Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My first question will be to Professor Legrenzi, and then to Mr. Tabler.
If we assume that the objective is to defeat ISIS, then the way the scenario seems to be unfolding, at least to my understanding, is that at the moment air strikes are providing a containment role. In the meantime, there's limited ground action by Iraqi forces, some defensive action by the peshmerga. We are helping to train them and equip them, so that presumably sometime in 2015 there will be some concerted offensive action. How long that will take in order to push ISIS out of Iraq, I'm not 100% sure. I think things will be challenging in places where ISIS has embedded itself, such as in the city of Mosul.
However, let's assume an optimistic scenario, in that ISIS is pushed out of what is now Iraq. What happens then? That's the question for me. Obviously ISIS will remain in Syria, and whilst the coalition has been bombing in Syria, I don't see any scenario whereby ground troops are going to move into Syria.
How does one go beyond the scenario of pushing ISIS out of Iraq? What happens at that point?
I'd like to hear your thoughts, Professor Legrenzi and then Mr. Tabler.