Broadcasting into iran in support of those efforts in an effective way, and now were in this situation, it is very hard to untangle the lost opportunities. Hard to get the confidence back in ejupt when theyve seen egypt when theyve seen the embrace of the muslim brotherhood. This is the challenge we face in this theater. Danielle you just brought up a whole series of things. Public diplomacy, which brings also in russia. I dont want to leave the middle east until we talk about the authorization use of military force. I know you support the notion of an authorization. There was a lot of back and forth between the administration, which didnt want to give language to the congress and the result is that weve been operating in what amount to a military mr. Royce were operating nder the 2001 and twee 2002 authorization. Danielle correct. Mr. Royce what i support is the authorization of use of military force that will give our commanders the flexibility they need mountain field. One of the things we need, though, in all of this is the commander in chief to be a commander in chief. One of the things we need as we move forward on this is a commander in chief willing not to tie his own habbeds and the hands of whoever follows him into office but instead to be dedicated not to a containment policy with respect to this but destroying isis. Let me just speak to that issue for a moment because when isis came out of raqqah in syria and began its assault across the well, across Northern Syria and across the border into yirke, there were calls from the pentagon into iraq, there were calls from the pentagon to use u. S. Airpower in the same way we had used it in back during the first gulf war when kuwait was invaded. You will recall when kuwait was invaded, the United States took a position that those 42 divisions were going to be obliterated and we did that with 118,000 sorties. 118,000 sorties took out those armored divisions. And the question we had at the time to the white house was, theyre moving with Toyota Pickup trucks, you can see them from the air, why not use that strategy and remove isis before they ever take fallujah or before they ever take modes you will, town by mosul, town by town, city by city . This was month after month after month when we held hearings on that and somehow the administration sat in a state of paralysis when isis could have been destroyed before they were embedded, before they were recruiting on the internet from all over the world, before they were selling the concept that they were indestructible we could have taken them out from the air. Lets take to the next stage. Then they finally on the ue ezitty untain, mountain, after iziti mountain, after they had taken a bank, we had a young captive speak before our congress, before our committee and explain to us what happened to. Er she said, all of the men were killed, the girls, women were sold. I was bought by an american. I was a concubine by an american who was recruited by isis a few years ago on the internet. He explained to me as a yazidi i was an apostate and thats what happens under a just system. If youre not a believer in the isis, you know, strategy isis cause, youre an apostate. She said, why wont you arm the yazidi men . Why wont you arm the kurdish men and women . By the way, 30 of the kurdish battalions are female. And they are fighting with 40yearold weapons, all right. They are fighting isis. When you ask the question is, well, baghdad. Yeah, the shiialed government in baghdad does have a problem with us arming the kurds or the yazidis or others in the region. But thats because of the influence of iran that doesnt want to see anything except shiia militias operating across the region. Why should we care about the pressure from iran on baghdad . Why shouldnt we and i got legislation, Bipartisan Legislation that i passed out of committee to arm the Kurdish Forces. Ou have 180,000 peshmerga, 180,000. You have 40,000 isis fighters. But as the as the kurdish soldiers tell us, we dont have artillery. We dont have longrange mortars. We dont have antitank weapons. That is why it is so hard for us to stop isis. Another question i have. Besides arming the christians and the yazidis and the kurds and the sunni tribes who want to take their towns back and live now in d. P. Camps. Oh, maybe seven Million People now have been displaced within syria and we have no safe zone that this administration has set up to protect them. They would like to go back. They would like to have weaponry and some training from the u. S. To take their villages back. But as long as were going to defer to shiia militia or to baghdad and iran, how is that going to happen . And as long as were not Going Forward d deploy our observers in order to call in those air strikes, how are we going to give close order you know, Close Air Support to those kurdish units and other units fighting isis . We need a strategy not to contain isis but to destroy isis so that those young men and women, now, watching on the internet suddenly get the message that its not their destiny to go join isis and expand the caliphate, that thats a losing cause. That takes a change of calculus on the part of the administration. Danielle now are you optimistic now that theyve taken back ramadi . Mr. Royce im somewhat optimistic. The human rights abuses, to put it mildly, that they inflicted upon indigenous village populations have created a huge blowback. So some of that is moving in the right direction. But we could accelerate this if we listened to those in the field who want the authorization. Id say 75 , 80 , from what i heard from the commanders of the flights that go out come back without getting authorization out of washington in terms of dropping their ordnance. They got to get approval out of washington and in this kind of situation with those rules of engagement, you know the challenge there. For all of those reasons, i would like to accelerate the rollback of isis because so ch depends upon us getting a handle on this enthusiasm of recruitment that right now is such a problem in europe and north africa and now its becoming a problem here. Danielle for as long as theyre perceived to be winning, theyre going to be recruiting. I dont think theres any question about that. Now, lets change gears a little bit. Youve introduced legislation to support military assistance to ukraine. I know the administration has ankly, to me, inexplicably resisted that. This is the challenge we face in ukraine. Were not able to arm the people on the ground to support themselves. Its not theres an analogy to what you were just talking about in the middle east. Putin is now in syria. How do we meet this challenge . Mr. Royce well, if we go back, danny, one more step, why did it begin . It began with a decision to pull our interceptors out of poland and the czech republic. Our secretary of state Hillary Clinton and this idea of pushing the reset, the idea that the Obama Administration wanted to send a signal to putin and we had put in an interceptor system. We are expanding the system as a counterweight if iran ever threatened europe or the United States, the concept was to have the interceptor system and a program where we could intercept any missiles coming out of iran before they arced, you know, and fell into european or u. S. Territory. But the russians were pushing back on that, and so in the face of the commitment that had been made by poland and the czech republic, our secretary of state clinton and the president pulled out this system, and i believe that as a consequence of that, putin read that as weakness, a look of resolve on the part of the United States. And saw an opportunity when the situation presented itself in ukraine. Now, myself and eliot engel and a delegation of eight, four on each side, went into ukraine and we went all the way east before you get in order to talk to the russianspeaking there. To get their feelings about what we was going on, to take their temperature. And we talked to the civil society, the lawyers groups, the womens groups, the jewish groups, different minority groups, the mayor, the council. The response we got was that, look, we get a lot of they said this. Putin is recruiting every skinhead and malcontent he can find in the russianspeaking world and theyre bringing them in here with weaponry, but we can handle that because we can from he our accent their accent. We arrest them. Thats not the problem. The problem is the russian tanks. Our problem is that we do not have antitank weapons to stop their tanks. And our problem is that you wont sell or give us those weapons. So the reason for the legislation, danny, is to give hose in ukraine a credible deterrence that says to putin, if you continue with the armor in this region, there will now be an antidote for inserting those tanks into this situation because they clearly feel they could have handled the situation, the circumstances if if it werent for russian armor and russian troops. So our goal, obviously, we have the sanctions on russia to try to push russia out, but for me i think the problem is, if you show resolve upfront, if like reagan you announce that because the iranians have taken the hostages, when you become president youre going to do something about it, what happened the day he was being sworn in . Our hostages at the time were being taken to a canadian plane and they were trying to get them off the tarmac as fast as they could before reagan took that oath of office, right . Whats happening today in iran . They took an additional american hostage after the agreement was signed by our secretary of state. So i think our whole strategy has to look at whats worked in the past, including, by the way, broadcasting. I was in Eastern Europe, in east germany on an Exchange Program years ago. I saw the effects of reagans orkstration of those broadcasts under radio free europe, Radio Liberty, where we had a different plan. Our plan was to reach out and actually change those governments by taking that 2 3 opposition that existed and ratcheting that up to 85 , which is exactly what happened. And in east germany, where i saw this happened, you could see exactly what was happening with the population and you could see that inevitably now because we were sharing our values, the types of values the a. E. I. Speaks of, along the role that we had around the world to explain these political ideas of freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, tolerance, these were the concepts that were being taught and people were listening to this. This is what should be going on now with respect to our broadcast into Eastern Europe and into russia and what does even the Administration Says the broadcasting is practically defunct. So the legislation that myself and Elliott Engel are moving address eliot engel are moving addresses that in two ways. You put a strong c. E. O. In charge of this instead of a sevenboard, you know, nine members of the board that cant make a quorum. You let that c. E. O. Run it daytoday and you give that c. E. O. The mission that we once gave radio free europe, Radio Liberty and you guess us back up countering what putin is doing with his Propaganda Machine and r. T. Television along with what isis is doing. Danielle so the radio is the surrogate radio and also our direct broadcasting back in the day really were a lifeline of hope. We heard one talk about how they were the hearing that was really something that gave them optimism that they had a future. In the 1990s we created radio free asia. To do the same thing. Mr. Royce i had a hand in that. Danielle im trying to understand whats happened. When i looked at the Senate Foreign relations, we created the broadcasting board in actually to double down on protecting these radios from, you know, the influence of the go along to get along in diplomacy. What happened . Mr. Royce so its morphed into National Public radio for [laughter] mr. Royce with a bureaucracy and without the mission that we had at the time and lets be honest. Our mission was to infuse those societies with the knowledge that would allow them to move towards greater freedom. And greater support for market economy, right . And a template in a lesson of tolerance of how democratic systems would work. We have moved off of that mission, but theres no reason we cant move back onto it, and the legislation today is not obviously about radios. Its about the internet. Its also about television. Its about the whole pan plea of social media that we can deploy. But to do it we have to feel confident in our message about our goals. We have to be able to talk about freedom. We have to be able to talk about these issues that im speaking of freedom of religion and so forth and give people a vision of a Different Society than the one that they see clashing around them. You have to be confident to do that and you have to believe that the right thing to do is to empower the people. I believe the right thing is to be with the 2 3 of the people in iran that went to the streets. I dont think the right thing to do is to increase the leverage of the ayatollah or the irgc in that society which will now receive 100 illionplus in revenue because weve sort of forgotten that all of those companies were nationalized, including the oil industry, right . Its not going to the iranian people the way its been set up. Its going through the Iranian Revolutionary guard corps. What will they do with that additional money . What is the ayatollah going to do . This is not going to be empowering for the people in iran. So i think this strategy has to be reversed. Danielle so we talked a lot about political freedom. We havent talked about economic freedom. Youve come out in favor of the of t. P. P. , the Transpacific Partnership. Mr. Royce yes. Ill just explain my thinking which i have sat down with the representatives of governments across across the pacific rim and in europe and what they share with me is, look, were either going to have agreements for international trade, which are low tariffs, high standards , or were going to have agreements if beijing is leading the process of low tariffs, no standards. And we figured out that for us were much better protected in these negotiations if we can have high standards. So were willing to give you more market access. Were willing to open our markets. After all, your tariffs are pretty low to begin with. Ours are pretty high. Well bring our tariffs down, and you write agreements with high standards and well sign onto that because we would ooner have america driving this train than beijing. Is is also what european parliamentarians of either political stripe, you know, across the spectrum, tell us privately. Now, we understand protectionist attitudes and so forth in europe, but when youre talking to those who actually understand whats at stake, they encourage us to move forward and to lead because they say, if you dont lead in the United States, then beijing is going to lead and thats not going to have a happy outcome. Danielle so critics of t. P. P. Have said in fact, critics even among those who are nominally free traders, critics have said some of the provisions will allow the chinese and Stateowned Enterprises to slide into t. P. P. With no problem, that some of the intellectual property provisions arent good. How do you take that . Mr. Royce well, the intellectual property. Rovisions are existing i would like to see them stronger. But on i. P. Protections, i. P. Protections are in there. You contrast that with what beijing is pushing which has no protections, no protections. This obviously increasing dont let the perfect be the enemy of the good, danny. That is what i would say here. D remember this is not a situation where if we advocate moving forward trade libization in a rulesbased system i just want people to reflect on what part of the consequences have been in terms of liberalizing trade around the world. Part of that consequence, if you look at economies then, World Economy was about 5 trillion. Today its 70 trillion. If you look at Child Mortality rates then, we cut that rate by 2 3. We have cut that rate by 2 3. I mean, around the globe, the answer is not to put up higher tariffs. We saw what that looked like during the Great Depression. Because that Great Depression was a worldwide depression, and one of the things that accelerated it was this was governments moving forward with ever higher tariffs as we fought tariff wars, and today were in a situation where we could be so advantaged if we can build on the momentum of higher and higher standards, because we have our allies in europe and we have our allies in the pacific rim who will agree to go along with us. But if we lose the momentum on this process and instead its driven in asia by beijing, i think its going to be a much different future. Danielle i take a little bit of a glim on us and institutions like ours as well. I dont think we talk enough we talk a lot about political freedom. We talk about human freedom and religious freedom. We dont talk enough about the transformative role of economic freedom. Even in the middle east where we dont see that, it makes such a huge difference in peoples lives. I have completely monopolized the microphone and id like to open things up for questions. Everybody knows our procedures. Ill call on you. Someone will come over to you with a microphone. Identify yourself and your affiliation, please, and put your brilliant, brilliant statement in the short of a very short question or ill cut you off. This gentleman had his hand up first. Chairman royce, jake from foundation. Hindu thank you. President obama has invited Prime Minister for talks leer in the spring. And these talks now are overshadowed with yet another terrorist attack. As chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee, what would you advise the administration should be the trajectory of these talks to kush religious curb religious extremism in the area . Mr. Royce i talke