interest of all the neighbors as well. it seems to me the task is to persuade people, partly through attraction and partly through

coercion, that we have to arrive ,t a different set of ambitions that we have to sequence this in the right way, and that what we have to do in the longer term is get some sort of political settlement in iraq to address these people's concerns, but in the near-term we have to line up the external sponsors of these lines of conflict to diminish that and then we can deal with that insurgency as we deal in the longer term with the problems in iraq. >> thank you, john. we have a situation where this conflict is really part of an already existing larger conflict between iran and the shia on one the -- on one side and significant arab states and the conflict in syria on the other.

suppose you are john kerry, what do you tell the saudi's and the iranians to get this message that you are talking about? when you talk to them, can you bring them together at all in this? >> first, there are very different conversations with the saudi's and the iranians. not only that, but they start from different premises. the iranians are waiting to be asked. they go around the world preoccupied with the relative to the unitedess states. first second and third on their pro-art -- priority list of things to address, and they're looking for ways to increase their relative leverage. one consequence of that, i think, is that they are willing to into her things that hurt them tactically because they think strategically, holding the

keys to a solution helps them in the long term. and their strategic interest has had to deal with their weakness in regard to the united states. on one hand with the iranians, you don't want to give them a list of things you want to do and get into a bargaining it will notecause get you to a solution. thekey to our problems with iranians is highlighting a common interest and not making it seem like a concession. instead, things we are doing in our common interest, we are doing something sinew are doing some things. i would be careful not to get into a head-to-head negotiation. with the saudi's, it's really about reassuring them about our intentions in the region, reassuring them about our bottom having a also technical conversation about our

natureanding of of the and the foreign fighter problem and regional things. we are arty working with the saudi's on this and reportedly it haslast six months gotten better. one of the interesting things the saudi's have is an incredible database of activist muslims who tend to go through mecca more than other people. others have been forthcoming on trying to get us analytically on the same page and to help us. part of this is deepening that technical cooperation, because ultimately there is a huge overlap between saudi interest and american interest, and already a lot of that work is going on and i think he needs to continue. >> thank you. allow me to introduce our next

peter mansour. i'm reading his notes here. he is a retired u.s. army colonel who served two tours in iraq, the last as officer to general david petraeus, at the time the commander of multinational force iraq. peter is now professor of history at ohio state university. he has written two books on iraq , the most recent of which is surge. i recommend it highly. my journey with general david petraeus and the remaking of the iraq he wore. a couple of things to add on peter, the first is that he went to west point, graduated top of his class. he is the recipient of the most prestigious award of distinguished -- presented a couple of years ago.

>> i remember it well. [laughter] peter. >> well, thank you all for being here today. i appreciate the attendance. we have a lot to talk about. for and ilking abroad was saying it's amazing how many thatexperts there are now iraq has become news again. i do consider myself one, having spent 28 months of my life there. it felt like 28 years. some of you may not agree with what i have to say, but that's fine because one of the great things i've discovered in my transition from 26 years in the military to now being an academic is it no longer matters whether or not i'm right because i have tenure. [laughter] theght, so i'm going to use islr.m

thatorganization has goals expand beyond iraq and syria. they don't call themselves the islamic state of iraq and syria. it includes palestine, israel, lebanon, syria, and iraq. and jordan. so this is a group that has brought ambitions on which they have recently started to obtain. so who comprises it? ts has a veneer of jihadis from around the world but it has x army officers who went into the insurgency when we disbanded and created the insurgency. you can read all about that in my book, served. they have been gathering strength in sanctuaries in

syria, aided by the civil war on going there. most recently they have been fromd by sunni tribesmen other places in iraq, tribesmen who once had a very firm alliance with the united states in their battles against al qaeda and iraq, the previous manifestation, and now have turned against the iraq he government for its very sectarian and authoritarian policies. so this is an alliance of convenience at the moment between former iraqi army officers and soldiers and local it is an alliance that i don't believe will hold together in the long run. the only question is how much will they achieve before that alliance breaks down. so we have to ask ourselves, why

was the takeover of mosul and about one third of iraqi territory in the northern and western portions of the country, why was that so easy? of have to go to the impact prime minister nouri al-maliki's very authoritarian governing style. he has succeeded in fracturing the alliance that we had created with the iraqie tribes, the sunni tribes. the narrative back in the surge that we created is that everyone against al qaeda. they became everyone's number one enemy. that alliance work. al-maliki, when u.s. forces departed iraq at the end of 2011 thomas felt that the war won. he saw fit to alienate large swaths of the iraq he people by attacking their politicians come

a by agglomerated more power to attacking their protest camps, by marginalizing all of their elites, and by not giving them a fair share of the power and resources of iraq. this succeeded in alienating most of the sunni community and most of the kurdish community as well. maliki did one other thing, he turned the iraq he security forces, the police and the army and the courts as well into his personal militia. he got rid of a lot of the competent army commanders, a lot of the sunnis, marginalized a lot of the kurdish leaders and packed the military forces with leaders who are beholden to him politically. he created exactly what he wanted, a very politically reliable military force, but also one that cannot fight effectively. invaded the northern

and western portions of iraq, it they didn't receive a lot of pushback from the local inhabitants, who welcomed them for the most part or at least acquiesced and stood aside while they took over the cities, and the iraq he army party much dust justlved. -- pretty much dissolved and retreated because they were fighting for sunni areas, and most of the commanders were shia. the soldiers were fighting for these commanders really are fairly corrupt. we don't care for them, and if you are a soldier, you have a choice between saving yourself and withdrawing from the battlefield are fighting for a corrupt commander who is only in it because of the political gains, you are not going to fight. is taken over much of the sunni triangle that we have

heard about so much back in the early days of the war and they have reached as far as smara and falluja. that is about 40 miles away from baghdad in each of those locations. seems like a juggernaut right now, on the march, but they are hardly an unstoppable force. there's probably fewer than 10,000 committed fighters in their ranks. this not an overly large number. they have to now and troll the territory they have taken and that's going to take forces, so they cannot put all those fighters on the front lines. i think it is very unlikely they could take advantage, a city of 7 million inhabitants, tens of thousands of armed shia militia men on the streets, and an iraqi army down there at least with more competent units and more incentive to fight for the city.

i was in baghdad. i had a brigade combat team of 3500 soldiers. baghdad swallows up armies, and it would swallow up isl as well. i agree with john, we have time to get the diplomacy and eventually the politics right. we should not provide some sort of knee-jerk reaction thinking that baghdad is going to fall to a jihadist offensive. i have to disagree on one thing. doesn't mean that isl cannot win. they can win by consolidating this state that they have now seized spanning the syrian and iraqi border. that will give them a base from which to destabilize the region, from which to launch attacks against europe and the united states if they wish, and to expand their own territory. they are now extremely well financed. by all accounts they have seized

about a half alien dollars in assets from the moles will bank nk.from the mosul ba is now the strongest and richest terrorist group in the world and one that controls territory. iraq hetion is can the security forces retake the ground lost, and the answer is, not without a lot of help. i was there when nouri al-maliki called general petraeus and ambassador rice crocker to his office. that was on a thursday evening. they show what the next day and he said i'm heading down to basra with four brigades on saturday. no coordination, because he didn't want us to tell him that that was a bad idea. the charge of the nine succeeded. maliki succeeded in clearing out .asra and then sadr city it only succeeded because we supported it. it was on the verge of failure.

logistically it was failing. they had no fire support and they were on the verge of failing. that would have been disastrous for maliki. he would easily have suffered a vote of no-confidence in the council representatives. he went down there to bosworth and realizes -- he went down to basra and moved his headquarters and commanded and controlled the way only an iraqi could, with four cell phones in front of him. laid onpetraeus advisers, air, attack helicopters, drones, and airborne infantry battalion, logistics. it was that push from the multinational force that allowed the charge of the knights to succeed. maliki is doing sort of the same thing. he has moved his headquarters up to samara.

domedme of the golden mosque. he is to defend it. he doesn't have multinational force iraq to back him up anymore, so it's going to be a very dicey affair. 25% army by recent reports is combat ineffective. , thes no trouble support way we had trouble support -- he has no tribal support the way we had it in 2007-2008. first, i agree with john, we shouldn't do anything about it till it terribly until there is a diplomatic and political solution. u.s. air power, which everyone in this town seems to talk about as some sort of strategic panacea to everything, will not succeed without significant help to regenerate combat power in the iraq he army. forcesnot destroy these

because they are integrated among the populations of the cities with airpower alone. you're not even going to be able to target them effectively without killing a lot of civilians along the way and thereby alienating the very people you need to bring over to your side to win this conflict. so i believe that what needs to happen is we need to get the diplomacy right and the politics right. that means an iraqi government that's more inclusive are legitimate and has the support of all ethnicities and factions in the country. then you can reknit that alliance that was so successful in defeating al qaeda in iraq the first time around during the surge of 2007-2008. if you can do that, in defeating isl becomes a much easier prospect, albeit one that will require a lot of bloody ground combat. i will in their.

x thank you very much, peter. -- i will end theire. it was a comprehensive , a multifaceted program. a fundamental part of that was encouraging the tribes and tribal leaders and the sunnis to be part of the struggle against the terrorists. having described now in the incapable present situation to deal with this, do you see a role or something similar both on the sunni and on the shiite side to kind of be part of the participation against the fight against isis?

>> this is exactly the way ahead. if you can get a government that the sunni tribes and the shiite canes, as you noted, support, then you can reknit this alliance that was so successful during the search. intoan bring them back accord with baghdad and with the government and then defeating dis inneer of foreign jiha the ranks becomes a much easier task. and i might add that it would be a good time for the iraq he government to think about reconciliation with the baptist portion -- the bathist portion of isl. if you could maybe think of a way of having them buy into the government in baghdad, perhaps some sort of federal structure for the sunni areas of northern and western iraq, but within a broader iraqi state.

general petraeus used to say that you cannot kill your way to victory in these kind of conflict. you want to reduce your list of enemies so you fight as few people as possible. what you want to end up with is what we had during the surge. what you want to end up with now, everyone against the foreign jihadists. that is the element that is truly dangerous to u.s. and worldwide security in this situation. >> thank you. our third speaker is the chairman of a bag -- baghdad-based economic think tank and adviser to the iraq national congress. between 2005-2007 served as economic advisor to the prime minister's office, prior to that he was an active member of the iraq he pro-democracy movement

since 1992. he lives in baghdad and happens to be visiting, to our good fortune. he has managed several corporations in iraq and california, including motorola in baghdad. he holds a bachelors agree in electronic engineering and an mba. welcome. >> thank you very much. be actually very honored to with such fine gentleman on the same panel. with the passing of a friend of mine, we are closer politically as he is another member of the pro-democracy movement in the middle east. we worked together 15-20 years ago. may god bless his soul. just for the national rest club, i wish to inform you that almost 58 years ago, my late father, who was a diplomat here in

washington, he was the first iraq he diplomat in the world that came out in support of change in iraq in 1958. on july 14, 1958, he was in this club announcing his support to the change in baghdad. to follow in his footsteps as maybe being the second member of the family in the national press club. i kept my notes in my mind here. there are a lot of things to talk about in the middle east and especially iraq. there's a huge amount of press coverage, including c-span, including satellite channels from the middle east as well as the national iraq he channel over here also. i'm glad there is interest, and unfortunately there is continuous interest in iraq in a negative manner. i wish there were be interested in economic ruin -- economic

growth and unfortunately it always comes to the agenda and it comes up to a higher priority when it comes to death and killing. we have organizations that keep changing names. palma the iraq use iraq these,st, the we cannot even agree on the terms. kuwait,lls went up in , so alarmall it isik bells are everywhere in the middle east because this organization is obviously not there to provide prosperity for the people. i'm not a military person. i am an economist and an engineer and a businessman. i cannot really comment on what is going on. i'm hearing almost this thing thing i heard back in

2003 -- the same thing i heard back in 2003, that the government tactically withdrew today from the borders with syria and jordan. orody would tactically abandon their posts with their neighbors. isis is the neighbor where is coming in and out. poor and very bad strategy to allow even more members to come into iraq and .ore military hardware we are very grateful for the united states to have helped us with all this military hardware, to make its way back to syria. so to open these channels of fighters and weaponry out is not the right tactical strategy that the iraqi government should be doing. going back to the economy, i looked at things from an economic standpoint. of course everybody is reporting this as being a sunni-shiite and

iranian, saudi, it makes sense looking at it from washington or from london, it makes sense that we could easily say there is black and white. i look at it from a different way. the maliki government was a friend of the west. the change in iraq was assisted by the west. view as not in my sunni-shiite challenge. change init as the the economic strategy of the iraqi government that took place in 2010. yes, maliki did not win the election in 2006. he was assisted by our friends in the united states to become the prime minister in 2006. in 2010 he managed to stay in power by winning not the most number of seats, but 89 seats as opposed to 91 seats, and he still managed to stay in power.

change inas a major the iraq he strategy. 2003, and i was a participant in that as an , i even advisor assisted the deputy prime minister and the head of the economic committee within the prime minister's office. what we were doing was changing y into aral economi free-market economy. that actually worked on the with the formation of the tbi bank, iraq was actually issuing letters of credit which were honored by western banks. iraq was gradually going away from what actually happened in 1958, what my father actually demised of, the biggest

in the iraq economy was in 1958 when we change from free economy to a very centralized economy, which continued until 2003. we managed to change it into a free economy, but in 2010, this is the big setback, the government started going back into the central economy. it'sof you actually know much easier to manage the population when you have a central economy, because the central government will issue -- will give job. they can hand out pieces of land, they can give you a contract. is.power is where the buck this is where the power is. when you have a central government, central prime minister or the president becomes authority within that area.

maliki is taking us back to the central economy. that is really the core of the problem. itther you want to call sunni-shiite, whether you want to call it arab-kurds. my iraq is happened to be iraq he brothers who happen to be kurds and they happen to be arabic. in northern iraq they succeeded by implementing the free-market economy. me and she was with witnessed how successful that country was, that part of the country. so iraq can be successful and we have models for success. there are provinces in southern semi-hat have almost autonomous. we had an honest and ethical

governor who succeeded in turning his province into a success. -- problem with the economy is with the economy, not with the sunni and shia. the gulf states of kuwait and saudi arabia are not against shia, as most people would like to think. they are against the central economy that maliki has put together, and he is handing out jobs, he is handing out financial assistance to some tribes but not giving it to other tribes. nobody is sanctioning iran because they are shia. the oil and gas, the hydrocarbon block, had maliki approved and worked with the -- and she isis and sunnis, we would not have a problem with exporting oil out of the port in turkey.

now there are tankers that are filling up with iraq he oil exported from the regional government. the cause was not approving the hydrocarbons. again, it is an economic problem. r were barred anba from major jobs that they used to have in the past. why were they? whether it was deep bath ction,ation -- debathifa why would you be barred from a job? that is the underlying cause that brought us to this problem today. what happened is obviously the wanted some assistance to help them fight for their rights. stick -- distinguish between the needs of the iraq he people, and the problems they

are facing today. call it economic problems because we have 6 million people under the property line while we have a handful of people who are not millionaires, they are billionaires. the gap between the rich and poor is widening. terms, we have to ask our friends the united states and in iran and in the isis oro help us fight whatever they want to call them. the problem is economic. this is what i would like to underline. therefore, no matter what we do militarily, with continuation of the current government in baghdad and the central economic policies they have, we will never fix the problem. i say we in the pro-democracy movement, before 2003 we called for the federalization of iraq. today, iraq is the only country in the world that has three provinces that are federal and

15 provinces that are central. there is no government -- no country in the world, the u.s. is 100% federal. all 50 states are federal. other countries are central. why would iraq be the only country that has three provinces federal and 15 central? as we federalize the entire basra would have been a province. we will not have the problems we are fighting today. everything you look at today has an economic underlying problem that we could at fixed four or five years ago. >> thank you very much. countryy in this understands the argument, so i think there is resonance here. i would like for you to explain to us, that is not what is used to encourage the people to

fight, to kill, to get killed and to sacrifice and start wars. we have an actual sectarian divide on the ground amongst the people. would you like to give us a sense of how many people within the sunni community or the shia community are really committed to an antagonistic program, whether it's on the rise or the way in our people see through it, or is it going to be useful to any demagogue to use it and keep the struggle going? >> economist make very poor generals and they cannot provide the motivation for soldiers. economists can give numbers on and that's pretty much all we can do. politicians can use the economist numbers and turn it into a political gain. the sunni community, i prefer to call them the iraqi community. they are suffering. the she is are suffering -- the

shias and kurds are suffering. the advantage of geographically being close to syria where the key events of the civil war going on over there has been used to assist them to make a change. i have a lot of friends in mosul and i talk to them very regularly. believe it or not, in the first few days of the occupation of isis, they were very happy because they did not like to be part of the maliki government, which is a sectarian government. thought they came to liberate them. they used the word liberation. a few days later, i received

different reports saying they are banning them from their thats, so they realize that does not mean they will go back to malik he and say -- go , i amo malaki and say sorry. they are there to take them back 1400 years. up to kuwait, back 1400 years. they are the enemies of progress. it is not a sunni-shia thing. there are some that support going back 1400 years, and i do not want to name names, but some

parts of the eastern provinces of the united states would go back some 2000 years ago, so the idea of going back that number of years is not a sunni thing or a shia thing. i am sure there are some jewish people who would like to go back. >> ok, thank you. >> this point you make is important, but i think the distinction between politics and economics is a little bit troubling. it seems to me that politics is ultimately about the distribution of resources at its core. byt politics is economics other means -- i think this is fairly universal, that anybody trying to build a political network tries to build networks and rewarding the people who support you at the expense of people who do not support you, and the fact that this is seen, that loyalty is seen, in

sectarian terms is not unique to iraq. it can be seen in tribal -- if you go to the middle east, it seems to me this problem of government seeking to use the economics to solidify political iraq,l goes far beyond and attacking that is not in iraq-specific problem but a broader problem of governance in the middle east, which extends from morocco in the west to iran in the east and probably continues, but my responsibility ends with iran, and everybody else has their own problems, but it does seem that there is something much more universal about the use of economics as a political tool that we should not lose sight of when we are talking about iraq. it does not make iraq distinct. it actually makes iraq more similar to other places.

peter. i have a question that touches on this. is it possible to isolate a country in the middle east and solve its problem alone? or the syria arab-israeli issue? or dealing with border crossing , border crossing issues like terrorism and corruption ?nd poor governance solved as a reasonable -- regional issue and part of a comprehensive strategy, like the surge, to deal with these things, where every country sits in a future middle east when you have more rational policy -- anyone can. >> i will take a swing at that, and then i will dovetail to what has just been said.

this has to be a regional strategy that the obama administration comes up with. you cannot deal with iraq alone, syria alone, lebanon alone, palestine alone. what happens in one part of the region affects the other part, as we have recently seen. we cannot contain what is going on in serious to serious, -- in syria to syria. i just want to make one point .bout the iraqi people what this is all about. this is, in my opinion, all about political elites using religion and fear to maintain control over the iraqi people, and we have people who say that iraq is not a real nation anyway. it has always been three it should bets and

divided up. i did not hear a single iraqi that said it should be divided up into three separate states. they all believe that they are iraqis. sunni-shiaom mixed marriages. politicians using it for their own purposes, many who have spent their years under expatriates,n as plotting their revenge, and this is what has got to stop, and this is why there needs to be a new political compound in baghdad, one that takes the common iraqis into account and not just the folks at the top of the spectrum of power and resources, so i would stop there and that my comrades have a shot at it. me that while

most countries in the middle east have some international aspect to their domestic rule, the interesting question is why iraq is so susceptible to the -- it hasof outside something to do with the fact that they are in economic player in the region. it has something to do with the of the states, both towards iraq, especially with regard to kuwait, but also this need for a buffer with iran, iran's desire to get influence over iraq as a way to meet its own regional ambitions. there is something particularly international about iraq, which i think is both illuminating about the situation in iraq but also helps us think more strategically about how a solution to iraq, as pete

suggests, has to fundamentally have a regional diplomatic component in addition to a political component. >> again, going back to looking at the matter from an economic standpoint, and let's picture this. let's picture this in 2000 three. iraq has opened up itself to the entire region. toned itself up to iran, turkey, to saudi arabia, to qatar, to kuwait. , weout this openness --bably would have witnessed come to anbar. they could have built facilities in anbar. with the saudi companies, they probably could have built a huge ul.nt in most so -- in mos

turkey could have done, and they have done -- so as we open ourselves up economically, they would have been working. they would have had jobs. they would have been working in factories. they would have improved themselves, and we would have built the middle class again. iraq does not have a middle class. andhave the ed -- elite, they are not millionaires anymore. the iraqi elite are billionaires. this is what we have. it is a major economic problem. and they are not shia. sunnis, and kur ds. >> thank you very much. well, this is the time to open andp to you, the audience,

i will please ask you to identify yourselves and ask questions. comments are really attractive and sexy, but there really is no time for comments. yes. [laughter] >> good morning. i am with the voice of america. i have no comments, but i have a general question. everybody is talking about wooding pressure on mansoor to .- putting pressure on malaki to have kurds and sunnis to have say in the future government -- and also, i was wondering about the kurds. what is their ambition? mosul was captured

.-going back to that thank you. >> a have seized a city which they believe -- they have seized which they will not give up. it will be kurdish for the foreseeable future. the. thank you. kurds have a lot of votes. any government who wants to form with their votes is going to haveto give them turco -- to give them kirkuk. a kurdish state, that remains to be seen. i far as pressure on malaki, personally do not believe a

viable iraqi government can develop under him. sects toxic to a lot of and parties and factions within the country. he is seen as a central part of the problem, so for me, it would be difficult to imagine a government that is inclusive and in from all of those groups with him in charge, but what can the united states do about it? who toot tell the iraqis select as their next prime minister. all we can do is control and encourage and work as an intermediary -- all we can do is and encourage and work as an intermediary. there was a piece written in the washington post that basically said the iraqi parties find it difficult to compromise because compromise is seen as weakness, and weakness is seen as a

defeat, and defeat is seen as death, because that is the case under saddam, and the only way they can see this is they could offer things to us, which we could then take to another party and work some sort of deal. intermediary of u.s. diplomacy has been missing from iraq since 2011. i am sure the obama administration would disagree with me, but there is no way we have had so much influence as we had when ryan crocker was in baghdad and was working these issues, calling iraqi leaders obama,y, versus barack who has called the iraqi literally the number of fingers i have on a hand. this is a very difficult problem. i think there needs to be a change in baghdad.

perhaps, the diplomacy needs to get right first, but i do not see how we can do it without serious u.s. diplomatic and political involvement in the issue. >> can i? standpoint, i would prefer to have kirkuk under control of the iraqi army, and when a division of the iraqi army comes to save us from isil is saving a city, not occupying a city. i know they are saying this about the kurds. i am very extremely disappointed iraqis didaq he -- not fire one bullet to save mos ul. >> although, it is worth pointing out with the outlook

-- with thes current opinion polls -- >> when we talk about the shia, we talk about it as one, and i find that hard to believe. are there divisions in that community? thank you. >> yes. i am not the spokesman of the shia community. i am an iraqi who happens to be a shia. of course, are all of the catholics in the united states democrats, or all they all republicans? of course not.

seculare extremists and shia. oft friday, just a couple days ago, during the friday prayer, the spokesman of the high cleric had stated very, very clearly that it is time to form a new, and the keyword is new, to form a new government in iraq that will represent all iraqis. and when sistani and others say this, they are very moderate. -- there is shia

another sect of islam which is not shia. they are another sect. in the west, it is easy to lump them together and say there is nothing else. different with leaders with different interests and different strategies going forward. malaki has been able to portray himself as the leader of the shia community, and in doing so, and this goes to pete's point, it serves his interest, because defecting,shia from and i think what we would all like to see in iraq is an is lessent where there sectarian solidarity. one of the things i got very alarmed by under the bush 2004 andation, about the bush itnk

ministration wanted a unified shia bloc and a unified kurdish bloc. the problem i have been concerned with is you cannot make a mosaic with three pieces, and you cannot make a coalition when 95% of the people are in the government and five percent of the people are in opposition. what you really want is a dynamic environment where people this government, but i can be in the next one. where people bounce in and out. it seems that politically in iraq, you are in an environment where you say, if i am not in now, then my children and grandchildren will never have access to anything, and that increases people's willingness to fight, increases violence, and it seems to me that what your question gets at is precisely the weakness of the

way the bush administration approach to this, by trying to promote shia solidarity. it --theyy made sunnis feel have felt on and off that there is no place. no way to make this work going forward. >> yes, sir. in the back, yes. >> good morning. us are against -- all of the people. my question -- my question. iraq and part of

hasn't the u.s. tried furiously to establish an alliance between syria, iraq, u.s. against -- your name, please? >> my name is -- second, we know the kind of terrorists of september 11. the people, september 11, was caused by a saudi arabian citizen. saudi arabia, qatar -- terrorist organization.

when will the u.s. start to stop breed terrorists? we will reach to a stable germany and the middle east. germany in the middle east is and this is different from countries which surround iraq and their interests. interests to achieve stability in iraq, but countries surround iraq. they do not want to reach this goal. >> thank you. so can i address the first part of your question? because i think it is an important issue. no, i know, but now i will talk.

you talked about why the u.s. does not create an alliance with syria and other countries against terrorism, and one of the things i have done in my ramblings around the world is i have spoken to government leaders. i raised this question to bashar al-assad. because there was an effort reverse thetry to hostile relationships between the u.s. and serious, and it seemed to me there was ample common ground. as you probably know, bashar al-assad used to facilitate jihad ease --as you probably ji. they thought this was a way to enhance their leverage vis-à-vis the united states, because it made the u.s. need something from syria, and syria, like i said about iran, it was concerned about being weak

vis-à-vis the united states, so i asked bashar al-assad directly whether there might be an reverse histo hostile relations with the united states, not by waiting for the united states to ask for things and then to bargain about you do this, and we will do this, and we will stop the buses -- but to offer as a free will gesture. so syria was not just syria was partt of the solution, and one of its friends. said syriafriends can be a solution provider, and i put this to him that one of his friends said syria can be a solution provider, what do you --nk of that, and his civil response was to be totally transactional and said if we were to give something to the

united states, that would be conceding something. we do not have extra things to concede, and therefore, we will only give if we get, and we will know we -- give if we will get in advance, and that is the only way this will go. that was my experience with the president of syria trying to take that approach. are commont there interests in the region fighting terrorists. i also agree there are differing afinitions about who is terrorist, and there are people who think, well, it is not that we are really supporting them. we are turning away while other people are supporting them. we are not as aggressive. in many cases, not official support, but unofficial acceptance that there will be some leakage, and that fits the strategic interest. thatnk one of the things is important, and i tried to make this clear in earlier comments, is that we have to be

successful diplomatically moving countries away from the idea that political terrorism helps their strategic interests, because i do not think that a little bit of terrorism helps anybody's strategic interests. one of the lessons you can draw from syria is that a little bit -- those who used those are the same networks which have flowed back the other way and created this ongoing insurgency in syria, which has been taking syria and ives, and that may be a way to persuade governments to work with us to try to starve these institutions of funding the logistical support and to get to a point where they are -- there are negotiations, peaceful negotiations, between governments in rooms and not a attto terrorize -- and not

acks to terrorize the civilian population. >> i am sorry. we are not done. no, no. john -- jon's comments, almost 100% of what i was going to say, but i will say that from my time in iraq with general petraeus, he created an inter-agency within the government effort to reach out intoop the jihadi flow iraq, and with varying degrees of success, but it is interesting how these countries that spohn -- spawn think it will come back to haunt them. wasnumber one source eastern libya near the city of .enghazi

the idea that various states can somehow encourage these folks to go and wage war against the west and that it will not hurt them is one that they need to come to entire region the will go up in flames, and as to why we do not form alliances with these nations to combat terrorism, i recall general stateus' trip once to a that will remain nameless, and it is very close to iraq, and he was having dinner with some very high level people, and he said, can you help me stop the flow of suicide bombers into iraq, and they said, well, first, you need to apologize, the united states needs to apologize for innovating iraq in the first place, and he said, i apologize. now, what do we do?

[laughter] silence on the other side of the table. >> very good. yes, sir. is would you not agree that the problem with iraq is not religious, is not economics, that rather is terrorists? the united states, britain, and such asthe most -- israel, saudi arabia, and qatar have been financing and training that were sent to the balkans, to libya, to syria, and now, they are backing iraq. they had death squads back around 2005, and they, at the time, started recruiting their , andommandos and militias we are now reaping what we have saying,d everyone is

get the hell out of iraq. ,e want to bomb more countries more that we do not like. >> pete, i think you a good candidate for the answer. >> well, i would add to that st -- a really wonderful piece who was an assistant during the surge, and he says, who do you want to bomb? and he has a menu of all of the various groups in iraq who were fighting, and there were plenty of those that you mentioned, and then there were plenty of shia militias, as well, and he listed all of their various crimes and various terrorist proclivities, as well. is filleds that iraq

with people who want to do each other harm, and it is not just on one side of the conflict, and the only way to solve this is to empower the people of iraq who are suffering so much, with a government worthy of their support, and, therefore, a government worthy of our support, and then we can fight terrorism from whatever source it comes from, whether it is from saudi arabia or iran or from wherever else in the world. you like to answer the question or the implication that the united states created terrorism? me recount a story. department intate october 2001. guy who atng with a that time was working at the state department, one of the

people who -- he thought of himself as a real conceptional thinker. he had a whole approach with dealing with 9/11. that was we had made a mistake in all of our intelligence analysis because what we had done, we kept relying on the prepond rans of evidence connecting things and people. what we needed to do was reorient the way we did intelligence, the way we thought about things, is there a plausible connection between individuals and groups. therefore, you don't have to talk about proving that things are connected, you just have to show that somebody from here met somebody from there and somebody from there and then from that becauses he argued the stakes are so high, you can impute drivers to things

without proving there are drivers. i don't disagree that the u.s. and other countries have been involved supporting bad guys for tactical reasons and that ates back to the cold war as you suggest. this behind the idea of jihad, i don't think you could argue the u.s. is the principal driver behind the idea of jihad. the u.s. has supported groups that were involved in furthering the idea of jihad in afternoon in the 198 -- afghanistan in the 1980's as a whole host of others. that whole thing had something of the h the mixing muslim brotherhood with clerics in saudi arabia in the 1950's nd 1960's.

it was a reaction to the british occupation of egypt created in 1928 that the british were somehow involved in the jihad. we can go back and back and back. it seems to me the fundamental problem as pete has suggested, you have a country with lots of people who don't need outside encouragement to want to find other people in their own country in a battle for control, influence, and resources and the answer is not that outsiders can sosh this problem, but that outsiders need to create the conditions under which people on the inside of iraq can solve the problems. one of the things i find sort of wonderfully ironic about the complaints i heard from egyptians about policy to egypt offense the years, they're too interventionlingist in egyptian politics and you didn't force

morsi from story and not keeping him in power, but stay out of our politics. there is this irony, we play a small role. we can play a small role. we can be catalysts for things, but i think to argue that we are the drivers of jihad, that we were the drivers of extremist in iraq to me given a whole host of factors involved, given the stakes that people feel every single day versus the extent to which americans don't have to live with the consequences, i think the responsibility has to be 95% on the people who were living this every day and 5% on the outsiders who were trying sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for self-interested reasons to affect the outcomes. >> let me try to answer this question. i'm not an expert on terrorism,

but believe it or not, in 1991 during george bush the first presidency when we, and i refer to call it the iraqi pro democracy proximity rather than the iraqi opposition, we could not meet with the united states government because we were all classified as terrorists. we go back to saying one group's freedom fighter is another group's terrorist. is fidel castro, the list goes on. personally within my own mind, i can clearly distinguish a terrorist from a freedom fighter, but unfortunately it's not closer with other people, a person who slashes the neck of his opponent is a terrorist. i don't care what race or religion he is. a important who fights to liberate his land is a freedom fighter, but then there are gray areas between the two. >> just one comment, i remember about six or seven years ago, i was in jerusalem in one of the

minivans that takes people from place to place, it had a sticker in the window with the slogan of the state of new hampshire of live free or die which in that moment was a rather arresting image to see, errorist or freedom fighter. >> yes, sir. >> good morning, i can call myself an iraqi expert. i'm an iraqi. i'm one of the rebels in 1991 ho rose up against saddam. there is a fact that everybody not only in the room is missing which is basically the everybody thinks that the root problem is within the grassroots among see ya and sunni and the fact is it's not. thank god, it's still not. but the fact is the sectarian

divide exists mostly within the political class and especially the ruling class and the proof of that is that the iraqis have adopted and absorbed democracy in the changing iraq in accepting new iraq and the fact is the regional affect of it or influence, the regional influence is still so backward to the point they're fighting it so that it won't spread around to their own countries. so i believe, i think this will address the gentleman's question and the gentleman's point. >> thank you. i think this was mentioned by all of you. >> we agree. >> everybody is in agreement. >> we're in violent agreement. >> i can't help it. >> just a quick comment for the doctor. just a quick comment who happens to be a friend of myope

and happens to be from the province of basra. thank you for providing 94% of the iraqi budget where all the oil comes from. [laughter] >> thank you, i'm with the freedom institute. i have two questions for the colonel. they're both regarding why the raqi troops didn't defend most ul. there are two points you did not mention. i want to know whether you agree or disagree or consider them important or not important. one newspaper report, i saw some american military, none military personnel saying that the troops who were in that part of iraq who had been trained by the americans, had been trained to fight against trivial not to fight against the kind of invasion that they were confronted with. the other point is that when the isis came into the area, they announced on loud speakers everyone should stay in their

homes, we're not after the civilians, we're after the soldiers, that would have provided a great incentive for the soldiers to take off their iforms and pretend they're civilians. i want to hear what you think? >> the second is true. i heard from my sources on the ground in most ul. they came in and said we're not hear to harm civilians, stay in your homes. the governor of mosul right now is an ex-iraqi army officer, not a former jihaddy. they have moved on to fight further south. i agree with you on that. it's probably correct and that did give the soldiers the opportunity to shed their uniforms. on what they were trained to do by americans, i would say that we had, by the time we had left had trained the iraqi army fairly competently up through company and batallion level.

that is the company may be 200 soldiers, battalion, maybe 600 to 700. larger formations take longer time to train and when we withdrew our forces at the end of 2011 by mutual consent, we stopped that development of the iraqi army into an army that could defend the state. this was by mutual agreement. we can point fingers at who is to blame. we can talk about that here if you want, but the fact is that when the american advisory effort ended, there wasn't any effort by another entity to pick up the role and so the development of the iraqi army was arrested at that point. the major problem, i played football in high school and my coaches always said, you can't coach desire, right. you can't make someone want to

fight. they have got to want it because of, you know, they feel strongly about the soldiers around them, about their commander, about their country, about something. these soldiers simply didn't have anything to fight for. their commanders were corrupt. their country was, their government was one that by and large they didn't believe in and they were fighting for mosul, a city that obviously they didn't feel strongly about protecting or in some cases, ght have felt better about isis than their own agreement. this is a problem. this protostate that has been created is going to take a long time to chip away at it unless you get the people on the ground to want to ejeekt iso from among themselves. it's going to be a sore in this region for not just days and

months, weeks and months but years. that is a problem for the west. >> can i do a follow-up? >> yes, you can. >> just a follow-up answer is that the united states trains the iraqi army and generals to fight wars. they didn't train them to be ethical. the corruption is actually very, very high. there is a report of about 40% of the soldiers or the officers within the iraqi army are called phantom. in other words they receive salaries, but do not report to work. iraq pays 1.1 million persons salaries, but 40% do not exist. how can you fight a war with phantom soldiers? >> the pay of the phantom soldiers goes into the pockets of the commanders. >> that is corruption. >> i want to correct one thing. we actually did train ethics nd we trained obedience to civilian authority and so

forth, but without an american advisory effort and american units to partner with, there is o one there to oversee bad commanders to say this guy needs to be relieved. when we were there, for instance, maliki removed every single brigade commander in the national police and 2/3 of the battalion commanders, some of them twice. we forced accountability on the state, but when we removed that heck on maliki's tendencies, he was able to do whatever he wanted to do including a vice president of the state of iraq. >> just to follow up on that, maliki has his own set of political considerations some of which to have a fighting force and networks and all of those other sorts of things.

one of the things that was interesting to me about your account is wasn't clear to me from your account whether maliki thought that the u.s. was actually vital in his winning. maliki may have thought that the reason that he won is because he understands iraq and the americans, all their happy talk about everybody getting along, that's the way americans fight. one of the thing that has been striking, i have seen maliki speak in washington, one of the funny things about people who speak in washington and watch this the next time you hear somebody, everybody speaks in washington, they want to be loved, everybody comes to washington, they want to be loved, they want to be understood, they want to be appreciated. there was this sort of needyness that speakers convey. maliki came, i heard him speak and i have never heard of somebody who seemed to exhibit such patent disinterest in being loved, in being understood.

he said here is my deal. this is what i'm doing. i think one of the things that is important to keep in mind as e talk about corruption in the iraqi military is it is conceivable to me that there are iraqis who have concluded that this is actually a better way to run things because then people are dependent on you, then you have the support of people you can rely on people, you have reliable people politically and we will deal with the other stuff later and this sort of american desire for cleanliness and sharp lines between things, i'm not sure it's always what leaders in the region think is either necessary or advantageous for them to do a much more complex set of tasks than to be able to win an engagement cleanly and quickly on a battlefield.

>> you mean that everyone coming to washington want to be loved, is that american politicians? >> especially including american politicians. [laughter] >> although, they're not doing so well. >> not for lack of trying. >> i'm allen richman from that distant suburb of baghdad called chicago. let's assume that this morning, prime minister maliki woke up and said i want to live in chicago and i'm leaving. what you presented today is a conundrum. the con nun drama is, ok, we have talked about having the right sort of government for iraq, you talked about the con nun drama that the political elites are all self-interested and whatever. the facts on the ground are when you organize a government that is based on the parliament that was just elected and whatever, who are the people, who are potentially the leaders that could come together and have a sufficient political

rce domestically to lead a unified federal iraq. >> i'll try to answer this one. i worked for a company that was motorola. icago, i'm pretty familiar and been there several times. there is a myth that maliki won the election. maliki won 94 seats out of 328 seats, the other group which i prefer to call the movement for change, the movement for change includes all kurdish parties, all sunni parties and most see ya parties. this group has collected up to now about 201 seats. so in my limited mathematical ability, 201 is better than 95 seats. so maliki did not win because had he won, he would is had more than 165 seats. anywhere in the world, you

can't pass for less 50%. he won 28% of the seats in parliament. the same thing happened four years ago. the two opponents had 23% and 24% of the vote. the movement for change is the one that should have been listened to before the crisis in mosul. there has been a delay, an attendant delay to announce the results of the election, the election which i voted for and i had my purple finger in baghdad on the 30th of april and the results were delayed about a month before they were announced and the ratification of the results was not done until about a week ago. a week ago the supreme court in iraq ratified the results of the election. according to the constitution, we have 15 days to announce a new government. as of today, we have six more

days, by the end of june according to the iraqi constitution and the new government, i would like to emphasize the word new, highlight underlined, a new government will be formed. the iraqis themselves again, 201 seats out of 328, the vast majority have called for a new government and that's what we'll see very, very soon. >> the question is who is the leading candidate for the movement of change to be prime minister? >> one more piece of information. things are moving very, very fast. thanks for reminding me. there are actually, also, on friday, on friday, called for a new government. the day after that, there were five candidates that were announced within the national alliance, the national alliance is the shia alliance of the national alliance has five candidates, none of them is maliki. maliki has nominated one of his

chief of staff and there are four other candidates for prime inister. >> i'm from the american task force on palestine. two questions, what should we expect from kerry's visit in baghdad today and after a meeting with p.m. maliki that he said was good, how should we read in-between the lines on that? >> none of us was in the meeting. good means exactly what it means, it was good. i've talked to somebody who actually saw a meeting with maliki and it wasn't with a democrat, it was with a republican who was dr. condoleezza rice. what happens in those meetings is not what you hear in the news conference afterwards. i heard things she said that i cannot repeat here. in those meetings, they get very close and personal. i'm sure no one is going to

share exactly what was said. >> i have been in on those meetings with general petraeus. the best outcome is a very full and frank discussion. occasionally general petraeus would show the full range of human emotions to get his point across. that is not what comes out of the press briefings of wards. i wouldn't read much into good. it's good that he is there. the secretary of state should be deeply involved in knitting together some sort of diplomatic agreement, even with the i ranans. a government in baghdad will fail if the i ranans want it to fail. they can't make one succeed. they can inject violence into the country in the form of the proxy mylishias. we should mandate a government that all iraqis can support.

what we don't want is this sort of rump state in southern iraq beholden to iran. that would be very bad for u.s. national security and i think for the world as well. >> just a piece of advice, i don't know exactly what the reason for the trip is and i'm not sure they have arrived at a clear ambition. the biggest error is aiming low. it's going small to try to get us out of a crisis. i think this is an opportunity to think more largely about the region, to think more largely about the set of relationships, to think about the fact that so many people have so much at stake in what happens in iraq. to me the worst case scenario is a desire to come back in three days and say look how much we have accomplished and then move on to something else. -- kerry's me

attributes. he is does not have fatigue and has incredible amounts of energy. i hope he puts that energy in working in a sustained way toward solving what seems to be a whole web of regional hallenges. >> zakhartchenko grossman, you starred to bring it up, but who else should be involved in facilitating talks with the iraqis. i know the americans, we should be involved. you mentioned that we should be talking to the iranians. who else in the region should be at the talks? >> i'm not sure anybody else should be at the meetings, but people we should talk to, clearly the turks, we need to consult with the saudis, the jordanans because they're right next door. i'm not sure we're talking to

asaad, the i ranans. it's important to get regional buy-in as john has so admirably laid out for the way ahead. we should be talking to the iraqi parties as well. this idea that, well, they have democracy so we shouldn't get involved, you really think tehran thinks that way with the funding the political parties and their deep tentacles in the iraqi politics? we need to get involved and at the highest level. >> let's not forget there is a european role. we should be talking to the chinese who have profound interest. they don't want to get involved in the politics, they should understand the things they can do that are helpful and harmful. this is a big deal. i think when we think about the diplomacy, again, the mistake is if you go too small and you say, we just want maliki to let the other guys in the tent and we'll work it all out.

i think the opportunity and the obligation is to think big. the reason you have to think big is the alternative future is the one that the doctor laid out, a 30 years war in the middle east. let me tell you about the 30 years war in middle europe, killed the central third of the population. i don't think we want to go down that road. >> i feel that nobody should get involved. it is an iraqi issue. we have the treatment of speech. what i'm seeing here is what i said in iraq when i was in iraq. i am an opponent to the dictatorship. i'm a pro democracy movement. i said the whole thing. nobody should get involved. maliki won 95 seats, the movement for change won 201 seats. they should have the next government. >> we are running out of time so we'll take it here.

>> my question actually about how do we know that isis is sunni majority? by nature they would try to reach out to jordan, what would the u.s. do to secure the jordanan american interest and make sure that the civility of jordan will always be there? the other question, how would the facts on the ground and the iraq crisis affect a nuclear ambition for iran and negotiation? thank you. >> the united states actually has a very close military relationship with jordan as well as a close diplomatic relationship so we're on the ground now with military forces in jordan and we're also there in a hall of fame attorney row. i think the stability of jordan is something that the united

states government takes seriously and it's doing what it can to make sure that that state doesn't implode the way syria and at least portions of iraq have. you want to talk about the nuclear ambitions. i can. >> i think the way to think about the nuclear missions to see it as pardon of a broader iranian effort to improve their position as a way to improve their security. iran's self-image is that they are surrounded by hostile win a that they cannot symmetrical war against anybody. that's why they stress

symmetrical tactics. and what they don't quite understand is that they diminish their security by making everybody feel insecure and arming against them and it creates this sort of cycle. it's what is known in washington as a self-licking ice cream cone. the problem sort of deals with itself. they see iraq, they see things in motion as opportunities to advance their interests and what worries me, bothers me is that they particularly see the rise in iraq as this takes the ure off and maliki and shia led government if you see it that way more reliant on us and it gives us a card to deal with the americans. so it becomes three elements of

advantage and it seems to me that the way to deal with that is to understand the way they understand their interests, to understand what they see their vulnerabilities to be, to understand what they are trying to protect and work in that context. i think just the way the iranians don't want to be in a symmetrical confrontation with the united states, they don't want to deal with conventional military forces, i think we don't want to be involved in sort of head-to-head bargaining relationship with the iranians. my sense of how that would play is that it would actually increase tensions rather than dim anybody them and to my mind what we have to do with the iranians is to find ways to enhance interests and build

common interests that way because it would make it less likely to have a nuclear deal and to continue down the spiral where the iranians make their neighbors feel less secure rather than more so. >> i would add the worst thing that the united states can do is enter into a military relationship with iran to fight iso to or to bargain away pieces of iran's nuclear programs to advance nuclear interests in iraq. both bad ideas and we should not go down that route. >> i just wanted to add a follow-up answer to your question. there is a new player now who is wanting to meddle into iraqi affairs, vladmir putin. he is now involved and he wants to support the continuation of the current government in iraq. >> we have one question here, we here and then so that

know, there are three people who know they're going to be speaking and i think that will be for the >> we will take them all together first, your questions. >> thank you for having us and organizing this event and planning for it with much foresight. i have two quick questions. oft are the implications recent events in iraq for the status quo in syria? and turkey was mentioned as well during the discussion. what role has turkey played recently in iraq and in syria? part of secretary kerry's engagement strategy going forward? >>