00:00And that isn't about saving money. It is about ensuring that we are delivering to our people
00:04what they deserve. Seven minutes since we have a second. Makes America stronger, safer, and more
00:08prosperous. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Rubio. We're going to do a round of questions. We'll go
00:14seven minutes since we have a secretary here. And I'm going to start. One of the things that
00:20you mentioned, and admittedly, what we're dealing with here is a large number of subjects. I want
00:27to focus on one that Senator Shaheen and I have worked together on, and that's the Syria
00:33matter. Thank you and the President for suspending or lifting the sanctions on Syria. I think
00:39the next step, and I think you agree with us, that both Syria and Lebanon are opportunities
00:46for us. And we need to explore the opportunities with a careful eye on what's going on to make
00:53sure it stays on track. I think the next step, as far as I'm concerned, as far as moving Syria
01:00forward, is getting personnel on the ground there. And you and I talked about the possibility
01:06of opening the embassy. And I understand that this isn't a classified setting, but can you
01:13maybe describe for us the challenges of opening the embassy, why we haven't done it to this
01:19point, staying within the bounds of the... Yeah, well, it's entirely driven by security
01:24concerns. By the way, we're not, it's not the transitional authorities. We don't think they
01:28would harm us. But there are other elements on the ground in Syria that we have to be able to
01:31protect our... And there are, there are the ability, you don't just have to be able to get
01:35people in, you have to be able to get people out. We have all kinds of requirements that are there
01:39for a reason. If someone is hurt, do you have a medical evacuation plan? Can you secure a facility
01:43from an attack from an armed group, many of whom are still running loose in the country,
01:48unfortunately? It's one of the fundamental challenges the transitional authority is facing.
01:52On the broader point of Syria, I would say it is, when Syria, if you look at the history of the
01:57region, when Syria is unstable, the region becomes unstable. And this has certainly been true after
02:02the Arab Spring led to the Assad rebellion against Assad, and that really destabilized the entire
02:07region. And then it turned Syria, frankly, into a playground for jihadist groups, including ISIS and
02:12others that used it to operate and to destabilize their partners. So you have this change in
02:16December. And my view, which I've discussed with many of you individually, is the bad news is that
02:22the transitional authority figures, they didn't pass their background check with the FBI, okay?
02:25They've got a tough history and one that we understand. But on the flip side of it is, if we
02:30engage them, it may work out, it may not work out. If we did not engage them, it was guaranteed to not
02:35work out. In fact, it is our assessment that, frankly, the transitional authority, given the
02:40challenges they're facing, are maybe weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a
02:46full-scale civil war of epic proportions, basically the country splitting up. The good news is that
02:52there is a Syrian national identity. It is one of the places in the Middle East where Alouis and
02:56Druze and Christians and Sunni and Shia have lived along, and Kurds, have lived alongside each other
03:01underneath the banner of a Syrian identity until it was broken by a butcher, Assad, who pitted them
03:06against each other. So they face a number of challenges. The first is they are dealing with
03:10deep internal distrust in that country because Assad deliberately pitted these groups against
03:15each other. He claimed to be the protector of the Alouis and the Christians and pitted them against
03:19the Druze or whoever else he wanted to, and the result is a deep level of distrust. The second is
03:24the displacement, upwards of six, seven, eight million Syrians living abroad. Very successful, by the way,
03:29in the countries they go to. But they need to come, we need to figure out how we can enable the
03:34transitional authority to create an environment where they come back home, where they can come
03:38back to their homes, where they can help rebuild their economy. But what prompted the president
03:42to move quickly on sanctions, because we had a plan, you know, we engaged with the foreign minister
03:46at the UN here in New York. We gave him a visa to come into the country. We allowed their finance
03:50minister to come to World Bank hearings or meetings here in Washington, D.C. The next step was I was going
03:56to meet with a foreign minister, and some of you may have met with him already at Munich, but I was going to
04:00meet with him in Turkey at the NATO gathering. But the president had an opportunity to meet with
04:05al-Shahra. And frankly, he made a bold decision. I'll do it. I'll meet with them under the Saudis
04:10and the Turks that encouraged that. And the rationale and the reason is we need to, right now,
04:16the most important thing is that partnering nations, the nations in the region want to get aid in,
04:21want to start helping them, and they can't because they're afraid of our sanctions. So they don't.
04:26The lifting of the sanctions, its most immediate impact will be to allow neighboring countries
04:30to begin to assist the transitional authority to build governance mechanisms that allow them to
04:35actually establish a government, unify the armed forces under one banner and the like.
04:39But I want to be frank, that won't be enough. You know, with the CESAR Act, we can issue waivers,
04:44but these waivers, because of expirations on them, are not going to attract the kind of foreign
04:49investment. Ultimately, there's going to have to be something done congressionally or more
04:52comprehensively to ensure that if the right steps are taken, we can create an environment for private
04:57sector growth that begin to provide economic opportunity to the people of Syria. But one last
05:03point I would make is the outcome in Syria will have a deep impact on what happens inside of
05:08Lebanon, because Lebanon, too, has been hurt by a combination of clashes at the border, but also
05:13they've had to assume responsibility for some of these Syrian refugees.
05:16We believe that, by the way.
05:17So the combination, if you think about a region, let's say two years from now, where Syria and Lebanon
05:22are stable, that opens up incredible opportunities around the region for all kinds of peace and
05:28security and the end of conflicts and wars. Obviously, this is a big task. It's, you know,
05:33big picture thinking, but it's a historic opportunity and one that we are obligated to try
05:39to explore and see if we can make it work.
05:40Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think we're in full agreement with this. And it is a conundrum
05:48as far as the sanctions are concerned. We've got the six months. But as you say, the future,
05:54it's hard to predict the future since it hasn't happened yet, as Yogi Berra used to say. And
05:58there are real issues and risks in the future. We can take it a step at a time. You issued a visa to
06:06come to New York, which is important to meet with other heads of state. Do you have the ability to
06:21do that for the president also?
06:24Sure. I mean, we could and there may be an opportunity to do that come the General Assembly
06:30of the United Nations. Yeah, probably, probably will be. And I think that's important.
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