up next, vernon loeb and sean o'connell -- jack o'connell's son -- talk about the book. this is about an hour. >> good evening, and welcome to our middle east policy forum tonight. it's wonderful to have all of you here. this is a special program for me both because of the subject, the topic, but one also for years i was in the foreign service and having served in jordan twice both in the 1980s as deputy chief of mission and 2001-'4 as ambassador. i knew jack o'connell personally and very well for many years, and i can tell you he was a great man and deeply involved and deeply committed, and he had strong, strong feelings. and thank heavens, he put them in a book. thanks to vernon loeb who worked with him as author, and we're happy to have jack's son sean here as well to share some things. but let me just say that, again, the middle east policy forum is a program that we run through the institute for middle east studies here at the elliot school to try to bring programs, four, five or six during a semester, where we bring people or talk about the events in the region or