Notes from Aspen Strategy Group

Notes from Aspen Strategy Group US Policy on Arab Revolutions TJP summary: Plenty of different opinions on what was done right and wrong. No consensus. Indyk: syria will spill into Bahrain and KSA (Saudi). We should have moved earlier. KSA is a BFD. Feaver (ex Bush): BO's obsession w anti Bush (especially wrt Iraq) has unnecessarily limited Administrations ability to engage in Iraq which -as we see now w Syria - is just dumb. Dannzinger (ex Obama Admin): obama has done a remarkable job and the only way he could have done better is if I had held a senior post in the Administration. Kahl (ex Obama Admin) : Feaver is living in a fantsy world. BO couldn't make a SOFA deal w NAM. He tried, but we had no leverage and Iraqis wanted to break sense of occupation. So President went to zero based engagement and now wants to build engagement w Iraq from zero base. Flornoy: Feaver, you make me feel like I lived in a different reality. Did a good job of articulating "lead from behind" strat in Libya. When you consider our national interests in the context of our domestic condition, we did the best we could. Zelikow: what are the top priorities of admin. Defeat AQ and avoid a "pre mature war w Iran; avoid Iraqi civil war - Iraq is moving troops now to west; manage the hot situations in ME. Froman: "lead fom behind" is not admin policy. Leverage our resources and those of our allies. Hadley: now in era of big bets. We need to define our objectives and spot moments when we should lead and take a big bet. Maghan O: advancing our interests w a Lead from behind or a light handed approach will only work if a numner of assumptions are accurate (eg Muslim Bro will moderate; monarchy -KSA- will self reform). These are big assumptions and therefore using a light hand may fail. Agrees w Hadly that there are times we should take a big bet and Iraq would have been an example of that. Indyk: we need to engage more in Syria. It is a regional lynch pin and lead from behind won't work. Feaver: Dannzinger is uncharacteristically wrong. A different approach 4 yrs ago would have left us in better positions in Iran Iraq and Syria. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025797