i am timothy shaw, and associate director of the religious freedom project and it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce the second of our three panels today. the panel we are calling our keynote on the policy implications and policy lessons that can be drawn from the connection between religious freedom and religious extremism. especially for those countries of north africa and the middle east that have been affected by the arab spring. the idea that religious freedom may be an effective policy strategy for addressing religious extremism is not new. consider the policies that thomas moore designed for the island of utopia about 500 years ago. in utopia he writes, "there have been constant quarrels about religion and the various warring religious groups refused to with each other. but more continues, "if

it's a product of the witherspoon task force, and it's written by timothy samuel shaw who wrote a book across all religions and the strategic reasons which we talked about, and why it's important to not just the united states, but