The americans do not want iraq to support terrorism. One last question. Iraq is scheduled to have elections at the end of april. What would you like to see the United States do around those elections to make sure they are positive . We have seen elections that were extremely helpful to democracy and elections that were extremely disrupt full. What can the united dates due to ensure these are constructive elections and not destructive. There should be a message that should come from all countries to iraq that the election should be organized in a just and transparent way. We should be prepared. We should have a minimum stability, and there should not be decisions that are controversial, like the one that was taken two days ago, the reaction to al qaeda and so on. We should avoid concessional mobilization in order to be able to organize fair and just elections that can provide a solution to the iraqi problem. If we dont have international observers, if we do not have all these, the elections can be distractive. This is a crossroads between stability or, god forbid, other more intricate problems. Please join me in thanking the speaker. [applause] thank you. Thank you all very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] on the next washington journal on the state of the union speech. Rebecca adams on how young people play a role in the health care law. With executive director of the center for long and social policy. All of that on washington journal with your calls, tweets, and Facebook Comments on cspan. I realized that tax reform and entitlement reform will not be easy. The politics will be hard for both sides. None of us will get 100 of what we want. The alternative will cost us jobs. Our economy. Hardship on millions of hard working americans. Lets said Party Interests aside and work to pass a budget that withces reckless cuts smart savings and Wise Investments in our future. Lets do it without the brinksmanship that scares off investors. By greatest nation on earth jumping from one manufactured crisis to the next. We cannot do it. [applause] lets agree. Lets agree right here right now to keep the peoples government open and pay our bills on time and uphold the full faith and credit of the United States of america. Watch president obama deliver this yours address. They were at the Brookings Institution during the release of its foreignpolicy recommendations for 2014. New york times chief washington correspondent david singer moderated. This is an hour and a half. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to brookings. Im the acting director and Vice President of the foreignpolicy program here. Welcome to todays events. We have foreignpolicy recommendations for 2014. In five days, president obama will stand before the u. S. Congress and the American Eagle and deliver it his state of the union address. In recent years, he is likely to focus mainly on domestic, political, and economic issues. This reflects the rising concern in obamas phrase for nationbuilding at home. The declining interest among the American Public and getting involved in other nations business. President obama came to office in 2009 on a wave of optimism about his transformational residency. Five years later, it is fair to say that the mood has soured and the hopes have didnt. No doubt that deep economic session of 2008 deltas white house a we cant. A more profound political and social changes have also growinggainst him polarization, gridlock, and dysfunction in our political system being high on the list. Espied challenges at home, the president has set forth an ambitious list of priorities when it comes to foreignpolicy and National Security. Refocusing the fight against terrorism, reducing Nuclear Weapons, negotiating with iran, restarting direct negotiations between israelis and palestinians. He also faces enormous challenges goes by the uprising around the world. He faces the continued rise of china and the unpredictability of north korea. The foreignpolicy program at brookings is releasing its own assessment of these actions and the steps president Obamas Administration should take to make the most of his remaining three years in office. We are excited to present our flagship publication. As we did last year, we have identified the big staffs the president should make to advance u. S. Security interests in the world. We have set for five areas where the white house should double down on its previous bad and move the agenda forward on iran, cuba, syria, and asia. We have pointed out a number of black spots. Low probability, but high impact events, that could derail the president s plans. We have added a new category of nightmare scenarios. We have also pointed out several areas where the president should hold his cards and stay the course. Before introduce the panel, let me either one or two overarching points that bob kagan made in the introductory memo. In our view, over the last year, the Global Situation has deteriorated. Americas role looks more uncertain and tentative. Americans are disillusioned about our traditional leadership role, and cuts in defense and foreign aid ending are raising questions about our international system. The revelations about u. S. Intelligence collection in our own country and around the world reinforces a sense of doubt about the underbelly of u. S. Predominance in the world. To restore u. S. Leadership, president obama should reinvest in the global order in which norms are not only articulated and endured, but protected and enforced wherever possible of stop this means doubling down on Higher Standards in the trade arena, rolling back Nuclear Weapons development, and protecting civilians from the ravages of civil conflict and authoritarian violence. It also means making new bets on rules for governing the internet that would protect our profound interest in an open information system. We should also make the most of regional and International Peacekeeping efforts in africa and protect our investments in a more stable afghanistan. While pursuing these opportunities, the Administration Must mitigate potential damage posed by the turmoil of the arab world, fraying alliances, and provocations from russia and china. We believe that with dedicated president ial leadership, properly resourced by congress, these threats could be managed and the United States can remain the leader of the liberal global order. Let me now introduce our panelists. David sanger. David is currently the National Security correspondent for the new york times. He has reported from new york, tokyo, washington on a wide variety of issues. Foreign policy, globalization, nuclear proliferation. He has also been part of two reporting teams that won pulitzer prizes. He is known for his work in tokyo. He has also worked in southeast asia. He got his start working in the economics arena and the business pages of the new york times. He will moderate from the podium and will pose questions to our panelists. Let me quickly introduce them. In no particular order, maybe the order in which theyre sitting. Bruce is a senior fellow here at our center for 21stcentury security and intelligence. We also have a senior fellow at the center for 21stcentury security and intelligence focusing in particular on afghanistan and Illicit Networks around the world. Steve is a senior fellow with our center for the u. S. And europe. He directs our nonproliferation projects. Mark is the director of a center on middle eastern policy and also a senior fellow who will cover all the various things going on in that part of the world. Suzanne is a senior fellow at the same center and she runs an iran project. She will speak on iran. We also have a guess just off a plane from korea. He will be our expert on asia, china, the koreas, etc. We have the director of the china center near. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thanks very much. It is great to be here. It is wonderful to see such a big crowd. His is one of my favorite events your brookings. I think this book really it is one that i keep on my desk all through the year. I refer to it. When i talk to my many friends, i see what they wrote. Sometimes it is welcome and sometimes it is not. I have two observations from reading through his years entries. It is about half as big as last year. The official explanation is that last year was the beginning of the second term. The unofficial explanation is that this group has also solved so many of the worlds problems. If you read thematically, what really jumps out is americas contribution to the world. Through many of the other issues, their recommendations for what the president should do and then the frustration that the United States right now, despite its status as the Worlds Largest military and economic power, and its biggest diplomatic power, has a hard time convincing other nations of what is in the worlds interest, americas interest, and their own interests. Advanced questions to each of our authors and scholars, i want to focus on the question of where american leverage is. If it is gone, where did it go . I thought i would start with you. You have written a fascinating short paper here on egypt. You write that the u. S. Cannot prevent the radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood. But we can seek to mitigate the effects of this radicalization. One year ago, we all thought that the Muslim Brotherhood appear to be in command of the country. The question was, could be moderate them as leaders . Can you moderate them from a war against the military that unseated them . It was interesting to note that you wrote that foreign aid cuts put into effect had no effect. Tell us why that was. Tell us why you think we could create some leverage with the egyptian in the coming weeks and months. On the narrow question of u. S. Foreign assistance to egypt, i think one reason why that decision, which was made in october, and did not have much impact, is because it took so long. According to news reports, chuck hagel, the secretary of defense, had won the Egyptian Military prior to their takeover that are eight would be at risk if they took that that. They were not dissuaded. In response to the coup, the u. S. Did not immediately cut off assistance. There is a provision that suggested that that was what they should do. Having failed to exercise leverage having failed to establish the credibility of the threat that had been made, the administration, when it finally made the decision to suspend certain forms of assistance, was just trying to draw a line under the problem. I do not think anyone here or in cairo predicted it would have that effect. The broader problem that you identified of reduced american leverage is not about the choices that have been made here in washington. It is about what has gone on in the region. It is about what has gone on in egypt. They are facing the wrath of the military and the full on crack down and believe they are fighting for or their organizations survival. Context, const x theres very little that any outsider could do to affect things. Given that, what can the u. S. Do to protect its own interests, because radicalization of even a small percentage of brotherhood supporters or members would present a significant upswing in the violence in the region. What the United States can seek to do in this region to mitigate is to set limits on its own involvement and culpability in what is a very farreaching campaign of repression and suppression in egypt, which is extended not only to the brotherhood, not only to the violent extremists that are a real problem to the United States and egypt and the region, but has extended as well to all kinds of peaceful political dissenters. So the United States at this point i think, needs to correct its fundamental error in the three years since the egyptian revolution where it has overinvested in each leadership, the military council after the revolution, president morsi and the general, let them not repeat that mistake and instead can collar file u. S. Interests in counterterrorism extend to threats against the United States and u. S. Interests and we are not going to engage in a wholesale investment in an egyptian war on terror that is defined to include all of its political opponents. Thanks. So, bruce, we heard from tamara that our chances for influencing the egyptians are a, relatively low, and secondly that we shouldnt overinvest in the leadership. Fortunately, we have huge influence and havent overinvested in the saudis which you have written about here. What jumped out at me was that the saudis have spent 25 billion in the past year and will spend 30 this year in jordan, bahrain, in yemen, in pakistan. Amounts that really dwarf anything we are spending in that region. For example, they were in full support of the coup in egypt that we were just discussing. So tell us a little bit about where president obama is in influencing the saudis and tell us a little bit as well about what your concern is if the saudis become convinced that the negotiations with iran wont work. Sure. Saudis are deeply disappointed in president obama, as ted noted in the beginning, they were very optimistic, like everyone else about obama in the beginning. Riyad is the first arab country president obama went to but the saudis have become disillusioned and they refuse to take their seat at the u. N. Security council and argued that was a spite to the United States. Im not sure most americans feel that way, but that was the saudi argument. They promised to give the government of lebanon 3 billion worth of arms and to buy them from the french and that is also to be a spite to the United States that we wont get the arms from the United States and the media is filled with saudi anger and disappointment for the United States. But at the end of the day, the United Statessaudi relationship is not broken. This is our oldest alliance in the middle east that dates back to 1945 and continues to function in many ways despite the public irritation and the reason it does and the reason we dont have that much leverage is we need each other. Saudi arabia is not only important to Global Energy supplies and may not provide americans with their oil anymore but it is critical to the functioning of the Global Economy and without saudi oil being distributed, there would be severe energy disruptions. Secondly, their soft power in the islamic world remains very important. They are the home of the two holiest mosques in islam. They are very important to us in attempts to fight al qaeda. The last two attempts were thwarted by saudi intelligence. They need us, too. Saudi arabias defense against external aggression is from the United States of america. No one else can provide them with that kind of shield and that applies to the iranians. We have a relationship where we both need each other and therefore cant push too hard the other way. What the arab awakening did was expose their fundamental values at the bottom of this relationship are not shared at all, that we dont have anything really in common with the house of saud with an absolute monarchy with their views that are other end of the spectrum. We support democracy. They make no pretense of supporting democracy and we saw that vividly this year in egypt. The saudis were critical to the coup, to helping the coup take place. They were the first within minutes to recognize the new government and they orchestrated a multibillion dollar aid package to the government. The statements say, dont worry what the americans do, well outbid them. The americans give you a billion dollars, well make sure you get 6 billion. Its hard to have a lot of leverage on on a country that has this much money. When it comes to iran, my own view at the end of the day, if the United States in the p5 plus one succeeds in getting a deal with the iranians which the six negotiating parties accept, the saudis will accept it as well. They do not want to be the odd man out rejecting the deal that would be in effect the permanent five members of the Security Council and the iranians and dont want to be in the position where they are the odd man out standing next to netanyahu. Nothing they hate more than being associated with israel and especially netanyahu on some global issue and very uncomfortable that they are being put in that camp. They dont want to be partners with netanyahu. At the end of the day, they will accept the deal and criticize it along the way, but at the end of the way they will come along to be part of the process. If there is no deal its up to the americans to fix it. The saudi position will be you tried, it didnt work, now use force. And we will be happy to hold your coat. \[laughter] would they be happy to go buy a bomb from the pakistanis . One of the great unknowns is whether they have already got a deal with the pakistanis for a bomb. Thats one of the mysteries of the contemporary middle east and south a asia. South asia. Why does pakistan have the Fastest Growing arsenal in the world and producing more bombs by double or triple . Is there some external partner who they have a commitment to. On this issue, there is a lot of smoke, very little fire, but if you ask my bottom line, i think there have been discussions between the saudis and the pakistanis and the saudis have the commitment to provide a bomb and you can take it to the bank and cash it for probably nothing. [laughter] ok. Let me turn now to steve. Steve, we dont have a lot of leverage in egypt. We don