and other neighboring countries. it has not changed much. the background has not changed. who are the rebels in syria? are there still groups that we could support? i will share with you some of the knowledge israel has acquired. with my co-author, we write about israel. a lot of people think israel is so but about -- is good at intel. they mj understood -- ust understand isis. they should have known about al qaeda. of 8 millionountry people. think about where it is. byis surrounded by by at -- enemies.

the weapons. it became lucky. obama issued a redline challenge.

they brokered a deal in which syria gave up chemical weapons. they can still use chlorine gas and other things not classified officially as weapons. they are terrible and brutal. the syrian civil war led to serious not having chemical weapons. ub. it makes the regime more tolerable from an israeli point of view. as for the alternative, there is a phrase going around they are at the fence. israel holds most of the golan heights. rebels have taken an area known by. -- someone who might be

the free syrian army. the israelis watched this. they are at the fence. the response has been, in secret. try to make contact with everybody. try to be as friendly as we can. -- you heard about the hospital northern israel? which is a good part of publicity? they are treating wounded people from the syrian civil war? is that an intelligence bonanza opportunity to interview people and send them back in. treat only your favorite people. treat some of the people, the family members, may be some of the people from the major organizations. the israelis do not have the

answer. they cannot unlock the mystery we have been talking about, how to protect the u.s.. or the eiffel tower. they cannot do that. they are mostly concerned about their own neck of the woods. look at the mixture. monitoring, trying to penetrate. making friends wherever possible. playing one side against the other. it is something that they are concerned about, job number one. protecting people at home. something the u.s. and its allies have to do. . thank you. [applause]

>> i wonder if you have the same experience. you learn so much. congressman moran has his job cut out. you should remain confident. sometimes americans are -- keep our obama, we morale high. we have to be intelligent about the threat. in spite of a learned, diverse panel, we don't know much about

isis. there are roots. tourism, which is one of -- terrprorism is different than having a caliphate. we know very little about the geographic scope of isis. we have to learn more about them. be.concerned should we i wouldn't be complacent. third, the issue ruth and the others talked about. i'm a law professor. enforcement in and of itself is not the answer. are a public

international lawyer as ruth and i are, there is an issue of where the response fits in. both in iraq and syria. we have been asking about the government, putting them down. hopefully that will be better as the weeks go on your ready in syria, much trickier. my's enemy-- my ene might be our friend, but we may not admit assad is our friend. we should have high morale. confidence in ourselves. we have to beat them. i think we will. i think a program like this largeus a sense of how and amorphous and complicated this is a so many other things are today. thank you very much.

we have time to open a discussion. state your name. ask a question. then we will try to open discussion. raise your hands. -- pat murphyst first. >> i am editing a book on nato. excuse me. now i forgot what i was going to say. one of the main things is the president has to have an idea what he wants to accomplish.

>> he needs an ambulance. call an ambulance. >> i am ok. >> i'm having an anxiety attack. >> you are among friends. >> sorry about that. one of the points i think should be stressed is the president should at some point tell the american public what it is he wants to do regarding isis.

so he is clear in his own mind what he is trying to accomplish. set a goal. should after the mission. not before. ago, i can number when we were going to stay in vietnam. i thought johnson should tell the american public what they want to accomplish. so he will know himself. he never did. i'm not sure what our real goals were in vietnam to this day. the same applies with regard to isis. especially when the president has said, this is a long-term project. some of you pointed out that the -- i pointed out there are two triangles going on in syria. assad, andeen us,

the enemies of saud. -- assad. bomb on a group of people opposed to assad, are we hitting the free syrian army or isis? complexities.any the friend of my friend is becoming my enemy. these are things that should be thought about. >> thank you. >> ok, in the back. can you get the mic over there? thank you. i'm charles, an international advisor for the association of moroccan jews.

thank you for the panel. spokenng that was not actuallyngly, isis -- a member of the community has been demonstrating with isis's flag. it has been going on for a few years and has not been mentioned. france the europeans, germany england, is a center of recruitment for isis. what is happening in belgium is under the radar. it has been very big. respond?nt to >> can i make a comment? i will tag onto your comment to

comment to other issues that were mentioned by the panel earlier. a lot aboutw isis. just like we didn't know much about al qaeda before 9/11. if you choose my language, that is crap you read -- crap. we knew a lot about osama bin laden before 9/11. we identified all their leadership, their ideology, and their goals. are you had to do was read what he had been saying and writing. u.s.. going to attack the the same is true with isis. we know their ideology. read what they have written. listen to what they have said. america be streets of will run with blood. we know what their ideology is. this is not an unknown threat. this is well understood. i wanted to put the concept out there that we don't know -- we

do know who they are. we know what they stand for. we know the nature of the threat. if you personally do not know, go educate yourself. the threat is well understood. >> yes. blamed, they are often blamed for being caught unaware. it is not true. they have been warning the menstruation about isis -- warning the administration about isis. ok. >> my name is greg childers. thanks to all of you for your comments. when i had a note to myself -- dr. wedgewood talked

about tamping down isis to quote a manageable level. returning toout the war on terror. law-enforcement issue. it is also a military issue. i found it fascinating that a diplomat was the first to use the word defeat. followed by a journalist who said that beat. i will quote that is meaning defeat. the question is, without going if youe administration, were the president, what would you say i'm following up on what pat murphy said? what is the mission? is it to tempt them down?

-- tamp them down? >to contain them or defeat them? should not be to tempt down or contained -- tamp down or contain. we saw what happened with hamas. israel has attacked them. six months or two years later, they are doing the same thing again. wrong for thes way the u.s. and the europeans handle this by continuously beating up on israel. clearly, they going to eliminate them as a threat. same with isis. if you don't take this seriously and have the cool be

elimination, it will come back to bite us. that is my opinion. >> the objective is to defeat them. not all of japan or germany. the way we defeated the ussr. a long military, political, and social competition. if you get it right, you win. it doesn't take place all of the the war against japan or germany. >> there will not be a signing ceremony on a battleship or formal surrender. in addition, you can't kill all of them. and what they do every day needs to be replaced by something new. really up to the u.s. to replace their livelihoods and give them a new system. we are putting the pressure on baghdad where we can for a better government.

maybe we should for syria as well. i will return the focus. keeping our people safe is the job. keep isis at a distance. as soon as it is detected they have -- we have to counter that. i don't think the opposition will be too high. >> go ahead. one second. can you get him the mic? >> leonard, consulting international liaison. we have heard a lot about the responsibilities of various facets of the u.s. government and our policies. there was something that comes to mind that i think may be a

minor point, but maybe a significant point. i would like the opinion of some of the people who have spoken today. if it is a major point to them. one of the letter i's is iraq. iraq has northern iraq, kurdistan. the home of the kurdistan democratic party. the most able part of a rack for iny years -- stable part of raq for many years. which has had a good communication and relationship with the u.s. when we moved in, the u.s. did it was south korea, the

republic of korea, as part of the forces, that kept and helped to keep kurdistan very stable. is, why haven't we heard about the views of the republic of korea and their iraqiences and iraq -- in that were so successful following successes they had in vietnam? to staywith iraq -- with iraq? why haven't we heard about them? is there something you think republic of korea could contribute militarily and diplomatically? and perhaps doesn't have something to do with our

diplomatic relations with asia and japan? japan's current diplomatic questions with the republic of korea? that is it. as far as a comment about the republic of south korea, which i have a suspicion will be marginal, all of us have to be looking at the region and look at it to review previous concerns, policies. you talk about the kurdish part of iraq. that raises serious questions for us, the turks, the saudis, the iraqis. everybody. what is a direct -- is iraq? do we do with it separately or as part of a rack -- iraq?

what does it mean -- idle to think the south korean question will be relevant. is who islevant interacting with whom under what conditions and their ifhinations -- implications you want to deal with the kurds as a separate power, which is saying something about a rack. -- iraq. which the turks may or may not approve of. i don't have an answer except is about redoing the deck for your next hand of bridge. >> professor? one second. would you please stand up? >> thank you. am a retired professor of

engineering and applied science. i'm an oddball here. terrorismkground in and security, being a member of the israeli defense for many years. i would like to draw on the example of germany and japan. one of the reasons, i think, that the german defeat and japanese defeat were successful was that not only did we defeat them militarily, we changed the political and cultural situation. nazification prcoess in germany and the change of constitution and japan played a role. it is easy to kill people but difficult to kill ideology.

if you want to act against isis, when we act against isis, because act we must, it is not enough to kill or lemonade. -- illuminate. iminate. no matter what happens with the negotiation, the members of of the hot hot -- the fatah charters have changed. until that has changed, nothing will happen. until we learn how to change the philosophy in dealing with the we can defeat, some but we won't defeat them long-term. thank you. to pile on that comment a little bit.

the strategy of killing as many bad guys as we can was a clear goal of the terrorism program for the past decade and a half. hold them in a box. we have forgotten the second half. that it is the harder part of the problem. and to we start addressing the start-- until we addressing the hearts and minds, it has been identified as a , until we do that, the supply will grow forever. are going to have to address the key problem. there is something missing. another idea.

something to rally around. i am not saying it has to be what rallies us. be the keyhe story thing that you need to do in your life is take down western people, we are never going to be safe. peopleow there are many that would like to ask questions. theave to be mindful -- question in the back? >> i want to make a comment. thank you. comment?e a, i am but a summative -- i am fascinated why how the conversation keeps returning to israel. israel is not a key factor in the growth of isis. >> can i say something too

? it goes back to what our engineering friend said. several colleagues have said we should not confuse them with islam. we have to know more about islam. i lived in turkey for years. most of my neighbors were harmless. i agree with mike. we are so ignorant, and we know it. there is nothing wrong with that because we have other things to do in america. i follow tennis and baseball. distortsest in israel our perspectives. there is no question about it. we think about israel and its problems. israel looks at the world and away we should not look at it. it probably distorts the america and -- american and western view of islam. if we don't understand that, we

are going to have problems for a long time to come. >> i ready spoke. i made my comment. pithy that you missed it. >> i agreed with the professor, who had retired easily. -- rec ently. you are lucky. is, there is the military side, to degrade it. we also had to get them to change their ideology. is a longm is -- that process. it has been unsuccessful. fatah never took it out of their charter. in their charter, says anybody who would negotiate or compromise even an inch is

subject to the death penalty. we are left with a difficult situation. we have to do our best to counter it. it should be countered on numerous fronts. >> anyone else on the panel? >> one more. thank you very much. preference -- in a press conference, secretary hagel said iss is a threat to the u.s. and then later general martin dempsey said they are not plotting attacks on the u.s. homeland. what is the truth? is the homeland under attack? you all presented what should be done or should be done.

what is your assessment of what the obama administration will do? and going forward with congress demanding votes, what are the challenges the administration will face moving forward with whatever they plan to do? thank you. >> in answer to your question, is hard to say what their policy is and they are going to do. you did have both the secretary of state and secretary of defense on the same page, saying isis is a threat. a serious threat and your nationally and potentially domestically. we have to do something about it . there are no borders. it has to be syria, also. then when obama came back from vacation, they started to walk it back. what does that mean? that obama had a change of he art? because want to get too involved? who knows.

it is a very discombobulated policy. it goes off in different directions and changes from one day to the next. it would be possible for me to predict exactly what is on president obama's mind. >> they were waiting for the seminar. [laughter] >> quickly. >> this western may have been answered in part. i am interested in the effort by some, prime minister netanyahu, specifically hamas and isis. other terrorist groups as well. in an effort to say, it is all part of the larger conflict

democracy -- democratic states in the west and radical extremism, specifically islamic extremism. what do you think of this as a rhetorical strategy? what do you think of the relevance of it? what do you think of the consequences of using this approach? a rational, me like sensible position for men yahoo! to take -- in terms of his -- for benjamin netanyahu to take in terms of his interest. i don't think it is necessarily a relevant conversation in terms of the overall problem. he was conflating different things. oranges and apples to make a

fruit salad. it's not just a question of the or the terrorist threat against democratic governments. unless summit was to call the gulf states democratic governments. someone wants to call the gulf states democratic governments. they have a priority, which is to defend their next he read -- to defend their necks. it is not a question of democracy or israel parade -- israel. geology ofnge in the a major region of the world. this are going to wrap thing up. the panel has presented to all of us some good thoughts and

thought provoking ideas. any masterone, book on strategy talks not just about the military but the national elements of power. the economic aspects of matters. the political side of things. it talks about the technology the cultural aspects. that our president or any of the leaders of the free world as you know today will be military only and be successful. that is the first point. clearly wepoint is, need a global strategy to think about this challenge. it should encompass all the leaders of the free world. take into account what the people in europe think. what the people in africa think.

with the people in the middle east think. our friends in asia. all of them have a stake in the idea. because of the ideology of what is going on. those of you interested in history can go back to the 12th century, 13th century. it it is all there. so-calleda radical school of sunni thought. the idea after the mongol invasion. he laid it all out. everything he said then is applicable, in my humble opinion, today. it was followed by the radical people. in the 18th century. this lasted until the 1920's when they were quote defeated. but you never defeat ideologies

because they come back like a bee flew. when you say defeat, you have to think about what you mean by the word defeat. really, if you read any of the books. john allen's book on the terrorists or any of the books on this kind of thing, you can get quickly a good idea of what the people really have in mind and want to do. whether they will be successful or not depends on the leadership of the free world. i don't think it will be successful. i think they can be contained in defeated,- and but be careful what you mean by defeat to read we need to these headaches it is not worth doing what you're trying to do. if you keep doing it, you are going to get eliminated.

is that simple. mine, read, for example, -- mein kampf. hitler said what he was going to do and we chose to a door it. -- chose to ignore it. they have said what they're going to do. they are going to take europe, the balkans, africa. inn they are going to turn 2019 to the u.s. whether that is true or not, they have said that is what they want to do. that is what the radical people are thinking. it is not a conflict between western civilization, east versus west. it is a deeper conflict. we have to keep that in mind. when you say, what should the president do?

he has to take the lead in as toping global opinion what has to happen and to do it quickly. we should support the country of iraq, even though it may be in somewhat of a shambled condition. wecreated that condition and had to stick with it. we have to stick with the kurds. we had an operation after the first gulf war where we went in with people and provided the kind of humanitarian assistance and support that you would expect our country and the free world to do. we did that very successfully. the kurds have never forgotten. the kurds are sitting on a ton of very valuable oil. keep that in mind as well. when you think about that, where is the money coming from to support that? the islamic state?

what about that? we did for a while have an effective capability globally to disrupt the finances of some of these ideological terrorist outfits. are we still doing that to the max? that has to be a global effort. as everybody knows better than me, there are better -- different ways to handle money. there are no baking systems like we'd know in this part of the world. we have to get with it. it is a total, comprehensive issue. against the threat. not just military. within the military side of things, you never want to make more enemies than you already have. part of this is a careful approach to how you get things done. you want to keep the friend you have.

you mentioned to south korea. south korea has always been with us in any kind of conflicts at the end of the korean war. they did noble things in the last confrontation. we are a democracy. -- they are a democracy and are going to be with you. sore many others if it is explained to them in the right way. you can get a lot done if you don't care who gets the credit and take a teamwork approach. "the long haul if you want to be ifgg in for-- date i the long haul if you want to be successful. there are lots of books on strategy. learn to deal with uncertainty. speed, boldness, the light. -- like.

the campaign plan, a long-term campaign plan is needed. economic, societal, as well as military. these are some of the things that have to be done. doesooner we get -- anybody have any questions? [applause] on the next washington journal, wall street journal reporter will talk about federal reserve policy and unemployment. in a conversation with political gollsters don't usher -- dou usher about pulling. -- polling. we will be joined by tom snyder and jennifer lerner. we will also take your calls. you can join you -- the

conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is live at 7:00 in the morning on twitter. history. american dayn on saturday, all coverage from the science billion -- pavilion. sunday, q and a with judge robert, chief justice of the second court of appeals. on c-span two, in-depth with ron paul. saturday, all-day live coverage of the national book festival from the history and biography of billions. -- pavilions. sunday at 9:00, afterwards with william burroughs. talk about -- talking about his

asteroid threat." the documentary about the moon landing. the atlanta campaign on the civil war. a look at election laws. find our television schedule at c-span.org. us know what you think of the programs you are watching. call us. e-mail us. join the c-span conversation. mike us on facebook. -- like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. >> next, a discussion on the islamic militant group known as isis. responseclude the u.s.

to extremism. this is 1.45 minutes. -- one hour 45 minutes. >> good afternoon. i am the president for the study islam and democracy. it is a pleasure to welcome you to this event today. as we know, politics and democracy are the art of resolving political conflicts through peaceful means.

we were established 15 years ago and 1999. had awho remember, we 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 to promote the idea of democracy and resolving political conflicts through peaceful means through elections and dialogue and consensus building rather than through violence. today, we have a similar crisis in iraq, in syria, certainly in egypt where we had a military coup that removed an 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. at csid which is what we have been working on for the last 15 years since 1999. it is the only alternative to violence and extremism and that is dialogue and peaceful coexistence, consensus building and the art of the possible or the art of negotiating until a solution can be found. today, we 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 and the best ways to promote 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 afternoon or a couple of hours with us today, thank you. [applause] >> my name is william lawrence. i am the director for csid. a couple of administrative matters first -- i would like to remind everyone that this is being live stream and 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. csid npc is the hastag.

the topic for today is clear. 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. s not being syria orshem, the greater syria. sometimes it is called isil. 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. he 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 published 45 hooks, translated into 37 languages including uigar. shad 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. he's got quite a string there 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. her recent article on the politics of alienation in egypt was the inspiration for the title of this conference. she regularly writes insightful pieces on the region -- she -- and she has written two in particular that are quite influential.

michael o'hanlon is a senior fellow with 21st security and intelligence and director of research for the foreign-policy program at the brookings institution. is also visiting at princeton 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 the translation and the chinese never approved it. i will be going back there next month to look into it. there 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] the challenges in addressing isis -- i use the word to 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 have been talking about that for the last 25 years. for a variety of reasons, they

don't get addressed. in syria, bashar al-assad on a military response to democratization, the arab spring. with the slaughter of syrian opposition groups, heightened sectarian divisions. as well as christian. the inability of the reluctance of the u.s. and the eu to 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 result in an alienated sunnis welcoming isis.

groups that fight proxy wars in syria against assad -- one would also 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 and qatar to support anti- assadd forces had a ripple effect. in 2011, it did the same in iraq. what about isis's islamic pedigree? like al qaeda, isis offers a 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 for what terrorists do. terrorists will say the usual laws are fine but these are unusual times. we see that argument during the 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 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 and govern not just to dream of her -- or speak of but to create and impose their version of a transnational calipahte with its 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 others imposing their extraordinarily violent brand of islam. they also force populations to pledge their allegiance.

is religion the primary driver of the so-called islamic caliphate and the primary driver with reagrd to 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 won't thank you for the bombay sapphire. [laughter] while religion is an important factor, and plays a role to legitimate, recruit and motivate, studies of most jihadists and movements like isis show that the primary drivers are to be found elsewhere. as in the recent past, this has remained true to the europeans and americans who joined isis. studies by the european network of experts on violent radicalization 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 being seen across society even by those who may not be radicalized but will be and site -- be anti-american. they go for grievances that are not specific and peculiar to just a segment of the population or 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 perception 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 authoritarian allies and the kinds of things that they do. so therefore, issues of disenfranchisement, a heightened political consciousness, and i am purely as a, social -- anti-imperialism, social injustice, because many see the country as occupied by foreigners or occupied by authoritarian regimes and elites who are kept in place and hold back the majority of people in the country.

in a recent huffington post 5log, there was an mi- briefing report going back to 2008. a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practice .heir faith regularly many lack literacy and could be regarded as a religious novices. analysts concluded that a well-established religious identity protects against radicalization. this is interesting. if you look at data in the u.s., a significant number of americans regard muslims as more prone to violence. they have an even worse opinion of the religion of islam, which they see as being the primary motivator or source for that easy acceptance or becoming involved in violence. we know that some of the islam a phobic groupsamo make that statement.

they will be more susceptible and more prone to that attraction. i can remember being at a briefing forlosed a senior military and there was somebody who was born and raised in the region, in turkey, and who commented that even secular turks, which i thought was very interesting because very few people challenged it, even secular turks have no use for religion. when you mentioned caliphate, it somehow vibrates in their genes or in their chest, which is interesting. next, he makes the point, going he talks to 2014, about jihadi wannabes who pled guilty to offenses in july. they ordered two books from amazon and he goes to what books

you think they would have gotten. he ultimately said it was islam for dummies and the koran for don't -- for dummies. that is the point. many jihadists have little actual knowledge of islam and they have not been primarily devotees. the primary drivers, therefore, are these other grievances. how about the commissioning of beheadings? --has been used historically if you look at states, post revolutionary france beheaded some 40,000 people. it is used in certain countries even today. we also know that beheading has been used to terrorize. beheadings because of the very nature of it, putting the head on a spike, etc.

that is seen as an act that will particularly terrorize people. so that has been there, but when you look at videos that were put andby isis between 2006 2013, a lot of the times, you have citations of the koran. predominantly, what you -- that is the problem when you read for -- from the paper when you do not have the next page -- grievances being articulated as the main reason. grievances against individuals and groups. soldiers, police, government workers who are seen as part of the problem. use of the texts as well as the savage and disproportionate slaughter of

civilians fly in the face of islamic law. or a lot of the other things that they choose to do. given the current momentum of isis and it's stated intentions , itncrease its caliphate may increase activity in syria, iran, jordan. i was talking with people from indonesia about a month ago. very concerned about isis' presence and it's recruitment in indonesia. isis will be tested on its present -- its ability to hold areas under its control while attempting to expand its territory. at the end of the day, the peoples of the region do have challenge and

responsibility to deal with what our merrily their problems. a substantial international commitment and involvement by the u.s. consort with its european and middle east allies is also needed. as president obama considered new strikes, the white house has begun a diplomatic campaign to enlist allies and neighbors in the region to increase the support for syria's moderate opposition to eat i would say rather late, but in any case -- in some cases, to provide support to military operations. in the long run, if we wish to break the cycle of terrorism, whether it is isis or other organizations in the future, as graham fuller, a former senior expert andand an well-published scholar on the middle east and islam and politics, notes in a piece --

"the conditions and basic and enduring grievances of most countries that jihadist terrorist movements have exploited must also be addressed. foreign brutes -- boots on the thend, the failure to add half-century of israeli occupation of palestinian lands, the treatment of palestinians as a paradigm, the u.s. employment of the region as an eternal cockpit for proxy wars." isn't that a great phrase question mark you have the goals -- isn't that a great phrase? you have the gulf states supporting some of them. i would end with this note. u.s. and eu failure to take a strong and principled stand. for example, egypt on the military coup, massive violation of human rights and the slaughter of civilians. and the restoration of authoritarian rule.

, calling itgnition onemocracy in a country well 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 condemned. not simply saying that, at times, we are very upset by this action, but the massive slaughter of gaza and -- of civilians andd to the israeli side, not only wiping out all those people, but destroying the infrastructure of the country, violates international law and human rights. in public media, we are told that mr. netanyahu approaches our administration about avoidingg him and

having to go to an international court. i think all of those things create conditions that will remain very strong in the future. massive killing of civilians and deliberate distraction of gaza's infrastructure alienates significant structures. does not mean they will turn to violence, but at the same time, contributes to the radicalization and recruitment of disenfranchised youth and others. thank you. [applause] >> hello, everyone. thank you, bill, and thank you to csid for having me. csid is a great organization. they were talking about democracy and have done some

incredible work in tunisia since their spring began, which is worth looking at. going to start off in a different way than i originally intended. this has been bothering me for a little while now. this whole kind of, with the rise of isis and its savagery, this kind of response that isis has nothing to do with islam and islam is a peaceful religion. this islam is peace narrative -- narrative is peace starting to grate on me a little bit. yes, the majority of muslims do not share isis' ideology. islam end of the day, doesn't exist as god intended because we do not 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 viewed 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. ,he reason i bring this up is when we bring up this islam is peace narrative, we are saying it is inexplicable and evil and these are fringed terrorists. i feel that that underestimate the nature of the threat we are facing. i think we have to take isis very seriously for a number of reasons. this was also something we saw in john kerry's statements recently -- of course, isis is evil, but he said isis is inexplicably evil. we have to try to understand the origins of isis. it did not just appear. it came out of a particular confit -- context. it was not inevitable.

obamames i think administration officials suggest there is nothing we could have done to stop this. this was not only predictable, but predicted. we had these conversations in early 2012. i remember them. i remember the people who were meeting with senior administration officials and telling them, explicitly, the longer we wait, if we do not do more in syria now, it is going to come to haunt us and the extremist are going to gain ground. specifically, isis will gain ground. unique about isis? a fascinating group because, unlike al qaeda central and other forerunners, they take governance pretty seriously. they expect -- they dispense justice through search -- through sharia. they take care of the water and

electricity and distribute funds to help the poor. they also have, on the more brutal side of it, they also have the more -- the religious morality police which go around and make sure women are covered and other things like that. so it is brutal. they are vicious. -- ine whole territory many ways, they are more effective than other rebel groups in running the territories that they control. this is especially the case when you have a total vacuum and various rebel groups which are fighting each other over the control of a local government in a lot of parts in syria. onre was a fascinating piece the website jihadology last night talking about the

experience of isis rule in a city in syria. they go in detail about how the residents of the city view isis rule and how many of them may not agree -- most of them may not agree with isis' ideology. it as preferable to the alternative because isis has been able to restore law and order. crime has gone down. and things actually run. so as long as you follow the very harsh rules, there might actually be a better situation than the alternative, which, in a lot of parts of syria, is chaos. theave to understand governance aspect of isis and not see them as your traditional terrorist group. that is why they have been able to retain some local support in the territory that they control. control -- we are

talking around 4 million iraqis and syrians living under isis rule. just think about that for a second. that is remarkable. it is a piece of territory as large as the u.k. with 4 million people. the other thing here is that there are not a lot of models of islamic governance. andy barr is quite low, too. low,d the bar is quite too. i think what isis has been able to do in a short amount of time is actually presenting a different model of governance where the other models have failed. i will get to that in a second. we talk about mainstream political islam or groups like the muslim brotherhood. let me just say one more thing about the kind of governance

here. this was again in the jihadology piece. than pretty brutal much anyone else in the region, but they are less arbitrary. so it is more predictable. when we are trying to understand why authoritarianism is so alienating and can push people towards the isis model -- for example, egypt, syria, any of the countries that we want to go through the list on, are less brutal and less oppressive, but you never know where the red lines are. it is arbitrary. the secret police can come to your door at dawn. in some ways, that is the most terrifying thing. not the repression, but the fear and uncertainty. article, ain this point was made that there is something consistent about isis rule. citizens know what to expect.

which is, i think, a very important point. all of this leads me to kind of say that this is actually what makes isis so frightening and so scary. and not easily defeated. that is why we have to complicate the simplistic narrative of terrorist, evil. if we want to confront the enemy, we have to understand what they are providing and what they are offering. i am happy that my colleague, professor esposito, mentioned egypt. this is one of the reasons i was very concerned about the coup in egypt last year. and we knew this. we cannot pretend that we did not know tend that we did not know tetend that we did not know this was coming. we cannot pretend that we would not know the facts. coup in egypt, for all their faults and no one has to like the book -- the muslim brotherhood, but they were democratically elected.

oustedey were strengthened the narrative of groups like isis. they were able to say and this is what they do say -- they say that the islamic state is not possible through democracy. it is not possible through elections. it is only possible through the force of arms. that is their narrative. you know what? that is a more compelling narrative 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 now against mainstream political islam. mainstream political islam is not good or moderate, necessarily, but it is an alternative to what extremist groups like isis offer. in essence, one of the great failures of the arab spring when we are looking back and doing this postmortem, yes, islamist groups failed. the muslim brotherhood did not govern inclusively.

the list goes on. i think the greater failure of the arab spring was a failure of existing regional order. of existing state systems to accommodate islamist participation in the democratic process. islamists were willing to test it out. region have they been allowed to fully govern in the normal, democratic sense. tunisia is a partial exception. that is going to be an interesting test. if we look at it regionally, that is the basic trend we are talking about. islamists who believe in a democratic process were not given a real opportunity. even, just to be part of the political process. that is a bigger story and something i discussed at length in my book. so i will not go into too much detail, but that contrast

between mainstream islamists and extremist islamists is very important. i close up here, i want to make a couple of final points and then a word about u.s. policy. importantis is a very point that professor o the -- that professor esposito just raised. there is something about the notion of a caliphate, and islamic state, that has a sort of resonance. i do not know to what extent people grasp this. even for someone write me, who grew up in an americanized community, even i would absorb this growing up, this sense that we had been the greatest civilization world had ever seen and then we encountered this precipitous fall from grace. and i use fall from grace for a reason, because it is almost

like god had forsaken us. this is something that you hear and it is so much imbued in political discourse in the middle east and among muslims more generally, even among people who are not religious or practicing or whatever else. this kind of sense of betweenion, this gap what muslims believe they should be and what they are, i think that is at the root of the conflict that we are seeing. the fact that they are blocked from expressing their grievances through a normal political states -- so the islamic or isis were very smart in their market -- in their marketing because they used the term -- think about that, the brand. islam and state. that is compelling. caliphate, that is compelling. al qaeda was not serious about that. they were -- they would talk about it in theory, but were not serious about doing it in practice.

the muslim brotherhood talks about it all the time, but it was not seriously going to happen anytime soon. now, for the first time, in a more coherent, compelling way, there is something called the islamic state. isin, this kind of precedent very dangerous because, for the foreseeable future, we are going to see copycats. we have seen them already in nigeria. now, whenever there is a political to, and this is where the failure of governance becomes very important. when you do not have governance or state authority, you have that vacuum. of instant that a lot extremist people who are less extreme think, maybe we can start our own state in this territory -- so that kind of mental block that groups like the muslim brotherhood and al qaeda had has been removed. on u.s. policy. so what can we do?

, wee take it seriously understand the origins of isis' rise. we understand the syrian civil war and what we failed to do their in 2012. what can we do now? i am worried that we are moving into this narrow counterterrorism approach and we do not want to look more broadly at the context. rry has saidt kee things like ices will be crushed and obama has said isis is a cancer, that suggests they want to defeat isis. if it is our goal to defeat isis , what this administration is offering does not even come close. we have to be honest about that. that wemarkable to me are talking about airstrikes -- there is some talk about boosting the so-called moderate rebels, but it does not sound serious so far. announced time and

time again over the past few years. we will do more to support the mainstream rebel's. it does not happen in a serious way. perhaps this can be obama's moment where he realizes that if he does not change in a fundamental way, his legacy is not looking good. i hope this can be one of those moments where something clicks and he will realize that has to beserious undertaken here. i am skeptical because i think this administration, instinctively, intellectually, sees the middle east in a very different way than i do. so i am not optimistic in that regard. , whato kind of close here about our allies? because we want to work with them to build this coalition against ices. instructives very that two of our closest allies, have beenthe uae,

launching airstrikes. not in syria, not in iraq, not against isis, but in libya. that tells you something about priorities. maybe it is obvious, maybe it is not. many of these countries see mainstream political islam, whether you want to call it moderate or not, but groups like the muslim brotherhood, as being more of a fundamental threat than groups like ices. they have acted accordingly. this means that, assuming the obama administration does not do what i inc. they should do, and i really hope they prove me wrong, i think we have to accept that the islamic state will be with us for the foreseeable future. years, 10s, five years, i do not know how long. it will be more entrenched in the territory. i do not know what the after effects of that are going to be. al qaeda, it is often said, was the 1950'sborn in

and 1960's and no one would have dreamed then that those events would reverberate for the coming decades and god knows how long. isis looks very bad now, but there are things that we cannot even imagine that might happen in the future because of isis' rise and because we are not willing or able 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 decried the lack of a comprehensive u.s. in iraq, saying, "as military action alone is not

enough to defeat the extremists who gained followers by -- against the sunnis." that is part of what we are here to discuss. already opened this question. what is the political and diplomatic western that would have to complete any military action against extremists in iraq, in syria, if it should happen? deeper into this question about working with our allies. it is the first thing that comes up in the times editorial. we have got to work with our allies and so forth. of course, it is essential. but we have a really big problem because our allies are divided. especially when it comes to the political strategy. many of them are leading us in a direction that is likely to be disastrous. as you know, we have these two c

amps. this is apart from the long-running saudi-iranian leadership rivalry. arab and sunni muslim cap, we have saudi arabia, the uae, egypt, and a few others, one group that has proposed a certain strategy. lumping many islamists into the the category, into of terrorists, 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, also in a number of other countries that i mentioned. this is being applied particularly to the muslim brotherhood for the reason that mentioned, because the governments of these countries see the muslim brotherhood as the greatest political threat.

and so the gulf countries have taken their own steps and they have also cheered on as asisi hassec -- continued the harshest crackdown in the history of the country. several thousand people have been killed in demonstrations. as many as 40,000 have been imprisoned. to go back to that times editorial from today, it says that, and i think it is basically right, that isis got to where it is in iraq because it gained followers by exploiting the reaction against the sunnis. where do we think that , ofession of islamists brotherhood supporters and not but brotherhood supporters, many secular activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and so forth, where do we think this is going to go? i mean, that is the political

that our allies are recommending to us, that 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 forth, 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. allies, generally qatar and 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 comes down to it, individuals 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 this trap at this point of supporting one camp of allies against another. i think the u.s. administration has tried to refuse to sign onto 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 support the growth of peaceful, 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 reasons, been pulling back and saying we do not want to be the leaders, we do not want to be responsible for solving a problem like syria. we do not to 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. this left 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. for expediency's sake, we are 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 giving each other, may be 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 and not for the long-term. thanks. [applause] >> i am going to stay right 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. now what i 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. i'm not suggesting that everyone 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 syrian 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. making 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 did not have big 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 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. now that we have helped to fend off the immediate threat to kurdistan, now that we have done 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 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 up 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. but the iraqi army needs to be 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. perhaps the iraq 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 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. coordinate with the iraqis and 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 need to find every advantage we can. the iraqi army will have to do 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 air power, we need special forces working with iraq he special forces in an intense campaign for a few months to go. 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 may be 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. we are live in the twitterverse. we are collecting some questions and we will be collecting more. i would also like to refer you 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. in all of these cases, one of 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 to combat the rise of 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. >> second question. -- >> my name is natasha. 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. >> i am from voice of america indonesian service. on the notion of the genius of isis branding i think you see in indonesia, many are saying just the fact the caliphate 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 -- to

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." so if you can 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 effect, 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 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 apologies 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 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 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 share of 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 force 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 caliphate 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 at data by gallup and other 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. i don't think for many muslims the notion to the appeal of caliphate 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 that 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 u.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, also 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 deviation from the strategy that the united states has taken on or between the strategy that the u.s.

has taken on and what is you closed -- talking about q. how you help that the obama administration does what you want it to do. what is that specifically. in terms of your recommendations? i very much agree on the point pressured allies or managing allies. but how -- from your point of view, how does the united states -- because i think that this administration has worked on it -- it's very difficult gain the leverage that it needs in order to do that. and that's all. >> question number six.