Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Stephen Kinzer: Iran, Turkey, and Americas Future

Tonight I'm excited to welcome Stephen Kinzer to Harvard bookstore to discuss his new book Reset Iran Turkey and America's Future. Mr. Kinzer is a former New York Times foreign correspondent and bureau chief. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and a columnist for The Guardian. He's the author of six previous books including all the Shah's Men and overthrow. And he has taught journalism and foreign relations at Northwestern and Boston University. In RE said Mr. Kinzer outlines a drastic shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East. If we truly want to promote a peaceful and democratic Middle East Mr. Kinzer argues we must turn to the only Muslim countries in the region where democracy is deeply rooted. Turkey and Iran Publisher's Weekly called reset and astute policy prescriptive and Kircus reviews call the book an original unsettling critique. It was a thrill to be here. I spent a lot of wonderful nights. Many centuries ago when I was still in high school hanging around a club 47 and places like that in this neighborhood and I always used to drop into this bookstore. It's fantastic that it's still here. The new ownership deserves huge credit.

Although you wonder who would buy an independent bookstore in this day and age. Nonetheless it's fantastic to see that this bookstore is not only still alive but thriving at a center of intellectual activity in this wonderful community so it's really a thrill to be here. I got a better welcome here than I got when I was arrived in Iran a couple of weeks ago. Since the late unpleasantness of the upheaval after last year's election Iran has essentially stopped giving visas for foreign journalists and most of the ones that live there have been either had their visas cut off or they've been somehow pressured into leaving so it's very hard to get into Iran these days if you're a journalist around this time when I was reflecting how I could get back to Iran and try to figure out exactly what's been going on there in the recent months. I got an offer from a travel agency in California that I want to be the tour

leader for a group of tourists who are going to Iran. So I thought this is a great idea I'm going to accept I've never done this before. But. So I signed up and I thought to myself I'm so smart because I'm a journalist going to Iran but I'm going on a tourist visa. So I have about smart of them and I'm going to be able to get in and even though they're not letting foreign journalists in. So I got on my plane from Frankfurt we arrive about two o'clock in the morning and at the Tehran airport when Americans come in they always ask them to please sit over here on this side and then they collect all the American passports and bring them into a particular place where they check them over. So I was sitting with about eight or 10 other Americans several of whom are on my tour group that I was about to lead. And after about half an hour a young guy in a uniform came over and said we're very sorry for the delay but there is a problem with one passport. So I immediately knew of course that it

was mine. I felt a little bit like Jonah remember on the boat that they said big storm so there's this one center on the boat. Who is it. And he knew it was him I knew it was going to be me and sure enough a few minutes later a guy came over and singled me out and said My boss wants to talk to you. So they brought me into this little room where the immigration chief of the airport of the river runs that office at 4 o'clock in the morning is sitting and he's got my passport and he's looking at a computer screen and he says you are a journalist but you are trying to get into Iran on a tourist visa. Why. I began to dawn on me that maybe I wasn't that much more smarter than them after all. Maybe that's a good lesson for some people in Washington. So I tried to explain of course this is just a big misunderstanding of course I'm only here as a tourist but they were on to me from the beginning and he just said no we're not letting you it. You know you've got to get back on the plane to go back to Frankfurt. And sure enough that's what happened.

I had a full five hours to Frankfurt. There was a flight leaving at that moment for Gaziantep in Turkey like an hour away. And I thought great I'm going to get there it's so much more fun place than Frankfurt anyway. It's a lot closer. So I said why don't you get me on that flight today over here. The interim immigration guy maybe it was the lateness of the hour didn't have a great sense of humor the way I noticed. And he said you've got two choices if you want to get on the flight to Frankfurt in Philly's in six hours we're going to give you a pass and you can sit in the first class lounge. If you don't want to get on that flight we're going to put you in jail. The guy next to me said Well it's really not a jail it's just a detention center. But it's not very nice. So I weighed that for a second or two and decided I think I'll take the first class lounge instead of the not very nice detention center. So I had to go back to Frankfurt and I spent 24 hours there and then there was a whole series of frantic phone calls

in the travel agency was calling their people in Iran. Finally I got a phone call in Frankfurt saying go back to the airport go back to Iran. We think you're going to be able to get in today. And sure enough I went through the airport and I did get in. So I had a chance just last month to spend two weeks traveling all over Iran as a tourist of course. I was not able to interview government leaders or opposition figures but I didn't want to do that anyway I didn't find that really an exciting reason to go to Iran interviewing government officials is never fun anyway. You just have to wait a long time outside their office until someone finally agrees to come out and lie to you. I got tired of that a long time ago. What I really wanted to do was talk to ordinary Iranians. So what happened to the protest movement. You were all on the streets and then we didn't hear anything after a while what happened. I asked this question to many many people in Iran. The reception for Americans there is amazing. It's really the polls show that it's the only Muslim

country where most people are pro-American. And then the only country in the Middle East including Israel where most people are pro-American. You really see that on the streets people are just shrieking when Americans come by. But when I asked them about the protests overnight I heard the same thing over and over from people. It was essentially. We tried that and it didn't work. They they arrested us and they beat us. If we go out again they'll arrest us again and beat us again. So we were not doing that anymore. We are going on with our lives. And actually in a country that's had about 25 centuries of history it's not an unusual reaction for people to think change is going to come but it's just not going to come right now. That's going to come at its own pace. This is something is difficult for Americans to grasp. We feel that every problem has a quick solution or it's not a quick solution at least a solution even if it's complex you break it down into little pieces and you figure out what the answer is. Iranians are not

like this. They they don't they don't believe that every problem has a quick solution and they believe the many problems just don't have any solution. There is a psychological as well as a political and historical gap between these countries. Americans for example are very results oriented. We are always ready to sacrifice principle to get a result. Iranians are exactly the opposite. They're happy to sacrifice results in order to defend principle. So I really think that we need some kind of a emotional translator if we're going to start having relations with Iran and negotiations with Iran might stay there shows me that the society is remarkably modern and open and democratic nonetheless because of 30 years of isolation not to mention a very tormented history over the last 200 years. We would need some kind of a bridge to help these two very different cultures understand each other. Right now I don't see what that we're trying to build that bridge because

we're not interested essentially in making a deal. After I left Iran I went to Turkey. Any time I'm within about a thousand miles of Turkey I always like to stop there. It's not just because of the food but there is so much going on in Istanbul that I can't stay away. So but of course it was all work preparation for my book tour in Turkey I was sitting there when the news broke the Turkey and Brazil had brokered this nuclear deal with Iran. And this was quite a day in Turkey because many people were breathing kind of a big sigh of relief that this escalating crisis over the nuclear issue in Iran suddenly seemed to have been if not resolved at least given an n a way out that it seems have been calmed. But immediately as dawn began to break in Washington. The reason the reaction from the U.S. was not what the prime minister of Turkey had expected or the president of Brazil.

Instead of saying thank you so much for giving us at least the basis for some future negotiation with Iran. The reaction was. You are undermining our sanctions policy. We have decided that we're going to confront Iran we're going to punish Iran I'm going to sanction Iran. We don't want to talk to Iran. You have now muddied the waters and you Turkey and Brazil are essentially acting like foolish naive school children who've now been snookered by those crafty Iranians. So what everybody in Turkey at least had thought might be a breakthrough on the nuclear program actually turned out to be something very different. I think what lies behind the American reaction and the startlingly negative rejection of the deal that Turkey and Brazil tried to strike with Iran is something that's bigger than Iran and bigger than Gaza. It has to do with two different conceptions of the world. The United States is still in the overhang of the past

era. We're trying to make the past year or last as long as possible. That was an era when we ruled when we really were able to shape the course of events in the world. If we were trying to hold on to something that maybe doesn't exist anymore the Turks are at the other end of the curve. They're anticipating a new world in which. Other Powers will emerge. Russia India Brazil Turkey South Africa and these powers will also have influence and say in the world. So what the Turks are saying to the U.S. is your approach to the Middle East is too confrontational. What do you want to do is ratchet down the confrontations and try to resolve these regional problems through diplomacy and negotiation because you don't have the ability to impose solutions anymore you should listen to some friends of yours in the neighborhood who share your values and live here know the neighborhood.

The American attitude is we are not ready to listen to take advice from other people in the neighborhood who think they know what our Middle East policy should be. We have figured out what is our Middle East policy and it actually is not only unwelcome but downright unfriendly for any country to try to resolve our confrontation with Iran through a compromise. You were just serving as the tools of the Iranians when you seek to compromise. So we're still in this mindset. And the Turks are trying to promote another alternative. Turkey is involved in a very interesting foreign policy phase now up until the beginning of let's say this over the last decade Turkey really had never played a role in global affairs. Now it's very active in the region and it has a lot of assets when it tries to approach the Islamic world. First of all of course there's the history of the Ottoman Empire which is gives Turkey a certain cultural and political standing in the Islamic mind. Then there's the

example of modern Turkey. So modern Turkey is a thriving democracy and it has a booming economy. That's the kind of country that most Muslim countries would like to be. Therefore the example of Turkey is a wonderful magnet for us. It's kind of I counter message to the reactionary message from the cave about how all Muslims are going back to the seventh century. So Turkey is a wonderful bridge in this sense. However in the past Turkey's influence was not so welcome in the Middle East for one important reason and that is that. As a result of the reforms that impose such militant secularism in Turkey in the early part of the century many people in the Middle East and in other Muslim countries began to look at Turkey as almost an infidel country that a country that almost given up on its Muslim faith and therefore didn't have the credibility to play a political role in the Muslim world. But now

as a result of the last two elections Turkey is ruled by a prime minister who prays every day and his wife wears a headscarf. So Turkey is now even more welcome in the Islamic world than it ever was before. This is a great strategic asset for the United States. Turkey can be a wonderful partner for the United States. But in order for that to happen the United States has to accept the idea that we would want a partner that we would want somebody to whisper in our ear and give us a little advice and a little guidance. I think if you get to that point you realize that Turkey is a very good bet but we're not even at that point yet. I think the United States still feels we have the correct approach to the Middle East. We fix that in Washington and we don't want other countries even if there are military allies as Turkey is to be trying to alter our policy or tell us maybe we ought to change it in this way or that. No. In my book I spend about at least the first half of the book telling what I think are some

amazing stories stories that I want to tell because I never read them anywhere about how Turkey and Iran developed into the very interesting countries that they are now. These are the only two democracies or the only countries that have been working towards democracy let's put it that way for a hundred years in the entire Muslim Middle East. These are countries that have had constitutions for a hundred years now whereas the idea of having a republic and a constitution hasn't even dawned on many other countries in the Middle East. The struggle for democracy in Turkey and Iran has been full of reverses. Certainly the regime that Iran is under now does not respect those democratic principles. Nonetheless these societies. Our very Democratic Party and Democratic in a sense that we would recognize there are societies where everyone understands what is a parliament what is an election what is a political campaign how should you base your votes not on what is your religion or your race but you

want to vote for parties that believe the ideology that you support. How do you hold political candidates accountable after the election for what they said during the campaign. These are issues that Turks and Iranians have been assimilating for generations and I really believe democracy can take hold anywhere but only if the people want it democracy or any other ideology is always going to fail if it's introduced somewhere by a foreign army at the point of a gun. But Turks and Iranians decided 100 years ago that that's what they wanted for themselves and the sacrifices they have made for democracy are actually much greater even than we have had to make. When I looked at the video of that set of protests last year after the election and saw the amazing courage of these Iranians going out in the streets to protest for fair elections I asked myself Who would even Americans be willing to be that brave and fight Pete face people with clubs and guns in order to protest manipulation of an election.

That the savagery of the repression in Iran after the election last year shocked the world. But actually for me even more important even more interesting was the fact of the protests themselves the fact that huge numbers of Iranians are not happy and will not sit at home when they feel that the election results have not been counted fairly. You would never have post-election protests like this in say Egypt. Everybody in Egypt understands that the elections are going to be stolen thats part of Egyptian political life. There are no election protests in Saudi Arabia because there are no national elections in Saudi Arabia. So the election protests showed something very important about what's going on in Iran now. I actually think that under the right circumstances Iran could even vault over Turkey and become the most democratic of all Muslim countries it doesn't have some of the drags of military rule and nationalist sentiment that

Turkey has and if you could somehow peel off that layer of religious rule in Iran I see that as a society that on its own has really decided it wants to become democratic now. As the United States casts around for allies in that part of the world we find ourselves in a totally new strategic environment. The Cold War has ended now 20 years ago. Nonetheless our policies in the Middle East have really not changed. In fact that's the area of the world where there's been the least change probably in any place in the world. One of the quotes I use in my book is from Albert Einstein he was not talking about US Middle East policy but this quote I think does apply. He said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. That's what we're doing with our Middle East policy. But during the Cold War we shaped our Middle East policy

mainly according to the perceived interests of our two closest allies in the region Saudi Arabia and Israel. In Washington the understanding generally was what Saudi Arabia wants Saudi Arabia gets what Israel wants. Israel gets Traditionally it's been assumed that our relationship with Saudi Arabia was based mainly on oil and that our relationship with Israel is based largely on our shared values. There is some truth to both of those cliches but there's an it's only part of the story there's another piece of it. During the Cold War the United States had many friends and allies. They would stand up at the United Nations and they would vote for us and they would support us in our political positions. But that's all they would do. They were countries that wanted to act within the law and above ground and in daylight. But the United States also needed help during the Cold War that was covert and semi clandestine 9. That was where Israel and Saudi Arabia came in. I devote a whole section of my

book to recounting a lot of these semi secret operations that Saudi Arabia and Israel were involved in helping the United States in our secret Cold War battles when for example the Reagan administration wanted to arm the military dictatorship in Guatemala. It could not do so because the US Congress had forbidden aid to Guatemala. But Reagan still wanted to get guns to the Guatemalan Army. So what did he do. He got the Israelis to send them guns and the planes and the boats and everything else they needed. When the U.S. was forbidden by law to our aid South Africa militarily we got Israel to do it. When we suddenly needed to pay for force of commandos to protect a president Mobutu in Zaire from being overthrown we got Saudi Arabia to pay for it when we needed money for the Contras in Nicaragua or the Mujahideen in Afghanistan Saudi Arabia and Israel were always willing to help. So during the Cold War they

played a role that wasn't very clear at that time. You might argue then that during the Cold War this power triangle or these two relationships U.S. Israel and U.S. Saudi Arabia made sense. But now in the future we have to look at how we are going to approach this very different strategic environment in the Middle East. I feel that our relationship with Saudi Arabia has become too intrusive and too tight. The Arab world is the only region of the whole world that has been bypassed by the Democratic train that's been running around the world these last 20 years. Who would have thought that we would have seen one day a democratic Poland Democratic Liberia democratic South Korea Democratic Brazil and that's all happened. But the Arab world has only been a spectator as this Democratic train has as a raced around the world. Part of the reason is that the United States fears for democracy in Arab

countries because we're afraid that it will produce some kind of an Islamic alternative. That's probably a true fear of what probably will happen. Nonetheless the longer we put it off the more radical that option is going to be. And. These societies need a chance to work through what they want to be and what they want to do and how they want to behave and for the United States to be continuing to have not only a position on every interim dispute but even on disputes within Arab countries about which faction should be allowed in government and which is too radical. This is too intrusive. It's time for us to let Arabia be Arabia and I'd like to see us loosen our ties with Saudi Arabia partly for that reason. If that were to have the effect of making it a little more difficult for us to obtain crude oil from Saudi Arabia I think that would be great. We need a few more kicks to help help us break that addiction. As for Israel I do think that it's important for the US to

remain an ally and a supporter of Israel. But Israel's long term survival is best guaranteed by a safe and calm neighborhood. It's not going to be able to maintain its dominance by military means for ever as long as there is huge numbers of people around it that hate it. Israel's always going to be unsafe. Therefore it should be in the interest of the world and particularly the United States to do whatever will curb that neighborhood and that means a policy a little bit more like the Turkish policy that I've been outlining a little earlier a little more conciliatory a little less confrontational and a little more willing to listen to advice from people who live in that region but who also share our values. Now selling Turkey as a potential American partner probably got a lot harder in the last couple of weeks but it's not such a hard sell. I think most Americans understand that Turkey is a remarkable country it's an Islamic democracy. And that's something we should always be supporting

and trying to sell the idea that the U.S. and Iran could one day be potential partners a little bit more of a trick. Actually when you look at countries that you are want to choose as partners in whatever region of the world you're focusing on I think you're looking for countries that fulfill two criteria. First of all you want to have as partners countries that share your long term strategic goals. And second you need something else because just having a government to government relationship a relationship between the elites of two countries is not the basis for a sound relationship. You need to involve the populations. That means a good partner is a country whose society also shares the values of your society. Our values our openness and democracy and tolerance the society of Iran in the society of Turkey very much

embrace those values much more so than the societies of countries that are our so-called allies like Saudi Arabia Kuwait and these other countries which are totally on recognizable for Americans and in terms of their society now. So in what way do the long term strategic interests of Iran parallel those of the United States. Well first of all I think that Iran shares with Israel the certainty that its long term security is only guaranteed by a calm neighborhood. In an odd way I think you can see a little bit of a comparison between Israel and Iran there. There are the two countries in the world that most of their neighbors don't like and don't trust. And they're the two countries in that part of the world that have many enemies in the whole world. There's lots of people in the world that are very angry at Iran and very angry at Israel and would like to punish them or sanction them. One of them or both of them but that is an emotional response in some ways quite justified actually. There is no important strategic goal of the United States in the

Middle East that can be reached without these countries pushing them into corners and sanctioning them and denouncing them and making them feel friendless is not going to produce the calming of the neighborhood that we need. These countries need to be enticed out of their isolation somehow brought into a regional security architecture. I think with Iran that process could begin with an offer of unconditional negotiations. That's something we've never done with Iran. Our present policy toward Iran is we want you to negotiate away your nuclear option but it's not realistic to expect Iran to give away the highest card in its diplomatic hand and not get something in return. I'd like to see an approach to Iran like the one we took with China the very first document that we signed with China is an intriguing one. I've gone back to read it now as I'm working on this Iran Project. It would be a great model for the beginning of U.S. relations with Iran. That was the Shanghai Communique in that Shanghai

Communique. It's there are no agreements included it was too early for that. It has three parts. The first part was written by the Chinese side. Everything we don't like about American foreign policy in the way the US treats us. Then the second part was written by the Americans. Everything we don't like about China and what China does. And the third part is just an agreement that we're going to negotiate on all these issues and not resort to the use of force. So essentially it's just an agenda. That's what we should do with Iran. Let's open the agenda not only to the issues that concern us but to the issues that concern them. Now what could be on offer in this relationship. First of all Iran has a great ability to stabilize Iraq. Actually our invasion of Iraq was one of the great greatest gifts we could have ever given Iran we essentially turned over that whole country to Iran which we claimed was our enemy. And as a result in any case Iran has great influence in Iraq. Many of those Iraqi leaders are

Shiites who had to live in Iran for years during Saddam Hussein dictatorship they're intimately tied with Iran. Iran can actually be our ticket out of Iraq. Our big fear in withdrawing our troops from Iraq is that Iraq will then explode into some hail of violence like we saw several years ago. Iran is the best way to avoid that. Iran also has a great ability to come Afghanistan a lot of Afghanistan used to be part of Iran. They speak the same language. Iran also has a an oil infrastructure that is in total disrepair and needs tens of billions of dollars of investment. American companies are perfectly placed for that. Iran is eager to assure of free flow of energy to the outside world that's another common interest. So. Actually not only are Iran and the United States not fated to be enemies forever but actually they have much more in common than we might think. It would probably be

difficult to try to reach some global accord with this regime but I think it's worth a try. Now is this the right moment to approach the Iranian regime considering the way that regime behaves and particularly after the repression of the demonstrators last year. I guess my answer would be no. It's not a good moment. But there's never going to be a good moment for the democratic movement in Iran is in a difficult position. It doesn't have any good options. The best of the bad options is that the regime would somehow be drawn out of its anger and its isolation and somehow be integrated more into the world. And I would like to be sure that any accord that US and Iran tried to reach would have a human rights component in it like the Helsinki Accord did. So in a sense I guess you could say these negotiations could have this slogan from Shanghai to Helsinki. Let's

start with the idea of a Shanghai Communique and maybe Turkey could advise us on on ways to formulate that and let's try to get to some kind of an agreement that would like the Helsinki Accord guarantee the security of all the signatory powers and also the human rights of the people who live in those countries. The world needs a big security concession from Iran. The world also needs security concessions from Israel. But countries only make security concessions when they feel safe. Therefore it's in the interests of the world and the United States to try to do whatever possible to make those countries feel safe not to isolate them and push them away. Let me just conclude with this. I've because of the work I've done in the Middle East in the years I live there developed my own view of how that region could be configured in a more positive way and how maybe the U.S. could re-imagine its approach

to that region. I can understand that some people might have some corals with this or might have other ideas about how the Middle East should look and I'm perfectly willing to accept that. What I do insist on though is that we need some big ideas. We're stuck in a terrible foreign policy right now in the Middle East. If you don't like this idea that Turkey and Iran could be the bridges for the United States to greater influence in that region come up with something else that's new. Don't get stuck in this very very narrow spectrum of opinion which is where U.S. foreign policy is often stuck in the foreign policy establishment. The germ of any original thinking is immediately stamped out as if it could be the beginning of some terrible plague that is going to infect the entire policy process. So I'm eager to try to bring the idea of new thinking and not being caught in our old ruts to the foreign policy process. And I remember a story I once read about a Dorothy Parker.

She was making a comment about Katharine Hepburn and she said she runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. That's a little bit like our foreign policy. We are really caught in a very narrow spectrum of acceptable opinions but actually opportunities are out there if we're only willing to be creative and try to grass and not try to find new solutions with old methods that have never produced solutions up to now. As I was finishing my book I was trying to come up with a pithy quote that would sum up this whole concept and they would essentially say something like Free yourselves from mental slavery Let's get out let's get out of our ruts and try to think more broadly and let's let's take some new looks at the Middle East. How what kind of a classical cold could I come up with that would I kind of

encapsulate this. I've been a Shakespeare lover all my life and so I I flashed on one from Shakespeare and it's from Hamlet and what says I do not know why yet. Aida lived to say this things to do. Since I have cause and the will and strength and means to do it. So I thought that was a great quote but then I realized of course Shakespeare not really tied to the Middle East couldn't I find a quote from one of those great Persian poets. How fair is Rumi Saadi. And so I was looking through a book of Rumi's poetry. And sure enough I found a poem and I use this line then to to summarize I guess what is my my challenge to the American policy establishment. Why do you stay in prison when the door is

so wide open. Thank you. Thank the Republican Guard is an evolving institution and this is something I've seen in other countries where military institutions take on kind of identities of their own the Republican Guard is a huge business conglomerate now and it has great vested interests in preserving the state structure as it now exists. Actually they have a financial stake in their survival of the system that's probably even greater than their political stake. As a result as a result of this there is a reaction to it. Members of the Republican Guard have been happy to join gangs of thugs that want to go out and beat up demonstrators. Interestingly enough one of the ways of the Republican Guard rose to this point was they made their money as sanctions busters. I have seen this in Yugoslavia and I've seen it in Iraq also when the US imposes sanctions on a

country. Immediately there emerges this new class of criminals there are the sanctions busters in Iran it's so easy because you just have to ferry your washing machines or TVs or cars or whatever you want right across the Persian Gulf from Dubai. Those people they have to be there working illegally because by definition there is an embargo and they get very rich poor people suffer. The elite gets everything it wants. And then this new criminal class emerges as a function of sanctions. So in our attempt to try to crush what we feel is a hostile regime we actually wind up promoting its most thuggish wings. And that's what's happened in Iran. So I I do think that the the emergence of the Republican Guard as a financial as well as a political guardian of the regime is is very troubling nonetheless. I do think that the Democratic consciousness of people in Iran is something

that ultimately is not going to be able to be suppressed by military force. You know in Iran there are essentially three different alternatives for kinds of government. There's three different options. There's a secular democracy. There's a royal dictatorship and then there's a religious rule. So we've just had 30 years of religious rule before that there was 25 years of royal dictatorship and before that was democracy you know if the if the cycle is working right I think probably democracy is due up next. And I feel that when the right moment comes there will be a national movement that even the Republican Guard will not be able to suppress with force. So the question was about Gaza and Turkey's role and Israel's role. How is that going to unfold. It is interesting that that ship that was at the center of all the commotion sailed from a Turkish port most of the

people on board were Turkish. But in some way or in some media I have seen this episode portrayed as further proof that Turkey is turning its back on its old friends by trying to make a deal with Iran they turn their back on the US and now by confronting Israel they're trying to break their historic long friendly relationship with that country. But actually I don't see it that way. First of all Turkey and Israel and before that Turks and Jews have a very long history of cooperation at one time most of the Jews in the world were living under Ottoman rule. They were flooding in there from places were in the Europe where there were programmes and when they were thrown out of the very when they were thrown out of Spain they all came into Ottoman territories where many of the leading up Ottoman diplomats and court positions were Jewish. Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Israel. They had a very good relationship for many years including a military relationship. I think what's happened in Turkey now related to Israel is not so much growing

anti-Israel sentiment or an Islamicist feeling it has to do more specifically with what's happening in Gaza. I can tell you from spending time there. You you get a different perspective when every single night on your TV you're getting reports from Gaza and you're seeing what life is like there. And every episode that happens there is played over and over and we're isolated from that here in the U.S. probably most of the people in this room have never seen a TV report about what's going on in Gaza I never have. But in in in the Middle East in particular in Turkey they're very close and it has really angered an outraged people it has caused a real emotional reaction. Do you remember that when Prime Minister ed to one had his blowup with the Israeli president at Davos last year I was not just about Israel in general it was specifically about Gaza and the Turks have a special reason to be angry not just about the

occupation but about the invasion that began it. And that is that at that moment Turkey was involved in secret mediation between Israel and Syria and they were shuttling back and forth between Syria and Israel and Israel saying great we're going to make deal with Syria you're going to help us. And then the next day they're invading Gaza. Everything was destroyed with that Syria initiative and that greatly embarrassed and almost humiliated the Turks. So I don't find it surprising that this rising emotion in Turkey led to this episode. I think I was a little disappointed that the Turkish government didn't do whatever possible to try to calm it down that maybe the some of the government leaders are obviously carried away by some of this emotion themselves. I said earlier that Turkey is promoting a policy of resolving regional disputes by diplomacy and conciliation. I think they might have they left that folder in the drawer when they were planning this operation. I would like to see them try to avoid the conflict that arose.

I don't I don't blame the Turks for that. But Turkey could have handled it better. Now what's going to happen in Gaza you know I do think that this is a Turkish organization that sponsored this flotilla has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams because their great goal was let's try to focus some world attention on Gaza. And boy did they succeed. They could only have done this with the cooperation of Israel. Otherwise it wouldn't work. If the Israelis had landed three diplomats and a guy from the Red Cross on the ship nobody would have heard about it as but as a result of what happened that's now a world incident. Actually it now the Israelis are saying they are going to re-examine the conditions of the occupation. Egypt has opened up its border into Gaza so the operation has been very successful. You know what I would like to come out of this is something positive could come out of it would be for some self-examination

in Turkey and particularly in Israel. It goes back to something that I mentioned earlier and that's the question of Will Israel be able to secure its long term survival by military power alone or in the long run. Is it really only going to be guaranteed by calming of tensions in the region. This I think this is a big question that is actually dividing Israeli society. I was in Israel when I was doing research for this book and I did sense a growing bifurcation of opinion. You know that of course in Israel debate over Israeli policies and whether what Israel does is good or bad is much more intense than it is here. And there are members of the Israeli parliament who say things about Israeli policy that no American congressman could ever get away with saying. So it's really something quite remarkable to be in Israel and sense this. There's been a kind of a radicalization on both sides in Israel and I think that's distressing but the

my bottom line is that the hothouse environment of Israeli domestic politics has made it impossible politically for any Israeli leader to take the steps that everybody agrees are necessary for peace. This is a dilemma that the U.S. has to face when we figure out what are we going to what kind of a relationship do we want with Israel. For example it's widely agreed that ultimately any peace settlement with the Palestinians most of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are going to be abandoned with it. But no Israeli prime minister is ever going to be able to take that step just given the political climate inside Israel. That fact and related facts have to make us think about ways that we can rise above this and maybe one way is to present the Palestinians and the Israelis with the peace plan that everybody knows is out there and tried to insist on it and give the Israeli and Palestinian leaders the chance to say I hate this but they're

forcing it on us. It's not only interesting to me that we get a particular view of Gaza but what's even more urgent to me is what what a difference there is between the view that we get of it and the view that other people get of it and I think it's that. Difference that causes these huge cleavage is in perceptions of the world. Some countries are understanding the world through their own media. Other countries media is totally different I think they're reporting on a different planet. So the question was about Europe and the European Union what role could Europe play in the persuading the U.S. to change its policies. Actually the European Union is part of the reason why Turkey has emerged the way that it has and Turkey has been banging on the door of the European Union for a long time now and it's only been in the last few years that several of the most prominent European leaders of essentially slammed the door in Turkey's face they've made clear no matter what you do you're not getting into Europe. If the EU had not done that might Turkey have had a

different geo political preoccupation it might have been working right now to anchor itself in the European project much more deeply and devoted its kind of geo political energy to that rather than to its Middle East Project. I think very possibly. Interestingly enough of course it was the United States that kept urging the EU to take Turkey. And you can imagine the European countries are not so happy it's like the EU saying to America you don't want to open your border with Mexico you take them all. So we were saying to the Europeans you take all the Turks. But. I think that although that I really feel that Europe is hitting way below its weight in world affairs Europe doesn't really have a political impact in the world comparable to what it could have. I actually believe that although Turkey's been very successful in projecting its influence. Turkey has an upper level of how influential it can become by itself in the world. But Turkey with Europe

can really become kind of a global power and Europe also with Turkey suddenly becomes a much more potent force. It's right in the region where the world's problems are. And it's making a positive effort to promote a country that is supposed to be by its success attracting other Muslim countries over to this approach to life so I understand Europe is going through a terrible identity crisis and from the European Union has a lot of problems of its own. Nonetheless it's not in the long term interest of Europe to push Turkey away we're starting to see some of the reasons why that's true and that. You know it is personal to talk about the first question about resources in America's determination to protect its access to resources. It's probably true that that's still a guiding principle of American world policy. We we want to have access to the resources we think we need and we want

to have access to them on terms that we decide are fair. Nonetheless although that is a reasonable calculation for Foreign Policy making it also leads us to ask what kinds of policies actually will guarantee us access to resources in the future. Just confronting countries that are not cooperating and giving you resources on your terms is not necessarily going to produce the result that you want. I think in fact Iran's access to huge oil and gas resources is just another good reason for us to maintain good relations with them. So the the fact that the U.S. is going to continue to need resources for the long term future is not decisive. What's decisive is when we think about what's the best way that we can assure our continued access to them and that's something that I think changes as America's at least relative power in the world be climbed. As for America's support for

moderate Islam in Turkey I've heard a lot of different versions of this I really think that the rise of the current ruling party in Turkey was a result of dynamics inside Turkey. It was about in the 1980s that the Turkish economy was opened up and the family conglomerates based in Istanbul as you know were suddenly challenged by these young Turks can we call them that from out in the provinces and next thing you know there was a an entire new class of pious conservative businessmen who were active in the world and wanted to be part of Europe. It's a very odd situation I'd say unique in the world that a party with its roots in Islamic politics actually became the number one pro-European party in Europe. I'm sorry I'm in Turkey and I think this actually doesn't mean the triumph of Islamic politics in a way means the end of Islam. So that's what's happened in Turkey that you

don't need a separate Islamist alternative in Turkey anymore because the political system is open to everybody. In Egypt Islamic politics still exist and that's totally separate from the politics of Parliament and elections because that part of politics is not open to the Islamists. Turkey's political system is much healthier. And the fact that the majority of people is able or the largest group of people let's say is able to place in power a government that reflects what they want is something that I think we should we should cheer and not worry about. OK well so one question was about the nuclear issue and the possible US ability of a nuclear free Middle East. Actually one of my fantasies is I have a speech I'd like to write for President Ahmadinejad. He hasn't been in contact with me about this but I have. I have a speech form and what I'd like ima say is Iran is willing to accept any form of inspection no matter how intrusive and any

kind of restriction on its nuclear program as long as all other countries in the Middle East agree to accept the same policies. Actually there's a there's a precedent for this in Latin America. You know Brazil and Argentina at one time had very advanced nuclear weapons programs and they finally signed a treaty in Mexico and established a nuclear free zone in Latin America and that has held ever since there was never been a nuclear weapons power emerging in Latin America. So I think that would be something that would be very positive. But again it's not realistic to expect either country to give up. What it considers to be an important defensive system unless it feels safe feels under threat. They're not willing to do that so that's then should be our goal. Your first question was about whether Iran became kind of a ready made bogeyman for us. It is kind of curious that Americans don't like to be just against an ideology or a concept or a country or a

regime. We really like an individual we like a person that we can focus our anger on. We've had gone through a whole series of these we had Gadhafi and we had Castro and mouse and tong and so forth. And certainly I'm a demijohn is like central casting as a perfect bogeyman. I truly believe that image in a job that understands that he's largely unpopular in his own country any knows that there's only one way he can become the hero of all Iranians and maybe of all Muslims in the Middle East and that is to be attacked in any country. People gather behind their leader when they're attacked. We saw that here after 9/11 when Bush's approval ratings were in the 90s. It's a logical reaction. And I believe that Ahmadinejad is trying to calculate what's the craziest thing I can say what's going to make them the craziest. Maybe I'll say there was no holocaust and I'm going nuclear bombs. It's working.

So we're playing very much into his hands. Our basic problem with Iran is as you suggest our policy is essentially an overhang of emotion. Emotion is always the enemy of wise statesmanship. We are still angry at Iran. They took away our Shah. They imprisoned our diplomats for all those months then they have worked assiduously and sometimes very violently to undermine our influence all over the world and we have this feeling like they've they've popped us they've hit us several times and we haven't hit them back. And until we get them back we're not going to sit down at the table with them. This emotion has the effect of making it difficult for us to see what's in our own self interest. I saw a shocking interview with the person who wrote that speech of the axis of evil and the interviewer said the speechwriter. How did Iran get into the axis of evil with two of the world's most heinous dictatorships.

Saddam Hussein and North Korea. How did you ever fit Iran in there. He had an amazing answer which I had to read over about three times to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. He said well actually it started out with just two. Iraq and North Korea but somebody wrote in the margin you can't have two for an X is it takes three. So we had to put in another country. Well you know Iran would be a good one. That's how our policy gets made. Well so the last letter question was why did this uprising after the election last year not succeed the way that they elect the uprising of the late 70s succeeded. I think one of the key things that I was certainly able to see in my trip there last month is that the demonstrations against the Shah in the late 70s really reached into every corner of society every social strata was involved. The green movement this current movement in Iran has not managed to broaden its appeal beyond a

certain educated elite. Don't forget that having a political movement supported by a religious establishment which is what happened in the late 70s has a built in advantage and that is there's a clergyman in every village there everywhere. That's the person is there when you're born when you have your troubles when you're married when you die. That's a person you feel close to. You don't have that phenomenon going on now. And I think most Iranians realize that and that's one reason why I think that movement is going into a form of hibernation although I think we're going to see a little bit more activity this coming weekend when the anniversary celebrated your other question was about what happened to the Obama reset of foreign policy. With Iran in particular you know I'm a little bit out of my depth here because that's a question for some kind of a Beltway insight here. I actually know a lot about the politics of many countries but the United States is not one of them.

It's certainly true that during the campaign some of us had the idea that there was going to be some profound reassessment of the whole imperial project and that obviously hasn't happened. It's clear that Obama has become is either joined or been subsumed by the quicksand of the foreign policy establishment in Washington. It must be a very potent establishment to be able to do that to be able to force people so many people into its its mold. But I would add a few other observations. First of all I don't think that President Obama has ever devoted. Serious long term thought to questions of geopolitics and foreign policy. He's never had to. He's never had a job where that was part of what he had to think about. He had to think about a lot of domestic issues when he was a state senator in Illinois but never about foreign policy. Second let's face it the poor guy's had a few other projects to

take care of so it's reasonable for him to say Iran just didn't make it up to the front of my desk on the other hand it is an escalating crisis it's not just kind of percolating on the back burner it's getting more serious every day. And I guess my last point would be that. We're not at the end of the show yet we still might see could it be maybe even after an election some kind of a change if we can wait that long. I can't imagine just imagine the political environment in Washington that there could be people telling President Obama or President Obama could be telling himself a president from the Democratic Party. I cannot afford to be seen going and embracing some guy who is being described in the American press as a Holocaust denying tinpot dictator. This would kill the Democrats for another generation just like Vietnam did in a previous era. So I think there are probably political considerations as well. There is

tremendous. If I can put it this way this is probably a contradiction in terms there's a tremendous momentum behind inertia. There's a there's a tremendous desire to stick with what you have and what you know. That's nowhere more clear than in foreign policy and in foreign policy it's nowhere more clear than in our policy towards the Middle East. The potent lobbies in Washington are able to influence our policies in ways that are very profound. And politicians are open to that kind of influence. I do think that the events of recent weeks however have made clear that our policies in that part of the world aren't working. That their failure is only leading to the escalation of crises which in turn leads to the growth of looming threats to the west that are festering in those refugee camps in so many places in that part of the world. I think there's a growing realisation that our policies aren't working.

We haven't really gotten to the point of figuring out what might be an alternative. And that's what I'm doing here. Thank you. Good night. Thank you.