Good Evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California. I am Jack Cortis, President of Mellon Private Wealth Management of Northern California and Commonwealth Club's quarterly chair. It is my pleasure to introduce our distinguished speaker Dennis Ross, Fellow at The Washington Institute, former US Special Middle East coordinator for 1988 to 2000. An author of Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World. A scholar and highly skilled diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross has worked closely with Secretaries of States James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. He has served as special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton and as a director of the State Department's Policy Planning Office in the first Bush administration. In that position he played a prominent role in developing US policy toward the former Soviet Union. Mr. Ross has published in Foreign Policy and the National Interest. He also was a frequent contributor to the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Please welcome Dennis Ross. You know I suppose I could quote Henny Youngman and say, "I just flew in and boy, are my arms tired". I literally did just fly in and unfortunately this is probably a program also scheduled to begin at six, right? Well, I was United Airlines and from San Diego and even though I told them I had to be here anyway I am glad to be here. And I am going to talk about my book which comes, I know, as a major surprise. But I am going to start by posing a question to you. When you hear the words Statecraft, how many people here think they know what it means? I mean there is either a combination of shyness or people actually don't know. Right, so let me since many of you think you know and others are either reluctant to admit that you don't know or don't want to be quizzed because I was tempted to begin to ask, yes really. Let me pose a hypothetical. Let's assume that the next administration in an administration that is really good with what might be preferred to as the tools of the trade. When most people think of Statecraft what do they think of? They think of diplomacy, they think of economic wherewithal, they think coercive power military power or hard power, they think of intelligence, they think of organizational skills, they think of informational capability meaning how you frame issues so that others will accept what you are seeking to persuade them out. In other words they think of all the tools that a state has to pursue its foreign policy. So let's pursue a question. If the next administration was really good at being able to organize and carryout all these tools, it was really good in terms of the art of diplomacy I am talking about the next administration. Let's assume the next administration actually knows how to conduct diplomacy. And it actually understands that it can use its economic resources as a form of leverage and it understands how to use military power or even the threat of military of power to affect the behavior of others. And it uses intelligence very well to reveal what are potential problems. And it also knows how to use public diplomacy, meaning the public side of being able to describe why an issue is a particular problem or a particular challenge. If that administration could do all those things and integrate the tools together, would it be good at Statecraft, what do you think? Yes, everybody thinks yes. Okay. Well what happens if that administration which could do everything I just described was doing all those things but in a series of objectives that made no sense. Well, would the administration then be good at Statecraft? No. So you better be able to shape objectives that make some sense, right? Okay so what if this next administration turns out to be pretty good at analyzing the world as it is, understanding what the key priorities are that we face, defines our purposes the right way, shapes the objectives in terms of fitting what in a sense we need to be able to respond to. In other words it's very good at identifying our purpose and role in the world and identifies the right objectives based on the right priorities. Is it going to be good Statecraft? May be yeah, already you have began to sort of become more cautious in terms of your assessments. Well, obviously it would only be good at statecraft if it actually knew how to implement the objectives. If it isn't very good at implementation but it has all the right objectives it's not going to be very good at statecraft. So we already know from this discussion is that objectives and means, objectives and instruments, objectives and assets have to be married. Good statecraft marries objectives and means, bad statecraft is always characterized by a huge gap between your objectives and your means. So how you do you think we are doing today? Let's take a Iraq. Is Iraq an example where we have a marriage of objectives and means? Even from the beginning did we have a marriage of objectives and means? Can you imagine for one second that Iraq actually had had weapons of mass destructions? I mean that was the objective of the administration, wasn't it? The objective of the administration was to basically go in and take care of the weapons of mass destruction. Well humor me, all right, humor me and assume that when the administration said it cared about weapons of mass destruction it actually cared about weapons of mass destruction. If that was the objective we didn't have means that were appropriate to the objective, why, because we didn't have the capability in terms of forces to go in and even seize control of all the over 900 sites the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency had identified as being what they thought were weapons of mass destruction sites. So even if they had had weapons of mass destruction we were in trouble because we didn't have enough forces to be able to go in and seize them. Not to mention we certainly didn't have the forces to be able to go and protect the boarders to ensure that if they were there they weren't smuggled out. So I could say, thank your lucky stars that they didn't have weapons of mass destruction because we didn't have the means to fulfill that objective. So even from the beginning there was a gap between our objectives and our means. What do you think that was the case? All right, I will answer that question. I know you are surprised but I will answer that question. We didn't have the means because we shaped an objective and we shaped our means, both, our objectives and our means were shaped by a faith based assessment, not a reality based assessment. Our assessments were governed by wishful thinking. They weren't governed by reality, that's what I mean by faith based. I am not talking about religion right now; I am talking about "faith based". You look at reality the way you would like it to be as opposed to the way it is. Now statecrafts is never going to marry objectives and means if it's based on faith based assessments. Why were we so off on Iraq? Because the assessment was based on an assumption, the assumption was Saddam Hussein falls everything falls into place. It doesn't fall apart. Well what a surprise we didn't have the means. If every thing was going to fall into place why we do we need more forces? The Secretary of Defense, to prove he was planning on that basis, he was planning to draw down from a 160,000 troops to 25,000 troops in three and a half months. Well you can't be making that kind of an assumption unless your assessment is everything falls into place, it doesn't fall apart. Was it unknowable to look at the situation in Iraq and think we might face an insurgency, was it unknowable to think that we might face sectarian warfare, was it unknowable to think that when Saddam Hussein fell or was removed or disappeared that there would be a vacuum? And in the Middle East vacuums are always, without exception, filled by violence. Were all those unknowable? Yes, that's a rhetorical question stated in an overly dramatic way to make a point, that's true. None of it was unknowable. Why? Again I answer my own questions really well. Probably because I thought about them, not to mention I have written about it in the book, so of course I have an answer to this. None of them was unknowable. The Sunnis had dominated Iraq for 400 years. Do you think that they were ready to simply roll over and accept the Shiite dominating them? Not a chance. So an insurgency wasn't not only unknowable, an insurgency was a given. Was it unknowable about the Shiite Sunni divide? If the Sunnis had dominated for 400 years and weren't simply prepared to accept Shiite dominance, don't you think that Shiite kind of got that too? Didn't the Shiite view themselves as a majority who were entitled to finally get their due? Look, fast forward to today. What is the fundamental problem we face in Iraq today? The fundamental problem we face in Iraq today remains what it was at the beginning. The Shia are a majority who have been a basically oppressed for a very long time, made far more acute their oppression at least during the Saddam period. They were always in a subservient position but there weren't an underclass, the way they became during Saddam's time. So they have a mindset that reflects they are a majority that is entitled to rule because they are majority. But they are a majority who fear they can lose power at any moment. So they don't share power. Because they fear it will be taken away from them. Is that a surprise that when the president announced the surge and he said he had nine promises from Prime Minister Maliki Prime Minister Maliki said to him and this was the reason that he was doing the surge because the surge wasn't ending itself, it was a means, it wasn't an objective, it was the means. What's statecraft about? Objectives and means. This was a means. It was a means to create an environment where security would be good enough in Baghdad that the leaders of all the different sectarian groups will be prepared to forge compromises on political issues. And what were the promises the Prime Minister made to him? Well, he would provide forces to match the forces we need. Take a look at the fighting in Diyala Province or Baquba right now. Who does the lions share the fighting? We go in 2500 American troops go in and they are backed in the rear by 500 Iraqi troops. So have they furnished the forces they said they would furnish? This actually is one of the few promises they made that at least they have made some effort to pursue. Look at all the political promises that were part of list of nine. I you know, I testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. And Senator McCain at one point said to me well can you identify what the benchmark should be that we should hold the Iraqi government to? I said sure. Just take the promises that President Bush listed the day he announced the surge. They will provide for forces - have they? They will produce an oil revenue sharing bill and they will implement it - they haven't. They will in fact rehabilitate the Baath Party Members so that they can serve again in government - they haven't. They will provide $10 billion in reconstruction moneys. And those moneys will go for the first time to the Sunni areas - they haven't. They will produce a fair process for reforming the constitution - they haven't. They will make sure that when force is used, it's used equally against all groups with no sectarian or political considerations intruding well they have observed that one I would say in the breach. They will empower people to local level by having elections for provincial Governors, they haven't. Is any of this a surprise? No. Anymore than it was no surprise that you faced an insurgency at the outset. A reality based assessment would have revealed what we were getting into. It's really pretty remarkable that you would think about committing forces without having it governed by reality based assessment. That should be a sinequanon for statecraft always but certainly when you are thinking about using hard power. We had a faith based assessment. So what's statecraft about? Statecraft is about identifying objectives and making sure you have means or you can mobilize the means from others to fit your objectives. It's about having reality based assessments, not faith based assessments. It's abut being able to understand the situations you are in, the challenges you face, the vulnerability of your adversaries because the key to statecraft is leverage, and knowing how to exercise leverage. This is the key to negotiations. This is the book, that originally when I was writing it, it was going to be a book on negotiations. For those of you who remember my first book called The Missing Peace, it was a large book unlike the missing peace, this book you do not get a hernia when you lift it. Now you also don't get your aerobics in when you carry like with The Missing Peace. But the story of The Missing Peace was not just a story of trying to understand what it took to try to negotiate peace and make peace in the Middle East and why at the end it was missing. In its personado was an awful lot about the logic, the rhythm, the character negotiations, so I was going to write a book were I was going to do something novel. Most of the literature on negotiations has been written by people who actually never negotiated. So I thought well, may be I should do some thing unusual and actually write about negotiations from the perspective of a practitioner. And that is what I was going to do until I looked at the absence of statecraft, look at what was going on in terms of our Foreign Policy and said, no I have something else I need to do. So this is a book that explains what statecraft is? Has historical chapters that show statecraft in action, meaning when it was done well and also when it was not done well, Iraq being the case that is written that becomes a poster child for how not to do a statecraft. And then I of course wanted to say, all right so what are the -- what's the nature of the international landscape that we face today, what are some of the new challenges that require may be different tools and more imaginative use as a statecraft. And then I do have four chapters on negotiations and mediation, the what, when and why you negotiate and then 12 rules of how you negotiate. And then what, when and why you mediate, and 11 rules for how you mediate. And I couldn't end it there. I then had to say okay, so I have told you what it is, I have shown it in practice in the past, I have shown what is good statecraft, I have shown the elements, I have talked about the tools because negotiations are central to every form of statecraft. War is the form of state craft. It is its a form of statecraft. You want to bring war to an end, how do you do it? Well usually negotiations are involved, you want to prevent war, how do you do it? Well usually negotiations are involved. You want to make peace, how do you do it? Well, usually you have to negotiate. You want an end to the conflict, you negotiate. You want to build leverage, a coalition, either to fight a war or to use coercion deterrence so you don't have to, well you have to negotiate. So every element of statecraft in one form or another involves the use of negotiation. But that wasn't enough just to do that. So I applied it to four cases. What to do in the Israeli Palestinian case because I am can generally incapable of not addressing that issue. How to content with radical Islam because this is you know, when you hear the words war on terror, do you think there is a war on terror? What is terror, is terror an ideology? No that is an instrument. We have a war with radical Islam. So I have a chapter in there on again from a statecraft perspective on how we should content with the radical Islam is and I have a chapter on Iran. And then I have a chapter on the rise of China. So this is a book that basically is designed to bring the life, not only what statecraft is, but also how to do it? It's a book about what I would describe is the What of Foreign Policy. Meaning what our Foreign Policy ought to be. What our role in the world ought to be, how we define what our objective should be, and then how we actually act on them. How do you think that we are doing on Iran? Your think that we have a natural fit here of objectives and means? Why don't we take a little closer look at Iran? If we are going to apply a statecraft approach to Iran today, the first thing that we have to do is do a realistic assessment of the lay of the land. We know what our objective is, our objective is to prevent Iran from going nuclear. Now how should we frame that issue? Framing is very important because if you frame issues effectively others are going to identify with your purpose, with the objective. If you basically say we are right and join us, well you are probably not going to persuade too many people. Or if you basically say this is a big problem, therefore join us, well, you probably also are not going to persuade too many people. Right now the administration, the President has said, Iran with nuclear weapons is destabilizing.Are you persuaded? But what if we were framing the issue in the following way? What if we were to say that if Iran goes nuclear we are going to have a nuclear Middle East, because if Iran goes nuclear Saudi Arabia will go nuclear. Saudi Arabia looks at Iran with nuclear weapons as almost as profound a threat as the Israelis do because Iran with nuclear weapons will have a nuclear shield behind which to engage in coercion and subversion. And there is a Sunni Shia divide, that thanks to the war in Iraq, everybody in the Middle East is pretty focused on and the Saudis in particular, and for a good reason. 20 percent of their population is Shia and guess where that Shia population is located, in the oil provinces in Saudi Arabia. So an Iran with nuclear weapons that has a shield behind which it can engage in coercion and subversion is a profound threat to Saudi Arabia. So the Saudis from their stand point, their attitude is if they go nuclear, we will too. And you know, don't take my word for it, you know, couple of months ago the the Saudi Foreign Minister announced the Saudis were now interested in nuclear power. Now just to put this in some perspective, that the Iranians may have reserves of oil and natural gas that are significant, they pale in comparison to what the Saudis have. Saudis have the largest reserves in the world, by far. So when they talk about nuclear power, certainly they use the exact same words the Iranians are using because if Iran goes nuclear they will too, odds are they already have a deal with Pakistan and A.Q. Khan. Now if Saudi Arabia is nuclear you think that Egypt is going to say, its okay, we will let the Saudis be the only Arab country that has nuclear weapons. That was also a rhetorical question. A couple of months ago a very senior Egyptian official said to me if Iran goes nuclear it is the end of the nuclear non proliferation regime. This is the regime that has existed since 1968. Whatever its flaws the fact of matter is we only have eight or nine countries that are nuclear powers today. The projections at the time of the NPT, when it was adopted was that within 15 years we would probably have 20 or 30 nuclear countries. The fact is this regime has basically worked. And what we don't want to see is the prohibitions that it represents in the world stage removed. And Iran with nuclear weapons means we have a nuclear Middle East. And it means we have 20 to 30 countries in the world that are nuclear weapon states, it means we have a world where states operate on much more of a hair trigger. It means we have a world that is vastly less predictable, it means one of the international regimes that has worked is gone. Now that's the way to frame the issue of Iran with nuclear weapons because it might also have some impact on the Europeans who believe very much in international regimes. All right, so that's how we should frame the issue. All right, what about the realistic understanding on what's going on in Iran itself? Well Iran basically has three constituencies in its elite. I am talking only about the elite, not about the Iranian public. One constituency are the Revolutionary Guards, they are the keepers of the Khomeini flame, they are the keepers of wanting to spread the Khomeini revolution. They believe in confrontation, they run the nuclear program; we are not going to dissuade them. But they are not necessarily decisive. Bear in mind, you recall when the British sailors were seized; it was the Revolutionary Guards that seized the British sailors. They released them after 14 days because Khamenei Ali Khamenei, their supreme leader in Iran, its not a title we have in this country but it's a title they have there, he and the council he set up for decision making told them to release them. So what it tells you is the Revolutionary Guard are significant but not decisive. There are other constituencies in the leadership and even though all of those constituencies want nuclear weapons because the Mullahs who represents, probably the most important constituency, and Rafsanjani, the former President is their standard bearer and the liberalizers who want to open this system but don't want to revolutionize it, and Khatami, former President is their emblem, the nuclear program was pursued quite energetically when they were Presidents. This is not just Ahmadinejad who really is the standard bearer of the Revolutionary Guard. The whole elite wants nuclear weapons, the difference is not all of the elite wants nuclear weapons at any price. And our issue here is to recognize that there are those who don't want it at any price and the proof of it is they have a debate, we have seen it. The debate didn't start when we were offering incentives. A year ago the British, the French and the Germans offered an inducement package. If the Iranians Iranians like to say, we only want nuclear power for civil purposes. Now if that's the case how come when they are offered a year ago, light water reactors which are really good at generating electricity and power and really bad at generating fissile material, the Iranian said, no. And it didn't trigger debate. A debate was triggered in the that emerged in the public and the elite once we began to talk about sanctions, starting last October. That's when we began to see a very public debate. It became more pronounced when the first resolution Security Councilors Resolution was adopted on December 23rd. We have seen a debate emerge which demonstrates there is a potential to change Iranian behavior. The problem we faced today is that the price the notion of the price is not all that clear cut. So that those who are hesitant about the price aren't prepared to change the course on the Iranian side. We have a mismatch we have slow motion diplomacy at the Security Council, we have fast paced nuclear development by the Iranian's and here again don't take my word for it. The head of the IEA, Dr. Mohammad ElBaradei has said, by the end of the year, Iran will have 8000 centrifuges operating; with 3000 centrifuges operating fulltime, you produce enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon in nine months. If you had 8000 operating fulltime, do the math. You are taking about being able to produce at least three a year. So what we have is fast paced nuclear development, slow motion diplomacy, a mismatch of objectives and means. Is it impossible to bring them into sink? Is it impossible to play up on the vulnerabilities that the Iranian leadership fears or feels? If they felt so strong, they wouldn't be arresting Iranian Americans none of whom by the way are interested in subverting Iran or in engaging. If they felt so strong they wouldn't be worried about where their economy is. I mean, they have had a windfall in revenues for the last four years because the price of oil went from $27 a barrel in March of 2003 to $60 - $69 a barrel today. Not withstanding that they have high inflation, high unemployment. They have a plummeting stock market. They have declining oil and natural gas output which is the key to their revenues. 90 percent of their revenues come from their exports of oil and natural gas. They can't keep producing it because the infrastructure is too antiquate that they need massive investments from the outside, lots of technology transfer, all sorts of credits, otherwise the economy goes down hill and they loses subsidies which in the minds of the Mullahs preserves the social tranquility on the inside. So they have vulnerabilities. Today, they began rationing gasoline in Iran. They have no shortage of oil, but they don't have refinery capacity. They have to basically bring in about half of their gasoline. So they have vulnerabilities and the debate reflects the awareness of that on the part of important parts of the elite. So what I am laying out for you is A, they have vulnerabilities; B, their public debate indicates that they are aware of those vulnerabilities; C, the Revolutionary Guard who are not going to dissuade, when they did something like seize the British sailors, they couldn't in fact sustain it and a decision was imposed on them. So we have the potential to change their behavior, but we haven't done it yet. So what do we need to do? We need to do at least three things. Again, following the logic of statecraft we have an objective; we have to understand what are the means that are available to play upon the Iranian vulnerabilities that don't require the use of force which I would suggest to you is not a wonderful option. But an Iran with nuclear weapons is in an unacceptable outcome. So what do we do? Well, I'll give you three means that could be employed today, that would change this mismatch of slow motion diplomacy in fast paced nuclear development. I mentioned the Saudis. I mentioned what their stakes were. I said they will go nuclear to counteract the Iranian nuclear program. But it's much better for them not to. Now the Saudi's have enormous leverage on those who hold the key to the Iranian Economic Life-line, which is the key to effecting the Iranian behavior. And who holds the key to the Iranian Economic Life-line? The Europeans. Last year alone Europeans provided $18 billion in loan guarantees, credit guarantees for their companies doing business with Iran. You want to cut the economic life-line, meaning you want to cut access to credits, cut technology transfer, cut investment from the outside, and cut off the Iranian banks; you want to do that, the key to doing that are the Europeans. All right, so the first way to affect the Europeans is to go to the Saudis. We are talking about a new arms deal with the Saudis which I don't necessarily oppose. But is a new arms deal with the Saudis going to affect the Iranian behavior, no. But if the Saudis decided they were going to use their financial leverage in Europe, where their holdings are enormous, I will underscore the word "huge", what if we co-ordinate with them set aright, let's pull our means, let's pull our forms of leverage. Let's focus on the big investment houses, let's focus on the big banks, let's go to the governments, and in the case of the Saudis you can say, you want our holdings, you want our investments here, well then cut off the Iranians, because your economic stakes in us dwarfs any stakes you have in Iran. All right so that's one way to get the Europeans change their behavior, to ratchet up pressure on the Iranians. A second way, get the Israelis quietly to go to the Europeans, the Europeans fear the use of force more than they fear an Iran with nuclear weapons. I will repeat that. They fear the use of force against Iran and more than they fear an Iran with nuclear weapons. So from their standpoint in the end they are prepare to live with an Iran with nuclear weapons. Now if Israel goes to the key Europeans, and the key Europeans in this case happen to be the Germans and the Italians, and the Israelis say to them, you don't want to see the force you don't want to force used against Iran but your current path makes force more likely than not, because you think you can live in the end with an Iran with nuclear weapons and we can't. Not because we don't want to but because Iran won't let us live. A week before last what did Ahmadinejad say; he said the count down to the destruction of the Zionist regime is close at hand. That's what he said. You think the Israelis are going to say all those are just words, when these guys were developing the means to act on those words. If the Israelis say to the Europeans, you are making your current path unless you ratchet up the economic pressure you are making the use of force more likely not less likely. That's the second way to affect the European calculus, so here is two ways, now I am going to give you a third way, I could give you more but I am just going to give you three. You have to read the book actually there is a chapter on this in the book. What do you think; I just started this right now? Third way is for us to do some thing that relates again to the essential logic of leverage and negotiations. The Europeans have been reluctant to ratchet up the pressure for two reasons, one there are financial interests and stakes. Or as I said they are dwarfed by their stakes in Saudi Arabia. The other is they are worried about a slippery slip to confrontation. So it's not an easy thing for them to do. So you get the Saudis to do this it will concentrate their minds, you get the Israelis to do it will concentrate their minds, but you need us too. The Europeans believe that you have to negotiate with the Iranians to produce an end of this. And they believe no negotiation, no deal in the end is possible unless the US is at the table, because in fact the matter is what the Iranians want isn't it just economic benefits or political benefits, they want security assurances from us. They read us; there is a whole historical narrative here. It goes back to Mossadeq, they see us as determined to deny them their destiny and to subvert the regime. Now you could say they are paranoid, you could say they are governed by conspiracy. But as Henry Kissinger once said just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not coming after you. You take them for who they are, that's again a reality based assessment. You need the US at the table in the eyes of the Europeans. Now you are asking the Europeans to do some thing that's not easy for them, which is to say all right, we are going to cut the economic life-line, we are going to ratchet up the economic pressures on Iran now. So when you are asking to do some thing hard, the logic of negotiations, the logic of statecraft as you say okay, we will do something you want at the same time. We will join you in the negotiations. Now understand, I am not in favor of having us join them in the negotiations if we impose no conditions at all. We have a current condition right now; we have had it for the last year. The current condition is that Iran should suspend its Uranium enrichment and when they do we will join the talks. For the last year we had that as a condition and it hasn't worked. And I can tell you because I actually do speak to all the Europeans who are actually involved with the negotiations with the Iranians, they want us to drop that condition, not just the Iranians want to, its not just Dr. ElBaradei has announced he wants us to. It's that the Europeans who are doing the negotiations wants us to drop the condition. If we just drop the condition and did nothing else the message to the Iranians would be, boy do they need us? We don't have to concede a thing. I was very, let us put it this way, I was able to restrain my enthusiasm when the Secretary of State, the week before the [0:35:18] ____ conference on Iraq announced more than once publicly, she really hoped the Iranian Foreign Minister would come. At the time the Iranians said we are coming, they were equivocating on the level, why did we care about the level was. When she said we really hoped publicly you are going to come, the message they heard was, boy do they need us. When you go into a negotiation the message you sent is you need us, the message you don't want to send is we need you. Ahmadinejad said later on that we had approached the Iranians 41 times to come. Well call me silly, but you know, I will do once, 41 times, it makes me look desperate. If we drop the condition on Uranium enrichment which I am prepared to do you have to do something at the same time. So the Iranians don't get the false impression, but you are also as I said, putting it in a context with the Europeans. We will do what you want on negotiations. We are prepared to reach a deal. But if you want to reach a deal our chances of reaching a deal are much greater if you concentrate the Iranian minds. What's the essence of what I am saying and this comes to the heart of what statecraft is all about. Often times with certain regimes you have to concentrate their mind, show them what they will lose. But at the same time you show them what they are going to lose; you have to shown the door with the path way to what they can gain. In the case of the Iranians you will not induce the Iranians to give their nuclear weapons because there is no combination of inducements there are as meaningful, as powerful to them as nuclear weapons. But you can show them that the price isn't worth it, that the cost is too high and then get them to think, okay if the cost is too high, what can I get for giving it up. It isn't impossible to employ statecraft towards Iran now to get them to stop the nuclear weapons program but the problem is we are running out of time, the clock is ticking; we don't have a lot of time left given the pace of their efforts. Statecraft often requires patience but there are times when we require a sense of urgency. So why did I write this book, I wrote this book fundamentally because as we look to the election, as we look to the next administration, first I was worried about the legacy that this administration is leaving. It has three legacies it's leaving right now. One legacy is our resources are going to be strangled to the bones, especially our hard power resources. When Collin Powell says the army has broken, you know, you got a problem. Secondly we are going to have a legacy in terms of policy as the next administration is going to inherit Iraq. We can talk about Iraq in the Q&A assuming that you have asked about that. Third legacy is the sociology, every administration has the political people who come in and then the ongoing bureaucracy, but at last what will be years, you have had people getting the custom to how you make decisions and how you act on them. And that's been characterized by a non statecraft approach. We have to reintroduce statecraft into the way we make Foreign Policy. Now partly I am giving it towards the people who will be making decisions and making appointments so that they think about again introducing statecraft as the concept. But I also want, I want the term, I asked, I start off by asking do you know what statecraft is? I want the term not to be abstraction. I want the word not be a slogan. I want those who are running for the Presidency, at some point during the course of debate when we don't have 20 candidates, I want them to be able to be asked questions that show they get it. So you can help, make that a reality by talking about this. I want to create a certain buzz about the word and about the concept so that isn't as I said a slogan or an abstraction. So I am counting on you. And of course I want you to read the book. But I am counting on you to talk about it too because in the end it will make a contribution to those who in fact are going to have to be conducting Foreign Policy in the next administration. And I can tell you, the subtitle of that book is how you restore America's standing in the world, we can't afford not to do it any longer. Thank you very much.