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i 

94–096 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–9] 

WHAT IS THE STATE OF ISLAMIC 

EXTREMISM: KEY TRENDS, CHALLENGES, 

AND IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 13, 2015 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

THOMAS MACARTHUR, New Jersey 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

GWEN GRAHAM, Florida 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

ALEX GALLO, Professional Staff Member 

MIKE CASEY, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 2 

Thornberry, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac,’’ a Representative from Texas, Chairman, 

Committee on Armed Services ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESSES 

Braniff, William, Executive Director, National Consortium for the Study of 

Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), University of Maryland .... 5 

Flynn, LTG Michael, USA (Ret.), Former Director, Defense Intelligence Agency ........................................................................................................................... 3

Lynch, Marc, Professor, The George Washington University .............................. 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Braniff, William ................................................................................................ 50 

Flynn, LTG Michael ......................................................................................... 43 

Lynch, Marc ...................................................................................................... 69 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[Retained in committee files.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Scott ............................................................................................................ 79 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Ashford ....................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. Palazzo ....................................................................................................... 83 

Mr. Shuster ....................................................................................................... 85 

(1) 

WHAT IS THE STATE OF ISLAMIC EXTREMISM: 

KEY TRENDS, CHALLENGES, AND IMPLICATIONS 

FOR U.S. POLICY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Friday, February 13, 2015. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:02 a.m., in room 2118, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William M. ‘‘Mac’’ Thornberry 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM M. ‘‘MAC’’ THORNBERRY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM TEXAS, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. 

On Wednesday, the President submitted to Congress his proposal 

for an authorization to use military force against ISIS [Islamic 

State of Iraq and Syria]. Although the President has ordered combat operations against ISIS take place in Iraq since last August 

and in Syria since last September, only now has he sought the congressional authorization required by the Constitution. 

Despite the airstrikes, press accounts indicate that ISIS has expanded its territory that it controls in Syria. The world has been 

horrified at its barbarism, which seems to have no limit. 

In the meantime, the United States has suffered a significant 

setback in Yemen. We have abandoned our embassy there, a place 

which the President once held out as a model for his counterterrorism approach. Now we are in a much weaker position to prevent 

attacks by the organization that has posed the most serious threat 

to our homeland in recent years. 

Elsewhere, Boko Haram is killing thousands and steadily advancing in Nigeria; Libya has become a breeding ground for terrorist groups; AQIM [Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb] still menaces 

the population in several North African countries; and there is concern that Al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistan region is becoming reinvigorated as U.S. troop levels are reduced. 

Congress will consider the President’s AUMF [authorization for 

use of military force] proposal in the context of this wider fight 

against Islamist terrorists. The purpose of today’s hearing is to 

evaluate how that broader struggle is going. Among the questions 

I have are: What are the trends we see with Islamist terrorists? Is 

their appeal growing or diminishing around the world? Is the 

threat to the United States becoming more or less serious? 

Many in Congress want reassurances that the President has a 

strategy to succeed against this threat and that he is personally 

committed to persevere until we are successful. It is clear that be-
2 

fore we are successful we have to understand the threat, where we 

are, and where we are headed. That is the purpose of today’s hearing. 

Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

WASHINGTON, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED 

SERVICES 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I thank the chairman for this hearing on this very important 

topic. I think it is the largest national security threat that we face 

as a country. And I know all three of our panelists have a lot of 

knowledge on the issue, and I think it will be very helpful for the 

committee to hear from them and engage in questions and answers 

as we try to figure out how to confront this threat. 

And part of the problem with the threat is it is not easy to define 

and is not to easy to put a strategy around, because it really is a 

broad ideology that has many, many different components. 

You know, post-9/11, we saw Al Qaeda as a terrorist group with 

a centralized leadership that was plotting and planning attacks 

against us and, I think, responded accordingly to try and defeat 

that organization, to try and defeat that network, and did a reasonably effective job of it in Afghanistan and in Pakistan as we prevented that group from being able to mount further attacks against 

us. That is the positive. 

The negative is that the ideology itself has metastasized. It has 

grown into a number of the groups that the chairman mentioned 

and even more than that, in a lot of different places. 

And the root cause is a lack of solid governance, a lack of solid 

economic opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa and 

much of the Arab Muslim world. They have an exploding youth 

population that has nothing to do; no jobs and no prospects. So the 

ideology that comes along and says, ‘‘I have the answer for you,’’ 

has plenty of willing recruits. And, meanwhile, they don’t have 

much in the way of an example of a good government anywhere 

that they could look to and work with. 

So it is going to be very difficult to contain. I think the chairman 

laid out, you know, the challenges with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the 

collapse in Yemen, the difficulties in Libya. But, overall, I think we 

need a long-term strategy. 

One of the things that I think has hampered us is this notion 

that we have to be able to confidently say either, A, that we are 

winning or that we are going to win and here is how. I honestly 

think that this is a long-term ideological struggle, not something 

that we can say, you know, we are determined to defeat it so let’s 

just suck it up and 3 or 4 years from now it will be done. It took 

75 years to defeat communism. I think we have to figure out how 

to have a long-term strategy for dealing with this ideology. 

Now, that doesn’t mean that in the short term the ideology runs 

rampant. A huge piece of that strategy is containing the threat, figuring out how to protect our interests from violence, and figuring 

out how to begin to roll back these groups and roll back the advance of their ideology. 
3 

But it is an issue that defies an easy answer. So what we hope 

to hear today is some ideas on how we can proceed and move forward, mindful of the fact that it is a very, very large problem that 

is going to take a long time to deal with. 

And the final point that I will make: One of the things that hamstrings us is it is not something the U.S. or the Western world can 

take care of. The Muslim world does not want the United States 

to show up and tell it what it ought to do. And this is true even 

of the moderate Muslims that we look to work with. 

We have to figure out how we can be helpful to support those 

moderate voices so that they can triumph, so that they can defeat 

these extremist ideologies. It cannot be Western-driven, by the very 

definition of the way those folks look at the world. So we can help, 

but if we help too much, in an odd sort of way we wind up hurting 

the overall effort. I think that is the lesson we learned in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

So, with that, I look forward to the testimony, the questions. And 

I appreciate the chairman holding the committee; or the hearing, 

I should say. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

I would just mention to Members that I think we are supposed 

to have votes on the floor roughly around 10:40, 10:45. And so I am 

going to try to be fairly strict with, be strict with the time limits 

so we can move along smartly. 

I ask unanimous consent that the full written statement of all of 

our witnesses be made part of the record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Let me again thank our witnesses for being here. 

I am very pleased to see retired Lieutenant General Michael 

Flynn, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Mr. William Braniff, executive director, National Consortium for the Study 

of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, with the University of 

Maryland; and Dr. Marc Lynch with The George Washington University. 

All of these gentlemen have done very serious, helpful work for 

the committee and for the country on this topic of terrorism. 

And we are very grateful to have you with us today. As I said, 

your full written statement will be made part of the record. If you 

would like to summarize at this point and then we will get to questions, we would appreciate it. 

General Flynn. 

STATEMENT OF LTG MICHAEL FLYNN, USA (RET.), FORMER 

DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY 

General FLYNN. Great. Thank you. 

Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, members of the 

committee, it is an honor to be here today, and I really appreciate 

the invitation. 

You have asked me to comment on the state of Islamic extremism. Today I have the unhappy task of informing you that, according to every metric of significance, Islamic extremism has 

grown over the last year. 

Whether it be the scale and scope of ISIS and its associated 

movements, the number of violent Islamist groups, the territory 
4 

which these groups control, the number of terrorist attacks these 

groups perpetrate, the massive numbers and suffering of refugees 

and displaced persons due to these Islamist groups, that is approximately 15 million people, the amount of kidnapping and rape of 

women and children by these groups, the numbers of casualties 

they inflict, their broad expansion and use of the Internet, which 

is very serious, or just their sheer barbarism that we have witnessed, I can draw no other conclusion than to say that the threat 

of Islamic extremism has reached an unacceptable level and that 

it is growing. 

We are at war with violent and extreme Islamists, both Sunni 

and Shia, and we must accept and face this reality. 

This enemy has an engrained and unshakeable vision of how the 

world and society should be ordered, and they believe violence is 

a legitimate means of bringing about this ideal state. The violent 

Islamist is serious, devout, committed, and dangerous. His ideology 

justifies the most heinous, inhumane actions imaginable, and he 

will not be reasoned with, nor will he relent. This enemy must be 

opposed, they must be killed, they must be destroyed, and the associated extremist form of the Islamic ideology must be defeated 

wherever it rears its ugly head. 

There are some who counsel patience, arguing violent Islamists 

are not an existential threat and therefore can simply be managed 

as criminals. I respectfully and strongly disagree. 

I have been in the theaters of war of Iraq and Afghanistan for 

many years, faced this enemy up close and personal, and I have 

seen firsthand the unrestrained cruelty of this enemy. They may be 

animated by a medieval ideology, but they are thoroughly modern 

in their capacity to kill and maim, as well as precisely and very 

smartly message their ideas, intentions, and actions via the Internet. In fact, they are increasingly capable of threatening our Nation’s interests and those of our allies. 

Furthermore, it would be foolish for us to wait until our enemies 

pose an existential threat before taking decisive action. Doing so 

would only increase the cost in blood and treasure later for what 

we know must be done now. Our violent and extremely radical 

Islamist enemies must be stopped. 

To that end, I offer the following three strategic objectives: 

First, we have to energize every element of national power, similar to the effort during World War II or during the cold war, to effectively resource what will likely be a multigenerational struggle. 

There is no cheap way to win this fight. 

Second, we must engage the violent Islamists wherever they are, 

drive them from their safe havens, and kill them. There can be no 

quarter and no accommodation for this vicious group of terrorists. 

Any nation-state that offers safe haven to our enemies must be 

given one choice: to eliminate them or be prepared for those contributing partners involved in this endeavor to do so. 

We do need to recognize there are nations who lack the capability to defeat this threat and will likely require help to do so inside of their own internationally recognized boundaries. We must 

be prepared to assist those nations. 

Third, we must decisively confront the state and non-state supporters and enablers of the violent Islamist ideology and compel 
5 

them to end their support to our enemies or be prepared to remove 

their capacity to do so. 

Many of these are currently considered partners of the United 

States. This must change. If our so-called partners do not act in accordance with internationally accepted norms and behaviors or 

international law, the United States must be prepared to cut off or 

severely curtail economic, military, and diplomatic ties. We cannot 

be seen as being hypocritical to those we are partnering with to defeat radical Islam. 

Finally, in pursuit of these objectives, I fully support Congress’ 

constitutional role in providing an authorization for the use of military force. This authorization should be broad and agile but unconstrained by unnecessary restrictions, restrictions that today cause 

not only frustration in our military, our intelligence, and our diplomatic communities, but also significantly slow down the decisionmaking process for numerous fleeting opportunities. 

It is important, however, to realize that such an authorization is 

neither a comprehensive strategy nor a war-winning one. If there 

is not a clear, coherent, and comprehensive strategy forthcoming 

from the administration, there should be no authorization. 

With that, Chairman, I am happy to take your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Flynn can be found in the 

Appendix on page 43.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Braniff. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM BRANIFF, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL CONSORTIUM FOR THE STUDY OF TERRORISM 

AND RESPONSES TO TERRORISM (START), UNIVERSITY OF 

MARYLAND 

Mr. BRANIFF. Chairman Thornberry, Ranking Member Smith, 

and esteemed members of the committee, I would like to thank you 

on behalf of the START Consortium for inviting us to speak with 

you today. 

In 2013, over 22,000 people were killed in nearly 8,500 terrorist 

attacks. When START releases the full Global Terrorism Database 

dataset for 2014, we anticipate it will include over 15,000 terrorist 

attacks. 

Our preliminary data from the first 9 months of 2014 suggests 

that 7 of the 10 most lethal groups in 2014 were violent jihadist 

groups. And ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant], among 

them, conducted more terrorist attacks than any other terrorist organization. 

The trend lines over the last few years are largely driven by two 

factors: first, the proliferation of groups associated with Al Qaeda 

in hotspots around the world; and, second, the rise of ISIL and its 

strategy of escalation through sectarian violence. 

What we have, therefore, is the makings of a global competition 

involving the most violent terrorist organizations in the world. This 

is even more troubling when one considers that both the theoretical 

and empirical work in the terrorism studies field suggests that 

competition among terrorist groups is one of the most important 

predictors of increasing lethality over time. 
6 

To better understand this competition and its implications, I 

would like to contrast the operations and strategies of Al Qaeda 

and its associated movement, or AQAM, with those of ISIL. 

Al Qaeda is waging a protracted war of attrition against the 

West, specifically aiming to bleed the United States. If they are 

able to attrite the American economic, military, or political will to 

remain engaged in the Muslim world, local jihadists can overpower 

apostate regimes and establish what they would consider to be 

proper theocracies. 

To wage this war of attrition, Al Qaeda has sent operatives into 

conflict zones across the world to reorient the violence of militant 

organizations and individuals, refocusing their wrath on far-enemy 

targets, like Western embassies or tourist destinations. 

Al Qaeda seeks to use spectacular mass-casualty attacks to incite 

heavy-handed military responses from Western and apostate governments that seemingly evidence the war on Islam that Al Qaeda 

portrays in its propaganda, thereby polarizing the Muslim and the 

non-Muslim worlds and enabling jihadists to mobilize for a 

civilizational conflict. 

ISIL is not currently waging a war of attrition but one of escalation. Instead of inviting Muslim versus Western violence, it is 

benefiting from the resources already being mobilized by sectarian 

polarization that has taken place in Iraq and Syria and beyond, 

which it actively seeks to exacerbate. Instead of the far enemy, 

ISIL’s military operations have focused on attacking competitors in 

their midst who do not submit to their ideological and organizational primacy and seizing the resources necessary to build the institutions of the caliphate. 

Given this competition, there are several implications for U.S. 

policy and regional security. 

The first: While Al Qaeda’s far-enemy strategy relies on provocation to polarize and mobilize the masses, ISIL is ratcheting up 

already-elevated levels of sectarian tension in the post-Arab Spring 

world. The continued presence of the Assad regime in Syria serves 

as a more salient rallying cry for ISIL than for AQAM, and broad 

anti-Assad sentiment in Sunni-majority countries helps to dampen 

those governments’ responses to both ISIL and groups like Jabhat 

al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate. 

As sectarian tensions remain high, ISIL and aligned jihadist 

groups will foster and exploit those tensions. ISIL veterans will 

travel to new fronts outside of Iraq and Syria, bringing their escalation strategy and sectarianism with them. 

In a worst-case scenario, this contagion effect runs the risk of inciting a sectarian civil war in the Muslim world, relegating the 

West to the role of observer, poorly positioned to take any meaningful action to protect itself or others. 

In addition, every new ISIL front opens up a new set of grievance 

narratives and a new set of mobilization pathways for terrorist organizations seeking to radicalize and recruit foreign fighters. 

Three, both ISIL and AQAM have incentives to conduct attacks 

against the West as part of this competition. For ISIL, attacks 

against the West can be used as a form of deterrence, making foreign countries think twice or pay the price for large-scale military 

interventions in Iraq and Syria. 
7 

We cannot be fooled into thinking that Al Qaeda’s focus on the 

caliphate prevents them from actively seeking the capability to conduct attacks against the homeland. For Al Qaeda and its associated 

movement, ISIL’s antagonist rise to prominence has created a crisis 

of legitimacy, incentivizing them to use far-enemy attacks to regain 

the spotlight. 

Furthermore, if ISIL continues to murder Muslims and overstep 

its bounds, as we have recently seen with respect to the murder of 

a Jordanian pilot, Al Qaeda and its associated movement might 

wind up looking more legitimate and mainstream by comparison as 

long as they remain focused on the true enemies of Islam, the 

West. We cannot take, therefore, take pressure off of AQAM. 

To conclude, we are seeing an escalating competition among violent Sunni extremist groups at a time when sectarian tensions are 

high and many governments’ hold on legitimacy is weak. It is essential, therefore, that any U.S. strategy prioritizes working with 

Sunni nations and communities to marginalize violent Sunni extremists. 

To do this, the U.S. must find a way to ease sectarian tensions 

and earn the trust of our Sunni partners, allowing them to focus 

their attention on marginalizing groups like ISIL and AQAM. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Braniff can be found in the Appendix on page 50.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Lynch. 

STATEMENT OF MARC LYNCH, PROFESSOR, THE GEORGE 

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Dr. LYNCH. First, I would like to thank Chairman Thornberry, 

Ranking Member Smith, and the whole committee. It is a real 

honor to be on this panel and to have the chance to speak with you. 

So, as you have heard from my colleagues, ISIL poses a serious 

threat to American interests, to the people of the region, to our 

partners in the region. And, of course, it is extremely important to 

not underestimate the nature of the threat or to misunderstand the 

nature of the threat. 

I think it is important, however, to not perhaps exaggerate its 

novelty or perhaps the magnitude of the threat. These are not 

super-humans with unprecedented ability to form states or to seize 

territory or to inspire. 

The world’s history is full of insurgencies that have captured territory and sought to govern it by extracting resources from the 

local population. The world’s history is full of insurgencies that 

have used graphic, violent terrorism to intimidate their enemies 

and to ensure control over their own local populations. 

We have seen both Islamist and other ideological movements 

over world history. This is a dangerous and violent organization 

which must be confronted, but it is important that we place it in 

proper perspective. 

I think the most important perspective that we need to keep is 

to understand the fundamental strategic dilemma that Islamic extremist groups have faced from their beginning, whether it is Islamic Jihad in Egypt or the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria or Al 
8 

Qaeda in the 2000s or ISIL today. And that fundamental strategic 

problem is that while they do absolutely have the vision that General Flynn described, the characteristics that General Flynn described, and that extreme dogmatism, the vast, vast majority of the 

Muslims of the world do not agree with them. And they have failed 

every time they have attempted to reach out and to mobilize the 

world’s Muslims on their side. 

The ideology and the strategy of Al Qaeda and ISIL is to create 

a class of civilizations, to create an unbridgeable divide between 

the Muslims of the world and the West. And what we must keep 

in mind as we formulate any kind of effective strategy is that the 

way to defeat ISIL, Al Qaeda, and all forms of violent extremism 

is to marginalize them and to form alliances with the vast majority 

of the world who reject their barbarism and who reject their extreme ideologies. 

The face of Muslims in the minds of Americans and the face of 

Muslims in the mind of the world should not be Abu Bakr 

Baghdadi. It should not be Osama bin Laden. It should not be the 

faceless murderers of the journalists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. It 

should be Yusor Abu-Salha; Razan Abu-Salha; Deah Barakat, the 

Steph Curry-loving dental student and volunteer for Syrian refugees who was murdered in North Carolina this week. 

To defeat ISIL, America must be seen as their champion, not as 

their enemy. And if we are able to align ourselves with the aspirations and the hopes of Muslims all over the world, then ISIL can 

be defeated, and only then. 

And so I do not disagree with General Flynn’s characterization 

of the threat posed by ISIL, but I believe it is extremely important 

that we approach this threat from the perspective of the need to 

constantly seek to deflate their pretensions, to marginalize them, 

and to expose their extremism in the eyes not only of us but of the 

Muslims who they seek to recruit, to mobilize, and ultimately to 

lead. 

Now, this was, I believe, one of the great accomplishments—the 

great bipartisan accomplishments of both the Bush administration 

after 9/11 and the Obama administration: the immediate understanding of this strategic divide and the need to not allow Al Qaeda 

after 9/11 to provoke this kind of clash of civilizations. 

President Bush, despite some missteps early on, I think did a 

fantastic job of trying to reach out to the Muslims of the United 

States and to ensure that this divide did not open up. And I think 

that is the bipartisan commitment that we should build on today. 

Now, in my prepared statement, I go through in some detail explanations for why ISIL has emerged in the form that it has today. 

I won’t repeat those here. Let me just hit some of the bullet points, 

because I think it is important to place this into a specific political 

context. 

Ranking Member Smith, in his opening statement, mentioned 

the failures of governance, and I think this is extremely important. 

The failure of the Arab uprisings is a key part of the emergence 

of ISIL in the form it is today. An enormous number of young Muslims, young Arabs around the Middle East have seen their hopes 

raised and then crushed. The military coup in Egypt is a particu-
9 

larly defining point in proving, unfortunately, to a large number of 

people that peaceful political participation is not an option. 

If we are going to respond to ISIL in the way, as again, I agree 

with General Flynn, that we must, we need to address those underlying causes of despair, of alienation, and the absence of alternative 

paths, which is building the possible pool of recruits for ISIL. 

That includes reversing the sectarian misgovernment of Iraq. It 

includes trying to find some kind of peaceful de-escalation of the 

war in Syria. And it means trying to find some way to align the 

United States with the forces of moderate and peaceful change. 

That is no easy task. I have some ideas about how we might go 

about doing that, but for now I will simply stop, and I welcome everyone’s questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lynch can be found in the Appendix on page 69.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Again, I appreciate the testimony from each of you. 

I would like to ask, hopefully, just a brief question from each of 

you. 

General Flynn, towards the end of your statement, you make a 

point that an AUMF should not be overly constrained. You have 

had a lot of experience fighting these folks in the Middle East and 

South Asia. Do you have an opinion about how difficult it would 

be for our troops to follow a restriction that said they could not engage in enduring offensive ground combat operations? 

General FLYNN. Yes. 

So we need to be very clear in this AUMF that, you know, may 

come out of an agreement between the legislative and executive 

branches here. When we give our military commanders a mission, 

we should allow them to execute that mission and not overly constrain them with approved authorities but then having to come 

back to the administration for permission. 

So if we authorize the use of force to do something with these 

many times fleeting opportunities out there that our military forces 

see and then they have to come back up through a bureaucratic 

process to get permission even though there is an authority given 

to them, then either, you know, we need to review those authorities 

and those permissions or we need to change the commanders because we apparently don’t trust them to do the job that we have 

given them to do. So that is a real problem today. 

Give the commanders the authority to execute the mission that 

they have been given. If they are not the right people, remove them 

and put somebody else in there that can do that. Otherwise, allow 

them to do the things that they have been assigned, tasked, and 

are very capable of doing in what is currently the AUMF that we 

have. 

We have become so overly bureaucratic in coming up through the 

system to get permission to basically do things that, frankly, colonels on the battlefield or captains at sea are very capable of doing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Braniff, I was struck in your testimony that, as I read it, just 

in the last 12 months, we have seen a dramatic rise in these terrorist organizations and in their attacks. 
10 

Now, as I understand it, one of the things your organization does 

is keep track of these with objective metrics. And am I reading that 

right, that even in the last year we have seen this problem get dramatically worse? 

Mr. BRANIFF. Mr. Chairman, if you compared the most violent 

terrorist organizations in 2013 to those in 2014, the level of violence from ISIL, the Taliban, Shabaab, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda in 

the Arabian Peninsula, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan have increased from between 2013 to 2014, according to preliminary data. 

Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya have all experienced 

increases in terrorist violence between 2013, in our preliminary 

data, from 2014. Pakistan is the only, sort of, affected nation which 

has seen a decrease, out of the countries where Al Qaeda and its 

associated movement are active. 

So we have seen a year-on-year increase over the last 12 months 

and over the 12 months before that and the 12 months before that, 

so the trend line is continuing to rise. 

A partial explanation is that a lot of the strategy now focuses on 

trying to build capabilities of partner nations to deal with this 

issue, and that is a slow process, and so things may get worse before they get better. That is an opportunistic read of the scenario. 

A pessimistic read of the scenario is that these organizations have 

enjoyed greater safe haven in a post-Arab Spring world and have 

seized on the less stable governments and are exploiting that safe 

haven. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

So, Dr. Lynch, I am a little perplexed by a sentence you have in 

your prepared statement that says, ‘‘The U.S. has thus far crafted 

an effective strategy in responding to ISIL, which has halted its 

momentum.’’ 

Is that the way you see the developments over the last year or 

so? 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Chairman. 

Yes. I actually think that the way the administration has crafted 

a strategy as an initial step has been quite effective. 

They managed to leverage the increased military commitment in 

Iraq into the most important move, which was a change in the Government of Iraq and the removal of Prime Minister Maliki, who, in 

my opinion, had carried out a campaign of sectarian misgovernment and corruption which had lost and squandered all of the 

gains of the previous years. 

By managing to then get a new Iraqi Prime Minister willing and 

able to reach out to Iraqi Sunnis and then to use airpower and limited military support, the momentum of ISIL has been halted. They 

are no longer able to advance. They suffered a serious defeat in 

Kobane, thanks to coalition airpower. 

And they have now seen a significant reversal in the eyes of 

Arab public opinion after the brutal murder of Jordanian pilot 

Moaz al-Kasasbeh. And momentum matters for them, because their 

appeal was rooted in the idea that they were a winner. And now 

people aren’t so sure, and I think we might actually see people 

jumping off the bandwagon faster than we think. 
11 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate it. Obviously, I hope the optimistic 

scenarios prove right. I worry that we see momentum through our 

eyes, not necessarily through their eyes. 

But, at this time, I would yield to Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just following up on that rather key point, there are problems 

all over the world. Yemen, ironically, is a Shiite uprising that has, 

you know, overturned the government there, which gets us into the 

whole issue that if, you know, decent governance in that region is 

going to depend upon, believe it or not, Saudi Arabia and Iran figuring out how to get along in that part of the world, because neither one is going to be able to vanquish the other, and, in the 

meantime, they are doing enormous damage to each other. But 

that is a subject, perhaps, for a whole other hearing. 

But this notion that, you know, it is all falling apart, these guys 

are, as you said, Dr. Lynch, superman, they are going to take over 

everything, and I think the analysis of ISIL is interesting. You 

know, you watch the news reports and then the chairman’s comments about how they are still spreading, they are still going. That 

is what people believe. That is simply not the case. 

Several months ago, and I am going to get my timeline wrong, 

when they went rolling through, you know, out of Syria, went rolling through Iraq, took Mosul, everyone was saying, oh, my goodness, they are going to be in Baghdad next week. Well, they are 

not, and they are never going to be. They were, as you mentioned, 

rolled out of Kobane. 

They have not taken any territory since that initial surge, and 

they have given back territory. They were also within miles of 

Erbil, and, again, my timeline is off here, but a few months before. 

But with allied support and with support for the Kurds, they were 

pushed back. 

So we have to keep this in a realistic perspective, because I think 

our greatest strength and possibility here is what you said: These 

guys can’t govern. They cannot deliver for the Muslim population. 

And in Mosul right now, it is falling apart. The electricity is off 

pretty much every day. Nobody is picking up the garbage. They 

can’t govern. The people there are only staying with them out of 

fear. 

So I do believe that ISIL’s momentum has been blunted. And it 

is really interesting; it has been blunted in part with the help of 

the U.S. military, but it has been blunted more by their own weaknesses. And that is what we have to remember, and that is what 

I want to ask General Flynn about. 

You know, I get this, it is an existential threat. I agree with you. 

And, therefore, we have to, you know, amass all of our forces and 

figure out how to defeat them. 

But, fundamentally, do you disagree with the statement that 

U.S. military might is simply not in a position to defeat this ideology because of this clash of civilizations, because of the way the 

Muslim world looks at Western aggression, and that the only way 

that we are going to be successful is if we get moderate Muslims 

to rise up against these folks and support them? I mean, do you 

think it would be good to drop a whole bunch of troops down in the 
12 

middle of Syria and Iraq right now and go get them? Or don’t you 

see, sort of, how that would perhaps play into the hands of ISIL? 

And, if so, what does it mean to say we are going to mount all 

of our, you know, military might and go get them? Don’t we have 

a little bit of a Gordian knot in that regard? 

General FLYNN. So the answer, quick answer is—— 

Mr. SMITH. Sorry, that was, like, six questions. 

General FLYNN. Yeah, I know. 

Mr. SMITH. It is early in the morning. 

General FLYNN. You typically do that to me. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. 

General FLYNN. So, overall, the answer is yes. 

Mr. SMITH. That you believe you—— 

General FLYNN. Yes, that I don’t think, I don’t believe, what you 

just said about, you know, dropping in, you know, hundreds of 

thousands, or U.S. forces, you also said that they are an existential 

threat. I wouldn’t sit here today and say ISIS is an existential 

threat to this country. 

Mr. SMITH. The broader ideology. 

General FLYNN. But the broader ideology is one that will get inside of our bloodstream, get inside of our DNA, if you will, and will 

permeate over time if we don’t do something about it now. So it 

doesn’t help us to just kind of wait to do something. 

Now, when I describe, you know, in what I recommended about, 

you know, the combination of the elements of national power, I 

mean, you just look at the information campaign that is being 

waged not by just ISIS but by Al Qaeda writ large and the way 

that they are able to do it, the sophistication that they are able to 

do it, I mean, that campaign alone, the military has some little bits 

and pieces of trying to counter that on a tactical battlefield, but 

there has to be a broader imagination that this country, working 

with partners and working with some of these, you know, so-called 

moderate nations, and I say that in my statement about, we have 

partners out there, and, you know, we have to really be honest 

with ourselves about some of these partners. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah. 

General FLYNN. I mean, we can’t continue to fund and do all 

these kinds of things and have some of these nations sit at the 

table with the United States of America when, in fact, we know 

that they are funding some of these organizations. That is a diplomatic tool that we have to leverage. 

And there are economic tools that we have to leverage. When we 

say that we are going after terrorist financing and we are going to 

stop this guy or we are going to shut down this money being made 

by the Baiji oil refinery, those are tactical things. 

We have to look at how are we dealing with the moderate, frankly, the moderate Arab world and these nations where we do have 

economic partnerships and relationships. And we need to ask them, 

are they doing everything they can from the role of being moderate—— 

Mr. SMITH. Let me clarify. And I think Dr. Lynch would agree. 

You know, I am not going to say that there is a moderate, you 

know, Muslim nation that, we are talking about more individual 

people and groups than we are one nation or another. 
13 

General FLYNN. Yeah. 

Mr. SMITH. And, you know, for instance, I mean, the biggest success that we had in Iraq was the Anbar Awakening. And that 

wasn’t a government. That was Sunni tribes—— 

General FLYNN. Yeah. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. Rising up and saying, and you were 

there. You know how—— 

General FLYNN. Well, I agree. I mean, it took 50,000 more troops, 

though, too. The Anbar Awakening was incentivized by another 

50,000 U.S. American troops on the ground. 

Mr. SMITH. That is a fascinating argument, because, you know, 

the Anbar Awakening was a force multiplier of, like, 2 million. 

General FLYNN. Yeah, but, I mean, I talk to some of these individuals almost on a daily basis who were involved in this. 

So I guess what I am telling you, Congressman, is that we have 

to be far more sophisticated, and we really do have to use our 

imagination to defeat this ideology. Tactically, we need to go after 

ISIS, you know, and then, frankly, any of these other safe havens. 

But we have to be more sophisticated in our application of all the 

instruments of national power to be able to achieve what it is that 

I believe we need to achieve over a long period of time, as you recognize in your opening statement. 

Mr. SMITH. And I won’t disagree with that. The only thing I will 

say is I worry a great deal about the notion that people are focused 

on the U.S. military as the solution to this problem. 

General FLYNN. Yeah. 

Mr. SMITH. And I worry when we talk about, oh, you know, the 

AUMF has to be open-ended so we can go anywhere anytime. And 

believe me, I love the military, you know. 

General FLYNN. Yeah. 

Mr. SMITH. You work with them, you ask them if they can do 

something; is the answer ever no? 

General FLYNN. No. 

Mr. SMITH. It is not. 

General FLYNN. It is not. 

Mr. SMITH. I mean, you tell them, you know, you have five guys, 

can you defeat these, yeah. I mean, that is just how they are oriented. And that is terrific. 

But that isn’t always the right strategy; because sometimes there 

are things that military might can’t do and, in this case, can really 

sort of turn it back around on us if we aren’t careful. 

General FLYNN. But there is, and I am sorry because I don’t 

want to go into too much of this. But there is a benefit to applying 

pressure on an enemy. 

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. 

General FLYNN. So you have to not let them have a sound night’s 

sleep anywhere where these vicious individuals exist and groups 

exist. 

And, in the meantime, all the other pieces that we have to bring 

to bear, and that is really my, that is my argument. And that is 

one administration to the next, because I think the last administration really struggled and maybe came to that realization later on. 

Mr. SMITH. It is not an easy answer. 

General FLYNN. It is not. It is not an easy answer. 
14 

Mr. SMITH. I mean, it is not easy to know when to apply force 

and when not to. And, you know, there is a lot more tactics than 

strategy. 

You have been generous with the time, Mr. Chairman. I yield 

back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

General Flynn, in 2002, the authorization for use of military 

force basically said the President is authorized to use the Armed 

Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and 

appropriate. 

Why do you think we now have an AUMF before us that puts 

restrictions on it on things that the President claims he can do 

without an AUMF? 

General FLYNN. I guess my answer to that would be, whatever 

the decision is between this body and the executive branch of government, we have to make sure, in one sense, we have to play our 

cards very close to our chest, meaning don’t discount any option 

that the United States of America has by telegraphing what those 

options are or are not going to be, you know, we are not going to 

commit troops or we are not going to do this or that. So I just think 

that we have to play a very smart card game with the AUMF. 

I think on this AUMF thing, though, is that, like I said, that is 

not a comprehensive strategy. That is a component of something 

that we need. And, like I said to the chairman, we have to make 

sure that when we lay this out to our military forces, primarily, 

and, to a degree, some inside of our intelligence community, that 

they have the full authority to be able to execute the tasks that 

they are going to be assigned. Otherwise, you know, you are tying 

our hands behind our back, so to speak, and we are slowing the 

system down through unnecessary bureaucracy. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you. 

Dr. Lynch, do you really think that a group of barbarian thugs 

who would make a fellow human being kneel down before them 

and cut their heads off really care if they are marginalized? Or do 

you really think that a group of barbarian thugs who would put a 

fellow Muslim in a cage, douse him with gas, set him on fire, and 

watch him burn to death really care if they are marginalized? 

And if you think that, how long do you think it will take for this 

marginalization to take place? 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Congressman. It is a great question and 

a really important one. 

I don’t think they care. But the nature of their not caring is extremely important. 

So, basically, when you are a group like Al Qaeda or a group like 

ISIL, you have two basic strategies you can pursue, the same as 

an election here, right? You can play to your base, or you can try 

and reach out to the median voter. 

And what you are seeing with ISIL is very much a base strategy, 

right? They have decided that they want to mobilize the alreadyradicalized, the most dangerous people, the disenfranchised, the 

ones who are already radicalized, and they want to get them out 

to Syria and Iraq and to join. 
15 

And so what we are seeing is that, at least by press accounts and 

open-source accounts, the flow of foreign fighters is increasing. In 

other words, those brutal videos are actually inspiring that very 

small number of people and getting them to leave Cairo, to leave 

Tunis, and come out to ISIL. But, at the same time, they are alienating the broader mainstream public. 

And so the way I would reframe your question is, is this drying 

up their pool of recruits faster than they can get them and extract 

them and bring them into their fight? And I think that the answer 

to that is still unclear. And that is why I am advocating a strategy 

in which we try and accelerate their marginalization and alienation 

from that broader pool of potential recruits. 

And so, no, I don’t think they care in the slightest. Many of you 

remember the old battles between al-Zarqawi and Zawahiri about 

the strategy of Al Qaeda and Iraq. And Zarqawi’s response to criticism that he was alienating Muslims by butchering Shiites was 

saying, I don’t care, I am closer to God than you are. Right? I don’t 

care about the mainstream Muslim who has already abandoned 

God. He chose a base strategy, which is what ISIL has done, as 

well. 

And so we need to recognize that and then try and make them 

pay the cost for that base strategy. 

Mr. MILLER. And that cost is? 

Dr. LYNCH. That cost is to continue to, and I think we have already started this, and I think our Arab allies have done this, is 

a really strong strategic communications campaign to highlight 

their barbarity, to highlight their extremism, to deflate their pretensions to power, to expose the realities of life in ISIL-governed 

territories, and to puncture their mystique in such a way that the 

alienated, disenfranchised youth in Tunis or in Libya doesn’t see it 

as an attractive, noble, or heroic thing to go and join this group. 

And I think that that is the way we need to approach them, to 

undermine them and deflate them rather than to exaggerate their 

capabilities. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

General Flynn, thank you for your testimony and for your service. I think you made a number of excellent points, including the 

need to have a clear and comprehensive strategy from the administration before we move forward with an authorization for the use 

of military force. 

You also talked about our need to rethink our relationships with 

our regional allies. And I think you said something to the effect of, 

if they failed to adhere to global standards and norms and values—— 

General FLYNN. International law. 

Mr. O’ROURKE [continuing]. And international law, then we need 

to rethink our ties. And I think you maybe even said cut off those 

ties. 

When I think about our allies there, the royal family in Saudi 

Arabia, the prior leadership in Yemen, al-Maliki prior in Iraq, Sisi, 

these are governments that, in many cases, are amongst the most 
16 

corrupt or venal or repressive in the world, and yet they are our 

allies in this fight. 

How do we pursue a strategy in that region and be consistent to 

the advice that you gave us, which I think is really good advice? 

And I think those repressive regimes and our relationships with 

them complicate our ability to be effective in the Middle East. 

General FLYNN. Yeah. Thanks very much for asking that question. 

This is the essence of the problem. This is not a military phenomenon that we are facing, back to the ranking member’s, you 

know, missive about what he was talking about with military and 

boots on the ground. And everybody sort of throws that phrase 

around. We need to stop using that, by the way. We need to really 

understand what does that mean. 

This is a social, a cultural, and a psychological phenomenon, particularly in the Arab world. And the potential breakdown of, sort 

of, Arab world order over time if we do not change this mindset 

and really move some of these countries to change their internal 

behavior, what we saw in Egypt as an example of essentially three 

regimes, now with President el-Sisi in there. And what President 

el-Sisi is trying to do is he is just trying to bring a sense of security 

and stability before they can even think about returning to any 

kind of form of prosperity. 

I think a country like Jordan, the King there and how they treat 

their population and how they are being, you know, a really exceptional moderate example within this very, very difficult part of the 

world that we are in, there are others, there are other templates, 

if you will, out there. 

But the underlying conditions that I think everybody recognizes, 

all of us recognize, if those underlying conditions don’t change, 

then what is going to happen is this problem is going to continue 

to grow, and it is going to undermine the stability of these countries to the point where they are going to lose, they are eventually 

going to lose. 

And it is not just Iraq and Syria and what we are seeing there. 

I mean, we were already talking about, you know, a lot of other 

places around the trans-region area that are at risk. I mean, what 

just happened with this Houthi separatist movement down in 

Yemen, this movement has been going on for a long, long time. And 

then, of course, you got Al Qaeda that took over this military base. 

I mean, Libya, those two states right now, and you know, we 

should look at ourselves, those two states right now are failing or 

failed states or will become that way, because who will recognize 

Yemen? Will it be us, or is it going to be Iran? Because Iran fully 

backs that Houthi separatist movement that just took over Yemen. 

And that was a country that we were trying to defeat this threat, 

this Sunni version of radical Islam. 

So, I mean, this is a really, that is the essence of the problem. 

And we have to look at how do we want to act. When somebody 

sits at the table of the United States of America, they better be sitting there fully recognizing international law and at least having 

a recognition of internationally accepted norms and behaviors. If 

they don’t, we are being hypocritical. 
17 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And I wonder if we have the will to act on that 

and to really deliver some consequences, withdrawing military aid, 

isolating those countries, rethinking our relationships. And, in the 

past, we have proven unable to do that or unwilling for probably 

important tactical or strategic reasons. And I think we will really 

be tested right now. 

My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General FLYNN. Just real quickly, we are not chained by oil to 

the, you know, the United States is no longer chained to the Middle 

East for oil. That is a big deal. 

So, sorry. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yeah. 

General FLYNN. Sorry, Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Appreciate it. 

Mr. Lamborn. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Flynn, I have a question for you. I am really concerned 

that, just this week, President Barack Obama was interviewed and 

compared fighting ISIS to a big-city mayor fighting crime. And that 

really troubles me, because there is no comparison. That is a horrible and poor analogy. 

In a big city, if you have criminals like muggers, carjackers, drug 

dealers, they are not trying to kill the mayor and take over the city 

government, which is what ISIS is trying to do in the various countries in the Middle East. And they want to take over and destabilize Jordan and Saudi Arabia, ultimately go after Israel. 

There is just no comparison to a big-city mayor fighting crime. 

Are you troubled by that type of analogy? And does that indicate 

to you, like it does to me, that he just doesn’t get it? 

General FLYNN. Well, what I have said is that you cannot defeat 

an enemy that you do not admit exists. 

And I really, really strongly believe that the American public 

needs and wants moral, intellectual, and really strategic clarity 

and courage on this threat. 

I mean, there is no comparison. And it is not to take away the 

danger that exists with the thugs and the criminals that are in our 

own system, but that is not what it is that we are facing in this 

discussion that we are having right now. It is totally different. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Also, let me change subjects and ask about Guantanamo Bay. And there was an interesting exchange over in the 

Senate the other day. And my friend and colleague Senator Tom 

Cotton of Arkansas was talking to an administration official and 

making the point that the fight was brought to our homeland before Guantanamo Bay ever existed and, even if the President succeeds in shutting it down, the fight will continue against us. 

So do you agree with me that it is important to have a place 

where we can detain the worst of the worst, which takes them out 

of the fight, until such time as maybe they go before a military tribunal or in some way face justice and that that outweighs whatever propaganda effect the bad guys have, who will find something 

to criticize us for if they don’t have that? 

General FLYNN. Yeah. Thank you for asking that question. 

A couple of things. There are three ways to deal with a terrorist: 

You kill them, you capture them, or you turn them. And you work 
18 

with these partner nations around the world. And the Saudis actually had a pretty effective program a few years back where they 

were turning them, dealing with their families and things like that. 

But those are the three ways to deal with a terrorist. 

We say, and this gets back to the question on the AUMF. Because, right now, we are not capturing anybody. I mean, we might 

go out and detain somebody, you know, and it is work between the 

military and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], like we did 

with this guy in Libya. But there are a lot of others out there that 

we probably would benefit from capturing. 

I mean, we used to say, when I was in the special operations 

community, that had we not had the ability to professionally interrogate those that we captured, the high-value targets or the midvalue targets, we might as well take that Cadillac and bring it on 

home and park it in the garage. Because the capturing of individuals in this environment is actually, it is the best form of intelligence that you can get, period, bar none. 

I have lived it. I have run those facilities, and we know how to 

do them very professionally because we learned a really ugly lesson, you know, over 10 years ago now. So you have to be able to 

do that. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cooper. 

Oh, he is not here. 

Ms. Graham. 

Ms. GRAHAM. First, thank you very much for being here this 

morning. 

You have touched a bit on other terrorist groups in the region. 

Could you please provide an update on Hezbollah? 

Thank you. 

General FLYNN. I will give it a shot, and you guys can talk. 

I mean, so Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed group. I believe we 

are still designating them as a terrorist organization, our State Department. 

Hezbollah is deeply involved in Syria. So they are fighting in 

Syria. Members of Hezbollah are fighting, and they are actually 

leading and doing some of the, sort of, what I would call specialoperations-type training of some of the Syrian forces. 

Hezbollah is involved in Yemen. Hezbollah is certainly involved 

in Lebanon and some of the disruption of things in that particular 

country. And Hezbollah is involved in Iraq, as well. So members of 

Hezbollah are, in fact, inside of Iraq fighting with what I would describe as what we used to call the Badr Corps organization, which 

we know is led by members of Iran’s IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary 

Guard Corps]. 

So Hezbollah is a very dangerous organization. They are responsible for killing many, many Americans, and we need to not let 

them, sort of, get a pass on any of this. 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

Let me just say very quickly that Hezbollah actually has been in 

a very difficult position for the last several years because of its role 

in Syria, which has been quite controversial. It is exposed now in 

ways that it never was before. It enjoyed, in the past, a very solid 
19 

and basically impregnable base in the south of Lebanon and in the 

Shia community of Lebanon, and from there it was able to play a 

dominant role in not just Shia politics in Lebanon but in the overall Lebanese political system. 

Now, Lebanon is a state that is hanging on by its fingernails, 

more than a million Syrian refugees, growing signs of sectarian 

conflict and violence, and even a lot, I mean, there are increasing 

signs of grumblings among the Shia middle-class community itself, 

saying, ‘‘What happened to protecting our interests? Why are our 

boys going out and dying in Syria?’’, but, also, at the same time, 

radicalization of those Shia communities, saying, ‘‘Why aren’t you 

fighting Israel? Why aren’t you doing more?’’ 

So the leadership of Hezbollah is clearly, I mean, yes, it is a 

clearly a dangerous and extremely capable and robust organization. 

But this is probably the most difficult political situation it has 

faced in many, many years. It no longer can claim to speak for a 

broad resistance to Israel. Nobody believes that anymore because 

they have seen, no Sunnis believe that because they have seen 

Hezbollah men out there killing and murdering Sunni civilians, so 

they have lost that card. And they are much weaker because the 

Lebanese state is much weaker. 

So it is a very difficult time for them, and they are having, I 

would say, a very difficult time navigating this new situation. 

Mr. BRANIFF. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

The only thing I would add is that I mentioned the word ‘‘sectarianism’’ numerous times in my oral testimony. I find this to be 

a very important issue that we have to understand, that one of the 

ways that extremist ideologies can become more mainstream is 

when societies are polarized and people feel like they have to pick 

a side, that they have no choice but to pick a side, and the only 

candidates for their vote, so to speak, are extremist organizations 

in this very polarized environment. 

So I worry about the sectarian violence in Syria being exported 

to other neighboring countries and creating a wider sectarian conflict. Hezbollah is one of the organizations that could be a conduit 

for that spread of sectarian violence. And Lebanon, as a country 

with a very interesting, sort of, denominational system of representation, is really the kind of country that would be vulnerable to sectarian violence going forward. 

Ms. GRAHAM. Thank you. I appreciate the update. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you 

for your testimony. 

General Flynn, how worried are you about American citizens becoming radicalized, training overseas, and returning back to the 

United States? 

And are there additional steps that the U.S. should take in addressing those citizens that travel to train with ISIS in Syria and 

Iraq and then later return back to the United States and the 

threats that they would pose here? 

I would like to get your perspective. 
20 

General FLYNN. Yeah. First, I think that our FBI and the leadership of the FBI is doing a phenomenal job dealing with this issue 

here in the homeland. 

Just to give you a little perspective, when somebody shows up to 

Syria, okay, and this has been going on for a while, they do a little 

vetting of who these individuals are. And if it is somebody who just 

came over, you know, to sort of get their jihad on, so to speak, they 

may just tell them, ‘‘You are going to be a suicide bomber. Here is 

what we are going to do, here is where you are going to operate, 

and go forth and do good.’’ 

In the other parts of the vetting, though, they look for individuals who have different skill sets, who have savvy with the Internet, who have some leadership skills, who maybe have some engineering capabilities. So they are sophisticated in how they recruit, 

particularly when they arrive. 

And those individuals then get put into a different pipeline. They 

may not get put into the suicide-attacker or VBIED [vehicle-borne 

improvised explosive device] pipeline; they may get put into a different pipeline. And those are the individuals that there will be, 

sort of, a different future for them to maybe come back to this 

country and get involved in additional recruiting, additional activities, and maybe, you know, larger-scale types of attacks that we 

are trying to avoid. 

So I just think that, a variety of reasons why they get recruited. 

The Internet is a big, big part of this. I think our FBI is doing the 

best job that they can. But we really need to recognize and track 

who these persons are. 

And I will be honest with you. If somebody is going to conspire 

to fight against us, which is essentially what they are doing, there 

also has to be a discussion, at least, about their citizenship. 

Mr. WITTMAN. So you think then the additional step is to look 

very carefully at those people that travel. Of course, my concern, 

too, is that Turkey is a conduit for people traveling into Syria and 

those areas. So are there additional steps we should take in working with Turkey to be more aggressive with them, looking specifically at those folks that have left the country, but some kind of provision on their return, about the conditions on their return back to 

the United States? Give me your perspective. 

General FLYNN. Yeah, so the combination of intelligence and law 

enforcement is a big deal and gets right at what you are talking 

about. So we have to make sure that there are good mechanisms 

in place, processes in place to rapidly share intelligence, rapidly 

share law enforcement, sensitive law enforcement information. And 

we need to be able to deal with a variety of partners, Turkey being 

probably one of the principal ones right now because if we know 

somebody is getting on a plane out of LaGuardia or Dulles to fly 

over to Ankara, then we need to make sure that we recognize who 

they are and they are being tracked; they have the right visas. And 

then, you know, Turkey needs to know what they are doing over 

there. And this is one of these difficult things because we are trying to also protect our own freedom to travel and all that sort of 

business. But we have got to know, why are you going there? Are 

you part of a nongovernmental organization? Are you part of a pri-
21 

vate organization that is going to provide some humanitarian assistance, or are you going over there for some other ill-gotten gain? 

Mr. WITTMAN. Let me ask you this: We have seen what is happening in Yemen. It is collapsing before our eyes. Our U.S. Marines, our embassy staff, the embassy now is abandoned. We see 

the chaos that is going on there. We see Iranian influence there in 

that particular region. It was not long ago pointed to that this was 

one of our foreign policy successes and how we dealt with terrorism; that we were in support of the government there; that our 

counterterrorism efforts were successful. A couple of questions. 

What went wrong? And is this an indicator of a broader weakness 

or failure of U.S. foreign policy? 

General FLYNN. From my perspective, the last decade-plus of 

war, if I had to give you one lesson learned, that lesson learned 

would be that we failed and we continue to fail to understand the 

threats that we face, and that failure is leading to a mismatch in 

strategy and resources that we are applying against these threats. 

And, therefore, that failure is leading to these types of, you 

know, things that we are seeing in a Yemen and in other parts of 

the greater Arab world. And I think the second-, third-, fourthorder effects of Libya, I am really concerned about post a period of 

time in Afghanistan, based on what we have already heard we are 

going to do, and I noticed in The Washington Post today there is 

an article there about, you know, we are rethinking our timeline 

for departure from Afghanistan. I think that is appropriate. So that 

failure led to a mismatch in resources and strategy as to how we 

applied it against this enemy. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here and for your presentations. 

General Flynn, could you follow up a bit on your comment just 

now because you are talking about the lessons learned about the 

mismatch and the threats. And would you make that same analysis 

about even our not understanding the country of Iraq, for example, 

when we went into Iraq and may have created more enemies than 

friends. How would you respond to that? 

General FLYNN. Yeah, I think that that is very, you know, I 

mean what you are implying is very true. And I think that we, you 

know, in the spectrum of conflict, when we define the spectrum of 

conflict, we in the military look at it from peace to war. The political dimension of our country has to look at it from peace and get 

us back to peace in order to get us out of war. And we did not, we 

don’t do a really good job thinking past the point of conflict or the 

point of war. 

And we have to do that. And I think that is part of this debate, 

as the ranking member was highlighting, that we have to not just 

throw military resources at this thing; we have to be far more sophisticated. But that is not comprehensive right now. That sophistication, I don’t see it. And I have been studying this problem for 

a long time, and I am, you know, I am hopeful that we can get our 

act together. But it has to be one that is very, very comprehensive, 

and it is going to be a multigenerational problem. 
22 

And there are moderates out there that we do need to encourage. 

Somebody sent me a note the other day and said, Hey, you know, 

there is 126 subject-matters experts, you know, clerics and others 

in the Muslim world that came out strong against ISIS. Why aren’t 

there 126,000? Why are there only 126? I mean, there is that many 

mosques in Baghdad. I mean, there should be thousands, and there 

should be leaders of these countries that we are dealing with that 

need to stand up and make a statement, make a strong statement, 

about what it is that we are doing or not doing. So—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. Right now I think there are, perhaps, 

some opportunities that we are not using. I am thinking of the 

Peshmerga in Kurdistan. Have you had any thoughts about that, 

why we are not utilizing and doing as good a job as we can in really facilitating greater involvement on their behalf? They are asking 

for it. We are not doing it. 

General FLYNN. Yeah, I mean, I just think that is a great question to ask, you know, especially from this committee. So, yeah, we 

could do more, and we could give them more support. We could 

help in training them and getting them more sophisticated and 

really putting in the right kinds of military tools. But that is, you 

know, again, we need to be careful that we don’t always get drawn 

back into what is actually the easiest part of a strategy, which is 

to throw a military force at it. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Can’t agree with you more. 

General FLYNN. I mean, you know, so we just have to be more 

sophisticated is my—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yeah, thank you. If I can go on. 

General FLYNN. Go ahead. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Shifting to another region, the Boko Haram. Before 

a Senate Intelligence Committee meeting yesterday, the growing 

connections between ISIS and the Boko Haram was mentioned. I 

don’t know whether you happened to hear that discussion, but 

shouldn’t, I mean, where even in terms of the AUMF are we thinking about that connection and the, I guess, horrible potential that 

that would bring as well? 

General FLYNN. Yeah, I will let Bill answer this too because I 

think he mentioned Boko Haram in his statement. And one, number one, Boko Haram is incredibly vicious. I mean, my God, look 

at what they have done to the children, young women. I mean, 

these are children. So, and I can’t put that aside, but now so the 

connection between these organizations is very real. And we know, 

we know, that Al Qaeda, so the Al Qaeda command and control, 

Al Qaeda senior leaders were, in fact, dealing with Boko Haram, 

you know, in a sort of a cursory way when bin Laden was still 

alive. Okay, so this is not some connection that just all of a sudden 

happened and Boko Haram has just popped up. And, hopefully, you 

have seen General Rodriguez, our Commander of AFRICOM [U.S. 

Africa Command], recently talking about we need a full sort of 

counterinsurgency effort. And, again, I think there are seven or 

eight nations in Africa that are trying to come to grips with dealing 

with Boko Haram right now. They just postponed their elections. 

I mean, again, this is a long-term problem, and these groups are, 

in fact, connected. 
23 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. I think my time is up, and perhaps Dr. 

Lynch can bring this up later, or—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a question about ISIS. I served in Iraq with the Marine 

Corps, in 2005, in Ramadi and Fallujah; in 2006, in Haditha, 

Barwana, Haqlaniyah in the Western Euphrates River Valley. And 

what I found in the Sunni Arab population is they clearly didn’t 

like us. We have upset the apple cart. They saw the government 

in Baghdad as a Shia-dominated government, sectarian government that was against them. And they were against the government. But when they saw later on a path, the fissures between the 

Al Qaeda element and the local insurgents became more significant 

over time. And I think when they saw a path where they could be 

a part of the government, then those fissures, you know, exploded 

between the two. And I found them to be a very moderate people. 

Boys and girls went to school together in these towns; secular curriculum, annual exams, and very dependent upon a lot of government services. And so it is hard for me to envision them subjugated 

to this radical Islamic group, ISIS. Just, they were temporarily in 

line with Al Qaeda, and then they broke up. And so what is the 

prognosis here? And I will refer to each one of you. 

Dr. LYNCH. Thank you, Congressman. 

I think you are absolutely right about that and about the nature 

of the Iraqi Sunni community and the resentment, both of us, and 

especially of the Shia-dominated government. And I think one of 

the great strategic missed opportunities that we have had in the 

Middle East was that Nouri al-Maliki was unable to capitalize on 

that and to rebuild connections with the Sunni community. Instead, he decided to rule in the sectarian way going after Sunni, 

Shia, Sunni leaders, not getting the Awakenings forces into the security forces. It was a tragic missed opportunity. 

I think that you are also absolutely right about the long-term implausibility of people like this being willing to live under ISIL. The 

problem right now, though, I think is that the sectarianism has become so intense and so deeply engrained. You are talking about 

populations with enormous levels of displacement, both internal 

and refugees; people who have seen family members being butchered on sectarian grounds; and an enormous amount of mistrust of 

state institutions like the Ministry of the Interior and the Iraqi security forces, which makes it very difficult for them to look at the 

Iraqi Government as a partner. And I think that until they are 

able to look at the Iraqi Government and see it as a viable partner, 

then it is going to be difficult for them to make that leap that they 

made back in 2006, 2007. 

That is why I think getting a new Prime Minister in place and 

trying to begin some serious security service reforms, institutional 

reforms, is what you need to do in order to win in Iraq. And reversing that sectarianism is going to be extraordinarily difficult at this 

point, but we have to begin taking those steps. 

I think the National Guard project that they have begun to work 

on I think is absolutely the right way to do it, something which is 

institutionalized and can’t simply be dissolved at the stroke of a 
24 

pen, the way that the promises to incorporate the Awakenings were 

done back in 2008, 2009. 

Mr. BRANIFF. Thank you, Mr. Congressman. 

I would just reiterate START researcher Mansoor Moaddel has 

done extensive surveys in the Muslim world, and the Iraqi population is overwhelmingly secular in how they respond to national 

level polls, even within the last 2 years. And, to me, if sectarianism 

trumps secularism the way it has in Iraq because of these sort of 

identity politics that are being leveraged by groups like ISIL, we 

better make sure that our national strategy to address violent extremism in other places really pushes back on sectarianism because 

it is such a powerful force. It is a force of nature. And if we don’t 

deal with sectarianism, all right, ISIL and AQAM and these groups 

have a relatively easy time forcing people to pick a side through 

violence. 

General FLYNN. Really briefly, a lot of lessons learned between 

the way Zarqawi operated and the way al-Baghdadi is operating. 

And that has been a discussion within the ranks of the Al Qaeda 

movement. Okay, so they learned lessons from the way Zarqawi did 

things, and al-Baghdadi is avoiding many of those mistakes. 

And then, really, three things. Incredible levels of corruption, 

this is within the governments, okay, in this case, Iraq. Lack of inclusiveness, which is very real, and, you know, even though the 

new President that is in there now still there is not a sense of that 

by the people. And just the real desperate economic conditions that 

these people live within, and that is just, that is going to be a difficult thing to change, but it could change because these countries 

actually have the wealth to provide for their citizens. 

Mr. COFFMAN. I am out of time. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Gabbard. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. Each of you have 

made points throughout this morning about how this sectarianism 

is a driver for violence, how the trust of the Sunni tribes and people must be earned in order to take the oxygen away that currently 

exists, especially in Iraq, for ISIS. How can this be done with this 

current strategy? You have talked about new leadership in place. 

You have talked about different rhetoric, a different way of doing 

things, but the fact and the reality is that Iran’s influence over this 

current government in Iraq continues as it has been. Their ability 

to have any sense of control over the Shia militias and who they 

are attacking and what they are doing does not exist. And unless 

you go to a different model of governance and go away from this 

attachment to this continued policy of one central government in 

Iraq and move to something where you are actually truly empowering the Kurds, we are not having to funnel everything through 

the Baghdad government, where, at this point, even a small margin of the weapons and ammunition that we are sending is getting 

to them, and empower the Sunnis, and empower the Shias in some 

type of three-state solution, how is this current strategy a winning 

strategy to defeat ISIS, unless you get to this core of this issue? 

General FLYNN. I will just quickly, I believe that we are going 

to not go back to the way things were. The breakdown of the 

boundaries within this region are going to be incredibly difficult to 
25 

get back to, not impossible, but I just don’t see that happening any 

time soon, potentially in my lifetime. 

I would say that Iran is the greater problem. They do not see inclusiveness of Sunnis, you know, from the Iranian viewpoint. And 

I think that they, like you, saw in Yemen recently with some of the 

chanting that we saw, you are seeing in Iraq things occur that are 

clearly Iranian influenced and against everything that we are trying to do. So I will leave it at that. 

Dr. LYNCH. Thanks for the question. The problem with Iraq, you 

are absolutely right about the role of Iran in Iraq. It is pervasive 

and it goes beyond the Shia militia. It is at every level of the government, every level of the state, the security forces, the Kurds. I 

mean, they have relations with everybody in Iraq because they actually have a full-spectrum strategy for dealing with a close neighbor. 

I would actually not pose Iran as the primary problem in Iraq. 

I think the militias are a primary problem. And Iran can use that 

instrument when it is useful for them, and if they decide that it 

is not useful for them, then they can begin to move to try and shut 

it down. And I think that the key point is going to be that it is impossible to have, as you said, it is impossible to have a strategy 

which is about keeping a unified state in Iraq that isn’t going to 

include some kind of tacit, or formal, maybe not formal but at least 

tacit, cooperation with Iran. Their role in Iraq is simply too pervasive and too real. The security forces can’t be disaggregated and 

only working with Sunni units. 

And if you want to tamp down sectarianism, you can’t then double down on a Sunni-Shia division of Iraq and try and only work 

with the Sunnis and fight against the Shiites. What you need to 

do is to try and bring that country back together, tamp down the 

sectarianism, and have a state based on citizenship. There has already been huge progress on a decentralization and the Constitution. You know, they are dealing with these issues of oil revenues 

and all these things, and no one is very happy with any of the solutions they have come up with, but they are working on them. I 

think that the idea of allowing the Kurds to go their own way, I 

think at this time is not a good one. I think that certainly we 

should continue to support the Pesh. We should continue to advocate Kurdish self-interest. But I think the Kurdish interests still 

are to be part of an Iraq in this decentralized federal framework. 

And that is why it is a good idea to funnel support, military support and other things, through Baghdad. 

In other words, give them what they need, help them in the ways 

they need to be helped, but don’t encourage the fragmentation of 

the state. And the key problem there, and I will finish, is that you 

talk about a three-state solution. And we have heard about this a 

quite a lot. There is a fairly plausible Shiite sub-state that you 

could imagine, and there is a very plausible Kurdish one. There is 

no plausible Sunni third state, other than the one ISIL has carved 

out. And that, I think, is not in an American interest to create. You 

need to keep the Sunni parts and the Shia parts together in something that we are calling Iraq. And so you are going to need to find 

some kind of bargain by which that state can coexist and can survive. 
26 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Dr. Heck. 

Dr. HECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here today. The President recently released his 2015 National Security Strategy. And on the White 

House Website, it states that the strategy is ‘‘the blueprint for 

America’s leadership in the world—how we address global challenges while advancing our Nation’s interests, values, and vision 

for the future.’’ 

On page 3 of the strategy, it says, ‘‘We are leading a global campaign and degrading and ultimately defeating the Islamic State of 

Iraq and the Levant.’’ 

And on page 15, it states, ‘‘We reject the lie that America and 

its allies are at war with Islam.’’ 

I would disagree with the first statement. I don’t think we are 

leading in trying to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, but I 

would agree with the second statement that we are not at war with 

all of Islam. We are at war with radical Islam and Islamic extremism, yet nowhere in the strategy does that term appear. In fact, 

the only two times that the word ‘‘Islam’’ appears in the strategy 

are in the two instances I just mentioned, yet climate change appears 19 times. 

I would ask, Do you think the National Security Strategy has 

enough specificity to adequately inform the nested documents of 

the National Defense Strategy and the National Military Strategy 

to actually have a positive impact on executing a strategy for degrading and ultimately defeating ISIL? 

And, secondly, Dr. Lynch, I would ask in your statement about 

the momentum of ISIL being halted. Just within the last 24 hours, 

they have taken control of the city of al-Baghdadi, and they are 

knocking on the door of the Al Asad Air Base, where we have 320 

Marines in a training capacity. How can you say that the momentum has actually been halted? 

Dr. LYNCH. In any civil war, those are excellent questions. And 

I really appreciate your opening comment about the, validating the 

idea that we are not at war with Islam is extremely important. 

And, you know, there has been a huge debate about whether we 

should use the term ‘‘Islamic extremism’’ or ‘‘violent Islam’’ or ‘‘extremist Islam’’ or those sorts of things. I actually fall in the school 

of thinking I don’t think it really matters that much what we call 

them. I think this is something that we concern ourselves with 

greatly, but whether we call them ISIL or Daesh or ISIS or Al 

Qaeda, I don’t think it matters very much. And I think that this 

notion that it would be interesting to talk about a bit more. But 

I think that forming a strategy is not dependent. I think it is semantics there. I really believe that. 

In terms of momentum, I mean, I think if you look at these kinds 

of civil wars, there is constantly going to be a surge and a flow and 

you are going to see movements here, and a decline here, and a retreat there. We have been seeing this in Syria now for the last 21⁄2, 3 years. It has basically been a strategic stalemate, and, you know, 

this village gets captured, this village gets lost. I think you can’t 

read too much into the daily pushes and flows. I think the defeat 

in Kobane, it was big, because this showed that they were not 
27 

unstoppable. They put a lot of resources and propaganda efforts 

into this and they failed. And I think that was big for blocking 

their momentum. I think that we have seen them pulling back 

from Aleppo. We have seen them trying to concentrate some of 

their forces. We have seen, you know, their failure to move into 

Erbil and into Baghdad. And so I wouldn’t say, and here I would 

agree with you, there is no sign that we have reversed, that we are 

pushing them back, but we stopped their forward momentum and 

broke that patina of invincibility, which was extremely important 

I think, for the bandwagoning effect. Once they don’t look invulnerable, that is when those tribes and other factions will start believing that it is safe to flip sides again. So I think that is how I would 

describe what is still obviously a very fluid situation. 

General FLYNN. Yeah, so the National Security Strategy lays out 

the world, which is very complex array of threats. I don’t believe 

that the National Security Strategy prioritizes what the United 

States should do about those threats. Prioritizing sort of the here 

and now and then sort of what like what a Harry Truman said 

post-World War II, which was, you know, I will quote him, you 

know, he rightly understood that the Soviets were a, quote, ‘‘Animated by a new fanatic faith,’’ unquote. So we have to prioritize. 

We have to take this strategy, the National Security Strategy, and 

prioritize inside of it against the threats that we are facing. The 

fact that we even use ISIL and the word ‘‘Islamic’’ in the framework of Islamic State, it actually recognizes that, in fact, in that 

document, in the President’s letter on top of that document, he 

uses Islamic State in the Levant. So it recognizes, so we in the 

United States are recognizing the fact that there is somebody 

called Islamic and there is somebody called a state inside of the Levant. So, again, we are struggling to define it as clearly as we possibly can. And it is a radical version of Islam. There is no doubt 

about it. And we can’t not allow ourselves to define something that 

actually they are calling themselves in a sense. And so if the 

enemy is calling themselves that, why do we have such a difficult 

time? And the other thing, just as a real small minor thing, but the 

word or the acronym ‘‘Daesh,’’ okay, that we throw around now, 

that actually recognizes, the latter part of that acronym it describes al-Sham. Al-Sham is the Levant. So it actually, to me, in 

my framework of really trying to understand who it is that we are 

facing, and I have studied these guys. I have dealt with them. I 

have talked to them. They, that actually benefits them. So, in a 

way, we are using an acronym to describe this enemy and I think 

it is because the Iraqis asked us to use it, but the acronym actually 

describes al-Sham, which says you basically are controlling the Levant, which is essentially what they want to do. 

So we have to be very, very careful about the words that we use. 

When we use words like mujahideen, or jihad, those are recognitions of their courage instead of using a word like ‘‘mufsidun,’’ 

which means you are a you know, that is about as an ugly a word 

as you can call an Arab. We don’t use it. We should. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Just two follow-ups. One on the notion 

that al-Baghdadi and ISIS is somehow doing better than Al Qaeda 

did in governance. There have been just as many stories out there, 
28 

like I said, Mosul is a disaster, and if I am wrong about that, 

please correct me, but from a governance standpoint. And there 

have been just as many stories of ISIL, you know, cutting people’s 

hands off for smoking and alienating tribes. I don’t really see any 

evidence that they are doing any better in terms of governing Muslims. 

The one thing that they have going for them is the Baghdad government. Sunnis have no place else to go because, frankly, I 

haven’t seen much improvement with al-Abadi. You know, Maliki 

was terrible, but the Sunnis still look at the Baghdad government 

as, you know, Shiite and basically sectarian. We have had, you 

know, massacres of Sunnis by Shia militia groups here recently. I 

mean, I think that has more to do with the fact that Sunnis are 

unable to break away from al-Baghdadi and ISIL than it does that 

they are governing better. Am I missing something? Is there some 

evidence that they are governing better, that they are not doing the 

same sort of violence against their citizens that Al Qaeda in Iraq 

did before, or are they, the Taliban did, for that matter? 

Mr. BRANIFF. Ranking Member Smith, if I may, thank you for 

the question. I think the biggest difference is that they are governing. Even if they are governing poorly, most of the Al Qaeda 

and associated movement have never really tried to establish formal governance. 

Mr. SMITH. It is a separate point. We are talking a little bit 

about what Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Iraq did control territory 

before the Anbar Awakening, and they did run shadow governments. The Taliban did as well. So where they have governed was 

the comparison. And, in that sense, are they doing better than the 

Taliban did or some of these other Al Qaeda and Iraq folks did? 

Mr. BRANIFF. Perhaps one metric would be the flow of foreign 

fighters into Iraq and Syria. Something about the way they are 

portraying their governance of Iraq and Syria is inspiring the largest number of foreign fighters to flow into the region. I think it is 

because they are, quote-unquote, living up to the righteous values 

that they espouse. 

They are not compromising. They are seen as uncompromising. 

They are purifying Islam, these kinds of macho terms. And while 

it is horrific stuff, for the base, as Dr. Lynch mentioned, it is a rallying call and that they are calling Muslims to build the institutions of the caliphate to take part in this project of reestablishing 

a religious political empire. And that is empowering, even if the 

means by which they are governing is appalling. And it is seen as, 

for some, a more appealing alternative than like, as you mentioned, 

the Maliki government and Baghdad. 

Mr. SMITH. Yeah, the Maliki alternative. And one final point on 

Guantanamo, the conversation back and forth about that. I would 

not take seriously any argument that says that we don’t need to 

detain enemies. We do. The question is, do we need to detain them 

at Guantanamo? Nor would I argue with the point that, look, you 

are not going to close Guantanamo, and have, you know, the violent Islamic extremists go, Okay, we are good. I understand that. 

But it is not necessary, is it, to detain them at Guantanamo? I 

mean, the entire reason that Guantanamo was set up, was the belief that maybe we could somehow sidestep habeas corpus, but the 
29 

Supreme Court has shut that down. Is there any reason that we 

couldn’t take these people, as we have in many instances, and detain them here in the United States? 

General FLYNN. So we definitely need to be able to capture because if we only kill, that, to me, is a moral problem. 

Mr. SMITH. I got that, but where? 

General FLYNN. So you know, when you look at prior to 2003, 

there were many non-Afghans detained in Afghanistan. So, you 

know, I am not going to argue with you where, because I think we 

have to decide. We have to make that decision. But to be able to 

do tactical interrogation—— 

Mr. SMITH. I got all that. That wasn’t my question. 

General FLYNN [continuing]. Professionally, you can’t, if we bring 

them into the United States and they get read their habeas corpus 

rights, that stops the process of being able to get the kind of information that you can get through very professionally done interrogations. I am telling you, I have seen it. 

Mr. SMITH. I have got to tell you, I have heard that argument 

a thousand times. 

General FLYNN. I have been involved in thousands of interrogation operations to be able to get to that point. 

Mr. SMITH. You are telling me that every law enforcement personnel in the U.S., every FBI agent, gets no useful intelligence out 

of anybody they capture because once they Mirandize them, it is 

over and they can’t get any information out of them? 

General FLYNN. It is a lot slower. And I have been on both sides 

of it. Ranking Member, I have been on both sides of it. And it 

doesn’t mean that we can’t have professional law enforcement representatives involved in the process—— 

Mr. SMITH. Right. 

General FLYNN [continuing]. From a detention interrogation 

process. 

Mr. SMITH. Right. I disagree with you on the fact that somehow 

Miranda instantaneously shuts off the gathering of information. 

But putting that point aside, there is no reason, you know, as we 

have done with other people, you have to do that in Guantanamo, 

too. I mean, the same things apply in both places. So—— 

General FLYNN. True. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. I guess the central question is, there is 

no reason that we couldn’t do the same thing here in the U.S. that 

we do in Guantanamo. Guantanamo does not give us any particular interrogation or detention advantage. 

General FLYNN. You just have to make sure, I mean, there is a 

timeliness issue, and you know, you have to make sure that the 

conditions are set for that. I mean, again, that is kind of a legislative to executive discussion about, if we bring them into the United 

States, what does that mean legally? I am not a lawyer. I don’t 

know that. But I just know that there is probably going to be a different set of conditions when we bring them inside of the United 

States because we don’t have designated combat zones anymore. 

Mr. SMITH. You can bring them into—— 

General FLYNN. Wherever they go, we have to be able to capture 

these individuals to be able to get the intelligence out of them. 
30 

Mr. SMITH. There is no difference at this point between Guantanamo and the U.S. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Nugent. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

An interesting discussion about Guantanamo, and I absolutely— 

in my home area, we have the largest Federal prison ever. And I 

would just suggest to you, when you detain these folks, whether it 

is GTMO [Guantanamo] or in the U.S., that is the issue, that is 

going to be the issue to the bad guys and their associated friends 

and fellows. So I think it is, I agree with the general, when you 

bring them back to the U.S., as a former law enforcement, it just 

creates a whole bunch of other issues that we have not had to deal 

with when they are held at GTMO. 

The one thing that I am struggling with was the President’s request for an authorization, and you hit it on the head, General, is 

a clear, comprehensive strategy. And what would that look like? I 

guess that is where I am struggling. What does a clear, comprehensive strategy look like in regards to dealing with the issue that we 

have in front of us? Because, you know, we had the King of Jordan 

here. And his comprehensive strategy is, you can’t just look at ISIS 

or ISIL. You have got to look at across the world in regards to Islamic extremism. 

General FLYNN. So, I mean, we talked about this business about 

clearly defining the enemy and making sure that it is comprehensive. And I think that those are sort of two parts of this. And you 

have just addressed, certainly, the second one. I think the third one 

is that we have to really take a hard look at how we are organized 

as a nation to deal with the sort of the tactical problem of what 

is happening in Iraq and Syria. But we also have to look at how 

we are organized as a nation to deal with the wider longer-term 

problem of this radical version of Islam. 

Now, that is, you know, specifically, it is the Department of Defense. It is the, you know, the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Intelligence Community as it supports 

our national interest. And then I think we have to look at how we 

are organized internationally. And I have really, you know, I use 

the NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] model, you know, 

as a model, although it has got its, you know, shortcomings, but 

we need to have some sort of Arab-world NATO, if you will, like 

structure, and not deal with each one of these countries as though 

they are individual countries dealing with individual problems. 

They are all dealing with those kinds of problems. And I think that 

we do need to put somebody in charge of it. I think that we need 

to put, designate someone in charge that has not only the backing 

of this country and a full line of authority from the President of 

the United States to execute authorities, and it is probably civilianled, but it is just somebody with that kind of, you know, gravitas, 

I guess, but also internationally accepted to run this sort of campaign. 

Now, should it be somebody from the U.S.? I believe it should be 

somebody from the U.S. It doesn’t need to be, doesn’t mean that 

we have to have large numbers of boots on the ground. It just 

means that we have to come together, organize ourselves first, 
31 

make sure that we are organized correctly internationally, and 

then make sure that somebody is in charge of this effort, and then, 

frankly, tell the American public that this is going to last for generations. I mean, this is not something that is going to go away. 

Mr. NUGENT. To the other panelists. 

General FLYNN. And the AUMF is not that. It is only a component of it. 

Mr. NUGENT. And that is, I think, the mistake that people think 

that the AUMF is the comprehensive strategy. It is just part of the 

toolkit in regards to it. 

The other panelists, in regards to a comprehensive strategy, do 

you think today, today, at this point in time, that we have a comprehensive strategy? Today. 

Mr. Lynch. 

Dr. LYNCH. No, I don’t. I think that we have—we did a very good 

job, I think, of assembling a coalition and stopping the immediate 

crisis. And now is the time when we need to formulate that longterm strategy. I think your question is exactly right. In terms of 

your specific question about what that strategy might look like, I 

mean, I could repeat the things I said before about preventing a 

clash of civilization and all that. 

Mr. NUGENT. I appreciate that. 

Dr. LYNCH. I don’t need to say all of that, but I really want to 

emphasize and second and third something that General Flynn 

said that you—if we are going to have any success in dealing with 

ISIL and with extremism in the Middle East, we have to make 

sure that our allies are on the same page as we are, because they 

have been as much the problem as the solution. 

Mr. NUGENT. Absolutely. 

Dr. LYNCH. Extraordinarily destructive in Syria and abusive of 

human rights. So a comprehensive strategy, I think, has to have 

that component of political reforms and everything else, or else it 

is just spitting into the wind. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Braniff. 

Mr. BRANIFF. I think, thus far, we have been dealing with issues 

in an ad hoc basis, and perhaps that is because of the instability 

associated with the Arab Spring. And, frankly, it was a pretty tumultuous few years. I think any strategy has to recognize that Al 

Qaeda and ISIL have—— 

Mr. NUGENT. We don’t have a comprehensive strategy though 

today. Do you believe—— 

Mr. BRANIFF. No, I think Al Qaeda and ISIL have pulled us into 

the realm of nonstate actors where we are largely forced to operate 

in extrajudicial terms and outside of the international system 

where the rules of the game are set up in our favor, and we should 

try to push this back into the international system where, again, 

we have those rules working for our favor. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here, in particular 

General Flynn, a fellow Rhode Islander. 
32 

General, welcome back before the committee and thank you for 

your years of service. 

So I would like to, my question would be for Dr. Lynch, and also 

for General Flynn, whoever wants to go first. Clearly, this rise of 

radical violent extremists didn’t happen overnight. It was allowed 

to fester in many ways. Maybe it was the religious community, for 

whatever reason, as I understand it, was allowed to preach hate 

and violence, and a lot of the leaders in the Middle East kind of 

looked the other way and for whatever reason. So it kind of took 

a long time to get here. It is going to take a long time to get out 

of it. But let me ask you, do the statements from, for example, 

President el-Sisi, in Egypt, which I found surprising, but welcome, 

a welcome statement when he spoke to the religious community 

there or establishing Sunni imams in the greater Middle East who 

have denounced the violence of ISIL or Islamic extremism more 

broadly, do they moderate, or you know, counter the nature of the 

grievances, and the threat from jihadists in the region? Or are 

these steps having the reverse effect of reinforcing the jihadist ideology and grievance narrative? Can you comment on that? 

Dr. LYNCH. I think it is a fantastic question. Thank you. I think 

that the issue with statements like those by General el-Sisi, or 

President el-Sisi, is not the statement itself. It is that he doesn’t 

really have the standing to issue those things because when he is 

presiding over a fairly repressive police state and putting tens of 

thousands of political dissidents in jail, it is very difficult for him 

to then say, Oh, but you must be moderate and you must participate in the political system. And so it gets back exactly to the conversation we were having a moment ago about the need to understand that if you want to have leaders who are capable of making— 

leaders in the Middle East who are capable of making the kinds 

of statements that you and I would very much like to see, they 

need to have the standing from which to do so. And right now they 

don’t. The Saudis have been in a very difficult position on this. The 

Egyptians have been in a very difficult position. And so the traditional leaders of the Arab world are not in a very strong position 

right now to make the kinds of moves for moderation and against 

extremism that we need to see. 

General FLYNN. So, real quickly, this was, this shift in the 

strengthening of this ideology started well before 9/11; 9/11 just 

brought it to the fore. I mean, it really was, you know, it just 

showed how dedicated and how long term their vision is of what 

it is that they believe. And I believe that President el-Sisi’s remarks back in the late December-January timeframe, he was talking to the Egyptian people as much as he was talking to the Arab 

world. And we should not lose sight of that. So, despite the challenges that Egypt faces internally to try to get back to a sense of 

stability and security, we need leaders like that, frankly, more of 

them around the Arab world that are willing to step up and say 

the kinds of things that he said that took a lot of courage. But he 

also knows, he also knows that he has to change inside of their 

own system, just in Egypt alone, to be able to get the people to sort 

of come back around to be more moderate. And they are dealing 

with some very, they are dealing with Al Qaeda, and they are dealing with elements of radical, you know, version of the Muslim 
33 

Brotherhood in that country. So I was very heartened when I heard 

President el-Sisi come out and make those remarks. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Yeah, so are there things that we can focus on 

in our strategy to help encourage that kind of moderation? But let 

me ask you also, given that there are certain actors in the region, 

such as UAE [United Arab Emirates] and Jordan, among others, 

who appear to be supporting U.S. interests, how should the United 

States support and organize these partners in the region to serve 

as potentially moderating influences within the greater Middle 

East? 

Mr. BRANIFF. Thank you, Congressman. 

So I think one thing we can do, we know that the U.S. Government is gun-shy to talk about what is moderate Islam, and what 

should Islam be and other leaders in the Muslim world don’t always have the credibility to talk about moderating Islam and have 

actually that carry authority. But one thing that leaders can do is 

try to collectively decrease the perceived social legitimacy of violence, which is not talking about what kind of Islam is right or 

wrong, but it is lowering that threshold that sparks sort of revulsion against terrorist organizations so that they step over that line 

more quickly. And this is something that I think we can do collectively. 

General FLYNN. Let me add one other comment, and that has to 

do with the rule of law. And I think that is probably a strategic 

advantage that this country has. If there is one thing that we need 

to export around the world, not so much democracy, but the idea 

of rule of law, so people are governed by norms and behaviors that 

are acceptable internationally. And I think that that is a problem 

in this part of the world right now. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you all. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. As you all know, they have called votes. I think 

we will have time probably to get two more folks in. 

Mr. Cook. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Flynn, first of all, I notice you went to University of 

Rhode Island. 

General FLYNN. First land-grant university in the country, established by—Abraham Lincoln actually established that law. 

Mr. COOK. I know, but my daughter went there and my son-inlaw. I just want to know why the out-of-state tuition is so high. 

General FLYNN. I defer to my colleague. 

Mr. COOK. Going back to Dr. Heck’s question about the airfield, 

which is in the news right now, and everything else. And I think 

a lot of us are wondering whether this is a symbolic thing in terms 

of a targeting in terms of mortars and indirect fire weapons because of the fact that there are marines there, a chance to embarrass the Marines. As you know, Fallujah I think was a major, 

major political propaganda victory for them because of the number 

of soldiers, sailors, and marines that were killed in that city. And 

I am trying to see if you had a take on whether psychologically, 

that would be a huge victory if, you know, they had tremendous 

casualties or what have you. And that is the number one press 

story, I think. Can you comment on that? 
34 

And secondly, I want you to address our lack of human intelligence. I know you talked about feedback from prisoners, but 

thank you. 

General FLYNN. Yeah. So the fact that this tactical action by ISIS 

is going on right now in, essentially, the village or town of 

Baghdadi, is a strategic victory for them. It is definitely a strategic 

information victory for them. And they are very close in to Al Asad, 

and there has been, you know, I have been to Al Asad a number 

of times. We operated out of there very effectively. 

If I were those marines in there, I would, you know, be looking 

to make sure that we are absolutely within, that we have the rules 

of engagement very clearly understood to be able to deal with anything that happens against those perimeters of that particular 

base. What I would love to see? I would love to see an unleashing 

of some Iraqi force with the support of our U.S. Marines to go after 

and retake that little village because that would be doable. And it 

would be something that the Iraqis could actually do with the support of our U.S. Marine forces that are in Al Asad. 

In terms of HUMINT, we lack the kind of HUMINT, human intelligence, that we need, that we used to have actually pretty, you 

know, we developed it over time, but we don’t have that kind of 

level that we need today. And interrogations is actually a part of 

that. 

Mr. COOK. Since I have still got 2 minutes, I just wanted, you 

talked about the plans and everything like that. I used to be a 

plans officer 100 years ago, and we are talking about the budget 

and everything else. And one of my big arguments is the tempo of 

ops compared with, is just out of control. You know, you have got 

to do this, this, this, and this. We used to have a vault with all 

of the op plans in it and everything else. And I am wondering, are 

we out of control because we have a brigade for this; we have a 

squadron for this, we just don’t have enough military forces to go 

around for all of the commitments. And if you could briefly comment on that. 

General FLYNN. Right. We do not. We do not have, for the, if you 

look at the menu that the National Security Strategy currently is 

in terms of the layout of threats around the world, and particularly 

this problem that we are facing right now, our military is so 

stretched thin and, frankly, underresourced, and parts of it are not 

trained to the level that we would expect them to be, that the 

American public would expect them to be at. And this sequestration, and you all know this, is just choking the readiness of the 

United States military. And we need to decide what kind of military do we want to have given the threats that we face? And right 

now it has grown. It has gotten too small, and if we continue down 

this path, it is going to get even smaller, and that is a danger to 

our national security. So—— 

Mr. COOK. Thank you for your service. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. I will try to be brief. 

And, Dr. Lynch, I want to go to one of the statements that you 

made about the fact that terrorism is ebbing and flowing. We 
35 

shouldn’t pay too much attention to it. That is just going to happen 

the way the Middle East is, if you will. But I would like to have 

this submitted for the record and wonder if you have seen this. 

[The information referred to is retained in committee files and 

can be viewed upon request.] 

Mr. SCOTT. This is the DIA Intelligence Assessment from 2004 

to 2014. In 2004, we were dealing with 21 total terrorist groups in 

18 total countries. And today we are dealing with 41 terrorist 

groups in 24 countries. I certainly respect your opinion and agree 

with it on many things, but I would suggest that that is more than 

an ebb and flow. That is a significant growth and an ideology that 

is dangerous to the world. 

What would you assess the population of the Islamic extremists 

or terrorist—whatever we want to call them—in Iraq to be, the 

total number of them? 

Dr. LYNCH. I thank you, Congressman. I want to clarify. When 

I was talking about ebb and flow, I was talking about civil war dynamics and not terrorism. I was talking about the battle, the fighting on the ground in Syria, specifically. So I am sorry for that confusion. 

Mr. SCOTT. And, for the record, you know, the U.S. working to 

undermine Assad and move him out, I have read some of your 

statements on—I personally think the U.S. made a mistake. And 

when we undermine those leaders in those countries, we end up 

creating a vacuum that allows these extremist groups to expand. 

But I have read some of your statements there. But the total number for Iraq, if you would? 

Dr. LYNCH. Right. I just wanted to clarify that because the ebb 

and flow is really about the civil wars. And the question of whether 

we should have gone after Assad is a question for another day. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 79.] 

Dr. LYNCH. I would say that, you know, if you go country by 

country, you get wildly different estimates. So, for example, there 

is an Islamic State affiliate supposedly in Algeria, which might 

have 20 people in it. 

Mr. SCOTT. If I can, but look—— 

Dr. LYNCH. So, in Iraq, what I would say is—that was your specific question? 

Mr. SCOTT. Sure. 

Dr. LYNCH. You might have something along the lines of—what 

would you say, Bill—you know, maybe 5,000 dedicated ISIS or ISIL 

fighters combined with a whole set of local forces who have aligned 

with them. 

Mr. SCOTT. Let’s use that number. I am trying to move fast because I want to give my colleague the opportunity to ask her questions as well. How many fighting-age men are in that country? 

Dr. LYNCH. Good question. Seventeen million, maybe. Fifteen 

million. 

Mr. SCOTT. Let’s first—okay. I will use whatever number. 

Dr. LYNCH. But those are Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites, and therefore, so if you are talking only about the Sunni community—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Here is my point, and this is what I want to come 

at you on, General, if there are 5,000 Islamic extremist terrorists, 
36 

whatever we want to call them, inside a country that has 5 million 

fighting-age men, no matter what battle we win, if we get the rules 

of engagement right, they have got—if they are moderates—that is 

a 50,000-to-1 margin. And if 50,000 to 1 isn’t enough of an advantage, then what is? So this is where—this is why so many people 

in our part of the world identify this as Islam because, clearly, 

50,000 could overrun 1 if they wanted to. 

So, General Flynn, my question for you specifically, if we get the 

rules of engagement right—which I certainly don’t trust the President on—but if we get the rules of engagement right, there is no 

doubt in my mind that we can win any battle over there. But if 

they in Iraq have a 50,000-to-1 margin versus the Islamic terrorists 

and they can’t control that, what good can we do? 

General FLYNN. Yeah, so I was asked a question back in 2002, 

when I was first in Afghanistan, and I was asked how many enemy 

are we facing in Afghanistan at that time, 2002? This was in AprilMay timeframe 2002. And I said, we are looking at about 35,000. 

So the next question was, Okay, so if we kill or capture all 35,000, 

can we go home? Do we win? And the next part of that answer was, 

no, because there is another half a million on the other side of the 

border in this place called the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas]. So it is the same sort of analogy today. We can capture 

and kill all day long, but until we deal with, you know, these others that are there, these other millions or whatever that number 

is, we are going to be at this a long time. And that is why the military component of this makes us feel good when we do something, 

we kill somebody; we get a leader. But it is all the others that are 

there, you know, ready to join this movement and fight against our 

value system, and that is just something that we are going to have 

to—that is the wider strategy that we need. 

Mr. SCOTT. And that is why I think training and equipping and 

supporting our allies becomes the most important part of this strategy. 

General FLYNN. Exactly, across the region, across the region. 

Mr. SCOTT. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. McSally, I think we have got time for a couple of questions if you would like to go ahead. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you all for your testimony. It has been very informative. A lot of my questions have been answered. 

A quick question about trends in Africa. I was a part of a team 

at U.S. Africa Command running current operations there. And 

just your comments, we talked a little bit about Boko Haram, but 

AQAM [Al Qaeda and associated movements] and Al Shabaab, and 

the trends you are seeing with those organizations, and you know, 

there are plenty of ungoverned spaces that are potential—we have 

seen foreign fighters flow in and out in the past when many people 

weren’t paying attention. So any comments on the trends going on 

in the rest of those organizations on the African Continent? 

Dr. LYNCH. Well, I would—I will defer to Bill on a lot of the details. The one I will talk about is Libya and the effect that that is 

having. I think that you are seeing the emergence of what looks 

like an Islamic State affiliate in Libya. It is a completely 

ungoverned space, and it is now a civil war, total polarization. And 
37 

that is having destabilizing effects on both east and west. The 

Egyptians are extremely worried about it. Tunisians are very, very 

worried about it. And so, you know, basically, the lesson is you get 

the collapse of the state, and it opens the space for these groups. 

And so I am very worried about Libya for all kinds of reasons, but 

that is one of them. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Thanks. 

General FLYNN. Briefly, because I know Bill has something to 

offer on this as well. 

The negative is that it is rapidly growing. Okay, so it is getting 

worse, particularly those couple of areas that you just talked about. 

And the other part is, as Marc just highlighted, the breakdown of 

the nation-state, or the order of the nation-state, if you will, in 

parts of that region. 

The positive is that there are countries that understand it and 

are trying to come to grips with it, and that is more down in the— 

you know, I mean, there is a number of them. These seven, I think 

it is seven countries that are trying to work against Boko Haram 

right now that have come together. There are some economies 

there, particularly down in the central and southern part of Africa 

that are good models for the rest of Africa, but the size of the population in the 15- to 30-year-old category of young men that have 

nothing better to do than to join these groups is probably the fastest growing population demographic on the planet today. 

Ms. MCSALLY. Exactly. Great, thank you. 

And I yield back. I know we have got to go vote. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. Thanks for your time. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the gentlelady, and thank you all for 

being here. As many topics as we got to today, we didn’t get to everything. 

I am sorry, Mr. Braniff, did you have something you wanted to 

add on that last point? 

Mr. BRANIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for the question. Al Shabaab conducted twice as many 

attacks in the first 9 months of 2014 as they did in all of 2013. 

Boko Haram will likely be either the most or the second most lethal terrorist organization in 2014 when we finalize our data—although they are not the most active in terms of number of attacks, 

which means that they are, unfortunately, quite efficient in creating fatalities per attack. And, of course, we just saw their first 

attack in Chad a day or so ago and continued attacks in now Cameroon. And there is another group in Nigeria that is of among the 

10 most active groups of 2014, a group called the Fulani—associated with the Fulan tribes. And so what we are seeing is increased 

levels of terrorist attacks and fatalities, both in West Africa and in 

East Africa, associated with Shabaab and a lot of fluidity in North 

Africa. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And I think it is helpful to have 

some objective measurements to gauge these things. They don’t tell 

us the whole story, but they do enable us to compare, to compare 

trends. 

The other topic we didn’t really get to today which I think we 

need to understand better is this competition among groups. You 
38 

alluded to it. We didn’t quite have a chance to get to it, but I think 

that is a very significant factor that we have not fully explored. 

But we did get to a number of things. Again, I apologize. We are 

getting cut short a little bit because of votes, but I very much appreciate each of you being here and assisting the committee. 

And, with that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:58 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

FEBRUARY 13, 2015 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

FEBRUARY 13, 2015 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

FEBRUARY 13, 2015 

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RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT 

Dr. LYNCH. I did not intend by this that we should not pay attention to terrorism 

or to the strategic issues in the Middle East. My point was that we should not overreact to the daily news from fluid combat zones such as Syria or Iraq. Over the 

course of such a protracted civil war, factions will advance and retreat and the violence will ebb and flow without it making a strategically significant difference. My 

call here was for us to focus on the big picture with regard to the strategic context 

in theaters such as Syria and to not craft policies based on short-term developments 

on the ground which do not fundamentally alter that strategic context. [See page 

35.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

FEBRUARY 13, 2015 

(83) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. PALAZZO 

Mr. PALAZZO. The Islamic Republic of Iran has continued to be a thorn in the side 

of the United States because of their failure to halt the expansion of their nuclear 

program as well as the support of terrorist groups like Hamas, we know about the 

threats that they pose to our strongest ally in the region, Israel, but I am concerned 

that their influence is expanding and a destabilization of the region as a whole 

leaves a void that Iran would love to fill. Does Islamic extremism in the region open 

the door for an unfriendly government to fill that void? Do you see any expansion 

or desire for expansion on the horizon for Iran across the Middle East given the fragility of the region? How do negotiations with Iran affect an already fragile balance 

in the region? What would you like to see with regard to the strategy to keep Iran 

at bay? How does a nuclear Iran affect America and allies in the region? 

What would you like to see with regard to the strategy to keep Iran at bay? 

General FLYNN. longer the Syrian conflict persists, and the more the United 

States and the West writ large are seen as complicit in the survival of the Assad 

regime, the less productive relations between a future Syrian state and the United 

States are likely to be. However, this resentment, or lack of engagement, will not 

necessarily take the form of ‘‘hostility.’’ Regional forces including U.S. Gulf allies, 

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, are unlikely to allow extremist groups to permeate governing coalitions, and groups that want to establish an ‘‘Islamic State’’ or 

state governed exclusively by Islamic Law (such as Jabhat Al Nusra or Ahrar Al 

Sham) are unlikely to be empowered by either regional or international political 

processes that would provide for a transition of power. Without such a political process, no rebel coalition (whether hostile or friendly to the United States) is likely to 

take political control through military force. U.S. engagement and support of the 

Etilaf/Interim Government could produce positive relations should either of those 

groups be involved in the governance of future Syria, but these institutions are increasingly ineffectual and cut-off from regular Syrians. It is also important to note 

that U.S. lethal and non-lethal aid to the moderate opposition is perceived by moderate forces on the ground as lack-luster, and designed to prolong the conflict not 

stop the crimes of the Assad regime. This means that even ideologically moderate 

forces, supportive of a secular state, may not view the United States as a reliable 

and/or consistent partner. However, these groups could also be easily won over 

through more forceful U.S. support. The remnants of the regime, on the other hand, 

and their backers in Moscow and Tehran, are likely to persist in their hostility towards the United States regardless of the outcome of the conflict or U.S. positioning. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ASHFORD 

Mr. ASHFORD. Some have raised concerns that U.S. citizens are traveling to fight 

alongside terrorist organizations, specifically ISIL, and then returning to the United 

States. How should we deal with such a threat? 

General FLYNN. The United States will need effective cooperation with regional 

states, particularly Turkey, so that these partners can track the activities of Americans either within their states, or traveling across the border to Syria. Along with 

Turkey, the relevant partners will be Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. All of these states, 

sometimes from opposite directions, may take exception to the current U.S. role in 

the conflict, and anti-terror cooperation may not be ideal (as is the situation currently—simply due to loss of trust). That said, currently, cooperation with Jordan 

and Iraq seems somewhat effective, given the anti-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) focus shared by the three states. Turkey is both the nation most unhappy with current U.S. policy (and they are very unhappy), and most aware of 

Americans traveling inside and outside of Syria from their southern border. Some 

political concessions may need to be made in order to garner more cooperation and 

intelligence sharing from the Turks, but this could take a variety of forms, including 

moderate adjustments in U.S. rhetoric and/or policy towards the Syrian regime. Turkey seems to have made noise that it is at least resigned to the U.S.-Iran deal (a 

deal that I personally believe places our national security at great risk), yet this development should not be a barrier to security cooperation. 
84 

Mr. ASHFORD. Given the open travel policies between the U.S. and European nations, what is the threat posed by European nationals subscribing to Islamic extremism entering the United States? 

General FLYNN. The geographic positioning of Europe makes the direct threat 

from European nationals inside the United States relatively low. Not only do these 

actors have access to European targets, they are also much closer to the Middle 

East, and more likely to travel there to be at the heart of conflicts, rather than travel to the United States. Since 9/11, the vast majority of European extremists carrying out attacks have done so either in their European host country, or back in 

the Middle East. This is in part because the political grievances of young Muslims 

in Europe often have to do with perceived slights against their religion/community 

in Europe, as well as deficiencies in the immigration process and the machinations 

of the welfare state. These grievances have little application to the United States. 

There is also certainly a sense that Western actors, led by the United States, are 

at war with Islam, and that this state of affairs requires retributive action. However, while many European extremists have traveled to Iraq or Syria to face Americans and or their supposed proxies, few have made their way to the United States. 

All said, using ‘‘European jihadists’’ may present Al Qaeda and Associated Movements (AQAM) organizations with an opportunity and a means by which to conduct 

attacks against America—so our guard against known Syrian or Iraqi travelers 

should remain high. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Some have raised concerns that U.S. citizens are traveling to fight 

alongside terrorist organizations, specifically ISIL, and then returning to the United 

States. How should we deal with such a threat? 

Mr. BRANIFF. START is currently engaged in a data collection effort funded by 

the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security to 

determine if there are salient warning signs, patterns of behavior, or characteristics 

associated with an individual being recruited to become or choosing to become a foreign fighter, and/or choosing to return to the United States following travel abroad 

in order to conduct an attack. START believes that it is essential for the government to invest in datasets that are enhanced over time, providing a continually improving empirical basis upon which to inform counterterrorism policy and practice. 

START is also soliciting funding to utilize our Geospatial Information Sciences 

(GIS) research team to identify likely routes for ingress to and egress from territory 

controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) using probabilistic analysis. 

This kind of analysis can help identify locations where governments can place their 

limited resources to intervene recruits on their way to the battlefield, or veterans 

on their way from the battlefield to other locations. As more data about foreign 

fighter flows is incorporated into the model, the model would become more valuable 

to counterterrorism practitioners. A GIS platform could serve as a vehicle to overcome one of the largest problems regarding the foreign fighter issue, that of information sharing, and help to create a common operating picture for the interagency 

or the international community. 

Aside from supporting empirical approaches to this important problem, the government should prioritize its intelligence and applicable military and federal law enforcement assets on egress from Iraq and Syria, as veteran foreign fighters exposed 

to ISIS’s ideology, tactical preferences, and targeting preferences pose a significant 

threat, not just to the homeland, but to other volatile regions where ISIS may seek 

to destabilize regimes and engage in internecine violence. Domestically, the government should focus on empowering communities to work to minimize the 

attractiveness of ISIS’s recruitment efforts by engaging in awareness raising, prevention, and intervention programming. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Given the open travel policies between the U.S. and European nations, what is the threat posed by European nationals subscribing to Islamic extremism entering the United States? 

Mr. BRANIFF. There are several reasons why a European national subscribing to 

an extremist ideology may seek to enter the United States to conduct an attack: 

• They may be instructed to travel to the United States by a person of authority 

in a terrorist organization who feels that this European citizen has the best 

chance of successfully traveling to and operating within the United States. 

• They may decide for themselves that the United States is playing a leading role 

in counterterrorism efforts and is therefore a more important target than their 

European country of origin; 

• If they feel that they are ‘‘on the radar’’ in their country of origin, they may 

believe that they have greater freedom of maneuver in a different country 

where the authorities may not have access to information about them. 
85 

• This would likely be a miscalculation if they are on their government’s radar, 

as crossing international borders provides an important opportunity for interdiction. • It may not be a miscalculation if they have raised the suspicion of their respective community, but not yet attracted attention from their government. 

While it is certainly possible that a European national could enter the United 

States to conduct an attack, it is more likely that individuals radicalized to 

violence would have greater opportunity to conduct an attack in their home 

country, and that traveling abroad for the purpose of the attack would expose 

them to greater risk. While not perfect, tools like the no-fly-list do serve as 

a deterrent. 

Mr. ASHFORD. Given the open travel policies between the U.S. and European nations, what is the threat posed by European nationals subscribing to Islamic extremism entering the United States? 

Dr. LYNCH. European nationals affiliated or sympathizing with Islamist extremist 

groups, whether the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or Al Qaeda or other organizations, do pose an obvious, albeit limited, potential threat to the United States. 

The number of European nationals traveling to Syria to fight with jihadist groups 

is genuinely alarming. This threat can be mitigated through cooperated policing and 

intelligence sharing with European partners, however. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SHUSTER 

Mr. SHUSTER. Has ISIL already displaced Al Qaeda as the leader in the global 

jihad movement? Which of these two entities poses a greater risk to the U.S. homeland and our assets overseas? 

General FLYNN. Despite the rapid rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 

(ISIL), Al Qaeda remains an important player both in Syria and Iraq, and the global 

Jihad movement. In many ways, the rapid rise of ISIL is linked to its inherent 

vulnerabilities. For example, ISIL has forgone some of the international financing 

operations that allow Al Qaeda to survive, choosing to pursue a more independent 

war economy that makes the group less beholden to international backers. However, 

this war economy relies on further seizures of territory as well as continuing to hold 

on to current oil assets. While Assad and the international coalition take oil assets 

back from ISIL in Syria, Iraqi forces are tamping down on ISIL’s tax base by taking 

back territory in Iraq. ISIL may still be expanding in sections of both Syria and 

Iraq, but these areas are less reliable sources of income. While the international 

coalition’s campaign can certainly not be said to be ‘working’ the ISIL economic 

model relies on perpetual rapid expansion in a manner that is simply unsustainable. 

http://www.businessinsider.com/tafrikinomics-how-isis-funds-its-caliphate-2015-3 

Further, by declaring a caliphate with provincial capitals, ISIL has made its territory manifest, and thus painted a target on its own back. Even while international 

coalition strikes are having a marginal effect (and they are marginal), it seems unlikely that regional and international powers will tolerate the group’s presence indefinitely. Al Qaeda, which still exists somewhat underground, may also have a 

more sustainable model in this sense. One thing to keep in mind regarding ISIL is 

the existence of a strategic vulnerability. Among other strategic considerations and 

components, to defeat ISIL, we must consider isolating and limiting them to their 

current geographic dimensions they currently control and destroy them in detail. 

The longer this struggle goes on, the more geography they will dominate and the 

stronger the group will grow. In addition, even many literalist Salafists find ISIL 

actions to be beyond the pale, and out of step with even historic jihadist interpretations of scripture. For example, Al Qaeda has taken aggressive steps in recent years 

to curb their own attacks that were perceived as killing innocent Muslims because 

of the way it was affecting the group’s popularity. ISIL has made no such concessions, and in fact, these differences of opinions contributed to the ISIL-Jabhat alNusra split in Syria. Further, many Muslims object to ISIL’s self-aggrandizement 

and placement of their own project in the historical canon of Islam as arrogant, and 

out of step with the more modest self-conceptualization of groups like Al Qaeda. Despite the built in vulnerabilities tied to the ambition of the ISIL project, there is 

nothing to say that the group couldn’t go underground following defeats in the field 

and adopt a more Al Qaeda-like modus operandi. If this happened, ISIL could possibly steal some of Al Qaeda’s more traditional support due to their historic accomplishments. Crucially, both groups will be able to continue to thrive, occupy territory, and plan attacks against Western targets undetected as long as the Middle 

East is home to multiple conflicts and large swaths of ungovernable territory. The 

conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, civil strife in Egypt (who we should be 
86 

supporting far more than we are), ungoverned spaces now in parts of Afghanistan 

and Pakistan as well as parts of Mali, all provide both safe-havens and recruiting 

pools for both groups, and this is unlikely to change in the short-term. As such, the 

primary U.S. focus should be ending these regional conflicts, and fostering inclusive, 

pluralistic governance that makes it harder for terrorists to find sympathy for their 

extreme ideologies. These political processes would also likely have to include some 

avenue for reigning in Iranian activity in the region, which serves as a primary antagonist of Sunni-Arab communities, and in so doing creates sympathy for extremist 

groups. The latter issue represents (potentially) the single biggest threat to Middle 

East stability. The more the Islamic Republic of Iran is allowed (and enabled to a 

degree) to expand their influence in the broader Middle East, the longer this regional conflict is likely to last, eventually turning into a far more strategic and existential problem for the United States and many of our closest allies and partners. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Are you concerned that an Authorization for Use of Military Force 

with a clear expiration date and limitations on ground forces such as the one proposed by the president will embolden extremists who know that American military 

response is handicapped? 

General FLYNN. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Braniff, you state in your testimony that ‘‘as the international 

security community hones in on ISIL it could result in increased freedom of maneuver for Al Qaeda in the short term, the very time when the crisis of legitimacy 

brought on by ISIL has created a tremendous incentive for Al Qaeda to conduct a 

successful attack against the West.’’ What sort of strategy do you envision would 

allow the United States to prevent such a scenario from occurring? 

Mr. BRANIFF. This aspect of my testimony was meant to underscore the importance of maintaining pressure on Al Qaeda and its Associated Movements (AQAM), 

as opposed to advocating for a sea change in U.S. strategy as it pertains to preventing attacks on the homeland. The intelligence and special operations communities need to remain vigilant to threats posed by AQAM as they have been. 

However, playing defense, no matter how vigilant that defense may be, is necessary but not sufficient to manage the threat of violent extremism more broadly. 

Similarly, the disruption afforded by drone strikes and other kinetic attacks on extremist networks abroad may be operationally effective in the short term, but does 

not amount to a strategy. In parallel with these efforts, the United States must enlist the support and enhance the capabilities of Sunni governments and communities abroad, while avoiding stoking the fires of sectarian tension that ultimately 

work in the favor of violent sectarian extremists, whether they are Sunni or Shia. 

Only Sunni actors can successfully marginalize violent Sunni extremists. A successful strategy hinges on our ability to build regional partnerships to address regional 

threats (beyond the U.S. government’s traditional bi-lateral approach to capacity 

building), to train and equip our partners in a timely and sustainable fashion, and 

to signal that our support of those efforts can be counted on consistently and over 

time—‘‘across the aisle’’ and across our executive and legislative branches. 

In addition, I fully support the domestic focus on empowering communities to prevent violent extremism from taking root. START’s research and experience working 

with law enforcement organizations, educators and non-governmental organizations 

suggest that these practices, typically referred to as ‘‘Countering Violent Extremism’’ programming, or CVE, are pragmatic and appropriate for the domestic setting for at least three reasons: 

• Law enforcement organizations do not have the capability to manage the signal 

to noise ratio associated with pinpointing who may be engaged in ideologically 

motivated criminal behaviors within the much larger set of individuals who 

may be flirting with extremist (albeit constitutionally protected) ideas. Community members, on the other hand, have more intimate knowledge of one another 

and are better placed to identify and intervene with at-risk individuals before 

they engage in ideologically motivated crime. 

• In addition to being more effective, it is more appropriate for community members or groups to operate in the pre-criminal space than it is for the law enforcement or intelligence community to operate in the pre-criminal space given 

the protections and values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. 

• Finally, many of the practices that can help make individuals and communities 

resistant to the appeals of violent extremist ideologies can also enhance resilience and civil society in the face of other serious challenges, such as drug 

abuse, gang violence or poorly integrated communities. Domestic policies designed to empower civil society and community resilience are in our collective 

best interests. 
87 

Mr. SHUSTER. Has ISIL already displaced Al Qaeda as the leader in the global 

jihad movement? Which of these two entities poses a greater risk to the U.S. homeland and our assets overseas? 

Mr. BRANIFF. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has eclipsed Al 

Qaeda as the most important terrorist organization within the global jihadist movement, but that does not mean that Al Qaeda and its Associated Movement (AQAM) 

will subordinate themselves to ISIL, will relent in their efforts to attack U.S. national interests, or that AQAM cannot emerge from this competition as the preeminent current in the jihadist landscape. 

As stated in my testimony, AQAM’s attrition strategy, while not cogent or directed, will benefit from the escalated levels of violence in hot spots across the Muslim world where ISIL and AQAM proliferate and compete; U.S. national interests 

will be more difficult to pursue in these places and Americans may grow weary of 

the effort to remain engaged in what appear to be violent and intractable problems. 

AQAM may also appear to be a more legitimate standard bearer than ISIL given 

ISIL’s propensity for Muslim-on-Muslim violence, should they fail to live up to their 

promises of building a triumphant and sustainable caliphate, or due to recent assertions/revelations put forth by Der Speigel reporter Christoph Reuter in his recent 

article, ‘‘The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State’’ 

regarding ISIL’s disingenuous and manipulative use of religion as a ruse to advance 

the agenda of former Baathists seeking to regain power. 

Having just made the case that the threat of AQAM should not be discounted, 

I would argue that ISIL poses a greater risk to the U.S. homeland and our assets 

overseas, not to mention our allies overseas. They have a greater network of foreign 

fighters to mobilize. They are well financed, organized and trained. In addition, my 

assumption is that the U.S. Government has less information and fewer, less mature intelligence collection capabilities pertaining to ISIL in Syria due to the civil 

war than it has regarding many of the Al Qaeda affiliates that have been actively 

targeted by the U.S. Government for years. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Are you concerned that an Authorization for Use of Military Force 

with a clear expiration date and limitations on ground forces such as the one proposed by the president will embolden extremists who know that American military 

response is handicapped? 

Mr. BRANIFF. From a practical standpoint, I am concerned that a limited Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) will take military options off of the 

table in a very fluid environment in which I anticipate the already high levels of 

terrorist violence and sectarian tension will increase. Additionally, I believe it is important to signal to our Sunni allies in the region that we are committed to helping 

them marginalize violent Sunni extremists consistently and over time, ‘‘across the 

aisle’’ and across the executive and legislative branches. They are many political 

considerations to balance, but I argue that only Sunni governments and communities can ultimately marginalize violent Sunni extremists. If this is true, U.S. strategy and policy should signal our unequivocal commitment to our Sunni allies. 

Mr. SHUSTER. You state, ‘‘The U.S. should continue to support military efforts and 

political reforms in Iraq’’ and that we ‘‘should support allies under extreme pressure 

such as Jordan.’’ Given that the current administration has also shifted the United 

States’ strategic approach within the Middle East from large-scale deployment of 

armed forces to ‘‘train, advise, and assist’’ and ‘‘building partnership capacity,’’ how 

can we further utilize our industrial base capacity to provide our allies and partners 

with the munitions they need to defeat threats like ISIL? 

Dr. LYNCH. The United States has provided significant amounts of arms and assistance to its partners in the region. The primary problem is less the ability or willingness to provide weapons to legitimate partners, than the absence of limitations 

on the availability of legitimate partners. The United States should avoid arming 

governments or organizations which systemically violate human rights or who are 

demonstrably likely to use weapons in ways contrary to U.S. interests. The threat 

of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant should not lead the United States to 

ignore hard-earned lessons about the potential negative consequences of providing 

arms and munitions to governments and organizations that do not meet such standards of legitimacy. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Has ISIL already displaced Al Qaeda as the leader in the global 

jihad movement? Which of these two entities poses a greater risk to the U.S. homeland and our assets overseas? 

Dr. LYNCH. Both the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al Qaeda 

continue to be active and powerful organizations within specific domains. They 

share the same basic ideological orientations, despite their competition. Both Al 

Qaeda and ISIL have shifted in recent years towards a strategy of seizing and controlling territory, rather than the older Al Qaeda model of deterritorialized, transna-
88 

tional terrorist attacks. Both seek to appeal to the very small number of Muslims 

attracted to the ideas of global jihad, and both could inspire such radical individuals 

and groups to carry out acts of violence. Since the death of Osama bin Laden, Al 

Qaeda Central has declined in influence and centrality to the global jihadist movement. Several of its affiliates, particularly Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 

(Yemen) and Jabhat al-Nusra (Syria) remain strong and growing organizations on 

the ground. ISIL has attempted to parlay its dramatic advances in Iraq and Syria 

into leadership of similar organizations in other arenas, but with limited success. 

As it struggles to sustain its control over its Syrian and Iraqi territories under sustained coalition pressure, ISIL will likely lose momentum and appeal more broadly. 

The balance between the two organizations is therefore somewhat fluid, and related 

to events in distinct arenas. There is a real risk that their competition will lead one 

or both to attempt spectacular terrorist attacks against the United States or its allies in order to advance its reputation within these jihadist circles. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Are you concerned that an Authorization for Use of Military Force 

with a clear expiration date and limitations on ground forces such as the one proposed by the president will embolden extremists who know that American military 

response is handicapped? 

Dr. LYNCH. No. The greater danger to the United States, when faced with such 

complex, open-ended wars, without evident endgame is that it be dragged in to a 

ruinous quagmire. The risk of mission-creep is real, and it is essential that it be 

avoided. A limited scope Authorization for the Use of Military Force would require 

the Administration to clearly articulate its strategy, including an envisioned 

endgame and the required resources. This would make for a more effective U.S. 

strategy, regardless of how it is perceived by adversaries. 

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