Remarks at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Joe, thanks very, very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I must say, Joe, I'm disarmed by the generosity of your introduction. I simply don't know what to say. I guess that's what you mean when you talk about "soft power." (Laughter.)

Actually, I really do know what to say, and that is that I am glad and honored to be here. First of all, this institution regularly supplies my Department and the entire country with talented and motivated graduates, but also for the simple reason that Joe Nye asked me to be here. That's honor enough for anyone who cares about public policy, and especially for someone who cares about U.S. policy towards Asia. In both his public life and his publications, Joe Nye has contributed a great deal to our thinking and actions in that region, and indeed, we arguably have the best relations we have ever had with Japan and China and Joe helped to take us there.

Joe, as you prepare to leave this latest phase of your fantastic career, I think we all look forward to your next move with much anticipation. I have no doubt that you will, as always, make an indelible mark on the life of our nation.

Secretary Powell, who just arrived back from Berlin and the Anti-Semitism Conference last night, Joe, asked me to particularly convey his regards and tell you how much he enjoyed your last dinner together, which we were all together at. So I'm speaking for Secretary Powell as well as for myself and my colleagues in the Department.

Now the subject of this year's Dean's Conference is Decision 2004, which sounds like the lead-in for a nightly news broadcast on CNN or Fox News. Or perhaps Jon Stewart. (Laughter.) It is, of course, an important subject, and certainly timely, and I'm not going to talk about it. Now, that's not out of sheer perversity on my part, not that there's anything wrong with occasionally being perverse. But as we all know, the political season is of necessity reductive. There's a reason they call it "the stump." The messy complexity of reality just doesn't mix with the necessary clarity of the campaign. Now, I'm not passing judgment on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. It is just a fact of life in our democracy. And that was so long before we had to contend with the unblinking eye of the information age.

The truth is, however, that when it comes to the actual foreign policy challenges as well as opportunities this country is facing, clarity can be hard to come by. So I'd like to discuss with all of you today some of the complexity that I believe will be lurking just behind the campaign debates.

Indeed, there's a paradox at the very heart of our foreign policy. We are in an age when the United States enjoys unprecedented preeminence. We've got power, we've got influence, we've got prestige, we've got clout beyond that known in the modern age. And this is true in all respects: economic, military, cultural, political. And yet, our predominance doesn't always bring with it the results we would want. After all, 19 men armed with just box cutters were able to slaughter thousands of our civilians on our soil and strike at the heart of our most powerful institutions. But in the end, it wasn't the box cutters. The 9/11 hijackers were also armed with the knowledge that this is an open country, that there is a vulnerability in the very qualities that make us strong and make us successful as a nation. Moreover, our overwhelming strength seems to fan the kind of friction we see in many Pew polls.

So we have to face the fact that the context in which we are acting in the world has changed and that maybe predominance is not as simple as it seems. On the other hand, the current state of affairs is far more in any nation's interest than the alternatives. A return to great superpower competition with superpower, with nuclear armageddon on the horizon – that's not in anyone's interest. Nor is forcing on the world some other model of the state power, which is based on repression or selective deprivation. And the ideology of destruction, which guides the global terrorist organizations, has nothing at all to offer.

What the United States has to offer the world is a flexible model of governance, one based on principles, such as the equality of opportunity, protection of individual rights, and the rule of law. The non-negotiable demands of human dignity, as the President puts it, which are ultimately accessible and desirable to most people in the world. And indeed, you will also see that reflected in the polls.

The trick is, then, how do you convert that situation into a sustainable international balance of power and, indeed, a balance of peace? I believe the United States will have to work hard to convince the international community that the status quo is something that should be sustained, that peerless American power can be a constructive force. And that requires a new internationalism on our part, one that is based in principle and leadership, precisely the sort of leadership that President Bush has shown. "America is a nation with a mission," he said in his most recent State of the Union Address. "Our aim is a democratic peace, a peace founded upon the dignity and the rights of every man and every woman." And he noted, "America acts in this cause with friends and allies at its side."

Indeed, the United States has a responsibility, or a calling, as our President puts it, to project our leadership around the world through a network of partnerships. Now, I would argue that given the changed context of the times, we've had little choice but to embrace this network of partnerships in order to protect and promote our national interest. And while I know there is a great deal of discussion about the unilateralism of this Administration, look behind that label and you'll see a different reality. As Secretary Powell wrote in a recent Foreign Affairs article; "Partnership is the watchword of U.S. strategy in this Administration." Whether we are talking about the war on terrorism or operations in Afghanistan or operations in Iraq or negotiations with North Korea, the fact is that the nature of the challenges we are facing today requires new thinking and new approaches and an unprecedented degree of international cooperation.

About a month from now, we'll mark the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the battle that Winston Churchill so famously called, "the beginning of the end." And I think we are accustomed to thinking about war and about peace in such linear terms. But our security challenges today are far more circular. In the war against terrorism, for example, it's not easy to discern either the beginning or the end of a battle. We've got to use every tool in our toolkit to wage the war: diplomacy, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and of course, military power. And we are developing new tools as we go.

The international struggle to cut off terrorist funding, for example, which is going on largely in cyberspace, is an essential, ongoing requirement for defeating terrorist organizations, as well as for keeping them from regrouping. Particularly organizations of global reach… Our efforts are going to be no less essential in cyberspace than are the law enforcement measures going on anywhere from Kuala Lumpur to London or military operations in the borderlands of Pakistan or the islands of the Philippines.

And while coalitions have been around as long as warfare, the amorphous quality of this multifaceted struggle means we need international cooperation on a scale we have not seen ever before. And there is certainly a compelling international interest in cooperation. Americans, after all, have not been the only victims of terrorism. As we all know, citizens of more than 90 countries perished in the World Trade Center alone. And terrorist attacks have killed and wounded thousands of people from Australia, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, as well as many other nations. So it is fitting that something on the order of 180 nations have made some contribution to combating terrorism since 9/11.

68 nations are making some contribution in Afghanistan and Iraq alone, where the challenges are particularly circular. Indeed, military operations and reconstruction operations are taking place side by side, with the timeline of war and peace nearly collapsed into a single data point. In both places, we have to secure immediate success in all operations to achieve long-term progress. Now that's a tall order, and it's not something we can do by rote or by ourselves.

In Afghanistan, decades of war exhausted the country and its stability. Any stability became attractive, even the ruthless and horrible stability the Taliban had to offer. Of course, this colossal failure of the state also made Afghanistan a harbor for opportunistic terrorists with deep pockets, as well as an obvious ripe recruiting ground.

In taking the territory back, the challenge from the beginning was not just to send out the military after the Taliban and after al-Qaida, but to deny them their base of support. And that has meant demonstrating to a deeply traumatized society that there is a viable alternative to the Taliban. And the only way to do that is to secure the country and help build a reliable civil society and governing authority. And again, that's no easy task, but you can point to important progress. And that progress ranges from the political coherence of a new constitution, which the Loya Jirga agreed to in January; to the physical coherence of a new Kabul to Kandahar Highway and 1,300 kilometers of secondary roads; to the social coherence of new and rehabilitated schools, health clinics, power plant and irrigation projects. Security is still a challenge, but there is progress in Afghanistan there as well, through the successful training of the Afghan National Army, as well as local law enforcement forces and the presence of international troops across that country.

Now you can say Iraq is similar in many ways, though the urgency of the moment is so much greater. And since, frankly, my Department is set to inherit that particular situation in a mere 61 days, I certainly feel that sense of urgency. I believe our window of opportunity for winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is smaller and their security demands are greater. But the basic challenge remains the same. Military operations and civilian reconstruction are of equal importance. Winning the war there won't do us much good if we lose the peace in the process.

Now there's good news here. We are making considerable progress on reconstruction, and even before we've applied the lion's share of U.S. and international donations. There is a Transitional Administrative Law that spells out a vision for the political future. We are working with the United Nations and the Representative of the Secretary General, Lakhdar Brahimi, to structure an interim or caretaker government that will take sovereignty on July 1st in Baghdad. Power generation and reliability of that generation have exceeded pre-war levels. More communities have access to clean water and paved roads than they did before the war. Millions of children are vaccinated in school with current textbooks, and we've helped create thousands and thousands of jobs.

In this race with time, security obviously remains the essential challenge, and security will require tough choices, choices that won't go away. We either make them now or leave them to a fledgling Iraqi government. Indeed, we should not be surprised at violent factions and foreign imports would step up their operations just as we are making headway in the reconstruction and governance areas.

This progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan is laudable, as well as important. But conceptually, and in our capabilities, we need to better prepare for missions that are both civilian and military in nature, and that involves so many partners with such a wide variety of contributions. Consider, for example, that in Iraq, we not only have soldiers from 34 countries serving alongside our own, but we have Scandinavian forensic experts helping to exhume mass graves. We have a $700,000 in-kind donation of tea and rice from Vietnam and $29 million worth of police vehicles from Japan, among other contributions.

From the command structure and the need for security for those rebuilding schools, we've had to adapt our SOPs, our Standing Operating Procedures, as we went along. And we've had to adapt our people. Our Armed Forces are not necessarily geared in a primary fashion for reconstruction, or for the diplomacy and the statecraft that usually go along with such missions. But our diplomats and our aid workers are not really trained to work in what is called, somewhat euphemistically, "a non-permissive environment," one that requires not only security measures, but also the quick judgment and immediate action of the battlefield. Moreover, these boots and loafers on the ground do necessarily have the habits and structures in place for working together on mutually reinforcing missions. And obviously, the scale and scope of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan are beyond the means of any one country to bear, even one as resource-rich as our own. The survival and the eventual success of Afghanistan and Iraq are in the direct and in the indirect interests of much of the international community, however, which explains why so many countries have chosen to be involved in one way or another.

We're breaking new ground here. And indeed, we have some innovative new approaches. NATO has taken its first significant out-of-area operation by running the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. 17 of the 26 members of NATO are now engaged in a separate or stand-alone coalition in Iraq. Other nations, such as Jordan, are training Iraqi police. They're making contributions from their own territory. In Afghanistan, we have developed the concept of a Provincial Reconstruction Team, which consists of a mix of military, civil affairs, and civilian professionals, composed of and led by various nations. And these are providing both dispersed security and reconstruction support across the country.

Now, are Provincial Reconstruction Teams a viable model for streamlining such sprawling multilateral and military-civilian operations? It's a good question, and one that we need to answer. We need an answer on an immediate and urgent basis for our success in Afghanistan and in Iraq, but also for reasons that go beyond those discreet challenges, even beyond our present war on terrorism.

The nature of the international system has shifted, and I believe we're likely to see more such situations, which seem intractable, but which require an inevitable day of reckoning with the international community. And that day of reckoning is likely to require simultaneous military and civilian stabilization. In real time, you can consider Haiti or Liberia as a case in point. In the near term, we have to consider what will happen next in Sudan, especially as the true scale of the humanitarian disaster in Darfur becomes more obvious. And then there is North Korea, which inevitably will either open to the world and face incredible dislocation in the process, implode with potentially devastating effects, or explode and lash out, which is almost too terrible to contemplate. Indeed, this is one arena where I believe the strong relations that Dr. Nye and many others have worked so hard on with Japan and China have been and will continue to be of tremendous benefit.

For that matter, we have to consider transnational challenges in a similar light. Sometimes it seems as though there is not a country in the world untouched by the A.Q. Khan network, for example, or the illicit trade in human beings, which has become nearly as profitable for international crime rings and as pervasive as trafficking in narcotics.

But it's just not the security challenge that is circular, but also the opportunities of our time. Believe it or not, I agree to some extent with the protestors who were picketing the World Bank and the IMF in Washington last week, in the sense that globalization is producing winners and losers. But we're not talking about a trend that can be stopped, let alone reversed. Indeed, the inequities give us all the more reason to have policies that maximize the benefits of globalization; from a trade policy that raises living standards for as many people as possible, including here in our home; to an aid policy that redirects market failures and distributes new technology, everything from the internet to drug therapies and vaccines for the diseases that still devastate much of the world's population.

So perhaps the answer to the first question I asked, about how to build an international balance of peace, is not just that the United States needs to persuade the rest of the world of the attractions of American power; we need to persuade ourselves. We also need to understand the nature of our own predominance and what it will take to exercise that leadership in a changing, global context.

It is my view that Americans by nature are reluctant internationalists. It's my view that as a nation, we need to get over it. I believe we have to proceed with a certain amount of humility in this endeavor, because it's going to take hard work and many hands to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of our new century.

And Joe, that's another reason I'm so glad to be here today, because we look to this institution to provide some of the hands to do some of the hard work. The Kennedy School has served as a transnational laboratory for these ideas. Your debates and your deliberations help guide us in tumultuous times. The networks you are forming can help bind us together. Moreover, when the campaign is over and it's time to take office, we will be looking to many of you, your intelligence, your training, and your fresh set of eyes, to help us all figure out how to deal with a future we're going to face together.

So Dr. Nye, thanks so much for allowing me to be here. And I'll be glad to try to answer a question or two.

(Applause.)

DR. NYE: Rich, thank you so much. We have time, about 15 minutes, for questions. So who would like to start? Do we have microphones somewhere? There's a microphone. We need a person to go with the microphone. It's hard to see the -- here we are over on this side. Jean Villeau (ph).

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: I was going to say, reluctant internationalists and reluctant questioners. (Laughter.)

DR. NYE: We have a French question from a Kennedy School graduate.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Good afternoon. I trust in English.

QUESTION: Good afternoon. Thank you. (Inaudible.) Thank you very much. My name is Jean Villeau (ph). I come from France, live in Jordan. Worked many years in development and I have been wondering very much about one of the decisions of this Administration. The question is very simple: Why did the Bush Administration decide to dismantle the Iraqi army? I cannot figure this out. Thank you.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: The Iraqi Armed Forces was primarily and obviously a Sunni-dominated organization. It was initially felt that as a symbol of repression of the Saddam Hussein regime, as a symbol of the organ that in many cases put down rebellions and uprisings in various parts of the country that it would be seen as a very welcome move. And initially, every single opinion poll in Iraq -- and they've taken them from about the 1st of May last year -- showed it to be very popular. But as time went on, we have been not as successful as we had hoped in proving to the Sunni minority that they would have a place in the new Iraq; in economics, in politics, in the cultural and even the security affairs of the country. So the decision was made to bring back certain elements of the army. It was, again, Sunni-dominated, who did not have blood on their hands. We're learning as we go, I think is the short answer.

DR. NYE: Yes.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Emily Card (ph), a member of the Alumni Executive Council. How are you?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Thank you.

QUESTION: I'd like -- I hate to ask this question, but what plans do we have if the Mid-East actually disintegrates, as many people are now saying? I mean, what are you thinking of doing next?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Could I ask you repeat? I'm sorry, I've got one ear --

DR. NYE: What if the Middle East disintegrates? What are the plans? What's next? Yeah.

QUESTION: I'm sorry. Okay. You ready?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Yes, I'm good.

QUESTION: Beijing man? (Laughter.) Okay. Since so many people are now saying that we have destabilized the Middle East, what are we going to do if, in fact, whatever we planned didn't work?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: We've spent considerable time -- you may have noticed that two weeks or so ago, in the President's evening address, he announced that he was sending me, among others, out to the Middle East to sort of recalibrate and to re-tie, to the extent possible, our relations with the Middle East.

Look, it would be undeniable to say that one of the factors that is complicating our Middle East -- development of Middle East policy more broadly, has been the inability to get a lasting and durable peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And I would note that President Bush is the first person, first President, to have spoken about two states living side by side. It's a vision that he's trying to bring around.

To think that that's the only cause of our difficulties in the Middle East, however, would be wrong-headed. I believe many of the difficulties that we have with Middle Eastern states are -- as reflected in opinion polls by their populations, revolve around their own frustrations, in many cases, with their own governments, with their own lack of transparency, where corruption inhibits the development of normal economies, and where sclerosis in some cases takes the place of sort of the refreshingness of a changed government. And who -- sometimes it's inconvenient for people to lash out or even speak out against their own governments. It's certainly not inconvenient for them to lash out or speak out against us. I can't put a percentage on it. I don't know how much it's another factor.

What we're trying to do now is entertain the suggestion by Prime Minister Sharon that the Israeli Government will disengage from Gaza and from four settlements on the West Bank. Since 1967, an awful lot of talk -- and I can't imagine how many trees have been killed to write about the problems of the Middle East -- but not one positive step was taken. If the Gaza disengagement happens, it will be the first time that Palestinians have recovered settlements, both in the West Bank and Gaza. It will be the first time since 1967 that the Palestinians will have a border with an Arab state, Egypt, and it will be an opportunity for Palestinians to prove they can be both good neighbors, and they can demonstrate good governance. It's by no means guaranteed, but we're working on all of those things simultaneously.

We will entertain the King of Jordan on Tuesday and Wednesday next week in Washington to further our relationships with Jordan. So in things large and small, we're really trying to tie us together in the Middle East. And we're not going to lose in Iraq so I don't think you have to worry about that.

QUESTION: Good afternoon, and I'm George Morrelson (ph) from Toronto and it's a pleasure to meet you. And certainly, you and Secretary Powell are doing a terrific job in the Administration. I want to commend both of you.

Where now the U.S. is seen to be using more multilateral mechanisms for engagement, there has been a debate, a criticism, in fact, that there is not enough debate and there's too much of silencing of critics. Together with this visibility of more use of multilateral instruments, do you see that there also will be more visibility, real or perceived, of more debate and more engagement of critics before policy is formed?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Let me -- the basis of your question -- and by the way, we've got -- what are you doing here? The Prime Minister is in Washington with the President today. And they're dining as we are.

I think there has been a certain amount of debate that is unrecognized. Everything -- when we're accused of not having debate, it revolves around ICC, Kyoto, and the decision to go to war in Iraq. Let's be clear about the decision to go to war in Iraq. How many debates have been held and how many Security Council resolutions existed? How many times had the Iraqis made a fool of the deliberations of the Security Council?

Secretary Powell, at the orders of the President, last September and October -- or before the war, went to the Security Council and got Resolution 1441 unanimously adopted, which was debated fully, unanimously adopted. And the -- it held that if Saddam Hussein didn't live up to his responsibilities, under all the previous Security Council resolutions, that a vote for 1441 was, in fact, a vote for military action. This was clearly understood by all 15 members of the Security Council, both the perm reps and the elected ten.

We went back one more time to try to get yet another resolution to make it crystal clear to Saddam Hussein and the international community that we were trying to be internationals. We were unsuccessful and we moved forward with a coalition of the winning -- willing.

If you remove, if you will allow my position, at least me to have my position that that debate on Iraq was one that was fully and completely aired. You go back to the ICC and Kyoto, where we are considered to be unilateral. So there was no secret. I think what surprised about our position -- I think what surprised the international community, that a President in the campaign did what he said he'd do when he came to office. This was perhaps the biggest surprise for our international friends.

The direct answer, as we move forward, can you expect more debate? I think there's no question that we're going to have it. We will be talking about a UN Security Council resolution on Iraq as we move forward to 1 July. I think you've seen that we've managed to mend, because of activities on both sides of the water, our differences with some of the primary European nations. I'm very happy that President Bush will be visiting Normandy on D-Day and visiting with Mr. Chirac. So I think we're well on our way to moving forward.

But we're going to have arguments, whether it's with Canada or whether it's with France or anywhere else. And you'd better be thankful that we're having arguments, because the day we stop having arguments -- and I think it's kind of like two parents who always agree -- the child suffers.

QUESTION: Craig Cardon (ph) from Arizona. There is a perception that there is an absence of condemnation from the Muslim world for terrorist acts perpetrated in the name of Islamic principles. Could you comment on your view as to whether or not that perception is accurate? If not, why not, et cetera?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: It is a semi-accurate perception. If you peel back the layers of the onion and look at individual countries, look at individual leaderships, you will find there is condemnation. If you look at individual clerics, you'll find many of them, including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who says that terrorism is un-Islamic, it's not in keeping with Koranic values or teachings, et cetera. This is true throughout the Arab world.

Where the perception is true, to a certain extent, is when you look at some of the major organs in the Arab world: Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya, where they show one-sided and completely slanted coverage of "heroic martyrs" against the occupation of Israel, for instance, or "heroic martyrs" against the occupation of Iraq, and mention nothing about coalition activities to raise living standards, give jobs, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's a semi-valid perception, but primarily, I believe because of the major -- those two major organs in the Arab world.

QUESTION: Yes, my name is (inaudible) Mansfeld (ph). I'm a local. My question is, what is the basis, upon what basis does this Administration believe that a democracy is feasible in Iraq, when you look at the political history, the social history, the religious history of that part of that world? And those -- there is competing peoples. There is no suggestion that democracy grows naturally. So why is it going to work now?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: By the way, you're not the only local here. I was born in Newton Lower Falls right down the way. (Laughter.) Son of a Boston policeman and proud of it. (Applause.)

We've been developing our fine democracy for almost 230 years and we're not quite where we need to go, given that women only laterally and blacks only laterally got their rights to speak their minds through the ballot box. So no one in this Administration or even the world underestimates the challenge in Iraq.

But as I said in my remarks, and as the President has said, the basic yearnings for freedoms and for basic human rights, and the rule of law, is not something that is limited to Americans or British or French or Canadian, for that matter. It's something that he feels very strongly exists in the breasts of all men and women.

The first thing, in order to develop a democracy, has to be stability. You have to have a stable Iraq. Can I point to half-full glass? You betcha I can. We've had people who have deliberately been trying to bring about civil war. The Jordanian terrorist Zarqawi stated that he wanted to get the Sunni and the Shia fighting each other. It hasn't happened, though there's been, God knows, plenty of violence.

One of the reasons it hasn't happened is because people yearn for stability. And if we can make it clear that everyone will have a place in the Iraq of the future, democracy can develop. But it's not going to develop in time for me to be in office and see it. No one thought it would.

This is also true, to an extent, throughout the Middle East. There's been a lot of discussion of something called the President's Greater Middle East Initiative. And a lot of misunderstanding -- misunderstanding was that our Arab friends thought that this was something that the G-8 and the United States, in particular, would come impose on top of any particular Arab country and culture, and they're all unique and they're all different.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The whole Greater Middle East Initiative is to take advantage of what is going on, to a greater or to a lesser extent, in every Arab country, from Oman to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, it doesn't matter where you look. You're seeing the stirrings of desire for education, particularly among women. You're seeing the beginning of NGOs, which are so necessary for civil societies. You're seeing the tentative footsteps of people looking out and criticizing through, gently in the media, some of their own governments. We want to give some wind to these things which are coming up from the country, because at the end of the day, we believe it does end up in democracy, which as I say, is something that resides in everybody's breast.

DR. NYE: We have last question on the back on the right. Yes, you.

QUESTION: Thank you very much. It's Betsy McGregor (ph), a recent candidate for Nomination for Parliament in Canada, and here also for the Women's Leadership Board meeting this weekend.

I was so pleased to hear your comments on globalization, and while the rising tide lifts all boats, some begin in smaller boats and are left in the smaller boats. And your particular comments on attention to women's leadership role in the waging of peace -- I'm a great admirer, as many present at the Kennedy School are, of Swanee Hunt's work in Women Waging Peace initiative. And I would love to hear your comments on the encouragement of the literacy of young girls and the full-fledged role of women's leadership in the reconstruction of a peaceful world.

(Applause.)

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: It's interesting, I think, to note that from day one in Afghanistan and day one following the end of major hostilities in Iraq, that a key feature in every one of the President's discussions and his senior leadership has been the need to empower women. Different in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, they were not educated, not empowered, and not seen. This is why we, frankly, forced upon the Loya Jirga the necessity to deal with women, to seek women in the deliberations, and give them a voice.

The same is true in Iraq. You have a different situation. You had a much more educated population because so many men had been killed in the various adventures and wars of Saddam and pogroms of Saddam Hussein that women were the educated ones, but they were not empowered beyond having an education. It is absolutely essential, in our view, that they be given a role commensurate with their status in society, which should be completely and totally equal.

This is also a key plank of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, where one of the three elements -- transparency, anti-corruption and education, particularly for women in the Middle East, is the, I think, third element or pillar of the President's policy, because we can't envision a world that doesn't respect human rights equally: all ethnicities, all genders, all ways of life.

Thank you. Thanks, Joe.

DR. NYE: Thank you so much.