institution that's dedicated to helping prevent and mitigate violent conflict abroad.

it's really an honor and a pleasure this morning to host a conversation with ambassador david hale on his new book. american diplomacy toward lebanon, lessons in foreign policy and the middle east. when you hear the catchphrase seasoned diplomat that's used to describe someone with deep experience, navigating the labyrinth he and political shows and complex negotiations in -- in distant lands, the name that first comes to mind is ambassador david hale. the ambassador is a career foreign service officer and started in 1985. his postings have taken him from north africa and the persian gulf to the labonte and south asia. ambassador hale was promoted to career ambassador in 2018. this is the highest rank in the u.s. foreign service. ambassador hale has been the ambassador to pakistan, lebanon and jordan. as well as a special envoy for

middle east peace. more recently, ambassador haley served as the under secretary of state for political affairs. he was responsible for the day-to-day management of all regional and bilateral policy issues and for the regional and functional bureaus at the state department. ambassador hale's book on lebanon, deeply complex country with enormous geopolitical significance provides us with a rich and timely resource for broader lessons about u.s. engagement in the middle east and also about contemporary american diplomatic tradecraft. these lessons have come at a critical moment. we were just talking about this in the green room. we have a war in gaza, war in ukraine, crisis in haiti, war in sudan, instability of us the world and tensions are rising in the south china sea with one of

our near nuclear peers. if we needed to learn lessons about how to do american diplomacy better, this is the moment to do so. to elicit these rich perspectives, we are very privileged to extend a warm welcome to another seasoned diplomat and foreign policy expert, ambassador ed gabriel. he is a member of u.s. ip's board and will be guiding today's conversation, gentlemen. >> thank you all for coming today. the u.s. institute of peace is delighted to have a discussion with ambassador hale this morning and his new book. american diplomacy toward lebanon, lessons in foreign policy in the middle east. david served more than nine years and lebanon in three different posts including u.s. ambassador there and most

recently, the third-highest ranking position in the state department undersecretary for political affairs. in his book, david explores the legacy of u.s.-lebanon relations , focusing on the key episodes that started with the country's independence up through the syrian civil war. i got a copy of the manuscript before the book came out. i have about 300 stick comes in that book. on important things that them passengers -- than ambassador hale said. i just found the book a must read for anyone involved in middle east/foreign policymaking and the wider region. he underscores the most, the

indispensable ability of the united states during its most tumultuous times. also the intransitive of the u.s. as well. he goes on to talk about and predicts the destabilizing force of iran in the region. welcome, david. mr. hale: thank you. mr. gabriel: let me begin with a few icebreaker questions if i may. i'd like to set the context for today's discussion with two fundamental questions. why did you write the book? in other words, what is it you want the reader to know? the second question is why in your view should lebanon matter to the united states? mr. hale: thank you very much for the very kind introduction and thanks to all of you for being here and your interest in this topic. i wrote the book because lebanon had been a big part of my life, not just the nine years i lived there over 25 years but for

other reasons, people i knew, events that happened in my career elsewhere involving lebanon, it has played a significant role for me and i'd like to say for young diplomats, it's a great place to be an apprentice because in a lot of countries, when you are more junior, you don't really do the normal diplomatic functions you might think of as an ambassador. in lebanon, you do because all these different factions and there are 18 different religious committees in lebanon, all of them want their own relationship with the united states. all of them are clamoring for attention and implements with the american embassy. inevitably, you are drawn in as a young officer into those conversations so you have to learn quickly how to conduct yourself and all of this is under the microscope of the media, even our young officers find themselves like it or not under media attention. it was a great education for me and i wanted to share some of that with readers because i also

felt that over time, there is a lot of things america did well and a lot of things that didn't go well that may or may not have been america's responsibility but there were lessons to be learned in the conduct of our foreign relations there.your second question was the significance of lebanon. this really comes down to geography in many ways. geography, i'm sure everyone is room is familiar with but to remind them, lebanon is a very small country, the size of connecticut wedge between israel, traditionally america's closest friend of the middle east and syria often our most hostile antagonist. demographically because of these 18 different religious communities, every cross current in the middle east, religious, cultural, political, economic, educational ideas of politics and what have you and language are woven into lebanon and repackaged and exported again. many of these sects seek to have

some kind of partner outside of lebanon in order to gain security or influence inside lebanon to enhance their power weather is this sunny muslim community seeking relationships with saudi arabia or relationship with iran and christians looking to the west. that is often a very positive makes but sometimes a very combustible mix as well. mr. gabriel: in your book, i come away with one word, isolation. can you describe for us the themes outlined in your book and the six episodes you describe about u.s. involvement in lebanon, please? mr. hale: i chose six episodes as a device in order to organize the book. these are six periods when there was a relatively coherent american policy series of events that i can unpack and describe. i started with the independence movement.

it's a very little-known chapter of american involvement in lebanon. the united states was instrumental in compelling the french who said they were going to grant independence to lebanon but everything they could to not do it by having special privileges for military access and so forth to lebanon. fdr put his foot down. he insisted that degaulle pullout and they did. in 1958, when 14,000 marines were sent by eisenhower to draw a line in the middle east between the west and he thought soviet domination through the internationals movement but in addition to the 14,000 marines, he sent one diplomat. the marines didn't have to shoot in anger but having 14,000 marines behind you as an american ambassador is pretty good. he was able to resolve the civil war underway their in lebanon to our satisfaction.

the civil war began in the 70's and we sent an envoy to establish redlines between israel and the syrian troops that have moved into lebanon. and the 80's which were an unhappy period where reagan sent in 1400 marines in order to help the israelis extricate themselves from beirut, reminiscent of the situation in gaza today. then eric mandate and our mission got muddied. we stayed too long and the marines ultimately became a target of iran and hezbollah. into the 90's, we focused on the syria first strategy which we subordinated our interest in lebanon in pursuit of what we thought would be a peace deal between israel and syria that never occurred. hezbollah gained a great deal of influence during that time and syria and finally the freedom agenda in the 2006 war which has lessons for israeli overreach and how you extricate yourself

from war and how do you deal with asymmetrical powers and how do you deal with a proxy that hides behind civilians in a way that can enhance deterrence and security. the themes of the book, you mentioned isolation which is probably the primary theme. the primary take away from our involvement in lebanon is that we find ourselves for usually good reasons getting very deeply involved in lebanon. often to protect a friend like israel, we would then overreach and it was complicated. in the words of phil habib whenever great envoys in lebanon, we would drop it like a hot potato and find ourselves in withdrawal and neglect with moments of extreme involvement would be followed by long periods of absence. my argument overall in the book and for us and policy in general and the middle east is we should do neither.

the peaks of extreme involvement usually and unhappily. we shouldn't reach that high but also the valley of neglect so there is a constant level of reasonable and rational engagement to protect our interests. the conclusion of the book, i talk about problems of three sets of people, problems with ourselves in washington, the conduct of our foreign policy, problems with their friends, typically israel in dealing with lebanon and problems with their enemies which was syria now iran. the most interesting parts of the problems in ourselves is the self absorbed, self created difficulties we have that had to do with the fact that we are a democracy. as a democracy, we have trouble with staying power. i go back to the isolations.

our enemies stay. our enemies don't usually leave office except feet first. our presidents come and go and our policies change as they should. they should always be a response to the needs of the american people and response to changing interest and changing facts. but they shouldn't necessarily be contradictory every 2-4 years and particularly in our policy toward karen, that is one of the major -- toward iran, it's the lack of persistence and endurance, patient in dealing with adversaries in the middle east. it's a hallmark of american policy. the problems with their friends and there are lots of things in the book about bureaucratic games that people play in this town that undercut our own policies like the state department not getting with the program for the white house, the white house feeling the state department is not with the program and we should have our own back channel, this is a constant theme throughout our involvement in lebanon.

it's very unfortunate. the problems with their friends is if you are a country like israel you don't want to live in the shadow of a threat from your neighbor but your neighbor has all the means to continue to be a threat to you, how do you deal with it? what we found in the case of lebanon is we were often in a situation of allowing israel to complete its military campaigns at that moment, try to advise them on how to extricate. how do you bring about a diplomatic approach that can bring this conflict they started to an end? a classic example is 2006 with condi rice observing in the archives that the israelis didn't know what they were trying to achieve in the 2006 war so they didn't know how to declare victory. if you don't know what your goal is commute don't know how to end so that became a primary goal of condi rice at that moment was defining success or at least an

end. also problems with our enemies and this comes to the question of today's news. even the 1980 -- 83 when the marines were bombed, to american embassies camaro marines were killed in quick succession and ronald reagan who is remembered rightly is one of the toughest of our presidents when it came to foreign policy in use of force did actually nothing. there is no retaliation for all those marines or the american diplomats of our lebanese staff. there was a lot of talk inside the nsc about attacking the iranian revolutionary guard. we've been able to prove they did it but there was no attack. i can get into all the bureaucratic's between dod and state in the nsc that led to that result. that was the beginning of the problem. that was the first point of hezbollah. if you are an iranian leader and you observe this behavior

pattern, were not only did we not respond to that against the iranians, we didn't respond against hezbollah and we started taking innocent american citizens, professors, journalists hostage off the streets of beirut. we did the iran-contra deal and try to do a bargain. right through the history of the iranian-american relationships in which we really didn't hold anyone accountable on their end and i think it should be no mystery why they been able to gain the level of influence they have in the middle east today. in beirut, baghdad, damascus, the iranians basically can call the shots. at least on things that matter to them. that's not our fault but our inability to respond to this threat contributed to it. mr. gabriel: thank you. this spasmodic approach that you are describing is evidence i

think in respect to the current israeli-a mosque-gaza war. they are talking now about lurch back to the two state solution after it being dormant for so long. how do you rebuild consensus to mystically and internationally toward a two state solution? what would be your advice to the biden administration? mr. hale: the two state solution is something that many in this room toiled on, myself included, for many years. i was a middle east peace envoy that served george mitchell in that role and when he retired, i replaced him for two years. i worked very hard with abbas and netanyahu at that time was prime minister as well. even then, the ingredients first two state solution were very hard to identify and bring together and create something new. after i left office, john kerry

as secretary of state brought enormous energy and brainpower to the issue. after one year, he found he could not get a breakthrough on a two state outcome and there's been no serious effort since then. i would go back to my theme of spasms and oscillations. if you believe that it two state outcome is essential for stability in that part of the world, then you need to not neglect that goal. for a dozen years which has been the case and wonder why when you go back to it, it's even harder. the climate in the region before october 7 was not particular conducive to this. god help us now. how you can create public support on either side for the kind of compromises needed, the reason we couldn't get an agreement during the obama years either through mitchell or john kerry is we could not bridge the

gap between sovereignty and security needs. sovereignty for the palestinians on territory but the security needs of the israelis and we tried multiple ways. we had everyone you could think of on the security on our side coming up with creative ideas and all kinds of offers of technology that we were prepared to make none of which could square that circle. after october 7, you thought it would be easier? does one think the israeli public will be more inclined to compromise? the opinion polling i see is that the overwhelming majority of israelis do not accept the two state solution and believe that hamas would take over the west bank. i'm not saying that's correct but that is a reality that has to be dealt with if we want to climb back into a negotiation that has any chance of success. the last thing that you want to do is launch a negotiation that will fall flat within weeks.

that would lead and it did. mr. gabriel: are you saying stay away from putting together a two state day after solution or what's your advice? mr. hale: i don't think we can walk away from a two state solution. if the united states were to state they no longer believed in that, it would have ramifications for interest that would be very negative but i don't believe we can just jumpstart that process overnight. if i were in office now, i would be advising a couple of smaller steps in gaza to be working on. people talk about reform of thepa as if changing the prime minister would be we've got a new pa. it goes deeper than that. inside gaza, we could be doing things to help reestablish security, maritime interdiction operations, things that can convince the israeli public their security needs are being taken seriously.

the better performance in sinai against the tunnels, ramping up humanitarian assistance. economic strategies and in terms of governance, duchess thank you and wave the magic wand and have a state emerge. you have to build it up from beneath. in a place like gaza, there are neighborhood associations, there are business associations, doctors, educators, people who have credibility at the neighborhood level because they survived and they serve their people and they are not political. those people should be entrusted to begin to govern their neighborhoods and talk about what it is they want in the long run. the two state solution is talked about as if it's something coming from outside whether it's ramallah or washington or europe. it's got to be organic. right now, i don't see how you do that except by starting at the most basic level with whatever remains after this campaign is over. mr. gabriel: do you think part

of the reason for the biden administration focusing among other things on the two state solution is that it's partly to address the domestic audience who are very much against what's going on in israel today? mr. hale: no doubt and that's legitimate. we are a democracy so we have domestic politics to balance our foreign policy. it has to be enlightened self-interest. i would hope that once the shock and horror of what we see on our evening news or social media every day, once that has stopped that we can have a more rational conversation about was really going to help build enduring peace. launching negotiations on a two state outcome next week is going to fail. that's going to set back the entire concept for quite some time. you have to build toward it and that requires education and requires educating people --

it's almost been a generation since we've had a serious peace effort on our part. you have to educate the public as to what it entails and what will be the american commitment to this. if we are going to sponsor talks, that has to be some expectation on our part that we can contribute to the outcome of peace, not just economically but i talked about security being a major need in the future. mr. gabriel: we will come back to the israel-lebanon border and a second but let's talk about iran. it's one of the most important things you discuss in your book. you suggested that all roads lead through tehran when it comes to lebanon and the greater middle east. what you think the pressure points can be on iran to change their behavior? what can the united states do to change that behavior? mr. hale: since 1979, the

iranian revolution, american presidents and congress and try to most everything in the national security playbook to change iranian behavior and none of it has really worked very well. the only time we've actually got something we wanted which was jcpoa was a combination of sanctions that were significant but focused on a very specific goal which was getting into that nuclear deal. they were effective also because they were signed onto by a wide assortment of countries that had influence on iran like russia, china, europe and the united states. even that had a pretty limited focus. that was the reason why the trump administration walked away from it. now i would say that we have to reestablish deterrence. we wake up every morning and the iranians or their proxies of done something to us or our

allies that we react to. that's not a deterrent. deterrent is evaporated. to reestablish deterrence, you have two assume massive economic pressure on iran. the oil sanctions to my knowledge are not being implemented. we can do that and we did do it and we should return to that. we should be doing much more to prevent the export of arms by iran to various countries including russia. we should be doing everything we can to sever the conductivity between the regional proxies and iran. it's going to be controversial because of what we just seen but i've been advocating since his war started that if you just want to go after the proxies and not after the source of the problem, the master of these

proxies, we will never have in and to this kind of violence and instability. it might stop for a while and it will come right back. we have to take conflict to the source. they iranians have to feel the pain. i'm not advocating for iran and the unit night it stays to go to war in iran but there is a lot more we can do as we saw yesterday, to make iranian leaders pause and think twice about their activities, they have to pay a price. on our side, we have to be prepared to take a risk of escalation. if you want to maintain a great power position, you have to also be prepared to pay a price. mr. gabriel: in retrospect and given iran's nuclear, was it a mistake for trump to walk away from that deal? mr. hale: it's a kind of a hypothetical because he did and now the timetable and the biden

administration came into office and pledged to read -- to return to the deal and the iranians didn't cooperate. the whole timetable and structure is no longer very rational. i would cast the question differently. as a affectional diplomat, i was capable of defending any policy that was thrown my way. i obviously can now voice my opinion and i do. the point is, any policy toward iran whether it's maximum pressure which was the trump administration's definition of its policy or whether it's engagement negotiation strategy on the last part of the obama administration in the first two years the biden administration, you have to stick to it. you can't judge by what happens in 18 months. a maximum pressure strategy of sanctions by definition will not change behavior in 18 months. it may never have and we don't know but that has to be persistent.

when i -- our policies have to be bipartisan. i am a hard runner -- a hardliner on iran but i would give up 20% of it bought me 40% of the u.s. congress to join the other part of it. then we could stick to it and test it. mr. gabriel: this stick to it of nest, why didn't trump stick to it and build upon it when he took office? would that have been a better approach? mr. hale: he came to office convinced that it was not a good deal primarily in my opinion because the iranian behavior in the region which jcpoa did not address. we would not have had the coalition i mentioned agreeing on the regional behavior on iran. they only agreed on one significant thing which was the nuclear program. the thinking in the obama administration was that if you got that nuclear deal, then the

moderates in iran would start to have more influence and we can start to work on moving iran toward a more moderate direction. that was a complete fallacy. the moderates were not particularly strong and were sidelined in the irgc and that element gained more traction in the middle east. that was the situation i think the trump administration saw and tried to address when they came to office. mr. gabriel: do you think maybe when it comes to lebanon, we are looking too much through their prism of iran's role in the region? that prompts the u.s. to exceed two a week lebanese group of leaders in government. what is your view of that? mr. hale: if you take time to look at lebanese history, you will see that lebanon is a weak country. it doesn't really have the

coherent state because of these factions, the state was designed deliberately to be weak. everyone of the major factions has a veto on his power so they can do almost nothing particular he at times of crisis. any element in that makes that's prepared to use arms will have the upper hand. since the end of the civil war when all the other factions agreed to disarm, the syria and iran was able to occupy the south but it ended in 2000. there's is really no pretext anymore. the arms remain and there is no force prepared or willing to remove the arms. 1701 was about disarming has bliss was not a mistake to look at lebanon through the prism of iran. it would be misleading not to identify that. there are other prisms that are important that we should not lose sight of but that is one of the major fault lines in lebanon today.

mr. gabriel: thank you, david. let's move back to israel-gaza. as we observe the consequences following the october 7 atrocities, there appear to be some important parallels with earlier instances in u.s. policy engagement in lebanon. give us some key takeaways that you see in this regard? mr. hale: the obvious parallels are the israeli invasion in 1982 and strategy to basically wipe away the plo infrastructure leadership and ability to use lebanon as a base at that time. then a more ambitious strategy to push the syrians out and also to see the election of a new president of lebanon who would be inclined to normalize relations with israel.

it's huge overreach. in 2006, and accidental war, 82 was a war by design but 2006 was an accidental war that began. both sides look in the as it being a mistake. it was devastating but again, you had an israeli overreach where they had difficulty identifying what the target was. in 1982, they couldn't really get at arafat because they were deeply embedded in west beirut, one of the densest -- densest capitals that exist with tunnels and in basements. they decided to adopt a strategy of putting pressure on the civilian population. if anyone had a degree in psychology, they should have realized it was a guaranteed way to bring the lebanese public on the palestinian leadership together rather than the opposite. many lebanese at the time as the

war was beginning were very angry at the palestinian leadership for taking refuge in their midst. by the time that caesar was over, this is what we had to deal with and i'm the side of the palestinians. the situation between reagan and prime minister victim became strict -- begin was stressed out. reagan was constantly telling begin to stop and he said they weren't doing anything so he lied. those are israeli shells. it became very stressful relationship between the united states on the israeli leadership and ultimately, we were able to prevail but not until the israelis pretty much finished the operation. in 2006, again, we had basically two strains in our government, condi rice who felt she was operating based on guidance from

president bush to bring the war to an end and you have vice president cheney back channeling to jerusalem, don't stop. when contee says the president believes xyz, don't believe her. the vice president understands better. she had to go back to crawford in texas and it all got laid out in front of the president. he slept on it overnight and he wrote handwritten instructions to backup condi rice. he said there's too much at stake in my freedom agenda because he was trying to promote democracy in lebanon, we have to bring this war to an end. that's when she was able to really mobilize and work with the french to bring about a cease-fire. mr. gabriel: great insight, thank you. we talked last week about how the biden administration is doing a pretty good job up until now with de-escalation on the lebanese-israeli border.

there is good work with presidential envoy hochstein. this week has changed all that. there's been more bombings, they have been previously in beirut and now the iranian embassy in syria. what's the chances for a wider war in your opinion, how do you game that? mr. hale: i appreciate you saying wider war because it is a war and gaza is so much worse. it draws our attention when there is something that really spills over. on both sides of the border, there's been essentially a depopulation. the numbers vary but close to 100,000 really's have exact -- have evacuated the north since october. similar not greater numbers of lebanese from the south. this is from a humanitarian perspective, pretty intolerable. then you have the ever present

risk of milk -- of miscalculation. it's the history of war in the history of miscalculations of both of these parties thank they know where the redline is and they think they know exactly how far to push and pull back. they know exactly had to do that, he wouldn't have had the wars we had up until now. i think that is always a danger. there is always an accident that can happen and you might remember the mid-1990's when i'm convinced the israelis did not intend to but they fired upon a place where civilians were taking refuge and the carnage was quite extensive and moved that conflict to a new phase. i was say the risk of escalation is quite high. the problem today is that the level of armament and the sophistication of the armen -- armament that both sides have stockpiled makes the 2006 war look like a tea party. the extent of the hezbollah

ability through highly sophisticate missiles and very simplistic missiles that can go undercover, beneath the various defense mechanisms the israelis have is quite substantial. i think this is holding both sides back. i think there is a good piece i saw a couple of weeks ago that tried to explain why it is the iranians are not unleashing hezbollah more than they are already? i don't know of this is true. there is some compelling argument behind this. it's because they want to preserve the hezbollah capacity. that capacity is iran's deterrence against iranian -- an israeli attack on iranian nuclear facilities. if they can hold a credible threat and if israel attacks their nuclear facilities, has believe -- has believe will be unleashed. i don't know if that's true and there may be some logic to that.

even after yesterday's attack in damascus, there may be a reluctance to let things go in south lebanon. we don't know. it will be us decision made in tehran, not in beirut, probably not in jerusalem. mr. gabriel: given the heightened tension you just described, we talked about, it's safe to assume that any cease-fire in gaza will not automatically create a cease-fire between israel and hezbollah. what do you think the trade of sarver hezbollah? what can we give has bullet or deal with hezbollah that would bring calm to this hairtrigger scenario? mr. hale: there certainly won't be an end to the tension in south lebanon until there is a resolution in gaza. will that be sufficient? i think has below wants to go back to where was before which is the ever present shadow they

can cast over israel. i don't think after rugs over -- after october 7 the israelis will tolerate that. there are statements that threaten an escalation in a widening of the war. our diplomacy has to deal with a new reality means old solutions probably are going to do with a new reality. there are tools we have that we should be working with, 1701. we talked about implementing 1701 since it was passed in 2006 but we haven't really made a serious effort to impose it. that's something i think we will have to think about again. has below, by imposing it, i mean disarming hezbollah and d mills rising the border. that's what 70 no one largely is. that means going back to who is calling the shots. has bullet is part of it but

it's i ran. how do you apply sufficient pressure on iran to put 1701 back into activation? mr. gabriel: there is a lot of worry in lebanon by the government and other people there that has below would get the presidency and get to pick the president in lebanon in exchange for maybe a 10 kilometer buffer zone. with the u.s. position -- what is the u.s. position on that? mr. hale: i am a little bit off message when it comes to the presidency. i don't want to say anything to my lebanese friends that suggests i don't attach importance to the presidency. it is important, it is the highest non-christian position in the country so it's important black community and important for the cohesion of the country and the functioning of a government because without a president, they can appoint a full-time prime minister and without that, he can't get a cabinet going which means they

can address the economic and financial problems as thoroughly would be the case. it's a little bit like walking into a rug merchants shop and saying i want that rug no matter what it costs, let's begin bargaining. that's the west approach to the presidency. we want a president and are not talking about those who but filling the vacancy as if it's more important it be filled than the nature of how and who fills it. it will be a package deal. it's not just about the presidency. it could be about the things you mention like get a deal involving the south, more typically involving the prime minister, the cabinet and other factors. you don't start saying that's the most important thing i want, that just raises the price. i think we should be putting the presidency aside and should not be neglectful of it but for now, there is a war going on and to try to link these together will only further enable has bullet to raise the price.

i would instead focus on bringing this conflict to an end, reducing hezbollah's ability to use its arms to get its political way in lebanon and then start talking about what the lebanese can do, not outside powers, to reconcile their differences to select a president. mr. gabriel: just to get into 1701 a little bit, envoy hochstein is saying i will get what i can get -- i will tech what i can get. can we end hostilities, create a 10 kilometer buffer zone, standup the laf incrementally, even deal with a commitment to deal with infrastructure there so the u.s. is involved not just has below? on its way to hopefully for implementation of 1701. what is your view of that and

what is your view of the chances of getting all the way to 1701 in the next year? mr. hale: if they can achieve that, the administration would achieve a great deal. how are you going to get there is the question. i go back to iran is not the only element in the vision but a very significant central character in all of this. i don't to take on iran policy right now so i don't know how we will change iranian behavior which will be essential. the iranians, if you try to approach a diplomatic solution related to the palestinians, it's the last thing they iranians want. they want to spoil it so how can you stop that? you have to have an iran strategy, not necessarily a lebanon strategy. that is the missing element i see. if those pieces can begin to be put into play, that would be a fantastic platform.

back to my theme in the work about oscillation spasms, we better not have a spasm that has as go away. then all of those elements, will one by one fall apart. mr. gabriel: is it in the u.s. interest to have an iran strategy in concert and in cooperation with collaboration with saudi and some of the other go countries? mr. hale: i think that would be key. one of the things that was happening before october 7 was a hedging strategy by those countries because they no longer had confidence in the integrity of the american security so they needed to make their own deals with iran. we need to turn the tables on the kind of thing. may care allies and friends feel the confidence in the united states approaches means they have to be part of. mr. gabriel: thank you so much for the time. i want to end with a couple of questions on broader lessons in

american diplomatic tradecraft. we are looking to highlight instances of creative u.s. diplomacy. can you unpack for us an example of creative u.s. diplomacy from your lebanon experience and may be across the episodes you highlight in your book regardless if they were successful or not? mr. hale: one of the ones that's less known in washington is a guy named dean brown, foreign service officer, was sent to beirut in 1976 by henry kissinger because we were worried that the syrians were moving in much more overtly in uniform, soldiers into lebanon. that was to present -- to protect the christians against the palestinians. they didn't want the palestinians to have the upper hand in lebanon. as they began to move in, the israelis got nervous.

anything that diminished palestinian power was good but what were the syrians intending to do? kissinger sent brown was very unrealistic instructions. he said wipe out the palestinians and get the syrians out all the way down the list. this is during the cold war. brown got there and he had great credibility because he helped save the kingdom of jordan as ambassador in aman and developed corrupt close relations with hussein and played a key role there. everyone respected brown. brown was there for about a week he went back to henry kissinger, one of our most powerful and sometimes rather difficult secretaries of state. he said my instructions are all wrong. we need to work with the syrians, not against them. as that's the only way we will get we what we want. i need to negotiate with them. i also want to negotiate with arafat. he got a green light on the

first one but the second one, this is 1976, an election year and ford was not prepared to begin a dialogue with arafat. arafat said had to be public so we worked with arafat through the settings but he ended up with a redline agreement that lasted until the israelis got unrealistic eight years later. that was the work of one foreign service officer, frankly, who knew you -- who knew how to use power. mr. gabriel: that brings me to another question for you. one of the last ask you did as undersecretary was go to lebanon after this terrible port blast. your sense of condolence and caring for a people that were really in shock was very much appreciated. particularly in this age of me -- of social media -- how important is that diplomacy on

the ground, personal diplomacy? are we losing it and if it's important, what would you say to bring his back to more of that personal diplomacy? mr. hale: it's absolutely crucial. i had the further advantage of having the nine years i spent in lebanon. it's a small country so you get to know people and bit people get to know you. if i just landed a never been to the country before, i probably would have been at sea. i could sense better because of that experience than i would have otherwise. we landed, it was a long flight and we brought some covid supplies and we went directly to a site that has been -- that had been devastated by the bombing and no one from the lebanese government had been there in the previous week. i didn't what to expect. when i got there, they were very well organized. they have volunteers from lebanese civil society and put

aside their day jobs and reusing their expertise whether it was in health or computer work organizations that help people get back on their feet and get their lives going again. i saw in the audience some friends and particularly children of friends i've known for a long time. i was really proud to see what they were doing. i was making my way back to the car and there was a protest of sorts and i tried to look at it and they said no bailout. they thought i was there with a message from the administration saying it's so bad we will bailout this government and the government was partly accountable for all the corruption and the things that brought lebanon to this point. i walked over to them and i said i agree, we are not going to bail them out. i spent the next day repeating that message. what i was struck by his all the

cynicism we bring to our political analysis of lebanon, it's important to remember they are wonderful people who are victims as much as anyone of what has happened and they need our help. mr. gabriel: very good, thank you, david. let me ask on a personal note, your career is literally spanning the trajectory of u.s. foreign policy positions with a concentration in the middle east but all the way to pakistan and further. can you elaborate on your personal ties to lebanon? how does the country and its many challenges intertwine with your own personal experience? mr. hale: when i arrived in lebanon, i was assigned to lebanon. i had been under various missions. i was in my late 20's and the head of hezbollah just been assassinated by the israelis.

our ambassadors being flown out to safety. we locked ourselves down in the embassy already had more security than you can believe. because of that period i didn't leave the embassy for months. the lebanese are very courteous that they broke down all the barriers we were trying to build not against them but it made it harder to come see us. they wanted to meet the ambassador and they couldn't meet him so they could meet me and that's how we begin these relationships. it's absolutely crucial that we not forget that that is the building block of diplomacy, the personal relationship. mr. gabriel: thank you for such a thoughtful and personal discussion this morning. mr. hale: thank you.

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