nationalism with all the difficulties working together with scientist and other folks from around the road to discover a better relationship between global in equity and the disease. . .

so i saw opportunities in which i think are very underestimated to be in africa. when you look at the growth of gdp today in the world i mean the highest rates today are no longer in asia. they are in africa. we see natural resources there so i think i didn't know all of these things these days but it was a combination of the gut feeling and the people, the human side but also this sense. i got also very upset and angry because of the inequalities and the people ruled by mobutu. there was a group of plutocrats stealing the country literally

and on the other hand young people, there was a great university in the old days. nobody was paid and there was no electricity so people were divided basic opportunities. i can't explain why. i was bitten by the virus. >> you can watch this and other programs on line at booktv.org. >> christian sahner is the author of "among the ruins." he talks about the civil war in syria and the fight against eyes as they are. this is hosted by the woodrow wilson center in washington d.c.. it's just over 50 minutes. >> thank you very much for coming today to hear about the history of the future of syria. we are very fortunate to have with us christian sahner from

princeton university. he is the author of "among the ruins" syria past and present, which you can purchase after his presentation. he will discuss today with us what is happening in syria and what took place in the last four years and he will pay special attention to u.s. foreign poli policy, the growth of terrorism and especially isis and also the fate of minorities in syria.

mr. sahner it is a historian of the middle east and he has spent a number of years in the levant, i believe the last seven years. he is a graduate of princeton university and started oxford as a rhodes scholar. he has written for "the wall street journal" and the times literary supplement. for those of you who are frequent visitors who are meeting know that we try and reach out to new experts, new faces, new ideas so we are in for a very exciting next 25 minutes and then we will open the floor to your questions and

we have an overflow. we take questions also from. >> thank you all for coming. it's nice to be here. i have admired it center for longtime minutes wonderful to be speaking here. thank you for organizing this bit event and thank you for being here. want to begin very briefly by telling you a little bit about the book and what am i doing here and then we are going to launch the history of the future of syria. as was said my acquaintance with syria began seven years ago. i was at oxford on my road scholarship beginning to study arabic and received wisdom there were two good places to go the middle east to get -- i buy basically pure chancel ended up in damascus and by hindsight

what a random choice it was. i proceeded to spend a few months every year from 2008 until 2010 in syria and subsequent to the beginning of the war in 2011 i started living in countries around syria beirut and amman and where he most recently returned after nine weeks of research and travel. a snapshot personal snapshot of syria before the crisis set in and that's the perspective that i bring to this book. i write that as a policy expert, not as an expert for politics but as a historian. i wrote the book with two intentions in mind. the first was to expose to readers a sense of the deep rich history of syria precisely the deep and rich history of syria that i felt was being elected. despite dominating dominating our worlds newspapers in a way unlike ever before i felt that

the thousand word newspaper article could not capture the true depth and could not give a true picture of the historical currents that were in many ways culminating with the events on the ground today. when i say deep history i talk not merely about events over the past 40 years and the party of the assad family but also about the deeper past the ottoman empire collapsed and my area of expertise which is the late of world antiquity and the events of islamic history over the course of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. that was goal number one the deep history in a seven goal was to give general readers a sense of the flavor of the country and what were the smell some over the sites of everyday life in this beautiful incredible place before or is altered in unimaginable ways by the current fighting. so i set out to combine these two elements on one the one hand history and on the other memoir and reportage and they were reportage and the result is this book that came out two weeks

ago. as a hybrid style that some might call an conventional but i think hopefully the memoir aspects breach the history and a healthy history enriches the memoir. in the process of writing the book i racked my brain with the conversation and experiences i had within that period of calm before the start of fighting bad in any way could have anticipated what came to pass. there were many snapshots in many memories that i want to begin by formal comments by reading to you a brief conversation i had with a friend in a café in the city of damascus. we are discussing the election of president barack obama and 2009 amir few months after his election and we were discussing the historical significance of having an african-american in the white house. so to give you some background my friends a sunni muslim extremely well-educated curious about the west end curious about american culture.

he had this to say. on the topic of diversity. in our country the topic of diversity looms. as an american he he said you like to pursue. you have all these races and ethnicities in your country even a black president but what if diversity in my societies in my societies and the famous diversity and diversity and yours. [inaudible question] of diversity is a source of weakness he asked me. was that diversity that created the violence of iraqi press on the existence of all the different groups sunni-shia christian kurdish? i would rather live in a place that did not have diversity in the stable than live in a diverse place that was in constant risk of falling into civil war. so i will let that conversation hang in the air for a minute and i will return at the end of my remarks. what i want to do very briefly is to give you a structural overview of what i think this happened over the past three years where we are currently and

where were going so in other words a quick overview of serious recent past is tragic present and its uncertain future. so where did we come from? as i see it we can understand the evolution of a competence. by looking at three faces were three axes of the revolution. the first in the oldest is that of the civil war. of course the civil war pitting an axis on one hand of the regime of president assad dominated by his alawites sex that comprises mostly of sunni muslims. in other words it's an internal affair reflecting domestic situations that is serious. the conflict was efficient -- officially nonviolent and quickly turned violent. it initially began as a civil

society oppressing that quickly turned sectarian. and in the scope of recent history here remember that when the president assad came to power in 2000 he wasn't air of optimism a promise of reform of the so-called damascus spring. that damascus spring came to an abrupt end when this brief period of free speech was closed and in a certain way what we were looking at what the crackdown that began in march of 2011 was the final culmination in the final end of this damascus spring at the onset of an even more ominous arab spring or syrian version of an air of spring. thus the first acts as gum pitting regime versus opposition. the second axis of the complex the next evolution was the development of this internal civil war into a regional proxy war and here is the axis that is important to consider and remember. i ran on the one hand in saudi

arabia on the other. in other words staunchly shiite regime in tehran versus saudi arabia and a constellation of staunchly sunni regimes based primarily in the persian gulf but drawing in turkey and other countries. along with this regional axis came smaller powers on the side of a rant hezbollah in various shiite iraqi brigades on the side of the saudi and its allies groups such as muslim brotherhood al qaeda etc.. that's the second layer of the conflict. the third layer of the conflict was what i like to think of as a renewed lobo cold war and here the strossen complex and conflict zones in other parts of the world as well as the middle east notably in ukraine. here the axis to keep in mind is that of russia versus the united states and more broadly the european union. this axis of complex followed a

vigorous dramatic axis assertiveness under president putin on one hand versus what we might characterize as an exhaustion with robust and muscular foreign policy on the part of united states government. so this is the past. three types of evolving conflict civil war regional proxy war renewed global cold war and three different axes of struggle. the regime versus opposition iran versus saudi arabia and russia versus the united states and the european union. so where are we now? the question of the present. i like to view this as the moment when iraq impinged on syria. when i think back to events a year ago i is as someone who was a close area watcher, i don't think i could have anticipated

what what would have happened and of course the warning signs were there and they were there for many of us who followed the middle east but in many ways the syrian tragedy seem so overwhelming so deep that the manner in which syria would end up destabilizing iraq and iraq would end up destabilizing syria was surprising and in many ways unprecedented. here the central actors of course isis. isis now referring to itself i asked was born in a the cauldron of the american invasion of ir iraq. originally banned of militant jihad is trained cut their teeth in afghanistan camps where they became al qaeda in iraq incredibly brutal and successful until they were quashed by a combination of factors significant among them of course the u.s. surge. although crushed they managed to regroup, reorganize and grow in strength by capitalizing on the chaos that was unfolding in neighboring syria.

i think many of you will be familiar with the origins of vices but it can be helpful to take a step back and think about what makes the ice is unique. the first is their claim to establish a caliphate or reestablish a caliphate? the word caliphate is a major buzzword in her media today don't think the definition is per se widely known. the caliphate is the normative form of government established by the successors of prophet mohammed beginning and they successor and powerful dynasties from the data course of morocco to central asia. over the course of the middle ages caliphate as a political institution degraded but his prestige in the eyes of religion never banished so even as the caliphate became something of a fiction and reality the restoration of the caliphate to where it had been at the beginning, it was ice in the

sense a notion to reestablish it. to many it was sub solved under ataturk beginning in the 20 century and various groups over the course of the past decade have attempted or at least claim to want to restore this but none had done it until i says this past summer. that's one thing that makes it unique the alleged realization of the goal of reestablishing the state. the second thing that makes them unique in my eyes and is connected intimately to the first is that as a group that which is transnational jihad isis in the business of holding territory the nature of the caliphate. unlike al qaeda responsible for september 11 attacks these groups for the most part did not have an interest in state-building. isis is quite the opposite. caliphates hold territory and that's what makes isis special. the third thing to my eyes that makes isis unique is that like

many other extremist groups operating inside of iraq to a greater extent inside of syria it was born in the cauldron of the civil war with the bedlam that arose in a contest between the regime into baskets and the opposition. so it may have been born of this culture but what i think is especially unique and interesting is that it did so without per se participating actively in the consulate. this raises a final question regarding the nature of isis and where we are today. where did it come from and from where was the? here i draw on the comments and especially astute lebanese writer who writes about isis having six fathers, six progenitors that led to its creation. the first is the u.s. occupation in iraq self-explanatory. the second is a long tradition of cultural and political despotism in the middle east. the third is an increasingly

assertive form of iranian political sectarianism that has alienated sunnis have the middle east. the fourth is the converse of this and assertive form of cynicism that has propagated itself outside of the middle east. the fifth ahistorical puritanism edition of the past as a golden age that we must restore in the here and now hence the claim to reestablish a caliphate and the sixth and most public and striking feature of isis is pedigree. it's the usual appetite for seemingly arbitrary and spectacular acts of violence. this tragic present which i would say has begun this summer went isis jumped onto the world stage did many things to the searing conflict. among them is up-ended the series series of faxes this book book about a few minutes ago those tightknit distinctions

between iran and saudi arabia between russia and the united states at least for the time being. these tidy distinctions have vanished in the face of the common threat of isis. finally it has prompted the u.s. to finally act in syria. president obama has been famously hesitant to intervene with poll numbers on his mind. memories of the u.s. invasion in iraq have not done much up to this date but of course isis has pushed united states over the edge and we are not actively involved. that's my snapshot of the present. my talk is entitled the future of the history of syria or the history of the future of syria excuse me so i want to close by telling you what i think think tentatively has been a story in what may be coming down the pipeline. not to be pessimistic but i think president obama has a

tough road ahead of him. this is for many reasons not least of them the fact that to my eyes the united states does not have a clear and robust sense of what our mission is. there've been many conflicting statements over the past weeks in past months about our goals and expecting isis to eradicate them all together and to do something else entirely. that is not clear and just as our mission is not crystal clear as it should be the appropriate military response to meet those various missions is also not clear. the eradication of vices would require commitment of military force far beyond anything we have played so far arguably far beyond anything we pledged in the invasion of iraq. on the other hand information is more modest in other words the containment of this cancer to the middle east than perhaps we can talk about a more modest and manageable form of military expenditure that the american public and their president can stomach.

another reason why think president obama faces an uphill battle with respect respect to serious its unusually fragile coalition of interest that converge around the eradication of the degrading of isis could imagine a moment ago about how isis has up-ended the tidy axes of the syrian and civil war but i think although for the time being countries like the united states and russia and sunni militants inside of syria can agree with eradication of isis and to the benefit of our rented i think this fragile coalition is premised on sheer dentist will not last for long term especially as it becomes clear that the bombing of military campaigns inside syria served to in fact help the assad regime but seems to me and inevitable conclusion of what's going on right now. this connects to my next point. i believe that in the medium term and the long term the high

likelihood of the rehabilitation of the assad regime on its national stage. given the impossible wager between a regime that is massacred countless hundreds, tens of thousands of civilians inside of its own country and the radical jihad is group that controls the territory roughly the size of great britain had it seems to me the international community may in the long run hold its nose and learn to cooperate with president assad in a way that it has refused up until now. another thing coming down the pipeline connects to many of us americans. 2016. regardless of who the occupant of the white house is after 2015 whether republican or democrat or a certain republican or in a range or certain democrat or any number of republicans i think they will have a new u.s. president who is not committed to the same long string of statements calling for the ouster of the assad regime and as a result of pragmatism and a blank slate the new u.s. leader will have great freedom and

flexibility to make policy decisions are quickly more muscular military policy decisions that president obama did not. the two final notes. i don't mean to end on a melancholy note that syria is a melancholy story and this is what i try to bring out of my book. i think the near-term future of syria will be a tragedy regardless of what happens. i think this'll be a tragedy because although the world is acting in a way that has -- it has not before to rescue syria for my sister rescued the region from this cancer that has been pacifying in the spread has endured at the world's attention from other arguably first-order problems inside of syria. among these bass casualties of civilians, millions of refugees that turn on syria's borders and inside the country the use of chemical weapons, human rights violations, a collapsed economy that estimates currently say would require at least $200 billion to rebuild so i

think isis is diverting the world's attention as a tragedy indeed. the second tragedy connect to my research interest is a scholar. i'm finishing my ph.d. and i have spent most of my time thinking about events that happened a long time ago in the premodern middle east and the relations between muslim and non-muslim communities. i think there is good reason to believe that the events that we are witnessing unfolding in the middle east today represent the tragic culmination of the process that has lasted for more than a century and that is the process of the gradual cultural homogenization of the middle east. there are certain groups within this tragedy that have received much more attention the press than others most recently these yazidis but many other groups. it's a tragedy that has touched muslims themselves in terms of the segregation or excuse me to graduate separation and segregation of formally mixed

cultures. it is touch smaller communities such as arminians greeks etc. who once formed great numbers inside the middle east and i think the tragic circumstances of the syrian civil war and now the regional conservation may lead to the acceleration of this process that has been happening very slowly into my eyes relatively undetected for more than a century. so this final point about the gradual homogenization of the middle east the disappearance of communities rooted in the region for centuries and centuries been suspected that conversation i had with my friend and the old city of damascus in 2009. when i think that for that conversation his comments, his opinions chafed against me. they seemed so other than my own sensibilities as an american coming from society that was rightfully celebrating the progress of a community that have historically been marginal

african-americans to president obama the first black president. in hindsight i wondered if perhaps there was wisdom that a certain degree of prophecy and what my friend said not that great culture and religious diversity in the middle east will lead to sectarian bloodshed but there are major unresolved issues where there were major unresolved issues in syria and iraq before the onset of this fighting and i think we are seeing the culmination and in some respects the natural outplay these tensions. it's not clear where we are headed but i think the future remains very uncertain and we will see a lot more bloodshed before it's over. with that, i'm happy to take questions. >> thank you very much christian. let me ask you a question. what will it take to defeat isis? to syria and then move on

because i mean the winning one read about about them maybe a year ago or so were a bunch of ragtag sort of people with an ideology that formed this group and also the notion of the caliphate in the 21st century is absurd even for a person like me who grew up in iran. so what would it take to just defeat? >> this is the million-dollar question. i don't alleged to have a conference of answer but maybe i can give you a few suggestions as to what i see. i think there are three layers to this. one is a military solution and the others an ideological solution and the other is a much more deep social solution. the military solution seems clear it even in accomplishing

that goal will be very difficult. here i think it will involve a large and comprehensive and inclusive coalition powers inside the middle east. a coalition of powers that may include groups we currently do not want fighting isis such as the syrian regime. that's a military solution. afterwards the continuation of that happening in arguably the escalation of it that the second two i think are more interesting. i think very clearly isis is successful not merely because it imposes itself by will on this subject populations but because to some extent isis, the message of isis has found fertile soil within these communities. this seems to me a major unanswered question with respect to the events of the past month. who are the local constituents of ice in syria and iraq? in this respect providing an ideological alternative that vision of a political islam that does not appeal to violence etc. is the way forward.

it's a generational challenge but i think countries such as syria and iraq can do so on a long-term by addressing what lies at the root of all this which is in my opinion the absence of an inclusive government within these countries that can empower the diverse ethnic and religious groups that form the matrix of the society he do have an inclusive society that does not give -- does not enfranchise the sunnis feud -. >> i will start here. can you please wait for the mic and identify yourself? the mic is coming. >> haynes mahoney i was the last dcm in damascus before we shut down the embassy and after that i spent two and a half years dealing with the syrian opposition. i wonder u.s. and historian looking at the sunnis and the

relationship between the sunnis and the other sex in syria other than the massacres of the mid-19th century view found historical roots both to the frictions that seem to be coming up now and being exploited by isis and to this concept of restoring the caliphate? >> look, you point exactly to the historical example that i would give. many scholars regarded to the sectarian turning point to sectarian watershed occurs in the summer of 1860 winning combination of factors both external having to do with the politics of the ottoman empire reforms by european powers imposing european powers by the autumn along with internal factors specific to local societies leads to a massive. maca bloodshed in which fighting

spills from mt. lebanon into the old city of damascus and estimates varied widely as to the number of christians who were killed mostly at the hands of his sunni and estimates from several hundred to several thousand. i think that is, this is not a continuous story of sectarianism. sectarianism may be a recurring phenomenon in the history of the middle east that we have to be sensitive as this changes over time. the former sectarian -- sectarianism that we find today harness messages in a rhetoric that has been very familiar in societies in the middle east for decades if not centuries certainly but it's also very very different. that is what i would say with respect to your first question. with respect to your second question the caliphate, even if as you said the restoration of the caliphate strikes many muslims today is completely implausible basically a pipe dream it's undeniable that an institution with the islamic history the caliphate is

prestige and a pragmatic way in which in the past they have looked to leadership and as a result being an aspirational way will, and what i find extremely interesting about isis is that isis has of course done that but none of these other groups have done. talk is cheap. you can talk about restoring a caliphate but not actually going about doing and what is unique about isis as they have done it. i think isis sees itself as restrained a great great mistake of the 1920s but the caliphate under ataturk and the mongers ataturk and the mongers and their successful even if the violence that symbolic acts certainly does resonate. >> my name is steve come a wonderful and informative talk but you didn't mention israel at all.

do the israelis have any goals in syria and if so are they doing anything to achieve them? >> my sense of the syrian israeli of the relationship over the past decade is despite formal hostility these are two countries that war someone with an israeli passport cannot enter syria. a lot of anecdotal evidence to go on hikes in the war. this is a relationship of official tension but when i look at it i think what was the quietest border in the middle east over the past 40 years. in many ways it was the golan heights borders i think although there was a rhetoric of possibility and that they increase -- region modus operandi. on the one hand the assad regime is the same that fed weapons from -- [audio difficulty]

islamist alternative such as the one that include -- and could have been much much worse and the reticence of the israelis over the past three and a half years has been very interesting and the people who i talk to who no the silence. people that i talk who are no the situation much better than me say that faced with the prospect of a slog falling certainly now in contrast to what happened a few years ago but now i think a lot of my sense is that within israel many people were content to see a solid state. al qaeda is knocking at their doorstep in a fiasco with the capture of the fijian soldier u.n. peacekeepers at the crossing last month. think israel realizes it's the same stability that you might not like under assad or freewheeling chaos under this coalition of islamist groups that they cannot stomach.

>> this gentleman behind you. >> stewart rosenblatt and i work with ibi are. my question to you is there is a bill in the u.s. congress, actually this goes to the secon in the proxy war between saudi arabia and iran. there's a bill in the u.s. congress created by walter john steve clinton growing support even during the recess to declassify the original 9/11 report a missing chapter which purports to show the role of saudi arabia both officially to the embassy and to charities and other institutions and the funding and orchestrating of the original 9/11 hijackers and the attacks. there is an increasing coverage of this. very recently senator bob graham who chaired the intelligence committee and helped write the report has been demanding it be declassified. it was interviewed and said in

the last couple of weeks that saudi arabia has been playing both sides and is strictly involved in funding a isis and the creation of isis and he has been joined by many more people. my question is as an historian which you support the declassification of the 28 page chapter? >> business of the beginning of my talk i am not a policy expe expert. i'm a historian and i would prefer to abstain on a policy question. i can comment on the general historical and cultural context. i think it's undeniable over the past several years and decades saudi arabia has played in countries like qatar have played both sides of the aisle so of the isles of the of the aisle so to speak in one hand these are countries that are aligned to the united states by a convergence of energy economic interest security interest but on the other hand by virtue of their own populations beyond the ideology that is suspended within the families have of

course been sympathetic to this extremist ideologies. on the one hand you have regimes that are staunch allies cooperators of the united states but on the other hand appear to by all reports the mixed up with groups that are by the standards of u.s. foreign policy antithetical toward interest. so as i said i would prefer not to comment on the policy aspect of it but there's a great virtue in realizing it is a messy situation and it goes to my comment about this messy coalition of interest and a very loose convergence of interest around the group of isis. >> christian we have the question from me for it. do you think isis concept of jihad could extend to europe in a large number of fighters coming from the west? >> i think absolutely and in this precise threat that up until now isis for all of its poisonous rhetoric and its

violence most of its military operations have basically been focused within the region in other words within iraq and syria. it may not be attacking the syrian regime as robustly as it claims to but nonetheless it's been a local and regional phenomenon and i think the great worry of serving president, andy community is isis has the potential to ment metastasize for them to an organization that is not merely a jihad that a transnational jihad. >> the gentleman that blue shirt shirt. yes, please. >> i just have a question picking up on your historical specialty. of course this is a caliphate.

it seems to be wondered if you you compared it to the caliphate's of west asia over the past several centuries the i see striking differences between the ottoman articulation of the caliphate and autonomous governing of each community. many communities in the ottoman empire arguably, not arguably exactly are far more diverse than what succeeded it. so do you want to address the question that this caliphate that isis has proclaimed his has very little to do with history in previous centuries but in fact rooted in something much more modern? >> absolutely. i want to be clear that when i talk about the historical resonance of the ideal of the caliphate i'm not making any claim to the similarity to

caliphate's -- and i would completely agree agree in a matter of its patron how it runs itself the danger of this caliphate is utterly counter to that of what we know from the past whether we are talking about the ottomans or the apostates. we are dealing with a very different world. as you said not only was it ottoman caliphate innocence innocence for practical work of specter's treatment of minority groups and the period that i study are similar governing structures but we are also talking about very different worlds. the ottoman empire for much of its history was a majority non-muslim empire touches the up boss at caliphate were majority non-muslim worlds. so in a sense there was a pragmatism imposed on how they regulated into cable relations

etc. so the harshness of the violence is characterized the intolerance and the dangerous aces in the name of behaving like a caliphate is like a savor the most part counter to the example of the behavior of most traditional muslim caliphs throughout history. >> i will move to the back. >> can tease at the wilson center. thank you for marvelous presentation. in thinking about the future of syria will we be looking say in that decade about very different middle eastern map the independent kurdistan that she has been built around basra, the assad regime retreating to the alawites and what to see is the future that middle eastern map? >> i think we see de facto partition of the middle east already. it will be interesting to see what the international community does to formalize or not formalize those borders but there have been various appellations leaping to this.

that's probably not the case with the notion that there'll be a de facto partition between western syria under the control of the assad regime versus this kind of wild wild west or the wild white -- wild wild east as the case may be. i can certainly see that happening in iraq. what i find fascinating as an historian as many of these regimes in the middle east including those in iraq and syria and elsewhere have spent much of the past decades the agreement of this colonial at venture of the french and british according to their telling of the borders are not able to reflect the real committees on the ground. in many ways the exact people that decried colonial interventions are now and i'm are are now and i'm only committed to the protection of its borders.

in the near-term near-term and midterm will be interesting to see what happens but i think we effectively see de facto partition and i think it will be a bit longer before those tobacco borders become official borders about all. >> yes. >> thank you. great with the center for national policy. my question goes to the alawites community. there've been press reports that there's a lot of anger within the alawite community against assad because other kids have been killed in the fighting and he's not his father. in other words the father dealt with the situation very brutally in the early 80s that survived and now we have this big mess. is it possible that the alawites could try to move against assad to try to preserve their interest or do they believe do you think that moving against assad would make the whole house of cards fall down?

what is the sense of it right now from your perspective? >> i think the sentiment has changed. this was a major open question i believe at the beginning of the syrian civil war whether the alawites would fracture and as is obvious from events over the past three and half years they have not fractured. as long as there is an existential threat in the form of the sunni militant group so long as there is a major backer of the assad family in the form of iran and its hezbollah allies etc. i don't see the alawites fracturing. what happens in a world in which syria columns down in which the fighting comes to an end and suddenly these alawite families from the mountains who were sending their sons to die for a assad had to cash in their chips. they are owed a great deal and assad has to pay up. there will be an extremely important question and i think you see coherence in this regime around which the alawites of close ranks will look potentially more fragile way but

for now the story is clear that there've not been fractures and breaks. >> i wonder if mr. sub forward, and on the possible analysis that this era this period in these peoples are characterized by a long war between iran and iraq. out of that war came a very strong capable military cadre and especially special forces men who worked for saddam hussein. these now form the core for the islamic state and i think that is as much of a characteristic as an ideological characteristic. we have a couple of pentagon -- pentagon guys here today. >> or would like to further the expertise of the pentagon guy said that the case. from what everything i have read

yes, i think is in the case of the alawites as we are talking a minute ago a lot of these groups in the syrian civil war in iraq worked generally appearing to be a monolith from the outside. another was a single coherent group at the same interests and from all the reports i've read this seems to be not the case with isis. that is isis leadership appears to be comprised of two groups. one, the leadership to base it inherited from al qaeda in iraq the group that was quashed by the u.s. surge among other things of the my one hand and on the other hand baathists who are radicalized in prisons over the past decade or so. these two forces are very potent together. i wonder in the long-term the depth of his radicalization. the bath whether in iraq or syria has an ambivalent relationship to religion

throughout its history. i don't doubt it but i want to know more and i wonder again for how long will these two key constituencies be able to work together. >> thank you for your presentation. he mentioned three solutions for the situation. the military one, the social one and i would like to add another one. don't you think the inclusion of political islam would prevent having another isis and the second thing i would like to know how isis that requires, it works in iraq and syria and they are in a very precarious situation. is it that all the arab countries in the united states will have a long time?

>> i think we will stop at that. we will get back to again raise. >> i just wanted to know what is the social solution. >> we will get back to you. >> as they said it might answer to the question in the beginning i think a major solution in their long-term perhaps an impossible solution that one of the country should work towards is the creation of a more inclusive political system a more represented position satisfies the population and given time i think that's something that these societies are open to and this is a reality, for example that we have to deal with. and with respect to your second question very quickly this is a massive military military challenge that we know precisely what it will take to eliminate it. i can see a massive escalation

long-term to deal with the problem. >> thank you. as a historian i may ask an unfair question which is to invite you to speculate on the refugee issue and are there lessons from history and what you see happening? >> the middle east has been scarred by many refugee crises talking about the palestinian refugee crisis or countries like jordan or lebanon etc. and i think these memories hang very heavily over the heads of most people in the middle east. i just got back from linux and jordan and spent an extremely an interesting moving day outside of the refugee camp which over the course of three years has become the third or fourth largest city and in all of jordan. it has more than 100,000 people in it and it's incredible. my long-term prediction is that

the refugees under different circumstances, these were temporary settlements and became permanent settlements is hard to see how something like the refugee camp does not go the same way. in other words as temporary city that looks like a shanty town town when a block in which it does has corrugated tin houses that basically consists of tens and plastic and how this in the course the next generation or two will become a major city north of jordan. i think the story is likely to play out across the middle east whether we are talking about turkey or or lebanon etc.. not all refugees are the same. there are many refugees who have integrated successfully into their societies and some have gone near and some have gone far. among the most destitute and desperate permanent cities is what we may be looking at in the long-term. >> yes, in the back please. >> thank you.

i am from syria. their study on that specific area in what is going on right now, do you think the great state is about to become real? thank you. >> i think that this has been a long-term goal for the kurds for many years and in the midst of this crisis which is a crisis that threatens everyone inside of syria and iraq the kurds are unique in that for the first time in a long time they face a gamble that could if they play it properly lead to autonomy. few were interested in this i recommend an extremely detailed article published in the new york by dexter filkins which goes into the details of this and it talks about the wager. on the one hand how do you deal with the existential threat of isis that kurdistan shares with central iraq and the government of baghdad on it and had the

leverage this to create an opportunity for autonomy? that seems to be the current direction of history. i can put a date on it but i would not be surprised to see it happen. >> christian let me ask you a question again from the overfl overflow. it's about the syrian rule, the role of the syrian coalition and also whether there are currently have a million employees in the civilian government. what does the future entailed for them if the syrian coalition in a hypothetical case woodwind? >> this raises for me the example of iraq. how do you get the stated goal of overthrowing the regime regime hockey to segregate their

regime from the professional staff that runs the regime? can these people be perceived as complicit in the crimes of the military leaders at the top and the security services and directing operations in the army. it seems to me that no you can't. deep bath vacation is a complex and extremely difficult by the standards of any failed process that incited a lot of insurgency in iraq and one could imagine something similar happening inside of syria. for precisely this reason it is identifiable institutions that can forge treaties to follow up on these things. this is precisely what i think they recommend the syrian regime to western countries such as the united states that may not currently be willing to cooperate with isis and forced treaties. to be clear i'm not endorsing this idea but i am merely

explaining what i see as a potential or plausible sequence of events in the future and i think this is one of them. >> let me ask you the last question. iran. as a player in syria. recently foreign ministers the reef talked again about the syrian people should decide about their future. you mentioned ballots. is that possible or is there hope and how much influence do the iranians really have in syria? >> i'm sure sure the minister realizes the heavy dose of irony when the iranians are sending all sorts of logistical military and economic support into the country. they do that along with many other groups who are