Should We Be Promoting Democracy Abroad?

I would like to welcome you to this morning second plenary session. My name is Doug Bereuter I am a trusty of the World Affairs Council and the president of the Asia Foundation. As president of of the Asia Foundation and a former member of Congress like you I certainly appreciate the complexities of the topic on which this plenary session is focused. And I anticipate that given their background and extensive examination of the topics, our plenary speakers will offer us very valuable insights to further stimulate us to speak about out thoughts and our discussion on US foreign policy and on the War on Terror. Following the presentation of Dr. McFaul and Dr. Diamond we will move to questions from you the conference participants. Please pass them along to Council staff throughout the program. I will raise many of those questions as possible within the time during the second half of the plenary session. And now may I remind you as a courtesy to our radio audience on KQED and our fellow participants please turn off your cell phones and your pagers. Since the terrorist attack on America on September 11 2001 United States government has struggled with this approach to quit the terror of terrorism in this country and abroad. On Monday of this week the office of the coordinator for counter terrorism release the 2006s country report on terrorism. In this report US department of state acknowledged that despite the efforts of the United States and Foreign governments took over, its clear that progress has been mixed that the threats still exists and the states sponsorship, the terrorist responds to intervention Iraq and prove terrorist propagate and capabilities persuade of nuclear weapons by state sponsor to terrorism and terrorist exploitation of grievances, all of these things represent on going challenges. Also I I think it should be noted that the establishment and maintenance of democratic systems and processes and countries around the world appears to be the corner stone of the US governments new transformational diplomacy and development approach. However what democracy as a core value in America perception of democracy in other nations may not be the same as American perceptions. More over the talk of promoting democracy in countries who had a experience with the concept is either lacking of flood is in most cases, a steep uphill challenge. Ladies and gentlemen, members and friends of the World Affairs Council at this plenary session we will hear our comments on various Political solutions which maybe more affective and decreasing terrorist activities or focus of this plenary session evokes a variety of questions and dilemmas for our country and the international community to include the following issues which we hope our speakers may address in their comments or address through the questions that you pose for them. First the government of western democracy is widely assume the democracy is part of the global solution to peaceful coexistence, the question 'is democracy promotion and affective antidote to terrorism". Second 'is the promotion of democracy two idealistic of a concept to be applicable in the current political environment found in the international community'. Third 'can democracy take hold on countries be said with arm conflict and terrorism'? And forth 'can the experience of non-elective non-democratic societies offer any helpful insight on how to address terrorism and other global challenges'?. The session's first speaker is Dr. Michael McFaul, Dr. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institutions, he is also the professor of political science at Stanford University and a non-resident associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 2005 he was appoint the Director of the center on Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Dr. McFaul has written and very widely on the prospects and challenges for democracy in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Central Asia and Russia. In his written work he highlighted the issues that autocratic regimes present as the enthuses of democracy. And he has a suggested that both the establishment of Regional Security Organizations in the presence of hard power as a deterrent are among the elements of a positive approach to neutralizing security threats. Today Dr. McFaul will speak to us on his topics promoting democracy should we? Could we? Can we? Please welcome Dr. Michael McFaul. Thank you, thank you Jane, I pledge your topic for this year, rethinking the War on Terror, we have had now unanimity that this is a bad phrase, I think its one of the really distorting analytic phrases of our time and yet every speaker gets up here and says that and then keeps using the phrase. So I have a challenge to you all and I feel be like a preacher in this room instead of GWOT, The Global War On Terror use something else and if you don't can think of something else how about GWAQ, The Global War Against Al-Qaeda or something else, but stop using the phrase and then it was very right that one these phrase stuck they have a tendency to to perpetuate themselves and get in the way of rethinking the policy so that should challenge, no more using the phrase 'War On Terror' at least for the next two days. The second analytic concept that I think it has done great damage to out ability to fight the political challenges of making the United States safer, I notice, I avoided fighting terrorism their right. I want to I want to expand aperture here to include how we deal with terrorist but not only because I think that's a bit of the problem we have in thinking of American Foreign Policy challenges that we become too narrow. And a second challenge is analytic concept that's gotten in the way and I say this somewhat ironically somebody has been involved in this for two two and half decades are the phrase and the talking about promoting democracy. And a particular the way the president rhetorically has spend a lot of time talking about liberty, freedom and democracy and its second inarguably I think he use one of those words over three dozen times with in the absence of a serious strategy for doing that, and I don't want to talk a lot about that now and secondly that has come with that a real over simplistic analytic framework of understanding the relationship between the promotion of democracy on the one hand and fighting terrorism on the other. And it has gotten so bad that a lot of people now questioning whether we should be in the business of promoting democracy at all as the United States. Let's be honest more people less people live in free societies today then they did in the year 2000 that's just an impractical fact, go to the freedom house, scores and see that, that's just true. Despite all the rhetoric the outcome whatever you think about it the outcome just impractically there is no relationship to it. And if there is not relationship to it that's is our less people living under freedom today than than they were before, its very hard to make the case that out strategy for promoting freedom is helping us to fight terrorism, right? So that the cause and links are just not there, and so many of those have come to say 'hey lets just forget about it, its not our business, its not working, there are other things that are more important' and I wanted to really emphasis this this is not a republican democrat debate. I am democrat and I can tell you that in my party in foreign policy debates this is a very lively debate, but I also work at Hoover Institution so I know some republicans. And this debate is just as fervent in the republican party as it is in the democratic party and if I had more time and we didn't have this time keeper front of us, I would go back to the beginning of our founding fathers and remind you that this is not a debate that George. W. Bush started, this is a debate that goes all the way back to the beginning of our republic. But we don't have time to do that, come to my class sometime and I will give you the syllabus at least. Let me get to the two questions. First on the shed question and then the second can we do it? On the shed question my answer is pretty emphatic and that's an emphatic yes, for three reasons. I have a moral reason, an economic reason and a security reason. On the moral reason I am with Winston Churchill, if you remember he famously said democracy is a terrible system of government except for all those other that have been trying. I think impractically if you look over the sweep of time that we had democracies. His statement holds true, democracies are better at protecting basic human rights, constraining and the power of the state and representing the world of the people. They are better at providing secure lives for their citizens including I would say prosperity over the long hall, now on the short run its not true that democracies are better at economic growth say in the last 40 years in the developing world, its not true. It is but its also not true that autocracies are better either, right? So somebody is going to say the world you know, China is better no no, no for every China there is an Angola. If you look at the entire world that's is an autocracy that is stealing from the people and have had negative growth rates for 20 years, and on average it flattens out. But what you get in the democracies is not the great vacillations, so you don't get the ten percent growth very, very rare in democracies, you don't get the negative growth, but you also don't get genocide, you also don't get famine, these things simply don't happen in democracy, so I think the the idea even if you don't care about democracy, if you care about these other things there are also better at providing better more secure stable lives for their citizens. And finally I would say on the moral side the vast majority of the people in the world including in the Middle East by the way want democracy, and and I think that this is one of the things that Americans don't quite understand, you can go the website and read it, World Value Survey just Google that those three words and you can see what is the support for democracy around the world and majorities with couple of this exceptions or couple of countries that are experiencing difficulties with democracy right now, but the vast majority of people around the world want democracy and it is not the case, that Al Qaeda, support for Al-Qaeda has increased in the last five years. I mean - just read the data, we have this data. Shibley Telhami at the University of Maryland also collects it, it is the case of support for America is way down, but that has not translated in a mathematical way for support for the Caliphate and those kinds of ideas that Al-Qaeda is is exposing. So I think the moral reasons pretty clear. Economic reason, I think its very clear too, I don't have time to get into it, I can tell so let me just say the very simple idea that when you open up societies through political liberalization that usually leads to greater trade and greater foreign investment and has the largest economy in the world we benefit from those kinds of openings. Trillion dollar piece dividend from the collapse of communism for our economy as a result of the expansion of democracy in East Central Europe and for other places far other East. But the hard part is on the security part I want to spend few moments on this. How is it that the promotion of democracy world wide? And let me just promotion of democracy is not the right word, the expansion of democracy whether we had any thing to do about it we get to in the can part - has let made us more secure. And let me start with easy stuff and then get out on the limp and then may be I will follow and trying to stretch the argument. First lets just remember then on our history every enemy of the United States is been on autocracy. We had never been in war with the democracy, and I know we have can talk about the war of 1812, and whether the British aware of democracy I will be happy to do that and questions, but I just I don't think its right and I think its the evidence on this is rather overwhelming, in fact I am a professor by the way and I am proud of it. And the one empirical thing that we have helped to inform the suicidal debate it is this finding that came from social science, the democracies do not go to war with each other, first point. Second, no so all of our enemies have been autocracies, no democracies have ever attacked us, both both sides of the equation are true, and just think about that for a moment from your own kind thinking about security threats, does any body know how many troops are on the Canadian-American border. I am from Manteno, I lived about I was born about an hour from that border and I don't know, and nobody raise your hands okay. Does anybody know how many nuclear weapons the French have? Secretary Poirey is here, so something he knows but most of you don't, and most of you don't care, because you don't think about the intentions of the French in terms of using those against us. Some republicans do yes, but that's not a serious argument. Likewise now I am going out further on the transformation of autocracies and and enemies those with the capacity to threaten us have made us safer here are the easy ones of course of Japan, Italy and Germany there is just no question about it that those transformations have made us safer, I would even add to the list the Soviet Union, and regime change in the Soviet Union, now if you are interested in the threats come to my plenary the break out session were we will talk a lot more about Russia, there is a lot more to be done both on the nuclear threat side and in terms of the that the intentions of that regime, but its not the cold war, I grew up getting under desks as a third grader, worrying about the threat from the Soviet Union. My son Carl McFaul is here by the way, doesn't do that at his school anymore. We just don't do that and the reason is is because the intentions the regime has changed even with all the problems that you have in Russia today that threat is changes as a result of the internal changes not as a result of arms control or or the weakness of Russia. They still have ten thousand nuclear weapons they are still the only country in the world that can obliterate over night. We need to be giving much more attention to that problem but that threat is a lot less because of regime change there. Now don't think that I am naive I know we need autocratic friends from time to time we needed Stalin we need it other autocrats as as was pointed out in the previous session but I want to warn you about these autocrats they are not very good long term allies for two reasons one they are not accountable to their people so they can switch their policy on a dime that's what president did couple of years ago and two they don't stand power for very long that's one big problem these autocracies have especially once they don't have monarchies they don't have a very good mechanism for handing over power. So the show remember that great ally fantastic allied for 37 years that 38 year not such a great ally not such a great ally, Saddam Hussein remember him he was our ally in the 1980s in fighting the Islamic republic of Iran not such a great ally later and I could go through the list Mujahideen and Afghanistan the Apartheid regime in South Africa Kareem in Afghanistan, that I have already mentioned. That is they don't have a mechanism for holding on to power and they don't have to listen to their elected and there fore they are a bit fragile allies and I would gone that think about Mr. Musharaf and the South East and Mr. Mubarak in the Middle East, I am really worried about all those places because I see a process of change underway in all those places its an illusion if you think that there is a stable regime there that's going to be around for the next 30 to 50 years that is total folly in my opinion. The real question is whether we will help them and work with them to make evolutionary change a real possibility as we did our friends in Chile and South Korea and the Philippines during the cold war where I would remind you the threat there was oh we have election the communists were going to come in to power then they are going to throw us out of our military base our naval base in the Philippines exact same debate by the way the real challenge is it can we find an evolutionary way to change to provide change because if we don't there will be revolutionary change in those places much like the way there was revolutionary change in Iran. Now I think every thing I have just said is based on historic change mostly in Asia and mostly in Europe and I want to remind you that that is where the greatest source of threat to the United States as always been and when we want to talk about bodies building up and then at this the previous panel talked about let us remember that the bloodiest most difficult part of the world in the last 300 years is been in Europe and there is no way to compare to the Middle East just in terms of scale and it is a incredible achievement that I don't think is really fully appreciated that Europe is now mostly whole and free and that's make us a lot safer. That is a giant giant achievement of the 20th century and especially the late 20th century and I thank you secretary Poirey for the work you did and doing this this was not inevitable. But that's a historic analogy, desert really transferred to the Middle East and I will just focus on the Middle East any interest of time I think it does in the long run. In the long run a democratic Iran will not be an enemy of the United States and will be our ally there and that's for would be eliminated if Iran becomes a democracy in the long run more democracy and the great of Middle East would decrease the threats to each other right we know that from studies which in turn would decrease the demand for weapons including weapons of mass destruction among them that would be a good thing and when returned would reduce the man for American troops to beyond the ground in the long run in the long run democracy is a more transparent makes it harder for them to hybrid terrorists not impossible to make them harder in the long run democratic development would also provide outlets for political expression extremists do well in autocracies and challenging autocracies democracy require that you get that 51 percent vote right you have to go to the median voters we saying political signs and that's very difficult for those with extreme positions like Al- Qaeda to compete in so they either have to change their ways or they gradually fade to the way side in democracies in the long run. In the long run I am I have no doubt about it, I am I have no doubt about it that political modernization in the Middle East would also diversify the economies and and provide economic development in a much more sustainable way that is not just sustainable in the way they are now. But notice I all I had to use the phase, "In the long run" for each one of those clients. And that's where that Robert hits the road and I think Larry is going to speak about that. But in the long run, I think all those things are true. But in the short run, groups like Hamas win elections. In the short run, democracies can weaken states that make them more susceptible to terrorist organizations you know, within their territories. And in the long run, we simply don't know if the Middle East will follow this long-term projectory that Europe did. Now, I happened to believe it's true, and when you are going to tell me, "Oh, the Arabs they don't like democracy. Oh, Islam is against democracy," I am going to remind you what your what my grandfather used to say about the Germans and the Japanese in a similar way. And I am going to remind you about the literature this this literature that we also produce social scientist. Not, not not us, we are too smart, that that you know, Catholic Countries couldn't be democracy. We used to say that 40 years ago because the majority of Catholic Countries were autocratic. And I want to remind you that every time you you instinctively make that argument, "Well, they don't like democracy." Well, actually look at the data they do. I don't want to say it's easy. But in the long run, I am optimistic but how does go with a short run, I think is the central challenge. Quickly, because I have already seen my minute flag can we promote democracy, I I have teach a whole course on this. I mean, I have to do it in sound by form right now. My answer is I am I am really not sure. I am really not very optimistic about it right now. And there are four big reasons and I if I had time, I would develop them. So, I will just mention them and then may be in questions we can get them. On, we don't understand democratization very well. We don't have a unified theory about how to do this. So it makes it difficult its go in and promoted that. I remember a word for the record, never mind I I won't tell you about a story about Iraq may be later. But a a very prominent engineer doing some very serious work in Iraq. Let me just put leave it at that. Once came up to me after a talk and said, "You know, when I have to go and build something in Iraq, I got a blue-print. And I got a bunch of engineers that know how to build it. How do you guys do that in terms of building democracy?" We don't have that. Second, therefore it leads to policies that are really rather incoherent from an outsider looking at it. Let me just give you one example. There is a theory called "Modernization" that says, "The more well to do a country is the more likely that is to be a democracy." Very good theory and then there is another theory that says, "Economic crisis brings about democratization" another theory and they are some what incompatible. How does that translate into policy? Well, when we talk about China, our strategy for democratization is modernization. And I think, "Okay that sounds good to me." Let's hope raise up the GDP per capita of China and eventually may be democracy will come. And then, the debate turns to Iran which is a much wealthier country much farter along in terms of modernization. What's are strategy? That Oh, we are going to squeeze and we are going to have economic crisis as our strategy for promoting democracy. Totally different than the way we are treating the Chinese. So, help me understand that. Third, and and here may be I might have to and, I have seven things for how to make it better. But I am not going to get to them. But third, we don't have the organizational capacity to do this right. And you have heard a little bit about it. But I really want to focus on this. Because we when the President, whether you agreed with him or not, said, "I need to plan and resources marshaled to do regime destruction in Iraq." He called the Secretary of Defense and he said, "put together a plan to do that." And they have the resources tutored; they have the intellectual fire power to do it. I really want to emphasis that. That they they know how to make a to do regime destruction. And then you say, "Well, who does he call to do the regime plan for the construction." There is no there is no member of the Cabinet of that Stature. There is no place like the Pentagon to call. The the budget of the Pentagon is about $450 billion right now. General Abizaid likes to say that this War is 10 percent military and 90 percent political. Well it might bad math, I mean political science not math; that would mean we would be spending $4 trillion on that political solutions. And we are not. We are spending $15 billion. And I think that imbalance is is where that Robert hits the road, but we were not taking this seriously as a government or as an academic community instead we do picked up teams for every time we do this and it happened with this gentlemen right here November 2003 he gets the call from Condoleeza Rice say to say Larry I need you to go to Iraq and I remember it very well because he called ten minutes later Larry and here he said you are not going to some thing believe the call I just got I forgot we are on the radio and and we had about a 32nd conversation about what to do and Larry was I can tell I don't mean to embrace you Larry Larry which 100 percent against the war in Iraq I know that for a fact as we talked about it a lot in our respective homes we lived about two blocks away from each other but when he called he had to go it was his it was his duty as an American and I said the same thing because for democracy that this is this is to use a sports analogy I am the warriors alright I am a warriors fan do uses a sport analogy this is the Michael Jordan of democracy promotion and our country right so it was the right call that make that Condoleeza Rice tried to get Larry to go. But think about a bunch other things the call was in November of 2003 not November 2002 not November 2001 big problem right and it was a picked up team to use the this sports analogy so he is a Michael Jordan but he is out there with a bunch of other people who are not all stars and who have never practiced together and who have never thought about what they are doing and six years later we have made no progress at all in thinking about how we do this democracy promotion better and I fear that the next time we are going to have the same problems and the next same kind of pick up teams. I have the solutions here but I also have the stop sign so I may to stop. Dr. McFaul, thank you very much for a very interesting presentation. You have you can tell he is talking 50 minutes and here he is either going to pull those seven solutions out of many of your questions you got up by the book. Our second speaker is Michael Jordan no that's Dr. Larry Diamond. Dr. Larry Diamond senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Founding Coeditor of the Journal Democracy at Stanford he is the professor of political science and sociology and coordinates the democracy program and senor on democracy development and the rule of law what the Stanford's institute for international studies. Last September Dr Diamond delivered a paper in title promoting democracy in post conflict and failed states lessons and challenges at the national policy forum on terrorism security Americas purpose in DC and this paper Dr Diamond states I sincerely believe that every country can become a democracy eventually no country is ruled out because of its preceding history culture or social structure but not any country can become a democracy at any particular moment and certainly not quickly failed states posts among the most difficult challenges for democratization well Dr Diamond has a very distinguished history among other recent works that he has he is the author of a Squandered Victory, America's Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy in Iraq. Please welcome Dr Larry Diamond. Doug thank you for really providing the perfect segment and in to exactly my principle fan today you anticipated it remarkably well and thank you for your introduction and Mike thank you for your introduction and let me say if you could produce Michael Jordan. I will be glad to sit down right now I want to say before I began not just thank you for having me but that it is an honor to be on this program with the speakers that you have invited beginning with her own Bill Poirey, congress men Jane Harman the people you heard last night, the people you are hearing today. I studied the program carefully and some thing struck me about it. We are considered you know, bay area of San Francisco you know, liberal ideologues, but if you look at the program I think you will find if you access it objectively that the people who are speaking here are not bringing huge wave of ideological baggage they are grounded in the reality they are struggling with the problems they have certain values that they start with but they are trying to fashion solutions. Do this conference in Washington Dc which is supposed to be grounded in the reality particularly in certain think tanks that I won't mention. And you wont find quite the same freedom from ideology and it was ideology blind faith that let us blind in the Baghdad in to an intervention which Mike is indicated. I opposed because of the reasons we all know and I think we are easily anticipatable, but also because as some one like Mike who believes we can and should be promoting democracy around the world I also believe deeply that we cannot do it by military means and then in fact we discredit our ambition to help people around the world achieve freedom and democracy if we try to shove it down their throats with military force. Now the question I want to address to you today is the one broadly that was post to us in the panel does promoting democracy abroad help us please watch my words Mike diminish terrorism around the world or does it weaken us and struggle against it by potentially destabilizing fragile authoritarian regimes particularly in the Middle East well. I think its clear in the Middle East its been clear for long time that would trap between two contradictory imperatives in the region and Mike has referred to them the need to preserve the short term stability of Arab regimes I am not talking about Iran of course that have been friendly or not at least explicitly and intractably hostile to the United States and the need to promote a deeper more organic stability in the region that would follow from democratic reform and better more responsible governance. In 2003 president Bush challenged this presumed contradiction and toasted his sides 60 years quite explicitly he toasted his side 60 years of post war American policy in the region he said I was at the speech on November six 2003 at the National Endowment for democracy where he said it more explicitly that in perusing security instead of democracy in the region we got neither and now we need a democracy to get security. They followed a host of initiatives, some organizational like the Middle East partnership initiative, some subtle like quiet diplomacy and one as unsubtle as a war and occupation to try to implement president Bush's vision of promoting democracy in the Middle East, for a while the administration could and did claim that it was succeeding elections in Iraq with heavy turn outs that to fight the terrorists threats see the revolution and then democratic elections in Lebanon, democratic elections and in fact alternation in power and in Palestine, and a historic concession by Egypt's modern pharaoh Hosni Mubarak allowing a actual compotator it is a challenge in the presidential election, and seeming to allow more scope for opposition in the parliamentary elections. And then you all know what happened? The blow back, the results, radical Islamizes won or may deep in roads in all four elections. It seems that the administration then woke up and said wow where is this taking us since then one is not heard much triumphalisticed administration rhetoric about the democratic credentials of Hisbula in Iran, in Lebenon, Hamas in Palestine the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Shiai Islamizes in Iraq. Well a little on the ladder but not very convincingly. Since then Mubarak has kept his presidential opponent Ayman Nour in prison and in disgrace and probably in not in considerable physical pain thumbing his nose at the us well we have chosen once again to focus on bigger strategic issues like trying to stabilize the mess in Iraq and the Middle East and now we turn to our authoritarian allies in the region for helping doing so where was this regional conference on Iraq in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt are we back in square one the problem is stark and remains of urgent importance the Arab world is the only major region in the world that does not have a single democracy. If we look at the Middle East and general only Israel and turkey are democracies of the 16 Arab states of the Middle East only one Lebanon has ever been a democracy. Well, the rest of the world has been moving forward to a democracy and greater freedom, the Arab world has remained essentially stagnant politically over the last three decades, there is a serious problem with the nature of governance in the Middle East, I want to offer the argument to you, if I may that the problem is not Islam as such. 43 countries in the world have a Muslim majority population, the 27 of these outside the Arab world in the Middle East are much freer as got by freedom house than the Arab states, more over a quarter of those 27, 7 are democracies and in several cases like Indonesian merely developing democracies in a hopeful way moreover there is a growing body of public opinion survey evidence that's emerging from the Muslim world in the Middle East and Central Asia in Africa and there all finding some thing similar and striking that Muslims actually are not particularly when you control for education and income, less support of democratic values, less desiring of have their country be a democracy, then non-Muslims and they does not appear surprisingly to be much relationship between the degree of religious attachment and the degree of support for democracy. Moreover these are appearing popular orientations seem to coincide with the thinking of increasingly out spoken moderate Muslim intellectuals, we don't hear much about them but they are out there, and they are in fact becoming more outspoken making the case either for a liberal interpretation of Islam or for a broader liberal view that de-emphasis the literal meaning of sacred Islamic texts, was stressing the larger compatibility between the overall moral teachings of Islam Paul Hue spoke about this last night Islam being a religion of peace and the nature of democracy is a system of government based on tolerance, freedom of expression, rule of law, a growing number of Arab intellectuals, Journalists, civic activists, bogglers, even some government officials are becoming convinced that the center cannot hold with out democratizing political reform. And one reason why is if you look at the long term and the demographic structure of these populations which are overwhelmingly young and which are deeply frustrated by the preface of economic stagnation abuse of power and social injustice and which are better informed and more independently informed, partially because of the Internet then they have ever been before about what's happening in their own country, what's happening in the world, this is a threat to our national security if it turns to alliance with Al Qaeda and other Jihadist organizations, but that's not the only way it can turn this is struggle of ideas going on and this part of the world, this is struggle of values going on in this part of the world, and if we abandon that struggle there is no way we can have success in the struggle against global terrorism, to the extent that the regimes of the Arab world do not reform politically and economically at some pace, so that they become more open, more dynamic, more just and yes more democratic, they will erupt in one form over another in the coming years through terrorism, through violent challenges to the United States. The rising threat of radical Islamic terrorism inside Saudi Arabia and other Arab states is a very worrisome danger, sclerotic regimes I believe that word was used this morning that cannot generate jobs and hope that fast the rate in the population is growing cannot persist indefinitely and Michael spoke about the life span problem and market oriented economic reforms necessary to unleash growth opportunity jobs so that these people have hope and some alternative to suicide bombing cannot occur without democratic change in my opinion because unless governments have much greater political legitimacy in the region. They are not going to have the nerve to take on the very risky steps of dismantling the subsides dismantling several decades of Socialism and Statism that are necessary to really unlock economic growth in the region. So there is a demographic time bomb ticking in the Middle East and it is going to sweep away a lot of western leaning regimes sooner or later unless reform gets going. Now later could be a long time later I conceive that knowing that knowing how cunning efficient organized at least at one thing repression that many of these Middle Eastern regimes are American policy makers for several decades, and I would argue again now falling back on the natural instinct of American policy have opted for the double they know and to leave the long returned future to the next administration we are at a historic junction, where moral imperatives to support human rights, and promote peaceful democratic change and security imperatives converge as never before I think that is the message of the last presentation, and this one I am sorry you are not getting a debate on it in this particular panel, but you have your questions after September 11th the political transformation of Middle Eastern regimes in the way I described toward democracy transparency accountability, and freedom and there fore capacity to achieve real sustained organic economic development has become not just a moral imperative. But a necessary foundation for our own national security the question is how do we promote these changes in a way that the search for an Arab does not yield in Islamist Lennon instead. Using your favorite part of the world Mike that is the core challenge and there is no obvious and easy answer because we cannot even be sure who among the Islamists is a Lennon or a Bin Laden and who is a potential. I want to take my remaining time to offer some specific policies suggestions. First of all and it cant help it come to this if you served in a Correlation Provisional Authority in Iraq the tone and style of our approach has to change. Today in the Arab World we are radial active. We are seen as arrogant hubristic, domineering, insensitive ignorant, unaware of their language, unable to speak it, largely ignorant of their culture, stereo typing of who they are. And there fore Arab democrats and Iranian democrats don't want to come too close to the United States for fear of being contaminated and burned. We have got to become more knowledgeable, more sensitive, more engaging. We should promote democracy in the Middle East, but we cannot do it rapidly, we cannot do it purely on our own terms, and we certainly cannot do it alone. It has always been the case that success and this endeavor would require close coordination with our European allies, but in the wake of the mistakes and unilateralism of this administration I think that is more of an imperative than ever before. We need unprecedented co operation at three levels between Europe and the United States between government and non governmental organizations between a Trans Atlantic alliance to promote political reform in the region and reformers in the region in 2004 Mike and I served on a panel assembled by the German marshal fund a people from the region people from Europe and the United States to try to craft a Trans Atlantic strategy to promote democracy in the Middle East I think we came up with some viable sensible pragmatic but principle to ideas I will like to close with these one principle is regional ownership it cant come from us it got to be owned by people in the region and I have said fortunately there are a growing number of people in the region who understand that their regimes have to change and be better governed they have to lead, we have to support them morally politically and materially. Second we need to engage both the rulers and the rule this means we need to reach out to civil society and support what they are doing to advance democratic reforms in to challenge their own regimes, but I repeat if we do at this United States alone they are going to run away from us for the reasons you understand. Third we need to get beyond this malicious stereotyping of Islam as an antidemocratic authoritarian religion, all religions have multiple political interpretations and orientations some of them authoritarian look at the Catholic church over several centuries and the way it was used expand Portugal and Latin America and then I think we become a little more cautious about stigmatizing one religion as pro- authoritarian and little bit more hopeful about the opportunities for religions to be reinterpreted and remobilized for more progressive just democratic hands. Fourth very importantly we need to tailor our policies to the particular circumstances in each country, they are not going to all move at the same pace in the same way Morocco was much further ahead now in terms of freedom, democracy, political pluralism, then Saudi Arabia its much better able now to get all the way to an electoral democracy then Saudi Arabia is so we have got to have particular strategies and time tables and formulas for each individual country in the region crafted through engagement with the people of the region. Fifth to come back to what Larry Wilkerson spoke about this morning we have got to fill the credibility gap, we cannot continue to violate human rights ourselves in the treatment of detainees to remand people to the custody of Middle Eastern regimes knowing they are going to be tortured by their security establishments and say that we stand for democracy and human rights. I would like to close with two things, number one we have got to start talking to the Islamists, they are not all the same, they are not all people who want to blow up buildings and destroy the United States or they are not all people terribly focused on the United States, some of them have more incremental strategies, some of them can be gradually inducted into a democratic game and set of rules of tolerance and respect for constitutionalism we can know right who is who, but we are not going to find out unless we engage them in dialogue and we are not going to find out unless we engage them in a gradual political opening in these countries and test them that way. Finally I agree with what I think it was Daniel Benjamin said this morning extremely important if we don't resume our best efforts largely did for the last six years to try to induce broker, probe, plead, and examine for a Middle East peace between Israel and the Palestinians we are not going to have credibility in the region and we are going to have a continuing even more fiery burning collaring in the region that is not going to be a very favorable place for the promotion of democracy and human rights and not a very favorable place for our National Security either. Thank you.