 Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here. And I'd like to thank everybody for joining us here in Washington, as well as those of you who are watching us on Facebook and on our live webcast. Delighted to have you. And I'm very pleased to have with us here today Congressman Seth Moulton. He is representing the sixth district of Massachusetts. And he's here today to unveil his ideas for a path forward in Iraq. I'd also like to welcome colleagues from the State Department, the Iraqi Embassy, and the Kurdistan Regional Government. And we're delighted to have this conversation here today at USIP, which was founded 30 years ago by Congress as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, that it's practical, we can make it happen, and that it is essential for our national security as well as international security. So we pursue this vision of a world without violent conflict by working in conflict zones like Iraq, where we have worked since 2003 to help people build peace from the ground up as well as from the top down. And working with Iraqis to help equip them to bridge divides and to lay the groundwork for reconciliation. And I would just briefly note that last year, the network of Iraqi facilitators with whom we've worked for a number of years brought together Iraqi tribal leaders in Tikrit to help prevent cycles of violence in the wake of Daesh's massacre at Camp Spiker. And these dialogues resulted in a peace agreement between the tribal leaders that ultimately led to the eventual return of more than 300,000 Iraqis. So we know that peace is possible sometimes at local levels, if not at a national level. So now, with all the eyes on the liberation of Mosul, we've been preparing to compliment those efforts and doing so to build on our long work with Iraqi minorities. So Congressman Moulton's comments come at a really critical time. And even though he's only in his first congressional term, Congressman Seth Moulton has already emerged as a leading voice on Iraq policy on Capitol Hill. And this is in large part because as a four-time Marine tour and a winner of the Bronze Star, he is at the experience of working alongside Iraqis to ensure stability in the country. And he has that on-the-ground understanding of the complexities that one encounters. And I know that, Congressman, you believe very much in the United States' role in the political future of Iraq. I appreciate the Congressman's emphasis on the need for the political solution, especially the need for reconciliation between the tribes, the factions, and the ethnicities. We're delighted to have him here today. And after the Congressman's comments, I'll rejoin him. We'll have a dialogue and then open up for questions because I know many of you in the room have been involved for a long time in Iraq as well. So right now, please join me in welcoming Congressman Seth Moulton to talk about Iraq. And thank you very much. And thank you so much to the US Institute of Peace for hosting this discussion. And thank you all for joining me here today. I see a lot of familiar faces in the room. And it means a lot to have you here. Thank you. It is an honor to be here among friends in an institution that is founded by Congress dedicated to the idea that advancing peace around the world is possible and essential for US security and global stability. Nowhere is that cause more important than in Iraq and Syria today, where civil war, the growth of ISIS, and the fracturing of existing governments have sparked a refugee crisis of proportions not seen since World War II and a dangerous terrorist safe haven that threatens us all. For the past two years, I have spoken about the need to defeat ISIS and prevent its potential successors from taking root. And I have been critical of the administration's current approach. The reality on the ground in Iraq today is that our brave young service members are combating ISIS by refighting battles we have already fought and won. Aluja, Ramadi, and now Mosul, just to mention a few. We have yet to answer General Petraeus's prescient question from 2003. Tell me how this ends. Or its logical successor, how will this time be different? Make no mistake, ISIS is a national security threat to the United States and to our allies. The group has brutally killed Americans abroad, planned and inspired attacks here at home, and carried out overseas attacks on our allies. ISIS came to power in a political vacuum in Syria from which the group expanded into a political vacuum in Iraq. The group didn't just defeat the Iraqi army. The Iraqi army put their weapons down and went home because they had lost faith in their own government. Thus, the fundamental problem in Iraq and Syria is political, not military. Although it's devolved to the point where our military involvement is necessary, the only long-term solution that can allow our troops to return home for good must be political in nature. Yet despite this, we don't have a clear political strategy or a plan to implement it. As a Marine infantry officer in Iraq during some of the most difficult periods of fighting and later, as I worked on the complex tasks of reconstruction and stabilization, I came to understand the importance of having a clearly defined strategy, both military and political, as a foundation for our work. Our military operations must enable our political strategy, and the efforts and goals of both must be aligned. Today, from my seat on the House Armed Services Committee, I have heard hours of testimony from our military leaders and their respected advisors, reinforcing the fact that we do not have a serious political strategy in Iraq, a clearly defined end game, or a convincing way to prevent the regression we have seen over the past five years from happening again. We need these things. Our troops deserve these things. And our diplomats do too. We must defeat ISIS, but we also must prevent its potential successors from growing down the road. It's notable that this is the same problem we created for ourselves during the 2003 invasion, when we infamously neglected the plan for phase four, or reconstruction and stabilization. We learned that lesson in time for the successful 2007-2008 surge in Iraq, when General Petraeus worked hand in hand with Ambassador Crocker and made it clear that the purpose of his military mission was to create a space for Iraqi politics to succeed. And Ambassador Crocker clearly outlined what that political success would look like. Although there was debate among theorists about whether Iraq should be divided into parts or certain leaders pushed out of power, the political plan we decided to support to empower a multi-sectarian central government was clear and transparent to all of us, most especially to those of us on the ground. As Marines, we understood that what we were ultimately fighting to achieve, even when those lofty goals seemed far from the daily grind of raids, patrols, and development projects in Iraqi neighborhoods. As the surge progressed and eventually ended, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus made it clear in their reporting to Congress and elsewhere that we had made tremendous military progress, in fact, had exceeded our expectations, but had not yet achieved all of our political goals. They called for a diplomatic surge to follow the military one, and we built the largest U.S. embassy in the world to support it. But then we left it barely half full. And ultimately, we squandered most of our tremendous progress during the surge by withdrawing too quickly from Iraq, not just by pulling out all the troops, but by never providing the continued support or reinforced political mentoring Iraq clearly required. In the absence of our presence, our advisors embedded in the Iraqi government, a robust development and assistance program tied clearly to political goals, and the resources our State Department needed to carry out its mission. In the absence of that, Iraqi politics devolved. The Washington Post recently documented how many important Iraq programs at State were cut back or eliminated following our ceremonious military withdrawal despite internal protests to keep them intact. As a result, a terrible Prime Minister, Nurea Maliki, had free reign to advance his personal and sectarian agenda of marginalizing the Sunnis, consolidating power and enriching his friends, while gutting the leadership of the ministries and security forces. Many will rightly say that providing successful political mentoring is hard, and the U.S. has a history of influencing foreign governments that is uneven at best and downright tragic at worst. But today in Iraq, the alternative is worse, which is what we are doing now, sending thousands of American troops back less than five years after we left to clean up the mess. This afternoon, I will describe the steps I believe are necessary for a truly integrated political and military plan crucial to set Iraq back on track to a self-sustaining future. Ultimately, of course, that is the goal, an Iraq that is a united and stable country with a democratically elected government operating under the rule of law, allied with our interests, and able to maintain its own security against both foreign and domestic enemies. I was able to build bipartisan support for a requirement now in the House's National Defense Authorization Act that will require the administration to develop and submit an integrated political and military strategy to Congress and the American people. My hope is that these recommendations will help. Two more things should be set up front. First, to paraphrase General Petraeus, Iraq is not Las Vegas. What happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East. Even as we deal with other national security threats around the globe and execute other strategies, including President Obama's pivot to Asia, we must remain engaged in the Middle East as it will continue to be engaged with us whether we like it or not. ISIS or other terrorist groups can't simply be contained. Second, the fight against terrorism truly is a long war. We are not going to win it decisively anytime soon though we can limit its effects and only much longer term changes in development, demographics, and of course politics will ultimately rid the world of this terrible scourge. We must do a better job of balancing our spending on short-term responses to stop immediate threats, usually through military action, with the longer-term investments that are necessary to truly win. Although nobody likes to say this, there are indeed lessons to be learned from how we handled Europe and Japan following World War II or South Korea following the Korean War. Some degree of enduring engagement, diplomatic, military, and through education and development, will be required to maintain the peace. We need to strike this balance correctly so that as in these other three examples, our engagement is as peaceful as possible. Finally, while I acknowledge the Middle East is a complex interconnected region with problems that aren't confined to national borders, a strategy must begin somewhere. Given America's experience in Iraq and the relative consensus among many experts on a path forward, I have decided to focus first on recommendations for how our Iraq policy needs to change. I hope this serves as a starting point for a new policy geared towards long-term success. So with that, let me now go into the strategy that I have outlined. The strategy is comprised of four main steps. First, define our desired political end state. Second, enable political reforms. Third, condition further military support on political progress. And fourth, provide authorization and funding for Iraq's future. So first, we must define our desired political end state. In the absence of a clear political strategy for Iraq, there is renewed debate around core issues like whether the country should be divided, either in three or two, or whether this makeup of parliament should be changed and what role militias should play in the security forces. This debate must end, at least for now. And we must set out a clear picture in concert with Iraqi leaders of what Iraq will look like going forward. This is no different than what we envisioned during the surge. That is fine, but we must make it clear that this is the vision America support and everybody should know that. Most of all are troops. For my trips to Iraq over the past couple years, I don't think they do. So what does this mean? Legitimate, empowered governments. We must have Iraq's civil authorities governing cities and towns, not militias beholden to one factor or another. And the reality on the ground in Iraq today is that many of the cities that have been liberated from ISIS are now simply under the control of militias. Functional federalism, greater political and budgetary authority, divested to provinces and localities, not vested in Baghdad. There are many experts who feel that at the local level, Iraqis are more willing to reconcile than they are at the national level today. This is something that was always a goal to be achieved through parliament, but it has really not been achieved today. A unitary sovereign state. Iraq should remain one state. A tremendous sectarian overlap in Iraq and a partition is not as simple as a solution, it's not as simple a solution as some people would think. I often say that I'd rather have Iraqis arguing over the division of oil revenues in parliament than fighting over lines in the sand. There are no clear places to draw boundaries. So though, while from a theoretical perspective and understanding the complicated history of how Iraq came to be a state, it may seem appealing simply to separate it out into sectarian sections. I think the practical reality of that and how it would be maintained is not pretty. Finally, the relationship with Iran, despite the benefits some perceive in Iran, some Iraqis, most Iraqis will tell you more often than not that its interests are not aligned with Iran. We must not permit Iraq to become an Iranian client state. And I think this is one of the things that a lot of Americans, a lot of Westerners just don't understand about Iraq. It's very tempting to look at Iraq, especially the Shia South, and say, well, they must be aligned with Shiais in Iran. My experience is that is absolutely not the case. And although Iran has done a remarkably good job of winning some Iraqi support, helping the fight against ISIS, supporting economic development to win some Iraqi friends, the underlying belief of Iraqis is that they do not want to be controlled by Iran and many of them feel that they are today. Second, it is critical that we enable political reforms and that verb is important, enable. Reforms must come from Iraqis to be seen as legitimate, but there is much we can do to encourage and influence their outcome. We did that successfully during the surge and Iran does it in Iraq today. The good news is that we actually have a prime minister we like and support for a change in Prime Minister Abadi. Our agendas are mostly aligned. We just need to support him in carrying out his reforms. While admittedly, many other actors to include Iran are actively working to undermine him. So what can we do? We can counter the Iranian influence among Shia politicians. Iran carries favor and influence with Shia politicians through everything from threats to cash payments. We must work to counter this through our own covert efforts, State Department development and reconstruction efforts and assisting in helping Iraqi politicians build coalitions. Second, strengthen the Sunni influence in parliament. Prime Minister Maliki worked hard to marginalize the Sunni presence in the Iraqi government. And years later, Sunnis are still not effectively operating as a bloc, electorally or in parliament. State Department and NGO programs can work to improve this, but Baghdad must cease its mentally. There is a lot that we can do just to help Sunni politicians understand how they can be more effective. Third, press Prime Minister Abadi to fulfill his promises to the Sunnis. The organized system of patronage and corruption, the ruling Shia lead has constructed must be dismantled and the judicial system must be reformed to treat Sunnis the same under the law. Next, press Parliament to fulfill its promises to the Sunnis. Simply put, the debathification legislation must be repealed and the systemic disenfranchisement of Sunnis must end. We've got to expedite the long stall across sectarian National Guard. In my visits, top commanders have stressed a National Guard must be established to fill the gaps between the Iraqi army and the local police. Such a force must be cross sectarian and not solely loyal to one click or parting. Facilitate reconciliation with the Kurds. We've done this in the past. It's time to do it again. Tensions are high. And finally, counter the Iranian propaganda effort. By some estimates, 95% of Iraqi TV stations are controlled by Iran. That's not an environment under which we can enable any sort of reasonable reforms. Third step, we must condition further military support on political progress. Now this is undoubtedly going to raise a lot of questions and be somewhat unpopular with some folks. Significant progress has been made against ISIS thus far, but more needs to be done militarily to ensure defeat. Iraq is dependent on our support today, but that dependence wanes with every military victory and so does our leverage. It has been a mistake to provide so much military support to date without demanding any political reforms in return, and we must reverse this policy immediately. Although both Iraqi and American commanders are understandably anxious to conquer Mosul, the last remaining ISIS stronghold in Iraq, we don't have a plan for post-conflict Mosul at this point anyway, so there are several reasons for slowing our advance. Conditioning further support on progress on the above goals is important to long-term stability. Even more specific to American interests, there are two key goals the U.S. should achieve before Mosul falls. First, to sign a memorandum of understanding to legitimize the continued U.S. presence. This is tricky politically. The SOFA agreements are all familiar with how they end and the discussion about immunities and privileges is going nowhere, but we're not gonna be able to follow through on this plan to ensure political progress in Iraq. If we can't put the issue of our presence aside, now is the time to do it while we have the leverage to get that agreement done. Next, condition future arms sales on political progress. Again, we must use the support we provide through material and financing as leverage to ensure Iraq makes progress on the reforms I have described. And then finally, fourth, we must provide authorization and funding for Iraq's future. Congress should press the administration to enact these recommended changes to its Iraq strategy, but Congress also must fund and support them. Doing so is a wise investment in Iraq's future and in our own in eventually reducing what we currently budget in dollars and lives to maintain Iraq's stability. Congress needs confidence in the strategy and Congress must resource its execution. One of the side benefits of moving from a military-led strategy to a long-term diplomatic-led strategy is that the latter will ultimately be less costly to American taxpayers. We need to renew the stalled and abandoned State Department programs as the military drew down in 2011, a continued State Department presence was promised, but was in fact scrapped, $1.6 billion was cut from security and political assistance programs, the U.S. military leadership has pointed to as contributing to the vulnerable vacuum in which ISIS emerged. These programs that would have prevented that vacuum must be renewed. We must increase the number of diplomatic personnel. Just to give you some round numbers, in January 2013, the State Department had around 11,500 personnel in Baghdad. By 2014, half that, 5,500, and since then, less than 2,000, most of whom are security and support personnel, not actual diplomats. Now, numbers alone aren't enough. We must have the right leaders and resources, but we need to increase the number of diplomats and outposts to support these goals. Broadened diplomatic and intelligence authorities, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and their affiliated militias reach is vast and highly detrimental. We need to empower our intelligent professionals to counter them. And finally, the Secretary of State should focus on Iraq in the same way that Secretary Kerry so brilliantly focused on Afghanistan to put together the unity government. That kind of diplomatic attention will signal to Iraq and to its allies and its enemies the seriousness of our approach. So in sum, these four steps with their component reforms, defining our political end state and agreeing on it, enabling political reforms, conditioning further military support on political progress and providing authorization and funding for Iraq's future are vital to Iraq's success. Now, what I have proposed here is not easy. Put another way, it's really hard. Many of us will hear this and again wish we had never gone into Iraq in the first place. For some, it is tempting to say that because the invasion was a mistake, we should try to leave again and never come back. But frankly, we have tried that and it's what has delivered us to where we are today. I believe that the plan I've presented, while difficult, time consuming and not without risk is the best option we have and ultimately, it will be less difficult, less time consuming and less risky and importantly, less costly than any other option before us today, including our present course. Now, confident that there will be many, I would be delighted to take your question. Thank you, Congressman, and as I said in my introduction, you come from a position of significant credibility having served four tours in Iraq and seen it from the ground perspective in so many different ways and you lay out a very compelling vision. I know that many of us have been concerned that there be a more complete strategic framework going forward. I am particularly interested in your emphasis on the need to ensure that we have the political, the diplomatic resources on the ground. And I guess two questions for you, particularly now from your current seat on the Hill. And that is, one of the constraints is the inability, even if they were there, for our diplomatic and development professionals to actually move about. Given the high risk adverse environment and their constrained presence to just inside the embassies, what do you see that changing anytime soon, particularly to carry out such an urgent mission as you've outlined? Well, I think there are two main issues here. I mean, one is just simply State Department policy. And I think from my time in Iraq, the State Department is incredibly risk averse. And frankly, I don't get political here, like the Benghazi situation makes us a lot worse. I think we should be praising Ambassador Stevens for getting out there and doing his job, even though he undertook some risks to do so. And yet, instead we seem to have this expectation that ambassadors should live behind blast walls and never even meet the people they're supposed to work with. So it is a tricky political environment to make those changes. But ultimately, I do think that the State Department should operate in a much more expeditionary way. But the second issue comes back to the MOU of sorts that I'm saying that we need to formalize with the Iraqi government, because if we don't have the ability to protect our diplomats, I'm not talking about a sizable military presence. I am talking about having security personnel to protect these diplomats when they necessarily leave the green zone or operate out of other bases in Iraq, which I think we probably should have. Political diplomatic outposts, right? They need to have protection, and we need to facilitate that. And so that's why, well, no one wants to talk about any sort of MOU because both to Americans and to Iraqis, they don't like the idea of formalizing any sort of long-term presence. The reality is to simply do this job, it's necessary and it's much better to negotiate it now and take it off the table for the future than to have to constantly face this issue every time they need a little bit more help. And if I may, before we open it up, one more question for you, and that is, you talk about the need for a political or an integrated political military strategy so we don't have to keep returning the troops. We are, by all accounts, on the eve of moving into Mosul. What do you think would still be possible or what is necessary to accompany that military push to ensure that we don't just leave it to the possibility of renewed cycles of conflict? Well, I was last in Iraq in July, and the basic question is, hey, how are things going for the day after? What is the plan? What is the American plan? What is the Iraqi plan for the day after? It sounds like that, that's the answer. So that's a real concern. So everybody is anxious to get going on Mosul. Everyone greets it as positive news, wonderful news that we might actually be ahead of timeline with going in. I actually think it's bad news. I think that we've got to use the remaining leverage we have to get some political progress, and at the same time, or in the meantime, let's figure out what we are gonna do the day after we went over the city. If you look at the cities that have been won over, Ramadi, Aluja, name a couple, and look carefully at how those cities are being governed today, it's not an encouraging picture. One of the fundamental questions that we should be asking is are the Sunnis who live in Ramadi and Aluja, again just to pick two cities that are sort of prominent American imagination, are they happier with the Iraqi government now that the Iraqi government has returned and ISIS has been kicked out? Because if we're doing, if we have any chance of long-term success, we've got to see their support for the government go way up, because ultimately we're all saying that, hey, everyone's happy that we're liberated from ISIS. But the thing that got us having ISIS in those towns in the first place is the fact that people were so upset with the Iraqi government that many of them welcomed ISIS in. I have yet to see any evidence that Sunni popular opinion of the Iraqi government has improved. So they may be thrilled to get rid of ISIS, they may be thrilled to have ISIS gone. But if fundamentally we're not building any trust with legitimate Iraqi authorities, then we're just back where we started. And of course we have the additional complexity of a multifaceted minority population in the Mosul environment. Oh, absolutely, Mosul is 10 times more complicated. 10 times more complicated. And it should be a strength of Mosul that it's multi-ethic, multi-sectarian. I mean, if you can make a government work in Mosul, it's almost by default has to encompass minority views. But the reality is that, or that immediate post-conflict planning that has to take place, it's complicated, it's hard. One of the things that I heard on my last trip to Iraq is the Iranians play the long game. You Americans don't. And so how do you see building the kind of consensus that we need to enable that kind of sustained engagement? We know this is not gonna be done like this. Right. No, look, it is very unpopular to do what I'm doing right now, to be an American politician saying we should have a sustained engagement in a place like Iraq because all of us just wanna come home. Whether you're someone that supported the war or you're someone that was adamantly against it. I mean, pretty much everyone just says, let's get out of there. So the reality though is that the alternative, which is we go back every five years to clean up the same mess, is worse. Putting our troops in danger. Again, we now have upwards of 5,000 troops in Iraq under the president who campaigned on a promise to pull us out. So President Obama has tried this. And there's been no one politically more committed to getting us out of Iraq than President Obama. He was elected largely on that platform. But under Obama himself, we've had to go back in. So my biggest fear is that we just get in this endless cycle of going back, refighting the same battles, putting more young Americans at risk. The same things that we already risked lives for in the past. I think that framing it that way to the American public is what's necessary. And I can tell you just as a representative, when I go and talk to my constituency in Massachusetts, not the bastion of conservative Trumpdom in America, there are a lot of people who say, when are we gonna get out? Some people who say, Afghanistan, for example, Afghanistan is our longest war. When are we gonna get the troops home? I say, look, we can bring them home tomorrow. But if we do that, be prepared to send them back five years from now because that's exactly what we did in Iraq. And I'll tell you what, when you say that, there are a lot of reluctant nodding heads in the room. They don't like it. I wish we could come up with a better solution, a better answer. But it's preferable to have a long-term diplomatic presence so we can actually make this work than having to keep sending the troops back. I wanna open it up for questions. I know there are a lot of people here who have deep engagement with Iraq and we have mics coming around. Thank you very much, congressman. Alexander Kravitz from inside Iraq. I have to say that in this current environment of almost non-dialogue and polarization, it's frankly like a breath of fresh air to listen to a member of Congress with really thoughtful and knowledgeable proposals. And I think even if I disagreed with you on some ideas, I would say this is really like a breath of fresh air. As it is, I don't disagree. I think you're absolutely spot on. So I was thinking, what could one maybe add or ask and to pick up on Nancy Lindbergh ask some of the questions I wanted to ask. But what about something that might sound pie in the sky? What about helping to secure visas to Iraqis? I don't mean refugee visas. I don't mean political SIV visas, but just tourism visas. I've been surprised in my conversations with Iraqis the desire to come and visit, to just see the US. And one doesn't really think with the whole security thing about Iraqi tourists coming to America, but what would you think of perhaps an initiative like that? Well, I'm not sure, it may be a good idea. I'm not sure it gets just sort of hard to have a problem in Iraq today that we have to address. I'm a big supporter of the SIV legislation. I led the amendment in the House to keep the SIV program alive in the defense bill for our Afghan translators. I was actually just talking to Senator McCain about this last week. He's a Republican who's leading the effort along with Gene Shaheen and the Senate to keep it in. So I understand the importance of these programs and whatnot, and as you mentioned, there's value in tourism as well. But I'm not sure that's sort of the heart of the issue. Ultimately, we have to make sure that Iraqis feel confident in their own government and that they want to stay and happily live in Iraq. Thank you. So we have a whole extra overflow room that of people who are listening. So I wanna make sure that their questions get asked. So let me ask both of these to you, and you can take them both at once. The first is, how do we enforce conditions on military support and arms sales, as you suggest, without pushing Iraq towards Iran or other countries that would provide that support without condition? And then secondly is, what kind of integration or expectation of allied forces would you see in implementing your four-part plan? Okay. So the first question. Excellent questions. You know, the answer to the first question, frankly, is it's hard. I mean, you have to strike the right balance. You have to be savvy diplomats here. Iraqis prefer American material. American, I mean, everyone knows that we have the best weapons and equipment. Iraqis, from personal experience, strongly prefer that. So there is a preference there that we can leverage. But if we just go in and say, okay, we're shutting off all supplies, that's not smart either. So we have to be able to find, you know, to work a balance here. But it's doable. And General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker did it during the search. I did it as a captain on the ground working with Iraqi units, where we would, you know, the Iraqi police and army units that we were working with would want weapons, ammunition and whatnot. And we would often say, okay, well, you meet these requirements. You get this done. You account for these things. You account for these personnel. And then you'll get this. So from personal experience, but also from past experience, you can do this. The questioner is correct. That is a tricky balance we have to strike. And then the role for Allied Forces, look, I think that these efforts are always stronger when they're international. There's no question. And we want to enable our coalition partners to participate in this effort. The reality is that the burden of leadership is on us. And no matter how you look at it, it's not gonna happen without, not just our presence, I think, but our leadership. I had a very interesting conversation with, just to step over to Afghanistan for a second for this example. Very interesting conversation with President Ghani. When I went over there, we were actually on the first Kodal to meet with the new president. And he talked optimistically about bringing together Middle Eastern states to try to get a coalition to fight ISIS. Saudi Arabia's undermined some of those efforts. But a couple years ago, he talked about this. And I said to him, I said, Mr. President, what can the United States do to support those efforts? Because this is music to the ears of Americans that you want to take care of this problem yourself. And I said, maybe the best thing we can do is just get out of the way so that you'll take responsibility for this. And his answer was interesting. He said, absolutely not. He said, even if it's just getting the right people at the table in the right room, the Middle East is counting on America's leadership. And I think that's the burden that we have to bear and that we should bear, because if we don't, I think we, it's at our peril. Which goes back to the importance of having the integrated political along with the military. Let's take a couple. We'll go here. And then back to this gentleman. Yep. Congressman, I'm Colonel retired, Paul Hughes. You and I actually share a bond of sorts in a movie. You talk about your four-stage strategy, your four-part strategy. Much of it focuses on what the executive branch and the military ought to be doing. We just recognized, observed the 15th anniversary of 9-11. And three days after 9-11, Congress, in my opinion, basically abrogated its war powers responsibility by authorizing the use of military force like a blank check. With no end. With no end in sight. And so I'm curious to know, as you talk about that fourth element of providing the authorization for all of these activities, would you support a review of the AUMF? Absolutely. And tighten it up? Absolutely, absolutely. But what I've always said about the AUMF is that, and this is a place where I may differ from some of my Democratic colleagues, is that we need to have a strategy. We need to understand what our strategy is to actually have a really good debate about an AUMF. And there are places where I would be happy to even go along with Republicans in giving some latitude in the AUMF if I could understand the strategy that it authorizes. So I think it's important to have a strategy as a first step, as a basis for which to debate an AUMF. But let me make it abundantly clear. We must have this debate in Congress. Congress abrogated that duty back in 2001. We're absolutely abrogating it today. It's our responsibility, and we owe it to the troops, to have this debate and to donate a new AUMF. Thank you for the question. Thanks for your story. Mr. Congressman, let me first start by thanking you for your sacrifice and service. Because so few people like me are free. I'm an American court, and my question consists of two parts. First, promoting democracy, human rights, and civil liberties should be, and was the main manifesto of the US government. We didn't bomb Berlin wall. People collapsed at Berlin wall because they, because we spread democracy throughout the Eastern Europe. And because of that policy, dozens of dictators were toppled, and people were eventually free. As we speak now in Kurdistan, for example, we are babysitting a dictator. Mr. Barzani has exceeded his term, and he doesn't like to leave power. And we are encouraging that. So shouldn't we be more vigilant about that? If we are, and I would like to remind you, and of course, you know better, in 2014, Daesh knocked at Erbil door. They were so close to take the city. If not for urgent US military assistance, we were talking about now liberating both Erbil and Mosul together. Why? Because we have a corrupted government in Erbil. My second part is regarding Iraq as a whole. You were against the idea of partitioning, but we all know that that country was glued up a hundred years ago by the British Empire. So that glue is dissolving now. Why don't we try to have a sort of federation system in Iraq that can work for both, for Sunni and Shia, and of course, because of the fact to a government that they have now. Thank you. Two part question for you. Yeah, so I mean there are many lessons, I learned in Iraq, you know, throw a grenade after you pull the pin, don't hang onto it, don't wait into Kurdish politics. So I am not gonna get into the political mouse from that you've just described. Look, there are a lot of people who would love to see Iraq divided eventually, and I certainly sympathize with the plight of the Kurds. We spent a good deal of time on that trip in July up in Erbil, and I think that the reality on the ground in Iraq today is that though many people, including many Americans, would love to see an independent Kurdistan in the future, it's not what we need right now to promote stability in the region. And the basic argument, I mean I sort of apologize for making it so simply, but there are not obvious places to draw lines. There's not an obvious way to divide up oil revenues and authorities, and I think that the conflicts that such a division would engender in the near term would be more detrimental to what we need to achieve. Now we can agree to disagree on that, that's fine, and many people will disagree on that. But I do wanna come back to one of the points I made, which is that whatever we end up deciding, whether the US government, the administration goes with your plan, or mine, or the immediate political future of Iraq, we've gotta make it clear what our plan is. We gotta make sure that everybody understands what that plan is, from our generals to our frontline PFCs, and of course, including all of our diplomats. And right now, when I go around and ask people, where is this going, what is the end game, what is the political future of Iraq, it doesn't even seem to be real agreement. And I think that's something that's gonna be very much a part of this plan, but thank you for your question. So the clarity, yes. Hi Congressman. How are you? Good, I'm good. I have a question, you point out in your second point that we have an ally in Prime Minister Abadi, but we haven't always, and as you correctly point out, even he faces forces that undermine him, absent an ally moving forward, how does this second step work, and how does it sustain? And also very quickly, since this can't be implemented in the final months of the Obama administration, have you spoken to anybody in either the Clinton or Trump campaigns and presented this plan to them? Just quickly, the latter part first, I've talked in general terms with some folks in the Clinton team, I don't know many foreign, I don't know any foreign policy professionals that are with Trump at the moment, but were that to happen in the future, then I suppose I could have that conversation. But really this is the first time I'm presenting and presenting it to you first. Your point about Prime Minister Abadi is very well taken. Prime Minister Maliki believed the wrong things, said the wrong things and did the wrong things. Prime Minister Abadi believes the right things, he says the right things, he just needs help actually doing the right things. He doesn't have the political constituency or in some places just simply the political deafness to get things done. But we have a great opportunity and having a partner that's so well aligned with interests that in my judgment are not just in our interests, but in the interests of his own country. Whereas Maliki's interests were in his own interests, I don't think, it'd be very hard for anyone to argue given where we are today that Maliki's interests were aligned with Iraq's interests. So we've got to capitalize on that and I think that we can do an awful lot more to support the Prime Minister. Great. Lieutenant Colonel Powers, this is our Marine Fellow here at USIP. Wonderful. Congressman, thank you for your comments. And so as I was listening and I heard a lot about how difficult this is at the end and obviously as a military person, it's easy to tell my military friends we want to do this, we need to stick with it, we need to go there. I have a lot more difficulty speaking to other family and friends that aren't in the military. What can we do? What can I do personally to convince people of the commitment and let them know why it's important that we as a nation commit to this? You know, in many ways, that's a political question. I mean, how do you message this? How do you help people understand why this is important even if we can agree on it here? And you're talking to someone who's very new to politics. I've never been involved in politics before this present job. So I'm probably not the best expert to give you an answer but I can certainly speak from my own experience and I just come back to how I talk about this in my district when I go back home which is to say that I understand this is difficult. I understand we don't want a long-term commitment. I even understand that we probably shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place but given the options we have on the table, this continual rotation of sending troops back every five years to refight these battles is a far worse option. So that's what I would try with your friends. Plus your Las Vegas quote, which captures this. Okay, we've got a lot of people who want to jump in so I'm going to ask people to just keep your question short if you're okay. I'll try to keep my answer short. We'll take three and then you can, so you've got the mic, yeah? Congressman, I applaud what you're saying. I really am so delighted to hear about what you heard raising in Congress and I wish you the best with it. Having spent an entire career in the World Bank, I was there this morning, of course I was talking about Iraq, most mainly Iraq, and I would suggest, this is not my question, I would suggest that if you haven't touched base with what the World Bankers are doing now, please do because they're very active and they're very much, I think they would welcome during the meeting. That's a great suggestion, thank you. Now my question arises from having spent a career in the bank, where we really were very much impressed by the fact that in this case, the Iraqis are the ones that are going to have to really work to save their own country. I agree that we need to have a leadership role, but they do need to step forward and they are the ones that have to take the... So I'm going to ask you to get focused on your question. So my question is, you mentioned the importance of education and development just slightly and in passing and I would say for the last 10 years, I have been heading an Iraqi women's fellowship foundation in engineering and applied sciences and it's really important, all those Iraqi women come to the United States for one year, they learn not only about their, at the top of their professions, but they learn about democracy, they learn about interaction and they all go back and I think this is really critical, but now the State Department and many others have stepped away from these kinds of programs. No, you're right and look, I didn't get into the details, but 1.6 billion dollars of security and development assistance that we have cut back, we've got to restore those programs, I wholeheartedly agree. Okay, go ahead and then pass it to the young woman ahead of you. Sure, thank you. Thank you for your plan and what you give us really. Russia, your plan did not include anything about corruption. As we all watched last week, the Ministry of Finance announced that one person has transferred 5.6 billion dollars out of Iraq. So the point I'm trying to emphasize, the ring of corruption inside the Iraqi government so strong that this has surrounded abiding, and Abad is not free to make decisions. And I'm talking, I'm saying this as I walked inside the Iraqi government. Sir, I think it's a fair point and much like the previous question, you're absolutely right. I mean that this is one of the details, but an incredibly important fundamental detail that absolutely should be carried out. So you may be right that I should have emphasized that a bit more. Let me make it clear, I agree with you. This is something that needs to be addressed and it would be addressed under many of the State Department programs we're talking about reauthorized. Thank you. Congressman, thank you so much, first of all. And so I just wanted to ask, you mentioned that the Middle East is a very interconnected region and I wanted to know what you thought the effects of this policy and these plans that you've laid forth would have on our Syria policy because that seems to be another area where we need to know what the plan is. So would this plan help us in knowing what the plan is in Syria and what effects it would have? So first of all, thank you. You always appreciate a softball about Syria, you know? Yeah, with three minutes left. You say a few to answer. Look, as I said, we've got to start somewhere and that's why I chose to focus on Iraq. There's no question that Iraq and Syria are interconnected in certain ways. Although I do think that the national boundaries mean something. We may not like them, we may not like how they were established. The reality is they do mean something on the ground today. I'm not going to spend the next three hours getting into what I think might or might not happen in Syria, but I'll say this, that the principle that kind of fundamentally brings me here today is the same, which is that we've got to have a political plan, not just a military plan. And if you talk to, again, the troops that are on the ground in Syria today and you ask them, where is this going politically? What is the long-term goal? Fundamentally, what are you fighting to achieve? What is Syria going to look like in five years? I don't think anybody can tell you. And that should be concerning for all of us, especially because we're asking people to put their lives on the line for something that we can't even define. So in the same way, we've got to talk about what is the political plan, the political end game, that ultimately our military mission in Syria should be supporting. Thank you, Congressman. So final question, way in the back. I thank you, Congressman, for sharing your insights and your recommendations. You talked a lot about Iran for obvious reasons. I wanted to know if in your experience, from your experiences, you have any insights on what role the US-Turkey relationship plays going forward in terms of this strategy. God, it's getting easier and easier. I was like, do you know how region? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save the coast for last. Thank you. Look, so again, I mean, I literally don't have time. And I have to apologize, by the way. I would love, this is a fascinating conversation for me. I mean, I don't know if it's fascinating for you, but certainly for me, I'm learning so much from the questions and everything. I have to vote. And that's why I have to rush back to Capitol Hill. But I was, much like I said about Syria. I mean, this is something Turkey absolutely has an inter-connected relationship with what happens in the Middle East and specifically what happens in Iraq. And we've got to be thoughtful about our Turkey policy. What I tried to do today is just really focus internally on what I think needs to happen vis-a-vis the American relationship with Iraq. Congressman, we launched here yesterday study on U.S. global leadership in fragile states on fragility. And a lot of what you've recommended today closely aligns with the importance of having a strategic, a sustained, a systemic where you've got the pieces working together approach to these challenges. And so I thank you very much for the passion and the dedication that you're bringing to this issue. We'd like to invite you back to continue the conversation. I think there's a lot of appetite and appreciation for the fact that you're really tackling what is a tough set of issues. And please, if you'd like to make any closing comments and we'd love to have you back. Look, I just want to thank you all for coming into the folks in the, I didn't know there was an overflow room. It's wonderful. It's so important that we are engaged in this tricky issue. It's an issue that a lot of Americans want to push out of our minds, don't want to talk about. And yet it is fundamentally important to millions of people, literally in the Middle East, but to millions of Americans here at home as well. But I'll just end by saying this. You know, at the end of the day, I wouldn't be here in Congress if not for my service in the Marines. I did more tours all in Iraq. Iraq in 2003 was the most hopeful, optimistic, and excited place I'd ever seen on Earth. And it's tremendously sad just on a personal level to see where it is today. But my real motivation for doing this more than anything else is because I think we owe it to our troops. When we ask young Americans to go halfway around the globe and put their lives on the line for something, we ought to be able to define what that something is. We ought to be able to give them a plan to succeed. And we ought to be able to resource them so that they can come home. So I hope we can work on that together. Thank you.