next, madeleine albright and stephen hadley discussing the launch of their middle east task force. the goal of the task force is to gather information and make policy recommendations. this is an hour and a half. >> good afternoon. on the half of the chairman of the board of the atlantic council, tom huntsman and the vice president and director, frank doney and all of us at the elena kagan, welcome to the launch of the task force. we are pleased to be joined by some of the task force's senior advisers and many of our friends from middle eastern and european diplomatic communities. as you can see, we have a full house and a virtual full house. welcome, also, to viewers around the world. this event is live streaming on our website in arabic translation as well. and a full video of today's event, both in arabic and english, will be posted on the council website following the event. this is the first event we have done with live translation, live streaming, from the center. we now have this capability and will do this more often. we encourage you to interact online by following @acmidea

this was penned by leon panetta and stephen hadley, the defense secretary in the obama administration. they wrote a piece that was entitled the oil export ban harms national security. well-founded well-written, to the point. it said directly, we keep this ban in place this decades-old ban, it hurts us as a nation. it harms us from a national security perspective not to mention the benefits that oil export will provide when it comes to increased production, increased jobs, benefit to our economy. there's other folks out there that feels weighed in lauer -- other folks out there that weighed in. larry summers also the director of the of the national economic council for president obama and he said -- and i quote -- "the merits" -- the merits on oil export lifting the ban. "the merits are as clear as the merits with respect to any significant public policy issue that i have ever encountered." this is a guy that many people look to for leadership in a host of different areas. as clear on any public policy issue he has encountered. tom donlin, former national security advisor to president