Really price any further. The argument that i would make is one of effect it has and that is drowns in yemen despite the Obama Administrations rhetoric to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al qaeda, that its not drowns or airstrikes that are driving. It is civilian casualties. Its the individuals being killed along with the al qaeda targets. When i was in yemen, i was talking to someone whos very, very close to al qaeda he said look, you know, theres a difference between yemen and afghanistan and yemen and afghanistan are arabs and a knock at the country. In yemen archenemies in yemen. They move around much easier than they did. They can be a member of al qaeda and can be no locally. Maybe some people known them as he tribesmen another see the u. S. , for instance you would see them as an al qaeda member. The u. S. Thinks its killing an al qaeda member and maybe it is. But hes been a killed on the ground and yemenis seen being killed is in fact the tribesman. This is a challenge that the u. S. Obama administration not released all and i would argue that the drones in the airstrikes have not actually solve the problem and theyve actually exacerbated the problem the great deal. So not to go on too long, but just let me close with this last scenario. After the Christmas Day attack 2009, president obama asked his staff to imagine what would happen if al qaeda had been successful and i think thats a very good exercise. And if today al qaeda were able to carry out an attack, even a fairly small one not on the scale of september 11th, but on the scale of Christmas Day 2009, with the u. S. Respond . Many people, put myself into a largescale renovation of yemen would be mistaken that the u. S. Has been bombing them and for the past three years and it really doesnt seem to have had the impact of the u. S. Is like it to have. One of the arguments instead is that the u. S. Is able to bob al qaeda can keep a credit back on its heels, the al qaeda wont be able to plot complete and launch attacks against the United States. The last three years have shown that is not indeed the case. Weve seen this year the u. S. Is carried out at least by my count anywhere from 37 to 50 airstrikes on suspected al qaeda target. Those are according to the anonymous officials that well see quoted in the Washington Post or the New York Times. Those are an effort to kill 10 to 15 individuals with the u. S. Police plot against the u. S. So one of two things is true. Neutron strikes arent as accurate as we all told they are or the u. S. Is doing Something Different than what it says it is doing, targeting more than just a 10 to 15 individuals. So what would any initiation and be able to do if al qaeda were to carry out an attack today . If a largescale Ground Invasion is foolish in the disaster is and is really table, do they just have another missile search, which referred the same, which doesnt seem to be effective. This is the critique of the jenin battle that has been designed by individuals within the upon the administrator is not dismantling and defeating al qaeda. In yemen, was happening on the ground if al qaeda is expanding and the problem is exacerbated. So while ibrahim finished an optimistic note, although i fell back to earth with a rather pessimistic one. Thank you, both. Before it up into crushing sunni audience, what is to have. The first question is how much of al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is really a great United States . Is it fair to say this is an organization dedicated to attacking the United States . Is it safe to say its only 10 to 15 individuals and if they are dead or arrested for you are retired, a bigger question i have is both of you are critical of a term solution. Greg, you spoke to do clearly about baker is on the current solution, but theres problems as well with what i call a development solution. Theres no real link in the academic literature that development reduces support for terrorism and attack some believe it might even increase it. More broadly is that theres absolutely no political will. Theres almost no financial capability, it received at least in the United States to do a Massive Development program in yemen. This is not something the u. S. Is good that it may be an individual project youre there, but transforming the economy. So in a way, if all the options are lousy, demand up with the lousy drone option rather than the work since the Development Option . I ask you to comment on both of those. Ibrahim, ill ask you to start. Thank you. Well, let me start with the first. I think im a very largescale largescale [inaudible] and ill explain now. One of the issues that im not very supportive of use to treat one individual without looking at the entire conflict. The problems in the stability that yemen is facing is where as a whole, that is where the defense is coming from. Jim and his almost 25 Million People there. [inaudible] the gulf region here again talking about a region that is linked directly to the National Economy and is going down the hall. So yemen so far has kept yemen contained in one geographical area that resulted out of yemen. Lets keep in mind that on the other side of yemen and somalia now we have the message that yemen we can only imagine the moment between the goal for between europe and asia in the department. When i look at it as a whole, thats receiving major problem, major potential problem that if the situation becomes aware and yemen goes into violence, thessaly should be expecting to see. So probably you are right but at the moment we are not seeing that very obvious , but these scenarios, especially as mentioned earlier, theres a political sense in yemen. That is where we would expect to see happening in that region. And thats what my view is. Now, other approaches that arent effective, well, greg and i have agreed Security Solutions based on drones presently go argument is not a big doing. I look at where al qaeda was 10 years ago and where it is now and this is again the New York Times or others. So they know its not working in the figure of the solution has failed and is contributed and away again to the regime of manipulation of al qaeda and that is how it went. Now i think the importance of development in my view has engaged the people in a process that was not a piece called the casualties of the civilians of the anbar province, but with a process that they belonged to is that contribute to because in my view, one of the major problems again as they show ownership limited to the regime and not the way i see it happening but the new regime was to have the president embarking on similar policies. So engaging with people in my view is the major key here and thats a contribute to making a difference. Yeah, it thinks. , those are both very good questions. I think ibrahim case an expansive answers. Why look at al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, this is an organization we otherwise think of as a terrorist organization that who it is they are defines them. Al qaeda of course sees itself as an organization that carries out attacks. They wouldnt call them terrorist attacks. I think we all agree there are terrorist attacks. Theyre an organization that carries out operations and that is an important distinction. Carrying out attacks is only part of what it is the organization does. This is an organization that unlike other groups of al qaeda that weve seen are able to carry out attacks in yemen and able to carry out attacks or attempt to carry out attacks abroad, whether in saudi arabia and the attempted assassination in 2009 whether its their attempt against the United States. But there is a different finance to decrease of attacks and attacks in yemen are a means to an end for the organization. They are a means to head back against Yemeni Government or military attacking non, whereas attacks against the west are an ad in and of themselves. Dan, you asked about sort of killing these individuals and are just going after the 10 to 15 and the individuals plotting against the United States, would we be safer . Is a great threepart series in the Washington Post by greg miller, Karen Deyoung agricola address just this. One of the quotes from u. S. Official in their lives we have 10 to 15 or 20 enemy killed them and theres 20 guys this sort of papa. This is very seductive if youre in the pentagon you have this list of individuals plotting against the United States. If you come across these names off the list makes it feel as though you keep the United States safer. I think theres a faulty logic going on in there. Weve seen over the past decade the u. S. Is fighting wars that just killing these particular individuals is in itself make us safer because so often many more people, put in the ranks. Theres also a tendency to personalize al qaeda appeared particularly in yemen we saw this with the americanborn cleric, the individual that the argument was advanced that if he could be killed the u. S. Would be safer. He was as close killed in the drone strike and said number 2011. We know they had a plan in which they gave the latest version thankfully to an undercover agent. So not on where a lackey hasnt crossed list we talk about Ibrahim Sharqieh were all worried about. Theres a couple important things to remember. One, Abdu Rabu Mansour hadi wasnt a member of al qaeda. This is an individual radical license. This radicalize largely because of the iraqi war and while were focused on this individual, on Abdu Rabu Mansour hadi as the bomb maker, is a mistake to think of the u. S. Were to kill him al qaedas bomb making capabilities would all of a sudden disappear. Abdu rabu mansour cross the border into test and fix as i recounted in the book. He was trained by someone presumably in yemen and has been promoted in six years. Its a fairly safe assumption that hes trained other individuals as well. So just talking about individuals sort of misses the point is what i think is particularly important is that as al qaeda has expanded in late 2,952,000 or more today, al qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a much bigger pool of talent from which she drawn out limited previously. Briefly on your second question, i agree there are a lot of good options. I am not antidrone. I think drones are an amazing piece of technology that the u. S. Has, but if used judiciously and wisely can i think make a big difference in the work and so qaeda. However, instead of being a part of the solution, they become the totality for the Obama Administration and i think youre right that people in washington look at yemen and cms and yemen house for a number officials become too hard to do. Easiest thing is drones are perfect, so lets do that. I think a very real but unspoken assumption underlying all of this was really brought out over the past month as they went to yemen and back to the United States is that the u. S. Seems to believe that this is a war the u. S. Can win on its own and i think thats wrong and i think thats a mistake. If this is the u. S. Against al qaeda and yemen, if its framed that way come to seem that way, thats where the u. S. Can never win. The only people who ever defeat al qaeda are the yemeni shiites coming in the clerics and so forth. The u. S. Can do a lot to help them. Unfortunately see right now is the u. S. That is so heavy handedly encouraging that so many strikes and killing so many individuals and yemen, the u. S. Is essentially shrinking the space in which individuals can stand up against al qaeda. Let me end with one and it goes. There is an antial qaeda cleric who railed against al qaeda from the pulpit, talked about what it was they were doing this against Islam Kamal Jim and should not be in a good of jihads. This is something of a real impact, hurting al qaedas recruiting, scheduled a meeting, wanted to get him to back off on some other metric. This meeting was to pay u. S. Drug, u. S. Air strike in the antial qaeda cleric was killed. B. Macinnis, in the back. Please wait for the microphone and please introduce yourself. Name is helena and i spent the last year in yemen and has some of the same observations i heard you talk about. I was there september to may i think the last point you leave us with is a huge way for america to really hate straight when they talk about the window where it was an opportunity to Work Together and for america to partner against al qaeda. That opportunity is largely influenced the drone policy. Do you think there is any room are opportunity to somehow patch that ive been to work from their . And the second part of the question is people theres been no moral accountability, no accountability at all and a lot of yemeni people are saying hey, wheres the responsibility . Verse reparations . Of the civilians have died. Theres been no reparations. Do you think that could even never be a possibility but what would that look like . Thank you are great, where to start and then well go to ibrahim. On the first by compuware write about a missed opportunity. We saw this on the counterterrorism side as he addressed quite eloquently as well as on the political side. I think the u. S. Really missed an opportunity to get rid of president sulla and his family. One of the lessons of the past year and a half in yemen politics and how the u. S. Is on track to yemen as an opportunity for them if they dont come around again. Theres a price to pay for diplomatic mistakes and when the u. S. Makes a mistake by running its yemen policy regard or that he said he read the kingdom take the leap in yemen, which is mindboggling on why that would be done, there is a very real diplomatic and political price to pay. When i was in yemen, think i took away its yemen is a broken country. Its difficult not to maintain faith in the fiction that gunmen this is a unified country. The places outside the capital have drifted so far beyond control of the Central Government in sanaa will take much more time, much more effort and money to bring them back into the orbit of the Central Government than the Yemeni Government really has capacity for right now. Even in the capital, sanaa has become a city of factions. Theres essentially four factions fighting over sanaa. At the top you see political elites. You know, the former president , one of the really Amazing Things in tunisia denali goes into exile. Mubarak was to present. And libya, gadhafi is killed. He has immunity in a silly political player. So you see factions that are really fighting while everybody else is doing with electrical blackout that happened every day with the rising price of water and flour and bread and petrol. Its really quite broken and into this steps organizations like al qaeda when the south river to provide services. You are right the opportunity has been missed. I dont see any easy or quick solution and thats what the u. S. Is looking for right now. Im the second point of accountability, youre absolutely correct there as well. This has been a frustration. Ive had many conversations youve had and sat down to type the u. S. Diplomat including some who are intimately involved and some of these strikes. When i asked him about the situation like the 16yearold son of or a lucky who was born in denver, colorado. He was killed in a drone strike in september 2011. Lets been told to me, whats been said to me as he was sitting with the wrong people and he said at the wrong people does it happens. That might be a few that make sense in washington and maybe something to look at people as if theyre al qaeda or not al qaeda that that works. In yemen where people are known as more than just members of al qaeda, with the most role and at times competing identities in the hierarchy of allegiances. That does not sit well at all. One of the things the same is its not as though al qaedas theology, worldview, morality has suddenly become popular in yemen are palatable to a lot of people in yemen. But when people are being killed, when you visit tribesmen, a father, lucid mother or your brother or son, what happens is the senior took been in and people pushed into the arms of al qaeda because al qaeda is fighting back against the u. S. And the u. S. Is the organization, the country that kills your tribesmen and family member, says the marriage of convenience for people and thats very dangerous because this could then expand al qaeda much more broadly and it doesnt matter what their motivations are. It matters the actions they carry out an attempt to attack the u. S. Thank you. Ibrahim. The element here the problem in yemen is very conflict. One dimension of this conflict is in the past that the former regime actually reminds many of the tribal leadership and it got many of them involved in corruption, said the regime rather solves security in many parts of the country. So they have their own structure, their own interests as the pursuing their own tribal interests. The tribal leaders are pursuing interests of tribal members. They are loyal to saudi arabia. So the issue is not only limited or contained within yemen, but also extends beyond that. The tribes are a big order. Now whether you can build an alliance with the tribe come and thats a big question and for that i want to make sure an example of the most recent experiences with the new government [inaudible] and al qaeda [inaudible] there was the alliance and the yemeni have their own tribes. So by catherine its again the drawings and the alliance with the yemeni army after al qaeda was pulled out, what happened is the yemeni army withdrew from them in the local tribe is to deal with the retaliation of al qaeda. So what happened a few weeks later, a suicide bomb or had a funeral that ended up killing 46 people. So this has been a huge obstacle for alliances to bu