Grateful. Please join me in thanking john and christine. applause i dont think that will be a problem but i will direct you. Also thank you for those who have supported todays activity. They have done it in a way that is exemplary for the way a policy discussion should do so to set up a conference so there is no responsibility for what we say but but it is an issue of significant broad interest we are grateful for the support. Looking at what has happened in the gulf there is a broader National Debate if the us should be digging in or pulling out. Iran is perceived to be a threat. Even within the chump Administration Even how the us should deal with that threat the us increasingly has been facing asymmetrical threats and responding with conventional tools that has been expensive and affected limited effectiveness quite delighted to have everyone on the stage tonight. It seems to me, the last panel kind of kicked it all to you guys. So this is a fundamentally diplomatic problem. One of the unexploded diplomatic opportunities that were not were not addressing. Im not just talking about the low hanging fruit, is interesting just to talk about those, but diplomatically, what are the big things that we need to do that we are not doing. I wanted to pick up where the last panel left off, im going to leave the other people to discuss the key issues about iran and saudi arabia what we are going to do about that. Id like to make a few introductory remarks about the state of american diplomacy, and about the middle east generally, and what are the implications of this that we dont know what is going on out there, and key areas. It is not just about, sending a person out to bust heads, and that has happened in some cases, but we just dont get about likely used to and i suspect relevant to the gulf, but this is particularly true in saudi arabia where we do not know what is going on with the clerics, we dont know whats going on with the royal family, we dont know whats going on with the major cities, although many many people are visiting. There this is a truly destructive, result of what took place, but in all fairness it has been going on for years after the beirut bombings in the bombings of our embassies maserati is. Closed, our embassy in libya is closed, after the attack, who had to saudi arabia, east of the three or four years, what are the implications of this in addition not knowing what is going on where in diplomacy can succeed. We look afraid, and aggravates me enormously, the sense of withdrawal on the ground, when u. S. Somebody to come to your embassy, instead of going to their office, the signal is you are afraid to engage with the local population, and the sense to withdraw as much more dramatic. First thing is to build up diplomatic capacity in the middle east, we have to have people who speak the language, people that are there for longer than a year. For the opportunities, theyre still opportunities, the first i would say is to do everything we can to heal the rift, among the gcc countries. Ill be the first to say the people in the administration have worked on this, but it was almost perceived as a second tier event, it really had very little to do with iran, and certainly nothing to do with israel security, it really didnt affect what was happening, it was not relegated, i think it does have implications, really serious implications and thats what i would call a spill over effect because what we have seen is this rift has been weaponized in places like libya and places like the horn of africa there certainly potential for it to be weaponized with the peace deal with the taliban and of course the russians in general theyve taken an enormous advantage of this i think we need to do everything we can the u. S. Needs to do everything we can, to work on this. I think it is unfortunate that the gcc is collapsing i know that Security Architecture was always sort of a myth, but the fact that the u. S. Was there and working on this there were i think modest, successes overtime. There were certainly successes on the economic side, and theyre pretty boring like immigration, and economic immigration, but there were things worth doing. I want to mention one more reason we should work on the golf and the gcc, and that is the imf report they came out about two weeks ago. What the report said and i know many of you in the audience would sort of poohpooh this, because scholars and others have been predicting a fall of the house of saudi four years, but it basically said, without massive fiscal improvements, the countries in the gulf would have problems in 15 years. Saudi arabia and particular, kuwait and qatar, they have been insulated because of their sovereign wealth funds. But there was an interesting article about the implications of this would be that they would turn on each other. Assistance to jordan, and lebanon and palestinians withdraw, and very critically because i think this issue has been under studied by scholars, he will be set sent home to already struggling countries, so in other words i would think that given our longterm strategic objectives in the gulf, we need to do everything we can to encourage security and energy and integration no matter how hard it will be, i dont think it will be all that hard if we concentrate on it. And to work on this for a long term objectives. Finally on the opportunities there is yemen. And i know doug well talk about this as well for years ago five years ago when it started i think it wouldve been a lot easier to get the iranians out because they were ready to stick it to the saudis and there is no real strategic interest in yemen, i think its a lot harder now but im not sure, this is an issue that just cries out for sustain u. S. Engagement, to try to reach some kind of settlement, because of humanitarian costs are so high, and secondly the real cost, as my colleague mr. Fire so would say it is ruined the saudi relationship with the u. S. That has strategic implications as well. So we need to do everything we can to repair that, and that would be the next place i would go to. Thank you. During the crisis in early january at one point, i was on fox news, talking to a couple of their anchors and they played for me the clip from senator rand paul when they said this is the death of the diplomacy. So mister ambassador how do you react to that. And i said ive been a diplomat for 35 years and i cant believe that diplomacy will ever be dead. And i think when you heard from me there are really lots of opportunities for diplomacy, its just that that is not the priority either of the academic community, or the administration to identify right now. The final question we had that came over here, about the growth is where i wanted to start my discussion. Looking at the middle east in particular now, in my new job as i was in riyadh and abu dhabi last week, ive been all over the gulf, the United States is no longer the only game in town in the gulf for the middle east, and that means back the saudis the kuwaitis other people are looking for other alternatives for commercial goods, and to purchase their 5g infrastructure, from china interstates or europe but what also struck me is looking around the region, there is no other country that is able to pull together the different regional powers, the Different International powers, like the United States. Some people want to draw a parallel between the british withdrawal from empire after world war ii when britain physically gave up colonies. The United States is not doing that. First of all we are not a colonial power in the traditional sense. We do not occupy countries and run them around the world. What we have is a number of cooperative agreements where we have soft economic power, u. S. Military presence, and in most cases guided with an embassy with a very broad representation of u. S. Government. Even though the United States is going to be relatively less powerful militarily and economically in the near term, we are not actually losing much of our were influenced, power or deployment unless we choose not to use it. Looking again specifically at the golf. There are a number of things that need to be done. There are a lot of opportunities given the very quick escalation that happened at the end of 19 and beginning of 2000. What i saw was conscious decisions by both washington and to run to walk back from a war between the United States and iran. I actually disagree with evaluation of the first panel, whether there would be iranian escalation after the killing of soleimani. I think because the United States took direct responsibility for killing soleimani, iran felt it had to respond directly as iran. Therefore the missile strikes on the iraqi basis that had u. S. Holders were irans parallel strike to even the playing field. But after the escalation and near war, both sides went back to the status quo. You saw secretary pompeo with the iranian secret with secretary mnuchin doubled down on sanctions. You saw iranians say were not going to do things for now. A whole host of iranian proxies, especially in iraq, said we have not yet taken our retribution for the killing of soleimani hoop. And the Iraqi Militia leader. What both sides have done is walk to the brink, decided they did not want to jump off and gone back to their areas of comfort. For iran, that support for proxies and attempting to put pressure on the allies of the United States to reduce the impact of u. S. Economic sanctions. For the United States, its to doubled down on economic sanctions and pick out individuals who might have where the individual impact could impact iranian policy. These are more for this discussion. I think there is a real role for american diplomacy, but its american diplomacy to build International Alliances with our european allies. With our gulf allies. With israel. Potentially even with china. In some cases. First of all, jcpoa two point oh. Its pretty clear the Iran Nuclear Agreement is not coming back in the way it was negotiated before. Its also pretty clear that iran is willing to move in that direction. Over the course of last summer, laid out on three different occasions, slightly different visions of what iran might be able to accept including accelerating the Additional Protocol by a couple of years. Seemingly in a way when that President Trump could claim he got a better deal than obama had gotten. That seemed to be the direction. If you look at the use of the reigning in Ballistic Missiles against u. S. Forces in iraq, you can also see to a large extent that irans strategic projection is going to be more easily done with missiles than Nuclear Weapons. Thats because one, it does not have the same International Implications if you are using those warheads, and iran were able to use Ballistic Missiles to strategic effect. If you look at the attack on the base, it was Ballistic Missiles. It appeared to be cruise missiles gutted by drones. Again a huge technological leap by iran. Iran might not be as concerned about keeping its Nuclear Weapons program as it might have been in the past. That brings us to the second issue. How do we work with our allies in the gulf and partners in europe and the International Community to reduce the regional threat of irans missile programs . Again, a lot of experience in the u. S. Government, the state department, the d. O. D. , d. O. E. And elsewhere about how you can walk into and effective arms control agreement, especially missile control. Im not sure anyone is going there now. When i am in the gulf, the big elephant in the room is not Nuclear Weapons or Ballistic Missiles its actually support for proxies. The gulfies, apologies for the term, those in the gcc countries are very concerned about continued iranian interference with groups in their societies that oppose their policies. This is now more prominent in iraq and syria than it has been then the gulf. I think the maximum Pressure Campaign has reduced the amount of money the iranians have to fund some of these external activities. Again, this is something maybe all the can address. We have heard indications that the iranians are tiring of, specifically, support to the houthis in yemen. It has done nothing much but prolong a war. It is expensive. The houthis are not very good iranian allies. They are too disunited, theyve not always used iranian weapons and training the way iran has intended. There might be an opening throughout through the un potentially for discussion to deescalate in yemen as an opening to the discussion of other Security Issues. Its also possible, alien i agreed a few weeks ago, there was a larger discussion about missile programs, support for proxies, the number of u. S. Forces in the regions, numbers of allied forces, all as bargaining chips with iranians to have them reduce their support for groups. Again i lay out these issues not just because a lot is happening on them, but i see opportunities for the United States to grab some of these diplomatically and move forward. We cannot do it unilaterally. Well have to do it with our allies, get past this growing multi polarity in the world. Well have to bring together the most powerful nations and most affected nations to tackle these issues. Thank you very much john. A great pleasure to be here at csis. Now youve taken credit for my education i hope youll take the blame for whatever mistakes i make today. I thought it might be useful to shed some light on the iranian strategy. The first panel did a good job discussing confusions around the u. S. Strategy. Iranians as you know, for the first year of the Trump Administrations maximum pressure strategy adopted a policy of maximum patients. They decided to stay in the nuclear deal to the extent possible, be careful in the region, sit on their hands. Israel targeted iranian assets in syria hundreds of times, the iranians basically did not respond. In the hope that they could isolate the u. S. And thereby neutralize u. S. Sanctions. The policy did not really work at the end. Europeans and others could not say the iranian economy so as of may 2019 when we pushed for basically bringing irans oil exports to zero. The iranians decided to adopt a policy of maximum pressure of their own. This took two different forms. One in the nuclear realm, every 60 days, they took a step back from their obligations under the jcpoa. In the region, we saw a string of attacks starting from mines on tankers in the port of fudge era in the uae to tax on tankers in the gulf of oman, to shooting down the drone, to the very brazen attack on saudi wrong core. This culminated in the killing of general soleimani and iranian retaliation. I agree that for the iranians, taking a direct strike on a u. S. Military installation somewhere in the region was crossing a psychological threshold. In the same way that killing an iranian general, by the u. S. Was crossing a line. The iranians want to establish, that this cannot happen again. The iranians have deterrence of their own, and if you talk to u. S. Military officials, and id be interested to see what general patel would say about this, from what ive heard everybody agrees that what they did was quite risky. It was sheer luck that nobody was killed in the attacks, in iraq. But in any case, now there is a debate in iran, whether they should go back to maximum patients, for the remainder of President Trumps first term, and then reassess after the november elections, or to stay where they are, or doubled down on the maximum pressure strategy. There are arguments on both sides, i can guess who is advocating for what within the iranian system, the more moderate forces forces of iranian politics want to go back to maximum patients, and irgc, and the hardline elements are quite content with what they have done. In terms of regional pushback, because they believe it has demonstrated irans capabilities, a lot of people in the region, were concerned afraid impressed, by accuracy of the missiles that iran used, and the attack on them or the missiles the Ballistic Missiles that were used on u. S. Bases in iraq. It has demonstrated the vulnerabilities of the other side. The fact that we didnt have a single patriot missile, basically protecting the bases in iraq, or not a single missile was fired, at the low flying cruise missiles that were coming to hit them, finally to a certain extent they wanted to thrive a wedge, in this anti Iran Coalition that the Trump Administration has put together, their view is that that has been a relative success. We saw some shift in the uae position, maybe not a one 80 but released us some is deescalation, but with the u. S. By september, we came pretty close to a potential deescalation package, that president macron of france was trying to mediate. You put all of this together, and look at the costs and benefits of continuing along this path. The biggest question is how do we change trumps way and if he is there for another four years, we are talking about mueller for five years of iran under sanctions, which thereon do . I think the majority view is that iran should not become another cuba, that just gets to live under sanctions for years and years and years, or another iraq, that is basically significantly weakened under sanctions, and then coupled easily with a push, my own sense is that given the results of the elections last friday, that the more moderate forces of iranian politics are more isolated, so if i wanted to bet, and its a risky thing to bet, in washington in front of a crowd, but i will do it anyways. And cspan as. Here and cspan, but i think the iranians will probably slow down with probably slow down the nuclear escalation, because on that front we have ended on an implicit less situation, the iranians are doing less in regards their obligations for the nuclear deal, theyre also getting less out of it, but i do not think they