 Thank you, John. You know, we can still create some room here if you guys want to grab seats. You're good. Okay well, I just want to start by thanking John and For inviting me to come here to speak about ISIS As he alluded, I've been teaching for two years at the the war college I'd be teaching the third iteration of my ISIS course. We also cover other groups like al-Shabaab and Boko Haram and And But I wanted to open it up beyond just the students and some of the opportunities that I had over here to the broader community I'm really honored to be here and presenting this My intention is to talk for about 40 minutes and open it up However, I do encourage Interruptions. I want this to be more of a dialogue and a discussion Anything you find interesting Please let you know jump in raise your hand and I will Address that What I want to start by is really give you my big takeaways and Think of that as an executive summary and then really get into kind of a Middle East overview ISIS history Strengths and weaknesses and then assess our current strategy And then in the end provide my two cents on how we could improve it and that's pretty much what we're going to cover My four takeaways are that there is no doubt that ISIS appeal is certainly increasing It's early in the stage. We've been We've activated a counter ISIS Strategy for about a year now But in that year Progress against ISIS has been slow and I'll talk more about why and and exactly how how slow But ISIS as a group and I use the word ISIS Again, this is interchangeable with ISIL Daesh The Islamic State sometimes I'll say ISIS Islamic State. The reason is most Americans know the group as ISIS DoD and the White House uses ISIL the group itself calls itself Daesh the nation and there are some other iterations as well, I will use ISIS And I will talk about those weaknesses because those are very important to exploit going forward Where they have Overpromised and under delivered where they have lost territory. We'll talk more about that Up The main reason the progress against ISIS is slow is We have yet to from the United States perspective yet to come up with a clear end state It's very difficult So I have a lot of sympathy for folks who are working on it Precisely because there's so many moving parts the last 24 hours Russia conducted 32 airstrikes ISIS Is moving forward in certain areas others is being pushed back by Kurdish forces for example Turkey was giving us some support Limited support now that support has increased this these are basically a lot of moving targets I understand that but still having an end state or having in that dialogue is very important So we don't have that right now. I believe we should really take the lead on the counterterrorism effort But as far as peacemaking grand grand bargaining political reforms Try to support that not don't make that the primary concern a we can't afford it b We don't have the resources and see we can't do it without the folks who are actually involved So this is we're talking about the countries the host nations and the and the various neighbors I'm gonna expand on that as well One of the practical Outcomes that I'd like to see is that we really work with not only just one military the Iraqi military or try to train some senior rebels But really try to consolidate all our allies Arab allies there Jordan Saudi Arabia UAE and try to create a peacemaking and keeping force and The model I'd like to use that we've done a fairly good job with is the African Union troops model In Somalia for example, and I'll talk about that. That's kind of my on-the-ground Tangible Recommendation we need that for things like border control, but also going forward stability forces Where they have a regional force that can work Notice I didn't say Arab. It has to be multi-ethnic. It has to be other groups and other and countries across the Middle East If you look at the Middle East today And this is actually a central command map, but the greater Middle East here. You've got parts of South Asia as well You see a lot of moving targets and a lot of complexity You've got NATO up working through Turkey and many of our NATO allies Netherlands Germany UK Got ISIS in Syria Isis expanding through affiliates in South Asia specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan You've got ISIS in Libya Where training rebels will talk more about the complexities and challenges of that in Syria Isis also in Egypt. They've developed all these different partnerships with local groups Yemen Attacks inside Saudi Arabia that have been traced back to Isis But other groups as well. Let's not forget the Al Qaeda franchises Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula There is a new regime in Saudi Arabia a new king a new cabinet. So a lot of things are changing there as well There's a major civil war going on in Yemen Which is also a regional war a sectarian war Iran and Saudi Arabia are supporting their respective sects The Sunnis are supported by Saudi Arabia. The Shia Houthis are supported by Iran and then you got President Putin Who surprised everybody in the last 48 hours, he's jumped in pretty strongly and their Major issues with US-Russia relations. We have issues on Ukraine and now we are in some ways a Dumbfounded by what the Russians are doing in Syria. We're not sure if that's going to help or hurt We just cut a deal with the Iranians time will tell how successful that will be On balance is supposed to stop or put on hold the Iranian nuclear program. This is all happening in the same area I'm not even I haven't even moved beyond this map and you can only imagine How difficult it is to operate? That's why I said you have a lot of sympathy for folks who are involved in Drafting and executing policy here India and Pakistan combined have 220 nukes just a couple of days ago. They had major skirmishes on their border They're always a few skirmishes away from Mobilizing troops on their borders and that always makes us nervous. It happened in 2008 after the Mumbai attacks It happened in 2001 and 2002 after Another terrorist attack We are very concerned about that and there are some really shady characters there as well. You have al-Qaeda central in Pakistan you have the Haqqani network you have groups like large-grade they but They really concern us. They are a direct threat to American homeland That's the Middle East today Let's zoom into ISIS and kind of the origins and the character that really comes to life in this story is Zarkawi who had a very fundamentally different view from how to Spread his message of creating a caliphate of Creating a terrorist organization that would have mass appeal Ideological appeal, but also be able to garner a lot of funds recruits and not only just kick out the infidels from the Middle East or become like a vanguard organization like al-Qaeda inspired But go way beyond that but actually start at home You know clean at home big proponent of Getting rid of what he called the impure and the worst of the worst and he was not talking about Americans or their backers. He was talking about Shia Muslims He starts early develops a relationship with al-Qaeda in the beginning al-Qaeda is not too comfortable giving him the franchise card He applies they eventually give up he's Fights with al-Qaeda Obviously loses runs to Iran then kind of transitions into Jordan Doesn't Conducts a couple of operations against the Jordanian government Early 2000s after 9 11 not very successful comes back to Iraq as we go in sees an opportunity To start a civil war that would not only kick out the Americans But we'd be able to cleanse Iraq as in Be able to get rid of the majority which were the Shia he goes through different iterations and He's killed in 2006 at a time when Al-Qaeda in Iraq is the official franchise. That's what he's leading They've all al-Qaeda and what would become ISIS have already developed differences I will talk in detail about exactly how ISIS is different from al-Qaeda but the bottom line is they they believe in fundamental different end states and Fundamentally different means to get to those end states He strongly believed in Entry Islamic war as in Sunni versus Shia. That's where you begin and Taking territory not just using it not just conducting massive casualty terrorist attacks a broad but inspiring lone wolves Focusing on the country that he's based in Iraq Focusing on demoralizing the Iraqi army Playing on the divisions ethnic divisions that were already existing in Iraq It does fairly well even after he's killed he's left behind a legacy and in stuff enough Institutional knowledge that the group goes on They're able to develop their own funding sources and As they do that they become more and more independent and they're able to say no to al-Qaeda central when al-Qaeda central gets very nervous About them going after Shia Qaeda says why don't you focus on the American troops and the American backed Iraqi army? instead Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which would become ISIS continues to focus a lot on the sectarian war what Hurts al-Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually do declare as themselves a State Islamic State the first declaration was in 2006 is the Sunni awakening and Simply put it is an experiment that we do we help create by working with Sunni tribes At a time when Sunnis themselves are sick and tired of al-Qaeda in Iraq They are sick and tired of al-Qaeda in Iraq because It's a puritanical organization that has a vetting process that would pretty much Consider almost every Muslim a non-Muslim. It was very difficult to Fulfill the requirements that a qi had so they would go after Shia Then they would go after liberal Sunnis and they'll go out as Sunnis that were more traditional Then they would have subsects and before you know it. They are killing their own They're not their suicide bombing By definition is not precise, but it becomes even worse when they don't care at all and they start bombing Not only Shia Mosque, but also Sunni Mosque At that time we put in a lot of troops We support the Sunni tribes which would later become sons of Iraq the Sunni awakening and most importantly We put pressure on Baghdad and we tell them that you have to have a more equitable distribution of political power between the Kurds and the Sunnis and Shias and the Sunnis that were a minority that were in charge of The country under Saddam Hussein and now already all of a sudden find themselves completely out of power so the by 2007 The civil wars coming towards the end the US and allies Encourage political reforms and make sure they're sustained again in other words. There is more of an equitable Distribution of political power. There's a there's discussions on sharing oil revenues that convinces the minority Sunnis and many of the Sunni tribes to help us and Baghdad 2011 we leave but before that we We have Relative success. We're able to push back a qi from many of these areas working with those Sunni tribes and This in these maps you can see in December 2006 2008 those in the back red means bad so The red has decreased and those are the areas where a qi had strong presence where they were conducting attacks where they did Have local support those things start to change now remember. It's not just Sunnis coming out because they're sick and tired. They also came many of those fighters Were transferred to the payroll of the Ministry of Interior in other words that those are actual formalized militias And they were guaranteed money. They were guaranteed a pension system They were guaranteed a stake the Sunni officers who did really well under our mentorship many of our advisors that work under They were promised that when the promote time for promotion will come that their Sect will not be an issue that they will be able to get promoted that they'll be able to get all the jobs that they want As long as they had the merit All those things slowly start to change as we get out surprise surprise remember Look at it from the shias perspective a majority Suppressed for decades now all of a sudden again through democratic means comes to power Hates the Sunnis for what they did a civil war has already going on It has temporarily stopped. We pulled the troops the US and Iraq are unable to come up with a Agreement for US troops to state Status of forces agreement for example At that time Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq Now we have more evidence and more analysis on it had already has had already had a close relationship with Iran That wanted us out to begin with and the Iranians were willing to support him not only Financially and by providing training and now actual troops, but at that time also his extremely repressive Political tactics against the Sunnis So we're gone the Iranians are backing him. He's the majority So yeah, a bunch of guys in the beginning Get out and they complain about losing jobs you can see images of very peaceful Sunnis coming out in very peaceful way and complaining about Not getting their civil liberties political rights or jobs that were promised sons of Iraq all of a sudden no income AQI which would later become ISIS takes full advantage of it. They've They're down, but not out. They start to work on Mosul Mosul has a very interesting dynamic at that time again You don't have to find many reasons to go to war in Iraq Many of these cities and regions have groups that don't get along all you have to do is instigate that difference It's not hard when you're already just in franchise Sunnis edition franchised You see other cleavages that you can exploit and that's what they start. That's where they start So when people say they took over Mosul in 24 hours, it was a three-year long campaign and it really starts with entering And really showing the nice face before you show your bad face in other words You work with the communities you try to explore the cleavages that are there You remind them of how terrible Baghdad is and then you build that resentment the grievances And when people get out of line, that's where you become very hard and you'll see that later on as well So needs continue to be disenfranchised Another opening happens as we are leaving is that there is a there's the hour of spring or some would call it the hour of winter and You basically see these On the surface unplanned form of Evolution sprouting out of Tunisia where people start coming out interior square and demanding change and no longer wanting Autocrats or military dictators or even monarchies Some countries fair what do well by bribing their citizens like Saudi Arabia or Others that don't do too well and Mubarak goes away Tunisia is the success story relative success story because you had in Egypt For example the dictatorship came back But in Tunisia there's been a democratic process Syria the same thing happened People got together President Assad Didn't want any of it and in the beginning stayed quiet and they were all peaceful. There was no al-Qaeda There was frankly very few cleavages at that time a lot of young folks Wanted change and difference and they are we're building on what was happening in their neighborhood that we could also get rid of Assad Remember Assad is on the part of the Alawite minority community. Okay, he also rules like a king So now you have these people coming out and saying we want a difference. We want democracy. We want more representation his dad was notorious for Killing his opposition in a massive way And in the past in the 80s, that's what he did he bombed the hell out of villages and and so Assad said I'm gonna do the same We We were in a very precarious situation because the United States was encouraging this change But did but in the beginning but then got very nervous about who's going to replace these guys And then we also had security concerns. So we had a close relationship with the Egyptian military that we've developed for the last Six decades we had to balance that with a legitimate concern for democracy So our interest and values clash surprise surprise happens all the time With with Syria we thought that Assad would go away fairly soon Minority sect small city on the shore People will rise up the neighborhood all these other groups will probably join in he'll be gone he's still around and the reason He was able to do that is because if you look at how civil wars have ended In the last 60 years if you look at the empirical evidence a lot of research has been done on this Then one of the best ways to end civil wars is a quick quick swift military Victory if you can't anything short of that and the two parties believe that they can't lose They'll continue to fight one of the ways they can continue to fight is because they ask for help from outside So other countries start to get in a Yemen is a very good example who these have their backing From Iran and the Sunni government that was kicked out has the backing from Saudi Arabia One of the ways that external powers can help like the United States in these civil wars is To encourage a great bargain and but it has to happen at a time when both parties feel that Bargain is better than continuing to fight You didn't see that there. In fact, that's the time when al-Qaeda in Iraq, which will later become ISIS moves to Syria It takes full advantage in the beginning They're not very well welcomed and al-Nusrah, which is al-Qaeda's actual affiliate in Syria is The dominant group so when ISIS comes to to Syria nobody really takes it very seriously Free Syrian armies there several of the groups are there. I said that a very good job of Exploiting the situation Create make sure that it fund raises It's able to garner a lot of funds and is able to strip a lot of people from these other groups and consolidate remember their strategy is always taking territory and then Establishing themselves as an actual state two specific things that they did in 2012 and then 13 They're focused on freeing prisoners. This is not just somebody thinking about this overnight This is an actual strategy that they thought about is to get some of the best guys that are in prison Remember some of them are former Bates. Some of them are former Iraqi Intel Rocky special forces Iraqi army guys and They're able to free a lot of these guys others that are outside. They're able to induce them by giving them money and some ideological attraction and The second thing to do is to make sure that the Iraqi Army in Mosul this is before they take over is that they hit the morale by constantly instigating an anti Baghdad sentiment so you already had citizens for example after Mosul was taken over by Isis You had regular citizens throwing stones at the Iraqis as they were running away Two divisions running away mind you some without uniform Some with some uniform and left all their equipment These were the two main areas that they focused on Soon Isis is able to dominate the civil war again Consolidation being able to grab as many of the supporters Now remember everybody hates Assad at this time including us and we've started a covert Operation to support anti Assad forces Saudi Arabia is doing the same UAE is doing the same Turkey is doing the same Those weapons are ending up somewhere. They're ending up with Isis eventually So the groups that a lot of these countries including ourselves were sporting That's why you see so much reluctance. That's why you see When General Austin and others have testified why screening is so difficult and slow because we don't know How much of the weapons will be transferred to the bad guys So a lot of this goes to them so that again this is again Another way that Isis is becoming stronger Eventually Isis and Al Qaeda have serious Differences and Al Qaeda Isis says goodbye Does not recognize Al Nusrah as Al Qaeda's official arm in fact targets Al Nusrah and Officially launches the Cal Fade in June of 2014 Dramatically takes over Mosul, but like I said, it was a three-year campaign In Syria it starts in August 2012 starts to build up by March 2013 it has major areas where it's operating and More recently in these there have been some setbacks and Isis has lost territory. No doubt about it Kobani In Syria to Crete in Iraq, however generally speaking the trend line is that it is progressing so the strategy is Not just 35,000 troops and a lot of foreign fighters well-played battle-ridden and have Sophisticated weapons most of them ours if you look at their videos It's our humwees and our weapons that they have captured which we give to the Iraqis and the Iraqis handed to them They do mass casualty attacks. Well, they also specifically talking the Shia But they also really work hard on demoralizing the Iraqi military and the Syrian military Mosul and Ramadi are good case studies where you can see that Isis has taken full advantage of weak governance But it's also Applied other tactics like extortion kidnapping. So it's it's the good and the bad that they bring they look at an area and A region where they see a minority group or a majority group in that area that feels disenfranchised from the central government Promises them something better or frankly if they're weak enough just take them take over that territory and Then institute their form of governance within the short term some things get done frankly Objectively speaking they get certain things done picking up garbage. They're subsidized bread right away I I emphasize that because that goes a long way in these areas. They'll subsidize food They will implement a very very brutal form of swift justice if you're happy with it It was fast if not on the other side, you're going to be in trouble, but bottom line is gets done They've got a lot of foreign fighters coming in and they've hired some of the best like I said former Iraqi special forces Intel guys you can see some of their videos some of the literature that has come out some of the best planning That's gone in very professional some of the guys frankly that we either interrogated or actually trained Oil it's always good to have that It's always good to have an area where you can exploit the criminal syndicates where you can smuggle where you can Kidnap extort receive charity fund rates life under ISIS Some of the some of the services are fast and efficient Some of the service that have been done Some of the tribal disputes for example and again ISIS is smart So they'll go into areas and try to start by showing their nice face They do fairly well with municipal Policing for example basic things like traffic control Garbage pickup a lot of these things in Raqqa for example is is the capital there of the Islamic State you can you can look at that Court system is fairly fast Education is questionable obviously and disturbing They have these aid-based services Food aid postal services they've developed some form for currency they have a credit bureau exploitations anti-exploitation system They a good case study is really to look at Mosul how they were able to actually take over there were multiple suicide attacks on All on different directions from different directions when they came into Mosul which At the very beginning that not only were they able to establish surprise But the Iraqi army split thinking that they were coming from one direction when in actuality that that whole thing was deception Some minority protection, but you know we all have heard about the Yazidi sex slaves They have instituted slavery now. It's very disturbing But they they had a they have magazines and forums where they have this discussion They they had a PR van where they had a question and answer of why Why they legalized slavery and why it was good for the state? And that kind of brings me to probably one of their greatest strengths, which is their communication strategy When it comes to getting their message out there and recruitment social media, we've all heard of radio messaging pamphlets Also traditional things like spreading the messages through their network of mosques and They have certainly spread They've established themselves in Libya, Egypt all the way in Afghanistan They're kind of interior ring the narrow broad and the far ring and also inspired attacks All over all over the world basically, but certainly Europe Australia and and within the Middle East The strengths are really the three a's the approach the appeal and the actions. What do they do? The best way to explain this is to contrast Isis with al-Qaeda So al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda if you look at all their literature And correspondence from UBL to his deputies You see a general theme, which is that we are preparing the groundwork That would allow us to eventually declare a state, but that is way way out there in the future Right now we need to get some very pragmatic things out of the way Which is get all US or Western forces out of the Middle East holy land and when they're out second and sometimes in Parallel kick out and Get rid of all local leaders that are pro-western or supported by the West specifically The United States cal fate leader end of days is a general theme in both Organizations, but for al-Qaeda it was the groundwork before the end of days is More important and it will take a long time before the end of days come like other Judeo-Christian religions there is a lot of Religious ideology behind that of whatever the sacred Texts of these religions talk about what when and how end of days will come the different prophecies and For al-Qaeda it was an academic question something you want to think about But it's far away focus on killing Americans and Westerns That should be the focus Everybody else cut a deal and the whole narrative was about victimhood remember The US came took over the holy lands. We lost the wars to Israel Nobody cares about the plight of the Muslims and that's the narrative just look at the last 30 years You know it's a lot of victimhood A lot of lecturing from a lot of old guys if you look at some of their literature very outdated very baby boomer like Not very technologically savvy Inspiring young people but not nearly as ISIS and I'll tell you why so a lot of lecturing You use territory and preferably mountains and places you can just hide You don't you don't govern territory. That's stupid. You make yourself obvious, right? If ISIS has a traffic cop, I can see him No, you got a completely blend in you're the fish in the pond And you use that territory you use medical services you recruit you do the job, you know monkey bars once in a while you make a video that's about and You use it you don't take over you don't like create a government and What you need to focus on our big projects, you know the 9-11's the mini 9-11's Something dramatic keep the movement alive. That's how the money comes in recruits come in story goes on, you know Where the rebels and the evil Empire? And once in a while the rebels will attack and people love lose Skywalker. So that's kind of the general story and have spectacular attacks But have few of them they have to be very spectacular in other words US is cool and others that I talked about Isis different Caliphate now Fundamental difference in the end goal This is our country the country that's going to turn into a state. This is the Islamic state. We've created it We're gonna run it and We're gonna use this territory. We're gonna take it not just use it, but take it And End of days isn't coming close We're doing this to prepare ourselves for the great battle the great crusade But it has to start with Shia first as in fellow Muslims before anything else Hey, they're easily available They're right there most if you look at all the suicide bombings, you know, nine eighty to ninety percent of them Muslim victims And that will galvanize The the brutality and be able to attract people and then of course we will focus They say we will focus on on the US and we would like the US to actually come there because it's always good to have Troops on your own territory to fight them rather than to conduct very very difficult operations against American homeland They believe in victory Screw the victim hood all those boring stories about Now we have a piece of land that is the size of United Kingdom. We've got our own traffic police and our own currency and our own Passport and we we own it. We have our this is our territory We live the way we want to live and we've taken over two countries. We have great partnerships It's victory. Look at their videos. They have 4k video now coming out They had they they had a video and they took over Mosul and Ramadi that they took from a drone And you should just look watch the video. It's like a Hollywood trailer Act we act we don't just lecture something has to happen something will happen wait for God. No Act you can do it now You want a lipo? There's a plan for it You want Mosul you want Ramadi you want most of Anbar. There's a plan for it Rocky military has serious problems. Let's exploit them Rock as a whole has serious problems. Let's exploit them They act they take territory Don't just use it They have a military campaign you look at their military campaign very sophisticated They were able to hire like I said some of the best consultants Many of their guys Are former Iraqi military. They have an actual campaign Not just like a three or four IEDs five suicide bomb. No, what what about the day after what do we do? No, we got to go in and I'll tell you a little bit about how they walked into Mosul and the kind of public announcements that day They came out with a strategic plan that they implemented. They created small municipal departments, you know from garbage collection to post You know mail postal mail as far as Loan wolves and other attacks. Yeah, we're going to spend some time Thinking about the next 9-11, but that's not going to be our focus focus is really going to be consolidation And then we'll let the lone wolves in Europe Australia And even the United States Do these smaller attacks and that's good enough that keeps us alive But what really keeps us going is that we have a state So those of you in the back, that's the Islamic State and that little guy is al-Qaeda and he says step aside boy Yes So how do you how do the al-Qaeda affiliates say a qi am a qap? How do they then reconcile such fundamental differences yet still pledge allegiance to ISIS? so No, not a single group the main groups have pledged dual Legiances al-Shabaab is al-Qaeda Boko Haram is ISIS And they have so you don't have one group that is is saying that al-Qaeda and ISIS are both Remember, there's also a fundamental problem leadership Baghdadi versus Zabahiri So and not only do they don't like each other you can't you know, no group is saying that either one of them Is the commander of the faithful that can only be one so Both are trying to appeal right now. ISIS is doing a much better job It's been able to strip away a lot of allies from al-Qaeda including funding sources So they're in a the al-Qaeda is in a real pickle. They tried to start a new organization in India That hasn't really done too well They tried to reach out they send amissaries to Boko Haram before they signed of the contract with ISIS Trying to lower them away. They did the same thing with the Egyptian group and the Egyptian group went with ISIS Again remember ISIS is bringing a bag of goodies trainers recruitment the latest just the latest strategic communication gear I mean if you look at Boko Haram videos before and after ISIS it'll just tell you just that has been great And so they will bring these things to these guys and most and right now they're winning pretty well Al-Qaeda does not want to fight fellow Muslims does not want to kill she has it has a different perspective anger movement Caliphate later Apocalypse later Focus on these illegitimate regimes and going after American troops very different perspective from from from ISIS Again actual jihad action over rhetoric ISIS roadmap Vote you got to start with intro Islam inside Islam clean house and then the rest secondary You want to you definitely want to? weaken already extremely weak Iraqi and Syrian institutions and militaries Every time they win that demoralizes the military on the other side Execute highly visible terrorist attacks and message your friends and foes The FB former FBI director called it this new form of outside called crowdsource terrorism where they able to Inspire attacks lone wolf attacks by sending out a message and hoping enough people would say yes And all all you need is is a very small number of people and and and Continue to expand and if you can expand you certainly want to consolidate and that's kind of where they are There is there's a kind of a strategic stalemate right now with with the ISIS ISIS doing fairly well, and we'll talk about exactly why that is What would work? What would really help the movement right now if we were to in their perspective? They would really want us troops on the ground and that galvanizes the people local people That certainly provides more targeted targets. It's easier to attack if now The argument can go both ways too because if you just airstrikes are not enough either. So what do you do? It's a very very complicated situation these are some of the Attacks they have done and then also areas they've taken over foreign fighters Yes Just go back for a second and clear up in the history of ISIS in the very their very genesis Is all our here he tried to get money from Al Qaeda and failed Where was their initial bankroll to become this? Effectively superpower in their territory Where did it generate from what where did it come from initially? I know where to come from now? Yeah No, so Zawa here. He did get the initial money, but it was not to start a new organization in 2001 he went he was very fixated on Jordan then moves to Iraq and And it has taken a long time. It's been about eight nine years to be here So this money wasn't just given to them The recent flow of the last two years a lot of that has come from oil smuggling and actually taking over banks A lot of these cities had banks with with actual currency that they were able to take over then they They have extortion they have taxation they They're really in tune with the black market And the US Treasury Department is working very hard on on stemming some of that flow And so that's why we've been able to attack some of the oil refinery. So now that The oil that they're able to export is less refined. That means the value goes down So we have had some success in taking some of their funding away But they just did really well and when they did that when they consolidated a lot of these other groups They brought money with them as well Going back to their initial operation was to free a lot of the military consultants from prison and so on and put them on salary Where did those initial funds come from? So best of your knowledge some some of this you have to remember that the bar is very low I mean these guys were talking about a hundred bucks a month 200 bucks a month and so These guys especially the former sons of Iraq who were on payroll and kicked out and then completely I mean these guys are desperate as well also remember that The some of the most valuable people are worth all the money So they were making some very smart decision on who to provide support When they would go into these areas and free these prisoners chances are they've already taken over part of the city and a bank was Part of that deal Foreign fighters Increasing I'm gonna try to wrap this up. I do definitely want this to be more of a discussion because there are some areas Americans going to ISIS or joining on so that number has increased on these numbers come directly from the Armed Services Committee And Department of Homeland has just conducted a new investigation and they made this report public a Lot of these guys are coming from the Middle East, but they are significant numbers coming from UK 700 250 from the US and over over 1500 from France Now remember those guys have passports that don't need an American visa There's also a refugee crisis, which is a terrible humanitarian crisis. We will be taking an 80 85,000 this year next year. We're going to be taking 100,000 screening is very important to make sure that that our economy can handle it, but also that That the safety of the United States taken care of so we there's a lot going on over there as well But I just wanted to give you a general idea where this number has definitely gone up to 25,000 this year Yeah, would that number include women like American women traveling Syrian? Yes Fewer, but the ones who are part of it. Yeah, they've studied them. Look again This number is very low compared to some of our allies, but the number has increased in the last 12 months Why one of the reasons is this PR campaign that do really well They use social media for recruitment. Remember, they're trying to make you feel that their life sucks and life with them is better That's one message They're also targeting people with very low self-esteem sometimes very strong ideological Leanings and other time just feet people who don't fit in if you look at gang mentality Let's get out of the ISIS for a second and you look at some of the Bloods for example in Crips in in California a lot of good work has been done on on the police Policing site in the US and you look at these case study. You can see the kind of people that usually come in if the gang mentality is there It's it's a sense of purpose. It's a sense that your life means something It's also incentives money. Sometimes you you're guaranteed things like like a wife A house that will be provided for you If you felt that you didn't belong anywhere else when all of a sudden you'll have your own state And you should look at that some of the pamphlets and recruitment that they do and then they help you Throughout the process. Hey, you've got an American Passport come to Turkey Turkish Intel will ask you this just walk down here a car will come pick us up from there They're using all kinds of encryption on forums things like that So if you follow the trail, you can see it's a very sophisticated System that makes you feel really good now, of course, they're defectors, right? The buyers remorse guys who get out or women who get out like wow, this is not what I wanted This is definitely not what I need Also, they're think about religious cults inside the US. They use the same kind of mentality as well They work very closely with keeping the morale up you can see some of their Strategic communication that's really targeted towards making sure that people are well rested that they have a vacation package that they have some kind of pension system That they constantly Help them feel that they are part of a state even though it might be all you know hogwash They work on governance. There's a hierarchy. There's a system and They're really focused on military campaigns They they market the hell out of it when they take over these area that helps them a lot They they make videos out of them and then they show them in These cinemas that they built up pretty much in the middle of the city by using a projector And they'll have like a nice little family picnic and then they'll put a big video on of how great we're doing That helps with recruitment they'll they're doing some I saw a video where they lined up a lot of Europeans And I think there was one American in a very dramatic way They all take their passports out them burn them and then they laugh and they dance and then they sing and then We finally made it to the promised land of it. They do all kinds of things But there are also a lot of weaknesses it's no country for all men and What happens is after a while if you don't make the cut and it's always hard if you're a puritanic regime and You think yes, how easy So how easy is it to defect and given the idea that you have Passports you said and Postal system How does that work international in the passport? I would imagine is not accepted many places So it's not much use. Yes, you can't exactly go to your vacation. Yes, Miami, you know Absolutely, yeah No many times many times There will most of the defections have happened if they've been able to cross the border into Turkey and They will just lie about going somewhere and then just defect But it's very difficult especially for women because they're closely watched now in the beginning We had an issue we had at on time over a thousand UK citizens some of them wanted to defect there was The the MI 6 and MI 5 was worked very closely to create a de-radicalization Program that would allow UK citizens that went to ISIS now have second thoughts that they can still come back home And many of them have been able to come back in the US We've had and I talked a lot about that We were also working on a system to encourage people that to come back but to go through a de-radicalization Program and the Brits have been doing it for way longer because they've had this problem There's a very heavy price of utopia you over promise and you have eventually under deliver because they are under a lot of pressure They've been over 7,000 airstrikes since we started airstrikes against them Every time they say that they are indestructible they also Make themselves vulnerable to the fact on the ground when they lose territory. How do they explain that? And so this is very difficult for them and and that's something they're still toying with a lot of religious scholars who've actually studied the original caliphates and looked at Islamic jurisprudence have come out against them by saying that what you're doing is as a bunch of baloney. None of this has actual Theological backing so now they have to to fight on that front too And they don't do too well when they take the texts out of context and things of that nature So there's a real struggle going on trying for legitimacy Beyond the areas that they control It is probably the first time in the Middle East the Israelis the Iranians The Saudis and the US are on the same page when it comes to ISIS and Russians So that is not a good thing. That's not a good thing Not that got a good thing for them So this is one of their weaknesses that they've they've pissed off a lot of people that didn't really like each other for a long time And then defections they have been defections. They've come back. They've shared very interesting intelligence about how the Islamic State works what some of the vulnerabilities are the current strategy of the White House Really comes down to about nine lines of effort and about five working groups, and I just want to quickly look into that I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little bit over it seems It's hard it's hard to cover this topic, right? I mean so The the first is supporting effective governance in Iraq We've done some good Maliki's gone. Heathery's here. He is working on bringing the shea You know making sure she and Sunni get along better He is Making sure that it's more of a pluralistic Governance system more fair. We're not doing too well with ISIL safe heaven Most of the territory they still have with a few exceptions We are building partner capacity, but when it comes to the Syrian rebels, it's embarrassingly low When it comes to the Iraqis, they still have to test to create was was was a C Enhancing intelligence. This is a serious issue. You must have heard about the Intel Analyst of Sencom that have come out and said that our bosses are changing our assessments that it's not as rosy as we as they think it is State Department yesterday said that we have stopped using Sencom analysis They've shifted away, and they've actually it was in a very public way that they did that. So this is very disturbing Disrupting ISIL's finances. We're doing a better job on that. It's the Treasury Department is working closely The true nature, this is the counter narrative again, we're struggling with that How to not how to convince folks to to show kind of the grim face The flow of foreign fighters again not doing very well on that Protecting the homeland so far fairly good We've got a FBI that has at least 20 30 years of experience on that They've been working very closely with local community since 9 11 So we have a very good system within the United States, but we still have to work harder on it humanitarian support Again not doing as as much as we could again. That's also debatable on The working groups military efforts by the way the working group is is is headed by General Allen Unfortunately, he has said that he will be resigning in December some have said he's frustrated Because he doesn't have the resources. He's kind of the the civilian point man out there Who's handling bigger anti-ISIS operations working with our allies military efforts? Not so well stopping the flow of foreign fighting. It's not so well at all better. I guess from a few months ago, but generally under resource counter finance efforts better working with Italy and Saudi Arabia stabilization efforts kind of very general things but Counter messaging again very a big problem there as well. So with a few exceptions not too well Not too well But there have been some successes and we have those are facts and we have to mention them You know seven thousand airstrikes. We spent about three four and five billion We've trained about ten thousand Iraqi troops two thousand specifically focused on counter-terrorism 125 senior rebels. Yes, I know the ones were actually fighting according to General Astana only four or five and that is very very disturbing, but still We we helped Iraqi army take back Citizens that have been charged and ten have been arrested this year. So there's been some aggressive moves in the United States It's always hard in this situation where our money could easily end up with the wrong guys These major issues with Problems with intelligence again, Sencom analyst. Yes Yes, we'd appear that their religion is one of the major problems, you know, they kill each other and Is have you ever worked in that direction to maybe get those guys together the for us as in finding a Each other. Yes that that's always when we work closely with the Iraqi government That's what we're trying to do is to the State Department and Department of Defense starting to encourage them to Get along frankly When it and that's that's that's that's been a project It's hard to do that when you have very few troops and you've moved away all the resources that were available at one point So it's very difficult to do it But that that's definitely part of the strategy is just at this moment not yielding positive results because it just doesn't have that kind of effect Yes Yeah, yeah Yeah, like I said general Allen is resigning and you know This is problematic because news stories are coming out that that he is not happy with the White House And that's not good But but the Russians are tricky We just got some information in the open source media that they did indeed target the al-Nusra front Which is al-Qaeda's affiliate, but close to the al-Nusra front were some of the What's broadly known as a free Syrian army. They also attacked Folks that are going after Assad Russia has made it very clear that they want president Assad to stay in power and That is a problem for us Because while we don't want him gone before we do anything which was our old stand the red lines we let him cross Now we want it in peril. That's what Secretary Ash Carter said in parallel Bring about change in the government in other words Assad needs to go and continue to put pressure on ISIS The Russian influence right now is all up in the air We can't tell the net the net result is unclear at the moment. It's fairly new They have in-house IR what is it IRB iron-iron and and I they didn't they didn't specify This was a completely public forum where they they showed their frustration. Yes Sir We all talk about the Charleston You know being kicked out but the one thing that I think that we haven't gotten the infant for the last ten years is Okay, who do we put in place? Or who do we want in place when he's gone and I've never ever ever heard that and then Are there any moderate militias that we would back? For a government in Syria as they stand right now The second question. No, there's not a single one frankly. There's not even a single one even if That that is that can work with us is strong enough If ISIS would turn tomorrow, we would grab it right away. It's the most effective force Everyone else we've worked with this is an actual quote We've trained 125 currently fighting. We're talking four or five general Lloyd Austin commander us central command That's just happened. This is the reality of the situation But you're absolutely right one of the reasons why we are reluctant to go after Assad aggressively is because we don't know Who will replace him? Exactly so what we're working on is a hybrid and I'll talk I'll talk a little bit about is a hybrid where He stays in power for a little bit and we encourage a transition So we are actually moved away from our stand of going after Assad and we're hoping that it will be it will be slower It will be imperfect, but we'll be better than leaving the vacuum But you know again, I can I can make these slides available this I can skip this part But this is basically the State Department's Public diplomacy public affairs Secretary talking about how difficult it is to have a counter narrative He says the UAE is reticent the Brits are over-eager and the working group structure is confusing when we convene meetings with our counterparts I'm certain we all heard about various initiatives for the first time this memo is from June of this year Again, I can make this available The good the good really is that we pushed back ISIS on some of these issue part. The bad is Is that it's still control of Mosul Ramadi Regional partners are reluctant to act decisively and the ugly is when all of this spills over and I'm I'm I'm very concerned about Lebanon Jordan, Algeria I'm very concerned about it civil wars usually spill over civil wars can also Become much worse when others join in think of Yemen think of Libya right now When you look at the alternatives and in some ways this is great because you have a presidential race going on So you have the Republicans and Democrats coming up with their own different plans Some have really said go big and back to the future. These are the guys who want you know search part to Take all those guys. It's a small minority because Americans don't have the appetite for another hundred and fifty thousand troops That would be deployed let alone 20 or even 10,000 Then you have Folks who are looking at a rock first Syria later. Yes What do you mean the Brits are over-eager was that me they want results quicker What does it mean it My interpretation of what he wrote is that they certainly would want results early than later and they are Much more people don't want it The other people that we are working with is difficult We have issues within the US government where DOS and do DOD is not talking to each other And then we have issues with our Arab allies that have different Agendas and sometimes extremely slow in reacting If I said we're eliminated would that solve the problem? No, it will not Then you have okay rock first Syria later Fix the rock first. That's where we got that's what we are experiences. That's where an actual army exists Forget Syria. There's a civil war going on. It's very sad. They'll kill each other and we'll just go after the remnants I says now Assad later go after I says Assad can just stick around and then he'll just die his own death That's another one create safe zones portray us Clinton and then most recently bill Clinton talked about it Create a little safe zone build on that in that safe zone very close to Kobani train Syrian rebels Train them as in train the trainer. Don't just train a bunch of them Just train a few of them then send them out let them create the little companies And then we can then continue to expand in these safe zones babysit for decades. This is literally Not only bringing a lot of truths, but staying there forever as the constant referee Nobody has appetite for that one. Let the neighbors clean their mess Def I I think there's some truth to that Encouraging more of the our allies to work together so they can help us let Russia clean the mess In fact, I think was it it was Donald Trump who recently said that Let let Europe clean the mess right let let let them clean the mess Anyways, I in my humble opinion I think we should definitely take the lead on counterterrorism But everything else I kind of group it together as peacemaking and keeping and for that I think the only thing we can do is support so encourage these countries to have an internal dialogue about Political reform. How are they going to share resources and political power? That's what really comes down to it You have to feel like an Iraqi You can't feel like you are part of small little areas And you have nothing to do with the government and the only way they can feel Ownership is if they if they have the feeling that they're going to get somewhere with that ownership And you don't have that in Iraq. You don't have that in Syria. You don't have that in Libya You don't have that in Yemen in order to do that. We need to support that Reduce the clear and present danger on the US homeland definitely take the lead on that Everything else support it And then one other thing that I would really like on our kind of pragmatic way is to Work on the model of the African Union troops We've done amazing things with that these guys in Somalia and other places in North Africa Where a local Middle Eastern force then takes over some of these responsibilities from border patrolling To stabilization force And then mitigation of many of the civil wars and you could kind of see that on the map where I And troop numbers and things yes looking at what you had up there for a goal as well as you know So the previous slide we're talked about the different options. What is ISIS or ISIL's actual? Aspirations against the United States. What is our threat from ISIS which in order really should dictate what? You know avenues we're going to use to go against that the threat to homeland Is certainly there but it's second to our interest in the Middle East with really key focuses on not only the safety of our allies, but more importantly oil and it threatens all The the the countries that are not only allies, but also producing oil So Iraq and Libya are suffering massively Libya lost 90 as down to 93 percent Down from its heyday of three three million battles per day Iraq is down as well Even with Shell oil and the so-called energy independence of the next foreseeable future We definitely need Middle Eastern oil and we need Middle Eastern oil Not only for us, but also the world economy to be more stable plus We've got key allies Jordan Israel and countries. We've spent a lot of treasure and blood in so those are kind of things that that are making us stick around and and and coming up with Admittedly a very difficult strategy to to win this I can't imagine the only person that's thought of this So I'm hoping that you'll have a perspective on it as well this huge humanitarian crisis coming out in particular out of Syria Spreading to the Western nations of Europe spreading in the next two years a hundred eighty-five thousand strong to the US Isn't that an awful lot like spreading a wildfire with gasoline? And yes, is there a way to not all those people can't be seeking democratic Peaceful lives. Yes But the whole the but the the evidence suggests that the mass majority of them Are truly refugees these are not sleeper cells and in order to make sure that those sleeper cells don't slip in We have a very aggressive homeland security FBI driven program and they're going through a lot That's why we're taking very very few people and slowly Germany is taking 800,000 this year alone But they've had a very good domestic screening system for the last 15 years ours is pretty good Remember immigrants do really well in this country in the big numbers they come from all over the world and they They become Americans when they respect and obey the American Constitution That's what it is. There's no American nests beyond that The Constitution that's what we give them we expect them to obey it if they don't They are repercussions And generally speaking across Asia Africa others remember There's there was a time when we were taking a lot of Somalians and the major problem with al-Shabaab was there We and we have a very good FBI system. That's working on but it's a real concern screening is a real concern Yes This African Union pattern forced that you're talking about what would be the religious composition and how it would play out Very good, exactly. That's why I said Middle Eastern because it's not just it. Yeah, even yeah, it's not Yes now the composition has to be Equitable to the countries that are contributing so the border states will certainly contribute and the model will be their Domestic military so in Iraq for example, you have Shia Sunni inside their military You have this you have similar mix groupings within many of these militaries Egyptian military is another one so the composition Will have to be in a way like again We had similar issues with the African Union troops because over there if you don't have sex you have major tribes You have major issues with the Kenyans and the Somalians and others so this is and this is something that they have to look into and and and it will be Something they'll have to come to a consensus with but it will have to reflect reflect the concerns of the view Iran is truly concerned And is very vehemently anti-ISIS it has deployed actual troops militias and its intelligence wing including its own proxy proto-state Hezbollah, so Definitely wants to focus on it Jordan Saudi Arabia you a Sunni the composition will have to be part of that consensus absolutely Is the divide between the Shia Sunni is it to the to the point where a Shia will not Be part of a unit that's commanded by a Sunni or the other way around no no not at all again These groups like ISIS what they will do is that's their job to make sure that it appears that way That Sunni and see a Shia could never work together But throughout the Middle East you will see many examples of them working together in government in military What happens is when a Shia government in Baghdad in 2011 and 2012 start to discriminate on on the matter of sect promotions salaries jobs Getting a house in a certain neighborhood and those things then Create major resentment which then turn into or is exploited by groups like ISIS then make it much more violent by Definition not at all many of these countries Pakistan is a good example hundred and ninety million people predominantly Sunnis country with 120 nuclear warheads mind you has 20 million she has there is an issue of Violence against the Shia, but no way even close to the kind of civil wars. We just discussed And many of them in many of the urban areas are living cohesively and the Shia are well represented in State institutions and the military They are problems, but nobody even close to relatively speaking much better Where Those that believe that really the key is to essentially take back that territory Eradicate the problem of ISIS I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that It's not that simple or is it is there really some some you know weight behind that argument? It definitely has a lot of weight because that's one of the major distinctions between ISIS and Al Qaeda that they take territory that they have actually declared a caliphate that they actually have a piece of land that they call their own for them to lose massive territory would certainly Hit them hard with recruitment funding Operations no doubt about that They will then have to find a way to justify becoming a regular terrorist organization Remember, it's more of a proto-state now So you're absolutely I think what's what's hard is is how do you? Kick them out when they're part and parcel of the people living there in other words You can't kick out ISIS and keep the grievances can't kick out ISIS from all these areas and still have Assad and still have Sunni's feeling disenfranchised and still having economic disparity and no political reform They're gonna come back in a different form This is this is gonna be a whack-a-mole in order to stop that you have to have fundamental political reform My argument is we can't do it for them We can help them support them in the meantime We need to have the neighborhood take full responsibility and have and create their own watch Watch group and that's where the African Union troops in Somalia model to have a Middle East and stabilization force comes in. Yes Yes, sir Ricky from the senior course one of the things you're talking about the Politics involved, you know with it and you can't remove one without dealing with the other one of the things I saw in your in your Recommendation one of the things that it does not aggresses the Cold War going on between Saudi Arabia and Iran You know the Sunni the Shia that's taking place through their proxies with the US sitting on the side of Saudi Arabia The Russians sitting on the side of Iran in Syria. I mean without it without addressing that Cold War issue It's you know, you're gonna have you know, the Chalice are innumerable. Yes No, no, that's an excellent point. I mean Russia and US relations are key and President Obama just had a meeting with President Putin specifically on Syria Trying to find a way out and that's where the grand bargain is happening. We are changing from Assad must go now to Assad must go later and the Russians are moving from Okay, maybe Assad could go later and that's kind of the middle ground They were finding at the very top level of the of the Cold War as you call it and everything down there Trickles Saudi Arabia is not on board They want Assad's head and they will not support anybody else. In fact, they're threatening to support Groups, they're not ISIS but very extreme that could probably take all that Resources and weapons and bring them back to ISIS because they want Assad gone Turkey is slowly moving away it was very vehemently against Assad and Now it's up to us to to have that grand bargain With these groups, but at the same time think about long term. How do we stop that? We're gonna go back there in a couple of years. Do we keep going back? We can't do what we did in Germany and and and Japan after World War two we can't do that We also we what we can do is Bosnia and Kosovo But even that we don't have resources and money anymore and we've already spent a lot of blood and treasure in Iraq So we are it's not a matter of President Obama or the next president whoever he is or she is It's a matter of where we are as a country. Remember. We've got other fish to fry some very big fish China East China Sea. There's a lot going on there That we have to work on and we have other strategic interests that also require very limited resources Yes, sir question regarding the Kurds in the northern Iraq and northern Syria that fight hard in the new well been talking a lot about the Sunni and Shia divide and is there in your mind a potential for future disenfranchisement of the Kurds as we start this political reform Yes, I think the kind of the 8,000 pound gorilla in the room is that the Kurds are Going to declare the independence in the next five to eight years and we will all accept it But nobody wants to talk about it They're very effective the Prashmarga and other three other militia groups that are working very closely with them They're done a pretty good job balancing the Shia Sunni. They haven't antagonized anybody when the Shia militias come they back off When when they're we're trying to work with the Sunni tribes, for example They haven't forced themselves into that equation because we're trying to have bilateral talks rather than trilateral and they're okay with it Turkey is very concerned about the Kurds because because of their own problem with the Kurds that's long long-standing Insurgency in their eyes, which is from the Kurdish side is a fight for independence so Kurds are very important. I would like more Concertive effort to support them and their different militia groups because they've done a fairly good job in Syria and Iraq And I would rather have them Than the Iranian supported Shia militia, but now we're going from a Consensus to what the US would really like to see we would definitely want to see less and less Iranian influence But we like the fact that Iran is on our side in the short term But in the long term we want to create a situation where we have our own Proxies rather than relying on them Russia again is a wild card kind of stepped in again in the last couple of weeks and has changed the Dadan And some some say it's precisely because Putin's under a lot of domestic pressure Sometimes leaders do exactly that they start a war right before To kind of invoke nationalism so they start a war outside to Get people you know rally it around the commander-in-chief. He's he's also under pressure from European sanctions But I think that the you know the Kurds are going to declare the independence in the next five to eight years Or the process is going to be fairly good. They've been able to establish a quasi-state for a long time and after ISIS they will be in a much stronger place that will may be one of the The bargaining chips they have anyways Help now with the promise of independence as the price Yes Yeah, that's a I know yeah, I think they will also have to compromise But have to come up with a better There are areas inside countries that are more autonomous. They are constitutional Things so you know, we've got our own tribal lands. For example, we've got countries in Europe that have special Protectorates so they might want to go for something like that short of independence I really have to wrap it up, but I'm gonna be around here for a few minutes. I just keep yeah, John's becoming all red I could stay here Thank you so much. 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