And also the spring also was contagious among kurds and a new party goran that means change in kurdish. They fareded very well in the kurdish elections so there is political in iraqi occur stan and power sharing. But also there will be a division. And systems of nepotism. Two sets of security forces. Two groups of peshmerga. And kurdistan democrat okayization is a work in progress. The fact that the kdp has consolidated under control and umbrella has been a positive contributor to the stability of iraq and occurred stack and there is an ongoing process underway. For kurds to articulate their desires for power sharing and for those to be reflected in the laws of eye rncy kurdistan and the quality of their political leadership. A lot of progress so far with more work to be done. A great time for one more question. With the eye rncy system. Yes. If you can please comment on the role that objection on mobile the oil company. Okay. Has had. Objection is not one of the number of large Oil Companies that have production agreements with the Kurdistan Regional government. They did this unthreat of baghdad to lose their positions of which to develop oil fields and parts of iran. The kurds have been very steadfast and they have take even different approach than the iraqi government. Rather than pro divide sharing agreements, they are allowing joint ownership. It makes exxon stay colder in iraqi and kurdistan peace and prosperity. Exxon has replay the pivotal role and when president obama was contemplating in august, he got phone calls from exxon and other Oil Companies in the region. So it is pivotal to Iraqi Kurdistan viability. And it cannot be the sole source of income. They need to be involve in the regional trade. It seechlz like a good place to leave these things. This is a comprehensive sweep of the kurdish issue as well as politics of the entire region. Occur issue spring new map of the middle east and hear what the author David Phillips joining me in thanking him forehis insight today. [applause] isis in the middle east. The center. We are very happy to have with us has an has an the author of coauthor of isis. Based in abu dhabi. Here for a couple of days only. We are fortunate to host as institution in washington and his book appeared on the New York Times best seller list. And i did not check it this morning. We side that had has an is going to speak for 20 minutes and we will open the floor to your questions we are happy to have with us jane harmon the president and the ceo of the center of who is very much interested in isis and would get. First hundred on what is going on the ground. And in the movement. Thank you very much. I would like to start with the talk would be a snap shop. The first is 1990s and the second is iraq war and the 1990s two very interesting things happened in iraq after the first gulf war and Saddam Hussein regime and the first is that Saddam Hussein integrated this in which is the islamic company. What he did was to basically. A baptism. And encouraging people to add to the state. And he allowed to mocks and so on. And the mix that happen and was very relevant to what isis ideology. This is a fascist movement and a movement that will rely on has a lot to do with isis. It is a business. Instead of compared to pan islamic. And relies on this. Militant nationalism. And that subjects everything and anyone to the achieve of the unity of arabs. And this is a group that is essentially by if ideology. And they did horrible thing to shias and kurds. Used chemical weapons also. On his people. Attacked civilians. And also his father did the same thing so the track records are violent from day one until today. Now when Saddam Hussein had a dangerous mix. Basically like. Unintentionally. After the first gulf war there was a revolt in the south against his rules so he started to feel pressure from within so he used that campaign to encouraging like allegity mat regime. And you know what happened usually is that a lot leach them because it is more you know. Invigorating and pure. Lets say and similarities. So towards end of the regime would have a problem with islamists. And they had a lot of problems with the trent. And the now, that is had a happened the second thing that happened is the closing of the sanctions for underground Financial Network to kind of circumvent the sanctions. So you know he started to rely on you know on this underground smuggling different ways and working with other countries. Beyond the iraqi borders. This campaign this network created by Saddam Hussein is that network to circumvent the airstrikes. And will make sure that they can survive in the black market. Beyond syria and iraq so. Two very important things that originate in the 1990s and are relevant. So after the iraq war the second snapshot. After the iraqi war, sunnis to feel they have lost power. So they are in a minority. And iraq. And felt that they were not in control and that americans were conspiring with the shiites and the kurds and even with iran to take over. There are indications that these were a basis for the conspiracy thinking. Because you note first election thats happened after the americans handing over power to iraqis and dominated by the shias and the kurds. And both for the elections and lost control. There is arrest relation. And a sense that at the are losing power. And you will have to start to have a movement. That is dedicate today restoration of sunni domination in iraq. And now that meant. Have you like a Strange Alliance between baptists. And and the other so you have a lot of people that we have with a lot of people that interviewed people in the beginning and a lot of them would say, that we are not fighting because of Saddam Hussein. And not about Saddam Hussein but us and signy. And so on so. It was sunni and in the sense of local communities for that and every sense of the word. Now come to the stage. And and jordanian or like jihadi activities and 1980s he went to afghanistan to join the mujahedeen in afghanistan. What happened was that immediately. There was a strange encounter between Osama Bin Laden and others, clearly like the differences between them terms of what jihad would mean and why we have the jihad. Osama bin laden and then. And would define that with alqaeda and isis today. Other times. Osama bin laden. Or alqaeda sees the anything and the name indicates alqaeda. So it will join the jihadi movement. They want to trigger. Repeat the word that we are a trigger. That we will want to popularize jihad. And to encouraging those muslims to join in the jihad. On the other hand focus odd the shiites and he thinks that and are challenged by the shiites so he sees shia as the threat that has always exist and has to be dealt with. They believe that it is the enmeeft west and focuses on the west. Focuses only to encouraging people for more based on the consent and you know. For example. Syria. Will you find affiliated alqaeda. Hearts and minds. Trying to impose itself so it will provide services and do all of this type of stuff to encouraging people to like them. To even in the beginning. They did not want to announce that they were apart of alqaeda. Because they had the name and shape of the attitudes to say that we are syrian group. So the war and the debate and the vision of shiites would shape the discourse in the iraqi and sign sxeechlt shiite. Have lived together. They have turned out like that. After the iraq war things started to change. And for a huge opportunity, there was a lot of differences between alqaeda at the time. Though, he pledge of allegiance to Osama Bin Laden there was some tension between the two. And alqaeda went to publicly admonish issue to stop attacking civilians americans. So what but then he had away later on. Slowly. You know. He destroyed or helped to obama the mosque. And things started to become more sectarian. And his vision combined with sectarianism and the triangle of terror. And a very like very dangerous ingredients. Coming together to form a group that we have today, isis. You have ice that is very violent and sectarian. And very rigid and everything. You know. Because that is the background. After. Isis benefits from a lot of factors to grow into the state this. Was already a state. And you know, after that the arabs found itself. And weak state. Isis. Security and skills you know. To present itself and become a reality. Now to benefit from a trend. And they tried to portray that as violence it has a lot to do with the trends in the regions so. One that we talk about. And another that we talked about is our young people when they revolted against government. Revolted against thosely the. And the religious elite. Isis is actually all about rebillion against political elite. And so it is against authority. There is what people use to describe the attitudes of young people would i is a rejefks the monopoly and mandate or control. So when anyone tries to message, political and religious message. Isis is immune so when they talk about discourse. Isis is immune to that by nature so you may prevent people from going to isis before that. But also once starts to buy into the isis ol ideology. It is too late to reverse it. So i spoke with someone in turkey who you know. Adjourn list would call a defect or. And would have a work permit and study and to work. And not to jump off but a work permit. And he was trying to fix passport before going to saudi arabia. And there. I was expecting him to be critical of isis. Right . But he said i am tired, this is not for me. This is violent. And all this stuff, right . He never said anything bad about isis. So i am convince that had when people join isis. And they leave and say that they have abandoned the group that they are most likely even lying or have never been with isis. That is mostly you know. Broadly speaking. With the off spring. Then i can answer. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me ask you the first question that is on everybodys mind. Can isis be defeated . It is possible to defeat isis but i see you new york in the region of for at least another 15 years. Isis is two ways. As we see today and the group that operates as an army and insurgency. And terror group will exist for say around a decade from now. And that would be 5 to like a decade. Five years to a decade. But as a group that exists and has some kind of away of existing. Iraq. Syria and beyond will continue to operate. And i this that i it will override and will be an inspiration for jihadis and one of the fascinated things is the project today and people will not see that there is a merging new jihadist establish so. Isis is not alqaeda that are well establish and jihad since afghanistan. And iraq until today. They did not have that type of legacy. And as alqaeda does. But they are establish that can ideology to have idealogues and ideas. And books. It has theories. So on. But it is emerging as that. Because of that i will not see isis disappearing any time soon. If i am optimistic. Five years. All right. For the interesting presentation, thank you. Yesterday i had lunch with the Indonesian Ambassador to the thaws reminded me. I guess that i needed remining that indonesia is the largest indonesian country in the world with 250 Million People more or less. And 87 were muslim and many of the senior members of the government including ambassador are muslim. It is a peaceful democracy. My question is this is important example of the alternative muslim idea . Could it somehow be considered and used in a more effective way as accounter to isis . With indonesia and malaysia and countries in southeast asia. They are. They have allege see of Good Governance and whenever you find government navenlts isis cannot gain ground, isis is about a political project that is essentially as much a religious provenlth the two have come together. And have you a political background alienated and estranged by the local politics. And by your government politics. And also have you to have a religious background. That believes in the very narrow world view of who is a muslim and what a muslim should be and how they should be. Unless have you the two backgrounds. The fact of the matter is that this is both. Unless have you the the two backgrounds emerging. That is when you know. You mix the two and you produce an isis member. So you know. You may have people sympathizing to put isis in indonesia and they never joined isis. So i think that you know. For example. I this i that indonesia is a good example. And 4,000 tunisians in iraq and syria but they have not announced approvence. For them. When they did the seem thing in libya though they did not have that many jihadists in libya. In the state. And tunisia the population is more condensed and also the state is present. And visible. So you know. The gulf state. Isis. And tunisia in terms of the tolerance and so on. Isis does not present itself there. So this is about the states being present and Good Governance. Just to make the point. Part of the answer is that they waited for isil to have a strong government even with a majority Muslim Population in places like niche a tunisia. And others are much less susceptible to messages because of that. Isis may have sympathy in damascas for example but it is held back by the government in damascas. You know. An isis member. Found this. That isis members do not say they are isis members. And jihadis and tunisia. And indonesia will not mean that they do not have a problem. Depends on how isis will be in the future. I think that isis. If isis will continue and prove to be resill yevenlt i think that it will continue to grow first. I think that the first target for it is jihadi sim thierzs and say in north africa, and west african in the horn of africa. For example. They have allegiance. And they think thin rest is with alqaeda. Not only the resilience. But as an ideology. And ideology. And as the financial model, and ground in the future. Africa. And african general but also in different parts of the world. So i think that the process of isis for growth is still on still growing. Iraq and syria. Rolled back. Have been on the offensive. Targets were incur. In kurdish territory and shia. In shia territories. Now they are rolled back to all areas. But. It is in tikrit. They have not been threatened by any kind of internal or external challenges. That will not happen. I dont think that if you look at iraq or beijing. Or muslim. Will you not really know what is going on there. And that is an indication of a blackout and isis is so entrenched in the area to eliminate any type of rivalry and potential rivalry. And activists will operate in the areas marked for death. Which any of which would be isis. And would eliminate them if there is an isis area. And has not pledged allegiance to isis. Marked them as a threat. They will watch them closely. They are surely. And also a good use of time and isis. And hardline. And building up. Immune from up rebellion in the area. So i think that isis so far. Let me ask you one more question. And then we will open the. We have a lot of questions from the overflow in your book you wrote that isis is a terrorist organization and mafia. And oil in traffic. And and context of chlt. And under ground network. And gets money a variety of again. Two most important sources of income and so when they conquer the facility this. He will take a lot of weapons. Remember june last year. They forced american trained and they go bill yonlz worth of weapons. They advance weapons and that operation will help them to go back to syria and conquer new areas like the good example. Isis tried very hard to establish a base in isis. It was never successful. And actually. Is interesting. There is approve ends of a social basis in the north. So we will not have a pledge of allegiance to isis. And mostly individuals. And here and there. They try i to make a base for themselves. Isis struggled to take the ground and therpt only ones to entrench themselves and was the most powerful. But after the takeover of muslims, isis went and swept the area. Within weeks. Took over and dismantled. And the american weapons isis. From muslim. And have been since airstrikes. They no longer can expand in other areas and get the money. The oil also because 80 at least of the Oil Resources have been disrupted in the isis areas. We have in the book. Isis has a very interesting system. Different from alqaeda that can sustain itself without donations and help from outsiders and can survive from local money. They run provide services and as away of social bribe. They act as a state. For example when syria. What they would do is if it was really good. They would try to convince the population to either go to like an individual to go to work. Or inform share oil and control the oil. In general they would not try to impose them sxeflz communicate in the community. Local communities. When isis came. It was a different story. Isis imposed its own rules. When it gets money from the Syrian Government because you get to work as a municipality. And worker. Isis forced them to go to, would. And work like eight hours a day. Five days a week. And if someone owns a bakery for example, isis will come and they will have we will provide you with the materials that you need. And you open to operate. If you do not operate we will take it. Confiscate it from you. So to give a share from the revenue. We will operate that. Isis members out of the bakery. And there is no one jumping the lion and so on. They want to regulate it. They would receive a bribe from the drivers. And chaos. And actually. Traffic rules. With isis everyone would have to respect the road. And road rules. If someone works in transportation. And the army that would control you know. The areas. With eastern syria. And several times by the army. Any gangs on the way. When isis came. They would act again as a state. So there is a check noint the east to document what the person is carrying so like stationary. They right it down. They stamp it and the driver will move to mosul and nobody will stop him. Stopping as you can just like the document. That is it. So to like enthis type of new governing body in the areas. Rules. Regulations and la you and order. And another important thing. If you do not mess up with isis. Isis will met up with you. That is how people see it. Dearly. So people will say. You know what . I dont want to mess up with isis. And compare that situation with the situation inside of the regime areas. In side of the area. If you are supporting the regime. You can be a target by like random shelling. And random bombing that is the targets whole neighborhood. Isis has not done that. And talked about the per cemention on the ground. When isis entered particular rim of the they entered without civilians. And everybody just accepted isis. And now, whether the Government Forces from expel isis. They can see the equation and see how people think about isis. David lee miller in the back had a question. An atlantic piece that defeating isis would require defeating the idea that you demonstrate that there are natural limits to um isiss expansion and you try to accent wait contradictions of government navenlts failure to provide services and accent wait conflicts of foreign fighters and locals there. Has been a lot of media reporting that isis is weakening. What is right in the initial an at sister. And second whether or not the internal contradictions are actually appearing. Are they significant . Thanks. This is very important for isis. We will have to understand that every member of isis has the comply of the sort of eyology that isis will endorse. And ideology that the top leaders believe in. Radicalism. And they have the excommunication of muslims and have narrowed the firn of who muslims are. And you cant say that would you to other islamic that you pray five times a day or, so on. So they would not accurate set that as evidence. That you are not a disbeliever somehow. They have different standards of labeling and have so the ideology. Is important. And every member has to comply with it. And no member will kill without a fatwa from the clerics unless they in the battlefield or declaring a war against you know. Other people. They would not be random but based on the islamic references so you know. I this i that the idea this debate that we are hearing for the day. Like we are. Hearing about is a western debate. And not amid middebate. But in the middle east there is a recognition that we have a problem as muslims. If you follow newspapers like hyatt, oral web site. It is flooded. You know. Websites will be flooded articles are written by scholars that have fund religion and preach it had all of the time. When isis burned someone alive, they did this because somebody in the history of islam did it. Isis is the moment. Going back to the earlier figures in islamic history. Emulate them close for the revelation. And they therefore have. A better understanding of what islam is right . So they do have they do not always rely on the koran. And though they do. And also rely on stories and islamic history. And they do not always rely on theories. Isis. Considering establishments as ill legit machlt and also that they can fight the examples and also give you the example to clarify this better. Specked at least within the sunnis and by sunnis and that he of the first commander in chief. And there was a battle in what is today. Iraq between the muslim article army and the percentage army. All of the time. And during the battle the muslim army being defeated at some point the muslim army. Commander. Promised god that there was a word for that. To make a pledge to god. That if he defeats them in the persian army. He would create the blood or river out of their blood. Eventually. commander. Defeated the persian army a day later. He started to slaughter the people that tried to flee and the tricky thing for him is that he could not make a river out of the blood. So he had to think. He found himself like put into a pickle basically. That he would need to find a solution for this. So for the captives and the thousands of prisoner thats were caught by the luz muslim army, and he wanted to kill the captives now. According to them. They could not kill prisoners of war. And he made a pledge to god. Is he he made that for himself to kill the captive. And so he started to kill them. But also there was a problem of you know. That is not a river. You cannot make a river from blood. At some point he released that nearby. And he created this river eventually. And now. You can as a muslim cleric. Why you are killing a captive. This is not acceptable by islam, isis can just cite that example so this being debate all day long with isis but it has happened in islamic history. So what they do is did he ever like anyone that argues with them to be the respected islam by muslims and by sunnis. So a sunni cleric would argue against them so what they end up doing is i will not talk about it. That is the problem that we have. And nobody is talking about these things. And reasons that it is criticized by the sign hes. Wait for the mic please its coming. Yeah i was interested in knowing more about the leadership. We know very little about him actually. It is strike that can you had organizations, the latest from boko haram in nigeria that claimed allegiance to the Supreme Leader that we know so little about. And they do not know more than we do. How do you assess the importance within the organization . What happens to isis if he is killed. Is he replaceable. And i am occur why us to know what your train of thought is with the leadership and the significance . I this i that isis has established an organization to get rid of everyone and anyone. To keep the core. That will grow. To learn the lessons from the fatwa. So they can did he pear. And be eliminated almost entirely. And resurrect again them. Have that they have like a showed up council to be replaced and if killed the council is killed. Isis is a profound autonomous group. So top leaders are very loyal. Loyalists to isis. Firm believes in the group but the lower ranks they insulate. Like insulated from the top leadership there. Is a link twt top leaders. You know. It is best to ensure thain filtration. Infiltration within the lower ranks they never have access to the higher and midlevel or even higher ranks. So organizationally. Everyone is defensible. Isis will survive. Mosul has not affected isis. In fallujah or two questions from the overflow. There is finance that can comes from the gun states isis and private funding. Would, for whether you see that. Different or logical reading that would be able to counter the ideology. Is there such a thing . From the gulf states. I this i that bend fitted from the period of chaos in terms of finance. And financial syrians inside of syria. And up until the late 20126789 and isis was still not existent at the time. But. A lot of money, going through saudi arabia and not from the government of and not meant to go through the jaftds and moderate groups because of the lack of the knowledge of who is who, sometimes the money will go to someone that you trust. That person will give it to someone that he you know. Trusts. Then to groups and so on so. There is a Loose Network that will exist. And in the parts of the world. But the government on the governmental level i think that it is the gulf states that will support isis. See that as a threat. More of a they the than the americans do. They see this as a threat there. Are two sections within the society that are to isis. And they believe in the idea. They have for isis. Those that do not like it sim thierzs do not like isis but they sigh it as away. A desperate way to the break this in the region. At least we will break this political stagnation that exists in the region so there is isis. In the climate, theology. I this i that the problem is really not the theology but it is all about credibility really. And legit massy. The problem with most of the clerical establishment in the muslim world is that they are aligned to the authority regimes or they cant escape it or because you know, they have lost credibility because for a variety of other reasons like. I think that the trend now. The collapse of the religious elite at the time. A lot of people do not like the fact that there are religious clerics and minds. And authority governments. And the chance for everyone to that is progressive. Right . And the group that sees this is isis. Nobody enlightening muslims and opportunity of the collapse. And authority of the clerics. There was more of privatization of the religious discourse. But isis took over. And they basically capitalized on or tapped into this thing. I will wait for the mic it. Is coming. Here. Can you explain what attracts young muslims even from the western communities that join isis . In the book, again. We found six different categories and factors of why people join isis. And the factors range from pragmatic. They like governance or it could be because of the social rivalry. And syria for example, when this revolution started, there were certain families in syria who joined from the beginling and wanted to own this valor ideal. That are pro revolution there. Is a social status. They found isis convenient to reverse the situation. And i this i that the other factors. With sun a political project. A lot of people dont agree with isis. You know. They agree with the political project. And they will drift towards isis because they find it to be a viable force to change a situation. And in these parts of the world. Like i told you the long standing radicals. They believe next act you know. The ideology of isis and all of the details. This is the most dangerous and important category. Young people as young as 13 and even younger, drifted towards isis because they find ideology invigorating and elect identifying. They listen to these clerics on the ground. And telling them all about what isis is. And how they could be apart of this type of project that will restore the glory of islam. And people who do not advise lamb i can training will drift to isis through these kind of rhetoric. They will join isis. They you know. They want to be adults. They want to rebell against their parents and to. They believe in the idol gee. Once they join it you know. I spoke with a lot of parents that have you know, their children. Just. Disappeared from homes and joined isis later. They say that when they started to argue with their children as young as 13, the children all of a sudden become, they found like they are educate and they fight religiously. And they fight in the sayings and events. They are they know how to argue back against their parents. A lot of people have said, i was almost convinced my my is only. Right. So there are different ways for the westerners and i think that the problem. I this i that the appeal is different. West ernlers that go to the isis areas are usually detached from the reality. They do not know what is happening there. They will become susceptible to the isis propaganda. And the states. And end of time. That is where the social media comes in. For isis. They can communicate this message. And without being distracted by the facts on the ground. To know what it is. A lot of people will buy into this. Just wait for the mic. Please. Thank you very much for your inside. And a lot of this is desire to restore the era of glowy. So how much is it than in a historic argument do you believe . And in order to return to the age. And if it is more of an argument do you my next question is why islam there. Are advocating in the name faith. It has a rich source of literature that it can derive its ads and legitimize it says. The insure staying thing usually isis delivered late even if it finds legitimization of its ads in pure islamic text they can easily refer to the saudi penal code and justify a lot of things but they dont do that. What they do is they dig deeper and they find very obscure teachings in islamic history and events and history. Historical events. If the president. Like i i told you because isis considers the early islamic figures as sources of authority. They are the authority of islam and theres a mainstream current in islam that believe that the ancestors the three generations of islam are a source of authority. They cant just rely on the courant but they had to rely on the interpretation of how these generations interpreted islam. So in the way you can argue against salafism. It doesnt make you argue with them. They make you argue with salafism and general. You need to deal with centuries centuries worth of literature and sayings and fats was and as long as you become distracted by that you are good but that doesnt mean you dont deal with these problems. There is not enough attention to these problems like i said they historical precedent but also really precedence set by the prophets and the first cut looks through the profit recommended as sources of legislation for sunnis and so on. So they rely on these authorities to justify their acts. They rely on these events. They dont make corona beer priority because if you rely on the koran you have a lot of problems. You still have crucifixion and the thieves and the crimes that you dont have beheadings and he dont have burning people alive and this kind of sabra chi sabra chi. Savagery. Its not an invention by isis. During times of war they would conquer an area and when isis enslaved the cd women in islam you can only take taxes and offered three choices to christians and jewish only they consider the people of the book so you can give these people three choices. Either convert, pay taxes or be killed. 4d yazidis dare not people of the book. They are considered devil worshipers by isis so they consider them as legitimate targets to enslave their women, kill the males and expel the rest of outside areas. Its like basically sectarian cleansing or religious cleansing so they cant find justification for these thin