uniform to the veterans administration is as seamless as possible and i think we owe them that. >> one last question general. your predecessor, general dempsey, stated repeatedly, and i am quoting we have the capability to use a military option if the iranians choose to stray off the diplomatic path end quote. my question to you is are you satisfied our nation has done enough to prepare militarily for the option and the president has said all options should be on the table if necessary to use a military option there as much as we all may wish that the negotiations should succeed. >> senator, my understanding today is that we have both the plans in place and the capability in place to deal with a wide range of things in iran. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman and general. congratulations on your nomination and thank you for your 38 years of distinguished service and your leadership. our nation is fortunate to have a military leader such as you serving at a time in great peril. i want to ask a question of you, as i did commander dempsey. if the objective were to destroy isis, and not to weaken or break them, but to destroy them in 90 days, what would be militarily to accomplish that objective? >> my assessment is it would not be possible to destroy isil within 90 days, and i also don't believe we could develop an enduring solution simply with military force against isil but i do think the military aspect is critical. >> if the timeframe i suggested is not feasible let me ask you a follow-up question which is what would be required to destroy isis and what timeframe is necessary specifically if that were the objective what would be required to accomplish it militarily? >> if i am confirmed i will continue to look at the issue but my perspective today is this is a long-term endeavor years and not months in order to defeat and in your words destroy, isil. >> what would be required to do that and whatever time period is necessary? >> the two things we are doing, i think we need to continue to do and that's to take action to deny isil sankctuary, and it would require us to build local forces that would be the real defeat mechanism for isil in respective countries given the way that it's spread right now, and you would have to have effective governance so you have the conditions set for long-term stability where isis could not get traction in the future and look at where they get their money and would have to address the movement of foreign fighters back and forth and probably as importantly, the one thing we need to do senator undermine the narrative of isil and discredit the narrative isil. >> in your personal judgment, are you concerned about the rules of engagement for our current use of air power that it is overly constraining the effectiveness? >> senator, i am not. one of the reasons is that when we go to war, we go to war with our values and we conduct the execution and the thing that we are doing now is insuring that we don't have civilian casualties and i think that frankly supports our narrative and it gives us the credibility that we need to be successful long-term in this campaign. >> in recent days the administration informed congress that we are arming the kurds. this is something that i have called for for a long time. i spoke this week with the senior kurdish leader who reported that the commanders on the ground of the peshmerga are not confirming that. what can you tell this committee about the extent to which we are providing serious arms to the kurds and it's actually getting to them rather than being bogged down in baghdad? >> senator first i would agree the most effective ground forces in syria and iraq today are in fact the kurds. my understanding is that the issues associated with supporting the kurds have been addressed and they are now getting the support, the material support and training they need, and if i am confirmed as a matter of priority i will go over there and visit and make my own personal assessment based on the facts on the ground. >> will you commit to providing this committee specific details in terms of what is being done to arm the kurds? >> i will do that, senator. >> let me ask concerning iran, if iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, what is the national security risk in your judgment to the united states of that occurrence? >> senator, i think it's significant. particularly particularly, if accompanying that is missile technology, it's a significant threat to our nation, and it's also a destabilizing effort -- action in the middle east, and i think we can expect a proliferation of nuclear arms as a result of the nuclear weapons. >> i am concerned about morale in the military. we discussed in this hearing how the world is getting more and more dangerous and at the same time i think we are dramatically undermining our readiness and ability to defend this nation. the military times did a survey where in 2009 they asked soldiers whether overall the quality of life is good or excellent and 91% said yes, and in 2014 that dropped from 91% to 56%, and likewise they asked whether the senior military leadership has my best interests at heart, and in 200953%, and in 2014 that dropped in half to roughly 27%. do you share the concerns about the declining morale in the military military? if so what do you see is the cause of it and the proper approach to fix it? >> thanks for the question. with regard to the morale of the force and it's clearly one of the things that distinguished us and i was able to say in the opening statement we have the most capable military force today, and it's not something that i would be comeplacent about. i do have concerns about how hard we have been running the women and men over the last couple years, and we wanted to have a 1 to 3 deemployment ratio, and they would be home for 21 months and that would allow to get training and a sustained rate of fire. many of the units inside the marine corps are at a one to two deployment rate, so they are home for less than that time. it has an affect on the families and, again, our ability to train across the range of military operations. if i am confirmed this is going to be one of the areas that i focus on. i think i have a responsibility to lead the young men and women in uniform and when i say represent them, that means the leadership here on the hill and the executive branch what leadership and resources they need to remain the best fighting force in the united states, and it bothers me if the men and women don't have confidence in the senior leadership, and that will be a priority for me that that will be exactly what i seek to do is gain the trust and confidence and let them know they are properly represented here in washington, d.c. and we as leaders recognize they are asking to do a lot, and they don't ask for a lot in return. i will commit to you that's exactly what i will do. >> thank you. as in sequestration, bread uncertainty which has contributed to the drop in morale? >> i should have mentioned that when i talked about how busy the forces are. there's a tremendous amount of angst across the force and that is driven by the uncertainty so i think sequestration is a factor factor. >> there was a follow-up question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general, i just want to get back to the issue of the military's role in relationship with congress. do you think it's an important role that we have to make sure that our services don't replicate missions and core competencies? >> i do. >> let me provide a quick example. i believe one of the core that the army has is large scale air units that can deploy in moments and do you think that's one of their core competencies? >> i do. >> and then shipping for quote expedition maneuvers throughout the pacific. what service core competency would you associate that with? >> the navy. >> so if it was the army, would that surprise you? >> it would not. >> do you think that costly new army mission is a redundant mission to the united states marine corps mission and is that a good use of the america's taxpayer and military spending? >> senator given the short fall of amphibious lift, i think the priority ought to go to the united states marine corps. >> would it be appropriate for this congress to limit such redundancies to make sure that military funding goes to core competencies like the brigades in the pacific and the arctic as opposed to redundant activities like troops on naval shipping? >> i think we have a critical role, and the joint capabilities are right sized. >> thank you. >> thank you for that single follow-up question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize for getting back so late. i was in an appropriations markup. general, thank you very much to you and your family for your service in the past and for your willingness to continue to serve. i have to say after watching you before the crowd of new hampshire business folks and hearing from them how impressed they were i look forward to the impression you will make as the new chairman of the joint chiefs. i wanted to follow-up on senator wicker's questions about europe and the concerns in europe, because i recently returned from a visit to poland where i saw the nato exercises at a base, and i heard extreme concern about the potential for putin to engage, as you pointed out, in asa mettic insta tkpwaeugss. i am concerned about europe for failure to their commitment for the spending? >> senator, i think it's important that our nato partners bear their share of the burden and i know that's something secretary carter and his predecessors addressed and they want them to meet the 2%, and given the short fall in europe, defensive cyber capabilities and so forth, i think it's going to be critical for our partners to develop those capabilities of capacities, and i have seen firsthand in my previous assignment in afghanistan when our nato partners are properly resourced, i think the alliance were it to be properly resourced can be a effective force for stability in europe and out of europe operations. >> ai agree and hopefully we will see that commitment followed through on because clearly the threat from putin and from russia continues, and our eastern european allies are very concerned about that. i want to ask you about -- you talked about the deployment pressures on our military. i wonder if you could give me your perspective on the appropriate active to reserve ratio and the importance of the national guard in reserve and continuing the military mission that we have in this country. >> senator i can, and of course, one of the things that we have to do when we talk about using the reserve and the guard is balance the concerns of employers and concerns of families with the willingness and the desire frankly, for the guard and reserve to continue to serve in much more of an operational and strategic sense, and what i mean is the guard reserve will be something in the case of a major war we would mobilize them, and particularly with the size of our u.s. military force that the guard and reserve is much more operational and they are useful and necessary on a day-to-day basis basis. my sense as a service chief and i will look at the implications across the other services if i am confirmed is about once every four years is a reasonable time for major deployment although in many cases depending on what their employment is and so forth individuals can be available on a much more routine basis, but for whole units, a one-year deployment and mobilization, and four years back focused on the families and employers seems to be sustain blg blg able, and if i am confirmed, i will make sure i have a full appreciation for their challenges as well as the other service chiefs. >> we have seen in new hampshire the significant contribution of the guard and the integration particularly with the air refuelling of active duty and guard and providing that mission, so i think it's very important. let me ask you if you would commit to two things. one is in 2013 the department announced the elimination of the direct combat exclusion policy and announced plans to fully integrate more women into all occupational fields. i hope you will continue that effort and see it through as we know women are making up a greater percentage of our military these days and making sure they have the ability to compete in all areas i think, is significant. the other question, i noticed this week the navy announced they have tripled the maternity leave policy for women serving in the navy, and i would urge you to consider that across all branches of the military, again, as women are making up more of our troops. i think it's important to address the issues that -- the family issues they have and maternity leave is a big part of that. i hope you will do that. >> i will look at both of those issues. >> thank you. >> senator gray. >> thank you. general, i think you are an outstanding choice and the president could not have chosen a better person for the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. when it comes to stopping isil that's the stated goal is to degrade and destroy, and if we fail in that goal what can america expect? >> if we were to fail in stopping isil you will see an expansion across the middle east and outside the middle east and we have seen elements all the way to afghanistan. >> they are an expanding power as we speak? >> senator i think they are expanding in terms of geographic location. i have not expandconcluded they are expanded incapability. >> you said if we do not stop these guys we can expect more. >> right. >> at the end of the day, we will have to stop these guys. is it fair to say iraq and syria need to be viewed as one battle space when it comes to isil? it would be hard to stop them in iraq if you don't address their presence in syria? >> the enemy doesn't respect the boundaries we see on the map? >> can you envision a scenario where you have a regional army made up of arabs that would go into syria and fight isil alone leaving assad off the table would they join up for such a fight? >> it's hard for me watching the politics on the outside right now to see the degree of integration given the interests that those countries have but i can see where it would be an effective way is to have an army willing to deal with isil. >> my question is if you did not put assad's removal on the table it would be difficult to get them to fight isil? >> that's correct, most of the countries you spoke about have a shared goal is assad's presence a magnet for sunni extremists? >> i think if not the proximate cause of the isil movement one of the primary drivers was the assad regime. >> if we go down to forces do we sub stantially lose our counterterrorism mission? >> we'd have a degradation of our terrorism mission in afghanistan. >> would we lose our eyes and ears along the afghan/pakistan border that we enjoy today? >> we would senator. >> that would create a lot of risk to the gains we've achieved over the past decade if we dead not have those eyes and ears and counterterrorism forces? >> senator no question it would create risk. >> okay. when it comes to 60 free syrian army troops being trained under the current regime, would you agree it's going to be hard to recruit people to go into syria if you don't promise them protection from assad because if they get any capability at all in fighting isil, assad would assume that capability would be turned on him one day, and he's not going to sit on the sidelines and watch a force mature and develop without hitting them. >> i agree with that assessment. >> the most logical way of training a force is that assad will see them as a threat to his regime and most likely attack? >> i agree with that, senator. >> i think it would be immoral to put someone in that position knowing that's coming their way without some capability to defend themselves. does that make sense to you? >> if we train moderate syrian forces and syrian army, then we ought to provide them with the wherewithal to be successful. >> if this war in syria continues the way it's going for another year do you worry about stability in jordan? >> i, do senator. >> do you worry about stability in lebanon? >> i do, senator. >> so the consequences of going into syria with a regional force and all the problems associated with it have to be balanced against the consequences of isil surviving and thriving? >> i agree with that, senator. >> in your view over the long haul, is it in america's national security interest to do things necessary to degrade and destroy isil? >> i do believe that's in our national interest to do that, senator. >> do you agree whatever regional army we may form there's certain american capabilities that would be outcome dieterm native and it would be for us to provide those capabilities? >> i agree particularly in aviation reconnaissance and special operations capabilities. >> finally, if a soldier or member of our military falls in iraq or syria trying to destroyed isil would you agree with me that they died protecting their homeland? >> i would senator. >> and that's the reason some of them may have to go back? >> senator, no question in my mind the young men and women deployed right now, the 3500 inside iraq and those working for centcom are protecting our nation. >> god bless them. god bless you. best of luck. >> thank you, senator. >> general, let me thank you for your service. on behalf of the chairman i will now adjourn the hearing. >> thank you, senator reed. the armed services committee will be voting soon on whether to recommend to the full senate confirmation of general joseph dunford to be the next joint chiefs chairman for the next two years. martin dempsey's term expires at the end of september. you can watch the hearing any time on our website c-span.org. secretary of state john kerry will be making a statement in vienna at 1:00 p.m. eastern time today on the iran nuclear talks. the associated press reporting the negotiations lurched toward another deadline on thursday with diplomats reconvening amid persistent uncertainty and vague but seemingly hopeful advancements from the participants. south carolina out with this story early this morning. the south carolina house of representatives made two historic votes early thursday morning and by wide margins ordered the permanent removal of the state house's confederate battle flag sending it to a museum for display. the house votes in south carolina after the senate spent more than ten hours debating amendments that enraged both republicans and democrats. the debate continued for nearly five hours after a very emotional plea by jenny horne to pass the bill without any changes. here are some of her comments. >> thank you, mr. speaker, for your indulgence tonight. i know the hour is late so i will be brief. as a member of the charleston delegation, i would like to express to you how important it is that we not amend this bill. and the reason we need not amend this bill at this time is because if we amend the bill in any form or fashion, it is going to a conference committee. it is not going to end quickly. we are going to be doing this all summer long. let me tell you, i attended the funeral of senator clementa pinckney, and the people of charleston deserve immediate and swift removal of that flag from this grounds. we can save for another day where this flag needs to go. where the -- which flag needs to fly or where it needs to fly or what museum it needs to be in. but the immediate issue as far as i'm concerned as a member of the charleston delegation and speaking on behalf of the people in charleston, this flag offends my friend mia mcleod my friend john king, my friend neal. i cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body to do something meaningful such as take a symbol of hate off these grounds on friday. and if any of you vote to amend, you are ensuring this flag will fly beyond friday. and for the widow of senator pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury. and i will not be a part of it. and for all of these reasons i will not vote to amend this bill today. we may visit this another session, another year but if we amend this bill, we are telling the people of charleston we don't care about you. we do not care that someone used this symbol of hate to slay eight innocent people who were worshiping their god. i'm sorry. i have heard enough about heritage. i have a heritage. i'm a life-long south carolinian. i am a descendant of jefferson davis, okay? but that does not matter. it's not about jenny horne. it's about the people of south carolina who have demanded that this symbol of hate come off of the state house grounds. and i will tell you i do know, and i have it on good authority that the world is watching this debate. and there is an economic development prospect in dorchester county that is in jeopardy because we refuse to act. we need to follow the example of the senate. remove this flag and do it today. because this issue is not getting any better with age. thank you. this news from politico. house republican leadership is pulling a spending bill. the interior bill today after a skirmish over the confederate flag. southerners revolted against a democratic plan to ban it from cemeteries after a shooting in south carolina. "this was an attempt to codify the obama administration's own directive to our national cemeteries and it is unfortunate that it has devolved into a political battle. it is our hope that we can have a thoughtful discussion on this matter that is free of politics," said a gop leadership aide. republican leaders pulling the interior department bill today because of that skirmish in the house over the confederate flag. that from politico. the house has just begun legislative work for the day today. again was scheduled to consider that interior department bill. but again that's been pulled. the house is planning to work on a bill to improve park service management of fire-prone federal forest lands. watch live house coverage on our companion network c-span. the u.s. senate continues work on a bill changing the no child left behind bill. live coverage now of the senate on c-span 2. here's some background on the bill. >> why this debate now? the education law no child left behind expired in 2007. >> right. it did expire some time ago but states have really been reeling from some of the most burdensome provisions which is known as no child left behind. among those are a requirement -- accountability of requirement which requires students to get better and better each year. the department of education has been so troublesome that the department of education has given almost every state a waiver from a lot of the burdensome requirements of no child left behind. essentially what you have is people states operating under the system of the department of education right now. it's been a big battle to cull enough votes on either side to get this moving. it seems that congress really is starting to get things ago. >> what motivated lawmakers? what has this administration been doing in the absence of reauthorization or rewrite of no child left behind? what have they been doing that's motivating these lawmakers? >> they've been a real effort on their part to push higher standards. a lot of states have adopted the common core state standards in the past year which has become a very contentious issue. they've also been pushing states to get more serious about their teacher evaluation system and really two of the big things that a lot of republicans would actually agree are good. higher standards and teacher evaluation. but they just don't want that coming from the federal government. >> and the no child left behind law unpopular. one poll showed, a 2012 gallup poll that 3 in 10 americans thought the worselaw has worsened the quality of education. what has been the trends? >> well let's see. really the adequate yearly progress, which is the accountability system in a lot of cases forced states to dummy don down their standards because what it required was students hitting higher bars year after year. a lot of states dummied it down so that more students could hit that bar. and that was one of the biggest problems with the law. you will hear across the board positive thoughts about no child left behind and its ability to shine a light on some groups of students before 2001 hadn't really been looked at by themselves and who has really gone a long way in beginning to close achievement gaps. of course those achievement gaps are still in the system. >> we want our viewers to call in and tell washington what changes they'd make to the education policy. let's talk about what house lawmakers did last night. narrowly approving a bill 218-213. what does this rewrite say about testing? >> well, actually this rewrite would allow -- would keep in place the current federal testing schedule and the requirement that states disaggregate student achievement data. it would however, give a lot of flexibility there. in an amendment adopted last night before the final passage of a bill would allow parents to opt their children out of the testing requirements and exempt schools from the requirement that 95% of the students take these tests. and that requirement is in order to get a good oaf-- of student achievement. for republicans that is something they really wanted to see. >> what would the senate legislation do on this issue of testing? keep it the same? >> yes, that's correct. there's a lot of misconception out there that the federal government mandates a ton of testing and does it. mandates 17 tests throughout a k through 12 career. the problem that you're hearing for this overtesting argument is that there's so much weight put on the accountability system for these tests to count so much for states accountability system that the state and local governments are actually requiring more and more testing. so the big picture thinking here is if you roll back the current accountability system and let states create one for themselves, that that testing program would be limited. >> so the house passed their version of the bill. the senate is working on their own. what do these two pieces of legislation worksay on standards? >> they both make it very, very clear that the u.s. department of education and secretary of education cannot mandate, incentivize, coerce, however you want to say it states to adopt any sort of standards improving upon state score standards. common core state standards are in the legislation specifically, and that was really important for republicans who have been hearing from a lot of their constituents. getting frustrated with some of the things coming along with common core state standards. >> and teacher unions. how do they view common core? >> teaching unions are generally backing of common core. it's hard to be against high standards. of course, no one wants to say they're against standards that could help increase student achievement. their issue -- a lot of the issue comes with the assessment attached to the common core state standards. >> we'll get to our calls in a minute. let's go through what these two pieces of legislation say about teacher evaluations. also major point of contention. >> so the senate bill would require states to evaluate teachers but doesn't necessarily say how to do that. and that's something that was really big for alexander who is a republican from tennessee the education chairman in the senate and co-author of the senate bill. he said multiple times yesterday, if you believe that i do that the underpinning of good education is high standards and teacher evaluations you'll be with me on this bill. but we must let states sort of choose that. and there's similar language in the house bill as well. >> what about funding levels for education? >> sure. so funding levels in the house bill would be significantly diminished. one of the biggest democrats in addition to decreasing funding is that this would allow title one dollars for low-income students to follow them to the school of their choice. tult title one is the linchpin of this bill. it helps districts with large numbers of low-income students. and democrats. and even some business groups as well are really arguing that that provision in particular would shift critical funding from really impoverished district to potentially wealthier ones. so that's a big problem for them. >> lauren camera, reporter with "education week." thanks for breaking it down for our viewers. >> no problem. thanks. next former cia deputy director steven kappes and "the washington post's" david ig ignatius talk about combating isis. the center for strategic and international studies hosted this last month. >> good morning everyone. thank you for joining us at csis. for those who have made your first visit to the building, offer you a special welcome. i want to point out the emergency exits through the main doors in which you came and also around the corner to the left and in the back left corner near the little lounge area is an exit there as well. my name is tom sanderson. i'm the director of the trans national threats project at csis. happy to welcome you here. we're currently conducting two studies that are ongoing. foreign fighter study looking at turkey and tunisia and several other nations in the phenomenon of foreign fighters. just had an interesting discussion with stephen kappes. maybe we'll get to that today. also our africa program run by jennifer cook. we'll make a couple field visits there in the fall. i want to recognize a few folks. judge william webster former cia and fbi director and director of the trans national threats senior steering project. ron marks and john nelson. over here, ambassador claudia friche and also dick o'neil, one of our advisers sitting in the back. let me first start off with a brief bio on our two guests. very happy to have such luminaries here to discuss what we're covering with isis and the degrade and defeat exercise we're doing today. david ignatius associate editor and columnist for "the washington post." long and distinguished career, including since 2003 twice weekly globally distributed column on global politics and international affairs. executive director of the -- editor of the international herald tribune. the foreign editor of the post and for "the wall street journal," david served as a reporter, middle east correspondent and chief diplomatic correspondent. he's published in foreign affairs, "new york times" magazine, atlantic monthly and others. david is the author of nine novels including "body of lies" which was made into a movie starring leonardo dicaprio. his latest novel "the director" is about hacking and espionage. he's a fellow at harvard's kennedy school and is an adjunct lecturer. stephen kappes is a partner and chief operating officer of torch hill investors. he retired from the cia after 30 years of service. from 2006 to 2010, directly involved in the leadership and management of all elements of the agency under two different directors and two presidential administrations. mr. kappes was in the senior most position in our nation's clandestine services. he led over one-third of the globally deployed cia personnel and directed the espionage invest gaugs investigations. mr. kappes led in washington and libya the u.s. government operation and contributed to the libyan government renunciation of their weapons of mass destruction program. steve has immense experience in the field including service as an operations officer in south asian and middle eastern countries. chief of station in the middle eastern country during the 1991 persian gulf war and chief of station in a large central eurasian country. his awards include the presidential national security medal, national intelligence distinguished service medal, cia distinguished career medal. two distinguished intelligence medals, three directors medals and the donovan award. we have two of the most distinguished national security and intelligence experts you could possibly want to weigh in on the subject at hand. that subject is the islamic state of iraq or greater syria. we brought together david, steve and ambassador to discuss the issues surrounding isil soon after they rolled into mosul. in its subsequent transition into an independent entity called isis. in the short span of one year isis has become one of the most critical threats and challenges facing oohiraq, the middle east and dozens of countries including the united states. isis has 22000. fighters. this represents a tremendous blowback potential against members of the coalition and other countries as well. young men with battlefield experience, confidence networks and tremendous motivation could return home to their home countries and initiate attacks. for certain their exploitss on the battle field transmitted in great detail by some of the 90,000 messages coming from isis have radicalized members of several countries to attack in defense of isis and promote the group's agenda. we've seen this in australia, united states, canada, tunisia france belg itemiumbelgium libbia, libya kuwait and many others. it is important to look back over the past year at some of the major events that have transpired since we met and since mosul fell on june 10th 2014. some of those are notable. june 29 2014, isis declared a new islamic caliphate. they invited muslums to journey to this new islamic state. it's been a tremendous stimulant and magnet for tens of thousands of people. in early august of last year, isis attacked members of iraq's yzidi minority. air strikes increased in number in the days and weeks as they proceeded. august 19th and september 2nd, they executed american hostages. british and japanese hostages would subsequently be murdered by isis. september 8th the iraqi prime minister al maliki was replaced by al baghdadi. faced with tremendous pressure from inside and outside ooh rackiraq. on september 24th, 2014 president obama speaking at the u.n. spoke out against isis. isis supporters began appearing around the region with groups in sinai and libya declaring allegiance or acting on behalf of isis. in february 2015 isis released a video showing the burning to death of jordanian f-16 pilot who was shot down during an operation over syria. isis also executed christians in libya, destroyed an ancient iraqi city, claimed responsibility for the bardo museum attack. we saw a delta force operators penetrate syria and kill a senior isis leader during a firefight. the next day, may 17th isis took ramadi, iraq and four days later palmyra syria. on june 10th president obama authorized the deployment. and we had the attacks in tunisia and kuwait. this go well beyond a simple body count to include the political, economic, social and diplomatic strains inflicted on millions of people. as we look forward, there are many difficult decisions and considerations for a lot of parties to consider. for the next 45 minutes i'll put a number of those issues before steve and david. after which you all have an opportunity to ask questions of your own. with that let me begin by asking both of you, since we last met in july of 2014 what has surprised you most about how events have unfolded inu ed ined in iraq and syria and the broader isis threat? david? >> let me begin by looking back at what we said in july of last year. that was -- steve and i had an alarmist view warning about the danger that was ahead. the two biggest surprises to me in the year since then have been the resilience strange combination of resilience brutality and creativity. operational creativity of the islamic state. they are agile. they use -- they concentrate force to achieve their objectives. they send, as in the capture of ramadi, five to eight suicide bombs. one after another. bang bang bang. and they terrify and intimidate their opponents. so they have been stronger, tougher, smarter than i would have thought. i had the hope a year ago that like al qaeda in iraq, czarzarkawi's group they'd burn so hot that they'd burn themselves out. that hasn't happened. the second surprise is the lack of effectiveness and clarity of u.s. policy -- u.s.-led policy in response. i wrote a column around june 11 noting that this week had two manifestos about this conflict. one was isis video called a year after the conquest. i don't invite anybody to look at it online because it's so horrifying, but it shows with that sort of video style, that their people have developed the overwhelming force of brutality of their conquest of mosul how they routed the iraqi security forces from mosul, the seeming jubilation of sunnis in the city after their victory. and the other manifesto of that week was the obama administration announcing it would send an incremental careful new force 450 train and advise special operations forces to taqqadum who would not get outside the wire of that base, who would not go with the iraqi forces they were train inging in the battle. so far as i can tell still are not sufficient numbers of sunni tribesmen thatment mentwant to be trained by these forces now in place. so the u.s. was -- the isis assault is at hyperspeed for an insurgency. the u.s. response is at slow speed as the president kind of rations each additional piece of his response. and if that formula continues without a change i think a year from now when we come back we'll see isis taking deeper roots in north africa spreading more deeply, still unchecked in iraq and syria. so that's a pessimistic opening but frankly that's what i see in the past year. >> steven, i don't want to say that you agree with him by chance, but what else do you see beyond that? >> part of my thinking is -- last year about this time we outlined clearly what i thought was not just an aggressive violent group but also true forces of evil. there's no other way to describe people who are doing what they're doing to fellow citizens of the world people of similar pop populations both in iraq and syria. i'm surprised they've been able to fight as hard as they have and to recover as quickly as they have from some significant poundings by the united states from the air. like most of you i'm a student of history and nothing ends from the air alone. it's still significant when that ordnance lands on top of you and you recover. we as the united states always underestimate the ability of groups like isis to sustain serious injuries and deaths and still press on. the truth of the matter is central command does not care about the deaths and injuries to the people that work for them. they are only concerned about their small almost bolshevik-time group of dedicated groups and movement. i was surprised at their ability to recover so quickly. i also am concerned that we aren't maintaining all the lessons we learned from our own 9/11 experience in terms of the interest and willingness to press on against the united states in particular. when we don't take a firm stance, they fill every space of that that they can as quickly as they can. when we're not prepared to lead in an aggressive fashion -- i'm not talking about a military fashion but overall aggressive fashion, they'll fill every segment of that vacuum they can find. they, therefore, position themselves, particularly with sunnis who now -- and their ability to move this propaganda is interesting. their ability to align us with iran given what we've gone through since 1979 is quite startling. and the number of people who believe it is even more startling. the ability of the middle east to build conspiracies and spread them has been more than i would have thought for just one year. their use of violence and the evil forces that they do use hasn't changed at all and as a result, i find myself more worried this year than i was 12 months ago. >> let's move on to the strategy. do we have a strategy david and steve, and what is missing from that strategy? >> we have a declaratory strategy, and personally i would say elements of that strategy as declared are pretty much the right ones. the problem is we have not found a way to implement the strategy. let me unpack that a little bit. what president obama did a year ago through the summer into september was to refuse pleas and treaties the united states use its military power use its air power in particular to take out the enemies of the shiite-led government in iraq. take out isis until there were changes in that government. and it was a high stakes effort by the president insisting nuri al maliki should leave and that a new prime minister, new member representative of his party should take office, as he did with al abadi. i thought it was correct handled in a disciplined way. it was necessary to get iran's acceptance of that change of shiite leadership in iraq. and i thought that was done well. second thing that was part of the strategy was to build an international coalition. and general john allen went around the world, meetings, the coalition was assembled, and in terms of working with allies it's hard to fault that in principle. that was the right thing to do. the list is a good list. when one member of that coalition jordan was attacked in such a vicious way, the jordanians responded and seemed to have popular support. another part of the strategy was to find a way to mobilize the elements in iraq that would have to be part of evicting isis from sunni areas. the sunni tribes and sunni leadership empowering them in this badly sectarian iraq in a way they'd be effective implementers of the strategy. when you'd ask what's the defeat mechanism whofrks mechanism, who is going to defeat them in mozsul and anbar? at best, security forces aided by those that would come in behind the clearing force. that still hasn't happened adequately. it's amazing to me when many months ago you had the iraqi defense minister visiting amman, talking about the plans facilities for training sunni tribal fighters in jordan. you had camps set up. all the pieces of that assembled, and yet, to this moment, so far as i know, it really still is in every -- the same thing about the regional strategy. nominally have a coalition that includes turkey, jordan, saudi arabia, go down the list. this implicit working understanding with iran, and yet those elements i don't think have been mobilized. exactly what our strategy is with turkey. if anyone in this audience could please inform me i'd be very grateful. so i'll close by saying the pieces of the strategy are there. the ability to implement it isn't. maybe in a few minutes i'd like to tack about the bureaucratic side of that. the lack of unity of command in this government to make that strategy happen. but i'll leave it there for now. >> steve, can the tribal groups be brought to bear here or once bitten, twice shy? >> historically, the tribal grops have been bitten more than once, not just in the last 100 years. it becomes difficult to mobilize the tribal groups if they do not sense from you a commitment that you're prepared to stay through the difficult periods of combat and open aggression and into the political transition so they can have some confidence they'll not lose when someone walks away. those things they've learned through their own blood and treasure. as a result, that becomes even more difficult piece of work than it was when we first did it as a country, a government department of defense, an agency and through the surge earlier in the past decade. i would suggest that it would take someone with extraordinary persuasive skills and someone with extraordinary staying power to remain involved in both movement of the sunni tribe and reintegration into the iraqi government. it's my understanding the distrust between the sunni tribes and current iraqi government is almost at its highest level. even beyond some of the times david and i are familiar with prior to 2010. i think they remain part of the solution but distrust develops quickly and takes a long time to dispel. as a result i'd advocate it as part of the overall strategy but i'd not have the same confidence that it would be as forceful or effective as it once was earlier. every time a shia militia stands up and starts shooting at isis, they whisper that to the tribes a minute after it happens. it becomes a self-propagating propaganda machine in support of isis. so i'm afraid at this particular moment i'm pessimistic but still believe it should be intertwined with the actual overall policy. >> before i get to the next question let me recognize the ambassador from iraq to the united states. thanks for joining us. what about our iraqi first policy. is there a danger in focusing so much on iraq and leaving so much in syria untouched? and how do we deal with the iraqi government? it's a complicated relationship. there's a lot of complications here. >> let me take the second part of that first. syria is such a complicated subject. i'd almost like to separate that and come back to it. thinking about the slow progress in iraq, in many ways the lack of progress in this year, and what to do about it i try to think about the fundamentals, to talk with people smarter than me about this. one of them is sitting in the audience. a number of other people in and out of government. trying to think how could you take the elements of our strategy which seek to keep iraq together in some way seek to avoid this idea people have of the lines in the sand being scattered to the winds and plunge the whole region into uncertainty and chaos. how would you preserve iraq but also speak to the sunnis in a way that would give them more trust? they are the ones over time who are going to have to eradicate isis in their midst. in 2015 of what jim baker and lee hamilton wrote looking at essentially the same problem. the problem hasn't really changed from what they were writing back then, nine years ago. there's a bottom up or inside-out part of this which is to find a way, find a formula for genuinely federal, decentralized, maybe confederal iraq that keeps the borders as a whole but lets the individual groups really have a local autonomy. sunnis fighting to get isis out of anbar have some confidence when isis is out they won't be given instructions from the shia militias or anybody else. it would be their part of iraq, much as kurds feel erbil is their part of iraq. it's bottom up inside-out. and then there's the part that involves the regional allies. for iraq, syria libya it is going to take a commitment by the united states, russia, saudi arabia iran. somehow there's going to have to be a formula where those powers can sit around a table and come up with agreements that they are prepared to back up. i think those are the two elements of how you would make this work in iraq. i think it's going to take discipline and time. it's probably the job of the next president of the united states, but i think that's when it comes, that's what it will look like. >> any comments here, steve? >> i become concerned over the last several years that we as a country have lost our ability to develop a tapestry of policy and strategy. in other words, for all of us who have had children and grandchildren, you know small children soccer in which there's the ball, everyone goes to it. i'm talking about trying to weave together the programs because all these are related. so you have a program which connected the syrian question with the egyptian question and saudi question and talk to the russians and chinese and iranis are part of this. it allows the u.s. to view the tapestry at which is best for us. we've lost our ability to do that. i'm afraid too, if we don't do that it could contribute to iraq losing its ability to be a unitarian state. all respect to the good ambassador, i'm concerned, i hope i'm wrong but i'm concerned the trends headed in the right direction of iraq to not remain as a unitarian state. i think that would be terrible for the citizens of iraq and for the region and for the united states. i just think we have a role here to play. i know we've been involved for over a decade in a lot of things. i don't remember who said it but great powers aren't allowed to get tired. this is one of those instances we have to look at our ability to weave this program and tapestry in a way that helps others find the way to this. particularly our allies in the middle east who are sos hesitant to take this on for overrising reasons. >> steve a lot of people discuss the progress or lack of progress against isis. americans tend to focus on the military centric side of this. there are many other elements. diplomatic, economic, demographic. in many discussions we have here at csis with dr. tony cordesman and dr. altman. we discuss those elements and hope they'll come today. let's talk specifically about the kinetic effort against isis. how are we doing on the battlefield, do you believe? and what needs to be brought to bear apart from all those other elements to be successful in the battle? >> i think that's a difficult one for me to answer because ooumi'm not seeing the daily tape from the battlefield. in many ways this is similar to the old discussions of insergeantin insurgencies where if the larger er power is not clearly winning, then they are actually losing. even though we have the ability to bring to bear significant power, there are things not on the grond that when you talk to those most experienced and currently involved are quite significant. the absence of forward air controllers reduces the capability, sig november cancfovembernificance and accuracy. it is essential because the iraqis in many cases, there's some fine fighters but they do not have the logistics skills of the united states and they find themselves in isolated situations too quickly and too often. when you can't reinforce -- if you think getting shot at takes the heart out of a soldier. let them realize they are all alone with no chance for reinforcement. let alone if they are officers. there's some fundamentals to the military conflict you cannot necessarily cover out from afar or from the sky. many in this room have read the studies of world war ii and know that germany was not finished even though the fire bombings were as significant as they'd been. b-52 bombs significant in their impact but people determined to survive, will sorryurvive. automatic not an i'm not an advocate are cutting forth military forces. i've had children in the military. my point is there are some almost like laws of physics at play that if you can't get close to the target that'll be able to withstand your attack. i refer people to the japanese who hunker down in the islands of the pacific and endure 20 30 days of heavy bombardment and still be there when the marines showed up. there are things like that that can't be denied in terms of military combat. war is a political action. we may have to address that more honestly as a people. the onliney person that can address this is the president of the united states. not a secretary or senior policy person. if the decision is made that we have to be more effective in our military work the president has to take that one on. >> a year from now do you expect to see large deployments of u.s. forces inu iraq and potentially syria? >> no. i don't think so long as barack obama is president that we'll see large military deployments. it's possible we'll see the additional steps that steve has urged and that i agree would be valuable. allowing our advisers to go forward with the iraqi forces they are advising whether they are sunni tribal fighters, iraqi security forces and bolster them in combat. targets for more effective close-in air support. i see those things happening. i think we have to be honest looking at this. we have a president, but we also have a country that in many ways is alergeic to iraq. we lived through such a painful period after the 2003 invasion. it's widely shared whatever jeb bush may say when he's asked about it. it's a widely shared view that it was a mistake to have done that. beyond the mistake of invasion so many mistakes in how it was carried out dearinguring the period of occupation. the american people are reluctant to get into the large-scale involvement you're speaking about and the president, more than most americans, and that reluctance just comes through in every moment of policy. and it translates into the military. the military says if we don't have a strategy all in for victory, i don't want to send my guys back in wooden boxes. militaries like decisive wars with popular support. they can -- they have a conclusive ending. we don't live in a period in which that's possible. i worry sometimes the military is seeking something that isn't possible. let me say one more thing that concerns me. especially in this period where the president is -- i call him allergic to iraq. maybe overstates it, but certainly is reluctant here. he's made a commitment to degrade and ultimately destroy this adversary. what he needs above all, more than anything else, more than any particular decision to send advisers forward or lays this. he needs some one person who will take responsibility for this campaign and every day, every morning when he asks the question, how are we doing in our battle against isis will say, mr. president, in the last 24 hours we had this and this and this. here are my bugiggest problems i'm asking you to focus on today. jan allen thought he'd been given that job when he was made special representative for the president to build the coalition to fight isis. that job despite strenuous arguments to obama, was not put at the white house as many people thought it should be. it was put at the state department. and from that moment, that was, what roughly september, october of last year, you've had a series of inneragency fights, confusions, false starts where you have the centcom commander lloyd austin asking the president, mr. president, am i running this war? and the answer is yes, you are. but then you have former four-star general who has been given the job by the president of running the coalition and strategy. and so it's not surprising that you've just -- with these competing authorities, have a kind of policy confusion that hurts our effort. i think confuses our allies. if there's one thing in this next year. where will we be in a year? i think the president is not going to put tens of thousands of u.s. troops in. he doesn't have to if he'll put one person in as a decisive commander of this effort. the military pieces, the strategic pieces, the diplomatic and political pieces, and so i think that is doable, even for this administration. >> please, steve. >> i am a great believer in ambassadors. i've had the opportunity to work with some people i think are some brilliant ambassadors. frank whisler, ryan crocker, anne patterson. others designated by law and by their confirmation to be the president's representative. when they work with the senior military presence in those countries, ryan crocker and david petraeus is one example. that's a team that answers directly to the united states. we have all the tools in place to do the things we need to do and have used them before effectively. i'm always amazed at our ability to create new things that don't work as well as the things we just left behind. if we return to that, so the ambassador who has a letter that says he or she is the president's representative and the president can speak to them and say what is going on? what do you recommend? it focuses that energy and ability and makes it easier for the president to have responsiveness in a way he's not getting because the agencies are agencies. departments are departments. they will compete over who has what access to who. and it does not work at the moment as effectively as it can with some of the past. negroponte and others. you may know men and women who are extraordinary representatives. and they can effectively manage the tools on the grond. ngo one can manage the tools of the united states. i'm talking about on the forward end of all of this so the president has the ability to know as best as is possible what's happening and, therefore, make discussions in the best interest of the united states people. that's what's i worry about in terms of our unwillingness to look at those things in a way quite open and quite honest. >> david you're one of our nation's leading jornl inging jornl uft inging journalists. how can we counter 90000 messages a day disseminated by supporters that stimulate and invigorate this worldwide movement? >> part of the puzzle in your question is the word "we." how is this countermessaging going to be organized? to what extent is it going to be an effort of the u.s. government and other governments? to what extent is it spontaneous? does youth of the region? my friends from the arab world keep insisting to me that as powerful and as intimidating as i.s. messaging is, what's still dominant on social media in arabic is what i would call the freedom spirit the tahrir square statement. i'm a citizen. i'm not going to be pushed around. i have -- i can communicate. i have my device. i'm connected. i'm not going to take it anymore. i won't take it from amullah, i won't take it from authoritarian leader. you know, i'm going to -- i'm going to live in my own world. and somehow that message, that spirit of connectedness, i think, of free citizens, which is still there. we get too depressed about the arab winter sometimes. it's still there, as near as i can. somehow that has to become more of the dominant narrative. it probably needs help from governments, but i worry in the post-snowden age about swallowing the poison pill. i worry about steps that seem sensible in terms of messaging that end up limiting the message or undercutting it. so i think this is an area where it's crucial to get it right, but you know, the one thing i think the u.s. has learned is the -- the united states is not a credible messenger in telling americans what islam is how they should live, who their enemyies and allies are. that has to come from the region and it has to be mobilized quickly. there are lots of smart people, i know, who could help do this tomorrow. but the path way for them to do it that doesn't, as i say undercutting their efforts in the future is very complicated. >> judge webster and i had lunch a few weeks ago and we discussed the video showing the burning of the jordanian pilot and how something like that could resonate with people around the world. the discussion we had focused on the fact that it resonates with so many of these young men who are marginalized in every way -- socially, politically, economically, and who see an opportunity for mobilization, a sense of purpose of mission, in a video like that, which is awful and unbelievable for all of us, a maeteting out of justice, someone who flew an airplane, and pays for his deeds in the same way they did. that kind of messaging is very difficult to defeat. i agree with you, young men, especially those under 40, there is no main stream message for them to latch onto. they've already rejected that. they've already been pushed to the margins. i don't think there is a message that can actually reach a lot of them, that small number. a broader audience, perhaps, but i'm afraid that when a video comes out like that and it's accepted by so many people, we're in tremendous trouble here. steve, i want to take advantage of your background and intelligence here which is impressive, to say the least. you've touched on a few of these things before, but can you talk about some of the intelligence challenges here? before you answer, i'll say, when we had a lot of troops on the ground, and i'm not suggesting that we do this again, but when you have 100,000 troops on the ground you have a huge station active in a place like baghdad and other places. have you a lot of people forward. a lot of intelligence personnel. a lot of opportunities to network with people on the ground citizens of a country like iraq, to develop the kind of sense and situational awareness that can enable your operations. what are the intelligence challenges with such a small footprint on the ground? and also given an adversary like isis? >> let's divide it into three pieces, if you will. for collection two pieces, both technical and human, and then in this type of environment, intelligence also plays what i call a stake craft role, which is an influence role, which is supportive of u.s. policy with groups and others who they are in contact with. in many cases, for liaison services. let's think about it for a second, those three categories. if we're looking at the iraq/syria theater, they're different, too. in iraq there's still a significant number of what i call forward platforms from which you can launch. it makes common sense, of course, the closer you can get to the target, the easier to recruit, to actually collect intelligence. in iraq there are still significant possibilities from which they can launch and there is, it's my understanding, some solid collection. it's never good enough but it's collection that is solid. now, remember i do this from my soapbox. in the intelligence business there are secrets and then there are also mysteries. my example is always remember the young fruit vendor that set himself on fire in tunisia that started this thing, in a way. there's probably no one on in the planet, except for god, in his head when he decided to set himself on fire. there are mysteries taking place out there in terms of what isis is deciding to do. their ability to also close their ranks. once again i use my example of the voe sha vicks. and also, don't forget espionage is still in all countries punishable by in many cases prison but by isis it's punishable by horrific deaths. so when you're asking people to do things that put their lives and their families lives in immediate jeopardy understand, it's not that easy to step right up and say, whatever you want, united states, i'm happy to help. so always keep that in mind when you're dealing with intelligence collection. syria is a different collection. assad's father actually constructed what some could call a stalin-like state in terms of its security services and their ability to control and suppress the people. very skilled, very effective, very dangerous. this is also a country that has decided it's okay to drop barrel bombs on their own people. so as a result you already highlight the difficulties of the collection problem. the collection problem is also compounded because moving forward in syria, you have to spend just as much time trying to stay alive as you do having to try to figure out how to collect things. so as a result, i would identify at the moment the syrian challenge is probably greater than iraqi challenge because we still have long-standing relationships in iraq that are quite productive. i would offer though, that at the moment once again with deference to the ambassador, the relationships with time are not as he'sry or as efficient as they were four five, six, seven years ago. that makes it difficult too, so there has to be a reliance on partners. i would like to compliment the jordanians. they have once again stepped up and put their people in harm's way and, indeed are on the ground and elsewhere to assist both publicly and clandestinely. some other services are doing the best they can. in some cases the best they can is really not very good or certainly not good enough. as a result, and i'm certainly not looking for the united states to lead everything all i'm talking about in this arena that you've asked about the united states has the ability to lead and to guide in a way that could be effective. so as a result, those relationships with foreign countries become very important in trying to persuade them to convince them this work with us is effective. the advent of social media, the ability to put storeys out quickly, the ability to spread fabrications is greater than it's ever been. as a result, the work of intelligence officers is becoming increasingly difficult. the one question we ask ourselves is have what i just received or heard, is it true? because i have a sense now that mr. lennon's famous sentence is if you say a lot often enough is actually the truth is becoming more and more prevalent in the middle east as well. god knows the middle east has created some conspiracies in the last five or 600 years. it's not just a matter of collecting the information and saying this man said this because he was there. it's also a matter of before it goes to the president, is this actually true? did this happen? there used to be something we called afghan math. john will remember this, in which afghans said we just attacked the soviets and we killed 400 people. whoa, wait a minute. how many people did you kill? about 200. whoa, slow down. how many? maybe four guys in a jeep. my point to that is, in the current environment, these things become important because what you don't have is a president making bad judgments or bad information. also becoming so anxious to deliver the information that you you've not done what you need to do. i call it ruthless application of your methodologies and is it true? so, the challenges are significant. on the iraqi side i think there's more opportunity for success. on the syrian side it becomes much more difficult and it will rely, i think, a great deal on a very clear and efficient assistance from some of our close friends in the middle east who have some significant capabilities of their own. >> david we've been focusing on isis, on the relationship with iraq touched on syria and the intelligence side. there's a big actor we haven't gone into in great detail yet. of course, that is iran. with regard to isis and what's going on in iraq and in syria they cannot be divorced, certainly, from the perspective of the iranians is iran playing offense or defense here with what they're doing? the more afraid of isis coming in and creating a state inside of iraq or are they trying to take advantage of this or both? >> well, i think they're being opportunistic as always so sometimes that is offense. sometimes it's defense. sometimes -- most of the time it's a combination. i just should note before focusing on iran something we haven't talked about but is important when you think going forward. although the u.s. has not been successful overall it has had great success in working with its friends in kurdistan. the kurdish platform for military and other operations is powerful. i traveled in kurdistan to irbill, down into the west to outside of kurdistan with the peshmerga a few months ago and saw how the peshmerga working quietly with elements of u.s. and coalition power have pushed isis back. in kir kick they've held their own. there's a sort of continuing battle between the forces in kirkuk and the main isis camp to the southwest. but that's a success. and it would be a mistake not to note it in this discussion and not to think, how do you build on it? the question has been should you send weapons directly to them? that's an issue for ambassador fily's government. can they get weapons into to the kurds quickly enough that that option isn't discussed anymore? the iranians, when you think about how the kurdish forces were rocked in irbill in august/september, how their lines really cracked, how dangerous it was. erbil itself was threatened. who was the first in? first in was kurd force supplying ammunition supplying, i'm told, individual people to help bolster the lines, to work with the peshmerga to get new people in, to get their command stronger. erbil was saved. the u.s. came in after and our help was also crucial, but the iranians have a wealth of experience, contacts. they've been working -- it's often the same case officers have been working the same network of sources and assets for 20 years or more. they know this terrain. they know the shia landscape. obviously, they know kurdistan with meticulous detail. they have very good contacts in the sunni world. we're fighting an adversary that made a vow after the iran/iraq war never again never again will we allow iraq to threaten our fundamental security and they do everything they can to prevent it. one more comment about iran. as i've watched iranians and shia proxies, i see they have an ability to start fights but not to finish them. in part because the areas they are fighting are typically sunni areas where they're not welcome. so, in tikrit, shia militias moved onto tikrit and got stalled. and u.s. air power came in and finished that fight. but tikrit still, from what i know, is largely unpopulous. it's been impossible to move enough people back in to get the clear -- to get the hold and build cart going. you could argue the same in anbar province. that iran's strategy, whatever it is iran shares in the terrible setbacks in the loss of anbar province. so, how u.s. and coalition operations with iran will be shaped in the period after a nuclear deal is reached, assuming that in the next couple weeks by july 9 that can be done, i think, is one of the real challenges for u.s. and iranian officials. is it going to be possible to have some more effective alliance that draws in sunni countries because saudi arabia is going to have to be comfortable with that. is that going to be impossible after a deal? i don't know. but i'm sure going to be trying to find out. >> i've been a long believer and david knows this in engagement with iran. i think it's essential. i don't think we can go through life and not have engagement with a country like iran. as a result, i'm hopeful there's some agreement to be worked out. what i don't want to see is a disconnection again in a way. i'm also aware of the comments about dealing with the devil. i get that. but i would like to offer a sharp criticism of sul man any. he's a killer of americans. he is responsible for the deaths of americans and he's still planning to kill americans. i don't want anyone to leave the room here thinking sul man any is the robin hood of the sunni population. he's a man who opposed the united states, everything we believe in, everything we do everything we try to do. so, i would just ask you to keep in mind keep separate the differences between strategic engagement with iran, which is important to u.s. security and also somehow highlighting what some people are suggesting as the most wonderful, significant smartest, powerful and contributing member of the middle east. i would ofsh to you it's not true. thank you for my soapbox moment. >> absolutely. the enemy of our enemy is only a temporary partner. >> that's what mr. churchill would say, and i'm sticking with him on this. >> steve you've had to deal with a lot of pretty unsavory regimes in the past in order to further national security goals. two years ago we wanted to get away with assad but we had a hands-off policy in order to one, not bring about a new libya or even a somalia, as far as chaos. number two, i think because as we negotiate a nuke deal with iran, we want to keep that issue comfortable for the iranians and not pull another leg out from underneath the school they're sitting on. how do we deal with assad now? >> that's extraordinarily difficult question, as you know. i will now sound like what i am, a former cia officer. cia officers, in my belief believe in engagement with people. we learned early on, if you're not engaged physically f you're not engaged eye to eye, you have little to no chance of influencing their behavior. you were kind enough to refer to the libyan experience. if you hope to influence them and change them, you have to stay engaged. in many roonz that's why intelligence organizations are built to do that sort of thing. i do not know if there's engagement with the syrians. i would hope that in some form or another there is some discussion being taken place to show bashar al assad that he has only two choices. to figure out an exit roll of some kind or die in syria. maybe like mr. gadhafi, that's been his plan all along. i don't know, but he doesn't strike me as the same type of person. i would think we have to use whatever tools are available to try to engage syria. to engage them in a fashion that tries to prevent this from creating an even greater opening, greater vacuum if assad is died, killed destroyed inside damascus because my concern is without some sort of assistance in shaping that future, there's nothing that can help you predict what group, what other sort of organization might take place inside syria and it could be far more radical. i think it's so uncertain at moment, there must be something we should think about doing to try to shape the future, shape the exit regardless of who we have to do it with. now, i admit to you, and i know people are quite came of, this but it takes a certain sort of person to hang in on this because it is really unpleasant work. you will be face to face with many people you would hope to never meet. the point is if you don't engage it, then you have absolutely no chance whatsoever of shaping dawes -- they will formulate their thinking on what they think you were saying or thinking and get into second, third, fourth case parties trying to interpret what's going on in the united states. it's a very difficult task but i think it's very important. >> david, dealing with our adversaries, our enemies, is very difficult complicated, but also dealing with our friends. let's think about turkey. a nato ally sharing a huge border with syria. this has been a very difficult relationship over the past four five years. i've done fieldwork on the boarder with syria. i've dealt on the nusra front. how do we deal with turkey, a nation that has very different strategic goals than we do when it comes to this region? >> well that's been a puzzle the administration hasn't been able to solve. we've had the confusion of the turkish parliamentary elections. it's still not clear how president ear dwan wants to deal with that. that makes this confusing. you could argue the turks are living within their own ability to make good policy decision. one of their nightmares is happening. the pyd, the syrian/kurdish militia supported by kurdish forces from both turkey and iraq is sweeping across northeastern syria in one of the most effective campaigns in this war. when i talk to people, they say to me peshmerga are good fighters in iraq. the pyd are real good fighters. these are tough, tough fighters. nobody likes to say so but they're trained by the pkk, which has been a mortal enemy of the turkish government. is considered by the turks as a terrorist group. from turkey's standpoint you have this bend south of their border increasingly controlled by a group that is trained and to some extent run by people they regard as fundamentally dangerous. turkey has some choices to make. arguably that's a good thing because they have to make choices with us about their security and ours. i come back to the basic puzzle here with syria, which is getting buy-in from all of the key players russia whose interests are directly threatened by the collapse of the assad regime. turkey, which has got a ragged, unstable border and newly emboldened kurdish militias. saudi arabia who thought they wanted to overthrow bashar no matter what. now jordan says, hold on. at some point these various powers need to work together to identify the elements of a new government that would include people from the army you know, people like sharaa who are acceptable figures of the old regime people who are members of the opposition who are willing to sit down as a new member of the government opposition. allowite power leaders who have power in the northwest but who are not part of the assad clan. somehow has that has to be done. it's going to happen. it's just a question of whether people come to their senses or another 100,000 die before something happens. with each of these things, you know how it's going to turn out. you just don't know when people will get the political clarity and leadership to make it happen. again, that's what i hope we'll get more of from washington. >> finish up with a final question on foreign fighters. i think it's clear that a lot of young men and some young women around the world are going to the caliphate to defend it, run it. they see it as a state to not only fight but they want to clothe people provide food, work in the shariah courts, be parts of the effort to build the infrastructure. there's lots of state-building in their minds and they want to stay there and they see this as a place to live out their lives. there's no doubt about it among those 20,000 plus foreign fighters, some will return. andthy will incredibly skilled and motivated. what's more of a threat in your mind, steven and david the returning fighters or those that are inspired by what those fighters are doing on the ground and getting back to your point upstairs earlier, what are some of the challenges with regard to our values? >> it's a good question. unfortunately, i think you have to work it from the objective backwards. if there are all young men in the united states, for example, who are inspired today to carry out a terrorist attack of what's equivalent of what took place on the beach in tunisia recently, then obviously that's more dangerous. however, there's nothing quite as dangerous as a seasoned combat veteran who has returned to his home with the intent of overthrowing his own government. as a result, i think there's a new thing that has to take place here. a new evolution of counterterrorism work that focuses on this in a way we haven't had to before. i mean, the numbers of foreign fighters are unbelievable. i remember in the days of the early part of the iraq war before the united states left, we would talk about foreign fighters on a daily basis. but the numbers are only a tenth of what we're talking about now. as a result it focuses the businesses of the services that at this moment, they're strapped because of the resources necessary to focus on this so it bricks up the other question. i offer this as a question. i don't have the answer. i only have the experience. some good, some bad. which is let us say if the number 20,000 foreign fighters is correct, and 10,000 of them survive the war and make their way back home, how do we find them? what do we do to find them? france has begun to change their own legislation to allow themselves the ability to use modern communications in a way they've never done it before? do we go back and revisit the question of privacy? do we go back and revisit the question of, how do we stop people trying to kill us, your neighbors, your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your children? i don't know the answer to that question, but i think we're going to be faced with it. also, you are going to have to have, which has evolved quite brilliantly, and i hope david agrees with me which is the connection between security and law enforcement services to make sure information moves quickly and effectively to try and head off terrorism attacks. i'll take one last minute to say i think our government and other governments have become quite skilled at finding and stopping real life terrorists on the move to the target. what i'm more worried about is our inability to stop the recruit of people to fill the next wave. you know my theory, john. i think one of the greatest counterterrorism tools we have which we don't use effectively enough is jobs, jobs, jobs. here and all these places overseas. as a result, that's the piece that's second tier of support that worries me as much as stopping the terrorist who said, i'm on the move, i'm going to do "x" objective. here we go. >> final comment david? >> briefly to try to sum up as we think about this year about the surprise overrunning of mosul as the director of national intelligence clapper said our underestimation of isis' capabilities and will a year later essentially we did the same thing. we underestimated their ability with a relatively small force to roll through ramadi and the government forces picked up and left. so, i have concluded from this that we just don't know enough about this adversary. there are a lot of problems we've talked about in terms of the u.s. and coalition strategy but at the top of the list with, you know, all deference to steve who understands this in a way an outsider can't, my sense is we just don't have good enough intelligence. surely a part of that is the people who have gone to school on our communications collection capabilities and are smarter and u.s. technology companies are making it easier for them and adding new layers of encryption every other week, so somehow that intelligence gap has to be made up. in iraq something the u.s. did to enormous effect and power was the cycle of night raids where you know in the middle of the night in some place we'd identified, people would arrive. they would you know, be fire fights and maybe they capture people if they could, but basically they were collecting intelligence which would drive the next night's raids, the next night's, and then it just becomes -- you gather momentum because each raid feeds the information that you don't have. it's said the abu sayyaf ray, the only thing we've seen from our special operations forces in syria, to capture, turned out, the wife of the chief financial officer of isis was effective in terms of giving lots of leads. i don't see this problem being managed. i include the foreign fighter part and the internal fight part without better intelligence. i honestly don't see how you get that unless you had an increased operation tempo like what we've seen in other conflicts. >> thank you both for those great comments. we'll open it up now. please identify yourself and your affiliation. john mcgaffen. >> hi, csis adviser. i would like to raise what i call the problem of the -- or the conflict between the issue of the state and the ameeoeba. we've had a lot of discussions on the state problem. how much kinetic forces appropriate to use against the state. what are the resources? will they still have money to operate as a state? all those. and that's a legitimate discussion. that's pretty much the way the discussion in washington is focused. what i wonder if we're paying enough attention to is the amoeba part of that. by that i mean the ever increasing, seems to me, attacks abroad that tom it's rated at the beginning from oklahoma, from all the pain they cause people, it doesn't move the geopolitical needle at all. is there a possibility do you think, whatever progress we make against the state, that the examples of the amoeba spreading out, that doesn't have a state, doesn't have borders will it get to the point that is the big problem for us? you have yemen and libya and beyond? >> i would offer it already is a big problem. there's a couple realities here states like to think of the other world as state part because they have some sense as to what to do or work with it. this is not a sales pitch but i'll make it anyway. there's a wonderful group of people at the agency cia called the pitf political instability task force. they're currently doing brilliant work on just this question, which is discussing the idea of how the united states must now begin to look not just as state adversaries and also these nonstate adversaries who are developing significant influence in places that we didn't participate seeing before. obviously isis and the caliphate is one of those areas. boko haram is flew shall and not a state player. it's relatively new thinking. it's a post-9/11 but it's very real. there's interest in it. there's good very, very professional analytical work being done on it. it's a little bit of a difficult collection problem. who are these people? now have you to figure it up so people on the policy staff can say, this is real. they can see how in afghanistan al qaeda had influence but beyond that, did they have influence in back stan? they had enough influence to hide, not enough to change the government. that's not the case now. my only answer to you is, you're correct correct, there's work being done but it's not a part of the government's consideration yet but the pace is picking up. >> ambassador. >> good morning, gentlemen. when see the coalition forces, do you feel there's a sense of urgency aligned between the countries of the region and the united states? or do you still think intellectually people get it but practically the steps are still not there? >> thank you. >> i would say, mr. ambassador, the sense of urgency surely is greater today than it was last thursday because of these attacks on three continents up. have a picture of a threat that's metastasizing. a threat that has to be addressed in iraq and syria. so this coalition has to go into a different year in terms of its activities. it's interesting prime minister abadi went to the g-7 meeting. trying to be a presence among other coalition members but somehow that has to move into something more aggressive. these last few weeks are demonstrating this threat is metastasizing. the only answer is for the individual security services you know where they exist. libya is a nightmare because it's fallen apart as a country. who do you work with? the elements that the coalition will work with in all these countries need to ask for help and then do the fighting. it's not going to be possible for america france, america, france, britain, australia are not going to solve the problem. they can help. >> it's a very important question, mr. ambassador because everyone has accepted it intellectually but the pieces the coalition can handle operationally are the nonmilitary. i'm talking about coalition allies in the region are the ones best positioned trying to discuss in arabic the political, economic ideological and demographic changes that need to take place as well as, dare i say, middle east so when the fighting stops you can begin in a way that's more effective. i don't think that's taking place at the moment as a result, i'm afraid you're correct, intellectually the part that's the more practical, emotional piece hasn't caught up. >> josh, third row in the middle, please. >> united states army. i'm a medical officer and i served in iraq. i was a command sergeant for security operation. your comments are really refreshing. what's missing from the discussion is -- i'm originally from mosul. what's missing is the power of region. if you look at history, there's a movement in libya in 18th century. so this element of radical islamic state is not a recent issue. what's disheartening for me is responding to united states element, such as radically motivated groups like isis is nonexistent. we don't have population-based yoilt outreach to disarm this agenda. i want to see what your comments are. you touched bases on some of the political issues some of the development. we have not seen that development. it's very frustrating for people like us to see this ideology as permeating. we don't have an answer to that. i wanted to see from these distinguished gentlemen what they thought about that. >> i'm happy to start. i think you're absolutely right. i think the united states -- remember now, everyone, this is citizen kappes talking here. at the u.s. government level we've become embarrassed to talk about religion even our own. as a result, we have a tendty si to draw back from these questions. i believe isis in some cases they're fighting well but for a horrible cause but we still have this unwillingness to discuss with them or assist in the discussion of the fact that what they're doing is not actually in line with their own religious beliefs. further, more importantly, to encourage those people who can say that with clarity, with credibility, both in saudi arabia as the custodian of the who tolliest places, as well as egypt, those places to encourage them, to have those discussions to say we need to cast doubt in the minds of people who are doing this. we sure do a heck of a job casting doubt in our own mind but why can't we organize these in a way that's so appropriate. history is century after century of these discussions yet somehow now in 2015 we're too embarrassed to discuss it or we don't want to insult someone or have someone misunderstand? i don't understand that myself. i think you're right on the mark. these are men fighting at the moment, who have woven their religion, every element of their day. as a result, if we're serious about looking at, that we have to try and see what they're thinking, how they're visualizing their day and goals and not simply focus on the way we are in our sectarian approach to this. i think you're onto something that's big. i think that is extraordinarily difficult for the united states government to do. >> lady in the front, please? >> hello i'm the kurdistan regional government representative to the united states one thing that's been missing from the discussion although i have to admit, i arrived a little late so i apologize if you touched on this at the beginning. what i haven't heard is any discussion of the humanitarian crisis. 3 million iraqis are displaced. millions of syrians are displaced. in kurdistan region alone we're looking at 1.8 million syrians and fellow iraqis their education is going to pot. their health care is almost nonexistent. we in kurdistan and other places in iraq are very concerned about security, even in the camps. you don't want these camps to become places where new radicals can be formed. so, this is another crisis that we're brewing if you like for the future. i'd like to hear this touched on as well. thank you. >> thank you for bringing it about. millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, we've been to those field camps on our missions. tushgsy's hosting 1.8 million refugees at a cost of $6 billion to the country. it's a true humanitarian disaster. hundreds of thousands of murdered and killed otherwise. it is tremendous. any comments david or steve? >>

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