Reconvene and welcome the panel. All right. As silence falls over the room. I will introduce our Panel Moderator and let him introduce the panelists. Introduce to he was recently named one of the 50 most influential britons and the u. S. As a leading authority on transatlantic relations, gardner has advised on key issues including the role and postwar iraq to leadership and the role on terrorism. His papers are widely read on capitol hill where he is sought for advice on policy matters. He received his doctorate in history from yale university. Lets welcome him and the rest of our panel today. [applause] good morning, everybody. Welcome to todays event. Thank you for joining us in such extremely cold weather, brutally cold weather. Talking about the russians and nato. We have two superb washington foreignpolicy experts today. Both rebecca and michael frequently on cable news. In washington on a very regular basis. I want to introduce rebecca. A National Security fellow at the hopkins institute. She specialized in Missile Defense and counter proliferation. She served as an advisor on Foreign Policy to a member of the House Committee and helped launch the bipartisan Missile Defense caucus. And michael is senior fellow of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and is director of research for the Foreign Policy program at brookings, specializing in u. S. Defense strategy and american National Security policy. He is also an adjunct professor at princeton and syracuse universities, and the university of denver. He is the author of several books and received his doctorate from princeton university. I would like to ask rebecca and michael to just briefly say if you words to kick us off for todays discussion. Then i will follow that with a series of questions for our two panelists. Q athen we shall go into a with the audience. Rebeccauld like to ask if you could introduce yourself, add any insights you would like to kick off with with regards kick off with regards to todays discussion. Rebecca thank you for braving the cold to join us for a little conversation about american foreignpolicy. Is this on . Can you hear me well . I thought for this audience, i wanted to give you some background as to how i got started in foreignpolicy because that tends to be a curiosity for undergraduate students. I do my bachelors degree in history and political science. Internship every summer studying Foreign Language at the ohio state university. D. C. Ame out to washington as soon as i graduated, and that my first job on capitol hill working for the house judiciary committee. Now, i had always wanted to focus on National Security policy, but that opportunity was not open at the time, so i took a very good job in the house judiciary committee. And what to graduate school. I went to graduate school at the u. S. War college. Focused myrt of studies more narrowly and got a job for a congressman on the House Services committee, and began specializing in strategic security. That is Missile Defense and counterterrorism. That is a very, very short timeline. If you have more questions about the particulars afterwards, i am happy to spend time talking to you all. I specialized working for the congressman and then launch the bipartisan Missile Defense caucus to offer a forum for republicans and democrats to discuss the challenges to the United States from the threat of Ballistic Missiles. And because Ballistic Missiles i would one of just say, we have entered a new missile era. Countries that do not have large militaries, large navies and air forces that can challenge the u. S. Military, countries like north korea and iran are investing in Ballistic Missiles because Ballistic Missiles married with Nuclear Weapons, chemicals, allow them to threaten and course a world power, superpower like the United States of america, which is why were seeing so many so much focus on both the programNuclear Missile and North KoreansNuclear Program. As i wanted to create this forum for democrats or republicans to look at the threats, and find areas to find consensus and tackle those issues we agree on to better build out our countrys nuclear infrastructure. The caucus today still does that. I would just say that that is the area of my focus, although i do cover a wide spectrum of National Security issues now that my focus because of how acute the north korean security problem has become, that had been my area of focus, in pla,ion to the iranian jc the around deal. And all of the issues that sort of surround that particular problem. I will leave it there. Excellent. Thank you very much. Michael, can you see can you say a couple of words. Michael thank you, everyone. I am a very old man compared to these two. But i will not make you hear the year by year. I love to hear i loved hearing how rebecca got into this. Studied physics in college. My summer job went from dairy farm work in upstate new york to then, believe it or not, trying to disprove einsteins theory of relativity. [laughter] Michael Einstein is right. [laughter] michael and i am not kidding. It was not my idea to do the project, but then i did the peace corps in the congo Teaching College physics as my main job, although had some other things more applicable. Ame back and started doing science and Public Policy graduate program, ultimately wound up shifting from that to the Woodrow Wilson school of public and international affairs. I spent time on capitol hill. Congress gets a bad rap. Deserves the bad withbut an equal partner the executive branch. I am very proud of the time i got this been in congress. Was a congressional for me, it was the Congressional Budget Office working for people like studiesdoing different on different issues. Hen i went to brookings i will leave it at that. Thank you very much, michael. I would like to begin with an opening question with regards to the war against islamic terrorism. Of course, a huge priority issue for the u. S. Administration and has been a priority issue from much in the last two decades. The state department recently announced that isis has lost about 98 of its territory in iraq and syria. If this basically, in your view, game over for isis in iraq and syria . Or is there a danger that isis could reemerge in either of those countries . And also, what explains the very, very rapid defeat of isis . Something like 50 of isis territory in syria and iraq has been taken away in the last 12 months alone. And the total is of 98 . If you could address those questions. I will start with you, rebecca, first and then michael. Rebecca sure. I will take a piece of that. Think that we can take, we can be happy with the games that we have made. The gains that we have made. It is remarkable how quickly the u. S. Military has been able to actually defeat the socalled caliphate that had existed. That is the organization that isis had in both of those two places. Isis is very good at reinventing itself and popping up another areas in which there is a power vacuum. That is why when the tragedy of u. S. Forces killed in niger popped up in the news, that is because isis is trying to gain a foothold there. We are going to see that isis, as an islamic, militant group, will not be utterly defeated anytime soon. Why . Why has the u. S. Military been able over 5 Million People freed that were producing under isis control. Remarkable progress. ,nd even during the obama years when the Obama Administration was prosecuting the war, 3 Million People were freed. It was a slower campaign, but saw successes as well. According to the pentagon, some of the things that are different about the way their prosecuting this war is the tempo of the military strike. Afterpid we are going these targets. It is not allowing them to regain territory quickly. It is just how rapidly were prosecuting the war. In secretary mattis will say we have not changed the rules of engagement. You often hear people say the rules of engagement have changed. They have not changed. But he has been delegating down authority so that we cut out the bureaucracy for approving various military strikes before we go ahead and do them. That goes to how rapid we have been able to prosecute the war. And that is what is owed to the success that we have had so far. Thank you vary much, rebecca. Michael . Michael i agree with all of that. President obama clearly struggled with syria policy throughout his presidency. By the last one or two years, began to get a better concept of what he thought he was trying to do, and began to set a lot of conditions. It took a while. Are only beginning to gel by the end of his presidency. And presidency thenPresident Trump was able to build on that then President Trump was able to build on that. They sort of partly dissolved. The red couple of places they fought bravely hard. In other cases, the enemy decided, lets just shave our beards and revert back to being regular citizens of iraq and syria, and sneak away and hopefully no one will figure out who we were, especially for a lot of the foot soldiers. And perhaps stay around to fight another day. For those of you who have forgotten a little bit of what happened after the iraq war, we thought we had defeated al qaeda 20092010raqis in the period. A lot of those extremist fighters and a lot of others who became radicalized as time went on were sort of biting their time. When they did not like it, they joined up with isis and isis took a lot of iraq, too. Those were the two countries that had its strongest foothold in iraq and syria. We have to be really careful about declaring victory. President trumps at fort in a trumpsdifficult view of a rock is difficult. We have to improve the conditions to patch up the kurdish conditions to moderator minimize the role of marijuana. Minimize the roll of iran. Maybe turning our political assistance to economic aid. Going to prepare the secretary if theyre going to repair the secretary and conditions, they will need help. It is relatively easier to sketch out as to what it should be. Syria is still a huge hornets nest and we are nowhere near finishing a solution to the civil war, unless you are like russia, youre happy to see president assad win the conflict. That ot clear to me assads can stay in power that assad can stay in power. He has killed so many of their brothers, sisters and friends. They are a long way from anything we should call victory or stability. I will give President Trump a hopeful grade, but nowhere near a success. Onecca if i may attack there, another challenge with iraq we are seeing is marijuana is trying to make sure we are toing is that iran is trying make sure they have a greater influence in iraq and over the iraqi government. That is something that the United States government is acutely aware of and we are trying to make sure that part of the final solution, whatever that may be, is able to protect care for itsand people. For its people. Before they can do that on its own, the united dates wants to make sure that iraq the United States was to make sure that iraq is that fits into the overall strategy for what United States is trying to do in terms of pushing back uranian influence at large in the region. Thank you for those excellent answers. It is very striking the 7. 5 Million People were liberated in total. Actually over the last couple of years, and that is a huge achievement there. , over over to iran now the past few days, we have seen protests inreet every major city in the country. Of publiching level protests in an extremely authoritarian country. What should the u. S. Response be to the protests . Has the Trump Administration handled the iran protest issue well . Especially in comparison to obamas handling to the protests in iran. And what are the implications for the iran nuclear deal, and ng possibly be seei the downfall of the islamic regime in iran . Michaelick off with first. Michael thank you. To answer the question of how to handle demonstrations like this, i think so far President Trump is doing fine. You know, factoring in and adjusting for his particular approach to Health Approach to how he addresses diplomacy. But now that we dont have the operates, i think the basic approach to supporting the protesters and condemning the government is generally fine. But when you look more broadly and how we handle these kinds of situations lets imagine 2009 with president obama and how we tried to help gently push and then more firmly put president more firmly push the president out of egypt, and look what happened. We have to be aware of the downsides of luring people into thinking we are going to come help them in a way that we will not. That would be my main caveat, or caution. Today isiran equivalent to syria 2011, but sometimes these things take on lives of their own, and you cannot read them that well, to know when things get to a tipping point, or when you have an emergent phenomenon of mass protests in knowing where that goes. That is hard to foresee. Wavee did not perceive the of liberation movements in eastern europe. These things tend to be unpredictable. What you want to do is to be true to your own principles. You want to be clear about where you stand, but you want to be aware of the limits of your influence. What i would not suggest, not that i believe it to be likely, i would not suggest that President Trump give iranian protesters the sense that we will intervene on their behalf. It would be pretty unlikely we would do so given the size and capacity, but that would be my one caution. Therwise, i do think initial response is fine. One more thing on the nuclear deal. On the broader question of dealing with iran going for it. The nuclear deal that president obama negotiated of 2015 is going to be very hard for the United States to overturn because it is an International Agreement and the monitoring bodies say that iran is doing most of what is asked under that particular deal on the Nuclear Portfolio at least. Otherwise, iran is behaving horribly, even worse than in 2015. But we need to use other mechanisms and means to address that. The nuclear deal, i dont believe was as good as it could have been, but it will be very hard at this point to undo it. It, butd try to improve that has to be done through negotiation, which means we need leverage that will be tested get. If we rip it up, we will be in a worse place. I hope that President Trump stays tough on iran with regards to the demonstrations, regional actions, andovert figure out better strategies to push back against iran in those domains, but leave the nuclear deal essentially intact, even if he does not like it because it will be hard to replace it with anything better at this point, given the whole International Community is behind it. Even if we stopped dealing with iran economically because we decided that we dont like to give anymore, the rest of the world will continue to do its trade and investment with iran and will be given iran a potential withdraw under their obligations of the deal. I say be tough against irans activities and be supportive of the protesters. That could add up to the best policy become due at this point. Rebecca i could go 75 different angles on this one. I agree with a lot of what was just said. I will start with the protesters. I agree that President Trump has done very, very well on this. The promptness of his response of showing solidarity with the protesters was exactly right. That goes for nikki haley and everybody else in the administration who had a role. Pushbackhear a lot of from former Obama Administration of the otherrt side of this, the other position is we should be quiet. And is sort of an a rainy the u. S. Government should stay out of it. That is not what many of the demonstrators say. The demonstrators in iran are not on demonstrating for the same reasons. Justof them, generally dissatisfaction with the regime in general and for variety of reasons for why they are dissatisfied. But what the iranian people were promised is that the iran deal would bring in this new wave of Economic Prosperity for the country, and the have not seen it. They have not seen it. The iranian government used much of the funds for its military and for its missile program. I oppose thehy iran deal with everything i had leading up until the deal. I testified before congress that if you do not think clued irans if you do not included juans missile program, if you do missileude irans program, it is a bad idea. Anytime the iranians or north , thattest the satellite is an intercontinental ballistic test. It is different in terms there are other challenges for getting the launch to go in the right trajectory to get it on to its target, but they are not just trying to inspire the next generation of nasa kids. That is not what they are doing. They are trying to figure out how to get th