>> next, a for him on u.s. -- a will faceow the us isis. after that, a discussion on the scottish referendum. now, the center for american progress in washington dc discusses isis. the formerncludes u.s. ambassador to syria, robert forward -- ford.

>> welcome to the center for american progress, i am a senior fellow here at the center. i am so pleased we have such a turnout. what we are gearing for here is an in-depth discuss on isis in syria and iraq. we really have an excellent panel here today. first and foremost, i am going to introduce in the order of speaking. we are lucky to have ambassador robert ford. after 30 years of service, he resigned in february as our ambassador to syria. he is well-known to everyone in

this room for his committment and dedication to service. we look forward to hearing to his remarks. then we we hear from hardon lang. he is a senior fellow here at the center. and then we will hear some remarks from andrew tabler. our friend at the washington institute for policy. anyonelso well-known to who is paying attention to syria. andrew and i met in 2007, and we engaged him early, back in 2010. this was when george bush was in office. his expertise is well-known. last, but not least, is doug oliphant. , ande lucky to have him

thank you everyone. before we get underway, we have three points. the first point i wanted to make is to acknowledge the fundamental challenge that the iraqi and syrian people face. we sit here in think tanks, and we often forget that beneath these statistics of 3 million syrians and hundreds and in syria andled iraq, these are human stories. in our research, we have all had contact. we all need to remember about the people who are there. remember being at the border of syria and seeing a family who who had everything they had.

i think it is appropriate to start their. we are going to talk about targeted strikes, diplomacy, and a moral framework that we need things in mind are those when we have a discussion like this. there are crimes against humanity by both the assad regime and isis. i wanted to acknowledge our colleagues who are not on stage. syrian opposition, we released today. it is a strategy report on isis strategyo release a report on isis earlier this week. it is something new we have done here. we have a core team, including jewel, including others

who have been out in the fields with us. we have done studies in turkey, and the syrian report is the fourth in the series. we are grateful for our senior colleagues. those acknowledgments are important. reports, wethese try to wrestle with not just what the u.s. does, and also the dynamics of each country. these are longer reports, but we hope you have a chance to take a look at them. lastly, and i will shut up after offer my ownd to analytical interpretation of what the president said, and what his policy is. and whether it is good or not. and we can talk about that later. athink a useful way, perhaps,

little over simple five, is how this administration has used the challenge of isis and iraqi and how to approach it is like a stool with three legs. at we hear about is today with secretary kerry going out to get a regional coalition and an international coalition to fix this. that is one component. thes one that requires u.s. leadership to construct. the second, obviously, is a rock raq. it is fraught with a lot of booby-traps. hopefully, this moment of crisis with isis and other groups is a wake-up call. the third is syria. in my view, it is the one that

even after what president obama said the other night, is still the one that needs the most development, and it needs more coherency from a u.s. policy from how we connect with these actors in the region. it is that last pillar that we want to hold it -- hone in on a bit today. again, with ambassador ford here, i thought we would kick off our discussion just asking ambassador ford. about's are, what is your ford,sion -- ambassador what is your impression of the .emonstration -- administration

how do you see the president'new , and where do you see sort of the next steps on the syrian opposition? >> thank you. thank you. nice to be here. thank you for the invitation. this is my first time here. i see two distinguished colleagues with whom i used to work, and i just want to highlight that. it's great to see you, rich. i think he is just now leaving government. let me tell you that it's ok. [laughter] i also see colonel rob friedenberg, and he was our defense attaché and repeatedly put himself at some physical risk in order to help us understand what was going on there. rob, it's great to see you. i am actually a bit encouraged.

i think the administration's overall approach of lining up diplomatic, regional, that is to say, above all, support for the effort against islamic state as well as political and financial, trying to cut money flows into the very well-financed islamic state -- these are very well spot on. i was extremely struck by the picture coming out of saudi arabia yesterday of the arab foreign ministers, and there was ibrahim joffrey from iraq, the former prime minister of iraq, 2005, 2006, a man with whom the saudi's would have nothing to do when he was prime minister, despite repeated requests from the american embassy. rich and i were there. we could not convince the saudi's to engage with him, and yet, yesterday, the saudi's brought him. he was included in the meetings.

i think we are making progress on that. i think it is really important that the governments in the gulf iraq in a new and better way than they ever have before, so i thought that was a good sign. i have three other points i would like to make, and then i will get to serious specifically. you said we need more coherence on how we are going to do this with the syrians, and i completely agree because it's going to be extremely hard -- it's not going to be easy. three points then first. i keep seeing in the press that there really is very little left of these syrian moderate armed opposition, and i'm here to tell you, please check it out.

get on the social websites, get into the arabic press, and check it out. the moderate armed opposition is fighting right now, friday september 12, fighting the islamic state up along the turkish border. interesting that they are fighting there. the islamic state actually things the battle for armageddon is going to come based on some koran.nts from the there's a big battle going on right now over that border area because the free syrian army depends on the bylines that come down from turkey, and there's a sharp confrontation going there around aleppo. there's not a confrontation any longer. to the west of that because the free syrian army kicked the out, militarily defeated them and kicked them

out some months ago, they are fighting them right now. also farther to the south on the south side of aleppo. the moderate armed opposition is very much fighting the regime, too, in northwestern syria as well as around damascus. to say there's not much to work with, i just think is completely wrong. it's a bad analysis. that said, they are there and on the ground, but their number one priority is not the islamic state. the islamic state has killed thousands of people in iraq and syria. it has killed two very brave american journalists, but the assad regime has killed tens of thousands, if not more than that. we just saw pictures of victims of the military intelligence facilities brought by a guy

named caesar who was just here in washington a month ago, six weeks ago. just that part of what the regime has done killed 55,000 people, and we got photographic evidence. that's more than the islamic state has killed. i do not for a minute justify what the islamic state has done -- not at all -- but i think as we try to work with the syrian opposition, we must understand that today, the syrian regime was barrel bombing damascus, which tells you right there, they do not control it, and they were barrel bombing down in the south in the north, and dozens of civilians were killed, so their priority is not the islamic state. the moderate opposition. it is the bashar al-assad regime. we need to understand that going in. but that said, they are fighting the islamic state, so we can work with them against the islamic state, but we need to understand going forward that tactically, on the ground, as the free syrian army, regime,

free syrian army or moderate armed opposition -- call them what you want -- and the islamic state with the al qaeda link maybe is a variable out there. there are going to be a lot of tactical alliance is on the ground. in particular between the nusra front and the moderate armed opposition that will make a very uncomfortable situation. they are going to make everybody in washington very uncomfortable, but they are there because of a tactical necessity, not an ideological affiliation. that is really important to understand. the only way we are going to be able to avoid that is if we flood the zone so much that their help no longer becomes important, but i'm not sure that's what the administration is thinking. it's not clear to me. we will have to understand going

in this is going to be a very hard ross s. it's not going to be smooth. it's going to be very bumpy. it's going to be a turbulent ride. the only way to make this work is being patient and keep our eyes on where we are trying to go, which is the destruction and -- an incredibly vicious and rabid andly ideologically extreme and marginal force in iraq and in syria. thanks. >> thank you, mr. ambassador. we have done these four-country studies, and again, i encourage you to look at -- we went into it looking at the various strands of islam is him, especially the muslim brotherhood in egypt and tunisia. when we did our field work on syria, it was a hard time to figure out what our sample was.

given how diverse and fractured even at the start of the spring this year -- it's very difficult to figure out what sample size you want, but we came out with it, and i think we have a very in-depth report. it is not the be all end all. i thought maybe you could walk us through specifically what we saw in terms of the main findings there, and then to the central question which everybody i think is focused on now -- is there a syrian opposition that we can work with? >> sure. the $64,000 question. thanks very much for getting us started, and, ambassador, thank you very much for the overview. those points, i think, are spot on. >> and we did not rehearse ahead of time. >> the center for american progress put out a report today, and it was focused more on trying to understand over the course of a series of field research trips where we find ourselves today.

and what we are trying to do in the report as outlined some observations that we think the administration is going to have to take account of as they craft a strategy moving forward, particularly getting the syrian opposition into a position to play an effective role. the point the ambassador makes with respect to damascus is quite important. as brian said, it is in depth, which is a polite way of saying very long. [laughter] i would like to report a few key findings at this stage. the first one is the urgency of the situation. the point the ambassador made about syrian opposition, sort of, there's nothing left to work with. the key finding we came back with is that there is something still to work with, and it's time to put our shoulder in. it is just going to be clear that this is not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination, and the only point i want to build on with his there is a sense of urgency to getting increased levels of the

system into the forces of the -- what remains of the moderate opposition in aleppo and in other areas in trying to fight the three sided war. isis and the a sawed regime have assad regime have been squeezing these forces for quite some time, and their situation, while not as essential at the moment, is quite higher. the president has put forth a request some months ago for $500 million to get this effort started, and i think we are at a point now where would if we are serious about this, congress does need to move forward quickly. the news over the last couple of days from the hill is welcome in that regard. the other point i would make is something we heard a little bit about here in terms of the importance of the regional peace. one of the things we found in our interviews with the political and military leadership -- there's this constant refrain about the difficulty of managing regional

politics inside the syrian opposition. it is not a surprise to anyone that the level of discord and competition between certain states and the gulf has become a problem for the different factions that have been backed over time in syria. this is kind of the expense of the unity of effort. the competition is diverting undercut resources that are not being used in the best way possible. this is a serious problem at this stage. we have seen some news out of the gulf recently, and i agree that the press conference and the communiqué out of saudi arabia is deeply welcome news, but it's going to require, as brian said, u.s. leadership to maintain this over time. we've been able to pull together a group now that's looking good at the moment, but this effort is going to take years, and we are going to put into place some sort of mechanism for this process or it's likely to fall apart as time goes on.

the third point i would say, again i don't think anyone , coming into this thing's it's is going to bet any of the effort, and i think we need to moderate our expectations from the get go let me explain why. the first point would be that the nature of the battlefield -- much of the free syrian army at this stage is deeply granular in nature. we have a number of local forces fighting to protect their locality. there's not a great deal of tactical -- tactical coordination is consecrated, and the strategic effort at this point is purely operational. being able to work through this point, i think expecting too much too soon is a huge mistake. the second point would be there have been incredible efforts by the opposition with both political and military to try to lead this effort, but there is a significant divorce we picked up at least in our interviews , between some of that leadership and those on the

ground who we could get access to. being able to bridge this gap or finding another way to mobilize and organize those fighting on the ground would be a critical part of the solution. third, there's a question of absorbent of capacity. the ambassador mentioned the idea of if the u.s. were to flood the zone. i'm not sure, from our interviews, that flooding the zone would help more than it would hurt at this stage. some of the groups we met with that are already receiving weapons from the united states , made it clear that there is a limit to the absorbent of capacity. if we work to proceed with pushing too much down the pipeline, the outcome would not necessarily be a concerted effort with affecting the battlefield. there is one group put it to us, the most important thing now is that we get a sustained pipeline which is predicted over time, and that we work with this as opposed to a mass influx of

weapons. the bottom line is that we temper our expectations going forward. we came away with a bit of a concern about what we were going to call for lack of a better term the syrian salafi of jihadist, referring to groups like the islamic front and those fighting under that banner. some of the most effective fighters against the regime and isis were moderate. i think this is something their master made reference to. here, you know, the islamic front for those groups who have been fighting up to this front composed tens of thousands of sort of conservative salafi fighters, many of whom -- as one member of the leadership put it to us -- likened himself to the

syrian taliban. i would be remiss if i did not note that at least some of these organizations in the way in which they operated next to the more moderate elements of the free syrian army has not been helpful. over the last year, we saw a major effort were starting the islamic for and in and seize weapons caches, warehouses, logistical support, elements for the free syrian army. this gives you a deposit in in termsives you pause of thinking about how we are going to coordinate the effort going forward. again, all i want to say is be careful here. these groups are not like ices in the sense that from what we heard in the interviews and the way they explain their ideology to us, they are not transnational in aspiration.

but the syria that they would rule -- i think there's a huge difference between that and the aspirations of the moderate opposition and what they are fighting for. the good news is that some of these groups have begun to suffer a bit in terms of their organizations, their capability. their leadership has seen a significant strike recently, so there are questions about whether or not they are going to hang together, but the question for u.s. policymakers is what do you do with tens of thousands of more conservative salafi extremists, some of whom might be willing to bleed over into the isis threat or into the ices isis camp at a certain stage, and how do we understand the role they are going to play and the effort we are going to fund going forward, given that their aspirations are probably quite different than the one to which we would like to ally ourselves in syria. >> if you look at the report, you will see that what we try to do for the obama ministry should

if it does lean into this problem is to look at the challenge of the syrian opposition, not only from a security standpoint, but also this political standpoint. when you see oftentimes plans developed by some of our agencies, we assume we can just do a technical assistance program, and as we see, i think, a lesson from iraq over the last few years is that you have to pay attention to those internal politics, and who really has access to resources, and then what is their political vision? that is something that requires a lot of intelligence and intelligence on the situation inside of syria, which is something andrew has. he has a lot of smarts. he has been following it for years. sitting here in september 2014 , and thank you for reviewing -- doing a peer review of our draft paper before it came out -- how do you see the situation now? are you encouraged by president obama's strategy? any encouragements or criticisms of the report just outlined?

>> first of all, thank you very much for the invitation and not just the opportunity to read the study, but also just the thoughtful discussions we have had over the years. that goes for everybody on this podium at the moment. i feel much better after the president's speech. there are a lot of details that need to be worked out. clearly, in our attempt to degrade and destroy isis, the hard part is going to come in syria, and that's where a lot of the hard work is going to come. the study, i think, plops into the middle of that discussion because the moderate and particularly the opposition are key to this. in that regard, i see the situation inside the country as dire overall.

not just because isis decapitated to journalist that i journalist that i knew, and they were both really great guys -- i cannot emphasize that more -- but echoing ambassador ford's comments, there are moderates inside of syria. there have been since the beginning of this. i remember when i set up one of the first unofficial meetings between moderates and an unofficial member of the u.s. government in southern turkey, this is been going on for a long time. there has been armed opposition. they have been significantly weakened, particularly since the non-strike incident, what we know is the redline incident. it was interesting that president obama's remarks the other evening were exactly a year from that speech, and, boy, what a difference a year makes. backing off the regimes in an ordering what it seems our strikes against isis.

i think this report is extremely sobering and fair to the situation. i oftentimes am caught with people whether it's out there who have limited amounts of time because they have families and so on -- they want easy answers on this stuff, right? there are no more easy answers because we waited. earlier on, things could have been easier, could have been addressed through state structure. we do not have those options anymore, and there's no sense we cannot go back in time. the nature of this. battlefield that is outlined in this report is key. there are moderates. the problem is they coordinate with jihadists against the assad regime, and coordination has been a keyword throughout the syrian uprising. i think they coordinate with them out of necessity. my long experience in syria -- i lived there about seven years and i have been dealing with it

for far too long. i think that the colt or in the region as well as in that part of the region is primarily mercantile. i believe that the people are motivated by security but also by the provision of basic goods. the united states has an opportunity to back moderate rebels and to work with them to defeat common enemies like ices -- isis as well as the assad regime. that said, i think the report outlines this as well, syrian moderates are extremely difficult to deal with, and i cannot emphasize that enough. because of their unwillingness because of the situation they are in to make clear distinctions. i would echo ambassador ford's statement about we have a choice here. either we flood the zone and really try to back these forces and by the more and do the fighting that needs to be done, or we try to go into this piecemeal. i hope we do not do that. i hope we do something more comprehensive. i think this report will help inform that strategy as it eve

-- as it evolves. i was just in the golan heights, and i had the opportunity to visit and watch what could only be described as sectarian armageddon. the assad regime, has below-backed forces, and a whole host of others, battling against a plethora of opposition groups in southern syria, and they were not pulling any punches. it was like being in the middle of a storm, and it has been going on for weeks. the other day, when the fighters captured soldiers and held them for ransom, they had been released as of yesterday, and that's a step in the right direction, but that does not mean the war ends. allies in the region, i think we should not be surprised. our allies in the region are

hesitant. they need to see it fleshed out and what's in it for their security and for their interests. i think we are on the road to that. the smart place to start here is to move from a title 50 program to a title x, which is a covert program, which is before congress now. to say we do not know anything about these groups is inaccurate. they have embedded for years. that's the reason president obama makes the decisions he does. that's the reason they are extremely difficult decisions, but we need to start with this title x program, the eight or so groups that we back, and i think that's what we are going to do. our goal should be to qualitatively and quantitatively groups vis-à-vis jihadists in general in syria. second, assad is not the answer. at best, he is a container along

with the iranians east and west of the isis outbreak. there are a lot of reasons for that. ambassador ford outlined them. most important like, to anybody who follows this, they just have limited capacity -- most importantly to anyone who follows this. the chief proponent of this is ambassador crocker, who i respect very much, but i think in all fairness, i do not think that the regime he was ambassador to years ago before ambassador ford was -- that regime no longer exists. it's constructed to early in differently in terms of personnel. the constellation of forces, the assad regime's army has undergone the offensive and only does when it is backed up by the national defense forces, the shia militias that are backed by the iranian quds force. very difficult situation. third, i urge americans in trying to square defeating isis and confronting the assad regime

-- teed things that seem almost incompatible at the same time -- these things only seem compatible if you use the math -- map of syria that we have now besides the co-boundaries. those have not existed for some time. they do legally, and not saying that this country should not exist into the future, but -- i wrote about this a couple of years ago -- the country that i lived in for so many years, the one i have been discussing things with -- it no longer exists. it has been divided and partitioned for well over two years, and we have to deal with that reality. whatever assistance we give to the moderate opposition to defeat isis would carve out a zone of influence within that , and sunnis are the majority inside of syria, and it is there that president obama has outlined the important thing is to harness sunni aspirations

going forward as part of any kind of settlement. bashar al-assad and his regime are struggling in the west as well as kurds in the northeast. i think this will continue, and hopefully, at the end of the process went isis is defeated, those different parties can negotiate. and last but not least, i would urge you to be patient. what is required right now is assertiveness, not aggression, and not acting in haste. we need to think this through. assertion is different than aggression, but most importantly, i think the policies of the last few years have shown us that if we keep the rest of the world at arms length, sometimes the situation does not get better. we are not the problem in this. we are part of the answer, and we need to do whatever the answer is and do it in an intelligent way. >> last but not least, i want to turn to doug. we were on a panel over with our friends at the american enterprise institute, and this isis blitzkrieg into iraq. if i recall the discussion, we

were talking about how surprisingly good the iraqi elections were. everything was looking pretty good. what we wanted to do here -- we wanted to look at this as an integrated problem set. i think this summer was a wake-up call for the world, for this administration. if i'm correct, this administration i think is doing a better job how it looks at these challenges, both iraq and syria, together. i think there's a different process that's going on right now, and i think that's a good thing. so, doug i thought maybe you , could give us some thoughts on how you see primarily the pathway forward on iraq a cousin think everyone assumes, given how difficult syria is, and i think we all agree it's probably the weakest leg in that three-leg stool, there still are challenges ahead for iraq.

>> [inaudible] thank you for organizing this, and always great to see you, ambassador. i have been working in iraq on exclusively for 10 years now. iraq kind of hijacked my life in 2000 or and has never given it back. this is not something i get to do very often. so let's talk first about iraq and briefly, the military actions we expect to see. once upon a time, i was a military planner and strategist and spent a long time doing that. our watchword was always you're are never going to build a plan that is going to work. you want to build a plan that could work. that's always the best you can hope for in a war, in a military operation, in a world where there is fog and friction in the unexpected and no unknowns and unknown unknowns. you want to build a plan that could plausibly work if things go your way.

i think that's where the president is. he has a plan that could plausibly work. not to say they're a not all types of difficulties, all types of hazards, all types of ways in which this could be terribly wrong, but this is a plan that could work. that said, it's going to the and -- it is going to be an interesting plan as it unfolds. i was on television the other day, and a phrase i wish i could come up with but did not was when he said we should expect to see in iraq a coalition of the weird. which i think is going to be exactly right. i think the administration probably rightly sees as proof of visible operations. what we see is an unusual menagerie of allies. as best as i can piece together,

the information from the north of iraq, and like in syria, information is hard to get and is contradictory, but as best as we can tell, the operation at sinjar mountain seems to have been done on most exclusively by the turkish-based terrorist group, which is on our state department foreign terrorist organization list. they are a known terrorist group. for a long time, we have helped the turks deal with that terrorist group. on the other hand, they are the ones that largely in conjunction with u.s. air power broke the siege. it appears that this operation was conducted primarily by iraqi shia militias, with home we have a very storied past.

the latest transmutation of the satirist, with advisers if not shock troops, again, in conjunction with u.s. air power. this could very well be an interesting coalition as we move forward. i love the phrase that ambassador ford used. this is going to be done out of tactical necessity, not ideological affinity. that may well be our watchword as we move forward and see these various groups start to work together in different ways. at the same time, we have to be aware that while there's tactical necessity, we need to be very, very aware of the politics. there's going to be political and military tension constantly as we work through this. in a world where there were no political considerations, the fight against isis would be easy. we would grab the military force

from the syrian regime, and from the iranian regime. we would ally with them, and then we would all come together and annihilate isis. militarily, that makes absolute perfect sense. obviously, politically, that can't happen and there is a lot of difficulty. the tension between what militarily makes the most sense and what is politically feasible in the long term. if i can turn a little bit across the syrian border were i do not have near the experience as my friends here, but i have watched a bit -- it appears to me we will have some very similar issues as we move forward, which all of our panelists here have alluded to. ambassador ford is absolutely right that the moderate syrians, the free syrian army, are there. they are not going away. they are not going to be wiped out. at the same time, they are not

militaryowerful force on the ground in syria, and most of their action against the islamic state consists of defense of operation, keeping isis from overrunning their town. they are strongest in defending their own territory. units that defend a town and keep isis from coming in. that's not nothing, and we are grateful they are doing that, but they do not have the force, the military power to pick up and go attack isis. even in conjunction with u.s. air power, it's not clear to me that the free syrian army has even the power to just go occupy that. so how are we going to get them to be a plausible partner? by investing -- a friend of mine

is indogenous. we -- they are getting a lot of resources having a lot of success, therefore they are getting a lot more recruits right now. i will come back to that. we are going to have to turn that equation on for the free syrian army. but we also need to have eyes wide open about what that means. what we are going to try to do is get groups, small bands, that have been affiliated with our syrian taliban islamic front, and/or perhaps even al nusra to join the free syrian army. this is a variation on a theme to what we saw in 2006 and iraq in what we called the sunni awakening, much of which i think has been mythologized, but

nonetheless, it happened, and we did see iraqi sunnis who were fighting against us, in whom in some cases were at least very closely aligned with if not actually part of al qaeda and iraq, came over and joined the other side. we're going to have to be eyes wide open about that is exactly what we are talking with. as a nation, as a country, are we comfortable with these former al nusra and islamic front fighters coming over, joining us, being trained by us either in a covert manner or perhaps even overtly under title 10 -- are we ok with this? i suspect if we were to do a strict application of the leahy amendment, there would be problems with this. we are just getting an understanding of what moves forward and how we are going to move on. the other point that the ambassador made that i want to follow-up on -- he made the very clear point that attacking isis

is not the free syrian army's first priority. they are first and foremost concerned about the syrian regime -- that's absolutely true, but i think that point also needs to be expanded with perhaps the notable exception of shia leaders in baghdad. i'm not sure fighting isis is anybody's first priority in the region. we also need to be eyes wide open about that. but kurds are willing to fight isis. however, prior to the kurds taking their left hook from urbil, we hadnto some very open statements from

the leadership that this was not their problem and not their fight. they have their own agenda, their own things they are concerned about. clearly, the iraqi sunnis who have been willing to give at least some semblance of aid and comfort to isis, as they at least initially moved in, saw a isis as a preferred option to the central government. following me yesterday, it is still clear to me that these countries see isis as a greater threat. isis is an enemy to everyone, but it's not clear it is the first-tier enemy to everyone. we are going to initiate the military campaign against isis and iraq, and that is the right thing to do. if you have someone who is bleeding, the first thing to do is stop the bleeding to use a medical metaphor. in this case, this region is bleeding from the isis invasion, and that needs to be

stopped. the president is doing the right thing to address it. there are root causes that are not going to be impacted by f-16s. we have a serious issue with salafist ideology in the region. that's not to say that all solid -- that all salafists are violent, but the dusting to be a correlation. this is not a region in which any of the regimes are particularly laudable. even the most decent regimes in the region still have significant shortcomings in their dedication to democratic governance, human rights, liberalism, is that we hold dear.

this authoritarian regime that keep people from freely expressing themselves i think does give rise to finding an alternative means to express their discontent with the region, turning to isis and similarly violent groups. finally, lack of economic opportunities for the youth in the region. so long as a young 15-year-old man in north africa or in the gulf sees no future, no job, no economic prospects, no possibility of marriage, no ability to raise a family, the ideological heal of a group it's willing to give him a home, a cause, and through violence 11 to achieve things he could not otherwise get will continue to be a very serious problem in the region. >> thank you. before i open it up to some questions, i want to open it up -- i want to ask one. what do you all see as the biggest challenge in terms of

u.s. policy implementation. i would like to start with ambassador ford and doug because you two have the most experience and senior level experience in u.s. government and how it works. when i saw the president's speech the other night and some of us were in meetings and getting pre-briefings, i want to believe it. i wrote a piece saying that it's the most compelling strategy one could come up with, but i also felt like i have seen this movie before with the obama administration, that it outlines a very good speech, and then, you know, the next act is that everybody reacts on cnn and panels and everybody is tweeting about it while the speech is going on, and there's a little bit of a debate on the hill. then the buzz fades, and the policy implementation actually proceeds.

i suppose that this will not be the case. this will be in the spotlight for a while, but when it comes to implementation, anything has had challenges in implementing its stated goal. my view is that this policy is probably the best a can come up with in a worst situation, the only game in town, but at the same time, executing and implementing is a big challenge. knowing what we know, you all seem generally where i'm at. this seems like a decent strategy, but i have to say, i am skeptical because there are so many pitfalls that can happen. what might we do wrong that we have done before based on your experience? ambassador ford? >> it will be very hard to do this and iraq. iraq.his in

your points are spot on. the irony of us tactically cooperating after all the americans they have killed is something. just to narrow that down, on the diplomatic track, which kind of leads out to me -- i think about john kerry visiting turkey today -- how hard it will be to secure turkish support on a variety of levels, and the turks have -- they are in kind of a tough spot. i think they have 48 or 49 of their diplomatic personnel are being held hostage i the islamic state right now. but turkey is essential. they are going to have to find a way to bring them into this and to be able to find a way to cooperate with them. that is on the diplomatic side.

on the broader political side, and doug touched on this, and he is exactly right, the biggest problem in iraq and syria is that there is a very disgruntled sunni arab community, potent minority in iraq, a majority in syria. not saying that the solution is one broad solution, but the islamic state problem comes out of that sunni arab community's dissatisfaction. we have to be sensitive to that. i was very struck today. the report out of reuters that when the shia militia went in, they killed a bunch of sunnis in retaliation. that's exactly the kind of thing that will set us back. so if the report is true -- and i do not know if it is or not -- but if it is true, i certainly hope the iraqi government moves to discipline those shia militias because otherwise, they

will subvert the progress we are trying to make. then on the syrian side, again, we're going to have a lot of messy tactical alliances. are we going to be able to manage that? >> i think that's great, but again, how our government operates -- if you have any thoughts on this, i think the moderate opposition is probably one component. the so-called moderate opposition, but what do you see the biggest implementation challenges in this package? >> i think the largest implementation challenges will be less in the executive branch and more on the hill. bringing forward title x assistance to these groups, whether we are talking about the kurds and care to any substate actor, the moderate resistance in syria is by a strict reading of our export control laws not permissible.

that is a title 10 above the board rule. of course, congress could pass a one-sentence bill for the purposes of our export control regime that syrian moderates or krg will be treated as sovereign states, but it's hard to see that happening in the near term. nor do i think we are going to see any congressional action to go on record with the vote. this is not a partisan position. i don't think on either side of the aisle in either house of congress is anybody going to be really excited about a vote on this plan because there are so many ways in which this could conceivably go wrong, and who wants to be on record for the vote on something that went wrong? on the executive side, it will simply be the implementation, having to work under the -- again, you hate to start quoting titles, but under the limitation that you cannot get an open,

above the board assistance act. it has to go through people who are not limited by export control actions. this makes things very, very difficult. i think that is going to be our largest executive branch challenge moving forward. >> i agree with doug. title x assistance here is key. mostly because it gets everyone politically signed off for it. one of the constraints we've had in terms of policy -- u.s. policy in particular -- is when you have a covert program, syrians cannot understand it because it is a secret program. a lot of times, they do not know the assistance they are receiving, and they also do not know who is training them. syrians are much smarter than i think many people give them credit for, so they might have figured it out, so that's going

to be important to and wagenen ndwagoning forces going forward. i've been working on syrian policy with people in and around government including the ambassador for several years. over the last year, decision-making on this has been incredibly centralized. i would recommend -- when you were producing this report, there's a lot of good work on syria out there from open sources. there are no secrets in the syrian war. there is contradictory information. sorting through it will require a collective effort, and i think if we do that, it will be easier to defeat isis and easier to sell it politically to the american people, and i think that is the smart way forward. >> i wonder whether or not to the level of coordination inside u.s. government can be helped by, for want of a better term,

assigning responsibility and making somebody it for getting things done. we are beginning to see this on the military side. i wonder if something like this could help on the humanitarian peace, something we have not talked a lot about here, but the u.s. has put a tremendous amount of money and effort into humanitarian relief in the refugee crisis in the region around syria, but there are other countries in the region that could probably do a little bit more on this, and maintaining and galvanizing that effort, i think having someone who is in charge of that be quite helpful. i wonder also how that would relate to the diplomatic piece of this we will have to maintain over time. >> i have seen the reports about john allen, a brilliant guy. i would just worry that if we start setting up a series of sort of equal structures or teams or something, much better

to have it integrated into one team with one leader to whom all of these different drafts -- financial, political, diplomatic, military -- are all fused. the relationship between that team and departments here will have to be very clear. who does that team report to? and finally, i think andrew's point is right. it's very hard to run that kind of operation out of washington. one of the lessons i took out of being in iraq so long was that tactically, it is much better to devolve it down to the field. i'm not sure how that you coordinate with embassies in places like baghdad and riyadh and ankara. that's the trick for responsibility to be laid out

very clearly, not just in the administration but also to the congress and the public. >> one of the thing we just need to because doesn't of and to manage -- what we are talking about is revamping up the war. let's be candid about this. when we reramp up the war, the humanitarian crisis is going to metastasize. i'm not saying that's not the right policy or not the right thing to do. this reminds me of the 2007 surge -- to get casualties down, they had to go up first. we need to be prepared for that and mitigated as best we can, but we need to prepare ourselves and the american people for an increase in -- it's already a catastrophe. i do not have a better word for the humanitarian situation in syria, but however bad it is now -- and it is terribly bad -- it's going to be worse as this war is essentially reenergized by us in order to empower the free syrian army to take the fight to isis, and that's going to be very painful to watch, i

think. >> thanks for indulging me on that question. i know one that makes people's eyes glaze over if you are in the media, but when you are in government, it's essential to have this what are we doing in terms of implement thing and executing? what we found with some of our friends and set of government, one hand of say the state department not knowing what usaid or other agencies were actually doing and that lack of coordination even within the so-called smart power agencies, not bringing the pentagon or intelligence agencies into the mix was enormously difficult and tightening up our game, and that seems like if we are going to be serious, if we are going to put our shoulder in, essential to do. the syrian opposition is the key focus of our report today. we have talked a bit about it. there's a lot of understandable concern about if congress

approves it, and we talked a little bit about the leahy amendment and other things. how do we actually -- are there ways that we can put some sort of constraint or safeguard against this going terribly wrong? when anybody brings this up -- when anybody brings this up -- and again, understandably, they say look what happened to the $20 billion in the iraqi security forces. you were part of the surge and a key part of that. how do you answer what i think is a very smart question an important, of are there ways that we can safeguard, that these weapons, especially looking at images the summer, of u.s. supplied weapons in the hands of isis -- how do we actually -- you all are advocates, and i guess we are, too, here in a sense. how do we make sure there are things in place, based on your experience -- are there practical things that can be done to safeguard against these weapons ultimately?

it will not be perfect, as you are saying, but are there things you can put in the play? >> there are never guarantees and the stings 100%. we would be deceiving ourselves. however, if we had not backed various factions throughout the world, we would never have won any kind of proxy war. in that sense, that is where the president is very right. iranians are much better at fighting these proxy wars than we are. our arab allies also do not have a quds force, and we have talked about this a number of times, which is funny because this would be a fortunate time to have one, not that i am advocating that. but what the u.s. can do is work with allies in the region to coordinate and not to be the quds force, but rather to coordinate the different agencies. i think in terms of from our side, particularly -- you know, training is one thing, and weapons are another, and this will be the real question -- what are the weapons that are provided to this force?

will they remain relatively light weapons, or will they go into something more significant? it comes down to anti-aircraft weapons. at least that has been the major debate. it will might be the only one. -- it will not be the only one. i would urge people to realize that there are more than one kind of antiaircraft weapon. there's more than one way to shoot down planes or shoot at isis or any kind of aircraft. it does not have to be stingers. there are lots of other ways you can do this. an intelligent discussion has to be had. i think the u.s. government has looked into that significantly. our regional allies will be providing some of the heavier weapons along the way, some of which will require our permission, and some of which will not, and we need to keep track of that. weapons like money are fungible and ubiquitous. they are going to flow. weapons are a form of cash and any type of ore zone.

if we think we are going to give weapons to one group, no matter how well-intentioned and how moderate they might be, and that they are not going to flow across the range of groups involved in armed conflict, possibly including the people they are fighting against, we are just kidding ourselves. they are going to move. they are going to flow. not to say that the bulk of them will not stay with the people we want them to, and that without give them a qualitative advantage. for that matter, they may need more to continue to build their qualitative advantage, so they may use weapons as currency to indirect week build up what we want, even if that is certainly not the means we would have chosen. but we need to be eyes wide open about all the downsides of the proposals that we are making, the increasing humanitarian casualties, and the flow of weapons being two of the most notable up front. >> i have a couple of thoughts on that specific to syria and leakage.

first, there is no perfect solution. if there was a better way forward, it would be great, but this is i would say the least bad of a set of bad options. working with bashar al-assad probably being the worst. by the way, ryan has changed his view on that. so that said, there are many places in syria where there are moderate, more or less secular armed opposition groups who are not coordinating right now. to the extent that we are worried about arms leaking, this is particularly true up in the north so that if we are concerned about stuff leaking -- i think that is the biggest risk right now -- we could start with them, but in order for that even to work, we are going to need to have excellent information about what those groups are doing, so

we will have to bureaucratically ramp up the effort to have that information. a lot of it is on youtube, but it is in arabic. second, we have be very transparent with the syrian partners, that this stuff leaking for us could change everything. i think a lot of times, syrians read stuff into our intentions which is not exactly right. because they have their own reality, and it's not always where the washington political reality is. sometimes, it is dramatically different. in addition to explaining, we will have to be agile and flexible. this group, if they are not dependable, the message will get out the quick among them. at the americans really are not serious about this.

i take your point that you cannot fill up the zone immediately, but cash would be a good start to lower recruits away -- lure recruits away because that's how they got them in the first place. there are steps we can take that do not failsafe, but they can reduce the risk. as i said, it's going to be a bumpy, turbulent ride. >> hartline has worked in places like -- hard line has worked in places like mali and iraq. >> with respect to the importance of civilians of money, with all the groups we talked with, even those based out of turkey, for them, money was an incredibly significant thing in terms of building

momentum over time, that the ability to pay some element of a salary would be a thing that could perhaps build some of the greatest cohesion going forward, so i do not think we can underestimate the utility of that. >> especially in the culture over there. >> they are going to be unintended consequences. >> even if we have good safeguards and we minimize the leakage to bad guys we are still going to have friends in the region that are contributing. what do you do about them? this has been a problem for years. this must be transparent. i think this is one where the president is going to have to engage more.

talking to, shall we say, countries not keeping to the agreed deal. but on the other hand i think when there is american pressure, even with the islamic front, friends, they will squeeze. the islamic front has been moderating its position starting in may when they issued that statement backing off of an islamic state. they say they want a state of law. which is different. even that can be done. i think going forward, this is one where the president himself is going to have to take his time. he is a busy guy. .t is going to take that time when they are not making

progress the president is going to have to pick up the phone. presidentmore engaged . >> it is leadership. >> we are going to open it up to questions. >> thank you. thank you for staying for the panel. wanted to build on your point, there is skepticism whether the new plans will be followed through on following the speech. a lot of the skepticism is related to the fact there is not faith in the administration's claims about where we are going because there is some that say the administration hasn't been honest about how we got to where we are. he talked about the moderate opposition. because of the support that we have already provided to the syrian opposition over the last year, the capacity is bigger and

stronger. saying the he searing opposition is much better than it was, which is refuted, but the obama administration deserves credit for it and they have -- [indiscernible] isator john mccain said it unbelievable. they have been decimated. for the white house to say they lie.tronger is an outright who is right? the white house or john mccain? do you think this is really or this isppen, going to be another example of lucy holding the football for charlie brown? syrian rebels will find themselves out of luck. thank you. >> who wants to take that? [laughter] >> i will start. first of all, i think it is

important that everyone asks president obama what he means in his decisions. he is clearly uncomfortable about this. even the speech, you could see how uncomfortable he really is with this. that being said, i think that given what he has committed the united states to he has made the decision. in terms of lucy and the football, i don't know how you would pull the football back at this point. if you did it would make the non-strike incident last year politically unpalatable. first of all i would urge the administration to stop spinning. it is digging yourself into a hole. way out ofrgue your this one. a lot of the assistance has gone to the moderate opposition. that is one thing. nonlethal assistance. we have been a huge provider.

we should have credit for that. that is what should be emphasized. militarily, they are not as effective. they talk to the jordanians. they will tell you that qualitatively and quantitatively they are weaker over the last year. i don't how anybody can spin it that way. [inaudible] [laughter] get in thegoing to middle of a discussion between the white house and senator mccain. first, from my time in government, doug would agree, when the president gives a speech out of the white house, that is not a small thing. of interagency coordination and meetings. when he goes in front of the nation, that is a rare event. , the different

departments and agencies, should be lined up. implementation is the question. i am less concerned about the commitment at this point than i am about the implementation. the implementation needs to start. congress has a busy schedule. and a lot of people want to break to go back on to their districts. i am nervous. some of the reporting is quite good. they are going to leave town without voting on this. then they are going to have questions in the region, people who don't understand our constitution. in their countries there is no such thing as a free and independent parliament. they will see the americans conspiring. i hope this congress does not it.urn before acting on that is the first step. let's get the votes and go

forward. keyf i could add, it is a point. it is a good question. somethingur debate, about our political culture right now. the president says some ink and the opposition has to say something. that is good to have a democracy. , asar this blame game opposed to what i think where the energy should be devoted. these tough issues, which we policy nerds like to wrestle with. these are real issues for people who are slaving inside of the government with these constraints. these are the real issues, as opposed to -- you can warm whatever mistakes were made over the last year. , itead of this surface level was right. i don't think there is any fall. -- any fault.

i still stand by that view. these are complicated issues. saying put out reports just when we were out they pulled us back in. forward.ortant to look have a lot ofo people on the hill doing that right now. that is one positive thing. >> if i can jump in, a lot of our problems in syria have become -- have been because we perfectked for the solution. let's go with a good solution and start with that. there is no perfect solution. >> thank you. we talk a lot about our , andbility with allies there is an issue of our

credibility in the international community. i would agree with the statement drawn,e map that was there was a question of legitimacy right now. those are state borders. when the president talks about being willing to strike in syria , and prime minister cameron syria, ast strikes in perfectly legitimate because the government of assad is illegitimate, regardless of our credibility with our arab allies, what about the credibility in the broader international community as far as respecting international law? >> that is a key question. i have a long list of questions. it is a controversial issue and difficult. the issue of the legitimacy.

syria whichde of the president is talking about. you want to take a stab at it? is, we may be able to work out the legal authorities question in the united states, but if we are going to build a regional international coalition to get this done, we are going at this bend a fair amount of time at the united nations working to support thatal will allow us to maintain this over time. we are getting close to a moment in terms of our international position where questions will be raised about how was what you are doing now any different than what was done another historical examples that we are not as proud of? it is important we spend the time at the u.n. and other

bodies to develop elements of consensus moving forward. the question is going to be difficult. no one knows how to write that resolution. yet. there are people working on it. are at a thing is we moment where we have to look closely at how far we want to spend in that effort in a sense that a number of diplomats spend tremendous and heroic efforts trying to deal with this with other members of the p5. we know russia, this isn't going to go as smooth as we would like. we need to make the effort. i don't think we can be constrained by that. , beyondld add international considerations, the domestic. want it toution, we figure out -- and we have

invitations to make this a bigger event, we want to bring people from the hill. topic. hard idol have the expertise. we are not lawyers. to deal with this issue of u.s. congressional authorization. we feel strongly that in general this framework and how we are talking about it is pretty shaky. -- congress doesn't want to vote on this. encouragingw things. we want to invite those voices to have the discussion. i hope we can have that event. getting them to a think tank while they are doing everything else. i wanted to add to the international dimension, the framework in which we put in the paper there needs to be a broader discussion. pragmatically the american public is different compared to where was a year ago on this.

for obvious reasons. having a national consensus on that for our institutions would be essential. next question. >> i wanted to ask the question related to iran. november 21 is rolling in on us quickly. the deadline for the extension of the talks on their nuclear program. how does this play into, how might this play out if that falls apart and we are in the midst of this, and iran becomes a factor in terms of what we are going to do next? can you gain that out at all? what does it mean? >> ok. i will take the first shot. mention, thent to

way it has been staked out to the american people, we are fighting against isis. there is a huge regionalized sectarian war going on in syria theiraq between iran and arab countries, soon the country specifically. sunni, shia war. out of these negotiations impact that? if the negotiations go well, that will perhaps make the iranians to be more useful. the iranians in the regime do -- omit control of the that. people will try to say otherwise. those are two things the regime has structure.

and the the moderate sword. .he sword is raging war the assad regime. if it goes badly, i don't think that we can say that everything , we do any cooperation share some interests with them. that will be maintained. we can see there could be talks postponed. a is a possibility. other than that it is hard to look in a crystal ball on this one. >> somebody we talked about this before, the white house has to be the air traffic controller on these pieces. perhaps the president himself. if you heard about about siri he is steeped in the details of this. somebody needs to figure out how these fit together. l notionshis fantastica

, maybe we will be up to cooperate with them operationally on iraq and other things. i think on the ground it is harder probably to actually do that. my main point being, it is hard , do the this a administration is going to align sith a sought or iran -- a sad or iran? it doesn't make sense because of the regional coalition many to build. look to november of last year. all of the erratic public protests about the iran deal. and the need for the administration to go out with secretary hagel. to embrace the gulf states and say we are with you.

that times 10 in this if we were to open up the door without consultation mike we are working with iran. academic.t it is a nice idea but hard to implement. perhaps one more question. sorry about that. and absentdiscussion i work with the palestinian delegation. i'm curious. the elephant in the room is the assad regime. i seem to see it is a major attractor and a reason behind the metastases in of the islamic state. what is your take on the role of the assad regime? it could cause problems with the united states and syria and

diverting attention from a syrian opposition from attacking the islamic state. i was curious if you could touch on that element. assadposition on the regime is well known. i should say this. their deputy foreign minister said they would like to work with us. the problem is that working with sunni arabmes the opinion i was talking about before. that is the big picture. tactically i don't i don't have a lot to contribute on the ground. their forces are stretched. maintainstruggling to their last military base. sense, they will inject themselves. they will expend the bulk of their military efforts,

especially their airpower hitting not the islamic states, most of their efforts were not against islamic states. they were in suburban damascus where they are fighting elements of the moderate opposition. that is why i say we have to understand when we go into this and we talk about support of the syrian opposition, they are fighting a two front war. the assad regime, it is a hard fight. it is going to be messy as we tried to channel our assistance to that one front but not to the other. a sod is going to everything he can to make that messy. >> we are coming to the end of our time. two things. get a report online. supporting the syrian

opposition. we put a lot of work into this. respect and value their work. it is a team effort. please join me in thanking our esteemed panel what has been a great discussion. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the u.s. strategy to deal

with the terror group isis is expected to be one of the items on the congressional agenda next week. more on what is ahead for both the house and senate. with a law on their plate the house says added monday to their scheduled for look at the week ahead. david druckerwith on capitol hill. the ended the week on the request for how to deal with the islamic militant group isis. the headline in the examiner, republicans are skeptical of arming the syrian rebels. how was congress planning to move forward? though there is skepticism there is going to be enough support ultimately to get this through the house and senate. the issue is members getting their hands on the policy, training rebels after the president has said this strategy was a panacea.

members are eager to do againstg to fight back isis because this is a huge concern among voters. >> is the indication they had to take separate authorization vote to do this? >> the president asked them to include this in the bill -- to make sure there is another government shutdown. from what i'm hearing from republicans, who intend to support the president's requests , they want a separate vote. they wanted because they feel like an issue of this magnitude deserves a separate vote. they don't want it in a must pass the budget bill. the sense i get is that ultimately we are going to see a separate vote. we are not one to see it in the cr. what if it takes members longer than this next upcoming week to get there arms around the president strategy where they are comfortable to vote for it? i don't think that congressional leaders on the republican side in the house want to let the cr

hang out there until the end of september where you get close to the government shutdown territory. >> ever but he expected them to finish up the cr this past week. david drucker is on twitter. hearing from members on thursday, i reported housebroken's are likely to combine the cr and ice is because of resistance form members. tying this into the cr, they have completed that next week. what is in this resolution? >> it is basically a clean resolution that was run until december 11. you keep it clean sado have opposition and end up with problems before an election. the only big deal is a temporary extension of the export import bank. it is controversial among conservatives because they want to get rid of it. --m what we understand house

there is a temporary extension through next june. feelingsthere is hurt from conservatives who thought it would get rid of this thing, the feeling on the hill who would like to either reform it with arid of it is that republican senate elected in november, republicans can have more leverage to mess with the bank after that. republicans are divided on the export, import bank. democrats because republicans want to end it, democrats decided they are foreign even though they have been resistant in the past. >> back to that full plate. your colleague with a piece about the agenda. here is the headline. house and senate recycled partisan agendas. what are those agendas? >> a lot of messaging. nobody wants to stick their neck

out before an election. they want to score political points because they are on the ballot. you have seen a lot of that this past week. in a minute what men the first amendment and make it harder for the campaign contributors to influence elections. that went nowhere as expected. republicans and democrats alike are doing stuff like this. publicans and the house had another bill related to obamacare to restrain the implementation. both sides of the aisle are playing politics. why shouldn't they? that is what this season is all about. it annoys americans. they want to win. that is what they are trying to do. for the drucker examiner. read his work and more at washington examiner.com. thank you for joining us.

>> more on the president speech concerning isis and counterterrorism efforts in the u.s.. >> did he make the case that we need to take action against isis? >> i think he began to make the case. it is a complicated question. he certainly came out with positions that were quite clear in some areas. think there are questions to be asked about his strategy.

military strikes, for example. i still think there are a lot of questions to be asked about the strategy and how it's going to implemented. one component of a strategy that i think was entirely missing. that seems to me to be the ideas.led war on isis is fundamentally an ideology. it will be hard to destroy. have destroyed ideologies in it'sast, naziism, fascism, taken a lot of effort. it has to be accompanied by an affirmative message that appeals to the good judgment of the vast muslims.of i want to see not just a military component, an ntelligence component, and economic component, but i want to see a strategy that has an appeal toe message to

the good instincts of so many people in that part of the world. you've got to fight an ideology with a better ideology. we clearly have that when you about isis. host: it's been 10 years since commission put out their report. and one of the recommendations the u.s. does not act aggressively to find itself in the islamic world, the u.s. for us. do it have we been successful in identifying ourselves? guest: we've been successful with good people, moderate democratic, small d minded people in that region of the world. voices have not prevailed. they have not been successful in appeal. isis an they've been remarkably successful, really, in their extremists.e and getting their support. they seem to have an

unending supply of those people coming to their banner. to dove got a lot of work in this area, i believe, in order to prevail. militaryrly you need a the financial is component is very important isis.g to cut off they've been success informal that area as well. the diplomatic political side of is important. we're trying to put together this coalition now. and as the papers are reporting morning, we're having some trouble with that. it's an important part of the strategy. don't win a battle or by other steps, you're going have to have a coalition of forces on the ground. it's not clear to me at this who's going to be putting on the ground for

combat purposes. we're going to have to do it but nobody seems to be stepping up point in te at this time. host: if you would put on your congressional hat for a minute, a role for congress -- has the president consulted enough with congress? on ld congress take a vote this? or can the president act unilaterally? guest: my position is extreme here. the thought to go to war should e shared by the president and the congress. of course, in the past, that preference of mine has often violated. today, the congress has been so timid and deferential to the regard to the use of military force, not just today, but going back for a good many years.

hat congress has not been playing major role in the the ous decision that president makes, to start fighting. i think you're better off in the acts in a the country united way that the president and congress comes together. you can argue that either way. you can argue it around and you can argue it flat. presidents in the end are going to do what they want to do, what they think is the best protect the o national interests to the united states. to congress ought to get in the action. when you have a situation like a little time to figure it out. robust ress should ask questions about exit strategy and how to put the it together and all or the rest of it. out of that i think will come a better policy. that's the whole idea of debate and

discussion. that's why we ought to proceed the way the 's congress ought to act. and it should act on this decision. my guess is that the president will argue that he has the he ateral authority, which probably has. he'll see a lot of problems in going to the congress. congress will find reasons not them don't want to cast the vote for a variety of reasons, so we'll go back. recent 've done in the past which really lets the president decide whether or not militarily and how you intervene. i think that's getting away from the constitutional idea of a shared decision by the congress and the president on this -- on this question of intervention. if you're a

democrat, 3881 for republicans, 202-585-3882 if you're independent. we try to educate the people on the role of congress and a representative democracy. have a representative democracy unless the congress lives up to the responsibilitieses so i'm very oncerned about the deferential attitude about congress on the questions of war powers and on things.nd many other so we want to strengthen the congress by, i hope, being a onstructive critic of the congress and letting people know how important this institution f the congress is under our constitutional system. virginia, y, mclean, on with lee hamilton. mr. r: first of all,

hamilton, i admired how clearly discussed ately you issues. i love maybe an academic like the ideaat i of a war of ideas. isis e given that the people are enraged and all. would wonder what placate this. in that i believe it's true that the borders of syria and iraq artificially created after i mean, it just -- father used to say was being ever mindful of needs of others. the sunnis and the shiahs have hating each and other for thousands of years. be possible for them to just let -- let the

sunnis have their areas, the shiahs their areas. lucy, thank ght, you. lee hamilton? guest: well, i think the she ioner is correct -- points out that the conflicts in are deep seeded. they go back not years, centuries. shiahs, the sunnis, the the kurds, and so forth. but it's a multiple sectarian divide in the middle east that makes things very, ery complicate in that region of the world. me this argues for some restraint in what we try to do. i don't want to pull back and go isolationist mode here. on the other hand, we have to act with great, great caution. much, no ly do so matter how strong, no matter how good we are.er how in correcting the problems of

the middle east. and as she suggests in the call, fundamentally take responsibility for resolve their own problems. we want to help to the extent that we can. but we can't solve these problems for them. deep seeded with deep animosities in the region. host: jack, democrats' line, go your question or comment. caller: yeah, i would like to know from the representative, i've not heard from anybody but maybe john mccain and graham, what exactly do this count stand in country or our governing body, winning a war? not understand the mindset

of the muslims, i don't care if they're an individual group or they want to annihilate christianity. that's what it boils down to. in ancient ook back ruling you see where didn't sit around and say maybe, and if. in to re directed to go annihilate and the same attitude that the muslims have taken. any way you them muslims -- ists or no, it doesn't look that way. it's no different than vietnam war.the gulf you commit to a belief, you stand behind it. host: congressman?

guest: the president has said we want to destroy isis. now, it's fair to ask the question what kind of instruments/tools is he going to use? what kind of resources is he prepared to spend? lives is he prepared to put on the line in order to destroy isis. had great military victories in world war ii and preceding. had since that time have ambiguous results. partially this is because as the said, we haven't rought to bear the full military power of the united states. we have held back, we have used way.tary force in a limited that's been the choice of all of our presidents. for multiple reasons. to destroy is how

isis. that's the operative question today. ne thing is we have to make clear what kind of resources we are prepared to bring to the achieve the objective of destroying isis. what's that going to take in military action, in terms of diplomatic action, in erms of propaganda, public relations, if you would, fighting the ideological war. prepared to do. and what are others prepared to do to defeat and destroy isis? that's the big question on the table for me at least right now. by no means clear that we are resources he put the in, needed to achieve the if you e of destroyingf look at the press today, it's a lot of the at arab countries have drilled down the strategy and giving lip service support but not forward.to come

even our european friends, germany said they're not going to engage in air strikes. the uk is saying they're going to consider it. is you see this phenomenon once again of the united states being eft out there by itself to carry the full burden. now another aspect that needs to carefully.at that's the so-called backlash problem. has the power advantages, becomes necessary very, very often in conflicts around the world. a backlash to it. hen you bomb an area, you may destroy a lot of facilities. people, kill a lot of but you also raise a lot of nger, very deep seeded hate rhe -- atred of the people doing the bombing. that has consequences down the road. one of the reasons that the isis been so popular in getting

the extremists to come to their anger because of the that exists against the united west.s and the reasons.iety of you have to be conscious of the military power. it sounds easy that you can solve the problem with the military power alone. cannot. it takes more than that. host: lee hamilton served in 1965 do 1999. in that time frame, he was chair f the foreign affairs committee, chair of the intelligence committee, chair 9/11 the vice chair of the commission. he's also a co-chair along with iraq study of the group in 2006. mr. hamilton, would we be this today if we had not invaded iraq in 2003? knows?who

you can argue it any way you want to. if there had been a decision in the united states not to try to itself militarily in these regions but to let them sort out their own problems, my be -- but it's nothing more than a guess that we would not be facing the kind of problems that we had today. we might be facing a whole other et of problems, but not the precise kinds we have today. i must say, i get a little maybe mpatient and probably i should not, but i get a little mpatient with the analysis of the recent past because you can either way. what's important at the moment is to figure out what to do with isis and to try to think forward to move ahead on that question, learn from the we can, but focus on the future and the resolve the isis ems of the future and is certainly in that category. host: alvin in brooklyn on our line.ndent

thanks for holding. you're on the air with lee hamilton. morning.good thanks for your broadcast. i wonder, why couldn't we if done, have eady intelligence among isis, even as they are, and also isn't there a continuum of the religion they're fighting for in a continuum there down to more moderate moderate elements of that religion. they're destroyed, isn't it like cutting off the rainbow at the blue. ost: i want to flow up that caller's comments with laura's tweet. she asks -- war on terror kill diplomacy?

guest: i hope it did not kill diplomacy. i want to go to the caller's about intelligence. because i think intelligence is the key to so many things that we do now. years ago, our intelligence was limited, what was the power of the soviet union to do this, or the other. today our policy makers want to know everything about the enemy friends we spy upon as we learned in recent weeks. broadly used.e is isis presented a very tough target for the intelligence community. of them an keep track with a lot of fancy technological devices. get the movements and all of the rest of it. but penetrating an extremist group is very, very hard to do. you can't do it with a guy like me. midwesterner with a crew cut and so forth. you have to use people who are who look the language,

like they look like, whose may not be in all respects perfect from our point of view. tough intelligence target. we have had some success. we're getting better. keep in mind, in the middle groups that e many do not like the united states and wish us ill. easy to not always identi identify through intelligence is going to rise to cause us the most trouble. look at isis. there aren't many americans that isis.ell you the leader of we learned about it a few weeks ago. it's been in the paper a few or on television. we can't even decide what to call them. we have a debate going on on the over here whether it's isis or isil or some other name. very new group that

is suddenly popped up here and verybody says, why didn't our intelligence let us know about this? have a lot of groups to keep their eye upon. number of assets in the intelligence communities. very tough targets. easy. things are not now, diplomacy is going to have to play a big role in all of this down the line. i hope there are always as ersations going forward to how you can minimize conflict. to ooks very hard right now see any way to negotiate a with isis. i can't see how that can be done given the positions they have taken. doesn't mean you give up on diplomacy. there are groups out there that ill have more influence with isis than we have. nd we may have to work through those groups. may be possible that some

kind of a diplomatic resolution opens up an avenue. now that has to be used in military force. military force and diplomacy have to go hand-in-hand and they to work together. one, probably, by itself can solve the problem. necessary.e host: fred, auburn, new york on the republican line. go ahead for your question or to lee hamilton. caller: thank you for the program. t seems to me and reminded yesterday that people forget in people tes over 3,000 thousands of jobs were lost. and everybody says we don't know who to fight because we didn't know what to call them. isis.ou said, it's now they're still muslims. they're still -- the only thing somebody thatd is

teddy nger and like roosevelt said, speak softly, but carry a big stick. and someone ready to use it. think we're ready to use it any longer like we did in germany.ike we did in the only thing they finally nderstood was somebody that's going to stop them and stop them now. hamilton. guest: i've indicated of course that the caller did that the military force is an important of the equation here. have some considerable her hesitation, however, in condemning the entire islamic of d as some of the words the caller suggests. there are many wonderful muslim the e, islamic people in world. its's be in large a very attractive religion. i don't know what the numbers are. but they have an enormous following. ell over 1 billion people in the world today.

it's been a peaceful religion for many aspects of it. al qaeda asisis and being an extreme fringe of the by most not followed of the adherents of the religion. fringe, it's tant caused great problems. isis, al regime, committing some horrific acts, and something we have to respond to. but i don't think it represents main stream islam today. we have to be careful. this , i think to solve problem, we are going to need down the line of some of the islamic muslim world. some of the friends in the we've had many and have had over the a period of years. hamilton, been years since the 9/11 commission released the report. what changed in the world for better and not so much for

the better? guest: let's look at the success we've had. to success -- lots of ways measure what's happened since 9/11. important way to measure casualties have we had? we've had nothing to compare with the 3,000 people that one mentioned a s moment ago that were killed on that horrible day. traumatic day st in the history of our country. we have been successful in blocking, defeating mass attacks united states. the record is good. the record is not perfect. the boston marathon case, the hood shootings, other instances, and a number of close calls of much lesser strikes. so people kind of forget that of the efforts that we

have made, reorganizing a new ent, creating department of government, making screening go through at airports. every state and local government focused on homeland security. we spend millions and millions of dollars. maybe it's not well spent. we've been reasonably successful in our efforts. now, have we made enough terrorism?o fight no, we have not. there are some things that deeply.e or example, at the site of the disaster, the first responders must be able to communicate with one another. that's common sense. the police have to talk to the fire department and the fire department have to talk to the health care people and all of rest of it as these heroic to the sponders come

scene. they can't do that. 9/11.de progress on complicated, technical in nature ometimes, but we have not developed a seamless way of conversing by the first esponders at the scene of a disaster. likewise, someone at a disaster has to be in charge. a commander.o have that commander has to make decisions fast. relating to all kinds of things, people, ood to sanitation, security, transportation, housing, the list goes on and on and on. who's in charge at the scene makes all of the difference. some of the decisions will be made wrong. they will have to be made quickly. we do not have to resolve the who's in charge. metropolitan areas

in the scene of the disaster. intelligence is better. being shared better. e've opportunity a lot to protect our transportation ystem and other key systems of our society. but the people o >> the peoplef of the united states i think are safer than before 9/11. they're not safe enough. a lot of progress still needs to be made. we still live in a very dangerous world. >> lee hamilton and tom kaine who served as chair of the 9/11 commission have written an op-ed that appeared yesterday in "the wall street journal" on cyber security and the threat of cyber security. it's available at "the wall street journal" if you want to read that. dave tweets into you, mr. hamilton, i thank lee hamilton and tom kean for trying to get 9/11 commission report portions declassified so the public can be informed. guest: well, that's very important to us. the commission didn't control the question of classification