that took us a while to get them to be effective, to be frank about it. and one of the things that made them very effective during a surge period where general petraeus changed the changes on the battlefield. platoons side by side and that dimension increased the capability of the force because they could see what right looked like. that force grew rather dramatically and we were there multiple weeks throuout 2007 and 2008, the three us on ide of the table. and that was an effective force. and i can tell you for a fact because i saw it with my own eyes, i saw battalion commanders, brigade commanders and division commanders distinguish themselves in combat and under significant stress.

and we felt good about that force. we were saying wow. they finally got it together. what happened to that force? so much attention has been placed on malaki's malice and what he did to underminimum the political opponents, he destroyed that force. he saw the distinguished leaders who were accomplished as a result of their performance on the battlefield and people devoted to them, he saw them as threats to him politically. so that force is not there, the one we used to have. he put in his political cronies and pranks who didn't have the military experience. getting that leadership back and others who are willing to have that kind of commitment and confidence, that takes time to fix. but the fact we did have it at one time and it was pretty good, tells you that there is

something there that we can work with and get it back there. whether that can be done in time is another issue. senator king: in 2007, 2008, how many americans were in iraq. general keane: we had somewhere in the neighborhood about 130,000 in iraq. and that's how that force -- but what i'm saying to you is, when we finished, when we had completed our involvement in iraq, the >> it is combat.

we forget about those pilots. with the recent delta force missions, that's boots on the ground. that is combat. there is still this narrative that somehow we are done. general, what i wanted to ask you first of all, this narrative, which is a false one

do you think it has inhibited our ability to develop a robust strategy? do we need other forces on the ground? and yet, we are competing with the narrative from the house that says, no, no, we are done. and that would be a limiting factor to developing a strategy that ultimately would do what we want it to do which is protect america's national security interests? general keane: when i look at it and try to speculate about what is driving some of our decisions , what is driving our narrative, one of the things i have observed since i have been closer to it in recent years than when i was when i was a younger officer is that most administrations, democratic or republican, have a tendency to overreact of what took place in the previous administration.

and this one is no exception to that. making it a principle of the administration to a guarantor that we will not be involved in any military activity in the middle east or in south asia that could lead to another protracted war. and i think that's probably a good principle. but the issue is, that should not trump what's necessary to do given the fact that isis represents a new organization with new leadership, a new vision in terms of its global and regional strategy and that it is a barbaric organization committing genocide, assassination, enlavement and raping of women, as we all know

and that it is fully intent on conducting a religious war based on their ideology. and we cannot let the rearview mirror of iraq and afghanistan so disincentivize us to deal with the reality of what this is. and i'm convinced that the american people, when we inform them and we educate them and we take them through this, i mean i dealt with the bush administration, they never truly explained what radical islam is and why it's so dangerous. we never took apart the ideology. we never truly fashioned a strategy to deal with it in a comprehensive way and here we sit with the same problem today. >> i think that's a great point and something that i think -- my

own view is that you are directly on point. if we level with the american people and talk about the threats, talk about the strategy that is important and many of you have been raising that, i think everybody recognizes once we lay that out what we would or wouldn't have to do to address it. let me ask a related question from -- for mr. kagan. you written on the long war, the idea that sometimes we look what's going on with isis and other issues in the middle east and think, we are going to have this done in 18 months, 20 months, maybe a couple of years, do you think that there's an importance to having the leadership, both in terms of congress, but particularly the executive branch talk more broadly and again level with the american people about that this might be a generational conflict.

this might be akin to the cold war where we have to lay out a broad strategy and your point early on about the need for a strategic concept is so important. lay out a strategy that the executive branch and legislative branch and the american people can get behind and then execute it. and level with the american people that this might not be done in 18 months. so would have any of you -- dr. kagan, i know you have written about the long war. feel free to talk about that. when you talked about the strategic concept, what is it, 20 seconds left, that's a big topic, but point us to the direction of your wrigs or principles, that would be helpful. dr. kagan: this is a generational struggle that we're in at least. >> we don't talk about it, do

we? dr. kagan: the point you opened with is an important one, the administration's narrative is that we are ending the wars and impossible to develop a cohesive strategy for fighting the wars. these are battlefronts on a common war that is going to last for a long time and we don't get to end it unless we win. you don't get to decide -- we may not be interested in war but war is interested in us and this is going to be a problem and we need to level with the american people as you say, as a basis for developing any kind of strategy. i totally agree with you. >> we need to find what we want to achieve. quite often over the last 14 years, we define our objectives in terms of what we are going to counter and defeat. that's important. but what has been missing i

think comprehensively, whether it's in iraq, syria or afghanistan is the definition of what we actually need to leave behind in those societies, how we help others help themselves. i do believe at certain points president bush did this, certain points president obama does this, talk about the long-term nature. if you look at their documents as the administration used to say about afghanistan and iraq we are going to end it. extend it into who will be the next president. your point is terribly point and i have written a book about this, too. it's important because for our own society, there is a new generation called millenials that are actually this year larger than the baby boomers. our leaders aren't messaging in a cohesive way and part of it is because of the partisanship we have in our politics.

and i'm a strong centrist and we need to bring the american people along with us and something senator mccain has said earlier and before is that the debate we need to be having on the authorization on the use of military force, action on it. this is a moment which has not been seized. you can criticize the administration or criticize whom ever in congress, there has been this muddle. and we actually haven't defined for the american public in the way that fred and others have argued here, that the u.s. has a special leadership role in the world. countries in the region are still looking to us to actually do more. our values are better, but what happened to the battle of ideas? we had that debate for a couple of years after 9/11 and kind of rediscovered about that, but our attention deficit disorder and our society and as leaders in

congress, we have the responsibility to talk about this in a sustained way. >> we have all had one round but if anybody has a second round. i'm going to seize the moment here to continue for a few moments. senator kaine: significant armed troops. qatar said if there is significant ground troop presence from the united states, and we are recruiting bonn ansa for isil. the meeting occurred with the saudis, so they are willing at least somewhere to take some significant military action to deal with threats in their own region but said u.s. ground troops against isil would be problematic. i didn't read that to say not even one or under no circumstances, but they were

very wary about the notion of u.s. ground troops. we are trying to work that out on the foreign relations committee as we think about an authorization.

are they wrong or if they are right, how would you square that with u.s. presence, u.s. should port should mean? >> i actually think for all of the criticisms of the obama administration strategy, some of which i share, this is the one component that didn't exist before. it has been underutilized. the summit last week, though there were news articles about it, there is a conversation to try to build on what can we do in partnership with them. if there is one thing we should have learned from 2003 to 2010 or 2011 in iraq, yes, u.s. forces can have an important impact on the security situation there, but there are downsides

to having a visible presence. i don't think anyone on the panel was talking about understandably given unforced errors. the regional dynamic has shifted quite a lot. the region u.s. in a very visible presence on the ground does have significant downsides for their own legitimacy with their own population. the region is taking action in what it sees as its own self-interest in terms of a multi region. honed in what my he can per tease and focus is, is working with those reliable partners from jordan to the united arab emirates to saudi arabia and the kurds and some of the iraqis to take what has been a

significantly large amount of resources and activity and channel towards more constructive purposes. i don't see that happening in yemen or yet in syria. and i don't see that happening in many other theaters. the basic answer to your question and the leaders you spoke with are reflecting a very popular view at the popular level in their countries as well. they understand that for whatever happens in the iraq war , the u.s. is better sort of seen as a backbone of support as opposed to out in the front. dr. kagan: we need to distinguish between the ideal

and reality. it would be better for regions to be involved with the caveat that we do have a regional war going on and the regional actors we are talking about are on one side of that. we have to think about what the iranian reaction would be. i don't think we would enjoy that very much. and i think it might be worse than the iranian reaction to the deployment of u.s. forces in there. it is a complicated dynamic. in the world of reality, the jordanians don't have the resources and the military aren't capable of providing the kind of assistance to iraq. they don't have it in their force structure. senator kaine: how about the turks? dr. kagan: the turks might be able to provide some of it but no one provides the capability that the u.s. provides including the turks and they would be dependent on us. again, i'm not sure that the optics of the return of the ottoman empire would be better

than the optics of having a limited amount of ground troops on the ground. the regional leaders are expressing an ideal version of a strat by -- strategy you would like to see. an amuf is where micro manages on what forces can and cannot be sent and it is up to the president to choose how to fight a war that congress authorizes. in these circumstances, it would constrain the deployment of ground forces which is exeemly necessary, would be extremely damaging. >> this reminds me of the myth i heard in iraq about u.s. forces were the generator of the antibodies that caused the nurns.

it was a misreading of what was going on in iraq and the drivers of the fight. we have to be focused on what are our u.s. interests and how do we defeat this enemy. and the seeds of strategic failure are found in failing to define that enemy, define our interests, the costs and the risks. and if we do those things and we think about our interests, it will drive us to engage more seriously than we have in my mind. the u.s. presence in iraq is not going to dramatically increase that foreign fighter flow. it is being driven by a range of issues. and the different types of recruits that are being pulled in. the driver within iraq is not the u.s. presence, it's shia domination, it's the fear for their future and their own lives

and lack of political inclusion, et cetera. that's the issue we need to get our head around. senator kaine: -- general keane: i agree what everybody said here and we talk past each other on this issue. no one here certainly is advocating that we should have ground units that are occupying towns and villages and securing them and therefore protecting them from isis attack that would put us right in the mainstream of defending against isis. i think that's unnecessary an it would be a mistake. but also when we have a policy that says no boots on the ground, that doesn't make any sense either, because it denies us from having advisers that have a role to play. it denies us from forward air controllers having a role to

play and other capabilities that are unique to us and we elaborated on what they are. they would make a difference in what the 60 nations have agreed to do, which is support the iraqi ground forces, as imperfect as they are. but let's give them a better hand to play than what we are doing. and i don't believe there is a single nation that would object to anything of what we are describing are enablers that would make a difference. second, when it comes to syria i think this is the difference. and if you spoke to them about that, you know what their view is about assad. we have dealt with that in their regime and they know full well to deal with isis and syria,

this is going to take a ground force and they would have to contribute to that ground force. i would think that they would logicically ask us to participate in that with them. i don't think we would necessarily have to be the largest contributor, but i think we would have to participate. and i think they would want us too, because of our experience and our capabilities if we would actually lead it. maybe not. but i think those two things would probably be on the table for discussion. and i think it's reasonable that that kind of allocation of u.s. capability and leadership to deal with isis and syria, is in fact an eventuality.

>> senator blumenthal, do you have questions for the panel? senator blumenthal: thank you for being here and thank you for your eloquent remarks and i was here in the beginning and i was diverted to another committee meeting after our vote. i want to come back to what mr. kagan was describing as the evil of isis, isil. and the absolutely horrid unspeakable acts of brutality that they commit, mass rape, mass murder and i agree with you that they are one of the most evil, maybe one of the most evil instution in history. we can argue about it. but when i go home this weekend, most folks are going to ask me what's the threat to the united states. and 50 years from now, others will be sitting where you are and where i am talking about probably other evil institutions

that are committing mass brutality because that seems to be unfortunately the nature of the human condition. that has happened throughout our history. and i think the ordinary person in connecticut over memorial day weekend is going to wonder what our role should be in stopping that from occurring, unless there is a threat to this country. so perhaps you and others on the panel could tell me what i should tell the people of connecticut about why the united states should be involved, whether it is special operations forces or better air support or whatever the involvement is and why that matters to our security. dr. kagan: as a connecticut native, i'm concerned about what you have to tell the connecticut people to get them on board with this. as i was driving to virginia the

other day, i was driving past the holocaust museum and saw the sign up there, which is never again. one of the things we need to tell the american people is that it is a core american value to take a stand. we do it too late, we try to talk ourselves out of it, but ultimately we generally do it. that's one of the things that make us america. i think we shouldn't use site of that fact. the reality is isis poses a clear and present danger in the united states homeland. it has already been encouraging, cone doning and applauding lone wolf attacks here.

it has made it clear that it has the objective of attacking america and the west, and it will do that with the resources of a mini state behind it which is something that we have never seen before with al qaeda. this is not a group of bandits hanging out in the bandits of afghanistan, and that was bad enough. but if we reflect on the resources isis has access to controlling fallujah, ramadi oil infrastructure, the resources that were in various universitys in mosul and so forth. thousands of fighters, tens of thousands of recruits. this is an army. and this is an army that is very sophisticated and has an ability to conduct operational military planning and execute it that is in advance of anything i've seen from any of these groups and it has the claired etc. intention to come after the united states and shown a willingness to do that. that is something i think the

people of connecticut need to be concerned about. mr. keane: i agree with what fred is saying. there are groupsmark of them self-radicalalized or already radicalalized -- radicalized and they're motivated to take action. seen plenty of evidence of that. the longer you permit the organization to succeed, can you imagine what has gone out on the internet from isis around the world as a result of the success in ramadi and how that has motivated others that isis in fact is winning and they're standing up against the united states, they're standing up against these strong allies of the united states in the region and europe and they're actually winning. so this huge -- so there's huge danger there.

as long as you let this organization stay and we don't decapitate it, then the motivation and inspiration of self-radicalization continues to grow, that's one thing. the second thing is in the region itself, and we showed on a map, they're moving into other countries, at the same time they're defending what they have in syria and iraq and expanding. this is what make this is organization so very different than what we've dealt with in the past. they're looking at libya as -- because of the social and political upheaval in libya, and there's hardly a government there and anybody to push back on it, they're going to put huge resources there. why are we concerned about that? our interest in the region, our interest in north africa, that would be on the southern tip of

nato there, not too many miles away from italy. in afghanistan, they have expanded rapidly beyond most of our expectations, i would assume, into eight provinces in afghanistan. now we have interests in afghanistan for obvious reasons. so this is a movement that we can tie directly to the security of the american people and to our national security objectives of the united states in this region and in south asia. senator blumenthal: if i can put it a different way just to conclude, it's more than just -- and by the way, american values are directly and inevitably linked to stopping human atrocities, i agree totally with you, mr. kagan, but our interests go beyond those values and by the way, all of the reason