We also welcome distinguished Board Members and selfless fund of middle east programs here at Atlantic Council john de blasio. Finally we welcome u. S. Government officials, private companies and nonprofits. I predict a rich and substantive question and answer session following the discussion on the stage. Open to everyone. This richins of the discussion will be enhanced by the absolutely superlative interviewer who will draw the kernels of wisdom out of nabeel today. Tom friedman needs no introduction but simply for fun i will remind you can read his analysis of Foreign Affairs in the new york times, analysis for which he has thrice won the pulitzer prize. Tom is the author of several books and one of which was a textbook as an undergraduate. His full bio is available for you and is printed at. Let us turn to our man of the hour nabeel khoury. Hes a nonbrexit senior fellow fellow at the atlantic counsels christopher middle east are in addition to his work on our website you can read on his own blog, middle east corner. Nabeel retired from 25 years and u. S. Foreign service in 2013 with the rank of minister counselor. No small feat. He taught at the National Defense university and at Northwestern University is less overseas posting nabeel Service Deputy chief of mission of the u. S. Embassy in yemen. In 2003 during the iraq war he served as Department Spokesperson at u. S. Central command. He earned his bachelors degree in Political Science from the American University of beirut and his masters and phd in Political Science from university of new york at albany. He has published articles on issues of leadership and development in the arab world, in the middle east journal, journal of south asian and middle Eastern Studies and International Journal of middle east studies. Try to keep them all straight. When he was posted to yemen in 2004 i recall a conversation that they had at the time with the mutual friend of ours, former yemeni ambassador to the united states. I told them use was lucky to send nabeel out because his fluent arabic and his understanding of the culture would smooth the way for his work in country. But abdul corrected me. No, he said. The opposite is true. Arab american diplomats in a region have a much harder time because everyone in the country expects the diplomats to do favors for them and make exceptions for them and they dont get the same respect as another diplomat because they say we dont have to listen to them, he doesnt know any more than we do. Hes one of us. And in addition he said when your government do something that the locals dont like, they hope the arab american diplomats personally responsible for not preventing it. So nabeel were eager to hear your thoughts on being an arab american diplomat in the middle east during an era of volatile and bass vast leading u. S. Mide east relations. As a reminder, the ground rules today are as follows. We are on the record. If you like to join the twitter conversation about what we hear use the hashtag acmideast. Tom and nabeel, please come to the stage, and tom, the floor is yours. [applause] nabeel this is a great audience. Its a treat for me to be here with you. Thank you for the great introduction. By this book, okay . The first thing an author has to say for another author and theyre on sale after an will autograph it. Nabeel and ive known each other for a long time. We stole horses together in casablanca, in baghdad and in yemen. Over the years. I dont know much, im not a console on many things but i am a connoisseur on people who know the difference between the garage and the oasis. Who know the real middle east. And i was always drawn to nabeel because of that. He really knows the region and its reflected in this book, and it is a really for me a fascinating perspective of an arab americans perspective on american diplomacy and his work as he is diplomat in the region and particularly and iraq during what was an incredibly heated time. So nabeel, just for starters because everyone here doesnt know know you as well as i do, tell us your story here how did you get from lebanon to senior position in the u. S. State department . It was all a mistake. [laughing] first of all, thank you all for stopping in for lunch and for some after lunch conversation. And really very special thanks to tom for agreeing to engage me in conversation today. Something weve done several times over the years, including stealing horses as he expressed it in baghdad. He stop by at least a couple of places where i was assigned, and in baghdad i usually would take him around like an morocco to meet some people, bad guys usually. In baghdad i took him to meet a friend of mine, a very secular cleric shia by the name of as secular as they come. He invited as to dinner at his place, but what we did know was he had the grandson of Imam Khomeini at dinner as well, so the four of us that theyre conversing for a good couple of hours. And tom came back and road dinner with the mullahs wrote. And expressed how optimistic he felt that there were such secular people. Really thought leaders and provoke verse in a country like iraq, which back in 2003 was hot then and is still hot. The book, the occasion for discussion today, begins with a poetic verse called you have your lebanon and i have mine. He expresses in it that contrast between his vision of the beauty of lebanon and lebanon as a symbol of diversity, coexistence, harmony. And the reality back then 100 yours ago or more of the secularism, of sectarianism and feudalism and corruption, he might as well have written this yesterday. The situation in lebanon has not changed. In fact, it has gotten worse because the corrupt elite has not only ruined the economy run it to the ground but have run the country to the ground physically. The environment is in terrible shape. Anyway, i think if he were alive today he would say wow, all this time and nothing improved. The book also inns with a very short poem by palestinian poet. Its called the post man and he talks about himself as a palestinian poet in excel and he says he feels like the post man who still as letters and messages to deliver but he no longer knows who they should go to and where. And something as retired diplomat i identify with very much. Im still engaged. Ice to want to have an impact but sometimes you wonder whether you can still play a role and where and with whom with. This is a long way of saying, my coming from lebanon, i was born and raised in lebanon, give me a deep feeling not just from lebanon before the entire region. Whenever i worked in any of these countries i deeply felt the issues, and i deeply try to bridge the differences, no matter how wide the gap. In baghdad in 2003 it was certainly wide. So nabeel, you your title bunker diplomacy reflects this. You thought transition that i live there as well, an american whose presence in middle east was deeply embedded, open and integrated with societies to an america that hid behind walls basically. Its diplomats and embassies. I was actually therefore the moment when it started i was actually there for the moment, it was 1983 and i was in my part, april 13 i believe that 1 p. M. And a blast happened so powerfully knocked the transistor radio off my desk. A transistor radio, kids, was a radio big. [laughing] i also something called a typewriter. It was a role. You hit the keys, create an impression. And i ran out of my apartment, and i saw a smoke cloud calling in the distance and i ran towards it. As i got closer and closer i said, couldnt be, you know. I turn the corner around and it was the American Embassy blown apart in half. I remember asking, i dont know if it was ryan crocker whos been a junior diplomat or someone else, what happened and he said a man drove a truck up the front stairs of the embassy and blew it up in the lobby. And two things i remember about the incident. One is my shock, i said you mean he killed himself . It just seemed incredible to me that someone would commit suicide. At the time how incredible it was. And the other was, there was no perimeter of the embassy. You could literally walk up to the front door, rang the doorbell and there would be a marine insight he would let you in. Flash forward a few years later, thats what i so love the title of your book, i was in istanbul. I dont know been if you have have seen the u. S. Embassy in istanbul today, u. S. Consulate in istanbul. Think fort knox on a more secure, okay . I had gone out there for an interview, and old consulate used to be in the heart of istanbul in an old building, open part of the workplace and what not. I was interviewing a u. S. Diplomat and he said, i said, look at this embassy. This is like a fortress. And he said that terrorists who blew up the british consulate in istanbul, they captured some of them afterwards and the interview them and they said we actually wanted to blow up the u. S. Consulate, but its so secure, they dont let birds fly there. And i wrote a column called where birds dont fly. Because were bert stonefly, people dont me, commerce doesnt happen. Nabeel, you lived that transition from being open, integrated, a bridge from america to the societies to working out embassies that are bunkers, indistinguishable from military bunkers. What was that like . What are the implications of it . Its so much the theme of this book. My first assignment was in alexandria, egypt. It was an open the culture facility, open door. We no longer have those. We used to have them all over the place. It was a nice, beautiful villa. Its still there, and we had just one sleepy egyptian policeman sitting in a kiosk by the door, but nobody ever asked anybody. People walk in. Actually, a hand up of the mosul brotherhood of alexandria which that branch was supposed to be the tough branch, came to one of my roundtable discussions at the center and he engaged a former congressman by the name of paul findlay at the time. And after that, i visited him in his home and he would come by from time to time. The discussions were always intellectual, friendly. It was never any sense of hostility. The only thing was ambassador wisner at the time was, he said i was with president mubarak this week, and he said why is your culture and alexander receiving this bad people . I said well, we are of course engage in conversation i said john b to stop . He said no, keep doing what youre doing. So this kind of openness and this kind of atmosphere quickly changed, and it partly changes in the region. The is him is changing in the region, radicalism, baptism, arab nationalism, et cetera, at the turmoil that treated. Partly the reaction, partly in the region which over the years and never seem to adjust or learn as kirsten was saying. I remember because i was a spokesperson mainly with the panarab media and that the reason we open the office of Media Outreach in london, i became a wellknown figure and have never coming back from baghdad to london. Baghdad, sometimes literally i had to carry guns because we would drive out of the green zone and people didnt have time to send protective task force. My friend, colleague at the time working there worked for dod. He would always carry a gun. He would put a gun in between us in the car and he would say this is for you, just in case. And, in fact, we have an iraq veteran here with us who remembers how, an egyptianamerican. He took me to the shooting range with him to practice. And you feel what happens is of course diplomacy has shifted picky feel the danger, i was at the hotel when it was bombed, 27 rockets hit that building as i was hiding under my bed, between the bed and the wall. You become a soldier and you say people dont understand that diplomats, particularly american diplomats, face the same dangers that soldiers on the battlefield phase but they dont have the training. They are not soldiers. They dont have the protection usually. What are we missing now is of that . So many diplomats, literally need permission and security to go outdoors and having meeting. It cant be spontaneous. Nature for lunch, major for coffee, and over. Cant committed in busy to see you without an appointment and without running through security first. You cant go out in those places without having an armed guard. In yemen i used to have not only bodyguard and driver in hardcore, but also Yemeni Security car with people with guns going behind us. I have my own personal cars had to take my own security at times and tell them i just want to go up, i want to meet people and dont worry, ill let you know where i am, et cetera. We used to go out to the villages. I tell some stories about that and i had a british friend, a diplomat, and i would go in her car because their cars were not stopped when you exited, whereas american cars were. The story here is that is Something Special if you want about american diplomats. Because the french and the british and the chinese dont take the kinds of precautions we do and they are not attacked and surrounded and burned like our embassies are. One has to ask, partly it is the region, but partly its something we do. Partly its the image we project. Use an image of stupidity and arrogance that rubs people the wrong way that they feel lets go after the americans. Why not the russians . Why not the chinese . Why not the french . So when reading the iraq section i noticed a certain melancholy, the word, tension, so we things that went wrong, some things that went right. But you ended on note of saying you know the french revolution oscillated between jack and periods and more democratic 150 think thats what were seeing, that were seeing an arab world in different ways in different places saudi arabias you have version of the, morocco you have a version of it, struggling to find its way towards what i would say pluralism. I i used that line when i waa spokesperson baghdad because i would face very angry journalists. And personally i didnt think the invasion of iraq was a good idea. But i did my job. But as a spokesperson and is lucky that way, i never went with official talking points. I hear some here wants to put [laughing] i engage them as a person, as human being, i listen and i responded. The academic in the allowed me to go into broader areas and not just a well, this is our policy. And so to me as an arab, the arab in the, detests the fact that most of the arab world is ruled by dictators. The arab in the identifies with the use today that we see in the streets in beirut and in baghdad who want to get rid of this oppressive structure. So i want to get rid of that. I identify with that but at the same time i understand that american soldiers in baghdad rubs arabs the wrong way all over the region, from baghdad to morocco. Theres something about foreign troops marching into an arab capital that you react viscerally to it. So to look on the Positive Side, as a spokesperson what could i say . Hey, we are villain. No. What i would say, think of it in the long term. The arab world needs to revolt against dictators like that. Many people, friends and morocco would tell me that they didnt want to demonstrate against the u. S. Because part of them said good riddance when saddam was gotten rid of. So i said lets think of revolutions throughout history, think of the french revolution. It goes through a very ugly period. Of course in the french case it was the french. Wasnt the u. S. Coming on horseback. So whether its a for some outside or from inside, dating rid of a bad dictator, wilbur like that, it has to be a good thing in the long term. In the short term youre going to go through hell probably. Whats the difference between the arab spring of 2010 and 2011, and the kind of manifestations we are seeing in beirut and in a dad right now . They are quite similar and they seem to be come have more i would say, felt like the arab spring was more like get rid of the tyrant, whoever that was, the strongman. Where this is real content, what kind of pluralistic Secular Society we want to have. Is that a right impression or be reading too much into it . Its quite right. Tunisia was a cakewalk, i mean, compared to syria, lebanon, iraq because of many reasons. And partly fitted now the same kind of diversity. But what you have in places like lebanon, we cant talk about syria because of the devastation that has been wreaked upon the Syrian People, but in places like lebanon and iraq, you have for the first time a genuine peoples revolt. This is not about nasir. This is not about israel. This is not about the u. S. This is about people linking hands across religious sects. You find them, the sunnishia, christian, affect the christians are more divided than anybody else right now in lebanon, with a genuine feeling that this corrupt elite, political elite, they want the whole thing changed. So the Positive Side of this is that this is genuinely felt across the spectrum. The negative side of it is lebanon doesnt have think dictator like saddam so you can just topple and start fresh. You have 12 mafias who are there, well armed militias, and you cant lebanese says get rid of all of them. How do you do that . He put them on the love vote and ship them off to cyprus or somebody . And the problem is the various entries, political interests get in the middle and scuffle what should be, i mean, could be a very serious, very thorough reform plan. But if somebody is white enough in the leadership in lebanon today, they could adopt a series stand, said wrangling that shiite chair cherub this minisd that is you, thats what theyre arguing about. I told some friends of mine in government, i said forget about the person. You could put a jackass sorry in the position of Prime Minister. Thats not important at the important thing is present the people with a serious plan. This is how you change the system from sectarian, corrupt and feudalistic to a proper democratic republic. Thats our plan. We heard you. Thats our plan. We will start it tomorrow. Unfortunately, they are too wrapped up in, frankly each side benefits materially from the system as is and they dont want to get rid of the advantages that they had. In baghdad, i think the problem is the militias. They havent solved the problem of who runs the state and an arrangement at least. If youre not going to destroy the militias that carry weapons, you need to at least have a good political understanding with them. Its a very tough thing to do, especially with iran intervening, u. S. Intervening, the whole region intervened in baghdad. So that is a political side to it and i look optimistically in the longterm. I think the