You know who served his country with honor in iraq and had served in afghanistan. And i remember our meeting last spring with senator corker. My democrat counterpart Elliott Engle and i had put together a bipartisan house version of the Taylor Force Act which we will be marking up in a few weeks. And i want to thank him again for taking the time to address us here today. Ladies and gentlemen, mr. Stuart force. [ applause ] good afternoon. And thank you for chairman royce. And to the Hudson Institute. As youll notice very quickly, im not an xapt in any of the subject matter today. Im here as an unofficial representative of a group that no one ever wants to be a part of. Families of victims of terror. We lost taylor in a palestinian terror attack in israel about a year and a half ago, and we immediately became members of that horrific club. He was a west point grad and as chairman royce said two combat tours in iraq and afghanistan and brought his troops home safely from both tours. Completed his army commitment, went back to school. He was a grad student at Vanderbilt University on his spring trip to israel when the attack occurred. The purpose of this conference i believe is to get a better understanding of the big picture, how terrorism in all its forms and facets comes together. In my experience ive always been concerned with a small corner of the big picture, just taking care of smaller items and not worrying about understanding how everything works. Over the past year and a half weve had to try to understand the world at large and exactly how this terrorism puzzle is put together. The big picture is pretty hard to compresent. But with your work and expertise i think we can make some inroads in the funding of terror. The goal of everybody working on the big picture and the little picture, which is the Taylor Force Act, i think needs to come together and provide Effective Work to get both of these things accomplished. The Taylor Force Act, if youre not aware, is legislation that holds back foreign aid, United States foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority until they can certify to the secretary of state that our foreign aid is not being diverted to reward terrorist activities in israel by the palestinians. There are rewards to the terrorists or if they die to the martyrs families of up to 2,300 per month, which is quite a bit more than the average palestinian earns. The severity of the crime, the severity of the act determines how much the reward is. The fact that our tax dollars are being diverted to support terrorism is unacceptable. The Taylor Force Act would stop up the funds, and thats what my wife and i have been involved in supporting for the last year and a half. I think the goal of both those working on the big picture and those working on the small parts of the big picture should be to disband the club of the families of terrorist victims through lack of membership. I thank you for listening to my short remarks, and i appreciate you being here and your work. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much, mr. Force. For many of us i dont know is it you remember this but today is also the 34th anniversary of the Marine Barracks bombing where hezbollah murdered 241 u. S. Service members. And given this solemn occasion, i think we need to thank all of you for providing the opportunity to share thoughts on the topics before us today. Those topics are iran and qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the general regional instability and what we can do to shape policy. And thats the important work here of the Hudson Institute. Shaping policy. Helping us shape that policy in order to counter the challenges that we have before us. So id like to turn to my good friend chairman mike mccall. Hes chairman of the Homeland Security committee. He has to leave soon because he has five bills on the floor of the house. The last time i checked we were going into session at 2 00, and the first bills up were Homeland Security. So i suspect he probably needs to speak and then get down there to the floor to make sure he presents them. But mr. Chairman, mike mccall. [ applause ] thank you, ed. And i want to thank stuart for being here. I was proud to cosponsor legislation bearing his sons name. As many of you know, he was killed in israel by palestinian terrorists, and our thoughts and prayers are with you, sir. I also want to thank the Hudson Institute. They actually helped me write my book failures of imagination and put together some Creative Energy in the room. But i want to take you back historically. I think what is past is prolo e prologue. Its whats at the archives. And i think its important to look back at the year 1979. That year transformed the middle east and changed the world. In that year radical islamist ideology rippled around the globe. And the revolution in iran brought the ayatollah and his oppressive shia theocracy to power. That same year a dark veil of sunni extremism fell over saudi arabia and other arab nations and also that year the soviets invaded afghanistan and the mujahadin under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden became a force to be reckoned with. It was as if time had gone backwards. And today 38 years later and 16 years after 9 11 the Threat Landscape remains. The ayatollahs more powerful than ever. The sunni extremists continue their reign of terror. And the russians have returned to the region to control the ports in syria and prop up the dictator bashar al assad. Fortunately, last week we saw a crushing blow to ice nis ra isi syria and before that in mosul. As i watched the socalled caliphate metastasize in iraq and syria under the Previous Administration and over the life of my chairmanship and after constant briefings on their external operations and threats to the homeland, we can finally see a defeat of isis in the region. But before we celebrate or claim victory i believe its important to caution that radical islamist terror is still alive and well. And all one needs to do is look at Northern Africa and the recent events in niger. All one needs to do is look at iran and its growing presence in the middle east. All one needs to do is look at how hateful ideology mastered the global bandwidth of the internet by recruiting, training and radicalizing future militants to its cause. I recently traveled to israel with chairman royce. And there we had a candid discussion with Prime Minister netanyahu about the greatest threat to his country. The shia crescent from iran. Iran is filling the vacuum in iraq and syria and through hezbollah its building rocket manufacturing plants in lebanon. Through hamas its digging tunnels and aiming rockets against the iron dome. And in yemen its backing the houthi rebels. The Prime Minister also briefed us on the relationship and opportunity that has arisen between israel and saudi arabia. Once proclaimed enemies, now these two nations have a unique alliance. The enemy of my enemy is iran. This threat exists not only against what iran references to as little satan but also what it calls the great satan, the United States. The threat of a nuclear iran is real. It must be stopped. And congress under ed royces leadership, we passed the sanctions on irans Ballistic Missile program as well as hezbollah. And as the president announced, we will also sanction the irans revolutionary guard corps, a bill i passed in two prior congresses to designate them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization because that is what they are. Finally, i want to deal with the issue of terror financing. Qatar stands as a leader when it comes to funding hamas, isis extremists, in syria they funds al qaeda and the taliban. Qatar also has a unique and disturbing relationship with iran. I believe its time to hold them accountable. If qatar is to remain an ally, it must renounce its terror affiliations. Thank you. [ applause ] Muslim Brotherhood continues on the march to threaten egypt and the region. It was also al qaeda that grew out of the brotherhood. President morsi and the socalled arab spring liberate them. President al sissi is trying to restrain them. And we must support him. The Muslim Brotherhood under youssef al kharadawi proclaimed that allah used adolf hitler to wreak the holocaust against the jews as divine punishment and praised him for putting the jews in their place. Winning the struggle is personal for me. My father was a bombardier in world war ii and participated in the dday air campaign. He bombeded the nazis. I recently visited auschwitz to see firsthand the terror and systematic exterminations that the nazis perpetrated on the jewish people and the horrors of the gas chambers and dr. Mengele. What my father and ed royces father and their generation was fighting against was pure evil. It is no surprise that the radical islamists were then allies of the nazis. As a once famous jewish man said in jewish history, there are no consequences, we must always remember and never forget. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, chairman mccaul. Also congressman brad sherman whos with us whos done important work on the terrorism subcommittee of Foreign Affairs. This has been part of his focus. Hes with us here today and a good friend and colleague. Id like to welcome congressman brad sherman. [ applause ] hello. Im brad sherman from californias best named city, sherman oaks. For 21 years ive sat with chairman royce on the Foreign Affairs committee, and he was there back in 1997 when i put forward the proposition that iran was the number one threat to American National security. As to qatar, emir al fani is trying to perform an effort of political gymnastics that would have disabled nadia comaneci. Look at the splits. He seeks to have one foot with the brotherhood and the extremist sunni. He seeks to put another foot with the United States, the moderate sunni and the gulf cooperation council. And while these legs are separated beyond human capacity, hes trying to do it all while kissing ayatollah khamenei. That is a disabling act of political gymnastics. He may believe that we are obligated to protect his regime because he hosts an american political base. The castro brothers never reached the same conclusion. It is time for al fani to pick a side, stop supporting alnusra, and stop supporting hamas. As to iran we need the maximum sanctions, the maximum enforcement of Nuclear Restrictions and the maximum international support. One way to justify additional sanctions is to renounce the nuclear deal. Doing that would cause europe not to support our additional sanctions and many in the world would even say that iran was then free to reopen its Nuclear Program without inspections or restrictions. Fortunately, the world is based is blessed with an almost beyond possible use natural resource. And that is our supply of evil coming from tehran. We can impose the maximum sanctions without even mentioning the iran deal and then we will have european support as we point to almost 500,000 dead syrian civilians, a direct responsibility of tehran. As we point to the terrorism around the world. As we point to how they treat their own people and the execution of those in the lgbt community. There is no shortage of reason to support to impose sanctions on iran, and if we do enough they will come begging to us to have negotiations on all the pending issues including the inadequacies of the nuclear deal. Thank you. Another member of congress whos been very active on these issues is congressman hank johnson, a good friend, and id like to welcome him at this time. Thank you, sir [ applause ] thank you, mr. Chairman. And good afternoon to the visitors here today. Thank you for having us. I want to extend my apologies or not my apologies but my condolences to you, mr. Force, on the loss of your dear son. And i would say that before we can reach peace in the middle east were going to have to resolve the dispute involving the palestinian state or homeland before we can have peace in the middle east, its my opinion that were going to need to solve the israelipalestinian conflict and it will have to result in a twostate solution, one state for the palestinians and another for israel. And i think once thats done its going to go a long way toward defusing a lot of the radicalism that is in existence in the middle east. That issue of course is not the only issue, and its not the greatest issue or the greatest threat to america. But before i begin my talk, let me say how much i appreciate the Hudson Institute, an organization committed to dialogue and understanding. I commend the Hudson Institute for its dedication to American Leadership and Global Engagement for a secure, free and prs prous future through the disciplines of defense, economics, health care, technology, culture and international relations. As well as the rule of law. And i think before we can begin to talk about peace in the middle east or the suppression of violent extremism that is really threatening to the whole world weve got to look at the issue of islam. And islam is not a religion of hatred and violence but it has been used by forces that cloak themselves in islam and then proclaim to represent islam. Distorting its teachings. I think we must respect islam, the worlds second largest religi religion, one of the three abrahamic religions. I think we must respect that religion and we must respect those who want to be peaceful adherents to that religion but we do have a group and they are based they are saudi arabiabased. Its the wahabiist sect, which is the greatest exporter of t violent extremism on earth in my opinion. [ applause ] wahabism is and until we can address the issue of saudi arabias support for wahabism x and its spread of violent jihadist philosophy, then we will continue to kind of mire ourselves further into the mud. And i hope that we can wean ourselves from our dependence on oil, which seems to be the driving force of our policy toward saudi arabia so we can deal with this issue of wahabism to a greater degree than we do now. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you. If i could sort of sum up here on a few thoughts, and the first is that israel is contending with a deepseated hatred, nurtured actually by leaders of the plo. And nurtured over many years. Because ive seen these textbooks. This has occurred in the mosques and the schools and the newspapers, on the television. This has to stop. As one witness told our committee, incitement is the term we usually use but thats not what we mean. What we mean is teaching generations of young people to hate jews by demonizing and dehumanizing them. That is the point. That is what we seek to address here. Thats what the Taylor Force Act see seeks to do. [ applause ] because the other aspect of this is that people are being lured to terrorism by more than just words. Theyre being lured there by this concept of pay to slay, by this inducement, by this financial reward that says the longer the sentence, the more people that are murdered, the greater the stipend that goes to you, when you get out, goes to your family in the meantime, or goes to your family if youve martyred yourself in undertaking this act of murder. So our so we want to make sure that we do this right and that we send a clear message to the Palestinian Authority. The payments for acts of terrorism are unacceptable. Now, on iran the u. S. Has got to respond to the full range of threats from iran, not just their Nuclear Program because we see in syria and in iraq, we see it right up along western syria now with the quds forces and the irgc. Theyre taking advantage of this fight against isis. And theyre moving in, theyre brutalizing syrians, but theyve seized so much territory. And meanwhile, hezbollah, which is irans terror proxy, is amassing fighters and troops along israels border in the north, along the border in the east, and iran continues to acquire destabilizing conventional weapons but also intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. The administration has taken a realistic approach on iran, recognizing the full range of these threats. This is what we have been messaging in a bipartisan way on our committee. This is what brad sherman and i and mike mccaul and others, Elliott Engle have been talking about as we touch these policies. Congress and the Administration Must Work Together to confront these threats while ensuring iran never develops a nuclear capability. And i will add another point here because that approach was evident just over a week ago when the administration implemented a provision that Congress Passed in july. As mike mccaul shared with you. Designating irans powerful revolutionary guards under the terrorism sanctions that he had advocated. This has got to represent the beginning of a cooperative effort to turn up the pressure on iran. And this week the house is going to do its part by bringing up my legislation on the house floor that we passed out at committee targeting irans Ballistic Missile program and targeting hezbollah, the regimes leading terrorist proxy. On qatar it has a disturbing history of facilitating radicalization and of broken promises to reform its behavior. In 2014, francis trance, saudi arab arabia, bahrain, withdrew their ambassadors from qatar because they said qatar was interfering with they are internal affairs promoting extremism with al jazeera and other qatari networks and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. After that dispute qatar reportedly promised to address these issues, promised not to harbor persons with harmful agendas toward the other gulf states and promised not to support any organization fighting the legitimate governments in yemen and in egypt. Qatar has failed to live up to its words, which is why saudi arabia, the uae, egypt and bahrain cut ties with qatar this past june. Shamefully, until may of this year qatar was also hosting senior hamas financiers. After representative mast, myself and several other members including mr. Sherman, mr. Brad sherman, introduced legislation increasing sanctions against those that provide support to hamas, qatar expelled those senior hamas financiers. But given qatars history of false form and broken promises i am concerned that this is a tactical move, not a strategic shift away from supporting hamas. Doha must take serious measures to fundamentally alter its polici policies. No more bait and switch and no more backsliding. We need real commitments from qatar to end its actions toward violent extremists. And on our hamas bill, a continuing impediment to peace and security for the middle east is hamas. This Deadly Terrorist Organization continues to work towards israels destruction. Hamas uses other human beings as shields by hiding their terror tunnels under schools. Ive seen them myself. So has chairman mccaul and other members of our committee here. And our we saw them as recently as our last trip to israel in august. Hamas is responsible for the murder of more than 400 israelis and of 25 americans. Representative masts legislation further isolates hamas. Its very sml. Anyone who funds or provides support to hamas should face u. S. Sanctions. Hamas is a Foreign Terrorist Group and specially designed specifically by the United States as a global terrorist threat. And ive mentioned one last issue i wanted to bring up and that was the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to push back against extremist ideologies like this one. It is a movement staunchly hoft toll secularism. It is steeped in antisemitism. In many cases they exploit Democratic Institutions to further their sectarian aims, having no intention to share power. They are by no means a benign movement and must be effectively countered by employing moderate voices including through more effective broadcasting. We must go after its leaders, those that meet the criteria for individual terrorism sanctions. I would just like to thank all of you. Thank you for giving the opportunity to me and my colleagues and especially mr. Force to be with you to address you today. And good work on your development on implementing policy. Thank you so much. [ applause ] yeah, definitely. You sit here. Good afternoon again. Im lawi weymouth from the Washington Post and we have a very distinguished panel to hopefully inform you and entertain you hopefully too. At the end i would like to introduce ray tekia who i would say is the leading scholar in the u. S. , i dont want to get trouble, on iran, but a leading scholar on iran. He has many other distinguishing astribts but thats one of them. Then comes bill wexler, who was formerly Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism. It sounds like a terrifying title. Then comes my friend sal khalilzad whos served as United States ambassador to the u. N. , United States ambassador to iraq, and United States ambassador to afghanistan. All the with distinction of course. Then comes general wald, who was former deputy of the u. S. European command. Then comes ambassador alberto fernandez, a Career Foreign Service officer whom ive heard fantastic things about who apparently ran a Brilliant Program out of the state department to counter almost almosts propaganda. Am i right, general . Hello . Wake up. Anyway. Hopefully. Then comes hillel . Hillel. Hillel fradkin who is the director of the Hudson Institutes center on islam, democracy and the future of the muslim world. So hes of course a Great Authority tonight topic of today. So we decided, well anyway, were going to start off today, our fascinating hopefully discussion on since 9 11 of course the u. S. Said twoef big enemies in the middle east, one being terrorism and one being iran. So im going to ask the panel to come in each and hopefully briefly and interesting, please, on how do you see it, ray, starting view. Brief and interesting. [ laughter ] yeah. Well, ill get the brief part right hopefully. Iran and terrorism are sort cojoined because terrorism is a sort of strategic doctrine of the iranian state. They use violence. And its actually remarkably effective. Through the militias and various terrorist organization thats iran has trained over the years that act as its proxy and progeny. And also there was a time when terrorism was considered a weapon of the weak. In the hands of the Islamic Republic its a weapon of considerable Strategic Deterrence because right now the iranian case is that if the United States accuses us of terrorism we will respond with terrorism against American Forces in iraq and elsewhere. That argument has been persuasive to a lot of people who essentially do not want to confront iran for fear of iranian terrorism. So as a doctrine of statecraft, more so as a gesture of political violence, terrorism has been a remarkably effective tool for the Islamic Republic. And you can say a little bit the iranians are backing the houthi, right . In yemen. Well, theyre involved in syria. Theyre involved in yemen. Theyre involved in iraq. Certainly iraq. Theyre involved in bahrain. They are involved throughout the region. And its sort of an imperialism on the cheap because on the one hand it is a very grand imperial project. On the other hand by relying on proxies and surrogates its also cheaply executed because at the end of the day the Islamic Republic does not have the treasury to sustain its own national armies. And also actually iran does suffer from its own version of the vietnam syndrome. Since the iraniraq war from 1980 to 1988, the aftermath of that war is actually casualty averse. It has no problems with arab shiites killing arab sunnis but it kind of likes to maintain some measure of distance from that. So they have no problems with members of hezbollah dying in syria. None whatsoever. Thats why they have members of hezbollah which obviously all of you know is the shiite force from lebanon one of the most effective. Terrorist slash militia groups in the middle east history. So. Bill . So as a result of all of that iran is getting closer every month to achieving its grander strategic objectives across the region. Not only to have control over lebanon but increasing control over iraq and over syria, to project power elsewhere and to disrupt sunni governments throughout the region. At the same time the other side of terrorism besides the iraniansponsored terrorism is of course the slalafi jihadist terrorism, notably the Islamic State and al qaeda which are on their heels right now. But as secretary panetta said correctly earlier today, they are not going away in any way, shape or form and the way we have to continue to combat them is both through military means and also through looking at the longstanding political challenges that aggravate sunni interests in iraq and elsewhere but also through what this panel is talking about, the sinews of terrorism, the finances and ideology that still in too many places contribute to the growth of these salafi jihadist groups. So if you say that isis is not going away, do you see that if the sunnis, for example, are not incorporated into life in iraq there will be a new isis junior group or do you or do you see them spreading into africa or where do you see isis going . Isis and son of isis, whatever its name should be, will expand because of the ideological religious component of the view of a caliphate and also local dynamics. The local dynamics as you said in terms of iraq are about the sunnis feeling excluded from the future of their country. And similar local dynamics work in other places where those types of organizations have achieved a lot of interest. The real challenge for the United States, it perhaps goes without saying but ill say is, is that those salafi jihadist groups are unlike any of the other terrorist groups in that once they have a place that gives them sanctuary and they can act with impunity they will do external attacks. Weve seen it again and again. We saw it in sudan. We saw it in afghanistan. We saw it in yemen. We saw it in syria. And in every one of those instances there were people in the United States government, people in the Intelligence Community that would say this group is only interested in local issues, theyre not we see no evidence of them planning external attacks. And then were always surprised they went to external attacks. We need to understand that is the nature of these kinds of groups to do this. But right now do you see any of these groups having a place to operate from . There are local pockets where they still do have sanctuary. In what countries . In all these countries. In syria, in iraq, and then of course in libya and in yemen, al qaeda and the arab peninsula still one of the most dangerous groups that we have. Okay, zal. Well the two greatest threats being iran and sure. Yeah. On terrorism i think one of the issues that we do not pay enough attention to is not only that there are groups that iran supports, terrorist groups, directly such as hezbollah or hamas or some of these militias that now exist in iraq including one that is led by abu mohandes whos responsible for the attack on our embassy in kuwait many years ago. Oh, nice. But that irans policies create circumstances that lead at times to sunni extremism and terror. And then iran takes advantage of it. Its an arsonist on one hand but then it offers itself as a firefighter to come against those forces. For example, encouraging sectarianism in iraq or backing extreme measures taken by bashar against the population. Creates extreme circumstances and in those extreme circumstances sunni extremists find a home. Then iran comes, de facto a member of the coalition although its not a jury member, and tries to defeat those forces. But it uses the defeat to extend its influence into those areas. For example, now you see in iraq, in the sunni areas of iraq, which have been devastated because of the isis actions and the actions taken against isis, but,0 but now there are sun sunni militias, these Popular Mobilization forces, we assume theyre all shia. They are not. There are some that are now sunni militias working with iran to control those areas. Were very good at going after the terrorists, which we should, such as isis or al qaeda, but were not that good at what we do afterwards so this great doesnt reemerge politically in terms of politics, economics, in terms of selfgovernment, in terms of participation in power sharing. But iran very cleverly uses terrorism to extend its control. And right in syria the crisis between the kurds in iraq and the baghdad government has created an opportunity for them to bring kurdistan to heel. General sulemani, the head of the quds force, has been the architect of the fight between the iraqis and the kurds. And the militia forces that they control have been heavily involved in the fight against the kurds and in fact last night there was a meeting between the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi Security forces, the iraqi delegation was 3 4 made of made up of forces that iran controlled or iran itself. Not only Iraqi Military represented but militia forces. There was hezbollah from lebanon representative in the meeting. And also an iranian presumably from the quds force. And the iran has made great progress in influencing iraq generally but there was a pocket where the kurds, particularly the kdp kurds, the barzani kurds who are more independent of iran, and they want to bring them to heel. And its very important that in the aftermath of what the president has announced our new iran strategy the iranians are pushing forward, not being restrained, not being deterred but that they are being more aggressive. And its very important that in my view that we look at these militia forces in iraq. Some of them have acquired american weapons, and i dont know whether anybody from the congress are still here. Its very important that we demand that those American Equipment such as abram tanks are not allowed to be kr0e8d or owned by the militia forces. They either need to be returned to the iraqi regular forces or we need to disable them. But theyre also with the peshmerga, too right . Well, the peshmerga have some equipment. Less capable equipment than the iraqi forces, the regular iraqi forces. And some of the equipment that the militias have acquired from the iraqi forces either because of the abandonment of those weapons by the forces in the face of isis or by the current government. This is an important issue. We dont want another hezbollah in iraq. Which thats what iran wants to create a heds bla, zbollah, to n sharing when they run into difficulties, use these people as they have been doing with hezbollah in syria and sending also iraqi militias to syria and even bringing afghans, shiites and pakistani shiites to minimize their role in terms of the rey was mentioning vietnam because its expensive. How do you reduce the costs, get others to do your dirty work, and thats what they have been doing. So i think i agree with the notion that terrorism and iran in part its separate from each other but part they are part same problem. And i believe that for the longer term while iran wants to dominate the region and throw us out of the middle east, it sees is itself as the rising hegemon. And the larger hegemon usually doesnt want balancers around. And the u. S. Is the balancer that focusing to make iran a normal state and abnormal state, i have to say, its in part a state. It has structures of a state. Partisan evolution that seeks to spread and be promoted and use that to dominate the region by defeating irans effort at hegemony i think should we succeed at that and it wont be easy then we can also make progress and i believe that syrias containment strategy is needed. Do you feel the u. S. Is playing an active enough role in iran im sorry, in iraq, helping to contain iran and helping to say to abedi, for instance, the Prime Minister of iraq, dont coordinate with the Iranian Forces and help the peshmerga and dont fight with them . Or how do you see the or how do you see the administrations actions . Captioning performed by vitac captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008
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