Political, and economic strategic point. You saw this in parliament we can half ago, where most of the kurdish members of the parliament in the sunni members of the parliament boycotted the wasion, and while the vote 1700, i heard behind the scenes on my social media feed, a lot of allegations of Death Threats against family members if they thenot vote against continuation of Coalition Forces in the country. There will be a big fight over the course of the next six months to a year over whether or not this direction by the parliament is legitimate, whether a caretaker Prime Minister can accomplish that with the need of a new election and unfortunately, somewhat forgotten and all of this is the real pressure from the iraqi street and the hundreds of thousands of young iraqis that have been demonstrating, particularly in the south of the country and in baghdad for government reforms, reduction of corruption and a reduction of foreign influence, but iranian influence because that is more prevalent in the south. So, what i see Going Forward is a return to the status quote status quo, and not the shooting war between the United States and iran, but they are levied to double down on earlier strategies but they are likely to double down on their earlier strategies. Any questions . All the right. Good morning, everyone. Good to be with you. To susans son, thank you to the middle east policy council for gathering is here. I am going to keep my remarks on the qassemlly Soleimani Killing. When reporting on soleimani, i i try tothink up think of western politics. The head of intelligence, the head of an army, the senior advisor, and and boy, and there envoy. Ne and an in he was an advisor to the Supreme Leader and a political operator. Two weeks into his killing, it has very much shaped the region and here is how. So, for those in the soleimani camp, what do we see . Theres definitely a sense of groups such as, groups in iraq are trying to recover and they are very much hunkering down and appeared to be reassessing their security and political operations. If we zoom in on has below and and lebanonezbollah being the biggest military group regionally, i see three tracks. First, it is trying to use the killing of soleimani to rally its base, and they are doing this very skillfully. I dont know if youre familiar ired this, but they a exclusive interviews, obviously previously taped with soleimani where he is speaking in arabic. They had four or five of these. We also saw, they released behind the scenes, photos of soleimani and the secretarygeneral of hezbollah. Already about the Soleimani Killing and from what we gather from that has bola hezbollah according to experts who follow the group closely, they appear to be boosting their security inside lebanon, trying to fill an intelligence gap that should not be surprising because soleimani was in beirut. We do not know if he went to syria after, but he was in beirut before going to iraq where he was assassinated. Third, politically and politically, we see a trend at every action from iraq and lebanon, that the preference after the Soleimani Killing pass shifted to a onecolor government formation in both baghdad and beirut. Before wasllah with peopleegotiate from that coalition, right now, they are very close to forming a government with just their. Mmediate allies the same thing we see with iraq that the ambassador mentioned with parliament being an indication. The soleimani camp. For those not in the soleimani camp, obviously, no one is mourning his death. But there is a sense of anxiety among u. S. Partners in the region on what is next. I was speaking to one gulf is,cial and the concern what if the u. S. Leaves iraq . Will iran where retaliate next . What will the u. S. Do if a status targeting . These are questions we are Partners West these are questions we are hearing from u. S. Partners. Lebanon,llow iraq and it has led to resignations of government there, in beirut and baghdad. But with the killing of soleimani, that is very much iraqhadowed the rallies in , so we are seeing more harassment of activists by and in the last five days, we saw the killing of five iraqi journalists and one activist just yesterday. Areebanon, protests becoming more violent, but they continue. Affected of the killing of soleimani, but they are definitely adding pressure on hezbollah. Me, the regional framework, i wanted to present. I look forward to the discussion and your questions. I will turn it over to ambassador lindbergh. Thank you very much and good morning to everyone. Thank you for everyone for coming out on this friday morning at the beginning of a long weekend. A wonderful comment about iran always being in the news, even on a friday morning in washington. I want to thank our host also for putting this together. Im going to start on a personal note. My connections to iran go back a long way. They go back about 60 years. A teacher, as a , verycher and an academic forfly as a diplomat, and an unfortunate length of time, as a prisoner, but my real connection is as a member, proud to be a member, and lined and welcoming iranian American Families so i have iranian connections as a husband, as a brother in law, soninlaw, and of course father and grandfather of people, of young people that are part iranian. I should say in the interest of full disclosure, i am not a big fan of the Islamic Republic. Based juston is not on personal experience. Our iranianing that friends, relatives, they deserve better than they have. Thatdeserve a government treats them decently, that doesnt throw in jail intellectuals, womens rights activists, human rights activists, journalists, anybody they dont like. Hand, i havether always sought that we need some kind of different relationship than what we have had. For 40 years, the relationship has been sour. You can describe it in a lot of other ways, but it hasnt been it hasnt produced anything. Were yelling we and threatening each other. Today, we are still doing the same thing. Ask fore too much to friendship, but at least an ability to talk to each other. I mean, we talked to a lot of countries with which we are not friends. Have not always in popular. Likehave earned me labels andmanchurian candidate others, which i cannot repeat. This is being televised, i understand, so i cannot, the other things that i have been called. Know, this has inn over time, and back 2009, when they were doing the first Obama Administration, and administration decided to make this effort of outreach, it theed for people among Foreign Service and elsewhere, who had direct experience with iran. Me, i was happily teaching at the Naval Academy at the time, and they asked me to work in administration, and i asked them, how did you find me . And they said, we opened the gates of jurassic park. Gazing,aw this beast grazing happily in the corner, and we said, you know, that like an iran osarus. I want to step back from the headlines. As ane i was trained historian. And historians love to say, lets go back to the beginning. Tell myso used to students, he who forget history is condemned to repeat sophomore year. [laughter] i will spare you going back, i think suzanne mentioned, i will spare you going back to the book of daniel on cyrus the great, although there was a rather bizarre tweet i saw yesterday from the state department that mentioned cyrus the great. To put things in context. In all of the wise words you heard from colleagues, there are two geographic, historical realities that still apply today, and it shapes the way iran sees it and its relations with the outside world. Themselves ews itself as a besieged fortress. Control the persianspeaking heartland on the central plateau, but whoever control must also protect the nonpersianspeaking periphery. Particularly, the mountain walls to the west and the north because once these walls are pierced, iran is open to conquest, control the main towns, the roads, and the rest is easy. So, you can see, why would iran be meddling in iraq . Because that is the western approach to the fortress. That protects the walls. Another area they have always been interested in is their loss of the the caucasian provinces in the early 19th century. I dont think iran that is a blow i dont think iran has ever recovered from. It removed a natural barrier from the north. A second reality is iran and its region is an outlier. Like the other peoples and places. Arab,not sunni, it is not it is not turkish. It is isolated. It is isolated culturally, historically, and thanks to some diplomacy under this limit republic, politically. Who makes friends in the region . Not many. They devastated syria, and of all places, isolated landlocked, christian armenia. The armenians and the iranians get along very well because they boast because they both hate a group that share a shiite religion. I call the iranians the britons of the middle east. What i callity is the 100 year struggle of iranians to assert independence, dignity, and to have a government that treats its people decently. Go back 100 years. Iran was in a very bad place. Literacy was 5 . Life expectancy was 30 years. Infant mortality was about for percent. Was about 50 . University placement, zero. They knew they were in a bad place. And they said we have to do something. Originally inand the struggle, we have a constitutional revolution, you have other movements, you have the Oil Nationalization movement. Originally on the good side of that. We were on the side of the good guys. Untilported this struggle 1953. , in myther thing experience, that bothers my iranan friends, is as struggles, the arabs sometimes do better. And that bothers iranians. Think of the Green Movement in 2009, then the arab spring follows in 2011. The contrast was brought up slogan thatever someone was chanting on the streets of tehran. I will translate it. That seems the struggle goes on and the failures go on. Let me just end with talking iran and iran experts. Being an iran expert in this town is in very hard. Because you only have to be able to say two things. One is, i dont know. And the second is, it is very complicated. [laughter] that covers about 95 of it. You to be weary of the things that you hear about iran. I mean, you already i think everyone in this room is rightly suspicious of the phrase, the imminent threat and the attack on the indices we heard about, and they rightly demanded evidence that was never provided. I would also ask you to be careful when you hear phrases and, malign behavior iranian hegemony and iranian threat. Just ask yourself, what does this mean . When you say threat, threat to whom . Is threatened and how much are they threatened who is threatened and how much are they threatened . Bes is different from may the first impression. Let me just end with one incident that, to me, illustrates what a better relationship would look like. Is anyone here familiar with called the Mississippi Health project . Good. Good. It is interesting program. The mississippi delta is one of the poorest regions in our country, and efforts to improve Health Conditions down there paid off, so people in mississippi heard about a in iranin huron called rural health houses and they thought, that sounds interesting in it might apply maybe it could be useful. Reach remote and difficult areas, so they theoached privately iranians and said, we are interested in your program. Could you help us . And the answer was, of course. And this program has been going on quietly for many years. Ad a group of iranians group of americans, im sorry, went to iran, and they went and stopped at a teahouse in a small town and they were talking, they were sitting there, and the iranians and americans were talking to each other in english, and the local people asked, who are these people . Who are these foreigners . And the answer was, they are americans. And their response was, americans . I thought we got rid of the americans . And they say, no, these are americans who are here to learn from us. Was, oh, thatse is different. I never knew that the rain could fall up. Me, that story, and a small way, is perhaps where we should be. I thank you for your attention, and i look forward to our discussion. Thank you. Thank you to the speakers. And i will start by saying almost every question from the audience has to do with iraq. And the impact of all these events on iraq. That, i wouldto a question that suzanne raised and find out what the other panelists think about it in more detail. Question thats had that has been asked in the has the action taken by the United States in killing soleimani established deterretns or raise the possibility of escalation . Think iraniane response was very carefully lead toed to not further u. S. Actions. Suzanne, you said it provided an opportunity for deescalation in the short run because you also said iran has many incentives to continue escalating. Or at least to continue caliphate and they could continue the calibrated responses they have engaged in over previous months before they killed a u. S. Contractor in iraq. Other panelists think about the kinds of responses that i ran will now engage in and whether they will miscalculate, whether there will be another u. S. Death and and how thelation United States will respond. Before i ask you to respond to recall something said by someone at a Panel Last Week that said iran understands [inaudible] will be hard to develop a response to what they do because there is going to be a debate, there is going to be disagreement. Can people respond to that . Do you want to start by saying anything more about it . Happy to respond. I have two comments on that. First of all, i think, to some extent, if you think in conventional security terms, the killing of soleimani does, in fact, establish a bit of a deterrent mostly because the Trump Administration had not reacted to most of the iranian and proxy provocations earlier in the year. I think the iranians did not really know what the real redline was even though it had been publicly stated. A bit ofink it adds unpredictability to an american response because it was something im sure the iranians did not expect. Side, i thinkcan this administration tried to respond to the drip, drip, drip of an Iranian Movement into iraq and movement through syria and potential threats to israel, attacks on shipping, gulf allies , interference in pakistan. Ande are iranian tentacles so many places. Like a frog in water, its hard to determine a point at which a response is warranted. Very unconventional or radical response from the administration was intended to send a message to tehran that we will not simply let you incrementally gain victories without paying a cost. Again, whether its good or bad or whether it will create additional problems, i think in the shortterm, we will see a return to more indirect pressure on the United States. But i think there was both a message sent from washington and received in tehran but i leave it to others who know more about iran to discuss how that might be, what kind of reaction it might be from the government. Ran was inee that i shock. It took them a few hours to even acknowledge the death of soleimani. I the question of deterrents, think the jury is still out. Thenow from the attack on u. S. Iraqi joint base, it was intended to kill. Beenw know that there has a dozen wounded. Ongoing sinceill fromilling of soleimani iraqi militias. This has not stopped. I think it is really too early to tell. Seen if remains to be the red line is crossed again killed. S. Personnel is or iran could respond through proxy. And have that deniability. Here it is actually important, if you listen to the leader of hezbollah, his first speech after the killing of soleimani and he was clear. We will respond but you just need to know that our operations , we are not getting instructions from iran. So he is already offering iran the deniability. I think its very complicated to answer one way or another. Endorse whatst some of the other speakers said. What remains puzzling for me was what was the goal of it . What did we seek to achieve . Never heard it explained. I have never heard it articulated. One suspects that there is little in it beyond making us feel good. You never lose much politically in this town by bashing the iranians. We have been doing it for 40 years and we will do it again. I would also endorse the about this contradictory and duality of , that toos status many represents a very unpopular, he has the support of a very unpopular regime and policy that spends iranian resources in adventures abroad at a time when many people are feeling great economic stress. At the same time, he is an iranian patriot. Fought against the iraqis, he would has a distinct war record, he helps defend the homeland against iraq. He helped defend the country against isis with the tacit cooperation of the United States, i might add. If the intention of the killing of soleimani was to deter further killings of americans, thats one thing. If it was intended to advance some other american objective, thats another. I think we have a disagreement here about what irans intentions were which has something to do with how precise their Ballistic Missiles are. And that they did not intend to kill americans. There were two housing complexes hit on the base in iraq. And there were injuries. Enough to dorecise that, maybe we have not established a deterrent although theyd did give us three hours advance notice. Do you want to Say Something . Im not sure if this is working. It is. I think the iranians assumed a certain degree of risk and not just with the response to the soleimani strike but with everything they had done up to that point, the downing of the drone, for example, the u. S. Drone in july. I think it was done with the expectation that it was at least possible if not likely that the United States would respond with some military action against iranian targets. Obviously, the president live tweeted his decision to call back that strike in july and that gave the iranians at least some sense, some indication that even at a time when renowned hawk at john bolton was still in the white house, that the shots and that he himself preferred to avoi