Thrawtheam at his feet and say what good are these . Theyre all broken promises. So we have to reestablish the leverage but how do we do that when were not projecting that not there . Were not taking vienna, were not doing it 100 . Were simply doing air strikes at night or against targets of opportunity as opposed to having a concerted effort to at this point, youre not going to take mosul with peshmerga and u. S. Air strikes. You have to take mosul with the sunnis that are in mosul. But how do you get them, how does the u. S. Get them to fight . Absent a protracted commitment without an end date, youre not going to. The Iraqi Government theres so much iranian influence in the Iraqi Government rightnow. I dont know if you know this but the Iraqi Security forces went from 55 shia45 sunni to 95 or greater percent shia in the last four years. All the militias have been deputized. They are now part of the Iraqi Security force. Shia militias are now part of these National Guard regional units that were supposed to stand up and fight isis. The problem is that these militias dont differentiate between a sunni military ishmael and the insurgency. And isis is counting on that. So as they push into baghdad and the baghdad belts, theyre fomenting a violent response from the shia militias who are legitimate Iraqi Security forces. So as the sixth Iraqi Army Division, the seventh Iraqi Army Divisions try to reinforce seventh Iraqi Army Division primarily sunni in alanbar, theres no trust there. And the sunni military is falling. And that just legitimizes baghdads concerns that we cant trust the sunnis and the Iraqi Security forces. They will not fight these guys. We spoke before about the appointment of general allen. So does that auguster positive things for american policy in iraq . What do using . What do you think . The selection of general allen, the anbaris were begging him to come back to restart, to help restart the awakening because he is a credible figure. The same thing with general petraeus. You could hear of cries but theyre werent from isis. They were from the very sunnis that we need to fight isis. That was until we started seeing some of the powers initially general allen was going to be the guy in charge of this. There was a kinetic flow of the line of operation. Line of operation. Stemming threat finance. And there was the Coalition Building where we say to partners you dont have to provide air strikes or boots on the ground but give us the intel, stop the flow from turkey and other countries. You have 2500 guys coming from tunisia, 2500 guys from saudi arabia, and guys froming from morocco able to come in from turkey into the fight. And thats a problem. So there are things Coalition Partners can do. But general allen is the right guy to do this. He just needs to be empowered to do it. Empowered how . Authorized. We have a cadre of American Military that would be willing to go back right now if asked. We have general allen was asked by the tribes. Maliki asked petraeus, come back, ill do whatever you want. But the administration did not allow either one of those gentlemen to go forward and do this. You cant do it to youve got to be sanctioned by the u. S. Government to do it to be effective. So with general allen being in charge of this and the cadre that he can put together, you have relationships that weve established over the years with the iraqis, sunnis, shia nationalists, peshmerga, and other groups in the Iraqi Government that actually want to see iraq stay together. They want to see everybody be part of this process. One of the things we say is we need to do the same thing isis did. They established temporary alliances. To take mosul. We need to do the same thing to take territory away from isis. If you have five guys in a room that hate each other. If theres a snake going across the stage were going to kill the snake first and then well we can go back to hating each other. Well do that afterwards. And maybe if we kill the snake together, maybe well say maybe youre not as bad as we thought you were. But we need to do things like that. The problem is that we say things that resonate in the sunni Population Centers saying the end date is two months away. Theres going to be something from the administration thats going to say air strikes will end on this date. And as soon as that happens youre not going to get sunni buyin to do anything difficult. And absent putting pressure on iran to get abadi to absorb sunnis in the security apparatus, its not going to happen. And then again the sunnis why would they trust abadi in the first place . I want to come back to putting pressure on iran regarding isis which seems to be something that the opposite is happening. But in the meantime, you ended your introductry statements very depressed, not optimisticically. But i want to say, what would it look like, how could the United States put enough people in a room to kill the snake what snake . What would that look like regarding the tribes in you say its unlikely. But what would have to happen . American military leadership and Political Leadership as well . You expressed skepticism regarding anthony lincoln. I completely agree with what michael said. And ill try to give it the tribal dimension. First, with an anecdote from 1261. [laughter] the mongols swept the region. They took baghdad and they kept sweeping through and reached a point in the la vanity a town, and this town is the jews area. And there he met an army of the mamulucks and there was there was have been a battle. Then the jews they tried to pick a winner because they were hedging. So they decided to split into two teams and to fight on each side and whoever wins will retain the loser. So this is how tribes act. They need to work with winners. This is very important for them. And in 2006, they told david of the Washington Post that at that time was the time when the arabberlin wall had fallen and he said he was ready to join the u. S. Campaign to spread democracy. And then a year after that, when the hezbollah fighters swept through his areas and that of the sunnis, their area, he called him and he said i have confirmed news from washington that the americans are coming to our rescue. And then he said are you crazy . We will swim from here to the destroyers. Through the american destroyers. The american destroyers. So they learned that you cant bet on the United States. And this is the same lesson that they learned when michael says that they shout this but when they see general allen this is because in the tribal mindset the personal is very important. And i know that way of democracy we cant keep on sending the same people all the time. They have to change. But we have to understand, we have to learn from the mistakes. We sent lincoln who handed the sat wave to maliki, to the shia rival and to iran. And then maliki just got cut the salaries, he cut the army and then they were on their own. And yesterday the white house put out a press releases saying were sending lincoln again to the people who do not trust him anyway. So i completely agree, im not saying we should just send all the old team. But to win the tribes over, we have to prove that the u. S. And the coalition is the winning side and they have an interest in joining it and they can trust the United States and then this will be a long term. They will not fight if this is something about the short term, twoyear thing taking on isis and degrading capability. They will not fight if this is only for the sake of the United States. They will not fight if this is Counter Terrorism only. They will fight if this means beating the other tribe that has been beating them since the year 200 bce. Thats how the tribes fight. And by the way, most of the fighting that you see now in kobani between the tribes and for isis now, we call them isis. Between isis and the kurds, this predates isis and predates the syrian revolution. And these guys there has been , tension over time. Think you know this, michael in mosul and kirkuk, the full flag between the kurds and the sunni arabs have been there even before saddam and the iraqi states. We have to take these things into consideration. So we have to entertain these tribes. We have to get some allies and we have to treat them the way iran treats its allies. If you are a member of hesbollah now youre sitting in bay lute beirut and getting hebs blah security paychecks. Its such a longterm thing that they do. Everyone who has joined hezbollah is now fighting in syria. Everyone who joins saut wave is on the run from some shia policeman or they dont have money or are trying to get support from isis or whoever. Let me just ask quickly without getting the tribes on side, what are the odds of success against and again i guess theres two different ways to put it. What are the odds of success in defeating isis and what are the odds of success in quelling a sunni rebelion letting the sunnis know that in spite of the tossing over Saddam Hussein that the sunnis are still a part of iraq . What are the chances of either . Well, so far isis has been in the tribal areas. They havent had any big wins except for mosul. And over there its mostly it has 2 million people. But many of them are still tribal. So were talking about tribal areas. So the tribal would be the instrumental fighting force in that part. To defeat isis i would say we have to get the tribes that are still out of isis. For example, one of the strong tribes were proassad. You might know one of them, the Syrian Ambassador in iraq who defected he is from that area. They defected early on and they wanted to join the Free Syrian Army and the opposition and to fight. Potent force and know how to fight. Except that like i said, we call them carpenters and no arms or radicals, whatever. Now, in july by the way when isis was expanding and winning pledges of allegiance from other tribes, they in three hours, in eastern syria, they killed 800 men from an area part of agada. So these are the guys trying to join us. And they were dying. So what we have to show is we have to show resolve long term and then you will see the tribes. And of course funds of money. And then you will see the tribes coming to our side. And then you can use them maybe in combination with the u. S. Air power and beat isis in their areas. Thats a good transition into this. I did want to pick it up in syria, especially the background. How do you earn the trust of the tribes . How do you earn the trust of any iraqi sunnis if people would look to syria and they would say this administration has sat on its hands while more than 200,000 arab sunnis have been slaughtered . Azhidis,mped to defend y christians and kurds. , however, when the sunni lives seemed to matter nothing at all. And as they keep saying the administration has kept insulting the fsa saying theyre doctors, pharmacists, carpenters. How do you get if youre looking at syrias and the administrations policy has been to not intervene in the war, how do you get the sunnis in syria or iraq or anywhere in the region to buy in . I can think of a couple ways. One would be to first of all i think its very important for the administration to realize its in a hole in this regard and to stop digging. What i mean is im not trying to be flippant. No, though. But its we have to understand that the nonstrike incident of september 2013 thats what its called in the government. That got about 96 , 95 of the declared stockpile cw out of syria, not all of it. Thats a good thing. But that came at a tremendous political price for our relations with i think our relations with the and our reputation in the entire world. And thats a larger larger than this discussion. But it also sent a terrible message to the sunnis inside of syria. Why . Why is this a problem . Because its 75 sunni. Its easier to do tho wink and nod stuff when the minority when the number of sunnis inside of a country like iraq is smaller. Its a little easier to do. You can pick them off, probably divide them. In the case of syria, you need to have a political and military program. The sunnis inside of syria would like a replacement to the minority dominated assad regime. Its alway dominated regime. The shia offshoots supported by iran. They would like to have a ny kind of transition away from it. Thats one thing we can help them with. And we have a stated policy to go in that direction anyway. Until now they havent seen it. Second would be in order to achieve that both tactically , strategically, and in terms of cost thats a conversation for , the United States, cost. I understand that. Is you have to get the sunni powers in the region on side to finance this operation which they say theyve been willing to do and but the problem is that unlike our iranian adversaries, iran has a cudse force and theyre very good at what the president call the proxy game. Theyre very good at it. And our sunni allies in the region are not except for the jihadists. And so from a statecentric point of view its very difficult to get all the sunni powers to Work Together toward that common end. And they want the United States to step in and be that arbiter. To sort of point things in that direction. And they will be willing to finance it. Until now, the president has said no way. Now, again, that strategy would make sense in terms of both ending the war in syria and eliminating isis. The president s strategy would make more sense if the number of sunnis inside of syria were much smaller. But its not. Its a huge amount. And we havent been able to find that alternative. We have to find that alternative that takes into conversation sunni asfrations that they dont join jihaddists on a strategic level as these two gentlemen have outlined and then also dont hold animosities against the United States and carry out terrorist attacks. So that means not only helping in this overall fight in terms of inside of syria. But not putting the country in a situation where it lays down a red line and doesnt enforce it. Thats going to lose American Power and the perception of power all over the world and it costs us tremendously among the Syrian Opposition and sent many more syrians over to the jihaddists because they were seen as, to steal a line from a book, the strong horse. And the way to solve this at the moment its very simple. Ok . The reason why the president takes the approach he does is because it goes back to when he was elected. He was a reaction to what was perceived by the American People and those in the region as american aggression in the region. This is well known. Its not controversial at all. And there was a political fallout to that. And he was elected. And because over time whats happened is weve seen that its passivety overall. Its throwing your hands up in the air and saying we cant do anything. Whats required at the moment is a smart policy based on something that americans do very well. It is called assertiveness. It means working with allies in a smart way and in creative ways using their resources to defeat a common foe. Weve been doing this for years. And this is whats required to truly defeat isis. If we dont do it now, we will not defeat isis not only this administration but it will become even harder during the next administration. Thats great. One of the things that reminds me of and theres a lot of talk in the region about moderates and extremists. This is one of the things that youre talking about in terms of the tribes. I want to come back to that. One of the things that strikes me is whenever the and its not just this administration. The Bush Administration did the same. They want to encourage the position of moderates and for moderates to stand up against extremists. However, as hussein has also outlined, mike has outlined, everyone has outlined. The United States has done a bad job of backing moderates in the field. To back moderates rhetorically is one thing but to let the extremists, the nuts come in. Whether its isis or Islamic Republic of iran and hezbollah, these are big issues to really put your money where your mouth is. I think this is one of the thing that is were getting at. This has not been happening. I want to come back to cobe ani. Kobani. One of the things you were talking about hussein, you were saying that this divide preexists isis. I want you to talk about that for a second. Mike, im going to ask you to talk about your sense of isis actual military capabilities and what it takes militarily to handle them. Sure. Well, what we know is that one of the ways that assad kept tabs on the kurds was to use these same tribes to not sort of beat them but animosity between the two. Of course, the animosity started in ancient times over maybe cattle or the bath river or , you know, these mundane things. But we know that theres a line between these two. And assad used these tribes to beat these kurds repeatedly. And when there was when assads power was on the decline in that part of syria, then the kurds did not pick up arms against assad by the way. The ones in kobani. They just tried to stay out of the whole thing. And now the offensive that you see from these isis fighters, the sunni isis fighters, is to an extent not related to syria proper. And this started from the very first day that assads power weakened. There were tensions. And the reason why the kurds formed these militias, these selfdefending militias, they call. They formed them after the revolution. Not to fight assad just to keep and by the way in 20072008, assad did the same thing. He armed the tribes in the south against the jews because they were educating the jews against assad. Agitating the jews against assad. So these fault lines now predate isis. Now they can pick up the isis flag. Representatives for ideology but its really sunniarab tribes. It predates the actual whates going on now. Very interesting. Mike,