    [House Hearing, 114 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    .

                              [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

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    94-096                          WASHINGTON : 2016
    ______________________________________________________________________________
    For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
    http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
    U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
    E-mail, gpo@custhelp.com.

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                        One Hundred Fourteenth Congress

                 WILLIAM M. ``MAC'' THORNBERRY, Texas, Chairman

    WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina      ADAM SMITH, Washington
    J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia            LORETTA SANCHEZ, California
    JEFF MILLER, Florida                 ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania
    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           SUSAN A. DAVIS, California
    FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey        JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island
    ROB BISHOP, Utah                     RICK LARSEN, Washington
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              JIM COOPER, Tennessee
    JOHN KLINE, Minnesota                MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam
    MIKE ROGERS, Alabama                 JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
    TRENT FRANKS, Arizona                NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
    BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania           JOHN GARAMENDI, California
    K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas            HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
    DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado                   Georgia
    ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia          JACKIE SPEIER, California
    DUNCAN HUNTER, California            JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
    JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana              TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado               SCOTT H. PETERS, California
    CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York      MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
    VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri             TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada               TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
    AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia                BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
    STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi       DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
    RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida           MARK TAKAI, Hawaii
    PAUL COOK, California                GWEN GRAHAM, Florida
    JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma            BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska
    BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio               SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
    JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana             PETE AGUILAR, California
    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

                      Robert L. Simmons II, Staff Director
                     Alex Gallo, Professional Staff Member
                     Mike Casey, Professional Staff Member
                               Aaron Falk, Clerk

                                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
                    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 before 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.
        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 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 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 decision-making 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.
        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.
        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 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 particularly 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.
        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.
        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 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.
        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.
        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 already-radicalized, 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.
        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 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.
        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 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 mid-value 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 special-operations-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 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.
        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
    private 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-, fourth-order 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.
        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.
        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 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 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.
        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 2\1/2\, 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 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, 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 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.
        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
    civilian-led, 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, 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 long-term 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.
        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
    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-in-
    law. 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?
        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 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, 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 April-May 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 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 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

    =======================================================================

        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    =======================================================================

                  WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                                  THE HEARING

                               February 13, 2015

    =======================================================================

                  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

    =======================================================================

                       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.
        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.
            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 al-Nusra 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 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.
        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,
    transnational 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.

                                      [all]