At Duke University and he also directs the American Grand Strategy Program and the Triangle Institute for Security Studies from june 2005 to june 2007, peter was on leave as a special adviser for Strategic Planning and institutional reform on the National Security staff of the george w. Bush white house. Hes the author or coauthor of five books including pain, the human costs of war. Published by princeton in 2009. And to my far left, dr. Hal brands is the Henry Kissinger distinguished of Global Affairs of Johns Hopkins school of advanced studies. Hes also a senior fellow at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments. His most recent book is making foe lar moment, u. S. Foreign policy and the rise of the post cold war order from cornell. The title of their article is, was the riefz isis inevitable and its a counterfactual question that touches on some actually the most contentious issue of u. S. Foreign policy in this century. These include whether it was a good idea for the Bush Administration to decide to invade iraq and whether it was a good idea for the Obama Administration to withdraw almost all u. S. Troops in 2011. And i think the impressive achievement of this essay is that, you know, the authors dont see simple answers to any of these questions or any of the other counter fac chalds but they dont let themselves off the hook they still provide answers and its a really fascinating and from our point of view a very important article. Well hear first from the two authors and well have a discussion starting with professor fever. Thank you. Its good to be here and its also fun to talk about work that ive done with hal. Its been a wonderful ride working with hal closely over the last seven or eight years or so and this article in particular came out of teaching that we were doing together. We cotaught a court on american grand strategy which is mostly an important for him to see how many times he could trick me into telling the same war story over and over again, he and the students were in cahoots on this but we also were trying to teach our students how to do policy analysis, how to evaluate policy choices and along the way became clear that the students were uncomfortable with the idea counterer factual analysis even though counterfactual analysis is at the very heart of policy. If youre making a policy recommendation youre saying do x so as to cause y to happen and if you dont do x, you wont get y to happen and of course that policy recommendation is making a counterfactual claim about what wont happen if you dont take a certain action. And when youre looking back in time evaluating policy choices, youre necessarily doing counterfactual analysis and students struggled to do to do it well. The discipline of history treats it as a parlor game. Eleanor roosevelt could fly how would world war ii turn out, these kinds of crazy fake history and thats not what policy versions of counterfactual policies are about so we wanted to set about doing it right. The importance of getting it right is making your counterfactuals explicit. Everybody is doing counterfactual analysis but most people are doing it implicitly. Theyre not explicitly laying it out so thats what we wanted to do an exercise in doing that. Now, theyre hard to do because once you change one thing then of course you have to think seriously about the implications of that and you can quickly unravel the analytical sweater. We tried to pick events that were relatively approximate to the question, the rise of isis. You could go back to the split between as you knowi and shia a thousand years ago but that kind of counterfactual analysis is not very useful because so much wouldve changed but decisions that were more proximate to our Current Situation that was a more useful form. You try to minimize the number of changes you make. You try to pick alternatives that are plausible but that were seriously debated inside the administration at the time so you could credible say that the president couldve made this other choice and then you look at the good and the bad consequences of it. Its easy to get counterfactual analysis wrong. Its easy to mischaracterize it and were trying to be very clear that we are not blaming president bush or president obama for the atrocities committed by isis. Isis deserves the blame for everything they have done but we are asking the question could different policy choices have positioned the u. S. To confront isis in a more effective manner than we were able to. We look at four pivot points. We look at the decision to invade iraq, 2002, 2003. We look at the obamas decision 10s to 11 that led up to the withdraw the forces out of iraq. We look at the decision to intervening with a larger arming of Syrian Rebels in 2011 but with more forward leaning arming of the rebels and then the last one is the decision not to strike isis when it was on the highway approach is mosul. And so look at these and ill briefly summarize the iraq 2002 decision analysis and hal will do the more interesting ones. He gets to do the more interesting ones. I think more interesting because where we come down on iraq is pretty close to where the conventional wisdom i think does, which is that if the United States had not invaded iraq and if the occupation had restability ops phase of the war had gone better, either you didnt invade or youre able to rebuild order faster, if you changed those, then its unlikely that we wouldve seen isis in the form that we did by 2014, 2015. Isis al qaeda was there, al qaeda preexisted the decision to invade iraq, of course, but the form that isis took in 2014 where they were controlling large swaths of territory is hard to get there without the collapse of iraq and the problems that emerged. We dont follow the conventional wisdom perfectly because i think when you dig into it its a little more nuanced. The conventional story makes it seem pretty easy but there were a number of things that we wouldve had to deal with if we hadnt invaded iraq. Wed have to deal with the fact that Saddam Hussein has large stock piles of weapons of mass destruction. We only learned after we had invaded that he had gotten rid of them and the invasion itself had a pernicious effect on al qaeda, so al qaeda flooded troops, their troops into iraq theater and through the course of the war and particularly the surge they are they are killed and dealt a very, very serious blow and so our analysis of iraq is more nuanced maybe than the conventional wisdom but we come down basically saying that if you had not invaded iraq and dealt had the problems that followed that, its hard to see isis arriving at the stage it did. However, and this is an important pivot to hand it off to hal, that does not mean that the rise of isis was inevitable circumstancea 2008, 2009 because there were at least two twoer pivot points that hal will tell you about. On this note that peter and i are deliberately playing so peter served in the Bush Administration and got to tell you the things that the Bush Administration did wrong. I served briefly in the Obama Administration and get to catalog the incidents that occurred under obama. So all this briefly focus on the three that peter mentioned. So the iraq draw down decisions in 2010, 2011, really in 2011 and stretching into 2012 and the decision essentially not to preempt isis before it took mosul in late 2013, early 2014 and im not going to go into Chronological Order in discussing these. Im going to do something different. Ill go in order of the likelihood of achieving a different and better outcome had we followed different but plausible policies in these situations. And the case that we actually consider least promising in the since our assessment leads us to the least confidence that this would have changed for the better and this is the syria 2011, 2012. I think theres a strand of thinking that argues that the United States easily could have prevented the emergence of isis had it moved in a bigger way to bring about the fall of the asan regime or to intervene in a more significant way in this period. We having looked at this and dug into the evidence and thought about shof the counterfactual think that this is a relatively weak counterfactual. There were various options considered by the administration in 2011, 2012 period. Everything from no fly zones to safe zones to alleviate civilian suffering, providing more support sooner to the moderate Syrian Rebels, cratering the runways so asans air force couldnt operate even doing leadership targeting of regime elements. All of these things were rejected or downgraded and so the question is if the Obama Administration had pursued a more Robust Program of intervention in syria, could it have been altered the dynamics of the conflict in a way that would have precluded the rise of isis, perhaps even brought the conflict to an end there by joking off the ideological fuel supply that asans prepression was causing. The argument that this comes up with that this is probably not that likely. These forms of intervention might have alleviated civilian suffering, they would have been given the United States a better in so they might have yielded some down stream benefits in terms of greater context, greater credibility when the United States ultimately did intervene in 2014. But we think its unlikely that these events would have produced say a settlement of the civil war or forced assad to deescalate and the major reason for this is basically two fold. The first is that it seems likely in light of later events that assads external patrons would have matched any u. S. Escalation in syria and perhaps exceeded it which was, in fact, happened in 2015 and second is that it seems that most of the options that were considered at the time fundamentally underskimted assad tenacity. This was an consistent chal fight for him. And so intervention might have put us in a better position it might have yielded some humanitarian efforts but the effect wouldnt have been decisi decisive. When you look at the 2013, 2014 decision involving iraq. This was the last opportunity to block isis before it emerged in its fullest and most dangerous form before it gobbled up about a third of iraq and this was a time when the iraqis were, in fact, asking for greater assistance. They were asking first for military aid in late 2013 and then for a direct American Military intervention including air strikes to block isis. Now the administration held back from doing this for a variety of reasons, the most important of which was that it worried that iraqis Prime Minister was part of the problem rather than the solution and the United States would become complicit. Military tailer the answer is yes. This is a time when isil, they would have been sitting ducks and their were sufficient American Military essence in the region to carry this out. The problem here essentially is two fold, though. First intervening in iraq in 2014, early 2014 for instance, wouldnt have done anything about the syrian problem. Syrias was really isis home base and that would have been most likely remained a safe haven. The bigger problem is political which is that it was only when yooils reached an hours drive from baghdad that we finally got at least in principal to a meaningful reform program. It seems unlikely we would have been able to do that in 2014 and so we might have been ended up with precisely the Obama Administration worried about where the United States was the shia air force conducting strikes. We would have had military gains. But there would have been a high price to pay. And that just leaves the last counterfactual which are the 2010 and 2011 decisions. This is actually a double counterfactual. Could the United States have better influenced the Iraqi Government formation process in 2010 after the elections were deadlocked. Could it have prevented mol lack can i from taking another term . If the United States had left a stay behind force in iraq after 2011 as was initially the plan, would that meaningfully have impeded isiss rise and we think this is the most plausible counterfactual. We can discuss these in the q a but we think there was sufficient u. S. Leverage to bring about a different Iraqi Government formation scenario in 2010 whether that would have been involved the Prime Minister stepping aside or simply doing a real power sharing agreement with his rivals. We also think there was sufficient u. S. Leverage and good will on the iraqi side to bring about a Status Force Agreement that would have been kept u. S. Forces in iraq after 2011. It would have required some flexibility in the negotiation but we think there was basically a possible agreement there and we identified about six or seven different ways in which such a force if it were between ten and 15,000 troops actually would have meaningfully affected the trajectory of events. Providing better Situational Awareness and a number of other things as well. We dont claim that this is a Silver Bullet because one of the things we have to acknowledge is that a u. S. Presence in iraq would have brought risks of its own. It would have been made United States vulnerable. We argue this was actually the most crucial juncture in the sense that this was the opportunity to stall or mitigate the rise of isis as reasonable cost. So in conclusion ill make three points here, which build a little bit on what peter said and what dana said. So the first is that we do argue that the rise of isis was a tragedy. We think that had u. S. Policy makers taken different policy choices isis probably wot not have emerged as the full blown threat that it ultimately became and we can debate amongst ourselves which of these was most promising one. We think 2003 and 2011 were the critical ones. There were opportunities to shift the trajectory of events. The second point is that we have to acknowledge that all the counterfactuals here are messier than they first appear and in some cases thats because changing the u. S. Decision changes the subsequent course of history, so profoundly that its hard to know how better off you actually are. This is certainly the case had the United States not invaded iraq, for instance. And in some cases because the counterfac chalz that we leaving a stabilize force in 2011 for instance. Either way the point is that its a mistake to think that there was a Silver Bullet. There were better and worse policy decisions but there wasnt something that was so blindingly obvious that any fool shouldve done it and the third and final point is in light of all this the debate over isis and the rise of isis needs to shift. Its really not that useful to focus on assigning blame because i think as our article argues, administrations of both parties made fairly significant errors. I think the key rather is to use counterfactual analysis seriously to get a more rigorous understanding of the options and alternatives and there by help us to better think about Decision Making in the future. Were going to confront dilemmas similar to the ones that american policy makers confronted in this period, right now. There are discussions ongoing about what type of presence the United States will have in iraq after isis is defeated. To the extent we understand the path and we think seriously about the counterfac chalz that we present and the count counterfactuals we argue that american policy will be better off for it. Thank you very much. As i say its a really excellent article and i commend to everyone in the room and everyone whose watching. Before i open it up to the floor, let me just ask two questions, one to each of you. The first one to peter is probably the biggest and most difficult question but i was very struck by you had when you were going through the analysis of how counterfactual history makes sense, you had some rather sensible rules of thumb and one of those rules is you have to talk about if youre looking at counterfactuals you have to talk about realistic alternatives, things that were actually debated and politically possible and part of the political discussion. So for example, more robust aid to antiassad rebels was debated and was debated within the Obama Administration. Sending american troops to damascus was not. Im just curious, this is a rather vague question, but it seems to me that that kind of question applies to in spades to what were the realistic alternatives to not invading iraq in 2003 . Thats in a way in all of our lives is the big counterfactual and i tend to personally subscribe to the conventional wisdom that youve come to but it might not have been it was a difficult task that any administration was going to follow so i wonder if youd like to Say Something about that. Go ahead and ill ask hal a question. Sure. One alternative that the administration couldve alternative strategic judgment they couldve released this is in the late 2001, 2002 time frame when its clear to them that taliban has fallen and al qaedas on the run so they feel like they have a way forward inside afghanistan and the question is whats the next whats the next theater of operations in the war on terror. And there was a strategic debate going on as to the nature of the threat. Was the threat the possibility that terrorists would get weapons of mass destruction and thats the most urgent thing that had to be addressed or was the threat that al qaeda could reconstitute itself by going to another ungoverned area and recreating the infrastructure of weaponizing resentment which is what they had been able to build inside afghanistan and its very understandable why they reached the conclusion that getting weapons of mass destruction was the most urgent threat, they needed to address that and its understandable in hindsight that they reached it but they but its not implausible that they could have said the reconstituting of al qaeda is the more time sensitive one and we need to pursue as al qaeda squirts out to other ungoverned areas whether somali, yemen, the philippines that maining the pressure on al qaeda there is the best way to keep them on their heels and that we have a little bit of time on the weapons of mass destruction front. It was and thats a plausible we dont spend a lot of time on that argument in the paper but that was behind some of our thinking. Reasonable people couldve argued for one or the other of those descriptions of the threat and which one you buy into leads you into a different set of military options. I think its implausible that the u. S. Would have toppled taliban, gone home and be done with the war on terror. That 2002 would have been the end of it but were other avenues of pressure on al qaeda that they could have pursued and they mightve and of course the other counterfactual vehicle that you cant get away with is what if we had known, had a better accurate picture of what the true state of iraqi wmd was and if we had known if we the u. S. Government had known the true state of iraqs wmd stockpile in programs circa 2002 then the administration would not have been in the position to invade iraq. The ongoing containment, ongoing sanctions pressure, yes but not invasion. If you dont have the intelligence failure you dont get to the iraqi war. Thank you. Hal, i appreciate both of you working against your or arguing against your respective administrations, but i want to ask you something about where you land in your critique of the Obama Administration, which is something we actually discussed in the editorial process on this piece. If i understand you correctly, your strongest critique is that period in terms of politics and the decision in the absence of a Status Forces Agreement to more or less give up. One thing you didnt say in the its interesting that you put them together. I understand how they go together but they are two distinct failures if thats what they are, but the other question i would ask is maybe to press you a little bit on the political realism of trying to keep troops in iraq against the clear, at least the clear public position of the Iraqi Parliament, this is not to say i understand there are arguments that there were different ways of dealing with this problem and understandings and things that might not have required status of forces agreement that would be approved by the Iraqi Parliament but thats in a sense a political difficulty for the administration that was, as you pointed out, kind of committed to getting out any way. Just to pile on, theres the further political difficulties that obama very much believed he was elected to get the United States out of wars in the middle east rather than to perpetuate them. I think we would answer this in two ways. First, with respect to the point that i raised about the political difficulty in the United States, the option of leaving ten to 15,000 troops in iraq was still very much a live one within the administration at least at first. Certainly we think it doesnt violate the rewrite rule of counterfactual analysis. There were people within the administration that pushed very hard for this. Obama himself initially indicated he was open to a 10,000 troop presence before subsequently witling that down. On the iraqi piece of it, its complicated. By late 2011, youre right, that most of the major iraqi political figures would not publicly support a residual u. S. Presence but earlier in the process in late 2010 when the foundings were being done by people in baghdad, the basic consensus was that all of iraqs major parties save one would ultimately get behind this and the one was the block and that ultimately proved to be particularly consequential because of the way that the Iraqi Government formation process went in 2010 essentially gave the soddress a veto of iraqi Public Policy because soddress was the key maker. This is a case where a different policy in one counterfactual arguably opens up greater options in another or had we taken a different approach in 2010 we would not have been so politically constraint. Even according to what people who worked in the state department and dod have written, molacki was open to a presence of 20,000 american troops. One of the key factuals here is how damaging was it to the u. S. Negotiating position that we kept whittling down the numbers so that by the time the position was actually presented to molacki very late in the game in mid2011 it was 3,000 to 5,000 troops. Was the security benefit from these troops sufficient to offset the offense to iraqi nationalism of having american troops left . And part of the argument that we make, had you made a more robust offer it wouldve protected his political calculus. Can i add just one thing . The final deal that the u. S. Government rejected at the end of 2011, which was a small stay behind force, 3,000 to 5,000 covered not by a agreement through the parliament but instead with immunity protection guarantee by the exchange of diplomatic notes between molackis government and the United States. Thats exactly the deal that president obama accepted in the summer of 2014 when he went back in and so it was ruled unacceptable into 2011 and its understandable theres a unanimous opposition from u. S. Government lawyers in 2011 but when the situation was in 2014, we sent u. S. Troops back in without any greater diplomatic immunity that what was offered in 2011 so in terms of counterfactuals its rare that you get something a slam dunk case like that but its clearly obvious that it was an acceptable deal because president obama accepted it in the summer of 2014. It was an acceptable deal if things had appreciated and foreseen the consequences of the right they realized how important it was in 2014 to be sure. It wouldve taken more courage to do it in 2011 but it was doable. Thank you. Okay. Can i ask anyone who takes the floor to please identify themselves . [ inaudible ]. Im sorry. We have paraphernalia right there. Youre doing an excellent job of recreating history. One of the problems we have both in the United Kingdom and the states, we think we have more ability to effect what happens on the ground, iraq of course is a complicated society. Do you really think that the United States you know, in essence iran had to have a big roll in pushing molacki out. He punched the officer core. You think if the u. S. Had stayed that you couldve pushed out molacki because by the time 2014 came around, he was definitely full blown, you know, trying to purge people sunnis especially from his government . Ill offer [ inaudible ] when we run through the expected benefits of a stay behind presence after 2011, most of them are essentially military in nature, more aggressive ct targeting, better logistics and sustainment for the Iraqi Security forces, more insight into how much isf had deteriorated. The one where we say this is plausible but were not sure its a slam dunk is the argument that a u. S. Presence probably would not have succeeded in getting rid of molacki. The opportunity for that was 2010 not 2011 but that it might have been effected the psychology of iraqi politics in a beneficial way in the sense that what the United States did with some degree of success between about 2007, 2008, 2010 was act as the provider of security that allowed the iraqi to take a less zero sum approach to politics. You saw deals being cut. Then you had other cases. So one of the counterfac chalz is perhaps you wouldve had some residue of that had the United States essentially stayed as a buffer between the various iraqi factions. Its hard to say that this one is a slam dunk knowing what we subsequently know about molacki but given the consequences of not trying, i think the you would argue that there was a benefit in giving this one a shot. Id add two more points. One is that we do have some quasi natural experiment. We have molacki under three different conditions. Molacki 2007 to 2009, 2009 to 2011, 2012 on. 2012 on, that molackis the worse of all. Molacki 2009 to 2011, not nearly as good from our point of view as seven to nine. Same iraqi leader but very different performance. When he can count on u. S. Commitment, we get a different performance from him. Also we have 150,000 troops, its a lot of leverage that we have, but nevertheless theres a different molacki 2007 to 2009 then we saw even in the nine to 11 time period. I think its reasonable to believe that a u. S. Stay behind force wouldve adjusted his calculation somewhat and maybe the calculation of some of the other iraqi leaders but as to how our argument doesnt hinge on that being the long pole in the tent. The other point ill make the scope condition for our article was changes in u. S. Policy. Obviously if we could change molackis policy we could tell a totally different story, change assads policy, a totally different story. Were writing narrowly from the American Perspective of American Foreign policy, what could American Foreign policy could do and these are the levers they have at their disposal and maybe not as much as as the local actors but enough to matter. Just one other thing briefly. One of the issues we try to address in the paper but we acknowledge quite frankly theres a limit to which we could do it, every time you change u. S. Policy presumably other actors change their responses too. And so it is possible that in response to a u. S. Stay behind presence, iran tells the Mobilization Forces to start taking pot shots at american soldiers and the United States is confronted with the decision, do you amp up your force Protection Elements or do you hnker down or what . We think that we dispose of this particular one in a satisfying way but were alert to the fact that every time you change one thing a lot of things change. Theres just a limit to how much one can capture that. Its not just iraqi actors but iranian actors. You, sir, in the middle here. Roy gutman. Im a freelance journalist. I was in baghdad the day that the decision came down not to make the deal with molacki and i was working so i thought from everything i could see that the deal was there to be made and it could have been along the lines of what youre saying but i have no proof and i have to say personally, i welcome every bit of evidence you produce today that there could have been a deal. I think its truly a important contribution to the discussion. I have ive been focusing on syria myself for the last several years and i was wondering whether in your research you come upon the patterns that the Free Syrian Army leadership, they have a general staff, something of a structure, actually had proposals for dealing with isis. It would have been in the year 2014 i think, early part of the year, maybe even late 2013, that they wanted to produce they wanted to present but they couldnt get a hearing in the Obama Administration and i talked to several commanders who told me and the then chiefofstaff who said that they had a plan the Obama Administration wasnt interested. Second question concerns assad. From your research, what do you think is his role in the rise of isis . Afterall he had an intimate connection with the aqi during its heyday and after. When i was there in 2011, i remember getting military briefings that all the money, all the direction, all the leadership, in fact, for the games running mosul was coming from syria and obviously after after the uprising begin assad benefited greatly from the rise of isis. And if you look at the fall of cities like raqqa and other places you have to ask, did assad have a hidden hand . Im just curious, you know, whether you make an assertion that ramping up the Free Syrian Army would not have helped, but might it have actually stopped the rise of isis . Ill say a few words. I think that it wouldve perhaps placed some of the more modern elements in syria in a better position to respond to the rise of isis so that the power imbalance between those groups would not have been pronounced as it was particularly in 2013, 2014 which is when isis really began to ma stas ta size in syria. One of the tragedies is here is one of timing in the sense that the best opportunity to really strengthen the syrian moderates such as they were was earlier. In 2011 and 2012 and to be clear, im not arguing that this would have been decisive, but it probably would have been more opportune then than in 2014. By 2014 the balance of military power and the balance of ideological sway within the antiassad forces in syria had shifted to the extremist and to isis and so empowering the Syrian Opposition to really go after isis at that point would have been a much tougher hurdle. We discovered later in 2014 when we tried it. With respect to assads role, i think you flagged a very important piece of it which is often forgotten which is the syrian roll in fostering aqi back during the days of the iraqi war. Theres two other elements as well. Assad more than anyone else provided the conditions in which a movement built on radicalized sunnis could foster in syria in two respects. The first respect was that the repression that the assad regime brought down on the sunni population was a godsend from the perspective not just of isis but of other extremist groups but also that the civil war led to failures of governance throughout much of syria and created the conditions in which groups like isis could seize territory, in which they could establish Training Camps they could do all the things that Extremist Organizations need to do in order to flourish. The only point id add is that it was very much in assads interest in 2011 for the choice to be assad or isis or the extremist and that they both sides had an incentive to kill the moderates who would have been the likely ones that the u. S. Could have plausible worked with and to that extent he was, if not directly coordinated with isis, he was operating in a fashion that was in tandem with what they were doing which minimized obamas options in the middle. Here in the second row. Im dave. Im retired at this point. You mentioned about the tenacity of assad. What did you think that statement came from from the legacy of his father or from watching the failure in libya and egypt to other leaders . Thats basically the heart of that question. I dont have any special insight into assads mind set but i would think that there are two factors that were insufficiently appreciated that made him cling to power more successfully and tenaciously than we expected. The first was simply the nature of the regime. This was a minority regime in a sunni zom natured country so i think there was fear on the part of assad and particularly those around him that if he wins it would open the flood gates to revenge killings and basically sectarian cleansing against the community and that may have been reasonable fear. The second part is i think that i would imagine that assad observed very closely what happened to kadafi in 2011. That he observed that it was very hard to think of what the safe exit plan was for a dictator like him. And particularly after it became clear that he was International Pariah there was very few places he could go externally. It became a life or death struggle for him. [ inaudible ]. Its hard for dictators to go sit on the french rivera any more. Yes, in the second to last row right there. Heather hill bert from new america. Let me congratulate you both. This is a really stimulating and interesting conversation. I have two questions. First id like to hear about the counterfactual that you propose not to produce. The two that jump out at me are [ inaudible ] and are there ways that the Sunni Awakening [ inaudible ] that made isis [ indiscernible ] and how a cup of times, this would have produced improvements for civilian but ultimately it wouldnt have been worth it. In ten years theyll be sitting back here whether the rise of the post isis terror group from that corner of the world [ indiscernible ] i just wanted you to unpack your assumptions a little more about the relationship of both of civilian harm to [ indiscernible ]. So the we do look at the decision not to pay the iraqi forces before they decided no were going to keep paying them but in that crucial window. And thats under a whole basket of if we had managed that phase four more effectively particularly in the First Six Months or so could we have gotten we look at, you know, list of number of things that couldve gone another way but didnt. So we look at that as under the umbrella of either dont invade or if you do invade, have it go better and and this is an area where we had a little bit of a disagreement because i have a riff of ten things that couldve tripped the other way, ten decisions that could have been made slightly different way and i think if you make all of those ten the other way then you might be in a different place in iraq 2003, summer of 2003 and how reminded me that that violated our criteria that we have put up front that says well only do minimum changes not maximum changes. Thats still to be written in some other piece at some point when i get out from underneath his thumb. Its funny you mention the surge. I we did propose that we would do surge as the fifth one. We werent sure how much survival would let us keep writing longer things. I wanted to include it to show that we did make some choices that if we hadnt made it could have gotten even worse. Theres a negative bias in our analysis. We looked at four things decisions that may have turned produced negative consequences. What about a decision that we took that produced positive consequences for the story, but might not have been taken and if we hadnt, what wouldve happened . If we carried out that analysis we would have looked at the point you raise which is Sunni Awakening had within it some negative elements of it, but those were minor compared to what wouldve happened if we had been defeated in iraq 2006, 2007. So we got the collapse of the iraqi state and the Iraqi Security forces that we saw in 2014 but on the heels of the u. S. Defeat and with the option of the u. S. Coming back in in the summer of 2014 to rectify the situation, with that option off the table because we had just been defeated. Had we not done the surge i think its likely our analysis would show as my guess would show that isis the rise of isis might have been even worse and might come even sooner because of the chaos that wouldve reined inside iraq. I think the point you raise is very important and i certainly dont mean in my language to imply that civilian protection is an unimportant objective but the point i was making was simply that given that the scope of our analysis was would this have prevented the rise of isis we looked at that as essentially ancillary benefit. Theres a separate question and i think this is related but distinct to the one we asked, which is that should the United States have interveerned in syria in a more significant way for whatever reason, whether to block the rise of isis, to prevent harm to civilians, to prevent the emergence of a failed state. We havent done the same depth of analysis we have done on these other things so im shooting from the hip a little bit here but my basic answer is that i think its a very close call simply because the difficulties of doing so would have been enormous. We looked at all these options many times and decided that the difficulties were too severe but the flip side of that is the consequences of nonintervention or insufficient intervention in syria have been an order of magnitude worse than anyone imagined back in 2011, 2012 not just in terms of civilian harm but in terms of destabilization of the region, the europe politically, reentry of Russian Military power into the middle east in a significant way and so im not quite ready to buy into but im at least somewhat sympathetic to the argument that if you add up all of those horrible costs of nonintervention theres a case to be made on separate grounds for doing more in syria. Right here in the second row. Paul [ inaudible ] so i think most people understand that the rise of insurgent organizations have a lot to do with the [ inaudible ] of individuals, and the organizing skills of their leaders and i was struck reading that there was very little discussion of how baghdadi and im not even surely hes names mentioned anywhere, which is surprising. So the question is was there ever a time when he became a quote, person of interesta, quote, person of interest to jsoc and we might have taken him out, which then presumably would have had a larger effect on the wiles of isis and largest intelligence on our part, that we might have effected the dynamics of the rise of isis by taking out its leader at the critical moment. Hes been killed so many times by things, how do we know he wouldnt have risen from the dead yet again . So there is, as you know, a lively debate about how much strategic effect you get from decapitation. And we have argued about this, but not in this piece. My view is that its clearly not a Silver Bullet. Obviously, its not, but any concert with other activities, its it can have a strategic effect. But by itself, it doesnt have a strategic effect. And if you end, if you overrely on that and ignore the other lines of action, then you dont have an effective overall strategy. So this piece was more of looking at all the rest of the stuff, setting aside the decapitation. You know, thats the kind of unfair to your question, but some earlier ones is what gave the counterfactual history a bad name. What if hitler had been strangled in the cradle . Then what would have happened . Were trying to avoid those kinds of echoes or comparisons. The only thing i would add is that i dont think its a stretch to suggest that u. S. Intervention against isis in 2014 could have had significant earlier in 2014, late 2013, early 2014, could have had significant military effects. But given how hard we have been trying to find this guy and kill him since mid2014 with a lack of apparent success, it may be that even if we had appreciated precisely how important he was, we would have struggled to locate and finish him. In the front row. Yeah. Independent tv producer. In light of the fact that the isis leadership was a onetime confined in one of our prisons, that our good friends in the persian gulf were instrumental in financing isis that our ally natdo, turkey, allows free passage of islamic fighters to the battleground and on at least one occasion, we dropped weapons mend for turkey, and on at least two occasions bombed the syrian army while they were engaged in battle with isis, doesnt the circumstantial evidence suggest that the United States role in the rise of isis might have been more direct than simply setting the scene. It wouldnt be the first time we used islamic extremists in pursuit of our very secular aims. No, i dont find that plausible at all. I dont think that the u. S. Was directly trying to create isis as an arm to be used for some other strategy. And i think the incubation of isis in the prisons which you flagged was more an unintended consequence of bad detainee policy, a bad incarceration policy, than it was a deliberate intended result. So thats why our story is more of a tragedy than it is, you know, a crime story. Because what happened was not what the president s wanted to happen and it was not the intended result of the policy choices that were made. But we argue that at least in some cases, alternative policy choices which could have been taken would have produced a less tragic result. Anything you want to add . One thing. I think the point i heard we made very clearly in the paper is these were all decisions that were taken by people of good will and good intentions who were trying to deal with extremely difficult problems. And its entirely proper to go back and criticize, to say that we think this might have done better, this might have been a better course, but its also important in doing this to be empathetic to the dilemmas these folks found themselves in where they could not see the future. They had to guess about what outcomes their policies would bring. Thats a methodlogical about doing policies and its one that shines lithe on this and other policy issues but the fact that that piece of empathy has to be kept in mind. Right here. In the corner. Hi. My question is they play multiple roles. Theyre more for the sections that hal described. They werent the key factor that was shaping u. S. Decision making in 2002, 2003. The success of the ypg against isis makes complicated one of the pieces that hals described. Because one of the problems with the 2011 scenario was who could we have armed that would have been effective against isis . And it was the president himself, i think, memorably said look, these are bakers and doctors and dentists. Theyre not fighters, so who could we have armed . In turns out we found a very, very effective Paramilitary Force in the ypg, the syrianbased kurds. And that combined with the u. S. Enablers and special forces units, that became the lethal arm that broke isis back in Eastern Syria. And had there been Something Like that available in 2011, had they been able to see there was Something Like that available, maybe our analysis would have been different. But thats an article. It is. And particularly because when we really leapt in behind the ypg in 20142015, it was in the context of a counterisis campaign. Whereas when we were thinking about aiding rebel factions in 20112012, particularly 2012, it was not in the context of we want you to go kill extremists. It was in the context of, are these people fighting against the saads . And there was not the hostility between the ypg and assad regime that would have made that partnership viable in that context in 2012. The other thing i think its important to keep in mind is that the u. S. Decision to support the ypg was incredibly controversial diplomatically. And it was incredibly controversial internally because this is basically turkeys al qaeda. Right . And turkeys perspective, these guys are the terrorist groups that they are most worried about. So i think it really took the shock of isis overrunning most of Eastern Syria as well as the big swath of iraq to push the Obama Administration or any American Administration to take that step which came at a pretty significant cost in u. S. Relations with turkey. The only other thing i would say about the kurds is that the kurds play a big role in their vulnerability at least in partnersh precipitating anxiety against isis in 2014. In part, it was baghdad, but the immediate strikes in august 2014 were at least taken in part because we were very worried about the vulnerability of the krg area in iraq and particularly erbil. So it was less of a stretch to intervene on behalf of the kurds who had generally behaved well from our perspective than it was to intervene on behalf of the u malaky government. And that was before we ordered him to step aside on behalf of his government. I would like to ask about the elephant in the room, which is which is much smarter than isis. They create deeper infrastructure. They dont do anything outrageous like slicing heads on tv. But they are still al qaeda. Theyre no less dangerous than isis. Once isis is gone, most likely, the leftovers are going to join al nusra, whatever you call it, and then the question is are the kurds going to fight them . The only people who fight them so far are russians and syrian army. What about them . How do you think it goes the repetition or is it going to be harder not to crack . Thank you. A quick response. This piggybacks on heathers question to a certain extent and goes well beyond the scope of this article, but it gets to the other article that we wrote around the same time which was whats next in the war on terror. And we weigh the different choices that the Trump Administration is facing. And really reverse engineering some of the decisions that were made late in the Obama Administration, saying now theyre up for grabs in the Trump Administration. And we conclude along with you, i think, that its unreasonable to expect that the problem will go away once isis is defeated. That isis is a manifestation of a deeper problem that will still have to be addressed even after isis is defeated. And whether it will be al nusra or some other son of isis, there will still be a network that has to be confronted, and thats why we identified the pros and cons of different choices that the administration could take and decide that the least worst one is something that is a continuation of what we saw late in the Obama Administration, kind of a light to medium print footprint of kinetic forward engagement in the region. And ill let you take it from there. Ill just say that i think thats probably right. Peter mostly took what i was going to say, but the other point is that it depends a little bit on what they do. If they continue with sort of the modern day version of the popular front strategy, integrating themselves deeper into the Syrian Opposition and basically focusing on establishing political and military power within syria, thats one type of problem. Still a very serious problem from a u. S. Perspective. If they really focus on developing external operations in the way that we have seen some indications so far, then thats a much more serious problem, and the decision that they make will in turn affect the decision we make in terms of what level of resources and attention to devote to the threat. Well, it has to do with a lot of things involving what is the political end game in syria. Is there going to be a postassad regime that we dont have answers for. But the degree to which it is any type of Extremist Organization that has control over a significant amount of territory and population is properly deemed a threat by the United States. Especially when that organization has shown indications of being able and willing to carry out significant external operations. The extent to which they prioritize those operations will just naturally have a Significant Impact on how grave the threat is perceived to be by american policymakers. Anyone else . One more question. Last question. Long view, what is americas vested interest in keeping al nusra at bay . Without, you know, redeploying the surge situation or trusting somewhat not the trustworthy allies in keeping them down . So i think the vested interest is in preventing the sort of situation you had in afghanistan prior to 9 11 where you have a capable and globally inclined terrorist group that is able to operate relatively freely because of the absence of effective governing authority. Now, theres a good question to be asked as to what level of resources we ought to devote to preventing that. If it were going to take 160,000 troops indefinitely over a indefinitely in every situation, then im not sure that the calculation would be worth it. But if you believe, as we argue in this other paper that peter just referenced that you can actually mitigate the worst aspects of safe havens and external plotting with a light to medium footprint, which is basically a robust air campaign against these groups, coupled with special Operations Forces and perhaps advisers on the ground where the number of troops deployed is in the single thousands rather than the tens of thousands or the hundreds of thousands, then i think theres a much stronger case to be made that the interest is sufficient nlt to justify that type of expenditure. Great. So i started this session by saying with some pride that this is a really excellent article. And theres much more of this thoughtfulness and seriousness and sobriety, i should say, in the article. So i recommend it to all of you. Its a free article online in the june july issue of survival. Meanwhile, please join me in thanking our speakers. [ applause ] thank you for those generous comments. Thank you for hosting. A lot of fun. Former chair and ceo of equifax, richard smith, testifies this week before a couple of congressional committees about the companys massive data breach. Tuesday, hes before the house energy and commerce committee. Wednesday, hell take questions from the Senate Banking committee. Live coverage for both hearings starts at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. Also, tuesday, defense secretary james mattis and joint chiefs of staff chair general Joseph Dunford will testify at a House Armed ServicesCommittee Hearing on military strategy in south asia. Live coverage of that starting at 1 00 p. M. Eastern. All those hearings on cspan3, online at cspan. Org or on the free cspan radio app. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policyi issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, Florida Democratic congressman darren soto will discuss his recent trip to puerto rico and president trumps upcoming visit on tuesday. Then were live in charleston, West Virginia, for the next stop on the cspan bus 50 capitals tour. Lieutenant governor mitch car michael win join us to talk about the top issues facing West Virginia including the economy and the opioid crisis. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on tuesday morning. Join the discussion. During the september session of the australian house and senate, prime