We had the last time speeded we believe this portion ofat washington journal. You can watch this and all of our programs online at cspan. Org. Now with former special president ial envoy for the Global Coalition to defeat isis brett mcgurk is expected to talk about some of the ramifications of President Trumps decisions withdraw u. S. Troops from sears you. This is hosted by the foundation for defense of democracies. Live coverage on cspan2. This event is hosted by fdds center on military and political power which seeks to understand of the military and diplomatic strategies, policies and capabilities necessary to defeat threats to the United States and its allies while advancing american influence. Many of our audience members no fdd is a nonpartisan policy institute. We take no for an government funding or corporate funding, and we never will. Were glad to be joined by a distinguished audience of diplomats, represented from congress, the department of state, the pentagon, active military and experts on the policy community and, of course, the media. We encourage guests both your online to join us in todays conversation on twitter at fdd. By way of housekeeping todays event is on the record. Is the life story and reports of Police Science or cell phones now. On a personal note, id like to congratulate mike on his terrific new book prep for those of you who have not read it, shatter the nations is gripping firsthand account of the rise and fall of isis. Mikes writing is crisp, clear and often jarring. In the course of the book you will meet the brave fighters have faced isis headon. You will meet the seedy underworld of the isis support network, breach of the and you will find yourself grinding her teeth as mike recounts his brush with an isis suicide car bomber in the battle to reclaim iraq. For all of you who today please grab a copy of the book after days panel if youre not already done so. Id like to note while he does not say so explicitly in the book, mike Conference Much of what we have been saying here at fdd about the government of turkey. In this book to you read aboute illicit oil traders, antiquities middlemen and human traffickers who will help facilitate isis activities from turkish soil. Mike also confirms what weve long known about the 565mile border between turkey and syria. The erdogan government allowed that border to remain porous as thousands of foreign fighters join the jihad. In short the erdogan government in turkey did not exacerbate the crisis in syria. In some ways it created it. This raises troubling questions about the recent decision by President Trump to stand aside and allow for the Turkish Military to invade northern syria. Your fdd are scholars engaged in a robust debate about a range of issues. The majority here although not all of us but the majority believe this was a strategic mistake. Speaking only for myself i believe the decision was tantamount to a green light for the Turkish Military to engage in a harmful and dangerous operation in northern syria. It was an abandonment of our kurdish partners and the decision to turn on them is something other American Allies and partners in the middle east will not soon forget. Of course its fair to argue the decision to partner with the pkk affiliate ypg was a mistake in the first place. Officials from the Obama Administration, and i suspect brett mcgurk will want to thank for joining us today, would likely push back on this assertion. This is a debate that hope we hear more about today. But in the meantime with reports of war crimes, ceasefire violations, isis prison breaks, israeli jitters and assad regime advances one gets the sense of new dangers lurk. So in addition to addressing the key points in mikes book today, todays conversation promises to cover a lot of ground. Moderating todays event is vivian salama. Shias worked as a Foreign Correspondent in more than 60 countries with vast expanse in middle east. She served as Ap Baghdad Bureau chief from 20142016 isis blitzkrieg across iraq in syria. In april she published a childrens book, the laundry home, but a syrian boy whose family was forced to flee when the civil war erupted. She covers the white house for the wall street journal. Vivian will now introduce the rest of the panel. Vivian, over to you. Its great to be here, including with all these distinguished gentlemen, telephone i crossed paths with in the middle is, mike and andi covered the herbs bring together and brett and i met in iraq and i the pleasure of meeting deal today. Its going to be a great conversation for sure, and we were here so pretty mikes book but also in case you havent heard, its a bit of a timely discussion, syria is in the news today and so you dont have a better collection people to talk about it. He may have noticed i was staring at my front during the introduction because my colleges literally sitting in the cabinet room right now just alerted President Trump says hes willing to keep troops in syria to protect oil. So you never know what the news is going to bring of the day, so obviously its a really fastmoving story come a lot of moving parts. We really want to ask these gentlemen to kind of takeout from the beginning, get a brief background on how we got to this point and then we can really dissect whats been happening right now. Im sure a lot of you are interested in that. Mike, well start with you. Again, congratulations on this book. Very happy for you. Maybe a brief recap of how the reporters got to see it first place, what has taken place in the more recent years of the civil war with regard to isis and maybe some of our allies, the various allies we have there. Actually had a big fight with my editor writing the book because they were saying this is a book that isis, start with isis. I insisted on sunday with egypt the arab spring. That really is the background for this. So was the iraq war but if remember in 2011 when the arab spring protester in egypt and in syria, the Obama Administration was winding down u. S. Engagement in iraq and they were supposed to become the protests were supposed be this new way forward for america to engage with the middle east. The protesters were chanting american ideals, getting Political Support for the u. S. Government and the organizing on the tools of americans can the new american capitalism, so facebook, google, twitter, and we deny phones. There was this moment vivian and i covered when we were, first met in 2011 in egypt that everything felt come protest on the street for connected with American News viewers here who were not just watching the protest on social media but, on tv also engaging the sharing facebook post. It captured this obama firstterm mindset that we can all discuss it at a computer laptops and like our way to a better world. That wasnt the case and the reason we all ended up in syria to answer the question, is because thats what every spring that ended. There were years of i think failed u. S. Policy to get to the point where in 2014 syria was the worst version of the civil war and get Extremist Group rising up in the chaos while from his perspective and i think from a government focused perspective will try to turn away. What happened was, should the people in room all know, alqaeda and iraq, the old used in metering the iraq war has come across the border into syria and that use that chaos to reconstitute and gain strength and they had this horrible boomerang effect we went back across the iraqi border in 2014 and took mosul which is a world change if it. Brett, you are for the government at the time. What was the response and the sense on the ground here when all of these events were unfolding educative saw this round of extremism spilling over the border iraq and syria . So i can of got into this space of it in 2013 when i was handling the iraq file and was deeply concerned by the increasing numbers of assassinations, murders, suicide bombers, suicide bombers going from like which became kind of migrating to sea, became isis. 30, 40, 50 month. When youre that going on that was happening in 2013, it just rips apart any fabric of society, particularly a very fragile one. I was concerned 2013 we did not have intelligence overhead, did not have information that i testified about this in congress in the fall. All these guys can the suicide bombers bombers, most of them were four in jihadis who are coming from all around the world and coming into syria and as jonathan said every coming through turkey. I spent a lot of time in turkey in 2013. Look, i love the country of turkey. Its a great country. Erdogan is the lead of turkey but is not going to be there forever. I think turkey has a Brighter Future but let me tell you about these conversations in 2013. Why was i in turkey a lot in 2013 . A number of reasons. One of was iraqis oil revenue was going to hold bank. We also said the man, all these g hotties are coming into syria for your country. What is going to do about this . The answer in 2013 was, thats the second war. Well get rid of assad and then get rid of those guys. Our it sounds me like youre raising, its like raising baby crocodiles and your basement. Eventually you will have a lot of big crocodiles. This kept on going. Mike documents in his book and you all should read, and it accounts for the point this was a war. This was a vicious brutal street by street war and nobody should be mistaken by that. But january 1, 2014, fallujah falls to isis. Again this very alone and it wasnt until the fall of mosul and i was on her back at the time, and i get it was just a fog of war hard to know what was going on. I was walking into a meeting with president obama winnetka which i got an urgent call from Iraqis Security official and a political official that baghdad was falling. It was actually very hard to tell. In any event, kind of this thing in the summer of 2014 is where it was decidedly we had to have a concerted effort to push back and thats when we develop the by, with, and through campaign which i think we will discuss. That was kind of the suite of it just starting i came into. I remember that time where everyone was worried about iraq falling because by default because i was in baghdad getting calls from my editor back in europe. I think were okay for now but the was the fear because they were right there on the edge of the city and so it was a very dangerous situation. Bill, remind us about how isis to its strength, how it became this powerful socalled caliphate from just an Extremist Group. The Islamic State isis of Islamic State just didnt emerge in a vacuum. It was the remits of alqaeda in iraq from obviously the iraq war. The u. S. Conducted the surge. By 2008 was driven out of territories in central, northern and western iraq that a controlled, and it was perceived that alqaeda and iraq which is also called the Islamic State, making it more confusing, was defeated but they werent. They went underground. They husband their forces. They gathered. The organist. Tens of thousands of fighters from the conflict the state the dragnet and then you had an Iraqi Government that was corrupt, letting people out of prisons, things of that nature. So i remember watching a video i want to say it was late 2011 when i saw alqaeda in iraq organized a large convoy and take over a town in and our province anbar province. Ive never saying this is extremely disturbing. Our preparing these types of operations. And we saw this happen for years later. The Islamic State came out of dispute between alqaeda, between alqaeda central and it was basically a turf war between baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State and joe lonnie who is allocating force in syria. The alqaeda one of the to be separate entities, when iraq in one in syria. Baghdadi said no. We should be fighting together. The Islamic State kind of look at them as this might be oversimplistic but they are the hardliners of the jihadist. To them its their way or the highway. The Islamic State if you dont swear to baghdadi and Islamic State, then youre an apostate to the period were as alqaeda they kept this lets work with other groups. Lets try and work with elvis of the city insurgency and they come its more subversive way and they get the hooks and in the wind of converting individuals to the cause. But at the end of the day the Islamic State came from the failure to defeat alqaeda in iraq when the u. S. Withdrew in december 2011, Islamic State alqaeda in iraq was already reorganizing and started to conduct small scale attacks by 2012. You had assassinations, prison breaks which really helped the grip expand and experienced cadre back in. Then they started, the Syrian Civil War was just a major balloon. They were able to organize with the remainder of the elements that were inside syria. Remember we killed, it was one of the few special forces raid killed a guy and i think 2007, u. S. Conducted u. S. Conducted a special forces raid in syria. Alqaeda in iraq didnt just say hey, lets cross the border. They had an active network there as well. With the Syrian Civil War breaking out, that was just a match that lit the fire. You couple that with the withdrawal of the u. S. Leaving, abandoning, theres a lot of talk today that we abandon the cards, which, this isnt the first abandonment. When the u. S. Withdrew from iraq, they abandon kurdish allies in the north. They have succumbed to the Iraqi Government and the Popular Mobilization forces, the iranianbacked militias. We abandoned the awakenings who suffered under the predations of the Iraqi Government. But we lost this intelligence but it was a slower speedy sure. It wasnt policy by tweet with the Trump Administration the Obama Administration had a more clever and more delivered withdrawal but it was a withdrawal and abandonment nonetheless. Theres a allies we built up. They died we say that could the eye, 11,000 card stud. Hundreds hundreds of thousands of iraqis volunteered to fight the islamic, or alqaeda in iraq. And died during these fights. I want the others to address that point as well. But before we get into that maybe mike you could talk about the of the parties. We keep hearing about the curtains being our allies on the ground now but there are a lot of fighting forces that were obliged to us in the fight both in iraq and syria. If you could maybe give us a bit of a walkthrough that. As john mentioned in his introduction, one half of the book is focused on isis and how it worked and why people joined and who they were. And how it was able to find and supported so forgive the part of the book is based on years of the military with a different forces that end up coming together as the ground force for the u. S. Effort against isis. We had the kurds in syria it they also fight with arab battalions as far as this number l you force your turkey has a problem with the kurds but that was a multiethnic force in the end. And iraq we had the kurdish peshmerga. I was alarmed by tweet trump said i think last week showed he didnt understand the difference between the peshmerga in Northern Iraq and the kurds in syria. I mean, do not understand that nuance if youre a regular news consumer, fine, if youre the commanderinchief entered directing the policy that is extremely alarming because the difference is that. So the tweet ice in the twitter talk about was when he made a reference to iraq going after the kurds in syria, basically conflating a number of different groups and also a number of different incidents. And what was so impressive about, i thought the in stage of the war against isis was wholly different forces have come together to give the kurds in Northern Iraq, the peshmerga, and joe said Iraqi Military and in particular the protagonist of the book are a Iraqi Special forces and their elite the time that was the tip of the spear and mosul and a super these guys invited with the americans since 2005. They are the troops that do the rate with your special Operations Forces and special forces, and do the work of rolling up isis networks. Some of the guys i was in the humvees with in mosul, it was then 201617 have been fighting alongside the americans since 2005, so 12,005, so 12 years of almost nonstop war. And i remember, just because i think theres a sense now, like was always good to be a disaster. Something i always kind of feel emanating out of d. C. , the Obama Administration use this line of reasoning to argue they could have done better in syria. I think people look at the problem with the partnership with the kurds in syria and turkey and say it was all going to be a mess anyway. I dont think thats the case. I remember a little anecdote to show how unique it was what did come together. I was with the Iraqi Special forces in a convoy to get to the battle from mosul and we passed through a peshmerga checkpoint and i got chills down my neck because to imagine if these twoo size which a been enemies in the past were so cooperating and iraqi troops were using very bad kurdish checkpoint officers, a photo like this very warm greeting like welcome to our territory to fight isis, was actually really a special moment. I think we should understand that to kind of grass the loss of the policy now. I want brett to walk us through this, addressing the point about the withdrawal and 2011 versus what weve seen to