For a complete Television Schedule visit booktv. Org. Booktv, 48 hours of nonfunction books and authors nonfiction books and authors. Television for serious readers. Youre watching booktv. Finish next, Abu Dhabibased journalist Hassan Hassan talking about the rise and leadership of isis in the middle east. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon. I run the middle east program at the wilson center. We are very happy to have with us Hassan Hassan the author of coauthor of isis inside the army of terror. Hes based in abu dhabi, and i think hes here for a couple of days only, and we are very fortunate to host him as the First Institution in washington. And his book appeared on the New York Times bestseller list yesterday, it was number nine. I didnt check it this morning. And we decided and hassan is going to speak for 20 minutes and then we will open the floor to your questions. And were very happy to have with us jane harman the president and ceo of the wilson center, who is very much interested in isis has talked many times on isis. But today we will get firsthand report on what is going on on the ground and the history of the movement. Please, you have the floor. Thank you very much for the kind introductionment id introduction. Id like to start or the talk would be sort of three historical snapshots that help understand isis and where it comes from. The first one is that in 1990s, the second one is the iraq war and then the arab spring. In the 1990s two very interesting trends happened in iraq after the first gulf war and sanctions against the Saddam Hussein regime. The first one Saddam Hussein inaugurated this campaign in arabic which is the islamic faith campaign. What he did was to, basically, islamist baathism. He introduced a variety of measures to encourage people to go to hajj at the expense of the state. He allowed baathists to study religion, you know, to go to mosques and so on. The mix that happened, you know, the mix between baathism and salafism was, you know very relevant to what isis represents today in terms of ideology. You know, baathism, as you all know, is a fascist movement. Its a movement that relies on it has a hot to do, actually with isis ideology. It is a panarabist compared to panislamist, isis is. It relies on this kind of National Like militant nationalism that subjects everything and anyone to the overarching principle which is to achieve the ukety of all arabs. The unity of all arabs. And its a very Violent Group. Socially by definition is its a Violent Group or ideology. You know if you look at the history of baathism in iraq and syria, Saddam Hussein did horrible things to shiitess and to kurds. He used chemical weapons on his people basically attacked civil civilians. You know quite well what the assad regime is doing today. But also his father did the same thing. So the track record of baathism is all violent from day one until today. Now, when Saddam Hussein islamized this ideology, we get a very dangerous mix. Basically, got like maybe unintentionally because he, you know, after the first gulf war or around, during the war there was a shiite revolt in the south against his rule. So he started to feel a lot of pressure from within. So he used that campaign to kind of encourage, you know, kind of legitimize his regime. And, you know, what happened usually is that a lot of bath u. S. Es leave baathists abandoned baathism and took on salafism because salafism is more, you know, invigorating, more like, its more pure lets say, than baathism. Although they have a lot of similarities. So Saddam Hussein towards the end of his regime started to have a problem with islamists and a lot of them went to afghanistan or elsewhere and he had a lot of problems with kind of like the rise in salafist trend. Now, you know thats the first thick that happened in the 1990s. The second thing that happened was because of the sanctions Saddam Hussein started this underground with Financial Network to kind of circumvent the sanks. The sanctions. So, you know he started to rely on you know on this kind of underground smuggling, different ways of making money and working with other countries, you know, beyond the iraqi, iraqi borders. And, you know that campaign or that kind of network that was created by Saddam Hussein is exactly the kind of network that isis uses today to circumvent the airstrikes, to make sure that it can, you know, it can survive in the black market. And syria and iraq and beyond syria and iraq. So these are two important things that originate in the 1990s, and theyre relevant to the period today. After the iraq war, a second snapshot, husband to have call snapshot. Husband to have call snapshot. You know, after the iraq war caused sunnis to feel that they have lost power. So they are minority, arab sunnis are minority in iraq, and they suddenly felt that they no longer are in control. They felt that the americans were conspiring with the shias and with the kurds and even with iran to take over politics. There are indications that these were, there are basis basically, for these kind of conspiratorial thinking. Because, you know, the first elections that happened after the, you know the americans hand over power to the iraqis was dominated by shia and kurds. And sunnis boycotted the elections and lost control. So there was like, a kind of sense that theyre losing power and you start of to have a movement dedicated to the restoration of sunni domination in iraq. Now, that meant you have, like, a Strange Alliance between salafis and baathists not very strange, but it looks strange baathists and between local forces who might not be either that or the other. So we had, like, a lot of people we speak and research for this book with a lot of people who interviewed these people in the beginning. And a lot of them would say were not fighting because of Saddam Hussein. Its about us its about sunni and so on. So it was sunni like, in the sense of local communities not in a sectarian sense, still not very sectarian in the strict, you know sense of the word. Now, come to the stage, you know zarqawi. Hes a jordanian jihadist. He had a long history of fighting or, like the jihadi kind of activities in jordan and beyond jordan. And in the 1980s he went to afghanistan to fight jihad to join the mujahideen in afghanistan. And what happened was, you know immediately there was a strange encounter between Osama Bin Laden and zarqawi. There was clearly, like, differences between them in terms of what jihad means and why we wage jihad. Osama bin laden and, you know zarqawis differences since then kind of shape and define the differences between alqaeda and isis today. At the time Osama Bin Laden or alqaeda generally sees its mission the name indicates the name alqaeda means [inaudible] so they think their name is to set an example for all muslims to join the movement. So they want to trigger they want to popularize jihad, we want to encourage all muslims to join, to join in jihad. Zarqawi, on the other hand, he was more focused on shia. He thinks that, you know, the arch enemies of islam are shiite the enemy within. This is what we have this is why the Ottoman Empire fell, because of, you know, the salafis, and before that old movements in islamic history and so on were always challenged by the shia. So he sees shia as, you know the existential threat that has always existed and that has to be dealt with. Osama bin laden thinks that the enemys the west, and alqaeda focuses on the west, focuses on the muslim world only to kind of encourage people so its more based on consent and more, you know, for example in syria. You find alnusra which is affiliated to alqaeda focused on winning hearts and minds. It has never, you know, until recently tried to impose itself on or its ideology on the people. So they provide services they do all this kind of stuff because they want to encourage people to like them. And even in the beginning they didnt want to announce that theyre part of alqaeda, because they didnt want to they didnt want the name to shape peoples in the beginning they wanted to say i that we are a syrian group. So zarqawi went to iraq after the iraq war and his debate and his vision about shia started to slowly shaven the discourse shape the discourse in iraqi. You know, iraqis, shia and sunnis have always lived together. They have the same family, shia and sunni. After the iraq war, you know, things started to change. And the moment zarqawi finds a huge opportunity in that, and you know, there was a lot of differences between alqaeda and zarqawi at the time. And although he pledged allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, there was some tension between the two until alqaeda kind of started to publicly admonish zarqawi to stop attacking shia civilians and focus on the government and on americans. And then but then zarqawi had his way later on slowly, you know . He destroyed or he helped bomb the afghani mosque which kind of triggered the iraq civil war. And, you know things started to become more sectarian. And now his vision combined with already you have a very dangerous mix between baathism and salafism, you have the triangle of, basically terror. And the triangle of, like very dangerous ingredients coming together emerging together to form this group that we have today, isis. Thats why, you know, you have isis very violent, very fascist its very sectarian, and its very, you know, rigid and everything, you know . Because thats the kind of thats the background. Now, after the arab spring isis, you know, benefited from a lot of factors to kind of grow into this state, its called, you know . It was already a state, but, you know u after the arab sprung it found arab spring it found itself with a lot of opportunities; power vacuum collapse in the states, weak states and isis, you know, applied all it skills and all it kind of intelligence and security skills to, you know to kind of present itself and pose itself and become a reality, in fact, on the ground in both countries. Now, a benefit, for example of, you know a benefit from a trend that, you know, isis a lot of people think they try to portray it as just a Violent Group, but it has a lot to do with trends in the region. So one of the trends i talked about, another trend is, you know our young people when they revolted against their government they revolted against two elites, the political elite and the religious elite. And isis is actually about rebellion against political elite and the religious elite. So its very anticlerical in that sense. Its against authority. There is an arabic word that usually people use to describe the attitudes of young people which is rejection of intellectual monopoly or intellectual mandate or intellectual control. So when anyone tries to message against isis the kind of messaging that we talk about all the time, political messaging religious messaging, isis is immune to these things. So when people talk about moderate discourse, you know, encouraging moderate discourse isis is immune to that by nature. So you might prevent people from going to isis before that but i always say once someone starts to buy into isis ideology its almost too late to reverse it you know . I spoke to someone in turkey who, you know, a journalist would call him a defector. So he was leaving isisment isis. He got a work permit to study not to study, to work in saudi arabia. He got not a job offer but like a work permit. And he was in turkey trying to kind of f his passport before he goes to saudi arabia. There i met him and i was expecting to be critical of isis right . But he was sitting there defending isis. He said im tired. This is not for me. I cant take it, its too violent and all this kind of stuff, right . But he never, he never said anything bad about isis. And im convinced that when people join isis and leave and say they have abandoned the group, theyre most likely either lying or theyve never been with isis. So thats mostly, like, you know,ly speaking or broadly generally spooking or broadly speaking. So, yeah thats one of the things that isis shares with the arab spring kind of not values but trends. And, you know, isis has benefitedded from been fitted from, you know a variety of things, you know i can talk about for days, but id prefer to hear more questions and then, you know from you, and then i can answer them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me ask you the first question which is on everybodys mind. Can isis be defeated . Its possible to defeat isis, but i see it, you know, in the region for at least another 15 years. Isis might okay i think you can look at isis in two ways. Isis as we know as we see it today as a group that operates as an army as an insurgency and as a terror group will exist for, say, around a decade from now. It will be probably like a decade, five years to a decade. But as a group that exists and has some kind of one way of another exists in iraq, syria and beyond, i think it will continue to operate. I think it will override alqaeda, it will become a global kind of inspiration for entry hadties and like a actually, you know one of fascinating things about isis project today is that people dont see that there is, theres an emerging a new jihadist cult thats been established. It hasnt been established yet, so isis like alqaeda doesnt have idealogues, they have a legacy of jihad since afghanistan, you know, egypt syria, afghanistan and iraq until today. They dont have that kind of legacy as alqaeda does. But they are establishing that kind of ideology that has idealogues that have ideas, it has books, it has theories and so on. But it is emerging at that. So because of that i dont see isis disappearing anytime soon at least in that sense. As an army, as an insurgency i think, you know, if i am on the mustic, probably five optimistic, probably fife years. Jane . Thank you for that very interesting presentation. Yesterday i had lunch with the Indonesian Ambassador to the u. S. Who reminded me i guess i needed reminding that indonesia is the large Muslim Country in the world. It has 250 Million People more or less, 87 of whom are muslim many of the senior members of the government including this ambassador are muslim, and it is a peaceful democracy. My question is, is this the only example, or is this an important example of an alternative muslim idea . And could it somehow be the considered and used in a more effective way as a counter to isis . You know, isis thrives on weak states, you know, end news ya malaysia and indonesia malaysia and countries in southeast asia, they are they have, you know, they have a legacy of, you know, Good Governance. And whenever you find Good Governance isis cannot, you know gain ground because isis is about, its a political project. Political project. And thats essential. As much as its a religious project. But the two come together. So you have political background which is basically youre alienated, youre estranged by local politics and by your government politics, but also you have to have a religious background that believes in a very narrow world view about who is a muslim or what a muslim should be, for how a muslim should be. Now, unless you have these two backgrounds, and thats why people confuse, people say isis is islamic. The fact of the matter is its more nuanced than that. Its both. And lets see how these two backgrounds together e emerge and thats when, you know you mix the two and you produce an isis number. So, you know you might have people sympathizing with isis in indonesia, but they never join isis. I think, you know, for example, you know i think tunisias a good example. Tunisia has, you know, there are around 4,000 tunisian i have haddists fighting in iraq and syria, but they havent announced a province for them in tunisia. Why . When they did the same thing in libya, although they dont have that many jihadists in libya. The reason is because libya, you know, theres no state there. Its collapsed n. Tunisia the population is more condensed, but also the state is still present, still visible and it still offers hope for people. So, you know the gulf states for example, they dont have a threat with isis, they are not in indonesia and tunisia in terms of the tolerance and so on but, you know, isis does not present a threat there. So its about states being, you know present but also Good Governance. There are, i mean yeah, so just to make the point, part of the answer is a way to defeat isil is to have a strong government even with a majority muslim population. And places like indonesia tunisia and others are much less susceptible to their messages because of that. They are susceptible to message i mean, isis might have sympathy in damascus, for example, but damascus has, you know, is well held by the government in damascus. You know, isis operates in a different way sometimes an isis member and i found this, you know personally a lot of isis members dont say they are isis members so dont be, you know, if you dont have a lot of jihaddism, tunisia and indonesia, that does not mean they dont have a problem. Right. They might have a problem. It depends on, you know how isis, you know fares in the future. I think isis, if isis continues to exist ask and kind of prove to be resilient, i think it will continue to grow. First, i think the first target for it is jihadi sympathizers lets say in north africa and west Africa K Horn of africa, for example. There are a lot of jihadis who sympathize with alqaeda. They have allegiance to alqaeda, but they dont have you know they dont have they think theyre still their interest is still with alqaeda. And i think once isis establish itself not only as a resilient group, but as an ideology, established ideology with idealogues and everything and also as a Financial Model i think it might gain a lot of ground in the future in north africa and africa in this general but also in different parts of the world. I think the process of isis growth is still on, you know its still growing. I dont thin