Foreign Affairs committee  I think Iraq has a new constitution that many Iraqi citizens still believe is better than the alternatives and is better than what preceded it, where citizens do have rights. I think the process of reconciliation in Iraq hasn't been a high enough priority for the Iraqi government

Foreign Affairs committee  The U.S. treasury department does have the authority to work with central banks and commercial banks in many countries as part of pre-existing counterterrorism authorities. There's a lot of global cooperation on trying to block terrorist financing. As you interpreted from our o

Foreign Affairs committee  At least on the U.S. side, we have a pretty large operation. We're the number one aid donor to Syrians in distress. That means both Syrians on Syrian territory—and there are some very delicate channels that have been developed to try to get some assistance to people who are still

Foreign Affairs committee  For sure, some of these political Islam debates exist in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, countries in which there are Muslim minority populations or Muslim majority populations. We've been looking pretty carefully at whether the idea of the caliphate resonates in Pak

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  I look at this issue with great humility. I'm sure there are people who can parse the issue much more carefully than I can. I admit that in providing university-level scholarships, essentially what we're trying to do is perpetuate an elite, trying to ensure the sustainability o

Foreign Affairs committee  I was in Jordan in October and I thought Jordanians were very much in denial that ISIL was a domestic problem for them. I think, in the short run, the Jordanians are hugely galvanized in a unified spirit, but they want to fight now. The king wants to get behind the cockpit in a f

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I should clarify it. I don't want to oversimplify or overgeneralize. There is some anecdotal evidence that young Tunisians are disproportionately represented in ISIL. It's startling for a country as small and as homogeneous as Tunisia that over 3,000 young Tu

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't have any confidence that we would know all the details of what's being monitored by intelligence services, but my sense is that we should not be confident that we can block them through banking sanctions, for example. They have been able to rob banks, literally, and they'

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you so much. I'm so delighted to see you. I recall with great pleasure that you hosted us. The Stimson Center and CIGI, the Canadian think tank, organized meetings with Iraqis in Ottawa. We used the conference rooms of your Parliament to talk in some detail about federali

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you so much. We are very honoured to join you. even over this long distance to discuss what is clearly a very compelling and anguishing issue. The events of the last 24 hours only stand to strengthen our concern about the rise of ISIL and the shocking and abhorrent vio