the second session will begin and we will introduce the second panel. as alpa's chief executive and administrati officer, the captain presides over the body and oversees daily operations. the chair recognizes the captain to testify. >> good morning, mr. chairman and congressman payne. i am president of the airline pilots association international, and we represent more than 52,000 pilots that fly

for 31 passenger and all cargo flights in the united states and canada. thank you for inviting me here today. for several decades pilots have had a strong relationship with the federal air marshal service. we meet on a regular basis to make sure we have a current and most accurate understanding of the rules and responsibilities and training and methods. we focus on how they act. alpha members have been deeply impressed by the professionalism of the air marshals and the leaders, including the assistant administrator alison. every day they put their lives at risk to safeguard the crew and passengers on the flight, and for that reason we will be extremely grateful. flying u.s. airliners with highly trained anti-terrorism

experts aboard is valuable. they serve as a powerful deterrent to anybody that might contemplate hijacking a flight. the tsa adopted a risk free security program. on the same theme the federal flight desk officer program also served in another layer. in the wake of the terrorists attacks of 9/11, they conceived of and advocated for the program which became a reality when congress passed the arming pilots against terrorism act in 2002. ffdo's are airline pilots who voluntarily undergo screening and training by the tsa and once qualified these pilots are deputized for assuming responsibilities of protecting the cockpit. thousands of passengers have

volunteers to become ffdos. in addition they volunteer their personal time to receive the training and required to join the program and many pay of their own expense. it's the last line of defense of protecting the cockpit and they provide a critical additional layer of security. we applaud of the members of congress and particularly those on this committee. we agree the funding is adequate to train the new ffdos, and the program is successful and efficient and should be expanded to meet the risk base security objectives. it also commands the program's current oversight authority. the office of training and workforce engagement for setting the stage for the continued success.

it has given the members the opportunity to provide airline pilots perspectives. they have been responsive to our feedback. we look forward to continue to work close with them. and i would be remiss if i did not understand their strong support for installing secondary cockpit barriers on passenger airliners as another layer of security. simply put, secondary cockpit barriers create a common sense additional layer of security by protecting the cockpit when the harden door must be opened. installing secondary cockpit barriers would be an important security enhancement for many reasons, not the least of which they would benefit from the additional layer. we are committed to advancing

aviation security to protect our passengers and cargo and flight crews. we appreciate the sub committees shared in in exploring new ways to make the transportation system even more secure. thank you for the opportunity to be here today. >> thank you captain. the chair now recognizes itself for five minutes of questions. let's start out with the secondary barrier issue. there has been some people advocating for a second barrier for cockpit doors -- i know when i am on an airplane i notice the attendant turning the cart sideways when somebody is coming out of the door, and some ask if it's necessary and i want you to comment on that and tell me as by way of background if there has been any attempts to rush

the door. >> i am not prepared to talk about the amount of incidents, but they have been. one vulnerability is the period of time when you have to leave for central purses passing meals or accessing the bathroom on the aircraft, and even if it's for the shortest period possible, that period is when we are most vulnerable. the installing of a very cost-effective secondary barrier, and we are talking $5,000 to $12,000 barrier, and once installed it's forever and no operating costs, and you can completely eliminate that risk period of time. >> do you have an idea of what they look like? is it a full door or a screen? what is it?

>> a wire mesh retractible and lightweight, and it's an inexpensive measure, as i mentioned. it goes to the door from the ceiling to the cabin, and it's installed after the cockpit door but before the cabin. it's in a period where you would make your right turn near the galley galley. you would not see it unless it's deployed. >> let's switch gears and talk about the association and the relationship with the pilots that you are aware of. it seems like you enjoy a pretty good relationship but are there any concerns about the conduct of the air marshal service or ways to improve it going forward? >> we have no concerns about their conduct whatsoever. they are always seeking better ways to do business so while we are satisfied we have good

communications procedures out there on the line flying the aircraft, and we know we can do better and we are always looking for better ways to do it? >> how can we improve the air marshal service? more bodies in the seats or better training or what? >> one way would be to expand the ffdo program. the ffdo program is an amplifier for the federal air marshal service. if you are covering more flights with ffdos, then you have the capability of covering more critical flights with the current fams. our budget is $25 million and that's adequate as i mentioned in my testimony. we would like to see the opportunity to expanded and entice every pilot that wishes to become an ffdo would become

an ffdo? >> do you know how long the waiting list is? >> i do not, but i will get that to my office. >> if there are pilots desiring to do that it's a question of funding, that should not be something going forward. to me that's important. can you tell me approximately what percentage of airline pilots have the ffdo certification. >> i always wanted to say this in congress, i can't confirm or deny -- >> so cool. >> perhaps in a more secure setting you could advice us and i do think it's another layer of security that is an important deterrent. since i have a few seconds i will ask one more.

what happened with the german airlines, with the pilot going bad, is there ways we can examine to try and help you prevent that from happening in this country with our airlines? >> as you know airline pilots are subject to physical examination and in that there is an element of mental evaluation. the faa has stood up a committee to examine the current processes we use for the element. at the air line pilots association we have a program in place for many years not only substance abuse but standards committees that monitor peer to peer within the programs, and pilots can access hotlines 24/7. we feel the programs have been very effective but we're part of the solution going forward to try and examine what else we can do. >> i look forward to hearing the

results of that because to me if there is something we can help you with that, we would want to do so. i will refer to my ranking minority member mr. payne from new jersey. >> thank you mr. chairman. as usual we are on the same page and the same thought and i was going to ask that same question in reference to the german incident so you kind of stole my thunder. we are really delighted to have you here this morning to testify before us. your credentials are second to none as we look at them, and just definitely consider you an expert in this area. i want to ask you about the screening process for applicants into the federal flight desk

officers program and are there any prerequisites for applying such as tenure or flight hours? >> thank you congressman. so the prerequisites that i am about to describe are over and above the prerequisites you would have to maintain to be an active air transport pilot and that would be the physical and testing requirements to be in the cockpit. the volunteers through an online process submit a voluntary questionnaire which is extensive and then there is an in-person interview conducted with those that get through the first level and then a background check of those who are conditionally accepted. the program training is one week in length. they arrive on sunday and depart on saturday, and in any given five-year point they need to be able to look back and find they completed initial training or recurrent training and twice a

year they have firearms training to maintain their qualification at all times. >> how has the training undergone by ffdos been tailored to address the evolving threats with aviation security? >> as i mentioned before, all of aviation, both in the cockpit and in design and in the ffdo program is an evolving training process. it changes in each cycle. i am not familiar with the actual recent changes they made. they are of course, not for public consumption but they do evolve each training cycle so they are receiving the most current thoughts from the fams and the tactics they use. >> are there any incentives that can be created to encourage enrolling into the ffdo program? >> yes, sir, currently the ffdo program, there's a few elements here. first of all, we do not have

widespread or it's extremely limited capabilities so they don't deploy on international flights, and pilots transfer in and out of international categories, so if we could work with the department of state to expand our ability to travel internationally that would be helpful, and the requirement for the employer to provide leaves of absence for the ffdo to attend training would be helpful as well, and any assistance to offset the expenses they incur in travel and practice ammunition would be helpful as well and we receive no enumeration for service. >> please detail the way the ffdos communicate with fams to

address vulnerabilities on flights? >> the ffdo program coordinates with the tsa as does the fams. we are satisfied that it does take place evidenced by the very quick reaction we get on all our concerns. >> i appreciate your testimony, and you being available to answer the questions, and with that mr. chairman, i will yield back. >> thank you mr. payne. i have a quick follow-up question i neglected to ask, and that is comparing with the current safety strategies in place, absent the second airy barrier, and that is turning the cart sideways and having a

person behind it versus the secondary barrier, can you tell me the degree of difference when a pilot is coming out of the cockpit? >> i never contemplated putting a mathematical measurement on it. >> not a mathematical measurement. what are your concerns with the current way they are doing it? >> well, i mean, without getting into our common strategy elements, i think even the most uneducated passenger can see that a simple drink cart isn't nearly as obstructive as a floor to ceiling wire mesh and the drink cart is guarded by a flight attendant which is also not as strong as a wire mesh. i think it's intuitive if you have a wire mesh, you are going to have zero capability to get through that in the time the door is open. the drink cart is open and has wheels and is meant to move, and it only comes up about waist

level. there are serious considerations there, and i don't think you could argue that the wire mesh is far more secure. >> i have done a lot of hearings and never asked this question but since we have a few moments is there anything that we have not touched on that you wish we did or anything else you would like to raise to include in your testimony? >> i think we have been efficient in our time. >> i too. >> it has been -- since 2001, we had secondary barriers in our agenda, something we wanted to see on the aircraft as a real enhancement to the security and we had voluntary compliance but in the last seven to eight years, it's zero, and nobody is installing them because there is no requirement. if we could find a way to work a requirement in, we could phase

it in over the long period of time. >> i appreciate your time and as far as federal flight deck officers programs, if there is any information you want to submit to the committee we would be happy to take a look at it and see what we can do. >> the members of the committee may have additional questions for you, and we will ask you to respond to these in writing. the hearing record will be open for ten days, and without objection the sub committee stands adjourned. thank you for your time, sir.

federal reserve janet yellen is on capitol hill today for the second day in a row to deliver the fed's semiannual monetary report to congress. that happens at 2:30 p.m. eastern and you can see it live here on c-span 3. this weekend on c-span's road to the white house, two major political events from iowa and we're the only place you can watch or listen to the events in their entirety. friday night at 8:00 eastern live in cedar rapids for the iowa democratic party hall of fame daner. all day saturday beginning at 11:00 a.m. eastern we'll be live for the family leadership summit

where nine of the presidential candidates are scheduled to speak. c-span's road to the white house 2016, we take you there. >> early next month a forum with presidential candidates, and c-span partnering with the new hampshire union leader for the voter's first forum on monday august 3rd. all gop candidates have been invited to participate. it's on c-span, c-span radio and cspan.org at 7:30 p.m. eastern time. when congress is in session, c-span3 brings you more of the best access to coverage, and every weekend it's american history tv. traveling to historical sites,

and discussions with authors and historians and eyewitness accounts. retired general john allen is the special presidential envoy and he spoke earlier this week and after a brief introduction general allen made remarks and took questions from the audience. good morning, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the center for american progress. it's amazing to see so many wonderful friends here. i see several distinguished members of the diplomatic corp. and we are all here from caps

perspective to launch this report, but from all of your perspectives to get an opportunity to hear directly from general john allen, the president's special envoy to the global initiative to defeat isis. they say isil and i say isis. and the general is one of the great patriots and public servants we have had in the country and i have had the privilege to know him several years, and he has been a man that would take on any difficult task for the united states and he's been endlessly dedicated, dedicated to the troops, dedicated to the marines he led, and dedicated to the civilians that worked in the most difficult places, and i am really honored that we have him here today. before being the president's special envoy of the global coalition to encounter isil he

took on the challenge to help lead the middle east process for two years, working back and forth with the israelis and palestinians and working what was a heroic effort to get a two-state solution, and he is somebody that applies a great deal of thought and reflection on how america needs to handle its most difficult challenges. most importantly, and i have seen him in this capacity wearing the uniform and out of the uniform he understands the kinds of challenges we face are never strictly military, they are always political and always complex. we could have no better person to bring to this task to trying to figure out what are all of the pieces of the puzzle encountering the threat that isis poses to the countries it

is currently decimating erasing borders, to the region and to the world and how we can get a solution that is just not going to rely on military force, by us or by others, because the only way forward is going to be something comprehensive and sustainable and something led by the country's most affected with the support of a wide coalition of partners. we don't have general allen for a very long time today so i won't go into much detail. we will be hearing from him, and he and i will have a chance to do a short discussion and then we have a distinguished panel that will join us afterwards for follow-up discussion. without further ado, general, thank you for joining us.

good morning, ladies and gentlemen. it's really a great pleasure to be here, and i want to thank you for not just the introduction that you have given me this morning, but in your own right for the magnificent public service you have rendered on our country. as many of you know, he has had substantial contributions across a whole variety of ways, in a variety of ways to our diplomatic and coalition efforts, and i benefited directly from those and also your work in east asia so we should all applaud your great work and should benefit from the work that you have done, not just there in the department of defense, but certainly more broadly in this community that takes such a great interests here particular, for the important and difficult conversations, so thank you for that. and i want to thank the center as well and so many other

complicated issues facing our country today, and in particular i want to compliment you on the report that has come out recently and the three recommend tkaeug recommendations that we are digesting. we are digesting it and i want to thank you for the efforts from the center in bringing those about. today we are here to talk about the coalition and the coalition as it deals with isil. as president obama said last september at the united nations general assembly, this is a moment where the world is at a crossroads. we are living during a time of human history when the older order is passing and the newer order is coming into being and how isil has effectively used 21st century tools, the ease of world travel, and global financial networks and the internet, and we see some

vulnerabilities and gaps in the global order that is, in fact, emerging, and gaps that can be ex exploited to the detriment. they are so skilled at using phaud return technology in spreading such a anti-modern and mid evil and dehumanizing theology. as somebody that spent four decades as a u.s. marine, i have come closer than many to the face of inhumanity. i have never before seen the kind of deprivety and barbaric that isil represents and celebrates every day. in my service as the president's special envoy to the global coalition to counter isil over the past ten months the global

response to isil's calculated operation, i am continually impressed by the group of partners that committed themselveses and their states to encounter isil and contribute to the campaign. by their willingness to make substantial contributions of national prestige and the blood and the treasure of their population, it is their genuine effort to mark a contribution to solving a complicated and complex problem. indeed it has been a privilege to help to organize their efforts, the efforts of 60 nations and two organizations into a coalition campaign that matters profoundly to the security not just of this nation, but of the nations of the world. from the outset of this

coalition, this coalition's campaign to counter isil, which i will henceforth refer to by it's acronym as daesh we would persist and adapt and reassess our activities in the light of both victories and setbacks. setbacks such as the one that was experienced in ramadi in may. at the same time it's also imperative for all of us to understand the direction of our campaign, from a more expansive horizon than the ones set back for the one victory. having been part of four previous coalitions over the course of my career, and having commanded a coalition of 50 nations in afghanistan i see how important, how indeed, essential is it to see the ups and downs of a campaign within the context of long-term

strategic objectives. as we mark one year from the horrific events in iraq which spurred the united states to act and convene a global coalition we have an important opportunity to take stock of how far we have come and how much further we have to go. it's difficult to remember just how perilous a moment it was last june as daesh fighters crossed the syrian border and began to pour down the tiger river valley, and they massacred thousands of ethnic and religious minorities in its path and it was a moment when iraq was under siege and largely alone in the world. not only did daesh win quick victories during those days, but they demonstrated an ability to use information operations as a

force multiplier as daesh fighters took to social media to boast of the women they brutalized and they forced into a sex trade and these had a remarkable affect on the world. immediately, ultimately, we will never know the complete impact these messages had on thousands of iraqi soldiers that fled their ranks not just because of the weight of the media campaign against them but to defend their homes and families. we do know this, daesh's ability to define the information environment played a pivotal role, perhaps even a defining role as they began to emerge in this crisis and our ability to delegitimize that narrative and the very idea of the organization will play just as pivotal a role in their demise. nowhere has daesh's message mattered more than in the weeks

after the capture of mosul where they declared the existence of the so-called caliphate, and the leader proclaimed daesh's global ambitions and it was during those difficult days last summer, as daesh fighters surrounded thousands as they threatened the approaches to baghdad, united states took a series of actions that would ultimately shift the momentum, and president obama secretary kerry made critical decisions that would begin to lay the ground work for a coalition, and a comprehensive effort to come. first, we searched intelligence assets over iraq from one isr intelligence surveillance and re

reconnaissance, from one a day to 60 a day, getting a more granular picture to daesh's movements. we restored critical relationships between iraq's central government and kurdish commanders. third, we deployed special forces team to assess iraqi security forces. fourth, and perhaps most critically for iraq's future, we redoubled our effort to support the iraqis in the political process following national elections. these actions were absolutely essential in the immediate term, but by no means sufficient to address the many grave dangers that we face. indeed it was last summer that we began to understand that

daesh was not simply a iraqi or syrian problem, but emerging as a regional problem with global and generational implications. it was out of a keen awareness of that reality and understanding of the unthinkable human implications if this emergency were to go unevaded that our president supported by the secretary solved to build a global coalition. it was at that time last year when i was asked by the white ho president and secretary as a special envoy to the global coalition. since i began serving in the role i had the opportunity to travel to 30 capitals many of them repeatedly and during that time, as we have worked together, we have been able to establish a coalition of 60 nations and two partners, two-partner organizations. unlike other coalition campaigns i have been a part of, we have

had to build this coalition out of old cloth. when i served as the commander of our nato forces in afghanistan, our legal authorities resided upon the united nations security council resolution and the framework for our organization rested on the council of nato, the unprecedented nature and the urgency of this effort required that we create an organizational framework that would sustain a long-term effort while simultaneously confronting the emergency that we faced. last december in brussels the coalition to address isil went to a joint statement that outlined our objectives and commitments to work together over multiple lines of effort. while its the coalitions kinetic actions that often do and usually do receive the most attention, it's the aggregate

effort of the coalition's activities across multiple lines of effort that will as was said in the beginning, in the end will determine the coalition's success. that's why in every visit i have to a coalition capital and every conversation i with a prime minister or president or a king i describe the coalitions campaign as organized around five multiple lines of effort. the first is the military component, to deny safe haven and to provide security assistance to our partners. the second is disrupting the flow of foreign fighters. third is disrupting access to daesh's financial resources and their ability to access the international financial system. fourth providing humanitarian assistance and relief and stabilization support and the fifth is encounter messaging where defeating daesh is an

idea. let me provide an overview of the coalition's progress over the lines of effort, and the ways in which the coalition is evolving to confront an adaptable enemy. our first line of effort is focused on providing security support to the partners on the ground. while these efforts are the purview of the central command and its partners, it's essential the coalition activities over each lines of effort are synchronized and mutual lisa poertd. as we evaluate that ramadi is a setback from which we must learn and understand, and if you have not been following, about 500 the iraqi security forces are en

route now to isolated ramadi and to take it back. we should also not forget while we think about this campaign that is unfolding against ramadi that daesh is also suffering setbacks in places like pwab annual province. with the support of our air power over top of determined fighters, they were soundly defeated, and that is an accurate term, soundly defeated from a military perspective, beyond kobani, and across a long stretch of the syrian border, maybing and across the border of syria and turkey, and two-thirds of the border has been rested

from the control of daesh in the last six weeks. in tikrit, prime minister abadi asked for coalition support, and security forces were able to recover the city, and today less than three months later hundreds of displaced families have now made a peaceful return to the city. this process gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic about the iraqi led efforts or stabilization and the stabilized support, deliberated populations and communities as they seek to prevent sectarian reprisals. while these important gains are important to our partners on the ground, the coalition played a vital role in their capabilities as well. 15 partners are helping to build the iraqi security force capabilities at five training camps, and six partners are

contributing the coalitions advise and assist mission, and eight nations participated in air strikes over iraq and five over syria. among them, more than 8,000 iraqi fighters that the coalition trained and many are now helping to secure borders and are in the attack to recover ramadi, and in the short period of time since ramadi's fall, president obama's decision to locate our troops at a five training location has produced an additional 1,300 tribal fighters who are engaged in supporting the iraqi security forces in the attack on ramadi at this moment. so make no mistake more iraqis, sunni and shia alike must be recruited, trained and engaged to take back their country.

building the capacity of iraq's security forces will be required during a commitment and one i believe this coalition has made. others may not agree but it is my belief that with each passing week as greater numbers of iraqis are trained and equipped and take to the field, we will see their increasing effort have affect and success will inspire success as we have seen in other places. i believe we will see others enter the fight as time goes on. the same time we must appreciate the security gains can only be sustained if political reforms are made in parallel. towards that end we must continue to encourage prime minister abadi's pursuit of an inclusive path he has set for his country, one that begins to operationalize his approach of governance called federalism this vision of governance in

decentralizing authorities to the provinces and it's in that approach we hope to test the plan that president -- prime minister abadi put in place the anbar and solidify the support of the sunnis in this process. success in anbar will depend on baghdad's ability to willingness to recruit and train and equip sunni toss sunnis to take back their communities. this will require prime minister abad i and others to assume political risk with their largely shia constituency. we've seen him assume that risk and we've seen the sovereign decisions made in baghdad that are beginning to pay off. as we see the sunnis begin to organize and more tribal forces be produced, we'll begin to see the reality of that support as well. how we support iraq's efforts we must avoid oversimplification

of iraq's identity. we've taken note of sunni leaders, for example, of the anbar province provincial council to endorse the contributions of pmf or popular mobilization force elements which are primarily shia in their orientation. endorsing their presence in the province and their willingness to fight alongside iraqi security forces. they recognize there's a distinction that must be made between the shia hard line militias under the influence of iran and the large number of shia who answered the fatwa of grand ayatollah ali al sistani last summer and they came to the rescue by the tens of thousands. i believe i'm better qualified than most to understand the destructive and destabilizing role that sectarian militias can

play. from our own insurance in i experience in iraq. as someone who is deeply committed to this coalition's campaign and to iraq's success i also understand the error in seeing iraq's fighters and iraq's communities and iraq's future through a narrow and sectarian prism. in fact enabling iraqis to move beyond these divisions is part of why stabilization efforts in the liberated communities are so important as the campaign continues to unfold and why the coalition support for these activities is one of our central lines of effort. as i see it there are four components to the counteroffensive under way that require these efforts be closely synchronized. first, the clearing element. when the iraqi army and the popular mobilization committee and forces ultimately remove

daesh from aner urban location or center. there's the security and policing effort also known as the hold force that deals with crime and provides general security to the liberated population so life can return to normal. this hold force will be a combination of reconstituted sunni police, local tribes and some militia elements. third, in restoration of local governance we find the effort by the central government in baghdad and provincial headquarters and capitals to extend governance and the r writ of government to the areas liberated and have suffered so much under the heal of daesh. in the stabilization effort itself or provision of essential services, this includes immediate humanitarian assistance to address life-threatening issues as well as short-term restoration of essential services like health

care and fresh water and electricity. on each of these four elements the coalition is searching technical support and assistance to our iraqi allies and the iraqi-led efforts. while the germans and amaradis are helping organize these stabilization efforts other coalition partners are providing significant support. the italians are playing a substantial role training the effective iraqi police force being reconstituted. and several coalition nations, including the united states have made sizable contributions to a u.n.-administered stabilization fund. and this fund will allow the iraqi toss make immediate investments to meet the urgent needs of those who have suffered the daily degradations under daesh's heel for so many months and to restore water purification and electrical distribution. through the support of baghdad this provides populations what

they need so badly. and it creates the opportunity to strengthen the connection between the capital and the people, in fact, being liberated. this can be considered and ought to be considered as reconciliation from the ground up. these kinds of stabilization efforts will eventually be just as critical to syria where coalition supported fighters have made a series of recent gains. the coalition is enhancing our cooperation to capitalize on such successes as kobani and are working to organize elements so we can create reliable partners on the ground in syria, which is essential ultimately to our coalition outcomes. at the same time centcom is looking for ways to streamline our train and equipment programs. we can plainly see the number of fighters currently enrolled is smaller than we anticipated.

we'll continue to require capable partners on the ground in syria to ensure isil's lasting defeat. we must find ways to improve this aspect of our strategy and we are. we cannot afford to become desensitized to the level of violence in syria or the belief that nothing can be done for these people. we will continue to work this very hard. while it is not the place of the united states or coalition to dictate the future for the syrian people, each of us has a profound stake in creating the conditions where syria's people can begin to determine their own future. a future that is free of the brutality of the bashar al assad regime as well as organized elements such as daesh or al nasra. one of the best tools the coalition can use to disrupt daesh's management and organization is our ability to squeeze its access to financial resources. these counterfinance activities

led jointly by italy, kingdom of saudi arabia and the united states constitute another one of the coalitions central lines of effort. we're sharing information to block the access of daesh to global financial networks and systems and uncovering their points of access in the region and abroad for financial support. i must tell you what we have learned from the take off the objective in the raid two months ago is beginning to paint a very clear picture for us in ways we can exploit. the coalition has also worked to degrade daesh's oil enterprise through our own air cam pan and other measures. still daesh is proving resilient in its ability to bring degraded energy back online. we're going to continue to directly attack the oil enterprise and must recognize daesh has other financial capabilities and resources that are diverse beyond the oil enterprise, the portfolio includes a number of other

measures. massive criminal extortion of the populations under its control. looting, kidnapping for ransom human trafficking, slave trade and potential profit from the sale of plundered antiquityies. daesh also operates where there's an extensive criminal infrastructure to support illic illicit activity much of it used by the smuggling routes in an effort to defeat the oil for food sanctions of the 1990s. in a recent raid on the abu sayef, we not only recovered a great deal. abu sayef the financial manager for daesh, we not only recovered a great deal of information about the financial activities but we've also got much more -- much greater clarity in the organizational activities and organization of daesh. and this is helping us with further planning.

the coalition's countermessaging line of effort is also contesting daesh's narrative across platforms and languages. here it's important -- here it is important that key credible muslim voices and scholars speak out and publicly reject daesh's ideology. in the arab world it's important the voice is muslim and that the face discrediting daesh is an arab face. just last week the united arab emiratess and the u.s. launched a joint center to counter daesh messaging in the region. this is a regional asset, not just bilateral. we're discussing with other regional partners messaging centers that's could be established in europe and in southeast asia. these efforts will remain an uphill battle. still this remains an area the coalition must take more comprehensive and decisive action and we're committed to them.

daesh's toxic message cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. the final line of effort is in the area that spokes the most universal concern with coalition partners. that's the area of stemming the flow of foreign fighters. most of the foreign fighters enter the space along turkey's 9 900-kilometer border. the burden of stopping the flow of foreign fighters to the battle field cannot rest with turkey alone. other partners need to step up their own interdiction intelligence collection and sharing of information. in fact the turkish border should be the last line of defense in this equation. last week i led a high level rnt agency delegation to ankara for extensive consultations. we've seen substantial progress by engaging in a sustained and respectful dialogue on this and

a variety of issues. and i believe enhanced cooperation with turkey will present further opportunities for our two countries and the coalitions efforts to counter daesh as we enter the second year of this campaign. we need nations working together like this. working together at each link in the chain of becoming a foreign fighter or daesh recruit. and the links of that chain are at the border between potential foreign fighters. at the point of recruitment. at the point of radicalization which is often frankly, a cell phone or personal computer. to date, over 30 coalition partners have enacted laws to create greater obstacles for those planning to become foreign fighters and those who support them. at least 26 countries have made arrests breaking up daesh affiliated networks. but nevertheless, stopping the flow of foreign fighters into

iraq and syria continues to be a serious challenge. as we assess our strategy we must also confront a new reality. potential foreign fighters no longer need to leave their home countries or even their homes to be radicalized, to be recruited and ultimately to be tasked to become lone wolf attackers. we must appreciate that there is no one type of foreign fighter. no single method of recruitment and no one source to support them financially. one critical issue we need to address is how we manage to reach and rehabilitate and reintegrate the thousands of people who have become known to us and who we'll need to help returning to their societies to become productive members of their states once again either as they have become radicalized or returned from being a foreign fighter. there is no denying many societies find the idea of

rehabilitating foreign fighters objectionable. those who have broken the laws of our land must be detentionable. i believe that we must strive to be a coalition of compassionate states. especially when certain coalition partners have experienced success. the promise of rehabilitation and reintegration is one we ought to actively study and embrace. earlier this year i had the opportunity to meet with key muslim leaders and social scientists in singapore. they've been working successfully to deradicalize young men and in so doing have supported their successful return to society. the numbers are not high. for singapore, for not as high as singapore as they might be for other states but their success is notable. of the 57 releases they've made there's been only one recidivist.

belgium, austria, germany, other states in europe other states within the coalition to include the kingdom of saudi arabia, have developed a set of effective practices for the specific cultural and natural context ultimately to assist in this process of the reclaimation of these foreign fighters back into society. any successful approach will have to respond to uniqueley local social conditions and realities. at the same time, some of the forces which compel young men and increasingly young women to be foreign fighters are thoroughly global and modern in their nature. daesh is practiced at exploiting a sense of rootlessness and separation that many young people feel in their communities, whether in arab communities in the west, in certain arab societies or in southeast asia, a feeling of disenfranchisement and otherness is present. and a powerful -- powerful force

for many. there is a separation between these young people and what is defined by a mainstream culture as they perceive it. a separation between the opportunities young people see on their smartphones and those they believe are available to them in their own lives. there's a separation between these young people and the true depth and richness of the faith of islam. frankly, we mft save our children from this reality and guard against the manipulation and the anxieties they feel while working to address their root causes. truly this is not a small task. it is a matter of working together as a coalition and community of nations to ensure the promise of modernity is available and achievable to all. in my discussion with muslim scholars of the fauth of islam and imams, by embracing modernity and connecting with

the world not through its rejection that a muslim can fully achieve the richness of his or her faith. developing this sense of mutual respect strengthensor ability to act in shared purpose which is absolutely essential in the fight in which we are now engaged. when daesh seeks to divide and conquer, we must draw strength from the diversity. the enormous and, frankly favorable diversity of our coalition. when daesh succeeds only when men and women feel little connection to their government and to their societies, it's necessary for us all to work together to offer better models. when daesh defines itself by what it seeks to destroy, it's important for us to define our ultimate efforts by what we seek to build together. and when we see groups and individuals seeking to affiliate and align with daesh in several parts of the world we see clearly how thesis challenges are not unique to one region. the growth of a number of daesh-affiliated groups is a

challenge the counter-isil coalition is beginning to confront. not every group who raises the black flag of daesh represents the same threat. many of these groups are simple criminal gangs or contauned insergeant encein insergeantin insurgencies. we find it necessary to ask a series of questions. what command and control does core daesh, orb core daesh being syria and iraq. what control does core daesh have over this group? second, has dash leadership decided to link itself publicly with this group and coordinate their propaganda and messaging campaign? can core daesh and this potential affiliate exchange resources, including finishede inging funding and fighters? and can this group threaten the coalition homelands. if the answer to most of these questions is yes, the coalition has ways to mitigate this

threat. on three lines of coalition effort countering finances, the flow of foreign fighters and countering messaging. we can build then on current or local efforts that are being taken to counter daesh affiliates locally around the world. we must also not forget that daesh's legitimacy is tied to a so-called caliphate described as a potoe o protostate with specific geography. it must not just be correspondenting daesh more broadly around the world but bear down, squeezing and degrading and defeating daesh there in its core makes it more difficult for an affiliation to stand alone beyond the boundaries of the iraq/syria region. so as a coalition we cannot eliminate every rivalry whether between nations or different faiths or those who hold power

and grievances, one against another. in coordinating the global effort to counter daesh in championing a spirit of much interest and mutual respect over our many differences we can and we have changed assumptions about how nations can come together to fight one of the great challenges of our time. over ten short months we've united dozens of partners to confront this emergency while creating lasting structures and mechanisms of action that will endure long after this present cam pan is complete. having commanded a theater of war in afghanistan, i'm beginning to see strategic momentum building. susstanning that momentum takes daley daily attention across the cannot country and within our working groups. not letting them define our long-term objectives within our

campaign and strategy. thus will be a long campaign. aspects of it like defeating daesh's ideology will like lie take a generation. we as an international community can and must rise to the challenge. i know that many of you in this room are experts on this issue and you seek to understand the complexity of the campaign and contribute in your own ways, and we value those contributions and solicit them. i look forward to a conversation briefly, but i also look forward to the continued work of this very important center in helping us all to get to the place we want to be which is ultimately the defeat of this odious movement. thank you ladies and gentlemen.

>> i want to thank general allen. thank all of you. general allen has to be at the white house extraordinarily shortly, so we're not going to have the -- as much time as we had hoped for questions. but i thought i'd give you a couple of double wammys. >> you gave us an extraordinarily frank appraisal of the challenge. i think an appraisal that can perhaps make us a little bit depressed but then a fairly hopeful picture. >> that wasn't my intent to leave you depressed. >> a fairly hopeful picture of the coalition and the dedication and commitment you are seeing not just from a handful of friends and allies but from an incredibly broad range of countries and partners. let me talk to you about your deep experience working with

coalitions. obviously, coalitions are always complicated. but in this case it seems to be perhaps the most complex environment to have a coalition coming together. and there's two areas that i'd like to highlight. of course, today we're in the moments after the announcement of an iran deal. members of this coalition have deeply differing views about the level of threat in the region. many of them see iran potentially as a greater threat than even isil and are acting in some cases independently of the coalition in other areas, for example, striking yemen. at the same time, within syria correspondenting isil inging -- counteringu sill isil. can you share your views on the potential perception some of us might have of the coalition.

sometimes working across purposes on how these complexities play in and how you are managing that? >> that's an important question. and i think the first thing that comes to mind as i said, this is the fifth coalition in which i've been involved. one of the first things that is evident in any coalition is that while states have come together, usually sharing a desire to achieve a common purpose, achieving common values, common interest seldom will those states in that process subordinate their personal or their national interests. and so national interest will continue to be important to the individual members of the state of the coalition. we have achieved i think in a relatively short time, a

remarkable consensus within the coalition. ultimately for the defeat of daesh. that really -- that really was a very impressive effort, i think, on the part last year of the president's leadership but having watched secretary kerry very closely in this and in the real emergency of august and september, bringing this coalition together. they've come together to achieve an outcome with regard to daesh, but in the course of that they also have continued to recognize, as we should recognize, that's they all have national interests of their own. for many of the members of the coalition,u ran has been is and probably will remain one of the principal sources of threat to their national security. you see that clearly in the gulf and in that region. and i won't speculate on the outcomes of the announcement that was made with respect to whether it will fundamentally

change iranian behavior but that is a very important question to all of them. will iran's behavior change as a direct result of being more completely assimilated into the community of nations as a result of this agreement. remans to be determined. but i will tell you that it is clearly a point of interest and strong attention for our neighbors and allies in the region and will become an important point over time. even though we are committed to daesh, committed to the defeat of daesh and our iraqi ambassador is here this morning, not only are we committed to a political outcome in syria which sees in the end a transition to a government that is represented or is supported by the syrian people, that does not include bashar al assad that does sometimes create

tensions as some states view individual entities in the syrian battle space differently than other members of the coalition. and i think we have a strong common view that the political outcome is what we seek. the modalities may differ from one partner to another. the alignments that had been formed early in the civil war in syria were strong alignments that supported various groups to seek to either liberate the syrian people or to take action against the central regime. those alignments have been endure but we've worked very hard to manage those alignments so it doesn't create too great a tension. as time goes on i've seen greater congruence in our views not less.

>> if i could follow one piece, you did mention that you're just back from ankara, the role and the relationship with turkey has been complicated, it's been vital, it's been seen as quite tense at times. it seems you're quite optimistic right now. so, one of my questions there, you see, for example, the kurdish being an effective force fighting within syria, but again, this is sort of just to get to one area where there are differences potentially differences between coalition members on how to approach a particular on-the-ground partner. how do you see that kind of dynamic playing out? >> well, it's -- it's actually been naturally pretty remarkable what the kurdish elements in syria have done to eliminate daesh from a large segment of the border. there is still a border which is in the hands of daesh and that's problematic, and it's an issue

for the whole coalition. but it's also important for us to take into account the very real concerns of the turks in this regard. you know, we're old friends with the turks. we're allies with the turks. we have been in, i think, very constructive conversations with them for some period of time. my last opportunity to visit ankara was yet a continued affirmation of our commitment together to achieve important goals and strategic ends in the region. i left ankara with a continued sense of importance of our relationship with turkey in a bilateral relationship, my sense of the importance of turkey's relationship to the coalition, but also came away, again, once again, convinced of turkey's importance to the solution to

the difficulties, both in the region and in syria in particular. so, in that sense, we're very attentive to turkey's concerns about the issues with which they deal with regard to the kurds. so, we're attentive to their relationship with the pkk. and how they view the pkk. we're attentive to their attention to what happened south of the border with the kurdish forces that were so successful against daesh, and in that regard, we have been very clear on the issue that we do not support the dissolution of syria, we support ultimately a syria that's territorially intact. and a government that is the will of the syrian people. we don't want to see it broken into sectarian or ethnic fragments. in that regard, we don't support and i don't believe in fact the kurds support in northern syria a separate governmental entity.

but we also have been very clear that the elements of the population that have found themselves liberated from daesh in the course of these military activities along the border in the last several months. we have been very clear. the u.s. has been very clear, we expect populations that have been liberated will return to their own system of administration. so turkamin will administer turkamin. syriaks will administer syriaks. it's important that as a partner that has ultimately been enabled to defeat daesh not become an occupying force but it has become an enabler to defeat daesh. and those individual populations that have been liberated are able to return to the nature of their self-administration that we've seen before. so we're very attentive to how that has gone. undeniably it has been successful in rolling daesh back. in the course of doing that, kobani has been stabilize.

kobani, while there was a large kurdish population there, there was a large free syria that fought inside kobani as well. the ability for us to motivate free syrians to be a credible sunni, arab partner in the future. but we also have taken off the battlefield one of the principal crossing points for daesh. that denied to raqqa has increased pressure on raqqa. that's created immediate pressure on the capital of daesh and that's an important outcome for this. we're beginning to see the capacity ultimately for us to regionally synchronize military activities that can create a more comprehensive strategy across daesh as an entity. not just in one place. not just in ramadi mosul tikrit or the syrian border. it is a unified comprehensive, synchronized strategy, or synchronization, and that is

beginning to take shape. that's why i'm optimistic. >> can i squeeze in one more? >> one more. >> thank you. you mentioned commitment to the territorial integrity of syria. politics in iraq is always a major question, and you know, in this report we come out saying it is important not to give up on the iraqi state, that we need to see, as you said about syria and iraq, that is able to maintain its integrity. that requires getting the sunnis in. and you talked about there are some sunni fighters that are actually being recruited and actually joining the fight to retake ramadi. but there is a sense and there are people in this town that would say, you know, we have seen this show before. what is your thought on this concept of functional federalism and on the real willingness for the hard political decisions to

be made that could sustain this. this is one of the areas of the greatest skepticism when you step out of iraq and people just sort of look at the situation. >> well, i can understand skepticism. i think we need to give this a chance. prime minister abadi has been in office since the 7th or 8th of september. he came into office, at the moment that iraq that daesh was determined to destroy the territorial integrity of iraq. most of the iraqi territory was already under its boot. thousands of iraqi troops and thousands of iraqi civilians had already been either displaced or slaughtered. so he came in under a very, very difficult moment, and i think in stark contrast to previous systems of government in iraq, he sees the future of iraq as one that divests authority from the center in order to empower reliable governance in the

province. he talked about this, it's functioning federalism. he's been clear. but of course he has a skeptical power base that operates from a long history of concerns about what the other components within the iraqi society really intend to do over time. that skepticism is something that we have to recognize. it's a skepticism that, by committing ourselves to the political process of iraq, in supporting prime minister abadi's effort at functioning federalism, in being quick in the process of stabilization, in the context of liberated populations, it creates the operationalization, the real physical operationalization of functioning federalism. in a man that ultimately achieves the prime minister's publicly announced objectives. first i'd say, look, let's think

about what has happened politically in iraq since the overthrow of the king, and we have not seen democracy in action there. democracy as we would like to see it and democracy as we know it, we have not seen it yet. prime minister abadi is operating under some of the most difficult, political, economic -- economic very importantly and military challenges, as he seeks to make progress in a pressure cooker of political pressure in an economic environment that leaves iraq devoid of resources that it could apply otherwise. and under pressure to defeat daesh to reunify the country and unite iraq. we have to do what we can to support him. we have to recognize that he's making progress. that's why the coalition when we get together, whether it's at 62 or at small group level, the ministerial or directors level

the coalition has yet to walk walk away from a meeting without affirming the coalition's commitment to the prime minister and territorial integrity and the unification and the unity ultimately of iraq. >> thank you so much, john allen. thank you for your tireless dedication. to this on behalf of the nation, i'd like everyone to thank general allen. thank you very much. good morning.

i'm brian katulis. i'm the senior fellow here at the center for american progress. thank all of you for coming. we want to thank general allen for sharing his wisdom and his thoughts on the status of the campaign. what we want to do here is have a bit of a discussion reflecting on what general allen said. then also talk about a report that the center released this morning that assesses the status of the campaign. my role today is to simply moderate the discussion. i'll introduce the panel here. we'll have a couple of remarks from hardin lang and then dr. steven walt, from harvard, and finally sarah margon, a former colleague of ours here at the center for american progress. our goal here in having this discussion is be as wide ranging as possible. to stimulate all of our thinking. about halfway through, i'll draw

you guys in, anyone who has questions into the dialogue and discussion. so, first, without further ado, hardin, the floor is yours. where are we, more than a year into this campaign? what does the report say? what are the highlights? what do you think about what general allen said? >> thanks, brian. before i get started, i want to commend folks, some of the work that the other panelists have put out. dr. walt has written an interesting piece. the staying power of isil. and what the implications are or are not for our national security. sarah margon of human rights watch has done some look at human rights inside of iraq in realtime and it's not just from a human rights perspective but it's quite important from a political perspective.

they're doing a whole lot to sort further rend the sectarian fabric of the country apart. stepping back to our report, i guess there were a couple of things we were trying to say. the first one, probably was, look, let's take a deep breath, focus on recalibration, and see if we can work a little bit to get the politics right. it's been a rough couple of months for the anti-isil coalition. no doubt about it. general allen is quite upbeat and optimistic about this. we share his enthusiasm, but the events, the fall of ramadi, really did jolt the policy establishment. there's good reason to concern. but the first point we would like to make, there has been a lot of reaction to those events. and a number of critics have said, the fall of ramadi calls into question the strategy of relying on local partners to do this fighting. in essence, the u.s. has to look at deploying significant

number of combat troops back into iraq to stiffen the spine of iraqi and take this fight to isil. and one of our big takeaways, the time we have spent in iraq, going back and forth, the u.s. has the most efficient and fear-fighting machine on the face of the planet. but tens and thousands of u.s. troops aren't not going to fix what are fundamentally political problems and the crisis in iraq that led to the creation of isil. there are people on the other side who basically say, as we heard general allen said, look it, iraq is at a stage where it could -- in all likelihood it's going to disintegrate. it's going to break up into statelets, sunni, shia and kurdish. we need to re-adjust the u.s. policy against that. and what we're saying, none of us are yet convinced we're at a point where it makes sense to short the iraqi state.

iraq holding together as a bulk work and having to work to fix the politics of iraq, really does provide the best opportunity for some sort of policy that's going to support the united states and also stabilize the region. i mean, so, where does that leave us? rather than getting into discussions of tactics the additional troops lilly pads, where they might go and belong we wanted to focus on the wider politics of iraq, syria and the region. the first step we think at the regional level is to work a bit more on the unity of effort among vtd the coalition. general allen and his team have been doing a great deal of work to stabilize there, but there are still outstanding issues we need to address. of the three coalition flying

air strikes only three are hitting targets in both iraq and syria. you have arab members of the coalition who have struck operations and most of our european allies are focused on iraq. there needs to be more to break this stove pipe and engage the territory as a single theater. partners on the ground and from the air need to be coordinated at a regional level. so say, the iraqi security operation that we saw launched yesterday in anbar needs to be coordinated better with assistance going in to, say, the syrian kurds who have been doing a great deal of fighting in the north. if we can break the politics, though, by the short-term imperatives of defeating isis discuss to regional stabilities. one of the most interesting things here, if, in the short term we cannot let this crisis go to waste. it's possible that the coalition could provide the architecture for a regional security

apparatus or fromwork. it's not too soon to begin exploring this with our partners. getting into iraq, the general said things about his dedication to functioning federalism. and for us, this really is the heart of the matter. something has to be done that's going to open the door to the sunni arab population to make them feel as though they have a real stake in the future of the country. so far, there have been some important pieces of legislation, the concept of a national guard, but most of the stuff right now is still stuck in the political process and on its own it's not going to be enough to convince sunni arabs to come back in the political fold. so, we need to be supporting the prime minister to build out and make tangible this concept of functioning federalism. in a way sunni arabs feel

and respect that to come back into the fold and affect the way we conduct the campaign. the u.s. made a decision to withhold air support until the iraqi security forces were leading the fight. it's that kind of moment and that kind of posture and policy that we need to constantly reinforce to make sure that the central government is driving the show and those populations that are in areas combat is being undertaken have some confidence that they are representing them. syria remains the hardest part of the puzzle, and there's no doubt about this. the coalition itself is divided. general allen made some comments about this, but i think he's walking a very delicate tight rope in trying to hold this together. the u.s. strategy has hinged on this program to train and equip 15,000 anti-isis fighters. if we're still at a number of 60

almost a year in, there's clearly a need for review. general allen focused on what we'll need to do to get that process going. but in and of itself, i'm not sure it's going to be sufficient. one thing we're arguing in the report, once we can get this program online, it's going to be necessary for the u.s. government to not only defend those forces when they go back into syria against isil, but they also need to be able to defend them against the regime in damascus which is committed to destroying them. this is a step that we're not willing to make on behalf of our partners there. finally, i think if we are willing to step in a more direct way and assert a willingness to defend these partners, it may open up a window of opportunity to re-engage a diplomatic process. i don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.

at the moment, the diplomacy is largely stall. and what we need to do, what we've seen in the past is when there are moments we're willing to engage with the credible threat or use of force, we see the diplomacy process start to reignite. we don't see an end to the civil war any time soon. but creating a framework that could lead to de-escalation over time. support of its political strategy rather than focusing on deploying tens of thousands of additional troops. to make this easier, it's probably important to appoint one person, one commander, one envoy who's really going to be in charge of this effort. general allen has the management of the coalition piece. different commanders in charge of the effort in iraq and a separate set of commanders in charge of the train and equipment effort outside of

syria. and being able to coordinate both the diplomatic and the military assistance aspects of this in a coordinated fashion is to be essential to success. the president has warned that it is going to take years for this battle to be within and battle to be won, and one that the region is going to have to embrace. but without proper recalibration of what we're trying to do, i suspect that the fighting against isis is going to prove more longer and drawn out than it needs to be. thank you, brian. >> thanks, hardin. steve, i want to turn to you, first, hardin said, the strategy is fundamentally okay, we just need to recalibrate it. we heard general john allen earlier, your assessment whether you agree or disagree and how you see the snapshot right now where we are. >> first of all, i think the strategy you heard here sounded very familiar to me. we have a coalition that's going to wage this conflict. sorry. >> battery just died.

>> to wage this particular conflict, it's going to do it by military training of local troops, it's going to do it with some elements of air power and some elaborate, political engineering in societies that we do not understand very well. i think we have seen this movie a couple of times in a couple of different places over the last 20 years. and it's yet to work out particularly well. also we're getting told it's going to take years. i think i heard that message before. so, i would love to believe that this effort is going to succeed in ways that previous efforts had not. that's my first point. my second point is i think we thought about this problem in somewhat of a wrong way and it made us exaggerate the danger groups like daesh pose. i want to indulge on how we ought to think about it. we ought think of isil as a revolutionary organization. it's actually creating a revolutionary state.

no matter what it calls, that's what it's doing. and we have seen that happen many points in history. going back to the french revolution. to revolutionary iran. the good news is that the history of those experiences actually suggest that this is a problem but it's not a mortal threat, because revolutions are really only a serious threat when they happen in a major power, all right. so, the cambodian tragedy was terrible but it didn't launch a movement across the rest of the world. the bolshevik happened. the french revolution was a serious problem because it happened in a great power. but if you look at isis' actual capabilities, it's not likely to spread by conquest, because it's not powerful enough to do that and it's not likely to spread by contagion. it's not rich enough to support like-minded organizations elsewhere. the message, although it will attract a few foreign fighters, some degree of lone wolves

it's not going to be seductive enough or powerful enough to topple governments around the region. in terms of capabilities, right, we hear a lot about the amount of territory they control. most of this territory is empty desert. not particularly valuable. if you calculate up the total gnp of the area isis controls it's between $4 billion and $8 billion. that puts it on par with barbados, guyana. rich for a terrorist organization, it's very poor for a state. they appear to have $500 million of revenue per year. that's much smaller than the budget of harvard university. no matter what harvard might think about itself it's not about to take over the world either. it's not going to spread by conquest because it doesn't have the capabilities to do it. i also don't think it's going to spread by contagion as i

indicated. the message is not very attractive, even to most of the world's muslims. they're not going to be able to support like-minded groups with resources in the way, say, the soviet union could and others. the acts of violences that they already conducted are turning off other populations. and other states have lots of way to try to immunize or insulate themselves against that particular danger. in the unlikely event that one or two isis clones might emerge in some other failed state, for example, in libya, i don't think they're going to take orders from al baghdadi and follow him because they'll have their own interests to pursue. again the history of other revolutions suggests that there's actually deep divisions. whether it's the divisions in the french revolution, the sino-soviet split. or between stallin and trotsky.

or any other set of conflicts. we have seen, of course, isis at odds with a number of other extremist organizations as well. so, again, it's not likely to be the kernel of an emerging monolith that we have to worry greatly about. one reason we have coordinating efforts because other countries recognize that the threat is not that great, and there are other concerns that they have that lead them not to coordinate activities against isis, whether it's turkey worrying as much about kurdish independence as they worry about isis. whether it's saudi arabia worrying as much about iran as they worry about isis. what i'm suggesting here is this is a problem, but this is not the kind of global revolutionary danger that it is sometimes depicted as. finally, the bad news is getting rid of it may not be that easy either.

counterrevolutions turn out to be hard to run, too. the more the united states does, the more kinetic our activities the more we reinforce the isis message, make themselves more popular, the more we appear to be backing some of the sectarian tendencies within the baghdad government as well. i conclude from that, therefore that the american role should be -- the american goal should be patient containment and the u.s. role should be as minimal as possible because the larger the american role is, the more popular we are likely to make this movement, and the larger the american role is, the less local actors are actually likely to do because most of them are extremely good at getting uncle sam to do the fighting for them. we can provide weaponry, we can provide intelligence, we can provide perhaps some modest degree of military training, but this is ultimately a campaign the locals will have to fight and win. the good news is it's not going to be actually that hard.

>> thank you, steve. so, sarah, if hardin says tweak the strategy, recalibrate it and steve says, no, we can contain it. patient containment is the order of the day. let's avoid these attempts at social engineering. what is your perspective? where are we and how do you see things? then, we'll get into the discussion. >> i think we're somewhere in the middle. you know, i want to thank you for hosting this and thank you for doing this report. it's been awhile since we have taken a look at where we are. we're about a year out from the campaign and from my perspective, there are some gaps. general allen is open to tweaking things a bit. we have been looking very closely at the campaign in both iraq and syria. and i think what we find, while isis is an incredibly brutal and horrific group, bringing in new recruits and using social media in ways that has never been used and thwarting the norms

that you had, i think what we're looking at is the missing piece in the campaign is very much on where the governments are both in the case ofe rack and syria. i want to talk about iraq and then syria. i want to talk about it in terms of a larger strategy. last fall, we put out a report on the town of amerle, which some of you may have seen. what we saw in the aftermath of the u.s. coalition strikes, shia militias ended up ransacking the villages around the town with incredible destruction. none of the homes or residents that were targeted were military targets. it basically was revenge attacks for historic grievances and ongoing polarization. and sectarianism. there has been very little accountability for those types

of actions. we are in the process of working on a report about tikrit. while that may be seen as a success from isis what we've seen is the burning and destruction of over 1,000 homes in residential areas in tikrit and sorry rounding villages. so, while you may have the shia militias doing a decent job of clearing -- decent i sort in quotes -- you have a problem of clearing and holding, it's not tied to a larger strategy and the government of iraq hasn't been sufficiently present. both castwise and willingwise. we have documented these ongoing abuse and destruction that furthers a lot of the grievances and the polarizations that have already existed. the alienation of the sunni community is one of the real reasons we've seen a rise of isis particularly in iraq.

while the prime minister has been clear about his commitment to exclusivity and building a new government we have seen some backsliding on that. we have seen in part because there are a lot of challenges he faces in baghdad in terms of working with his ministers, we have seen a real challenge in moving forward to build an iraq for everybody. you know, i think the other piece here is that, part of dealing with the militias is ending the cycle of impunity. it's not just the militias but the iraqi security forces as well despite the long history in building the military forces over the years. and so, what we have heard time and time again, during travels in iraq, we'll deal with these other issues as soon as we destroy and defeat -- defeat and destroy isis. in fact, it's a parallel process. the political part that hardin talked about is so essential to defeating isis and bringing sunnis into the government.

the justice ministry has been long known for holding detainees for a very long time and in many cases torturing them not adjudicating fair trials and balance processes. you have an imbalance. on the political and military side. and while the threats are incredibly real and troubling, you know to your point, perhaps more so in the immediate term to the iraqi government and the iraqi people than it is to the united states, nonetheless, the u.s. has engaged in the campaign and is providing significant support. and so, while we have heard a change in statements and some change in language about the need, you know, to address undisciplined acts and for there not to be any revenge, it's implementation. when i was out in iraq, i spent some time at the peshmerga and i was surprised to find out how

adamant they were about the concern, the abuse going on by the militias and there was no accountability. and for the government to take very clear steps to try to bring some of those individuals into jail, to rein in the militias would be a good parallel to training the sunni ds and bringing them into the military itself. it's not just about holding them to account. so, that's the iraq side of it. i think, you know, that enables isis to have what some have said to me recently is a growing political constituency. there's not a natural constituency for a group like isis. it grows after isolation from the government. where they are stux between a rock and a hard place. what i have heard time and time again on my trip is, i don't like isis but the government is making me terrified as well. and they are going after me as

well. when you're stuck in that place, you have to choose the best of two very, very bad options. on the syria side, you know, i think we look consistently at at the horrors of isis but what's missing is what the government is doing. and when you look at our syria policy, as you said, it's really -- i mean, it's short. on details. we see a bombing campaign going solely after isis. if you think about it isis is the symptom not the root of the problem in syria. we're training the armed opposition but, again, 60 people that can only go after isis and have to sign a pledge when, in fact, they're going to be attacked regularly and consistently from the air by barrel bombs and likely from the ground as well. and then trying to get something politically going is also dead on arrival. so, i think the inattention in the case of syria to what the

assad government is doing outside of rhetoric is a gift to isis and frankly, to the other incredibly abusive groups. not only does it enable a growth of anti-american sentiment, which we have seen time and time again, but it also enables assad to continue his attacks against civilians. if you look at civilian population attacks on civilian population they are far more deadly and far more consistently attacked indiscriminately by barrel bombs and by the government of syria than they are by isis. again, this is not to undermine what isis is doing, but the fact that assad has just sort of been pushed to the side while the u.s. goes after isis isn't going to get us where we need to go. if this is i in fact a long-term strategy we're looking at unprecedented levels sometimes because of isis but more often than not because of the syrian government. we're not addressing the root of the problem. it reminds me a lot of when the obama administration returned to

afghanistan and pakistan. they said the core of the al qaeda is in pakistan, so we're going to go to afghanistan. i sort of thought, well, i get it. it's a long border and it's easy to get through but if the core of al qaeda is in pakistan, and that's what we're really worried about, shouldn't we be shifting our focus to pack stone and not predominantly to afghanistan? it's kind of like they're going in the back door but they're not addressing what the root of the problem is. we've seen time and time again a lot of conversation about syria. we recently saw briefings at the u.n. on barrel bombs. i think there's going to be an attempt to revisit what the international community can do, which we certainly see as a positive step. i think i would say in closing that the silence of the administration on potential next steps is clearly because it requires a broad military effort. but maybe that's not the only way forward.

and i think, you know, while there's indication they're not interested to pursue military strategy against president assad, the conversation around what else needs to happen have stopped as well. so, you know i would say that while they're looking to tweak the anti-isis strategy, looking at the role of the government in both iraq and how and where you bring in the syrian government is hugely important. because otherwise you're going to be putting a band-aid over this again and we'll be playing this movie again and again and again. we'll be here five years from now saying virtually the same thing. while millions and millions of people are dying, foreign fighters increase and continued to move through pipelines globally and while the u.s. spends a lot of money but isn't actually addressing the root of the problem. >> great.

thank you, sarah. and i think all three of you have set the table for an excellent discussion. i want to note we're running a little behind on schedule. i think we had planned to close this by 11:30, but we're going to run a little bit -- a few more minutes. we're going to ask a question and take questions from the audience. the one question that i wanted to ask, and we'll be remiss not asking it, and i'll start with steve, given the news this morning, and we were talking about this over coffee f all of you could respond, we'll start with steve, the news of a nuclear deal which the administration i think rightly says this is about the nuclear program and the most effective way to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. what's your analysis though, on our topic, the impact of the deal potentially on regional dynamics and how it could, in some -- i know it's speculative analysis how it could impact the implementation of this anti-isil coalition.

>> my first thought is it's unlikely to -- i don't know if you can hear me or not. i think it's unlikely to have -- unlikely to have a substantial effect on what's going on with isil. i think the administration is going to focus as narrowly as possible in getting the deal approved approved. and i don't think you're going to see this deal then suddenly alter america's approach towards dealing with the isil problem or syria or anything else that's going on vis-a-vis iraq. i also don't think you're going to suddenly see the iranian government get up and say, oh, well, now that we have a nuclear deal with the united states we no longer have any equityies about what's happening in baghdad. we no longer have interest in a country next to our border. we're going to completely change our relationship with hezbollah with assad with -- et cetera. they have their own set of regional interests, and i think over time those may be modified, moderated, adjusted. i think that's clearly what the administration has sort of bet over the long term, but i don't think you're going to see a

substantial shift in either american policy or iranian policy flowing out of the nuclear agreement. certainly not, say, in the next 12 months or so. >> i think that's probably likely but i think it may be a mistake. i think we're probably at a moment now where the deal -- we are where we are with the deal. it's no secret that iran has continued to engage in sort of bad behavior in the rest of the region. and there's a question, and many of our regional -- and then be a little tougher with us on iranian warfare activities throughout the region. so, i think this is probably like the ideal moment for the administration once they've sort of come through and done this deal to begin to quietly reinforce and then show that we are going to be a little bit morrow bust in how weave sort of allowed or managed iranian activities to spread in the

region. and i think one of the things question probably do on this there's going to be a lot of attention to the amount of money that iran is going to bring back into its economy as the sanctions come off. and working with folks in the region to make sure that that money doesn't end up funding stuff that leads to additional destabilization in the region i think, will be quite important. the last thing i wanted to say very briefly, stephen, your point about contagion onand isil, i don't think it's a question of contagion in the traditional sense. we're worried about isil moving in and taking over libya. it's more a question of -- isil's presence in syria and iraq is deeply destabilizing, you know, for those countries and then more broadly in the region. it's less a question about whether or not they're going to take over, capture run joer dpan dan for example and whether or not we are going to continue to destabilize the region. so, in the way in which we all kind of thought and hoped that most of what was going

contained in syria and last year it spread into iraq, is a question less of caliphate expansion and more of destabilization contagion. >> two things. one is, most of these places were already quite unstable already. libya didn't need isil in order to have problems. and so i don't think isil is going to be contributing to that substantially. if you look -- i think the number of people killed in isis-related events outside syria and iraq, outside the area of control, last time i looked was somewhere between 200 and 300 people. that's tragic. that's very unfortunate, but that is low levels of violence. that's not the kind of thing that's ultimately going to alter the political fate of those particular societies in my judgment. on the second point this sort of role of iran. just notice how complicated all of this is. because, in fact, we're on the same side with iran, vis-a-vis

daesh. they don't like them any more than we do. the saudis and iranians don't agree on anything except they do agree about isil. they are both opposed as well. and that gets to the sort of contradiction that's in the report and in a few of the things that sarah said as well. we don't like assad but, guess what? assad is their enemy too. we can't decide if we want to get rid of assad more than we want to get rid of isil. if isil is the real problem, then we don't want to be supporting forces that are weakening other enemies of isil. it just illustrates again, how tricky it's going to be to try to manage the various strategic objectives that we're trying to accomplish there. >> do you have anything there? >> very briefly. we take no position on the agreement as an organization. i do think what it may do, it was interesting, the president kept saying, this is based on verification not based on trust. and i think whether and how trust is able to be built is an important next step for u.s. and iran. i think the next issue is, okay,

you're going to get this out of the way and up and running, what are the other issues you have to deal with? you have the regional role. i would say they're more than a little bad actor. they're quite a bad actor. then the domestic issues in iran that play a role and there's a real expectation from many within iran many sort of you know, average citizens that now rou rouhani can look at commitment es he made, juvenile death sentence would be sort of a first one. and i think there's an expectation that now the u.s. administration has got then out of the way, that they will begin to come full circle with support from the u.n. to start looking at domestic issues within iran. it seems to me incumbent that the role they play regionally is also going to have to be part of that conversation. but it's going to be a lot more of a difficult conversation, because i could also see them flexing their muscle to say, no we're going to hold on to this because we just lost that. >> you mentioned the domestic politi