Well, good morning everybody, thank you for turning out on a brutally hot day in the middle of july on a friday afternoon when you should really be some where else. We do have some important things to discuss and my name is jeffery kemp, i am the director of Regional Security programs here of the center of the National Interest. I am joined by two speakers and one commentator and paul pillar and demetrius let me talk about the format that we are going to have this morning. A fascinating book that was just written called the end void. My journey to the turbulent world to afghanistan, iraq and the un and had a distinguish academic record as well. He brings both academic to the project. Paul pillard, covering in southeast asia, i dont know what it is called today. Clearly critical part of the wo world. He also published a book which i do not have a hand out to show the krcameras. It is called why americans miss understand the world. Which is a country kritique of unique demetrius here is the president of the center for the National Interest and expert on russia as you will hear in a moment. Here i must put in a plug for the magazine of the National Interest of this month. Demetri fascinating essays, one by demetri and one on jacob on stalling diplomats. They are both worth reading and you should do that. Now, as you know we advertise todays event focusing on the crisis in syria. Um reaching new levels of intensity and particularly diplomatic interest as we speak secretary kerry as i understand it meeting in moscow. Well get to that issue in a moment. First before we do anything else, we thought it would be interesting and relevant to ask our three speakers to take 30 seconds twominutes to give their First Impression of what the tragic events that happened yesterday in nice leaning towards the war on terrorism and the responses that europe, russia and the United States and the middle east itself how those responses may or may not change. They should change of this event. I am going to ask to do a comment on the nice issue and well turn to syria. What do you think of nice. First of all, thank you for that on my book. I appreciate that very much. As far as nice is concerned, we dont know enough to make definitive or semi definitive judgment. Was this person tunisian and french having any relationships to terrorist groups or not, we dont know that yet. Second, was he self radicalized or was it driven by some extremi extremist ideology, which one . Given what has happened of the use of the truck against sif n civilians on the street is a difficult challenge that it imposes and what do you do about the method that he uses in some way that you and i talked, it is the worse case you can imagine. I am sure all of us given our two big events that are coming of the Republican Convention and the Democratic Convention are going to extreme measures just to think all kinds of scenarios and added to it this potentially use of a car to deal where it but i do think self radicalization or related to that, it makes the issue of syria and iraq and Counter Terrorism and what do you do domestically and of these groups of the season that we are in of these groups thank you very much, the interpretations and analysis are out there, out strips the fact as we know them. There is not much that we know so far. And, he also correctly points out if our concern is particular message of operation, really, there is no limit. You dont need anything hightech the kill a lot of people. I would put this incident in the same general category as basically what we have seen over the last month or so and the others in that collectively there is no one simple explanati explanation. The actual explanation if we knew everything about each one of those incidents, probably spans and ranges of some sort of connection with the events we are going to talk about later in the hour. Others that matters of people having their own agenda who latch onto the isis name or to some of our other concerns of terrorism and do what theyre going to do anyway. I would commend of your reading of the best interpreted round up of these events of the last several weeks that my friend Brian Jenkins had earlier this week of the hill. Brian concludes quite correctly although we had an appetite of simple explanations on these things, it is just isis or something else, more likely it is a messy set of very different circumstances with each one of these independencidents. Demetri. Okay, now syria. This is a terrible subject here. I am skimming through this as i came here this morning. One source suggest already since 2011, 6. 6 million internal refugees and 4. 8 million refugees who left the country primarily to join lebanon, turkey and europe. By all accounts, anything between 300 to 470,000 deaths and counting. And, on top of that, an Administration Policy towards syria has gone through many, many zigs and zags and i guess it is right in the middle of a zag or zig right now as we speak. Demetri has more to say thaabou that in a moment. Syria is going to be one of the key issues with the two candidates and their spiraling p partners are comiing up in the president ial debate in the election for november. I am going to ask for the views of whats on earth is going on in syria. Is it any good news . Do you see a solution and dealing these issues in the region and we look forward to hearing what you are going to say. Well, thank you again. I thought i would do two things. One is ask of what you did in terms of additional consequences of syria besides this terrible humanitarian of civilians have s suffered. Then to talk about kind of the policies and whats going on and where the wroprocess is. The process is saying something of u. S. , russian and corporation. This as we know has Many National security implications, well, not to us to the west, to the region and to the world. First, i think it is unquestionable that the growth of isis has a terrorist Guild Organization and has a unique terrorist organization with a set of base, with a concept for how to organize the world in office and with the worldwide appeal and recruitment in the thousands from all over the world. And with virtual information in many languages reaching to the world. And, them being inspired individuals and other parts of the world. I think brutality is slightly unique than others but not by much. It also generated a Population Movement because of the areas and factors. At times because of actual policy of something of the intent of push population out to other places is having an effect on europe in particular. Of the increase of the fear and the reality of islamist and terror globally, it brought russia back in the region and away it was not a case for a while. It becomes a kind of a proxy feel. It is a risk some probability of that. You cannot exclude it. It maybe draw and even help redraw the map. This is a heart wrenching. It is the crisis of many serious implications already and even the potential to produce more. So what do we do . First, i think that the urgency of dealing with the terrorist groups is one. I will talk about what our objective should be and how we prosecute it and two, what do we do about syria itself and the two are related and there are some questions of you know of what sequence does one pursue it and which one is more important and what time frame of short and longer term. I think it is very important to think positive and immediate and longer terms. What we have done has reached some progress of the 45 of the territory not only in syria but iraq is liberated. Second is the number of foreign citizens and individuals are coming to join. The group has declined. It has declined to 75 compare to the hike of the period. There are efforts to push a case both and well come through the tactic of russian American Corporation strategies to deal with it. My sense is that we need to look at and i advocate that we do to how to take the area back and to do it with a specified time frame of six months seem to be with the reasonable goal and my and for the United States and this could be done by the coalition path or russia that we pursue or use the afghan model that we did with the taliban and a meth od of combination and of local forces and Regional Forces with heavy u. S. Air power and with special forces with the forces to take over territory that remaining territory and administration is moving towards some of that and we refer the deployment of 500 Additional Special forces in iraq intended for that. We have such a model of intelligence of extremist that relatively working. Afterward of the i would recommend that. For a longer term, i think we face a huge challenge even if he succeed. In the short term assuming that we follow the model. What you do of the people who are apart of the group, particularly the foreigners that are there. A range of 2,000 to a high of 25,000 you get the range. And given the experiences that they have, this could be a huge security terrorist problem to places that they go to. What you do with liberated territory . Given the structure of fallujah and mostly damaged in the process of liberation. If we dont have a post strategy of getting in the syria part of the problem as dealing effectively of the government then as we saw in the case about alqaeda and iraq which we liberated the areas defeated more or less. What succeeded by something called it is a lot worse in some way of a bigger problem. We face a potential of something, a Group Exceeding of these issues. Whether it could be even worse. We need to think about not only deliberation of what to do but what to do with the people and what to do with the area area area i think the establishment of the legitimate government in syria is vital for a longer term strugg struggle from syria and associated to syria. The absence of the political settlement that produces a more legitimate government can play into the hands of terrorists and extremists. And, it should be our goal of terrorists and many extremists. There is a lot of ideas how this could come about. How long of the stay and transition and the structure of the state that might come. Come would argue starting in the middle Eastern Empire or super state that existed and federal structure is a lot about our economy locally of the notion of centralized and relatively recent. It will be apart of the solution of what you have shared in the center and how they compose off and what you do otherwise to sacrifice our allies in syria as well as others could be part of the solution. Now, i do want to take a lot more time of how we perceive. I have been in favor of seeking Common Ground with extremist an terror. I think it is important taking a clear understanding of the goals. The goal is not only of terrorism but the broader [ inaudible [ inaudible ] my fear is that well not solve the problem but at the same time it will be costly for us as we to be moving away from this destabilization of syria which is a legitimate political order and caught more problems between our allies in the region would feel and uncomfortable and ready there is a lot of mistrust and distrust in the u. S. In part of how we have dealt with syria and iran and that would make that problem much worse. I would hope that why we should perceive and going and corrobora corroborate. The issues of terrorism requires a regional understanding so that we can help facilitate regional settlement as well. I dont believe that well succeed of the twins objective without an understanding among key region power particularly syria, iran and saudi arabia. Those three powers are involved in a proxy war and given the risks they are already facing and future risks, theyre in a room joined diplomacy by us and russia two facilitates settlements can be accepted. If we and russia reach an agreement first and then with arab and turkey and iran being more workable and may reduce results and therefore we can prepare strong relations that we have and i hope that we keep our allies in confidence and making sure that gap that existed of the mistrust gap does not widen. We have to have a regional balance but also a structure. This is a union which is the most under institutionalized and the players have changed. Now we have two other external regions thats very important and iran and turkey. You need a structure and this is something that we and russia and china also to talk about this and architecture for the region that feels confidence and regulate and facilitate future acceptance and rules that can in addition to a balance of power can make this region progress of our greatest ability. Thank you very much indeed. Some of the major realities thats been saving with these problems are the following three. One, isis is losing. Some of the metrics on that regarding to territory law and recruits and so on. Thats a reflection of a number of things of the laws and the support and their absolute lack of allies and in the fact in the end they have a message that simply does not appeal. This trend was at the front post of how isis are preparing itself and followers losing all of their territories in iraq. Second reality is that a significant moderate arab opposition in syria has not materialized in the way that many expected or hosted to. This was punctuated sometimes back when poor general austin had to admit to a Congressional Committee our Defense Department had going for training them. Most of the gains on the grounds against isis have not come from such elements, they have come from the regime back in recent launch by russia. That reflects a wider trend that we see and other civil wars which of the more extreme elements can shove out the moderate ones. Fighting an internal war of an extreme way to pursue political objectives as oppose to a peaceful way. That does not surprise us. The group that sometimes use to hand out the list supposedly moderate opposition groups are not really all that modern. The very fact that they have become so closely on the ground, which is the alqaeda affiliate in syria. Third, i want to high is the assad regime is not going anywhere, any time soon. This is a reflection of the internal settlements of sources and support among many syrians who dont like the assad, look at the feasible alternatives and decided they would be even worse. Of course, it reflects external sources of the iranians playing a role that made a Different Military over the past years. One of the problems of our discourse along has been a lack of clarity of goals. And trying to pursue more than one thing at a time. The common terror side of things and the as separation for regime change. How the regime has made a use of prominence of extremest on the other side. The fact is the positive regime change in this situation is in compatible in ways of being able to counter disabled terrorist groups including but not limited to isis. Again, we slit in our overall discussion and this is included in the Obama Administration into the assad after the syrians broke out some five years ago. I would suggest of a matter of habit and reflection of the same general tendency this realization has set in some other important relevance of the government. It makes it all pertinent for us. One of them is turkey. They made a statement that talk about the need for his government to have some sort of improvements of relations with the syrian government. Thatll represent white a reversal of what turkish policy have been the last couple of years. And the one with russia has a lot to do with syria and indeed, it may in fact could be a preliminary to more active turkish innovation a couple of days ago there is a report of National Security sent to the damascus i think president obama has realized these realities that i just described even though so far the administration have not officially announced the assad must go idea. It has backed away from us. He seems to realize that the war itself rather than any particular political or ideology coloration of regime damascus has been responsible. The assad has been a powerful decade. It was only after the Syrian Civil War that isis got the great boost that it did by moving from iraq into syria and taking advantage of the violence and the care. I think our president realizes that the escalation of this war is likely to do more r harm than good. The one new development and thats whats being negotiated right now with the russians. Well hear more from demetre on that. I should lay out the facts. Based on what was leaked on this proposal was to provide a joint impliati Implementation Group layed id be jordan. Which i would suggest of a target of such efforts in addition to what could be done to isis. Isis maybe losing but our we cannot say the same thing of its position on the ground. If anything, it is to solidify the solution. The country is working closely with some of those opposition elements mentioned earlier. The russians have complained with some justification that contrary of assurances that we try to give them in connection of we have not managed to per sway other opposition groups with al nusral. This proposal may help to over come partly of the problem of physical close quarters between other groups. I would suggest to our advantage of russia to do more dirty work against alqaeda affiliate. So it probably makes sense to do Something Like this in the way of corroborations even if it falls short of the further goal of getting russia to lean heavily on assad with final political arrangements in the syrian settlements. We heard resources of proposal and surprisingly they seem to be powered mainly by a reluctant to let go of the assad and an inclination of russia doing things like mugging our diplomats and we still have major differences with them and other places like ukraine. Obama also realizes that to take out isis and using the term that he uses so much does not solve the terrorist problem. What do you do with the liberated territory. There is implications of nation i would building after military operation seized. T terror under any label is not to our advantage and we can expect for it to persist if there is chaos and disorder left afterwards. The problem