a little history about usip.t was an idea formed from a commission established by jimmy carter in 1979. president reagan signed the u.s. institute of peace act into law in 1984. in 1992, usip's legislation was amended to accept private donations to build its headquarters. that was in 1992. and then in 2004, usip expanded their activities with the congressional appropriation. in 2005 is when the money was appropriated to build these new permanent headquarters. in 2009 it celebrated its 25th anniversary. this building was completed in 2011. we will continue with one of their syrian experts, steve-and joining us next. first, terry is a republican in spring hill, florida. caller: yes, i live in spring hill, florida. i have just been having some fruit and i was listening to the man that apparently was for change. i worked at villanova university in the 1980's. we had people from a afghanistan going to school then. that was almost 30 years ago. aren't understand if we there for peace, that we are only going there for w

importantly for us here at usip, he's a former member of the usip board and we continue to benefit from his support and his sage advice. so it is with great pleasure that i turn the microphone over to steve hadley. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the panelists for being with us this morning. and thank all of you. i think we should have a very interesting hour and a half on this most important question. i want to outline how we are going to try to proceed this morning. i'm going to begin by asking each panelist what may look like a bit of a softball question, but it's kind of a framing question so each of them can take three or four minutes in turn to sort of set out sort of a general approach to the problem. what we'll then do after that first round is i will then ask questions to the various panelists and i will try to see if i can broker a bit of a conversation between and among the pammists. -- panelists on the various issues of the day. i suspect when all that is done we will be basically an hour into this hour and a half which we have. and we will then go to questions and a

it's a pleasure to be at usip. the first time i am speaking here although i am familiar to washington. i went to georgetown so it's nice to be here and see a lot of familiar faces. there has been quite a lot of interest in regional approaches. lots of meetings in the past couple of months. we have met a lot of people in the audience here together, also with mr. yusuf in berlin, barcelona, in istanbul, et cetera, all everybody is looking for the question of regional approach. as mr. yusuf was talking about this project, the research institute of oslo, partner of usip, we are doing a project for the director on the regional security complexes around afghanistan. i've published a case that is ava available on the website on south asia. a complex on south central asia that just came out and i'm working one on the gulf in the regional security complex in afghanistan. and also just to tell you that i did work with the u.n. center for preventive diplomacy on the project on counterterrorism. that was my life before. he was

. >> by the afghanistan, pakistan program at usip and usip is involved on the ground in afghanistan and pakistan to promote nonviolent means of resolving conflicts and we've got a fairly sizable programmatic presence in afghanistan and less so but still modest sized presence in pakistan, as well. but in addition to our programmatic work, we do under pin up of what we do in these countries by our analysis and afghanistan, of course, the impending transition there in 2014 remains very important for us. not only in the sense of looking at u.s. policy and what is happening within afghanistan, but also the broader region and the implications regional policies have for their all-important country. and one of the things we do is use our convening powers as an institute to bring together experts to talk on those issues and today is a great example of that. i may also mention another example which is an upcoming event on april 10th on the prospects for peace in afghanistan where ambassador marc grossman who is the special rep on afghanistan and pakistan will be speaking here and steve hadley, fo

importantly for us here at usip, he's a former member of the usip board and we continue to benefit fromupport and his sage advice. so it is with great pleasure that i turn the microphone over to steve hadley. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the panelists for being with us this morning. and thank all of you. i think we should have a very interesting hour and a half on this most important question. i want to outline how we are going to try to proceed this morning. i'm going to begin by asking each panelist what may look like a bit of a softball question, but it's kind of a framing question so each of them can take three or four minutes in turn to sort of set out sort of a general approach to the problem. what we'll then do after that first round is i will then ask questions to the various panelists and i will try to see if i can broker a bit of a conversation between and among the panelists on the various issues of the day. i suspect when all that is done we will be basically an hour into this hour and a half which we have. and we will then go to questions and answers from the aud

importantly for us here at usip, he's a former member of the usip board and we continue to benefit from his support and his sage advice. so it is with great pleasure that i turn the microphone over to steve hadley. >> thank you very much. i want to thank the panelists for being with us this morning. and thank all of you. i think we should have a very interesting hour and a half on this most important question. i want to outline how we are going to try to proceed this morning. i'm going to begin by asking each panelist what may look like a bit of a softball question, but it's kind of a framing question so each of them can take three or four minutes in turn to sort of set out sort of a general approach to the problem. what we'll then do after that first round is i will then ask questions to the various panelists and i will try to see if i can broker a bit of a conversation between and among the panelists on the various issues of the day. i suspect when all that is done we will be basically an hour into this hour and a half which we have. and we will then go to questions and answers from t

usip for inviting me to speak about iran and its interests in afghanistan. usually pakistan gets most of the attention when at the comes to afghanistan. but we have to remember iran is a key player arguably, iran is a second most powerful regional country in afghanistan and parts of afghanistan especially western afghanistan, iran is the key player. iran also has a lot of influence in kabul with the karzai government as well and other various actors. usually iran's presence and influence and activities in afghanistan is portrayed as negativetively, especially in the u.s. press and media. and indeed, iran is doing things that can be considered to be negative, but i think essentially iran's policy in afghanistan is a balancing act. meaning that iran is doing certain things to help stabilize afghanistan and actually promote u.s. interests indirectly and at the same time, iran is doing things that undermine afghanistan's ability, stability. so i think on the surface, iran is pursuing contradictory objectives. why is this? the main issue in terms of iranian polic

solomon, because you get federal money, can the usip to take positions on u.s. policy, the afghanistan war, the iraq war -- can you take positions against those things? guest: we are and applied operation. our work is practical. it is on the ground, designed to limit violence and stabilize situations abroad, countries that have been torn apart by war. we belong to congress. we are not part of the administration, that is the state department or the defense department might even though we collaborate with them. our position is floating between the bureaucracies, operating in a bipartisan way. we feel that is one of our great strengths. host: richard solomon, the state department is just up the street from where you are located. let's go to joe in missouri. caller: good morning. thank you to c-span for bringing this to us. that is a beautiful building that you might equate to the taj mahal, as i understand cost $100 million of taxpayer money. how many people work there, are the salary by the american tax payer, and what is this man's salary? how many -- how much th

in 2004 he established the usip office in baghdad where it is continue to operate. he has made more than a dozen trips to iraq in the past eight years to work on mitigating ethnic and sectarian conflict. please join me in welcoming speakers not be as turn it over to ambassador feltman. [applause] >> okay, charles, thank you for this opportunity to see many old friends, and many colleagues and basically a whole room of iraq experts and those interested in iraq. we can argue whether iraq is on the front pages or not, but i can assure you it's in the hallways of near east affairs within the u.s. government, iraq has not disappeared from the inboxes and is still very important relationship we are pursuing. for lack of a better term than because i'm his diplomatic, i will say it is an exciting time. for those of us focused on the middle east, and especially for those focused on iraq. in recent years, particularly over this past year, we've seen tremendous change, both in the region and in terms of relationship with iraq. and they make that change, i have heard and i'm su