Thank you.
Thank you to our witnesses. I believe that we have heard some of these points underlined in our study so far.
I should start off by saying, for information for our witnesses, that our study is going to be with recommendations. If there are things that you have perhaps forgotten, please feel free to send in some of your points and recommendations to our team here.
Mr. Tabler, I want to start with you. You provided us some great insight when we were doing our study on Syria—and thank you for that—and it connects to some of the other points that were made today on the political solution. I think there's a slight disagreement in this country about actions that were just recently taken with air strikes. Put that aside, and I think most people agree on the robust humanitarian support, protecting minorities, and dealing with those who have suffered from sexual violence.
I think everyone in this room, in this country indeed, who cares about this issue knows that the military solution in and of itself will not solve the crisis there. That leads us to the point—and we're the foreign affairs committee—how can we be involved in diplomatic ways to deal with Iraq? Let's focus on Iraq for now, but you're quite right to touch on Syria.
There are some groups involved in the Sunni awakening who have still not been brought in. I think some of the leadership is in Turkey right now. There are groups who have not yet been integrated. I know there is a new Prime Minister, and we have to give him some time, but we also want to make sure we're vigilant to ensure this is going to be a real transition to a real inclusive government.
What do you think of the idea of bringing some of those leaders together? We heard from one of our witnesses here in Ottawa about bringing some of those key actors together to do some confidence building, to do some relationship building as a first start, be it here in Ottawa or somewhere else. If that's the case, what should the goals be? We've seen these attempts made before, where sometimes the agenda's too open and not focused enough.
I'd just like to have your take on that.