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i 

95–317 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–42] 

THE COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY 

AGAINST THE ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ 

AND THE LEVANT: ARE WE ON THE 

RIGHT PATH? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS 

AND CAPABILITIES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JUNE 24, 2015 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona, Vice Chair 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

PETER VILLANO, Professional Staff Member 

LINDSAY KAVANAUGH, Professional Staff Member 

NEVE SCHADLER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island, Ranking 

Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ..................... 2 

Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities ............................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Eisenstadt, Michael, Director, Military and Security Studies Program, The 

Washington Institute for Near East Policy ........................................................ 5 

Fishman, Brian, Counterterrorism Research Fellow, International Studies 

Program, New America Foundation ................................................................... 9 

Kagan, Dr. Frederick W., Christopher Demuth Chair and Director, Critical 

Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute ................................................ 7 

Robinson, Linda, Senior International Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation ....... 4 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Eisenstadt, Michael .......................................................................................... 50 

Fishman, Brian ................................................................................................. 70 

Kagan, Dr. Frederick W. .................................................................................. 59 

Robinson, Linda ................................................................................................ 31 

Wilson, Hon. Joe ............................................................................................... 29 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 77 

Mr. Wilson ......................................................................................................... 77 

(1) 

THE COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY AGAINST THE 

ISLAMIC STATE OF IRAQ AND THE LEVANT: 

ARE WE ON THE RIGHT PATH? 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES, Washington, DC, Wednesday, June 24, 2015. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:33 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. WILSON. Ladies and gentleman, I call this hearing of the 

Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House 

Armed Services Committee to order. 

I’m pleased to welcome everyone here today for this very important hearing on the counterterrorism strategy against the Islamic 

State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIL] also known in the region as 

‘‘Daesh.’’ ISIL or Daesh continues to spread and create instability 

throughout the Middle East, northern Africa, and Asia. Their propaganda insidious campaign of influence extends globally, manipulating or recruiting young men and women who are willing to die 

for Daesh. The trajectory we are on is not promising. 

The President himself has acknowledged that we do not have a 

complete strategy to combat the threat. Defense Secretary Carter 

has acknowledged that the military is reviewing how to increase 

the effectiveness of our campaign and that an additional 450 troops 

would deploy to Iraq to expand the advise and assist mission. 

When I last visited Iraq in February of this year along with Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, Elise Stefanik of New 

York, and Brad Ashford of Nebraska, there was talk that the Iraqi 

Army would begin taking back Mosul by the summer which now 

is leaving nearly 1 million people subjugated. 

Today, sadly, we see this is not the case. While often characterized as a terrorist organization, ISIL/Daesh fights and behaves like 

an army. They remain well-funded and resourced, and we saw recently in Ramadi that they do not necessarily need overwhelming 

numbers to win on the battlefield, only an ability to strike fear in 

the hearts of those they encounter. Today we will seek answers to 

very simple but serious issues of national importance. 

First, are we on the right path to defeat ISIL/Daesh? Second, 

what problems exist with our current counterterrorism strategy? 

And lastly, what other actions could be taken to counter this evolv-
2 

ing national security threat? We will not answer all of the questions today, but what will be certain is the fact that it will take 

years to render ISIL/Daesh ineffective. Because of that, we cannot 

ignore the pressure of the declining defense budgets and the looming shadow of defense sequestration. As we examine our strategy 

against ISIL/Daesh, we must remind ourselves that if the defense 

sequestration continues, we will truly be fighting this threat with 

one hand tied behind our back. 

We are fortunate today to have before us a panel of expert witnesses. They are, Ms. Linda Robinson, a Senior International Policy Analyst with the RAND Corporation; Mr. Michael Eisenstadt, 

the Director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the 

Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Dr. Fred Kagan, the Director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise 

Institute; and Mr. Brian Fishman, a Counterterrorism Research 

Fellow with the International Studies Program at the New America 

Foundation. 

I would like now to turn to my friend, the ranking member from 

Rhode Island, Mr. Jim Langevin, for any comments he would like 

to make. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM RHODE ISLAND, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

our witnesses for providing us the benefit of your experience and 

your insight. I know what you are going to have to say is going to 

be invaluable to the committee. And I look forward to today’s discussion, certainly. 

As we all know, we find ourselves in a very difficult circumstance 

when it comes to the interests of the United States and our allies 

and partners in the Middle East in the fight against ISIL. Our interests and objectives and those of our partners are not necessarily 

aligned. The ambitious U.S. strategy does not appear to be able to 

achieve the end state, but we are dealing with a serious enemy. 

And recent ISIL gains in Iraq and Syria demonstrate the need for 

a comprehensive, cohesive whole-of-government U.S. strategy as 

well as the cooperation of regional partners which has been challenged, at best, to enlist more support from our regional partners. 

Now, while I share the frustrations of many about the seeming 

lack of a visible strategy, I’m not unsympathetic regarding the immense complexity of interlinked and sometimes contradictory challenges that the administration faces. We face a morass of gray 

when it comes to our menu of options, a ground commitment to the 

region seems to be a win the battle, lose the war option, but we 

also simply cannot walk away. 

Similarly, swatting bad guys without a larger strategy in place 

really threatens to be another recruiting tool for our adversaries. 

So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what they 

think an effective U.S. strategy to counter ISIL should look like, 

and the situation fueling it across Iraq and Syria should encompass 

to achieve both near-term and long-term success. 
3 

Now, specifically, I would like to know what concrete actions you 

would recommend? What countervailing forces prevent these actions from being taken, and can those forces be mitigated? Are existing policies counterproductive? Can we have a coherent Syria 

and Iraq policy while negotiations with Iran are ongoing? What 

should postwar Syria look like? Are we able to align our objectives 

with those of our allies? And how do we engage more regions, nations in the region to be more proactive and involved in this strategy? 

Are we able to align our objectives again with those of our allies? 

And how do we regain the initiative to make ISIL reactive rather 

than proactive? And how do we fight their narrative? What assumptions and desires will we have to jettison in order to achieve 

a workable outcome? And are we sufficiently leveraging the power 

of the non-military means, including financial, at our disposal? 

So we have heard a variety of answers to these questions from 

the administration already, in testimony and otherwise, but I hope 

we can expand on our thinking here today. I am under no illusions 

that if we only change a few things about the United States approach to the region, peace will somehow instantly break out tomorrow. 

We must recognize that we are in a highly complex generational 

struggle against those who would pervert one of the world’s great 

religions into a justification for the murder of thousands of innocents, including women and children, and the wanton destruction 

of an incredible piece of a shared human heritage in a region already gripped by a terrible humanitarian crisis born from years of 

strife and conflict. 

With today’s discussion, I hope we can explore what a more 

peaceful region would look like and require, and ensure that our 

actions today and tomorrow are aligned in working towards a sustainable solution. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this 

hearing, and the witnesses you have arranged to testify today, and 

with that, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Langevin. And I agree 

with you that we are in a generational conflict. And I look forward 

to working with you in a bipartisan manner on these issues. 

We are joined today at some time with Representative Martha 

McSally of Arizona, and Representative Mike Coffman of Colorado, 

who is here. They are members of the House Armed Services Committee, but not part of this subcommittee. So I ask unanimous consent that non-subcommittee members be allowed to participate in 

today’s hearing after all subcommittee members have had the opportunity to ask questions. Is there any objection? 

Without objection, non-subcommittee members will be recognized 

at the appropriate time with each member here under the 5-minute 

constraint. 

Ms. Robinson, thank you again for being here today, and we look 

forward beginning with your testimony, and for the benefit of persons who are attending today, and I’m just grateful to see the number of people who are interested. 

It’s a 5-minute section for each one of you. Then each member 

of the subcommittee will have the opportunity for 5 minutes. And 
4 

all of us are going to be a person beyond any characterization of 

inappropriate, and that is Pete Villano is going to keep the time, 

so as professional staff of the Armed Services Committee. So we 

are very fortunate to have such a capable person. Ms. Robinson. 

STATEMENT OF LINDA ROBINSON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL 

POLICY ANALYST, RAND CORPORATION 

Ms. ROBINSON. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member 

Langevin, and members. Thank you for inviting me to speak on 

these important topics. I returned from Iraq 10 days—3 weeks ago 

from 10 days in Iraq and Jordan. This was my second research trip 

to the region this year. I will first address the military line of operations, then recommendations for improving the strategy that is 

currently in place, and finally, comment on the alternatives. 

My bottom line: The best option is the partnered approach because indigenous ground forces are required to defeat this formidable hybrid enemy in a lasting way. However, the ways and 

means currently applied are inadequate on both the U.S. and the 

Iraqi side. Syria is a much harder case, but there the alliance of 

the People’s Protection Units and Free Syria Army may have potential. 

My prepared remarks include a detailed assessment of the five 

forces fighting ISIL in Iraq. I conclude that separately, they cannot 

defeat ISIL. But together, they might. Currently, however, they are 

stovepiped and inadequately coordinated and supported. The following suite of measures, if implemented quickly and in tandem, 

might achieve significant effect in the short term. 

U.S. advisors should be pushed out to all area commands in 

ISIL-threatened territory. They should also be allowed to embed 

with capable and trusted brigades such as the Counter-Terrorism 

Service and to move forward as needed to their command posts. 

Sending 450 advisors to Anbar was a first step, but belated. It had 

been urged months ago. Advisors cannot be effective if pushed out 

on the eve of battle. It takes time to gain enemy and friendly situational awareness, plan and conduct operations, conduct tribal engagement, coordinate artillery and air support, and gain influence 

to restrain abuses. 

My second recommendation is that U.S. Special Operations 

Forces [SOF] have their request granted immediately. They have 

requested Exelis satellite radios that are in U.S. Army stocks in 

Kuwait, and they want to give these to Iraqi units. These radios 

instantly and accurately mark the unit’s location, and together 

with U.S. joint terminal air controllers [JTAC] at the brigade and 

area commands, this could have a transformative effect. The people 

I talked to in Iraq, however, did not argue for putting the joint terminal air controllers at the battalion and below level. 

One reason is that this would entail a much larger footprint for 

quick reaction forces, medevac [medical evacuation], air support, 

and logistic support, and the certainty of U.S. troops being in contact with the enemy. Many SOF officers also have come to believe 

that this ultimately increases dependency. 

My third recommendation is that the Baghdad combined operations center, the current nerve center of our effort in Baghdad, 
5 

needs to focus more on coordination and planning at the national 

level rather than act primarily as a strike cell. 

My fourth recommendation is that the needed vehicles and heavy 

weapons be expedited to Iraq. The depots are full of small arms 

and ammunition, and in particular, I would urge that the Iraqi 

Counter-Terrorism Service needs be met immediately. They have 

been carrying the load of the fighting as some of you may know, 

they have been heavily attrited with over 2,600 casualties although 

they are now in the process of rebuilding. They will reach their assigned level of 11,000 by next January. 

Finally, the air campaign could be made more effective within 

the current ROE [rules of engagement] by certain measures including increased ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], 

more deliberate targeting, and additional target engagement authorities. For Iraq’s part, it must incorporate more Sunnis into both 

the popular mobilization forces and the army. Sunnis, thousands of 

Sunnis want to fight. I met with a number of Tikritis who fought 

spontaneously to liberate Tikrit, but they now have no support. 

Passage of the National Guard legislation would be extremely helpful if it gives provincial governors a role. This would also regularize 

command and control of local Shia and Sunni forces for the longterm. 

Third, Iraq must commit to recruiting those forces or others into 

the Iraqi Army, put good leaders into key posts, and shift the current disposition which is heavily arrayed around Baghdad and in 

Shia areas. In return I believe the U.S. should support a long-term 

rebuilding of the ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces, because the alternative is Lebanonization, the entrenchment of militias. 

Iraq may dissolve, or it may find its way to a decentralized state. 

But taking actions that hasten that dissolution, such as unilaterally creating a large army of tribal forces could fuel further conflict. 

We have been down that road. The partnered approach may not 

work. We may be forced to fall back to containment. Though I believe that may be no more effective. I would not give up on the current partnered approach without aggressively implementing it and 

staying that course for some time. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you, Ms. Robinson, very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Robinson can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Eisenstadt. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL EISENSTADT, DIRECTOR, MILITARY 

AND SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member Langevin, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for giving 

me this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 

counter-ISIL campaign. 

Recent gains by ISIL in Iraq and Syria mark major setbacks in 

the 10-month-old campaign against the group and highlight fundamental flaws in the administration’s strategy that need to be rectified if the coalition is to succeed. To ensure success in what will 

inevitably be a long struggle, the U.S. needs to first, address the 

means-ends mismatch in its strategy; second, bring its own policies 
6 

and those of its allies into alignment with the strategy. And third, 

undermine the appeal of ISIL by ensuring the defeat of its military 

forces and the dismantling of its state. 

Now, first with regard to the means-ends mismatch. The U.S. 

has devoted inadequate resources in pursuit of what is for now an 

unrealistic goal, destroying ISIL. The U.S. needs to ramp up its efforts while lowering its sights, at least in the near term, regarding 

an organization that has demonstrated impressive regenerative 

powers. Its resilience is rooted in ideological and organizational factors and the characteristics of the Middle Eastern operational environment. Ideologically, ISIL supporters are unbothered by the criticism of establishment Muslim clerics whom they regard as servants 

of an illegitimate state system. Thus, efforts to delegitimize ISIL 

on religious grounds are likely to succeed only on the margins. Organizationally, ISIL can draw on manpower reserves from around 

the world and it has recently started establishing overseas affiliates, ensuring the survival of the ISIL brand, even if its flagship 

operation in Iraq and Syria is defeated. 

As for the operational environment, the proliferation of weak and 

failing states and the region’s zero-sum politics ensure the survival 

of groups like ISIL. Thus, while coalition military operations may 

be attriting and in places rolling back ISIL forces, the coalition has 

not degraded the overall capabilities of an organization that remains on the offensive in a number of critical fronts. In terms of 

aligning policies and strategy, the United States and its partners 

have often pursued policies that have strengthened Salafi-jihadist 

groups such as ISIL, thereby undermining the U.S.-led campaign. 

First of all, American inaction in the face of the Syrian civil war, 

the Maliki regime’s sectarian politics in Iraq, the widespread perception in the region that the United States is tacitly aligned with 

Iran, and the fact that America’s first military strikes in Iraq were 

to save Yazidis, Turkmen, and Kurds, anybody but Sunni Arabs— 

all of these were a recruiting boon for Salafi-jihadist groups such 

as ISIL. 

Secondly, the United States insists that it is training and equipping the moderate Syrian opposition to fight ISIL while the opposition as well as America’s partners to this effort want to fight the 

al-Assad regime. And this is a recipe for disaster. 

Third, the success of America’s counter-ISIL strategy is hostage 

to its regional partners whose politics created the conditions for the 

rise of violent jihadist groups such as ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra. 

Fourth, the United States will not succeed in its fight against 

ISIL in Iraq if it does not succeed in its fight against ISIL in Syria, 

where it enjoys a safe haven that it will use to threaten and undermine the state of Iraq. 

But it is not too late to correct course. So what is to be done? 

The solution is not another major U.S. ground operation that, absent changes in the region’s politics would likely have to be repeated several years hence, but neither can we afford to walk away 

from the problem. The answer is rebalancing the administration’s 

light footprint approach. 

Thus, the U.S. should close the means-ends gap by ramping up 

its advise-and-assist mission in Iraq and its train-and-equip effort 

in Syria, rethinking its approach to training Iraqis and Syrians, in-
7 

tensifying its air campaign and preventing additional reverses as 

recently occurred in Ramadi and Palmyra. New victories for ISIL, 

even if ephemeral, will be fatal to the efforts convincing the Arabs 

sitting on the fence in Iraq to join the coalition against ISIL. 

The goal should be to overextend ISIL by pressuring it simultaneously in Iraq and Syria, thereby rendering it vulnerable to internal uprisings and external attack. However, closing the meansends gap is not sufficient for success. The United States also needs 

to alter its policies and those of its partners that have undermined 

the military effort. The dependence of the U.S. strategy on its allies’ willingness to alter their politics and policies is our strategy’s 

Achilles heel. 

And finally, with regard to undermining ISIL’s appeal, because 

so much of ISIL’s appeal derives from its aura of military invincibility, its defeat would show that ISIL is just another failed ideological movement that brought only ruin to its supporters. Its defeat would mean no caliphate, no Islamic utopia, no glory and adventure, and none of the other things that have drawn so many to 

embrace it. The defeat of ISIL is, thus, key to undermining its appeal, discrediting its ideology, and demolishing its brand. And this, 

ultimately, is the most important goal of the counter-ISIL military 

campaign. But the administration’s current light footprint approach permits ISIL to continue to accrue victories that undercut 

this effort. 

Now one final thought. The U.S. and its partners need to figure 

out how Al Qaeda and its affiliates as well as Iran fit into all of 

this. For if the coalition enfeebles or defeats ISIL, which is still a 

long way away, only to clear the way for the primacy of Jabhat alNusra in Syria and expansion of Iranian regional influence, the 

United States will have only succeeded in further fueling the region’s ranging sectarian and geopolitical conflicts. The sooner 

Washington realizes this, the sooner it can work to avert an even 

greater disaster that it may be inadvertently abetting. Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Eisenstadt. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eisenstadt can be found in the 

Appendix on page 50.] 

Mr. WILSON. And Dr. Fred Kagan. 

STATEMENT OF DR. FREDERICK W. KAGAN, CHRISTOPHER 

DEMUTH CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS PROJECT, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Dr. KAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for 

calling this hearing. And thank you to all of the members for attending and for giving this important issue your thought when 

there’s so many other things going on. 

I agree with the ranking member, this is very hard. And I also 

have a lot of sympathy with anyone, including the administration, 

struggling to come up with a strategy to deal with this problem. 

And I do think there is a lot of room for reasonable people to disagree. 

I have offered in my testimony a fair amount of detail about 

what I think should be done in Iraq and what we might hope to 

achieve. I would like for the few minutes that I have here, to address what I think is a conceptual problem in the way that we have 
8 

been discussing this matter, or one of several. And that is the continued refrain that there is no military solution to this problem. Of 

course there is no military solution to this problem. War is an extension of politics. There is never a purely military solution, or almost never, to a military conflict. 

However, this is a war, and any solution has to have a military 

component. And I think that we are too often conflating these two 

issues and not paying enough heed to what is required of the military component of any strategy that might be successful while telling ourselves that there is not a military solution. And I’m not offering a military solution. 

But I think that we are generally underestimating what is required of the military component of any strategy and although I 

would associate myself with almost everything that my previous 

two colleagues have said, I disagree with the notion that a larger 

footprint would create dependency or would be unwise. And I very 

much disagree with the notion that it is desirable to keep U.S. 

forces from engaging in combat with the enemy if our objective is 

to defeat this enemy and maintain and establish a solid alliance 

with Iraqis. 

It is extraordinarily hard to establish your bona fides as an ally 

if your position is, hey, we are going to watch you guys go out and 

fight. Let us know how that goes. And at the end of the day, we 

really need to think hard about this. Are we in this or not? Is this 

our war, or isn’t it? If it is, then we need to be prepared to have 

our people serve alongside of Iraqis, not as they did in 2007, 2008, 

2009. I’m not advocating putting combat brigades in and taking the 

fight away from the Iraqis. 

I entirely agree that partnership is the correct model. I think we 

probably need to partner down to lower levels. But that is something that I would be reasonably comfortable leaving up to commanders in the field, if they were given the discretion to make 

those calls. I think that having a black and white national level decision that says we are not going to do that, I think it’s the wrong 

decision, and I think it handicaps our forces too much. 

I also think that we have a problem when we say there is no 

military solution, what’s the political solution? In that we break in 

our minds what is in fact a real close relationship between those 

two things on the ground. The political situation in Iraq isn’t just 

whatever the political situation in Iraq is. It is affected by what we 

do. It is affected by the military situation. It is affected by the actions we take. It is affected by what we actually offer. 

We don’t like the fact that the Iraqis are too dependent on Iran. 

I don’t like that. I understand why they are. We are not offering 

them enough to make it a reasonable bet to turn down what the 

Iranians are offering them and anger the Iranians to some extent 

and rely instead on us. Now, it may be that they wouldn’t anyway, 

and it may be that we can’t offer them enough, and so on, and so 

on. 

But as Linda Robinson said very eloquently, we have continually 

failed to try to do a number of things that where there was a reasonable expectation that they might succeed, and as long as we 

continue to fail to try to do things that have worked before, in ad-
9 

mittedly different circumstances, we are going to continue to chase 

this. 

And so I think we need to understand that we need to see the 

military component of any solution as an element of the larger solution that interacts with the entire solution and understand that 

we have the potential to change the situation in ways that can also 

change the political discourse. 

And lastly, I would like to just make a brief comment on the subject of minimalism and the belief that we really should send in only 

as many forces, precisely try to titrate exactly how many forces we 

need on the ground and not have a single soldier there more than 

is necessary, which is, I recognize, not what my colleagues are advocating. 

It is a mistake to take that approach. Unexpected things happen. 

Ramadi comes under attack. Ramadi falls. You have setbacks in 

war. The truth of the matter is that if you do believe this is a war 

and if you do believe that we are in it, then you should also—you 

also have to believe that we need to make available the forces that 

are required and forces that might be required in dire circumstances should they arise. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Dr. Kagan. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Kagan can be found in the Appendix on page 59.] 

Mr. WILSON. Mr. Fishman. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN FISHMAN, COUNTERTERRORISM RESEARCH FELLOW, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PROGRAM, 

NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION 

Mr. FISHMAN. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member 

Langevin, members of the committee. Thank you for having me 

here. 

The Islamic State is a hybrid organization that aims to establish 

an extremely harsh form of Islamic law across much of the world. 

And to advance that goal it has five essential lines of effort. It is 

establishing a proto-state at the moment in Iraq and Syria. It is 

waging military campaigns to advance that in those two places. It 

is encouraging followers to independently attack hostile governments in the West, in the U.S. and Western Europe. It is building 

a network of affiliates, working to establish similar government 

structures around the world, and critically, as Mike Eisenstadt 

said, it is inspiring jihadis around the world to enter this organization, or to at least endorse its vision of a caliphate. We have to 

fight against all of these lines of effort if we are going to succeed 

against this organization. 

Critically, ISIS’ [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] fundamental 

goal and its basic operational vectors, with the exception of building an affiliate network and expanding its core operations to Syria, 

have been relatively consistent since October of 2006. In Washington we have continued to fail to recognize the persistence of this 

organization going back to the declaration of what was then called 

the Islamic State of Iraq. 

We don’t often recognize our long history fighting ISIS, but we 

have effectively been fighting this organization for a decade already. And it is because of our sustained fight to this date that I, 
10 

unfortunately, believe that our fight in the future is going to take 

at least another decade. And we need to be thinking about whatever policy we pursue it needs to be sustainable. It needs to be 

something that doesn’t just stop. The worst mistakes we can make 

are to make a commitment and then pull away. 

From 2006 to 2008 we fought ISIS effectively, but we failed to 

destroy it. The ‘‘surge’’ of 150,000 American troops into Iraq is a 

top line number, including crucial special operators and a concerted 

effort to inspire the Awakening of Sunni tribes against the Islamic 

State of Iraq eliminated its ability to control territory and forced 

it to abandon large-scale insurgent and conventional military operations. 

Nonetheless, the group was not defeated. It remained one of the 

deadliest terrorist organizations in the world. It was continually 

from that period forward viewed by jihadis globally as the kernel 

of a future caliphate. It maintained a strong presence near Mosul, 

Iraq, throughout the period and in Syrian border areas. It established the bureaucratic structure for future governance and it sustained the ability to play spoiler in Iraqi politics by assassinating 

Sunnis and using terrorist attacks to encourage the Shia-dominated Maliki government into embracing its sectarian demons. 

There are some key lessons from that era that we should remember today as we think about our future strategy. One is that ISIS 

is vulnerable to military pressure. Despite its growth, the group’s 

convention military power is limited and it can be disrupted with 

military power. 

Second is, ISIS is extremely resilient. It can shift its geographic 

base of operations and mode of organization relatively quickly. 

Operational setbacks will impact ISIS’ global appeal, but the group 

will remain a viable caliphate to its supporters so long as it controls territory and continues to fight. And that means really any 

territory. It was continually viewed as a future caliphate even in 

2009 and 2010 and 2011 at its weakest moment. 

And even a diminished ISIS can operate as a political spoiler in 

Iraq and Syria. So what should we do in the future? ISIS will not 

be defeated so long as the Syrian civil war continues and Sunnis 

in Iraq live in mortal fear of their own government. Military action 

can contain ISIS and limit its ability to control territory and people, but such gains will be inadequate and fleeting without political 

resolutions in Syria and Iraq. The ugly reality is that the United 

States does not have policy levers to defeat the Islamic State in the 

near term without massive, and in my opinion, politically untenable intervention in both Iraq and Syria. 

This is going to be a long fight and our strategy has to be calibrated such that it is sustainable. So rather than scope an entire 

strategy, I’m going to just point to a couple of present issues. One, 

should the United States support Syrian rebels focused on deposing 

Assad, in addition to those focused on destroying ISIS? The answer 

is yes. And this is something that I have not believed continually, 

but I have come to this opinion. Although this approach carries significant risks such as increased Iranian troublemaking and weapons falling into jihadi hands, it will bolster relationships with our 

allies in the region including and especially Turkey, and increase 

pressure on the Assad regime to accept political compromise. 
11 

That said we should not under any circumstances legitimize Al 

Qaeda-linked jihadi groups like Jabhat al-Nusra. Should the 

United States continue to funnel weapons through Baghdad to 

Kurdish and Sunni factions as opposed to arming them separately? 

I think yes for now. We have to reinforce governance where it exists, and the governance where it exists today still is centered in 

Baghdad. 

Should the United States increase the number of U.S. troops on 

the ground in Iraq, and this is where I disagree with my colleague 

Fred. Moderately increasing the number of troops may improve our 

operational outcomes, but it will not lead to the destruction of ISIS. 

We put 150,000 Americans on the ground before. We are talking 

about a tenth of that now. And I don’t believe that this is going 

to have a decisive outcome because I don’t believe that it is sustainable. A mini-surge can push ISIS into a box, a smaller box, but it 

will still have a box. And having that box is what matters. 

Our decade of war against ISIS has not produced a decisive outcome in large measure because our strategy and commitment has 

been inconsistent. To be successful in the next decade, we must 

have a clear, consistent, and sustainable strategy. The only good 

news is that jihadi organizations have a long track record of selfdestruction and ISIS is laying the seeds of insurgency against it as 

we speak with its attacks on Sunnis, its fighting against other Syrian rebel groups. Over time they will collapse, but in order to 

produce that, we need to have a sustainable strategy rather than 

an intermittent one that reduces our credibility further in the region. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Fishman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fishman can be found in the Appendix on page 70.] 

Mr. WILSON. And I thank each of you. And Mr. Eisenstadt, you 

referenced it, and for each person I would be interested in your response beginning with Ms. Robinson about ISIL/Daesh being successful in building a global propaganda campaign to recruit foreign 

supporters from around the world, reinforcing its battlefield successes and creating an aura of military invincibility. 

Why has this global campaign been so effective, appealing to 

such a broad target audience worldwide, and what approaches 

should the Pentagon consider to counteract this campaign and reduce the appeal of potential recruits and supporters who can be 

trained overseas to return home and attack American families? Ms. 

Robinson. 

Ms. ROBINSON. Chairman Wilson, thank you. The brand of ISIL 

I think is so potent because they have been so enormously successful on the battlefield. They are tactically proficient and far more 

formidable than what U.S. forces faced when we were there. It is 

just an order of magnitude different. They are very adept at shifting between maneuvering guerilla warfare, launching new and diversionary attacks, evolving new tactics, and as you know, they 

trumpet their successes globally, which has drawn new recruits 

and affiliates. 

So that engine, I wish I could agree with Brian, but I think that 

it doesn’t, as I see it, contain the seeds of its own demise. It is 

going to have to be stopped. And the information warfare I think 
12 

has to be conducted with Muslim voices indigenous and worldwide. 

I just do not see the U.S. being effective in the lead. 

Now, General Terry, who is the Combined Joint Task Force commander, had been trying for months to get an Arab spokesman for 

that coalition. I think that is one of those unfortunate things. You 

wonder, why aren’t people stepping up? There is now, I think the 

co-lead by UAE [United Arab Emirates] for the counter-messaging 

bin of activities, but I think that the actual content of the message 

needs to be looked at. And to me, there is no more effective message than one delivered by a disaffected former ISIL fighter. 

And I think we have got to get those voices, and those of the 

families of the ISIL fighters who have died, and what they have 

been lost to this way of life. And I just think we are far less adept 

at energizing that kind of messaging, although I would like to note, 

that the incoming two-star in Baghdad, General Richard Clark, is 

very key. He has honed in on the media and information aspect of 

this. Thank you. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Yeah, I would agree with what Ms. Robinson 

said. And I would just kind of reinforce the point that nothing succeeds like success. And that is a major factor for their appeal. And 

conversely, I think the most important way to discredit the appeal 

of their ideology is by military defeat, as Brian said also. You 

know, if they are not holding terrain, if there is no caliphate, there 

is no Islamic utopia, it is a lot less appealing as an idea. 

I would also, you know, mention, and this is a topic which I’m 

actually starting to do a lot of thought about, so I don’t have a comprehensive, you know, answer to you, but it seems to me that a lot 

of at least in the public, a lot of the government’s—the administration’s emphasis has been on countering their religious ideology, and 

trying to get Muslim voices to discredit it. And as I pointed out in 

my, you know, remarks, by and large, most supporters of ISIS don’t 

really care what mainstream clerics think about them. They have 

their own clerics, and they believe that all of these other mainstream clerics are part of the problem. 

So I think, I get the sense that perhaps we are pushing, you 

know, on a locked door. That’s not the way to go, by—you know, 

we can affect things around the edges by trying to counter their 

ideology and trying to discredit it, but I’m not sure that’s the right 

way to go. 

In addition we have to recognize that in this fight, the government is not the most flexible and effective actor. And what we need 

is to partner with the private sector. We need a troll army of people 

online who we could provide information to, what the, you know, 

Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point used to do, publishing 

captured documents which provide insights into how ISIS functions 

and the way of how it is to live under ISIS control. So that millions 

of people online who are Muslims and who object to their message 

can use the information to fight them. 

And then the final point I would just say, we also need a counter 

narrative because you can’t fight something with nothing. And people are flocking to ISIS because it fills a role in terms of their identity, in terms of providing them with meaning in life, and we need 

to be able to provide, or our allies probably more to the point, need 
13 

to be able to provide a counter narrative which maybe speaks about 

inclusiveness, and tolerance, and the like. 

Again, these are half-formed ideas, but I think this gives us some 

vectors for, you know, how to think about this so—— 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much. Dr. Kagan. 

Dr. KAGAN. I will be very brief. We don’t have a narrative problem. We have a reality problem. And we can talk narrative from 

hell to breakfast, but the reality is that we are losing and they are 

winning. And as long as that’s the case, there is no narrative that’s 

going to affect the situation very much. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. Mr. Fishman. 

Mr. FISHMAN. I agree very much with that. It is not the—we talk 

too much about their proficiency with social media, the issue is 

that their message right now is one of victory. And that’s one that 

people can get behind. The one thing that I would say about what 

is a credible voice, I agree very much with what Linda said about 

former fighters. 

One of the distinguishing factors at an ideological level of ISIS 

from Al Qaeda, is that for them authority, ideological and messaging authority, comes from your proximity to a fight, to being in 

battle. Where Al Qaeda used to point to scholars that would sit 

around and write things, those of us in think tanks might like that 

but, you know, but for ISIS, the only thing that gives you ideological authority is being on the battlefield. And so if you are going 

to push back on them at an ideological level it is going to have to 

come from somebody with experience in the field. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, thank you very much. And I share your concerns that we need to have, Dr. Kagan, an example of success, to— 

but at the same time, I’m grateful that the House did pass in the 

Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act [NDAA] authority for the Department to carry out a pilot program to counteract the propaganda campaigns. And I appreciate the concept of a 

former ISIL supporter and/or family members of deceased ISIL 

supporters to carry out a campaign to counteract propaganda. 

And this provision we hope to be carrying through conference so 

the Pentagon has the ability to counter Daesh. It is my view that 

in a bipartisan manner here, that we understand the threat of 

jihadists who proclaim death to America, death to Israel. And I 

now proceed to Mr. Veasey. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think I have a 

question that any of the panelists here can answer. And I know we 

have talked before about how ISIL is very in tune to what is going 

on here culturally, you know, from the media, particularly social 

media. 

And they also have, I’m sure have seen news reports on the question about what to do about ISIL. What do you think that the ISIL 

leadership is thinking as far as their biggest fear is concerned? Do 

you think it’s, you know, more air strikes from America? That we 

would eventually put troops on the ground? That we would arm 

factions within their so-called caliphate? What is the thing that 

makes ISIL fear the most? 

Dr. KAGAN. I think that it’s been very clear that the thing they 

fear the most is what happened to them that defeated them before, 

which is the Awakening. And they most fear that the populations 
14 

that they live amongst will turn against them and will be supported against them. And I think they feared to some extent that 

we will assist that, but they have been carrying out a ruthless campaign of assassinations, as Brian pointed out, for many, many 

years now, precisely to forestall that option. Because I think that 

is the one that they regard as most permanently damaging and 

threatening to them. 

Mr. VEASEY. In regards to that, you know, when they come into 

an area and they want to set up this caliphate, they want to do 

it, obviously, with Sunni Muslims. With so many Sunni Muslims 

being very distrustful of Shia Muslims, particularly in Iraq, how do 

you build the support for the people that they are in control of if 

you were to try to form some sort of a coalition, or arm them, or 

what have you, how can you—with that Sunni versus Shia element 

going on there, how can you make something like that real and 

sustainable? 

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think you really put your finger on 

what is in many respects the most important issue here, which is 

that we have, as Brian and my other colleagues have said, we have 

a sectarian war throughout the region and it is actually going global. And that sectarian war is in my opinion the largest, most powerful, long-term driver of mobilization and radicalization in both of 

these communities. 

As long as that sectarian war continues to rage, it is going to be 

very, very difficult to defeat ISIS, or Al Qaeda, or get Iranianbacked militias in the box or anything like that. And so that’s one 

of the reasons why the notion of containment fails completely because containment retains this escalating sectarian civil war which 

has exactly the consequences that you described. 

Mr. EISENSTADT. I would just jump in one other thing that we 

just have to remember. That we were, as you intimated, part of the 

last effort to foment an uprising against ISIL’s predecessor. And 

we, as a result of the past experience where we promised them, if 

you fight with us, and eventually the Iraqi Government against Al 

Qaeda, we will look after you, and we didn’t. 

So we have—there’s a problem with the credibility of the Iraqi 

Government and there is a problem with our credibility which will 

make it much harder to replicate the past success. In addition, 

there are various other factors that, you know, kind of play into the 

mix now that we just don’t have a large presence on the ground 

the way we did in 2007 and after in order to actually change the 

psychological dynamic in the way that we need to in order to get 

the people, you know, people to rise up against an adversary or 

right now the Islamic State who is so vicious and cruel. 

Ms. ROBINSON. May I just add briefly, I think that it is important 

to recognize that Prime Minister Abadi has made more overtures 

to the Sunni community, certainly, than his predecessor did. And 

I think that there is room for, in Iraq, diplomatic outreach to try 

to support that and try to build links with the Shia majority with 

the idea of helping to encourage them that ultimately their interests can be served by these non-military pathways to resolution. 

For example, really laying out a roadmap for the decentralization 

of Iraq because I think that is ultimately the only way the country 

is going to hold together. 
15 

I think also regionally, I would like to note Saudi Arabia finally 

opened its embassy in Baghdad that could provide a first step to 

build upon building relations between and contacts between Iraq 

and the Gulf States. But I think it’s very important that Abadi do 

that outreach because, obviously, the Gulf States are quite concerned about the reality of Iraq’s closeness to Iran. 

Mr. VEASEY. Very briefly, with the last few seconds that I have, 

the White House’s new hostage policy. How do you think that ISIL 

will view that? 

Mr. FISHMAN. I don’t think it’s going to impact their decision 

making very much at all, to be honest. I don’t think they see that 

as their primary fundraising mechanism. Those people, as we know 

too well, are more valuable to ISIS as sort of propaganda tools than 

anything else. 

Mr. VEASEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Veasey. And as you 

cited, a sectarian war and conflict, I had the opportunity this year 

to meet with a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who explained to me that the sectarian war has been ongoing for 1,400 

years. 

We now proceed to Sheriff Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think that’s the 

biggest problem that you hit on is that sectarian portion of it. But 

let’s talk about the Kurds for a moment. They have had some great 

success. And you talked about, you know, the arms that we are 

supplying the Iraqis that have to flow through the central government to the Kurds and we saw that that was not actually working 

very well. But supposedly, it is working better today. 

And I understand the reason for that, but aren’t we sort of chasing our tail on this because we think that, you know, we are going 

to build some rapport with the Kurds to the central government in 

Iraq, and they don’t feel any allegiance to it, you know, just because to give them some weapons, do you really think that narrative is going to change the outcome as it relates to the Kurds and 

Iraqi state itself? 

Dr. KAGAN. Congressman, I think that it’s—what would really 

change the dynamic is if we started treating Kurdistan as an independent state, and sending weapons directly to Kurdistan. I think 

the notion—we are not binding them to Baghdad by sending weapons through Baghdad, but we would be making a positive statement that we are effectively treating them as independent if we 

started sending weapons directly to Kurdistan. 

And I think that we really need to be careful of overestimating 

what the Kurds’ capabilities actually are. And geography is a problem here because the Kurds are not going to clear Anbar. They are 

just not. And in point of fact, I actually believe that if you saw 

Kurdish forces push into Mosul and push into Al Diwaniyah province, you would start and we are beginning to see little indicators 

of this, an ethnic war as the Arabs in those regions push back 

against what they would perceive to be Kurdish encroachment on 

their territory and that would be overlaid on a sectarian war. 

So I think we really need to be careful. I’m all about helping the 

Kurds defend Kurdistan—— 

Mr. NUGENT. Right. 
16 

Dr. KAGAN [continuing]. I think we can do that, but I think we 

need to avoid as some people are trying—seeing Kurds as the solution to this problem. 

Mr. NUGENT. Yeah. I don’t think they are either. The Deputy 

Secretary of State recently was spouting numbers almost, you 

know, like in Vietnam, where we had 10,000 casualties, we have, 

you know, eliminated 6,000 pieces of equipment. What does that 

mean? I mean, is there any value in stating that, because that’s not 

an indicator of winning. It’s just an indicator that we killed people, 

and we demolished stuff. 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Yeah, I, you know, body counts are, as we know 

from our Vietnam experience, very deceiving and very dangerous. 

I will just say two points: First, it only matters if they have a finite 

manpower pool, and we need to know are they able to replace the 

people being killed or are they recruiting people faster than you are 

losing them. And I will leave it at that. That’s, I think, the—— 

Mr. NUGENT. Well, let me ask you this, your opinion. Has ISIL 

been degraded since August of last year since we started this campaign or have they gotten stronger? 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Well, yeah, let me just complete my thought on 

that one. Attrition matters to the degree that they are overextended, and further overextending them might make them vulnerable to internal uprisings or further attacks along the borders 

of the areas they control. So I think attrition is not irrelevant, but 

it’s dangerous as a metric that stands alone. 

In terms of their capabilities, look, there have been areas they 

have been rolled back, and there are areas that they have pushed 

back successfully. So I think—and they have shown an ability to 

move their forces from Syria to Iraq, and back again. 

So they overall, they have been attrited, but their capabilities remain overall relatively robust to the degree that they are able to 

maintain offensives and continue to gain ground in areas that are 

important for them. I don’t think you could say that they have lost 

ground except for Tikrit which was I think important on a certain 

level symbolically, that they have lost ground in any areas that 

were critical for them. And they gained the provincial capital of 

Anbar which was an important psychological gain for them. And 

Palmyra is, too, important—in the context of Syria is very important. 

Mr. FISHMAN. I think one of the things to keep in mind about 

ISIS, or ISIL, is that it, to maintain function, to be a functional organization it needs to stay on offense. It needs to have that message of fighting to get recruits, to keep people motivated. It is not 

going to do a good job hunkering down and defending a specific territory. And I think that you see that in some of the ways it has 

exposed itself and I would argue that, you know, they are probably 

sitting around in a room saying, look, we have expanded in some 

places. We have lost in others. You know, does our geographic footprint need to fundamentally change? Did we try to take the right 

places? You know, where can we hunker down? Where can we actually be more secure? And I don’t think they know that. 

My expectation is that they will be, the territory they control will 

contract by the end of 2015. It will still be a very viable organiza-
17 

tion, and one that is extremely resilient going forward, but I expect 

they will contract more this year. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it and I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Nugent. We now proceed to Mr. 

Zinke. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with your assessment of the Kurds, having followed the Kurds. I don’t think they 

are going to look at Mosul primarily because you have about 

500,000 refugees. If they attempted, the refugees can’t go north, 

they can’t go south. The only way they could go is in Kurd-held territory. I don’t think they want that or could afford that. 

I also agree with your assessment on Syria; until we figure out 

what we are going to do with Syria, whether we are going to arm 

the Syrian Free Army, having the desert as an area of sanctuary 

to a degree with ISIS is problematic. 

But what I’m not hearing is Iran, Persia. And the influence in 

now eastern Iraq. Reports I think are validated that you have the 

Badr Army now moving to what is, in my experience was never 

more than about 7,000, the Shia militia seems to be operating at 

now 30 to 40,000 at full strength, seem to be either closely coordinated or directly controlled by Iran. You have senior military leadership embedded. 

And so my question is, and this has been a change of sea for me, 

because I looked at Iraq and thought there are multiple opportunities for us to check ISIS. And we have passed many of those. And 

now if we enter and we cede territory from ISIS, and if the result 

is simply for a Shia militia, which is to a degree controlled by Iran, 

to now if we are ceding territory from ISIS and simply having that 

territory being filled by Iran, and their continuing influence in 

Iraq, then what’s the point? Do you share a concern, Dr. Kagan, 

about Iran’s seem to be expanding influence particularly in eastern 

Iraq and the effects it has with disenfranchising further the Sunni 

population? 

Dr. KAGAN. Absolutely. And it is not just eastern Iraq, it is Baghdad, and it is Anbar, and it is throughout Iraq. I think that there 

is a lot of complexity among the Shia militias that we’re seeing on 

the ground and I think it is important not to lump them all together, not that you did. 

By the way, Badr just basically seized the governorship of Diyala 

Province which is going to be problematic from the standpoint of 

National Guard law, among many other things. But you have Badr, 

and you have Kata’ib Hezbollah [KH], which are basically arms of 

the Quds Force in my assessment and are basically commanded by 

Soleimani. 

You have Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq [AAH], which is not quite there, but 

close, but then you have popular mobilization forces that actually 

responded to Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s call, and I don’t believe 

that all of those are controlled by Badr, or KH, or AAH. And I do 

believe that there is a possibility that those forces, some of those 

forces could be integrated into the ISF, and are less under the Iranian control. I think the issue is, if we assess and I do agree with 

Linda Robinson that Prime Minister Abadi is much better than his 

predecessor, who was a major driver of sectarian conflict. And I 
18 

think that the Prime Minister really actually has the right goals 

in mind. 

Mr. ZINKE. We agree on that. 

Dr. KAGAN. But I think he is being pushed hard by radical Shia 

militias and by Iranian advisors in a sectarian direction. And I 

think that it is very important that we offer him enough of an alternative, and that we overcome or try to overcome the military 

gap that Mike Eisenstadt pointed out, to let him—to give him an 

opportunity to try to unwind these militias from control of his state 

because he is not really sovereign in even what he controls, as long 

as Soleimani is commanding armed forces in his territory. 

Mr. ZINKE. And Ms. Robinson, I agree with much of your assessment as well. How do you see the Iranian influence being checked 

and pushed out of the territory of Iraq? Because I think that’s a 

core issue that as you continue the Iranian influence, how is it that 

we are going to push them back across in Iranian territory rather 

than territory of Iraq? Is it possible? 

Ms. ROBINSON. Well, I would like to start by quoting my esteemed friend Ambassador Ryan Crocker who said, Iran is not 

going to leave the borders of Iraq. It is always going to be a neighbor of Iraq. So it is a long-term issue, and I don’t think we can 

wave a wand and make Iran or Iranian influence go away. 

But I think the critical question for the U.S. is, are we going to 

cede Iraq to Iranian influence or are we going to get in there and 

play the influence game? And I think that includes a much more 

robust outreach to a whole range of Shia forces. And I appreciate 

what Fred said, and also your comment, the Shia mosaic is quite 

complex. There are the standing, longstanding Shia militias we 

have already mentioned, but also new splinter groups that are supposedly less anti-American. They might be more receptive to outreach, and then these volunteers that came forward because Ayatollah Sistani said, come and defend your country. 

And he, of course, is, I think, a main critical figure so long as 

he is still alive to try to weave that, find that path between Iranian 

dominance and Shia-Iraqi nationalism, which is not dead, but 

much mitigated. So I think it is a long-term project, but really, we 

have to be, and it is part of a political line of effort that I think 

we have to open up and encourage our diplomats to be part of. 

Again, citing my friend Ryan Crocker who was fully engaged in 

that. Thank you. 

Mr. ZINKE. Thank you. And thank you all for being here. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Zinke. Thank you for 

your service here and thank you for your service as a Navy SEAL. 

I will now proceed to the vice chairman of the subcommittee, 

Trent Franks of Arizona. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of 

you for being here. I have to suggest I am going to try to probably 

piggyback off of a couple of comments that have already been 

made, starting with the Kurdish issue. Last week during the HASC 

[House Armed Services Committee] hearing, I questioned Secretary 

of Defense Carter on the administration’s strategy on ISIS, and, of 

course, you know, many of us know that even though that Dr. 

Kagan is correct about the Kurdish not being able to do—they are 
19 

certainly limited, but they have been a bright spot in this situation, 

and we did pass an amendment in the full committee here to give 

direct support to the Kurds for that reason alone. 

But after the Secretary himself responded in steadfast agreement 

that the Kurds were making progress, then the State Department, 

the Defense Department, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq have 

derailed Senator Joni Ernst’s efforts to do the same on the Senate 

floor last week with a very intense lobbying effort. And to quote a 

senior administration official, this—this is the quote, it says, ‘‘the 

U.S. gives weapons directly only to the Iraqi Government and to 

the Iraqi Security Forces, but the lines between them and the militias are blurry. U.S. weapons often fall into the hands of militias 

like Iraqi Hezbollah. There is no real command and control from 

the central government.’’ 

And that seems to underscore what I am saying here, this bank 

shot that the administration tries to do. Using the Iraqi central 

government as the distribution mechanism doesn’t seem to be 

working very well. 

Do you think—and then, Dr. Kagan, I will ask for a quick answer, because I am hoping to get one more question in. Do you 

think that it is sound policy to just kind of hope for the best and 

hope some of the money will get to the Kurds, or do you think that 

we need to be more direct in our effort to assist the Kurds and the 

Peshmerga in doing at least some of the good work that they are 

doing? 

Dr. KAGAN. Sir, I don’t think hope is ever a good method—— 

Mr. FRANKS. Yeah. 

Dr. KAGAN [continuing]. But I think this goes beyond hope. And 

I think that as far as I have been able to hear and follow up on 

this, the Kurds are largely getting what they need, and I don’t 

think it is a good idea to be providing support directly to 

Kurdistan. 

Mr. FRANKS. Help me understand that. Why not? 

Dr. KAGAN. Because the—when you provide direct support to 

Kurdistan, and I understand and sympathize with the motivations 

of the committee and the members supporting that. 

Mr. FRANKS. Because they are the only ones kicking ISIS’ rear. 

Dr. KAGAN. Right. But they can only do that up to a point, and 

the problem is that by supporting the Kurds directly, you are making a statement unintentionally about Kurdish independence and 

the Kurdish role in—— 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I know we wouldn’t want to hurt anybody’s 

feelings here, but I guess I am just concerned about that, you 

know, somebody’s got to fight ISIS, and this administration is not 

doing that. 

Dr. KAGAN. I can’t disagree with that enough, but the Kurds are 

not going to be able to do it either, and so we are going to have 

to find partners in Arab Iraq, and that means that there is a limit 

to how much we can afford to side with the Kurds and what is 

after all a—— 

Mr. FRANKS. Who is a better partner than the Kurds right now? 

Dr. KAGAN. Right now we—well, the partner that we need is in 

the Sunni Arab community, that is the partner that we most need. 

And the problem is that the more that you support the Kurds in 
20 

Ninawa and along the disputed areas and the Kurds push into 

those areas, the more that we put ourselves against the Sunni 

Arab community that might otherwise join us in fighting ISIS. 

Now, we don’t have a strategy that is going to get them to join 

us fighting ISIS right now and we need to address that, but I am 

afraid that the Kurdish arming—arming the Kurds directly could 

be counterproductive. 

Mr. FRANKS. Let me switch gears. I would just suggest to you 

that the Sunnis weren’t fighting the ISIS very effectively before, 

where the Kurdish at least were trying. 

We know that the deadline for the P5+1 [United States, Russia, 

China, France, United Kingdom, plus Germany] nuclear negotiations with Iran is about a week away and this administration 

seems hellbent on doing a deal no matter what it is, and the only 

thing it seems to be willing—is possible to get in their way is the 

intransigence of the Tehran government themselves, that they 

can’t—you know. 

So this concern midterm could have implications across the Middle East that is hard to fathom right now, and I—what effects do 

you see happening of the injection into the Iranian economy of billions of dollars, under such a potential agreement, to sponsor additional terrorism in the region? Do you think that them getting a 

great deal more money is going to somehow to make this all better? 

Dr. KAGAN. The Iranian regime has been extremely clear that it 

has no intention whatsoever of altering any of its policies in the region or toward the United States, regardless of whether there is a 

deal. They regard us as an enemy and they intend to continue to 

pursue efforts to drive us from the region and destroy our allies. 

If they receive a significant influx of additional resources, they 

will put it, among other things, to the purpose of increasing their 

military and paramilitary capabilities throughout the region and 

throughout the world. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, I couldn’t agree with you more, Dr. Kagan. 

And I would just say, Mr. Chairman, that as dangerous as ISIS 

is, we need to fight them, but we cannot take our eye off of the Iranian nuclear threat. And I yield back. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Franks. 

And we now proceed to Mr. Lamborn of Colorado. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. Thank you all for being here. And I would like to ask you 

about our targeting of ISIS assets. The New York Times reported 

on May 26 that, quote, ‘‘American officials say that they are not 

striking significant and obvious Islamic State targets, out of fear 

that the attacks will accidentally kill civilians, but many Iraqi commanders and some American officers say that exercising such prudence with air strikes is a major reason ISIS has been able to seize 

vast territory in recent months in Iraq and Syria.’’ 

Dr. Kagan, would you agree with that assessment? And is it possible to step up air strikes while still, to the degree possible, preserving civilian lives? 

Dr. KAGAN. I think that there is a trade-off between deciding 

that you are going to have a more effective air campaign and accepting a higher risk of civilian casualties. 
21 

I think if your standard for civilian casualties is low, you are 

probably going to have a very hard time increasing the intensity 

of the air campaign, especially as long as you are not prepared to 

put forward air controllers on the ground, which would be something that would mitigate that, but I think that we have too high 

a standard from the standpoint of collateral damage and civilian 

casualties. I think that the truth is this is a war. And we always 

try to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties, but a 

standard of effectively zero has, I think, done enormous harm to 

our ability to prosecute this war with the tools that we have at our 

disposal. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you. And then for any one of you, I am 

really concerned about Jordan’s welfare. They have the direct 

threat of ISIS wanting to overcome them, and they have the indirect threat of floods of refugees from Syria especially overwhelming 

their infrastructure and their budget. 

What can we do to better help Jordan? What should Jordan be 

doing to help itself? 

Ms. ROBINSON. I am glad you raised that, because I did include 

mention of Jordan in my written remarks, and I think it is critical. 

Jordan, of course, does have a very effective and efficient military, 

police, and intelligence service, but that said, I think the waves of 

refugees pose a long-term threat, not just a humanitarian issue, 

but to the political and economic fabric of that country, as well as 

the surrounding region. 

And I think that trying to get more involved with those refugee 

populations, possibly through international organizations, but to 

deepen the understanding of what is going on there and help to ensure that they don’t become subject to concerted radicalization campaigns or support networks, and to eventually find a disposition for 

these people, I doubt they are going to go—most of them will go 

back home, so this poses a very critical long-term threat. 

Mr. FISHMAN. Just one thing to add to that. I absolutely agree 

that we shouldn’t expect that they are going to go home, and we 

should plan that this is—these are not just refugees, these are— 

many of these people are going to be new citizens essentially of Jordan, but this is a place where many of our Arab allies, I think, also 

have a responsibility, and we should be leading politically to pull 

them along. It is a place where they can contribute. Even if they 

are not going to contribute militarily, this is something where they 

can contribute, where money matters, and they can offer that. 

Mr. LAMBORN. And either Mr. Eisenstadt or Dr. Kagan, anything 

to add to that? 

Dr. KAGAN. I think it is—you are making an excellent point, and 

I am also very worried about Jordan and the strain that is being 

put on it. And I would just turn it in a slightly different way, because there are a lot of people in town who are talking about the 

need to raise an Arab army to fight in Syria and Iraq and the Jordanians should fight and the Saudis should fight and so forth, and 

you have highlighted one of the reasons why that is not really feasible. The Jordanians, I would not be enthusiastic about calling on 

the Jordanians to deploy large numbers of their own forces abroad, 

for a whole bunch of reasons. 
22 

Mr. EISENSTADT. And I will just add, you can’t worry too much 

about Jordan, because of its importance vis-a-vis our allies, Saudi, 

Israel, but that said, keep in mind they have been dealing with the 

problem of refugees for well over a decade now, or actually even 

longer, and their resilience and their ability to do so is remarkable, 

but that said, we can’t take them for granted, they are absolutely 

a critical ally of ours. And we are doing things. They get financial 

aid, they get military assistance. I can’t say whether we should be 

doing more or not, but I think we are focused on that issue. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, and you probably know in the NDAA, which 

is going to be going to conference, we just voted on with the Senate, 

I think we put in 300-plus million dollars of very good military aid 

for Jordan. 

Thank you for being here. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Lamborn. 

And we now—we have been joined by Congresswoman Martha 

McSally, of Arizona, the very first female air combat pilot to serve 

in Congress. 

Congresswoman McSally. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you. I am 

not on this committee, but I wanted to join this. I appreciate the 

testimony and your perspectives. I know there is a lot of talk about 

specifically the strategy about ISIS and I know you have—in the 

discussions on Iran talked a little bit more about the regional dynamic. A big concern that I have is the incoherence of a strategy 

in the region especially vis-a-vis Iran, the elephant in the room. 

We have got—we are focusing a lot on ISIS, which is important, 

but we are kind of looking through a soda straw without realizing 

some of the dynamics with our Sunni allies are related to the incoherence and the inconsistencies in how we are dealing with Iran, 

on the one hand doing everything we can to get to a nuclear weapon, on the other hand allowing them—you know, Soleimani to be 

the ground force commander while we are providing the air forces 

in Tikrit, and vis-a-vis what we are doing in Yemen. 

I mean, it is totally incoherent. So I would like to get your perspectives on that incoherence and what we could be doing better 

regionally to address not just ISIS, but also this larger state sponsor of terror on the globe, which is Iran, and then I want to follow 

up with some discussion on the air campaign. 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Yeah. If I could just start off by saying, first of 

all, we will never be able to iron out all the contradictions in our 

policies. There are just way too many moving pieces in this part 

of the world, and we will never be able to square the circle. But 

that said, I would argue that just as during the Cold War, while 

negotiating arms control deals with the Soviet Union, we pushed 

back against Soviet aggression and proxy activities around the 

world. We should be doing more in that regard with Iran. 

I am fully supportive of trying to put the relationship between 

the United States and Iran on a more normal basis while still acting to advance our interests and to defend the interests of our allies, which means doing more things in Syria with regard to the 

opposition there, doing things like we are doing, we are doing, to 

the credit of the administration, with regard to interdicting arms 

shipments to the Houthis in Yemen and some of the things we are 
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doing in Iraq, but we needed to have been a lot more forceful than 

we have. 

And some of the things that the spokesperson of the administration has stated in public have sent the wrong signal in terms of acquiescing to what is seen in the region as Iran’s attempts to establish a modern-day empire. 

So we need to—it is a matter of finessing or striking the right 

balance in our policy, and we have not hit the right balance. There 

is more we could do. 

Ms. MCSALLY. All right. Dr. Kagan, any thoughts on that or—— 

Dr. KAGAN. I really want to second what Mike said and also 

what Brian said earlier. Absolutely, once you talk to one’s enemies, 

you can negotiate with your enemy, you don’t have to surrender 

every other interest that you have while negotiating with your 

enemy, and we should be pushing back. 

And what Brian said earlier was really, really important. We 

have to support opposition in Syria against Assad, otherwise, we 

have no meaningful opposition in Syria to support. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. Thank you. Now, turning to the military 

strategy against ISIS, I was critical last week to the Secretary of 

Defense and to the chairman related to our air campaign. And I 

think we have got this false choice, really, narrative in the media: 

it is either an air campaign that seems to not be working or it is 

hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. 

And the reality is it seems like we are stuck in a counterinsurgency mind-set that we have been mired in over the last 14 years, 

and we are forgetting that we have vital national interests in stopping ISIS that are separate and distinct from Iraq’s interests in the 

region and what we are trying to get them to do. 

And so I feel very frustrated that we are not using airpower, as 

an airman, to the extent that we can use it, where we minimize 

civilian casualties, but we hit the targets that are legitimate in 

order to take out the command and control, the logistics, the leadership, everything it takes for ISIS to be able to be continuing to 

have the momentum. 

So it is very frustrating. And I have heard and read your testimony. I believe we need more intelligence, more JTACs, we need 

to be using airpower in a stronger way, we need to raise the bar. 

To save one civilian casualty, but then allow ISIS to murder thousands of people on the ground is absolutely contradictory. We have 

got to be able to gain the momentum and use airpower, and I just 

want your perspectives on that. 

Dr. KAGAN. Well, I couldn’t agree with you more. And I find it 

baffling that ISIS has been able to maneuver mechanized forces 

around this battlefield in airspace—while we control the airspace. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. 

Dr. KAGAN. We have an entire military designed to prevent people from doing that—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. 

Dr. KAGAN [continuing]. So we certainly can, and we—as you 

say, we certainly can do it with minimum casualties and we can 

do it without putting 150,000 thousand troops on the ground also, 

and we should do it. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. Thank you. 
24 

Mr. EISENSTADT. If I could just add, my understanding is that we 

have until recently perhaps had most of our ISR in Afghanistan to 

support the drawdown there, and now I guess—and if you look at 

the trend lines of ISR sorties in Iraq and Syria, they are trending 

up. 

So there is a—I suspect there is—some of that assets are being 

now redeployed to the fight there to support it, but that said, probably need more and we probably need to be more aggressive with 

our air strikes, and as Fred and others have said, strike a different 

balance with regard to the trade-offs with regard to our concern to 

collateral damage and the need to consistently be pushing ISIS 

back, and show that momentum has changed. 

Ms. MCSALLY. And we can gain the space then, therefore, for the 

political solution, but if we are letting them get the momentum because we are not using our elements of military power that we 

have in the way that is best used, then we are surrendering. 

Mr. EISENSTADT. Well, that is a critical point, because every day 

Sunnis are making life and death calculations about which side do 

they throw their support behind. And if they see that—if they believe that after rising up against ISIS, 6 months from now ISIL 

will be back—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Yes. 

Mr. EISENSTADT [continuing]. Because of our fecklessness—— 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. 

Mr. EISENSTADT [continuing]. They are not going to do that, and 

therefore, we need—there needs to be a consistent perception of 

progress being made, and we can’t afford to allow them to claw 

back—ISIL to claw back territory that has been lost—or that was 

not under their control. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Great. Thank you. My time has long expired. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me join the committee hearing today. 

Mr. WILSON. And thank you, Ms. McSally, for your insight and 

thank you for joining us today on the subcommittee. 

And I want to thank each of you. This has really been very helpful, and each one of you have had points that we need to be concerned. 

And I do have one request of Dr. Kagan. Two years ago you provided an extraordinary map indicating the spread of Al Qaeda and 

its affiliates across North Africa, Central Africa, and the Middle 

East, Central Asia. And for the benefit of our subcommittee members, if you could provide, if you do have, and I hope you do, an 

update of that map, it was extraordinarily helpful as I was explaining to my constituents the threats that we are facing from that region. 

If there is no further, we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

JUNE 24, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JUNE 24, 2015 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JUNE 24, 2015 

(77) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON 

Mr. WILSON. In your testimony, you call the suggestion of abandoning the central 

government in Baghdad and arming the Kurds and/or Sunni tribes directly as ‘‘superficially appealing.’’ Can you provide us with more detail on why arming and supporting the Kurds directly to fight Daesh is bad for our overall strategy? 

Dr. KAGAN. The Kurds cannot and should not fight ISIS beyond their ethnic 

boundaries. They have very little ability to project power outside of their home 

areas—their military forces are primarily designed for self-defense—and their military activities in Arab lands have repeatedly called forth violent responses and 

fueled recruitment for al Qaeda in Iraq and ISIS. Arabs in Ninewah, Kirkuk, and 

Diyala Provinces traditionally view Kurdish incursions into what they regard as 

‘‘Arab’’ lands as provocations intended to annex those lands to a greater Kurdistan 

and conduct ethnic cleansing to Kurdify them. The Kurds fuel these fears somewhat 

by prominently displaying maps of ‘‘Kurdistan’’ that show it lapping over into disputed areas and through various other activities and statements. I offer no opinion 

on how control of the disputed territories along the KRG border should be resolved, 

other than it should be resolved peacefully. I take no position on the historical 

rights of any group to that land. Nor do I accuse the Kurds of seeking to seize more 

land than might rightfully be regarded as theirs, still less of intending to conduct 

ethnic cleansing. But the perception among many Arab communities in these areas 

is different, and, from the standpoint of strategy, only that perception matters. 

Kurdish forces operating for an extended time in Arab areas of Iraq will generate 

ethnic violence that, in turn, will create conditions for the resilience of ISIS as a 

defender of the Arabs. The Kurds cannot, then, help defeat ISIS other than by holding their own boundaries, which they should be assisted to do. 

Mr. WILSON. You also indicate the importance of an inclusive Iraqi Army to 

counter the hollow force under previous Iraqi leader, yet the Iraqi Army has been 

unable to advance against Mosul and were not successful in maintaining control of 

Ramadi. What actions should the U.S. take to ensure that the Iraqi government continues to strengthen its central military for successful combat against ISIL? 

Dr. KAGAN. The U.S. should increase its direct advice and assistance to the Iraqi 

Security Forces by embedding trainers, advisers, and forward air controllers with 

Iraqi Security Forces units; by deploying the full array of U.S. intelligence-gathering, analysis, and dissemination capabilities into Iraq; by providing significantly 

increased fixed- and rotary-wing aviation support, both attack and transport, to the 

ISF; by providing artillery support as necessary; and by deploying Quick Reaction 

Forces to protect the more dispersed U.S. footprint in extremis. The U.S. should simultaneously insist that any ISF units receiving such assistance reject and abjure 

assistance from Iranian security forces and the militias they control (specifically 

KH, AAH, and Badr). In a period of extremely low oil prices and, therefore, budgetary crisis in Baghdad, the U.S. should consider providing financial assistance to 

support the ISF as well. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Our comprehensive strategy to combat ISIL includes undercutting 

their flow of resources. Shutting down access to revenue, and closing the means by 

which funds flow to and from ISIL is a critical component of that strategy. The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the 

Department of Justice, and other intelligence and national security agencies all play 

a role in identifying and restricting ISIL’s access to revenue, and revenue flows. I 

am interested to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness of the actions we are taking with respect to counter-threat financing, the role the DOD plays in identifying 

networks and informing those decisions, the threshold for an organization to receive 

our attention with respect to terrorist financing action, and given the current environment, should that strategy and threshold being revisited? Would you say that 

counter-threat financing efforts are a primary, secondary or tertiary concern of our 

military and intel community? Finally, how effective have our economic pressures 
78 

* See testimony on this subject by RAND political scientists Seth Jones (‘‘Breaking the Bank: 

Testimony presented before the House Financial Services Committee, Task Force to Investigate 

Terrorist Financing,’’ April 22, 2015) and Patrick B. Johnston (‘‘Countering ISIL’s Financing: 

Testimony Presented Before the House Financial Services Committee on November 13, 2014,’’ 

Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, CT–419, November 2014). 

been to date and what is your assessment of the ISIL Counter-Financing Working 

Group? 

Ms. ROBINSON. I thank Ranking Member Langevin for this important question. 

The short answer is that counter-threat financing efforts have lagged other aspects 

of the counter-ISIL effort. One reason is that the Counter-ISIL Financing Working 

Group has been formed relatively recently. A mechanism for reporting progress on 

a periodic basis, as well as assessments to ascertain whether the current approach 

is effective, would be advisable. Another, more fundamental reason is a shortage of 

ground-based intelligence due to our current mode of operating and our shortage of 

intelligence assets. Generating robust and reliable intelligence flows is essential for 

this line of effort to yield results. There is a need for greater intelligence both inside 

the Iraq-Syria main theater of operations for ISIL as well as internationally. Since 

the largest sources of funding are internal, increasing intelligence about funding activities inside Iraq and Syria would be the logical priority. Most analysis currently 

suggests that internal sources of revenue are more important to sustaining ISIL 

than outside resources, such as donations from benefactors in other countries. That 

is to say, revenues from extortion of the Iraqi and Syrian population, illicit oil and 

gas smuggling, and sale of looted antiquities are considered to be major sources of 

ISIL funding at this time. Therefore, the priority for the counter-threat financing 

line of operations should be to gain precise real-time information about how the internal funding networks operate and to identify the node in that network where resource generation can most efficiently and effectively be disrupted and dismantled. 

The computers and communications devices seized in the May 2015 raid by U.S. 

special operations forces in eastern Syria that killed Abu Sayyaf, a senior member 

of ISIL’s leadership cadre, yielded highly useful information about the organization’s 

current illicit oil, gas, and financial organizations. Furthermore, the analysis from 

the computers and communications devices seized in that raid is ongoing, and that 

work will significantly enhance the U.S. government’s understanding of how ISIL 

is operating today. Based on the research I have done on ISIL and on special operations forces, the importance of capturing such data and ISIL leaders and 

facilitators who can yield important current intelligence cannot be overstated. Certainly, vital intelligence can be gathered through remote technical means, but ISIL’s 

(and other terrorist) leaders have grown increasingly savvy about protecting their 

communications and information. Therefore, when such targets present themselves, 

the objective should be to capture them, if at all possible, whether by U.S. or other 

forces, so that the intelligence can be collected and analyzed. This ultimately contributes far more toward achieving the strategic goal of degrading and defeating 

ISIL than airstrikes that kill individual leaders and facilitators but yield no intelligence dividend. Those leaders and facilitators can be replaced with relative ease. 

ISIL will not be defeated unless the United States and its partners shift to an intelligence-driven war. This is one important change in priority in how the war is 

fought that I would recommend. External resources also matter, of course. Two 

member states of the counter-ISIL coalition, Italy and Saudi Arabia, have agreed 

to lead a working group focused on this issue along with the United States. Within 

the U.S. government, the Treasury Department and the National Counterterrorism 

Center are the lead entities for pursuing counter-threat finance efforts aimed at 

both internal and external resources fueling ISIL. The coalition’s Counter-ISIL Financing Working Group was formed relatively recently, as noted, and a detailed report card on its efforts would be extremely helpful. Finally, the role of Turkey as 

a conduit for illicit trade has been widely reported. The importance of stopping flows 

of goods and funds through that major transit point cannot be overstated. Turkey’s 

agreement to allow armed airstrikes against ISIL from bases on its territory may 

be a hopeful sign that further progress on cross-border flows can be made in the 

remainder of the year. A final note regarding the understanding of ISIL financing 

networks. Historical information is useful, and can serve to identify previous networks, facilitators and financiers that might still be active. RAND has conducted 

analysis of documents captured from ISIL’s predecessor organization, al Qaeda in 

Iraq, as well as research on currently active networks.* 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Ms. Robinson, I believe an effective strategy must be a coordinated, well thought out whole-of-government effort. You recently returned from Jordan and Iraq and noted the lack of coordination between the U.S. lines of effort, 
79 

and even more concerning, a lack of consensus on the number of lines of effort. In 

your opinion, how can these disconnects be addressed to unify the U.S. strategy? 

Ms. ROBINSON. Inadequate unity of effort plagues every level of this war, and it 

will cripple the coalition unless it is remedied. At the highest level, no single synchronizer of U.S. government efforts has been named. U.S. government departments 

or agencies are designated the leads for one of the nine lines of effort, but there 

is no daily orchestration of the campaign in a whole-of-government or whole-of-coalition sense. The White House is coordinating policy deliberations and decisions, but 

no entity has been charged with coordinating operations across the lines of effort 

and conducting periodic assessments. Possible models include an interagency task 

force or a czar, such as the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

This coordination work could be done with a dedicated staff in the White House, 

but it might distract the latter from its proper focus on policy and strategy, as opposed to implementation. The U.S. military describes the effort as having nine lines, 

while the White House and the State Department have described it as having four 

or five; this is indicative, at a very superficial but important level, of a government 

that is not speaking or thinking with one voice. A great deal more thought should 

be given to the nature of ISIL, now that we understand it is not going to disappear 

quickly, and from that fashion the right strategy and the right architecture. Given 

the complexity of the Iraq-Syria theater and the emergence of a significant network 

of ISIL affiliates, a division of labor between those two efforts might make sense. 

Within the Iraq-Syria theater, greater effort could be made to ensure that strategic, 

operational, and tactical actions across those two countries are synchronized. The 

Department of Defense leads two of the nine lines of effort, but the three-star command in charge of both Iraq and Syria, the Combined Joint Task Force–Operation 

Inherent Resolve, has not been fully staffed, according to the joint manning document. That suggests a lack of commitment to enable this primary warfighting command. I understand that that the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force–Syria has 

struggled mightily to gain the requested staff. Also, those two commands are not 

co-located—they are based in two different countries in the region—which creates 

an additional burden to foster a one-theater and one-team mentality. While in Iraq, 

I detected frictions between the military commands and the U.S. embassy, with the 

trainers and advisers clamoring for equipment but the security-assistance office unable to make the U.S. system work quickly enough to meet all of the needs. I also 

noted an unclear division of labor on the critical tribal engagement effort and the 

equally critical information operations effort. There is also an unfortunate reversal 

in the unity of effort that was achieved within the special operations community, 

which reached a high point in Afghanistan. These examples illustrate the variety 

of areas where our own command and control and unity of effort could be improved. 

Finally, the most distressing phenomenon I have observed is a tendency to make 

even tactical decisions at very high levels of the U.S. government, rather than entrusting highly qualified officers and civilian officials to make decisions at the speed 

the war demands. The delegation of appropriate authority to lower echelons—what 

the U.S. military calls ‘‘mission command’’—should be closely examined to document 

what I believe to be an enormous gap between doctrine and actual practice and the 

inefficiencies and ineffectiveness that results. The reason underlying this reluctance 

to delegate authority is presumably an aversion to risk. Failure is part of war and 

casualties are part of war; any well-trained officer and official will seek to minimize 

risk, but at this juncture we may be minimizing risk to forces and maximizing risk 

to mission. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What should be the United States’ role in fighting Islamic extremism, and what should be the roles of regional actors? Does the U.S. government 

possess the right tools to fight an ideological war, including information operations 

authorities? What more should our allies be doing to counter Islamic extremism? 

Ms. ROBINSON. In my view, the most effective voices in the struggle against Islamic extremism are Muslim voices. In addition, however, a particular subset may 

have even greater sway over those youths that are being attracted to ISIL’s ranks. 

That subset is former ISIL fighters who deserted once they came into contact with 

the reality of the movement and its depravity. Family members and friends who 

have seen the toll taken on their loved ones provide another source of immediate, 

graphic testimony that can compete—in visceral, emotional terms—with the terrorist recruiters. The sophistication of this recruitment effort has been documented 

by an increasing number of enterprising journalists and other enterprises. The U.S. 

Congress has shown a great interest in this informational side of irregular warfare, 

which is the type of warfare that is in fact most common, and which the United 

States must make a commitment to understanding and grappling with. The United 

States can play an important role in understanding, devising, and funding effective 

information operations, even if the most effective voices in the actual operations are 
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† See, for example, research conducted by RAND senior political scientist Kim Cragin: ‘‘Resisting Violent Extremism: A Conceptual Model for Non-Radicalization,’’ Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2014. 

likely to be non- U.S. voices. The first step to effective information operations is 

achieving a deep understanding of the phenomenon. Much of the relevant discourse 

is now occurring on social media, and RAND has developed tools and methods to 

analyze large volumes of social media messages and derive operational insights from 

them. Understanding the conversation is only the first step; engaging effectively in 

that conversation is the next step, which is the current urgent need. We must also 

be able to understand what is in fact effective or ineffective, and for that more rigorous and meaningful impact measures are also sorely needed. The authorities issue 

has been tendentious. I recall many battalion commanders who lamented that they 

could call in a bomb strike but not issue a press release. For many years the U.S. 

government has been engaged in an internal bureaucratic and intellectual struggle 

over who within the U.S. government should be in charge of what type of information operations and how they should be conducted. This plays out in a given country 

between U.S. embassies and military commands, and at the Washington interdepartmental level. The easy default position is to call for the re-creation of the U.S. 

Information Agency, but this may not be the appropriate model for this era given 

social and technological changes. An independent commission could study this 

issue—without regard to bureaucratic equities—and propose policy changes and, if 

necessary, legislative action to ensure that the United States adequately grapples 

with this central front in today’s irregular conflicts. From a military perspective, 

military information support operations units currently have the authority to support other countries’ MISO capacity-building and conduct their own activities in the 

counter-terrorism realm, subject to the support of specific geographic combatant 

commands and U.S. chiefs of mission. What they most need is support to carry out 

those programs at a high-level of quality (in both substantive and technical terms) 

and to develop empirically-grounded measures of effectiveness. This is a vastly 

under-resourced part of the special operations community. Among the specific technical needs are cyber expertise, regional and historical expertise, marketing and 

branding expertise, and a case study repository to create a body of knowledge for 

this nascent field. The U.S. State Department has been making a serious effort to 

develop an effective approach to counter-messaging and online engagement, but this 

is just one aspect of influence and information operations. As part of this work, 

other countries’ efforts at de-radicalization programs should be closely studied to 

learn what has and has not worked and why, so that a body of knowledge on best 

practices can be developed and shared.† This knowledge can be brought to bear in 

the Middle East through willing states, nongovernmental organizations, and international institutions. A particularly vulnerable population is the youth among the 

millions of refugees and displaced people in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. The tragedy of today will only be compounded and extended if the next generation of young people are lured into this way of life. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. How should the United States define and approach the threat of 

Islamic extremism? 

Ms. ROBINSON. Purveyors of violent Islamic extremism employ a distorted version 

of Islam to attract militants to a cause that seeks to undermine established governments, strike Western targets, and impose a draconian medieval type of rule backed 

by vicious, wanton violence. There is a debate over the correct terminology to use 

to define Islamic extremism. On one hand, some are wary to avoid antagonizing adherents to a faith, Islam, and unintentionally stimulating sympathy for or converts 

to violent forms of extreme Salafism or Wahhabism. On the other hand, some object 

to the anodyne term ‘‘violent extremist organization,’’ in that it does not specifically 

call out the use made of Islam to sway individuals into the path of violent jihad, 

senseless brutality, and, in the case of ISIL, nearly limitless atrocities carried out 

against both Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Not all violent extremists are Muslims, 

of course, and it is important to note the many stimulants and rationales that can 

be used in an effort to justify violent extremism and attract recruits. It is likely that 

approaches to dealing with various forms of violent extremism will differ. It is imperative, given the powerful attraction that groups like ISIL appear to hold over 

young and disaffected people in many countries, that specific measures be developed 

to address the phenomenon of violent Islamic extremism. The terrorist tactics that 

ISIL and other similar groups are using draw specifically, if erroneously, upon elements of the Islamic faith, its teachings, and its history to advance the organizations’ ends, which are ultimately about power, not religion. The need to combat the 

distortion of Islam and attack the credibility of these organizations requires acknowledgement of the use being made of Islam and a superior knowledge of its true 
81 

‡ Linda Robinson, Paul D. Miller, John Gordon IV, Jeffrey Decker, Michael Schwille, and 

Raphael S. Cohen, Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons from 13 Years of War, Santa 

Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR–816–A, 2014. 

teachings. This is, to some degree, a struggle within Islam—particularly Sunni 

Islam—and those members of that faith have every reason to lead the effort to debunk, discredit, and defeat those who would tarnish the name of a religion embraced by millions of peaceloving people around the world. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What are the risks and/or trade-offs in how U.S. policy and strategy defines and addressed the nature of the Islamic extremism threat? 

Ms. ROBINSON. As noted in my previous answer, a key risk is taking actions that 

prove counterproductive by actually stimulating greater support for terrorism, including additional converts to the ranks of fighters or self-radicalized individual 

attackers. A particular risk is creating a large and long-term footprint of U.S. military forces that terrorist groups can depict as invaders or occupiers. This can turn 

the focus away from the reality that most victims of Islamic extremist violence are, 

in fact, Muslims. One problem is that, within the U.S. military, the art of supporting others in the fight against terrorism is still insufficiently developed. Another 

problem is that many potential partners are also very weak and lack reliable capabilities that can be leveraged by the United States. Partnering cannot likely be reduced to a science, as there are many complex factors that will determine a good 

partner, the right conditions, and the degree and type of U.S. assistance that will 

enable a given partner to combat the terrorist threat in a credible and effective 

manner. But rigorous study and refined methods can certainly improve upon ‘‘U.S. 

partnering’’ and working ‘‘by, with, and through’’ other countries, as the U.S. Special 

Forces like to say. This approach and preference to support and work through other 

countries is now enshrined in U.S. National Security Strategy, U.S. National Military Strategy, and funded initiatives such as the Counter-Terrorism Partnership 

Fund. But not enough attention has been devoted to refining our partnership approaches, especially in the most common circumstances, where all available partners 

are flawed in some way yet, at the end of the day, are most likely a preferable primary actor to the U.S. soldier—at least in great numbers. This approach to warfare 

has not yet been elevated to the central position in U.S. military thinking, organization, doctrine, and personnel training and development that will be necessary for 

the United States to become truly adept in this realm. My own research for the special operations community has focused on deep study of their experiences in this 

realm, and on linking the tactical, operational, and strategic aspects of partnering 

in both concept and practice. One study outlines steps for improved interagency and 

special operations–conventional competence, as well as continued funding for those 

coordinating and training bodies developed over the past 13 years.‡ 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Our comprehensive strategy to combat ISIL includes undercutting 

their flow of resources. Shutting down access to revenue, and closing the means by 

which funds flow to and from ISIL is a critical component of that strategy. The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the 

Department of Justice, and other intelligence and national security agencies all play 

a role in identifying and restricting ISIL’s access to revenue, and revenue flows. I 

am interested to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness of the actions we are taking with respect to counter-threat financing, the role the DOD plays in identifying 

networks and informing those decisions, the threshold for an organization to receive 

our attention with respect to terrorist financing action, and given the current environment, should that strategy and threshold being revisited? Would you say that 

counter-threat financing efforts are a primary, secondary or tertiary concern of our 

military and intel community? Finally, how effective have our economic pressures 

been to date and what is your assessment of the ISIL Counter-Financing Working 

Group? 

Mr. EISENSTADT. I do not know the answer to all of your questions, but it is my 

understanding that counter threat financing is a primary concern of our military 

and intelligence community, because ISIL can’t fight or govern without money, and 

because this is something that we can get our arms around, to some extent, and 

effect in a tangible way (unlike efforts to counter ISIL’s appeal, which is a much 

more daunting task). My understanding is that we have had substantial success in 

diminishing ISIL’s oil income, but ISIL’s main sources of income are from taxes and 

criminal activities such as extortion, kidnap for ransom, and the sale of stolen goods 

(including archeological treasures). Coalition activities have not affected these 

sources of income. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What should be the United States’ role in fighting Islamic extremism, and what should be the roles of regional actors? Does the U.S. government 

possess the right tools to fight an ideological war, including information operations 
82 

authorities? What more should our allies be doing to counter Islamic extremism? 

[Question #7, for cross-reference.] 

Mr. EISENSTADT. The U.S. should play the role of enabler of its regional partners, 

as this is likely to be a decades-long struggle, and the U.S. needs to husband its 

resources, and build capacity among its regional partners so that any military victory is lasting. The U.S. could send 50,000 troops into Iraq and defeat ISIL in relatively short order and at some cost, but unless the politics of our allies change, 

and they develop an autonomous capacity to ensure internal security, ISIL will regenerate in 3–5 years and all this would be for naught. As for the ability of the U.S. 

government to fight an ideological war, I believe that we are neither framing the 

issue correctly, nor are we fighting it correctly. Various U.S. government documents 

talk about countering ISIL’s ideology, countering its narrative, or exposing its hypocrisy, true nature, or false claims of acting in the name of religion. ISIL’s appeal 

is only partly religious or ideological, and by overemphasizing this component, the 

USG seems to be overlooking the many other reasons that people join ISIL. And 

it is not clear how the military campaign against ISIL is tied to this effort to undermine ISIL’s appeal. It seems that the two should be closely linked. So the U.S. 

seems to lack a proper understanding of how to prosecute this central element of 

the campaign against ISIL, and how all the elements of its counter-ISIL campaign 

contribute to this effort. In my mind, undermining ISIL’s appeal should be the decisive line of operation of our campaign. But it is consistently listed as number six 

of our nine lines of effort. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. How should the United States define and approach the threat of 

Islamic extremism? 

Mr. EISENSTADT. I would defer to my colleagues who specialize in this issue, 

though I would say that it depends on the context. In the United States, the emphasis should probably be on education, focusing on an individual’s social connections, 

and preventing peer radicalization and recruitment via face-to-face and social media 

contacts. In the Middle East, the answer lies in defusing the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, 

and elsewhere that have driven the radicalization process, though it will be very 

hard to deal with the radicalization process in Europe and the U.S., without addressing its root causes in the Middle East. So the two are linked. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What are the risks and/or trade-offs in how U.S. policy and strategy defines and addressed the nature of the Islamic extremism threat? 

Mr. EISENSTADT. By pursuing a long-war strategy, as I recommended in response 

to question 7 [see above], there is a risk that the extremist threat will metastasize 

before the U.S. effort gains momentum. Indeed, the longer that ISIL and groups like 

it survive efforts to defeat them, the greater their appeal is likely to be. To win, 

they simply have to avoid defeat, and they have been doing much better than that. 

This is in effect what seems to be happening. And the U.S. does not seem to have 

successfully linked its military operations and its efforts to undermine ISIL’s appeal. 

As a result, it has accepted defeats in Ramadi and elsewhere with relatively equanimity, stating that they are only tactical setbacks, whereas these battlefield victories for ISIL only feed its myth of invincibility, and are seen by ISIL and its supports as strategic victories. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Our comprehensive strategy to combat ISIL includes undercutting 

their flow of resources. Shutting down access to revenue, and closing the means by 

which funds flow to and from ISIL is a critical component of that strategy. The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the 

Department of Justice, and other intelligence and national security agencies all play 

a role in identifying and restricting ISIL’s access to revenue, and revenue flows. I 

am interested to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness of the actions we are taking with respect to counter-threat financing, the role the DOD plays in identifying 

networks and informing those decisions, the threshold for an organization to receive 

our attention with respect to terrorist financing action, and given the current environment, should that strategy and threshold being revisited? Would you say that 

counter-threat financing efforts are a primary, secondary or tertiary concern of our 

military and intel community? Finally, how effective have our economic pressures 

been to date and what is your assessment of the ISIL Counter-Financing Working 

Group? 

Dr. KAGAN. I am not familiar with the specific threat-finance activities in which 

the U.S. Government is currently engaged, and so have no ability to respond directly to most of these questions. It is important to keep in mind, however, that 

threat-finance activities are extremely unlikely to have a major impact on ISIS as 

long as the group retains control of a large and populated area with its own natural 

resources. Threat finance activities have rarely been decisive against any significant 

opponent, but they are particularly ill-suited to one that can tax people and smuggle 

oil, as well as ancient artifacts—to say nothing of the ISIS traffic in human beings. 
83 

It is nevertheless valuable to do everything we can to disrupt the global financial 

networks that support ISIS, al Qaeda, and other affiliated movements, and there 

is generally very little reason not to do so apart from the scarcity of resources the 

U.S. government can allocate to this problem. It is particularly valuable, I believe, 

to see threat finance activities within the framework of nexus targeting—seeking 

targets that cross over from terrorism to human trafficking, narco-trafficking, or 

other illegal activities. It is often easier to persuade regional partners or the international community to act against human traffickers or drug kingpins than against 

people we accuse of financing terrorism, and the overlap among these activities is 

often broad. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What should be the United States’ role in fighting Islamic extremism, and what should be the roles of regional actors? Does the U.S. government 

possess the right tools to fight an ideological war, including information operations 

authorities? What more should our allies be doing to counter Islamic extremism? 

Dr. KAGAN. The U.S. and its regional allies have common interests in defeating 

Islamist extremism that threatens the legitimacy of all states and has brought violence to all communities. The U.S. should play the role of a reliable ally in this 

fight. We should provide resources necessary to help our partners, including ground 

forces when and where they are required and can operate effectively. We should also 

provide the full panoply of our intelligence-gathering and analysis to our own 

warfighters and, with the minimum necessary caveats and restrictions, to our partners. The U.S. does not, in my view, possess the right tools to fight an ideological 

war on the ideological plane. To begin with, what agency would be responsible for 

fighting such a war? How, moreover, can the U.S. fight an ideological war while denying that the enemy has a religious-based (if, in my view, heretical) ideology? I do 

not know whether or not the U.S. government has the right legal authorities to fight 

such a war because we have not come anywhere close to developing a strategy for 

such an effort, to my knowledge, worth testing. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. How should the United States define and approach the threat of 

Islamic extremism? 

Dr. KAGAN. The U.S. must recognize that violent Islamism is a direct threat to 

Americans and to our way of life. We should define the threat to include those 

groups and individuals that seek through violent means to impose their vision of 

Islam upon unwilling populations when those groups also identify the U.S. or its 

allies as an enemy that must be attacked. We should be careful not to define this 

particular threat too broadly. Political Islamism—the idea that extreme versions of 

Islam can and should be imposed on populations through participation in political 

processes rather than through violence—is also a threat to us, our allies, and Muslims. But responding to political Islamism requires a very different strategy from 

the one required to combat violent Islamism. It is a mistake, in my view, to make 

no distinction between the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda or ISIS. All three are 

threats, and the purely political groups can and often do create conditions propitious 

for the development of violent groups within their midst. But we should identify political Islamist parties not as ‘‘enemies’’ to be ‘‘defeated’’ in a war, but rather as political opponents against whom the U.S. and its partners must operate through the 

effective use of soft power. The best strategy seeks to drive a wedge between political and violent Islamist groups rather than driving them together by targeting both 

the same. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What are the risks and/or trade-offs in how U.S. policy and strategy defines and addressed the nature of the Islamic extremism threat? 

Dr. KAGAN. I believe I have answered this in the preceding responses. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Our comprehensive strategy to combat ISIL includes undercutting 

their flow of resources. Shutting down access to revenue, and closing the means by 

which funds flow to and from ISIL is a critical component of that strategy. The Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the 

Department of Justice, and other intelligence and national security agencies all play 

a role in identifying and restricting ISIL’s access to revenue, and revenue flows. I 

am interested to hear your thoughts on the effectiveness of the actions we are taking with respect to counter-threat financing, the role the DOD plays in identifying 

networks and informing those decisions, the threshold for an organization to receive 

our attention with respect to terrorist financing action, and given the current environment, should that strategy and threshold being revisited? Would you say that 

counter-threat financing efforts are a primary, secondary or tertiary concern of our 

military and intel community? Finally, how effective have our economic pressures 

been to date and what is your assessment of the ISIL Counter-Financing Working 

Group? 

Mr. FISHMAN. Finances are critical for an organization pursue and achieve its 

goals. As we know from our policy process, appropriating money is the final indi-
84 

cator that an organization values a particular line of effort. Jihadi groups are no 

different and we have seen various groups put their money where mouth is in different ways over the years. ISIL is different, however, than jihadi groups like alQaeda. Because the group controls so much territory, and such a large population, 

it is able to fundraise via ‘‘taxation’’, the appropriation of businesses, and seizing 

resources from its enemies. Unlike al-Qaeda, which depended largely on donations 

from wealthy supporters abroad, ISIL generates most of its money locally. ISIL does 

obviously have some connections to external entities for raising money. For example, 

it trades oil and antiquities with smugglers and operatives in both government-controlled Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. While we must crackdown on these networks, it is 

important to recognize that they represent political alliances as well as economic 

ones. One reason the Awakening in Iraq was so successful is that we were able to 

co-opt smugglers that were upset about the Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaeda in Iraq) 

stealing their smuggling routes. Unfortunately, I do not think that we will be able 

to effectively constrain ISIL’s fundraising without a significant troops presence on 

the ground. The incentives of ISIL’s economic partners run against collaboration 

with the United States so long as we are unable to coerce them—and most of those 

networks operate in the black market. Importantly, jihadis have actively tried to 

build economic networks that are resistant to external pressure. After the failure 

of the 1980s Muslim Brotherhood uprising against Hafez al-Assad—Bashar’s father—Abu Mus’ab al-Suri wrote a widely-read lessons-learned treatise. One of the 

key elements was that jihadis must be able to fundraise locally and not be dependent on either foreign governments or foreign supporters, both of whom he considered 

unreliable partners. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What should be the United States’ role in fighting Islamic extremism, and what should be the roles of regional actors? Does the U.S. government 

possess the right tools to fight an ideological war, including information operations 

authorities? What more should our allies be doing to counter Islamic extremism? 

Mr. FISHMAN. The United States does not have the right tools to fight an ideological war, especially one that is framed as undermining jihadi ideology. We ought to 

be focused on building an image of the United States and democracy that is positive, 

open, and appealing to people across the world, regardless of their religious or ethnic background. This is not a matter of acumen with social media, as it is often portrayed in the United States. If you review the Islamic State of Iraq’s earliest discussion of social media—Youtube, Facebook, etc—in 2008 and 2009 they largely talk 

about how they need to learn from the effective social media campaigns of American 

politicians. It’s not about how slick they are with social media. The real issue is that 

they have a clear message—of violence, domination, and what they consider a utopian vision of a better world. Our problem is that we do not have a clear message; 

it’s hesitant and bound by our larger lack of policy clarity toward the challenges in 

Iraq and Syria. Of course, our allies must do more on the ideological side as well. 

Saudi Arabia, which is obviously key to U.S. interests for a range of reasons, is a 

deep cause of the instability in the Mideast. The promotion of Wahhabi mosques 

globally as undermined progenitors of more pluralistic visions of Islam and fosters 

an environment that is easier for ISIL and others of its ilk to exploit. Ultimately, 

we will not be able to solve this problem without Saudi Arabia facing some of its 

own demons. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. How should the United States define and approach the threat of 

Islamic extremism? 

Mr. FISHMAN. It is important to understand that, historically, not all jihadis have 

been salafis, but that most jihadis today are salafis. In other words, a particular 

brand of religious ideology is not a good way to define our enemies. That said, there 

is simply no denying that the backward-looking version of Islam propagated by 

many in Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) implies certain political realities, including 

sectarianism and antipathy to non-Muslims. The United States should be waging 

war specifically against militant organizations that threaten U.S. interests directly, 

but we should also be working with our allies to stop their implicit soft power campaigns against us. The Saudi government tolerates and capitalizes on religious extremism. Even as they help us fight militant groups, they support the ideologues 

that foster those groups. This is unsustainable and self-defeating. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. What are the risks and/or trade-offs in how U.S. policy and strategy defines and addressed the nature of the Islamic extremism threat? 

Mr. FISHMAN. There are almost too many tradeoffs to list. Even though religious 

ideology is central to how most jihadi groups define themselves, the United States 

should not actively frame our counterterrorism campaign in religious terms. We 

have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We must recognize the 

ideological foundation of these movements, but our communication efforts are not 

particularly nuanced. Walk softly (and do not mention Islam very often) but carry 
85 

a big stick (by empowering moderates who criticize jihadis and cracking down on 

primarily Saudi efforts to promote destructive ideology). It is important to remember 

that jihadis kill far more Muslims than they do Americans. With that in mind, we 

might want to look at terms like ‘‘takfiris’’ (a term that reflects their hatred toward 

Muslims) or ‘‘kharijites’’ (a historical term for a despised Muslim sect that attacked 

other Muslims). Throughout Muslim history, the religion has been practiced and 

lived dynamically, by real people. In many periods, the Muslim mainstream was 

more tolerant of minorities than in European societies. That tradition is being destroyed today, both by the jihadis and by states that fund narrow understandings 

of one of the world’s great religious traditions. One danger of defining our enemies 

solely in ideological terms, rather than in how they operationalize those ideas politically, is that it may prevent us from working with certain allies. There ARE salafi 

groups that oppose al-Qaeda; we worked with a number of them in Iraq during the 

vaunted ‘‘Awakening’’. At the end of the day; we are interested in ideas because of 

what they inspire people to do; it’s the actions that count. With that in mind, lets 

not define our enemies so broadly that we prevent areas of potential collaboration. 

Æ