Foreign Affairs committee  My summary, or my largest take-away, would be that I don't think you can deal with the ISIL threat without dealing with a settlement in Syria, and a viable settlement in Syria has to have at its end the exit of the Assad and Makhlouf families from Syria and the leadership of Syri

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that while security-centred reform is key and the linchpin in Iraq, the overall key to solving the ISIL threat concerns a real settlement in Syria. I think it's important to look at the fact that there are real settlements, and then there's window dressing. I would encour

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, there has been trade between Iraq and Syria going back even to when Saddam Hussein ruled, especially, in his later years. It was illicit trade that violated UN sanctions. Then after that there was some trade between Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the new Iraq. Also, Syria was

Foreign Affairs committee  Oh, no, there is extensive trade between Iran and Iraq as well as between Iran and Syria. The question many people ask is how did we get here, how did this happen? What we're looking at overall, beyond the uprisings and the localized reasons and demographic reasons for the upris

Foreign Affairs committee  I would not advise it. I think the current policy of uncoordinated deconfliction, or whatever it's referred to as, is when we fly over Syria and President Bashar al-Assad pretends not to mind. The reason why he's doing this is of course that it is coordinated with the Iraqi gover

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll just make a comment. In terms of financial arrangements, one aspect of this that was pursued early in the Syrian conflict but was not followed up on in any kind of real way concerned sanctions on the Assad regime. Those were taken in tandem with increased sanctions on the Is

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I don't advocate listing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. However, it is important to point out that members of the Muslim Brotherhood and certain aspects of it I think do have ties with Salafist and other jihadist groups and members and extremism. I think

Foreign Affairs committee  That's a very good question. Like you, I think that regional boots on the ground are much better than western boots on the ground in terms of an overall combat role. I think we need to avoid that at all costs in dealing with the ISIL threat and overall threats in the region. T

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I would echo what Professor Legrenzi has said. We tried to put a fence around it. We tried to contain the Syria crisis. It failed following the ISIL outbreak into Mosul because the war inside Syria was never just about an uprising. It was about a regionalized sectarian proxy

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that it's here in trying to deal with the money flows that ISIL is a particular threat, because it is probably one of the most self-sustaining groups that we have seen arise, particularly from not only the Sunni community in the Middle East overall, but perhaps of any cou

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not a specialist on Iraq per se, but I think in terms there is the issue of representation in formal government structures such as in parliament and so on, and that's valuable. These members though don't necessarily have to be representative of, or have actual long-standing f

Foreign Affairs committee  To address your very good question about what happens if our strategy in Iraq succeeds, pushing ISIL at least temporarily but maybe in the medium term out of Iraqi territory, I'm a little skeptical about that. I think that other groups would spring up, as Professor Legrenzi has m

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, it would depend on the process. First of all, I would agree with Professor Legrenzi's statement. There's no sense in investing in something, unless the basis of it is sound, unless it makes sense. The problem with Iraq and Syria is that they don't make any political sense,

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of Iraq...but I guess it could apply to the process in Syria as well, bringing different actors together. In the case of Iraq, it's hard to say this but actually the situation is markedly better in that you have the semblance of a state, one that controls more territory

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here with you today, Mr. Chairman and ranking members. It's always easier to go last, but hopefully I can add more to the discussion, for what's likely to be a long discussion today, in a series of discussions going forward into the com