In as many questions as possible. It is my great pleasure to introduce todays speaker, philip gordon. He is a senior fellow at the u. S. Foreign policy here at cfr. For joining the council fill a special assistant to the president and white house coordinator for the middle east, north africa in the gulf region under president obama. He previously served the assistant secretary of state for european affairs. He is responsible for the relations of more than 50 countries in europe and eurasia along with nato, eu, and the organization for security and cooperation in europe. Phil has also had a distinguished scholarly career having written and coauthored numerous books on u. S. Policy and foreign affairs. Today we are here to recognize his newest book, losing the long game, the false promise of regine change in the middle east. Former u. S. Ambassador to the United NationsSamantha Powers hails it as an examination of u. S. Regime change efforts in the middle east. The journalist robin white calls it must read for everyone interested in americas Foreign Policy. And let me note for all cfr members on todays call, that you should receive an email on september 17 provide you with the opportunity to receive a free copy of losing the long game as well as two other cfr books published this month. Ask you to all take us up on that offer. With that i went to introduce philip gordon. Zack its great to be here and look at the participants have a great group some looking forward too the conversation. Direct first let me say congratulations on the publication of the book and the praise received from early reviews. Begins with the question of why this book, fill at this time . As you said jim this is a history of u. S. Regime change in the middle east. Written in the spirit of trying to learn our history lest we repeat it. I really started to thinking about this in particular and im thinking about regime change around the world for a long tim time. I felt this needed a close look as i watched in particular the Trump Administration over the past couple of years formulate its policy on iran which started to look like gearing up for potential regime change. Of course thats not the stated goal but there a lot of proponents in and outside the administration pointing in that direction the policy seem to point in that direction. Before we what does down a perilous road like armageddon, may be the useful expression when have we done this before . How if we done it before question and where the lessons having done so . It turns out, which i did in the book it turns out this is not so unusual. We have had a regime change in the middle is about once per decade starting ironically enough with the coup in iran in 1963. And then you get afghanistan twice with the regime post child bond, obviously the iraq war. In that interventions by obama in egypt and syria. So its something we regularly have done. What i do in the book is look for patterns and lessons from that. The short version is that in every case no matter how we did it or why we did the costreduction be greater than we thought. It was hard to deliver the objectives and their masses of unintended consequences. Fair enough to the book losing the long game we delved into plus 70 odd years, it can history cloud for me whether you are making a broader argue of that regime change that never works anywhere . Or specifically does not work in the middle east . Good, sure. The book focus on the middle east for a range of reasons. Including for the fact the most part there is that forward contemporary debate about the middle east about regime change, i mention iran is clearly on the agenda. People clearly talk about it we recently pursued it and still want to pursue it in syria and allied countries the regime in saudi arabia and whatever for gutfeld to me like the most and kurt policy thing to think about. Its also i had the most personal experience. The first remark is not just a historical exercise but it is a reflection on her own experience the former Obama Administration pursuing similar goals on some of the countries i mentioned. But i do mention more frequently than in the middle east and elsewhere those reasons if most policy relevance today is where i have direct experience. Also relevant in a sense i argue its even harder to pull this sort of thing off in the middle east than elsewhere because of the nature of the states in the middle east. There arent longstanding coherent nationstates as in some other parts of the world. In other words other than turkey, egypt and iran, most of these countries where borders were artificially created. They cross chat religion, primes and groups. M elsewhere when you remove a regime in the middle east and create a vacuum and hook it up to greater within states and among states for this weather focus in the middle east. Quebec lets dive into the cases. I expect most people reading the book will grant you that the u. S. Invasion of iraq is not as well for less talk about a nether case you discuss in the book which is the intervention in afghanistan in 1980. That has the low Cost Initiative and undermine the soviet union at the same time. So i take it you disagree. So why is the conventional way wrong . Thats actually really interesting case jim. Think you are right. People have not really focused on this would instinctively say obviously the iraq war was a disaster and the cost is been off the charts. There other cases were successful. Especially the Intelligence Community paid the first intervention afghanistan is like the poster child affects the right word. A model of intervention or its not like the iraq war were you invaded theres casualties in massive cost of a trillion dollars. Afghanistan is a small amount of matter all told about a billion dollars you compare them to afghanistan and iraq. We achieve the objective of supporting opposition that would put pressure on the government. The objective with afghanistan at first to courses escalated over time. Theres always Fishing Creek so under carter even before the soviets were rated 1979 the injector was a quick on the background. And with the reagan the objective became weird going to drive the soviets out. Bob gates is that ca the time that theyre going to win. And then time out that enjoyed the soviets out were going to change the regime. There is mission and escalation. The point about being Obvious Success is people member didnt cost much. We got rid of the communist government and the soviet union collapsed. So what could be better . One of things that struck me as looking at this model how could you argue against it is that when you put it into full perspective it is not such a nobrainer this was a great idea. Unintended consequences manifes manifest. Its true we achieve the objectives that are just stated. But we also led to by pursuing the opposition a savage civil war that lasted for more than ten years, killed over a million afghans which is a tenth of the population at the time. Too many more into pakistan fueled this movement in motion that their supporters included by the way a psalm of bin laden could take down a superpower by fighting against it with another superpower which was us. See get this afghanistan, savage civil war with casualties and consequences. And then even after the regime goes that warlordism and we go away but they keep fighting until the taliban finally come back. Four years after the regime falls and institutes the utopia of chopping off limbs and destroying statues and keeping girls out of school and forcing them to wear beards and repressing the society and hosting al qaeda which ultimately affects the United States. After which we respond again by doing another regime change in afghanistan and theyve had to say that for the last 20 years for cost of a trillion dollars and so on. Sorry to be long about that. Snatchers interesting to think about the long term consequences are much greater then just looking at the immediate result of the regime change initiative. The other historical issues are the u. S. Supporting to the iran in 1953 and also the invasion of afghanistan in 2001. I want to focus on the other cases you look at still because you played a role youre in the Obama Administration when he is ousting when odyssey don when president obama first erase the redline in syria. Can you sort of take us quickly through those cases . Tell us what you saw as a practitioner . Sure that is really interesting as well. When i answered your question about what led me to it work on this reflected on before we do and iran maybe its worth doing with the rest of the pack. The other reason i wanted to give it a hard thing and do some research about it is as you say my own personal experience. Which is extremely ironic that barack obama would be involved in regime change in the middle east as well. Obama who is much as anything was elected because of his principal opposition to regime change. He arguably had a lot of other issues but he defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary she supported he was well placed against john mccain as he supported the surge early on, very early on. Raise questions such as the sort of thing im talking about pretty much chicago speech when his unknown state senator the written about some of your books when he says well, i am not against war. I am just against dom wars are will empower al qaeda and lead too all sorts of unintended consequences. Any turned out to be right. That is the irony of that barack obama instinctively posted this finds himself doing pursuing said this at the top or all of these regime changes are different theres a different motivation and lumping together. What is similar is the notion that the United States can decide that a particular regime is so problematic whether its repressive or threat to us going to remove it with Something Better in place. The three things obama is right about with libya and syria are hugely different in egypt was actually an allied country. We did not intervene at all. We use diplomacy but we can still say with that constituted the regime. In libya we did intervene in a war that again started with a different mission. And libby was saving lives, with the Un Security Council to do. So we ultimately decided to achieve that objective. And in syria we did not intervene military directly but with very different cases. And yet in each one, even barack obama, getting back to the notion that is a disciplined president elicit get it to asia not get bogged down in the middle east and certainly not go to war in the middle east finds themselves pulled into this motion that we fuse our power in one way or another to bring about positive transformation. It is tragic to say you look at each of the countries today we certainly fail to achieve that goal. See when lets walk to these cases. Well begin egypt rate of just envying militarily you yourself alluded to the question with your set of cases so walking quickly through how he now understands our decision and why that counts. C1 sure and its fair to ask why is egypt in there . Its not regime change for you can make a case that its not. The reason i keep it in this category is that once the revolution was underway, we did ultimately get to a point just to be clear here its when the United States sets out to get rid of the government and transform the political systems not even when you put one leader over the other within our syste system. It also transform the system. I think will admit we tried to do that in egypt. Once we decided it could not survive anymore and i cite the situation calling him toast. Once he was toast we decided to not only urge him and push him out with diplomacy, but support elections that we knew were likely very different political approach which change their regime and that since it did become u. S. Policy britt how did that happen . Thats part of your question. Of course it did not happen initially as barack obama gets elected and they figure how to get rid was the opposite in which again it was ironic they have the bush administration, george w. Bush determined to spread democracy use freedom and transform the region and pursue these goals. Even bush and the second term had more or less moved on an American Public was just not into it was just a we sort of decided democracy in the middle east and regime change was not our thing. Outside of our controls, get people in these country start to demand change. And that is obama he did not initiate this but you get the developments in the country and people start to think maybe this is possible. And then it starts to spread to other countries including egypt. That presented the United States with a policy choice. And the spectrum was not massive. But within the spectrum as an orderly transition or just decide look he is on his way out we should be on the right side of this. And i relate this in the book, and theres dont get too much into the weeds here but its interesting and relevant as a generational divide the habit the top of the National Security team of obama between those more scene here cabinet officials. Secretary gates Vice President biden and others chief of staff daily or more cautious and skeptical and the next generation is saying no barack obama trying to promote change for there was a policy choice and it came head when it came time for obama to address what he should do. Homes on the orderly transition side and ended up going in the latter direction. Subject lets talk a bit because some people would say that wasnt initially about regime change. Its about the responsibility to protect and those be violent suppression by colonel qaddafi and his government. You have a particularly unusual take on this. In august of this was a nato operation, a lot of pressure calls for some of the closest allies in europe to join in this effort. Again you came away saying bad idea we should not have done this. So walk me through that case. You are right and i have a different window on that. Considering the middle east for the white house. As across the mediterranean from europe and stressing about in this case there is a europeans pushing us to intervene. The classic thing i system iron especially someone with a long background on europe that it was a weird for me to it watch in one case u. S. Secretary of state be lectured to by the french and the italians for not believe in the military force. That is what happened in marc march 2011 when i went to g7 ministerial with secretary clinton in paris. We did not have a position yet because the u. S. Government this was a damned if you do damned if you dont typical policy call. Bunch of civilians intervening getting bogged down in a conflict or provoking even further division. But the fascinating thing on the european angle of that is the europeans felt like this is producing refugees paired we heard that from the italians. Britain felt the same way. Going to act in the u. S. Needs to be here. They were pressing us and urging us, those of us to live the 2003 iraq war and the germans dragging their feet and being berated by us definitely shoot on the other foot sort of experience. That fed into the decisionmaking back here in washington. And frankly important factor. It partly helps explain why this noninterventionist barack obama ended up intervening. Its the pressure to do so. Domestic media but also allied. You have your allies urging heavy air of allies urging us to activate in this case that would help swing secretary clintons judgment. You also have a generational divide on libya was a generational divide on egypt and president clinton was in the middle saying both. But a secretary of state hearing this constant pressure we need the u. S. To be a team player in you need to lead. That leans on the side of intervening and ultimately help here with interesting and sort of underscores theyre trying to occupy after you intervene with a cost of spending hundreds of billions of dollars taking casualty. They tried to get the opposite way for the u. S. But the unique capabilities to get rid of qaddafi can do without peacekeeping savvy forces and occupation libya should the risk of doing the opposite. So unless i caught the third case, syria. He moved with the white house. You portray this as a regime change. Think it comes as no surprise to you that a lot of people would argue just the opposite. The real problem institute serial is not regime change. We do not fully commit to a policy regime change. I do see that versus a misguided place of the case. You are right a lot of this happened while i was doing middle east. So it started like the other cases in 2010, 2011 people start to rise up as they had done against others. And elsewhere. Although there is a bit of a time lag with the other cases were more quickly and the syrians were watching what was happening and those other cases. Sue had a couple of years before i started to live with issue directly into thousand 13 were u. S. Policies did not intervene. I think obama was really keen on avoiding getting bogged down in the middle east conflict. The same lessons that he drew from my rock with unintended consequences. He even notes himself, he points out early on when others are starting to push the United States to intervene more and they could ensure a judge should overthrow said publicly commission a cia study the same sort of angle in my book. And they say the response is not very encouraging. I dont think its any secret obama was determined to avoid being pulled into a intervention or were seem change in syria. Over time, just like described in libya the pressure screwed. Part of the pressure what the ground and the humanitarian situation. Also the pressure from congress, media allies who want to do more and more and more. And ultimately that did lead the United States to increase its support for the opposition. What showed on this is what i have from all these cases and certainly the case of syria it showed that modest increases in military forces for support for the opposition does not really necessarily lead too a quick transition or a transition at all and the empowerment of pro American Partners or democrats for stability. It escalates and especially in the case of syria just different from libya and egypt because syria regime had backers in places like russia that were equally determined or more determined to counter escalate. I think you really have these scores and rebuts the notion that for modest resources or modest intervention or modest use of force we could have the most objectives like chan