The way theyre seated but first, a senior fellow for middle east policy who has written excellent analyses of the situation in syria and iraq as well as within islam. If youre not familiar with the analysis preceding the civil war which identified the ground war for possible sectarian conflict in syria, it was really an impression analysis and he remains one of the best analysis of the situation that i know of. Kristin is the president and ceo of the organization and has had a long productive career. I should add they both are members of our task force. Finally, Katherine Zimmerman from the critical threats project at the American Enterprise institute, her article is an excellent read. Finally, as our moderator we are pleased to have kim barker from the New York Times who has tremendous experience reporting from afghanistan and pakistan and whose excellent book i also recommend to all of you on the taliban shuffle, strange days in afghanistan and pakistan. Thank you for having us here today. Im excited to talk to these folks and then we will open it up to questions from the audience. Can everyone hear me . If anyone has any problem hearing anyone, just raise your hand and we will try to adjust that. I just want to start and get right to it. Want to address everyone on the panel about what they think the strategy of various various terrorist groups is going to be in the future. You have a conventional wisdom that they are against the ropes and al qaeda is irrelevant and i want all of you to talk about this. We can start from my left. Thank you for having me here. I think the strategy has gone forward as the same strategy that have had for a while. They dont see eye to eye on many things but one thing they agree on is this idea that its Little Things that matter. This idea is basically translated into war of attritio attrition. For example, one thing they both read makes the argument that during the time of the crusaders in the war it wasnt really the major battle that we know the iconic scene. [inaudible] it was actually the small battle that happened before that when they reach the point of that major battle, the enemies were already defeated and weakened. This is the argument isis has made privately and publicly. They say for example, ten years ago when isis was active in ira iraq, the United States had an appetite to send thousands and thousands of troops into iraq but ten years later they dont have the same appetite. Whether the Obama Administration or the trumpet ministration, they dont have the same appetite to send troops. They say its vindication of their strategy and they say its working. Now obviously thats wrong. They would say the new strategy which is basically relying on locals to do the fight for them while they provide air support from the sky could be better. They dont have to send troops. They see that in terms of their strategy as success, that they have done that much damage to american resolve, and they say this is what were going to do next. That is why they dont agree with each other because they think their strategy is working and they dont have to change the strategy even though they have lost all their territories over the past three years. They will continue this war of fighting and erosion. I think its important to keep them perspective because we see the headlines that isis is banishing and i dont think thats a healthy thing to have in mind. I think its important to think of their strategy is what i said, the Little Things that matter. As long as they have the will to fight, i think they will continue. Maybe you can build on that idea a little bit, talking about whether you think isis ambitions are stay safe, stay home, act where you are, homegrown terrorism versus trying to go to another country. Lets begin with this idea of why they target the west. It is not their primary ambition. Their thinking on targeting the west is that they will make the cost so high to the point where they are left alone. Their thinking is that they want to neutralize the situation whereby the west or western countries intervene in the region on behalf of their regional allies. If we presume there is a creature called the jihadist strategist and we try to think through the problems as they do, i feel there is a difference between al qaeda. [inaudible] does that person have a certain approach. The big question now, what happens next, are they going to recede or find a margin where they can try to remain relevant, or, which i think to be the correct with a more accurate way of understanding them, theyre going to keep trying to go big. Theyre not going to regress into margins. They are still going to go because the threshold of their brand after trying to attempt catastrophe in syria and iraq, theyre trying to recapture that glory in that land, going back to the village is not how they think. The question becomes what can they do or what remains for them to do, how much of a fight remains in iraq and syria, and do they have other options, egypt, turkey or saudi. They have been telling us they attend to go to saudi. Whether that, whether they have the capacity or theres opportunity there, but its a big question. This is also part of their style. In 2002, they then had the gall to attempt to launch the jihad in 2003. The demographics, the might of the u. S. Army, the morale of the jihad after the defeat, a lot of things were working against them but he saw something others did not see. From their point of view, they were successful. When we look at egypt or other places we have to be mindful that we might not see what they see. Their style suggests they will keep trying to go big. Can you talk about, is al qaeda dead . Whats happening to al qaeda well isis is grabbing all the headline. Both are from the same ideological movements and our focus on one group or another has allowed the other side to actually continue to strengthen. While we been focused on defeating isis inside mosul, al qaeda have strengthen not just inside syria but afghanistan and yemen and somalia and it is looking to capitalize on the libyan civil war. What were looking at is the United States and the west focused on the threat from Islamic State which is significant, but in the meantime, al qaeda has gone below the radar. It has issued attacks against major western targets but it has avoided drawing the attention back and what it is doing is pursuing its primary objective. It is not sticking to kill americans as a number one objective. Thats what we see, but al qaeda and the Jihad Movement is focused on the muslim majority world. That is where the effort is and thats where al qaeda has been focusing. The efforts that weve seen from al qaeda are not just the military side but the fact that al qaeda was in now is one of the strongest groups in the syrian opposition, but al qaeda has pursued governance and sought to win the hearts and minds, its something we have struggled to do as we get involved in conflict and al qaeda has struggled as well and its actually poised to move forward in a way where its embedding itself within local population and insinuating itself into conflicts that will let al qaeda be much stronger in size in ten years. It hasnt given up on those terrorist attacks, the big attacks that bring down airliners, the bomb maker that was al qaeda and yemen signature bomb maker even though syria is still at large training individuals, we should expect to see something come from al qaeda in the next 5 10 years if not before that. The question is when it turns its attention back on the United States. I think ezra looking at those, this is where our counterterrorism strategy is falling short. From our perspective, we focused on the terrorist. They are the ones connecting and proving to be a threat to the United States. Meanwhile, the Jihad Movement, both al qaeda and isis have focused on the people in which they are operating and people that are the focus of their efforts. We could win the war by killing isis, we could win by killing off al qaeda terrorist but weve actually lost it in terms of preventing them from gaining strength within populations because the conditions are driving people to accept the presence of these groups for a variety of different reasons. Before we Start Talking specifically about what the strategy is and what we should be doing, i would like to ask kristin about how recruitment and what you see coming in the future because of all the folks under 30 right now, particularly in muslim majority countries. Thank you very much. I think as many people know, there is a huge boom across many parts of the world, the middle east, africa and south asia where terrorist groups are prevalent and also gaining ground. The reason why people and organizations like my own that focus on new development see a boom rather than a bulge, middleaged ladies like myself think the word bulge has a negative connotation. I think the key to this youth population is certainly that this is a potential threat. If this group of young people are not engaged, do not have opportunities, are angry, can be appealed to buy certain ideologies and given a purpose in their lives, then yes, its a tremendous threat and it will compound the existing threat many times over given the size of the demographic, but its also a potential opportunity. We are not fighting the same people. We are fighting on 911. Many of those people were preschoolers were in grade school. The future recruits are still very young. There is still an enormous opportunity to engage these people in a positive way. They could transform the strategic landscape. As we were talking before the session, my question is for how many years of was how many lives and dollars will we continue to blame lack of mol wack mole. With that idea, lets talk the strategy and what the west has been doing and what it should be doing, as specifically as possible. Feel free to talk about failures youve seen and also about what solution you see Going Forward. Its so easy to point out problems. Whats difficult is talking how to change things in the future. What you talk about some possible solutions. Should also added like you to talk about whats happening with the state department right now and how you think the military is focused versus what were doing in terms. [inaudible] i think step number one is to pay attention. Im coming out of the National Security community so im a very unusual person to run an Educational Development organization. I was stunned, shocked, floored to find out how few of our existing development and diplomacy resources go to young people over the age of ten. The budget for youth are already quite small, relative to the overall budget. Most of the money is going towards Young Children and yes, there have been some huge advantages in terms of survival rates and children who have entered Primary School and those are things that we should be varies proud. For actually want to talk about the conditions that we need to spend many more of our resources on young people ten and up making sure they have a Successful Transition to adulthood. Our dollars need to go not just to the primary education in k3 but giving people secondary education and jobs. Its not going to make sure they dont become a terrorist, all the evidence points against it, its part of a holistic strategy, they give people something in their lives besides boredom, anger, lack of a future which makes them susceptible when a friend or brother or neighbor comes to them and offers the opportunity to do something with their lives. I think this is where we have a slight point of disagreement. I very much Value Development and opportunities that come forward from a tour but i see the solution to popular driven sense of education and lack of employment Going Forward, but are not simply the provider and opportunity but ensuring they have a future to go forward and something to look at. It is, the idea that we dont need to replicate in American Life abroad, but we simply need to be ensuring that people are living their life to their fullest as they see it. Many of the grievances are driven by the governments lack of interest in development and the allocation of what money should be going to schools and infrastructure, but to pursue a program for the sake of doing it, ive seen it fail because its not actually. [inaudible] s it is the grievances that are allowing these groups to movein. There are stories of al qaeda coming in because the community has asked for teachers for a decade and the government never responded in seville say will provide the teacher. The teacher comes in and provides the ideology alongside the lessons which is a major problem. I hate to disappoint. What we actually need an counterterrorism is a holistic strategy. I hate to even say that because its such a washed out buzzword but there is something to this. If you think about it, the centerpiece for the target, the centerpiece is the terrorists themselves and the people most at risk and then the more targeted intervention that katies talking about but then there is this broader ecosystem. I think the problem is that the further you get away from the center of the eye, our strategy gets weaker and weaker. You talk about this idea and the promises you felt beforehand and what will come after. Argued even further in the discriminant. This conversation about root causes and whether or not the youth gets the job or not, thats really falling down on the list of priorities and how young people across different demographics think. Young people have decided theres a narrative going on in their being beaten up on and what are we going to do about it. The goods too late for these kinds of macro strategies to be put in place. The u. S. Was not going to go in a big way in syria but syria is this big festering wound in the middle east. The scale of it is unclear. Its still a shock to syrians themselves in a shock to the region. I think we would disagree on this, but i see the syrian army reaching the isis lines, thats very symbolic. The Syrian Regime will think this is victory. Whether that is analytically correct is beside the point. That narrative will provoke a response from someone who sees that victory as a loss and a defeat for them. I was suggesting there is a window of time, about six months where the u. S. Can get turkey and saudi, with all their logistical problems and all their political problems, but call them as allies and go in there, to prevent the narrative of the Syrian Regime winning. That to me was the last macro possibility that we have Going Forward is too much unpredictability to be able to put together any programs, and what happens next is just reactive and reactive. I share the sentiment about jihadism. I dont think the u. S. Has the capacity the the europeans see for special movement. It will transform but it wont die out. It will transform into something else. They dont realize how things play out in the region and theres optimism when you defeat an organization, although the massive resources deployed to fight an organization like isis, i dont know. [inaudible] in the beginning, u. S. Officials had been saying when they went to muslim countries and asked the leader why in your opinion you are citizens join isis, and the question, the answer to that they said is because of the idea that people want to go and join an organization like this, they dont think. [inaudible] i think that was true, they continue and say once that crumbles you defeat the idea. I think thats true in the first year in the second year, but its too late now. It has transformed into something and it has one something else. Has become a Transnational Organization that might be better more favorable to isis than the caliphate and maybe it has lost but it has one something in return. Go back to this idea, a lot of people have this punditry, every now and then when isis goes down they say forget about isis when al qaeda goes down they said forget about that, isis is the bigger threat. I think there has to be seen as to threats emanating from two directions. Theyre building up and becoming bigger. More than 2 trillion to spend on mobilizing all the countries in the world and the resources and what we have today is a bigger isis and on top of that a bigger al qaeda and isis over the Global Leadership of jihad as they compete over the Global Leadership and on top of this threat, we have something we dont talk about a lot which is, i think we can start the third way of jihad. The next big thing in jihad which is an idea between a kite is focused on winning the heart and mind and trying not to provoke the population against it and between isis aggressive way of even speaking against, no matter what people in our area say and they did that when against what people think is right, they overplayed the hand we have a new movement of people who Say Something in between. We can still be jihadist but we need to be more in touch with the popular ideas. They understand this idea of winning hearts and mind and being in sync with the popular mindset, but at the same time not trying to reach their peaceful means but through jihadist. With that i will open it up to questions from the audience. If youre watching this you can feel free to treat me any questions at kim barker. Please keep your questions as specific as possible. Dont make speeches. Im a militant moderator and will cut you off. If you can pick one person you would like to answer the question or two because we want to get through as many as possible. State who you are. With that, questions yes, you. I have question mark. Pick one. Christine you are running such a great. You had to pick one we only have a few minutes. What you are doing to counter isis, the people who run away from mosul, where are they now . Thats a good question because for us in washington are outside, we tend to be more rational so we analyze according to what we have available to us. Other than that i am pessimisti pessimistic. I think people dont have a good option. Isis fails to have a popular face before it came and imposes hope on the population. At the beginning they welcomed isis becau