The purpose of this panel is to kind of describe where we are and where we might be going. We have an absolutely Outstanding Group of panelists. Daveed gartensteinross who has is at the foundation for defense of american democracies, he has written multiple books related to jihadism and is one of the leading experts in the field. Joshua geltzer to his right, your left. He was a senior director at the National Security council. Before that he worked at the department of justice in a senior position in the National Security division. Hes also actually written a book about al qaeda which was the fruit of his defill at Kings College in london. To his right and your left, nadia oweidat, who is a fellow at new america as is josh. And is writing a book about kind of essentially the alternative voices to arab the alternative voices to isis in the arab world whether secular, liberal or any other flavor. So were going to start with josh, reflecting a little bit about continuity and change between the obama and Trump Administration. Then nadia is going to talk about what shes seeing in the arab world. Daveed will talk try to meld the domestic and international discussion. I may say a couple of things as well. This is being carried by cspan live. So when we come to the q a, please wait for the mic so your question can be heard, not only in this room but also by the audience. Thank you for coming today. Joshua thanks very much, peter. Thank you for having me. This is truly at least in my view a dream team to be part of for this discussion and also a meaningful day to do it as we talk about important policy issues. Its also a day to reflect on kind of the emotional elements of terrorism and counterterrorism and so im grateful for the chance to be part of this discussion. As you indicated i thought i might set the table a little bit with a few elements of continuity between how in my view the last administration, in some cases the last couple administrations approached counterterrorism and the new administration and then a few elements that strike me as element of change. When it comes to continuity, perhaps at the top of the list is the critical campaign to take back physical territory from isis in iraq and in syria. If isis is the preeminent terrorist threat of the moment at least, depriving that group of safe haven, of fighters in numbers strikes me as critical and i see a lot of continuity how this administration is approaching that. There was a basic Campaign Plan drawn up really a couple years ago at this point. It involved mosul which has now been largely cleared of isis. It involved clearing raqqah of isis which is under way. It involved a push into the Euphrates River valley and continuing work that needs to be done there. But in terms of the amount of territory the group controls and the way that number is being shrunk over time and the pressure thats being applied to the group along the way, i see a lot of continuity in that. That strikes me as largely a good thing. Second element of continuity, speaking more broadly here, is a basic since of where terrorist threats to the United States come from in this world and how to prioritize among them. One could have imagined a new administration, especially one that in some ways branded itself being different in many respects, including National Security elements from its predecessor, coming in and seeing things quite differently. One never knew exactly what America First meant for counterterrorism but one could see looking at places like somalia and alshabaab, looking at places like yemen and al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as well as isis which is active in both those places and either seeing the threat as much more severe, such that the u. S. Might want to dramatically increase its involvement, or as not really a problem worth the United States dealing with. And neither has happened. Instead, theres been some recalibration of authorities and policy approvals but fundamentally what i see about eight months in is largely an acceptance of where the threats are and how to rank them from a u. S. Perspective. And finally, a third element of continuity is the idea that often, not always, but often u. S. Counterterrorism is going to be a partnerdriven affair. I think this is something the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration came to and increasingly emphasized over that there will always be some threat, so eminent, so dire that the United States needs to act against but dealing with the range of threat and all their varied form and all their geography cropping up is too much to do alone. So in various ways through training, through funding, through actual military partnerships, through other forms like intel sharing there would need to be a reliance on and time of building up of partners. Again, eight months in, theres marginsation on the of maybe which partner is where. Let me say three things that seem to me different and i preview by saying i find the difference a little bit concerning on all three and maybe we can get into why. One is the ideological dimension, especially of the counterterrorism effort more broadly. Which is somewhat ironic for a new administration that some of whose voices came in criticizing the obama and the bush teams for dealing with only the surface problem and not getting at the ideological roots and this is their words of this problem. It seems to me theres actually been a stepping back and in particular from some of the structures that were built specifically to deal with the ideological dimension. Domestically you had the relatively new counterviolent Extremism Task force focused overseas. You had the state departments Global Leadership center. And what youve seen is key leadership leaving those places. Youve seen a hesitation to accept and use funds already allocated. In the task forces case, certain grants focused on rightwing extremism which looks even more concerning to me after the events of charlottesville. For the g. E. C. And initial disinclination to take money offered by congress. That seems to be changing although theres been a limit as to how much is being asked by the Defense Department which is Something ElseCongress Allowed for. And, to roll back the structures to get to that part of the problem strikes me as concerning. A second element and this is in a sense ideological but more about us than about external actors is the idea of resilience in the u. S. Public, politics and society. I think again from the Bush Administration into the Obama Administration there was an effort increasing over time to take seriously the very real fear that terrorism generates. But at the same time to try to cultivate a certain ability not to let that fear drive policy and to minimize how much that fear spreads. And to me at least one of the more surprising, befuddling new elements is almost 180 on that. Of course we saw the president criticizing the mayor of london for trying to reassure the public there after an attack and seeming to stoke fear rather than build resilience. It seems to me what everyones view of counterterrorism strategy, if youre doing what your adversary wants you to do you may need to rethink what youre doing. An, that seems to me to be element that is new and concerning here. One more element of some change, though i am not sure it should be called change yet. We are kind of in a watch and see, how quickly, how aggressively and how the United States is approaching al qaeda in syria. I mentioned before that isis may be todays preeminent terrorist threat but al qaeda in syria is worrisome. It is al qaedas Largest Global authority at this point, it has key figures. And in the last administration there was an escalating effort to take on that challenge, take on that threat. Perhaps most notably on the president s last full day in office, i think it was thursday, january 19, there was a sizeable strike against about 100 al qaeda in syria figures and that was kind of a trend line that seemed to be going in one direction. There was a notable strike in mid february against a key al qaeda in syria leader, but as reports come out of al qaeda in syria consolidating its control, eliminating some of the other extremist groups either by getting them off the battlefield or absorbing them and with discussion of a deescalation zone there, deescalation over there seems a good thing given the catastrophe that seems to unfold. But what all of that means forgetting at a group that seems to be exercising both tactical and strategic patience and how theyre approaching themselves and the syrian context in which they find themselves, i worry about anything other than an increasing focus and perhaps an increasing aggressiveness to disrupt that group. So let me pause there. Nadia so i just came back from three months in the middle east doing Field Research for my book that peter mentioned. Its really troubling in the region as your comprehensive paper talks about the sunnishiia rivalry. Its troubling beyond any worse words anyone can describe, because it has direct relations to the war on terrorism. Because terrorists happen to be sunni extremists. And a lot of sunni governments are more than happy to turn the other side when these militants are sunni agenda. Including the borders, including ideologically. In saudi, for example, a colony, one of the most popular twitter stars, wahhabi stars, projihad in syria, just got detained but its not for urging young people to go to war in syria. Its for being a sympathizer. So you could perpetuate all the hate you want. You could urge people to go kill other muslims but and you have complete freedom. But if you sympathize this is actually really significant because it shows people who can actually take on terrorism are not only have adversarial powers in these governments, in the sunni government, but Even Companies like google and facebook, unfortunately you are shutting down their accounts because they are secular and they are offending, essentially, the taliban in these countries. So they are facing it from both ends. And unfortunately this is the best hope for really winning the war. This is a war of ideas essentially. It cannot be won militarily. Yes, isis has a lot of weapons, a lot of training when they were on one side or the other, but its ideological at the end of the day. All of these terrorists have in common is that ideological which that ideology, which we have not done anything to counter. Our allies, while they say they are our allies, do not take down the accounts of these people that have sometimes followings in the millions that perpetuate these ideas. So, the war of ideas, we have not yet thought that idea. We have not really taken on or confront our allies to say, you have to stop this extreme of ideological river of hate that is destabilizing the entire world. Security has become a concern all over europe. Even though its really the greatest casualty is people in the middle east, millions have their lives have been wrecked, not to mention the victims. So i am going to keep it here and then address questions later. Daveed so if it were 16 years ago and your friend had a crystal ball, they might tell you that in 2017 we would have experienced a number of rapid victories against the jihadist movement. You could of course see that as a good thing. When you hear what those victories are your view might change. We took mosul back from the jihadists. We took raqqah back in the and we the jihadists, are about to launch a major offensive in the Euphrates River valley to take back control. Right . It is obvious something has gone wrong. I strongly agree with what the other panelists said its a great panel. Its an honor to be here with peter, with josh and with nadia, all of whom i respect greatly. I think that theres two things i want to talk about. One is the posture of al qaeda which is something i spilt a lot of ink over the past years. The other is, why do we get this problem wrong . Why is it we appear to be moving backwards . With respect to al qaeda itself, this is an organization whose obituary has been written a large number of times. More times even than the various fighters who keep showing up alive and then dead. The organization itself seems to have more lives than a cat. Within the past six years, originally the arab uprising was supposed to be the end of jihadism by discrediting the narrative. Then, isis was supposed to be the end of al qaeda. Isis had come along, according to a lot of views of the topic, displaced al qaeda as the premiere jihadist organization. It was certainly aggressively trying to peel off al qaeda branches. Succeeded in a few cases. Egypt. Boko haram, which was an undeclared al qaeda affiliate did not go over. But i think al qaeda has emerged from both of these as a much Stronger Organization than it was in 2010. On the one hand, it skillfully played itself off of isis to portray its organization as being the moderate jihadist. People you might not like but you could do business with. And really to the degree you can operate openly and im certain, nadia, you saw this in the region its shocking compared to what we would have expected five years ago, four years ago. In jordan, you have figures, major al qaeda ideologues who have been released from prison in part because they are antiisis. Not just released from prison but able to appear on television. The jordanians are no dummies. Right . To them, they consider isis to be the more important threat. Theyre doing part of what the hashemite kingdom has always done which is playing things to get to muddle through in the to muddle through in the immediate and deal with the longerterm consequences when they get there. Being more restrained has been helpful. What theganda said true used toderogatory name an islamic sect that is considered to be to ask to extreme. There is competition. Ally of is it effective those states and that is clearly a case in syria. The branch that has gone through a couple of name changes had state support. Haveis in the open and the provided support on that. Defectives have a safe haven. This was written about in the Washington Post of last year with major figures going between syria and turkey. Branch became a de facto ground force for the offensive to push back against the faction there and all of this is bad news. I dont think we really thought through how difficult its going to be to disentangle al qaeda operate openly. The documents that were recovered from bin ladens compound talk very clearly how bin laden saw in the wake of a. Q. s defeat in iraq, they had a real branding problem. He wanted to change the way they were perceived. And i think that between 2011 and now, they have done so within the region. So why do we get these things wrong . I think one answer is just misperceptions on our part. If you look at our own policies have, of course, at times made this problem worse as opposed to better. I would say that two of our foreign misadventures have been a real problem the iraq war and the libya war. In both of those i think there were clear misperceptions on our part. For iraq, the assessment about iraqi w. M. D. s is very wellknown. I think in libya we put less attention on our own misperceptions that helped to contribute to that conflict. Specifically i think if we appreciated to the degree to which jihadism was going to benefit from the arab uprisings we would have been far more hesitant to go to war in a country that stood in the middle of two others who had just experienced revolutions. I think theres no question the fall of the gaddafi regime has made it harder for tunisia. Both of the terror attacks had their origins in libya. Its made things harder for egypt. It contributed directly to the fall of northern mali to an al qaeda branch. Obviously they no longer control it but you currently have an insurgency raging there. The second thing id say is technology. Isis use of social media is wellknown. We see how isis deployed drones in its fight to hold its territory no iraq. Technology is sometimes ambiguous when it comes between state and nonstate actors. One really good study done a few years ago by Jacob Shapiro talks about how in iraq during the course of the iraqi insurgency, if you look at the placement of cell phone towers and the incidents of insurgent violence, it was clear that it decreased. They increased the flow of information from people to counterinsurgent forces. Thats an example of technology helping the counterinsurgents. It seems to me very definitively the pendulum has swung in the other direction and for the past few years violent nonstate actors have been benefiting from Technology Rather than being hurt by this. We can see this in one of the things thats made isis attacks on the west so much more frequent and so much more deadly. Its a model of that i refer to the virtual planner of model. Others have a different name for it but it was basically isis taking advantage of two trends. Social media and their ability to talk to operatives much more easily. And endtoend encryption, the ability to make those communications invisible to Government Forces trying to surveil them. Virtual planners have been able to fill in and do all the things that physical terrorist networks once did, scouting for operatives, encouraging them to take action, helping them to conceptualize attacks and target and providing Technical Assistance. Bomb making skills, for example, where its much more effective than the old terrorist manuals to talk with an operative, get on an encrypted video chat, have them walk you through how you can build a bomb. In some cases the virtual planner is with the operative right until the moment until they detonate themselves. That was the case in a Suicide Attack that occurred in germany last year where the germans released this chat transcript where the operative was getting cold feet. He was supposed to carry out a sui