not just for the newly insured but across all. i think many people don't realize the extension of benefits for prevention and wellness. i think that is probably what you are referring to specifically. one of the things we will do as we do our education for the uninsured is do that more broadly. the other thing is, in our conversations with the employers , that is a place where we are having a lot of conversations. i think many employers are what we want to do is our own messaging, but we know in this case things will move more through our partners, the stakeholders on the ground,, people who are delivering to move that message out, and it is an important one.

earlier, i dode not think we have done a good understand what the affordable care act did. yes? >> thank you for your remarks. hospitals were deeply involved in giving people -- getting people enrolled. for hospitals that were not yet engaged in that war have hesitated because they are in states where the aca is not as popular, do you have guidance for those in how they can work in their community and getting people signed up? >> thank you for the support and help. with regard to the state where the aca is not as popular, one of the things is making sure states reach out to us. there are regional offices across the country for hhs, and with the hospitals, weather coming to our business organizations in washington or the regions, that might be more

familiar with the challenges you are articulating, we want to work with those so we can enable them to do what they can do. now that people can see last time we did not have something we could point to. we did not have those stories, and we are hopeful that will be an element that can create a better environment, that where the environment is still out, we will work in ways that will work for the context that these hospitals are in. we are working with hospitals, insurers, stakeholders. this is an all hands on effort. yes. one of the things as we think the number of latinos who are signing up for the law could be improved, and i am wondering your thoughts on how we can make a more concerted effort to get

to that community and make sure their community is covered. place, and important we believe we can make progress, even more progress this year. one of the things we need to do is listen, listen to the feedback we received last year about a number of challenges. some of those challenges were technological, and some came and other forms, and we are trying to work through and make sure, whether through our navigators, to how we share information through language issues, that there are a whole suite of things we're working on to make it easier to engage in the system and, second, to make sure we are sharing the information so people can understand what it means in terms of the benefit that it will mean. and then work with stakeholders that are closest to these organizations to help make sure, whether it is how we phrase something, explain something. often those kinds of things are making a difference. we have heard from probably some of you all here on the issues of our challenging.

leaves keep letting us know. the ones we can fix, we will work to do that and do that as quickly as we can. in the back. thank you. i wish the national center for transgender equality. and with all the great things that have been done for years rules for thehave active civil rights provisions, and most people have not heard of those provisions, including providers i have talked to. we have delivered hundreds of those stories of discrimination to the department, and i would like to know, are we going to 1557 implement he rolls this year's? >> that is something we are most focused on, making sure as we are getting the system up and running that if there are issues of discrimination that we are working through those. thank you for doing that. with regard to that question for

the specific timing of the role, not something that i am at this to a ready to commit specific timetable on where we all and that. consider the issue extremely important. you know the administration's commitment on a number of fronts to the issues around making sure that there is access and that the access is not discriminatory, that cuts across a wide range of issue. we want to work to make sure we are enforcing the law and understand the importance of the issue of that specific provision . thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> on behalf of brookings, i want to thank secretary burwell and thank all of you for coming and listening out there. and good luck. we need this thing to work at hh s, and we are counting on you to make it work. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> c-span campaign 2014 debate coverage thursday night at 9:00. the nebraska second congressional debate. sunday, the iowa u.s. senate debate. thann campaign 2014, more 100 debates for the control of congress. on the u.s. and allies' response to the crisis tears jurist -- crisis to the isis terrorist attacks.

part of the iraqi study group chaired by james baker and lee hamilton, who teaches at johns hopkins and george washington, and has lectured at more that 30 countries. team,art of the csis senior adviser, counterterrorism sis, was deputy national security adviser in the bush administration. he worked on the investigation of the uss cole. juliana goldman, who i am proud to say is our newest cbs news correspondent. she came over from bloomberg in august and has more than a decade of experience covering international news.

she covered both president obama's presidential campaign, went with him to china, got the first one-on-one interview with the president after his reelection, and reported from the white house on the night osama bin laden was killed. jon alterman, let me start with you. you wrote after trying hard to downplay policy in syria and iraq, the white house has dived in. you said the beheadings of two americans had crystallized the new policy approach by the administration. you said while the new policy is more than merely military, it is more military than it should be. it seems like a good question to start us off with, what do you think about that? >> i think the next 800 words i wrote tried to capture that. [laughter] it is on the csis website. for a long time, the

administration was cautious about being drawn too far into syria. we saw that caution manifested when the president a little more than a year ago hesitated to use military action. there seemed to be a confluence of forces, and we pulled off. when i spoke to people, people in the white house kept saying we are not sure what we can do in syria that would not open the door to further involvement. in many ways our policy was defined almost as much by what it was not as what it was. there was a desire to avoid getting too sucked in. what happened was isis spread into iraq where you have a government welcoming of u.s. involvement, where you have kurdish allies of the united states desirous for american involvement.

it took it out of this messy how do you attack a hostile group in a hostile country and you are trying to work with a group to take down this government and on the other hand you don't want the group to win, it seemed much clearer in iraq. it provided an opportunity in iraq. the american public said we should be active against people killing americans in iraq. we support military action in iraq. the problem the peace talks -- the piece talks about is all the things worth doing, very few have military components. the harder part, diplomacy, economics, politics, intelligence sharing, maybe have a military role in convincing people you're serious. but you have to accomplish them away from the spotlight with

more qualitative kinds of actions than merely bombing things from the air. bombing from the air comes down to physics and chemistry. but changing the situation on the ground is more complex. i remain worried we are doing what we can, but not doing what we need to be. we have to focus more on doing what we need to do. >> do you think the policy is too focused on the military? what is your assessment? what do you think the policy is right now? >> that is a great question. in part, that is the challenge for the administration. what is our policy? what is the regional strategy and how does this fit into the other things we care about? things like what happens in damascus, in our relationship

with iran, how we posture for the long-term. how does this fit into a broader vision for the region? what it feels like is it is very reactive. we are reacting to the videos and the sense of threat. we are reacting to the reports of thousands of foreign fighters that now potentially threaten the west. that lends itself to a whack-a-mole approach. to jon's point, the military solution is not the only solution, but it has to be part of changing the landscape on the ground. this is about the laws of physics and geography. this is a group that has created the largest safe haven of a terrorist group in modern history. you have to dislodge a group like that. that takes military force from the air and ground.

one criticism from the military standpoint is to execute a long-term strategy like that in a complex environment like syria is going to take more than just proxy forces hoping you can build the forces over time to take on the fight in a place like syria. that's the danger for the policy, that it becomes a halfhearted attempt to dislodge the group, and at the same time we are distorting the policies that matter to us on things like iran and syria. >> juliana, i know you have done work on this. i was surprised yesterday when ambassador samantha powell called it "easle" or something like that. i know the president calls it isil. some of us call it isis. where is cole porter when you need him? [laughter] what is the deal? what is the name of this outfit? >> we can confuse it even more because isis calls itself the

islamic state. it rebranded itself in june. in the arabic world, it goes by daish. but isis does not like that name for itself. the problem for the government is it wants to refer to the group, did not validate the idea it is the islamic state. if we drill down at the name, in arabic, the rub is the last word that refers to either syria or greater syria. the -is at the end of isis is this. the greater syria refers to the lavant. there are some in the government who want to come up with ways to

talk about it differently. daish could be among those options. the french announced they will be using daish. that is not to validate the name islamic state. >> did we ever come to closure on obl and ubl? the government had a whole debate. >> the question of lexicons is important for two reasons. one, the group is trying to hearken back to history and the lure of the movement they are trying to now lead. this group in establishing itself as the islamic state is pronouncing itself the vanguard of the new movement, giving the right to the imaginings of ubl and trying to give life to that. one of the dangers is in its inspiration, it is not only

establishing territory, but inspiring others to imagine what is possible in terms of an islamic state. the other thing important about lexicon from an american standpoint is we go through contortions to make sure the terminology we use does not inadvertently aggrandize groups. john brennan gave a speech at csis early after president obama took office talking about not using the term islamic extremism and jihad because jihadists use that term to validate themselves. lexicon matters quite a bit. the problem is we contort ourselves quite a bit to describe the enemy. >> let me ask all three of you, the secretary of state said last week there is a part for every nation to play in the fight against isis and terrorism, including iran.

what is the role of iran? how do they fit into this? >> iran is in an interesting position because on the one hand they hate these guys as much as anybody. partly because isis is attacking their allies in iraq, in syria. it is attacking some of their allies in iraq, the kurds, who iranians have a historic relationship with despite the kurds have a historic constructive relationship with the united states. iran also fears u.s. plans for the region. iran does not want to give things up to the united states without getting something in return.

i think where that leaves us is the challenge of how to work in parallel with the iranians without coordinating with the iranians, certainly without cooperating with the iranians. it seems whenever we ask the iranians for something, the next part of the conversation is, what are you going to do for us? so the challenge -- i think our diplomats and others are up to it -- how do you signal to the iranians what it is we are doing, what it is we have an option to do, but will not do in deference to them, what we might do that will annoy them but maybe we won't in case other things happen, and keep that in a constructive direction and not fall into the trap of if you do this, we will do that. on a series of levels, that would put the u.s. in a much more -- >> where do you see iran in all this? >> that is one of the most difficult questions.

the iranians have learned and played a great game of duality. where there is commonality of interest, they have been able to work with the united states or other adversaries, while at the same time attacking those interests. the u.s. and iran were aligned in attacking the precursor to isis, islamic state of iraq. at the same time, the revolutionary guard was coordinating against forces to create instability in iraq. they were working on narcotics issues with nato while working with the taliban. being opposed to al qaeda in taking steps to put senior al qaeda leaders under custody, but allowing al qaeda facilitation networks to operate in and through iran. iran is a curious animal in this game because they have learned to play multiple games at once. they can feed from one hand and

bite the other. that is what makes iran difficult to work with. i don't think we are going to find the sweet spot of commonality in this context. if you're going to see activity happen, it will happen in parallel, not in coordination. >> in the middle eastern context, to able to play two sides is seen as a sign of sophistication. >> i think right now the challenge for the administration and why kerry is making the distinction is because they are trying to assemble this coalition of arab countries. they want to bring the saudis on on board. what are they going to say about coordinating with iran? the white house announced today the president will be meeting with netanyahu when he comes next week.

the israelis have long voiced their concerns with the u.s. engaging with iran on nuclear talks. >> the iranian and saudi foreign ministers met this week. >> samantha powers said yesterday on all three networks yes, we have gotten commitments from some arab countries to join in airstrikes on syria. do you have any idea who they are? looks>> an official said there will be multiple arab countries making military commitments. >> did they tell you one name? >> it would not be going out of the limb to save the uae. jordan would also be likely to be one of those commitments.

will you take that seriously? >> i think it will happen. it won't be terribly decisive. >> don't you think it would be important? >> it is important to say we having the uae and other countries with us in libya made it seem like there was a broader coalition. it does not necessarily get to better outcomes down the line as we have seen in libya. there are lots of rules people template. you can be the refueling guy, the logistics guy. you can fly surveillance. i think one of the things that will be discussed is whether the egyptians signal something visible in support as a way to try to limit hostilities. we just announced we were giving them 10 apaches that had been in the u.s. for repair. one of the characteristics of

this is you can contribute on many different levels, just like in your church or school. there different levels. i think we will see different levels. the challenge is how to make it out to mean something. you need all of these pieces. you are going to rummage sales and picking up this and that that people contribute. how does that turn into the sustained campaign the administration has committed to doing? and not just for a month. this is a multiyear commitment long after people have lost interest in the headlines. >> what is the latest number? about 190 airstrikes we have flown so far? has that made any significant difference that you can tell? >> i think the notion of

degrading the group, remember we degrade and destroy isis. for our allies, it has been effective. the release of isis control of the dam and other infrastructure, very important. the beginnings of hitting supply lines, probably important longer term. the real question is we can do this in iraq. you can imagine what scenario in iraq looks like with the peshmerga fighting along with us. what does it look like when it crosses the syrian border? i think that is the tricky military, political, social conundrum here. also, in terms of the coalition, it is important symbolically to

have these countries involved militarily. but it also is critical to have the sunni arab states behind the u.s. going after the ideology and funding. this is where turkey becomes very important, qataris and kuwaities. and providing a patina of legitimacy in the heart of the middle east for what is to happen. this is not going to be a month-long effort. this is going to be years in the making if we are to really destroy this group. >> two other important pieces for the sunni states. one is persuading the sunni tribes to come back over. one is creating incentives for the government of iraq to be more inclusive. they have been very much ostracized from their neighbors. one thing that is attractive is you can be closer and in a better environment. that is something like a country like saudi arabia can offer the

iraqis. >> this is a moment of opportunity for the u.s. to rejuvenate some of the strained relationships it has had and to serve in a leadership role that the region has been thirsty for. not that we put thousands of troops on the ground, but that the u.s. serves as the quarterback aligning forces to go after this group. the world and the region is hungry for u.s. leadership. the question is whether we can do it credibly and whether we have staying power. >> you're close with the president. you have interviewed him numerous times. you have been with him on good days and bad. it took a while for him to get to where he is now. talk about that. i am amazed to hear him in his recent speech.

he has come a ways. >> i looked at the david remnick interview from last january. one of the key takeaways was something obama said about how we are swimming in the rapids of the river of history and he takes the long view. he is writing the paragraph now. that is how his presidency will be seen, as a paragraph. these are not going to go away with my presidency or in the next. he would rather take his time and take a more cautious approach. when you look back, in august, some of his messages and statements have hurt him now and hurt the credibility of this administration, whether it was

saying we don't have a strategy, whether it was in the same press conference saying our goal is to degrade and defeat isis and then saying they're are manageable problems. it reminded me of the attitude and issues obama had before the first debate with mitt romney. one is of his advisers at the time said he was suffering from presidency disease and had kind of going through the motions and checked out. through august, that was the rhetorical approach he was taking to isis. for him and his advisers, that primetime speech and his speech at nato, they knew they had to change the language they were using and come out much more forcefully and send a stronger signal to the international community, to congress, and the american people. >> one of the things i find

interesting -- i have seen a lot of administrations. you get into the second term of every administration and there is always one or two people that leave. they did not like what happened. they write these books and so forth. i can't remember when as many people in the national security area -- i mean, yesterday on "60 minutes" you heard leon panetta. you have had gates come out. hillary clinton has said she disagreed with the president. we know martin dempsey, jim jones, the former national security advisor, has not been that complementary. what do you make of this? >> so in defense of the president, just because something is not working does not mean something else would have worked better. we consistently have that

problem in the middle east because there are lots and lots of stupid ideas. sometimes we do the stupid things. but it is not to say anything other than the stupid idea would have turned out better. that said, this is an administration where even on the inside people complained this is a very tiny circle who make all the decisions. there is a lots and lots of debate. people get tucked into these endless meetings, and then the decision is made when two people are in the room. i think that has created an environment -- >> who do you think is the president's most influential advisor on foreign policy? >> i have never been in that small meeting. i can't tell you. what people say is the president

remains closest to dennis mcdonagh and valerie jarrett weighs in on a lot of issues. the speechwriter has a mind meld with him. whether susan rice is in that circle, i don't know. >> you have not mentioned john kerry, secretary of state. >> john kerry is not here very much. he is not, honestly. proximity matters. when i was working in the state department in the early years of the bush administration, colin powell was terrified to leave the country. he thought if he left the country, suddenly the policy would change. he would not leave. >> that did not seem to bother henry kissinger.

>> what you see is an erosion of trust and confidence. you also see this in the stories about the split between military leadership and the president. i think the president and his inner circle have been trapped by their political narrative, of not wanting to be the bush administration, learning the lessons of iraq, and in that way being sort of captured by inaction, not that all inaction is advisable. they've really been captured by inaction. i think there has been frustration at the top level there has not been more strategic vision. the redline debate with respect to syria, i am not sure the president realized how strategically relevant that moment was. john kerry has issued an indictment against the assad regime for chemical weapons, sues a justification for

war. the president countered his own redline, undercut his secretary of state, and i think begin a cycle of growing mistrust and lack of confidence among his senior team. i think you are seeing reflections of that in what you described. >> when it comes to the decision to not arm syrian rebels, they were digging their heels in. there was a story last week quoting some off-the-record sessions he had with journalists. even then he said he defended the time it took to vet the rebels. they look at this and say in hindsight this is not the silver bullet. they can't say this, but it was a few months later the u.s.,

through covert operations, began arming moderate rebels. so they said it was important to take that time to vet them. to his point, this is a tight inner circle. when they do reach out, one of the biggest criticisms is there is never any followthrough. the president has a bunch of former national security aides, advisers, who came to dinner a couple of nights before the big primetime speech. it is not just a matter of having them come to the white house to listen, but whether or not there's going to be any followthrough and followup. >> do you have any disagreement with jon in who are the people closest to the president? and who would you say are the most influential in foreign policy? >> i would put susan rice in their and samantha powell.

but in the white house day to day, probably dennis mcdonough and ben rhodes. >> let's talk about this new group we are talk -- hearing about. all of a sudden, this name surfaces. who are these people and where did they come from? >> this is the al qaeda senior leadership caravan that moved from afghanistan and pakistan into syria, in part to take advantage of the chaos and to plan from syria attacks against the west. cbs news broke a story. the reality is the group that is most lethal and focused on the west is not necessarily isis. it is this al qaeda group which is linking other elements of the al qaeda constellation.

linking the master bomb maker in yemen with other parts of the network. in some ways these guys are becoming an operational and strategic core for a new al qaeda universe. that is why officials are worried about them. >> is the reason the president is so circumspect or so focused on listing what we are not going to do -- just thinking about what he just said. was it, i just don't want to be the bush administration? is that is what is going on here? >> i think getting involved in

in iraq in an open-ended way, the biggest mistake in the last half-century, that's true. the alternative to it, how do we think about terrorism from what is truly strategically important. one of my concerns about the way the administration approaches it is often times who want to get the language right. i'm not sure there is the same commitment to the policy followthrough on the language. you need to set the language so you can set the bar. elliot abrams is probably the best person i have seen a government being able to set the language in government. what feels to me to be happening is in a lot of cases, there's a lot of focus on exactly what the language is and the policy doesn't always follow to it.

we had the president's drone speech, a few months ago, in many ways, with the speech on isis. i'm not sure they are doing as well as they need to on understanding strategically where they need to go. they had a year ago a big middle east policy review, and, notably, nobody involved was outside the white house and nobody had ever lived in the middle east. >> very interesting. talking about communicating, juliana, you've done a lot of work on this. juliana has become kind of our expert on jihadist social media. >> i have a lot of new twitter followers.

>> it is amazing how sophisticated they are. >> isis has its own media arm. they are behind a lot of the savvy and well-produced videos we are seeing. they just released last week a 55-minute video, it is all shot in hd, looks straight out of hollywood. and it had one thing the intelligence community really took note of, was it had an american at the end, an american isis fighter in syria overseeing syrians dig their own graves, and then he killed them. one of the reasons why he had this sophisticated operation, one, it is that it is propaganda. they brought more western fighters and they bring their knowledge as well.

we have french jihadists reaching out in french to french individuals. german to germans, brits to brits. i had a crazy experience last saturday or two saturdays ago when i was in the newsroom and we started to get word that there was another isis beheading video, that was about to be released. i had uncovered this twitter handle called jihadmatchmaker. and i went to see anybody who had been mentioning it, and i clicked on somebody and i saw that they were teasing out a new video that was coming. and within a few minutes, they posted a link to that video, and a few minutes later, they posted a link that said it's up on

youtube and the link to youtube. so the other side of this story is that you have youtube, facebook, twitter, and what is the responsibility of these companies to try to crack down on their use of social media to get their message across? facebook has done a better job of that, but then they went to a russian competitor, and over the last couple of weeks, it got a little better at cracking down as well. there is also a counterargument that the intelligence community makes which is we don't have the intelligence on the grounds, so this is how we are able to track these guys and get more information about them. it really is remarkable to see the advances they have made and how they might be going about editing these videos. they are clearly shot with very sophisticated cameras. someone threw out the possibility that they can be in chatrooms and talking in the

chatrooms about how to be editing these videos. >> do these people actually meet people on these matchmaker-- a jihadist who likes to cut people's heads off would like to meet girl -- >> we asked the very same question. we were tipped off to this site, we didn't have it completely verified. however, you go on and see that these guys are actually using it , there was one guy that said something like, hook up brother up and send other twitter handles for other jihadists. going through that twitter handle took us to the new video. they are on it and using it. >> this is a group that has employed sexual savory and have taken over territories.

it is a movement that is well-organized and knows how to get followers. the multimedia approach is one of the most open campaigns you have seen of any terrorist group. 400 pages laying out, all of their attacks for a particular year, broken down by region. not just of the headings and brutality, but how they are trying to govern and demonstrate legitimacy and engaged in patrols in mozul. this is an all-out multimedia efforts to gain legitimacy and terrorized their enemies. >> there is a personalization to this which we've never seen before. it is unprecedentedly sophisticated ways. not just on a chat room, but reaching out to you wherever you are in whatever language you

speak and bringing you onboard. >> they have these 60-second videos and one of them showed us a zealot and in syria going around and handing out ice cream to little children. it shows the softer side and a way to say that we are not all beheadings and blood and guts. come join the fight. >> let's step back a little bit and talk about iraq right now. the new prime minister is trying to put together a new government. how is that going? >> slowly. [laughter] the iraqi government negotiations are slow, full of threats, full of uncertain progress and the failure to put things together. i wish i were more surprised, but it seems to me that the

normal of politics in iraq is the kind of messy politics we are seeing. >> do either of you think this new government can actually be more inclusive, that you can field an army and provide ground forces, ground combat operations, that we could support with airstrikes? >> i think you can rejuvenate the iraqi military force. i think that is doable. i think the real question for the new government is, can you reverse the sense of bitterness and disillusionment among the sunni tribes that have bought into the idea of putting their lives and communities at risk and felt very much abandoned by the maliki government. there is lingering resentment and disillusionment there. and even after the new

government was formed, you've heard sunni tribal leaders and others talk about that not being enough. can the government be inclusive, but can there be a rejuvenation of the sons of iraq? that you begin to see inorganic countermovement and fighting force in western a rack. those tribes also sort of crossed the border and so isis has erased the border between iraq and area. some of these tribes exist along those borders as well. >> one of the other challenges follows directly with what juan were saying, a spectacular sense of entitlement that people have, that we are the key and therefore we have to get this much. you end up sharing 300% of the pie. and there's not enough pie to go around. getting people's expectations down the size is a real

political challenge, and that is part of why you can't rush this because everybody comes in with this stratospheric sense of entitlement. >> yesterday we had a roundtable and joe lieberman was there. he said we should just go ahead and attack assad and get it over with. and disable their air force, crater all their air fields, just do it. if you were sitting with the president, one of the advisers that suggested that, what would you say? >> la, la, la, la, la. [laughter] >> mine would be a little different. i don't think you open the gates of damascus to islamic

marauders, but i think you can triangulate here. they are known for the ability to do multiple things at once. the u.s. the approach to things is very linear or binary. we can ensure that what we do doesn't legitimize assad and his rule long-term i'll also attacking isis. keep in mind he has traded with them and allow them some buffers. he has attacked the free syrian army at think you can do some strategic things. not an all-out bombardment but things like attacking the airbase taken over by isis, where they got military weaponry, fighter jets, blow it to smithereens so that they don't have it or the free syrian army for later.

let's defend the free syrian army around aleppo, with the last bastion of what the free syrian army has held territory. they are under assault from the government and isis. let's look at the artillery. i think you can be creative without opening up all-out war. >> i wonder under what pretext of legal justification would you have for doing a lot of these things. if we were to take down the assad government, we would then be thinking about how to prevent the slaughter of 2 million alouites who certainly would feel vulnerable. this idea that we are one step away from breaking the logjam, and sometimes you break the logjam and all hell breaks loose. >> and sometimes you do nothing and hundreds of thousands --

>> i totally agree. >> and a worse nightmare is emerging. there are multiple bad options. >> i think there are bad options and worse options. >> and they did not change that much from a year ago when obama was faced with a chemical attack and deciding whether or not to try to take out a thought that way. one of the reasons they didn't is because they didn't know what would come the next day and that question still exists. >> i want to go to questions in the audience and while you're thinking, tell us why is isis different from anything we have confronted here. >> they have more men, materiel, and resources and an established safe haven in the heart of the middle east in a way that al qaeda has only imagined and the world we have not seen before. the danger is they cannot only inspire foreign fighters, we have seen plots in australia and other plots disrupted around the world, but they can also find inspiration in a new platform for this global movement.

to continue to hold territory. we saw the syrian kurdish refugee problem because they are pushing in the northeast in syria. they overran some iraqi military . they are not stopping. they run a war economy and use the same smuggling routes that they have tapped into it. and they are flush with money. >> please tell us who you are. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i am from syria. i moved here a couple of months ago.

i want to be a devil's advocate. lucky to know the americans' point of view but i want to tell you what the syrians or muslims say. for america, they are helping the world. they are getting rid of terrorism. but for the rest of the islamic world, there is a country attacking a muslim people. the owners of the u.s. government are treating with, let's say, the symptoms, not the root of the problem. they did it in afghanistan, iraq iraq, and now they are doing it in syria. people just fighting in the mountains, we are seeing them on social media. i am very educated and i can understand the reasoning behind the american intervention.

the rest of the syrians are not and they are using that in the propaganda. what my question is, i didn't mean to take so much time. what is the american government policy in terms of media justifying this intervention? for the rest of the islamic world or in general, they believe that isis is created by the cia. this theory is dominating. "any error at website and you will see that. the same thing with al qaeda, the same thing with radicals. my background is arabic islamic, they are driven by an ideology. this ideology is if you kill those people you will see much worse than those people because they have the ideology. if you compare al qaeda with isis, both having the same goal, they are competing for who is the worst.

if you eliminate isis, you will see much worse people because in order for the new group to earn legitimacy, they need to prove that the previous people are not doing enough to support islam. i wonder about the media and what you're doing to address the arab world. thank you. >> first, i don't think we are very good at persuading people that we come in peace for the muslim world, and it is partly because there are so many well-developed operations and so

deeply held feelings that the u.s. does come with an agenda against islam. i also think that we shouldn't want to be loved. i think we should explain what we're doing and why we're doing it, and demonstrate the sincerity of our actions. if people want to say the united states that treated isis -- assad was desperate for an enemy like isis, because that creates precisely the opponent he wants to fight against. who do you really want to win? side with me against these monsters. and i think there is a lot of money either coming directly out of damascus or implicitly permitted by damascus to allow these guys to have traction. you can talk about it. i'm not sure you will persuade people. i think the united states as a government is miserable at keeping secrets. it is absolutely incapable of having a secret strategy. we can't do it. i think we should be clear about what we are doing and ultimately not get too involved with the approval rating of the united

states in a country like egypt. you talk about what you're doing, you leave it where it is, and part of our goal should be if people are equally better leave against the united states, make them neutral and grudging let's try to capture that as a success. they can go bitter and violent and for a lot of people, that is a big step. >> i've heard a counternarrative as well, deep resentments and the syrian population for what is felt to be abandonment from the west. it is a dammed if you do, if you don't approach which is often the case in middle east policy. i think that's why the administration has put so much stock on coalition building and on legal and international legitimacy. i think we are terrible at trying to counter violent extremism and the ideology.

the most credible voices don't sit in washington and new york. they sit in baghdad, cairo, and beirut. >> my question is about the organization. a couple months ago, there was news in pakistani media from saudi arabia and troublemakers that pakistan used to send -- being directed in the syria area. i ask this question to the general. he said this is all propaganda. we have been telling america for a couple of decades that they will not get anything out of afghanistan.

a person will tell you it is pakistani killing other americans. my question to you is this -- if they are really that kind of evil thing, why didn't we go after them? if they are not, maybe we have to learn a lot from them because one penny equal to $100, they oy are a lot more effective. you understand the question. >> absolutely. i think there are complicated relationships across the board here. actress and is a great example, ande clearly the isi pakistani intelligence military has seen the depth in those forcesnd use as part of their national security. that has been in direct opposition to the u.s. pakistan hasime, been an ally of the u.s. in

other situations. the same goes for qatar. is a balance in the relationship, and part of it is having open and honest conversations, holding these regimes to account, but realizing we cannot go it alone. >> thank you very much. berg, formally with the state department. role of the clerics in terms of discrediting isil? and nothing inn, the carotid says that you can rob banks or behead people or trade women in the sex trade? it take to have

islamic clerics make public statements and discredit them as criminals? seen some of that already. this started in 2003 when the were's themselves suffering terrorist attacks and they really began to line up the cleric establishment. we certainly have seen more of that. i just spoke to someone today who was in saudi arabia last week. he said, you know, the government is scared. the clerics are lining up. people are not so hostile to the islamic state, but the government and the cleric establishment certainly is. if you look at the seeds of al qaeda's ideology, if you remember, in 2001, there was a germ of jihadthis would would -- jihadism

spread to muslims around the world. i think they have underestimated the state relationship, the clerical establishment, and i totally agree with you. clerics torole for discredit this. what i hear from people who know much more about islam than i do of isis isology somewhat more mainstream than other jihadist ideologies have been. of slavery oferms women and the murders in all these other things, there is ample argument in islam that absolutely atrocious, and i think we are seeing it and will continue to see as part of this effort that recommendation.

>> i'm sorry. >> no, go ahead. >> thank you. we have heard, and you have confirmed, too, obviously, that there is an endgame. the grade and destroy -- degrade and destroy isil. 190 sorties.n in the cause of the campaign, there were several thousand two lett a third rate nme to kos of ago. now we have 190 sorties. likeehicle, something that. this progression at this rate with the syrian army that we -- or rather the syrian moderate fighters, it will take more than one year to train them. the iraqis that you illustrate, we're not exactly sure how long it will take them to organize,

to gain enough credibility to convince the sunni tribal leaders to, board and reengage search, if you well. given all this, there is an endgame. military forces committed. we do not know who is on our side at the moment. may be mostly symbolic value as opposed to substantive value. who is going to fight the war? which is not a war, we are told. the president says it will be more akin to yemen or somalia. no american woods on the ground. 190 sorties. is that serious? >> i think that is an excellent question. [laughter] it ist of the danger here execution and strategy and half

measures. who hasa president staked his claim on ending wars. right? the tides of war receiving. inhas not wanted to invest the war. term war in his presentation to the nation. he has not wanted to commit to boots on the ground other than special advisers and spotters. i think at the end of the day, we will need allies to come along with us, willing to fight and die for this cause, understanding what our limitations are. >> there is a lady in the back here. this is going to have to be pretty close to the last question. a senior adviser and instructor to the u.s. marine corps on counterinsurgency in both iraq and afghanistan, one of the things that struck me most is we

say the right thing, as one of the gentleman on the podium said. we very rarely are seen to be doing the right thing. very often that is manifested in all these so-called experts we have sent particularly to iraq, but also afghanistan as well. experts with no expertise, confined to mega bases and cities and do not know what we're dealing with. we need to be within a community, the community is that have grudges, grievances, and frustrations against their own establishment. sadly though, we have abrogated that role in either being unwilling or unable to communicate how we think and feel and the vacuum there has fanatics. over by the that has been the bane of my

existence in 12 and a half years in iraq and afghanistan. i do not know how anyone will address that. the boardeen across with two very different administrations. thank you. again, it comes down to this issue -- i think we are very physicalle with chemistry. what you described is this new was psychology and politics and have yetnd i am -- i to see a bureaucracy that is very good at institutionalizing knowledge of that. the u.s. intelligence community has remarked -- you have to go from knowledge to wisdom. you can know lots of facts, but how do you know what to do with it? as an institution, it is hard. the think tanks are all about letting people do things with the idea that a lot of different people do a lot of different things and somehow out of the

middle, you will get to the right place, but no individual decision is necessarily absolutely the right decision. i think what your experience to says to me is we have to the nation, and how deep into this can we get? we know what outcome we want. what outcome can we produce? if you become too reticent, and a lot of my arab friends have complained the obama administration is much too reticent. you become less relevant. as a country, i think, we have to be better at figuring out do things.n there is some physical chemistry involved. there are times we have to be very precise applying psychology and times when you say, you know what was that is too delicate.

we can't do that. then you compensate and go in a different direct in. i think this is about a world that has become much more complex. there can be global repercussions. today we're still trying to swallow what it is we can do. i think it is going to take us a while to get their. but your experience to me not only highlights -- what we were unable to do in the narrow sense, what you are encountering in afghanistan and iraq, but as you know better than anyone in this room, to get a really smart bureaucracy, a really smart seen aracy, i have not really smart bureaucracy and all my time working with the u.s. government. >> the surge was successful.

it works. >> both administrations admitted at the end of the day at work. >> i have to close here, but i have the rare opportunity to call on someone who has been in washington longer than i have. lloyd was here during the johnson administration and he just raised his hand. lloyd, you may ask the last question. mean to call on you that way. >> i may never get another chance. [laughter] >> i see your purple socks. that is tco. the jonathan, what school has blue socks? >> i honestly. these socks -- these are bishopville socks i got at a papal supply store in rome.

[laughter] >> here's my question. the president has said and it has been ripped needed by others il repeated by others that is or isis constitutes a threat to the middle east, to the region, to others. 71% of the american people last poll believed our country should do something. interesting,ery genuinely interesting to listen to this analysis and some good questions. here is my question and i would like each of you to comment on it. what should the president have done, what should the president do? we will just start with you. >> i'm sorry. [laughter] >> ladies first. there you go. >> i feel less comfortable saying what he should and should not.

ini was with president bush the last four years of his administration. a very difficult time when it felt like we were losing in iraq. it felt like we were losing western pakistan. at a certain point, the president and the country have to commit to real sacrifice and a real fight. that is what we are up against. if we are going to fight a group that has global ambition, that wants to reach and touch the west, that once to attack us -- as and haveo attack jihadil jihad he -- movement, we have to commit. we have to stop saying what we are not going to do. start believing in what we say we're going to commit to. then our allies will really reallyand then we can

pull back like a good quarterback. call the plays, play against the run and know what is going to happen. flailise we're going to around and be caught in a broader quagmire and i think the real danger for the president is, all the things he wanted to avoid are coming to fruition for a lot of action when it mattered , because there are moments of reflection, but there are moments of action and there are strategic windows where action matters more than most. we are running the danger of missing the strategic opportunities. >> i think the administration should recognize the war on terror -- you can call it what you want -- is not over. yes, osama bin laden is dead. but the war on terrorism is still there and it won't be over until the terrorist say it is over. that is simply recognizing reality. i do not think that is going back on your word. that is not saying, well, i do

not want to be the bush administration. they are there. they are trying to kill us. i think we simply have to i think whent. is americans are murdered on television, i don't think it calls for a major response. i think you have to hit back, if i were advising the president, and hit back hard. >> two more things. last august, september the president should have done something demonstrative and humiliating to bashar al-assad. not launching missiles in the middle of the mediterranean, but something that says we can do whatever we want to whenever we want and the reason we are not is because we do not want to. everyone on notice there is not predictability to the u.s. action or inaction. i think that would be helpful.

when you look at isis, you need to look at what happened in the sunni awakening. you have to understand is a lot about politics, a lot about resources, a lot about people feeling very vulnerable, and we have to work to shrink the area were isis can operate. bringing people over, making difficult fields -- deals. there will be a smaller number of people you have to capture or kill and a lot of people will say, you know what? we're going to deal with this new environment. thinking't see us through where this needs to go strategically. gore this needs to strategically some sort of deal whereby the people who are letting these guys operate, whereby the people buying oil from them and doing other things say, we're going to stop, and because we see a better way, i

am not sure we understand where that is going. we keep trying to pound them into the ground, but as long as they have a place to operate, they're going to keep operating. just adding the messaging will be very important. americans are scared. they are seeing americans beheaded on television. the response from the president should be one of leadership, of resistant -- reassuring the american people and being honest. not necessarily getting into the rhetorical semantics game. onre are essentially boots the ground now. it will be up to the president to the honest and admit they need to recalibrate and to not automatically be ruling things out and have a transparent debate in congress as well. >> thank you very much on behalf tcu.

[applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] sent by the pentagon says the airstrikes launched by the u.s. and allies in syria took out key training camps of the islamic state military. this is a map created by the defense department showing where those air took place. an official says it is too soon being whether an attack planned was enough to take out a .roup the lieutenant general says that the group was nearing the completion fan -- phase of a attack against europe or the u.s.. >> this is video of some of those airstrikes as they took place last night.

>> there has been reaction from members of congress. mitch mcconnell released this statement.

senate democratic leader harry reid offers this -- >> we would like to know what you think about u.s. airstrikes against isis in syria. a conversation is underway on our facebook age. william wellman says "let's be honest, world war iii is beginning. the facebook conversation will continue throughout the day and you can send us your thoughts #cspanchat. on if bipartisan panel of national security experts. expert peter bergen

and former advisers to the state department and national security council took part in the discussion. >> thank you. thank you very much for being here this morning and for being invested in our nation's security. you are all familiar with our panelists, but i will give you a brief thumbnail sketch of each of their back rounds and then we will launch into our discussion. not only the targeting of isis, but also a group, a group very launching attacks against the u.s. peter bergen, immediately to my left, is the director of the security program in america. he is a cnn analysis -- analyst.

about written more books al qaeda than anyone else. thank you for being here. from the johns hopkins school of international studies. thank you for being here as well. and our guest from the islamic world project with the brookings institution. peter, i would like to begin with you. when we look at the overnight strikes, what caught my attention was the degree to which we had information about a in syria.roup for a layperson, what is it and how does it affect western targets overseas? >> thank you, catherine, thank you for the invitation to write this report. i just want to acknowledge my co-authors in the audience

before i answer your question. u.s. officials have been tracking a group of guys with long rolodexes for over a year. been in the tribal areas of pakistan into syria. they are an older generation. we mentioned them in this report. we had to finish this up sometime ago because the publication's schedule. it is an ancient word for the area that is now afghanistan, or ron -- iran. this is essentially al qaeda central moving into the conflict. simply a historical fact,

if you think of isis as being al qaeda in iraq, and has never attacked an american target since 2005 when they attacked free american hotels. that group is that group, much more than isis. that can change. we had a new audiotape from one of its leaders, citing people in the west who had done loan wolf attacks. >> this is the concrete threat to the u.s. in the aviation sector, in the way that isis has not cracked that threshold? >> i think that is true. it has been nine years since al qaeda launched the attack. it was a spectacular failure, because on most of the victims -- almost all of the victims were jordanian.

there was a very unusual statement -- it was almost like an apology. it was not a real apology. yeah, i think that is exactly right, catherine. this is a group that has the track record. of course, there are indications they have linked up with either the people in al qaeda in the arabian peninsula and they are sharing bomb making and that explains the strike. >> i want to bring marion, because one of the things i have learned through my reporting, there is a bomb maker in yemen -- this is the person who is the expert with nonmetallic explosives. he was behind the underwear bomb that failed in 2009 over detroit. also the printer cartridge bombs the following year. i think my panelists would agree the u.s. intelligence community believes that he has been very persistent in trying to develop

or evolve technology to circumvent the new security put in place. my question to you is, that he haserstand trained apprentices to go into syria, what is the intent? is it to find mules to carry the bombs? in layman's terms, how would you explain that? >> to understand the nature of the threat we're facing from and also syria, which is involved with the group, you need to see that his is one of ae few times we have watched different affiliate in the inater al qaeda network order to carry out a specific

threat against the united states. we have other sources we can look at and say, they have been quite grating or coordinating with each other on local issues. there are all sorts of reports members in africa or even in yemen helping out with fights there, and you have aqim pretty much africa, cordh knitting with different grips. this is the first time we have against thefic plot united states where two different groups are coordinating with each other. >> but this is not the only place we are seeing this. we have also had a threat from --together to the united states for their attacks on isis. this is again an unprecedented that we have these huge , hugengs of affiliate

groupings that are called by us affiliates. they call themselves branches. threatening attacks against the u.s. >> how do you make the distinction between a group like osan, which i would describe as traditional al qaeda, or ties to the old guard of al qaeda, to syria, which at least shares the same goal as the united states and its allies, which is to topple the regime of a sought? -- assad? minor minorityy report, and i am sure they will correct me if i say what i'm going to say. >> we will jump in first and we will bring you in. yeah, yeah.

i'm doing this all wrong. go-ahead. >> yeah, no problem. the namehorasan group, we have been told of this group -- i do not know if that is what they call themselves or not -- as part of the organization syria that is a direct affiliate year oreda for the last so. they were part of the islamic state in iraq and broke away. now it answers directly to al qaeda. what i have read in the media, a lot of us are just getting up to speed on this group -- it is part of the old guard. many of its members were part of the al qaeda branch camped out any ron. we do not know a lot about them. we know a lot from private al qaeda memos that have come out over the years that they did

maintain a major logistics hub in iran. it has been said in the past a lot of these guys were under house arrest in iran. i do not know if that was the case. they seem to have had a lot more previously.an it seems like a number of these members are the ones who went horosan or eastern iran into syria and are coordinating with al qaeda. these guys are used to taking orders from al qaeda and doing its bidding. -- to youresting question, the united states government, and the few statements they have made about , hashorasan group downplayed the fact that it is embedded inside the nusra front.

i do not know what to make about that, but they seem to make a distinction between these external operatives and nusra itself, which seems to be exclusively focused on toppling assad regime. i do not know why that distinction is being made. i only know that it is there. go-ahead. >> i'm so sorry. i find myself in agreement with will on this issue. there is a very tight connection and khorasan group. the airstrikes are not just against isis, but specifically to get the khorasan group, i think is telling. will.agree with this is a group used to taking direct orders from al qaeda central. thatould make an argument

they are al qaeda central members who have relocated themselves to syria. it is very troubling, but it is also not the first time we have seen al qaeda central leadership in places other than afghanistan and pakistan. for instance, in yemen or the arabian peninsula. this is a problem of our definitions. if the two are located and working together, what is the distinction between them? >> peter, i want to bring you win. what does this tell us about the influence of what remains of the al qaeda core? it probably tells us that the in then drone program tribal regions was pretty effective. if you take the same documents

will referred to about -- i think there is an ambiguous relationship al qaeda in iran had with the irani and regime -- ian regime. it was clear that the imam was concerned about the drone program, so much so that he urged al qaeda to move to a province of afghanistan that is heavily wooded and hard for american drones to be effective. so, yeah, one of the themes of this report is al qaeda has diffused, and i think that is a good news and a bad news story there. or its affiliates are present in more countries that were not present in syria until recently. report,ries in this compared to eight and 2008. question for

everyone on the panel, including you -- does diffusion -- is question wea should be concerned about? the commonsense answer is yes. but if you think about it more carefully, at the time when al qaeda was the least diffused in its history, the basically and pakistan, that was when it launched the september 11 attacks. a lot of these al qaeda affiliates are very preoccupied with what is going on locally. as mary just said, you know, if nusra is more focused on the assad regime, is that really a problem for the united states? osan is focused on the united states and that is a problem. it is an interesting question. does the existence of more affiliates create a greater or less threat to be homeland?

>> if i was going to take a question as the moderator -- which i will -- a dangerous play, i would add, i think peter has hit on a excellent point, the al the issue becomes qaeda core to me, based on my research and reporting is much more of a movement or a set of ideas that can be adopted by regional groups who may not share the same in the goal as the u.s. is an enemy. i think you see where it has become more diffuse. at what point does it become a strategic threat to the united states? based on the data in the open source reporting, it seems to cross that threshold when you see in syria how these groups from different regional organizations have made a

decision at some level to work with the focus being, us against the united states. you could make the same argument that boko haram has identified itself with the al qaeda i out -- ideology, but at least it has not taken it to that additional step to target the united states proper, the homeland. but we see this distinction now, aqat,ria specifically with which i think has become one of the manpowerith and training. if you have the will, we have the people to help you execute it. that seems to be where the two , and my reporting. and this is one of the really important elements of this to what extents

does it no longer matter whether qaeda core is al specifically directing plots against the u.s.? in a tactical, pragmatic way. able toif they are provide the inspiration for others to join forces and coordinate that and state, which i would argue seems to be where some ways, and is in ,ore difficult for us to target because it does not rest with a single individual. why don't you come on in? >> the authorization for the use of military force is very al qaeda specific. they are not really in that chain of command.

you still have al qaeda central. as have khorasan group example of what they want to do. you have affiliates that are locally focused. they will still take direction to go international. both locally capable and willing against the attacks united states. then you have a splinter group like, say, the islamic state that has broken away from al qaeda, has the ideology, and is much more locally focused unless we open with a stick. then you have what i call god's little helpers, all of the groups that have popped up everywhere. they have the ideology, but do orders from al qaeda, but are willing to share resources and personnel. then you have the militias that do not have the al qaeda global

but are morelogy, nationally focused. but are willing to take and specific al qaeda members into u.s. policyand the has this and tangle all of these and not all of them are covered by anyone amount. >> can i ask a question? if it is to me, i do not know. -- >> if it is to me, i do not know. >> last night's attack on the khorasan group, that is well within the ambit. essentially the group that attacked us on 9/11, of which the khorasan group is part. now isis, which is devolved from al qaeda, it is less clear. it was interesting to me. the u.s. strikes, there were only u.s. strikes against khorosan. under what --

it seems to me there is some lawyering going on here. , i'm sure, knows the kinds of lawyers that work in the white house and how clever they are. is it really legitimate? there is no u.n. authorization. this is not a nato operation. there is no arab league authorization. this is a coalition of the willing, not a very large coalition, although it has a lot of arabs in it and also the french, which is unusual. so, how kosher as a matter of international law? >> one of the things i think will has pointed out is we have a problem with definitions here, right? what precisely are we saying when we say al qaeda? it has been my assertion all along that this administration amf to the letter of

the law. that defines al qaeda as that group of people who carried out 9/11. it is specifically limited to the few thousand people who belong to al qaeda on 9/11. we have a serious problem with definitions. if you do not redefine what you mean by al qaeda, under the amf, you have no right to carry out strikes against anybody. tore is a separate authority carry out attacks against imminent threat. this could follow that. imminent threat to the united states. al qaeda itself is defined as this tiny little group we have basically wiped out. it reads language like strategic defeat. think, needson, i to be dealt with. >> but when you look at the khorasan group, if you want to be creative in your interpretation of this original or foundational group of al

qaeda, what you can see is there are connections. one lieutenant of bin laden is aqap has beenap, the organization with the individual who has trained them to make explosives and sent them to syria. if you really want to pull the threads, i think you can make the argument there is a connection, although it is the third cousin once removed by marriage or however you want to explain it. there is still that connection. and correct me if i am wrong, l -- hisl-fad predateons to al qaeda 9/11? >> yes. 9/11.predates the larger question is this question of definitions and

distinctions. we are pulling ourselves into -- peter, i circle want to bring you -- when you look at the threat, it is more diffuse. itis under one umbrella, but does not have that top-down, like a fortune 500 leadership anymore. return to this question, because, ok, we are at war with dices, which is divorced itself from al qaeda. has said the administration uses a narrow definition of all this. so, it seems to me when we did the first of strikes, there were two arguments being made by the administration, one of which was argument.t threat the other was the genocide argument.

and both of those are completely onitimate and the president, his article to authorities as commander-in-chief, imminent threat is a very reasonable standard. -- everyone has said repeatedly, jeh johnson, , they arein -- olson not planning an imminent attack on the united states. being used? is the day today that the amf basically covers this? i don't know. it is a basic question that has not been either asked or resolved. >> i do not know why congress is not pressing the administration more. >> i think that they are in shock. i think when they come back from recess, they are going to be a minute.it

>> i imagine there is a legal justification for this under the genocide justification. we have seen about 150,000 kurds and other inhabitants head across it be -- across the border into turkey, fleeing for their lives. i wonder if there has not been a serious threat against that group in northern syria. isis wants to control the borders, because then they control the floor -- the flow of foreign fighters and also is of resources. people do not flee like this in the hundreds of thousands from their homes unless there is a serious rat. there is a serious threat. >> i will like to focus on the threat to the homeland in light of what happened overnight. think that the national terrorism center or the fbi will put out a bulletin saying there could be retaliation for the strikes?

is that one of the issues that has to be considered or factored in when there is an action such as this? and if so, does ice is really have that capability and at what level? >> i don't think they have the capability. just by virtue of the fact that they were supposed to come out with the lone wolf attacks, that is the last play of a desperate terrorist organization that does not have a lot of cards to play. will they develop the capability over time? probably so. particularly if they are getting wound then with any of the other to do anything. >> why is that a distinction with the geography? because they are closer? there are more foreign fighters there? >> exactly. there are thousands of foreign fighters and syria.

people who fewer have gone over. >> when you look at the data, you see, to me, what is a remarkably low number of incidents so far, i've individuals who have traveled to syria and no back to their home countries and launched attacks there. is that because we are at the beginning of the curve year? the beginning of the conflict? we do not know what the unintended consequences may be of our current actions there. or do you believe there is something of play and the psyche of these individuals? if they would carry out an attack, they would refer to do it against syria -- preferred to do it against syria and iraq than in their home countries? guys, and theyse are mostly guys -- although we saw an american female killed in syria. nicole mansfield. an american female who tried to

join isis at the age of 19. for many of these guys, this is a one-way ticket. to theseguys going countries from the u.s. a small number committing suicide. we saw a floridian committed suicide. we saw two americans died for isis. douglas mccain and his colleague. his name has not been confirmed yet. this is a very dangerous war. by the way if you look at the in the iraqid civil war, if you look at the syrian civil war -- that is the same number that took 10 years of the iraqi civil war, which was four times more dangerous than the afghan civil war. very dangerous place debate. people are going over there and they are dying. and they want to die. you know, for the people who are

going over there. that is one factor. another is, we are aware of this problem and this is an incredible report. al qaeda apparently an office in brooklyn on flatbush avenue in the early 1990's. it was called the services office, which is the same name his colleague and called -- basically it was known as the service office. we just did not know the returnees from the afghan war were going to be a problem. we are very conscious of that now. i wrote a column in 2005 saying there would be blowback from the iraq war because of these foreign fighters going in. it just didn't happen. according to a british government assessment, which was provided to me for cnn, there .ere at least 2600 europeans shere are 25 times more brit

than americans. only a dozen americans have joined isis. you can drive from paris to damascus in a few hours -- none at few hours, but it is doable. we are all over this like a wet blanket right now. and every european government. i will add one other point. about, alltalking this happened on the obama administration's watch. you cannot assign -- i think that is one of many reasons why the obama administration is very concerned about this. you can't say the syrian civil war happened under george w. bush. there is a huge governmental thert to -- and i think only real way isis can succeed is what will mentioned, which is encouraging a lone wolf attack by someone who thinks that isis

is great. not someone who has gone to syria, but like this yemeni guy who was arrested in rochester, new york. and by the way, he was an informant. he was not part of a real plot, per se. so, if one of the avenues -- if one of the avenues is to inspire people in the united states who have not made a trip to syria and iraq, that brings me to the next important plank of this discussion, which is the use of social media. wrote about this for years ago, i talked about it as the lifeblood of the new digital the hot -- jihad. beenformation had anecdotal. pre-9/11 you had to have this one-to-one contact to cross the threshold of violence. now it seems if you had grown up

with social media, you are able to establish a much more intimate contact in a virtual way that allows you to cross that threshold, whether it means you may contact and it is enough to drive you to buy that ticket and get yourself to turkey and into syria or to take action a home. , which is often held up as a ultimate case of homegrown terrorism, to me is a real anomaly. welld contacts that are documented. but major hassan was 39 at the time of the fort hood attack, and he had met with him at his mother's funeral. so he had a personal connection. when you look at the homegrown under almost everyone is 30, and the majority are under 25. there is something going on at a fundamental level in terms of how this message is able to reach people.

on yourased observations, is this a way that isis has been able to show it is part of the new generations of >> this is the first social media war. i think that there are some important points to be made. one of the reasons we did not -- social media give us the illusion that we understood what was happening in syria. conventional journalism was not really happening, except with some very honorable exceptions chivers and others. we, the media, were overreliance on social media. we felt we understood. but of course social media is very partisan and social media is very incomplete.

from a journalistic point of view, i think it is a crutch we over relied on. from the isis point of view, of this 55when you look at minute tape claiming al qaeda will establish itself in india, which was total nonsense. a 50 five-minute lecture, a static camera shot. tv.ould not beat look at isis. isis is very good to be. that is why the cable news network's where we work are showing a lot of their material. made aink cnn has decision, a very good one not to air this appalling lecture by the british hostage -- >> [indiscernible] >> good. we need to exercise self-restraint, here, i think, because we do not want to

inadvertently be giving them a platform. certainly social media is very aggressive. >> my feeling is exactly the same as peter. isis knows out to do this. it might be first of all they appeal to a younger generation that is immersed in social media, but the second thing going on here is al qaeda central or the al qaeda leadership has a vision of bemselves as the doers, not speakers. he has a name for himself, the wise man. he is not a charismatic guy, but he is the smartest guy in the room. a very interesting example. it is very poorly done.

output is badly done. but immediately a group claiming to be connected to them carried out an assault against a frigate and a pakistani port and managed to get it out to sea or something, because they had to be stopped by the pakistani navy . then al qaeda put out a statement, a very boring statement, one that was full of all kinds of latitudes, lehman credit for this and saying that this was the first of many attacks. i agree they do not know how to do this anymore. they used to be on the cutting-edge. today they really have fallen behind. but that has not stopped them from being effective. >> effective in what way? toeffective in being able insert people who they had historical relationships with

within groups that have the to attack the united states. i am thinking of the group that is now in syria with the kh orosan. >> there is no doubt a lot of these groups once had simply local kinds of grievances, local objectives, had no reason to be attacking countries with whom they do not have some sort of personal belief. beef.sonal the 1990's, al qaeda has spent time figuring out how to make appeals to other groups. it is really kind of interesting for the later development of qaedawhich became an al affiliate finally in the 2000's.

when you're talking about al qaeda in the indian subcontinent, obviously you're talking about a lot of groups with local grievances, but somehow they have been talked into joining up with al qaeda and their more regional at least vision. >> it seems it has only -- it has almost been a decade we have been talking about al-shabaab in somalia. are naturalized american citizens, but the young men from minneapolis, st. paul traveling over to somalia, joining al-shabaab. but we have not seen the reverse come here. and we saw -- to me, it seemed, peter, i don't know if you would agree, but it seemed to take a long time where it would reach a point where they launched the istgate mall attack, which clearly a western target. as you know, people have been

talking privately about mullah tax in this country since 9/11. attacks in his country since 9/11. >> for a lot of kids -- whether you think the figure is 30 or 40, there was a one-way ticket. had three or four american suicide attackers from minneapolis in al-shabaab. some of them just got killed in the war. it was also a very dangerous war. some of them got arrested in african countries or western countries as they try to come back. and none of them have conducted or tried to conduct any kind of terrorist attack in the united states. a number of them are still missing. they may be dead. of concernedt customersback to 2007 a lot of concern, if you go back to 2007, about this cohort.

there were americans who went to somalia for nationalist reasons and hooked up with al-shabaab. people know to syria from every ethnic group and it is a much more ethnic, sectarian battle. we have only had one attack in the west during the syrian war, jewish museumhe in brussels, which killed four we haven't seen -- we've only seen one attack so far. i think that goes to the fact that every government is extremely -- the germans, french, the british, they're very concerned about this. hey are trying their best to get a handle on this problem. >> i want to open it up for questions. if you have a question, raise your hand. identify yourself. as my old journalism professor used to say, eight