 I'm delighted to have general Cartley here. To my left, you're right, Vice Admiral Bob Harwood. He's currently the Chief Executive of Lockheed Martin in the United Arab Emirates, but he had a distinguished 38th year Navy career in the SEALs, capped off by the Deputy Commander of SETCOM, the National Security Council of Staff. He was the representative of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Counterterrorism Center. He was the Deputy Commander of the Joint Forces Command. He's been decorated for fighting Afghanistan and Iraq. And elsewhere, he has these awards. What is striking about his awards is he's gotten awards from the CIA, the State Department, the White House, and the Navy. And you talk about the rise of jointness and interagency. I know he's been awarded more interagency awards than Bob Harwood. What I want to do today, talking about Iraq, is to try to take the discussion away from the tactical level that most discussions on Iraq have been conducted, and to ask people who have been working these problems some more strategic questions. To try to do that, what we're going to do is we're going to show you a little video that we prepared here in the Ideas Lab that tries to put forward some ideas about Iraq that are a little broader and more strategic about what outcomes might look like. And then we'll have a discussion with our panelists, and after I have asked them a whole list of questions, I don't know the answer to, then you can ask them questions that you don't know the answer to. So could we start by rolling the video? Thank you. Iraq has been in crisis so long, it's hard for anyone to remember any time when it wasn't. The country's had a tumultuous history in the 20th century, including six military coups before the Bath Party seized power in 1968 and kept it. The cruelty of the government toward its citizens was legendary. An estimated 130,000 civilians have died since Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, and the number keeps rising. Despite effort since then to build a more representative government, Iraq has repeatedly fallen into sectarian violence. What is the nature of this country that seems so doomed to conflict? Does it have any future? What holds it together? And what pulls it apart? Might it not be better to break it back into the constituent parts it was formed from and start again? I'm John Alterman, the Brzezinski chair in global security and the director of the Middle East program at CSIS. To understand these questions about Iraq's future, we have to understand its past. In 1835, in one of its periodic efforts at reform, the Ottoman Empire created provinces centered around Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Mosul was arguably far more connected to Aleppo than to Baghdad, and while it had a large Sunni population, Mosul province contained large numbers of Kurds who had their own ideas about their political future. Basra, by contrast, was a trading port deeply connected to the Gulf, to India, and even farther afield in Asia. Baghdad was the most Persian of the major cities and also had some of the closest ties to Istanbul. With the addition of some unpopulated desert regions, these distinct parts became the post-World War I British mandate and then the state of Iraq. This became the traditional way of seeing the Iraqi map in three pieces. But look at it in more detail and we see a more diverse sectarian makeup in modern times. Baghdad has become a majority Shia city, but there are large numbers of Sunni Arabs. In Basra, you have large numbers of Shia, but also a significant Sunni population. In Kirkuk, large numbers of Kurds, but suddenly a large Turkmen population. In Mosul, large numbers of Sunni Arabs, but still many Kurds and a determinedly non-sectarian group. And each community is deeply linked to surrounding areas. So not only is the country a tapestry woven together, but that fabric is connected to surrounding communities. Sunnis to the west, Kurds to the north, Shia to the south and east. In the early 20th century, efforts to align state boundaries with sectarian identities went nowhere. It was in part because the Iraqi state wasn't especially relevant to most Iraqis' lives. In Basra in the early 20th century, there were only 10 primary schools generally staffed by one to two teachers each. There were two general high schools and no universities. In place of the state, most Iraqis were influenced by ethnic origin, religion, sect, profession, tribal identity, degrees of urbanization and economic class. Iraqis quite simply were part of a larger tapestry to which the state was just a small part. At times the groups united as reportedly happened in a broad revolt against British rule in 1920. But to a large degree, the state neither sought nor won affection for most of its citizens. This was about to change with the discovery of an important commodity. The power of the Iraqi state began to change with the rise of oil production. While it started slowly through the 20th century, oil wealth dramatically changed the distribution of power and authority began to flow from Baghdad out rather than from the periphery in. 1979 formalized what had been true for years. Saddam Hussein, who came out of the security apparatus of the Ba'ath Party, seized control. He increased the sectarian nature of Iraq, taking the non-distinct boundaries between Sunni, Shia and Kurd, and he sharpened them first by isolating the Kurds and then turning against the Shia. Saddam's actions weren't all about sectarianism though. In part it was a power play. Iraq's proven oil reserves are distributed unevenly, with about 17% in the north and about 75% in the south. Baghdad, the traditional center of Iraq, had the power, but not the oil. Oil poured out of the north and south and power poured out of Baghdad. This was the world that Saddam Hussein helped create. Perhaps by design and perhaps unavoidably, oil came to completely dominate the economy of Iraq. Even after Saddam Hussein fell from power, the connection of oil to money and by extension to political power was an overwhelming feature of the economy. In 2011, oil production alone accounted for 53% of the country's GDP, but even that high number doesn't tell the whole story. Government spending almost entirely derived from oil revenues represented more than 20% of GDP and government investment another 11%. When all is said and done, the remainder of the economy produces only 14% of the GDP. The bulk is entirely tied to the government, which is completely tied to oil. Oil money came into a provincial capital with mud streets, stone walls and ancient monuments. It built gleaming monuments to itself. Buildings inspired by fascist architecture rose with clean lines on a monumental scale, and many of those were monuments to the glory of the ruler as Saddam splashed his image over everything. Always heroic, always historic, always monumental, Saddam built Iraq's modernity into a vanity project, and oil made it possible. But in the clean lines of the Bath Party's fascism and the monumental art it produced was something deeply ahistorical. The Iraq of the past was a tapestry, a multi-layered fabric of interwoven identities and textures. Traditionally, there were few clear lines in Iraq. In fact, the closer one looked, the more complexity one saw. In the world the Bathists made, the image of Iraq was intended to reflect purity and consistency. The closer one looked, the more purity one saw. Heightened sectarianism was part of this world. The architecture is all about the strong state, which for Iraq was an innovation. Now the state not only sought to control everything, but to advertise its control. Writing in 1989, the Iraqi British author Kanan Makiya wrote about the fear that Saddam Hussein's regime commanded. Who's an informer? he asked. In Bathist Iraq, the answer is anybody. By 1980, the Bath Party had over one million members who were expected to inform on all acquaintances, family members, and other party members. This was the state that oil enabled. Saddam's Iraq was isolated from its neighbors in the world, sanctioned, and paranoid. After Saddam fell, Iraq's historic connections to its neighbors began to return, particularly in trade. In 2003, Iraqis barely traded with any of their neighbors, and that was partly because of international sanctions. After Saddam fell, trade increased to Turkey, to the United Arab Emirates, and to Syria. And trade continued to increase year after year, despite the rise in sectarian violence in 2006-2007, to where there's a huge amount of trade driven by the increased production of oil. Looking forward, there's no easy way ahead for Iraq. There's a historic Iraq of diversity, and a historic Iraq of sectarianism. There's a historically weak state, and a historically strong state. These precedents conflict. Iraqis will have to pick up these threads and weave their own future. And in doing so, they'll be carrying out an act of creation, and not recreation. Whether they sustain a single state or multiple states is unclear, but they cannot go back. I had an old friend, Anthony Shadeed, who died in 2012, getting smuggled out of Syria. He was probably the greatest chronicler of Iraqis in the post-Saddam era. Writing in 2009, he described a wall almost two kilometers long dividing the Sunni and Shia residents of two adjoining districts in Baghdad. He quoted a 28-year-old soldier walking along the wall on the way to his base. These walls will be removed when the people of Iraq finally wake up again, he said. And then Anthony described some of the graffiti written on the wall. Long lived the resistance, read a slogan scrawled on one segment. Someone had crossed out the word resistance and written Iraq. In that single scrawl lay the question for all Iraqis, what will their future be? Will it be about being against something, or will it be about being for something? Iraqis haven't decided yet. And later this week, we'll have the full version on the website and it'll be on iTunes University and all kinds of things. It's all a series of hard problems, and as the gentlemen were discussing downstairs, in many ways the strategic questions are not the military questions. But I think it helps to understand for people who have been in the strategic discussions how to even pose the strategic questions. I think the first strategic question to address is, has Iraq become more strategically important to the United States or less strategically important to the United States in the last 10 years? Where is it on that scale? And what's most important about Iraq's future and what's least important? As we work our way through the audio stuff. These questions, you know, is it more important or less important to us? Some of that is our choice. Some of that is their choice. Some of that is, in this case, ISIS, the events, the regional stability that are imposed on us as a result of the activities. So whether they're more or less important to us in a strategic sense was somewhat overcome by events when they were invaded against by this rebel force. And the movement down the rivers towards Baghdad. That put not only Iraq in question as to what it was going to look like and how it was going to play and be a part of the region, but Syria, Turkey, all of the countries there in that area. And so from my perspective, this is not a, okay, let's start from scratch and I think the film alluded to it. We have a deck that's been dealt to us. We're going to have to play those cards. And so as we play those cards, the question is what set of tools can be most effective, have the greatest opportunity for what set of objectives? And I'm not sure that we should decide whether Iraq should be one central government, look like us, you know, those questions. But I do believe that in the taxonomy of strategy at the national level for us, a government that is representative and inclusive, a government that has a sense of and an employment of the rule of law. And I think particularly important today is a government that is perceived as accountable to the people. Now, whether that's a democracy, whether it is three countries, I think those are internal questions that we ought to set the stage for. So any strategy now that we put together from a military standpoint or from a national standpoint, should be judged on the basis of those three issues of rule of law, the accountability side of this equation inclusiveness. And as we build the strategy, what we want is the maximum number of tools available to be used across the maximum amount of time as we go forward. But at the end of the day, there is no military victory. This is a diplomacy diplomatic activity of which an element has, by requirement now, become military. But every step along the way, every decision that you make and every opportunity that you come to should not be for free. In other words, we should have a say in saying, okay, we'll do the following things if you demonstrate a more inclusive approach to governance, a better rule of law approach. So our military system should be conditional? Conditional. It has to be conditional. Do you agree with that? Without a doubt. And I think now what we've learned the last 12 years and our capabilities at this strategic level to collaborate and have the capacity for the policy and strategy that supports us is better than it's ever been before. I'm struck somewhat being not a historian myself, but having lived through the history of this region for so many years. Graduate of high school in Tehran. And being in Tehran when it fell in 1980, early 79 when the Shalwa. I remained the kind of glass half full as opposed to the glass half empty. And we're at one of those times where we really have the focus to see the opportunity that this situation presents. No other time have we had more partners willing and wanting to be involved in the solution of how we're not only go support Iraq, but what is the solution for Syria as well. So I think bringing all those things together at this time is really the opportunity for this administration, our country and all the coalition partners to give that focus it needs. And your statement just one last statement about I don't know if it's a weak state, it's very much a maturing state. And if you look at any history, this may be a very poor analogy, but when my daughter was born, she was a very beautiful girl and she's always been a very beautiful girl. Some kids start off very ugly, but they grow up to be beautiful young ladies. We're on that growth here. And I really see, I'm more encouraged now because the region's always been very dynamic, dramatic shifts periodically. But what we've learned and experienced the last 12 years, where we are in our focus now and more countries wanting to be involved in Iraq, which has not been the case, really presents opportunities here. But certainly one of the challenges we've had when we start talking to the different allies, people want to be involved in Iraq, but toward different areas. So one of the critiques that we've heard, for example, is that the Saudis are adamant that Bashar has to go and will not be party to any sort of action involving Syria, which does not push for the rapid and complete removal of Bashar al-Assad from power. The Turks have been willing to turn the other way in some cases with economic activities and the passage of people and goods across the border because they see this as important to push Saddam out. And they say, first we'll get Saddam out and then we'll work on the posterior environment. How do we bring those allies together because it seems to me the allies have interests in Iraq, but their interests, their goals are not always aligned either with each other or with ours? I would suggest, particularly because this difference of opinions, especially on the Syria solution, has been there for several years now and great debate and dialogue with all the partner nations on that approach. I think that's changed because the existential threat some of these nations have seen have changed also predicated on what's occurred here in the last few months. I think those are game-changers that will give us greater flexibility to look at what is the prioritization of their short-term goals and how they lead to the longer-term goals of each of these partners. Let me ask you about three particular countries. Russia, China and Iran. Piece of cake. Four stars. My sense here is that, number one, what we do as a nation in the United States in this activity, again, has to go back to that strategy, those three elements. And then we judge our decisions based on our contribution to those issues, those attributes. And so to the extent that country A or country B out of self-interest wants something of Iraq is important to that country, we ought to consider it. But at the end of the day, it's a rock that has to decide what a rock wants to be and how it's going to interact with its neighbors and how it's going to build the ability to interact with its neighbors. You demonstrated how oil made that relationship very different. And so the question now that when you look at China, when you look at Russia, etc., I think what's more interesting, Russia's going to be a player in this, is that that region, you look at Syria and Iraq, is part of the old Silk Route. And as such, that route is becoming ever more consequential in the world strategically. The ability to move oil, to move goods by land is 30, 40 days faster than you can do it by sea from one end to the other. And you can see the economic impact of Central Asia and those areas starting to grow. That energy quotient in that is going to be consequential strategically to that growth for the region but also for that whole area of the world. And so the question is, from my perspective is, how do you allow Iraq to stabilize itself, be a contributor to that activity, be a contributor in a form of governance that it decides, but is associable, so to speak, with the other nations so that they can trade and they can live together in that region. And if you try to get tactical on this and try to solve each person's problem or each person's wish, you end up in a conundrum that can't be solved. Right, so understanding that Chinese are concerned about extremism and that Chinese are interested in the flow of energy, there's a large question with the extent to which we can cooperate with Russia and Iran on Iraq and Russia and Iran on Syria. Where do you come down in those questions? I think the energy issue is somewhat at the heart of this discussion when you talk Iran and when you talk Russia, but China also. That is probably the nexus of the activity, even though that energy is thus part and parcel to the flow of the goods in that region. And so whatever the decision is, it's got to allow the ability to facilitate the trade, the interaction, the movement of goods, the movement of energy, food, et cetera, across what we used to call the Silk Route. And to build that infrastructure out in a way that you can move across those borders coherently and that trade is facilitated, not hindered. And instability any place along that route is going to hinder that. And so what you're looking for here is, you know, typical Americans, we would like to have this done in a commercials period of time, you know, in 30 or 60 seconds and, okay, we've made our decisions, now it's fixed. That's not going to happen. I mean, that's just unrealistic. But can we use this opportunity and turn it from something that nobody really wanted to do, which was, you know, get involved in another conflict. Can we use it as an opportunity to apply leverage to get a set of attributes that would allow that country to determine its own fate, understand sovereignty, and be able to interact with its neighbors? That's the question. And that sounds to me like bringing the Iranians and the Russians into some sort of cooperative understanding and maybe, I mean, how do you come down as somebody who understands? I first heard you talk about Iran a couple of years ago. How would you think about Iran and Russia and the future of Iraq and Syria? Do they have a role in our planning and our thinking? Without a doubt. I think that's, and back to my initial point, there lies the opportunity. Where are the things we can reach consensus of? Where are the things we can talk about and how that opens the door to some of the broader issues we're dealing with? So if this is a legitimate national security concern that they want to coordinate and cooperate on, the opportunity is you have to seize it. Because that then lies itself open to dialogue and a lot of these other issues that we need to address. So I think that's one of the, as an any opportunity, there's good news and bad news. That's one of the good news of this horrible situation we're in. Do you do that principally through intelligence cooperation, through military cooperation, through a sort of diplomatic process? I mean, we were talking downstairs about the extent to which we have gotten much better at interagency operations than we were 10 years ago. If you are thinking about building out a strategic opportunity with Iran and Russia on security here, how do you start it and how do you keep it moving? What channel do you look for? I think, oh, just as you said, each of them have capabilities and access as much less linkages that can be leveraged. And again, going back to how we've matured the last 10 years, the interagency process, the collaboration and the cooperation is really unprecedented. So the team will get this right. If the policy, if the overarching policy is we're going to move in that direction. So that's the end of the day, that decision on what policy we're going to embrace. And it's difficult because each of these countries, Russia, China, Iran, we have much different policies on. So looking at through this lens can reshape some of the policy. If engagement and cooperation to open the dialogue is your policy, here's that perfect opportunity to exploit it. You would talk before about the importance of remembering that the military is a relatively small and almost subsidiary piece to this whole process. But as we look at military operations, because they're dramatic, because they make good television, because they can be cataloged, because you can graph them, there's a way in which there's a seduction toward a military focus because you can deliver clear results in a defined period of time. As you're thinking through the process of this kind of larger approach, how do you keep it from drifting into more of the military space than it should be? How do you keep the complementarity of the broad spectrum that Admiral Harbour was talking about? I mean, as I said earlier, and I truly believe there is no military solution to this activity. But I think you've characterized it in a way that's useful in that if we take what's occurring today where we have trained, advised type activities going, and they usually go at three levels. First you go in and you just try to restabilize. You set up at the inner safe enclaves an ability to recruit soldiers, train in tactics techniques and procedures, get them somewhat ready. The next stage of that is that you move those trainers and advisors further out to the operational units. Because if Cartwright was trained at boot camp, when he gets to 101st, there's more training that has to be done. So that's the step that we're seeing begin to be executed. And then the third step is you start to embed forces. Now, if that taxonomy is true, that's three key decision points that the State Department and diplomacy can use and say, we'll move to this next step, but we need to see the following things happen first. So you've got an opportunity to negotiate your way, and don't be looking for 100% solutions or things like that, but are we moving in the right direction? Is the government responding? Do they understand the urgency of the situation? Then you're using the military's activities and the leverage of them and the visual effect and all the emotional effect to move that bar in the right direction. And those are the steps we're looking for right now. If we just rush ourselves, you know, okay, it's inevitable, you know, we're not going to win unless we have boots on the ground. Okay, you've skipped over so many steps, and now we're owning the problem as the United States, and the outcome is our outcome, not the country's. And that's the piece that we're trying to sort our way through. And the patience of the interagency to look at the steps, look at the opportunities, look at the points of leverage and to move through them and to have as many as possible, you know, without stringing out a conflict is really, I think, where we are right now in this discussion. And I absolutely agree. I mean, I think whatever inroads we can make in a discussion and dialogue with Iran, with any of the regional actors, with Russia, with China, I think all of those are absolutely essential because at the end of the day, each one of them wants to see that they've got the ability to realize a future, you know, that has trade going on, that has the ability to move across borders, et cetera. And absent that, they're all disadvantaged. I ask you a question based on your experience of somebody operating in the field. One of the drivers of the Sunni insurgency is disaffected Sunnis. You feel they don't have a future in their own country. You feel they need ISIS, ISIL, whatever you want to call them, the Islamic State to protect them and to give them a place at the table where they can negotiate for their future. As an operator, how do you distinguish between the people who are fighting against you, who you can potentially incorporate, potentially deal with, people you can't deal with, people who are beyond the pale? How do you decide who the potential partners are in a very bloody conflict, as we're seeing now? Well, as you know, well, that's been the benchmark for the last 14 years of war, so to speak, since the beginning of our military presence in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2003 in Iraq. And we built capabilities unprecedented in our history to be able to do that, using technology, using equipment, using people to do that. So we've become very good at this. In this situation, though, it's going to have to be in concert with the government of Iraq. And while there have been some previous political shortfalls in that regard, I think here's one of those opportunities to partner. As you looked when we came out of Iraq and went to this presence, a lot of those capabilities that we were building and leveraging in partnership with the government of Iraq were treated, because we did not have the capacity and the backbone of our personnel and our equipment in place to provide that. So as we go back into this training, advise, and assist, those personnel with that background, those previous relationships, that equipment and that capability will be reintroduced. There will be some corporate knowledge and experience in doing that that will have to be reconstituted and built, but aligning it to the new government and the opportunities to build this infrastructure that can support that in line with the government objectives is the right place and the right time, so to speak. So I think, although I can't confirm, that's one of the priorities as we bring in these forces and they align that. But we've unprecedented ability to do that today that we've learned in conflict in the region over the last 13 years. Is there anybody we should decide we're not going to work with on the Sunni side because their hands are too bloody, because they've tolerated too much? I think at the moment that's the second priority. We have to get after the problem first. I think it was really important also to, as we put the training, move to this second step of train advise, to reach out to Anbar, to reach out to the Peshmerga, to say we're going to include them, there's no way around it. We're going to be here, they're all going to be part of this issue. Rather than just stay centralized in Baghdad and centralized in that region, demonstrate that we're going to get out and be inclusive in the solution side here. And that's conditional or unconditional? It was conditional, it wasn't offered, the best I understand. It was a demand on our part that we'd be allowed to do that. The agreement is that it won't necessarily happen on the first day, but that it's going to be part of the second stage of training and assist. And should our working with the Peshmerga and others be conditional as our efforts to work with Baghdad? I think so. And if they say, we'll do our thing, you do your thing, then we may do less than we might want to do. Again, don't look for the 100%. Push hard to get the attributes that you want. Let me ask a military strategy question. And that is some people say, you know, what really has to happen here, somebody has to lose. That you can't get the deal you need if everybody thinks we actually at the end of the day have to be empowered. Somebody has to say, we're not going to be empowered. Is one of the problems here that every side still thinks it can win? Well, I mean, you can argue the psychology of war and you can argue the psychology of diplomacy and negotiation. But the idea here is that you find a solution through compromise that gives everybody something important to them. And everybody will also feel that they didn't quite get everything that they wanted if it's a normal approach here. And so what you're looking for with military action in that negotiation, in that diplomacy, is how do we get the imperative to believe that there's something better than fighting? How do we start to change the will such that the diplomatic piece of this and the compromise can't occur? If it isn't, I mean, if the state of things is nobody's willing to, that makes it significantly more difficult and stretches it out. The point is, how quickly can you bring people to an understanding that the alternative to the kinetic activities is a far easier and better path and more fruitful path than the kinetic side of the equation? And the kinetic is at its essence the basis of saying that, okay, I've lost all hope here and I'm willing to die now. And the question is, how quickly can you show an alternative that is plausible but doesn't satisfy everybody's itch because everybody enough that they believe they can work in that environment and survive and prosper? Very clearly, one of the problems we had with the Maliki government was that Maliki thought he could get more. I mean, there was charge of the knights. There was always an effort of, we can't get more from fighting. Now is not the time to compromise with those people. Now is not the time to be inclusive. Is this, what makes this a different opportunity, a different solution set? I think that change in government. A new government does not have to inherit some of the legacy from the Maliki government had. So there lies the opportunity to diffuse those Venn diagrams of these separate entities and create that overlap that's a much bigger sphere. So I think they have the steps initially to set up a tone of prioritization that did not exist before. Well, you do have a former militia leader, the Minister of the Interior. One could be forgiven for being skeptical that the opportunities are really that different under this government than they were under previous. Not to say that there aren't opportunities. But I think there are many who look and say it really hasn't changed fundamentally. I can't argue yet. I would agree wholeheartedly, but there lies trust but verify. Now let's see what actions occurred to change that path. I agree with you completely. So my sense is the imperative that's been created is through ISIL and the brutality, number one, and number two, because of the path that was taken in Iraq, the ability to fend that off on their own has exceeded their capacity, their capability for a lot of reasons. For the sectarianism, for some of the decisions, resource decisions, etc., that have been made. So now that imperative is the basis of an opportunity. And the question is how do you use it? How do we think through the Syria conflict in this context? Is there a necessary extension of the policy towards Syria? Do we need to have a clear understanding of an end game in Syria? Or can we deal with Iraq where we have a friendly government that wants to cooperate with us in Syria? And try to reimpose the border and leave it? Is that work or do you need to bring Syria? My sense is arguable, but my sense is the same three attributes are desired out of an end state for a Syrian governance structure. A, B, if we are basically taking the tact, which I agree with, of the sovereignty of the nation, the sovereignty of that border must remain intact. The decisions that are made internal by those governments, we'd like to influence so they're accountable and all those types of things. If that's true, then this should not turn in for us to a war that erases that border. So things like rules of engagement for hot pursuit, rules of engagement for preemptive attacks on threats to, from one side of the border to the other, have to be very, very clear, very well understood, but they should be there to preserve that border and to make sure that what's occurring on one side is ruled by one governance structure and the other side by another. If we erase that border, it will make the conflict harder. It may appear easier from the standpoint of maneuver for military forces, but politically it makes it very difficult. How do you think about Syria in this context? I'm just going back to what General Cartwright said. You know, the border, unlike other areas where we've had safe havens, you can't, this is not a safe haven. We can militarily accomplish our objectives for the near-term Iraqi situation rather readily. While a sovereign aid, a clear border, the access and the things you can do with that militarily are unprecedented, unlike and very dissimilar to a saving such as the Fatah. So I think you can address the short-term military issues you have to do to protect the sovereignty in the border of Iraq, which is, and make it somewhat separate from your longer-term political objectives in Syria. You can link that later, but for the near-term, I think that's very plausible, and one of the real differences here, as we apply that force, as we reinforce Iraq and our partners to do those types of things, it helps build a better political solution in Syria over the long term as well. Is there a way to get the other parties with a keen interest in Syria to share an Iraq-first understanding? My sense is, for Turkey and others, in many ways they're more concerned with Bashar, and we're more concerned with the government of Iraq. Is it possible to get everybody to accept our prioritization? To be determined, I would say. Yeah, I mean, we might be able to. We might not. I'm not sure that it's essential to the solution set. We have equities and history with Iraq recently that make it important to us to catch it while we can, give it the opportunity to succeed. That end state is likely to come a little easier than solving the Syria problems right off the bat. Now, I could be completely wrong on that. You could see a flop real quickly, but each nation in this coalition has got to decide where its priorities lie and where it wants to put its resources. What you would like to be able to do is to get an agreement on, what's the desired attributes of the end state and what's our progress towards those attributes, but anybody that's in this to erase borders, reshape borders, things like that are probably going to come up against certainly our intent. But one more caveat. So I do believe the Iraq First problem can be very addressed in a collaboration. I don't think there will be an issue with that. One last question before I go to you. When you're fighting a non-state actor, how do you know it's over? How do you declare victory against a party that wants to anger? This is kind of my opinion of it, but if you say that rule of law, transparency, and accountability, inclusiveness are all the attributes. When people in the country start believing that they are actually finding those attributes useful and moving in a direction that gives them a better life, then you're going to know that you're on the right path. Saying that there will never be discord or that discord's gone away is an interesting bar but not theoretically achievable. What you want is that the will of the people at large is driving you in a direction away from confrontation and towards more of a diplomatic approach to solve their problems. That's when you have it. The idea that people are insiders or outsiders is a difficult idea. At the end of the day, you don't want to find yourself taking sides. What you want to do is say, are these attributes coming in place? Are they getting stronger? Is this country standing up on its own feet and starting to do the right things? Is the will of the people doing that? If the will hasn't changed, then you've got a problem. So Afghanistan is a sort of candidate for that, but not quite there. Correct. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. I think you can just assume, and if I was a prudent planner or policy maker, that non-state actors will never have success. We're going to build organizations, processes and procedures and a refinement of what those non-state actors will do in the region and beyond for many years again. So I would just assume it's never going to be over. And if you've looked at our policy through the years, we've been on both sides of the table with these non-stacked actors. If you look back after the Soviet invasion and our funding of the Mujahideen, so we flip-flop. If you're going to take your consistent policy, if your long-term policy is going to be that we're going to... I don't want to use the target, but be dealing with non-state actors who pose a threat, an existential threat to nations that are developing a governance that are reflective and responsive of these people for the long run is a very safe assumption in my regard. So I think plan accordingly, because we're going to be in this business for a long time to come. It's going to last as long as the war on drugs, the war on poverty. Yeah, we're mounted down. Don't think less than 30 to 50 years. That's long after I have to get my kids through college. Yeah. I mean, there will be conflicts, kinetic-type conflicts during that period, and there will be periods of diplomacy, etc. But the idea that this issue is, okay, if I just do these things on January the 4th, this will be over. It's not realistic. This is generational. Are you optimistic that we can spread the notion that we have of what a settlement looks like, which is everybody has a role, everybody has a seat at the table, as opposed to a desire for triumph over the evil ones, which I think is in many ways the way a lot of actors in the Middle East still see their politics. I'm optimistic that those attributes will be part of the solution set. They will not be part of the solution set probably as we envision them because it won't be our decision and we've got to be ready to negotiate and to compromise and things like that. But those attributes to settle this for some period of time, of a 50-year peace or something will be part of the solution. I'm confident of that. Okay, we have some microphones and I will call on you. If you do me a favor and identify yourself to only ask one question until we've had everybody ask. And third, one of my pet peeves is people who make statements and then say for their question, what do you think of my statement? So we have this incredible talent. You can genuinely ask them questions. I certainly haven't covered it all. I would be grateful. Let's go right here, sir. Excellent panel. George Nicholson of Policy and Four-Structure Consult for SOCOM. One of the things here, former boss Jim Mattis almost bankrupted me from the number of books I've got in my library. But I think when he retired he had 5,200 books in his library but he talked about the criticality of the future of understanding the cultural, the historical and political background of the areas of the world dealing with. Michael Nicholson has said the same thing in the last two years. He said what he would change when he went to West Point is less of a focus on engineering but more of a focus on those items. From where you all have both stood, the importance of understanding before we start breaking China out there, of understanding the background and rivalries that go back tens, hundreds, almost thousands of years of being able to understand it. I mean, for me, strategy based on historical is not the way to go. Historical gives you context for strategy. And you should not go into a strategy without a good, and I actually agree with what you're saying, an absolutely good solid understanding of the history as best you understand it. When you get on the ground, the detail of that history becomes far more important, far more relevant to your opportunity to actually provide the National Command Authority with the leverage points to end the conflict. Not understanding that brings you to peril almost always. So your question? Peter Humphrey, I'm an Intel analyst. There's about three or four times more Kurds in the world than Palestinians. I think it's nuts that Palestinians deserve self-determination and the Kurds don't. This is their best chance in centuries. Why don't they go for it? All they have to do is promise not to take Turkish territory and promise to help suppress the PKK. Why aren't the Kurds going for it? I'd love to take that one on. Listen, the Kurds, the Sunnis and she's all the different factions in Iraq have more enemies individually than they do collectively. Just as we're working that on the end diagram to make that centerpiece bigger inclusive policy, the same thing applies to their enemy. So I'm very concerned that the other day, and we've felt this way for many years, that any of these entities that break on on their own short-term may give you a solution, but over the long term they become targets for those who have interest in there. It makes their national security interests individually and then they do collectively. So again, for the long-term a federated approach, it has to be included with all the entities if you really want a long-term stability in the region. So that may be their best opportunity, short-term and they may be able to accomplish it, but down the road it could create some significant problems from internally, much less externally. So I'm very concerned with how that would evolve because Iran and the Turks have a much different approach on the Kurds than they do on the Sunnis and Shias and those may be overriding considerations down the road. He's right. We're here in the front. I'm Isaac Meroge. I'm a medical corps officer and served in Iraq. One of the essentials of having a coalition is to have partners in that coalition and do we have real partners in the Iraqi government that they talk to their population one thing Microphone here, please. They talk to their population one thing and then they turn around and tell us something different. So what is your take? Do you think there's a real partner in the current Iraqi government? If I'm in Iraqi and I'm looking at partners in the United States, tactical, operational, strategic we've been down that road. We came in, we built partnership and then 2010 we walked away from any of those partnerships and so this goes back to the region at large and from a military perspective this ebb and flow of our policy could probably be illustrated in force presence you know where we were before 9-11, where we were in 2008 when we were on the Iraq war what level we're at now and what level that's going to be down the road if you look at our other commitments in Asia and Pacific we have been consistent throughout our history after World War II of our presence and commitment and partnership. So if you look at this region we can't decide if we want long-term partnerships through military presence through political engagement so I think we have to again make a commitment to this region that we haven't had before will help build that trust and confidence that this is a genuine partnership because in that partnership we've asked a lot of our political and military leaders to not sacrifice but put a lot at risk by what they've invested in our partnership. We've got to take that into consideration if we're going to maintain and really make it a true partnership and that affects how domestically they work and internationally when you look at some of the other partners in the region then the things we've asked them to do in supporting are policies. So a question here and then one back there. Roger Wallace, Pioneer Natural Resources I have another Kurdish question either of you surprised at the response of the Peshmerga to the initial onslaught by ISIL and what does that mean to the overall effectiveness of the Peshmerga and sort of the continuing battle against ISIL? I was surprised I was very shocked. Looking at some of the after action I could understand why they had shifted their focus and all and if you look at it in the more strategic we have a failure here. If I look at one of the areas we've across the board that over the last 12 years have grown you could say benefited tremendously over the last 12 years is our intelligence apparatus the resources, the growth, the number and yet we can still miss and be surprised by what happened here. So yes that did take me surprised but since then the actions and efforts will be to reconstitute, reinforce encourages me with right focus they'll get it right but I was very surprised. I'm Ali Wain with the RAND Corporation should the United States assume that groups in the vein of ISIL will just continue springing up kind of like the whack-a-mole game and if that assumption is correct how sustainable is indefinite counter-terrorism policy on the scale that we're pursuing it now? My sense and I think you probably are along the same lines is normally there's three stages to this activity there's the incipient stage where you actually have the opportunity to cut the head of the snake off it's usually an individual an iconic individual of bin Laden or whatever and then there is that stage where you build the ability to reinforce so you lose a person to stick in and then the third stage is franchising where the pieces start to come and there isn't a single we're in franchising now unfortunately we're in franchising and so this is going to be around for a while and there will be an element of whack-a-mole the question is in the political solution that you make for a particular country let's say Iraq does it put them in a position to repel these things with some reasonable expectation of success and to be able to do it and to understand not just that these guys don't agree with you but what is it they don't agree with why don't they agree is it that they can't feed and house their families they've lost all hope those types of things or is it the lack of accountability of the governance but understand those and respond because none of these issues are static they change but we are definitely in franchising and on a global scale of this activity and so knocking one off taking an ISIL off the street is not going to change it the maturation that's gone on now is one that is now in both Yemen and in this area starting to go and control territory that's the fundamental shift that you've seen you're in a franchising stage that is now starting to want to control territory that's a big change it comes with baggage but for the terrorists but we're in this for a while I would add I'm less concerned about the ground that's why we were surprised so much but what concerns me about these franchises and I agree completely that's where we are is how they're learning building more corporate knowledge and becoming much more strategically threatening I look at I was always confused because we defeated the the Soviets in Afghanistan by taking out their air we provided stingers enabled them and yet no one leveraged that against us in our 13 years of war no one had a concerted campaign to go after our air I was always surprised that and yet you saw here in Syria Chinese used platforms to take out air so they've learned their lessons so I'm more concerned about these change in acquisition of state capabilities and strategic tools that can cause black ground black swan type of events and capabilities for these disparate groups that are spinning up that we're going to have to confront and deal with so the ground thing is I think part of this intelligence failure how could we be so surprised to see so much land we can recoup from that it's some of these strategic threats that are good what we're really going to have to keep our eye on that sir thank you very much John Warner retired member of congress very distinguished discussion and panel this morning I want to talk about an immediate problem and that is the president just reiterated yesterday the Iraqis are going to do the fighting on the ground now let's go back the years general when you and I were in public office you on the general staff overseeing the rebuilding of an Iraqi military force some twenty billion dollars over time was appropriated by the congress in reliance upon representation from the department defense that this job is being done and it will have a mission and a value in the future now you know well what has happened the president has said they're going to do the fight what have we learned from the past that will be changed in the future and what's the period of time by which these newly trained individuals can pick up the responsibility to make a truly air ground team combatant force against ISIL I think those are the questions that we ought to seriously reflect on moving into this activity and seriously reflect on when we look at the military strategy that we would like to employ we did the training we did the equipping with America's tax dollars and lives and divisions disappeared very quickly in the interim between our departure and now the government governance was not as holistic and inclusive as we would want it to be it was allowed to shape the military into a tool of self-preservation of the government rather than the people it was allowed to go back to sectarian organizations and then resourced accordingly and supported accordingly so part of what we have to do is have some assurances that that's not the path that we're on that's why it was so important to say if we're going to go in there we're going to have the opportunity to train Peshmerga we're going to have the opportunity to get out the western areas and train those forces so that the Sunnis and the Shiites are all given the opportunity is there a guarantee better than when we left it the last time the question is is the imperative there do they believe that they are sufficiently threatened that there's no better way to get the question about are you our friends well when I look around nobody else was going to run to the support of Iraq so they've got to know that we're the best game in town so the question now becomes what's our leverage and how do we play it to get down that path do you go to embedding do you put ground troops in there again I don't think that's necessary today I mean based on what I see today but what is absolutely essential is that we have to have people in there that understand integrated air ground space all of the pieces naval operations and the Iraqis don't and we knew that when we left they just hadn't had the dime number one number two they don't have an air force they don't really have good artillery fires etc to support them the logistics are weak we knew that departing command and control so that's where we have to focus we may have to provide some of that if this continues on but I think the key here is the early on leverage to say okay we were here you squandered the opportunity that we gave you are you really ready to come to the table and that's that's really important in this discussion if they are not or we go down the same path again I think we're the fools should we insist on units that are integrated in terms of ethnicity or should we allow that's for them to work that's for them to work in my opinion but what we should insist is that all of them are included in the game gentlemen agreed time and the woman next next steward of the media group thank you for a great panel I want to tie together two things that you all said something about the length of this war 30 to 50 years and then who are our willing partners I'd like to hear from you all when you're in the region who are our partners that will be here in 50 years the Turks, the Saudis the Gulf who are those partners either right now or emerging I want you to see if you can take us forward 30 to 50 years at the conclusion of this and who's going to be at our side at that time, thank you looking 30 to 50 years out you're always wrong but you are looking for enduring partners they will change over the time those partners will always operate first in self interest and then where you align is to how strong at any given point the relationship is the willingness to commit etc what I think that we have to do is come up with this is my opinion so take it that way but we have to start to find what used to be called extended deterrence but we have to find a way to show that we have skin in the game we have responsibilities and we understand them and we are accountable for them in our relationship with those countries that are willing to be our partners and that there is through that extended deterrence and that was always mentally nuclear weapons that's not really where I'm focused the issue is how do we build border systems, how do we build passive and active defenses that put into question anybody who would incur either at the terrorist level or at the nation state level the desire to go into someone else's country and put those in place in such a way that the worry of that to the table is enough to put in doubt any adversaries idea or mental state that would say I can get away with this so we've got to start to build that that mindset in the region and we've done that I mean quite frankly SENTCOM has been incredibly good at things like standoff distances for terrorist activities things like passive defenses missile defenses become very capable forces in the navies of these countries are now starting to adapt to the threat that's there not the threat that they maybe wanted to buy the big shiny platform for and so this is going to be part and parcel to what does that look like and how do we start to get to it and my mind is that's a doctrine that's a partnership doctrine that we say for this region this is what we're willing to do this is what we stand for if you stand for that we'll help you, we'll be part of your extended deterrence without doubt every point but this commitment again that you're honest this embracing and understand I don't want to call it a war but this long term presence and engagement that that's going to be a consistent theme overriding in our policy is part of it because I think that's where we've been sporadic we've lost that partnership we look at certain junctures we break away when understanding that's economically it's militarily it's politically all those ways how do we ensure that our our partners believe believe that we have that long term commitment I think that's where we've suffered in the region and because they sacrifice so much when they make that commitment that you pay a heavy price when you break that that bond and that long term approach does growing North American energy independence shape the commitment we should be willing to make the nature of the commitment their interpretation of the commitment well I mean it's energy today it may be water tomorrow I mean those things will ebb and flow the question in my mind and you know this commitment is not just in our eyes in other words and in our form for years our commitment was we'll what forces in your country well today that's not as reinforcing of their national sovereignty as they'd like to be that's almost like slap a slap in the face to say okay you must have an American division on the ground because you can't take care of yourself that's not what we want so we have to shape it in a way that they understand and the perceptions and their cultures and in their region convey the commitment but in a way that's palatable to them I think the last question lady right here Taveek about from the Times of London beyond this question is almost an extension of the previous question beyond those friendly international and regional partners you talked a bit about working with Russia China and most interestingly Iran in the future could you elaborate a bit more on that and specifically what you sort of anticipate those roles could be as I say particularly with reference to Iran I'm not sure exactly know is it what role do you expect China do we expect China and Russia to play in this okay you know from my standpoint they have as much at stake if not more because of today it is the coin of energy you know and we have a temporary windfall right now that you know has adjusted some of the calculus here but at the end of the day for China and Russia that energy issue is real it's today and it's long term and it'll be there in 30 to 50 years I mean that's going to be important to them and so they're looking for an assurance a level of security a level of certainty and surety that that that access to those energy reserves and opportunities is at least fair and equitable okay and what they don't want because they both understand that geographically it would be hugely disadvantageous they don't want a friend and an enemy because you're going to have to cross those borders to move the goods and to move the commerce etc and so you want a region at which you have a reasonable expectation of access fair access the opportunity to create trade and then to move across borders to move that trade absent that you're hugely disadvantaged so that's where China and Russia are going to come at my sense is this is just me talking to my counterparts in those countries they'd like to see each of the countries work out their problems but they'd like to see it in a context of an understanding that to facilitate the region and to make the region flourish you've got to be able to move across these borders with your goods and commerce and whatnot and you have to have an assurance that there's enough political and diplomatic stability in the region that access to those markets is going to be a reasonable expectation optimistic and longer term that you can bring the Iranians into well I think the geopolitical content of this problem is a driving factor in doing that yeah importantly I want to thank the speakers announced that lunch is just outside on that little panel by the windows but I do want to thank the speakers for some really really thoughtful and probing insights I want to thank you for your patience with our sound system and thank you for coming we look forward to seeing you again soon thank you