 And welcome to this very special CNBC News and World Economic Forum debate at the Dead Sea. I'm Hadley Gamble with CNBC, and I'd love to introduce our panelists. Joining us here on the stage are Dr. Ursula van der Leyen, Germany's Minister of Defense. His Excellency, Mr. Ayman al-Safari, the Foreign Minister of Jordan, as well as Burba Brenda, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, as well as Peter Marr, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Her Excellency, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federico Margarini. Welcome panelists. Today, the Middle East is at a crossroads. You have the Islamic State making its final stand potentially in Mosul in the last couple of weeks of this month, and the Battle for Syria continues to rage on. You have millions of refugees. They're struggling with uncertain futures and continuing to put pressure on cash-strapped governments that can no longer reasonably rely on their Gulf Arab allies for support. Today we really want to talk about what happens next. Right now, U.S. President Donald Trump is in Saudi Arabia, where he's widely expected to roll back his previous comments about the Muslim world. What will that mean for not just the Middle East, but also relationships with the West and with Russia? And is he going to really be able to recast the American-Mid-East relationship as a fight against radicalism? The question I'd like to ask all of you to kick off with is, what are your hopes and fears for this new U.S. President's foreign policy? You look at me, sir. You seem to address me. Well, the fears would be an even deeper polarization between, if I may put it that way, the Western world and the Muslim Arab world, which should not be. The hopes are, and my hopes are stronger, definitely more stronger than the fears. My hopes are that this presidency will follow the path I initially saw with my colleague Jim Mattis, a very experienced, highly recognized Minister of Defense, who has a very clear approach knowing that we are together in the coalition against Daesh, knowing that the extremism is our common enemy. In other words, all those who want a peaceful world together are on his, on our side. And he's very clear too, and that is the path to follow, that if we want to be successful in this conflict in the MENA region, we have to be aware that, of course, we have to stop Daesh and defeat Daesh for what you need military means, but military means will never be sustainable for a long-lasting peace period if we do not have, and those are the topics we share together, immediate reconstruction, reconciliation, and good governance. So essentials you need for a long-lasting period of success after having defeated Daesh. So these are my hopes, and up to today, I see that Jim Mattis is the one who's really pursuing this way, Foreign Minister Svai. Thank you. I think it's about time that we saw the problems of the region within the broader picture and not just to be kind of looking at things in terms of silos, a problem here as if it's isolated from the rest of it. So the hope is that we'll be able to look at the broader picture and see the interconnectedness between all the problems of the region. We need to fight Daesh, obviously. We need to eliminate that threat, which is a threat to all of us. Question is how do we do that? Do we just get them on the battlefield, which we should? But do we stop there, or do we continue? And I think the challenge, the key to success is to be able to have a holistic approach to the problem, holistic geographically and holistic in terms of areas that enable Daesh and the likes of which to thrive and prosper. Geographically, if we get Daesh in Syria and we don't get them in Iraq, then we haven't really done much because they're going to move to Iraq and then to Libya and then to Somalia. So we have to look at that approach. And holistically as well in terms of we counter Daesh, the military threat, we counter it the security threat, and we counter it the cultural and the ideological threat. And that we do by tackling, by deconstructing the environment of despair and anger and bitterness and ignorance upon which Daesh has been able to thrive and through which it has been able to recruit. So we're hopeful that once again we're seeing everybody, the whole world, the international community, the U.S. indeed focusing on the Middle East, realizing that there are serious problems that need to be addressed there. And the challenge is really to be able to look at all those challenges and see what is it that's in common. The minister spoke. We need to look at governance. We need to look at economic opportunity. We need to look at political horizon, social horizon. You cannot speak of a stable Middle East without addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You cannot speak of a stable Middle East without having inclusive regimes where all peoples of a state feel that the government represent them. And you cannot speak of a stable Middle East where the youth population do not see a future, do not see opportunity looking forward. So that is the collective approach that we hope we'll be able to look at. And I think the hope is again the whole world is focused once again on the Middle East and on the need to tackle the problems. And the challenge is upon all of us to be able to articulate plans that can deliver and not lose interest the day after. And that is where we've gone wrong in the past. And I hope we will not go wrong this time again and we'll have learned our lessons. Minister Bender, what are your hopes and fears for the President Trump's foreign policy? So I think President Trump has put together a very, very competent foreign and security team with Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, but also know the national security advisor is just very competent. And this is important for us also as a close ally to the U.S. I think also President Trump showed by his immediate reaction to what took place in Syria, use of chemical weapons is totally unacceptable. And he reacted in a proportional way saying that there are limits for what we can accept in the 21st century. Looking at the Syria war, six years, it's now turning into a total humanitarian disaster, worst ones in Second World War. We have seen Syria turn from being a middle income country in 2012 to this disaster. We need to really break the impulse when it comes to a political process. So I hope that U.S. administration can also have a constructive talks with Russia on this so we can get the parties together. I have hopes there. I also have seen signals from the new administration when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are surprisingly positive. They have been very firm on settlements, but at the same time they have also come up with initiatives among the Arab countries that can strengthen the momentum for a two-state solution. And they have the trust in Israel. So in that sense they can use this also to build bridges to the Palestinians. So let's see when President Trump arrives both in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem. On the challenging side, I have to admit since that was the question I would have liked to skip it and turn to Peter, but we have built an amazing world order since the Second World War based on win-win. What's good for your country is good for my country. We trade with each other and we know that this paradigm is also needed to make sure that we will see the wealth creation and the growth that the world needs to face unemployment and also eradicating all kinds of poverty by 2030. So I hope that the Trump administration will not go into a protectionist mood, but support the WTO, support institutions that are crucial for future success. Peter, you're not subject to election cycles. What are your hopes and fears? Well, we have witnessed, as you know, over the past couple of years a downward spiral of violence and violations of international humanitarian law, of illegal use of weapons, of suffering of the civilian population Borger has alluded to it. What I would hope is that what we have called for for quite some time, that in order to stop this, humanitarians are not the right address. We can put small band-aids on big wounds. But in order to really fix, we need political engagement by major powers and we need the ability to converge on key policies in the region. And if this is not happening, we will continue to see the downward spiral of violence and extremism unfold. So my hope is that this visit signals the willingness and the ability at the same time to work with others in the region to give clear signals towards political solutions of some of the outstanding and underlying conflicts which have preoccupied the region now for decades. From the Israeli-Palestinian to the Syrian to the Iraqi to the Yemeni conflict which make more than one-third of everything ICRC does worldwide and therefore is a signal that this is a region in bad shape. So we sincerely hope that this will change the dynamic of violence and violations and will allow us to come back to proportions of humanitarian suffering which are manageable for the humanitarian operators on the ground. And I think it all passes also by the respect of certain rules and principles and if we don't have the big powers behind those respects and of rules and principles, it's not because of the blue or brown eyes of the president of ICRC that these rules are respected. It's because there is a concrete political willingness to stop the blood jet and this needs political engagement and in that sense it's a hopeful message. The fear is not so much with President Trump, President Putin or anybody else in the region. The fear is more to discover maybe that we may be late or too late. I'm not sure by what we are witnessing on the ground in terms of extremist dynamics that this is easily stoppable even if the powers in the region and the global powers converge politically. So there is a big question mark which is at the same time a big fear that we may have waited too long or a very long time to really get serious in terms of finding political solutions to the problems which are fueling. The violence, the displacements, the humanitarian suffering. Commissioner Mogherini, what is Europe's outlook for the Trump presidency or the Trump foreign policy at least as much as we know so far? You know, we'll have President Trump visiting the European Union later this week, actually next week on Thursday. So we will discuss with him directly in Brussels the outcome of his visit here in the region and the possibility to converge, to work together if I can take a word from Peter, on especially the Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Syria, but also Libya and other crises that are very close to the European security agenda and also of a common region because I always say Europe and the Middle East and North Africa, we're not different regions, we share the same sea. Maybe for an Italian it's easier to recognize it. We are the only ones without blue eyes here, so we have something in common. But with the Trump administration we've had, first of all, we've opened good channels at different levels, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor. Vice President Pence came to visit officially the European Union within the first month of the mandate, which is something unprecedented for the US administration. So we've seen a lot of engagement from Washington on partnering with the European Union. There are some files on foreign policy on which we do not see I2I, I would be less diplomatic. On climate change we strongly believe that the Paris Agreement has to be implemented. It's a matter of security for us to have climate change addressed properly. On the investment in humanitarian and development and peacekeeping for us, it's investment in our own security because it prevents conflict and crisis. And we're worried that the US administration could take a different approach when it comes to financing UN agencies or humanitarian work worldwide. We think this would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe. So we have issues or trade. Borger was saying, if I'm not wrong, we stand for free and fair trade and a multilateral approach to global trade. So we have issues where we don't see I2I, but I also see that there are regional issues in particular where the US administration and the European Union can easily work together, especially the Syrian file and the Middle East peace process. You also asked what happens next. And I think this is the big question we have in front of us. It can be too late, but it's never too late because at the end of the story, life continues and you have to face the reality of life. I believe that one thing that not only the Trump administration but all the international community and this region could realize finally is the European lesson somehow. The Europeans have exported war and conflict also based on religion for thousands of years. And at a certain moment, what happened? It happened then 60 years ago. Brave Europeans, wise Europeans, realized that making business together was much more convenient than killing each other. And out of that intuition came 60 years of peace in Europe, the first 60 years in European history of peace. Economic prosperity at unprecedented levels and human rights. So if you take this lesson from the once most conflictual region in the world to other areas of the world, like this one, you might realize that making peace is more convenient than making war, also for economy, also for people, normal living human beings. And that even if you don't like your neighbor, you don't change geography. And you might find what we call a security architecture in more normal terms, a way of living together, even if you don't particularly like each other, that allows you to manage conflict, prevent tensions from turning into wars, and establishing a good acceptable level of economic cooperation. And I think this could be the pragmatic, positive approach that the region could come to if the Europeans, the Americans, and others support this kind of vision. And I believe that we might have windows opening in this direction. I was very much encouraged by the elections in Iran yesterday. I believe there could be a space for a security architecture that is more cooperative in this region opening up in the coming years. I want to pick up on that in terms of what Europe's role is in the Middle East going forward, because there have been a lot of questions about whether or not NATO, for example, could be taking a stronger role, whether it be a military role, but more even in terms of rebuilding. And the question, of course, is what is the responsibility of Europe here? I want to pick up with the Defense Minister from Germany in terms of a lot of people say you've really left the game. When you think about what's happening today on the ground in Syria and the potential for ISIS to be defeated in the coming weeks and months in Iraq, what is Europe's responsibility to the Middle East? Well, first of all, you should not forget that almost most of the European nations are in the broad and large coalition against Daesh. 64 countries are in this coalition, and many of them are European countries. And within this coalition, of course, we are engaged in military means. Germany, for example, is delivering arms and training the Peshmerga from day one on. We are flying reconnaissance, we are our recce tornadoes. We are doing the refuelling, air to air. We have stationed our troops in Inchalik to do the reconnaissance and refuelling in Syria and Iraq, just to name a few components in that. Of course, there is a vast engagement in humanitarian aid. There are two in Iraq and Syria from day one on. And the whole topic of reconstruction, which is demining, which is fixing houses, bringing electricity, fixing water after a region or territory has been taken back from Daesh, are the tasks we are covering at the moment being. We are there as European countries, but the European Union on top has the role, Federica Mogherini just pointed out. Your question concerning NATO, 22 of us are in NATO too. Germany, for example, is, of course, part of the European Union and part of NATO. NATO has been asked by the Iraq Prime Minister for assistance. And what we're debating right now, looking towards the NATO summit next week, is whether there is an added value of NATO engagement, but I want to make clear that NATO itself describes this engagement in training, advice, building good governance and structures that are secured in stability structures in those terms. The heads of state and government will decide on that next week Thursday. So we will see what is coming out, but there has to be an added value of the knowledge and the experience of NATO, which is a vast knowledge with how to build security and stable structures is concerned. So you see there's a huge engagement of the European Union and area in this region. I want to bring you in on this as well, because we're talking about Jordan, Russia, the GCC countries, the United States, so many factors involved in what's happening in Syria, so many countries, so many policies to be dealt with. What is Europe's role here? So what I think was so important with the anti-Dash coalition was when it was formed in Jeddah, it started with Sunni Arab countries that saw DASH as a major threat to all what is dear to them. And the anti-Dash coalition today is 64 countries, and many of them are Sunni Arab countries that want to fight DASH as hard as Shiites and Christians, and we're all coming together to really get DASH out of Iraq and Syria. It is a responsibility for our generation. When you see what they've been able to do with children, with women, it is so unacceptable, and we have not seen this kind of cruelty and atrocities in modern times. And we are about to succeed, but we also have to be very serious on how we then follow up with stabilization. When areas, for example, in Anbar province are freed from DASH, we have to move in very fast, demining, building up the schools, building up the hospitals, so people have to feel that when DASH is out, they get a better life, and the government in Baghdad has to then walk the talk when it comes to also seriously include Sunnis when it comes to their government. What we have seen in this region, and too much is when it takes it all, what we need to do is to make everyone a winner. Look at Lebanon, their constitution, they bring the different groups, they have their challenges, but this is also the blueprint for Syria moving forward. You should keep the territorial integrity of Syria, but we need to have different groups having more to say about their own situation, and why not look at more Lebanese kind of constitution where everyone is represented in a good way in Damascus? Minister Safadi, are we going to see a martial plan or is that what's needed for the Middle East, for Iraq, for Syria? We need that, and we need more actually, and I think in Jordan we're in a very, the word good is not the right word, but in a good position to see what's going on because we've been impacted on every front by what's happening in Syria and Iraq and in the whole region, not only by flood of refugees, but also the threat of terrorists. We have DASH on our borders to the east and to the north, and not only do we not want to see DASH on our border to the north, we also do not want to see Hezbollah or any other sectarian militia on our borders to the north. So basically what we need to do is again, look at this war for what it is. This is a war in defense of our people, in defense of our borders, in defense of our country, and in defense of our values, our shared values, because DASH is not just about, DASH is not against Christians or Jews or DASH is against everybody who disagrees with them and the largest number of victims by DASH have been so many Muslims. So this we're talking about a phenomenon, we're talking about a plague that is targeting all of us and as such we all need to understand that this is the point of departure. We are up against an enemy that does not differentiate among us on the basis of race or religion or anything, they're just against all of us. And as such, when we tackle it, we need to tackle it together and we need to understand what are the problems that allowed for DASH to thrive. And again I go back to my initial point is that DASH and the likes of DASH have thrived in the environment of despair that have basically rendered people, young people easy prey to their dark ideologies. So if we tackle it, we need to have that Marshall Plan and Marshall Plan not just in terms of economics, but Marshall Plan probably defined to include addressing also political and social issues. We need an industry of hope in this part of the world. And to create that hope and to create that industry of hope, we all need to come together, we all need to say, okay, what is it? You know, let's go back, step back. Why did DASH start? I mean, how did DASH emerge in front of all our eyes when we were watching? Because we simply failed to address the conditions that are conducive to parties like DASH to emerge. Governance, equality, economic opportunity, all that we have not done. We need to focus on that now and the whole world needs to come together and say, what is it that we need to do to help this region? Now, I have to say that King Abdullah very, very early on was, you know, he went out and said, this is our war. So as Arabs and Muslims, we're willing to take our responsibility and come and say, it is our war, we need to fight it. But to win it, we need the international community to help because truth is the policies of the international community have contributed to the creation of the bad environment that allowed for DASH to emerge. So we need to come together. Everybody needs to know what's expected from them. As Arabs and Muslims, as people of this region, we're the most affected by the war and we are at the forefront of this war and we should be, but we need our friends and allies to come in and help identify not just ideas, but to work out plans and say, this is how we're going to move. We tackle DASH, we tackle other areas of despair, we look at the Arab-Israeli conflict, we look at other disparities that exist in the region and again, as you said, everybody to walk the walk and we can all probably get together and get some results. Mr. Mogherini, we're talking about the potential for a Marshall Plan. U.S. President Donald Trump will be in Europe in just a few days from now. A lot of conversations around what role NATO, of course, could possibly play in the rebuilding of Iraq and in Syria, but given the miasma of scandals surrounding the White House right now, is there a possibility that any promises that you managed to garner from the president at this point would end up being worthless? I'll stick to what Europe can do, which surprisingly becomes the easy question for once. The European Union, as Ursula rightly said, is not as such a military player on Syria. I would like to underline one thing. This doesn't mean that the European Union is not a military player elsewhere because we have 16 military or civilian operations and missions around the world. There are places in the world where our men and women in uniform serve under the U flag to strengthen the security and really sometimes the real fights in parts of the world, especially in Africa. But that choice of not being involved as a military player in Syria sometimes has been seen as not having a role, as if the only way you can have a role is bombing or through a military role. Well, on Syria, the role of the European Union is first on this idea of the Marshall Plan. We're talking about an amount of money that will go far beyond the Marshall Plan of last century, and it will be mainly a European Union plan for Syria. We cannot be alone in this, but we will be the heart of this and we've started already to look at the future because we know that this is part of the economic leverage that the parties could see in terms of positive incentives to reach peace. And then we are the only ones, together with the United Nations, that talk to everybody, and obviously the humanitarian agencies, but that's their job. On the political, on the diplomatic side, we are the only ones that talk equally to Saudi Arabia and Iran, to Turkey and Egypt, to Jordan and Lebanon, that's easy, they're friends. Also with the others it's easy, but let's say sometimes takes a bit more focus. We are helping the United Nations and the Syrian parties themselves to find the common ground. The win-win overcoming the zero sum game that sometimes is trapping us in a way that we cannot escape really from or actually find a solution. And the third element, the big plan for reconstruction of Syria that will come only when a solution on the political level will be found in Geneva, will not be only an economic or a physical reconstruction of the country. Here will come, will have to come the region and Europe in terms of reconstructing the society, the trust, the living together, the diversity. After seven years of war, and we see it already in Iraq, it's not enough to liberate physically an area from Daesh or to bring peace to a country that has two different conflicts, the one against Daesh and the intra-Syrian conflict. Imagine the enormous effort of bringing societies locally, living again together. Here only the experience of reunification, reconciliation, that countries and organizations that have experienced conflict in their history can bring and the regional players that have, I would say, family ties. When we talk about that rebuilding, when we talk about that kind of rebuilding, what's going to be necessary for both of these countries, you have to talk about reliable partners as well. We've mentioned the United States, we've mentioned what will happen with President Trump going forward, but what about Russia? Because obviously Russia has had some serious conflicts of interest with Europe as well as the Middle East and Syria. Is Russia going to be a potential partner in this rebuilding, Defense Minister? First of all, Russia has to understand that it's in our common interest that together we have to fight Daesh and that is our first and most dangerous enemy and that it's in our common interest to sit down at the negotiation table, mainly Russia and the United States are the main superpower players who are necessary because their influence on Iran and Saudi Arabia and their influence then on the other stakeholders of the region is huge. If both of them have a common view on which way we should proceed in negotiations, the others will feel enough pressure to sit down and to negotiate seriously. This is crucial for progress. A second point is when we're talking about reconstruction, this means a huge amount of investment and this investment has to be carried by not only the United States and other countries, but also by Russia because they are involved in this conflict since quite a while by now. As we are sitting here at the World Economic Forum, I also want to mention we were talking a lot about the necessary duties of politics, of humanitarian aid, economic development, but of course this whole scenario needs desperately private investment. I am aware that politics have to create a enabling and stable environment but without humongous private investment it will not be manageable to create what is the most necessary in the region which is jobs, jobs, jobs for people to have a prospect. And therefore this World Economic Forum here in the MENA region is so crucial because they are our partners together to really to foster a development which is necessary here. We have seen fabulous young people at this conference showing us their startups they created so there's a huge potential. There is a young, huge potential in the region and this is the mixture that is necessary. I was a little bit slipping from your question, but I think for investment this is necessary. So the investment is necessary, but Minister Brenda I want to ask you, Norway of course has had a front row seat to Russia's resurgence as a global power. You're quite familiar with dealing with the border issues surrounding Vladimir Putin's future plans for the Russian foreign policy. Talk us through a little bit about how reliable do you think Vladimir Putin will be when it comes to rebuilding the Middle East? Being a neighbor of Russia, this is a constant factor of course in our foreign and security policy. And we have a good relationship with Russia, a relationship based on our NATO membership since 1949. That's why we also are able to handle one of the most asymmetric military situations in the world on our border in the North with huge capacities on the Russian side that we never can match, but it's based on our NATO membership. But with Russia, you can disagree with Russia on some issues, for example in Ukraine, but I think the Iranian deal showed us that we also can work with Russia on some other issues. I think this notion of then suddenly having a total rapprochement between Europe and the US and Russia on every issue is not gonna happen. Since 2013, I think we just have to realize that there is a new normal. There are more players globally and we also have to learn to deal with that as Europe. Europe also has to grow up and we are growing up in the sense that we have to take more responsibility for our own security. And the US has an Atlantic ocean between themselves, dash, migration challenges that we are facing, Russia border. So this is something that I know the EU and we're trying to deal with also through NATO. When it comes to Russia in the Middle East, they are not totally predictable, but that also is the strength of their way of foreign policy. They are no in Syria. We did not expect them to step up the way they did. We even seen traces of them in Libya together with General Haftar. So my view is that we need to sit down with Sergey Lavrov, Vladimir Putin and say six years of civil war, 400,000 people killed, chemical weapons used against the people of Syria, three million children out of school for six years have not been close to a school. So we're losing a generation if this continues. And as I said, I think there is a way to break this impulse. I think if the Americans and the Russians sit together, of course the Russians have to put pressure on Assad. Americans know and the President Trump meeting with all the Arab leaders, we have to also make sure that opposition in Idlib has to come to the table and have flexibility in the negotiations. Then when we get rid of Daesh in the Eastern parts, we have to also make sure that we are aware that this is a Sunni Arab tribe area. So one has to respect that. And we have the Kurdish issue. I think we have to, by superpowers, make sure that it's not any longer a proxy situation. To be a proxy in Syria should come at such a high price that you don't do it. The tail should stop wagging the dog. And based on these kind of negotiations, hopefully when we meet at the World Economic Forum next spring in the Middle East, we will see a different Syria. And it is doable and there is no alternative. But you said Europe needs to grow up. Could that same criticism then be leveled at the current administration, especially considering what we've seen in the last several days with the potential of that secure and military intelligence being shared between the United States and Russia? Does the U.S. administration now need to grow up as well to face these problems? So when I said grow up just to clarify that on Europe, it was not in a condescending way. It was really out of low for the European Union and Europe. We just have to face a new normal. So growing up, you know, it's nothing bad to be a teenager or adolescents. We just have to learn that we have to take more responsibility ourselves. We can be a little bit maybe feel challenged when President Trump says that we have to take more care of our own military expenses and 2% and all this. But maybe in medium term, long term, this is also in our self-interest to step up. I would like to answer like Margarini on these questions related to what is now unfolding in Washington, D.C. I'm the foreign minister of Norway and not a journalist commenting on running issues in D.C. But can I come in on one thing? Please comment on that. No, not on that, not on that. But on Russia, if I can. Because it's clear that Russia is an important player. Last but not least as a permanent member of the Security Council and a major global player. But I think we're maybe underestimating here the role that our region plays here. At the end of the day, we are the ones that, like it or not, will face the future of Syria for good or for bad for the decades to come. Jordan is a neighbor, Europe is a neighbor. And when you ask, is it realistic? Is it reliable to imagine that Washington or Moscow will pay for the reconstruction of Syria? I wish it could, but if you look at the state of the Russian economy today, it's difficult to call it a superpower. The Russian economy is smaller than, I guess, the majority or almost of the economy of EU member states, individually taken. So Russia is investing a lot on defense and military activities. But when it comes to economic power, forget it. Sorry to be blunt. And my impression is that the new trends in Washington are not necessarily those of paying the bill. Am I wrong? So I'm not saying that it's going to be Europe to pay. I'm not saying this. Also because the money come with a political price. And the money will come only when a political transition will be starting. What I'm saying is that sometimes we have the approach and this is growing up also, of seeing that there are other superpowers somewhere that will deal with things. My impression is that on Syria, this approach is necessary, but will never be enough. Because then you have players on the ground, economic players, sometimes military players, you were mentioning the Shia militias. You have to deal with that. Or the region as such, Turkey with the Kurdish issue, plenty of other things, the Sunni Shia divide that will not be managed, if not through a serious regional joint Arab, Middle Eastern approach and European approach to contribute to the political solution. Also because we have much more understanding of the complexity of what is happening there. And one of the key elements for solving the Syrian crisis will be to make sure that the future asset of the Syrian institutions will accommodate the diversity of Syria. Which is not necessarily something that is easily understood far away from here. Commissioner, I want to just bring it back to what you said a little bit earlier, which was that these kinds of contributions come at a political price. Minister Safadi, one question of course is the US President Donald Trump is visiting Riyadh. He's spending two days in Saudi Arabia. He's signing massive deals, not just when it comes to Saudi Aramco, but also in terms of military deals as well, $350 billion over 10 years. When it comes to what happens next in the region, lower oil prices mean that Gulf governments aren't necessarily investing as much as they were in the past in countries like Jordan, in countries like Lebanon and Egypt. How dangerous is that? If I may just go back to a couple of the points raised here is that, whether we like it or not, Syria is a proxy war. Syria is no longer a war between the people in a regime. Everybody is fighting everybody in Syria. We've got to accept reality. And part of that reality is that Russia is in Syria and we're not going to have a deal without the Russians. So it is imperative that Russia is engaged in any serious talks to get the crisis over. And it's also imperative that the US is involved. So without a Russian-American agreement, I think we're gonna just keep beating around the bush and the crisis is going to continue and we've been at it for six years and what did we achieve? More Syrian people killed, the country destroyed more, more millions of refugees and even worse, that culture of plurality that existed is no longer more. People are being driven to their basic identities because that's the only protection they're getting. So the previous approach has failed. Let's accept that, put a period and move to the next chapter. And the next chapter says that the Russians are there, we've got to engage them. Americans now are coming back and we've heard President Putin speak of his commitment to peace and stability and we've heard of his commitment even to find a Palestinian-Israeli peace deal and we value that commitment and we appreciate it and we're going to do our bit. We're going to do the heavy lifting with them and be there, but ultimately, going forward means recognizing the problem. Recognizing the problem is that it's not enough to be against a party, it's also to agree what is it that we want to achieve. And I think in the fighting of the Syrian war, we've found some people allowing themselves with devils to be able to achieve their objective and you have a mess in Syria now where you've got a whole horizon of uncontrollable groups that are fighting each other for no clear objective. So ultimately, we need to realize that this is a conflict that is having a very, very heavy toll. The priority right now is stop the war because there's not going to be a military answer to this war and the war has to stop because every day it continues, more people are killed, more blood and shed and it is much, much harder to be able to put the country together and put the people back together. We haven't spoken of refugees and I just want to approach it from one, I'm sorry, dimension. Hundreds of thousands of refugees when they came to Jordan six years ago, they were 10. Now they're 16 or 17. If we invest in those people, those kids, if we give them education, if we empower them, if they make them feel part of us, they're going to be the army that's going to rebuild Syria and Europe starts pouring money once the political sentiment is there. But if we leave them, if we abandon them to ignorance, to despair, to anger, then that's going to be the new army of what's going to be worse than that. So the bottom line is we do have a problem. The last approach has failed. We have to talk to each other. Reality is Russia and America have to agree and once that happens, I think everybody is going to follow. Europe has got a tremendously important role to play in that. Countries of the region have a tremendously important role to play in that, but we need to all surround the table and identify, I'm sorry, our objective. And that objective should be stop the fighting now and let's talk about a solution that would last with a win-win view and not a zero-sum game again. Peter, I want to bring you in here because we're talking about the battle for hearts and minds as well and that goes beyond politics. What's the biggest challenge to winning that conflict? I think when I listen to this conversation, it's of course extremely interesting to see how you think about the political realm which can bring some forms of stability. If I look at our experience and the front lines of where people are displaced, where the problems are happening, I think one of the critical issues is really to build and to rebuild and to start reconstruction as Ursula mentioned beforehand in the midst of delivering humanitarian assistance. The Syrian crisis forces us to think radically different on how we do things. And the whole categorization that you do short term humanitarian relief and then at a certain moment reconstruction has to start is completely wrong. I think reconstruction starts with humanitarian aid at the present moment and if we miss that, we miss a big junk of a perspective of really getting reconstruction right. And I think this is what is at stake at the present moment. We have to stabilize lives of livelihoods of people who are heavily disrupted in the midst of conflict and we have to do it in a way wherever possible which gives a perspective of hope. Hope is not when your perspective is that in five years time, you'll get a ration by WFP who helps you survive in your refugee camp. Hope is when as soon as ever we get a minimum of stability, people can get their lives into their own hands. And I think this is, we have to rethink if we don't want to get and to make again the same mistakes of trying to just stabilize people and then move them through humanitarian aid into wrong dependencies. We have to start now to be ready to stabilize lives and livelihoods of people, to build peace bottom up, to bring violence down bottom up. We need it top down. Everything is of course obvious and very interesting what you see. But I think we can just hope for the big powers as much that convergence as I have advocated for is important. We have to have peace building from the ground and peace building from the ground starts with respect of basic rules and principles in communities. It starts with reconstruction the lives and livelihoods getting people back to economic life even in the midst of conflict. And I think here again we think somehow in terms of peace and stability always in something which happens the day after tomorrow. It has to happen now and we have to be able to give some perspective to those people. And here come, I think the local private sector comes in, the importance of helping people to get out of their misery, out of their terrible situations in which they are. And there, of course I am fully supportive of massive support to some of the frontline countries but also within the countries. There are spaces which are unused at the present moment where people wait not just for humanitarian deliveries but for a perspective. And this perspective can be different things. It can be small business. It can be restarting their lives and helping them reconstruct their houses. It can be local pacifications which allow certain communities again to normalize their lives. And I think the bottom up and top down is so important that we get it right this time, that convergence, political convergence on the international level has to be backed up by good humanitarian development cooperation early on which is basically stabilization of societies that's bringing, engaging with the armed forces with all the armed actors into rule-based behavior. It's settling the question of missing people, getting access into detention, having humane treatment. If you don't get decent treatment and humane treatment of people now immediately into community then you just miss the opportunity really to build resilient societies and long-term stability. So building on that, so humanitarian efforts and prevention. Already there's a conversation that a post ISIS Iraq is in crisis, that there could in fact be serious chaos in that country. This is something the United States failed in 2003 and onwards to do. What is it that the international community has to get right in order for there to be stability not just in Iraq but in Syria going forward? Defense Minister. Well, I think almost everything has been said. There is one topic I want to add additional to all the very crucial things that have been mentioned. This is the influence of the narratives being told in the social media and the cyber information room. We should not underestimate the influence it has on minds because we've seen a humongous amount of very dangerous, very false narratives published and spread out by Daesh. That was the main way they recruited foreign fighters and knowing that even if we are able to defeat the physical caliphate in the region, the virtual potential caliphate there spreading all over the globe is even getting more dangerous. Therefore, I want to add nothing is irrelevant. It's extremely important what has been said. But on top comes our necessity to really put out our strong narrative which unites all of us here in the region and on the podium and with the audience to counter the Daesh narrative and the extremists narrative because there's a second thread we see in Europe, for example, the Daesh narrative is feeding difficult right-wing movements in Europe because the Daesh narrative is showing a potential Islam enemy. While on the other hand, Daesh is using the right-wing movements in Europe to show that Europe, for example, is hostile towards Islam, which is completely wrong. But this is the polarization which is so dangerous in our world. And therefore, all of us together being convinced that there is a peace, of course, between religions, between ethnic groups, between different cultures. We have to put out this very strong narrative of open societies, of inclusiveness, of reconciliation because this has to be added to all the different things that are absolutely right that have been said. Just to second that and add that there are differences between the countries in question and error. Iraq is an oil-rich country. They produce millions of barrels a day, one of the largest producers in the world. So in the future, Iraq can also create a lot of revenues for itself and can really rebuild itself and can be a prosperous country. But with war and conflicts, we have seen that no country that has had the civil war or is in a war will meet our all targets from the millennium development goals or the sustainable development goals. So with Iraq, no. It is a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of Prime Minister Abadi when the Anbar province is freed, Mosul is freed. We need to support humanitarian in a humanitarian way with investments, reconstruction so people feel that they get a better life immediately. But then we also need to expect Iraq to stick to good governance rules. They have to give increased authority to the different regions so everyone feel empowered. And also for Iraq, we have to do the same as I introduced the idea of paying a price for proxies in Syria. This has also to be a high price in Iraq. If we do this and also if Sunnis are more involved in the real government in Baghdad, we cannot accept that groups that believe in violent extremism is fed from the outside. On Syria though, as I said, a middle income country in 2012, a total humanitarian disaster. Here we need not only a Marshall plan, we need many Marshall plans when there is a political solution to this. And we all have a responsibility to start rebuilding. But we are not doing enough today either. Look at Lebanon and look at Jordan. The responsibility they have taken in an asymmetric way of receiving refugees and they have to pay part of that bill or a main part of that bill themselves. 200,000 children in Lebanon is Syrian refugee children is still out of school. How can we expect that? I can be half on behalf of my government, promise the following. We are the sixth largest humanitarian donor in the region. This year, I promise that 20% of that humanitarian relief will go to education for children. On average, it's 3% to 4%. We have to support the children. Minister Safadi, I want to close with you. I want to talk about just in brief, Jordan is on the front lines, neighboring Syria or neighboring Iraq. There's a real possibility that eventually you could be surrounded in part by failed states. What does the international community need to do now to help Jordan and other countries? Well, I mean, I think you're right. We're at the front line of everything. I mean, we're at the forefront of fighting terrorism militarily. We're at the forefront of fighting terrorism ideologically. We're out there fighting that narrative that you spoke of. And you're absolutely right. What Daesh is trying to do is to drive a wedge between us and to tell people that it's the West against the East. It's Christians against Muslims. And homegrown radicalism is the threat. I mean, I think we could all mitigate against the threat coming across the border, but how do we mitigate against someone who's being radicalized on Facebook? And so the key thing is to make sure that we create environment that would not render the youth ignorant and easy prey to Daesh by frustrating them or isolating them or making them feel like their target or unwelcome element of their societies. We're at the forefront of refugees. 20% of Jordanians or people of Jordan now are of Syrian refugees. That's a tremendous pressure on our schooling system. Over 170,000 Syrian schools are on public schooling system now. And you can imagine the pressure that's putting on people. I mean, crowded Jordanians out of jobs, pressure on the health infrastructure, on water resources and everything. So we are at the forefront of all. I think we're grateful for the support that we've gotten from our friends from and the international community has been quite generous. We have to recognize that. But the normative of the problem is too big that nobody can do enough. None of us can do enough to address this crisis of unprecedented dimensions in recent history. So I think we need to work together. We need a plan and that is the key thing. The plan is we need to stop those crises. We will not defeat Daesh without defeating the environment in which they thrive. And that means failure to address root causes of conflict from the Syrian crisis to lack of good governance in Iraq, to continue the occupation in the West Bank, all of these, to lack of economic opportunity to ignore us, to deteriorating education system. All these are problems that we all need to work together. In Jordan, we pride ourselves in being a voice for reason, a voice for peace, a voice for moderation. And we put our money with our talkers. And I think we need all our friends to be with us to help us because, again, going back, I think, recent history has shown that the security of Europe begins in the Middle East. And if we want to guard against a new generation of Daesh, let's take care of those millions of students who are growing up outside of school and without parents to take care of them and without shelter on their heads. If we take care of that, I think we'll have taken care of our collective security going forward. Ministers, I'd like to thank you so much for joining this panel. On behalf of CNBC and the World Economic Forum, have a very good evening.