Thank you, Mr. Harris.
I'm a guest at today's committee meeting, and unfortunately we didn't have the text from either of you, so I'm having to remember some of the things you said. Maybe being a newcomer is a benefit because I'm hearing some things that really I have to ask about. They may sound a little simplistic.
Ms. Mason, you talked about an effective political framework being in place, or created somehow prior to a military action. I'm thinking that in so many of the countries we're talking about, where they're led by murderous forces like the Taliban, dictators who have lived only by the gun and for the gun for the sake of power...it sounds to me like somewhat of a pipe dream to think that the UN, which incidentally gives so many stages to someone like the dictator of Iran, and in my opinion has lost a lot of credibility by doing that, certainly among the western nations.... It sounds like something of a pipe dream to believe that creating an effective political structure, as you put it, could actually happen prior to a military action.
How can you justify the statement that perhaps it could have worked in Afghanistan? Even the thought of getting that together in Afghanistan, given the circumstances there...it seems unbelievable that we could have had something like that.