this program at noon this program is about an hour. >> welcome to after words, and welcome especially. it is a treat for me to see you after a long time away. it is re-you here. i have to tell you, i did enjoy a book for different reasons that i will go through, but i wanted thank you very much for coming in today. the dean of the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins, and author of the book, the dispensable nation, which i have here. american foreign policy retreat. he is briefed presidents, congress, many influential and not so intelligent people. he was born in tehran in 1960, and his family came to the united states having left tehran after the revolution. he has a bachelor's from masters , and earned his phd. well done. i won't go through your long list of accomplishments. there are special. but i would especially draw attention to a great part of your book which is the time you spent working under richard holbrooke in 20005-11 as part of the special office, special adviser on pakistan and afghanistan. special advisor to the secretary of state. there are always other offices one discovers that do the same thing you do, and that is part of the problem as you liotta your book which i found fascinating. other share how complex within islam will shape the future, forces of fortune, the rise of the new middle-class and what it will mean for our world. and in the you foretells certain great events that become the rise of sectarianism, although i did not always agree with the full-scale war. i have to say to my think you will allow the people of the law was clearly coming. also the potential for the arabs spring, although i have to say, i think that we have all been surprised. where it happened and certainly where it is going. so i also want to say before we get started to his confession but i have almost a fatal attraction to reading your book. the kind of fatalism that if you have been around and watched, and as i have observed many of the inner struggles call for me this was a revelation. one of the revelations of your book, this shows the golan and the making of policies that few people seat. most people like to see that everything is fine. the great minds. after careful talking and analysis they come to decisions on policy. uni know that it is not quite that simple. it is certainly not that easy process. sometimes, the old saying, if you like sauces' don't watch it made. if you're interested in policy you don't want to know too much about the bind the scenes. but i think back at the past ten years in particular, regardless of the administration, we have been watching how sausages being made. so much has been brought out into the open that it has been, i think, it has made the art of critical compromise and negotiation within government, let alone for policy much more difficult than it used to be. it is hard to see that it could have been worse, but i think that the point is, it is not always as per your is tasteful or as thoughtful as it would like, and it is not always about principle. sometimes it is about something which i think you lay of very intricately and clearly, it is about power. it is about the influence. is about what the arrow bald calls waft the. so much to you know what you can basically getting your way. what i would like to do is go through some of these things. a long list of questions come to mind, tsongas and there are two parts. much of the book, and i think the greatest value and the greatest contribution is on the time you spend as participants, what you were able to observe and your work with holbrooke and how he worked. the man had a reputation larger-than-life and was a very forceful actor on the scene. watching someone like that operation is always important and influential. it reminds me that, you know, watch out policy is made. i don't need to talk too much. i just want to start here. you do have the professionals, the diplomatic corps. you have generals are professionals and diplomats and know how to operate in an environment. and you'd like to think that the goal is conflict resolution in peace without war. u.s. interests and those of our allies and friends. how to initiate. >> right. >> it is not. so much in terms of personal satisfaction, the deal is of the players involved and their vision and their view is the most important and sometimes it is where you sit. sometimes it is not. and that is the dockside. i think a lot of this. and there's also a problem of insiders defining the need for waste. the insiders are around the president or around the secretary of state. every secretary of state has their insiders. every president has. sometimes the consult with the professionals, sometimes they don't. exactly. and sometimes the principles that they operate on do not upset many things. think about the election. there is always an election coming. think about interest groups that you don't want to aggravate. adds a layer which is very difficult to deal with. so let's start with some of these very basic questions. >> sure. >> you talk a lot about the different influences, military, in to this picture and the professional, diplomatic corps and the friends of the president and his advisers and you have the intelligence community and certainly some choice things to say what the cia. welcome back to that. but -- and the vice-president to also especially in this a administration and the last has insisted on playing a larger role, whether that is you're not, that is not the point. the point is it is another voice to deal with. tell me, who decides the options? how are the options framed? and who should be? who really should have the -- more of the employed, if you would. >> well, very good question. and we came to afghanistan pakistan, which was really the big with the obama administration set before itself , had to manage. was there war. he wanted the main issues, and still there, really it's over and. so we started actually looking afghanistan, not really on the basis of its own merits in terms of what it needs, p interests are, how we eat come to some kind of conclusion enclosure l.a. that is good for the region and the texas. restarted relief from the premise. so bush did expiry therefore we should do why. we cannot do x because bush has done wind. and this was a problem to begin with, and that of the demonstration was ever going back into the campaign able to craft for the president and national security image which was not constantly measured at. so he was a good president because you would do exactly the opposite the bush. if you look at it right up to now the claim to fame is that bush took us into the region, and we are taking it out. every time you talk about of afghanistan policy we inevitably end up comparing it, and that that is a big problem. the second is that it did produce the u.s. military as a two-time foreign policy elephant because they are not the ones who cause the war, because the war, the decision of the civilians in the pentagon, and the white house, and some in the state department. and the way that the war played out, in the end the military began the savior. and it the general and the being the hero. the surge in data being the military's solution to a catastrophe caused by civilians. in the military also, as a expression goes to madrid its own kool-aid too much. came back thinking that it deserves all the resources it can get. it definitely does not the diplomat and does not need diplomacy. and it saw that really it has reinvented the ending of the war. so in world war ii you go to vietnam. you go to the balkans. the wars around the world. the war fighters fight the war. the diplomats and a bigger share the end. when you look at the balkans war in vietnam, you know, kissinger or holbrooke were in charge. the military was providing new of muscles so that they could go to initiations in paris or in dayton with the backing of the military. there was no negotiated settlement. so did general and his team in the military came to say that the savior of the war was this : strategy. not only was the savior of the war on capitol insurgency, which she was the architect of, and it is not only will will end the war, when actually can be america's global strategy in dealing with terrorism and fail saves and the pentagon, if you would, came up sort of all of america is the least and south is a policy. so you are right. the overhang. the military has an enormous amount of influence on the strategy. very early on the president succumbed to that and therefore the strategic review according to which she decided to put troops into afghanistan, first the smaller number in january 2009 and then a larger number in the fall of 2009, but essentially he ended up accepting that the solution to afghanistan was to export their coin strategy from barack and afghanistan. at that point general patraeus was head of center, but lazar this was the united states version for afghanistan. we ended up going in the sense of taking the military as the forefront. the civilian, the state department, the civilians at the white house essentially, i would say, on a marginal role, and i think within the white house there is a sensibility of a domestic political adviser with the president, that this is the sensible way deal because it is too difficult for democratic presidents to argue with success, which was the way we have defined iraq command was too difficult for democratic president as young as president obama was to basically tell the triumph at military coming out of iraq that their strategy may not be appropriate. and therefore we sort of succumbed to embracing iraq or afghanistan. >> not the first president to be afraid of dealing with the military directly. if i remember correctly clinton has similar problems, both of them lacking military experience . careers dealing with the military. in the end, the old image of the democrats, soft on war, not really good at this. there have been some difficulties in the democratic president's approach in the military. one of these has been giving them what they want which clinton certainly did, and that think that obama is reluctant to take them on full bore, but when you're in the middle of the war you're not really going to argue and i think the other part of the problem, and, you know, to a disclosure having spent the past almost 50 years the national defense university and seeing a lot of the military, the general and reputation that is almost like a star. >> yes. >> several, several of our generals acquired this kind of laura as a superstar, and he had this very successful strategy. and i was interested in your description of that because i don't think that we really -- when we look at the surge in iraq that was so successful, we look at it as our surge. it was our success. and yet that is not the whole truth. dell is not what really made a successful. and i think of this in part because so much of my life has been looking at things from the iraq side, but really iraq was ready to make that strategy work in ways that i'm not sure. >> year actually -- and i do agree with you that president obama is not unique in being pushed by the surge of military popularity and to be fair time it was quite difficult to after iraq and after the way in which u.s. military in our's as heroes of the president was sort of argue with them, but the devil that is in the details. as your president could have unleashed the state department and the civilians in ways that could have complemented were provided an additional air. in particular, you know, secretary clinton was much more powerful than the president. in situation room she was probably often the strongest character in the room and the toughest. the only civilian in the middle of a number of intelligence and security officials would dominate the national security team of the president to mustachio around. she was highly respected. extern the tough. but i think the way it worked out is that the state department , and particular holbrooke also put up a very important role in balance in the military given his experience in vietnam and his experience in the balkans. put in a position to say, your job is not to make policy. you are not equal partners here. you basically are there to implement this civilian needs of coin strategy. so this is not about cole the policy. it's of this to go around the world and make sure many more countries in troops and money. but your input into the american strategy is now welcome. so it is the time which is not just about war strategy. think the balance is lost in that the war fighters became america's chief strategist. our foreign policy and not just in afghanistan, but largely even in the middle east, we still see this withdrawal argument in the region. essentially passed from the hands of the diplomats to the hands of the war fighters. and in many ways the state department fought very hard against hillary clinton and richard holbrooke trying to argue that it would be a mistake for the united states to put all of its eggs in this region on a military solution that the president actually in his heart did not believe in. and that they should be given a far more brought birth in terms of thinking about the regional architecture, a peace settlement , a global engagement that provides for a framework to an end to afghanistan. enables us to leave the some kind of a political solution. if you look at afghanistan now we did not win the war and we did not arrive a settlement. in no way there are a lot of loose ends. you're basically saying the war continues as before except we let the afghans do it. there is no reason international agreement or consensus on the endgame in afghanistan. we will pass the baton to the afghan army and that was the case by the resurgence of? you could have done the training from day one. and i think, you know, the state department argues very aggressively, part of the fighting that happened, and i described in the book to mullahs because the white house was highly resistant to the state department making any policy. it would like them to be the employment ears. and if it had, hillary, who continuously remained a very strong influential voice and was able to single-handedly carried a mental and also have an enormous amount of influence, largely the entire afghanistan issue would have been completely reduced to a military strategy and the pentagon would have become de facto state department. >> well, if i put this in some kind of context, the pattern is not original with obama. much of this for better or for worse was the pattern learned or imposed under the bush a ministration. w. bush. and that case leading up to the war in it iraq and afterwards the pentagon was the source of everything. c-span2 diplomacy, the pentium will set it up. you want strategy, it is the pentagon. intelligence, the pentagon will do that. a at the your assistance, the pentagon was the source of all knowledge. this was rumsfeld and the people working under and did not see a need to look to anybody else. it is hard to say this, but maybe the pentagon got used to this pattern. it is hard to change that. maybe that is part of the problem. that is not the whole problem, but i think that it raises some serious questions in terms of the role that you have been conditioned or have taken in don't want to concede. >> you are absolutely correct. and particularly because we came out of iraq with a feeling that the pentagon said the date. it was very different from vietnam. the military did not come out with a sense that they have saved the day. the day was saved by civilians and negotiations in paris. but in iraq they were the ones to solve the problem in their own mind. and, yes, i think that is actually raising an important question as to whether the obama administration has really actually been able to move away from the bush strategy, and i make this argument. you look at the drone strategy, it often is bush policy improved and better implemented, but it does not mean a real effort to reinvent american foreign policy one thing that is important is that the domination of the military did impact america's global image. so when president obama came in there was a sense that our image in the region had been tarnished . our global standing had been y diot to rebalancenk there the that. in the sense that, you know, by giving the state department a lot more visibility internationally, but i also trying to, you know, even influence the decision making on war in the white house, i think she went along way of writing that problem because to me know, under the bush a administration the state department lost and was using humiliated. the thing was demoralized and arista point where the state department was not respected at a level policy-making in a major way. nothing she decided that to rebuild the state department's influence within the u.s. government was a tactical diplomacy as well. says she spent her time, you know, continuously talking to the generals, talking, you know, with the white house staff, finding ways to sort of reverse the attitude that had been in built, as you mentioned, about the state department. and i think she left, you know, the state department in a far better position that she found it. even to this date the continuous problem with the state department is the reluctance in the my house with the pentagon to accept the state department's primacy in setting america's global strategy and then being in the implementation of that will strategy in every issue other than war. and i think that is a challenge even today. it was a challenge then, and that the secretary clinton probably was during that time, and the outset, keystone, far better than her two previous predecessors, and i think we will see whether her successor can change this trend significantly. >> all important observations, and i think the trouble, right about hillary clinton. she does not tolerate fools easily. she was very clear. she knew -- she knew what it took. you have to be assertive. you have to make herself heard, and she had to rebuild an institution that has really suffered a lot in terms of its role and the perception of its role. the fact that it was not seen as a shaper but more just and implemented to will tell you what the policy is in your job is to carry it out. that is not very helpful in terms of building the institutions and supporting the mission. but i think there is a couple of other things. one of the things that bothered me, having in my lifetime covered several of these crises, including, you know, all of the iraqi crises, watch everyone five overall this. we always used to shutter to if there was a hand that the president was going to announce a deadline. deadlines are not a good thing. i never understood. why you need an exit strategy. i used ask myself, what is this great urged. an exit strategy. if you announce at the same time as afghanistan you're going to have a surge. you're going to send more troops and you're going to announce a withdrawal that begins in 2014 or whenever, is in that self-defeating? >> it was. i can say that from firsthand experience of that time from. first of all, we have a great deal of difficulty even convincing people that the idea was good. people in the region were highly suspicious. they keep telling us iraq is not afghanistan. afghanistan is not iraq, not only for reasons that you mentioned, but the mindset was different. but it is the flat country. it is much easier to think. the taliban and a very different from the insurgency. they also have strategic depth and pakistan which, you know, but they did not have it. iraq has a much more educated society. military has more of of fiber because it used to be a real military at some point. so there was a lot more work with. and in the region, you know, when you went to pakistan, saudi arabia, you a eat, you went to turkey, nobody believed that it was a good idea to take point. and then secondly, they did not believe that it would succeed. they thought that you are going to end up having of the vietnam. if you actually stay with it you will end up with the 15-20 year war. so to begin with, they did not believe us, and we argue with them. believe us. afghanistan, you should trust in american foreign policy. you should trust in our wisdom. you should trust that we know we're doing, and you should support us. there would look at you very politely and not say anything. then really we went six months back. there were announcing this policy. a deadline. and then there would sickened you mean your policy is only good for one year. no. we will succeed in one year. then there would save, but that even makes all of your conclusions and arguments even less credible than before because we know this is not a one-year game. how're you going to do this? as soon as it was done we ended up going back and saying kamal, we are starting a troop withdrawal and we will be gone by 2014. so what i thought was that it is almost like we were constantly talking to ourselves. largely american headline driven sounded good. never convinced anybody. facts, by the end when i saw and all these countries was that they conclude that we are confused, lacked commitment. it is actually very dangerous for those countries to hitch their wagons to the united states because they don't know where the wind is going to read many of us began saying, okay, all right, you will be gone by 2014. why don't we just wait for you to go and then we will begin to think about our policy and what will happen. you saw that even among the afghani actors. where we are in this region is, everybody is just keeping still until we are gone because we have announced loud and clear that by 2014 we're gone. as i said, we have now won the war. rather interested in changing the political dynamic on the ground by forcing a peace deal and forcing their regional actors to embrace and accept that the steel and sign onto it, so we are basically just leaving afghanistan the way that is. they know that nothing is unfinished. they know that the fight is still there. and so by and large all we did in the region is touch tarnish our image, tarnished our standing, and essentially create a situation where everybody has written us off and then we wonder why we are experiencing a decline in influence. >> looking at this, it is so not about afghanistan. afghanistan becomes yet another example of a failing policy in the region size, and the region argued against our policy on iraq. it is a dangerous. and then when we did hear rid of him, and it was dangerous to let things drift away that they did. it was dangerous not to insist immediately on a replacement that could be tested, holding things together. well we did to my know you go to the region. d'agata the region. question is always, why did you give iraq to a run. did you think about that? didn't you realize what happened to iraq and the sense that we gave up pshaw, we have given up on iraq and that the iranians takeover. we abandoned mubarak. and we announce the withdrawal from afghanistan. now what are you going to do next? how much can we trust the united states. you are right for different reasons that feed into an overall unease with our commitments. and all the assurances in the world still make it very difficult because the region is at a time, now we always say this, but this is a real crisis. and they are facing challenges that they have not had to face before, both internally and what is going on, is it about just afghanistan? is it about just a ron? is it about run nuclear? and i think one of the things that is really tipping the balance is syria. >> that is right. that is right. >> i think you're absolutely right. i mean, you know, we are often faulted for mistakes. afghanistan could be chalked up as a mistake. i think it is important. it is not about afghanistan. it is about us, but we have to learn from it. you know, there were systemic problems in afghanistan like the overhang, the overemphasis on military, but i think there were tactical mistakes made in the white house in terms of announcing a deadline, not subscribing to a political settlement. i think if the president had from the beginning to all the military, you're going to get the point, but the same time i am serious of the diplomatic and , that would have, you know, had much more of a balancing effect, but i think there is something else happening, and that is that there is a sense that the united states is not just withdrawing from afghanistan militarily. actually wants to leave the region entirely. and that is particularly hard for our allies in the gulf and jordan and morocco who are basically saying, you made mistakes. we stuck by you. we stuck by you. now you came in and you literally pushed not only this off 30 years ago, but he pushed mubarak out and then did nothing for egypt the day after a left. .t was almost as much as pushing you have no engagement in democracy building in economic reform. and then you are perfectly fine with the ascendance of fundamentalists to power across the arab world. so -- and yet you still think you are our ally, and maybe, you know, self preservation almost puts them in a position to begin to try to protect themselves from us, which is a sort. and every time they see american leaders, here in the region is the talk to americans about syria and egypt. they are just not engaged in these conversations. the very openly tell leaders in the region that we are pivoting to asia. we will be gone from this region. and i think that is actually encouraging a sense of gloom and doom in the region or that, you know, leaders are beginning to say, we have to look for an option b. it is not that you have a bundling america. you're not concavity america and all kind of thing syria, to your point command egypt, are really critical because these other two most important arab countries. they're going to decide the future of the region. and somehow spectacularly, completed this interested in how this plays out. we could be faulted for making mistakes, but the fact that we don't see any role for us or any sense of urgency as to whether egypt will find a critical economic program with the imf or the fact that syria could be, you know, could be destabilizing iraq, lebanon, jordan, turkey, be a threat is real, ultimately, you know, spread to the gulf. that is actually quite baffling. and i think it is actually in my opinion a colossal strategic mistake on the part of the united states. you cannot blame this on the military or on these issues. it is a conscious decision that the obama administration has made to downgrade the middle east to as a strategic focus. the president goes to the region and does not deal with syria. he deals with arab-israeli issues, which is a constant. neither up nor down. his been there for a long time, but it is not where the real center of issues are. i always think, you know, that he went for a six hour visit to reward the ruler. he has not been to a single arab country that went through the air of spring, and that is serve very loud and clear in the region. you know, washington is just not interested in this region. and i think that as a whole new chapter, and we may pat ourselves on the back and say, yeah, who wants to be mixed up with these people, but just because you are not in there, does not mean that the problems are solvable, if you at some point. >> a much darker view then idea. i think in a sense -- enough in this as an excuse for the administration, but the problems are incredibly complicated. now, and away the failure here is not an intelligence failure as such. is that a military failure. is a failure to be willing to take on a very difficult problems. if you look at egypt as an example, there are -- maybe our -- may even made a mistake in recognizing -- i mean, we have long argued that the muslim brotherhood, we want it opened. all groups should be able in a perfect world, and a perfect democracy, if you will, to be able to participate. there's nothing wrong with that. but we did not really in a stand the circumstances that we are dealing with. in other words, i don't think that we were prepared to deal with the aftermath, the assumption is that, well, look at egypt. it has always been our public. a much more open society. islamists have never had a tight hold here. it will be easier to see a flow into a transition and in to the republic that they were first arguing for in the streets. in the first days of the demonstrations. that did not last long. those people who came out in the streets disappeared. what we were left with was the remnants of the old regime. and the islamists who, for the first time, could operate in public, great, but were also the only organized body to be able to put together a structure, political parties and know how to move forward. and did. so these other countries, but i don't think that we -- we thought we were so far ahead. and by saying, you have got to go, we really work, as the college, on the right side of history, but the problem is, the egyptians have not really helped us to help them either. >> that is so true. but i agree with you. and it is very difficult to fix problems. we should not assume that we could fix egypt, but if we compared america's reaction to global transformations of this kind, even intellectually engaging with trying to have an influence on the outset of the highest levels of government, we cannot influence the tips decision making on the constitution, but we could have an influence on their economic decision making. we could coordinate better with saudi arabia so that they don't give money to egypt the week before their supposed to be signing a critical deal with the imf. we could provide better political cover to the egyptian government for economic decisions. we could be engaging the egyptian people through the secretary of state, the white house, and more ways to sort of the way that we engaged the brazilians, you know, the polish, the way the germans are trying to engage the public in greece to sort of talk to them. you have to make these are decisions. not exactly a model that i would want to follow. >> no, but the point is, the point is that the you know, we have a lot at stake here. also, the other part of it is, i think it is expected that the region really worries about when we do too much and we mess up, but it is also equally sorry to that when we are not engaged. there are downsized to this. only leave it to other regional actors to send 45 fend for themselves and we don't have an opinion, money goes to the wrong actors. money goes to groups. the united states has no opinion >> and no ability to control our friends were giving money as well as to the brotherhood and are getting along with either. >> right, but it requires us to be in the middle. it requires us to be talking to them. it requires us telling them, look, we have a strategy. tell us if it is wrong or have your input, but this is our vision for where we want egypt to end up. we believe economic reform should come at this level and at this stage. and therefore, we would like your backing and do like your support. will we wanted to do arab-israeli issue seriously, secretary of state would go to cairo 22 times and to jerusalem 23 times and then to amman and riyadh and we understood that you have a plan in your head. you go and talk to these leaders. you keep embellishing it. you create a regional consensus around a particular idea then you try to move the region forward. it would have been possible for the estates to have had serious conversation with regional actors around economic reform in the region, around job creation, jen constitutional reform. >> i think we tend to forget that every time we talk about economic reform and imf loans, certainly these countries, especially egypt and especially jordan did very, very worried because those things come with conditions. you're going to have to a deal with reforms, in the subsidies. how can you end subsidies for bread or any other necessity? that was tried in the past and it triggered major riots in both countries. probably cause for concern. and indeed to the fact that they have elections coming up, they oppose these things, the party in power is or that there will be in power anymore. >> i don't think these countries are going to do these tough decisions without a promise of of road map for it. the public as to believe this. so, you know, that is not on the table, and it is much easier to take 5 billion. >> let's move on. to these are such good issues. one thing that i want to come back to again, and that is what i think you described and others have described from your book. this government's approach to solving problems, and many see that what holbrooke and others wanted to do in the state department was to create, in essence, what the pentagon has been so successful in doing before the whole of government has a flow from the state department, he would be the person in charge. and one of the criticisms made was that in pursuing this that the people working for robert get carried away. there were so busy in thinking about wallow problems down to the lease, down to the smallest debt. they lost the the control of the problem and perhaps were not able to push on to bigger issues are as they should. what i am thinking about is it almost looks like what happens was it intended to be the sole source of our policy? or in thinking about the, you know, what could be -- what needed to be done, was that office, your office trying to take on more than it could handle? >> a very good point. i think the reason people that in the weeds is because that is the way they were pushed to do. i think the state department would much rather have focused on a peace process and not worry about agriculture and pomegranates and, you know, the small issues. but the nature of coin demanded regularity. so because everything is about elizabeth cooperation between the civilian team and the military team, the so-called. so this was a vision that would obviously -- we were accommodating the coin vision. the other -- >> the pr ts were the teams of -- there were military, civilian command visors on agriculture. very effective. did not work as effectively in afghanistan in part because there were so few. >> so few. security issues. also, as you mentioned, the nature of the two countries was quite different. you see, the problem was the office was created, put in the state department. immediately was undercut by rivals in the white house and the military. the president was reelected to give the authority needed. so the problem was not the we were focusing too much. when you come up with anything effective you run against the wall. always took this personal team and charm and way of doing things to call up the secretary of agriculture and ask him. he could not order. the white house was on helpful. if you went to the white house and said, can you call this department or can you call that department, they would not do it. and in a way you create the position and then you try to handicap at. and everyone around the government very quickly understood that the white house wants to cut out that the needs. and therefore they began to play the same. but when this work to work really well. there are times when you have a tragedy of massive flood. it connected the different parts of the government and allow for much more rapid response. connected to the embassy, and you -- >> which is critical. >> which is critical. but the problem is good to think about whether these kind of office's work. but think we should not render judgment based on torture. we should also look at what it makes sense to create them. the personal clash and turf battle. >> let me ask you one more question before a move on to the big question. and it is my last one. but there is another aspect here, and it has to do with the policy or it comes up in your discussion. quite a bit of a free lancer. in the recommendation, he wanted to do his own initiative. i am thinking back. sometime in 2009. he wants to act on his own company but the iranian officials which is absolutely forbidden, but what if it just happens? it just happened to be in the right place and i happen to talk to -- who is to stop me and say that this is not plan to take it somewhere? i think somewhere is described as typical of his guerrilla tactics. might be that the people were very worried. take some place that they really did not want to go. a certain amount of unwillingness to let him out of the building. the domestic advisers who really did not want to do too much. they wanted to run a very tight ship which was goldilocks for his reelection. and risking diplomacy. add to that extent he was dangerous in that sense because you might actually put the united states in a place where you would have to risk diplomacy and he wouldave to --he have tod political capital. and it was not just there. the administration was extremely worried that he would push the issue of negotiations. it would have to defend it. that is what i am saying. even though we were in this big war, even though we were spending $100 billion a month on this war, in the end, our strategy was not governed or directed by the logic of wedding or finishing the war. do with the military wants because then that popular and the responsibilities with them. we don't want to do anything risky you need to gauge. she down the ideas. >> there were not sure. always so easy to control. >> eventually, you know, no to this and up to that and, you know, he continued to believe that this war, the strategy is wrong. he thought that if we searched with an exit faster. the only exit we're going to leave the region without anything to show for this war. it is going to hurt us more. five years down the road you're going to have another september 11th that comes exactly from that region, and we're back to everything we talked about in 2000 when into. >> she had done a lot of criticizing of president obama and his -- what he has done and his vision or lack thereof. is there anything that he has done right? >> look, the purpose of my book was not to necessarily criticize him but i do think that there is a vital things that the americans have to think about and look at because i think particularly when it comes to the middle east and south asia, we are -- we have come to a point where we decided foreign policy does not matter. it was not part of the 2012 election. sort of adopting an attitude that doing less in this region is better and we don't need to sort of get into solving the problems and can focus on issues at home. and i think my name, i think we ought to sort of debate this much more openly, coherently. so i think the president has done well in many areas of foreign policy. one can say those are a success, but two things that i wanted to raise. one is how we make the foreign-policy. how do we balance between civilians and military. how do we actually set forth strategy interest and pursue? are we at the right place? my sense is that even if we are not, it is time for us to get out and take a gauge. secondly, you know, we have tangled with the middle east when lot. and for the better part of 2001 to 2009 we really put it at the center of our global policy. and we are also making some very radical decisions about that region, about departing, about doing things, not doing things. and these are some very big decisions which we are doing almost sleepwalking right now. and my hand, but this on the table. do we really want to be disengaged? maybe the answer is yes. let's really look at it. do we really want to get to zero trips? do we really want to take our relationship with pakistan completely for granted? these are issues that are going to decide the global standing. and also, the security issue. mostly preoccupied for more than a decade. >> the conclusion of your book took me quite by surprise. i think it has taken many people. in the and you say this gathering storm. identify all of the problem issues. but in the end what do you see as the biggest issue that we have to prepare ourselves? people who are not read your book dead i going to be a little bit surprised at what you identify as our greatest problem to come. >> well, our problems, i think our biggest problem, the global challenges china. the administration has argued that this is completely separate from the middle east and we have a choice of either middle east or china. so petitte to asia. interpreted in the middle east. pivot toward asia and pivot away from. think about it. from ruler to public intellectual. americans want to wash their hands from the middle east. some my argument is not so fast. and the least is still strategically important, strategically vital. a lot at stake there, but it is also not separate from the china issue. it is a mistake. is another big mistake to think that our arrival in china, the asia-pacific. the middle east, completely irrelevant. but rather i think the middle east will also be an iran of american chinese rivalry. moving west. there energy needs are from the middle east and central asia. they looked out. the art from central asia to pakistan. set up countries that are of vital interest to stability of western china. they're looking for markets. building pipelines doorways. so for the chinese, rising strategic concern and interest whereas we sort of thing that these things have nothing to do with each other. a binary choice. so my end was to sort of say, your focus in china as well played, but you should not bank of asia only as east asia. you should also consider that your presence in the middle east decades ultimately is relevance to your rivalry with china. i think also another level, this is important. people in asia, i have heard from many who say we are looking to gauge how trustworthy we are and how much stamina we half. so if we push the bark off the pedestal and then wash our hands of egypt what it would say to allies there who are thinking, should we, you know, go against china and connect ourself to the u.s.? we refuse to lay red lines and syria and get involved when we show ourselves to be so complex diverse, what signal was sent to china of what signal does is send to north korea. in american strategic thinking we have come to not see the world as a world. we have come to think that we can have this tree policies and strategies that have no relationship to policies over there. the world is integrated, becoming more integrated. the chinese, as they're growing, coming out of asia. they are going global. one of the places they're going to is the middle east. >> that is true. especially for the oil energy needs. they are importing. 60 percent of their while energy from the region. want to build more pipelines. that think they have already built or are in the process of the central asia pipelines. they want more, but it is true, they're buying up farmland in africa because they need food, but i find the question is, do they really want to take over? find it hard to see that they want to take over in the sense that you paint your. and it seems to me that you are recommending something counterintuitive to wear i think many americans want to go, and i don't think that the region. >> sees china plain that will either. >> the chinese don't want to play the role. it would much rather do free writing off of our back to really provide security in they get the economic benefit. but if we're going to leave and there are interested, inevitably it will become a bigger and bigger voice and a bigger and bigger influence. and the trend is in that direction. it is not just pipelines. the chinese sovereign will find is massively investing in the middle east demand emily's sovereign funds for mass of the investing in china. so the question is, you know, the consequences of short fund decisions come back tickets for now. if we are signalling to the region we are leaving, if we are reducing the footprint, sort of trying to do less in the middle east, what is going to happen? >> well, on that note, the agenda of the camera says it is time to close. thank you so much for coming in today. it hasn't been a very, very interesting conversation. thank you again thank you for the book. >> thank you. great being with you. .. >> rubber proctors sat down to talk about his book, the history of the tobacco industry and the dangers