The relationship between iran and syria, the governments decision to help syrian president assad in his civil war, and how iran can destabilize the region. This is about an hour. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming to the American Enterprise constitute. Im fred kagan. Im director of the critical threats project here at aei. And its my great honor and privilege to lead this panel discussing a report which has just been released by my colleague, matt mcinnis, the future of irans security policy, Available Online at aei. Org. And we have these beautiful copies as well, if anyone would like one of those. We have a Magnificent Panel today. We are thrilled to have Lieutenant General tom trask, and vice admiral retired mark fox, formerly Deputy Commander general of the United StatesCentral Command along with matt to talk about the report. Without further ado ill turn it over to matt. Thank you, fred. Thank you, general trask, and admiral fox, and frankly all the team here at aei thats helped put this event together, as well as all the people behind the scenes for the past two, two plus years that have been working with me on the research. This has been a labor of love for many years. And its inspired not only by my work here at the institute, but frankly by my number of years working inside the u. S. Government, from my time in the department of defense, and particularly my time at u. S. Central command serving with these two fine gentlemen as well as general petraeus and john allen and particularly under jim mattis, where we struggled with these issues of how to understand iran and its behavior, how we can better anticipate what iran is going to be able to do. And this is what really pushed me when i came here to aei, to think about how can we do this better. And i think the biggest thing that i ran into, when i was engaging in the larger think Tank Community and the larger academic community, is this challenge of getting past iran as opaque, that iran is too difficult to understand, as well as the idea that iran is irrational. What i consider the mad mullah problem, that iran is the iranian leadership is too crazy. And i think both these ideas really handicap us in being able to understand what tehran is thinking about, how it looks at the u. S. , how it formulates foreign policies, its security policies. Thats really at the heart of what im trying to do in this monograph, is take the face off that confusion and say, you know, you can understand this, you can learn about it. And so what im trying to do is not so much provide a whole bunch of policies, policy prescriptions for this administration or for future administrations, but basically provide analytic frameworks, models, if you will, for understanding how iran develops its foreign policies, how iran develops its approaches in particular to security issues, how it goes to war, how it looks at the u. S. , how it looks at israel, how it looks at its rivals in the persian gulf, how it looks at threats such as isis, and particularly how it develops concepts about military doctrine, how it approaches its Defense Budget. These Big Questions. And this is what i want to provide, you know, for the Larger Community here in washington and frankly around the world, about ideas of toolkits. Things that you can use this to develop better volumes. So that if you understand the variables that go into how iran approaches warfare or how iran approaches Foreign Policy decisions. Things, for example, from irans perspective, as the saudi threat increases from their viewpoint or decreases, or how gdp increases or decreases, how thats going to affect defense spending or how thats going to affect their approach to investing in certain capabilities. This is what i want to be able to do with this type of work and provide a Better Foundation for that. What are some of the key findings that we did get from this work, is that fundamentally threat perceptions really does drive irans behavior more than anything else. Once theyre on a path, they really tend to stick with it. And threat perceptions you know, it requires a change in threat perceptions to push them off that path. Finally, the u. S. Drives it more than anything else. After that, you know, israel. And then perhaps extremist groups like isis. After that, maybe the saudis and other gulf rivals. But of course more than anything else, they fear their own people and internal instability. Ideology still matters. And this is of course a point of contention at times, when people wonder, is the revolution still alive, does it still matter. And i think it does. And i think what well see, that ideology is an important point in key aspects of their Foreign Policy. It drives what i call geopolitical irrationalities in places like its policies toward israel, overinvestment in places like the levant. In other places it behaves more like a state. Especially when youre studying things like what the Islamic Revolutionary guard core does and its proximity to groups like hezbollah, shia militia groups. You have to understand the ideology plus the more normal geopolitical actors. From a conventional military standpoint, iran still is very much defensively oriented. This is where it becomes, you know, frustrating at times for people to deal with this very aggressive destabilizing iranian Foreign Policy that we have through its proxies, combined with a very weak conventional military that is still i think fundamentally deterred by the u. S. And its a reminder that the degree of leverage that we have. 2016 also appears to be a fundamental inflection point, however, where iran is looking at potentially shifting to a more offensive conventional military. Thats being driven, i believe, by wars in syria and iraq, where iran is looking at potentially building a different type of military. Also what i looked at in digging into irans Defense Budget and its approach to acquisition and research and development, that its what i consider the discretionary defense spending and investment is actually somewhat rational, especially when youre looking at investments that are not tied to existential fights, like what you have going on in syria right now. And i think this is actually an important tool for policymakers, when theyre looking at the how theyre going to respond to iran long term, after the implementation of the nuclear deal, that you can understand, if you know where irans gdp growth is going to be, if you have a sense of where oil prices are going, and you understand where irans threat perceptions are, whether its looking at mainly fighting the u. S. And israel, or its mainly looking at regional wars against rivals like saudi arabia or others, or is mainly looking at nonstate actors like isis or al qaeda as its main threats, if you understand these basic variables, you can anticipate where iran may be needing to put most of its money when it comes to, is it going to buy new airplanes, is it going to buy new ships, is it going to invest more in its missile program, will it be buying most of its stuff from russia or will it try to build most of its stuff indigenously. These really Big Questions about where to put all those millions after the nuclear deal, which is of course an important issue for us now, i think you can actually understand those broad patterns. From my own research, iran tends to spend its money in a fairly rational manner when its not tied to what i call the existential fights like we have in syria. Finally i would say that the u. S. Has an overwhelming influence on irans strategic decisionmaking. This is something i cant drive home enough. And i think that for the u. S. , as were looking at what to do, i think that we have to remember that iran has chosen to make us their number one enemy. This is not something that we necessarily we did not create this situation from our perspective. They chose after the 1979 revolution, from an ideological at some point, to make us their enemy. And they have created from their strategic thinking, they build their military, first and foremost not only to protect their own regime, to protect them from counterrevolution, from their own people, but to protect themselves from us. And we still have that degree of influence over their threat perceptions, any type of war that we go to with iran. We control escalation, and we have to remember that. We can shape the resources that go into their defense industry. Theres a whole spectrum of capacity that we have. And i think this is something that in many ways should give us greater confidence in approaching iran, and that we should not look at iran as ten feet tall you know, and recognize that iran poses a very significant threat to stability in the region. But we can approach things, i think, with greater confidence and with greater strategy, and frankly in a smarter way than we have in the past. Thanks, matt. General trask . Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and fred, thanks so much for inviting me to represent Central Command tonight. I only wish someone had written this monograph then for us to use as a tool. Because obviously im no iran expert or a middle eastern expert, but i am a military planner. So from my perspective, tools that we can use to understand our adversaries are critically important to us as we try to provide options for our government and for our secretary going forward. And i think thats what this product does. Any time you have an opportunity to get into the minds of your adversary and try to understand decisionmaking processes on their side, it allows you to prioritize your planning in a way that you couldnt do otherwise. And particularly with iran, thats particularly important. I took a few specific things away from this as takeaways from a socom perspective. I will remind everybody that socom is in a support position to centcom for iran planning. Within the department of defense, centcom is in the process of going through another drill at this time on what our way ahead needs to be from a dod perspective on iran. Socom certainly contributes to that. One of the things we bring from socom is a global perspective on several issues. The reach of Iranian Networks is certainly one of them. And thats one of the ways that our analysts and our planners can help centcom in that regard. A couple of particular things that jumped out at me as important takeaways. You hit off the bat on probably the most important one, and that is that if you understand the mindset of this particular adversary, their activities are going to be predictable. And most of the time youre going to be able to look at this, there is enough body of evidence since the revolution of 79, to prove, i think, as you point out in the monograph, that their actions are going to be predictable. And the fact that they dont match up to a rationale that we easily understand in the west doesnt mean theyre not predictable if you spend enough time understanding the mindset, what the important aspects are to the regime, what they will do anything to fight for and what are what you call conflicts of opportunity versus ones that are conflicts of survival in their minds. And that allows us as planners to develop a list of options for our leadership that are focused on that. The second big takeaway that i had is kind of related to that. And its the idea of proportionality. And that was something that we struggled with a lot when you and i worked together, because it didnt seem proportional. It may have been a symmetric iranian response to whatever the issue was. But at least in their mindset it was proportional most of the time. I think thats an important thing that we can use in understanding how the United States actions will affect iranian activities going forward. So thats a probably even more important element as far as planners. Now, either way, we have to plan for as many eventualities as possible as military planners. Thats central to anything we do. At socom we had to prioritize our planning efforts. Were going to continue to plan primarily against that network of proxies and Unconventional Warfare that iran pushes out away to create that buffer for the regime that you describe in the paper very well. And thats going to be the focus. And i know theres been a lot of discussion on whether increased Defense Budgets in iran are going to lead to a greater emphasis on the conventional military capability. But i think you hit it off the bat when you said that iranians are going to be driven by what they perceive as the threat, more than anything else, properly more than budgetary opportunities or limitations. And so thats the piece that we can still manage the same way, even if they chose to put more money in their defense spending, and particularly on the conventional side. Right now, i think for us, and particularly i think your paper supports the idea that for socoms perspective, were going to stay focused on those proxies and networks and the reach that iran has well past syria and yemen, but into africa and south america and europe as well. Again, thats part of the nature of my commands charge to look at these problems from a global perspective. And i think thats going to be kind of one of the key takeaways. The last point im making, and it has to do with the last section of your paper on developing an Industrial Base and whether or not its even possible for them to reallying is significantly increase the capability of their forces. Ill tell you, particularly in the last few years ive worked in the socom area on our budget and how we develop our decisionmaking process on what we buy, that takes a long time to change. Youve got to really build a significant infrastructure. And right now, i tend to agree with your conclusion that thats unlikely to happen. Even though its possible, and as i said, as military planners, were going to make sure that secretary mattis and the president have options in either case. But our focus right now is going to be with an expectation that theyre going to continue to push, and if anything, increase defense dollars in iran are likely to go toward increasing that network, looking for ways to expand it. Weve already seen evidence of them taking units and officers out of the conventional side that are working with the irgc in syria. That may be an indication that theyre looking to push on that side with the defensive nature of their conventional forces, we dont see that being a major change anytime soon. Anyway, i thought as a tool, the paper is extremely useful. Well make it mandatory reading with our planners down in tampa going forward. And as i said, i wish we had had it a few years ago. I look forward to the discussion and your questions. Thanks. Mark . So i approach the iranian question first of all, thank you for having me here today from a former fleet commanders perspective as navsent. I also spent time in baghdad, and the malign activities that were going on were striking to me at the time. And then in my most recent military assignment as the Deputy Commander at Central Command, and there is a consistent theme. In fact for those of us who have studied this and watched it closely since the 79 revolution, weve seen these spasms of increased tension, with decreased tension, kind of an ebb and flow. And from a western mindset, it seems like its a very difficult thing to either anticipate or predict. From a navy perspective, they are very much focused on the asymmetric. They like mines, they like small boats, they like a lot of different small small submarines. And so the main thing in my mind as a former fleet commander is how do you prevent miscalculation. Nobody wants to go to war with iran. Nobody wants to have miscalculation. How do you prevent that, at the same time not taking the first strike . When i was a Strike Group Commander a few years ago, when i was in the gulf, the then fifth thrfleet commander said, okay, i dont want you to take the first punch and i dont want you to start a war. Somewhere in this spectrum of potential activities, and people would ask me how frequently do you interact with the iranians . And it would be on a daily basis. Is there is a marked difference between the irgcn and the irin. Weve had regular vessels render honors to u. S. Navy vessels. Theres an entire spectrum. The vast majority of our interactions, quite frankly, has been routine and professional. And then youll hear us refer to it as not routine or unprofessional or aggressive or that sort of thing. In the big spectrum of activities, we watch it closely. Youll see contradictions in the midst of the runup to and subsequent to the nuclear deal, actually the escalations and some of the activities, some of the malign activities have increased. There has been interdiction of forces and flow into yemen, for example. Were seeing a lot of the Coastal Defense cruise missiles. Iran from my perspective has always been very much devoted to proxies and to asymmetry. And they are the masters at keeping it just at or just below the boiling point. And so its a home game for them. And we have Rotational Forces that come through. And so its always very important that you get your the Commanding Officers and the action officers on board ships and in aircraft to make sure that they understand how to handle this situation and to always be in a place where youre prepared. As was previously mentioned, we have a very we have a dominating ability to escalate and to control a situation. But at the same time, these are international waters, and theyre international airspace, in the case of the navy. And so they have every bit as much right to be at sea as we do. And so this is something that you watch very carefully. General mattis, when i was in fifth fleet, used to always challenge me, are you the boiled frog, are you the guy whos been in this hot water long enough that its now the normal . So its something that you make sure that youre not completely cooked, but at the same time, its something that requires thought and reflection on, every day. I thought your piece was really well done. And i too would add to toms comments about, it would have been really useful to have had some of these thoughts before. The longer you study the iranian psychology i guess is the way to put it, over the last 5,000 years, its only been the last 500 that the west has somehow been ascendant, it seems. They i have this themselves as low girdling, striding, powerful people in the airs of the empire. Thanks for the discussion. Thanks. Before i turn it over to the audience, i want to push something that im hearing generally, Comfort Level with the likelihood that the iranian focus is going to continue to remain asymmetric, and probably not go heavily toward developing more conventional military capabilities. And, you know, the critical threats, iran team, are endless. A former analyst worked extensively toward more conventional capabilities, including i think we could read the deployment of irgc conventional officers to syria either way as being a sign of conventional activity or unconventional activity. But theres also the question of at what point does asymmetric activity become symmetric, if you have enough missiles, then theyre not asymmetric anymore. If iranians were to acquire, say, the antishipping Missile System from the russians, or the su30s that they want to buy from the russians, at what point does iran actually cross a threshold here in terms of the kind of threat it poses to the United States and our allies. My last comment would be sometimes we become a little too fixated on the fact that we, the United States of america, can take anything they throw at us, but they may or may not be enough, given that our allies in the region cant and may make different calculus. Do any of you want to respond to that . Ill begin and pass it to tom. I think your point is welltaken, and that is their symmetry is asymmetry. Thats how theyve done business all along. And to see the irgc now in syria, thats mayor modus open ran operandi. I think theyll find a way to create a mini hezbollah and little clones that will follow in the Lebanese Hezbollah model. When you Start Talking about new technologies, ssn26, or s400s, or su30s, those take money and those take training, which is another way of saying its a conventional capability, but it would certainly change your thinking, especially if you talk about air defense in the as400. That is part of their layers of trying to prove that theyre capable of handling anything that we have. Its a sobering problem, when you start thinking about, you know, the kind of volume of fire that they could generate. That makes you a very intensive reader of warnings and indications. I used to you know, if youre walking down the street and youre in a really tough neighborhood, and its dark, and there are people around you that you dont trust, your kind of in a little bit of a stance, if youre happy go lucky and somebody walks up to you and clocks you and youre not ready for it, so its our job to be the ones that are always ready for whatever may come. Yeah, i look at the idea that weve seen more, as i mentioned, conventionally instead of working in syria, but theyre working under irgc orders and toward their goals. I see that more of an expansion of the proxy network fight than i do an expansion of their conventional capability. It goes back i think to and im sure matt can cover this in a little more detail as well, this kind of goes to your idea that its really about what they perceive as a threat. Do they perceive a conventional threat to iran when they look around at their neighbors or even at the United States intentions or what they believe them to be . I dont know that they see that as creating a necessity to build a more robust capability. And its been the focus, their conventional forces have been defensive and the mindset for so along that thats kind of what im talking about. It would be so difficult, it would take a long time to change the mindset of that capability. And it all goes down to what do they perceive as the conventional threat. I think what you see happening in places like syria, you know, that iran and the irgc is facing, you know, a situation where the you know, its capacity. I think, fred, you were pointing to this idea, what we like to call path dependency at times, where youre stuck and youve done war for so long that asymmetric warfare is not sufficient. Youve seen this slow racheting up of what theyve been able to do in syria and its not sufficient. Theyre not winning in syria, after almost six years now, past six years. And you look, theyve had to depend on russian Close Air Support in addition to other crucial capacity, you know, in syria, and its still not doing it for them. In iraq, theyre frankly depending on american Close Air Support. You can imagine how humiliating, frankly, this is to the iranians. Something thats so vital for their geopolitical and frankly ideological interests, at least in syria, and iraq, its understandable, as a buffer, that they have a certain geopolitical interest in iraq. But syria and the levant, theres geopolitical interest there, to depend on super powers to save them. I can be kind of crude in describing that. Its a very humiliating thing for them. And i think this is something that that changing threat perception but also a degree of embarrassment is pushing i think these changes. The irgc itself may have to change. It may have to become Something Different. Or the arteche may have to become Something Different from the irgc. This is the big question. I think theyre struggling with it. I dont think theyving oe figu out an answer to these. You saw the Supreme Leader talking about these issues, talking about offensive, you see them changing the leadership of their Armed Forces General staff to bring in new leadership and creating a new structure there to execute these types of campaigns that you see in syria, because they recognize, its just not working the way theyve deny book it in the past. But they dont know how to fix this problem, necessarily. You kind of look at our experiences in iraq ten years ago. We had kind of changed our way of doing business. But i think the iranians, as you pointed out, i think its going to be really tough for them, it will be very tough for them to do this. All right. Well go to the audience. Rules are, wait for the microphone to come to you. Identify yourself and your organization. Put your statement in the form of a brief question. Thank you. I have a very quick question. Im a palestinian journalist. At what point or do you see this administration walking away from the joacp . And if they dont, and seek tin that iran is adhering completely to its obligation, how do you deal with other countries that do not fulfill their own obligations . Thank you. Ill try to field that. I think certainly i dont speak for the president or secretary mattis or secretary tillerson or anyone like that, but i certainly think the president has expressed, you know, his concerns about the deal, and that there are serious issues with it. It is under you know, there is a review going on right now about, you know, how the deal may need to be addressed in the futu future. Obviously there has to be concerned weighed about other members of the p5 plus one and about how any potential strategy is going to be pursued with them or without them in regards to the nuclear deal. But i think the larger the larger issue i think for the u. S. Is that we need to be looking at iran from a larger from a more strategic approach, that the nuclear deal should be one component of that. I think this has been one of the flaws, frankly, of the Previous Administrations approach, that they tried to build everything around the nuclear deal and subordinate some of our other policies, whether diplomatic or security, to have everything kind of flow behind in the wake of the nuclear deal. And i think that we should be in general looking towards building a more comprehensive approach to iran in which the nuclear deal is more a subordinate part of that, and supporting a larger approach that does address the larger problems that we and our allies have with iran and the region. But again, i think its still to be determined exactly how the administration will be approaching the nuclear deal. I think its very important to remember that the nuclear deal as written, not as the iranians have interpreted it, and not as the Previous Administration interpreted it, but as written, the nuclear deal gives the United States wide latitude to operate against the threat network, against the irgc, for all nonnuclear activities including with sanctions and other means. The United States could take those actions without violating the deal. How the iranians would react is an interesting question. And thats something that we can talk about. But its important to understand that the deal itself provides a lot of decisions to an Administration Even that has decided not to walk away. Kim dozier, daily beast. First question for matt, do you think the fact that their campaign hasnt been working in terms of asymmetric warfare, theyre having to tweak it, that theyre more likely to continue a secret Weapons Program or be pressured to return to it as soon as possible . And for the general, you mentioned youre probably going to continue to engage with iranian proxies. Since youre not fighting them directly, not that ive heard, but be willing to make news for us here, how are you confronting them on the battlefield . Okay. Their efforts inside syria, you know, theyre going to theyre going to fight as long as as long as it takes in syria. I think this is actually one of the things i point out in the monograph, i try to drive home the point that it was one of our early failures in u. S. Policy, in my opinion, and many western capitals as well, s tis that we underestimated the degree to which iran was committed to assad, and that they will do whatever it takes to support assad. I think the lack of understanding that among those in the Previous Administration and frankly many other western capitals, and i may include perhaps even in israel as well, that, you know, thats what undergird the belief that assad would eventually fall. And especially in 2011 and 2012, during that time frame, which i think helped fuel some bad policy choices for many states during that period. And i think, which always surprised me, frankly, during that period, because if you understood irans calculus and irans strategic thinking, you would know there is frankly practically almost nothing iran would not do to support assad, and weve seen that play out. At the same time, iran takes an approach that is very incremental towards syria, that it doesnt do more than it feels it has to. So its a notch, every year its a different level. And you see that, you know, that theyre still not winning, in my opinion. They may still be able to secure essential needs inside syria. But its still not necessarily secure in everything that they want. I dont know if that pushes them to the point where theyre willing to risk something that would be potentially that they could be caught especially with this current administration, that could risk that type of crisis. I think thats a leap for me in calculus. Because the nuclear Weapons Program is tied to a different set of set of issues, set of variables, and pursuing for, you know, the defense of the regime, security of the regime itself. Not completely separate, but i think that that is something that i would be surprised if that would be the next the next leap. I think we would have to be in a much more dire situation where they felt that Lebanese Hezbollah had completely disintegrated and they were going to risk war with israel and the u. S. , im trying to go through that cycle in my head right now. At the same time, we have yet to be in a period of time when iran in, say, the last 25 years, at least up until the jcpoa, where iran has not been cheating at least alittle. And iran is still, despite, you know, iran is despite the secretarys recent statements, there are still issues that are compliance issues and are concerns. I think there are always going to be concerns about iran doing something something illegal, something secret. Whether theyre doing something risky that quickly, thats, again, im not quite sure we will go that far that fast at this point. Ill give you two points. My comments were primarily focused on as a military planner how we build a list of options. That we give Decision Makers to use. Almost all of them are not direct conflict with iranian proxies. And so there is nothing theres no new news here as far as that story goes. What the real goal is figuring out the best ways using our analyst and partners to minimize the influence the proxies are having everywhere, not just in syria but as far away as colombian partners and south america and how they can minimize the influence that those proxies will have in furthering iranian goals. So he called it and in his testimony specifically he talked about weve got to get in the gray zone. Figure out ways to counter efforts in the gray zone, counter messaging, cyber activity that we can minimize the effect of offensive cyber from iran as one of the ways to do that. Those are the two he mentioned in the testimony. But thats really what were talking about. Here. Maam . Given irans influence in baghdad, which has been strengthened as a result of in some ways as a result of the war against isis and t mobilization units that operate as iranian proxies, some of them at least, how do you think that will effect u. S. Planning for the presence in iraq after isis is defeated . Would iranian influence keep them from maintaining a longer term presence in iraq. Who would like to field that . You first. Im quite sure that the iranian influence with the Popular Mobilization units is very serious concern for the administration as it should be. We want to maintain posture long term in iraq and weve had comments if Prime Minister in the past month or so, you know, about not wanting to have u. S. Presence or certain forms of the u. S. Presence past the Current Campaign against isis. From my own knowledge and awareness, you know, i would expect some of that is kind of early posturing and were going to be going back and forth on this for some time as we have in the past and previous considerations. I hope we cox up wime up with a arrange ment than has been concluded in previous rounds in the past. The u. S. Has an opportunity in iraq to strengthen the iraqi people to be frankly more, you know, more self determinetive because the iraqi people themselves do not appreciate all the rhinian influence that they have to deal with. And i think this is something that as much as iran may have played a role in helping to fight isis and defend against the initial invasion in 2014, that ultimately the iraqi people would like to have, you know, frankly more balance in iraq and not have this degree of iranian, you know, influence in their Security Forces. And they would like assistance from us and from our air partners and building up their Security Forces and building up the political influence there. I think this is a great opportunity for the u. S. To be able to, you know, to show that we can be strong, effective partners. Addressing the Popular Mobilization units is where we should be putting a lot of our energy right now. I think this has tremendous potential if were not paying attention to really undermine stability there in iraq long term. Reactivate tension ands conflict and recreate the environment for the next version of isis or sunin sur s sunni insurgency in iraq. Iraq is more thoroughly intergrated into the Security System than it has ever fwbeen modern times. There are thousands if not tens of thousands of iraqis fighting in syria under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary guard core as part of the axis of resistance in the region. The degree of autonomy granted to the pmus including in an especially eiranian controlled organizations in iraq that are not responsive to the Prime Minister. And some of the leaders of shia death squads who contributed so much the sectarian warfare in 2007 are now in prominent ministries within the Iraqi Government which in my view basically dooms the prospect of sectarian stabilization in iraq. I think american has been mi openicly focused on the fight against isis to the exclusion of thinking seriously about how to address the problems. Not just the isis but mosul and the thing that ends the flet isis which is, of course, wrong. And as a result of that, we have largely allowed all of this to develop in an extremely passive way and sort of hoping that its not going to turn into the sort of problem that im pretty sure that it will. I think this is something that merits quite a lot of attention. Im not in the mind of the iranian regime, but if i were them, woibtit would be a no bra to get a lot of bangs for the bucks and you would get a lot of bangs for the 150 billion that obama game them to destroy and fracture saudi arabia. Thats the price. Thats the key. Why arent they doing more to destroy saudi arabia in conjunction with the russian whos have plenty of axes to grind . Why arent they doing more to destroy saudi arabia . Well, i will take that question to the talk about the strategies. Because what you bring up is a good point about what we havent talked a lot about which is yemen and bahrain and some of the other investments that they do there in their strategies in sponsoring partners and proxies if we want to call them that. In those places. I think this was brought changeup i didnt bring up in my key points, but one thing i go into how understanding how iran decides to use force in different conflicts is discerning the difference between, you know, conflicts of opportunity versus conflicts of necessity. And wars, you know, if you understand why iran is going to go to war or why iran is going to throw, you know, billions of dollars or millions of dollars at something, you have to understand the calculus and big part of that does it how much does it matter to iran . Syria and iraq matter a lot to iran. Yemen and bahrain matter quite a bit to iran but dont matter in quite the same way. Whereas yemen and bahrain matter an awful lot to our partners in the gulf council and the gcc. And particularly to saudi arabia. And so even though iran has certain Strategic Interests in both those areas, they have ideological interests in those areas. They have certain religious interests with the shia populations in those areas that they want to outreach to and build relationships with and influence kind of missionary work as i call it. Funnel fundamentally it doesnt follow the needs theys have for hezbollah and lebanon and relationship with assad and the need to protect their interests and investments they have in iraq. Their investments in yemen and bahrain is based on the saudis. The saudis feel like they have to respond in those situations. And the iranians only need to invest a little bit in those places to drive very significant reactions from the saudis and to lesser degree the others. When were looking how to respond and this drives the larger questions. I know secretary mattis and others struggle with and how to prioritize our responses, you know, whereas in iraq and syria, those are things that are important to iran. We could do cost imposing strategies on iran there. The areas are important to us but much more important to iran than they are to us. Yemen and bahrain are much more important to saudi arabia. I worry that iran is doing cost imposing strategies on saudi arabia and the emirates and other countries there in potentially us as well as we become involved. So we have to be careful in how we approach those issues. So i think that this is one thing that i do worry about and why its so important to understand how iran approaches issues like yemen and issues like syria. Thank you very much. [ inaudible ] my question is do you see any ideology or policy change in iran from the last two elections . And second, do you see this as a shia and sunni war in the region . And finally, if president trumps recent visit in the region will change any poll change from the u. S. Of bringing peace from the pad past administration to the new administration . Those are three questions. Three big ones. Do you want to takive in these . Ill keep taking them. Going on from the elections which i figure we would at some point talk about the elections. The recent election thats you have to remember the recent elections are within the very limited scope that iran allows for its democratic expression if you want to call it that. And president as we all like he is a man of the system. I look at him as someone that is trying to keep this regime this system going. Because he recognizes and i think the Supreme Leader agrees with him on this that theres a lot thats not quite working with the government as it is. I think they recognize certain things need to be tweaked or changed. But i think fundamentally he is looking for ways to move forward. And even his main competitor who takes, as we like to call it in west, hardliner approach, i really try to avoid too much of this kind of moderate versus hardliner divisions, especially on Foreign Policy. I dont think it really matters too much. I think that from their perspective, you know, he maybe was more in line with how the Supreme Leader thinks. I dont think there is fundamental difference. I think my colleague pointed out in one of her pieces that in reality, the only way that the Supreme Leader really lose in this election is if we had another 2009 and people came out on the streets and contested legitimacy of the entire system. This was a this was an election about legitimacy. And thats what the Supreme Leader really enjoyed seeing those long lines. At least what thomas was able to talk about in the New York Times about showing those long lines and showing we have these great elections near iran. Were this island of tranquility in iran. I think that story is something that is very important to the ayatollah to be able to promote. The ideology, you know, i think the average iranian is not a huge fan of the ideology. I they think the i had oj rolde doesnt really matter. Some on the right talk about maybe its kind of a terminology when my good friends describes it as a zombie, you know, a zombie republic at this stage where it talks but doesnt really still not alive. I dont know. Maybe it is. The thing is the ideology is what keeps this certain elite cohort in power. And theyre not ready to give it up yet. Its what motivates the revolutionary guard corps and behavior and what they do in the region. Theyre not ready to give that up yet. We havent seen any changes in the Foreign Policy yet. Thats what im looking for. Im looking for changes in the Foreign Policy and its not happening. So i think this is what is for me essential and whether rahani has very little influence on Foreign Policy, at least a core Foreign Policy. I think this is, for me, you know, im not seeing whether iran comes in from the cold, becomes more integrated into the International System after the nuclear deal which was kind of the hope of the last administration. The arc of hist i have nory is to bring in this government and change it fundamentally. So i think this is what i think is a real challenge that i dont think theyre ready for this yet. This is still the founding generation from the revolution is still and the iraniraq war. Theyre still in charge. I think they still have to die before youre going to see a very significant change in leadership. This may even last past ayatollah had a manny passing on. The revolutionary guard corps so entrenched into the system. And their world view and speshgtivespeshg perspectives, even if the average person doesnt believe it, its going to be hard to see that transition. And whether you see this shiasunni dynamic as you were describing, i think the iranians dont really want to have great sectarian war. They dont like that. Its not in their ideology to do. That the problem is everywhere they go to work, they tend to work with people that they want to work with everybody but they end up working in the friend people they trust. And the people that they end up trusting or fellow shia. So any time they go into any country, they create the dynamic. Thats why you see this cycle repeating over and over again. I think with this administration, there are always if iran wants to change, i think there are opportunities to reset. But i think versus not seeing any real changes from iran in their foreign policies and what theyre sponsoring, i wouldnt expect this administration to take a different attitude about it. Okay. Last question back here. Hello. My name is im a student from new york. I am flunent in persian. Ill going to read one of the iranian [ inaudible ] and then ill ask my question. Very briefly. Yes. Sure. So he said, hello, im going to vote for you but you should know that i didnt have any other choice. You are never you have never been my choice but me and all of those who come onboard for you its because we had just one choice and we deserve a better president. So he was actually pretty young, in his 20s. In my age. So my question is in a recent president ial election we saw a huge turnout from the people supporting the reformists. I want to know to what extent in the short term or long term goals these young people can pressure on the government or in a democratic ways such as elections, such as Council Elections and parliamentary candidates to come. Yeah, because every constitution has this to have direct involvement of people. So can the youth put pressure on the regime . Exactly. To change his Foreign Policy. Super. Yeah, thank you. If you read the monograph, you find that as much as i love the iranian people, i dont find theres really much you can do from the bottom up to pressure the Foreign Policy of the iranian state. Because the end i think the Supreme Leader really does worry about domestic instability. He worries about counter revolution all the time. The elites are constantly freaked out about revolution. But at the same time, they dont really worry about whether you know, whether the poll numbers are pro or antisyria engage ment or iraq involvement or yemen unless it gets very veshgs di, very dire. The only time we saw this was in the 1980s when it became so extreme and they knew they were going have to do Something Different because mothers and fathers could not send their sons and their children into the trenches anymore. So i think the domestic opinion has very minimal impact on a particularly what the irgc does. I think as opposed to how it works in most democracies, iran is not really a democracy in a sense. Its not. I wish it was, but its not, unfortunately. If youve taken anything away from this i hope that you will take away from matts project and our discussion here the gravity of the issue, the seriousness of it and the fact that it is something that we can reasonably undertake to understand. And i would close by echoing matts initial point. We have paralyzed ourselves for decades thinking of iran as on opaque system that does things for reasons that no normal human kk understand and, therefore, we havent tried hard enough to understand them. When you try and you look at the body of evidence as matt has done so well here, you can discern a lot about what their patterns have been and what the patterns of behavior are likely to be. This would be a great moment in history for a solid look at that which matt has provided and then a serious look forward about what the United States and its allies can do in the future and to think about how to address very predictable threats and challenge thats well face. I want to thank you all for coming and thank you our panelists for a terrific discussion. This weekend book tv is live from the 33rd annual Chicago Tribune festival in chicago. Our coverage starts on saturday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern with author mary dear bs born with her book, earnest hemming way, a biography. At noon, 2016 National Book award winner and his book stamped from the beginning. On sunday, our coverage continues at 11 00 a. M. Eastern with Heather Ann Thompson and her book, blood in the water. At 12 2 00, Jeffrey Stone with x and the constitution. Then trey rade wlchlt his book, democrazy a true story of wierd policy, money, madness and finger food. And thomas ricks with his book, churchill and orwell, the fight for freedom. Watch our coverage of the 33rd annual Chicago Tribune lit fest at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan2s book tv. Dl was a discussion hosted on north koreas future, political, and economic prospect following a series of global shifts including donald trump winning the presidency and the 2017 election of