Free. This is a wonderful turnout and what promises to be a very timely event. Let me start by giving a couple of works couple of words of introduction. Hogan. Ou to senator john there are a lot of offices involved on this work. In addition to our inhouse work in terms of publications, in terms of events to be able to and representll the findings of our friends. Couple of words about the american foreignpolicy counsel. Including transnational threats and radical islam. Counterterrorism is actually broader and represented here. This is one component we do. To talk about different angles. A very complex topic that may be underserved currently. Other groups do not fall into that broad category. We also publish twice monthly global islamism. If you havent already there is a signup up sheet outside where you can sign up free of charge and it brings you that type of information every two weeks on. Extremist islamic ideology and trends in ideology but also in terms of movement, what is happening with bo boko haram and nigeria. Things that may be slightly outside of your purview. Publish digital and multimedia project. About a month from now we have our 2017 addition, which will hit the newsstands. You can already access all of the chapters online. It is the First Comprehensive study of islam is an as a political phenomenon. And alls all countries regions its impressive even though it is not completely global. Lookdea is to take a geographically and topically across various regions, across various act to these of global movements ranging from the Islamic State to al qaeda to the taliban. And to look at where these groups are active and where these groups are come a where the threat is increasing or decreasing. And in particular for policymakers, why it is increasing or decreasing. Whether we are pursuing counterterrorism policy or on the right track or on the wrong track, what can be done better . In all those various ways we try hard to inform the debate about islamic extremism. Im delighted to be able to have asked and have my offer excepted, to have my friend come brief us about a new report on the heidi movement. Zimmerman is a Research Fellow at the American Enterprise institute and the Research Manager for critical threats project. She is the Senior Analyst focusing on global Al Qaeda Networks and also covers the Broader Movement, as well as relating trends in the middle east and africa. In particular shes an expert on yemen and on the activities of al qaeda in north africa. She is also wonderful to travel with. We have the opportunity to do some field Work Together. I can tell you katie is the best of the best to come talk to us about the broad sweep of the Global Islamist Movement and how it interplays, how it works with one another and what u. S. Policymakers should be thinking as they try to navigate this topic. Im going to seize the florida katie now. We will let her give her presentation and then we look have time for we will have time for questions and answers. Ask a ask a question, question. Also identify where you are from and what organization or office you are from. Im excited to talk about the Movement Today and why we face in her with Strategic Risk why we are fighting it. I think its critical as the fight against isis begins to culminate inside iraq and syria. Isis hasust heard that lost a significant amount of terrain inside iraq and in raqqa has are 40 of been recovered and we are working on the final stage of the fight against Islamic State. We have heard all of that before. Weve heard we are in the final stage again al qaeda in iraq, afghanistan and in yemen, and yet we still face a massive threat from these groups and part of the reason is why we are missing that threat is we have missed defined what the enemy is. We define the enemy as various groups that have pointed there guns at us and we have only chosen to go after this groups which meanshe guns over time, weve looked at this and their groups that choose not to start shooting and us and i has chosenl qaeda that today which is why we are defining it as a longterm threat. I think putting off that fight places us in a position where its going to be much harder, much more difficult, and the United States is in much greater danger. The challenge is even if we go after al qaeda or if we go after Islamic State across the world, we are still going to face a threat and thats because these groups draw strongly on an and they are competing to be the vanguard for that ideological movement, and it is the movement itself which is the enemy we must fight. Thats challenging for policy makers how do you fight a movement . Theres nothing tangible except for an ideology can hit and you witht hit an ideology action. So they come back and say theres nothing to strike. There is not a leadership cell, theres not a network to disrupt, theres not to strain not terrain to take back from the movement. So i would say over the past 15 or even longer years, we have defined the enemy as groups, networks and individuals and we have confined ourselves by policy definitions such that we can go after an enemy we can find and use the policy tools to go after that enemy. When we think about that, we are not actually fighting the movement writ large. Would say its much stronger today than it has ever been and has escalated in strength in annex national fashion. It is not going to be set back by the feet of isis. It has the momentum and will continue to have that. Briefly looking at what this movement is, is not all of islam. Their sunni who are secular and are very devout and present us with no threat. Andes a sect within islam not all of them are dangerous to us. They believe they should return to the days of the prophet muhammad, to the practice of islam he espoused and pursued. End faceeve thats the to go after but not all of them pursue that to the end stage. Its largely accepted within islam. Choose to take no action. They practice devoutly. There are clinical sophists evenl salad this though their end state is contrary to what we would see as our own interest in the world, the fact they have existed for decades and have not actually gained a majority of support any of the countries where they exist, they have not been widely accepted by what we are calling mainstream sunnis today. The groups that exist in the politicalspear sphere and only gained power in one instance in egypt where the only opposition, the only counter is the Muslim Brotherhood and theres not a for what theing muslim whether it was representing. The part of the movement that becomes problematic is the part that pursues its and stayed with violence. This is the jihadi part. They believe they must pursue religiouslyate, obligated to pursue their and state through the use of violence, that jihad, that fight is required on all practicing muslims. This is going to be a global insurgency they are calling to. Granted, this has been around since it was activated during afghan soviet war and has not been a threat to the United States the way it has been today for decades. Primarily because it has been rejected and marginalized and society has isolated and imprisoned those who believe in it. Why, then do we have a problem with the movement . Why is the movement so strong . Is strong because over the course of its existence, it has sought one singular objective, which is to transform muslim society. It has focused on the people. It has used terrorism to cause the United States to retreat, it has used terrorism to weaken governments. Has used terrorism to generate a sectarian war inside iraq that creates conditions that enable people to reach out to it, but when you see in the leadership discussions are what the Popular Support base wants. Into the minds of the people and convince them this is our way . They have not done a good job of convincing them, but the requirements facing most muslims on the ground today have driven them to look for support so that the conditions on the ground, those facing brutal conditions, there are populations inside systems torequired fight with acs and enemy to their own survival. You can look in somalia, libya and elsewhere when these groups and communities have faced where they have not had access to basic services, where they require water or fuel, the groups that are providing it that are on the sidelines are al qaeda and isis. That is how these groups are moving into the population. Providing defense and fighting alongside the sunni. They are fighting alongside one of the factions in the libya civil war. They are building that time,onship and, over they are changing how society on the ground functions because of these use of force, coming in with a military use of force al qaeda brings, it has been able to secure the system of justice. We saw korea we saw sharia courts begin to appear. Syria, a secular state with a revolution that started as a secular uprising now has significant portions of opposition controlled territory under shariabased government. That is because al qaeda was able to transform that revolution. It is looking to do the same ,hing in yemen, inside somalia inside afghanistan, its doing and that is why we see this Group Strength writ large. Its not that they are actively looking for the ideology. They are accepting because of the requirements because of the protection of their livelihoods and their very lives. The United States has somewhat fallen into al qaedas trap. Isis came onto the scene, it conducted brutal, mass executions, it declared itself a caliphate, the Islamic State, and it became the number one enemy for the united take. Toer that, al qaeda was able operate under the policy radar where it was able to focus on its core objective, which was to win the hearts and minds of the so in partsas done of syria and is doing so in parts of yemen. We can keep going through this and its not attacking the United States directly. It has not conducted a directed attack against the United States since we conducted the war against isis. That is a decision. Its not because al qaeda does not have the capabilities. Al qaedas lawmakers, known for the underwear bomb and printer cartridge tom and the mastermind behind the laptop bomb isis is trying to replicate, he is alive and theres no reason to believe al qaeda does not pursue the capability to attack us. The westjet is when. And yet, the way we are fighting these groups, we are going after the groups and we are going after leadership on the ground, and that has created a huge divergence. As al qaeda is focusing on delivering protection to the people, this is very true inside of syria, inside of yemen, the United States has taken action is whats the people see that they have asked for support from the united they can we have said no. They have asked for support and al qaedas is yes. Al qaeda moves in and the United States delivers bonds and that is why there is support on the ground for al qaeda because it is the only group that has fought in their defense. It is actively transforming what is happening on the ground and it is a problem for the united they said we are not fighting governance with governance, but with guns. It is a problem for the united ontes we are only focused leadership cells because al qaeda has generated leadership. We have killed bin laden and im sure we will kill baghdad he if he is not that yet. Of a line thatge goes back to the day of the profit and if you cannot one off line, another will arise in its place. Why understanding the ideology is so working, but fighting is is that theywhere ideology provides the military doctrine that enables these groups to persist and is why if feet alt isis, if wed qaeda, we will have a group rise up because the ideology persists. We have also managed to align ourselves with partners. We have convinced ourselves that buying ourselves in is the only way and best way. In some cases it is but in some cases it is creating problems in the ground. It is one of the reasons why as we watch the fight against isis and syria, we created a de Facto Alliance with the very enemies of the sunni, the very enemies of the population in which al qaeda is recruiting. We have aligned ourselves with the assad regime, with russia and iran against isis, and we are empowering that action to seize ground inside syria, to strengthen its health against isis, but its also strengthening itself within the context of a syrian civil war. Why we talk about a clip while we talk about a solution, it willllowing what look like and it will not look like what we advocated in 2012. The sunnis cs as abandoning them. We need to be cognizant of how we are fighting this war and how we are operating on the ground, what partners we are choosing, what partners were not choosing how the enemy is spreading. Delivering goods and services is something we can do. Were not designed to do it. Usaid does not work insecure environments. We are not designed to do it militarily either. We do not understand who the conflict is and who the actors this is we could and the question not of nationbuilding because i do not think the United States should be spending its resources everywhere, but leadership. We have gotten to the point where there needs to be able toical revolution that leads a responsive governance system. That is of course aligned with our own interest and the united dates could lead others in the fight to deliver the governance, to recognize the role the conditions are playing in driving support, particularly for al qaeda, and to frankly reverse the tide we are seeing coming through. I think the United States is the only one capable of leading the fight, so i will leave it there and open to questions. Thank you. That was terrific. Ilot of food for thought and will use my prerogative as moderator to ask the first question and then we can open up. , just raisecrophone your hand and we can have someone come around with the microphone. My question goes back to your the point about scoping and need to define the adversary more broadly in order to understand what is possible and what is not possible. The Campaign Season last year and into his administration, President Trump has talked a great deal about radical islamic terrorism with actually not that much emphasis on ideology, the ideology that underpins its top at the risk of being provocative, how would you read to find that terminology to more comprehensively encompass what you are talking about . Its not just groups, is the thought processes that go into feeding support with them. I think the administration defined it as radical islamic terrorism to encompass the shia side. Uniqueiphate movement is and i think wed to split our definitions because they fight differently and they are different manifestations of an enemy where salafi jihadism has come straight to our shores and does not have a direct state sponsor. It is something that is within sunniism and has been rejected by nearly every major Sunni Institution at large. Whereas, the shia threat, the other half of the radical islamic threat, is a little bit sorted by iran as part of the export of the iranian revolution. It is very different, the support of has bought another groups, so i say we need to recognize that within islam, there are two different ways that the threat is coming to our shores and align our policy and strategy that way, rather than trying to cluster it into this idea that radical islam is the problem, and it is one of the reasons i push back hard when people talk about islam itself being a problem, because it is not all of islam. It is a very distinct, definable small minority part and has to do with the conditions on the ground. Moderator lets do a couple questions. I am with the pakistani my question is about the Salafi Movement not getting much external help. How do you know they are not getting from saudi billionaires [indiscernible] this fight has been in progress for the last 1400 or 1500 years. Why should america get involved and give precious blood and does not precious dollars because we have enough dollars that we can afford, but these people do not respect precious life. Isnt it good for america to stay out of this mess . This has been going on 14 hundred years, at least. Thanks. Ms. Zimmerman i think the u. S. Needs to get involved because it is presenting a threat for the United States command i dismissed the argument that the fight has been ongoing in the violent terms for that long. Frankly, it has not. With the salafi jihadi ideology, we can see it start to mobilize within the muslim world to the afghan, soviet jihad, and the idea that al qaeda had after the afghan jihad culminated, the idea was exporting it back to the arab world, the start of a grand fight. If you look at the 1990s, al qaeda felt miserably. You can look at the palestinianisraeli fight. It is something that did not mobilize support across the world for the palestinian cause. Nothing has mobilized people except for what is happening today. And i think that the change is dramatic enough that we need to recognize that it is the conditions. It is not just salafi jihadism that is a threat for us. The breakdown of the International State system that is ongoing, the fact that we have six of failed states at least with the muslim world, weak states like tunisia and egypt, and these are all leaning against the pillars of stable states that we had to fight, so algeria, kenya, ethiopia, saudi arabia, jordan is always at risk of falling and is under enormous pressure right now, so there is a reason beyond the salafi jihadi threat to get involved and start correcting the system to stabilize it, because it has never been this bad before. There is going to be followed for decades to come, i think. I am a former diplomat and an intelligence analyst. Small correction the first salafist government in recent times was not egypt, it was early 1990s algeria. The question that bothers me is the elephant in the room, which is there are literally millions of muslims who believe it is ok to spread your religion by whatever means necessary, and there is no plan whatsoever by muslims or nonmuslims to attack the problem, that particular problem. So my question is about three tools that could be used and why they are not being used. Why are american diplomats not allowed to quote the koran . Why are they not allowed to demarche the mosques . And wired we having a giant campaign in the oic to demand that the oic clean house . Demand that the oic take the lead against this cancer, rather than the westerners . Ms. Zimmerman it is a great question. I think that we have been too reticent to be involved in ideology because we attribute it to attacking a religion, and we should be echoing the criticism that actually comes from the muslim world against this religion because it is not as though we are denigrating a mainstream form. The idea of having a muslim leader is one that we have propagated, and the challenge has been that there is not a united front. The states themselves, as they try to take action, our increasing the entropy on the ground and actually feeding the chaos that is driving support for the salafi Jihadi Movement, i would say. And once they can stand and talk against the extremist group, but until there is actual change in what they do, it is going to persist, so saudi arabia is not a state sponsor, but saudis do sponsor salafi jihadi ideologues, and that is a problem that saudi arabia must deal with, and we should be pressuring them to do so, the same way we are pressuring the qataris to. We should look at opportunities to exploit the idea that has surfaced over the past few months that there is a lot of pushback against funding for even political islam, but particularly the extremist and violent brands of salafi jihadism, and we are not. I find it more problematic that our diplomats for the key areas are not in country. Our embassy or yemen is in saudi arabia because of security reasons, but it is understaffed. Our diplomats are not going around and meeting yemenis in cairo, beirut, oman, the emirates, and same with our libya embassy, which is in tunisia, not meeting with libyans on the ground. Not meeting when we talk about this political resolution. We do not know the demands of the situation, and we do not know the actors, and we do not have leverage because we have chosen not to get leverage over the situation. To me, that is the first problem that needs to be solved by diplomats. Moderator any other questions . Hi, i am from congressman pierces office. You touched on the tribalism that influences so many of these groups. Could you tackle that in the largest geopolitical sense that many of these failed states should not have been states at all, that it was a process . You can start with the First World War or start with the 18th century, whichever, but they were creations of larger powers for various reasons. And should we be looking in some instances at trying to restart the clock on determining what should be a state and what should not be a state . You do not have to start with iraq. Take any country you want where there is a problem. But in general, should this be a larger part of our Strategic Thinking on how to try and help the situation where what they are fighting for is their local interests . Theyre not really fighting for religion, a, b, c, or d. Ms. Zimmerman good question. I do not think we should be redrawing state boundaries. Even though they did come from a very european, western drawing of the map, we see on the ground that people today identify by their nationality, and the idea of a nationstate is very foreign, but the idea of being syrian or yemeni or libyan or egypt and is actually an identity people latch onto. So you can look at the iraqisyrian border. It is literally a line in the sand. Yet, there are tribes that sit on both sides of the border, and they identify as iraqi or syrian, not first by their tribe. I think that is a signal to us that, is problematic as the state system has been in certain areas, it is actually something that can persevere. The challenge and the reason why we see local conflicts coming through is that we and others have supported governments that are not legitimate. We have supported authoritarian dictators who have consolidated power and have marginalized large groups of people in pursuit of their own interests. And we are at risk of doing that again today as we try to stabilize the region. Looking at libya with a report that the general, who is the strong man, the leader of the Strongest Force inside of libya, he cannot secure the entire country. The way he is doing it is driving support for al qaeda and isis on the ground, particularly because of antiislamists, meaning any islamist, political or not, is aligned against him, and that is projecting civil war. We need to secure the libyan territory, the sovereign state of libya, from al qaeda, which is what gaddafi never did either. Al qaeda has been using the libyan state for a decade at least in the desert. What i am looking at is the fact that we have ignored the policies of some of our state partnerships that have exacerbated a lot of the local conflicts, and we continue to do so. We have ignored the fact that in yemen, we had former president saleh as our partner, and he consolidated power. When the new president can to power, the reason my al qaeda was spreading his head of yemen was because of the grievances, which are hard and challenging. They touch on sensitive state infrastructure and power networks. Going after al qaeda military problem, so every time there was a choice between going after al qaeda are going after the hard problem when you have limited resources, the budget was put to the military, which meant the actual problems, the grievances, the governance problems went unaddressed. The paradigm shift is, yes, there is a military component to defeating al qaeda, and we need to be taking back the terrain, but we also need to be making sure that the governance problem and what comes after the takeback of terrain is something that is sustainable and legitimate to the people. Moderator so sending struck me as you are sort of walking through the relative decline of isis and the relative rise of al qaeda, that this battlefield, this terrain, is shifting pretty significantly. If you can chalk up, up until this point, the Islamic States success as, simply, Everybody Loves a winner, so they look like they are expanding territory, naturally groups will gravitate to their cause. This is what happened to you have some thing like 34 different affiliates from boko haram to nigeria to the sinai that have joined forces with the Islamic State. But with the sole exception of Islamic State affiliates in syria, every one of these groups is a preexisting entity. Boko haram has an infrastructure and leadership, divided leadership now, but it has long predated baghdadi and his ideas up a caliphate. As isis declines and we are making notable gains in trimming Islamic State finances and trimming the territory under Islamic State control, what happens to these other guys . This is going to be driven in very large part by how they think about the ideology, but there will be a lot of free agents here. Ms. Zimmerman and this is actually the challenge of finding your enemy of proof, because we can defeat a group and the network it has build will simply realign. As he said, isis had risen to the global stage and brought the idea of the caliphate, which is very detriment within those who believe in this, and i have been told that the isis the boko haram leader recognizes the caliph. So there is a religious ideology, and it is not just the resourcing. Isis was one of the richest affiliates to come up, meaning a lot of groups rapidly adhered to isis, and the branding isis was able to take we use this analogy a stabbing in a tanzanian cave, and everyone knew a soldier of the caliphate new he stabbed someone in a cave in tanzania. We did not have that in al qaeda. I think the next year or show whether isis is going to realign itself to actually add power to the branches, to add power to its branch in the philippines, in nigeria, to reconstitute in libya, build in the sinai and elsewhere, and whether it will go beyond the collapse of the core inside of iraq and syria. But the real challenge is that the threat of these groups remains, because the groups themselves are not being contested directly by the United States, and the partners we have used of not been effective, and they do not have the will to actually carry up the fight to the point where it culminates in a sustainable manner. The issue that i think we are seeing is that al qaeda will be able to reconstitute itself as the global vanguard force, as it was, challenged briefly by isis, and it tried to contest that. We see al qaedas leadership not paying attention to what is happening now within the Islamic State. They see their role as sanctioned by allah, and they have this mandate to do what they are doing. But the problem is it is not just the realignment of these groups. They are going to bring back the tactics that isis has taught them, so isis has actually delivered capabilities to groups that al qaeda was courting and had not developed a relationship with, but now isis has sent in the bomb makers and the leadership, the ability to organize as small franchises that can conduct coordinated attacks and know how to target the populations and generate the uprisings we have seen. That is going to have some knockon effect stress we simply have not planned for. Moderator any other questions . So i work at afpc, and you were saying that the u. S. Government might be served by investing in leadership and support more than specific military action. So i was wondering if you saw that as the United States redefining how it thinks about humanitarian aid or Something Else . Ms. Zimmerman it is across the board. We talk about having a whole of government approach to the problem, and we really have not had that because the rest of the whole, besides the military, is not operating in the terrain where it needs to be operating, and that is a problem for us. I talk about not relying on military of course there is a role for the military when we are looking to secure terrain. In order to put our diplomats on the ground, they should be afforded the protection of the u. S. Military. But the problem is using only the military to fight the groups. The leadership needs to come from developing a global, comprehensive strategy that recognizes the salafi Jihadi Movement as the enemy, recognizes that there are networks on the ground, that salafi jihadi, whether it is isis or al qaeda, actually a singular network or a network that will cohere as isis weakens and al qaeda strengthens, vice versa, and goes after the vulnerabilities that these groups have and how they are operating, which is usually not a military targeting. The vulnerabilities of breaking the ties that the salafi Jihadi Network has been able to establish with the local populations, the support of delivering to local communities, whether it is defense, water, school, or justice. We can counter that, and we can help our partners counter that. But we have not set the framework for them to do so. We have only set a military framework, so that is why think we need to change our entire approach to the problem. Hi, just one point here. We spend billions of dollars in afghanistan and iraq building schools, roads, hospitals, utility systems, what appear fixation, etc. So we have not just done a military approach. We have done a military and humanitarian approach, which seems to be wasted. Maybe you can comment on that. Ms. Zimmerman it has been wasted a lot, and i think it was misdirected when it started. The idea to not do nationbuilding, not to recreate the world in the image of the United States, but it is to remove the grievances. If the grievances that the government has not delivered a school and al qaeda has delivered a school i can give you a case study at the village level we should be programming such that we compel the government of the state to deliver the school or to provide a substate actor with the ability to provide an education that is different from a madrasabased education. This is not giving every afghan a cell phone. It is reducing the grievances, reducing the governance problems that are driving it. To do so and a stable fashion, it is the idea that one of the reasons why our aid in afghanistan was wasted is that we were not recognizing that we were building things that the afghans did not want or need, that they had fundamental other asks on the table. If we do not understand with the locals need, we do not have a grassroots concept of what is on the ground, the grassroots concept that al qaeda has generated because it is on the ground, we will be putting in something they do not really want. That is what is very bespoke, very targeted assistance that we need to learn how to do, not just become better at. Hello, my question is, you know, you talked about how saudi arabia does not sponsor terrorism as a country, but a lot of saudis do. My question is, these countries, are they turning a blind eye to their citizens or are they indirectly happy their citizens are doing what they cannot do themselves . Ms. Zimmerman i think it is actually a mix, and that is because Certain National interests are filled by the strengthening groups. The fact that saudi citizens were sending money to the Syrian Opposition was good for saudi arabia because it actually fed support to an Opposition Group aligned against iran. The problem is that saudi arabia, isis is an enemy for saudi arabia. Al qaeda is a longterm enemy, although it seems to be an idea from al qaeda that if it is not attacked the kingdom directly, the kingdom will not attack it directly. Saudi arabia is in a different position though, because they draw some legitimacy from a partnership with the wahhabi doctrine, so there should be pressure on saudi arabia as it goes through these reforms, as we are looking at the rise of a new regime in saudi arabia under the crown prince to started dressing the real problems that saudi arabia, as a partner, presents with the United States. Wish and not give them a blind pass for what they are doing it we need to apply equal pressure on it to change, as the saudis apply pressure on the qataris to change. Moderator lets go to the back first and then move up here. I work in the private sector but have an interest in this subject. I came in late, so you might have discussed this. How do you make the argument to the country when were in an environment with stretched resources, an environment where the country basically elected a president who campaigned on shutting off the border, specially people from that part of the country you are talking about, and they do not want to spend money on overseas efforts and want to focus resources on america it what is your argument to that group . Ms. Zimmerman our resource constraints are selfmade. We spend a lot of money on domestic issues, welfare, etc. , and we spend very little of that budget on the defense and our external operations. That is what people want. Ms. Zimmerman yeah, well, as someone who reaps they rewards, of course, but it takes leadership to actually allocate it correctly. The other side of this is i think that the investments we make today in starting to stabilize and shape some of the world we cannot reset the clock and cannot bring it back to what it was in 2010 or even 2011, but we can shape it going forward. I think that investment today is going to be much less expensive than the military investment that we will face of the world order starts to collapse the way that it is, because our enemies are the only ones gaining at this point. Russia has grown much stronger. Putin has been an opportunist across the middle east. Iran has been empowered. The Iranian State is incredibly empowered with hezbollah inside of the assad regime, the fact that there are regular Iranian Military officers and units deployed to syria in a way they have never been deployed before. It is learning tactics from the Russian Military and building a force in the region. That is something we are looking at. Of course, the substate actors, al qaeda and isis, are empowered by the conflicts going on. As americans, we face this problem historically, looking at world war ii. There was a problem over there. And now we are addressing it. I represent the Public Council and you mentioned that a large part of the muslim world does not have to do anything with those organizations, but this large part stays relevant they do not take any action towards the extremist to stop them, condemned them, so we mention ideology, but the book itself, it motivates people to kill, to raid, so dont you see that this is something we need to deal with to reform islam . To do something with that is being created 1400 years back, and we keep saying it is ideology created no. Isis, al qaeda and others, they are implementing the law exactly as it is written in the books, exactly as interpreted by their doctrines, by their scientists, so we need to look at this problem from different perspective, not only we need to deal with isis and al qaeda militarily. For example, there is a movement that has been built over 200 schools and they are trying to spread islam in a different way, not by the horse or weapon of something not by the force or weapon of something, so how can we deal with this problem largely . Thank you. Ms. Zimmerman we can deal with the problem by setting the conditions where people are not looking for a violent solution. The idea that the sharia, al qaeda and isis on forcing is the sharia is wrong. There are different interpretations of the koran that are legitimate. They are mainstream, and the sharia they are enforcing is hard to contest because of the lines in the koran and what calls out humankind for not being able to interpret what a law allah says because if you do so, you are taking that Divine Authority under yourself. The real question to ask is why is that the problem . We have radical conservative christians who pursue a very similar line of effort. They, too, are minority and we dont look at christianity as a problem. All of these mainstream not mainstream all of the main religions have justification for the use of violence within them, but all of them, including islam, those individuals who believe violence is justified have been marginalized in minority over the years. Their challenge today is ensuring that the popular base does not expand, that the base of support received today, which is not along ideological lines but along the offensive lines along the idea that if i permit al qaeda to use my territory, al qaeda will not attack. It might provide me with food or water or assistance, and that is why al qaeda that is why that Minority Group is becoming stronger. I think this is yes, the contest within islam to a degree, but it is manifesting itself in secular terms and conditions that state to state engagement can address. Lets go question over here and then i have want to wrap it up. Hi, when you said that there is radical christians that use a religion from a violence, can you give an example . It sounds like you would directly comparing the fact that there are some percentage of christians embracing the same kind of ideology. We know the horrific things this part of islam is doing. Thank you. Ms. Zimmerman you can look at christians who went to africa to convert africans and they did so through violence. We can look at the United States where we do not brand them the same way. Part of it is because i think we understand christianity here and islam seems foreign. I think this idea that it is all of the religion, it is not true because part of it is justified the religion and the root of the problem is within the doctrine, but the strength of these groups has not actually grown because of the ideology. It has grown because of changes on the ground. Part of my job is to make your the trained on time. Let this be the last question. Little Historical Context less than a year after the start of the iraq war in 2003, Osama Bin Laden issued a missive to his lieutenants, where he talked about recognizing the media war was more than half of the fight in terms of hearts and minds and understanding how to spread the appeal of his organization is ideology organizations ideology. You can make the case that the Osama Bin LadenOrganization Never did well in that. Their spawn in many ways has been much, much better in terms of indicating their message, not only communicating horrific images we see on television of the stoning of adulterers, or whoever, but have had a large and mostly unexplored positive message that has been indicated through youtube, twitter, to disenfranchise places about the need to join in with them to build a rightfully guided caliphate. We did not tackle this seriously in the last administration. We now have the opportunity, we are now part in the race kicking the tires on how to do counter messaging under the trump ministrations. What would your advice be . How would you incorporate a narrative about the Broader Movement into the messaging efforts the administration is trying to the together . Ms. Zimmerman i think that we need to be cognizant of the strategy isis is using against us now. What isis has talked about for the last three years is eliminating the gray space. Isis wants to eliminate the idea you can be islam and stand by and watch. Al qaeda did that, this goes al qaeda never did that. This goes back to small differences between al qaeda and isis ideology. Isis believes itself to be the state, which means it must have the infrastructure to be the source of authority and colors population on the ground to recognize its authority. Al qaeda was, is the small covert and guard and its vision was to always empower and facilitate the local movements. But coming back to what isis is doing, it is trying, particularly in europe, to create a sentiment where there is distrust among muslims and nonmuslims, where muslims have to choose whether theyre going to identify as a muslim or not. I think the fact that we are seeing attacks on mosques in response to isisdirected and inspired attacks is a worrisome sign, especially as it is coming over here. The counter messaging there is a lot the Obama Administration could have done in terms of counter messaging. Islamic state life in mosul was terrible. It was nothing like what they had experienced and they had been living under this government for three years. It destroyed the city. It means we should have had a convoy to rebuild the city after the fall of mosul to deliver to the people at the Islamic State had taken away from them. We are looking at counter messaging. The residence, i think, here today, in reference of joining the Islamic State, the number of the global community, to send muslims worldwide, do with the United States is not doing for your people. We missed the concept here, the idea that there is a community that allah has united under his faith that he sees as a unified block that every muslim must Work Together to protect, and the fact that it is under attack, written large as a Community Inside of syria, suffering gross human rights violations, with little more than a consummation from the international community, if that, the fact that it is disrupted inside of yemen and elsewhere, that we are for the contest of what the future is worldwide is not clear to our politicians. And the reason why we are seeing individuals radicalizing, one of the reasons is the of given a call. They called to defend and an action to take, and isis as pushed it down to such where you can take an action, stab someone and tweet it in the name of isis. The isis, massive virtual community, will take it up. It will take it up and make you a monitor martyr. It is something that has made isis resident and something al qaeda number was because al qaeda did not want to to operate under its name without its authority because if you conducted an attack that isolated it from the population, if you killed a civilian, so the backlash we have seen against isis in terms of totality, targeting, treatment of individuals, al qaeda has tried to protect itself by not with that violence, recognizing that it will redefine who is fighting based on the situation. I think that the point of the message actually needs to be that the United States stands for something. We are not antiisis. We stand for legitimate governance, the protection of human rights, we are against genocide, we are for the protection of the people, and that is the message that would and that is the message to use to counter isis. Until we stand for something, theres nothing to rally people to our cause. Guide is i think an excellent place to stop. That is an excellent place to stop. Thank you for an enormously rich discussion about a topic that needs more elucidation in congress and discussion in the public sphere. Join me in thanking katie. [applause] for those of you that are interested, can you report on this topic, which she was kind enough to bring me a copy, apparently in short supply, you can get it on the American Enterprise institute website. As i said, for those of you interested in following our on radical islam, feel free to sign up on the sheets outside. We are happy to share with you our original publications and our future events. With that, thank you. The meeting is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org]