So the odds are that as we speak, he somewhere in the air, going to australia or china for israel or france. He is constantly on the road. We are out of time. This is a memoir called never look an american in the eye. Thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this q a. Org. Visit us at also available as podcasts. We are live now at the Brookings Institution here in washington dc for a discussion about the politics of the arab world. We will be hearing from former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security advisor stephen hadley. At 6 30 eastern, we will be live from the council on Foreign Relations for a conversation about president ial transitions. Were just waiting for the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security adviser, stephen hadley, for this discussion about the politics of the arab world. Good afternoon, and welcome, on behalf of the Brookings InstitutionForeign Policy program and on behalf of the Atlantic Council. Im Deputy Director of Foreign Policy at brookings. I would like to extend a special welcome to my counterparts from the Atlantic Council rejoined us here today including the Deputy Director and Ambassador Richard lebaron. I would like to extend a special welcome to our distinguished guests on the diplomatic community. Report written by my colleague, who over the pastor has convened the task force is working group on politics, governors, and state society relations. This is one of five such groups organized by the middle east Strategy Task force, a Bipartisan Initiative launched in february 2015. Brookings Foreign Policy has been proud to contribute to the through theroject security and public Order Working Group whose report was offered last year by our brookings colleague kenneth pollack. The report you have before you today is informed by tomorrows many discussions of the working group and reflects your own analysis. It helps explain the collapse of the middle east states system, take stock of where we are now, and offers recommendations for tackling the crisis of governance in the middle east in the post arab spring environment. With years of deterioration state society relations. Tomorrow argues that for the region to develop societies that are resilient to terrorism and institutions that are effective and responsive for the longterm, there must be a concerted effort to repair trust between governments and their citizens. Dialogue is needed, as his patients and to stand up for some of the regional actors including the United States. These are words of wisdom that echo broadly in washington here today. As the title of this event andests, Real Security stability in the arab world will be determined by the quality of governance that takes hold there. I encourage you all to read the report and to share your thoughts on the report and on todays discussion the at the governance. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security adviser stephen hadley, to individuals who need no introductions, individuals who know a little more about individual security. We are delighted to have them on our program. With tomorrow about the report. Secretary albright will present some introductory remarks and then we will turn it over to the panel. The, we will invite audience to contribute and ask your questions and engage in the discussion. Thank you so much, and welcome, secretary albright. [applause] thank you very much, suzanne. Its a pleasure to be here to have the opportunity to share this with brookings, thank you very much for hosting this. I think, as you pointed out, one of the things that really distinguished the Atlantic Council plus italy Strategy Task ce is the way in which Atlantic Councils middle east Strategy Task force. It truly is a collaborative effort and i think that as we talk about it today, i think that will become even clearer. Really was terrific in terms of just working together. I enjoyed it very much. Engagedalso, just as we a multitude of institutions in the project, we also tackled a multitude of issues in the working groups that we established. The working groups did produce today we areo releasing the fifth and final one on governance. Lest you think this completes our work, i want to announce that after we all take a break for turkey eating, and cooking in my case, steve hadley and i will be publishing our final cochairs report next wednesday. That report is going to attempt to knit together the topics tackled by each of the working and enter a new longterm approach for the region based largely on ideas from the region is dealt. Our sense has been that we have all spent a lot of time looking at the region, but a lot of it has been kind of fire drills and bandaids and that basis of what were doing is taking a much deeper and longer look. Tole we have time next week address our broader strategy, todays discussion really involved one of its most important components. We will be talking specifically about how, in order to find a way out of the crisis in the middle east, the states in the region will need to address failures of governance. And of course the problems ofught about by the lack accountable, responsive, and effective state institutions in the middle east as is so well known to people in this audience. The role has been downplayed and what you will hear is that governance is in fact a central cause of the turmoil in the middle east, something with which i heartily agree. As she puts it, the amending of the region doesnt come from outside intervention, nor does it come from the top. ,t really did come from below for millions of frustrated people whose expectations far exceeded the opportunities that were available to them. As we have seen over the past far easier tos identify the cause of turmoil than to find a solution, and not for lack of trying, but i really do think we have to keep that in mind. In anyst challenge journey is to have a destination in mind. For the people of the region, ive convinced that this destination is governance built on the foundation brought in stable enough to last, and that by definition, governments that have the trust of their citizens respect their rights and respond to their needs. As is and mention, tammys paper offers a framework or how the region can begin building toward such a model of sustainable governance and argues that this work has to begin now, no matter what else is going on. Ande are many in the region in the United States who have a different view, and they argue that these questions of Political Development can only be addressed after nations achieve security and prosperity. I happen to believe that Political Development and Economic Development need to go together. In very as all of us forms of graduate school would argue which came first and which came second. The reason i say that is because evil want to vote and eat. People want to vote and eat, so the governments have to deliver. And they also want to live in peace. One of tammys main arguments is that the reason secure security depends on responsive and accountable governance, and this raises some tough questions about u. S. Policy, including whether we still have the ability and responsibility to exert leverage on these issues. With the transition underway in washington, the answers are more uncertain than they have been in the past, and it are pointing out that for more than a century, stability in the middle east has been understood to be the responsibility of an external power, where there was the British Empire or the United States of america. Yet according to the president of the United States, until stable governments are set up and supported locally, the middle east will never call down. That pronouncement came from the white house, not barack obama, but of Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Over the decades, weve learned not to expect miracles, even though that is where they are supposed to come from in the middle east. We have also learned not to give up. While the United States remains, in my mind, the indispensable nation to the security of the region, im always quick to point out that theres nothing in the word indispensable that means alone. So after a time in which the u. S. Has been accused of doing too much and into little, we need an honest discussion about our role and relationships and responsibilities, and thats why im so pleased to be part of this middle east Strategy Task friend,th my very good steve hadley. Its been an extraordinary learning experience for both of us an opportunity to work with some truly wonderful people. One of them is tammy, and its now my pleasure to invite her and the rest of her and the rest of our panel to come up on stage. [applause] thank you for being here. Let me begin by thanking my fantastic cochairs, steve hadley and Madeleine Albright. When we started this project, steve and madeleine told each of Us Working Group chairs not to be afraid to ask the questions and to challenge our assumptions. I think recognizing that in the middle east, this is a moment of truly historic transition, and i think the questions of for the region and for those of us outside who care about the region and have a stake in the region, that questioning of assumptions is even more important today than it was when we started the project, so i really want to thank you both for a fantastic process. I want to thank my fellow working Group Members in the region and all over the u. S. And europe, we managed to meet virtually and in person and i learned a great deal from all of them. They are listed in the report, so i hope you will take a look and share my appreciation. It may seem as though todays focusis an odd choice for , maybe its not a propitious time to talk about governance in the middle east, after all, we are dealing with the region in bylent turmoil, beset vicious civil war. In new. Is invested military conflicts in iraq and syria, fighting isis. I just came back from an interNational Security or him up in halifax, where the only discussion of the middle east there was framed around terrorism, isis, civil war, and refugees. These are the urgent problems seen by many governments around the world as a threat to interNational Security, deservedly so, and that are drawing attention to the region. But its precisely because of those urgent challenges that i think it is valuable to focus in this report on governance in the region, because to my mind, isis and the civil wars are symptoms of something bigger. They are symptoms of a broader breakdown in the region. They are not the disease. Seen beginning in late 2010 was the breakdown both of individual states and the state system in the middle east that had lasted since the eisenhower administration. The state system that had advantaged american interests and those of our regional partners, the system that the United States sought to defend. Its that breakdown of the middle east order that has led to the civil wars in libya and yemen and syria and the rise of isis. So understanding why and how this regional order broke down i think is necessary to understand how we effectively deal not just with the symptoms of that breakdown, but with the challenge of restoring lasting stability to this region, and that is the premise and the driving question of the report that we are releasing today. Just threeocus on things about that breakdown that i think it is important for us to understand, and what they about the task ahead. The first thing to understand is the regional order broke down because of things that happened inside states, inside societies, because of the pressures that built up over many years. Is first part of that story the story i told in the book that i published in 2008. Its the story of how the bureaucratic authoritarian model in the arab world began to ideology that the states relied on to survive were becoming less and less effective in a globalized world. Ofy rested on a certain kind social contract, a patronagebased contract. Over time, these systems became thenand more efficient and they were challenged both from within and without from a thegraphic old of young on cusp of adulthood, from the effects of the globalized and from a radically new information environment prompted first by Satellite Television and then by the World Wide Web 1. 0 and 2. 0. And so the effect on citizens in these countries was that the expectations created under the old social contracts could not be fulfilled in these changed conditions. Just to give you a couple of indicators of this, the egyptian thatnment had promised University Graduates would be able to get a Civil Service job. By the early to thousands, the weight time for those University Graduates to get those Civil Service job was on average, eight years. Thats eight years of pushing a food cart or driving a taxi or twiddling your thumbs, waiting for your life to begin. Meantime, you cant afford an apartment, you can afford to get married, you cant afford to become a full adult participant in society. The second thing to understand about the why and how of the breakdown in the middle east is that no one in the runup to the arab uprising was unaware of these challenges. That is a very important thing governmentsd, how dealt with these challenges actually ended up in many cases exacerbating the problem, rather than resolving them. Had a lot of talk and many efforts in the 1990s and to thousands to promote reform of governments and reform of economies in the middle east. Governmentsy arab sought to adjust that social contract, they ended up, instead of developing a more inclusive social contract, negotiating adjustments for political and economic elites, whether within their own country or external institutions like the world bank and the imf. They reduced government hiring without really liberating the private sector to create growth. They brought new business cronies into the ruling parties instead of opening up politics more broadly, and result of these kind of adjustments exacerbated inequality, further ofowered some at the expense others and really increased the grievances rather than resolving them. Increased,ent government moves to manage politics were weaker, and the protests row cap it would this brings me to the third thing we have to understand about how this all happen. The consequences of how certain states broke down. When the protests came, many governments responded poorly, in ways that exacerbated divisions, collapsed state institutions, and some governments responded with violence, in ways that generated demand for more violence. So syria and libya are the places in the region that are most violent and most disorder. These are the places where leaders ruled in the most personalized manner, where the destruction of Civil Society and Community Institutions were the and wherethose same the state was most complete. So having failed to act in a manner that couldve prevented these uprisings, the leaders when basic governments in order broke down, those who impose their will gain power. When the states power against its citizens, it created a market for others with guns to defend them against the state, and that allowed the emergence of identitybased sectarian militias, extremist groups with horrific agendas. The time these governments had broken down, the social andract had broken down social trust, the basic trust between people and communities had eroded. Tore is very little left manage peaceful politics. This is the challenge we confront today in the middle east. Beyond the political competition between iran and saudi arabia, beyond the threat by extremist terrorism or met weapons of mass destruction, this is the biggest challenge in rebuilding a stable order in the region, its the breakdown of trust within society. The a consequence both of way they were governed and the way they broke down. The paper goes into detail on and offersubjects specific priorities and approaches on a way forward to tackled a problem. Fewme just give you a highlights here. First, the future of the region will be determined not by the mere existence of government, although thats what many are the qualitybut on of that governance, because if we dont have more accountable, responsive, transparent and effective governance, it will not be sustainable governance. It will face more challenge and breakdown again. Conflicts that are suppressed will reemerge. So we have to think about the quality of governance, not just the fact of governance. Its probably no surprise to any of you that i think democracy is far more likely than it any other regime type to generate the effective governorates, but where the region is today and is neitherocracy swift nor linear. T