Announcer this week on q a, institute for policy studies fellow Phyllis Bennis discusses her book, understanding isis and the new global war on terror. Ms. Bennis also talks about u. S. Foreign policy since 911 and the obama administrations recent negotiations with iran. Brian Phyllis Bennis, how would you describe what you do for a living . Phyllis ooh. It is one of those great privileges. I get to work my passion, which is working as a public scholar. For me, it means working against wars and occupation and bad foreign policy, mostly by our own government. What does it mean daytoday . I write stuff, i speak, i talk to people. I work in social movements. Brian who pays you . Phyllis i work for the institute of policy studies. It is the longest lasting multiprogressive think tank in the country. Its been around since the early 60s. We raise money partly from foundations and partly from individuals. We do not take any government or corporate money. Brian when people give you money, what do they want from you . Phyllis usually what they want is access to information. Isis has been a good example. Who is isis . The reason i wrote a book about isis was because the book kept asking me where can i get some basic stuff . I dont need to be an expert. I just want the basics. So i said, ok. I guess ill write one. I think what people want is information. We cannot rely on Mainstream Media the way we used to be able to rely on it. The internet provides a huge amount of information but sorting through it, it is hard to know what is reliable and what is shady stuff. You want something you rely on, so you go to people that you trust and you share your views, maybe about the way to change the world is to build big social movements against war, inequality, and racism. Ips over the years has worked with all those movements. I think that is what people want. Brian when did the media give you what you wanted . Phyllis im not sure that is true. When i was a kid, everybody trusted walter cronkite. He was condemned after he criticized the war in vietnam. Its not about trusting individual journalists. Its been a long time. They work really hard, tried to do their best, but it is a system that doesnt work area well. It is owned by john corporations it is owned by giant corporations that also own a lot of war industries, for example. You have a Major Network that is owned by the same corporation that owns general electric, which is one of the egg military contractors. That cannot help but affect how they cover wars and the use of military goods. Brian they did get out of it. They sold it. Phyllis eventually. Brian lets go to your book. This is understanding isis in the new global war on terror. There is one question i want to ask you to start with, what is the difference between a sunni and a shia . Phyllis it is an important question, although i am not sure it is the most important question in understanding the complex situation we are dealing with. It goes back to the seventh century, the prophet mohammed. I am not inexpert on all the ins and outs of the ideologically. Of muslim theology but it was an argument over who should take over after the prophet died. Their word to schools of thought, one that said it should be direct family, another said it should be the person working closest with him and should continue on the line. That was the beginning of the split. It doesnt really matter. You know, the actual theological differences are not as important as the political consequences of those differences. Among other things, when you look at the civil war in syria, which is now seven separate wars that are all been fought to the last syrian, one of those wars is a power struggle in the region for who is going to be the Regional Power between saudi arabia and iran. Another is a sectarian war between sunni and shia. And that also puts saudi arabia and iran and some of the other forces in the region that they support in syria and elsewhere on opposite sides. So, it becomes a political struggle as much as a religious struggle. Brian so, how much of what weve seen happen in the last 15 years would we be seeing if there was not a split between the sunnis and the shia . Phyllis i think all of it would still be happening. It might look a different, but i think the origins of all of this are far more with oil, with the search for military bases, for foreign occupations of a number of things. I think all of those things are far more important than the sunnishia divide in actually creating the split and the problems in the region. Brian since you have had this book on the market, understanding isis and the new global war on terror, what is the reaction you have gotten from people who have read it . Phyllis the book has only been out for a few weeks so i havent gotten too much response yet. It is probably similar to the response to articles that are right, which is basically, boy, do i need to know all this . Do i need to know this detail . And i say, absolutely not. That is why the book it is written in frequently asked questions, where people can stick around or they can just read a few. But it is important to understand who is isis. What are their origins . What do they believe in . Why are they so violent . I describe all of those things. But what is the United States policy regarding isis . Why isnt it working . Can we really go to war against terrorism . Are we doing war wrong or is it wrong to say there should be a war against terrorism at all . Those are the questions that in some ways are the most important and will be the most useful for people who pick up the book. Brian the isis folks have turned out to be pretty good with video and audio. Phyllis horribly so. Brian people that know more about it than i do say they are well produced. We have seen some of this before but just set up the feeling that you have when you see the isis group and then have you come back and explain some of this. [video clip] i call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against the real killers, the u. S. Government. For what will happen to me is a result of their complacency and criminology. My message to my beloved parents, save me some dignity. Do not except any meager compensation for my death from the same people who effectively had the last nail on my coffin with their recent aerial attack on iraq. You have been in the forefront of the islamic state. You go for out of your way to interfere in our affairs. Today, your military has caused casualties. You are no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an islamic army and a state that has been accepted by a large number of muslims worldwide. Brian what do you think of what you saw . Phyllis horrifying. It is absolutely horrifying. Their ability to bring that image so up close and personal is what makes it so horrific. The reality is, if you compare the number of people license has killed to the numbers of People Killed in the u. S. Occupation of iraq, the war in afghanistan, it does not come close. But that is not the only comparison you can make. When it is this up close and personal, it has a very specific human affect. I look away even because i know what comes, even if i dont watch it. I think most people do. But there is a reason for putting this kind of horrifying reality on video and showing it to people. One, it showed power and it makes them look powerful and strong. Two, there are clearly some people attracted to that kind of violence. Thankfully, not very many. And third, perhaps the most important, is this is what drives what we used to call the cnn factor. Maybe it should be called the twitter factor of news and policy. Which is, it outrages people. And when people are outraged, they demand that the government do something. And the something, unfortunately, is almost always military. So it drives a policy of responding to this kind of horrific act with war. Which doesnt work. Kills far more people than it prevents being killed. And puts us in the position of being the worlds oppressor to so many people are on the world. Around the world. But, this is so often the decision because there are no good alternatives that are considered politically viable. It may be viable in terms of doing the job, but it is not clinically viable because it does not look powerful enough. And by creating this kind of outrage, these actions, these horrific torture videos, the killing videos, the beheadings, the burnings, this pushes people in the United States, in britain, elsewhere, pushes people to demand the government go to war over there. Which is what isis wants. They want our troops over there to be targets. They dont want isis to come here. There is no evidence and most intelligence officials have said that, there is no evidence that they are looking to create a terror action in the United States. Their goal is to create, what he just said, a state, an islamic state, a caliphate, in territory that we once knew as part of iraq and part of syria. And it is a very specific and a very local struggle. Brian here is a map that is provided by the military. It shows where the strikes have been. You can see on the screen, it is both in syria on top and down below, in iraq. And you say thats those strikes do not have any impact. Phyllis i think certain strikes will have an impact at certain times. I am not saying there is no effect at all. But the idea that we can somehow on terrorism out of existence simply is a fallacy. You dont bomb terrorism. You bomb people. You bomb countries. You bomb cities. You may hit some terrorists. And for every one that you kill, you are creating new enemies in their sons, their daughters, their children, their tribe, the their religion, their village, their city, their country. I think we know that. Policymakers will admit that if you asked them about it. But it doesnt seem to change the fact that come as often as we hear president obama say there is no military solution, what we see is military action after military action. So any specific airstrike might get the right person. More often, it is not. But even if it does, the consequences of that right action it got the person it was aiming at that person may turn out to have been turned in for a bounty. They may not be the right person at all. If they are, they still have a family. They have children. They have a wife. They have daughters. They have sons. They have people who live with them. People who love them. And when we kill them, chances are there family does not inc. Think they are a terrorist. Particularly because of most of all, the strikes hit people in their homes or in their cars. When they are sleeping or driving. Not when they are actually fighting. So what does people are killed, they are being a father. They are being a neighbor. The responses, you have killed my father. You have killed my neighbor. Not, thankfully you have killed my terrorist. Brian paul bremmer and president obama made the following comments over the last several years. I want to get your personal reaction to what they both said. [video clip] ladies and gentlemen, we got him. [cheers] president obama good evening. Tonight, i can report to the American People and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that has killed osama in london, the Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al qaeda, and a terrorist responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright september day was darkened by the worst attack on the American People in our history. Phyllis you know, the killing of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Osama Bin Laden, if we look at it historically, the conditions in iraq, the threat of terrorism, the actual terrorist attacks have gotten worse, and not better since they were killed. So the notion that that somehow is something to cheer about, i can remember the day that Saddam Hussein was killed. I was in jordan. I remember hearing how people talk about it. And, it was very different from the kind of cheering that i was hearing from the United States. Brian what did they say . Phyllis there was no great love lost. They were not fans of Saddam Hussein. But since the overthrow of his government, they lost the stability that accompanied the fact that it was a very repressive regime if you did to dare to speak against the government. And that is a serious problem that i dont think u. S. Policy makers took into account. There is a sense, because we identify someone as a terrorist and, objectively yes, Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist. Saddam hussein not so much. A repressive dictator, yes, but a terrorist, no. But, whatever they were, in our view, they were that one thing and that one thing only. For people in the region, people who are closer to them than we are, they are many things. It is a much more nuanced understanding. We do not understand nuance very well in this country. Brian what about the reaction to president obama . What do you think of him . Phyllis today, i am very proud of president obama for the agreement with iran, which took a lot of political courage. It shouldnt have. There should never have to be political courage to say we support diplomacy over war. This was a huge victory for negotiation and diplomacy over war. The fact that president obama had to use Political Capital into had to be brave is a real terrible statement about the state of our political reality in this country. But he was brave. So i applaud him for that. I applaud him for what he said yesterday about prisons. So in this last time, i was very proud to have voted for president obama. Brian so why is it brave to eventually lift sections on cuba why is it brave to make this decision on iran . Phyllis it shouldnt have to be brave, it should be normal. Brian but you said it is brave. Phyllis brave politically because there is a political price to be paid because of the right wing character of our politics where there are hardline lobbies. The procuba lobby, which was really the anticuba lobby, the antifidel lobby based in miami, who are much meeker these days week as it didnt transfer to the next generation. Brian let me ask you this. He didnt do anything his first term. He is not going to run for an office again. Again, i go back to why is it brave for him to make a decision in the last two years in his presidency that will not have an impact on him . Phyllis i think in the real world, in this washington bubble that you and i both live in, there is courage that is required. There shouldnt be. He is going to have a political career after the presidency. He will be running for office. He wont be running for office but i dont know what he wants to be. But some of it involves in universities and corporate boards, unfortunately. Not criticizing corporations. Who knows what he is going to want to but he is going to be a young man wanting to do something useful, something interesting, something challenging. So he doesnt want to completely undermined undermine his own political reputation with his own party, for instance. I wish that we would have a president who said, you know what, i have been elected to do certain things, end wars, do what i can to end racism in this country. I am going to do things that my party is what you hate. And that is just the way it was to be. If i dont want a second term, so be it. I wish we had somebody with that kind of courage. Barack obama has not been that president. But we have the president that we have and he has been in this context politically brave in the last immediate period. He has done some pretty terrible things in the last period as well. There have been continuing airstrikes and drone attacks. He has escalated the drone war too far more countries than george bush dreamed of. The fact that he has continued responding to acts of terrorism with war means he is continuing the policy of george w. Bush. I am not a big fan of barack obama. It was not only a failure. It was in my view a crime. I spoke not too long ago at Hofstra University that was hosting the official conference on the presidency of george w. Bush. And at the opening panel, i said that i thought george w. Bush belonged on trial in the hague for war crimes. I believe thats true. I hope that president obama will do more to distinguish himself from that legacy of his predecessor. Brian back in march i want to run a clip of tomaselli, the former senior press advisor. He laid down the accomplishments of the bush administration. We will get you to respond to that. [video clip] tom despite poor in tall, pour in for structure military assets, essential services, mass looting, a lack of indigenous security forces, the iraq mission also realized a range of success is not sufficiently promoted by the administration and remotely ignored by the media. The training of new Iraqi Security forces began within weeks of the creation of the cpa, which enabled anybody up to the grade of colonel to reapply to a new professional army. Ultimately 80 of the officers in the ncos in the new army were from the old army were better trained, better paid, and better equipped. The central bank was reopened and the currency transition to a single stable unit within the first six months. It took us two years to do that and postworld war ii germany. Oil production increased. Buildings were rebuilt, good hospitals and health care centers. A constitution was developed. Systems were created to facilitate an election in an incredibly challenging and degrading security environment. Brian what do you think of it from a philosophical point . How is it you can think so vastly different from him . Phyllis i found it interesting that, unlike all of the other conferences on the presidency and they have one for every president in history this is the only one where the president , the Vice President , the secretary of state, the secretary of defense none of them showed up. This is the first time. Thats what you have a junior grade pr flack who was on the lead panel because he was the highestranking official they could get. Right . So, i think that says something about the philosophical basis. There is a reason george bush doesnt want to appear. Not just that he doesnt want to debate me. I mean, i would be flattered to think he did not want to debate me, but i dont think that was the issue. I think the issue was they dont want to remind people when jeb bush is running for president that his brother was responsible for the devastation of a country. Brian go back to the question i asked about what you think happens to two differ