eastern for general speeches followed by legislative business at noon for work on legislative dealings with 5g technology. on c-span2 the senate returns to executiveudicial and nominations. on c-span three, we get a preview of events leading up to the 2020 election at 9:00 eastern from the washington center. reader in the day, the u.s. commission on international freedom looks at ways the counter the threat of anti-semitism around the world. next, former state department and security officials discuss u.s. policy towards iran, including the recent u.s. airstrike that killed the iranian general. this was hosted by new america in washington dc.

>> welcome to new america. thank you for coming out in the -- what the weather forecast has called a wintry mix. thank you for c-span for covering this. and welcome to the c-span viewers. i'm going to introduce our moderator, sharon burke who is the senior advisor to the international security program. she runs the resource security program. she's a long-time department of defense most recent position was assistant secretary of defense for energy and security. i'll go to sharon now. thank you. sharon: thank you very much. apparently, you realize it's snowing. so we thank you for braving the weather for joining us together for a very important situation and a fast-moving situation for sure. i want to start by acknowledging something that we just did with peter. peter, of course has a new

book out that you should all read. and when we were here talking about his book just about two weeks ago, i asked peter, i said you know, you're writing about a president and a national security team before the story is over. we're still in the middle of the story. so what's the next chapter? [laughter] so you see where this is going, right? he said this president has not actually had a genuine foreign policy crisis yes. -- yet. we don't know who he is, who his team is and what their capabilities are. so make sure you ask peter on his projections on the market and everything else out the door. so here we are. i would encourage you to trade detailed biographies of our panel because we would be here all afternoon going through their qualifications. but what i want you to know about these three people is that not only are they the top scholars in the country on iraq and ryan, foreign

policies and international law. so they're practitioners. they know the information and how hard it is to make policy and implement options. so we're very lucky to have them here with us. what i'm going to do is let each of them give an opening salvo. if you'll forgive the term about the situation. we're going to start with doug galavan who has spent a great deal in iraq as recently as september and can give us unique and interesting and deep insights about what's happening in iraq, what's going to happen in iraq. and then after that, we're going to actually jump over to dr. nassar. he's going to talk about iran. he's an expert for all kinds of reasons and as a author and a practicer in. i want to be clear that we don't need to talk about who qassemsome manny is for this

-- qassem soleimani. but we need to start with a setting. we will talk with the broader implications for policy and law. so with that, doug, would you start us off and give us both as a soldier and now a civilian you have unique insights about iraq and about what this means. doug: sure. it is very muching if before here. er want to start with a story about how we got here. i want to be very modest and say this is a story. my story is very going to be very iraq-centric. there is a very u.s. story. mine's going to be iraq-centric. i'm also very modest about it because one there are more people who know more about it than i. do but also because things are shifting so quickly that it's is sometimes very difficult to know how much of the things

that you've really understood and leaned on and saw as solid bases upon which to do analysis are no longer true and they're starting to shift underneath us particularly in this ree job. i think this story, this particular chapter of the story, obviously, we could go way, way back in time in the middle east. this starts on september 27th of last year when lieutenant general saudi is fired by the iraqi government and is moved from his position as the deputy commander and the defacto operational commander of iraq's counterterrorism forces and is moved to ministry of defense this served as a catalyst for grievances that have been held by the iraqi population and primarily iraqi's young people or a very long time.

iraqi youth were tired of the ethnic spoil system. they were tired of a government that didn't produce, that had handy capped their -- handicapped their economy despite having huge oil reserves. this symbol of removing this extremely popular general who had symbolized this liberation of iraq from isis was the last straw for them and they went to the streets. now, at first, it was exactly who would expect, it was the civil society, the entrepreneurs, kind of the upper middle-class of iraq probably disproportionately english speaking. ut it quickly metastasized especially after the government started killing them on the streets both with bullets and with the tear gas can nissnisters. and you had the young men from

iraq's underclass coming out to join the pro-est. the and they took a break for their religious holiday and why they were on the break, they watched the lebanon protests. and they said these protests look a lot better if there were women involved. a few days after they were scheduled to restart the protest on october 25th, you could see the messages on what's app and twitter. my sisters, we need you. you need to come out. when the free throws started back out on october 25th, there were women everywhere. they became the symbols for this. they were drabed in iraqi flags -- [laughter] i said symbol. i draped in iraqi flags an this quickly became a very threat to the regime despite the fact that the regime is killing these protestors, 450 have died in the official count the number is probably higher than that it's for

those of us who are used to thinking about iraq in terms of sunni, shiah, kurds, what's important to say is that these programs were not sectarian at all. these warns -- wars were primarily an iraqi-shiah government. it looked very similar to our 1960's. the children coming out to protest what they see as the failings of their fathers and grandfathers in terms of how society should operate around how it should look like. on september 30th, the prime minister finally resigns under the weight of all these protests. this is an important detail. this is why there's not an official government in iraq right now. there's a caretaker government because the prime minister resigned on november 30th. everyone knows there will be a new prime minister. and as part of this agreement there are will be new elections held wham they're

talking about is appointing a new prime minister who is going oversee the next year and how the elections are going to be set up. this is obviously a very big deal. and who sets the grounds for the election personnel or policy, this matters. so several flames floated. they come back. one can celt -- settle on one. finally fattah nominates the bazrah governor. a man named assad aladani. he had been the president of a bank through which they funneled a lot of money. so he is wildly seen fairly or unfairly as the iranian candidate tonight. 26th of the december, the president refuses to nominate him. nominally on constitutional grounds, he finds that constitutional threat -- but really this is political. he realizes the americans are

against this. nsha is against this. the protestors are against this. we can stand up against iran. iran at this moment realizes it's been check mating. the chessboard is in front of us, and they can see that three moves down the road they're in a bad place. so the iranians start thinking. this game is not to our favor. we can't tip over the board. everyone will know that we did it. we need the americans to tip over the board. so on december 27th, they shell a u.s. base, our red line on this is extremely well communicated. no one is under any illusion what will happen. and that then begins the tit for tat for which we are all very, very aware. i think my point at least in this telling of the story and this narrative is that iranians wanted us to do. this this is all about iraqi

politics. hey realized they lost the fight for baghdad. they could not stand that, so they had to overturn it. a couple of points followed. since then, the united states has largely mishandled both the events and the aftermath. there are two third rails in iraqi politics, things that, you know, in the modern parlance just trigger them. that's sovereignty and that's sanctions. for obvious reasons they are deeply deeply touchy about national sovereignty. our occupation last decade, the british before that, the ottomans before that, as a natural culture deeply deeply sovereignty about their sovereignty. my experience is that iraqis will choose overpbity over otherwise self-interest almost every time. it's simply in their national character. and the second is sanctions

thasmse lived under them for 13 years. it decimated iraq, it's institutions, the educational system. many people died as a secondary result of sanctions. they are deeply deeply touchy about the subject. so to have that floated is not erribly helpful. sharon: by the president if you're not tracking that. doug: thank you. we know the iraqi government has voted to reject the u.s. forces from iraq. the legality of this this is not entirely clear. it is not clear that there was a quo flom the parliament. if there was a quo roam it's not clear if that vote was binding. and because the prime minister san interim prime minister, it's not clear, he has the authority and frankly the iraqi constitution so vague and so poorly word that there probably isn't a firm constitutional answer to these questions. and so frankly other side can,

you know, sides can claim that they are legitimate or not. we're there to be a u.s. withdrawal, there's no way to characterize it other than a major iranian victory. what is happening is far yond the yy rainians expectations. we're now the point we're not even talking about that we're talk about desperately trying to sal stradge american presence shows just how much we have flost this round. but, i want to circle back to the protestors. that's what we need be focused on. i think that's the most under told story. these protestors who are out there who are demanding the simple things that everyone expects, a reasonable government, a lack of corruption, basic services, to have a normal life. they're still there even if the united states loses on this round. and i think if the united states lose, the protestors

ose. there's still hope in iraq. want to talk about abumadi muhandas. i'll defer that as a question. muhandas was a singular figure. he's singular because he's bigger than any institution. qassem he had an entire institution behind him. muhandas was out side of institutions. but he came in when he needed them. but he was the figure who could hold together the entirety of popular mobilization force. so if you're a war hawk, the good news is you killed the

head of the hashed. you've totally disrupted their command and control if you're hoping to restore some semblance of the status quo. the bad news is you removed the head and control of the hashe. yn that there's another figure who has the status who is respected and feared that he could be a gaw rantor of a deal that, ok. no, no, we're not going to strike americans anymore. muhandas could hold that deal. i'm not sure there's another character who can guarantee that deal. i'll stop there. sharon: let's hand you this chessboard. how does the chez board look to the iranians? >> in some ways this is a watershed moment for the middle east and if tust-iran regulations. there's no way to under emphasize how significant it is. and just sort of going babb.

the beginning point is when the united states left a nuclear deal some of looking at it from iran's perspective, they did reluctantly trust united states in a deal in. their view in tirart. as they gave up the most important strategic weapon which is what they negotiated over which was their nuclear capability in which they had spent lots of money. there wasn't much economic benefit from it, but there was hope. i think that is right. sometimes we forget about the people that to them this was a oment of hope. he puts draconian economic sanctions in iran. view, it has 's nothing to do with the nuclear deal.

that this was about regime change. shatter the country's economy you're essentially forcing it to be toppled. and when the protest happened in iran recently, and this is the line of the iranian sort of security forces is that yes, most of the protestors were unhappy. but about 2,000, 3,000 activists that they believe to have been sent to iran to push things over that in fact, their maximum pressure strategy was a two-punch process. one punch was economic pressure. people get unhappy. and then youiness that gait pry rieyots an protests and the regime would fafment then come september of this year where president macron came very close to getting the iranian president and the american president a rule and the condition the iranian president said, if i'm going to meet with you, i need you before-hand to lift some

sanctions or at least sign a letter in which you flooms if the meeting is successful that you would lift those sanctions. and president trump refused to do that. at one point apparently he said he's willing to dom the meeting with an executive order in his pocket. after the meeting he would sign it. and the iranian president said no -- he really is not after a meeting. this is all about regime change. iranians also calculated that the first dwhreer the nuclear deal was removed, they didn't do much about it. they sat down. they let the europeans try to come up with some kind of a solution. the year ended. president trump doubled down. he said, i'm not going to take iran's force to zero, and nobody can do any business with iran. and the iranians concluded that they actually have to push back because trump thinks his policy is too easy and

it's too cost-free. and therefore that's when they began hitting tankers and they shot down an american drone and they attacked the facility. they had two messages in this. one is that we're crazier than you. if you think that we're you're going slap us under and you're going to go under the table, you've got to be prepared that we may actually fight. they think they're at war because trump took a second look at proceeding with the confrontation. the second is they wanted to technological capabilities. hitting aramco, the exact places and nowhere else was for them to say do not think this is the iranian navy of 1987. which was snunk a single day. they saw it as deterrence. but you know, in their view, and yes, you know, iraq was

very significant and their own dough mix -- domestic policy s under pressure and significant. the u.s. does not suffer at all. the president translating leverage to negotiations, the iranians suffer. they cannot wait until the 2020 election unless we give them something. the only way to get his attention is to do something, escalating further. iraq may have had double benefits. but you knew they were going to do something. and particularly the faction in iran that is arguing that look, this isn't working. negotiations aren't working. we have to do something was gaining ground inside. and also iran is going to parliamentary elections in february and presidential elections in june. there is a lot riding on this, and an opportunity for

hardliners. on the u.s. reaction, and i think the conclusion in iran is that the maximum pressure strategy is over. in defense of economic pressure, alone creating a breakthrough with iran. by killing soleimani, the president is acknowledging it is not working, i will go to a hot war with iran. this is now a direct push to overthrow the regime. because killing a member of the regime is a redline. that they thought president -- not -- i wouldn't say a virtual -- we will speak on that. but at least would not be crossed. he is not really going for the jugular of the regime. i do not think they have a blueprint of the shell they could present. it just came out of the blue

to them. they have gauge how they would react to this. there are two pressures on them. i think they obviously need to react because that's not what the public demands. you have to do something. but i also still believe they believe they need to deter trump. if he gets away with this, the next they will kill the supreme leader and the foreign minister, i mean, trump is not playing this game in a way with no particular rules. if you were to say. the iranians had done it but we hadn't done it. i think they will have to do something, when and how they do it, how much they prepare to escalate remains to be seen. there is no back channel between the two countries. the omani foreign minister is there today. it is not at the level that will have any impact on iranian decision-making. the president's public rhetoric is incredibly menacing.

and even if we say don't believe him, the problem with his twitter diplomacy, i don't call it diplomacy, twitter storm, i guess is that he does not give the other side any political maneuvering room. he is humiliating them and challenging them. now, the most significant piece of this. so the outpouring at the funeral has taken everybody by shock. i think, there's no way for those on twitter that the regime could manufacture this in two days' notice if they can do that, then they're in total control of the country. you push a button. there is no question that this was an outpouring. quickly, because this is important to the public dialogue in america. there's a division ofsome manny here which -- of

soleimani here which we keep adding adjectives with how evil he was. the way iranians saw him became very different. mean, an average iranian, i had not heard since 2006, 2008. but when disappeared. and iran sees -- they saw this as a strategic movement. . you have to deal with isis inside. the logic is not very different president bush who says you to fight in there if you don't want tonight here. and he was sent on a mission to organize the forces in iraq with the help of ayatollah sys tanny. -- sistani. , they

remember what happened in 2006 when insurgents blew up one of the most revered shrines for this she is -- shias. in their eyes, so in their eye, soleimani is the national hero . he single-handedly prevented this from happening. that is why they revere him. protector.im as a it is not blown out of forgetion, but we often people can have more than one idea at the same time. they can dislike the revolutionary guard but like this particular general. soleimani is not a man they read

about on a daily basis. he is out there fighting a war on the frontier. soldiersd generals and known to be corrupt, he was not part of the cartel machine of corruption in iran. there was sentiment for him. had he died of natural causes, you would not have had this funeral. for iranians it is a national moment, a transformative moment. i do not know what the political implications will be down the road, but the reason is twofold, the iranian people may be tired of their own government, they are angry and that up, but they believe this particular fight was picked five united states, and it is unfair and unjust. and that he is escalating and

endangering their daily livelihood, and coming over the border threatening more and showing he is willing to do it. this was a massive act of defiance. they are saying, today, we are all together. askedody on the street i what is your name, they said, my name is soleimani. , i think iranians have always believed the only way to deter the united states from attacking iran is to show up in force in support of the government. , anybody in iran knows distance between the public and the regime, it is more likely they would attack iran. the supreme leader, the other commanders are worried what

these three days mean. one conclusion they come away with is that the people are with them to resist. it is not a demand for reconciliation. if united states hits them again, it will only solidify their support. that will make it more intransigent, the escalation, if we had that in mind. sharon: i would like both of you to think about what escalation looks like. talk about what iraq and iran look like. this picture, what does this mean for us? >> let me start by thanking peter and the international security program for making this happen quickly.

particularly, sharon mentioned, the peter's new book " if you readals, it before this crisis and were worried, read it now. one of the first things i thought of when i heard about god, ande was, oh mygod all those generals are no longer there to offer restraint, wisdom, all sorts of beneficial constraints. as an look at this international lawyer and bring it directly home. somebody who taught international law for 12 years, if summit he had said to me, the united states has just killed and iranian military leader who may or may not have been acting as a diplomat, but on iraq's soil, is that legal?

the first thing i do is look at the article of the u.n. charter which says nations cannot use force against the national sovereignty or territorial integrity of any other state. start there. they definitely used force ainst e national sovereignty of iraq. with nothing else, you start with that, because iraq did not want this to happen. there is a prima facie case of illegality right there, article 51 says the exception is self-defense, and that is where the administration has gone. it says, we were acting in self-defense. article 51 says self-defense against an armed attack. -- itwas no armed attack

was an armed attack against our facilities, yes. it killed an american contractor. that is not really the way the u.n. was set up. imagining a direct armed attack against the border, which we have not seen for some time. you could say, it was retaliation. thethat is not what administration is saying, the administration is saying soleimani was planning attacks against us, and this was a preemptive measure of self-defense. preemptive self-defense, there is a wonderful phrase from something called the caroline case, it is supposed to be in imminent attack. you will preempt an imminent attack, and that is instant overwhelming leaving no choice of means or moment of deliberation -- that is not this

case some of is definitely not this case. then you move to something the bush administration started pushing, which was not preemptive self-defense, it was preventive self-defense. at that point pretty much all legal constraints are off, because that means i see an attack coming down the road, i see it being planned, and i am going to attack first to stop it. you can see as a matter of law anybody who thinks we are going to attack anyone, anyone we ,hink in an age of terrorism sponsored terrorism, that opens the door. it is a matter of straight international law, you are pushing toward a definition toward self-defense that i think and pulledorrying back from preemptive to preventive.

i do not think this qualifies. even if you think it is self-defense, then the the measure of, self-defense has to be proportionate, and that is the other place where this debate is happening, the killing of iseimani, which i think of like killing the american head of the joint chiefs of staff, roughly comparable. for the killing of an american contractor and the destruction of american facilities -- and i do not want to minimize those attacks. out gave us iran figuring it escalated, and we did have to respond, if i was sitting in the pentagon or white house, i would have said we have to respond. but if you think of tit-for-tat escalation, this goes from level seven to level two or level one and a half a very fast.

as an international legal matter, you would not think it is proportional. then you come to domestic law, and domestic law, this has to come -- there are two different doctrines, one, is it legal under congress? is if the authorization of the military act back to 2003. him as aink of terrorist leader, and you do not think of him as a state actor, you can say we killed lots of leaders of terrorist groups under that. official.tate that to me -- and i will come back to the axis of change is a big difference, alternatively though, you can say the

president trump thinks article two of the constitution is sweeping power for anything he wants to do, but let's leave that aside. the foreign affairs power is very broad. the debate between where the executive has power where it is not a formal armed declaration of war situation, the executive has won almost all the time since the war powers resolution of 1974. if you will call, we passed the war powers resolution to stop something like the tonkin gulf declaration and our engagement in the vietnam war, to say if the president uses force, he has to report to congress and it has to be approved. nobody, democrat or republican, has done that consistently to be a real constraint. the counterexample is barack obama going to congress before striking syria, and congress said no.

an obama said no. but that was the unusual case of the executive actually seeking congressional constraint rather than congress approving it. bottom line, illegal under international law, very murky. if you take this to court domestically, the court will not resolve it. it is a question of congressional will to push back. we can discuss the wisdom of that. here is where i think the bottom line is. very worrisome in terms of the expansion of the definition of armed conflict. we studied the future of warfare with asu, and when you talk about the future of war you go immediately to it is increasingly off-line -- i mean, online completely. nonphysical, but online with physical consequences. it is hybrid, a blurring of traditional physical attacks,

and virtual attacks, and attacks you could say were by an army versus attacks that are harder to trace. this pushes that in a way that i find -- if a rocket strikes a -- if rocket strikes against a facility can justify the taking out of senior military officials, and you think about the precedent, and we were talking in the green room about the indians saying, why can't we do this with the pakistani general? you can take that to any conflict anywhere in the world and this will be used as a very dangerous precedent. the second is that it blurs who is a combatant -- first, who is a state actor versus a nonstate actor? al qaeda, isis, all the offshoots.

you could say we are in an era in which nonstate actors can inflict the kind of damage that once only states could, and as murky as it is, you have to develop new rules, and the army has been trying to do that with our own constraints. soleimani is different. he is not an al qaeda leader. he is not an isis leader. he is an iranian official. you can say he was there with iranian backed militias, but they are acting in iraq with mostly the approval of the iraqi government. this looks like a very worrying blurring of state versus nonstate. the final thing i will say, is it legal? no, i think it is illegal under international law. is it precedential? in dangerous ways.

i immediately thought of iran, russia, north korea, designate any one of our senior military officials as a terrorist, or whatever designation they want, and come after them in washington. remember, the iranians have tried things. the chileans tried things way back when. the final thing i will say, you have seen almost no mention of the united nations in the weeks since this has happened, almost nothing. ian bremmer talks about the g-0 world in which the traditional u.s. role, or countries who charge themselves with keeping the peace, or were charged by the security council. as badly as the security council has worked, it was, until very

recently, the place for you with two -- where you would look to when something like this happened. almost no mention, and that is very dangerous because it is us versus the iranians with russians, maybe the israelis, whoever wants to mix it in with no institutional constraints. i started with article two of the u.n. charter and you have not heard about that from anybody else. i will leave it there. sharon: a quick follow-up question, you have had the pentagon talking in terms for a while of asymmetric war and hybrid war and grayscale war, meaning that this system of laws and norms that has made this country prosperous and stable for a long time has now become a weapon. are we at a point where there is still a chance to reform these laws so they can enable us to deal with a world where the law itself is a weapon? or are we talking about an irrevocably broken system?

especially if we start with 9/11 11, 2003, the invasion of iraq, gaddafi, killing of and now this assassination, are we dealing with something that is broken, or something that can be fixed? >> let me say you are right to take it back, which is one reason i went back to preventative war. that was something the united states would forward. yes, i think the responsibility to protect, which i supported, but was then used as a way of overturning qaddafi -- i am supposed to be writing a piece on the expansion of the liberal international order, and my conclusion is more or less that the only way to strengthen it and spread it is to work as much with governors and mayors and nonstate actors as with state actors, because i do not

see the will among state actors for even the minimal enforcement of these rules. we have never had maximal enforcement, but we had something you could call an order. if this president -- and i think president putin and others, xi -- hepresident wants back to the 19th century. anybody who is biggest makes bilateral deals with anybody else. putin wants that as well, he wants no rules. if we have a president who says we have to build -- rebuild and build a new international order, i think there are rules we could create. as a matter of prediction, it will take maybe this attack and a couple of other really horrific ones. i do not know how many, it will take a cyber attack at levels

that creates massive casualties, and it may take a couple of other -- it takes those kinds of threats to mobilize the world in the way that world war i and world war ii did. it is hard for me to see something big enough that would pull states together right now, but with the right leaders, i think it could be repaired, but i am not optimistic. sharon: a conversation about escalation, i think everyone is holding their breath, where can this go? i do not think anybody knows. what do you think, doug, where this goes? what might iran do next? the ball is in their court now, and to save face, they have to do something, but what could they do? what would they do?

douglas: what they could do will surprise us. for instance, the aramco attack -- cruise missiles and drones, technology we did not know they have. sharon: this is the biggest oil facility in the world, half of saudi arabia's production, so hitting that target was no small thing. >> it went to the element of surprise. it might be massive cyber attacks which might not elicit the kind of response that president trump is threatening. i think at this moment they are

not keen on picking on their arab allies. the reason for that, in the summer when they decided they need to flex their muscles, some of what they did was not directed at the united states. it was directed at their arab allies. when they hit the tankers, the message essentially to the gulf countries was, we are not going to fight the united states in iraq. if it comes to war, we are going to fight them on your soil, and you can kiss your skylines goodbye. they said they will come out of yemen, and it was rumored they allowed the flow of dollars into iran, which allowed the iranian currency to depreciate.

and then iran tried to take advantage of this moment, and launched their own initiatives for the first time, you had conversations without collective security, multilateral, bilateral. there is no pax americana here. i believe the iraqi prime minister more than secretary when he said there is no such thing as a -- there was a message coming and going back. there was some progress.

the iranians allowed the hutus to go to riyadh. if the arabs maintain their distance from the u.s., i do not think they would go after them. the deputy defense was persuading president trump to back down. >> i am on record saying if you think you know what's going to happen, you are a fool or a liar. i think we are in uncharted territory. i cannot think of an historical

analogy. we have a superpower in conflict -- they are only a regional power. guns of august comparisons are miscast. pure competitor to us. we are not in a tit-for-tat with or chinese.s that said, it is hard to see where this goes. i was on a panel on a middle east television network, and an iranian on the other side of the screen was quite clear, a former parliamentarian, quite clear they had to strike american assets inside iraq, because that is where this offense against iranian dignity occurred. i do not know if that is the official government line or that is what's going to happen. if that does happen, it is hard to see how that does not trigger another american response and get us into some type of -- >> and each one has to be a little bit more.

>> each a little higher than the other, or a lot higher. and i think what needs to be kept in the forefront of our mind all the time is that petrochemical infrastructure is inherently vulnerable because of what goes through it. there is no way to effectively harden oil, gas, and that stuff primarily in eastern province of saudi arabia, but all the way around the gulf through iraq into iran, that controls 20% of world supply. that is an important factor and on the prince's mind as he gets on a plane and flies to the united states. >> even though the united states is self-sufficient in north america for oil and gas, and we

would be able to increase production dramatically and quickly if there were a disruption, it is still a global market, so our prices would track with global prices. >> americans would pay much higher prices. sharon: it would be a problem for us too. >> americans don't like high oil prices. and in an election year. it is not just the saudis thinking he cannot afford that. i asked peter bergen before we sat down if the iranians were capable of striking targets in the united states, and it is a difference between could they and what they. he does not believe they have the capability. is that fair to say, peter? [inaudible]

sharon: david, can you give peter the microphone, please, so he is on camera? when we get to you, if you are on tv, take the microphone. peter: i think the plan was aspirational, not really operational. the fbi is on top of hezbollah , cigarette smugglers, and the like. i think their capacity is limited here. american targets in lebanon or afghanistan is a different matter. sharon: then there is the question of would they? there are still rational calculations going on, even if you have to respond to the fact you have big crowds, agendas in iraq, would they? >> i think they would have to do something. the question is what is the magnitude of it, and how do they respond to that? and it quickly got out of hand after that. i also think you are right, they are rational actors.

if you say, what is the most important strategic objective for iran right now, it is that trump does not get reelected. the difference between now and iraq, half the american population and much of the congress is opposed to war. it is not like the war in 2002 when we were marching towards it. if an attack is out of proportion, it could turn the american public. i do not think they want to help the president in the election year. the leverage they have over him, time it right, they could ruin his election. he doesn't know how they might a that, but if there is benghazi event somewhere, it might be iraq or somewhere, but i think the only way iranians can survive this crisis is if trump does not get elected.

they would have five more years of trump, and the strategic calculation would be very different. sharon: i want to ask a provocative question. let's say hypothetically something does happen in the united states, it could be cyber, what the proportionate response is is not clear for something like that. what powers does the president have? what kind of reaction might it provoke from him? what might he do here at home if he saw a paris or mumbai style attack in the united states? physical. >> i think those are two different questions. a physical attack in the united states is a horse of an entirely different color than a major whether attributed

or unattributed. i just wanted to clarify. [laughter] >> as if i have some window. let me start by adding on about the iranian calculation. i think there is a high likelihood of kidnapping if they can. one of the reasons -- we want everybody out of iraq for many reasons, but if you are iran, you want to do something that makes it harder to strike back. you want american service people who, if trump strikes back, they get murdered. you want something that is a retaliation but cools things down and makes everybody think again rather than a tit-for-tat military strike. that is one way i would be thinking. the strategic value of that and the hostage crisis, and trump got us into this, what are we

going to do? would have tock be met by some severe physical attack on iranian infrastructure, but presumably one that you could try to limit, but i do not see what else you could do if you are trump. a cyber attack is different, and trump is capable of saying the iranians did not do it, they are too scared of me. if you think about misinformation, we have already seen, the nsa can say they didn't do it, and he will say they did not do it, and as far as he is concerned, he has altered reality. that is a more reassuring scenario, although still extremely dangerous for precedent,orioles --

or else we respond virtually. as with north korea when we responded to the sony attack, it was not public that that is what we were doing, but we set a clear message to the north koreans. sharon: i think the iranians have already ratcheted up their campaigns on social media. i want to ask you one more question before we open it to the audience. one thing i wonder, when the obama administration with the nuclear deal, and now this assassination, what is the long play? what is the iran the united states can live with eventually? what is a credible vision for a peaceful coexistence? as a defense person, this has been a long time coming. i would not have foreseen that we would take an action like this. but sooner or later, when you come out of the defense community, you thought this would happen, that the united states and iraq would come to a breaking point, even with the nuclear deal. there were too many things to resolve, maybe not.

is there a way to get to coexistence, and what does that look like? how do we get there from here? >> not really now, but before this event i would have said the significance of the nuclear deal was it was the first arms-control deal. this was more like what we used to do with the soviets. it is the first arms-control deal. you do not shred it because it does not cover all the weapons. you would say iran's regional behavior -- how do you get to a second or third or fourth arms-control deal? the problem with iran is that -- we signed a nuclear deal with iran. we compensated the saudi's and israelis with $100 billion.

i would say they were the big winners. we gave up our strategic umbrella, they have stronger conventional weapons. it basically has to be an arms-control deal regionally. which means you do not invest in missiles, and arms-control deals take time to put in place. iran is a country whose conventional military is weak. it's air force belongs in a museum. it relies on hezbollah as a deterrent against israel. it is investing in missiles and nuclear technology. ultimately you have to have some kind of security in the region, but that means the united states

has to get out of standing arabs in the iranians. if you are standing on this side, it has to encourage them to talk to each other. the saudis need to share the region with the iranians. now they are trying to do that. it is ione that under president trump the saudi's have realized they need to do that. we can agree on some security roles, we agree to certain things and not interfere in one another's domestic affairs.

the idea you were going to fix this region in one sweep, it is a job for diplomats who we are not really relying on. it is going to take time. it is not a short-term measure. >> the hardest thing for me in this, if we just stayed out, and i am mindful of my own recommendations over time, but fundamentally the youth in iraq and certainly the youth in iran were heading back in our direction. i always tell the story of about 20 years ago being with an iranian roughly my age, and the iranian saying the young people are passionately pro-american.

are passionately all american. i said, what? he said, do you have teenagers? i said yes. he said, why do i need to say anything more than that? the parents' generation was "death to the united states," and the young people are taking their own course. but as doug said, we saw across the region in 2011, and just because the arab spring is over does not mean you do not have massive numbers of people including in our own country who are saying enough. enough with the sectarianism or the religious repression or the corruption, or just the lack of effective government. one of the things most frustrating here is that you had iraqi youth protesting and iranian youth protesting. i do not think this stops it long-term, but it changes the subject and makes it harder. to your point about a

longer-term vision, i recommend new book coming out that talks about the people in the muslim world. it said this was a religious upheaval that starts in 1979 in iran, but goes to al qaeda and the sunni orthodox muslim upheaval. the religious revivalism, religious orthodoxy of a kind we have seen in christianity many times that on its own time is burning itself out. but we are doing everything we can to make that a longer and slower process than it otherwise would have been. >> it is hard to be optimistic in this moment. we will see how the next few weeks play out. the things that do give me hope

are, one, the u.s., as anne-marie was discussing, as i talked about earlier -- though i agree, i think we lost this moment, and that we need to look at the next cycle of that and how that comes about for both iraq and iran for different reasons. the thing that gives me hope is watching, actually, turkish-russian relations. who would have thought in 2013 when turkey shoots down a russian airplane that 5, 6 years later we would be worried about them getting too cozy. things in the middle east can turn very quickly. it is not impossible for relations to be reset on a timeline that is astounding to us -- we hold grudges longer.

watching that example of how the turks and russians have reconciled gives me hope that perhaps some other model of that wherehappen, particularly everyone realizes we are looking into the abyss, and maybe this is a good time to back up. sharon: we may hold grudges longer, but our memories are a lot shorter. that is what worries me. before you raise your hands, please -- >> can i do a two-figuren that point? money --ecause insulin qasem soleimani is a terrorist. for the iraqis, they are the ones who stop a genocide a group from taking baghdad in june and july of 2014 when the united states was still fuzzy on

maybe this is just a sunni revolt and we need to sit it out. sharon: and for iranians, this is not the first iranian leader americans have assassinated, but not many americans would remember that. what i worry about is the iranians know what they want in terms of the future relationship with the united states, they want us out of the region. they want to be able to protect and promote the regional interests without our interference. but i don't think we know what we really want from them. we have some in the united states that want a war, but that is about what comes next, and i do not think we have a good vision of what comes next. that is what worries me. if you have questions, this is your moment. please identify yourself and your affiliation. i just want to warn you that i may seem nice, but i am not. [laughter]

sharon: i will try to twist you toward the question, so please make it a question. or a comment, but brief. sir, you caught my eye, so you just have to wait for the microphone. the camera will not pick you up in less you speak into the microphone. ?ould you tell us who you are >> [indiscernible] we think it has died. iranians do can the something to undermine us in afghanistan at a time when we are trying to talk with the taliban, who have lots of blood on their hands? >> you have a lot of experience there? >> [indiscernible] their interests are conflicted.

on one level, it is between the government and the taliban getting the united states to leave, something that benefits them. on the other hand, much like iraq, they do not want the united states in their borders with u.s. troops using it as a staging ground. there are a lot of capabilities, and iranians have ties to the taliban. ultimately, if you thought about what the long game might be, it is not to focus on a single place where the u.s. can respond, but to actually stretch the u.s. military. >> other comments? all right. you? >> time james, a student at the university of pennsylvania. i want to ask you about the 2020 election, and election security has been a big topic domestically. what are the capabilities of

iran and its allies interfering in our elections, and whether or not the situation has now changed iran's calculations and its allies on how they should go about election interference. >> if we take the point that the worst outcome for iran is trump reelected, one of the surest ways of helping him get reelected would be to intervene in any traceable way, because it would be devastating. at that point even the democrats would have to line up against iran, and worrying about the results. that is not something that would be high on my worry list. sharon: if you are asking if they can, absolutely. the last attack in saudi arabia was a cyber attack that the iranians mounted that was quite successful. they are good at this, one of the few countries in the world

that are good at it. >> and we fought an undeclared cyber war with them for a long time. sharon: they are not as good as we are, but they are good. >> max blumenthal, i wanted to pick up on two points. first, mohandas and soleimani were very effective in deterring isis and rolling back isis. does the panel not see a problem with administrations targeting governments in the middle east who have been extremely effective in deterring wahabi extremist groups? and, second point, sanctions contributed to this escalatory cycle, sanctions posed on iran. does the panel think it was wise for democrats to approve trump's sanctions in apparent violation of the jcpoa? do you think that contributed to

this escalatory cycle? and how do measures not approved at the u.n. fit into a rules-based liberal international order? the first part, iran will produce a successor to soleimani. it does remind me of the steven spielberg movie "munich." every palestinian assassinated was replaced by a worse person. it has been the legacy of israeli decapitation and campaigns. they might not be as competent, but they might be more vicious and nasty, the people to replace

these guys. in the end, there might be a time where we rue having a limited these two, both for their influence and because the people who replace them might be worse. doug: on your question, i do not think these individuals are targeted because they are effective against isis. perhaps they were targeted despite the fact they were effective against isis. but those are two entirely different things. i do not think we are going after effective anti-isis governments or figures. sharon: can i ask you a personal follow-up on that? i think there is a perception that in the u.s. armed forces there are strong feelings about soleimani because although he did not directly pull the trigger, he provided the capability that led to a lot of american soldiers dying. is that something our uniformed professionals can get past?

>> it is certainly something that is felt. that is a thing, undeniable. not just in the military, you talk to the older generation of state department, the current senior liens, they definitely have that feeling because of beirut. why we have that for the iranians and not for other figures has always been something that has baffled me. it is a true statement that soleimani and the quds force are responsible for about 600 deaths of american soldiers in iraq. that leaves another 3000 to be accounted for. we all know who was facilitating those deaths, and we seem to get over that quickly. i do not understand why this

unending enmity against iranian influence, and the guys who were fighting with al qaeda who were responsible for many deaths, well in excess of 600, they flipped sides and we forgave them literally overnight. i do not understand the disparity between these two sides. either you hold grudges against people who kill your people, or you do not. i do not understand why the iranians is for lifetime, and for other extremists it's something we can get over. >> i agree that sanctions are a weapon of war. >> it looks like peter might want to answer that question. i have a question about --

the arguments made by the administration about soleimani in the planning are similar to the arguments made about the targeted killing of an american citizen who headed al qaeda in yemen. president obama, by all accounts, made this decision to authorize the killing of an american citizen, the first time an american president had done that since the civil war. he made the decision quickly. is there something to be said, clearly this decision-making around terrorists came up, it started with george w. bush, is there something to be said about that? >> yes, and this goes to sharon's point that we are operating in a rule-free zone. uf the drone project know better than anyone how many times we have done this when it was a

nonstate actor who was not an american citizen. when these issues have been groups -- of course, it is cia grounds, but their arguments about we do have various protocols but they are not public. try to reduce civilian casualties, but not as much as we want to. none of them are shared. that is a huge problem, but we basically let it go unless it was an american citizen, and that did raise controversy and rightly, although i can see from obama's point of view sitting with his military, and somebody who did believe drones with a t -- were the way to do it, the fact he was waging war on the united states in the same way other al qaeda leaders are. as a lawyer i could make arguments on either side. here, the difference is he is

not a nonstate actor, he is a state actor. the fact that we notice in those two cases to me points out that we are accepting it, and ultimately i do not think those rules will come until it starts getting used against us, which is why the iranian use of drones against the saudi's was so in. -- so important. but we do not want to live in a world where individuals can be taken out with whoever is riding with them in a car at will. >> identify yourself and affiliation. >> i am a d.c. resident. there has barely been a mention about israel. i am curious what you think are the potential escalations in

response with respect to israel, and we have a leader in israel who might benefit from some sort of response. i am curious what your feelings are on that. >> there have been persistent israeli attacks on iranian positions in syria. as of the summer, they even went into iraq -- some thought this was the israeli prime minister baiting iran into a response that might help them domestically. as of summer, the estimates were the israelis have killed up to 1600 revolutionary officers, which is a heavy toll. they did not brag about it on twitter, and that probably helped. the iranians made a decision they would not play into israel's hands, they would remain focused on the persian gulf region and not get baited into a conflict with syria.

we do not know what putin might be telling them in terms of, why don't you absorb it for now and don't escalate it? everythinge doing they can, short of a direct attack on iran, in order to provoke an iranian response. i do not think this is like the 1980's, i do not think the iranians figure you hit israel and the arab world would rally immediately to the palestinian cause and get riled up. you are not going to get that kind of response in the arab world. at the same time, it will expand the conflict in ways that it gets out of control with the united states. who knows? but i do not think that is necessarily a knee-jerk reaction. >> what about unattributal

attacks? >> those things can always happen. but there is a benefit of showing the public or the united states how they reacted. that might be, sometimes, a deterrent, doing something just to get the israelis to back off. beebe is right now in a very tough place. what he would really like is for an iranian attack. the arab world is no longer a threat to israel. but iran is the one enemy that might justify his claim to power. i do not think the iranians want to play into that. sharon: you do not think the hardliners could carry that?

>> decisions with iran are not made like this. iran has a national security process. there is a supreme national security council -- >> we once did too. [laughter] >> exactly. the supreme leader, after soleimani's, it was the first funeral in 20 years he presided over. i think in this case we wanted to make sure the recommendations that come out of it would not be out of his control. but, look at all of these and the hardliners are sort of bound by that consensus that emerges. the security side in iran is fairly bureaucratized. . command-and-control driven. if a decision is made to go

after israel, it is a regime decision. >> we are out of time, so i just want to see if any of you have last comments on the situation, what worries you. are you hopeful? >> it is hard to be anything but pessimistic in this moment. it is hard to see how we get to an outcome that has the united states and its interests and the interests of its friends and allies in as good a position as we were two weeks ago. it is hard to see a path that gets us back there in the short-term. i think we need to be looking a little further down, perhaps do some longer-term thinking about how we start structuring our relationships in the middle east, thinking down the road. >> one thing nobody has

mentioned but i was thinking about waiting you were asking the question about beebe, as bibi would love to have an iranian attack, no one is talking about impeachment. i am not going to argue that this was all designed to change the subject, but it has changed the subject dramatically. i think you have to observe that. that does not make me happy. long-term, i guess i am not optimistic. but our relationship with the middle east has been changing since obama. obama comes in saying afghanistan is a good war, we have got to get out of iraq. the american patience of american soldiers dying in the middle east since 2003 is over. so in some ways, i see this as a

catalyst to a process that has been long and unguided, or guided in different directions, but it does have to come to a different equilibrium. this is not a sustainable equilibrium with enough soldiers there to be involved but not enough to be at the table. talk about russia and turkey, we are nowhere in syria. maybe this completes that process in some way. >> the worst thing, i think the president is not surrounded by seasoned hands and people who have experience. that is worrisome to me. doug's point, on the positive side, is good. i don't see in this team the capability to take advantage of this in a positive way. >> i think it is important to repeat that this really is

different. this president is about to be tested. so, thank you all for coming. be careful out there. it is snowy. we appreciate your joining us for this conversation. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ [indistinct chatter] >> at approximately 9:30 p.m., president trump responded today iranian firing of missiles with a tweet saying, "all is well,

missiles launched from iran at two aces located in iraq. so far, so good. we have the most powerful and well-equipped military in the world by far. i will be making a statement tomorrow morning." we will have that statement and any updates when available. >> c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. wednesday morning, we will discuss escalating u.s.-iran tensions with nebraska republican congressman on bacon -- don bacon, california congresswoman barbara lee, and katie bell williams. watch c-span's "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion.

wednesday, in the british house of commons, prime minister boris johnson takes questions from members in the first question time of the new year. this is also the first question time since the conservative party secured a full majority in the house of commons in the december 12 elections. see it live on c-span 2. >> here is a look at early of .overage wednesday on c-span the house is back at 10:00 eastern for general speeches, followed by business at noon for work on legislation dealing with 5g technology. on c-span 2, the senate returns to consider executive and judicial nominations. and on c-span3, we will get a preview of events leading up to the 2020 presidential election. later in the day, the u.s. commission on international religious freedom looks at ways to counter the growing threat of

anti-semitism around the world. iran firing missiles at u.s. troops based in iraq, congressman john garamendi of california spoke on the house floor about the killing of qasem soleimani and rising tensions with iran. mr. garamendi: thank you, mr. speaker. obviously it's a new year and we return to washington with an agenda that is completely full. in many, many ways, a tragic and extremely dangerous agenda ahead of us. last december, this house undertook the issue of how to deal with the issue of a president that was not paying attention to his oath of office. and passed an impeachment