We will discuss that today. What terms should be in the final agreement . What would United States have to consider doing if we do not get a solution we consider excess factory satisfactory . He talkedck that when about International Order and international institutions, he did not mention the israelipalestinian issue. His support for john kerrys peacemaking instead, we have a third escalation of the conflict in the last five years. We know how they go and we know how the and. They produce casualties. That is a situation we will try exploretoday today. The panelists are ready to do this. I will introduce them briefly. They will speak in which the order they are listed. I asked each of them to come to the podium because we have Television Cameras here. Speaking to the microphone. I hope i have been doing that. Way, each of these speakers has a biography that would take all day to read. You will find them on the back of your invitation. I am only going to give you the highlights. Our first speaker is a senior for middlehe Center Eastern policy at the brookings institution. Before that, he was the director of the center. And, he also has been at the council of foreign relations. He had a career as an analyst at the cia and is a very wellknown author. He has a recent book out. It is about the Iranian Nuclear program. Paul, and speaker is nonresident senior fellow at the center for Security Studies at georgetown. A nonresident senior fellow at the center for 21st century security at the brookings institution. A contributing editor to the national interest. I recommend that you look up his articles there. And, if former cia analyst. A former cia analyst. The third speaker is the director of middle Eastern Studies at the Marine Corps University and a senior fellow at the program of the middle east research institute. Our for speaker is the chairman of projects international. The former assistant secretary of defense for the National Security affairs. A former United States ambassador to saudi arabia. President of the middle east policy council. With that, i conclude and turn the mic over to kenneth. [applause] good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me up here today. When the Obama Administration took office, i had the occasion of talking with different members of the administration on their policy. The interaction has gone on ever since. What i consistently heard from the resident and his the was thets Team Proposition that the United States had overinvested in the middle east. That was their perspective on u. S. Policy through the region. The u. S. Had needlessly squandered resources time, energy on the region. When i press them on this, i heard back a threepoint argument. Middle easts that experts and many other people beyond that had greatly exaggerated the importance of the middle east and have graphically greatly exaggerated the capacity for things to go wrong. We do not needt to be there as much as we analysts believe. They go beyond that and argue that the United States is a major source of the problems. Not only could the u. S. Afford it would be better for the region if we have less to do with them. Thatwould go on to argue it was not that important. Even if at things happened there, it would not affect american interests. For all of these reasons, they felt it was possible and for the United States to pay less attention and devote fewer resources to the middle east. Instead, benefit to other things, asia and the american economy. Waspresident believed that what the American People had elected him to deal with first and foremost. At the time, i questioned many of these assumptions. We can see the underlying the obama of administrations approach to the middle east in this a sick philosophy and sentiment in this basic philosophy and sentiment towards the region. Run intocy has significant problems. Certainly, the first set of assumptions, that the middle east can go to hell and the ted states was necessary that has been proven demonstrably false. The reason the region has gone to hell. I say this as someone who is not fond of george w. Bushs approach to the middle east. 2014, ithought that, in would be looking at a middle east that could be worse than the middle east of 2006. And yet, that is what i see. Iraq in syria arent civil war. Olivia is in olivia is in civil libya is an civil war. Lebanon is experiencing problems. The arab spring is dead. Egypt has returned to a dictatorship temporarily. Any number of problems across the region. It is a deeply troubled region. Not to mention, the point that was made about having yet another is reallypalestinian more. Lestinian war. Why dont think that everything the Obama Administration has argued is wrong, i think that the United States has made mistakes. The george w. Bush administration has more than its fair share of those mistakes. MadeUnited States has it mistakes. The weight of the evidence is that the United States has helped the problems in the region more than we have h urt them. Especially when you consider the handling of iraq and other issues. The Obama Administration recognizes this and how they have been handling the middle east. We have seen a significant change in the Obama Administration approach to the middle east with the selection of john kerry as the secretary of state, our foreign minister. His decision to pursue a new Peace Process between arabs and israelis. That effort seems to have failed aptly. Badly. He was willing to do so and me administration had wanted nothing to do with it. It is the first indication that the administration was beginning to question some of those assumptions and was recognizing that the region is not heading in a good direction. Even threatening the last and premise, that the problems in the middle east are not problematic for the United States. We have seen other course corrections. Allot 500n to million for unknown purposes represents a dramatic departure on syria. The recent efforts since the l to become more andve in iraqi politics tried to pull it out of the civil war that it is to sending into. Into. Escending those of the right decisions. I wish they had come earlier. I talked about the fact that i had a strong sense that the fared states had swung too towards unilateralism and the militarization of middle east policy. Terrorism overwhelm Everything Else in the region. The Obama Administration had pushed the pendulum too far in the other way, fords disengaging and walking away from the region. They believe that whatever happened there would not hurt us. The administration is recognizing that that early position has become unsustainable. They are tacking back in the other direction. What i take away from that is that we need to do better. We do. A number of those cases, while i dislike the way the Obama Administration handle them, in some cases, i am largely in agreement. The iraq policy was an unmitigated disaster and caused the civil war in iraq. Osul, theyfall of m have been following the right policy. Aq represents what we have to think about moving forward and what the Obama Administration failed to recognize in the first 45 years. East, the old aphorism that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is the best model for the United States to take. There are any number of occasions when the United States could have had an impact on iraq that would have allowed them to avoid the current impasse with much less commitment of resources, time, energy, and effort. Areay have to sink in if we going to help them pull out of a civil war. We miss opportunities was syria and libya. Missed opportunities in egypt after the fall of mubarak. Had we made a greater effort with the government, we might have helped morsi avoid some of his worst mistakes and headed o thate military coup overthrew him and replaced him with a dictatorship. Around the region, we can find instances of this. Embracing back to the central focus that the middle east needs help in the United States. The more that we are engaged on a regular basis and in the regular processes of diplomacy, public diplomacy, military willtance, the better we be able to head off the grid problems of the region to prevent the crises we are facing in the region. The more influence and leverage we will have when the inevitable crisis does break out. Want toforward, i comment on a few things. I am glad to focus on whatever things you are interested in postop i want to say a few things about a couple of the issues out there. The first is the arab spring. The arab spring is not what any would behad hoped it or what most arabs had hoped it would be. That. Are good reasons for there are a lot of reasons for that. The desire for change on the part of a great many arabs has not gone away. It is frightened by fear of what happened in syria, yemen, libya, and elsewhere. Protests have not gone away. The chances are that they will reappear and resurface at some point in the not so distant future. We need to be thinking about what form they will take and how negativeead off the manifestations of that pressure. Goes back to the idea that i and a number of others were advocating for, the idea of reform instead of revolution. I would suggest that we take a look at the ambassadors stamping grounds in saudi arabia. Experience, the saudi system negotiated the arab spring without the same unrest that we saw in other countries. I rumor speaking to saudis and saudis and saying, we dont need to do what the egyptians did because we have of h and and not abdullar not mubarak. The useful role that we can play is helping the governments of the region that have not fallen into civil war and help them begin programs of reform that let off the pressure and diffuse the anger that led to the movements of 2011. The last point was iran. I am hopeful that we will get a deal. That would be the best outcome iranians, and our allies in the region. With theto be tempered realities that we face. It is going to be difficult. We need to start thinking about what we will do if we do not get a deal and if we do get a deal. They are equally important. I am struck how many people around town are focused on what is next. There will be an important debate to be had. Many do not get that deal, will take it as a sign that the irradiance are determined to get ians are determined to get Nuclear Weapons. They may be right. From my perspective, war is not a good option will stop war good option. War could be the worst option. Thee do not what in place policy mechanisms and pathways that we might follow when that time comes upon us, i fear that we will have no other good alternatives and will find ourselves push into and other middle east war that we do not need. I do not think obama got it right. Towards dish far engagement. That does not mean that war with iran is the right way to center it. Thank you. I should have said that there are cars on your seats. Cards on your seats. My staff will collect them. Please. Paul, thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. E title of this event is, obamas foreignpolicy vision and the future of the middle east. The vision thing, as the elder george bush referred to it, is overrated. Us like to deal with this as a way to encapsulate and get our conceptual hands around policy. Usthing that would satisfy would, by definition, be too simple and simplistic to be the basis for sound and successful u. S. Foreignpolicy. The challenges out there are two complex and the interests at multifaceted to boil things down to a single vision and a Bumper Sticker kind of way. U. S. Foreignpolicy in the hoc. E east is more ad as focused on voiding losses than scoring gains. Foreignpolicy strategy does not tend to get high marks for not doing certain things. As opposed to doing certain things with a positive vision. I would suggest that not doing certain things or not screwing inis as least as important protecting u. S. Interests in that region. Model, and outs of prevention. Of prevention. Oath,est the hippocratic first, do no harm. Self, self ask your what particular things, where the u. S. Had control, has had the biggest impact . Distractions from interest. Legacy problems we are dealing with today. I would put squarely on the top of the list on the negative side , the launch of the iraq war in 2003. Not doing certain things and not doing harm is an important part of judging a form policy, even though it is not get high marks from the vision people. Mr. Obamas speech did not get high marks and probably did not deserve it. Criteria the one staff that the president took was a bad one. He equated realism with isolationism will stop it was wrong will stop the rest was consistent with what i would consider a realistic view. With isolationism. It was wrong. The rest was consistent with what i would consider a realistic view. He talked about distinguishing our core interest from other interest. He made the point that that distinction is important in weighing what measures and means we should use to pursue those interests. Thelso made very clear point that not every problem has a military solution. I think that this particular point is where we see the mr. Pest distance between obama and his vocal critics in washington. Probablythat mr. Obama privately regrets the mess in role of military force there. I may be wrong. That is just a guess. Thepresident acknowledged many tradeoffs between different u. S. Objectives, even when dealing with a middle east country. As good anpt, example as any. We have interests in democratization and human rights. He also said that we have Strategic Military interests. On. An go on and he did not mention the egyptian role in the current tragedy that we are reading about over the last week. He is correct that there are conflicting objectives and it cannot be boiled down to a vision. He made a good case for collective action, the need to rely on what other countries and not just the u. S. Do in this region, even when pursuing u. S. Interests. This is a major difference between him and some of his chief critics. They believe that if there is a problem out there, the u. S. Can and should be the one to solve it. The president did not explicitly address but i think we should determiningria for who operation or lack of corporation with states in the region. We have a tendency to divide the allies and adversaries. A rigid division. We take that as the sole guide for determining who we are going to walk rate with and who we are going to oppose. The label gets slapped on some if that is a substitute for careful thinking about what the government is doing that we may conflict with. We look at those who are traditionally labeled as adversaries and consider any influence that they may have as bad without taking the trouble to ask ourselves how they will use the influence and to what purpose. That may or may not be consistent with or in c onflict with our interest. There are conflicting and diversion interests around the region. There are others that are labeled adversaries. The most effective form policy, i would suggest, is a flexible one that is not change to a set of fixed relationships. It leaves our policymakers and diplomats to do business where ever it serves interests. Mr. Obama, in his west point speech, voice conventional that seem innocuous enough. Some may trap him into acting against his own principles or pressure on him to act in ways that are contrary to his own principles. Asidentified terrorism contrary to u. S. Interests. The counterterrorists initiative that he announced is a worthwhile recognition of the principle that i knowledge earlier. Bet other countries do can at least as effective as what we advancing ourn interests. Speaking as an old hand, i can tell you that on the issue of terrorism, the u. S. Must rely on the actions of others closer to the front lines as on any other issue. The enshrinement of terrorism as the prime threat with a natural focus on the ogre of the day, isis, increase pressure to act aq with those who believe that every problem has a military solution. We see some of the same things with syria. There, the ogre is on the same side as those we would be assisting. Obamarorism, mr. Mentioned a very sound set of criteria to determine when to pull the trigger on a drone strike. It still comes down to the individual decisions. There probably is, i would guess, with this administration as much as the last one, you can count the number of strikes we have had, a bias to pulling the aigger more often than careful consideration of criteria that would dictate because of pressures to do something about terrorism. A few closing thoughts. The approach to u. S. Policy in s region the longterm vision, we may miss t like straightlining. Two particulary things that would be most likely change fundamentally what we are looking at in the middle east and change it for the better. One is unlikely. The political courage in washington will not be mustered. The first one is the curse to do something about the israelipalestinian conflict and get the story off of the tragic course. The tragedy has been emphasized by the events in the last week more than anything i can say. That requires a conscience and political courage. Likely. R thing is more it is one that 10 finish his thoughts on, completing the nuclear deal with iran. Besides being the best way to preclude any Iranian Nuclear weapon, it would open the door to a more normal relationship with iran and unshackle an important aspect of u. S. Diplomacy in the middle east. It would enable us to do business with anyone labeled as an avid syria or ally when it serves our interests. The fact is, they are Major Players in places of high concern to us, even when we wish they were not. There are other places where they are a major player and their interests are parallel to ours. Iraq anding of afghan