♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with our ongoing coverage of the recent paris attacks. questions continue to surround the global response. last week former secretary of state hillary clinton called for an intensified effort to combat the islamic state. >> it's time to begin a new phase and intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate and deny isis control of territory in iraq and syria. that starts with a more effective coalition air campaign. with more allied planes, more strikes and a broader target

set. we should also work with the coalition and the neighbors to impose no-fly zones. that will stop assad from slaughtering civilians and the opposition from the air. charlie: french president francois hollande has urged the united states and russia to cooperate against isis. president obama expressed doubts about working with moscow. president obama: there is an increasing awareness on the part of president putin that isil poses a greater threat to them than anything else in the region. the question at this point is whether they can make the strategic adjustment that allows them to be effective partners with us and the other 65 countries who are already part of the counter-isil campaign. and we don't know that yet. charlie: joining me now, general david petraeus. he was commander of u.s. forces

in iraq and afghanistan. he later served as director of the central intelligence agency. today he's chairman of the k.k.r., global institute. i'm pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. david: thanks. good to be back. charlie: we talk about areas that you know a lot about. tell me what you think ought to be the considerations both offensively and defensively. as everybody seems to agree isil -- isis now has a global strategy and a global reach. david: it certainly demonstrated that over the last couple of weeks with the attack in sinai, lebanon and then obviously in paris. if we can just step back for one moment, though. i think we should really acknowledge two key lessons from the post-arab spring period. the first is that ungoverned spaces or even inadequately governed spaces likely will be exploited by extremists who want to foment disorder and wish us ill.

second, there is no substitute for american leadership in contending with such situations. clearly i think the paris attacks, developments in recent weeks show that it's time for a reassessment of the strategy. to ask questions, i think, about is the mission statement broad enough, are we taking all these steps that we can, are the rules of engagement overly restrictive, should we deploy additional resources and so forth? and you've heard, we heard former secretary of state clinton outline her plan, which did indeed call for a good bit more action, including a no-fly zone. something that i also strongly endorse and spoke about before the senate armed services committee a month or so ago. charlie: what is the strategy, you think, of the president today? david: first of all, the president has asked the military for additional options. and so it's very clear that what he wants to do is accelerate this rollback, if you will, of the islamic state. but there are a number of

components to that. in iraq, for example, first of all, the center of gravity, the whole effort in iraq is actually in baghdad. it's iraqi politics. those have to be inclusive, if you can have a sustainable set of achievements there. because rolling back the islamic state without having forces that have legitimacy in the eyes of the people, the sunni arab community of iraq, which became alienated once again under the previous prime minister, that just won't work. so you've got to have sunni arab forces that are ready to hold areas once they're cleared. and we really haven't yet had to contend with that in a big way, though certainly tikrit was such an operation and that does seem to be held now by forces that are quasi-legitimate in the eyes of the people. when they take ramadi and especially when they take back mosul, there has to be a plan for that hold force. charlie: what's your assessment

today of the willingness of the sunni tribes to participate against isis? david: my understanding is that they are quite willing. what they're waiting for is the authorization from baghdad in some cases, for us to provide additional assets to them, additional resources, and indeed they're waiting for some kind of official approval for their status, if indeed they're going to become part of the national guard. charlie: this is in the hands of the iraqi government. david: it is. this is why i stressed earlier that the center of gravity of this effort really is in baghdad. the iraq effort, that is. syria is a different issue. sunni arabs have to be brought back into the fabric of iraqi society, as we did, by the way, during the surge. one of the key surge of ideas, one of the biggest of those was to make the sunni arabs feel as if they had a stake in the

success of the new iraq, rather than a stake in its failure. right now there's a little indecision still on that. charlie: how do you make them know they have a stake in the future of iraq? david: the representatives to approve this national guard initiative that the prime minister has put forward. this has been stalled in the council of representatives. the prime minister has directed some actions to go forward. but something that formally acknowledges their role and frankly formally acknowledges they're going to receive salaries and so forth if they put it all on the line and help out with the clearance and then the holding of major cities like ramadi, fallujah and, above all, mosul. charlie: anything else they need before they're prepared to go forward against isis and lead a sunni charge that would join with the rest of those forces that are allied against isis? david: yes. obviously they'll need weapons, they'll need training, they'll

need equipment beyond that. now, again, there are thousands of these forces that have already received that. but this is going to take a good bit more than that. remember how intensive it is in terms of people to hold areas. and we learned that during our previous experiences in iraq. this time we should not be the ones on the ground. i believe that. but we should have advisors down at brigade level. we should have joint tactical air controllers ready to help out additional advisor teams. charlie: this is not just special forces or is it entirely special forces advisor teams that will work with sunni arabs who may be joining the war? david: the core of the advise and assist teams right now comes from conventional infantry brigades and there's an 82nd airborne division headquarters that is over the top of that particular effort. my recommendation is indeed to extend that, not just at division headquarters but to push them to brigade headquarters.

charlie: so they'll be embedded with those fighting on the ground. david: that's exactly right. that's sufficiently close. it will help out much more. i think you'll have much more closer integration. and then i think you also it have to look at the rules of engagement. by many reports they're so strict that there is an approval process that's required, that it's not the kind of streamlined effort that is necessary, certainly no one wants to see civilians killed or collateral damage. but this is war and i think they're probably going to have to relook some of that as well. charlie: let me go through that. that's important. the question is, what can you do on the ground? what should the rules of engagement be? david: well, reportedly right now it's essentially no civilians killed in any action. charlie: we can't do anything that might lead to the collateral damage to civilians.

david: there is an exception process, reportedly, that exists. but the question is, again, is this too strict? certainly -- look, we had a sign on the wall when i was in iraq that asked, will this operation create more bad guys than it takes off the streets by its conduct? and you have to constantly keep that in mind. but i think, again, there's a strong feeling among many who are out there that this is a bit too restrictive right now. charlie: this goes beyond special forces which the president consistently mentions. david: yes. again, the advisor teams are already there. they come from infantry brigade combat teams, not special forces. charlie: will it take more of them to embed with at the brigade level? charlie: certainly. if you have more advisor teams you're going to need more. i haven't done the math because i don't know the specific number of brigades in the fight. it shouldn't be every brigade in iraq, just those two are going to be engaged in these operations to clear the

remaining areas in which the islamic state is located. particularly out in the west in anbar and up in the north in mosul, which is the capitol. charlie: do they work with iraqi militias, shi'a militias? david: no, they don't. as you know, there have always been concerns about us being the air force for the iraqi shi'a militia, supported by iran. so that's been a sensitive issue. and essentially what is happening is that the iraqi army and some iraqi special forces elements generally lead the way, we support them and in some case you have the shi'a militia behind and in some cases they're separate. charlie: there's a specific rules of engagement in terms of we don't help the shi'a militias with the air force capabilities? david: it's tough to ask the folks in the pentagon, certainly. but my understanding is, and it's been a point of sensitivity all along, that, again, the degree of cooperation, coordination with iranian-supported shi'a militia has to be very, very strictly limited. just to that of deconfliction through iraqis not currently with them. keep in mind, if i could, these are elements that are being paid by the iraqi government, they're getting salaries from the iraqi

government. but they're actually responding to sort of quasi-legal leadership, which is in many cases influenced quite directly by the head of the cuds force of -- quds force of iran. charlie: do you believe there are iranian forces on the ground? david: there are certainly advisors, no question. this is not like syria where you have lebanese hezbollah and shi'a militia and so forth from outside the country that are actually engaged in the fight. certainly in syria, a number of quite high ranking quds force officers have been killed. charlie: after the taking of sinjar, how long will it take to mount an attack against mosul? and is that the next priority? david: i think the next priority is probably the ongoing operation in ramadi. but the significance of sinjar is that that cuts the main supply route that was left from the capital of the islamic state

to mosul in syria, again, really the capital of the north of iraq, as it has been historically. the very important location for them in iraq. probably the central location in terms of importance. charlie: what is your assessment and from what you know of the military capabilities, military capabilities of isis? david: the islamic state really is three elements right now that you have to think about. it's a conventional army. that's really what came into iraq and seized these different strategic cities, that was literally threatening the very gates of baghdad, if you will. until it was rolled back over the course of the last year or so. but still holds very significant parts of iraq and certainly large swaths of syrian people, say roughly the state of indiana in size, to give some perspective on that. there's a conventional force. territory they hold.

there's a conventional force. there's also a terrorist element. because they still continue to carry out terrorist acts in baghdad and in other cities in iraq, often targeting shi'a sites, trying to foment civil war, as indeed their forbearers did, al qaeda in iraq did so successfully to create the spiral of violence that escalated so terrifyingly in 2006. and then there are also already guerilla or insurgents. one would suspect, as their conventional forces are degraded, defeated, rolled back, that they will certainly try to leave as many of the terrorist cells and insurgent elements in the country as they can. charlie: it is argued that holding territory that they hold creates a so-called caliphate. the iraq islamic state. that is part of a narrative that is attractive.

david: it's very, very important. and the reason for the need for urgency, if you will, is to show that the islamic state is a loser. as long as the islamic state is seen to be a winner, it will have much greater success in social media, which is an element of their capabilities that has really distinguished them from core al qaeda or the original al qaeda. charlie: and not only in competition and in warfare with its enemies but also with competing -- david: absolutely. charlie: islamic groups. david: quite right. there's quite a tug of war going on among these different groups, each trying to get as many adherences as possible, trying

to make inroads in afghanistan, for example, trying to make inroads in yemen, sinai, libya. a number of different locations where the islamic state has spread its tentacles. and again, nothing succeeds like success in the recruitment of jihadis. charlie: there is al qaeda, then there are al qaeda affiliates that we often talk about. you look at mali, that was an al qaeda affiliate. david: we believe so, yes. i haven't seen the exact attribution of that but the expectation is that that is al qaeda in the islamic lands. charlie: and you have al qaeda affiliates in the rest of the world as well. in africa, especially. david: in yemen. in afghanistan. small. but still there. certainly. charlie: when you move to syria, what are the options in syria? where the russians have changed the dynamics of the game. david: they have. they have added a huge additional level of complexity to the whole affair.

and it's important to note right off the front that russia is hitting the people that we're supporting, our guys, if you will, on the ground, even more than they're hitting islamic state with their air power. that's largely because the forces that we have been supporting have generally been seen as a greater threat to the russian airbase and the russian sea base, both on the mediterranean coast. charlie: do they have anything to do with the support -- with the time that you were with the c.i.a. and there was an effort to support moderate forces, are they the same moderate forces as in 2011? are they the same moderate forces or is it a different group of moderate forces? david: that's obviously something i couldn't go into. some others have commented on that. and i'll let them speak for themselves. charlie: is there, from your assessment, a strong enough moderate force for us to support or do we have to, you know, essentially rebuild and try to create a group that can compete against isis? david: there are forces in the

south and the north that have a reasonable degree of capability and what we need to do is enable them further and we need to protect them better. and this is where the no-fly zone comes in, the so-called safe haven or enclave. charlie: when you say no-fly zone, the president says isis has no air force. that's his response. david: this gets to the heart of the issue. the disconnect, if you will. we want these guys to fight the islamic state. these guys want to fight al-assad and the regime which they see as responsible for the deaths of 300,000 syrians and the displacement of far more than half of the population. of course the regime being shi'a supported by iran, lebanese hezbollah, the quds force and others. and the opposition being sunni arab. and they feel very much -- by the way, of course the sunni arab is vastly the majority in the country. so that is the challenge that we have. and i think we have to commit to support them against the regime as well as against the islamic state. noting that i am not one who is in a hurry to get rid of bashar al-assad until we have a sense of what might follow him.

he can't be part of the solution. he's the magnetic attraction that brings individuals into syria and that has indeed made the islamic state able to recruit from abroad as well. so he is ultimately not going to be part of the solution. charlie: when he uses barrel bombs against his own people. l.f.o. and other places. david: exactly. and what we have to do is say, look, if the barrel bombs continue, we'll ground your air force and we have the capability of doing that. now, we're also now, though, the added complexity is to deal with russia. and there we need to have some coordination with them and explain, look, these guys are our guys and if you keep going after our guys, at some point we're going to have to go after your guys. bashar al-assad's guys. charlie: your guys are in fact in this case assad's air force.

david: exactly right. charlie: we should ground assad's air force. david: yes. you can ground the fixed wing pretty easily. just crater the runways. the rotary wing, helicopters take a little bit more. but we have the capability, it's very doable. charlie: why don't you think the president does it? or the pentagon? david: in the beginning it would have been much more complex. when he had an intact, integrated air defense system that was quite sophisticated, i think this would have taken a good bit of effort. that is not intact anymore. beyond that, we can do a lot of this without ever having to go inside the air space. charlie: do we know how much the russians have, in their support of assad, helped him rebuild that or -- david: we know where the runways are. we know where the aircraft are. and i think we can deal with that. that's something that is doable. charlie: and we should do it now? david: i believe we should. if we don't, again, these forces will ultimately gravitate, as many others have, to either the islamic state, which has a lot of resources, still, although we're really taking those away from them with the increase in the campaign against their oil infrastructure and indeed the whole illegal oil transport

system, or al nassar, which is yet another al qaeda affiliate, this case in northern syria.

charlie: what difference are there between them and isis? david: isis has been truly

extraordinarily barbaric. isis has taken actions that i think even al qaeda would not have countenanced. for a couple of different reasons. one is that so it's extreme that it alienates the population in the eyes, at least of al qaeda. charlie: the way you were able to get the sunnis in part of the sunni awakening, as well as the surge and other elements, was in fact use what al qaeda was doing to the local populace. david: exactly right. the local populace had gotten very, very tired, to put it mildly, of what al qaeda was doing to them. they were repressive and the violence they were carrying out inside sunni areas and shi'a areas was beyond the pale. they were eager to go after al qaeda if we would secure them initially, support them, and some months into it, also if we could get them some form of salary.

charlie: here's what i still have a question about. the president said, in his press conference in turkey, you know, that what he's recommending is exactly what his military advisors are recommending to him. obviously if that's true and he's against the no-fly zone, his military advisers are not recommending a no-fly zone. it would seem to me. david: i don't know what's going on inside the pentagon or the situation room in the west wing. charlie: they're not doing it and the president says he's relying on the advise of his generals or admirals which would be tantamount to not listening to what they say. david: again, i think the importance of paris is that it is and should be a catalyst for re-examining the strategy. i think he should go, and he has a new chairman of the joint chiefs and a number of other new figures in the military positions, and say, ok, let's take yet another fresh look at this. and see if the situation is different. what is it that we could -- they'll give him options and that certainly should be among the options. charlie: you say after paris,

tell me again. after paris the u.s. has to reassess and ask what questions? david: again, up front, i think you have to ask, is the actual mission statement sufficiently broad? is it just degrade and defeat the islamic state or is it also to contribute to conditions that can help achieve governance and security in these ungoverned spaces? that's why up front i made the comment that ungoverned spaces are going to be exploited by extremists. i think you have to look a bit more broadly at the mission. without getting into the kinds of nation building and large forces certainly that i was privileged to lead in iraq and afghanistan. i think you have to do it with host nation forces and by the way, i'd keep neighboring countries out of this as well there. have been some who have said, where are the arab armies? they should stay outside iraq and syria by and large. charlie: why is that? david: if you had the saudis or any of the other neighbors or

the jordanians or others in iraq, that would give a huge boost to the shi'a militia who might see this as, again, sunni arabs trying to solidify the position inside iraq. it would certainly be an outside intervention in a way that would not be welcome. charlie: an ongoing opponent of the middle east now is sunni-shi'a, as well as saudi-iranian. david: very much so. that could be seen as an escalation of that, undoubtedly it would be, i think. so calls for that kind of activity, i think, are misplaced. beyond that, frankly, the saudis and the emirates and a number of others, bahrainis, are engaged very heavily in yemen. they need to see that through. that's yet another -- by the way, that has, of course, shi'a-sunni overtones because the huties that are being fought against the saudis are shi'a. charlie: and supported by bahrain. so the question that constantly

comes up, i want you to help clarify this when the question is raised not just simply of reinforcing what we're doing and adding to it and imbedding at -- embedding at the brigade level, that we need to put american combat forces on the ground, boots on the ground, to a larger extent than we are now, should we do more? david: i would not at this point. charlie: why -- go ahead. david: i think if we are required there to clear and hold an area, it's not sustainable. again, you need to have a hold force that has legitimacy in the eyes of the people, that has to be sunni arab forces in iraq -- charlie: it cannot be american forces? david: it should not be. not at this stage. again, you should have some contingencies. if there's some real urgency beyond what we even have now, which is quite a great deal,

have some contingencies for taking action. but i would not -- i wouldn't take that at this point. now, i would make sure that there's a headquarters established, a joint task force say up in turkey that is unifying all efforts in syria under the combined joint task force commander, who by the way, lieutenant general sean mcfarland, was the colonel outside ramadi when we had the very first of the awakening. the one that preceded the surge by a couple of months. he's now the three star in charge of this overall campaign. and making sure that his organizational architecture and all the relationships, the command and support and operational relationships are sorted effectively is yet another issue that probably needs to be re-examined as we look at what can be done in the wake of the attacks in paris. charlie: i want to go back to what you think reassessment takes place after paris and your sense that we need american leadership. as to what else we can do other than what we have talked about here. david: anything else that we can do in the way that ambassador

ryan crocker and did i in baghdad during the surge to help facilitate iraqi politics to become more inclusive. again, one of the key achievements of the surge that really enabled the success that we had in driving violence down by well over 80% was getting the sunni arabs feeling that he had had a stake in the success of the new iraq rather than a stake in its failure. as they had felt prior to that point. charlie: is the more important bat until iraq or syria and can you say that -- battle in iraq or syria and can you say that? the caliphate is both syria and iraq. david: it's a question that you

have to go both places, obviously. i would say if you back all the way up to the overarching framework for your strategy against the islamic state, it has to be the same as we've employed against al qaeda. it has to be comprehensive and it has to be everywhere. again, you can't whack-a-mole here to have them pop up there. you have to whack all the moles all the time simultaneously. charlie: that's what happens. we've talked to bob gates here last weekend and others, to mount -- whoever the people on the ground are, you've got to make sure that you maintain and hold -- you can drive them out of a certain place but how do you prevent them unless you stay there? david: that's exactly right and this is very man power-intensive. as we learned in iraq and as we've learned in afghanistan. you've got to have those forces established, they've got to have legitimacy in the eyes of the people. and they've got to be ready to hold these areas after they have been cleared of the islamic state forces. charlie: you seem to say it's iraqi forces in iraq and syrian forces, syrian nationals in syria. nobody else. david: yes. i think anybody else is a

complicating factor by and large. i'd be very hesitant -- that can transform the entire region into a civil war. you really have a regional civil war as it is now. being fought inside syria and iraq. having it spread beyond that, i think, would obviously be very destabilizing. charlie: here's the headline today from the financial times. a call for urgency in the fight against isis. david: yeah. there has to be this sense of urgency. as long as the islamic state is seen as succeeding, and by the way, you know, they have sustained enormous losses in the course of recent weeks in particular. i just saw a report of a strike in which a couple hundred vehicles were taken out. just huge, huge. charlie: why hadn't we taken them out before? david: there's always a hesitation if you're going to be responsible for a country later on to destroy all its infrastructure while you're

trying to save it. this is the old adage that we had to destroy the village to save it. that's not what you want to do. you want to limit the destruction as much as you can. but there's clearly a point at which you then have to, if you realize this is not putting a sufficient dent into their ability to raise revenue, to generate revenue from illegal oil sales, you're going to have to do something and will you have to start taking down more of that infrastructure. that is the case. charlie: you've also called for safe zones. david: yes. charlie: what would that be? david: this would be an area in which the forces would be directed -- protected. in particular against bashar's air force and the dropping of barrel bombs on the people's head every afternoon. there's no way that you can expect a force to be able to establish and build and train and equip and everything else if that's going happen to them. by the way, this would also be an area to which refugees could return. it's an area where presumably you could help -- charlie: how big of an area would it be? david: it's quite sizable in the north. if you look at the maps of the areas that are controlled by the

opposition that we're supporting, the sunni arab opposition, and there's a fairly substantial area in the south as well. and what you want to do is to get local control re-established there. that's impossible if you're getting barrel bombs or other munitions dropped on you on a regular basis. charlie: i'm asking to you repeat yourself because i want to make sure i understand. how do we handle this difficult decision in terms of what we do and what we recommend with respect to bashar al-assad? do we not engage him other than in terms of no-fly zone? or do we supply and support with whatever they need, those forces, so called moderate forces in syria, who are trying to be against him? or do we come to this battle in syria right now and say, our target has to be isis? their headquarters are here, hair heartbeat is here. david: you can say all you want that you have to focus on isis but if a guy's dropping barrel bombs on your head every afternoon or bashar's air force, you're going to go after bashar's air force. charlie: you're fighting but

your goal is not to overthrow it? david: no, hang on a second. it's very commonly said there's no military solution to this problem. well, that may be true. probably is true. however, there is a military context that is required and without which all of the diplomatic negotiations are going to lack seriousness. and so that additional pressure on bashar and the regime is what is going to help create that context. oh, by the way, by supporting these forces against or at least protecting them from whatever bashar is trying to do, i think will then increase the chances that they're also going to want to take on the islamic state. charlie: tell me what you think russia has accomplished in syria?

david: first off, of course, this has given president putin a chance to stride the world stage. something that he's quite fond of doing. he has demonstrated that he's forceful, that he's decisive, he has shown the ability to deploy forces, expeditionary capabilities and so forth. he's shown he stands by his guys and, again, of course bashar has been his guy. that's why russia has its only naval base in the mediterranean down at tartus and its only airbase in the mediterranean area roughly as well. he's always been one who has opposed the overthrow of governmental leaders. however strong men they may be. for fear that someone might get the same idea about him. charlie: he thinks it's destabilizing the same way you said, it might become a vacuum for a whole range of things. david: he can certainly makes that case. it diverts attention from ukraine to some degree. although sadly fighting has flared up again there.

he would love to get out from under the sanctions. his economy is in tatters. they're substantially in recession. oil prices down 55%, gas prices are going to go down next as u.s. liquefied natural gas enters europe. he's got a bleak prospect of the future. it's not as strong a hand as it appears, i don't think, and yet he's playing it with fairly good tactical skills. charlie: as we speak he's in iran meeting with the ayatollah and we have zero contact with the ayatollah. david: striding the world stage again. charlie: should we make common cause with him? david: how can you make common cause with a guy who has sent forces into georgia, sent forces into crimea and took that over as trying to undermine ukraine, you know, again, his goal in ukraine is not just an independent section or separatists in the southeastern part of the country. it's to make sure that ukraine does not succeed. his worst nightmare would be a ukraine that has a flourishing

free market economy and a pluralistic democracy. charlie: and looking to the west. david: yes. charlie: but here is president putin and president hollande talking for research. he said, francois hollande will urge president obama to intensify the military campaign against isis when he visits the white house tomorrow. as the french president steps up his diplomatic offensive in the wake of the paris attacks. mr. hollande plans to push for a sense of urgency in syria as part of a week of consultations. what do you think of a grand coalition? and how would that come about? david: there is a sizable coalition now. over 60 countries. huge numbers. but frankly far and away the vast majority of the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance assets, the vast majority of just about

everything in this campaign, at least when it comes to the air operation, has been provided by the united states. so additional assets from nato countries and allies would certainly be very welcome. again, many countries have what are essentially token forces. there is a substantial number of different elements from countries on the ground, training and equipping various iraqi elements, special forces are in there as well. but again, anything that increases the resources that are available to the combined joint task force commander and the overall coalition would be very, very helpful. ♪

♪ charlie: i'm asking this question in the context of a grand coalition, a grand bargain, that kind of thing. is this a pivotal moment in the history of that region when we look at borders that were falsely constructed after world war i? are we looking at a moment of tremendous change and paris has just been, you know, a point in which everybody seems to say, we've got to do something that we have not been doing? david: it certainly may be one of those pivotal moments. i'm not one who would concede that iraq should be broken up into sunnistan and shi'astan. there's already a kurdistan, frankly.

autonomy.d deal of because of the fact that no one is able to tell me how they'd get there from here. who's going to draw the line on the map? what happens to all the population in the mixed areas? you could have another syria on your hands in iraq. we've seen this movie before. the violence, you know, in the late part of 2006 was absolutely horrific. as bad as it is now, it was completely out of control. charlie: the height of the sectarian conflict. david: that's exactly right. there were 53 dead civilians in baghdad due to violence every 24 hours. that's in the nation's capital. it was that out of control. we don't want to see that return. by the way, the sunni arab areas that are in iraq have no oil production or natural gas production in them, so where would the revenue to sustain them come from as well? so the sunnis still -- there is still a huge force in iraq and it is the distribution of the oil revenues. it's something that also keeps iraqi kurdistan, the kurdish regional government, tied to baghdad as well.

syria on the other hand may literally be a humpty dumpty that can't be put back together again. one doesn't know what of the various outcomes it could be. charlie: syrians, the united states, iran, russia, saudi arabia, to all come together and reconstruct syria or would you try to limit that to the u.s. and russia, who clearly have interests there? and the iranians? david: i've spoke to -- a lot of groups have a stake, obviously in what the outcome is there. and one of the challenges is going to be to get legitimate representatives of these different groups. one of the challenges right now is that there's no unified political leadership of the sunni arabs in syria. there are different elements, there is indeed a body that purports to provide that. but they're not linked to all the different forces that are fighting on the ground. so that's one of yet another of the many complexities with which the diplomats are going to have

to deal as this goes forward. it's good that they are talking. but you should then ask, ok, who are representing the sunni arabs and do they actually have, again, support of those on the ground? because those are the ones who are actually fighting and trying to hold various areas of syria. but it may well be that we can't put it back together again. if that's the case, again there will have to be some new organizing structure mechanism, what have you, or perhaps, wonder of wonders, could you have a multiethic knick, multisectarian, pluralist democracy headquartered in damascus again, although i think that's unlikely. something that's very important to recognize is i don't care what your objective is in syria, you name it and i will point out that a force that we can support of sunni arabs, ideally moderate, true moderates, is absolutely essential. you want to destroy the islamic

state, there's going to be the force on the ground. charlie: are you certain they're there and that conditions have to be created so they can be the destructive force against isis that you need? david: there are not enough of them there right now. there are some there, we have been enabling them, supporting them and assisting them for some time. clearly if we really get behind them and vow to protect them from the air force and so on, i think you'd see a lot more flocking to that color. charlie: let me talk about the global strategy. how do you combat the global strategy? how do you combat the terrorism that we saw in paris? david: it has to be, obviously, a very, very comprehensive response. we have to fight even in cyberspace. you have to contest, if you will, the intellectual discussion that's going on there. to confront the extremists on the internet.

not just to mention the enormous premium on good intelligence from all sources and also linked with law enforcement officials. and again, what has been working in the united states is a very, very good partnership between the intelligence community and all the various law enforcement organizations. but of course you get stretched over time. if you look at the sheer number of individuals, for example, that france was following, and then you figure out what their assets are, then you start to understand that this is such an industrial strength problem that it is very, very difficult to nip every attack in the butt, to stop it, to preempt it. that is the concern in every one cists, including right here in -- countries, including here in

our own. charlie: was there more planning in paris than you thought? david: it appears to have been. this was something that was planned some, reportedly, six to nine months earlier. individuals got in there, got weapons, not as easy to do that there as it is here. although they're available on the black market, without question. charlie: they used encrypted apps. david: lots of challenges here. clearly the islamic state showed they're certainly not intent on just activities in iraq and syria, just in their actual caliphate area. they want to strike well beyond that and they demonstrated that very clearly in the sinai, lebanon and paris. charlie: this is a diplomatic question. beyond interrupting their narrative, you know, look, we're building the new islamic state and we're successful and we're winning and all of that, how do we win the battle of ideas? david: you have to have a foundation on which the battle of ideas is fought. and clearly in some cases there are reasons for feeling alienated, disgruntled, shut out of society, of opportunity and so forth. those kind of issues have to be dealt with and those are very,

very difficult, obviously. but then, again, most importantly you've got to have muslim voices countering the various narratives that are being put out by the islamic state. and that has to be more and more aggressive, clearly. charlie: and it has to be sunni? because most of the islamic state is sunni. david: that's exactly right, yep. and it has to have the language, the dialect, knowledge of the religion. this is challenging. charlie: how much support does charl\ie how much support does isis have in these other sunni states like saudi arabia, like the emirates? david: there's certainly no official support for them. the governments in those countries have fought against al qaeda. they've done everything they can. i can assure you, when i was the director of the c.i.a., if we took something to one of those countries, it was hard and fast that they would deal with that. we were all very, very closely linked.

charlie: whenever you would present the king of saudi arabia with evidence of something that you had hard and fast facts, they would respond to it? david: yes. again, there's a very close partnership in each of these countries between u.s. law enforcement, u.s. intelligence community and the host nation governments. and that's because they were battling these individuals. let's remember that when he was the deputy minister of interior, prince muhammad, now the crown prince, heroically led this effort that really destroyed what was al qaeda in the kingdom at that particular time. he almost lost his own life. a suicide bomber blew himself up, tried to take the prince out. and it was unsuccessful, obviously. but these countries are very, very much keenly focused on ensuring that the islamic state now cannot establish a beach head in their countries. and they are very much against people sending money to these organizations as well. the problem is, of course, that

you don't just send it through the swift system. you do it through a courier, some mechanism. so that's literally plot impossible to track, but it's -- not impossible to track but it's very difficult to track. charlie: do you believe we have good intelligence as to how isis operates? we have seen drone attacks take out key leaders of isis. david: which would indicate there's a good deal of precision to the intelligence that we have. charlie: exactly right. they knew somebody was getting in a car to go somewhere. a vehicle. david: sure. charlie: and they took him out with a drone. it means you have to have some kind of information.

david: and the operation on the ground in a couple of different place, operations actually that have either taken out a key leader or detained them or rescued hostages and so forth. clearly there is a good baseline of intelligence that's been established now. the fact that we've had the so-called unblinking eye in the air over many of these areas, over time you just accumulate knowledge of what is taking place on the ground. you augment that obviously with all the other forms of intelligence signals. cyber, anything you can get in any other way. and obviously human intelligence. the real coin of the realm. i've been away from this for several years, but that's, needless to say, what's being done. and i'm confident that we are establishing more and more and more of an understanding of what it is that we're seeing with this unblinking eye. that's enabling us to take the operations that we've been taking. charlie: and you assume you get a lot of help from the intelligence agencies of those sunni countries as well. david: certainly. charlie: so this is a long twilight struggle, or has it been given, because of paris, a new urgency? so there has to be a full scale, coordinated response?

david: i think this probably is a generational struggle. i think, even if you succeed, say, operationally, tactically, against the islamic state in iraq and then in syria, there still is going to be a battle. there still will be extremist ideas, there will still be individuals who will be animated by those ideas. there will still be those who propagate those ideas. so i think that what we want to do, obviously, is to reduce the capabilities of the islamic state, of al qaeda. charlie: is reduce all we can hope for? david: no. we want to defeat them in iraq and syria, i'm talking about reducing it very, very dramatically. but the idea that you will actually put a stake through the

heart i think would be misplaced. we did destroy, not just defeat, that's a very significant military term, it means that it's rendered incapable of accomplishing its mission without reconstitution, we destroyed al qaeda in iraq. during the surge and in the years after. and kept it destroyed. and unfortunately it was let back up off the mat when we didn't stay after it in the wake of the departure of our forces. charlie: forces had been there, it would not have been able to come back? david: hard to say. it depends what prime minister maliki would have allowed us to do. there were certain -- charlie: we would have seen it and been able to destroy it at its core? david: we would have had better intelligence, i would think. whether that enabled us or allowed us, because of the restrictions on our forces, placed by the iraqi prime minister and government, whether we would have had the capability to do something to them is very much in question. what is not in question, i don't think, is that we would have had a much better understanding of what was going on. because we'd have all these different bases and, if you have bases then you have, as they say, the ability to gather insights. from those different locations. again, it's an open question as to whether or not we could have influenced the government and

prevented it from doing -- taking the actions that were so highly sectarian, that they alienated the sunni arab population that would work so hard over the previous five years to bring back in to the government. charlie: as you've always said, this is a political dimension. if we don't address that, we will never find a way to do it. david: again. center of gravity in iraq, baghdad and iraqi politics. that's a very, very -- that's a very difficult terrain right now. charlie: if you could define the debatable -- the question that should be debated in the political campaigns, what would it be? david: i guess i'd want to get an understanding of the real strategic thinking on dealing with threats posed by extremist organizations. charlie: on the part of each candidate? david: yes. i'd want to get that sense. this has to be beyond sort of bumper sticker slogans and, we're going to lead. although, just the fact of we are going to lead is a very important one. because as i've said earlier, lesson number two in the

post-arab spring period is there's no substitute for u.s. leadership. charlie: you believe u.s. leadership has not been apparent? you are by definition critical of the obama administration for not doing enough and not showing enough urgency. david: look, what happened, i think, is that in the wake of iraq and afghanistan, if you will, as they were still going on, the recognition of the enormous cost, the frustration, all the rest of that, really led us to say, oh, man, let's keep our hands off, you know, let's not get burned by this one again. charlie: longest war in our history, afghanistan. david: yep. by the way, we're still there. we to this point have accomplished the mission that we set out to accomplish when we went there. which is to ensure that afghanistan is not once again a sanctuary for extremists the way it was when al qaeda was there. we learned a lot in iraq. some of it transferable to

afghanistan. certainly the lesson about not drawing down precipitously. it was reassuring that the president kept 9,800 there. one can ask about the slope of getting there and other issues, are we doing enough to support our afghan partners, again, in terms of rules of engagement and so forth, are they too restrictive is something we should ask ourselves. charlie: for whatever reason, you seem to be reticent to really directly criticize the president. other than specific areas like a no-fly zone. david: i served this president and the previous president. i'm not one who sees these as really simple issues. these are tough issues. i was in the room when there were debates on some of these decisions. and, again, it's never clear cut when you're the person at the head of that particular table. obviously i recommended certain things that were not approved at various times. some of these are publicly known. but that doesn't mean that i'm just going to then start poking a serving president in the eye.

charlie: in fact, what you hope the president has is a divergence of opinion that is clearly expressed so the commander in chief can make the right decision. david: exactly right. then it's the job of those who made the recommendations to do everything they can to implement the decision that he makes, even if it's different than what they recommended. charlie: thank you for coming. david petraeus for the hour. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

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