 Good morning and welcome to the US Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg and I'm delighted to welcome you here today for a very important and quite timely program on Iraq in Syria, views from the US administration, military leaders, and the region. US Institute of Peace was founded in 1984 by congressional leaders dedicated to the proposition that peace is very practical. It's quite possible. And it is absolutely essential for our national and global security. We pursue this mission by working with partners around the world with very practical ways on how to prevent and how to resolve violent conflict. And today, we've organized a trio of events that will focus on Iraq and Syria, two countries that are of critical national security interest for the United States. There are also two countries that have been racked by violence, both have been brutally occupied by ISIS, and both are subject to the continuing competing interests of regional and international powers. They're two countries with very distinct challenges, but they're linked by a long and porous border. They both have the continuing threat of ISIS and they're both located in a very tough neighborhood. USIP works in both Iraq and Syria. We work in complement to US military, diplomatic, and aid workers, as well as with our Iraqi government and civil society partners and the Kurdistan regional government and civil society partners in both Iraq and Syria. We have been on the ground in Iraq since 2003. I was there actually last month and I was encouraged to see some very useful heartening signs of hope and progress as we await the elections in May. I'm sure you'll hear more about that. And for many years, particularly following the rise of ISIS, USIP has worked with our US and Iraqi counterparts to spread and to prevent the spread and subsequent reemergence of conflict. So most notably, we have worked to consolidate the recent successes of military action to liberate areas from ISIS. We have supported our Iraqi partners to broker and implement local peace accords. These local accords in places like Hawija, Tikrit, Ithrib, and Nineveh have enabled Iraqis to come together to bridge deep divides, which were left deeper in the wake of the ISIS occupation and agree to solve problems peaceably. To work out the new grievances that resulted from ISIS and in many cases address decades or even longer old grievances. Most importantly, it's allowed many families to return home. So I'm especially appreciative of the partnership we have had with the Iraqi and KRG governments thanks to our honored guests who are here with us today. We have supported the National Reconciliation Committee in the Prime Minister's office in its efforts and we've provided the Kurdistan regional government with conflict mitigation tools, particularly on fostering women's participation in post-conflict peace building. So we are now at a pivotal moment. ISIS is largely driven out, particularly from the urban areas and no longer holding territory in most of Iraq and much of Syria. And there's an urgency to sustain those gains. There's an urgency to help stabilize the region, the necessity of preventing the return of ISIS. And very importantly, enable the return of many millions of Iraqis and Syrians to go home to begin what will be a generation's long process of rebuilding their lives. And this has to happen against continuing significant internal challenges as well as while the competing interests of many regional and international players continue to play out. The stakes are very high. It will require closely aligned and coordinated efforts across the U.S. government with international partners and very importantly with our Iraqi and Syria partners. So we will start today's program by first looking at Iraq, then we'll follow with the panel looking at the regional implications for both countries, followed by a networking lunch. After lunch, we'll finish with a very powerful conversation between combatant commander General Votel, special presidential envoy Brett McGurk and USAID administrator Green. This discussion will be moderated by the U.S. Institute of Peace Board Chair, Stephen Hadley, previously the National Security Advisor under President Bush. So I hope that you'll be able to stay with us for all three panels on very important topics at a very important time. So to start this morning, we're quite fortunate to be joined by leaders from the region who will assess the current situation and discuss what's likely to happen next. I'm honored to welcome Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S., Ambassador Yasin, the representative of the KRG, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, and our own Sarhang Hamasayid, who's the director of our Middle East programs. And we are quite delighted to have with us to moderate this conversation, Ambassador Alberto Fernandez, who's the president of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, or MBN. Ambassador Fernandez oversees and manages two television networks, Alhura and Alhura Iraq, Radio Sawa, and all of MBN's digital and social media platforms. So his role is to provide critical news and information in Arabic to the Middle East and to Africa. Previously, he was a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service with the rank of minister counselor. He was a Foreign Service officer from 1983 to 2015 and served in many critical roles and ambassadorial posts. So, Ambassador Fernandez, over to you. Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here and to open up this important conference today, which I think will be really powerful in its impact. We open up with this panel on a pivotal moment in Iraq, and you could say this is a pivotal moment in the history of pivotal moments. This year is the 50th anniversary of the rise to power of the Baath Party in Iraq in the unfortunate July 17th revolution of 1968, Saddam Hussein entering government. Fifteen years, of course, marking last month, 15 years since the liberation of Iraq in the fall of that regime. Four years, roughly, since the rise of the Islamic State in the fall of Mosul. So, certainly, Iraq has had its fair share of pivotal, dire, serious moments in history. We're blessed and we're really fortunate to have a panel here that has deep roots and deep knowledge of the region. Many of you know one of the challenges we face in Washington is often we have people talking about parts of the world, which they know in a very shallow and superficial way. That is certainly not a problem today for the conference and certainly not a problem with this panel, which has a deep understanding of Iraq and the region. Ambassador Yasin, KRG representative Bayan Abdul Rahman, and Dr. Sarhan Hamasahid, our voices that have deep insight in the region in Iraq and who see Iraq fully as it is, as a place of tremendous challenge, tremendous problems, and yet tremendous potential that I think we in the West often ignore. So much is going on on the ground beneath the surface that is easy to dismiss from 8,000 miles away. There's a lot of good happening in Iraq that is often lost when we think of things like the corruption rate or the violence or political tension. We forget the kind of the granularity of what is happening on the ground and the tremendous potential. And they understand that Iraq that has suffered tremendously, the great human cost, the human dignity cost through the past years, and yet how Iraq has triumphed. How the Iraqi people, the Iraqi armed forces from the heroic Peshmerga to the Iraqi security forces, the army, the police and others who bled and who fought and who defeated the Islamic state is something we forget. The great cost that the Iraqi people bore, but the triumph that resulted from this. So all of these elements demonstrate the importance of this panel of this conference and the importance obviously of the engagement of the United States with Iraq. For me, it's important always to highlight that Iraq is not a place that is won or lost. It's a place that is in play. It's a place that we have to engage with because it's important in and of itself for the U.S. and for U.S. policy. So we'll begin the round with about five minutes from each person and then we'll take it from there. We'll ask a few questions and we'll open it up for you all as well. Ambassador Yasin. Thank you, Ambassador. I want to thank the USIP for inviting me and for hosting this, I think, very timely and important event and they have a tradition of doing these things. You're right. It's an important juncture for Iraq. We have, as you said, defeated ISIS. If I were to encapsulate this in a sound bite, I'd say that you will find nowhere in Iraq where the flag of ISIS floats. And in fact, if you look at the flag of ISIS, it reminds you of the pirate flag with the skull and bones. So we've defeated that. We've defeated them, but the objective really is not to defeat ISIS. It's to prevent the rise of anything similar. I've often heard American friends tell me that we are concerned because we find ourselves right now in a situation which was similar to what happened in 2010. We had defeated al-Qaeda and undergone elections and then things went south. And there's a big difference, and I'd like to stress this difference, is that the surge that ended al-Qaeda was carried out essentially by US troops. And I'm thankful for the sacrifice and their effort. The fight against ISIS were carried out, was carried out by Iraqis. The Peshmerga, the popular mobilizations, the regular army, the ICTS, and they paid a heavy burden in blood. So this is a victory where we really have a lot of skin and even blood in the game. And we are concerned. We want it to stick. In a strange way, ISIS actually brought us together. I remember this famous quote by George Kennan speaking of communism. He said that it contained in itself the seeds of its own decay. Well, similarly for ISIS, if they had confined themselves to Anbar province and Nainoa province and consolidated, I don't know, maybe you'd be talking to them. But their ideology pushed them to do things that were unthinkable, unacceptable. Beheading Americans, doing what they did to the Yazidi women, killing all the Yazidi men, expelling the minorities from Mosul. Nobody can accept that. And so we all united. We've defeated them. But ISIS, if anything, is a learning organization and they have morphed. In a sense, we've deprived them from territorial control. They have reverted to what they were previously, which is a proto-insurgency with terrorist activities. Recently, for example, they've set up a checkpoint and ambushed and killed a number of Iraqi policemen. They've also destroyed a shrine near Kirkuk. This means that we will have to continue fighting them, but with different means. I have to say that the fighting against ISIS was carried out by Iraqis, but it would not have been possible without the support of the coalition headed by the United States. They played a really critical role and will continue to need their support and their expertise to fight ISIS in the coming phases, where you will have to move from terrain tactics, warfare, to intelligence, confusion cells, counter-terrorism, things like that. Ultimately, of course, in order to defeat them, we will have to do two things. We will have to confront their ideology, and that has implications as much for us as it does for you. We have to address the message, but I think the U.S. government and other major international institutions should do something about the way the messages are being propagated through social media. Facebook, for example, for a long time was a global recruitment tool for ISIS. They're doing some work now, but I think more needs to be done. That's one thing. The other thing that we need to do is to make sure that the population does not welcome them or approve of them as they did in 2014. And that means that we'll have to focus on a number of issues, governance, economics, reconciliation, that's an important part, and also demilitarization. And there, I think, the United States can offer a lot of examples. For example, the famous GI Bill that transformed the United States Army into the greatest economic reconstruction engine after the Second World War is something that we can draw inspiration from. And I have to, and this made me really salute the critical work that USIP is doing in trying to bring in and strengthen and consolidate reconciliation in very difficult areas in Iraq, like Howija, like Tala Fara. And then, of course, I mentioned the economics. As many know, we've had a conference that took place in Kuwait last month. People there pledged up $30 billion to help us rebuild. It wasn't a pledging conference, it was a reconstruction conference where for the first time the World Bank actually held a special session for the private sector. Why? Because, as you said, Iraq has potential. So we're hoping that this will pan out very quickly. And what makes me feel very positive that this will indeed happen is that one of the most important developments on the political front in the region has been the rapprochement between Iraq and Gulf countries that have been far too absent from Iraq over the last 10 years. That was initiated by a visit by the Saudi Foreign Minister to Baghdad. Then we've had delegations come in, including sports delegations. We've had a very important event in Iraq, which is a soccer game that took place in Basra, where we beat the Saudis 4-1. No joke. Soccer is a religion in Iraq, and we have two sects, Barcelona and Real Madrid, and sometimes it gets violent. But joking aside, we stand in a position where we are a lot more confident. We see this in the politics, and I have to talk about the politics because we're coming to elections in May of this year on the 12th. One point I'd like to make is that throughout the travails we've had over the last 14, 15 years since regime change, we have had elections as constitutionally mandated all the time. We did not miss a single one. So we are going to all these elections. They're going to be held under difficult conditions, but I can assure you that there is great goodwill and a strong will in Iraq to make these work. We're taking all the technical measures necessary to make sure that these are fair and full-proof elections. And the Iraqi government has officially asked for the United Nations and other international organizations to come in and provide international observers that will help prove that these are elections that are fair and strengthen their legitimacy. One point I'll mention is that in these elections the debate between the various political parties is gradually shifting from identity politics to issues politics. Which is a really welcome sign. Another thing that I'll close on that is that if you look at the names of some of the coalitions that are coming in in these elections, they indicate a certain confidence. We have the prime ministers running on a coalition called the Victory Coalition. There's one called the Coalition of Conquest. I'm sure there are other such positive names. And I hope that this will pan out and have an impact on the politics to come. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. And I'd also like to thank USIP for hosting this conference, which is his excellency. The ambassador said is very timely. It's an honor to be with this panel or part of this panel. I think the ambassador has really set out the terrain in Iraq. So I will focus my comments more on the Kurdistan region, but part of the wider picture in Iraq. From a Kurdish point of view, by the time we got to 2013-14, our relationship with Baghdad was deteriorating. Kurdistan's economy was doing well. There was a flourishing of society, media, and so on. But the relations with Baghdad were tense. And then, of course, ISIS came and everything was suspended. We all rightly had to focus on ISIS, which was a threat to all of us. And we're all very proud of that ISIS has been defeated. But those problems that existed were not dealt with. And so today, we are at this pivotal moment where we have those old issues still there. We have new issues because ISIS, I think, touched on so many fault lines that already existed in Iraq and Syria, but we're focusing on Iraq. So that's the negative. On the positive side, we are heading for these elections, and these elections are critical. The Kurdistani parties have decided to participate in the elections, and we hope that after the elections, we will be able to be part of the discussion on forming a new government. And we believe that any new government in Iraq should include the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias, and really be a cross-sectarian, cross-ethnicity government. It rings alarm bells for many of us in Iraq when we hear some parties or some political leaders talk about, it's time for majoritarian rule. It's time for whoever wins a majority to rule Iraq. I think in a country like Iraq where you have Kurds, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, you have Turkmen, Assyrians, you have so many other minorities. You have disputes over oil, over revenue sharing, over budgets, over the status of some of the military. Militias are accepted, whereas sometimes it appears that the Peshmerga are not. You have so many issues. To have majoritarian rule, I think, would be a backward step. And we're all hoping that the next government will be a reflection of Iraqi society and will be able to implement some of the aspirations of Iraqi society. And there is a danger of too high expectations of the new government. So, as the ambassador said just before we were coming in, that we also have to manage those expectations. So today, Kurdistan and I would say it's a microcosm of the wider Iraq. We have economic issues, problems. We have political problems. We have a fragmented society. And I believe that's true of every sector or every component of Iraq. When you talk to the Christians, they're divided. When you talk to the Yazidis, they're divided. When you talk to the Kurds, they're divided. You talk to the Shia, to the Sunnis. There is a fragmentation. But this election and the formation of the next government is the opportunity to bring us all back. To bring us all back to a new focal point and to a new beginning, I truly believe that these elections are the opportunity for a new chapter. So, going forwards, what are we looking for in Kurdistan? As you all know, we had the referendum. This was both a euphoric and a traumatic event, not only for Kurdistan, but I believe for all of Iraq. Now we need to focus on our future relationship. We believe that the Constitution is the best guide for our relationship with Baghdad, but for all Iraqis. The Constitution does have shortcomings, and every group will find shortcomings that apply to itself. But broadly, the Constitution is the way forward. It protects the rights of different groups, different ethnicities, different religions. It sets out a federal structure for Iraq, which hasn't truly been implemented. And if implemented, I believe it will strengthen Iraq. So we're looking towards a stronger implementation of the Constitution. We still need to have some kind of a revenue sharing agreement, not just between Erbil and Baghdad, for all Iraqis. What about the Sunnis? What about the people of Basra? We need a revenue sharing mechanism that enables every citizen of Iraq to share in the wealth. We need to have, for example, in the disputed territories, a joint security mechanism which worked previously, worked very successfully. And I believe that there are steps now towards that. We need to have a mechanism for dealing with the trauma that has been imposed on the people of Iraq. All of the soldiers who were killed, whether they were Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, Assyrian, Yazidi, just the soldiers' families, every family has had to deal with the trauma of loss. And then, of course, the people who face genocide, the trauma that they face, these are issues that we need to deal with. When we're talking about the issue of justice and accountability for ISIS's crimes, this is another area where we all need to cooperate. The Kurdistan region will need to cooperate with Baghdad if we're truly going to bring all of these people to justice. Kurdistan and Iraq still has a humanitarian crisis. Kurdistan alone today has 1.5 million Syrian refugees and internally displaced Iraqis. That's still a huge population. That's still a lot of people to take care of. We still need to remember that while ISIS has been defeated militarily, they are still there as a threat so we need the security cooperation and we still have the humanitarian crisis and all of those people need to be helped. That means a reconstruction program that, frankly, hasn't really begun on the scale that it should. I believe we need something like the Marshall Plan that was imposed after the Second World War. That's the scale of the reconstruction, not just the physical reconstruction of places like Mosul, Sinjar and all of the towns and cities that were destroyed, but also a rebuilding of our society. So I believe this election is critical. We need to build bridges between all of the components of Iraq. We need confidence-building measures and we need an era of coming back together after splintering into hugely fragmented society. I do believe that the United States has a critical role to play in this. I know many Americans are sick and tired of the whole story of Iraq and Afghanistan and soon they'll be tired of Syria and I understand that. But we need you to stay the course in Iraq and to help our society to recover from the most recent trauma that we've faced. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dr. Sahed. Thank you. Good morning and it's a pleasure for me and an honor to be part of such a distinguished panel with Ambassador Yasin and with Ms. Rahman and Ambassador Fernandez. I see many familiar faces who follow Iraq and Syria very closely. So good to have you here. In Iraq it is definitely a truly pivotal moment. There is a pivotal moment that you can look at in Iraq itself, but also in the region and in the world stage and I understand that two other panels will get to some of those. So staying within the boundaries of Iraq, and having visited Iraq four times in the past year and through our work, it is definitely evident that there is an enhanced sense of national sentiments, mostly outside the Kurdistan region for understandable reasons about Iraqi nationalism and on the back of the military defeat of ISIS. And now that energy is going into the political space with the elections coming up. And the process to the elections is mostly set. We can say a lot, we can have a dedicated event about the process and the participation of candidates. But a couple of things will be critical in the process to the election, which is turnout, white-scale turnout is important for this election. And second, the platforms on which this election will be run. So far the common theme is we want the civilian state, we want cross-sectarian blocks to run for the elections. But that is important to deliver after the elections. And we need a government that is formed quickly, not a protracted process, a government that is inclusive, truly inclusive, not only in numbers of people but also in delivery for the people. And a government that can actually manage a complex next stage of Iraq and the complex next stage of Iraq. And as the ambassador usually says that Iraq is a place where a lot of contradictions are true at the same time. The next government will find an Iraq that is at a better place but also at a more complex and in some ways dangerous place. It's at a better place to build on the point that Mr. Rahman said about the sense of fatigue in the international community and in the United States. I think Iraq of 2018 is an Iraq that is more prepared to engage in a democratic process and to be a partner. That did not exist in 2003 because of the paralysis that Saddam brought on the Iraqi society. And in the previous years it was a process of build up an adjustment. I think Iraq is at a better place. So we do have partners in the government and also in the community. The second piece, so that's the Iraq at a better place, where it's more complex, security will remain a challenge. Security, I think the Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga, have built a strong reputation for defending the Iraqi people and overcoming a difficult adversary. But in the process there has been the formation of a good number of armed groups and the fragmentation of the security, justice and security landscape. The next Iraqi government will have to deal with this problem. On the issue of stabilization, reconciliation and also reconstruction, building up to resilience because the ultimate goal is how do you build a resilient Iraq that in terms of government institutions, in terms of society and in terms of individuals. And the path to get there is going to be difficult and it will require help. We see progress in 3.5 million people have returned home, positive progress, but we still have a difficult number to overcome. 2.3 million people who have to go home and they have not. And through our visits to Iraq and seeing communities who are still internally displaced camps and also communities have returned home, there are cross-cutting themes whether you are in those situations affected by ISIS or you are actually in Basra or somewhere else where services, lack of job opportunities and the economic issues continue to challenge you. In the issue of return, I mentioned the security part, but one dilemma that the Iraqi government will have to overcome is the legacy that ISIS is leaving behind within the community and those who are individuals and families who have been accused of either being members of ISIS or affiliation with ISIS. One of the senior Iraqi officials we met told us that there are 90,000 arrest warrants for people who are accused of being ISIS. He acknowledged that this number, not all those people are actually ISIS members. You could be accused of that for a variety of reasons, political, economic and social reasons. And there are 36,000 people who are already arrested. That is a big number of people that the Iraqi justice system and security system will have to deal with. That is a problem that we had in 2012-2013 when the Sunni communities of Iraq said that Article IV of the terror law is targeting them and it is causing a good number of their communities to be in detention and the Iraqi justice system did not have the capability to process quickly and look into these issues. That is a challenge that will threaten and this is where local reconciliation comes in. So we have national reconciliation and local reconciliation. As an institute, we have been, as Nancy mentioned earlier and our speakers also referred to, USIP has been active in this space and we have been leading the dialogue processes in very difficult spots of Iraq and Tikrit and Yathrib in Salahadeen province and Hawija southwest of Kirkuk in Talaqfar and also Hamdani in the Nile plains. What we are finding in these processes, actually the Iraqi community is engaged. Tribal leaders, the religious minorities, the women, the youth are engaged and they are trying to find solutions and reform all traditions to adapt to new reality. So there is the same way there is a sense of fatigue with violence and with Iraq issues here in the international community. That sense of fatigue also exists in the Iraqi community and they are turning that into an energy to find solutions and I know I am not naive, I am not trying to paint a rosy picture I can paint a bleak picture as anybody else but I am trying to give a sense of the positive energy that we can partner with and can help channel and the elections give us an opportunity to jumpstart the political process and address some of the fundamental constitutional issues that is plaguing the country in terms of the framework of the country but there is also energy at the local level, the front line of where violence breaks out where extremism is trying to recruit so this is something we can work with. Moving forward, I think for the international community we need to remain engaged. That's what the Iraqis tell us, that's what they deserve and that's what this progress deserves also. If we leave it now, we have made a lot of progress against ISIS and putting Iraq back on a political track but if we leave it at this point or soon after the elections I think we risk losing our investment and this is where it is a dangerous moment for Iraq as overall. People will lose faith in the electoral process bringing them change and we may revert back to place violence and we do not want to do that. The region has competing agendas in Iraq building Iraqi institutions will help the government stand on its feet and we have to preserve stability throughout Iraq not only in areas liberated from ISIS we need that in the Kurdistan region they have issues that they need help with we need that in the south they have issues that they need help with and with that I'll stop here. Thank you very much, thank you all three. I will take now the moderator's prerogative and ask the first question. Ambassador Yasin, you and I address this to all three of you you mentioned the military defeat of the Islamic State arrived at such a tremendous cost and you mentioned the challenge of ideology. Today in Iraq today what is really that challenge of the ideology of the challenge of Salafi jihadism is this an issue of does that connection between ISIS and Sunni Arab population and the grievance of that Sunni Arab population been definitively broken so that we move beyond that I mean what is the challenge we face with the ideological dimension which also exists not just in the Sunni Arab just in the Kurdish and other populations as well. Well, if I may, the extremist ideologies in Iraq have always been marginal. They didn't exist. They came in through the 1990s through Saddam's faith campaign that opened the door to them but they always were marginal. Salafi, these extremist ideologies were the engine that brought tens of thousands of foreign fighters into Iraq through the networks that we can talk about if you want but in Iraq I think what we should focus on is to prevent the mass of people from accepting these insurgents because of their dissatisfaction with the services, the government, the justice, the corruption. So we have to address, like I said, four issues, economics, governance, security and those one more but this is what we need to do in Iraq. On the ideology aspect of it I think it's a global problem that in fact all Muslims should need to address. Do you want to say anything? I think we do have to be careful that we don't allow ISIS or al-Qaeda or any other form of Islamic extremism or terrorism to gain ground in Iraq. It's cost Iraqi society and Kurdish society a great deal. My own father and brother were killed by Islamist terrorists and it's incumbent on all of us to ensure that they don't gain a foothold again but that does mean that our neighbours have to play a role after the liberation of Iraq. Syria became the conduit for every terrorist to make their way into Iraq. We need our neighbours to play their role as well. This is not something that we in Kurdistan or Iraq as a whole can fight against alone. It also of course does mean that we need the United States and the coalition to stay with us. That's why earlier I made that appeal that the American people may be tired of being in Iraq for now for 15 years but you play an important role. You play an important role diplomatically, politically and militarily and it's in your own interest to help all of us not to allow these ideologies to gain a foothold. Thank you. Dr. Sardin, you have a very quick question. In Iraq there is the ideology but I think it is at a much smaller scale than many people think but it is the kind of danger that it could find space and amplify and grow to a bigger problem and the governance issues were the vehicle through which this ideology found space and became amplified. I think now that is contained. The threat is not fully eliminated, it's there. That's why the success of the electoral process, the success of governance and the governance issues need to remain a priority and engage the community and maintain a channel of communication between the government and the community to problem solve together and manage the next chapter. That will be the best, in my view, mechanism to prevent violence whether coming from internal issues or coming from terrorist organizations. Very good. Thank you. Now we can open it up to the public to see who wants to ask questions first. Please identify yourself and your institution if you wish. Yes, this lady right here. Thanks to all of you for doing this. Trudy Rubin from the Philadelphia Inquirer. You mentioned that the neighbors have to play a part. I want to ask how you all envision the neighbors not causing future chaos inside Iraq. Can the U.S. play a role without being contradicted or attempted to be pushed out by Iran by a new role for Russia? Can the Saudis and the Iranians both play a role inside Iraq without playing games on your soil? I'd also like to ask if the U.S. pulls out its 2,000 forces from Syria. How will that be seen in Iraq and will that be seen as a sign that the U.S. has no staying power for the future in Iraq? You can go first. Okay. Well, you know, we don't want Iraq or Kurdistan to be the theater for proxy warfare among our neighbors or anybody else. Iraq already has enough problems recovering from decades of baptism and then all of the issues that we've had since 2003 and, of course, ISIS. So we have enough problems. We really don't need any more gifts from our neighbors. So I think the rapprochement between Baghdad and Riyadh is important. I believe the relationship with Kuwait has been improving in Kurdistan region. We have good relations with the neighbors. The Gulf countries were the biggest investors in the Kurdistan region. We have a good relationship with Iran and Turkey. It may not look like that from the outside, but our leadership has always maintained a good relationship. But I do think the U.S. has a role to play, and so does the coalition, not just the U.S. alone. And a sudden withdrawal from Syria would send a frightening message unless there is an explanation that comes with it that makes everybody think, ah, yes, okay, that's why. But right now we're just hearing alarming things without that explanation. And maybe those, you know, we don't know how it's going to turn out. But I would say that we do need our neighbors, the neighborhood, to realize that it's in their interest to have a stable and prosperous Iraq that is a good neighbor to them and plays a positive role in the Middle East. And in that I include Kurdistan as part of Iraq, but also we have our own semi-independent relations with those countries. But at the end of the day, the international community, the UN, they all have a role to play as well. And that's free. Well, thank you, Trini. It is in the interest of everybody to prevent ISIS from re-emerging. And I think that's one of the drivers that brought the Saudis back to Iraq. They were threatened by ISIS. ISIS used to be, well, ISIS stands for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but remember that they changed their name to Islamic State, meaning that they targeted not only Iraq and Syria, but the whole Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia. So everybody has a stake in preventing them, preventing this terrorism. With regard to Syria, we still suffer from Syria. Still to this day, we have insurgents or jihadists crossing the border into Iraq and wreaking havoc. So as an operational first step, what we need to do is secure the border. And this is something the United States is helping us with. And I think for the foreseeable future, we need that help. This is realized and recognized in Washington as it is in Baghdad, and bringing in favorable results. With regard to the relationships between the other countries, well, it is in our interest to see that tensions are reduced in the region, and as you know, we have played our role in order to try to bring people together. In fact, one of the things that the United States has been extremely successful at, one of the achievements of the State Department was to help bring the Saudis back to Iraq. I think, as you know, the Saudi Foreign Minister went to Baghdad, which was an icebreaker, at the request of the State Department. So that's where we are. There is no question that we need to have continued engagement with the United States. People do not realize the cost that this war has made us pay in terms of our troops. I think the tip of the spear of the Iraqi armed forces were the Iraqi counter-terrorism services. They suffered a casualty rate of about 30%. They need to be rebuilt and strengthened. And we need support of our friends and allies to do that. Yeah, very quickly. I think the U.S. leading role and engaged role is critical. I cannot recall a single conversation, Syrian or Iraqi, where I was not told from the diversity of the communities that the U.S. has an important role to play. I understand the same way we talk about lessons learned of the past about not disengaging and about continuing support. I think it's also when we need to be careful about the past, not to the trillions of dollars and the big massive troop engagement is not what those people are asking for. They are asking for support with the political processes to move forward, to bring the political processes to be inclusive and for building capacity. I think that is important. And that when the U.S. is not engaged, those processes will not happen. And it gives hesitation to U.S. allies, whether in Europe or in the region, that they will not do the kind of roles that they are playing now. So the U.S. engagement, a leading engagement, not a finance-heavy engagement is what the region is asking for. And the Iraqis are asking for support. Just enough of the thought. Of course, I omitted to say that what we were really looking for is a broader engagement to the United States. We're facing a reconstruction phase and we would very much like to see the U.S. sector very much engaged in that. Thank you. Another question. Yes, right here. Thank you again. Thank you, Iraqi Ambassador. I'm talking about what we need, the good governance after Daesh. But how we come with the good governance and you know the influence of Iran and its militia everywhere in Iraq. They have controlled the government, the parliament, even the judiciary. And now they're coming with the election and maybe they win the next election. Also talking about the investor in Iraq, foreign investor, the Iraqi itself, they have confidence about the system. How do the foreign investors make an initiative to invest in Iraq? Thank you. Thank you. Very pointed questions. Thank you for that. Well, these issues were discussed at the conference in Kuwait and the Iraqi government has engaged itself to streamline the processes and to make them simpler for the foreign investors, including setting up a mechanism that will follow the investments to ensure that there is minimal corruption and efficient use of the funds. But the point behind your question, which is the independence of Iraq, can only be assured once we have strengthened our institutions. And unfortunately, we start from a very low baseline. Iraqi institutions have been completely wiped out by the takeover of the Ba'ath Party, then by the sanctions, then by the occupation. So we're in the gradual process of rebuilding them and making them as secure as possible. It takes time, but I can assure you there is really a good faith effort to do that. Okay, let's try to get another question over here. Good morning. Doug Oliver with New America. We could ask 100 questions today, but let's start with how do you keep your people on board as you have to go through all this recovery and transformation? When you talk to all the ethnic groups, the ethno-sectarian groups in Iraq, the Shia are deeply upset about the lack of services and the oil-rich South. The Sunni, of course, have been decimated. We've been watching the demonstrations in the North. The complaints of the Yazidi go without saying. How do we keep these people on board with what will inevitably be slow and disappointing levels of recovery, even if the progress does move forward? Thank you. You want to take that first? Sure. I think that's a really critical question. I'm going to focus on Kurdistan and Nineveh and the disputed territories. People are very tired. Kurdistan in 2014 had several shocks. First, Prime Minister Maliki cut off Kurdistan's share of the federal budget. Then ISIS came and we were engaged in a very expensive war, financially and in human lives. We were flooded with refugees and displaced people and oil prices crashed. So it is now four years that the people of Kurdistan have endured economic stress. The humanitarian crisis, we still have 1.5 million displaced people and refugees. That is impacting not only them because they can't go home. The tents they're in are now four to six years old if they're from Syria, if they're from other parts of Iraq. The food distribution is under stress. The healthcare system in Kurdistan is under stress. Education system, we now have many more children in our schools than we had expected. So after four years, everybody's out of reserves. There are no more savings for people to tap into and that goes for everybody. So it's not surprising that there are protests and I think we have to recognize that the majority of these protests are legitimate and the grievances are legitimate. So I think you raise a very important question and the Kurdish leadership at least, focusing on them, but I would say the supplies to every leader in Iraq. We need to convey messages to the public that they believe in. I think there's an erosion of trust across the board between the public and the leadership and it is very hard to rebuild that trust but we can't keep making the same old promises. We have to make promises that really address the issues we face today and provide a solution that is realistic. We don't want to raise expectations that then lead to disappointment but this is a very important question. Dr. Serhe, anything you wanted to add to that? Yes, I think this is one of the questions that keep me up at night because you do all this work and that very reason, if you have no ISIS, no threat of terrorism, that could be a reason, the frustration of the people that could take down governments whether local or otherwise. And what we have found extremely useful is engagement of the community can have a variety of benefits in building Iraq's democracy, preventative value in terms of managing people's frustration and trust doesn't come, the Iraqis are fed up and trust cannot come by and ask. They have to see and you have to build and I'll give you a quick, brief anecdote where the Iraqi minorities, actually they engage in a participatory budgeting process where they have engaged their communities, identified their priorities, they worked with the provincial, and this is pre-ISIS, the provincial government of Nineveh with the national government for passing legislation to enable those changes. They identified how much money is there, what are their priorities and they managed their own expectations in terms of what would work. So that model, they are now trying to repeat post-ISIS to enable the return of the minority communities to the Nineveh plain. As a model, I have seen its success, it has limitations, but we need to scale this up where you provide processes for those local issues that could be local and unique to certain places, but you need a wide range of those and you need the same thing at the national level. When these processes lead to agreements, those agreements need to be respected and they need to be implemented and for them to be implemented, you need capacity and this is something that is lacking in the Iraqi institutions that need to be worked on. We have time for one short, we'll let you make your comment and then one short, sweet question, please. You're absolutely right. Managing expectations is the difficult thing to do because expectations are so high. What the government has to do then is prioritize and try to achieve at least a string of fast successes that will add to its legitimacy with the population. One of the things that can do is listen and they are. People in government are really paying attention to what people are saying in Iraq. They should address corruption, that's a big issue that people are talking about. Another issue is mismanagement and in fact one has to say that mismanagement probably costs Iraq much more than corruption and I think looking forward, a holding of the elections in a fair and transparent way in itself will be a success that will add to the credibility of the government. Yes, this lady right here. Yes. Thanks so much for your substantive commentaries. I just have a quick question for Ambassador Yasin. Can you please explain to us the makeup of the coalitions ahead of the elections because it seems that there are some very unusual alliances and from studying the makeup of the coalitions it seems to an outsider that the objective is to decrease or minimize Iran's influence. So could you give us some idea as to how, I mean for example, Prime Minister Maliki was aligned with the Hashtag Shabbi and then he withdrew from this alliance. Muktader Sutter now is aligned with nationalists and communists. So just looking at this from the outside it's very unusual. So can you just explain to give us some insight into how these coalitions are formed and perhaps what the objective is. Thank you. Well, the trend that people see in the formation of these coalitions is that they are multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. In other words, that they constitute a cross-section of the Iraqi population. More importantly than that, their discourse is multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian and in fact civic. And you can see this as sort of a consolidation of a trend that we've seen for a number of years. For example, Mr. Maliki's coalition that won in 2010 was called State of Law. Iraq is yearned for a State of Law. Four years later, the coalition of the Supreme Council was named the Coalition of the Citizen. People yearned for being respected as citizens. We're going in this direction and I think one of the marking examples of this current electoral season in Iraq that we have is the alliance between the communists and the Sadrists. Who would have imagined that? So this is one of the reasons why people are actually hopeful that we are on track to move from identity politics to issues politics. Thank you very much. Thank you all and that concludes this session.