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THE ASPEN INSTITUTE

ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL 2017

NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE AGE OF 'AMERICA FIRST'

Greenwald Pavilion

Aspen, Colorado

Thursday, June 29, 2017

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

JULIA IOFFE

Staff Writer, The Atlantic

DAVID PETRAEUS

Partner, KKR; Chairman, KKR Global Institute

DAVID ROTHKOPF

CEO, The Rothkopf Group

PETER FEAVER

Professor of Political Science and Public Policy,

Duke University; Director, Triangle Institute for

Security Studies

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NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE AGE OF 'AMERICA FIRST'

(4:15 p.m.)

MR. ROTHKOPF: We're good? We're live? Good

afternoon. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. One of

the challenges of being here at the Ideas Festival is that

the people who are sitting to the right and the left of

you are the kind of people you'd see on a panel someplace

else and so all your personal conversations are

theoretically more interesting than the ones we have up

here on the stage. But I think in this particular case

it's worth directing your attention to the stage and to

this distinguished panel because what we're talking about

are some of the most important issues in the world right

now. There are very strong differing views on these, but

they need to be aired.

Our focus today is on U.S. national security and

foreign policy in, what is called in the program, the age

of America first. Of course there was a prior age of

America first in the 30s, which had an isolationist bent.

And I think what we really mean here is U.S. national

security and foreign policy in the age of Donald Trump.

And what does that mean and how is it different? And I

just mentioned that.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to

have a little conversation up here and then about 40

minutes into it we're going to try to draw all of you into

it. I'm not going to go give lengthy introductions to

each of the panelists because, you know, who they are.

But let me very briefly say that it's a real pleasure to

be joined here again by General David Petraeus. We did

this last year, the same conversation. We were wrong

about some things I think, about --

MR. PETRAEUS: I made no predictions remember.

MR. ROTHKOPF: No, been no predictions. But we

were wrong -- I really mean I was wrong.

MR. PETRAEUS: You might say that and possibly

comment --

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MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah. But of course, you know,

Dave as one of America's foremost military leaders, but

also as one of the most thoughtful foreign policy and

national security thinkers that we have in the United

States. A career really without parallel among his peers

and we're really fortunate to have him here today.

Along side Dave is Peter Feaver, who has served

as a senior White House official, and more important to

me, during the years that I was editing Foreign Policy

magazine, he was one of my four favorite authors of

Foreign Policy magazine. He's extremely smart, funny and

balanced -- and I mean that in the sense of the way the

word balanced was viewed before. It started meaning

something else.

One of my other among the four favorite authors

that I encountered while I was running Foreign Policy is

Julia Ioffe, who is a writer at The Atlantic and a

contributor to many discussions including those that I

sometimes have on the podcast that I do, Deep State Radio.

She is extraordinarily smart and knows a range of issues

well, especially those associated with Russia.

And so we're going to dive right in. And I

think what we need to do is we need to frame the

discussion by saying: What's different -- what's different

in the foreign policy and the approach to national

security of the Trump administration from that which we

are used to? And you can answer this in one of two ways.

Either, what's different between the Trump administration

and the immediately preceding administrations, the Obama

administration or the Bush administration. Or you can

answer it in terms, if you think there are terms, what's

different in the Trump administration approach that's

different from anything we've done in recent memory.

Dave, let me start with you.

MR. PETRAEUS: Well, first of all, thanks, as

always, for the opportunity to the Aspen Institute, to

Atlantic Media. These are always stimulating and is

terrific to be on the same stage with you, David, and

Peter and Julia. And a wonderful topic.

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I would -- if I was going to put the bottom line

up front, which is what military guys are supposed to do,

I would say -- and this may be counter to what many think

-- I think there's more continuity to this foreign policy

than there actually is change with three exceptions, and

those are: climate, clearly different; trade, we're still

not sure, but actually seems to be reverting to the mean

other than having gotten rid of the TPP, which the other

candidate would have done as well for domestic political

reasons; and then immigration, we're still seeing how that

will sort out.

And then I guess just the general rhetorical

ambivalence to continue to lead the rules based liberal

international order, which I think most in here, certainly

all of us I think believe has served the world really

quite well since the end of a 50-year period that had two

world wars and the greatest depression in world history.

Let me back up now a little bit and sort of lay

this out. First of all, I think that the national

security team is of enormous quality: H. R. McMaster, his

deputy, not as well known, Ricky Waddell, West Point,

Rhodes Scholar, PhD from Columbia University, reserve

major general, but also a very successful businessman.

Both of them many tours together on battlefields. The

same with Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, who I

think is off to a very impressive start.

If you look at the chairman of the joint chiefs

of staff, if you look at the battlefield commanders in

Iraq and Afghanistan, all of these have enormous

experience and I would characterize them as the kind --

you know, a lot of people will say there's a lot of

generals. I think we're going to talk civil-military

relations tomorrow. And I will make the point then that

these are generals who do not see every problem as a nail

and they don't see the solution therefore as a bigger

hammer. They see solutions often times being not military

at all, at the very least a stiletto precision or what

have you.

And so again, I think a very good team. Rex

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Tillerson, a bit of an engineer, certainly takes problems

apart, puts them back together, takes his time, clearly is

not someone where you're in risk if you are between him

and a podium or the press. But I think again -- and needs

a lot of help in that department and filling it certainly

has taken too long. But U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who

I think has just been spectacular and is not someone I

think that folks would have predicted right out of the

chute would have been as impressive as she is. I think

she's really top notch.

And then if you look at -- okay, let's look at

again -- follow the money and follow the troops, follow

the decisions. Don't necessarily always follow the

tweets. You do need to listen to them. You need to read

them. But again it's about what is actually happening.

This is a president, who, when Bashar al-Assad used

chemical weapons on his people, did not temporize. Within

36 hours there were 50 or so cruise missiles that hit. It

was measured, it was deliberate, pointed and so forth.

And when he was threatened, this time I think

Bashar al-Assad took note of that. It's hard to say

whether it absolutely deterred something that was in the

works or not, but that's how you build American

credibility -- building I think effectively on the work

that was done in the previous administration in the fight

against the Islamic State, prosecuting that well.

Less known is the different interagency groups

that are working on -- between State and Defense that are

working on how to take this forward in the battle after

the battle. We've never doubted that they would defeat

the Islamic State with our enabling -- the question was

always: What happens after? Can you get inclusive

governance or not? And there is a lot of effort ongoing

there as well.

So again, you just take issue after issue,

there's a devolution of responsibility that I applaud

again in part because I have such confidence in the

national security team. There is not micromanagement of

troop numbers, yet the troop numbers aren't ballooning.

And so I think it's actually going forward in a very

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measured manner and again much more continuity than

change.

You know, you had lots of disruption. You had a

phone call from the Taiwanese president, but ultimately

the president adopts a one China policy, embraces it,

invites President Xi, has a relationship and now there's

four working groups established that are moving forward so

they can address the core issue of North Korea and the

other challenges.

Certainly missed an opportunity at NATO

headquarters when the 9/11 Memorial was unveiled,

reminding us that that's the only time Article 5 was ever

invoked was after 9/11 and we did not step up at that

moment and guarantee the Article 5 collective self

defense. But ultimately have done that, have reassured

our alliance partners in the Far East.

So again, I think a good bit more of continuity

than might be expected if you just again read tweets or

different statements to the press.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Okay. So we're going to come

back and talk about a little bit of what's working and a

little bit of what's not. That's probably the most robust

defense of Trump foreign policy that I've ever heard.

MR. PETRAEUS: By the way, I am -- I --

MR. ROTHKOPF: So --

MR. PETRAEUS: I am non-political, I would

remind you. I don't vote. I have served both

administrations and senatorial appointed positions and I'm

not out to -- I don't need another job.

MR. ROTHKOPF: I was -- I was --

MR. PETRAEUS: You if ever be a partner in KKR,

you never want to do anything else in your life.

MR. ROTHKOPF: And we'll all hand you our

resumes as soon as we're done.

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(Laughter)

MR. PETRAEUS: You're joking.

MR. ROTHKOPF: As far as that goes. But it was

a pretty robust view. Peter, what's your view? You

served in the Bush administration, which, by the way, I

think --

MR. PETRAEUS: Another great national security

team.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well -- but I think it's not

fully appreciated that by the end of the second term of

the Bush administration it had a pretty high functioning

national security team and it was actually working pretty

well.

MR. PETRAEUS: Extraordinarily well.

MR. ROTHKOPF: And some really high quality

people. So as you look at this, what do you see?

MR. FEAVER: Well, thank you. It's also -- I

want to echo what General Petraeus said. It's an honor to

be on the stage here. And any time I'm next to a former

boss, I feel like I have to get you coffee or whatever.

Want to make sure you're taken care of, Boss.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Thank you.

MR. FEAVER: But I --

MR. ROTHKOPF: I loved it. By the way, that has

never happened before. So --

(Laughter)

MR. FEAVER: But in terms of what's different, I

think on policy I see a big difference on Russia. But I'm

going to let Julia weigh in on that because she knows that

better than I do. In terms of process, I think there's

three big differences that I would flag. First and most

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important, the president's role in the making of foreign

policy is different in this administration than in

previous administrations that I've watched closely. I

think President Trump is absolutely the decider on an

issue that reaches his desk and is sometimes difficult to

-- his staff has a challenge figuring out where he is

going to come down on some of those issues. So he's hard

from a staff point of view, hard to anticipate. And

that's a challenge if you're a junior staff working for a

president who you are not quite sure where he's going to

come down.

But I think there's a lot of policy that has

been delegated down below the president's level to the

team that General Petraeus mentioned. And that's

different because the last president we saw, President

Obama, drew all of that in. And if there's a critique of

the Obama administration, was that they couldn't make

decisions because he brought them all up, even tactical

decisions, to the president's level and then wrestled with

them. And so that's a big change.

The second is the influence of the military on

national security policy is different and is the plug for

our lunch conversation. General Petraeus and I tomorrow

will be diving into this issue more. And I agree that the

worst alarmist treatments of that are wrong, that it's not

the military running amok and seeing the world like a

three-year-old with a hammer.

That's certainly not the case. But it is the

case that we're missing the strong voice of civilians,

whether it's the civilian foreign service officers, which

is a great national resource that we have. But they're

not yet empowered. I think State has been a little bit

slow in standing up. But also the civilian OSD, which is

a crucial -- has a crucial role in civil-military

relations at the policymaking level I don't think has

stepped up yet precisely because Secretary Mattis has had

trouble staffing the lower ranks.

They're slowly getting on board and there's some

very good people that have come on board. So I'm

optimistic that in six months from now or if I get invited

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back next year, I'll talk about how they finally got that

team assembled.

And then the third change I -- difference is

there's no Ben Rhodes. So Ben Rhodes was the strategic

communications czar in the Obama White House and he was

very, very effective at controlling the message and

getting pretty much everybody singing on the same song

sheet in the Obama administration. Now, when the song

sheet was wrongly -- you know, was out of tune, as it was

on Benghazi, then they went off into a ditch. But when

they were on tune, there was remarkable consistency across

-- certainly across the White House, but also lower

ranking players.

And this administration does not have that kind

of message discipline in part because the president tweets

and sometimes tweets messages that seem to be at odds with

where the policy is going. And so you have -- it feels

more disorienting I think to those of us who are on the

outside precisely because we're seeing this message

disconnect. So those will be my three --

MR. PETRAEUS: That's why you want to follow the

troops and follow the money and not get distracted by the

sometimes discordant -- and there is to be sure a tug of

war I think that is actually going on. It's between the

MMT, McMasters, Mattis and Tillerson to some degree and

then some there in the White House.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah. Okay. Julia, I have to

say, I'm a little disoriented so far in this conversation.

So I'm like, "Wait a minute --

MS. IOFFE: Let me break it down for you. All

right.

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- I thought I lived in Washington

and knew what was going on." Apparently not. Anyway, go

on.

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: So there is -- I mean, there's so

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many -- you know, let me count the ways that this is --

this administration's foreign policy is different. First

of all, the hollowing out of the State Department, you

know. For example, the Russians are complaining that they

have Tillerson to talk to, they might have people in the

White House to talk to, but then there's nobody else.

There's nothing -- you know, like half of the velcro is

missing. There's no --

MR. ROTHKOPF: And when the Russians complain,

we take that very seriously.

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: In this administration, which is

difference number two. Difference number three is the

amount of -- the unbelievable amount of financial

involvements of this president and his family in sensitive

areas around the world and we have yet to see how that has

affected and will affect our foreign policy and national

security. And that is a big and troubling difference.

A fourth difference is again that, you know,

once the -- when you say the State Department is hollowed

out, who, you know -- you know, in the conservation of

political power. Where does that go? It goes to the

military, the generals, which President Trump was obsessed

with as a candidate. You know, he was obsessed with

collecting the endorsements of people with epaulettes and

stars and medals on their chests.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Not that there's anything wrong

with that.

MS. IOFFE: Not that there's anything wrong with

that -- not that there's anything wrong with that, but it

--

MR. PETRAEUS: Thank you, David.

MS. IOFFE: -- when it's such a -- when it's --

it just seems very lopsided. And the fifth difference is:

there are excellent people in this administration, Nikki

Haley being one of them, McMaster, Mattis. But these

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people are so often undercut by the commander-in-chief

that -- you know, Nikki Haley has been great, but what

does she matter in an administration that's constantly --

you know, has the polar opposite position from her. So

she goes out and says something on TV or at a hearing in

the United Nations and the message coming out of the White

House is totally different.

And all of this stuff I think has created so

much tension and insecurity around the world and confusion

among our allies and adversaries, you know, this -- the

yo-yoing of Washington's position. Because even though

every president learns in the first few months in office

and it's a very steep learning curve, this president was

starting at such a low level that the learning curve looks

more like an asymptote.

And he -- you know, you just -- we are watching

his learning process unfold in real-time and it's often

really alarming. You know, like when he discovers that

Syria is actually a very complicated problem --

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: -- just like health care is actually

a very complicated problem. But, you know, it's just this

constant -- you don't know when you wake up in the morning

or when the whole world wakes up in their mornings what is

going to happen and what's going to come out of

Washington. And if they can believe any of these -- you

know, the last meeting of Security Council, everybody was

waiting for Mattis to speak and Vice-President Pence to

speak and -- but then they'd be undercut by the president.

And they had -- you know, it takes away their credibility.

Nobody knows what to believe and to think about where we

stand and what our position is. And that can lead very

quickly to some very troubling things. It creates -- it's

a lot of volatility, in other words.

MR. ROTHKOPF: So let me take 30 seconds or 60

seconds of moderator's prerogative here and just add to

this perspective. I think there are a lot of areas that

we haven't touched upon where we could say this is very

different. We've never had a president with this little

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national security or foreign policy experience. We've

never had a president with this little government

experience. We've never taken so long to fill the senior

jobs in government. We've never had a president who has

had such an alienated relationship with the intelligence

community from the very beginning. The national security

process doesn't actually function. There have been very

few principals meetings of the national security process.

MR. PETRAEUS: Lot's of principals meetings.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Pardon?

MR. PETRAEUS: Very few NSC meetings.

MR. ROTHKOPF: NSC meetings. And we have lost -

-

MR. PETRAEUS: Lots of principals meetings.

MR. FEAVER: And no deputies --

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- one national security advisor

very early on --

MR. PETRAEUS: Yeah.

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- historically fast. We have

alienated our allies in a way that we've never done before

rapidly and allies that you didn't think you could

alienate. And I know a lot of Australians. It's tough to

alienate an Australian. We've alienated Australia.

MR. PETRAEUS: I'm not sure I buy that actually.

I was just there last week and I met with the prime

minister and the foreign minister and --

MR. FEAVER: And he ticked off a lot of

Australians.

MR. ROTHKOPF: And have you alienated some

Australians?

MR. PETRAEUS: You know, look, there is

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uncertainty -- don't get me wrong. I think what you all

have said --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well -- but just --

MR. PETRAEUS: But there's a degree -- you know,

they just met with Mattis and Tillerson, they were feeling

pretty good.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, let me carry a step

forward.

MR. PETRAEUS: Now, (inaudible).

MR. ROTHKOPF: I mean, first, I was going to say

Australia, Mexico, Canada. You've had the Canadian

foreign minister --

MR. PETRAEUS: Mexico, yes.

MR. ROTHKOPF: You've had the Canadian foreign

minister saying we can't depend on the U.S. anymore.

You've had Merkel saying we can't depend on the United

States anymore. This has never happened before and since

the end of the Second World War. And I could go on. And

with regard to this last point here is where I'll stop,

but, you know, Mattis and McMaster, who are very

distinguished men, who are doing the very best they can,

are playing the role of the guys in the circus parade with

the balloons and the president is moving along ahead of

them and they're following along.

(Laughter)

MR. ROTHKOPF: And there has never been the kind

of disconnect between the rhetoric of a president and the

rhetoric of his own team as we've seen before. And we

just had this meltdown from Tillerson, who is like the

lost man, the forgotten man in this administration because

of another thing we've never had, which is the son-in-law

of the president playing the role of secretary of

everything.

(Laughter)

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MR. ROTHKOPF: Okay, so --

(Applause)

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- it's different. But now having

said that and being -- trying to be a moderator and ignore

the applause -- keep it coming.

(Laughter)

MR. ROTHKOPF: Let's focus on this: What's

better about the Trump administration's approach than what

we've seen recently? And I'll go back to you, Dave, to

start.

MR. PETRAEUS: As I said, he makes a decision.

The red line that was not a red line was a big blow to

American credibility. The micromanagement of troop

levels. Let me give you an example of what happened in

Afghanistan because of this. The commander over there

he's spectacular, by the way, Mick Nicholson, four star

now, as my two star ops commander during the surge in

Afghanistan. He needed an aviation brigade. So they send

over the helicopters and they said, "But, you know, I'm

sorry. We have this troop cap and so we can send the

helicopters and the pilots, but we can't send all the

maintenance crews." So they actually sit home -- there on

a base that only had one aviation brigade, so they're

sitting home twiddling their thumbs losing their readiness

skills.

They came in the Army to fix helicopters,

especially when they're at a high OPTEMPO. When you're

flying in combat, it triples the number of hours that you

normally fly or quadruple. The unit readiness is broken

down, the sense of unity, of purpose and everything else.

And, oh, by the way, you hire hugely expensive civilian

contractors to actually turn wrenches out there, which, by

the way, then those firms recruit these maintenance people

who we have trained and they're disgruntled because they

didn't get to do it so they go out and -- so that's that

kind of I think unthinking at times, that drawdowns that

we're too fast. And now we need to go back and police up

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some of that -- and I think we will.

I don't get me wrong now, though, because I

think that the previous administration during the final

year in particular went a long way particularly in the

fight against the Islamic State and other Islamist

extremists to getting to what I think is necessary and

that is a sustainable -- and sustainability is measured in

blood and treasure, the expenditure of each -- a

sustainable sustained commitment.

I believe that's what's required because I think

we're engaged in a generational struggle. We'll put a --

we'll take away the geographic caliphate of the Islamic

State in Syria and Iraq. And by the way, again we've

accelerated that because the president has pushed down

decision making. The rules of engagement haven't changed,

the decision point has. And that's good, because some of

these are fleeting opportunities.

But at the end of the day even after we put a

stake through the heart of Baghdadi, which I think will

happen at some point inevitably, there will still be the

virtual caliphate, there will still be these other

elements that are metastasized around the world. Wherever

there are ungoverned spaces or even inadequately governed

spaces in the Islamic world, extremists will exploit them

and we will have to have again something to counter that.

And we're generally going to have to lead it -- still

should be a comprehensive effort -- so we need to enable

these.

And what we've gotten to in Iraq, in Syria, a

bit in North Africa, Somalia and so forth is that we are

enabling others. They are doing the fighting on the

frontlines, which again makes this much more sustainable.

And I think we can continue to do that in Afghanistan as

well.

By the way, with respect to Afghanistan, let us

not forget that we went there for a reason and we have

stayed for a reason, and that is because that's where the

9/11 attacks were planned and where the initial training

of the attackers was conducted and we do not want to allow

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that to be a sanctuary for transnational extremists again.

And we have succeeded in doing that, but not succeeded in

so enabling the Afghans that they can do it on their own.

It's important to us, so we keep on doing it.

We have kept tens of thousands, hundreds of

thousands of troops in the continent of Europe when we had

important national interests and I think we have to look

at these with a longer range scope. But again, that means

it has got to be sustainable and I think they have built

on this in quite an effective manner as well.

But again, I -- yes, there has been all the

fumbling and there's, you know, the lack of message

discipline. In a lot of ways I would prefer the policy

even with -- not with the discordant, I'd rather have the

policy with a common message over some of what we went

through before with respect to Syria -- everything comes

back to Syria I think time and time again -- again, not

just the red line, but the early opportunities. The

rhetoric that far outstripped our willingness to take

action to make Bashar go, although that was our policy.

The rhetoric about humanitarian issues and so forth -- and

we really did not do much there.

So again, I again think that in some cases

building well on this. In other cases -- as I mentioned

three that are not, climate, trade and immigration, at

least uncertain. And certainly again the communication is

-- could use a little bit of work.

MR. ROTHKOPF: What are Trump's greatest hits?

MR. FEAVER: So the way I would summarize what

General Petraeus said was that in the last administration

the Middle East was seen through the lens of 2002, it was

always 2002. And the president was always holding the

line against invading and an unnecessary war. And the

president -- President Obama over learned that lesson.

You know, he bet -- he's one of the few people to bet in

that direction. He came up big -- became president

because of it and he couldn't let go of it.

And a number of my friends who served at high

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levels in the Obama administration said there wasn't

learning, that the president in 2016 was very much to

where he was on 2009 and 2002.

And this president is not lost -- is not locked

into 2002 mentality about the Middle East. And I think

that's --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Perhaps 1982.

MR. FEAVER: Perhaps.

MS. IOFFE: If he's locked into anything.

MR. FEAVER: If he's -- so that's one thing

that's better. The second thing that's better so far is

relations among the cabinet national -- the national

security cabinet. And Dave has mentioned that --

MR. PETRAEUS: Very, very good.

MR. FEAVER: But they get along much better than

did the any common trio of national security advisor,

secretary of state and secretary of defense -- but if you

want a quartet, add the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff. These four get along better than any previous four

of the last eight years. So that's -- now, it's early

because they don't have a staff to be fighting against

each other. Once they have a staff, bureaucratic politics

may return.

And then my last point -- and this is not

better, but this is the -- this is really the question I

think that is at the heart of what Julia said earlier: Is

President Trump on a learning curve? The case for that is

that he didn't do in the primary and general and

transition what other candidates do, which is prepare to

govern. During the primary and during the general, he

focused only on winning and not on preparing to govern.

And so he didn't do the things that every other candidate,

including every other successful candidate has done, bone

up on the issues, develop a large team of vetted people

ready to go in on day one.

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The transition was a missed opportunity because

they rebooted it a couple of times, and so really they're

about three months behind, three to six months behind

another administration on so many levels.

So the optimistic case --

MR. ROTHKOPF: I was about to say that's one of

the --

MR. FEAVER: No, no.

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- successes.

MR. FEAVER: The -- no.

MR. ROTHKOPF: They're only three to six months

behind.

MR. FEAVER: No, no, the optimistic case is --

MR. ROTHKOPF: I feel much better. Because I

thought they were years behind.

MR. FEAVER: The optimistic case is that there

is a learning curve and he is -- he'll get better. The

pessimistic case is that there is not a learning curve and

that the president -- this is his governing style. And in

that case, it's a very different --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Save your pessimism. We'll come

back to that.

MS. IOFFE: I just -- I just -- can we just --

it has been -- he has been in our lives now for about two

years. Can we please stop with the battered girlfriend

syndrome of like he's going to change, he's on a learning

curve, he's going to -- once he gets the nomination --

(Applause)

MS. IOFFE: And I don't mean to trivialize

domestic abuse. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. But, you

know, this constantly waiting for him to become another

20

man at age 70-something is just -- it's not going to

happen. And this, "You know, he's going to" -- "he'll get

the nomination, he'll become more presidential." Okay.

"He'll win, he'll become more presidential." Never mind.

"Okay, he'll be inaugurated, he'll certainly become more

presidential because he's the president in fact." No, it

doesn't happen and the learning curve is steep because he

has throughout his seven decades on earth been profoundly

incurious about the world in which he lives, in which we

all live unfortunately with him. And --

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: And -- sorry. Is that too blunt?

I'm sorry.

MR. ROTHKOPF: No.

MS. IOFFE: So I just think that, you know, it's

wonderful to have these people in the cabinet who get

along, but again because he might tweet something that

suddenly cuts off Qatar from the entire region which is,

you know, already a calm and stable region, you know, or

if he -- it kind of doesn't matter if they get along or if

they have staffs or not because he or Jared will do

something crazy, and I think the other difference that I

think is really terrible and a kind of law -- kind of

under-the-radar simmering thing is usually in Washington -

-

SPEAKER: This was like what's good.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah.

MS. IOFFE: Yeah. No, no, I just -- I have to

like --

SPEAKER: I answered the question.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah, no, no, I appreciate that.

MS. IOFFE: I'll get there. It's just a much

shorter --

21

MR. ROTHKOPF: I know. By the way, I know where

she's going. It's the orb. The orb --

(Laughter)

MR. ROTHKOPF: Right, this -- extremely cool.

MS. IOFFE: It was the magic 8-ball.

MR. ROTHKOPF: It was the magic 8-ball, yeah.

MS. IOFFE: So I'll get to what's better because

just a very short answer. I just wanted to push back --

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: -- I just wanted to push back

against what my esteemed fellow panelists were saying

because, you know, with all due respect you're really

scraping the bottom of the barrel for what's good here and

the -- so you -- in prior administrations in Washington

you would have the best and the brightest itching,

competing to serve the country and whatever administration

was in power. You are seeing a massive exodus from

Washington, people are seeing what McMaster goes through,

people are seeing what Tillerson goes through, people are

seeing what Rod Rosenstein goes through, and they're

saying, no thanks, I don't want to be part of this vehicle

that is driven by a drunk driver mowing down women and --

pregnant women and children. I don't want to be sitting

in the back seat saying, oh, perhaps you want to take a

right turn here or stop at the stop sign because he's not

going to, but, you know, but you'll get --

MR. ROTHKOPF: And I promise, the President will

never again attack the bleeding facelift of a news

reporter.

(Laughter)

SPEAKER: Yeah.

MS. IOFFE: Anyway, so but what's better, so one

--

22

MR. ROTHKOPF: What's the good thing, the -- in

30 seconds.

MS. IOFFE: So one good thing was the fifty nine

Tomahawk missiles that hit that empty airfield in Syria.

It was a show of -- no, it was actually a really important

moment because it showed the Russians that actually were

willing to do something and it showed that the Russians

actually can't do all that much in return, that a lot of

their -- of what -- of their position in Syria and in the

world is bluff and bluster.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yet oddly enough no Russians were

injured in the attack.

MS. IOFFE: In the filming of the attack.

MR. ROTHKOPF: I wonder -- no animals were

harmed. I wonder how that happened. All right we've got

6 minutes so that would be 2 for each of you before I want

to open this up to questions. Dave, what do you see as

the problems, the things that worry you the most about the

way they're approaching national security or a policy that

worries you the most?

MR. PETRAEUS: Well, look we talk staffing. We

talked lack of coherence in communications. Again I just

keep saying come back and watch what's actually happening

on the battlefield. Look at what -- I mean we shot down a

Syrian aircraft, we shot down three drones. You know, you

may or may not applaud that vigorously, but I think that

that shows that we are going to protect those elements on

the ground that we have helped to develop, and frankly we

weren't doing that before. We hesitated for a very, very

long time there. Then again I mentioned climate. I hope

that trade is actually going to be -- to prove to be

pragmatic. The NAFTA negotiations so far actually are,

and there's lots that could be renegotiated. NAFTA, Bob

Zoellick and I did that taskforce in North America and I

had several pages on this and they're all included in what

they're addressing.

So I think the problem here is actually

23

distilling out the discordant comments to the press,

tweets, you name it, and actually trying to focus on what

is going on, and again immigration is another one about

which I obviously have reservations. I think we need

comprehensive immigration. I think we need more H1B

visas. I think you need a legal pathway for unskilled,

and you know, the whole issue with the ban and so forth is

going to prove counterproductive probably, but in any

event, look, there are lots of things here about which one

could wring his hand. There are also some things that I

actually am happy to see. I don't think this is a

president who is going to announce a surge of forces and

in the same speech announce a drawdown date regardless of

the conditions on the battlefield. So let's keep that in

perspective even as you may or, you know, may not

necessarily applaud again all the communications.

MR. FEAVER: Russia policy is a problem. The

President should have created an independent commission

chaired by Steve Hadley and Leon Panetta and should have

said they're going to look at the entire Russia

involvement in the 2016 election and basically the attack,

Russian attack on the U.S. democracy and they're going to

look at it, it's going take them a year and they're going

to report back and we're going to implement what they

recommend, and I'm not going to answer a question on it in

the intervening year. He would have bought himself a year

to govern and instead he's on a daily response cycle.

MR. PETRAEUS: Yes, no question about that.

SPEAKER: So Russia --

MR. PETRAEUS: But U.S.-Russia policy, I'm not

so sure.

MS. IOFFE: What is U.S.-Russia policy now?

MR. PETRAEUS: I think that we -- it's -- and by

the way this is where there's something that's good is

that Congress --

MS. IOFFE: it's an honest question about --

24

MR. PETRAEUS: -- Congress is going to drive

this and the White House will go along.

MR. ROTHKOPF: But the President the United

States announced -- or actually it was the Russians that

announced today that the president would be meeting with

Vladimir Putin on the edges of the G-20 meeting thus

giving him the face-to-face time with the United States

President following an attack on the United States for

which the Russians have paid precious little.

MS. IOFFE: Knowing that this is a President

whose decisions depend heavily on who he talked to last

and who charmed him last. Xi Jinping, who was the head of

a country that Trump threatened to label a currency

manipulator throughout the campaign, suddenly not a

currency manipulator, really great guy --

MR. PETRAEUS: I hope that they weren't a

currency manipulator.

MS. IOFFE: No, no, but he just -- but it was

like because he had a nice time with him --

MR. ROTHKOPF: It actually wasn't actually just

like that.

MR. FEAVER: It wasn't.

MR. ROTHKOPF: It was a meeting where he got

together a bunch of business advisors --

SPEAKER: Yeah.

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- and in the meeting he said

they're currency manipulators and we're going to beat them

up, right? What do you think Jamie Dimon? And Jamie

Dimon said, no, I don't think that. And then he said,

well, what do you think? He said, no, I don't think that

and he went around the table and everybody said, no, I

actually don't agree with your policy, Mr. President.

President said, you know, what's going on here and they've

started backing away from it because none of the core of

people supporting them actually support it.

25

MS. IOFFE: But it also depends on his

interactions with these powerful men, these leaders of

these countries or his meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the

general secretary of NATO, after which we decided NATO was

no longer obsolete like that. I mean --

MR. ROTHKOPF: No, it's been fixed too.

MS. IOFFE: What, that it is obsolete --

MR. ROTHKOPF: NATO has been fixed.

MS. IOFFE: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

MR. PETRAEUS: Yeah. If -- work with us here

people.

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: So -- this is why Putin wanted that

face-time so badly.

MR. ROTHKOPF: You know, they are actually --

they actually are spending more on defense in real terms,

considerably more.

MS. IOFFE: So -- but outside of what's

happening on the battlefield and the U.S.-Russia policy

might be determined at this meeting because of the --

whatever interaction -- however the interaction goes

between Putin and Trump.

MR. ROTHKOPF: You've got --

MR. FEAVER: What I want is -- I want to make

one more -- I want to actually talk about America First

which is in the title of our panel, this case, anyone came

hoping to eat some of that. The problem is not the phrase

America First, it's the word they added in front of it,

only America First. Every President --

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- I don't know, America First is

pretty bad. That was Charles Lindberg --

26

MR. FEAVER: If you capitalize it -- if you

capitalize it --

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- it was sort of pro-Nazi

isolation --

MR. FEAVER: That's -- capitalize --

MR. FEAVER: -- it's a pretty ghastly choice,

right?

MR. FEAVER: That's America First, capital A

capital F. But if you're saying I'm going to put American

interests first, then that's every President's doing that.

And the problem is the -- I don't think -- well, I do

think that --

MS. IOFFE: Is not Perez?

MR. FEAVER: -- President Trump has a

transactional short horizon view of relations and misses

the idea of how allies properly supported leverage

American power and extend American power. The best thing

the U.S. has done in I think the last 200 years -- well,

freeing the slaves, okay, so last 100 years was the

geopolitical order established after World War II, and it

was premised on the U.S. putting other people's interests

not first, but on the table in our calculation --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, embedded in your statement

is alliances benefit us --

MR. FEAVER: And that was in our interests.

Exactly.

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- as well as benefiting the

allies.

MR. FEAVER: And that a little bit of free

riding is a reasonable price to pay for the large

strategic order stability that you get from it. And that

the President -- his team understands that. If you talk

to HR --

27

MR. ROTHKOPF: Very much, yes.

MR. FEAVER: -- if you talk to Secretary

Tillerson, they -- you will get that back, but I don't

know if the President has articulated that in public as

effectively as he needs to for that to -- for that message

to permeate through the rest of the world and calm the

troubled waters and I'll stop there.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, I think --

MS. IOFFE: Can I say the one thing that really

troubles me? He has --

(Laughter)

MS. IOFFE: He has the nuclear codes.

MR. ROTHKOPF: He what?

MS. IOFFE: Can I just remind everyone, he has

the nuclear codes.

MR. FEAVER: Come hear Garrett Graff talk about

this issue tomorrow with me tomorrow afternoon.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah, right, and I'm sure you'll

be very comforting on that point.

(Laughter)

MR. ROTHKOPF: So, here's the thing. I think

we've resolved all this and it's very clear to you, right?

(Laughter)

MR. ROTHKOPF: It's not -- all right, well,

maybe you have your own questions. There are some people

with microphones here and they'll pick -- no, I'll pick.

Let's start with this gentleman here. There's a

microphone right next to you.

SPEAKER: Awesome.

28

MR. ROTHKOPF: Identify yourself and a question.

MR. IBRAHIM: Yes, my name is Gulad Ibrahim

(phonetic) from Minnesota. The question I have is General

Petraeus touched immigration, but he -- no one touched

about it. I'm originally from Somalia, as of tonight 11

years ago when I immigrated to this country. If Trump had

his way I wouldn't be sitting in this seat tonight. The

question I have is banning people based on their religion,

isn't that -- does that make America great again? Does

that make America First because what benefits this

country, the 10 years I've lived in this country I've

attended 2 years in high school, 4 university, 3 years in

law school, (inaudible) in Australia. (Inaudible) think

Trump is full of (inaudible), but my question is should we

ban people based on their religion?

MR. ROTHKOPF: I think this could be a very

short-answered --

MR. PETRAEUS: No.

MS. IOFFE: No. No.

MR. FEAVER: No.

MR. PETRAEUS: No. Asked and answered.

(Applause)

MR. ROTHKOPF: Asked and answered. Is anybody

here in favor of banning people because of their religion?

MR. PETRAEUS: No

MR. ROTHKOPF: No. Okay. Let's get a question

to this gentleman over here.

MR. NAJAFFE: Francis Najaffe (phonetic),

Arizona. The question of immigration and terrorism really

has been on the minds of all of us of course. And yet

when you go back to 9/11, 15 of the 19 terrorists were

Saudis. Every terrorist act in the western world from

29

California to Florida to New York to Brazil, Paris, have

come from ideological Wahabist, Salafist background, yet

our policy has been shifted back in favor of a new regime

and Saudis candidly -- I'm getting to that. So why is it

that we're not focused on the core of the terrorism issue

which really is coming from both Saudi religious

foundations as well as the Pakistan? We're doing a surge

in Pakistan with 4,000 additional, you know, military

soldiers, yet it is the Pakistani government is supporting

the Taliban in Afghanistan. So we're not addressing the

problem --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Okay, let's get to the -- what's

the question?

MR. NAJAFFE: -- so what -- the question is

this, we've surged back again -- if George Cannon was

alive today, he'll be wondering what had happened to the

balance of power theory that our realism theory is based

on. So the general saying that again --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Okay, so let's frame the question

this way. Has -- there's a perceived shift back in the

direction of some groups that are associated with some

terrorism. I think the -- for question was framed a

little bit broadly because there's certainly been domestic

terrorist acts and other kinds of terrorist acts not

associated with this, but have we made a mistake in

shifting our focus with regard to the war on terror?

Again let's try to keep our answers to kind of 30 second

so we can --

MR. PETRAEUS: First of all, look, we've raised

these issues repeatedly I did it innumerable times as --

in three different four-star positions and as director of

the CIA. I think there actually has been some movement

and I think there is greater sensitivity to it. I think

that now Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's reforms will

actually open up Saudi Arabia. Yes, you know, a woman

driving a -- he actually said a woman can drive a camel in

the Quran but she can't drive a car today, and there's a

lot of other advances. They are sensitive to this. They

have a religious fundamental hierarchy that is a challenge

both to that process and indeed has in some cases funded

30

and fostered the kind of ultra fundamentalist view of

Islam that can then give more easily to this kind of

extremist belief. Having said that I am one who believes

that it is good to counter the malign Iranian activity in

the Gulf more effectively than we have been.

And the way -- one way that you are going to

have to do that is to some degree to pick sides and I

would side with the countries of the GCC and the other

Arab countries over -- certainly over Iran. They'd be the

first to acknowledge that they're flawed friends, but they

are they are generally friends. Now we do have a problem

now with this quite significant dispute between the

Saudis, the Emirates, couple of others, Bahranis and

Egyptians and the Qataris, and that is very troubling.

There is foundation for this. I personally went to the

Qatari government on a number of occasions, particularly

as the commander of U.S. Central Command. I said, look,

you just gave us $100 million to build our forward

headquarters, this massive billions of dollar airbase

complex that we already have tens of thousands of troops

on, and that's awesome and you want us to be your defense

policy, and then on the other hand you're hammering us

every night in Al-Jazeera, and not just hammering us, but

in some cases giving voice to individuals who are really

inciting what is essentially violence.

MR. ROTHKOPF: So undermining the Muslim

Brotherhood and other groups that have been destabilizing.

MR. PETRAEUS: It's -- in that case it's more so

than that. I mean these are other issues -- and then they

do certainly have given harbor to Hamas to Muslim Brothers

to the Taliban. Of course we asked them to take the

Taliban that was part of the negotiations when we had some

hope that we could actually negotiate something with them

and we do need to remember that. They also took the Hamas

leader actually at the request of Israel as well as the

United States as I recall. So these be some nuance here,

but this is a significant dispute. There is foundation

for it and it's going to -- we've got to get the

temperature down and then in -- avoid the situation of

putting a still relatively new leader of a country so

firmly backed into a corner that there is no way out for

31

him.

MR. FEAVER: Two quick responses.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Quick, yeah.

MR. FEAVER: There is militant Islamist

terrorism that's Sunni-based as he said, but there's also

militant Islamist terrorism that's Shia-based and that was

left off the question --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Sure. You bet.

MR. FEAVER: And General Petraeus addressed

that. Iran through Hezbollah, through the Quds force,

major purveyors of terrorism and instability in the

region, and we have to be -- we have to address both

second -- we have a strong interest in seeing the Saudi

regime reform, we do not have an interest in cracking the

regime and collapsing it. And if you think it's been bad

that Saudi has been a source of instability in the past,

crack the regime and see what happens and it'll be a lot,

lot worse. So we have to --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Yeah.

MR. FEAVER: -- work with them on a reform path,

but not in a way that would crack the regime.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Brief.

MS. IOFFE: Very quickly, as horrible as

terrorism is, I think we often let ourselves get a little

bit too -- we become too captive to it because it's

spectacular, it's sexy, and what's weird to me about this

administration is, you know, the obsession with ISIS as if

it's an existential threat to the U.S. which it's not,

while cozying up to Russia which actually could be an

existential threat, so --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, we could take it a step

further which we actually did in our podcast last week, do

any of the experts on this stage think that there is any

terrorist group that could impose the kind of suffering or

32

actually death tolls on the United States that the GOP

health care bill could.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

MR. FEAVER: I do foreign policy. I'm a foreign

policy guy. I --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, you know, I think that's

the response of a lot of foreign policy guys, but national

security as George Kennan would have pointed out begins

with the example you set at home, and the last two or

three paragraphs of the long telegram talk about that, and

the reality is you can harm your national security by

weakening the weakest at home, by killing people at home

with bad policies and so forth, and if you say I'm going

to go out and fight a couple of thousand potential threats

out in the world and I'm going to turn my back on a group

of people at home and weaken yourself at home, that's a

national security issue. I see some hands, what I'd like

to see is a hand from a woman.

SPEAKER: (inaudible)

MR. ROTHKOPF: I'll come back to you, but I want

to see a woman.

MR. FEAVER: Over there.

MR. ROTHKOPF: There we go, okay, over there.

SPEAKER: Thank you. So to follow up on the

national security risk it's a little concerning to me that

we're glossing over climate change and Trump's erratic

behavior as per his tweets because those seem to me to be

huge, huge national security risks?

(Applause)

MR. ROTHKOPF: Julia, start with you.

MS. IOFFE: Oh, that's what I was saying is that

33

the erratic nature of this President, and his lack of a

policy as opposed to a unified message, there's no unified

message, but there's also no unified policy because of how

erratic he is. This is all very concerning and

destabilizing all over the world.

MR. FEAVER: So climate change is a big issue,

but there is a reasonable debate about what's the best way

to address it, and I think net-net they -- it may have

been a mistake to pull out of Paris given all of the other

balls he has up in the air, but the critique of the Paris

agreement has merit to it and needs -- and so I wouldn't

dismiss that as mere impulsiveness on the part of the

administration.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, on the other hand when the

President the United States says climate change isn't real

and says that it's a hoax made up by the Chinese and seems

to not be interested in science --

MR. FEAVER: Well, that's what he said during

the campaign. He has not said that since --

(Laughter)

MR. FEAVER: -- to my knowledge. So --

MS. IOFFE: He said he's sorry, right?

MR. FEAVER: So -- but on the behavior, we don't

know this administration has not been tested with a crisis

where the events -- crisis that they didn't create, I mean

there have been some message crisis, but they haven't --

not the kind like an EP-3 (phonetic) where the thing could

-- which the Bush administration had the first year or the

Kashmir problem in the first year, and of course President

Obama presided over many, that's when you know whether the

mettle of the President and his capacity or her capacity

to respond wisely in the moment, and we haven't seen one

of those yet.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Well, but that's the question.

Let me ask you guys that directly.

34

MR. FEAVER: Right.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Julia's addressed it directly. I

talk to lots of world leaders, travel around, I can tell

you in all of my life doing this, it never once came up,

the question whether or not the President of the United

States was fit to serve or whether or not the President

the United States was actually mentally ill, and in the

course of the past 6 months, it's come up every couple of

days from senior leaders around the world, do you think

the President the United States is fit to serve as

President?

MR. FEAVER: General Petraeus?

(Laughter)

MR. PETRAEUS: As I used to say in uniform, that

sounds like a policy question.

(Laughter)

MR. PETRAEUS: And I -- look, I think it's

immaterial. Again what I'm focusing on is the team. No I

-- no, I --

MR. ROTHKOPF: Give him a chance to explain.

MR. PETRAEUS: Let me explain. You know,

pronouncing yes or no I don't think that changes a darn

thing. What I'm pointing out is that around him he has a

very good team. They've been slightly tested a few times.

I think again the use of chemical weapons was one of those

and I think they did better than was done the last time

when there was an explicit red line already in existence

stated on multiple occasions. Again I think a lot of the

policies that have been pursued so far look there's all

kinds of discordant stuff. Bibi Netanyahu sitting there

and President says one state to state and whatever they

want.

(Laughter)

MR. PETRAEUS: We're back to the two-state

35

solution. Again I talked about China, you know, one --

we're back to the to the one China and we actually have

strategic dialogue. By the way I don't think it is at all

bad that a President of the United States talks to another

leader even if that leader has many conflicting objectives

at all. I believe with Henry Kissinger that you should

have strategic dialogue with your adversaries and I

believe it's very good to start it, so.

MR. ROTHKOPF: Henry by the way today was in

Moscow meeting with Putin and they just released pictures

of that today.

MR. FEAVER: So here's --

MR. PETRAEUS: So let me finish this so I could

though. I identified climate, I said that right out of

the barrel. Now let's though consider the withdrawal. I

think it is hugely significant symbolically and I regret

that as an American. I do not think it actually

substantively will change whether or not the United States

actually meets its goals or not. Let's remember we made

the goals ourselves and that could be a critique of the --

from its different perspectives and I think you meant as

did the other countries, and -- but it again I think there

was a lot of very, very important symbolism in that and

just the sheer recognition that this poses a very

significant problem to the world I think was very, very

important. This is where checks and balances come in as

well, and I think a lot of people have been looking at the

importance of states which have been the ones that have

sued the President, of municipalities, of business firms

and so forth, and I think again we will meet our climate

goals at the end of the day. I certainly wish that we

were continuing to lead it as we were. By the way we

don't come out of it till 2020 anyway and who knows what

happens before then?

MR. FEAVER: So here's how I -- I signed -- as

I'm a Republican I signed all of the letters that were

circulating by Republican foreign policy specialists

critiquing Trump, so I signed the one in March, I

circulated another one in March, I wrote volumes of

critique of Trump on foreign policy and elsewhere and I

36

signed the one in August and that's the letter I think

that most angered the President was the August letter. So

I was a strong critic and I voted for Ben Sasse, so I did

not vote for the President, but that doesn't matter

because he became my President because the electorate

chose him and you can argue the majority chose Hillary

Clinton --

MR. PETRAEUS: That's my point.

MR. FEAVER: -- but the electorate under the

laws of this land chose him to be my President. So now

he's flying the plane and before that I was critiquing him

as pilot, but now I'm on the plane with him as the pilot

and my friends -- I have many Republican friends who are

still happy to shoot spitballs at him from the coach

seats, and I'm thinking that may feel good to do that, but

that's not necessarily helping him fly the plane and so I

think that there's a moral duty on people like General

Petraeus, myself, anyone else who would have friends in

there who have some influence, we have to help them to

help them succeed and that's my view.

(Applause)

MR. FEAVER: If they -- if we --

MR. ROTHKOPF: We've got 2 minutes here --

MR. FEAVER: Okay.

MR. ROTHKOPF: And lest we fall into the

tradition of having men filibuster panels --

MS. IOFFE: I had a --

MR. ROTHKOPF: I'd like Julia to have an

opportunity to talk and pose a question.

MS. IOFFE: To filibuster. I have a question,

so you've kind of disqualified yourself with the letters,

right, but General Petraeus, you were in the running for a

while to serve as Secretary of State. Knowing what you

know now about this administration and how it works, if

37

the spot should ever open up is it something you would

ever want to do.

MR. PETRAEUS: No, look, I would have and I

never got quite to that stage, we were approaching it, I

mean at one time it was, you know, it was going to happen

tomorrow and I said, well, we did need a last conversation

because there are some conditions that I would want to

have and those conditions would be very considerable. By

the way they would include clearance of messaging. You

can't -- you cannot keep going on like this, and so, you

know, I was actually approached to be considered as a

national security advisor. I first said, no way, we'd

been down the road, things had been developing, I had some

concerns. And then (inaudible) came back again and again

and so I had conditions. And you know, I think that's

certainly one reason why I'm not the national security

advisor. But, you know, at the end of the day -- I've

been in the Oval Office where everybody else is filing out

and avoiding eye contact with you because they know the

President's about to sit down with you and ask you that

question which is I'm asking you as your President and

Commander-in-Chief to, you know, in that case to deploy to

Afghanistan and take command of the International Security

Assistance Force. And my response was the only answer to

that can be yes.

Now, I think in a case like this you'd have very

detailed conversations about conditions and about

processes and about authorities for hiring and firing and

for again communications on foreign policy topics et

cetera, et cetera, but I think at a certain point again I

do think, you know, we have to do what we can to try to

help this President even if people are critical of him.

MR. ROTHKOPF: I wish --

(Applause)

MR. ROTHKOPF: -- that we had time for lots more

questions and perhaps you can ask some questions after

we're done, but I have to say one thing, you know, I've

spent my whole life working the foreign policy world, and

one of the things that has always struck me about it is

38

that most of the people regardless of policy in the

foreign policy national security communities have a common

goal which is to advance U.S. national interests as they

see it best done. And the discussion that usually takes

place is civil and substantive and of a high level of

quality and quite different from the political discussion

that takes place. And I think it's really important to

reawaken that spirit and I give a lot of credit to the

Aspen Institute and to the people on this panel because I

think that's exactly what they did, an informed,

thoughtful discussion offering multiple perspectives on

critical issues. Please join me in thanking them --

(Applause)

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