. >> international contributor juan cole. >>> secretary of state john kerry is on the move. he arrived in paris for an international conference on monday. the topic - how to deal with the islamic state. this on the heels of a trip to egypt where he attempted to garner support for the fight against i.s. >> reporter: the coalition against the islamic state group has gaped a crit -- gained a critical ally. >> egypt has a critical role to play in denouncing the ideology that i.s.i.l. dissem nates. it was ab -- dissem nates. it's an important discussion in jeddah, and in cairo. it's something that the religious establishments - they both fully support and understand. >>> egypt's foreign minister offered his country's help and regional support it a largely western international coalition, allied with the islamic state group. >> translation: i support the international efforts to fight terrorism and work on supporting the efforts and measures to put an end to the phenomena, whether in iraq, libya or the arab world or libya. >> reporter: it's not clear that egypt will play a militar

. >> joining me now is juan cole, professor of history, director of center for middle eastern and north african studies. het's author of engaging the muslim world. what is your reaction to the news about this three-prong strategy as it takes shape. it's awfully difficult to pull off. isis which has 5-10,000 fighters, they coordinated with urban masses to stage an uprising against the shiite government of baghdad. unless you can undo that political coalition, then killing a few of these fighters here and there with air strikes is useless. >> there's something just' reel about hearing a strategy about calling thems try pal leaders that was used back during david petreus' high water mark counter surge. to hear that again and to hear the strategy that the second prong is to train the iraqi army, it seems we have gone in just a bizarre, surreal and december spiriting circle. squl it's true. and the problem isn't mainly in the rural areas. so these trench people aren't, for the most part, urban leaders. we have to get the notables of moso and faludguh and ramadi to give up their alliance of c