jim phillips is the research fellow at the middle eastern affairs at the douglas and sarah allison studies at the heritage foundation and is a foreign policy specialist from the international terrorism since 2008 at the research service in former fellow at the east-west center to testify many times before congress. the institute -- served in the white house as a senior director for the national ticket accounts will to middle east issues including the relations and u.s. efforts to contain iran and syria and the bush administration as the adviser in the state department and the deputy assistant secretary in the pentagon before coming to hudson bike was a senior fellow at the brookings institution. he's also held teaching positions at princeton and central florida. ambassador joseph can you start us off you can either do it from their work onto the podium whichever one you wish. >> good afternoon. it's always great to be back here at heritage. so, let me first thank the organizers for the invitation to speak here today on a very timely topic of iran and the nuclear negotiations. i have been s

jim phillips a senior research fellow for middle eastern affairs at douglas and sarah allison centerign policy centered at the heritage foundation. is written widely on iran and international terrorism since 1970. is a former research fellow at the congressional research service, libra of god and from joint doctoral research fellow. jemez testified before congress including the arab-israeli conflict and middle east terrorism and the reigning nuclear issue. michael thurmond is a senior fellow at the hudson institute. he served in the white house as a senior director international student council responsible for middle east issues including arab-israeli relations. he served in the bush administration and senior advisor at the state department and deputy assistant secretary and then the pentagon before coming to hudson, mike was a senior for the brookings institution. he's held teaching positions at nyu, princeton and central for their an impressive group to speak about today's topic. ambassador joseph, can you start us off? you can either do it there or come to the podium, whichever yo

committee, our help committee peeper oppenheim lindsey sideman, jim jeffreys, allison martin and on senator murray's staff evan schatz, sarah bolton amanda beaumont. then on the floor those who have the oil cans, laura dove and robert duncan who keep this side greased and working and gary myrick on senator reid's side and sharon soderstrom and from senator cornyn's office. and many others have helped. this is day i am very proud of for the united states senate appeared for 50 million children 3.5 million teachers, and 100,000 public schools, it is a big step forward. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: has as the senior senator from tennessee as he often does has laid it out very well, i believe it is the case that the united states national is the only legislative body in -- united states senate is the only legislative pod in body in the world where a simple majority is not enough on almost everything. so this body was crafted in a way to ensure, unless one side has a really big majority, that we work together. but it doesn't automatically work unless you have leaders li