privacy and civil liberties of u.s. persons that are taken along the way. that is about the best way to answer. it is probably a longer answer to get to the debate, so your question, is there a number of safeguards placed into the system to perfect privacy of the u.s. persons? >> thank you. i am from george mason university, i was wondering what reforms you think you can do to optimize both the need for the people to provide oversight to the nsa and also the nsa's needs to protect ways and means? >> one i did not mention before that i touched on his possible changes to the way the fisa court operates. there, ais just seems judge who wrote a letter recently that touched on this,

addressed this issue. inocating an amicus role certain cases at the discretion of the court. that seems to me like a reasonable way to increase public confidence in the work of the court. the work of the court is necessarily classified, much of it. it is not a secret court. we know the court exists. we know who is on it. it does operate much of the time in a classified environment because information being presented is classified. one weighed to build additional trust is to have an amicus role. that is one that makes sense. they do not have the resources to monitor the things that they are asking nsa and others to do.

almost three years the nsa was clearing data without reasonable suspicion even though the courts had required it. when the new administration came in they realized what was happening, within a week reported it to the courts, and i want to say although there is no contrary advocate on the other done an exemplary job in terms of trying to present contrary arguments. the structure is not a denigration on the way people have they found out the nsa had been clearing the database without suspicion and immediately told the court and there is a whole backlog of back and forth trying to sort that out. toy were relying on the nsa police itself. i don't think the courts should do that to say are you doing

this appropriately. they should be a court so they should have the technical .xpertise there were domestic medications in there and that technology is hard and they need to have help in that regard. surprised by the response from certain congressional members which is that of an ostrich. they said we did not know this was going on. is reason that is remarkable i think the executive branch is made it clear. you can argue that in 2008, congress to don't realize what they were authorizing with the faa and the fisa amendment act. you could make that argument based on congressional members statements. many members of congress got it

wrong when they portrayed what they were doing. they said this. and that -- they said this does not allow programmatic selection. nobody is supporting legislation is saying this would be used for programmatic selection and those who supported said we cannot do this. it might be true in 2008 but by 2012, there were enough times that the executive branch had gone to them and said we are doing this. the fact that congressional members say it's hard to do without enough staff, that is abdicating responsibility. you better know how the legislation is being used. by thebeen surprised extent to which certain congressional members have abdicated that responsibility which is central in the liberal democratic state. the have to take issue with idea that there is an abdication of responsibility on the part of congress. in 2008, there was a full airing of what was going to be in the

method following that legislation and congress understood it and pass the legislation and understood in 2012. it was not a matter that they could not read it. they thought it was the right thing to do. as ant see that abdication of responsibility by congress. >> thank you very much for coming. i know i will look at future events along this line with a much more informed year. r.ea [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> you can see this discussion on our website, www.c-span.org. today,re in washington the president is convening his national security council to isisss the threat posed by in that will be the subject of a discussion coming up in about 25 minutes. we will show that to you here on c-span and the wider issue of radicalism in iraq and syria. the center for the study of islam and democracy is hosting that discussion with experts on the middle east and islam coming up that 12:30 p.m. eastern live

on c-span. on the growing threat posed by isis, there are some tweets from members of congress -- there is a joint bipartisan coalition calling for the debate and vote enjoying him on that is republican walter jones of north carolina. more tweets are available at twitter.com/c-span and watch for the list of members of congress3 . this afternoon at 2:00, the united nations is calling the un security council into session to deal with the ukraine/russia conflict.

the ukrainian president is calling on the country to resist giving in to panic in the wake of russian forces entering the country. officials say two columns of tanks entered the country southeast earlier today. we will have the u.n. session coming up that 2:00 p.m. tonight, we will take a look at how current election laws across the country may impact voters in the upcoming 2014 elections. the topics will include florida's attempts to purge voter rolls, voter id laws come and early voting as well as have democrats and republicans differ in regard to the burdens voters should face. here is a preview. >> let me do an historians job and put this in the context of why people come to different conclusions on the same topic. republicans generally have a view of the purpose of an election which is certainty. the purpose of holding an election is that we know who one and that we are clear as to the one and confident to one and

there is no question. anything that clogs up the electoral process, that gives us the certainty is a burden worth paying because that's the purpose of an election. democrats generally believed that legitimacy in elections involve participation and anything that limits participation of all those who could vote from voting undermines the legitimacy of the outcome even if that means that the results may be a little messy on the edges. these are both legitimate positions to take. this is a perspective towards the purpose of the election, of voting. focuses us on a different answer to the question of -- what is a legitimate and for the state to impose upon voters in the voting process? underneath this is the not so secret dirty little secret that each side takes a position that

is very comfortable with outcomes that will help them. , moreoader the electorate generally it is better for democrats and a narrower, the better for republicans. that's not saying that they are doing it for that reason. it's always easier to do the right thing at the end result is the one you want. >> watch the entire discussion on election laws hosted by st. thomas university law school tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. coming up in 20 minutes, we will bring you that preview of the discussion on the threat posed by isis. until then, afl-cio president richard trumka speaking this morning at the christian science monitor breakfast. he talks to reporters about the state of the labor of movement, immigration, and the economy.

>> our guest grew up in the pennsylvania coal fields and followed his father and grandfather into the minds and worked his way through penn state university and got a lot of grief from villanova. in 1982 at age 33, he was elected president of the united mine workers of america, the youngest in history to hold that position. he served three terms as president and brought the mine workers into the afl-cio. in 1995, he ran to be secretary-treasurer of the afl-cio on a ticket led by john sweeney. he became the youngest person to hold that position as well when he served for 15 years. he was elected as president of the afl-cio in september of 2009 and reelected in 2013. that ends the biographical portrait the program now onto the compelling recitation of ground rules.

we are on the record here as always. no live blogging or twitching and no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to what our guest says but no embargo when the session ends. to help you curb that hers, we will you know several pictures of the session to all the reporters here assumes the breakfast ends. as regular attendees know, if you would like to ask a question, lee's send me a subtle nonthreatening signal and a raised eyebrow, finger wave and i will happily: one and all in the time we have available. we will start by offering our guest the opportunity to make andrd -- opening comments then go to questions around the table. >> let me thank the christian science monitor again for doing this. it's always a great event. i look forward to it every labor day and i want to thank each one of you for coming out this morning. i know you came out for this wonderful meal you are about to partake in.

i want to say thank you anyway and wish you all a happy labor day. i will be relatively brief in my comments so that we can get to as many questions and have a discussion perhaps. bubbly seenhave a some gains -- we have probably seen some gains in the economy. for most workers, it continues to be an economy of stagnation, not an economy up recovery. we did a recent poll. we asked people -- here is the question -- we need to make sure that all of us, not just the ceos, get their fair share in our economy. that was the question we asked. 66% of those making less than $50,000 per year agreed with that. $50,000 perore than

year agreed with that. pollis the kicker -- the was of all registered republicans. that sort of tells you something. on the basic critique of the economy, all down the line with democrats, republicans, independents who make less than $50,000 per year, it all looks a like. and yet the policies being talked about don't answer those questions. this election, we think will be one ofopulism and about two kinds of populism. it can be the diversionary right-wing side that seeks to create anger and division or it can be progressive populism to address the economic realities by advocating policies that will

create jobs and drive up wages. no matter where we go, that is the central issue that people talk to us about, being able to get a raise because they cannot go with what is going on right now with the economy. that's their biggest stress. on laborabor, 2014 day, the economic reality of it. i will stop there and i will open it up for questions. >> i will do one or two and then we will go to others. let me ask you more about the state of the labor movement. in an interview you said the labor movement was in crisis. the latest figures that came out in january showed union membership had held constant between 12 and 13 and the number of workers was also little changed. what is your sense? is there still a crisis?

are things better? gotten thewe have pick of the membership because we have gotten some callbacks. we are still in crisis. we are still too small to be able to change the economy to make it a shared economy or a prosperity for all. we are still doing the things we talked about last year. that was prior to the convention. we were talking about creating strategic partnerships with progressive allies. we are progressing with that in doing that and are working together and planning together and mobilizing together and educating together and hopefully we will be executing together as well in 2014 and 2015. some clawbackseen in the construction industry in a couple of others, i would say we are still in crisis.

-- in last one from me past visits, you have said that your members were frustrated with president obama because " this economy has not worked for them. you said barack obama has been on the side of working people and you say most of the members say that. there was an interesting story in reuters last week noting that a number of former obama administration officials have taken assignments aimed at weakening organized labor. six years in, what is your sense of how the obama presidency has been for labor? >> let's take the beginning of the year. i think he started off real well with focusing on income inequality. he has not stayed aggressive enough with it. i think he is trying.

if you look at the various things he has done, raise the minimum wage, done things with contractors, he has done some things to help. is it enough? moree would like to see and the economy needs more. i think he has a ways to go yet. i think our members are of all thebecause chitter chatter from the washington group and a lot of other groups about issues that really don't affect their lives. when you go out and talk to workers, they are worried about their paycheck, the economic income security, their retirement security -- that is what concerns them and yet, if you listen to the ads and most of what the debate is about this

election, it's about everything but things that concern them. as a result, it has a tendency i think to dampen their enthusiasm and their participation. i think we need to have the president and all candidates, quite frankly, get real aggressive between now and election day to talk about those things that will actually help their current situation and make things better for them. >> alexis? that inre just saying some ways president obama has not done enough. advocacy groups are waiting for what he will do on immigration. how confident are you that the president is going to announce the executive action dealing with immigration along the lines of what the afl would like to see? when is he going to do it? beenat extent have you briefed or are you still in the

dark? to what extent have you prepared a plan with other groups perhaps to mobilize when and if he does announce what he wants to do so that you can do thepr and on the ground? >> you're asking too much of me. i cannot remember all of this. >> after that we can adjourn. >> [laughter] go back to the beginning. >> how confident are you that the president will use his executive action on immigration and deportation relief? >> he's got to do something. i hope is -- i hope it is bold enough to be worthwhile. here's the story i relate to that -- when i was president of the mineworkers i went to a for $.50n, if i asked dues increase or a five dollar dues increase, i got the same amount of grief. i got the same hate letters, the

same mean-spirited things. why would i ask for $.50? i can get the same grief for five dollars. i always ask for five dollars. no matter what he does, the right wing is going to go bonkers and say he does not care about anything. mild, he will energize the right but he will not energize the center and the left. bold, then he will energize the right the same amount and will also energize the left. that needs to happen in order for the selection to elect enough people to be able to pass comprehensive immigration reform. the broken system is a major drag on our economy and the

,ajor drag on wages right now the fact that it is broken. those undocumented workers are used to drive down wages for every american worker. if we fix the system, we can drive wages up for everybody. >> to what extent are you prepared to help of the president does act? how will the afl have a program in place in the ground to try to push back against what you describe is the republican operation. >> we are already educating and mobilizing every single day. we have strategic partnerships with their progressive allies and various groups. we focus on some cities. several cities right now. i think 14s on states where we have a focus on those states from senate races, house races and governor races

to state legislative house and senate and legislative races in those states. >> are you guys hearing him down the left? can you speak up a little? getting your organizing mode. >> the only way i can do that is if i talk this way. but talk this way, they don't hear enough i don't talk -- do you think a microphone would help? just asking. >> i will try. >> we are working with those progressive groups. we have embarked on another thing called common sense economics which i'm excited about. ,t's an analysis of the economy how we got there, and how we get out. like massith things incarceration.

it deals with immigration reform and how they affect the economy and wages in that economy. we plan on getting that out to about one million people before the election, union and nonunion and 3 million over the next year. this is so we can start mobilizing around that. that has been successful. we have been training trainers with our strategic partners and they are taking it back to their groups. we have modules that are two hours long or one hour long, half hour and 15 minutes or five minutes, whatever you want to do. we have an international module as well. it has been a great thing. we also have our working america . it has been in those states we focused on in the last month and

a half, it has gained 7500 members. that's just the last month alone. you include the 20 meetings you have had with corporate types? there was a story last week that they have had 20 meetings with various corporate types with labor? >> yes, we have had significant meetings with the white house on immigration. >> did you get what you needed? >> we will go next to ben. >> this will be easier. your talk in recent years about the need for unions to seize back some of the power they have lost by banding together and putting aside any disputes. how do you see that playing out with the attempt to capitalize on a potentially broader joint employees -- employer standard.

mcdonald's,with considering in part that the union behind mcdonald's branch is and ask afl-cio affiliate, seiu. more laborprobably solidarity right now in the labor movement then there has been. even though seiu is not of theird about 85-90% locals remain affiliated with us. not like there is a chasm between them or the nea because we work with them. we probably have a better coordination now than we have ever done. we are working hard to try to get unions to work together and create synergy. we have targeted five cities in the south. the machinists just organized

1000 workers in texas. seven ors organized eight or nine hospitals in texas. we work together to create that synergy and eliminate some of the nonsense. we just signed a nationwide pact withon-rating seiu that even though they are members, it eliminates that. we will continue to try to create that synergy and get unions to look at bigger campaigns, focus those campaigns and work together.to create efficiency when we are in an area and we do research, we can do research once instead of five times. we are trying to capitalize on that. workers really are responding well to all of this. they really want a raise.

i will say this 1000 times today -- the issue that concerns them most is what is happening to their wages. how do we get a raise? they are getting stretched thinner and thinner each time. any organized strategies to capitalize on the standardized employer strategy? >> we are looking at that right now. to go up takes a while that food chain. not as simple as people think to figure out who is the controlling entity. many times, he gets back to a hedge fund somewhere. yes, we are working through all that stuff. we will use new strategies and we are trying all caps of different thanks. wash,are things like car we are doing the taxicab driver,

27,000 taxicab drivers in new montgomery county, maryland taxicab drivers just there was no way to organize them so we are trying new stuff and hopefully we will try enough of them that we will get things that work and if they work, we will continue to use them. month, yourhis political director said your organization is withholding judgment on hillary clinton in 2016 in general. they don't want to re-create 2008 where you split between candidates. how much are you been watching the jockeying a position and the democratic party? a lot of the issues have been wealth and working-class voters. how much have you been watching and what are your thoughts on the early part of the race? >> you will see all of this conversation with richard trumka

later in our program schedule on the c-span networks. we take you live now to the center for the study of islam and democracy. they are hosting a discussions afternoon on the rise of the middle it -- of the middle east terrorist group isis. it's just starting here on c-span. it is resolving political conflicts through peaceful means. however, when there is no democracy and went politics fails, people resort to violence to resolve those conflicts. cfid was established 15 years ago in 1999. those of you who remember in the 90's, we had a similar civil war in algeria which resulted in the death of over 250,000 people who work killed in algeria in the 1990's. that was one of the main reasons why we decided to establish cfid

at the end of the 1990's to try democracy the idea of and resolving political conflicts through peaceful means through elections and dialogue and consensus building rather than through violence. crisiswe have a similar in iraq, in syria, certainly in egypt where we had a military coup that removed him elected president, the first ever elected president in egypt was removed a year ago by the military. a similar crisis is looming in libya where we have a lot of violence and conflicts in libya. the only solution and the only alternative to violence is democracy. that is our main message. which is what we have

been working on for the last 15 years since 1999. it is the only alternative to and that and extremism is dialogue and peaceful coexistence, consensus building and the art of the possible or the art of negotiating until a solution can be found. invited some of the main experts on this topic in the region to inform us and enlighten us about what is going on and what is the main reason for the rise of isis and extremism in general. promotebest ways to peace and dialogue and coexistence. with that, i would like to turn it over to dr. bill lawrence who will moderate this panel. thank you very much and welcome and hope you have a good of hours or a couple

with us today, thank you. [applause] >> my name is william lawrence. i am the director for csid. couple of administrative matters first -- i would like to remind everyone that this is being live stream than broadcast on c-span and we would like everyone to speak into a microphone. if you are talking, talking to a microphone so everyone can hear you. we will be accepting questions for the q7a on twitter. npc is the hastag. clear.ic for today is we have assembled one of the best panels that i can imagine on this topic, not specifically or necessarily experts on isis,

iraq, and syria but on the regional phenomenon that are creating the regional crisis we are living in today. i'm going to mention that isis has many names. we have chosen isis because it is the one used in the media these days. shem, theg syria or greater syria. sometimes it is called isl. it calls itself the islamic state that many don't want to give it. we settled on isis today. it is one phenomenon we are talking about and has over 40 nationalities and has taken over a big swath of territory in iraq and syria. the full bios of our speakers are available online. i will only summarize certain aspects.

john esposito is one of the leading voices on islam and understanding islam and the world. is a university professor at georgetown, the founding director of the center for muslim-christian understanding and the former head of the middle east studies association and many other organizations. he has a list 45 hooks, translated into 37 languages including weager. ahamid is a fellow at the brookings institution is a former research person and has been in the research field and will help us with that perspective. he has a new book out entitled " temptations of power." this book is one of the reasons we invited him. if you follow him on twitter, you quickly realize that his twitter account is one of the few dozen most important in the region for understanding what is going on. from last night, there are several solutions for fixing

syria. error --quite a stream they are and it's good to follow him. michelle dunn is a senior associate at the carnegie endowment. she is the founding director of the hariri center and a former specialist on middle east affairs at the u.s. state department and the white house. a recent article on the politics of alienation in egypt was the inspiration for the title of this conference. she regularly writes insightful shees on the region -- should -- and she has written two in particular that are quite influential. o'hanlon is a serious -- is a senior fellow with 21st security and intelligence and director of research for the foreign-policy program at the brookings institution. at princetoning

university has been an adjunct professor at johns hopkins. his most recent book cowritten with james steinberg is " strategic reassurance." he just flew in from beijing yesterday. he has a previous recent book on obama's foreign policy and has made over 3000 appearances on radio and tv since 9/11. you have seen them before even if you don't remember. with that, i will turn the floor over to professor john esposito and thank you for coming today. [applause] thank you very much. i am delighted to be here. i would note that the chinese government approved the chinese translation of the book in question but the weegers did the chance laois and death did the translation and the chinese never approved it. i will be going back there next month to look into it.

are three georgetown people on the panel and if i can arrange for an honorary doctorate from michael o'hanlon, we can make a sweep. [laughter] challenges in addressing word toi use the feeding some time but i don't think we will see that for a while -- containing and ultimately defeating isis will require short and long-term sponsors. i will probably talking about the short-term but i will eventually talk about the long-term. people of in talking about that for the last 25 years. for a bright of reasons, they don't get addressed. al-assad on aar military response to democratization, the arab spring. with the slaughter of syrian opposition groups, heightened sectarian divisions.

as well as christian. reluctancety of the tothe u.s. and the eu respond early on with significant assistance to the moderate syrian opposition forces and the opposition's failure to unite to work effectively together enhance the ability of foreign jihadist. in iraq, l maliki installing the shia government increased an already polarized situation and sectarian violence that would nnislt in an alienated su welcoming isis. groups that fight proxy wars in syria against us -- one would also talk -- refer to the overthrow of the democratically elected government in egypt.

this made the situation much worse. at the same time, the failure early on in syria of the u.s. and the eu to become significantly engaged and work closely with regional allies like turkey and saudi arabia assaddr to support anti- forces had a ripple effect. in 2011, it did the same in iraq. what about isis islamic pedigree? ake elk china, isis offers warped and distorted ideology or religious rationale to justify, recruit, legitimate and motivate many of the fighters. much of what they do violates islamic law but that's typical or what terrorists do. terrorists will say the usual laws are fine but these are unusual times.

during the argument bush administration with regard to the war on global terrorism and discussions about whether or not just war or whether or not regulations that have to do with torture or how we approach waterboarding -- one needs to think about the fact that the old laws were made for different time in those times change. that's the way i in which terrorist groups spin and get to do on the best acts of terrorism and slaughter civilians, killing of innocent muslims and christians. there are similarities between isis and other groups, there are also distinct differences. isis seeks to create a state to occupy and control an area not just to dream of

her speak up to create and impose their version of a pahte with itscali first version of law and order. they are more ruthless and driving out and suppressing and executing shia and kurds. religious leaders and others who disagree with them as well as minorities, christians and and imposing their extraordinarily violent brand of islam. they also force populations to pledge their allegiance. drivergion the primary of the so-called islamic calipharte and the primary drivr with the domestic populations that come from europe or the u.s. or even other countries to fight with isis?

since this is going to be on c-span, i will thank you for the bombay sapphire. [laughter] religion is an important factor, and plays a role to legitimate, recruit and motivate, studies of most jihadist and movements like isis show that the primary drivers are to be found elsewhere. past, this hast remained true to the europeans and americans who joined isis. studies by the european network of experts on violent as well as those by terrorism experts show that, in most cases, religion is not the primary source but rather a long list of grievances.

these are grievances that are seeing -- being seen across society even by those who may not be radicalized but will be and site american. anti-american. the gopher grievances that are not specific and peculiar to just a segment of the population were to terrorists themselves. the drivers include moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, search for new identity, meaning, purpose, and belonging. these drivers come out of studies from five european countries as well as some studies done on the u.s. for many, it's the experience and deception of living in a hostile society and seeing a hostile world. you can look at a countries and say what other governments like ?? also what role does the u.s. and the eu both actively play in

support or not choosing to put pressure on some of its issues ofian allies? disenfranchisement, heightened political consciousness, anti-imperialism and social justice in the notion of emancipation, many see countries is occupied either by foreigners were occupied by authoritarian regimes. they hold back the majority of people in the country. in a recent having them post blog's they cited a briefing report going back to 2000 a which noted that far from being religious zealots, large number of those involved in terrorism did not track this their faith regularly and many lack religious literacy and could be regarded as religious novices.

analysts concluded that a well-established identity actually protecting violent radicalization. if you look at data in the u.s. come you'll see this for a significant number of americans as aegard islam -- muslims prone to violence and have an even worse opinion of the religion of islam which they see as being the primary motivator or source for that easy acceptance of violence. when no some of the islam of public group like act make that kind of statement. to the extent that somebody is a pious muslim, they may not be a terrorist now, but they will be more susceptible are more prone to that attraction. i can member being at a for ang, closed briefing senior military and there was somebody who was born and raised in the region, in turkey and commented that even secular

who have no use for religion, when you mention caliphate, it vibrates in their historical genes or chest which is interesting. you can tie that into the appeal to calpijhqate but it is a ludicrous statement. from 2000 8-2014, there is the to jihadist and wannabes. before they set out from birmingham to fight syria, they ordered two books on amazon. what books do you think they would have gotten? was islam for dummies and the carron for charo - thehe koran for dummies. [laughter] many of these terrorist do not have education for islam and the

primary drive drivers of his of her grievances. how about the question of beheadings? we know a beheading has been used to store could buy many. grant fuller estimated that if you look at states, postrevolutionary france beheaded some 40,000 people. we know beheading is used in certain countries even today. we also know beheading has been used to terrorize. we know that mexican cartels --e used it as well as because of the nature of it and putting the head on us like or something, that is been seen as an act that is particularly -- will terrorize people. that has been there but when you put outvideos that were by isis between 2000 6-2013, while you have citations of the

what you see more predominately are basically grievances being articulated as the main reason for killing civilians, grievances against individuals and groups like iraqi soldiers and police and government workers who are seen as part of .he problem flies in the face of islamic law. given the current momentum of isis and intentions to expand,

it may well attempt to increase its activity and it is in places like northwest syria, southern air whack -- southern iraq and lebanon. i was talking to some people from indonesia. they are very concerned about isis and their ideology but its presence and recruitment in indonesia. isis will be tested on its ability to hold areas now under its control while attempting to also expand its territory. at the end of the day, the peoples of the region, obviously like syria, iraq lebanon and the gulf states have the primary challenge and responsibility to deal with what are primarily their problems. however, a substantial international commitment and involvement by the u.s. in concert with allies is also needed. as president obama considers new strikes, the white house has

begun a diplomatic campaign to enlist allies and neighbors in the region to increase the oppositionserious rather late but in any case -- in some cases to provide support to military operations. tothe long run, if we wish break the cycle of global terrorism whether it is isis or other movements in the future, notes and aler piece on avenging james foley --" the conditions and basic and enduring grievances in islam countries that jihadist movements have exploited must be addressed. foreign boats on the ground a dictator supported by the was out of convenience, failure to end a half-century of israeli occupation of palestinian lands,

the treatment of palestinians as a paradigm for treatment of other muslims, the u.s. employment of the region as an eternal cockpit for proxy wars. that's a great phrase. you have the gulf states are some of them involved in supporting proxy wars and the characterization of the u.s.. recent events continue the trajectory of u.s. and eu failure to take stronger principle stand. in egypt on that military coup, massive violation of human rights with slaughter of civilians and the restoration of authoritarian rule. and the recognition and calling it a democracy in a country well on the road to democracy. at the same time, the issue of the asymmetric war in gaza and not speaking out and condemning it in the way it needed to be can dance. nasa saying that we are said to

his action but -- of gazanve slaughter civilians compared to the israeli side and the attempt to not only wipe out all of those people but destroying the infrastructure of the country violates international law and human rights. rather you have a situation where in public media, we are told that benjamin netanyahu approaches are administration in avoidingting him having to go to international courts. of those things create conditions that will remain very strong in the future. massive killing of civilians and deliver destruction of the gazan infrastructure alienates significant sectors of muslim democrats. that does not mean they will turn to violence but at the same

time, it contributes to the radicalization and recruitment of disaffected youth. thank you. [applause] >> hello, everyone. thank you, hill and thank you to csid for having me. this is a great organization. a were talking about democracy in the world before it was cool. they have done some incredible work in tunisia since the arabs spring began. in a differentf way than i intended area of this has been alderney for a little rise of vices and its severed she, this kind of response that isis has nothing

to do with islam and islam is a peaceful religion. islamichat the peaceful term is beginning to grate on me a little bit. yes, the majority of muslims do not share, the vast majority, don't share isis's ideology. at the end of the day, islam does not exist as god intended because we don't have access to that. we can only interpret. ultimately, islam is a construct. constructs are not peaceful or violent. they are what muslims will them to be. the fact of the matter is that even though they are a minority, there are muslims who do believe this is the correct interpretation of islam. the reason i bring this up as i feel like when we bring up the islamist piece narrative, we are trying to say that this is

inexplicable and evil and these are friends terrorists and i feel that leads us to underestimate the nature of the threat we are facing. i think we have to take isis very seriously. this was something we saw in john kerry's statements recently. of course isis is evil but he said isis inexplicable he is evil. we have to try to understand the origins of isis. it is not appear. it came out a particular context and was not inevitable. the obamai think administration official suggested nothing we could have done to stop this. only ridiculous but predicted. we have these conversations in early 2012. i remember the people who were meeting with jane -- senior administration officials telling them explicitly the longer we

wait to guide we don't do more in syria now, it will conduit does. the extremists are going to gain ground is deservedly ices will will gain the-- ground. what is unique about isis? they are a fascinating group because, unlike al qaeda central and other or runners, they take .t around pretty seriously they dispense justice to sharia courts and take care of water and electricity and distribute funds to help the poor but also the kind of religious morality piece which goes around and make sure that women are covered and other things like that. it is brutal.

they are vicious. but they actually hold territory and they run territory. in many ways, they are more effective than other rebel groups in running the territories they control. this is especially the case when you have a total vacuum. you have various leslie were better fighting with each other over the control of local government, there is a fascinating piece in the where thereadology were talking about the experience of ices rule in a city in syria. they go into detail about how the residents of this city view isis rules and many of them may they see it as preferable to the alternative

cicely because isis has been able to restore law and order and crime has gone down and hangs actually run. follow the very harsh rules and do not oppose them, there might actually be a better situation than the alternative. in many parts of syria that is chaos. to understand the governance aspects and is your traditional terrorist group. have been abley to retain some local support in the territory they control. now they control does in the territories wiegand -- we estimate about 400 million that's remarkable. it's a piece of territory as large as the u.k. with 4 million people. there -- the other thing is,

there are not a lot of models of islamic governance, and the bar is quite low, too. we have had the taliban, sudan, so on and so forth, but i think what isis has been able to do in a short amount of time is present in a different model of islamic governance, when the other models have failed. i will get into that when we talk about mainstream political islam and their relative failure or eclipse of the muslim brotherhood. let me say one more thing about the kind of governance here, and again this was in that jihadology piece. isis is more brutal than pretty much anyone else in the region, but less arbitrary. so it is more predictable. when we are trying to understand why authoritarianism is so

alienating and can push people toward the isis model -- for thesee, you did, syria, countries are less brutal and less repressive but you never know where the red lines are. the secret police can come to your door unannounced at don. that is, in some ways, the most terrifying thing about an autocracy, not the oppression but the fear and the uncertain tea. in this article, the point was made, there is something consistent about isis rule, that they are not arbitrary, so citizens know what to expect, which is a very important point. all of this leads me to say that this is actually what makes isis so frightening and so scary and not easily defeated. that is why, i think, we have to complicate this simplistic narrative of terrorism and evil.

if we want to confront the enemy, we have to understand what they are offering. i am happy that my colleague, professor esposito, mentioned egypt. his is one of the reasons why i was very concerned about the coup in egypt last year. we cannot pretend that we did not know this was coming, that we would not know the effects, but the coup in egypt, for all their faults -- no one has to like the muslim brotherhood, but they were democratically elected. they were able to say -- and this is what they do say -- that the islamic state is not possible through democracy. not possible through elections. it is only possible through the force of arms. that is their narrative. that is a more compelling narrative now because of what

happened in places like egypt and because of what is happening now in places like libya. there is essentially a war being waged against mainstream political islam. again, it is not good or moderate necessarily, but is an alternative to what extremist .roups like isis offer i think in that sense one of the great failures of the arab spring, when we look back and do a postmortem, yes, islamist groups failed. the muslim brotherhood was unprepared for governance, did not govern inclusively, the list goes on. but the greater failure of the arab spring was the failure of the existing regional order, of existing state systems to accommodate islamist participation in the democratic process. islamists were willing to test it out, but really, nowhere in the region have they been

allowed to fully govern in the normal democratic sense. exception.a partial to be anoing interesting test. if we look at it regionally, that is the basic trend we are talking about. believe in a democratic process were not given a real opportunity -- not to govern even, but to be a part of the political process. that is something that i discussed at length in my book, so i will not go into too much detail there. but that contrast between the mainstream islamists and extremist islamists is very important. as i close here, i want to make a couple of final points and then a word about u.s. policy. i think this is a very important

point that professor esposito just raised. there is something about the notion of a caliphate, something about the notion of an islamic state that has a kind of residents. i do not know to what extent people grasp this. even for someone like me who grew up in an american muslim community, even i would absorb this growing up, this sense that we have been the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, and then we encountered this percent of his fall from grace. i use fall from grace for a reason. it is almost as if god had forsaken us. this is something you hear. imbued inuch political discourse in the middle east and among muslims more generally. even with people who are not religious or practicing or whatever else. so this sense of humiliation,

this cap of what muslims believe they should be, and what they actually are, that is so much at the root of the conflict that we are seeing. the fact that they are blocked from expressing their aspirations or grievances through the normal political process. so the islamic state, isis, were smart enough marketing because they used the term. state, is islamic compelling. caliphate, compelling. al qaeda was not serious about that david they would talk about it in theory but was not serious in practice. the muslim brotherhood talks about islamic state all the time, but again, it was not seriously going to happen anytime soon. in a moree first time coherent and compelling way, there is something called the islamic state. --s kind of president is dent is dangerous.

we have seen copycats in nigeria. wherever there is a political vacuum and were civil conflict becomes important, where you do not have governance, state authority, and you have that vacuum, the instant a lot of extremists or people who are even less extreme will think, maybe we can start our own islamic state in this territory. that mental block has been removed. on u.s. policy, what can we do? ,f we take it seriously understand the origins of isis' rise, understand the origin of the syrian war and what we fail to do, what can we do now? worried we are moving into this narrow counterterrorism approach and we do not want to

look more broadly that the context. the fact that john kerry has said eggs like isis will be crushed. obama has called them to cancer. desire to defeat isis, but there is a mismatch between means and end. if it is our goal to defeat isis, what does -- this administration offers does not come close. me that wearkable to are talking about airstrikes and there is some talk about boosting the moderate rebels, but it does not sound serious so far. announced time and again over the past two years, we will do more to support the mainstream rebels. it does not happen in a serious way. perhaps this could be obamas moment where he realizes if he does not change in a fundamental way, his legacy is not looking good. i hope this could be one of those moments where something

clicks and you realize something serious has to be taken on here. i am skeptical as i think this instinctually, intellectually sees the middle east in a different way than i do. so i'm not optimistic in that regard. kind of close here, what about our allies? we want to work with them to build this coalition against isis. that twoy instructive of our closest allies, egypt and the uae tom a have been launching airstrikes not in syria or iraq or isis, but in libya. that tells you about priorities. maybe it is obvious, maybe it is not, but many of these countries see mainstream political islam, whether you want to call the moderate or not -- groups like the muslim brotherhood -- as

being more of a fundamental threat than groups like isis, and they have acted accordingly. this all means, assuming the obama administration does not do do, i think they dshould think we have to accept the islamic state will be with us for the foreseeable future. i do not know how long. and will be more entrenched in the territory it holds. i don't know what the after affects are going to be. al qaeda, it is often said, was originally born in the prisons andhe 1950's and 1960's nobody would have dreamed then that those events would reverberate for the coming decades. now,ry that isis looks bad but there are things that we cannot even imagine that might happen in the future because of and because we are not able or willing to do enough

to stop them. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon and thank you to csid for inviting me to be part of the panel. there was a "new york times" editorial today discussing whether the united states should strike isis in syria. the editorial decrying the lack of a comprehensive u.s. strategy iraq, military action alone is not enough to defeat the extremists who gain followers by exploiting repression against the sunnis." so i think this is part of what we are here to discuss and i'm happy that shadi opened up this question. what is the political and diplomatic strategy that would have to accompany any military action against extremists in

iraq and syria, if it should happen? to go even deeper into this question about working with our allies. it is the first thing that comes up, is there in the article. we have to work with our allies and so forth. of course it's essential, but we have a really big problem. ,ur allies are divided especially when it comes to the political strategy. many of them are leading us in a direction that i think is likely to be disastrous. as you know, we have these two can't. this is apart from the long-running saudi-iranian leadership thing. uae,ve saudi arabia, the egypt, and a few others in one group that have proposed a certain political strategy,

which is lumping many islamist into the same category, the category of terrorists, and barring them from politics, media, civil society. there are a lot of things happening. shadi referred to things happening in egypt. on a smaller scale, in a number of the other countries that i mentioned. this is being applied particularly to the muslim brotherhood because the governments of these countries see the muslim brotherhood as the greatest political threat to their continuing control. the gulf countries have taken their own steps internally and have also cheered on as president asisi has carried on countrykdown across the . as many as 40,000 have been

imprisoned. to go back to that editorial , it says that isis got to where it is in iraq because it gain followers by exploiting repression against the sunnis. so where do we think repression of islamists, brotherhood other islamists, human rights defenders, journalists, and so forth? where do we think this is going to go? that is the political strategy that a certain group of our allies recommend to us, that we support, or at a minimum, turned a blind eye to. but actually they want our support in the strategy of repressing that section of the population.

where do we think it is going to go? except to generate more support for the extremists that exist, and it is not only in iraq or syria but they exist in egypt and many of the countries of the region. also, closing off the avenues that i discussed, of politics, media, civil society, and so , will diverge energy in the direction of radicalization. and beyond that, in many countries, it is probably only a small number of people that would be attracted to join or actively support extremist groups. but i think it is even more important that you could have a large swath of the population that is not going to help the government fight the extremist groups because they have been alienated by the government and by a lot of the collective punishment taking place.

there is another camp of u.s. andes, generally qatar turkey who say political islamists must be allowed full participation. but we need to be honest with ourselves. even though these two camps are talking about political islam, the muslim brotherhood in starkly different ways, when it individualso it, and states in each of these camps are willing to work with islamist, willing to work with dangerous and violent islamists. there is not really a pro-islamist and anti-islamist camp here although it is portrayed that way. if we look to the actions of all of the states, we can see they have been willing to work with one islamist group against another and so forth. it is not a principled thing. it is about politics and about maintaining political control.

so what does the united states do about this? i think the administration has been doing the correct thing by refusing to be drawn into this regional polarization. i don't think the obama administration has fallen into ofs trap at this point supporting one camp of allies against another. i think the u.s. administration ontoried to refuse to sign repression of political islamists in the name of fighting terrorism. they have been imperfect in that regard, but in general, they have tried to avoid falling into that particular trap. of course, it is a pity, and it's been alluded to, the u.s. and europe did not do more to peaceful,e growth of political expression, the experiments of democratization that started to take place in

the last few years. but i want to point out another failure of policy in the last few years, and that has been managing these allies. the fact that this region has been going through these tectonic shifts, massive changes over the last two year that made everyone feel secure and that the u.s. has been, for our own andons, been pulling back saying we do not want to be the leaders, we do not want to be responsible for solving a problem like syria. be the ones coming up with a strategy and coordinating everyone. it is the sort of thing that we would've done in the past. it would have meant taking international leadership, diplomatic and perhaps even military, assistance, other strategies. we have decided that we did not want to do that. a lot of our allies

feeling insecure, going out and taking their own actions. shadi referred to the recent example, these airstrikes on libya. i do believe there is fault on the part of the united states, that we need to manage these relationships with our gulf allies, turkey, and indeed, israel, in a better and closer way and we need to have strategies because we see that we are really getting into very dangerous situations by withdrawing to the extent we have. i have heard people say recently , that is all great, but right now we have a specific problem with isis. sake, we arey's going to have to work with whoever we have to. bashar al-assad, president

al-sisi. those things, like human rights, democracy, those will have to be in the longer-term. we will get back to all of that stuff. what i want to say is i don't think there is any long term. i think things are happening very quickly in this region. who would have expected isis to, as far as it has, as quickly as it has been really only a few years? the threat that u.s. partners in the region, that some of our allies with whom we need to work , may actually, by the actions they are taking in their countries, but before they are may beeach other, fueling radicalization and terrorism at a much faster rate than they are fighting it. that is a problem that the united states needs to take on right away. it's a problem for this year and

next year i'm not or the long-term. not for the long-term. thanks. [applause] stay righting to here because i know we are pressed for time and i only have a brief set of comments to make. i would do this more in the spirit of ginning up the discussion rather than making a formal presentation. my co-panelists have done a good job framing the issue and i agree with their perspective. want to do is to say which military steps i think are needed right now against isil. this is not to suggest this is a complete answer to the question or subject of the panel today. my colleagues have done a much better and fuller job of explaining how to think about a problem. but i want to agree with some of the spirit of saying we have an acute threat right now. isil is an abomination. everyoneuggesting that

would agree with me here, but i believe we need a fairly concerted military and political strategy, working with what i hope is a new iraqi government and national unity, working with a searing opposition that we have to cultivate, more than we have in the past, and come up with a serious strategy. the obama administration, in my opinion, has done a good job in ordering it steps correctly. taking sure kurdistan was not overrun by isil. if you have any doubts about their ambitions, why would they want to go into kurdistan if they had taken ambitions? not even their fellow arabs and they saw it as a target of opportunity. they will take what they can get, including close american allies, like george and. -- jordan. i am not trying to suggest the entirety of the subject of today's panel is being addressed by my recommendations but i think we need to focus clearly on this question. to fend we have helped

off the immediate threat to donestan, now that we have a nice job pressuring nouri al-maliki to step down as prime minister, in a realistic way to have a new government under another shia, and it has to be from his own party leading the government, but hopefully now getting sued me, and kurdish buy-in. as that ray -- process plays out, in addition to the announced steps of spending a half million dollars on the searing opposition which is a good idea, and congress should approve it immediately as they return next week, and that is all i was a about syria for the moment. in iraq, we need to do three things. we need to be ready to step of airstrikes. shadi is right, it is not the complete solution, but it is one. we also need to help the iraqi army get ready to do its version of a surge into the sunni arab areas of iraq that are held by isil.

it may not be possible this fall. be the iraqi army needs to rebuilt and has to become capable and confident enough to do these things. i believe that will require american mentoring teams in the field with the iraqi army units. this could mean the kind of capability that we are moving towards in afghanistan, where next year we will have 10,000 people doing the sorts of things. i think that is what we need to envision for iraq next year. and afghanistan mission look similar. air power, intelligence, mentoring teams in the field, and special forces. the special forces peace is needed, i believe, because if we can do a fairly aggressive, combined set of action with iraq he special forces, i think we can take down a lot of isil targets that should be done, in my opinion, without a lot of public forewarning or trial ballooning by the

administration. they should go at it once they find a moment. anddinate with the iraqis catch isil by surprise and try to make headway against these targets in the early going. because they are enmeshed in the area. it would be hard to get them out. we defined every advantage we can. to doaq he army will have the long-term protecting of the population, the long-term uprooting of isil elements. but in the early going, we need to help them with special operations raids on key weapons depots and so forth. we need this training with the syrians. it is overdue. let's get after it. on the iraq side, in addition to specialr, we need forces working with iraq he special forces in an intense campaign for a few months to go after key isil targets. and then we need to do mentoring in the field with iraq units by

teams of americans dispersed with iraq he battalions throughout the country. the combined american capability maybe 10,000 people. it is not a big mission in the sense of combat units, but certainly will involve combat and casualties, but i see no alternative. i will stop there. [applause] we are going to open up the floor for questions in a brief moment. i want to invite you to get in line at the microphone over here for the question and answer period. we will take as many questions as we can. i would invite the panelists to stay where they are if their microphones are working, and hopefully they are. we continue to invite questions. .e are live in the twitterverse we are collecting some questions and we will be collecting more.

refer youso like to to the csid recent statement on isis, from which i will list a sentence or 2 -- the wonton brutality of isis committed against religious minorities and local populations in iraq and syria, as well as mr. foley's murder, is in direct contravention with islamic principles and the geneva convention which states all prisoners of war -- further down, isis has been the most prominent upsurge in violence across the middle east and north africa jeopardizing populations. cases, one ofe the important contributing factors has been the unwillingness of key actors inside and outside of the region to support accountable governments. csid calls for robust support for building reconciliation, respect for human rights, and proactive protection of civilians as the best anecdote the rise ofombat

extremism. democratization should not be sacrificed in the name of stability, economic development, or of defending the rights of any particular group at the expense of another. i worked in algeria for 10 years. if there is anything i learned from looking at that conflict, which inspired the creation of csid, i learned that violence begets violence. we are about to embark on new expressions of violence. that is why this panel is so important. violence does beget violence. so we have to couch violence, state violence, all kinds, in a context of political reconciliation and healthy dialogue, or the violence will make things worse. i would now like to open the floor to questions. we will take a group of three questions.

first of all, give your name and affiliation. try to make it a brief question or comment and directed at one of the panel members if it can be so directed. we will take a group of three and then we will open up the answers to the questions. natasha.me is i'm a freelance journalist. my question is to mr. shadi hamid. how serious is the threat of isis in the u.s.? we can consider the beheading of james foley, that incident as a turning point in which isis declared that before they left the u.s. alone, but now they are going to go after the u.s. and launch attacks. can we take these statements seriously, is there a serious threat? >> second question. >

>> on the notion of the genius i think you ing, see in indonesia, many are saying just the fact the califat has been established should be supported and celebrated. the fact they are not perfect is something secondary. but i thought i heard dr. esposito saying something about your turkish colleague mentioning something like that and the fact that you thought it was not something reasonable for accept so maybe i'd like your opinion on that issue. the second notion is the notion that the isis is a creation of the united states. this is something that was not mentioned in the panel but is something that's been circulating a lot in social media, especially in indonesia and i believe also in lebanon where the u.s. embassy, through their twitter accounts have denied this as something that

was said by hillary clinton in her book "hard choices. talk about what kind of frame i don't recollect mind that would make people believe of this notion, i'd really appreciate it. thank you. >> third question? >> in response to mr. o'hannel's remarks and in part to your statement violence begets violence. i'd just point out if you look where the united states has become directly involved militarily over the last decade or so, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, yemen, somalia, south sudan, libya, it seems we have a sort of anti-midas touch, anything that we touch turned to shit which doesn't bode well for the ukraine. >> c-span has no eight-second delay so be careful. >> i think it has an adult audience.

i should have said it in french, perhaps. in light of this, shouldn't we try something new for a change and give these people a break and not interfere in the internal affairs of another country? >> i'd like to inslight shedi to answer first. >> on the question of the threat on the u.s. homeland, up until now, isis has been consumed by the near enemy, meaning in the region and particular, iraq and syria. that's what they're consumed with now what they're putting their resources and effort into. that doesn't mean they don't have ambitions to attack the u.s. or u.s. interests at some later point. they've actually been rather explicit about this and actually issued various warnings against the u.s. to this affect, that i would be more concerned at this point about europe just because the

number of european foreign fighters -- and this is a part of it that's really remarkable and will reverberate in european countries. we're talking about summer between 500 -- somewhere between 500 and 1,000 citizens who have gone to the country to fight, many french citizens. so in that sense we're talking about almost like the u.n. of like militants in places like syria and iraq. many of them have european passports which means that it's easier for them to return to their home countries and obviously european passport holders have more access to the u.s. so if it's not a direct threat against a homeland or to our european partners now, it almost certainly will be in the future. and very quickly, and two other points, actually, i'm not even sure what to say about the u.s. creating isis because the kind

of chain of conspiracy theorizing i'd have to go through right now is just too complex. and as someone who is used to conspiracy theories, having lived in egypt and focused on egypt for a long time, this is sort of at the egyptian level of conspiracy theorizing which is impressive. and then just on the last point of intravention, so does intravention work in these kinds of contexts? and obviously if you look specifically at iraq and afghanistan, the record isn't so good. but if you look at bosnia and kosovo and more recently libya and maybe i'm in the minority on this but i still do consider the intervention libya to be a success. it prevented mass slaughter as gaddafi's forces were marching on to benghazi and displaced a terrible regime. if anything i put more on the blame of the failure to stay engaged in libya the day after.

there wasn't -- very little interest from the international community. we said gaddafi is gone and we left libyans to their own devices and i think that's another thing that will haunt this administration for a long time to come and we also can say very clearly the failure to intervene in syria earlier on has led to this particular outcome. so intervention can be dangerous depending on the context but so can nonintervention. it's nonneutral. nonintervention is a policy choice. so it should be treated as a policy choice and we have to judge it three years later and say this is the course the obama administration took in syria. did it work or did it not? and i think it's fairly clear. >> i'm going to invite mike hanlan to answer it next but before we do that, he has to leave early. he's been called away. do any people in line have a question specifically for mr.

o'hanlan. would you answer the question, just you and any of the other questions that were raised? >> thank you and apolicy dwis for stepping out after this but think it's a very good question. i'm glad i got help in answering it because it's a daunting question and any of us who advocate doing more in iraq should have to face squarely the fact the american track record in recent times in the middle east is obviously mixed at best. however, i would say it's better in afinogenov that you -- afghanistan than what you'd give credit for. what broke them was the soviet invasion and then the successful pakistani intervention to that decision followed by our decision to leave and then is when the mayhem really occurred in afghanistan, far worse than what's going on now. what is going on now may or may not have a happy outcome but the fact american intervention made it worse is demonstrablyly wrong. in iraq, you have a harder case

and i have a harder time coming back at you and since i'm on iraq, let me finish that point, no one will propose sending major combat units to iraq and i didn't and i wouldn't, largely for the reasons you're getting at can with the question our track record hasn't been good enough and not clear iraqi wants us in those numbers but what got iraq to this point in the last couple years are the iraqis themselves, not working well across sectarian lines and specifically prime minister maliki deserves the lion's shafer the blame. so iraq and the intervention may or may not have been worth it and the evidence probably tilts against, i would concede that but the reason iraq is in a mess today is not because of the united states but because the iraqis themselves couldn't get along and sure, maybe they'd be better off today if we'd never intervened in the first play and maybe udai hussein would be taking over his dad's man true in a succession strategy and can do that counterfactual some other time but the fact is limited amounts of military forces as

the iraqis themselves would request with iraq in the lead and the iraqi army in the lead is an option we have to look at very hard. now that we have an iraqi government of national unity in the making i think would be capable of engendering sunni arab support. there is that big if. this has to continue. a body has to complete the government and we probably can't do a full-bore support of that until he has completed that task in the coming weeks, i hope. but provided that ibadi does that and he wants our help and the iraqis support it and we play a supporting role. i think we have no choice because we've seen what happened in the absence of our role in syria and in sunni arab iraq. thanks. >> let me just quickly add that hillary clinton's comments, whatever you think of hillary clinton, i'm not passing judgment on her, on this comment, were taken out of context. she was talking about blowback in afghanistan and that's been misconstrued to u.s. support for al qaeda and there have been references to the u.s. support for the free syrian

army that's been twisted around in the u.s. support of isis and has been manipulation of information rather than any sort of admission by hillary clinton or anyone else. i would invite -- unless you'd like to say something right now? john would like to say something and then take the next three questions. >> with regard to my question about kalafate and the islamic state. that's something you look back upon with pride but the fast majority of muslims do not look to the creation of calafate. the islamic state is a different story. in many muslim countries there is a desire for, among some, certainly the islamists, for some kind of islamic state. but even there, it's more complicated because ishadi said in the past we have no clear paradigm for what would call an islamic state. there's no single paradigm. in terms of today if you look up and other ll

organizations, they want democracy and not a secular state and some form of shiria and doesn't qualify as islamic state but there's a certain influence. muslims ink for many the notion to the appeal of calafate by isis resonates. and if you study would be the case and if it did resonate, to free them would be a hell of a lot more successful than it has been. and the final comment is with regard to the u.s. policy and whether the u.s. is behind this or that and it's out there but part of the problem we have is on the one hand we tell a story historically that we're the power and can go in and we celebrate when we can go in and do things so then you raise expectations about our being involved in what we could do.

we also know that truth often is stranger than fiction and that is that often we discover the u.s. has been doing things that at least in my generation we never would have believed the u.s. would ever do and certainly wouldn't think of hat today. and i once spoke at a university and a student said the c.i.a. is doing this, this and this and they wanted my answer. i said you do realize you put out four options and there is contradiction to which the fifth student said that's their policy, part of their strategy, too. you're not going to be able to, for those that are into that kind of mentality, you're always going to see that the .s. is responsible for anything you want to say the u.s. is responsible for. >> my name is mr. mohammed and with the center for u.s. relations. and i would like to thank the

fourth speaker who left us now but the question to the three speakers here, we heard from him very clearly and seems that in the mind and whatever is written in the newspaper and so on that we need an action. he talked about intelligence help and armies and actually specific geographic areas and official forces and so on. but don't you think that really the root of the matter is that we are facing an ideological confrontation? this is a war of ideas. deviated ideas maybe, fanatic ideas, and this is where the work has to be and this is what the superpowers should be thinking about, not only a short range bombing here or bombing there. why was it absent at least from what i heard and what would you like to say about that? thanks. >> question number five,

stacey? >> hi, my name is stacey pollard and i'm a political scientist, often specialize in middle eastern politics but i've been doing research and consulting the department of defense for the last four years as well. and my -- first of all, i'd just like to say this is an excellent panel and feel very privileged to be here, thank you. my questions are for shedi and michelle. i had a semiquestion, i guess, for michael. i guess my frustration is with this specific discussion is that we hear over and over again this criticism that the united states, that the obama administration does not have a coherent strategy. and folks come to the table,

they offer us a lot of information, you know, and it's really helpful and provocative and then close the conversation with, but we don't have a coherent strategy and we need one and then we never get to hear that expert's insights on what their cohesive strategy would look like. from my point of view, the united states is doing precisely what michael suggested. i don't see any defyation from the strategy that the united states has taken on or between the strategy that the u.s. has taken on and what is occurring on the ground in iraq. from shed isks, you closed kind of saying, you know, talking about how you help -- hope that the obama administration does

what you want it to do. what is that specifically in terms of your recommendations? and for michelle, i very much agree on the points that you drove down on in terms of pressuring allies or managing allies. but how -- from your point of view, how does the united states -- because i think this administration has worked on it but very difficult, gain the leverage that it needs in order to do that? and that's all. >> question number six. >> good afternoon. i'm here representing mr. sharif who couldn't reach it from the nation's mosque. this problem we know is massive but the question i wanted to pose to this pan sell that oftentimes we don't address and

professor esposito, you did a great job in regards to the miseducation of the muslims and what i would equate that. as a person who accepted islam willingly and freely as a youth and now as an adult, i know this is not the islam that's being taught, we all know that. every last person here is educated enough to know this is not islam but we never seem to address these individuals who step outside of the bounds of islam and equate them as criminals. because that's exactly what their actions are. it isn't right to look at a person's actions, indeed but never hear it addressed as much. and i say that, too and i'm getting to the question. i'm saying it also as a person who was once under the leadership of the honorable mohammed. we would considered a radical group ourselves but after 1975, we changed under the leadership and came into a broader undergo of islam and became more reform

that now today many of our members are now judges, lawyers and everything else. what do you all see long term and short term as a way to reform much the mentality as the gentleman mentioned earlier that this is an ideological issue, what do you all see that would help change on a short term and long-term basis to re-educate many of these uneducated people who claim to be muslim? >> michelle, can i start with you? >> on the question of whether there is an ideological confrontation involved in this battle against isis, yes, there is. but the question is, what is that ideological confrontation? that is exactly what i was getting to in my remarks because as the u.s. tries to work with the allies in the region, some of them want to pose in and even quite a few people in the united states picking this up that it's a

ideological confrontation between islamists and moderate are or something like that and i think it's a lot more complicated than that. there is, as i said, there's an attempt to lump in islamists who were essentially peaceful, political and so forth with those who have been very violent. so there is an ideological confrontation and the united states stands for certain things and it should be clear bout what it stands for. but it shouldn't get roped into this kind of confrontation that some of our allies would like us to. on the other question on stacey's question about what should the united states actually be doing, and you asked regarding u.s. allies, how can the u.s. gain the leverage that it needs? in my view, the united states in has a lot of leverage

these relationships but chosen not to use it. we need to look at u.s. leverage properly. because the u.s. has leverage over an ally it doesn't mean the united states can force that government to do what the united states wants it to do. it doesn't mean we can make things happen in other countries and so forth. that's not what it's about. but we can scrutinize our own actions. we have control over our own actions, our own policies, and we can certainly -- first of all, we cannot support actions that we think are unconstructive, in this case, for example, actions by some of our allies that we believe will actually build radicalization and extremism in this region, so that's one thing of not supporting them. in terms of actions that those governments take and so forth, look, there are -- many of the governments in this region still depend on the united states at the end of the day for their defense. so there is a lot of leverage there and i think at my own

experience as a u.s. official that very often u.s. officials don't see this, or they don't conceive of it. and so it's a matter, i think sometimes of thinking more strategically of finding refuse line of scrimmage in these relationships and being willing to use it. but the general approach the administration has had of we don't want to be responsible for solving the problems in this region, we don't want to be the ones who have to come up with the solutions, the strategies put together the coalitions all of that, is one of the things that has led us not to use this leverage because, you know, it just would be taking on more responsibility than we really want to. >> stacey stressed your question about my ideal foreign policy in two minutes, i've written about this but kind of some highlights. first of all, in 2012, many of us called for military intervention in syria, targeted

air strikes, the creation of safe zones, humanitarian corridors, along with a serious effort to train and equip mainstream syrian rebel forces. that was a very clear policy prescription and it was something that was discussed for quite some time in 2012 and almost happened in 2013 and was conof the key inflection points and was late but last august we were preparing to launch military strikes and instead we accepted a chemical weapons deal that helped legitimatize and normalize the regime. this administration should not pretend this was a success. this was i think the start of a chain of events that has led to where we are today where we came to see asad as a partner and lost any seriousness when it came to confronting the regime but that's water under the bridge. now $500 million is not enough

to support mainstream syrian rebel forces and is a start but i would actually recommend people check out my colleague's ken pollack's long detailed, very ambitious and provocative proposal in foreign affairs and he lays it out in detail of building a syrian rebel army. he puts the price tack at $3 billion to $10 billion a year for two to five years depending on how extensive we want it to be. that might sound unrealistic to the ordinary american viewer. which is fine but we shouldn't -- we can't do a lot of this on the cheap. if we are serious about defeating isis, then we have to rise to the occasion. if people don't want to do that, that's fine. but there are proposals out there that are possible if we had leadership in the u.s. and europe that were truly committed to addressing this. and just a couple other examples and a little bit on the lower nonmilitary scale, we

indulged, we have been complicit in one of the most brutal -- with one of the most brutal regimes in the middle east, egypt. and we continue to give them billions of dollars and will presumably for the foreseeable future. and we had a legal obligation the day after the coup happened last year to cut our assistance. we did not do that and we sent a message to the egyptian military that they could literally get away with murder and they did. and what we saw shortly thereafter was one of the worst mass killings in modern history on august 14, 2013. and more generally and this touches on michelle's point, we have to use our assistance as leverage and there was no bold initiative in 2011o to say we'll incentivize reform, that we're building to give additional financial assistance to those countries that commit themselves to a democratic process, along specific benchmarks. and my colleague peter

mandoville and i proposed, for example, a multilateral endowment for reform which we put initially funded at $5 billion and building enough support to get to $20 billion where the basic idea was to say more for more. and to have tailored specific benchmarks for countries in transition and if they met those benchmarks over a period of time, they would be eligible for massive infusions of financial assistance and that uld just be multilateral support for our allies and you add the world bank funding to that, but there were no bold initiatives forthcoming from this administration. >> john? >> on the coherent policy, it eems to me that an administration which has all the resources, with all the many ts in government

with great economics and i remember ann slaughter speaking out, etc., the administration is responsible for coming up with that coherent policy with its coherent policy. but the possibilities are out there and the fact it didn't happen is due to other things. sometimes it means making very decisive conditions in which you can screw up and if you're concerned about your legacy, you always don't want to come off afghanistan and iraq, you don't want to really get more involved and indeed i think the administration before two or three years ago, i think president obama wanted to look more to asia, to southeast asia and not get into this entractable area of the middle east. i think that there are other things that come into play, if you're really going to be decisive with a coherent policy and my two colleagues here have made some reference to it, some hard stands are going to have

to be taken with those that are our allies in terms of what they're doing and continue to do. whether it's egypt, whether it's, you know, israel, whether it's saudi arabia, etc. and i don't think that there is the will to do that. or maybe it's also that there is also a realization with some of these steps, the congress won't go along with it. i think for a variety of reasons. and the final thing is that this administration has demonstrated, which surprises me because i was a very strong supporter of president obama the first time he ran. i thought this is our last chance to really get some real stuff done based on his cairo speech and other things. its inability to be consistent has been, you know, from my point of view, really surprising and not realizing that there are incredible costs there. that little blurb i read at the end of the paper from graham fuller and then i added to.

these long-term, you know, when you talk to people long-term, a number of years ago we were at carnegie and somebody from the clinton administration was asking about -- eight of us about the middle east in africa and somebody from africa did short term and long term and the guy smiled and said you don't understand, presidents don't think long term but think short term. and you know, the fact is long term comes around rather quickly, you know. it just does. you think back and it's -- i put on a t-shirt today given to me for my 50th birthday saying, you know, 50 and still perfect. that was given to me 24 years ago. look, i wouldn't have thought long term went by rather quickly. and i think if we look at not addressing palestine and israel, if we look at not addressing atheory terrace him and the signal -- you a theorytism -- atheoryityism, that they can come and do what they want and just ride it out and at a certain point they'll

have to deal with you, they'll have to say well, it's a state. we have to deal with it. but then to go and, as it were, legitimate that state with comments like they're moving on to the path to democracy, we're giving them aid with saying we recognize the election. you know, we support, quote, the will of the people, you know. a lot of the people didn't like the president. as one member of congress said to a member of the obama administration, i can think of a couple presidents that could not get at times, you know, a majority in terms of percentages supporting them. does that mean that we would think that the person should be moved, pushed out undemocratically? i think there are a lot of hard choices and regrettably, i think obama's legacy, unless he acts now, would not be one to at least put some precedence out there, even if they're not totally successful about the fact that the u.s. is going to take a new look at its relationship with the region which does mean our allies have to be primarily responsible in the region for what they do but which also means that we are going to be really strong on

the things that they do that are devastating. we're not going to look the other way when slaughter takes place of the magnitude that its taken in egypt and also more recently in gaza. >> we have one minute left. we're in the lightning round. i'm going to take two questions -- the discussion on the twitter sphere is really interesting. i'll take two questions and ask for quick answers. for john, what about the question of isis recruiting, for example, somalis in minnesota, how should the u.s. be dealing with isis recruiting in the states and for shadi, quick answers, how should the u.s. be dealing with isis competitors like al qaeda in the region while addressing isis. with quick answers we won't have time for the other three questions. >> the u.s. knows and has done some of some. there needs to be much closer working relationship with local communities, with local muslim communities to begin with.

but that said, and one could say the same thing in europe, that said, unless you address conditions and unless the country's policy looks better for some youth, you're not giving them a reason not to be radicalized. and i think that that's also part of it. if there's a sense that u.s. policy isn't -- is actually part of the problem, etc., then you've got a situation for, you know, for some to just feel that they must act. i wouldn't exaggerate. we definitely have to be concerned about terrorism in america. but i would be more concerned with terrorists coming in, you know, than actually our domestic population. it's not that some of our population won't go out and there will be some in our population that will do something but if you actually take a look at, you know, most polls and if you're out there in communities, the vast majority of american