 Great thank you so much everybody thank you to new America for hosting this wonderful conference and thank you to all of you for being Here today the topic for discussion today is what does the rise of ISIS tell us about the future of war? If anything and why do we even care and what do we even mean by the future of war? I think can be addendums to the conversation. We're gonna have here today as we heard earlier, you know violence might be down Politicians and leaders might draw the wrong lessons the wrong historical analogies But I don't think everyone in this room would be here or be in the professions They're in whether that be in the intelligence community whether that be in a think tank Community whether that be an academia if we didn't actually think we could draw some relevant lessons see some relevant patterns That could instruct us going forward both against ISIS and in future conflicts So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce the panel to my far left We have Douglas Olavant a senior research fellow with the new America foundation He also served as a director on Iraq on the National Security Council under both president Bush and President Obama. He has also spent time at the senior advisor in Afghanistan Next to him. We have Emma sky. She's a senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for global affairs at Yale University She served as a former high-level advisor in Iraq for both the United States and the UK government We then have Barak Barfi also a senior fellow at the new America foundation Has lived in over seven countries in the Middle East and writes on a number of issues related to ISIS and the Middle East And we also have with us today. Son of us Who is the professor and chair of the Department of Regional and Analytical Studies at the National Defense University? College of International Security Affairs in DC and a senior advisor at the Asia Society So I'd like to just open with remarks from each of the panelists But just as some by way of background and thinking about the issue We sent around some themes to think about in terms of what we mean by looking at the future of conflict Whether that be how wars are won what victory looks like against ISIS and what this tells us about conflict How the role of technology and the media? Have been used in this conflict and how that can shape what we learn for the future And also the role of intelligence in terms of conflict and what victory and defeat even look like So Doug is actually recently back from Iraq So I'm I just if I could ask you to start with some of your reflections on the topic today at hand Sure. Thank you very much. Tara Very quickly. I'm gonna respond to the prompt as it's written, you know What is the rise of ISIS tell us about the future of war? There's probably not what I would say if I was asked why is the rise of ISIS important or what does ISIS mean for Iraq? Or what does ISIS mean for the region? But we'll talk about what it means for the future of war and have a few brief thoughts It's certainly no accident that ISIS has risen in two weak states one a failing Authoritarian state the other an extremely weak and fragile parliamentary democracy Which are under constant which are contested by three regional powers Iran Turkey Saudi Arabia And one global power the United States and then of course Russia also playing a significant role in Syria All of this has made this region extremely unstable Many of the areas very ungovernable as I told the good news about ISIS as it seems to only do well in very Loosely to non-govern Sunni Arab areas the bad news of course is that describes a third of Iraq and about half of Syria Second what we've seen with ISIS is an interesting development that I'm not sure International humanitarian law has wrapped its fingers around Substate groups can evidently commit something that at least very strongly resembles genocide and I tread very carefully here I'm not a lawyer let alone a human rights lawyer international humanitarian law lawyer But certainly what has been done to the Yazidi bears a very strong family resemblance to genocide if it is not such Likewise the Assyrians and likewise at least aspirationally if not in fact for the Iraqi Arab Shia we certainly saw this at the with the capture of the air cadets at the spiker base the Sunni cadets were given an Opportunity to renounce their errors in serving the government and let go the Shia cadets were mowed down into shallow graves And or thrown into the Euphrates So I'm not sure the I think this is important as my understanding again very limited is that you the international humanitarian law at least implicitly if not explicitly assumes that only a state has the resources to conduct genocide and Therefore all the monitoring agencies and the monitoring mechanisms are focused on states And this may highlight why we haven't heard so much about you know We do not talk about ISIS ISIL as Geno say dares, but it certainly appears that we have something that at least strongly resembles that Third soft power evidently works it is a clear in my mind at least that The rise and the success and the rise of ISIL and its ability to find followers and its ability to craft its narrative is Strongly related to the network of Gulf oil-funded Wahhabi moss that are distributed throughout the region absent this Ideological base which is not to discount the role of other factors Multiple other factors. There's no single cause and why people are joining ISIL But absent this it is hard to picture having the large-scale recruitment from across the region And as we know into the West That ISIL has enjoyed Fourth as our historians noted this morning in these conflicts And I think in the future of war the past will remain very present When focusing on ISIL past caliphates are extremely important It is no accident that the leader of ISIL has chosen the name Abu Bakr Abu-Baghdadi the name of Muhammad's father-in-law of the first caliph They are clearly looking back at at history and reflecting it at least through an ideal an idealized lens Likewise the actions of ISIL are reflected in the south through the lens in many cases through the sack in 1802 of Karbala by the Wahhabi Islamist of the first Saudi state That's very very present and when ISIL was threatening to destroy Karbala It's through that lens of the previous sack of Karbala over to two centuries ago through which it's it's understood and Likewise, this would be impossible to understand Without the understanding of what the Baath regime means to the five-sixth of Four four-fifths to five-sixth of Iraq's population that is not Sunni Arab Again coming back to to genocide the Baath party under Saddam Hussein Committed acts in the north against the Kurds and in the south against the Shia Arabs that again if they are not Genocide and I'm not an international human rights lawyer and don't want to make that claim But it certainly again bears a family resemblance To the attempt to exterminate a people or a large subset of a people And then I want to end on the note that I noted in the piece that I wrote for Peter Singer that he's been mentioning Several times earlier today that he published in defense one And that's something on the limitations of military power and the role that we've set for it and the distinction That I think we need to make between battle and war it appears to me that in the west we are setting war aims for the military that force is simply impotent to Accomplish let me give a very simple example first that I Test on my kids to make sure they understand it if I'm a platoon commander in southern Helmut I Can go to a farmer there, and I can tell him Don't grow opium poppy because if you do I'm going to destroy it And I can then come back and if I find that he's grown the opium poppy I can come back and actually destroy it And further once I destroy it I can look at him, and I can tell him if you grow this poppy again I am going to come destroy it What I cannot do is make that farmer think huh for a host of legal and moral reasons I ought not grow poppy That is something that force simply cannot accomplish And we when we take this to the very fragile weak state that we still find in Iraq We find a similar limitation We were able to remove the prior regime at an extremely low cost far far easier Than we thought we were going to do that is very much within the realm of the force And it may not be too bold a claim to state that the United States military today today could remove any Non-nuclear armed regime on the planet. We have an our ability to remove regimes what we cannot do is Set up a Parliamentary democracy and make it seem legitimate to minority portions of the population that do not enjoy the same amount of power and privilege and resources under the new democratic order that they enjoyed in the prior authoritarian regime This is a this is a realm in which force is simply impotent and it's not that it's not well Executed and it's not that people aren't trying the best they can it is simply totally beyond their kin to create legitimacy or a moral understanding or a acceptance of a legal moral norm or framework and Picking up on that if we could turn to Emma and specifically I'd also be interested in my hearing Some of your thoughts on Doug's comment that there's no single cause as to what gives Sort of the drive to the rise of an organization like ISIS and you know What are some of your thoughts on that on the origins of their rise and there are ability to learn from that in the future? So ISIS is a symptom of a problem and We need to better understand the conditions that gave rise to ISIS in The US it's very common to hear officials very senior officials say That Sonia and sheer have been fighting each other for centuries that it's all about ancient hatreds and this is just not accurate The regional sectarian war that the region is witnessing today has been triggered By the Iraq war it's an unintended consequence of the Iraq war So the Iraq war and the manner in which We left Iraq Changed the balance of power in the region and enabled the resurgence of Iran And so this geopolitical Competition the Doug mentioned between Iran and sunny states Led to them supporting extreme sectarian actors Another point that Doug made it was about the regimes in Syria and Iraq and so the discriminatory corrupt behavior of Iranian backed regimes in Baghdad and Damascus led to many Sunnis Calculating that ISIS is the lesser of two evils And we see the symbiotic relationship between corrupt elites and terrorists They need each other they feed off of each other they justify each other's existence So ISIS can only truly be defeated by Sunnis in Iraq and Syria But they're only going to turn against ISIS When they see it cannot win that there are better alternatives and That they're supported The US states that its policy is to defeat ISIS But currently US doesn't have a strategy to defeat ISIS We've gone from policy to implementation without strategy again And so US is aligned with the very regimes who helped create to ISIS US is acting as the Air Force for Iranian forces for sheer militia and So if the conditions and grievances that led to the rise of ISIS are not addressed Then this cycle is going to continue and son of ISIS will emerge in the future Great and if you want to pick up with some opening remarks as well and thoughts on the rise of ISIS So I want to discuss ISIS's success and I want to look at both military A conventional military factors and as well as social factors. I want to talk a little about theoretical and empirical When you look at Arab weakness and war people say it's two of the biggest factors are unit cohesion and tactical leadership The soldiers don't stick together when they come under battle pressure. The unit disintegrates doesn't act as a team They retreat and they're pursued by the enemy We saw this when the ISIS moves into Mosul many of the conscripts basically took off their uniforms and they just dissolved into the population One of the reasons for that is poor morale as the the Conventional forces have poor morale whereas ISIS fights for radiology This comes into the concept of what is jihad and jihad much maligned concept What my best definition of jihad is the statement of the prophet Muhammad you fight in the order that the word of Allah becomes supreme In Syrian contrast the FSA fights for more worldly pursuits Such as wealth and prestige. They're easily discouraged through defeats They're not ready for the long battle that has become the syrians of war Whereas ISIS sees it as an apocalyptic battle Would it be waited for for millennium and their weight they're patiently they can patiently wait it out Tactical leadership at the junior level is also a big problem in the Arab armies and accounts for their defeats No, they failed to demonstrate initiative flexibility adapting. There's no imagination of creativity One example of this that we see in many of the Arab-Israeli wars is once the enemy penetrates the lines The Arabs continue to fight head-on as opposed to worrying about their exposed flanks These deficiencies stem from Arab cultural Problems such as always deferring to senior officials for decisions ISIS doesn't have these problems its unique cohesion is very good because it fights for radiology It has excellent tactical leadership at the junior levels that they make decisions on the fly to more of a guerrilla organization And these Some of and some of these things have benefited them both in Iraq and in In Syria But there are more local and social factors that explain ISIS's success and control of certain reasons Here I want to focus on the city of manbij in the Aleppo province of Aleppo Unique factors were responsible for the weakening of the fsa and ISIS's ability to take it over So what happened in in manbij is the there there was no fsa Granite home drone fsa that rose up and over through the regime The regime fighters fled from manbij once the regime Once the the city of Drabus, which was farther north was attacked by the fsa So they was a precautionary measure to withdraw from from those areas So the popular local population did not feel that they had to Any gratitude or support for the fsa for liberating with them the regime also was not demonized In manbij because there was no brutal crackdown that was associated with Babilama in homes in um kaffir hazam in uh in hazam in in idlib in other areas where you see intense bombing But the fsa did a lousy job at governance. It couldn't provide services The fsa wasn't organized. They were internal in fighting about distribution of aid And then what happened is a town began being palmed just like other areas where the fsa was and the people blamed the fsa for this So the people were mad at the fsa for the bombing. They're mad at the corruption ISIS in the meantime sat on the sideline and watched as the fsa crumbled And didn't intervene in civilian affairs It gave the fsa enough rope to hang itself ISIS said it was fight stated to the civilians there were fighting the corrupt fsa So what happened is when isis attacked the fsa the fsa in manbij the jamal maruf which is uh Of the syrian revolutionary front one of the brigades that we funded in idlib gave them town missiles and whatnot until they fled He promised them aid and he never came through so people were even more mad at the fsa The more civilian aspects of Of the opposition of the assistance coordination unit under the controls to hail atas. He promised them civilian aid That didn't materialize. They were more even more alienated for them But when isis needed support it was able to draw on reinforcements abu omar al-chachani The chechen leader brought reinforcements in from der azure and with the help of some other Brigades such as a hara al-sham. He was able to cross areas such as al-maskina. They gave him free passage So we have a see an array of factors here That explained how it took our month Manbij in the city of rukka We see more of a divide and conquer strategy because in rukka you had several components You had the fsa the moderates you had a hara al-sham Which is a selafi organization and then you had isis and isis slowly moved against each one of these groups In june 2013 it kicked out al-farooq from tal abya in rukka In agris afar al-rasul what fsa unit was ejected when they bomb used a suicide bomber to blow up their headquarters And then the the rest of the fsa had to seek shelter with jabot hanusra for protection So they moved gravitated to the more radical organizations So basically what i wanted to show is in these two examples is that isis uses different strategies in different locations All depends on local factors and we we tend to demonize in The organization, but i spoke to when i wanted to find out what's going on in rukka yesterday I spoke to one of my contacts who's still in the city and he said as long as people have bread and water And services they're happy the people here are tribal They don't need all kinds of freedoms and whatnot and they're they're happy with the conservatism So isis doesn't do that in some other parts of al-apuleta control So when we look at the nuances, we see a lot of differences in how isis Attacks each area and tries to govern it and picking up on that you also recently has not have been to the region You've met with top shia clerks in iraq recently You've also met with sistani So you have a local perspective on what people in the region actually think about the conditions that gave rise to isis I was wondering You know, do you agree with the sentiments that have been expressed here? Could you give some of your thoughts bringing back what you heard from them over there as well? Thank you very much. I agree with many things That that was said Upfront I'll give you my my my thesis on this what's happening with isis and then go into this Why she has appeared to be some supportive of the counter isis efforts, especially the military means Why Many Sunnis not only in iraq but elsewhere appear to be kind of on the quieter side I would like to try to answer these two questions Building upon what was said and thank you to a new maca foundation for for organizing this outstanding conference I was the upfront point is I think without trying to exaggerate of what's happening the the age of small muslim wars if I make all that is upon us And this age of these limited small Transitional temporary Dislocated wars are linked to the idea of political economy of war The new buzzword In many arab and muslim states is you want to be a hero. It's time to become a cleric It's time to wear a turban it irrespective whether it's black white red or green That's the way to prominence. That's the way to heroism Um Why how how it is trans Transitioning in in in among this year. That's my first question Uh, I was in uh, Baghdad the day muslim was taken over When I moved from Baghdad some of my friends the former student at columbia university They actually took me towards najaf. I was I met um sisi stani and staying about I think a couple of minutes walk from his home. I saw in the evening these big processions Every 30 minutes. There was a big procession. This is june 2014. Um, and when I asked, um My host sports, this is about they said these are tribes These are tribes coming from all across the south of iraq Asking and demanding mr. Sistani that he should declare Jihad or he should declare war upon isis and should allow them to go and fight it out on tribal lines or And declare an out outright war And that's what happened And I want to jump to my next point before ending the first one what she has think because my second point will help me Explain the sheer narrative and the sheer response better. So when the isis Rose and with all the brutalities all the atrocities All the challenge to the state, um, what was the reaction of the top sunni clerics from al azar To barilvi and the oband in in south asia to other islamic centers. They condemned it They challenged it But they were quite that's where they stopped Coming back to the shears in case of sheer see mr. Sistani came a fatwa He declared jihad on isis, but declared it that The these militias or tribes or shears who were not very well organized. I mean, this was quite abrupt This was quite instantaneous. I saw it firsthand He said to them, but you will have to go and report to military headquarters different military, um forces in baghdad And work operate under their command and control I personally feel what would transpire later on that this was, um, apparently not a very well thought out decision although very proactive From our perspective in the west, um, something very categorical something very forceful But not well thought out because we know who benefited from it. Maybe unintentionally It was the iranians, um, who came in in big numbers And fought I actually I I had a chance to go to iraq four times in last one year And I saw this change in baghdad. I saw this time in december big posters in baghdad of iranian martyrs who are operating under iranian forces But now the iranians have those big posters in baghdad. So yes, the fatwa against isis work It was maybe well intentioned not well thought out because it led to the rise of iranian influence And and that has not been seen in a very positive light When I met iranian politicians two things they said to me, uh, which I just want to quote I'll I'll be um to be fair to them and to my hosts One thing they said, um, they knew i'm american but out of the pakistani roots They said well the americans couldn't find any arab They finally found a pakistani to send any message and it took me some time to explain. There's no message I have I'm a mayor academic Trying to learn something but the second point was more Forceful but they said, um, they were categorical even in About uh in july august time frame in 2014 They said we can clearly see that americans are now hand in gloves with the iranians iran they said quoting them They said americans have sublet the ira conflict theater to iranians And that's the coordination is happening and irrespective of how I challenged it and I said it's impossible I'm telling you I live in dc. It's not possible. They said no, this is what is happening Coming to my final point In case of the sunnis why they were quite and I have one more minute, uh in the sunnis Never went beyond condemning it because there was a vacuum isis never rose out of the blue It was a narrative created by al qaeda by taliban by many such groups We were maybe living in a foolish paradise thinking that what's happening in syria will not have an impact It definitely had an impact the narrative was ready. The vacuum was there. Someone just had to walk into that narrative Through of course media through talking about the umma And the last point is from both this year and sunni perspective. Uh, what is happening is a war an internal war Inspired by uh, ttp against the last book I I would like to write a book and call islam's longest war The war is an internal war and if I may inform you this is not a shea sunni war This is much beyond that. Uh, what strategy we have To challenge that it's my last sentence. Um, I must congratulate whosoever is building that strategy Um in us because they're keeping it so confidential and so That's the only thing they're keeping So I just to pick up on that I mean I sit here and I listen to all your remarks and I sit here and I listen to panels around dc and you know There's a lot of deja vu to all this working on a rock back in 040506, which is when I worked on it I mean If we weren't talking about going to mozal now There was a battle for mozal if we could be you know, november 2004 talking about going into mozal What our strategy would be in terms of informational social media Not as big of an issue then as it is now but same thing in terms of informational messaging So given that we're supposed to be drawing lessons about how to do this better Why are we still having the same conversations? And why aren't there more innovative ideas in the mix and how do we foster that type of innovative thinking? I mean there was an interesting question about the silicon valley entrepreneurship and why that can't be integrated In other areas of government, but why aren't we hearing new types of strategies new approaches in these debates and do you have any ideas on those fronts? I think it's it's it's the same people lots of people are frozen in the same time Yes, this this sounds a lot like 2006 and 2007, but it is absolutely not 2006 and 2007 We heard echoes of this earlier when we first had the sweep through you know through mozal down into tukrit There was lots of talk about well This is just an internal suni shia war and this is the sunis rising up once again against this oppressive government in bagdad And that was the narrative for about two months And then they made this inexplicable left turn towards urbil And all of a sudden that narrative didn't explain things anymore This is just an uprising against the maliki government. Why on earth are they attacking the Kurds who had made it very clear They had no intentions of moving into the air of territories. They were just guarding their own lands So why this I think this is this is showing us that we are dealing with something different You know are there aspects of this which are a suni revolt against the central government? Yes, absolutely But is that sufficient to explain this phenomenon? Absolutely not and we see that again in this letter of the you know Why slatter is it if you're mad at maliki? Why attack the Kurds if you're mad at maliki? This is something different But I think many minds are locked in 2006 and 2007 the last time many of the people talking about this were there And that I think freezes the conversation in many ways And what do you think inhibits our ability it would mean the White House just held its summit last week It actually hasn't come up in this conversation But there's been a lot of debate, you know in the press and lots of articles about You know what the strategy should be for countering this type of extremism And I was wondering if you could speak if you could give some, you know recommendations on the informational media side of the equation on the Psychological and informational side of this software power war What should we be doing both globally and in terms of the United States? And are there lessons to do it better to prevent groups like other groups from developing ISIS like strategies in the future Well the minute you embrace the cleric that A cleric has discredited in the eyes of most Muslims, I mean nobody wants to be on stage with the president of the United States It's support someone who's on the president of the United States while he's Giving presidents made in America bombs The people publish that Yeah, yeah But uh More broadly what we can do is So what happened in Islam popular religion traditionally has been associated with Sufism and mysticism. It's um Very uneducated a lot of the rural areas where they didn't have education was this was their type of Islam Salafism makes that public enemy number one. Wahhabism. That's what they talked about building big graves They destroyed the graves in the Bakiya cemetery and Medina the she cemetery other saints So that they they go they attack them from one side on the other side when you have the movement Um of rural flight into urban areas There's a crisis of identity in Arab society and what they do is they give up their Their popular religion that they were brought up on as they go through this crisis If I mean they rediscovered themselves in more urban Salafism So you have these push and pull factors that move them away from Sufism now Sufism historically is non-militant More moderate You read the ignoze goes here's book introduction Islam Law and theology was the best introduction on Islam He'll talk about that Sufism is the ultimate form of Islam and how it's compatible with everyone else Well for the policy recommendation is here is we need to support Sufi institutions We have Habib Omar in a city Tareem in Hadramout in Yemen. I visited with him many years ago He has a massive center. He brings in a lot of foreign students We need to find a way to fund Sufi institutes such as his to resurrect Sufism because Sufism has the message And the historical precedent in power to combat Salafi radicalism Great. I want to also just make sure we have time for questions, but chime in and then we'll turn to the audience Hi, Barak. I love your idea. We're having some interest in Sufism and having some claim to some association But the and in principle, I mean I absolutely appreciate your idea But what would I think in the last 10 years from the United States point of view have invested so much in this this broader idea of winning hearts and minds And so much has been invested in seeing who the partners are, but at the end of the day the partners that we picked Were not evident of any consistent policy at our hand If if meeting Sufis and supporting them is a great idea But if in the morning we are meeting a Sufi and in the evening we are meeting a thug and in We are having a dinner with an authoritarian leader Then it all of them will lose their credibility. So the policy has to be consistent even if I have to say I would argue Given the internal nature and and vibrancy of this unfortunate conflict within the Muslim world Maybe it's a little time to step away Or at least a few steps backward for some time Rather than and I have been Projecting this idea and brail be Sunnis, but it seems nothing is working in this regard. So maybe Time to recollect our thoughts rethink the strategy and step away from supporting anyone Support should be based on principles. Absolutely Groups if our value is about human rights, let's pick partners who who value human rights Anyone violating certain level of human rights Sufis, Shia, Sunnis, Ahmadis step away from If we could just leave some time for Yes, we'd like to sort of agree with Dr. Hassan on this point when you look at what's happening in the Middle East A lot of this is a power struggle. It's about power by being in bed with specific regimes That doesn't help So how can the u.s play more of a role as a balancer the balance of power in the region has been upset The u.s can't be involved in internal struggle within Sunni Islam That's something for Sunni Muslims to sort out among themselves But the u.s can play a role in trying to create a better balance of power in the region And within countries rather than supporting specific regimes Who are discriminatory towards their minorities and we see this across the gulf we see this in many different places Great and we have time for a few quick questions from the audience if you could identify yourself before your question Yes gentleman in the back Hi, i'm al gambas from the state department On that last point that panel was talking about i'm wondering While we can't have the united states get directly involved in these these internal skirmishes within the the religion Is it possible to try to inoculate the next generation with concepts that we would find More amenable to us Such as promoting the some of the principles in the universal declaration of human rights Inocating that into the the curriculum of the schools The popular the popular media the popular entertainment within these cultures So that they're more sensitized to these western values that we would And that not necessarily western because universal declaration obviously was was Adopted by every country When it was drafted except for Saudi Arabia Um But the idea that that we can use these to inoculate them to the narrative of some of these more radical elements Granted that it would be a generational thing, but is that the the best way to go? Is it the only way to go? I would support that absolutely and I would being a teacher and an academic I would argue in teaching students who come from To us at national defense university from all across the world partner nations 60 nations What I've seen is that mere interaction mere dialogue mere exposure even makes a difference. So if if if that leads to more Linkages which are educational which are more professional At at a broader level linked to institution buildings in these countries Especially if those are linked to rule of law There's no need to always have the banner of democracy Rule of law is at the core of these things if there's no rule of law There's no criminal justice system. There's no effective policing Democracy cannot be built And if we frame we need to frame the issues slightly differently pro education Pro institution building and and those interactions will will help build new generations in many of these conflict regions Which which which will be better partners? Time for one or two more quick questions because we're running low on time here Although I think we started slightly late Let's can we do two lightning questions? Then we can respond to those So are there any hands over here that I'm missing? No I let's go over there and then Right over there as well Hi, I'm louis bloom a former fellow at new america. I'm a journalist. I wonder if you all could Give your thoughts on how isis has used social media and video to project our power worldwide And how journalists might work to not republish or publish some of these materials How it's used to recruit and how governments can create a strategy to counter this Great, and then if we could just get that one more question and then The panel can Take in shoes Good afternoon. Jalal Mugani from humanized global. Thank you for organizing such a great event And thank you to the panel. I just had a question regarding how do we what are the practical? Maybe a practical recommendation and moving away from the sectarian narrative And addressing the true regional political and economic problems that are at stake with the rise of isis and extremism in the area If the panel could speak more to that. Thank you Great. So if somebody wants to take the social media question or the political economic I'll grab on to the political because I think Emma and I are going to be in violent agreement here I think we you know, this is an extremely complicated problem that has multiple layers on going on Simultaneously of micro micro level things and then you know some large some large causes But I think we do need to at least In our rhetoric acknowledge the problem the you know root problems You know, this is not oh terrorists need jobs But this is you know systematic, you know large scale unemployment of young men in the region In these authoritarian regimes almost all of which are oppressive to their minorities and in some cases majorities Is a real problem and then those are fundamental root causes Now I think I think we're out of the regime change business You know, we don't we don't want to overthrow these states the very limited stability that they provide Is still better than nothing but at least in our rhetoric I think we need to be saying look, you know, you you can cooperate with us on some issues But so long as you're an authoritarian state that represses its minorities You know provides no economic opportunity for your people. You're not an ally of ours We make you're not a friend of ours We may cooperate on some limited issues But you need to be taking steps in all these regions before you're you know on the team Anybody on the social media question that was asked So if you watch these videos and you read their Tweets, I mean, it's so sophisticated and we know what they were doing inside the prison How many videos they were making and recordings that never got published by the western hostages Their their ability and their their the isis's level of Of the use of social media against its islamic adversaries is phenomenal I mean, they're they're a small percentage of of the of the umma the islamic community But when you look at the the the their tweets I mean, they're just they just take them apart and they The thing is they don't really have good legal basis. I mean they keep quoting the same three or four scholars But they they How they attack their adversaries and how they It's like a clinton team, you know, you always attack That's what that's what they're doing and and sometimes their adversaries can't come back And how they recruit The they they bring people in from europe With the with the social media I mean, we know based on some people that have come in come in and defected The the poll that social media has and it's a it's a new thing that we never saw in afghanistan or even in iraq How how it works? I did want to make one point about the Education about what hassan said and how do you address it and not kill it? I think was the word it all about education So i've been reading this uh, this tome of fatwas saudi fatwas And knighted bed before I go to bed and there's just one section on the infidels And the questions are like and the questions are addressed like bin bas. It was the big sheikh The big moof tea we died a while ago and it's like can we go travel in the land of the infidels? Can we work there? Can we study there? And the vitriol and the hatred for us I mean how he characterizes is just so horrible I mean bin land did not come up with the word crusaders in the vacuum Bin bas is using describing us as crusaders Even when they're just as people are asking can he come can they just come visit and see the eifel tower Until you address that and and change the curriculum We're not going to change people's views Well, thank you so much. Thank you for all of your thoughts today And I appreciate having you on the panel on that not so optimistic note I'm sure there's much more we can discuss but unfortunately we're over time. So thank you everybody