ladies and gentlemen, dean vali nasr. [cheers and applause] now, when you think of provocative conversation on the big foreign policy challenge of the day you have to think about our next debater. his program on cnn is seen in over 200 countries worldwide but he's anything but a talking head on tv. he writes a column for "the washington post" and is the edit or "time" magazine. please welcome back to the munk debate stage journalist fareed zakaria. [cheers and applause] now we're moments from getting our debate under way but before we hear opening statements, once again, i need this audience assist answer to make sure our debaters stay on time in terms of their opening and closing remark and we move forward as a debate together. so you will see this countdown clock, this clock appear. when it reaches zero applaud. this will let our debaters know that their time is over for their opening and closing statements. before we kick off the debate let's see how the 3,000 people gathered today voted on our resolution that the worl

vali nasr let's have you begin this. say that iran is seeking a nuclear device to dominate the arab world not to destroy the middle east. but as we heard the long-range missiles that were fired for the first time on jerusalem and on tel aviv were proudly provided by iran. so why is the general wrong about the intent of destruction and why are you right about domination? >> first of all, iran and israel have been in a low-level war for a number of decades. you refer to the back and forth over what happened in south lebanon with the bombing and the retaliations that iran did in argentina. currently, as we're speaking there are cyber attacks on iran. they are hitting back. but launching a nuclear weapon is a different order of magnitude in terms of escalation. as he said with a second strike the ability with submarines. iran is in no way to take israel on at that level. iran would brandish these missiles proudly. he wants to change the conversation in the middle east from syria. he wants to tell a arabs that he is providing

ladies and gentlemen, dean vali nasr.s and applause] now, when you think of provocative conversation on the big foreign policy challenge of the day you have to think about our next debater. his program on cnn is seen in over 200 countries worldwide but he's anything but a talking head on tv. he writes a column for "the washington post" and is the edit or "time" magazine. please welcome back to the munk debate stage journalist fareed zakaria. [cheers and applause] now we're moments from getting our debate under way but before we hear opening statements, once again, i need this audience assist answer to make sure our debaters stay on time in terms of their opening and closing remark and we move forward as a debate together. so you will see this countdown clock, this clock appear. when it reaches zero applaud. this will let our debaters know that their time is over for their opening and closing statements. before we kick off the debate let's see how the 3,000 people gathered today voted on our resolution that the world canno

vali nasr, you are next. >> i take his cautions and warnings quite seriously. a very important and stark choice faces us and will face the new american administration going forward. we think of the biggest issue in the middle east being iran him only because it is a dictatorial regime that is abusing its population. it is taunting israel and its neighbors and supports terrorism. when we think about decisions about iran, we also have to know that every decision has a context. the context of the following, that iran is not the only issue in the region. we are seeing a middle east that is falling apart all across the board. from tunisia, libya, egypt, bahrain, it is becoming unstable. we are seeing extremism. we are seeing a major shift in this region. we are not dealing with iran in a vacuum. the decisions we make have to be decisions for the region. we are dealing with a united states that is tired of war. it has not gone well in the two big wars it conducted in the middle east. it spent trillions of dollars, a lot of mud and -- blood and treasure. it is very cl

vali nasr let's have you begin this. you say that iran is seeking a nuclear device to dominate the arab world not to destroy the middle east. but as we heard the long-range missiles that were fired for the first time on jerusalem and on tel aviv were proudly provided by iran. so why is the general wrong about the intent of destruction and why are you right about domination? >> first of all, iran and israel have been in a low-level war for a number of decades. you refer to the back and forth over what happened in south lebanon with the bombing and the retaliations that iran did in argentina. currently, as we're speaking there are cyber attacks on iran. they are hitting back. but launching a nuclear weapon is a different order of magnitude in terms of escalation. as he said with a second strike the ability with submarines. iran is in no way to take israel on at that level. iran would brandish these missiles proudly. he wants to change the conversation in the middle east from syria. he wants to tell arabs that he is providi

and vali nasr, let's have you begin. this you've argued in a sense that iran is seeking to acquire a nuclear device to dominate the arab world, not destroy israel. yet as we heard from general yadlin, those very missiles, those very long range missiles that were fired for the first time by hamas, an islamic jihad, on jerusalem and on tel aviv were proudly provided by iran. so why is general yadlin wrong about the intent of destruction? why are you right about the impetus toward domination? >> well, first of all, iran and israel have been in a low-level warfare with one another over a number of decades. he referred to the back and forth over what happened in south lebanon with the bombing and the retaliations that iran did in argentina. there have been attacks on israel here and there and currently as we're speaking there are cyberattack operations on iran as well as assassination of their scientists. they're also hitting back. but launching nuclear weapons is a whole different order of magnitude in terms of escalation. p