[Senate Hearing 114-684]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-684
THE FUTURE OF COUNTER TERRORISM STRATEGY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
December 1, 2016
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, TENNESSEE, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BARBARA BOXER, California
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
RAND PAUL, Kentucky TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
Rob Strayer, Majority Chief Counsel
Margaret Taylor, Minority Chief Counsel
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Corker, Hon. Bob, U.S. Senator from Tennessee.................... 1
Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from Maryland............. 2
Zarate, Hon. Juan C., chairman and co-founder, the Financial
Integrity Network, Washington, DC.............................. 4
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Benjamin, Hon. Daniel, the Norman E. McCulloch Jr. Director, of
the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding,
Dartmouth University, Hanover, NH.............................. 18
Prepared statement........................................... 21
(iii)
THE FUTURE OF COUNTER-
TERRORISM STRATEGY
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2016
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:32 a.m. in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bob Corker,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Corker [presiding], Risch, Rubio,
Johnson, Gardner, Perdue, Paul, Cardin, Menendez, Shaheen,
Coons, Murphy, Kaine, and Markey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
The Chairman. The Foreign Relations Committee will come to
order.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here. It is great
to be back with all of you. We had a little time off here.
I want to thank our witnesses for testifying today. Both of
you have had long careers working to defend our country against
terrorists, and today is a great opportunity for us to learn
from your experiences and hear your insights about the future.
As the Mosul operation continues and the Raqqa campaign
begins, ISIS could soon lose the most important territory it
has held. As ISIS changes from an organization intent on
retaining territory to one focused more on inspiring and
directing violence and spreading radical ideology, the next
administration is going to face new and perhaps even more and
more diverse sets of problems.
We have seen ISIS and other groups employ multiple
different tactics, from organized external networks directing
coordinated attacks in Europe to huge suicide bombings in the
Arab world, to inspired attacks by lone wolves in the United
States, like those that are current in my hometown of
Chattanooga, Orlando, San Bernardino, and this week at Ohio
State University.
I hope you can help us think about the evolving nature of
terrorist organizations and what tools the United States needs
most to counter them. ISIS and al Qaeda have proved to be
resilient in the face of extreme pressures, reinventing
themselves and taking advantage of conflicts around the globe
to root into local populations.
With the world now focused on ISIS in Iraq and Syria, what
can we do to best prepare for the next iteration of ISIS or al
Qaeda? How can we recognize when a radical ideology is taking
root and determine ways to best combat it?
And finally, both of you have served in different
administrations that created new structures and positions to
combat terrorism. I think we could appreciate your views on
what could be done going forward to better coordinate the
whole-of-government approach to combatting terrorism.
Again, I want to thank you both for being here, and I want
to turn to our distinguished ranking member, my friend Ben
Cardin.
STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. Well, Mr. Chairman, first, it is good to be
back with hearings. It has been an interesting recess that we
have had, and we are certainly looking forward to this hearing
and the work of this committee.
This is a very important hearing, so I thank you for
scheduling it. It is very timely as we deal with an incoming
new administration and the incredibly important subject of
countering terrorism.
You have made many points that I totally agree with. We
need to build on the success that we have seen in combatting
ISIL. Ramadi has been liberated. Mosul is in the process of
being liberated. Raqqa is just a matter of time before the
headquarters of ISIL in Syria falls. ISIL itself has said its
days of the caliphate are limited, and I think that reflects
the point that you raised, that there is more to this than just
territory, and we have to be prepared for the continued
vulnerabilities of particularly open and free democratic
societies.
What has been particularly encouraging in the region is
that we have seen, as these areas are being reclaimed, that it
is local security forces that are maintaining the security,
which is absolutely essential, and there is recognition by
those governing that they need to represent all the people.
That is a continuing process, and that is very much part of the
overall strategy to counter terrorism.
But as you pointed out, terrorist groups are rather
flexible, and they figure out different ways to cause mischief.
They use their ideology to recruit, and we see also self-taught
terrorists. When ISIL has been uprooted in Iraq and Syria, it
will still seek to spread its barbaric ideology everywhere it
can and inspire the desperate, the deluded, the delusional to
strike out at the innocents in their country.
Military action is very important, especially our Special
Forces, which can and have been extremely effective in dealing
with plans and generating intelligence that is very important
to our game plan. However, it is only one tool that must be
used. Defense through domestic police and investigative forces
is also paramount, in cooperation with each other and their
counterparts in other countries, especially within Europe,
which has been the target of so many of the ISIL and al Qaeda
attacks. As we learned so painfully, bureaucratic barriers to
the exchange and analysis of information about potential
terrorists and their plans must be torn down.
We need to work together. We need to work with all of the
tools that are available in all of the countries that are in
our coalition to fight terrorism, and we must figure out more
effective ways to accomplish that. We must give at least equal
attention and resources to countering the social media appeal,
the ideology, the lies, and all the different contributing
conditions that provide fertile ground for groups like ISIL to
grow and flourish.
Mr. Chairman, we have spent trillions of dollars in our
fight against terrorists. Most of it, over 90 percent, goes to
the Department of Defense, as is needed. I do not disagree with
our support of our men and women who are defending our country.
We need resources in diplomacy and development assistance, the
so-called ``soft powers'' of building democratic institutions,
and I think it is our committee's responsibility to be there in
order to understand that. So I very much appreciate this
hearing.
We must not only pursue a whole-of-government approach to
counter terrorism but a whole-of-government perspective as
well. We cannot do this alone. We need our coalition partners.
I want to mention one last point where I think we have to
be very careful in our language and in our actions. Quite
frankly, anti-Muslim promises and songs about instituting a
Muslim ban on immigration, profiling, and increased violence on
Muslims threaten to isolate the United States. To me, that is
counter to the strategies we need to fight extremists.
Identifying Islam itself as a terrorist source, thinking
somehow that directly attacking the religion of over 1.6
billion people will make them more willing to help us is just
fallacy. We need to recognize that there is a global effort to
stop extremists, and what we say and what we do has a major
impact on that.
So, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses. I would like to just conclude by pointing out that
we have self-grown terrorists here. We have to deal with those
issues. Significant attacks have been carried out here by
persons motivated by racism, by homophobia, by radical
political objectives, and that needs also to be part of our
equation.
So I look forward to this hearing. I look forward to
working with all the members of this committee to make America
safe.
The Chairman. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I
appreciate those comments.
I might take a personal privilege here for just one moment
to welcome Tim Kaine back. It is good to have you back here. I
know you have had quite an adventure, and I look forward to
hearing about it.
Senator Kaine. What I did on my summer vacation.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. I understand you have quite a star that you
have added to the committee and that this may be their first
hearing. Is that correct?
Senator Cardin. If I might, Jessica Lewis is the staff
director for the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. She comes to this committee with a great deal of
experience, having worked with Senator Menendez, having worked
with Linda Reed on intelligence issues, and has a vast
knowledge of the Senate Foreign Relations portfolio. So it is
wonderful to have her working as part of our team.
The Chairman. We have had a lot of interaction with her
because of the role she played, and we certainly look forward
to working with her here on the committee.
With that, welcome.
To our witnesses, our first witness today is the Honorable
Juan Zarate, chairman and co-founder of the Financial Integrity
Network. Previously Mr. Zarate served as the Deputy Assistant
to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for
Combatting Terrorism from 2005 to 2009. He also served as the
First Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist
Financing and Financial Crimes.
Our second witness today is the Honorable Daniel Benjamin
from the Dickey Center for International Understanding at
Dartmouth University. Among other roles, Mr. Benjamin
previously served as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for
Terrorism at the State Department and as Special Assistant and
Director for Transnational Threats for President Bill Clinton.
We thank you all for being here. You all have been before
this committee or have been a part of it, I am sure, many
times. If you could keep your comments to around 5 minutes, we
would appreciate it. Your written testimony, without objection,
will be entered into the record. We thank you for being here.
If you would start in the order of introduction, we would
appreciate it. Just to let Senator Cardin know in advance, I am
going to defer to you on questioning first and interject along
the way.
So, Mr. Zarate?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JUAN C. ZARATE, CHAIRMAN AND CO-
FOUNDER, THE FINANCIAL INTEGRITY NETWORK, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Zarate. Chairman Corker, thank you for the kind
introduction. Ranking Member Cardin, it is wonderful to see you
again. Distinguished members of this great Committee on Foreign
Relations, thank you again for the invitation and the honor to
be with you today, especially today to talk about our counter-
terrorism strategy.
Let me say welcome to Senator Kaine, my home senator as
well. It is good to see you again, sir.
I also want to say I am honored to be here with Ambassador
Dan Benjamin, somebody who served our country with great
distinction in a number of roles over the years, and I have
been honored to watch his work and have been privileged to
become his friend, I hope.
But this is an important moment, Mr. Chairman, to have this
hearing. Fifteen years after 9/11, we face a more diverse and
complicated global terrorism threat. We have continued in
quickening adaptations from groups like ISIS and still al
Qaeda, and with a new administration set to take over, it is a
critical moment to take stock of where we have been, some
lessons learned, and to start to shape a counter-terrorism
strategy to defeat the persistent threat of violent Islamic
extremism.
Mr. Chairman, you have asked us to address a number of
issues, including the nature of the metastasizing threat and
what lessons have been learned from the rise of ISIS, and
perhaps its demise.
There is no doubt terrorist groups continue to learn from
each other, Mr. Chairman, with demonstration effects of
attacks, methodologies, and messaging echoing instantaneously
around the world. These groups and their adherents adapt
quickly to pressure and opportunity, leveraging elements of
globalization and modern communication while exploiting seams
in security, along with weaknesses in governance to their full
advantage.
The rise and reach of ISIS has driven much of this
adaptation, and we have witnessed this over the past few years.
Likewise, al Qaeda affiliates have continued to perpetrate
terrorist attacks from West Africa to Yemen, and now al Qaeda
is smartly rebranding itself in key conflicts and war zones,
including in Syria.
But there has been significant pressure on ISIS, which is
good news. There has been important and increased pressure on
its safe havens physically in Iraq and in Syria, targeting of
the organization's key leadership, especially taking off the
battlefield operational core leaders focused on external
planning.
The Treasury Department, the military, the intelligence
community have increased the pressure on the ISIS war chest. In
fact, ISIS' budget is significantly constricted. They have had
to cut their foreign fighter salaries by 50 percent and
suspended what are important death benefits to families of ISIS
fighters killed in combat.
And importantly, in demonstrating the loss of ISIS'
physical space, losing its so-called ``caliphate,'' we have
begun to shatter the myth of ISIS victory and the allure of the
caliphate that has really been the siren song for ISIS and its
global movement.
So the effect of this pressure is good news, but it is
certainly not the end of the story. Mr. Chairman, as you have
set out, we need to worry about what the next chapter looks
like and what comes next.
With adaptations on the horizon, ISIS will certainly remain
a player in the context of the Syrian civil war, especially as
it continues and to the extent that they can hold some
territory. If ISIS is driven out of major cities, as we hope
they will be, it could continue to strike using classic
terrorist tactics. If it contains and maintains its provinces
and platforms, there will be an opportunity to use those
platforms, from West Africa to Southeast Asia, to support and
reinforce a new network even if they do not have a functioning
capital or control of vast swaths of territory.
And even though many of the ISIS foreign fighters will die,
no doubt, in defense of territory in Iraq and Syria, there is a
very long and real tail to the foreign fighters and cells
returned to the West, Asia, Africa, and Australia. ISIS can
also survive through the influence of a digital diaspora. ISIS
has already proven its ability to innovate the use of targeted
messaging and social media for recruitment and inspiration. And
there has also been, unfortunately, a powerful digital
afterlife for many of the radical ideologues and operatives for
ISIS and al Qaeda.
Importantly, al Qaeda has taken advantage of the attention
ISIS has drawn to reinvigorate its networks, including having
training camps in al Qaeda that have come to the U.S.
Government's attention in recent months. The danger in the
environment, Mr. Chairman, is something this committee knows
well, the growing proxy battles in the region between Sunni and
Shia forces. The danger here is that the proxy battles will no
doubt grow worse and these groups will be seen as a response
and a defense against Iranian and Shia-backed militias and
terrorist groups.
Now, the demonstration effect from ISIS has been real, and,
Mr. Chairman, it is dangerous. They have developed terrorist
methodologies that have been improved over time. They have been
allowed time and space to do so. They have experimented with
drones, used chemical weapons, developed tunnel systems,
classic things that an insurgency and a terrorist group does.
They have also directed different types of attacks. They
have obviously directed sophisticated attacks of the types we
have seen in Paris and Brussels. They have also begun to frame
attacks, entrepreneurial attacks for followers and those who
are adherents. And finally, as we have seen in recent months,
they have amplified their attempts to inspire attacks-in-place
for fellow citizens to attack in the countries in which they
live with the simplest means possible, including running over
pedestrians.
ISIS has innovated in terms of its use of media and
recruitment, using targeted social media to isolate and
radicalize. It has perfected the use of multiple media forms,
consistency and quality across all of its products. And though
not successful, the organization has developed governing
structures, schools, and even court systems that have allowed
it to experiment with controlling populations, imposing its
rule, and embedding itself ideologically with young
generations.
There is also a cautionary tale, Mr. Chairman. The problems
that ISIS has encountered will be a cautionary tale to other
groups. Other groups will note the disillusionment of those who
joined ISIS and tried to flee, the inability to keep
populations satisfied or at bay, and the ultimate inability to
consolidate its control of territory and rule.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, you asked us to reflect on key ideas
or focus of our U.S. counter-terrorism strategy, and I know I
am over my time. Let me be really succinct here in terms of
some key principles and elements of a strategy.
First, Mr. Chairman, we have to realize that the underlying
ideology and appeal of these violent extremist organizations
animates these terrorist movements. This is not just a threat
about one particular group or one manifestation. This is an
ideology that has manifested in a variety of ways and that will
continue to drive the threats from this violent extremist
movement.
I was recently part of a study at CSIS led by former
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and former U.K. Prime
Minister Tony Blair that set out a new comprehensive strategy
for countering violent extremism. I have included some elements
of that report in my testimony. I would ask people to look at
that because it lays out a new approach, new resources, and new
methodologies to deal with the underlying ideology.
Second, Mr. Chairman, the laws of physics apply to counter-
terrorism. You cannot forget that. We have to physically
disrupt the ability of these groups to organize, control
territory, to lead, and to plot. I think we have lost sight of
that at times, thinking that we can push magic buttons in New
York and Washington and have the problem go away. The reality
is you have to dislodge these groups from their hold on
territory, and that has been especially the case with ISIS.
Mr. Chairman, effective and trusted partnerships are
essential. We cannot do this alone, obviously, and what Dan did
at the State Department, what we did prior in the Bush
administration to create regional alliances to deal with the
emergence of these groups in places like East Africa, Southeast
Asia, becomes essential moving forward. We cannot be in all
places at all times dealing with the emergence of these groups.
Mr. Chairman, this is also important for this committee:
Our counter-terrorism strategies cannot be divorced from a
coherent national security and foreign policy. It is often the
case that administrations say we do not want counter-terrorism
to be the sole driver of our foreign policy, but the reality is
it suddenly becomes the priority, especially when dealing with
conflict zones or crises and direct and imminent threats to the
homeland. But the reality is these are complicated
environments--Syria, Yemen, other conflicts where these
terrorist threats emerge--and we have to have comprehensive and
coherent foreign policies to address the underlying issues.
And finally, I want to echo something that Senator Cardin
said. I think words and lexicon matter quite a bit. How we
define the enemy matters in terms of our strategic approach.
How we talk about our allies and our approach matters to
creating a sense of unity with our coalition. Our language
should reinforce our alliances, strengthen our messages and
ideals, and certainly undercut the appeal of our enemy's vision
of the world.
Mr. Chairman, I know I have taken a lot of time here, but I
think certainly with the right strategy, focused resources,
institutions we have put in place, we can handle this problem,
but we have to be focused and be imaginative in terms of where
the manifestations of this movement will emerge, and we cannot
be afraid to imagine the worst because we have to get ahead of
the curve, because these are actors that are innovative, smart,
and constantly using time, space, and resources to their
advantage.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Juan Zarate follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Juan C. Azrate
the future of counter-terrorism strategy
Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Cardin, and distinguished members
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, I am honored to be with
you today to discuss the future of counter-terrorism strategy.
This is an important moment to reflect on the state of the so-
called Islamic State of Iraq and alSham (ISIS) and the lessons
terrorist organizations have learned from it. More than fifteen years
after 9/11, we face a more diverse and complicated global terrorism
threat, with continued and quickening adaptations from groups like ISIS
and al Qaida. With a new administration and Congress a few weeks away,
this is also a critical moment to reflect on our own lessons learned
and how the United States should shape its counter-terrorism strategy
to defeat the persistent threat of violent Islamic extremism.
Introduction
The nature of the global terrorist threat today is more
geographically dispersed, adaptive, and strategically relevant than
ever before. Terrorist attacks appear to be quickening and intensifying
around the globe, and the perception of a worldwide metastasizing
threat is increasing.
Terrorist groups continue to learn from each other--with
demonstration effects of attacks, methodologies, and messaging echoing
instantaneously around the world. These groups and their adherents
adapt quickly to pressure and opportunity, leveraging elements of
globalization and modern communication while exploiting seams in
security along with weaknesses in governance to their full advantage.
These groups also take advantage of and exacerbate dislocation,
conflict, and sectarianism to fuel their agendas, fill their coffers,
and gain footholds and adherents. In the context of broader
dislocations and national anxieties, terrorist attacks and messaging
take on more strategic relevance. Even a series of smaller-scale
attacks could have broad social effects and political impact that
affect the trajectory of nations and societies.
The rise and reach of ISIS has driven much of the adaptation we
have witnessed in the global terrorist landscape over the past few
years. The emergence of ISIS outpaced expectations and surprised most
authorities and terrorism analysts. With the announcement of the
caliphate in Iraq and Syria and the taking of Mosul and other major
cities, ISIS sought to redraw the map of the Middle East, threaten the
West, establish provinces (``wilayats'') and terrorist alliances, and
inspire attacks well beyond the Middle East. ISIS has perpetrated
serious attacks in Europe, Beirut, Istanbul, Egypt, Bangladesh, and the
Gulf countries, and its affiliates and aspirant supporters have
attacked far afield in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Indonesia, San Bernardino,
and Orlando.
Likewise, al Qaida affiliates have continued to perpetrate
terrorist attacks from West Africa to Yemen, with members perpetrating
the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. Al Qaida is now smartly
rebranding itself in key conflicts and war zones, such as in Syria,
Yemen, and Libya, and attempting to reemerge again as part of the
legitimate local landscape.
Though ISIS and al Qaida have been in strategic competition and in
direct conflict in certain arenas like Syria, they form part of a
broader violent Islamic extremist movement that can find common cause,
leverage each others' networks, and reflag quickly to adapt to
opportunities in the environment. We have seen this in the shift in
allegiances declared from al Qaida to ISIS by Boko Haram in West
Africa, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and Taleban
and al Qaida members in Afghanistan. Though competition still exists,
cooperation could accelerate in certain contexts, especially in the
face of increasing Shia and Iranian pressure and proxy battles.
All the while, these violent Islamic extremist organizations have
occupied territory--creating a terrorist archipelago encompassing not
just the deserts, jungles, and mountains of past safe havens but urban
and resource-rich environments. This has allowed both ISIS and al Qaida
to exploit civilian populations and to develop local and regional war
economies. It has allowed ISIS in particular to leverage the
establishment of the caliphate as its demonstration that it can govern
an Islamic state and to animate the global terrorist movement in
support of its cause. This has revived and connected pre-existing
jihadi networks from Southeast Asia to the streets of Europe.
Dangerously, failing to understand and anticipate ISIS' intent and
capabilities--and the shifting terrorist landscape--has led to some
misguided assumptions that have now been shattered in the wake of a
series of serious attacks, particularly following the Paris and
Brussels attacks. As part of its broader strategy of establishing the
caliphate, ISIS is purposefully confronting the West. While creating
its caliphate and expanding its provinces to places like Libya and
Yemen, ISIS has been planning to strike the West, using Western
operatives flowing into the conflict zone by the thousands, and is
openly attempting to inspire singular attacks by sympathetic radicals
in Western societies. It has built these capabilities over time and
taken advantage of intelligence and security gaps to implant operatives
in Europe. This is a strategy not triggered by provocation or weakness,
but rather is a deliberate part of ISIS' planning.
European authorities have come to grips with the realization that
ISIS is targeting the heart of Europe with dozens of operatives.
Ongoing raids, arrests, and disruption of plots continue throughout the
continent.
This should not have come as a surprise to those watching ISIS
erase the border between Iraq and Syria, occupy major cities in the
Middle East, and take advantage of the safe haven it has established
and of the foreign fighters flowing in and out of the region.
Indeed, with the thousands of foreign fighters traveling to
terrorist-controlled territory and others animated by the allure and
narrative of a historic and heroic caliphate battling infidel forces,
ISIS and al Qaida can more easily mobilize attacks against the West.
France and Belgium have been particularly vulnerable given the role and
importance of Francophone terrorist networks embedded in pockets of
radicalization like Molenbeek in Brussels. But they are not alone. The
rest of Europe is vulnerable, and the United States is at risk for acts
of terror resembling what occurred in San Bernardino, Orlando, or from
more organized attacks by foreign fighters or sympathizers.
The United States does not face the same kind of threats from ISIS
and al Qaida that Europe does, but the threat remains real--for U.S.
citizens and interests abroad and for the Homeland.
Recent terrorist attacks inspired by ISIS and violent Islamic
extremism in Orlando; San Bernardino; Garland, Texas; Brooklyn;
Chattanooga; and Philadelphia reflect an environment in which
radicalized or deranged individuals are willing to attack fellow
citizens on behalf of a foreign terrorist organization or its brand.
The case this past week of the Somali refugee who attacked fellow
students at Ohio State University by running them over and stabbing
them may be another example of this kind of threat. Terrorism-related
prosecutions brought by the U.S. Department of Justice over the past
few years demonstrate a fairly consistent, yet small number of cases of
radicalized individuals willing to support ISIS and al Qaida as well as
plan attacks.
There have been small pockets of radicalization that have emerged,
for example in the SomaliAmerican community which has seen young
members of its community travel to Somalia to fight with al Shabaab and
more recently to fight in Iraq and Syria. ISIS and al Qaida have
continued to target Americans--including young women - specifically for
recruitment, including by using targeted social media and peer-to-peer
communications to identify, isolate, and mobilize operatives in the
United States.
The FBI Director has stated that there are open ``homegrown violent
extremist investigations'' in all fifty states. The diversity and
volume of cases fueled by the ideology of ISIS and al Qaida have
challenged U.S. counter-terrorism capabilities to identify, monitor,
and determine the seriousness and priority of each case.
It is important that we examine and understand the threat soberly.
ISIS, al Qaida, and likeminded groups are neither omnipotent nor
comprised of ten-foot giants. They have not been able to mobilize large
percentages of susceptible Muslims to violence, and the communities
impacted by their brutality have largely rejected their message.
But they have rallied thousands to their cause, perpetrated some of
the worst brutalities of the 21st century, and caused major disruptions
and dislocation in an Arc of Instability from Central Asia to West
Africa. Their rapid and devious adaptations--in attack methodologies,
messaging, recruitment, financing, and governance--are dangerous and
cannot be ignored or discounted. ISIS' use of chemical weapons,
establishment of a chemical weapons unit, and surveillance of Belgian
nuclear infrastructure and personnel raise the specter of a group
intent on using weapons of mass destruction.
The blind spots in our intelligence have only heightened concerns
of what we are not seeing or hearing regarding terrorist plans. And
these groups remain intent and capable of striking the West in
strategically impactful ways.
Effective Pressure on ISIS
U.S. and coalition pressure on ISIS has been significant and
important to diminishing its capabilities and affecting its strategic
posture. ISIS is losing ground in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The U.S.,
Iraqis, Kurds, and other allied forces have put greater pressure on
ISIS physical havens and urban strongholds throughout the Middle East.
Turkish-backed forces recently took back the symbolic city of Dabiq,
the battle for Mosul is well underway, and Libyan forces are cleaning
up remnants of ISIS in Sirte.
Iraqi forces, supported by the Kurds, the United States, and the
broader coalition, will eventually retake Mosul. The question will be
when, with how much bloodshed and cost, and whether Mosul and
surrounding territory can be held and rebuilt. Dislodging ISIS from its
physical footprints is the most urgent and important counter-terrorism
measure for the international community. Mosul and Raqqa must be taken.
From Raqqa, its so-called capital in Syria, ISIS has been able to plot,
plan, communicate, adapt, raise funds, and operate openly and freely.
The targeting of the organization's key leaders, especially the
operational core, has proven important to affecting the ability of the
group to adapt quickly to pressure. Since last year, there has been an
increased pace in the targeted killing of key ISIS leadership, to
include Omar al-Shishani, a top military commander in Syria; Abu
Mohammed al-Adnani, ISIS's official spokesman, director of external
relations, and senior leader; Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, the
minister of information; and Abd al-Basit al-Iraqi, emir of external
networks and Western targeting.
The constriction on ISIS funding has been critical as well. The
Treasury Department, the military, and the intelligence community have
increased the pressure on the ISIS war chest. ISIS has run a war
economy with a diversified portfolio. Its ability to control
significant territory, with populations to tax and resources to
exploit, has allowed the organization to govern and expand its
operations. Revenue from running oil operations in Iraq and Syria has
been a major source of income for the group--taking advantage of the
black market in oil and old Iraqi oil smuggling routes. It has
developed mobile refineries and transport to transact with brokers,
including even the Assad regime in Syria.
The United States had to accelerate its understanding of how ISIS
is doing business and moving money within its territory and beyond.
U.S. authorities have squeezed certain key chokepoints for the ISIS
economy where it touches the regional and global financial system--
including by isolating the financial institutions that sit in ISIS-
controlled territory and sanctioning key financiers and brokers.
Ultimately though, we have had to recognize that a major enabling
factor for financing is ISIS control of territory and resources--and
therefore that the United States and its allies have to dislodge the
group physically in order to fully cut off its financial lifeline.
There is no magic button at Treasury to do this.
This is why economic disruption is a key element of the war plan
against ISIS. The U.S. and coalition airstrikes--including on cash
distribution centers--and pressure on the ground have dislodged the
Islamic State from some of its oil and gas supplies and infrastructure
and put real pressure on its economy. The effects are real, and the
ISIS budget appears to be constricting significantly. ISIS recently cut
fighter salaries by 50% and suspended ``death benefits'' to families of
ISIS fighters killed in combat.
Importantly, demonstrating that ISIS is losing in the physical
space--and losing its hold on the caliphate--will begin to shatter the
myth of ISIS victory and the allure of the caliphate to the global
movement. This is essential to stunting the expansion of the movement.
The Siren Song for ISIS has been the call of a realized, functioning
caliphate where true believers can unite to build and defend a ``truly
Islamic society.'' The inability to hold and defend territory along
with the organization's failure to govern successfully or to capture
hearts and minds of the locals will pierce some of the romantic appeal
of ISIS. Dejected and disaffected recruits have amplified
disillusionment with the group. This, in combination with more intense
enforcement efforts and greater difficulty traveling into ISIS-
controlled territory, has slowed the pace of foreign fighters
significantly.
The effect of this increased pressure is good news, but ISIS has
had time and space to operate, spread its reach, and demonstrate its
capabilities. ISIS and al Qaida--and the violent Islamic extremist
movement they represent--will continue to take advantage of
opportunities in the environment and adapt.
Adaptations on the Horizon
Even if all of ISIS' footholds in the Middle East and North Africa
are retaken, ISIS will remain a threat and will adapt. ISIS will
certainly remain a player in the Syrian context as long as that civil
war continues and as long as it is able to hold territory or galvanize
opposition to the Assad regime.
Though ISIS has attempted to create a proto-state, it remains a
hierarchical terrorist organization. If ISIS is driven out of the major
cities, it could continue to strike using classic terrorist tactics
like vehicle-born improvised explosive devices against population
centers in the Middle East. Some ``retreating'' ISIS leadership and
personnel can blend back into the population and refugee flows, deploy
to neighboring countries, or lie in wait with sympathetic Iraqi or
Syrian allies. Here the experience of the conversion of a depleted al
Qaida in Iraq into what eventually became ISIS is instructive. Remnants
of ISIS could take advantage of weak security, worsening sectarian
tension, and episodes of political crisis to reassert or rebrand
itself.
ISIS has also established footholds well beyond Iraq and Syria.
ISIS has various wilayats (or proclaimed provinces) in North Africa,
Central Asia, and the Arabian Gulf that allow the ISIS brand to project
power and threaten U.S. and allied interests. The recent uptick of
ISIS-claimed attacks in Pakistan has demonstrated this reach. In
addition, the ability of ISIS to embed in terrorist insurgencies like
Boko Haram in West Africa and into enduring conflicts as in Libya and
Yemen provides the network a platform to operate and regenerate. ISIS
could certainly contemplate moving its command and control--or elements
of its foreign operations--outside of danger zones into safe havens. If
such provinces or platforms exist, there will be the opportunity for
those platforms to support and reinforce each other--creating a network
for ISIS to operate and support adherents even if it lacks a
functioning ``capital.''
Unfortunately, ISIS has had time and space to recruit, deploy, and
inspire foreign fighters and those attracted to its message. Even
though many of the remaining ISIS foreign fighters will die in defense
of territory in Iraq and Syria, there is a tail to the foreign fighters
and cells returned to the West, Asia, and Africa. The foreign fighter
diaspora is a real threat. ISIS has had over 5,000 Western foreign
fighters, as well as upwards of 40,000 total foreign fighters, from
which to choose to leverage for different purposes, including returning
to Europe to perpetrate attacks.
ISIS organized an external operational unit, and has marked
operatives for attacks in Europe, many of which have been thwarted.
Francophone cells--comprised of French, Belgian, and dual nationals--
have proven a lethal network for ISIS attack plotting in Europe. Some
of these Western operatives have been trained to evade scrutiny, engage
in operational security--including the use of encryption technologies--
and execute strategic attacks in concert. The sheer volume of potential
operatives, along with unknown actors, has overwhelmed even the best
European services.
ISIS can also survive and influence through a digital diaspora.
ISIS has already turned explicitly to trying to inspire any and all
attacks in place--and has grown more willing to claim less
sophisticated and seemingly less coordinated attacks in the United
States, including the attack this week on the campus of Ohio State
University. It has innovated the use of targeted messaging and social
media for recruitment and inspiration.
There has also been a powerful digital afterlife for certain
radical ideologues and operatives, whose effect and ability to
radicalize or inspire has far outlived their natural life. The
persistent appearance of Anwar al Awlaqi, the Yemeni-American cleric,
in the files and motivations of radicalized individuals in the West,
including the United States, is a troubling factor. In general, ISIS
and its supporters could attempt to move functionally from a physical
caliphate into a virtual environment. Authorities worry about what such
adaptations may entail.
Importantly, al Qaida has taken advantage of the attention ISIS has
drawn to reinvigorate its networks, appearing dangerously again in
places like Afghanistan training operatives. In many cases, al Qaida
has regenerated, embedding itself from the ground up with local
populations--often renaming itself to gain legitimacy and to emphasize
its local bona fides. We have seen this in places like Syria where
Jabhat-al Nusrah has distanced itself from al Qaida and been renamed
Jahbat Fatah al-Sham. At the start of the Arab Spring, I noted that al
Qaida and associated movements would try to take full advantage of the
dislocations and likely disillusionment with the Arab Spring. The
battle for ``reform'' and control is still at play.
A danger in this environment is that the growing proxy battles
between Iranian backed terrorist groups and militias on the one hand
and Sunni groups, populations, and regimes on the other will animate
greater support or at least tolerance for ISIS and al Qaida remnants--
and any likeminded allies--in order to beat back the perceived
aggression of Shia forces. This has been a problem in conflict zones
like Syria where al Qaida affiliates have proven at times to be the
most effective fighting forces against the Assad regime and its Iranian
and Hizballah backers. Sectarian tendencies have exacerbated mistrust,
as with the Iraqi government's recent decision to incorporate Shia
militias into the military over the objection of Sunni lawmakers.
This proxy battle is likely to grow worse. The West seemingly
underestimated how far Iran would go to prevent the fall of the Assad
regime, the Iranian regime's sole Arab ally in the Middle East. Since
the Syrian revolt began in 2011, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei--who
controls Iran's foreign policy--has implemented a full-throttled
strategy executed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to
prevent Assad's fall and preserve an Iranian-allied Alawite-led enclave
stretching from Damascus up to the Lebanese border and the
Mediterranean Sea. In order to offset the bled-out Syrian army, the
IRGC has mobilized an international Shiite expeditionary force
comprised of fighters from Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon,
and even as far as West Africa.
In mid-2015, when pro-Assad forces were overstretched and Assad was
in danger of falling, Iran coordinated with Russia to escalate
militarily and save their embattled ally--thus inviting Russia back to
the Middle East after nearly four decades and positioning it near
NATO's southern flank. Iranian and Russian investment appears to have
paid off. They have virtually eliminated the option of Assad's
overthrow by military means and are on the cusp of achieving a major
victory in capturing Aleppo, Syria's largest city prior to the war.
Despite costs, Syria has given the IRGC the opportunities to hone its
international expeditionary model, what Guard commanders call the
nucleus of a ``global Basij,'' and gain a long-term foothold in Syria
and by Israel's doorstep.
The ISIS Demonstration Effect
Other groups have learned from the ISIS experience and its
innovation, especially as ISIS propaganda, videos, and messaging are
tweeted and streamed globally and reported and repeated by legitimate
media sources.
The United States is concerned about the demonstration effects of
successful or attempted terrorist attacks, especially in the West.
Radicalized individuals in the United States could always be inspired
to attack--to feed off of the attention and momentum of attacks in
Europe or to engage in copycat attacks. In a globalized, instantaneous,
and fluid information environment, would-be terrorists can learn
quickly from those who have executed successful attacks and may
understand or study the security protocols employed to attempt to
thwart such attacks. The more terrorist attacks are successful, the
more concern there will be that radicalized individuals in the United
States will be mobilized to attack.
The ISIS demonstration effect is dangerous.
Terrorist Methodologies. ISIS has certainly improved certain
terrorist and insurgent methodologies, using tunnel systems in
territory it holds; sequential urban terrorist attacks (reminiscent of
the Mumbai attacks); experimenting with drones; and deploying chemical
weapons. The organization has had time and space to adapt its tactics,
and others in the jihadi environment have watched and learned.
ISIS has decided to use three forms of attacks that make overseas
counter-terrorism efforts even more difficult to manage. ISIS
leadership has planned and orchestrated attacks, with growing
sophistication and reliance on an operational lead (``directed
attacks''). In a recent attack in Germany, the terrorist was
communicating with a handler directing the operative from Syria during
the attack. ISIS leadership is also framing the broad parameters and
timing of plots and enlisting operatives to launch attacks
entrepreneurially (``framed attacks''). Finally, ISIS--like al Qaida--
is trying to animate radicalized individuals to kill fellow citizens in
any way possible where they live (``inspired to attack in place'').
ISIS--like al Qaida--has urged followers to use simple means, like
vehicular attacks to run over pedestrians. These three forms of
terrorist plotting create a tapestry of complicated threats for Western
authorities.
Importantly, there could also be adaptations in the use of social
media and communications technologies not just to radicalize and
animate individuals but also to mobilize and direct them to act in
concert for strategic purposes. A key influencer--in the United States
or from abroad--could use peer-to-peer technologies to choreograph
disparate, radicalized individuals to attack in the Homeland. Such
methodologies might allow terrorists to turn lone wolves into a
coordinated pack attacking the West.
ISIS has also focused on recruiting and using women--as operatives,
supporters, and cornerstones of the caliphate. Many women have been
drawn to the idea of the caliphate, seeking both adventure as well as
family. Women have been used to lure foreign fighters, to evade
security services and scrutiny, and to create the sense of stability
and family structures in the caliphate. ISIS has also enslaved,
entrapped, and committed atrocities against women, which the
organization attempts to justify through twisted theological
interpretations. Women will grow as a part of the terrorist landscape,
especially as groups like al Qaida attempt to embed themselves more
neatly with local populations.
Terrorist Media. ISIS has changed the nature of the media and
recruitment in the terrorist landscape. ISIS messaging has echoed in
sophisticated ways via recruiters, the Internet, and targeted social
media. The ISIS mythology, amplified by the establishment of the
caliphate, piggybacks off the al Qaida narrative and has drawn
adherents and converts from around the world.
On June 29, 2014, al-Adnani (now deceased) declared the creation of
the caliphate after ISIS' June offensive in Iraq and the capture of
Mosul. In July 2014, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the selfproclaimed
``caliph,'' called on Muslims around the world to ``rush'' to the
Islamic State. On September 21, 2014, al-Adnani encouraged followers to
carry out lone wolf attacks, especially if they cannot travel to the
Islamic State.
ISIS has standardized high-quality videos and productions--from
short form to longer documentary reports--across its affiliates. Many
of its videos have been brutally graphic, intended to stoke fear, cow
opponents, and excite followers. Even so, most of their videos have
been focused on ISIS's ability to govern and the nature of the
caliphate. The organization publishes high quality magazines, Dabiq and
now Rumiyah, intended to capture Western and other audiences with the
idea of the caliphate.
The ISIS ``fan boys'' have used thousands of Twitter accounts to
echo such messages and send videos around the world. ISIS has also
created a system of using social media for targeted recruitment and
social isolation of radicalized individuals. These messages have
resonated with specific individuals who have been willing to mobilize
on behalf of ISIS. This new media and recruitment model will be
replicated by other terrorist groups.
Allure of Ideology & Reality of Governance. In its media campaign,
ISIS has also demonstrated that the ideology and narrative of the
caliphate holds purchase with some individuals and can be alluring to a
global audience. Data from ISIS recruitment records analyzed by the
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point demonstrates the diversity of
the foreign fighter recruits, including through their nationalities,
education levels, and backgrounds. ISIS also demonstrated that the
caliphate can be a physical reality imagined today, as opposed to
waiting for a mystical future, and that individuals have agency in its
creation.
With its cruel designs, ISIS was able to alter the map, erasing the
border between Iraq and Syria, displacing unwanted populations, and
exacerbating the weak seams in the countries in which it operates. By
destroying and desecrating historical and sacred sites, it demonstrated
how to erase evidence of a history that does not comport with its
version of reality--while also profiting from the sale of antiquities.
ISIS has also attempted to organize and govern in replacing
authority. It has often filled governance gaps, taking full advantage
of embedded grievances and mistrust, often stoked by sectarian tension,
injustice, and corruption. Though not successful, the organization
developed governing structures, schools, and courts that allowed it to
experiment with controlling populations, imposing its rule, and
embedding itself ideologically with other generations.
ISIS has operated war economies that allowed it to run all aspects
of the oil sector, food distribution, and exploit local businesses,
banks, and money service businesses. ISIS leaders also administered tax
and extortion systems in major cities and learned how to use the local
economy and infrastructure as an economic shield. Even if ISIS physical
footholds were to be taken back tomorrow, it will have demonstrated to
those drawn to this ideology that some form of the caliphate is a real
possibility. It will also have demonstrated ways to manage governance
and economies of major population centers.
Cautionary Tale. The problems that ISIS has encountered--and its
eventual demise as a socalled caliphate--will serve as a cautionary
tale to other groups. Other groups will note the disillusionment of
those who joined ISIS, the inability to keep populations satisfied or
at bay, and the failure of ISIS ultimately to consolidate its territory
and rule. Indeed, al Qaida may begin to message again more clearly that
the premature announcement of the caliphate--without proper grounding
and support--was doomed to fail. Al Qaida might also be reminded that
there are dangers with open and direct confrontation with the West, a
lesson it learned the hard way after the aggressive U.S. response after
the 9/11 attacks.
The ISIS experiment has also demonstrated that it is very hard to
govern large swaths of territory and vast populations for a long time.
Good governance takes management of resources, attention to detail and
mundane tasks, and the ability to compromise. Terrorist groups may not
be constituted by the nature of their organizations to run governments
on their own--but instead may want to embed in existing structures or
political parties. This however dilutes the message and mission of a
committed terrorist group. The ability to govern is made even more
difficult if beliefs and order are being imposed harshly and alienate
influential local leaders and large parts of a local population.
Terrorist groups that hope to operate as insurgencies or proto-states
will again take note that establishing harsh regimes without grassroots
support is difficult to sustain.
The harshness and exclusiveness of the ISIS agenda has also
alienated potential allies, creating fissures in the global violent
Islamic extremist movement. These fissures are not permanent, but they
have pitted like-minded groups such as al Qaida and ISIS against each
other. These are the kinds of fissures that need to be exploited to
avoid the consolidation of terrorism movements across the Arc of
Instability.
Key Principles and U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy
There are certain reinforced lessons for the United States and her
partners that are critical for the counter-terrorism mission. The
United States should keep these squarely in mind as the new
administration constructs the strategy and focus necessary to constrain
the growth, reach, and impact of the violent Islamic extremist
movement--and ultimately defeat it. This will be a generational
challenge, and the U.S. government and its allies need to treat it as
such.
The Underlying Ideology Animates the Terrorist Movement
The underlying ideology and appeal of these violent Islamic
extremist organizations animates the terrorist movements--be it al
Qaida, ISIS, or whatever manifestation emerges next. We cannot ignore
that ideology is a driver for this broader global movement, and we must
work to prevent the perpetuation and embedding of this ideology. This
matters operationally. This ideology drives a violently exclusionary
narrative that focuses on the United States and other ``far enemies''
as principal targets and has become a fundamental part of the jihadi
DNA, regardless of local focus or origins of the group. More broadly,
we run the risk of losing the broader ``battle of ideas'' against a
violent extremist ideology that is infecting a whole new generation of
Muslim youth and defining what it means to be Muslim in the 21st
century.
This is not just about one group or terrorist actor, and it's not a
short-term problem. This is a long-term battle, and we have assets,
allies, and ideas on our side. The vast majority of Muslims are not
drawn to the ideology, and Muslim voices and activists are speaking
against extremism. This is precisely why ISIS has targeted some of them
openly and why voices of moderation have come under direct attack in
places like Bangladesh.
The world must confront directly the outbreaks and manifestations
of this ideology--like it does a pandemic. This requires empowering a
new type of coalition--a ``network of networks'' of non-state and state
actors--that not only counters the extremists' narrative and seeks to
intervene and replace it, but also gets ahead of it through
inoculation.
Mothers and victims of terrorists have organized chapters and
spoken out against radicalizers. Former extremists have organized to
counter recruitment and the ideology on the streets, on campuses, and
online. Muslim youth, imams, and entrepreneurs have developed online
platforms to organize against extremism.
Attempts to amplify these and other credible voices and create new
platforms for expression and a sense of modern identity not dictated by
terrorists have worked on a small scale. All of these efforts must be
scaled up dramatically. Networking, empowering, funding, and enlisting
credible voices are critical, and this has to be done not just by
governments but also by civil society, NGOs, and philanthropists.
Governments need to provide consistent strategic focus, funding,
and a willingness to let a thousand flowers bloom. This includes
seeding investments in this space--like a ``CVE In-QTel''--to allow for
investment in innovation to counter the messaging and manifestations of
extremism. And then we need to scale those projects and networks that
have proven successful with real effects.
I was honored to serve recently on the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) Commission on Countering Violent Extremism
(CVE), co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and
former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It is worth noting some of
the findings from its report, ``Turning Point: A New Comprehensive
Strategy for Countering Violent Extremism,'' published in November
2016:
Diminishing the appeal of extremist ideologies will require a
long-term, generational struggle. The United States and its
allies must combat extremists' hostile and apocalyptic world
view with the same level of commitment that it applies to
dealing with its violent manifestations. We urgently need a new
comprehensive strategy for countering violent extremism--one
that is resolute, rests in soft and hard power, and galvanizes
key allies and partners from government, civil society, and the
private sector.
It is time for the U.S. government and its allies to go all
in to prevent the radicalization and recruitment of a whole new
generation. This is a problem that affects everyone. All
segments of society must pull together to defeat this global
scourge. Yet, they should not have to do so alone. The U.S.
government, its allies, especially from Muslim-majority
countries, and the private sector have an essential role to
play--providing leadership, political support, funding, and
expertise.
The Commission's goal was to clearly articulate what the next
U.S. administration, in close collaboration with governmental
and nongovernmental partners, must do to diminish the appeal of
extremist ideologies and narratives. The plan has eight major
components:
1. Strengthening resistance to extremist ideologies. The international
community must forge a new global partnership around education
reform to stop the teaching of extremist ideologies in schools.
At the same time, we must redouble efforts to enhance respect
for religious diversity, stem the spread of intolerance, and
reinforce community resilience to extremist narratives.
2. Investing in community-led prevention. Governments should enable
civil society efforts to detect and disrupt radicalization and
recruitment, and rehabilitate and reintegrate those who have
succumbed to extremist ideologies and narratives. Community and
civic leaders are at the forefront of challenging violent
extremism but they require much greater funding, support, and
encouragement.
3. Saturating the global marketplace of ideas. Technology companies,
the entertainment industry, community leaders, religious
voices, and others must be enlisted more systematically to
compete with and overtake extremists' narratives in virtual and
real spaces. It is the responsibility of all citizens to rebut
extremists' ideas, wherever they are gaining traction.
4. Aligning policies and values. The United States should put human
rights at the center of CVE, ensuring that its engagement with
domestic and foreign actors advances the rule of law, dignity,
and accountability. In particular, the U.S. government should
review its security assistance to foreign partners to certify
that it is being used in just and sustainable ways.
5. Deploying military and law enforcement tools. The international
community needs to build a new force capability and coalition
to quickly dislodge terrorist groups that control territory,
avert and respond to immediate threats, weaken violent
extremists' projection of strength, and protect our security
and the security of our allies and partners.
6. Exerting White House leadership. The next administration should
establish a new institutional structure, headed by a White
House assistant to the president, to oversee all CVE efforts
and provide clear direction and accountability for results. The
Commission finds that strong and steady executive leadership is
essential to elevating and harmonizing domestic and
international CVE efforts.
7. Expanding CVE models. The United States and its allies and partners
urgently need to enlarge the CVE ecosystem, creating flexible
platforms for funding, implementing, and replicating proven
efforts to address the ideologies, narratives, and
manifestations of violent extremism; and
8. Surging funding. The U.S. government should demonstrate its
commitment to tackling violent extremism by pledging $1 billion
annually to CVE efforts, domestically and internationally.
These resources are meant to catalyze a surge in investment
from other governments, the private sector, and philanthropic
community.
We can change the course of this threat. Doing so will
require aligning all of these pieces into a comprehensive
strategy and investing in CVE programs, partnerships, and
policies at scale and over the next decade or more.
The report lays out in more detail sets of recommendations in line
with these strategic goals. Without question, there needs to be much
more emphasis on the CVE mission. This ideological fight is ultimately
not just about terrorism. These are enemies of humanity--attempting to
spread their ideology like a virus while reshaping borders, history,
and identity. This demands stopping the manifestations of the ideology
itself.
The Laws of Physics Apply
In counter-terrorism, the laws of physics matter. There needs to be
constant presence and pressure to disrupt, dismantle, and deter the
emergence of any serious group that has aspirations to attack U.S.
interests. In the first instance, this means that we should do
everything within the bounds of the law and our Constitution to collect
relevant intelligence and information and to work with allies to ensure
that we understand the threat landscape as it shifts. Terrorist threats
will constantly adapt, and we should not be unilaterally disarming our
ability to see, hear, and understand threats as they emerge.
The United States must apply a sense of urgency and importance to
countering ISIS, al Qaida, and the underlying and motivating ideology
that animates the violent Islamic extremist movement.
We also need persistent pressure against the key elements necessary
for terrorist groups to survive: terrorist leadership--taking key
strategic and operational leaders off the battlefield in rapid
succession to prevent groups from growing or proliferating; financing
and funding--squeezing resources (from local illicit economies to state
sponsorship) to constrain a group's reach and strategic ambitions; and
safe haven--denying any space in which a group can organize, plot, and
exploit the resources or population.
It is in these terrorist archipelagos now occupied and governed by
terrorist groups that they are able to plot, train, interact, and
adapt. With time, space, and leadership, motivated global terrorists
will always innovate and surprise. These territories must be disrupted,
and the links between various ISIS provinces and al Qaida affiliates
must be cut.
Though ISIS is difficult to dislodge, it is hard to imagine that
the international community would allow a global terrorist organization
that has struck so many parts of the world--including the heart of
Europe--and inspired attacks in the United States, to operate a capital
and to occupy and govern urban environments like Mosul, the second
largest city in Iraq.
This requires U.S. leadership, but it does not dictate that the
U.S. be in all places all the time. The United States and her allies
are facing a common terrorist enemy. The United States must therefore
work closely with its trusted partners--to enable, support, and lead
where necessary--to disrupt the short- and long-term threats from
terrorism. Much of this work is underway, including with the U.S.-led
coalition against ISIS, and the U.S. counter-terrorism community
continues to focus on the emerging threats and disrupting them in
concert with capable and willing partners.
Effective and Trusted Partnerships are Essential
Counter-terrorism can only work if there is close collaboration and
trust with effective partners. Building capacity, reinforcing will, and
enabling partners to act against emerging threats is a critical part of
shaping the battle space and preventing terrorist groups from growing
and the movements from metastasizing. This work must be constant to
help build effective working relationships, not just in moments of
crisis. As the Special Operations community likes to remind, ``You
cannot surge trust.''
In denying safe haven, the United States must in the first instance
rely on and support legitimate local and regional partners that have a
vested interest in ensuring that such zones are not allowed to fester.
U.S. counter-terrorism strategy for the past decade has involved
relying on and working with regional partners to disrupt and dismantle
terrorist networks and safe haven. In Southeast Asia, East Africa,
Central Asia, and other regions, this model has helped empower and
enable U.S. allies to work together to combat terrorist groups in their
midst. This model has yet to prove fully effective in all regions, and
the expanding reach of ISIS and al Qaida is a challenge to the United
States and the international community.
The United States should enable key partners--especially European
governments--by spurring even greater intelligence and information
sharing, forcing European partners to sit together to understand the
unfolding threat and determine or establish new mechanisms to increase
real-time information sharing tied to terrorist suspects and plots.
This will involve capacity building with European partners and
increased collection and analysis to fill the gaps in knowledge around
terrorist intentions and capabilities. This becomes critical as ISIS or
successive groups expand beachheads and as the West defends itself
against expeditionary terrorism coming from new safe havens. In concert
with Europe, the United States should help enable local proxies and
allies on the ground to fight ISIS and al Qaida directly. This approach
has worked well in West Africa with the French taking the lead on the
ground.
This also means that the United States must prove to be a loyal,
reliable ally--especially with local actors like the Kurds, on whom
Washington has relied to fight ISIS and save populations. Continued
support to such allies is critical to our long-term ability to enlist
friends to fight with or for us.
In the United States and with key allies, partnerships with the
private sector are essential. The Department of Homeland Security and
Department of State should move even more aggressively toward a model
of layered, systemic defense and resilience for critical infrastructure
and national systems. This is important as terrorist groups like ISIS
begin to flirt with cyber capabilities, and other transnational actors
and their state sponsors probe for weaknesses in the American system
and economy.
National Security Strategies Must Drive CT Strategies and
Priorities
It is self-evident that counter-terrorism strategies cannot be
effective or sustainable if they are not nestled in a broader, coherent
national security strategy. This is easier said than done.
Administrations often say they do not want counter-terrorism to
define and drive U.S. foreign or national security policy, but it is
often the urgency and priority of counter-terrorism operations that
begins to drive U.S. strategy in difficult regions of the world. This
can make sense when there are no easy policy answers to long-term
problems or crises, and the most obvious policy priority is defending
the country from imminent threats.
This does become debilitating or counterproductive when there is
little recognition that terrorist movements have grown more
sophisticated at exploiting local grievances, vacuums of governance and
order, and sectarian tension to embed in communities and countries. The
rapid rise of ISIS is a testament to the importance of diplomacy,
politics, and partner commitment in ensuring that terrorist groups
cannot gain hold. This is a lesson that we have applied well to the
case of Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO forces will remain to support
President Ghani and the Afghan government.
This is also important as Iraq, Syria, Libya, and other countries
work to dislodge ISIS, al Qaida, or other terrorist groups--which leave
behind physical, economic, and psychological scars and destruction.
This requires demining, rebuilding, and reinvestment from locals,
regional actors, and the private sector--and a political commitment by
local governments to ensure reintegration and rebuilding of affected
towns and populations. The problem of refugee flows and displaced
persons--and the potential that such refugees could become disaffected,
marginalized, or even radicalized ties the broader problems of
dislocation to counter-terrorism. This all begins to sound and feel
like nation-building, but the reality is that political, economic, and
social vacuums are susceptible to conflict and exploitation and need to
be addressed. Otherwise, organized terrorist groups will fill the void,
as they continue to do in conflict zones.
Counter-terrorism work is further complicated by the multiple
actors and interests at play in the key conflicts like Syria, the
underlying competition and currents in the region (for example, as seen
between Iran and Saudi Arabia), and the need to tend constantly to the
multiple political and diplomatic factors at play in the Arc of
Instability. This is where a well-defined foreign policy is critical,
and the trust and confidence of U.S. allies is essential--especially if
we are asking them to make hard decisions or to sacrifice with us.
Counter-terrorism can be an enormous enabler to our broader policies,
but the United States needs to apply clear strategies and principles to
our national security work for our counter-terrorism work to be
effective in the long term.
Words Matter
How we talk about and classify the threat of terrorism and the
enemy is critically important. It helps define the legal framework in
which we operate, it explains our intentions and approach to friends
and foes, and it shapes the policies and resources we apply to the
problem. Our language should also reinforce our alliances, strengthen
our message and ideals, and undercut the appeal of our enemies' vision
of the world.
Assessing threats and classifying the risks from terrorism are a
fundamental part of how we calibrate our response and ultimately make
decisions about what the nation will do to defend itself. If we
underestimate the threat, we run the risk of ignoring threats as they
gather and reacting only when it is too late. If we overestimate the
risk, we may overreact, overextend, and misallocate our resources. We
also need to be precise about the threats we are facing and allow for a
``taxonomy'' of threats that we constantly reevaluate.
In this regard, we have heard much that ISIS and terrorism are not
an ``existential'' risk.
Recalibrating and rationalizing risk is the right instinct, but
articulating this in terms of ``existential risk'' has a strategically
dangerous effect. This has the potential to dull the sense of urgency
to confront the real and quickening strategic threat from ISIS and the
movement that may follow.
Repeated, targeted terrorism has strategic impact. Though the
Islamic State may not be able to mount a 9/11-style attack, it has
perpetrated terrorism from Brussels to Baghdad and inspired it in
Orlando and San Bernardino. Al Qaida and ISIS have called on followers
to attack with whatever means possible in Western countries, including
driving into pedestrians. Aside from body counts, psychological impact
and economic consequences, these attacks exacerbate social cleavages
and political instability. They stoke fears of immigration at the
height of a global refugee crisis and animate sectarian and reactionary
forces.
Viewing the threat in a binary fashion -- existential or not
existential -- also fails to account for its dangerous and predictable
adaptations over time. ISIS has adapted quickly by leveraging havens,
especially in cities, and inspiring sympathetic networks throughout the
world to present new threats. It reportedly downed a Russian commercial
airliner, targeted the Egyptian navy and launched coordinated attacks
under the noses of Western security services. It is flirting with
weapons of mass destruction -- using chemical weapons, operating a
chemical weapons unit and accessing labs at Mosul University. It has
used the cyber domain to radicalize using peer-topeer technologies and
to attack online with a new ``United Cyber Caliphate.''
Such a maximalist formulation does not account for the reality that
ISIS, al Qaida, or any successor can adapt very quickly and may present
new and more dangerous threats to U.S. and allied interests--from use
of WMD to cyber attacks.
Further, articulating the threat only in ``existential'' terms
leads to a myopic, insular foreign policy. The Islamic State poses a
direct threat to U.S. allies, having a deeper impact on those societies
-- from genocide and displacement of millions of refugees to the
radicalization of Muslim youth and the hardening of reactionary forces.
The French president has declared repeatedly that Europe is at war
while mourning attacks on French citizens; Kurds and Iraqis are
defending their families and communities; Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon
endure attacks and the massive weight of refugees. To our friends
fighting for their survival with the Islamic State on their doorstep,
this threat looks existential.
By seeming to care only about threats to the Homeland, we damage
the perception of U.S. partnerships and weaken U.S. influence over the
sacrifices our partners must make to defeat terrorism in their midst.
If the threat is not ``existential,'' we may believe we can sit behind
the oceans and contain it. This attitude can dull our willingness to
make hard decisions.
We must always push government agencies to imagine the unimaginable
and not underestimate the will and capacity of global terrorist
organizations to strike U.S. interests and allies. We must continue to
invest resources and energy to prevent terrorist groups from
developing, acquiring, or using weapons of mass destruction. The
Nuclear Security Summits and work in both the Bush and Obama
administrations--starting with the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear
Terrorism--is a great example of the United States focusing global
attention on the potential of nuclear terrorism and the need to prevent
it. The United States has concentrated its strategy, programs, and
international engagements on preventing terrorists from acquiring or
using biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
Conclusion
With the right strategy, focus, and resources, there is no question
the United States can execute an effective counter-terrorism approach.
The United States has the ability, organization, strength, and allies
to defeat violent Islamic extremism in any manifestation--al Qaida,
ISIS, their affiliates, or whatever group may arise next. We should
however take care to learn the lessons of the last fifteen years and
not underestimate the ability of such terrorist groups to innovate,
adapt, and ultimately threaten the United States.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your
questions.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Ambassador?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANIEL BENJAMIN, THE NORMAN E.
McCULLOCH JR. DIRECTOR OF THE JOHN SLOAN DICKEY CENTER FOR
INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING, DARTMOUTH UNIVERSITY, HANOVER, NH
Ambassador Benjamin. Chairman Corker, Ranking Member
Cardin, distinguished members of the committee, thank you very
much for the opportunity to appear today. Thank you for holding
a hearing on this vitally important subject on counter-
terrorism strategy, and thank you for appearing me with my old
friend and colleague, Juan Zarate, with whose testimony I am in
broad agreement.
As we approach the beginning of a new administration, as we
watch events unfold in the Middle East and the continuing
damage being done to ISIS, key questions about our future plans
and orientation are on the table. Let me begin by noting that
over the past several years the United States has made
significant progress against the major jihadist terrorist
groups in the extraordinarily complicated and roiled world that
was created by the chaos post-Saddam Iraq and the Arab
uprisings of 2011 and after. Nevertheless, we face a range of
threats that is increasingly diverse and more widely
distributed geographically. The continuing appeal of the
jihadist narrative and the adaptive nature of these groups pose
an enduring challenge to our national security.
At home--well, let me just say briefly that we saw in the
period 2011 through 2014 a dramatic rise in global terrorism.
At home, the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks more than
doubled the number of jihadist-related deaths in the United
States since the attacks of 9/11. The total, I would add, comes
to 94, and that number, judged by any reasonable standard, is
low and a testament to the extraordinary measures that the
nation has taken since 2001 in law enforcement, intelligence,
military operations, and migration.
It also reflects the high level of integration of the
American Muslim communities who have remained largely immune to
the call of extremism. Indeed, if we consider that there have
been upwards of 225,000 homicides in the nation in this period,
the American populace I would argue has been remarkably well
protected from this form of violence, even if the public
discussion does not reflect this level of security. I say that
recognizing full well that terrorist attacks carry unique and
peculiar horror and that their toll must also be reckoned in
terms of public confidence in our institutions and perceptions
of our global standing.
Having said all that, ISIS today is on the defensive. It
has lost some 55 percent of the territory, inhabited territory
captured in Iraq in 2014. It remains dangerous by virtue of the
sanctuaries that it has where it can recruit, train, and
execute external attacks, as we have seen in Europe, and to
incite assailants around the world. Recent attacks in Europe
further demonstrate that ISIS now has the intent and capability
to direct and execute sophisticated attacks far from its
territory. These attacks have increased in complexity and pace
and are clearly intended to maximize casualties.
In the United States, the threat of ISIS is somewhat
different and on a smaller scale. The group to date has not had
command and control of any of the attacks that have occurred
here. Lone actors or insular groups, often self-directed, pose
the most serious threat, and home-grown violent extremists will
likely continue gravitating to simpler plots often involving
firearms that do not require advanced skills, outside training,
or communication with others.
Terrorism has its own political economy, and for ISIS to
retain its mantle of leadership in the jihadist movement it
must achieve successes that offset and distract from its
military setbacks. Many of those efforts are likely to be in
Iraq and Syria since the local forces' ability to hold and
reconquer territory will be limited.
Continuing sectarian polarization in the region will mean
that however unattractive they may find ISIS, many Sunnis will
support it as a counter to the Shia-dominated government in
Baghdad and to Shia militias. Major population centers,
including Baghdad and other cities, are likely to see
considerable terrorist violence.
ISIS understands as well that another means to maintain its
status is to strike out of area, especially in Europe and, if
possible, North America. And as it loses its grip held on land
since 2014, the operational tempo could well increase.
Now, as I said before, to date we have no evidence of
command and control in an ISIS attack in the United States, and
I think we should be mindful of the reason why, because
contrary to the situation that exists in Europe, and contrary
to some of the rhetoric that we heard in the recent campaign,
we do not have a dysfunctional immigration system, and we do
know who is coming into our country. We have a highly
sophisticated system with many layers. Its procedures have been
steadily expanded and refined to the point where it bears
little resemblance to the system whose vulnerabilities were
exposed on 9/11.
It is, of course, a human system, and therefore there will
be another failure at some point. But since 9/11, it is
important to underscore that every attack, every casualty
caused in this country was caused by someone who was either a
citizen or a green card holder.
We should, I must say--and this is an echo of Senator
Cardin and of what Juan has just said--we should expect that
danger to grow if the tone and the approach of the new
administration resemble in any way the tone and the approach of
the campaign. The U.S. public had already been subjected to an
enormous amount of fear-mongering while ISIS was on the rise in
2014. Threats to cut off all Muslim immigration, restore water-
boarding and other forms of torture, create a national registry
of Muslims, and kill the families of terrorists have all
contributed to a profound unsettling of American Muslim
communities. This will undermine our security in far-reaching
ways, I fear.
It is important to remember that while intelligence and law
enforcement do a great deal to prevent attack, it is also
because of the American Muslim community, which has been
largely immune to extremism, that the number of victims is so
low. Not only are they immune to extremism but they are also
the source of a large percentage of the law enforcement and
intelligence tips that prevent plots from occurring.
Now, I recognize that the time is short, and I do just want
to get to a few of the other issues that you have asked about.
But I do want to just say that, first of all, we should have no
illusions about our ability to eliminate the jihadist threat,
which I think is a persistent problem, particularly in policy
debates. Given the historic dimensions of the changes in the
Middle East, I am afraid that we will be seeing terrorist
violence and jihadist violence for decades to come. It is
nonetheless a threat that I believe we can defend against and
manage if we remain clear-eyed and do not make the mistake of
over-reaction that the jihadis hope we will.
On the military side, I think that we have innovated and
developed really an extraordinary toolkit that will enable us
to continue reducing terrorist/insurgent groups in a very
effective way, and this is really the refinement of the drone
program together with Special Operations in-theater that have
been so effective at intelligence gathering and, by the way,
enabling local forces and targeting high-value operatives and
leaders.
As a way of avoiding putting large numbers of forces into a
combat role, this approach has been successful, although it
requires a great deal of patience while the intelligence base
is built. But those costs in terms of time are more than offset
by the lack of radicalization that ensues from large
deployments.
We need to do more capacity building. The Obama
administration pursued this vigorously in its second term and I
think that, to put it bluntly, we must have capable partners,
especially in the developing world, and we must have them on
the military side, but we must also have them on the civilian
side, and that has been I think woefully underfunded. We need
to have partners who have courts that can convict terrorists,
police that can catch them, prisons that can incarcerate them,
and they need to be treated in a way that observes the rule of
law, because, as we know, radicalization is a direct response
of repression.
We need to strengthen our relationships, and I agree with
Juan on this one entirely. That includes working with our Sunni
partners to try to move them from an excessive focus on
sectarian issues to curbing extremism, and we need to work with
our European partners, who need to do a better job on
intelligence and law enforcement.
We need to prevent radicalization and recruitment at home,
and I will end just by saying here that I think we need to
rebalance our efforts away from counter-messaging, which I
think has not shown the kind of yield, the kind of effects that
we had hoped for, and towards more direct intervention in
communities where teachers, health care providers, religious
leaders and the like can intervene when they see that
individuals are at risk of radicalization.
There is much more to talk about, but I think that is a
good place to stop. I want to thank you again for the
invitation. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Daniel Benjamin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Daniel Benjamin
Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Cardin, Distinguished Members of
the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee today,
and thank you, as well, for holding a hearing on the vitally important
subject of counter-terrorism strategy. As we approach the beginning of
a new administration, and as we watch events unfold in the Middle East
and the continuing damage being done to ISIS, key questions about our
future plans and orientation are on the table.
Let me begin by noting that over the past several years, the United
States has made significant progress against the major jihadist
terrorist groups in the extraordinarily complicated and roiled world
that was created by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Arab uprisings of
2011 and after. Nonetheless, today the range of threats we face has
become increasingly diverse and more widely distributed geographically.
The continuing appeal of the jihadist narrative and the adaptive nature
of these groups pose an enduring challenge to our national security.
In sheer numbers, global terrorist violence rose dramatically in
2011-2014, with the number of fatalities roughly tripling in this
period to about 33,000. In 2015, the incidence of attacks declined
somewhat, and that appears to be continuing this year, but the overall
level of violence in historic terms remains very high. The proximate
drivers of this development have been the rise of ISIS, several ISIS
affiliates and Boko Haram, which has declared its loyalty to ISIS.
At home, the San Bernardino and Orlando attacks more than doubled
the total number of jihadist-related deaths in the United States since
the attacks of 9/11 to 94. That number, judged by any reasonable
standard, is low and a testament to the extraordinary measures the
nation has taken since 2001 in law enforcement, intelligence,
immigration and military operations. It also reflects the high level of
integration of American Muslims, who have remained largely immune to
the call of extremism. Indeed, if we consider that there were upwards
of 225,000 homicides in the nation in 2002-2016, the American populace
has been remarkably well protected from this form of violence--even if
the public discussion of the terrorist threat does not reflect this
level of security. I say that recognizing full well that terrorist
attacks carry a unique and peculiar horror, and that their toll must
also be reckoned in terms of public confidence in our institutions and
perceptions our global standing. I would add, by the way, that most
analysts agree that the nation is considerably safer from
unconventional attack than it was during the years after 9/11, when al
Qaeda remained interested in acquiring and using weapons of mass
destruction. Nonetheless, in the minds of many Americans, the aggregate
threat has grown markedly because of the surge of attacks in the United
States and Europe during the period of ISIS's ascendance.
ISIS today is on the defensive, having lost some 55 percent of the
inhabited territory it captured in Iraq in 2014, but the group still
presents a persistent and critical threat. It has exploited the
conflict in Syria and sectarian tensions in Iraq to entrench itself in
an area at the geographic center of the Middle East. Using both
terrorist and insurgent tactics, the group has seized and is governing
territory, while at the same time securing the allegiance of other
terrorist groups across the Middle East and North Africa. ISIS's
sanctuary enables it to recruit, train, and execute external attacks,
as we have now seen in Europe, and to incite assailants around the
world. Most important, ISIS's core idea of creating a caliphate--an
authentically Islamic polity--and its record of capturing and governing
territory has galvanized extremists in a way that Usama bin Laden's al
Qaeda never could. It has recruited tens of thousands of militants to
join its campaign in the region and to become cadres for bringing the
fight back to their home countries. The group also uses its propaganda
campaign to radicalize others around the world through a sophisticated
set of online approaches.
Recent attacks in Europe further demonstrate that ISIS now has the
intent and capability to direct and execute sophisticated attacks far
from its territory. Over the past year, ISIS has increased the
complexity and pace of its external attacks, which are not merely
inspired but planned, directed and executed by ISIS personnel with a
clear intention to maximize casualties by striking highly vulnerable
targets. The Mumbai-like multi-pronged attack in Paris in November 2015
and the multiple bombings in Brussels in March exposed the weakness of
French and Belgian counter-terrorism capabilities and the large
majority of European nations are unlikely to do much better. The
continent also faces a protracted struggle with homegrown extremism, as
the Charlie Hebdo and Nice attacks indicate, as well as many foiled
plots elsewhere. As ISIS territory comes under greater pressure, the
incentive to carry out terrorist attacks ``out of area'' will continue
to grow, and with more foreign fighters returning to their home
countries, the chances of such events will grow. Recent reports that
ISIS has used chemical weapons in Syria, and that it conducted
surveillance of Belgian nuclear facilities raise the new specter that
the group may be developing an interest in weapons of mass destruction.
In the United States, the threat from ISIS has been on a smaller
scale. The rise of ISIS almost certainly drove the perpetrators of the
San Bernardino and Orlando killings, even if the group had no hand in
command-and-control, and there has been an uptick over the past year in
the number of moderate-to-small scale plots. Lone actors or insular
groups, often self-directed or inspired by overseas groups like ISIS,
pose the most serious threat here. Homegrown violent extremists will
likely continue gravitating to simpler plots that do not require
advanced skills, outside training, or communication with others. The
online environment serves a critical role in radicalizing and
mobilizing homegrown extremists towards violence. Highlighting the
challenge this presents, Director Comey said last year that the FBI has
roughly 900 cases homegrown violent extremist cases, including at least
one in every state. Most of these cases are connected to ISIS.
Although the battle for Mosul continues--and the humanitarian toll
there has been appalling--ISIS is unlikely to be able to reverse its
decline. The number of fighters migrating to ISIS controlled territory
has dropped dramatically, reportedly from a peak of 2000 a month down
to 50, and the group's financial resources are under enormous strain.
The U.S.-led military campaign has killed thousands of ISIS fighters
and significantly rolled back ISIS's territorial gains in parts of Iraq
and Syria. ISIS has not had any major strategic military victories in
Iraq or Syria for over a year. As ISIS loses its hold on territory, its
claim that it has established the ``caliphate'' will be eroded, and the
group will lose much of its distinctive appeal. Outside of the Iraqi/
Syrian theater, the U.S. carries out regular attacks on ISIS targets in
Libya in coordination with the Government of National Accord.
Terrorism has its own political economy, and for ISIS to retain its
mantle of leadership in the jihadist movement, it must achieve
successes that offset and distract from its military setbacks. Many of
those efforts are likely to be in Iraq and Syria, since the local
forces' ability to hold and police reconquered territory will be
limited. Continuing sectarian polarization in the region will mean that
however unattractive they may find ISIS, many Sunnis will support it as
a counter to the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and Shia
militias. Major population centers--including Baghdad and other cities
relatively distant from ISIS-controlled areas--are likely to see
considerable terrorist violence.
ISIS understands well that another means to maintain its status is
to strike ``out of area''--especially in Europe and, if possible, North
America. As it loses its grip on lands held since 2014, the operational
tempo for such attacks could well increase, and the potential for
impact is great. The increase in jihadist violence in Europe--both
ISIS-organized and lone wolf--has caught our allies unprepared. Without
a catalytic experience like 9/11, continental Europeans have
underfunded intelligence and law enforcement for years, paid too little
attention to radicalization in their midst, and failed to integrate
their efforts across national boundaries. As ISIS decays, the danger
from returning foreign fighters will increase. Weak external borders
and the Schengen regime, decades of failed integration policies, the
migration crisis, the rise of populist politics, and petty rivalries
between intelligence and law enforcement have all aggravated the
situation.
Here in the U.S. the picture is different. Contrary to what the
President-elect maintained throughout the recent campaign, we do not
``have a dysfunctional immigration system. that does not permit us to
know who we let into our country.'' Rather, we have a highly
sophisticated system with many layers. Its procedures have been
steadily expanded and refined to the point where it bears little
resemblance to the system whose vulnerabilities were exposed on 9/11.
It is, of course, a human system, so we will undoubtedly find new
shortcomings in future. We must innovate constantly. But it is worth
recalling that not a single terrorism-related death since 9/11 was
caused by foreign operatives coming into the country to cause violence.
From Fort Hood to Orlando, the killings were all caused by U.S.
citizens and green card holders. So the principal danger will remain
from homegrown extremists, especially those who operate alone or in
very small groups. Although, as has been detailed in the press, the
U.S. has become more effective at targeting online recruiters, we
should expect that ISIS will step up its efforts to incite sympathizers
in the country to carry out ``individual acts of jihad.''
We should also expect that danger to grow if the tone and approach
of the new administration resembles in any way the tone and approach of
the Trump campaign. The U.S. public had already been subjected to an
enormous amount of fear-mongering while ISIS was on the rise in 2014.
But threats to cut off all Muslim immigration, restore waterboarding
and other forms of torture, create a national registry of Muslims and
kill the families of terrorists all have contributed to a profound
unsettling of American Muslim communities. So too do now famous tweets
from incoming National Security Advisor Mike Flynn saying, for example
that, ``Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.''
All this demagoguery may have made for effective electoral
politics, as political scientists have observed, but it will undermine
our security in far-reaching ways. Intelligence and law enforcement do
a great deal to prevent attack, but it is also because of the
relatively well-integrated American Muslim community, which has been
largely immune to extremism, that the number of terrorism victims at
home is so low. That is true in two important ways: First, American
Muslims are much less likely to become radicalized. Using travel to
ISIS territories as a proxy, American Muslims are about one-third as
likely to become extremists as their European co-religionists. Second,
American Muslims provide law enforcement with a large volume of tips
that lead to arrests in terrorism cases--according to some estimates,
almost half of such information. If these communities feel that the
authorities are not on their side, then there will be fewer tips and,
of course, more radicalization. The sense of isolation that community
leaders have expressed is a danger sign that should be heeded. The
spike in anti-Muslim hate crime that has accompanied the presidential
campaign provides yet another reason for concern and course correction.
Otherwise, we are clearing the way for increased jihadist recruitment
in the U.S., which we will come to regret.
Let me turn to our strategy going forward. The U.S. will of course
need to continue to use a variety of tools, some of which we have
mastered, others that require innovation. It is difficult to predict
precisely how the jihadi threat will evolve. One thing that we can rule
out with some confidence is that the diminution and even defeat of ISIS
will lead to a large-scale reduction in the jihadi threat. We have the
military might to dramatically affect individual groups, but no amount
of military strength will eliminate the jihadist movement.
To begin with, as long as the fires of the conflict in Syria burn,
radicalization will also continue. In this context, it is worth noting
that a policy along the lines suggested by President-Elect Trump in
Syria--to include working with Russia against jihadis and, as
inevitably would be the case, the Syrian opposition--would exacerbate
matters. If our Sunni partners in such countries as Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, and elsewhere see the U.S. siding with Russia, and, by
extension, with Syria and Iran, it will cause a deeper rift in our
already strained relations, and may cause them to abandon all restraint
regarding who they arm and fund in the Syrian civil war. Needless to
say, this would be disastrous for our efforts to bring peace to Syria
or to limit radicalization.
While ISIS looms large in the constellation of bad actors today, we
need to keep sight of the larger historical developments that have
spawned the jihadist movement. Poor governance in most of the Arab
world, chronic economic underperformance, marginalization and
alienation of youth, the Arab uprisings of 2011-2012 and consequent
weakening and/or failure of multiple states have created opportunities
for the extremists that far surpass anything seen in the past. The
overlapping Sunni-Shia split/regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and
Iran has further energized militants and created precisely the kind of
conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen that breed extremists who will
direct their violence against the West as well as sectarian opponents.
The kind of upheaval we see in Libya, a country that had all its
institutions destroyed under Qaddafi, provides another kind of venue
for dangerous radicalization. In Europe, the failure to integrate
immigrants, youth unemployment, and discrimination will continue to
feed extremism. Defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria so it can no longer
hold territory will help quell global extremist sentiment. But even if
the group is decisively set back, we can expect additional violent
jihadist groups to emerge for many years to come. We cannot exclude the
possibility of a revival of al Qaeda, perhaps growing out of the
turmoil in Yemen. We also should not rule out the emergence of an
entirely new generation of jihadist threats, which might, for example,
emanate from the growing crisis of governance and repression in Egypt.
The threat, in short, will confront us for many years to come.
It is, nonetheless, a threat that we can defend against and manage
if we remain clear-eyed and do not make the mistake of overreaction
that the jihadis hope we will. The Obama administration has employed
military force, intelligence operations, law enforcement and diplomacy
to implement its counter-terrorism policy. I believe these tools have
served us well and should continue to be at the heart of our efforts
going forward. The signature initiative of the first Obama term--the
drone campaign against al Qaeda--has been updated in the fight against
ISIS in Iraq and Syria to include more manned air strikes, special
operations efforts and training and equipping of Iraqi, Kurdish and
Syrian opposition forces. The approach has achieved real success,
though it requires patience--a scarce resource--while the necessary
intelligence base is built up for the campaign. The military effort has
also successfully targeted a significant number of ISIS leaders. United
States special operations forces have gone into Syria to support the
fight against ISIS, bringing a unique set of capabilities, such as
intelligence gathering, enabling local forces, and targeting high-value
ISIS operatives and leaders. As a way of avoiding putting large number
of forces into a combat role, this approach has been useful and
effective; whatever the costs are in terms of time till success, they
are more than offset by the lack of radicalization that ensues from
large deployments.
Let me briefly address some other key considerations--there are far
too many to address them all--that I believe will be important to
success against terrorism. One important requirement is capacity
building, which has grown in importance during President Obama's second
term. Multi-billion dollar requests beginning in 2014 were sent to the
Hill to support both military and civilian efforts. Congress amply
funded the military request in the first round but denied funding to
State. In 2016, however, Congress did partially fund State's
Counterterrorism Partnership Fund requests for both traditional
capacity building efforts focused on law enforcement and high-end
police capabilities. To put it bluntly: the U.S. must have capable
partners, especially in the developing world, where states are often
too weak to defend themselves fully. It is, moreover, imperative that
the resources be made available for civilian-side capacity building
that increase capabilities while respecting human rights--a paramount
concern if we are to avoid the repressive approaches that drive
radicalization. That means strong police, strong courts, legislatures
capable of trying and convicting terrorists and prisons capable of
incarcerating them. We will not always succeed in these efforts, but we
still must broaden them to more countries and deepen our engagement.
Such work will repay the investment when the U.S. does not need to
deploy forces to deal with more jihadist violence far from our borders.
We must strengthen and, in some cases, revitalize our bilateral
partnerships as part of a broader effort to construct an international
coalition against ISIS and jihadist extremism and to resolve the
underlying conflicts in the broader Middle East. The administration has
had limited success at eliciting help from Sunni coalition partners;
the overwhelming majority of partner support has come from Australia
and Western European countries, and that still amounts to a third or
less of our overall contribution. Although Jordan and Bahrain have made
noteworthy contributions, Saudi and Emirati forces have done little,
focusing their efforts instead on the fighting in Yemen. Turkish forces
have also contributed little. So long as the region is more focused on
the sectarian divide, containing and eliminating extremism will be a
secondary or tertiary concern. (Russian efforts, it should be noted,
have focused chiefly on opponents of the Asad regime--not ISIS.)
That said, President-Elect Trump will have his work cut out for him
in this area. Some leaders of Muslim nations--especially non-democratic
ones--may at first be eager to work with a U.S. president who will not
lecture them on human rights or democracy, but their publics are
unlikely to understand why they are meeting or cooperating with someone
who has spoken so disparagingly of Islam, threatened to block Muslims
from entering the U.S. and opined that there was a `` `sickness' in
Islam.'' Since we rely on these partners for intelligence that has
saved American lives, this is a major concern.
Our partnerships with the Sunni Arabs are not the only ones
requiring attention. Although our bilateral intelligence sharing with
European partners is generally acceptable, we need them to step up to
become more productive collectors at home and abroad, especially as the
number of foreign fighters returning from the conflict in Syria
continues to increase. (The migration crisis remains outside the scope
of this hearing, but a robust U.S. effort to ameliorate that issue may
be needed, including through acceptance of more immigrants and active
diplomacy to ensure that those requiring resettlement outside the
region are equitably distributed.) Although our intelligence and
immigration systems have performed well in keeping terrorists out,
Europe is at least partially within our security perimeter due to the
visa waiver program and deep economic ties. Our cooperation on counter-
terrorism efforts outside the continent--including on high-priority
development work--remains fragmented. The U.S. has a vital interest in
European security as well as in Europe's performance as a counter-
terrorism partner inside and outside the continent. We must press
European leaders for greater integration of intelligence and law
enforcement operations especially within Europe but also across the
Atlantic; we also have an interest in seeing increased intelligence and
military cooperation and targeted development assistance and capacity
building in third countries. None of this will be easy during a period
when the transatlantic agenda will already be overloaded with such
issues as Russia, trade and the future of NATO topping a list of urgent
issues.
We will continue to need a robust effort to block terrorist
finance. In 2015, the U.S. government sanctioned more than 30 ISIS-
linked senior leaders, financiers, foreign terrorist facilitators, and
organizations, helping isolate ISIS from the international financial
system. Vigorous continuation of such efforts against ISIS and other
terrorist groups is vital.
We must also deepen our efforts to prevent radicalization and
recruitment at home and abroad. A recognition that a more comprehensive
approach was needed to defeat ISIS--one that included a focus on
addressing the factors driving ISIS recruitment led the White House to
stage an ambitious summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) in
early 2015 and to initiate more vigorous programmatic efforts at home
and overseas. The infrastructure is there for meeting global needs: The
Global Counterterrorism Forum remains an effective institution for
propagating best practices in CVE and civilian CT, and the State
Department-led the creation of the multilateral Global Community
Engagement and Resilience Fund--an innovative public-private fund to
channel grants to local NGOs working on CVE.
In my view, we need to accelerate efforts in this area and
especially rebalance our work to support programs that empower
communities to intervene with at-risk individuals. Overall funding of
CVE--from both the U.S. and partner countries--remains minuscule, with
CVE accounting for less than 10 percent of State/CT's capacity-building
budget. While the global trend has been toward more direct community
engagement aimed at addressing local grievances and providing
vulnerable young people alternative paths, the administration has still
devoted much of its CVE energy to counter messaging, focusing in
particular on the attempt to undermine ISIS online propaganda. In 2016,
the administration folded the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism
Communications (CSCC) into the new GEC, ended CSCC-originated messaging
and created new communications hubs--the first in Dubai and then
another in Malaysia--to be run by Muslim partners. Obviously, we cannot
abandon the public communications sphere to the extremists. At the same
time, though, it is questionable whether messaging linked to ``apostate
regimes'' will be more successful than US-produced messaging. Expert
opinion has become increasingly doubtful about the value of such
campaigns. While some messengers (ISIS defectors, for example) may be
effective, too often, we are spending large sums to reach young people
who are cognitively closed to such appeals.
At home, we also need to realign and deepen our efforts to counter
extremism. American Muslim communities may be our first and best
defense against homegrown radicalization and terrorism as they are the
most likely to recognize the behavioral patterns of radicalization
before it's too late and intervene to help set a young person straight.
Unfortunately, the trust between these communities and the government
is very uneven. Law enforcement is perceived by some as untrustworthy.
There are few, if any, non-law enforcement alternatives to which to
report concerning behavior. And interventions, such as counseling to
prevent violence before law enforcement is needed, remain quite limited
and entirely ad hoc. The FBI and its state and local partners have
achieved some remarkable successes--most recently, the swift
apprehension of Ahmad Khan Rahami, in New Jersey in September. Such
accomplishments increase deterrence against would-be terrorists, but if
we seek to stop radicalization before the turn to violence has
occurred, approaches other than law enforcement are also necessary.
This requires engaging and empowering communities: families, peers,
teachers, religious leaders, mental and public health professionals,
social workers, and others who are often in the best position to
recognize signs of radicalization in young people and work, where
appropriate, with law enforcement to intervene before it's too late.
This is particularly important given that the perpetrators of each of
the recent attacks exhibited behavior that suggested that they were
becoming or were already radicalized. That behavior was observed by
community members who either lacked the knowledge or training, were in
denial, or did not know to whom to turn to other than law enforcement.
Community members need encouragement, guidance, and flexible resources
from all levels of government, as well as the private sector to play
this preventative role effectively and to develop ``off-ramp'' programs
for those at risk or who have begun to embrace terrorist propaganda but
have not committed a crime. In order to broaden and deepen the
involvement of communities in this work, these efforts should be
anchored in a framework centered on preventing targeted violence rather
than the narrower ``CVE'' law enforcement-centric approach that has not
gained traction in or, in some cases, alienated communities. A more
effective approach--similar to what is done in the world of public
health--would involve detecting and interrupting a behavior before it
becomes dangerous and spreads, changing the thinking of those most at
risk, and, in time, reshaping the social norms that exacerbate those
risks.
Pilot programs in Boston, Chicago Los Angeles, Minneapolis and
Montgomery County, Maryland have been working developing this kind of
effort. Framing the work in this way will facilitate efforts to involve
mental health and social service professionals, educators, teachers,
religious leaders, not to mention federal departments and agencies
(e.g., HHS and Education) that have so far been reluctant to get
seriously involved in CVE efforts, and will allow for the development
of the necessary multi-disciplinary/agency approach both in and outside
the Beltway. This, I would submit, is a true ``whole of society''
approach to addressing the multi-faceted challenge of violent
extremism.
Let me close with a final global perspective, which I confess I
offer with little hope that it will make a dent anywhere. The
durability of the jihadist movement reflects the profound social,
governmental and economic dysfunction of many Muslim nations. Since 9/
11, analysts and policymakers--including Secretary Kerry--have spoken
of the need for a comprehensive economic and political reform effort
along the lines of a Marshall Plan in the MENA region. The nation, I
strongly believe, should consider whether it is desirable and feasible
to undertake a genuinely global effort to address the root causes of
extremism, which would entail significant large scale non-military
capacity building, human capital development, local economic
opportunity unencumbered by overbearing bureaucratic impediments, and
poverty alleviation.
Thus far, the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the Great
Recession and the state of Western budgets have prevented any serious
consideration of such an initiative, including at the time of the Arab
Spring, when sympathy for many Middle Eastern countries was greatest. A
meaningful initiative may remain simply out of reach because
prospective partner governments will refuse to reform or require
exorbitant subventions to make it worthwhile for them. Prospective
partners may be unwilling to support a program that will not pay off
for decades. Still, we need to examine the concept of deep engagement
with Muslim-majority countries to advance democratic institutions and
economic opportunity. The region is dangerously broken, and leaving it
in its current condition is a recipe for the development of further
extremism. Such an effort would obviously require support from Europe,
the Gulf, the Pacific Rim and North America.
Quite clearly, such an approach is unlikely to fit in with a
narrowly conceived governing concept of ``America First.'' Nonetheless,
in light of the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend every year on
counter-terrorism, we would be derelict not to think long and hard
about the possible benefits such a comprehensive approach might yield.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present this testimony.
The Chairman. Well, thank you both for those very expansive
opening comments.
With that, I will turn to the distinguished ranking member,
Ben Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Well, Mr. Chairman, first off I want to
thank both our witnesses. I thought you gave a very
comprehensive outline on our strategies moving forward to
counter-terrorism.
Mr. Benjamin, I could not agree with you more about the
importance and the realities of the relationships with the
Muslim community has paid off major benefits as far as safety
in our community. Maryland has a significant Muslim community.
I have worked a long time on the relationship with local
police, with our intelligence communities, and that
relationship has kept I think our state safer, and it is in
everyone's mutual benefit. If that trust does not exist because
there is a view that by helping government you are hurting your
own people, then that really jeopardizes everyone's safety. So,
I appreciate that point.
Mr. Zarate, thank you for mentioning the CSIS study,
``Turning Point.'' It pointed out very clearly that we have to
avoid reactions that play into violent extremists' hands. It
included a former al Qaeda recruiter as saying, ``Radicals and
recruiters love Islamophobia. It drives recruitment.'' The
report further advises that it is important for governments to
avoid rhetoric and responses that estrange Muslim communities.
So I just really want to underscore that point, that we
really play into making our country more vulnerable when we use
that type of rhetoric that estranges Muslims around the world.
I do want to ask both of you a question, though, about what
we should be doing here in this committee. As I pointed out in
my opening statement, most of our resources to fight terrorism
are on the defense side, the DOD side. This committee is
responsible on the State Department and on the so-called ``soft
powers.'' We know the importance of good governance. We have
seen that play out directly in Iraq, that if you do not have a
comprehensive government that all communities respect, you are
not going to be able to maintain peace.
We have resources in our State Department through
diplomacy, through development assistance. Where do you see the
most effective use of those resources? Where could we be doing
better? What would you recommend should be our priorities in
fighting terrorism using your own terminology that we need a
comprehensive foreign policy? How would you have us use those
tools more effectively to counter terrorism?
Ambassador Benjamin. If I may, Senator, I believe that it
is very important to continue with the capacity building in the
military field and the intelligence field, but I think that we
have lagged on the civilian side. We need to do a better job in
terms, as I referred to in my testimony, of training the police
who deal with counter-terrorism. Remember, in most of these
countries, terrorism, as it is in ours, is a police issue, not
a military issue. We need to strengthen their ability to track
terrorists, to collect intelligence on them, but also to try
them, incarcerate them, and also to do the work of countering
violent extremism which is so vital to tamping down
radicalization.
The State Department I think does a good job to the extent
that it is engaged in these areas, but I think it is important
to note that capacity building efforts have grown exponentially
in every other part of the government, and I would say perhaps
arithmetically.
Senator Cardin. Mr. Zarate, I am going to give you a chance
to respond, but I just want to underscore that point. If you
look at our development assistance, most of those funds go into
health programs or food programs, which are very important. I
am for those programs. I do not want to see those programs
marginalized. But the money we spend on capacity building is
not very great. If we look at where the seeds are already there
for growing terrorists such as Africa, where we could be doing
so much more in capacity building, and yet our investments in
capacity building in Africa are very, very small.
Mr. Zarate?
Mr. Zarate. Sir, I can be quick because I agree with
everything Dan has said. I think there are three categories,
really, for you to consider. I think there is the partner
capacity issue that Dan has mentioned, and that is everything
from law and order to the ability to govern.
There are the questions of the aftermath of these
terrorist-held territories. What happens in Mosul after ISIS is
dislodged? We have seen this problem in Ramadi and Fallujah.
How is it rebuilt? What does governance look like? How is trust
rebuilt with the citizenry? We are not going to do that,
obviously, the Iraqis have to do it, but we have to be present
and we have to have the ability to impact that.
And finally, a bigger question here, and it emerged in the
context of the Arab Spring where there was a lot of, I think,
Pollyannish analysis that things would go incredibly well, that
the arc of history would bend in our direction in terms of the
Arab Spring. There was a lot of discussion at the time as to
whether or not we needed to consider a Marshall Plan-like
structure for dealing with what was inevitably going to be
dislocations, lack of governance and, frankly, pockets of
vacuums that terrorists and jihadis were going to fill. Many of
us were warning that this was probably going to happen.
I think those three areas are three conceptual areas where
this committee can focus.
One final point. There is room for private sector
engagement in a way that we have not done creatively enough. In
the report on countering violent extremism, we lay out some
very interesting ideas for how to leverage the private sector
not just from a media perspective but in terms of actually
organizing against the manifestations of the ideology as it
emerges in places like Bangladesh, Nigeria, and around the
world. The private sector has a key role to play, and there are
a number of programs that need to be scaled up and supported,
and I think that is something for this committee to look at.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. I thank both of you again for
your testimony.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Perdue?
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
I want to follow the money, briefly. It just seems to me,
looking at this, that we are at war, and sometimes we do not
approach it that way. I believe our homeland has been invaded.
When you see the rise of home-grown terrorists, the lone wolves
and so forth who have been radicalized through social media and
the Internet, I believe our borders have been breached. I think
we are at war, and I think we have got to face up to that
reality.
But I want to talk about the financing of this. Mr. Zarate,
to start with, we saw ISIS grow very radically early and
rapidly through the use of oil resources, selling antiquities.
In other parts of the world we see the illicit trade of
wildlife and so forth. What can we do? I mean, you were the
first undersecretary that really attacked this, I believe, and
what I would like to get at is what are the loopholes? What are
the ways that we can track the money and actually fight them
through the financial ways that we can, and also limit their
use of established financial systems throughout the world?
Mr. Zarate. Senator, great question, and they both link,
actually, because I think one of the things that we were slow
to realize is that in cutting off terrorist funding, which is
essential to cutting off the lifeline for these groups to give
life to their programs to have global reach, you have to
actually treat it like a war. And especially when these groups
are holding territory, holding resources, have populations and
even financial institutions at their command, we actually have
to find ways of physically dislodging them, and that is what
has been so effective over the last year-plus. We have
dislodged them from their control of territory, oil resources,
hit their mobile refineries. We have even begun to hit them
physically, their cash centers. We have seen these videos of
the U.S. military blowing up these cash centers and the cash
flying up in the air.
So the first thing we have to recognize is that when these
groups--and more and more of these groups are figuring out that
they can control localities and local economies--when they
control those economies, you actually have to physically
dislodge them. There is not much you can do from afar to effect
what they can do on the ground, and we have done that
relatively well over the last year.
The second thing that can be done, Senator, is to find
where those chokepoints are in the system where their economy
hits the regional or even the global economy. So in the context
of ISIS, the question was who are the brokers with whom they
are doing business? How are they actually moving their money?
How are they trading in antiquities? How are they selling their
oil? Where are the money service businesses that they are
operating? What money service businesses or banks are they
using in Mosul, or even Raqqa, or Sirte, to actually move their
money? So finding what those chokepoints look like is
essential, and frankly intelligence is key to that, and I think
we were a bit blind to how this emerged. We have gotten much
better----
Senator Perdue. Have we focused the resources to really do
what you are saying there?
Mr. Zarate. I think we have now. With our departure in
2011, in all honesty, I think we blinded ourselves to what was
emerging. We had seen with the terrorist financing tracking
cell that we had established in Iraq how al Qaeda was using
some of the same mechanisms that ISIS eventually used. We
dismantled that capability, and we have been playing catch-up
ever since.
So I think it is important to realize that the long pole in
the tent here is intelligence and information to understand
where these groups, be they the groups and militias using
wildlife trafficking or drug trafficking or oil smuggling,
whatever it is, how they are actually running an economy, how
they are linking to the formal financial system. Once we know
that, we have a set of tools that begin to shut that down and
begin to restrict their ability to raise and move money.
Senator Perdue. Thank you.
Mr. Ambassador, I have a question about Europe. How do we
coordinate with our allies in Europe? We see a lot of activity
over there. We know that Brussels is a haven for terrorist
activity and so forth, and is being exported to this country
through Europe. General Breedlove even said that Putin is
involved with the radicalization and the weaponization of the
refugee problem in Eastern Europe.
What can we do, and how would you advise the incoming
administration to coordinate with our allies in Europe to fight
this?
Ambassador Benjamin. Our coordination with our European
partners tends to be pretty good. Our problem is the
coordination within Europe itself between different European
partners. Intelligence gathering is not a European--that is,
EU--competency. It is a national government one. And for that
reason, and because of the nature of intelligence work, many of
the services are not fully trusting in one another. In some
ways, they are still more in the Cold War era than we are at
this point. Europe never had the 9/11 galvanizing experience
that we did, and as a result it has never spent the money on
law enforcement, on intelligence, on border controls that we
have.
I think that the new administration should engage
vigorously with the Europeans and push them hard, and this
needs to be done at a very high level to integrate more
effectively. I know the current administration has pushed this
issue and has offered them various kinds of technical
assistance so that they can integrate their many different
databases more effectively. But I have to tell you, it is going
to be rough sledding because Europe has an awful lot of issues
on its agenda right now. But I do think that they need to do a
better job, and they really need to increase the resources
devoted to this problem.
Let me just add, though, that perhaps the issue that is
most dangerous of all for Europe right now is the migration
one, not only because of the domestic problems it creates but
also because it is politically tearing apart the EU. So it
seems to me that as part of a broader strategy to deal with
this, the United States should take a leadership role and try
to help Europe with the migration crisis in terms of a global
approach to dividing up extremely needy people who have been
the victims of a horrible war, resettling them around the globe
as necessary, because until that is done, I fear we are going
to be in crisis management for a very long time.
Senator Perdue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Menendez?
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you both for your service and for your testimony.
As the new year approaches, we find ourselves 15 years
removed from September 11th, 13 years from the invasion of
Afghanistan and Iraq, five years from the turmoil of the Arab
Spring, two years from Baghdadi's declaration of a caliphate,
and conflict ranges across the Middle East and North Africa,
horrible civil war in Syria, failing states in Libya and Yemen,
sectarianism hardening. So we should not be surprised that
violent extremism flourishes in such conditions, or that we are
not immune from the blowback.
By the end of last year, more than 31,000 people from at
least 86 countries have migrated to ISIL-controlled lands,
testifying to the global appeal of their extremist ideology. It
is in the backdrop that I look at and I appreciate this hearing
because it is a time of inflection and reflection to think
about what we have not done or have not achieved, or what we
have done well but maybe what we should be doing as well.
Several years ago I made a speech, well before this time,
that if we did not listen to the Arab street, we would live
with the consequences of it. What did I mean by that? We had an
overwhelming population incredibly young and incredibly poor,
with no aspirations of seeing anything in the future that would
be better, governance and governments not taking care of their
own people, and economic conditions that would not create the
opportunity for people to realize their hopes and dreams and
aspirations. Therefore, you go and listen to the suggestions
that glorification comes in dying, and you get pieces of gold
and other enhancements as a result.
For those of us in the Western world who live in
democracies and what-not, we find it incredibly hard to believe
that someone would succumb to that belief. But when you are
desperate, it is amazing what can happen.
So my question is, yes, we are doing--and I have supported
all of the efforts to deal with the military, intelligence, and
other elements, but that almost seems ripe for a perpetual war.
So the question in my mind is, should we not be equally
addressing the questions of the economic underpinnings that
create masses to be disenfranchised to the point that their
purposes can be perverted? Should we not be focusing more on
governance as a way to move towards better economies? Is that
not also in our national interest and the national security of
the United States? And should we not be more significantly, in
a broad-based collaborative network way, be dealing in the
social media realm to counteract? And I think both of you have
referred to that. But how do we do that more extensively, more
collectively, more powerfully than we are doing right now?
And lastly--so I will put all three questions out there and
then give the rest of the time for you to answer. I think,
Ambassador Benjamin, you said that terrorism and ISIS have
their own political economy. And I would say to you and Mr.
Zarate, well, how do we attack that political economy
successfully? What regulatory impediments could Congress fix
that would allow Treasury and State to more effectively employ
the tool of financial sanctions in our counter-terrorism
efforts towards that economy?
So if you could comment on those three things, I would be
appreciative.
Ambassador Benjamin. Juan has graciously let me lead on
this.
So, on your broad point of the chaos in the broader Middle
East, I am in full agreement and I think that we face, as I
said in my testimony--and it is in the written record--a very,
very long-term challenge that will be very difficult to escape.
We are talking about historical changes on a scale that have
not been seen certainly since the end of World War I, the
period of colonization, the end of the caliphate, and in many
ways on a socio-economic scale that is simply unprecedented.
Senator Menendez. But if we do not start down that
journey--I admit that it is long. But if we do not start down
that journey, then we are destined to ultimately live with the
consequences.
Ambassador Benjamin. I fully agree. I think that this is
the moment from a global perspective that requires an enormous
amount of American leadership and that is going to bring
together the wealthy countries of the West, the Gulf, and
others to begin to incentivize good governance and better
economic institutions and arrangements in this region. I think
it is going to be extremely difficult, but I think we should do
it. It is going to cost an awful lot of money, and I guess I
question whether or not, in a period of America First, we are
prepared to do something like that. But that would certainly be
my recommendation to any incoming administration.
Mr. Zarate. Senator, you are always insightful and
certainly ahead of the curve, and I think you have been on this
as well.
Senator Menendez. You can stop there. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. And his time is up, too. [Laughter.]
Senator Menendez. It is the Cuban-American thing.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Zarate. I do think we have to realize that this is a
generational struggle, and it has all of the components that
you have described and that Dan and I have put in our
testimony. We have to realize that the nature has changed.
To Senator Perdue's point, we are at war. It looks very
different than past wars. It is not going to have a neat
expiration date. And frankly, our European partners have
realized over time that they are at war. The French president
and prime minister have talked about this in those terms.
So we do have to realize that this is a war, that it is
generational, and that you do have to employ all elements of
national and international power.
In terms of governance, you are absolutely right. There are
short-term dimensions. You have to fill voids so that these
groups do not take hold.
One of the things I worry about in Libya, for example, is
that the new council, the Mujahedeen council in Derna is now
filled with al Qaeda folks. Al Qaeda has grown much smarter as
they are reemerging. They have relabeled themselves in Syria as
a way of legitimizing themselves and distancing themselves from
the al Qaeda brand, very smartly.
So I worry that in the short term, if you do not fill the
void, these actors are very smart and they will adapt and take
advantage. In the long term, you have to have a solution to
these questions of identity, of aspiration, and there is no
question that there is a crisis of identity in many parts of
the Muslim world and with Muslim communities.
Fortunately, I do not think that has taken hold in the
United States, and one of the key elements of countering
violent extremism in the homeland is making sure that the
ideology never has real purchase or longevity in the homeland.
I think if we can get to the point where we begin to look like
Londonistan or Molenbeek, we have got a real problem. We are
not there by any stretch, and I think we have to make sure that
we never get there.
But I could not agree more that the governance issues in
the context of a movement that really is trying to reshape maps
and history--this is a movement--is trying to give identity and
shape in a very convoluted and dangerous environment, and we
have got to shape the environment.
Senator Menendez. My time has expired. But if you can in a
separate setting give me ideas on regulatory changes that would
make our financial sanctions more effective, I would appreciate
it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Gardner?
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, both of you, for being here today and sharing
your expertise.
Ambassador, just to follow up on something, you made a
comment to Senator Perdue about talking about the intelligence
situation in the EU and Europe in general. It is pretty clear
that when our focus shifted to the Middle East, terrorism in
the Middle East, that we started shifting our intel assets and
resources from Europe and obviously have not built up to where
we were at in the midst of the Cold War.
What level are we in terms of appropriate intelligence
responses, assets and build-up in Europe today to understand
the threat from Russia and others in the EU, in Europe in
general?
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, I confess I do not think I am
entirely qualified to answer that, not being from the
intelligence community. My concern was less with the staffing
of U.S. people in Europe or on the staffs in the various
agencies here than it was with what we were getting from our
liaison partners, because liaison partnerships remain
absolutely vital.
But I will say that one of the great challenges facing the
intelligence community today, of course, is doing all of these
different things. You mentioned Russia, and it is really tough
when you are dealing with the potential of an imminent
terrorist threat to also be resourcing people who are looking
at long-term trends in Russia as well.
Senator Gardner. But would you agree that we cannot simply
rely on European nations to provide us both an intelligence
look into Russia and the Middle East because you have the
north/south split for----
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, we do not rely on them for
either of those things. We rely on our own services for that
and for others who are in the region. We rely on liaison
services in the Middle East heavily for counter-terrorism
information. Every intelligence operation worth its salt relies
on a combination of its own resources as well as those of its
partner services. No one can do it all by themselves. And,
quite frankly, in the Middle East, for example, we just do not
have the kind of personnel who can do that work. We are really
challenged in this period, there is no question about it.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Mr. Zarate, a couple of questions for you.
If you look at Southeast Asia--we talk a lot about the
Middle East, but if you look at Southeast Asia, 240 million
people, the population, some of the largest Muslim-majority
countries in the world, 15 percent of the Muslim population in
terms of the Sunni Muslim population, 40 percent of Southeast
Asia's overall population, what do you see happening right now
in Southeast Asia that is of concern to U.S. interests in the
region, how that growth of terrorism is occurring, and the
spread and recruitment taking place in Southeast Asia?
Mr. Zarate. Great question, Senator, because I think a few
years ago we certainly saw Southeast Asia as a success story in
terms of our ability to contain the growth of the terrorism
threat, even the growth of the ideology, even though it was
still present and we saw attacks, as we saw in Bali and other
places in Southeast Asia.
I think one of the dangerous things that we have seen--and
part of this is the reanimation that ISIS has provided to the
jihadi networks that have existed in the past--is a reanimation
of operational cells in Southeast Asia that are tying back to
groups like ISIS, or even al Qaeda. They are regenerating
themselves after having been suppressed or deterred for some
time. So I think that is the first order of battle, and you
have seen attacks emerge.
Secondly, I think the ideology has had a bit of a
renaissance, unfortunately. You have seen rallies, for example,
in Indonesia, mass rallies where the violent Islamic extremist
ideology seems to have grown a bit more popular, and I think
that has implications politically, and that we have got to
watch very carefully because to the extent that Salafi
politicians begin to take hold in Southeast Asia, that begins
to affect policy and dynamics and our ability to work with
them, perhaps.
Finally, I think the diaspora communities are of concern.
So, for example, in Singapore they have worried often about,
for example, the Bangladeshis that are radicalized. They
recently arrested a whole slew of individuals. So diaspora
communities have proven problematic at times in these areas.
So those are three concerns that I have looking at the
environment currently.
Senator Gardner. To follow up on that question, though,
have we done enough in terms of our prioritization on counter-
terrorism assistance to them to help build their capabilities
to monitor, to track, and to prevent terrorism recruitment, to
know who is coming back in from Syria? And do we have an
overall high enough priority on counterterrorism efforts in
Southeast Asia right now? Have we prioritized it decently
enough?
Mr. Zarate. To be honest, I have not seen current resource
levels and the rest. But I would say that one of the successes
in Southeast Asia that we can build on and that has really been
a success is the sharing of labor around this intelligence
work. I mean, one of the great things in Southeast Asia is that
you have a partner and five eyes in the Australians, who are
present, who have just as much if not more interest than we do
in terms of watching what is happening, capable partners like
the Singaporeans who are very committed to stability in the
region.
So these are all partners that are devoting resources and
working closely together and that we are trying to amplify.
One word of caution, though, and this is where counter-
terrorism fits so importantly into our foreign policy. Our
partners have to want to work with us, and what we have seen
currently with the political maneuvering in Manila with the
removal potentially of U.S. Special Forces in the south, it is
troubling because that partnership has been incredibly
important to diminishing the reach of Abu Sayyaf, the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front, both of which have flirted with ISIS
support. So how we manage the foreign policy there begins to
impact very directly what we can do with our partnership.
Senator Gardner. And I, too, would like to follow up with
you a little bit on how we can be more effective in a different
region of the world, and that is our sanctions in North Korea,
against individuals in North Korea. Victor Cha and Ambassador
Galluci just issued a report talking about the importance of
identifying individuals, isolating them from the worldwide
financial systems, and how we can be more effective in
targeting the ways that dollars are getting back into the North
Korean nuclear regime.
So, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Kaine?
Mr. Zarate. May I just make one quick follow-up, Senator?
Just to tie back to something that Senator Cardin was inquiring
about before.
If we went back to 2003-2004, we probably, if you polled a
lot of counter-terrorism experts, would have said that
Southeast Asia was one of the true crisis regions and that we
would worry about the fundamental stability of Indonesia.
One of our success stories, I would say, in the capacity
building area has been in Indonesia. We are fortunate that it
is a large and very vibrant democracy and we had very, very
effective partners, particularly in the high-end policing area,
but also in the judiciary there. So I think that while there
are occasionally worrisome signs that we should not in any way
be complacent about, this is a demonstration of what you can do
if you invest in a partner country.
Senator Gardner. But I do think we have to be careful
because in conversations with the Singapore officials, they
talk about the emergence of a hardline element in Indonesia and
recruitment obviously in Indonesia's national language, and the
Malay language that is increasing. So I agree with you, but we
cannot be complacent because there seems to be a larger element
that is rising.
The Chairman. Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
kind comments earlier. I am energized to be back with good
colleagues here, and this hearing is a good explanation of why.
Two things happened last week during our Thanksgiving
recess that I thought were interesting and a close connection.
On the 24th of November, Thanksgiving Day, we had the first
American combat death in Syria, Chief Petty Officer Scott
Dayton of Virginia, from Woodbridge here in Northern Virginia,
who was based out of Virginia Beach who was a bomb disposal
expert who was killed about 30 miles from Raqqa.
And second, on the 27th there were news stories about the
President's decision to send to Congress a notice under the War
Powers Resolution to basically say that he wants to use the 9/
11 authorization passed in 2001 to expand activities against Al
Shabaab in Somalia.
Senator Perdue talked about world war, and Senator Menendez
talked about perpetual war, and both of these instances
occurring a couple of days from each other, a combat death in
Syria and actions against an organization that did not start
until two years after the attacks of 9/11, expansion of
military kinetic activity against Al-Shabaab, which did not
exist until 2006 or 2007. I think it demonstrates the mutating
scope of the war.
I have raised questions about the legality of the war
pursuant to the authorization.
But setting aside those questions, we are 15 years after an
authorization that is being used now--I think it has been used
37 times by Presidents Obama and Bush to justify kinetic action
in 13 different nations. I do think it is a point of reflection
and inflection when you bring in a new Congress, when you bring
in a new administration, to assess what is going on and
continuing to trace back all of these kinetic activities in 13
different nations to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack. I
think we all recognize that there is some artifice there, and
it is a good moment to do that reflection or inflection.
Each of you have testified--the title here is ``The Future
of Counter-Terrorism Strategy,'' but each of you have testified
to some degree that the counter-terrorism strategy has to be
part of a larger foreign policy strategy. One of the great
things about this committee is we have a lot of people on the
committee who really want to think about bigger-picture
strategic questions.
So I would love it if each of you could talk about counter-
terrorism strategy as part of a larger strategy. What would
your advice to the committee be at this moment of inflection,
or to a new administration at this moment of inflection of how
we ought to see counter-terrorism strategy fitting into broader
strategic questions? What are the broader strategic questions
that we ought to be trying to answer to determine what the
right counter-terrorism strategy is?
Mr. Zarate. Senator, if I could just address the AUMF
question, because you have been leading on this for a long time
and speaking about it, I think rightly, because it is an
important legal policy and moral question as to how we define
the war and where we use targeted killing and other tools.
I think a key question in the context of the AUMF--and then
it relates to the broader question of our future strategy--is
how we define the prevention of the manifestation of this
movement in its various forms, and you have articulated that it
has manifested around the world and especially where there is a
lack of governance and vacuums of authority.
At what point--how do we define prevention? This
administration has defined that in a variety of ways, but it
has redefined the sense of imminence to allow for the use of
targeted killings in a sooner and a more prolific way. I agree
with that, but it is an important question because it goes to
the heart of what the purpose of the AUMF is. The original AUMF
in 2001 was not only related back to the 9/11 attacks but also
has a provision in it, as you know, with respect to prevention
of future attacks from those same groups. So that question of
prevention is critical.
The second is labeling. How do you label these groups as
they redefine themselves, as they morph, as they shift gears,
and frankly as they redefine the map itself? ISIS has erased
the border between Iraq and Syria. If you look at the map, it
is hard to even figure out what you are looking at sometimes.
So those traditional authorities, the authorities that Dan
used, for example, for labeling terrorist organizations, are in
some ways outdated because the groups are adapting around this
in a dynamic way.
So I just wanted to comment on that because I think your
point is really important.
Three things, I think, are important long term for this
committee. One is what is the nature of partnership? I think we
have got great models in terms of how we create regional
alliances to deal with the manifestation of these issues, in
the trans-Sahel with the French taking the lead, in East Africa
with the Kenyans, the African Union, the Ethiopians taking the
lead in supporting Somalis.
I think also this question of how we support sub-state
actors and alliances at the tribal, at the local level, the
whole question of the Kurdish support is critical. So how we
define that is really important, and I think this committee has
a key role to play in defining that.
How we think about soft power and the use of tools. Again,
we have talked about this in the context of countering violent
extremism, but how we think about capacity building, how we
think about long-term issues of governance.
And then finally, where do we see America playing a role in
all of these regions and conflicts. What is America's role in
shaping the battlefield? We do not want to occupy, of course,
every place there is a conflict, and we do not want American
service members dying in these places. At the same time, we
have to be present, and as I say in my testimony, the laws of
physics apply, and American leadership is still critical. So
what does that mean in a more difficult, diverse, global
counter-terrorism environment, especially when we do not have
reliable partners in places like Yemen, Libya, and Syria?
Ambassador Benjamin. I think it is illustrative that Juan
and I are in very broad agreement, because although the issue
of terrorism remains a highly politicized one in the nation, I
think in the mainstream on both sides of the aisle there is
broad agreement about a lot of the things that are necessary.
And I, too, would focus on this being a moment when we think
hard about what it means to be engaged around the world on a
variety of different levels.
I would strongly agree with Juan, we need to redouble and
redouble again our capacity building efforts, and not so we
create a lot of empowered militaries under dictatorships who
will then repress their populaces, because that is a certain
guarantee for radicalization, but rather that we need to have
broad-based engagement, much greater engagement on the civilian
side, coupled with insistence on compliance with the rule of
law, because that is how societies will deal with the
grievances in their midst that drive radicalization.
I think at the moment we spend an enormous amount of money
on our military, and rightly so, and we are going to need to
spend a good deal more money on promoting good governance while
also promoting those in situations within societies that deal
with terrorism at the tactical level--police, judiciary,
prisons--and, of course, the many different elements in society
that deal with countering violent extremism.
I also think that even in those countries that we do not
need to invest in, we need a deeper engagement in terms of the
partnerships that we build. We need a great deal of help from
the Europeans in dealing with societies at risk in Africa, in
South Asia, in any number of different places. We have some
fledgling institutions to work with; for example, the Global
Counter-Terrorism Forum, the GCTF, which is an offspring of
that which funds CVE programs around the world, but they are
really small. We are not going to get from here to there if we
continue to be incremental in the smallest sense of the word.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Murphy?
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here today.
I am glad that we have spent a good amount of time here
talking about the roots of extremism. We tend to spend most of
our time talking about how to combat extremism after the fact,
and I thank you for your comments on this.
Broadly, there are a number of different dynamics at play
when you think about how somebody becomes radicalized. There is
an economic dynamic. There is a political dynamic. There is a
religious dynamic. I think we are pretty good at talking about
the political dynamic, which probably over the last 10 years we
have exacerbated as a country. We are pretty good at talking
about the economic dynamic, which we have probably underfunded.
But we are pretty terrible at talking about the religious
dynamic. It is one that I would argue we cannot afford to
ignore any longer.
Since 1979, there has been a fight on in the Middle East,
expanded all across the globe, as to what the true nature of
Islam is going to be. In the last 10 years the Gulf states, the
Saudis in particular, have put more and more money into a very
conservative, very intolerant brand of the religion which has
formed the basis, the foundation for these extremist groups.
Often the Salafi textbooks are just taken word for word and
turned into recruitment materials for some of these
organizations.
If you go to the Balkans today, it looks very different
than it did 10 years ago. There are women being paid to wear
head coverings. There are more mosques preaching that brand of
Islam than ever before.
So I guess I just sort of pose this as a question to you.
We have not talked about it at all here today. And yet without
that religious dynamic, I do not know that we can tell the same
story about the radicalization of peoples throughout the world
that we can today.
So just help us understand how we intersect with this
discussion. Should we be talking about it? And if we should,
how do we intersect here? I think it is a very uncomfortable
topic, for good reasons, right? The United States should not be
weighing in, in a definitive sense, as to what the true or
right version of Islam is, but we cannot ignore the fact that
if we let the current dynamic play out as it is, it makes it
really hard to solve this problem simply with political and
economic responses.
Mr. Zarate. Senator, you hit the nail on the head in terms
of the complexity of dealing with this violent Islamic
extremist ideology and how it is manifested and embedded. I
will tell you that I spent countless hours trying to figure out
how you deal with what is a movement that is warping tenets of
one of the world's great religions to reshape the sense of
Muslim identity in the 21st century when the U.S. Government is
neither placed nor expert nor by the First Amendment postured
or legally enabled to do anything in that realm. This is why
the analogies to the Cold War battle ideologically is a bit
off. It is a little bit of apples and oranges.
The Cold War analogy was two basically Western ideologies
that were competing in the marketplace of politics and
economics, and certainly in the battle place of ideas, but it
was largely in a Western context, and it certainly was not
religious. Obviously, the Soviets were trying to excise
religion from their societies.
But this is very different because the animating feature of
this movement is to try to pull on and shape that very
religious identity. So they try to use schools and texts to
their advantage. You have seen ISIS develop schools to try to
brainwash the next generation of radicals. They have recruited
women to try to create a sense of family and to create a sense
of what home life in an Islamic caliphate looks like, all with
the sense that in their mind a true Muslim society, a true
Muslim believer, has to subscribe to their vision of the world,
has to subscribe to their dictates.
So I could not agree more, that is a key issue.
Senator Murphy. But that does not happen in a vacuum. I
think we often just focus on what ISIS is doing. That does not
happen in a vacuum. It happens upon a foundation that is funded
in part by allies of the United States.
Mr. Zarate. Yes, and it is not just on the Sunni side
either. As I mentioned in my testimony, it is also on the Shia
side, right? So you mentioned 1979. It was the siege of Mecca.
It was also the Iranian revolution, and it was a key moment in
the context of where this ideology and the clash of violent
Islamic extremism was headed, and we are seeing the fruits of
that now, especially with the proxy battles.
So you are absolutely right, this is why we have to rely so
heavily on Muslim majority countries, credible voices, not just
clerics but also key influencers in Muslim communities. It is
why in the report I mentioned from CSIS we focus so heavily on
funding and enabling non-governmental actors to actually have a
central role in countering the ideology and offering
alternatives; and, as Dan said, being a part of intervention
strategies in places like Minneapolis or Boston or L.A.
So it actually forces you to rethink what the model is
because it cannot be that the U.S. Government is absent, but it
cannot be that the U.S. Government is the voice. So what does
that then look like? It means you have to have partners that
are non-traditional that begin to counter the ideology and
shape what it means to be Muslim in the 21st century, and we
cannot be shy about it. Muslim Americans know that they are
under assault. ISIS is trying to recruit Somali Americans. They
are trying to get Muslim Americans to kill fellow citizens.
They know they are under assault. They need U.S. Government
help, but they also need to be seen as enablers and not
necessarily as just victims, or even as threats.
Ambassador Benjamin. It is a big issue, Senator, and this
is, in a sense, where I got on, because my first book was
called The Age of Sacred Terror, and it was about the rise of
religious extremism especially in Islam, but in all the major
faiths, where we have seen growing tendencies to violence.
I think Juan gets it right. It is a real problem for us to
be a part of this dialogue. It is really in many ways a dispute
within Islam. We need to find those partners with whom we can
work who are, in our view, promoting a positive message. We
have an enormous problem with the country or countries that
have put the most money into propagating extremism because
those are also some of our very, very closest intelligence
partners, and they provide us with tactical intelligence that
saves lives. So it is a paradox, and those of us who have tried
to push this in the government have come up against hard
barriers because of that problem.
I understand that we are short on time, so I would be happy
to take this up with you later.
Senator Murphy. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Senator Coons?
Senator Coons. Thank you. I would like to thank the
Chairman, the ranking member, and the panel. You have given
tremendous testimony today.
I know my time is short, as well as yours likely is, so let
me just follow up, if I could, on the point you made, Mr.
Zarate, on the recent CSIS report that you referenced.
I am very interested in your calling for the next
administration to have an assistant to the president who would
expressly be focused on building public-private partnerships
and countering violent extremism goals.
We have Hollywood. We have some of the best TV shows and
online content in the world. In many ways American companies
and content creators invented modern social media which ISIS
and others have turned to perverted ends.
How would you imagine us most effectively using this new
resource and role to engage in countering extremism here at
home? And how can we better engage the more than 3 million
American Muslims who, as you said, are in some ways really
caught in the middle between this global contest over the
future identity of Islam and this concern by many Americans
about our security at home? And how can we better reinforce
that the integration of American Muslims is the best almost in
any Western society outside the Muslim world?
Mr. Zarate. Thank you, Senator. What you have just
described is precisely why you need someone, be it in the White
House or in some other structure, that has not only the mandate
but also the authority to coordinate what is happening
internationally as well as domestically on these issues.
I think one of the challenges that we have seen in the
space is that what we can do and influence abroad often cannot
get translated domestically for good legal reasons. But you do
need somebody who is able to coordinate what is happening
internationally, connecting the countering violent extremism
mission to our broader policy goals to what we are trying to do
domestically, which is largely to enable Muslim American
communities to not only defend themselves against this ideology
but to enable them to be proactive participants in dealing with
the threat.
This idea of intervention models, community-led
intervention models is an important one. That has to be done
with the help of the Department of Justice, the FBI, the
Department of Homeland Security, but that cannot be set in
isolation from what the State Department does or the
intelligence community does.
So the idea here is you have got to have somebody that is
concentrated on this issue, concentrated on integrating it
internally, and then, as you said, Senator, figuring out what
is the right way of leveraging the non-state elements of our
power to actually influence, and that is technology companies,
media companies, the artistry fields, singers, songwriters, et
cetera, entrepreneurs, into a broader campaign to think about
how we have reshaped this environment. You need somebody who is
concentrating on that full time, and we often do not see that.
That is why that recommendation is in the report.
Senator Coons. And I would argue that to the extent elected
officials at the Federal, state and local levels embrace and
engage with and represent the American Muslim community, the
more likely we are to be successful. And to the extent there
are proposals that marginalize them or suggest that somehow
they are not fully part of the American community, I think that
makes us less safe.
Mr. Benjamin, if I might, we have spent an enormous amount
of money trying to rebuild and stabilize countries like Iraq or
Afghanistan during and post-conflict. You have talked about the
importance of our being engaged in countries that have been
plagued by terrorism. What should we be doing now to prepare
for the reconstruction and rebuilding that is going to be
required in a number of states, not just those but others--
Somalia, Nigeria--that are really suffering a scourge of
terrorism and where they are fragile or failed?
Ambassador Benjamin. If I could just begin by making one
quick note on the CVE issue, I would just point out that people
have been trying to think about how to leverage American
culture to de-radicalize or to fend off radicalization in lots
of different contexts for a long time. While I think that the
vast majority of the Muslim world probably enjoys a lot of the
products that we send them, the very small number of people who
are radicalized probably view it as deeply offensive,
pornographic and the like. So this is a very difficult issue,
and it is not clear to me that we can pick winners and losers,
as we cannot in industrial policy, for example.
On the very important issue you raised, there is an
enormous amount of donor fatigue out there already, and yet if
there is not investment in the areas of Iraq that have been
destroyed by ISIS and destroyed by the battle to retake it, if
there is not soon a ceasefire in Yemen and reconstruction
there, we will be paying a price for a long time because
terrorist groups love these civil conflicts. They are the
breeding grounds for the next generation of extremists.
And I would add that we were talking about trouble spots
ahead before. I think this is just an enormous question mark
for the future because of the declining economy combined with
repression and no voice for moderate Muslims who today do not
believe in the violence but who find that they are really
excluded from the politics of their own country.
Senator Coons. I want to thank both of you. This has been a
very informative hearing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Risch?
Senator Risch. Mr. Benjamin, you made reference to, in the
context of this hearing, the migration issues regarding Europe.
I would like to drill down a little bit into that. It is
incredibly frustrating when you look at this. Europe will never
be the same after what has happened over the last 24 months.
Europe is never going to be the same. And for that matter, it
has not shown any signs of letting up. You get these waves that
come. It was not that long ago when people would take up arms,
there was an invasion, they would repel them and send them
back. That is not happening. Indeed, a good share of the
population in Europe is very welcoming, and it is causing
friction between the countries there.
One of the things I found that was really interesting was
that, in addition to these huge numbers of people that are
coming that are indeed victims of war-torn countries and are
true refugees in that sense, mixed in with that, the people who
are simply opportunists, economic opportunists, are mixing
themselves in there, not intending to harm anyone or anything
else. They just want to do what we all want to do, and that is
do better for our families and for ourselves.
As a result of that, the NGOs I have talked to who deal in
this and who really want to help people who are refugees are
very frustrated by the fact that they are getting this mixture,
and the result of that is the numbers are just overwhelming.
Our minds cannot get around the kind of numbers we are talking
about. Our human minds are not designed to do that. You look
around this room. If you try to think about the people in this
room and then go to a thousand people or a million people or a
billion people--there are 7 billion on the face of this earth,
all of whom have a view that if things are not good, they are
going to go somewhere where it is better.
I mean, this is something that I do not know what you do. I
hear the Pollyanna kind of speeches about, oh, what we need to
do is stabilize all these countries, we need to get them
governing, they need jobs and they need hope, but that is not
happening, okay? And there is no magical formula for that to
happen. Certainly the United States cannot do this. As
egotistical as we are in thinking we can control these things,
we cannot. I mean, it is just huge.
Give me some hope here. Where is this thing going? Mr.
Benjamin, you raised the problem. You take a run at it first,
and then we will give Mr. Zarate a shot at it.
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, Senator, I think you have made
me hopeless. No.
So there is no question that large-scale migration from
either war-torn countries or underdeveloped countries is one of
the greatest challenges that we face, and certainly this is
tearing Europe apart because of the way that it has translated
into the politics of the continent. So we are not talking about
the terrorism dimension which is also real because they do not
have the kind of border controls that we have.
I have some sympathy with your argument about the
challenges of economic migrants. International law does allow
us to distinguish between these two, and we are going to have
to continue to do so, otherwise states will simply be
overwhelmed, and that is why it is so important to distinguish
and find those who truly have been forced to flee from their
homes because of conflict.
I do think, though, coming back to what we were talking
about before with Senator Kaine and with Senator Murphy, this
is why deeper engagement with a lot of these countries, in
concert with Western Europe, which faces the most critical
threat, but also with wealthy countries in the Gulf and the Far
East, there really has to be a concerted effort to increase
development in these places. We have to look at what we can do
to underwrite the availability of greater capital for
borrowing.
Look, it is a paradoxical situation because we are in the
period of history that has seen the most extraordinary
reduction in poverty globally in history, with something like
500 million people coming out of poverty in the last decade or
two. So it is possible, but it is going to take a level of
coordination among governments that we have not achieved
before, and I do not see any better way to do it.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to continue to insist on
the distinction between refugees from conflict and refugees
from economic privation.
Senator Risch. I would appreciate your thoughts, Mr.
Zarate.
Mr. Zarate. Senator, I do not want to add to the sense of
dread or pessimism, but one other factor to consider is these
migrant flows are creating new way stations and flows of people
that are allowing a variety of groups--criminal groups,
terrorist groups--to take advantage of these people. So you
have seen, for example, these way stations appear in West
Africa or North Africa, where human trafficking results from
the flow of people trying to head into Europe. So you have the
immediate problem of just pure exploitation of people and the
threats that emerge from these flows.
I would say, look, if we try to solve everything at once,
we are not going to solve anything. So one way of thinking
about this is how do we solve the immediate problem of
distribution of refugees as they flow out of the conflict
zones, and especially if the conflicts are not going to be
resolved? But how do we manage the refugee camps so the refugee
camps themselves do not become long-term liabilities for the
international community?
I think we have to pay a lot of attention to Lebanon, to
Turkey, to Jordan, which have already absorbed enormous numbers
of refugees and have tried to incorporate them. I think
starting with what is right in front of us first, how do we
deal with the refugee camps and the distribution currently. It
is probably the good, right first step, and it is not solving
all of the refugee problems around the world, but solving that
may be a good first step to getting at some of these longer-
term problems.
Senator Risch. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I might add, just on that note, that continuing to engage
with Egypt--I mean, if Egypt were to fail, what we have seen as
it relates to the issues in Western Europe would be exacerbated
multi-fold. That is an issue where our national interests come
up against our national values; it matters a great deal.
Anyway, with that, Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to both of our panelists for being here. I have
to especially call out Ambassador Benjamin because he is from
New Hampshire. Thank you for your leadership at the Dickey
Center at Dartmouth.
I will tell you especially for the good work that is going
on there with students, I had an intern, Morgan Sandhu, who
helped conduct a national study on women's access to health
care in Kosovo, and she was very impressive. So I very much
appreciate what you are doing there.
I just want to pick up very quickly, because I had not been
thinking about it as a question, but on something you just
said, Mr. Zarate, and that is on the camps in Jordan and
Lebanon and Turkey and whether we are doing enough there to
address those camps. My assessment, based on everything we have
heard in this committee and other places, is that we are not
and that we ought to be doing much more there. Would you agree
with that?
Mr. Zarate. I would. I think that is a source of real
threat and instability for those countries, and obviously for
the people that are living there. So I think that as a first
order of concern has to be an area of focus for us.
Senator Shaheen. I want to go back to some of the questions
that I understand Senator Cardin was raising about budgeting
and what we fund and what we do not fund, especially given that
particular issue. I certainly agree with the assessment that I
think you made, Ambassador Benjamin, and that you probably
agree with, Mr. Zarate, about our willingness to fund military
counter-terrorism operations but not to fund the governance,
the civilian, the civil society aspect in a way that would help
us so that we do not have to get into the military operations.
One of the things that we are about to do is to pass
another continuing resolution which will limit our ability to
fund efforts at least from now until the end of March, and I am
hearing more and more people talking about a year-long
continuing resolution, which is even more troubling.
But can I ask you both to speak to what that does to our
ability to make decisions about supporting efforts on counter-
terrorism, as in so many other areas?
Ambassador Benjamin, do you want to go first?
Ambassador Benjamin. Well, you know, it certainly keeps us
ham-strung since continuing resolutions do not involve plus-
ups. I would just note that, as I stated in my written
testimony, when we were talking about capacity building and
CVE.
So countering violent extremism, which has been a major
source of discussion in this hearing, is globally completely
miniscule and represents less than 10 percent of the State
Department's CT capacity building budget, and that capacity
building budget is a tiny fraction of what we put into our
military capacity building.
Now, obviously, military capacity building is going to be
more expensive because of the hardware that is involved and the
numbers of people. But we are sucking the blocks here, and I
think this is disastrous for our national interests. I know
there has been skepticism on the Hill at times about states'
ability to deliver these programs effectively, and I would say
that both ends of Washington have some justification for being
upset. I do think that too often at State we look at throughput
instead of sustained engagement that makes sure that the people
who are trained stay in the places they are and that they
continue to be productive and carry out the lessons that we
have transferred to them or given them.
At the same time, we are in a constant feedback loop where
Congress is asking frequently for metrics that show progress in
particular areas where it cannot be measured. I mean, CVE is
extraordinarily difficult, and we cannot even get to the point
where we can develop the programs so we can figure out the
metrics.
So there is a vicious circle here, and I think it is time
that we recognize that things are not getting better while we
do not spend money. It is just not getting better until we can
innovate, and there needs to be more room for innovation
particularly in countering violent extremism and in capacity
building. A lot of these fragile societies are not going to be
success stories because of exogenous factors. If your country
collapses in a civil war, as happened in Yemen, then you are
going to lose some money, and that is just tough to deal with.
But we still have to give it, it seems to me, a good try.
Senator Shaheen. Mr. Zarate, do you have a different
assessment?
Mr. Zarate. Senator, I think the other challenge with a
continuing resolution is twofold. One is the inability to plan
longer term, and that is incredibly debilitating. We are
talking about these longer-term problems, problems for State,
DOD, and others. Also, the question of flexibility, how are
funds shifted.
Senator Shaheen. Right.
Mr. Zarate. This committee knows, and certainly there have
been prominent former Secretaries of Defense who have been very
open about the fact that they are more than willing to have
funds shifted from their budget to do precisely what we are
talking about, which is to deal with issues of governance and
to shift funds perhaps to the State Department or others to
provide that kind of service, to shape the battlefield. Special
Operations forces talk about that all the time. We have got to
get ahead of the curve and shape the battlefield, and we are
not able to do that with constricted budgets, frankly.
A final point. I think what we budget and what we are able
to demonstrate, whether it is in the context of CVE,
governance, or other investments, also spurs others to give. I
think one of the things we have talked about in CVE is we have
got to begin to plus-up the funding in the private sector to
then amplify what is happening in the private sector in terms
of funding, as well as what is happening with other
international partners. The same thing goes with refugees, et
cetera.
So I think there is a demonstration effect to our
commitment, and if we do it strategically, you can have a
multiplier effect.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. And the other point that you
all did not mention but that is very clear is that usually it
costs us more money when we do continuing resolutions. It does
not save money; it costs more.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Ambassador Benjamin, in your testimony you say that working
with Russia on Syria's civil war would essentially mean joining
Assad's campaign to militarily conquer all of those opposed to
Assad. I do agree with you that that scenario would lead to an
escalation of the war, but I would be interested in hearing
your perspective on how we might best work with Russia and work
with our own regional partners to best push parties to give up
their maximalist demands and agree to rational compromises.
Thus far, the position the U.S. has taken is that regime
change is absolutely necessary, and Assad has said regime
survival is absolutely necessary. We are at a stalemate that,
to a certain extent, does drive this war. Those are two non-
negotiable positions that ultimately lead to ever greater
escalation.
So I guess my question to you would be where are the areas
where you think that President-elect Trump, for example, could
move without compromising the ultimate goal of having
protection given to the Sunnis within that country? What from
your perspective makes the most sense in terms of a new regime?
I do not want to be in a world where President-elect Trump
announces that he is giving up on regime change without a
strategy simultaneously that there is a plan in place that then
gives guarantees to the protection of the rights of the
majority within the country.
Could you walk us through that?
Ambassador Benjamin. Senator, if it were easy, it would
have been done. You are absolutely right, we are at a
stalemate. I think we could imagine a deal in which we said
that in return for a ceasefire and cantonization that would
preserve the security and the rights of the different groups in
Syria, that we would be prepared to see Assad stay in power for
a certain number of years before leaving the scene, and the
Russians I believe have indicated that they are not prepared to
accept even that because they want a strong Syrian state. It is
one of their few allies. It is now their foothold in the
region. So they have been extremely unhelpful and really
recalcitrant.
I hope that if there is a warming with Russia, that the new
president can leverage his influence with President Putin to
move towards that direction. Of course, Secretary Kerry has
tried to also find common ground with the Russians in terms of
fighting extremists. As we know, right now the Russians are
primarily just targeting all regime opponents and not ISIS in
particular. So perhaps there is an opportunity for a new start
to get towards that diplomatic solution and common cause
against extremism that everyone has talked about.
Senator Markey. Do you see any possibility of compromise
coming from our Gulf partners?
Ambassador Benjamin. I think that it is going to be a very,
very tricky situation, and I worry that they will view anything
that stabilizes the Assad regime as being an unintended signal
to them to fund Sunni extremists.
Senator Markey. Is there a deal that could be struck that
has the Iranians agreeing that they will have no permanent
military bases inside of Syria, so that we could kind of back
out both external forces in a way that could ultimately lead to
some negotiated settlement among Syrians?
Ambassador Benjamin. The Iranians have always depicted
their relationship with Syria and then ultimately with the Shia
community in Lebanon as a matter of the utmost national
security for them. So I find it hard to imagine that they would
agree to that, and if they did agree, whether they would abide
by such an agreement. So we are playing chess in seven
dimensions right now.
Senator Markey. I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Cardin?
Senator Cardin. I just wanted to take this time both to
thank our witnesses and also to make an observation, and I am
going to ask a couple of questions for the record that I would
ask you to respond to.
We just yesterday got the National Defense Authorization
Act that was filed. It is 3,000-plus pages. I asked the staff
to go through it, Mr. Chairman, to just give me an idea about
what is in that bill that would normally come under the
jurisdiction of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They
just gave me the bullets and a one-line summary that took 12
single-spaced pages on matters that should be of interest to
us.
I want to compliment the Chairman because we did get a lot
of our input into the National Defense Authorization Act, and I
think we were successful in keeping a lot of stuff out of it,
but also a lot of important issues that our committee needs to
move forward on were included in the bill. So I am not
complaining but just observing. Regardless of what hat you
wear, Mr. Chairman, in the next Congress, we need to pass a
State Department authorization bill. So I look forward to
working with you as either Chairman or in a different capacity
to get a State Department authorization bill done.
But as was pointed out, we have the authority over the
Authorization of the Use of Military Force, and we have not
talked much about the military aspects of fighting extremists
and violent extremism. So I am going to have some questions for
the record as to how effective you believe our military
operations have been. It is changed. We are now using drones a
lot more. Is that working the way it should? We are using
Special Forces. Should we be doing more Special Forces? Should
we be doing more ground troops? Because if this committee is
going to be called upon to look at an Authorization for the Use
of Military Force, I think we have to get the best advice we
can as to how the military can, in fact, deal with violent
extremism.
I am also going to ask you a question for the record
dealing with Senator Menendez' point on the financial sanction
issues as to whether our laws are strong enough and whether our
partner laws are strong enough to have a coordinated effort to
try to dry up the financial support for terrorist
organizations.
So again, I thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to continuing this discussion.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I am going to ask a couple of questions that were not
asked. Do not feel like anyone has to stay. These are more just
organizational in nature.
I know we have a State Department Office of the Coordinator
for Counter-Terrorism to the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism, which
in itself sounds very bureaucratic, just the name. I am sure
that it is not, of course. But could you tell us a little bit
about how you feel the effectiveness of that has been, and just
to speed things along so we can get to Senator Shaheen's
additional questions?
There has also been established the Global Engagement
Center to Coordinate Counter-Terror Messaging that many of our
Gulf allies have created on their own, counter-messaging
organizations. How are those in effect working together?
If both of you could respond, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Zarate. Senator, on the matter of State bureaucracy,
your recitation of my former title, there is now, and I think
it is appropriate that there is a counter-terrorism bureau.
Bureaus are where the central business of the State Department
is done, and I believe that Secretary Clinton did the right
thing in creating that bureau.
I believe the legislation that created originally the
Office of the Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism, I am told that
it was Secretary Schultz who insisted that that person have the
rank of ambassador-at-large so that partner nations would take
that seriously.
At the time that the bureau was upgraded from an office
within the Office of the Secretary to being a bureau, I believe
that the State Department had a list of different bureaus that
needed assistant secretaries, and some of them were more
controversial than others, and therefore the CT Bureau, which I
guess everyone thought I had an august enough title, was not
put on the list to become an AS, to become an assistant
secretary. I am agnostic as to which title is a better one for
achieving the goals that Secretary Schultz I think wisely
sought out.
The Chairman. But has it been effective?
Mr. Zarate. I think it has made a big difference. I think
that creating the bureau has made a big difference. The
problems that I think dog our civilian-side engagement have
much more to do with overall funding of the State Department
than with the bureaucracy of the Department itself. So I
support that, and I think it has also put the Department on a
trajectory towards building really the kind of personnel, the
kind of size and staff that is required. So I think it was a
wise move.
The Chairman. And the global messaging?
Mr. Zarate. I will just sort of underscore my initial
concern that was in the testimony. When I was at the State
Department, we created the Center for Strategic Counter-
Terrorism Communications that was supposed to be an interagency
body, was an interagency body. I thought it was doing
interesting work, very difficult again to find metrics to know
whether or not it was effective. It ran afoul of all kinds of
bureaucratic infighting. It has since been subsumed into the
GEC.
I am simply skeptical, having been involved in this issue
now for as long as it has been an issue, that spending as much
time and effort on messaging as we do is the right way to go. I
am not persuaded that an Emirati messaging hub is going to be
received by people who are at risk of radicalization any more
effectively necessarily than our messaging, for the simple
reason that they consider those governments to be apostate,
much as they view us to be infidel.
So I strongly believe that the future in CVE is in
community-based efforts that intervene with people who are at
risk. Again, we cannot cede the entire field, but we should
recognize that we are going to have a hard time getting through
to a lot of these people. There is a kind of cognitive closed-
ness, especially as we see recruitment ages go down and down
and down. Kids are not going to be listening to the kinds of
messaging we put out, more often than not. That is my view
after way too many years of having thought about this one.
Ambassador Benjamin. You are not too jaded, though.
Just very quickly, Mr. Chairman, on the question about
internal State Department bureaucratics, I think the biggest
question is how these issues get ultimately integrated, right?
And I think the challenge of the bureaucracy within the State
Department is how do the issues of counter-terrorism get
integrated with the funding and capacity building from the INL
shop, which has the vast bulk of those resources in terms of
partner capacity building. How does it relate to post-conflict
reconstruction in that office? How does this fit into regional
strategies?
I think we did great work here, and the former ambassadors
with whom I have had the honor to work did their best, no
doubt. But the question is how does this all get integrated in
a way that then is effective as a state department and then as
a country? I do not think any titles or work charts will
necessarily solve that other than top-level focus on that
integration. You can have all the work charts you want, but if
the leadership of the State Department is not focused on
integrating these issues in a strategic way, it does not
matter.
On the Global Engagement Center, I agree and disagree a
bit. I think we were in a mode where we had to flood the zone.
We have to flood the zone in terms of messaging. We have got to
figure out ways of countering various manifestations of the
threat. We have not talked about this much, but the fact that
liberal bloggers are getting attacked viciously in Bangladesh
is a manifestation of this threat. The fact that sacred sites
have been desecrated and populations extracted from those
areas, from Afghanistan to the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, that
is a manifestation of ideology.
What the Global Engagement Center does not do is think
imaginatively about how we counter the ideology as it manifests
in all its forms, not just in the latest tweet but in how it is
manifesting in ways that are affecting societies and
communities. That is really lacking in the center.
The other thing that is lacking, and this is where I agree,
this cannot be a government-centric-heavy model, and that is
kind of where we have gone with the Global Engagement Center. I
think we have got to find ways of empowering all of those
organic dimensions in the environment, and they are there: ex-
jihadis that are trying to counter the message; the women
without borders efforts that are trying to counter the
recruitment of women and families; all sorts of efforts. You
have some staff here working in East Africa trying to work with
the Kenyans on some of these organic issues.
There is a lot out there that could be funded and scaled.
The Global Engagement Center I think is trying to do some of
that, but it is very state-centric, and I think we have got to
move away from that model if we are going to be effective.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen?
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you for asking that question
because that was one of my questions. I think we have heard
people testify before this committee exactly to the points that
both of you were making, that messaging is a critical part of
countering violent extremism, but it is more effective when it
is done not by the U.S. Government in the way that we did
during the Cold War but more as a grassroots initiative to fund
and support networks that are responding in ways that are
effective. I think the challenge is how do we do that better.
But I want to ask a question about what is happening in
Syria right now because, as I have listened to the news reports
over the last couple of days, it appears that Aleppo is about
to fall to the Assad forces, and that that will then have some
effect on all of those rebel groups that have been fighting.
Some of the reports that I have seen suggest that they are not
interested in reconciling with the regime. They do not trust
it, and so they are looking at other extremist organizations
that they can join.
So if that happens, if Aleppo falls and the Assad forces,
along with Russia, continue to make gains, what does that do to
the terrorist groups that are currently operating in Syria?
What does it do to ISIL? How does that affect what we have been
seeing in Syria and the Middle East with respect to terrorist
organizations?
Mr. Zarate. I think, frankly, it strengthens the hand of
these extremist organizations for a couple of reasons, Senator.
One, they become the groups of last resort to fight against the
Syrians, the Iranians, the Russians. We have seen this with al
Qaeda already, rebranding itself in a way, as I mentioned
earlier, to serve in that function, to be a very local shock
troop to continue to defend territory and populations.
The second thing is I think we have to recognize that the
question of regime change in Syria has a real impact on
counter-terrorism. Assad is a driver for radicalization. We
talk a lot about, for example, Guantanamo, or words in
campaigns serving as drivers. There is no more important driver
for radicalization in the Middle East or the complications that
Dan was mentioning earlier in terms of Sunni Arab states being
willing to support extremist groups than Assad being in power.
So we cannot divorce those two issues, and I think there has
been a sense that the U.S. has actually given up on that idea,
despite what our policy has been in rhetoric, that we really
have not done much to do that and, in fact, have restricted the
hands of our allies on the ground to effectuate that change.
I think, finally, what it does is it disempowers the United
States to shape the environment.
The other troubling news, if the news is correct, we heard
today, the Russians and the Turks are negotiating with the
rebels absent any U.S. aide and absent any U.S. input. That is
exactly what we do not want. We do not want the U.S. denuded of
its power, its ability to shape the environment. Frankly, then
our partners on the ground who have sacrificed and fought on
our behalf who are with us, take real lessons as to who they
can rely on as an ally. We want our allies on the ground to
know they can rely on us. We want our enemies to fear us. And I
am afraid what is happening in Syria is going in all the wrong
directions.
Ambassador Benjamin. I agree with Juan's assessment, and I
do think that this will have a powerful impact on the
attractiveness of any Sunni groups that are fighting in that
region.
But to take it one step further, I just want to underscore
how the sectarian divide in the region--sectarian on the one
hand and great power rivalry or regional power rivalry between
Iran and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs more broadly on the
other hand. It is the defining feature of the region now, and
it will continue to feed the flames of extremism for a long
time to come. I do not believe that the West has had a serious
conversation about whether or not there is an off-ramp. I do
not think we have had a serious conversation with any of these
partners. I think it is taking the United States in directions
that we should be very, very wary about--for example, our role
in Yemen right now.
This is, again, one of those big historical forces that we
need to think very hard about how we grapple with it.
Senator Shaheen. I could not agree more. Let me just say
that one of the reasons that Assad has been able to be
successful is because of the atrocities that he and the
Russians and the Iranians have committed against the Syrian
people, and that the West has been far too quiet about those
atrocities. We should have acted before now. It is heart-
breaking to see what has happened in Syria.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I could not agree more.
Thank you both. We were talking earlier about what great
witnesses you all are. We usually like to have controversial
hearings, but you all agree so much that it has been difficult.
But it is something that I think our country agrees, generally
speaking, about, and that is countering terror, and we thank
you both for your expertise and the experiences you have had
and the knowledge you have shared with us today.
We are going to leave the record open, if we could, until
the close of business Monday. You all have done this before.
People will send in written questions, and if you could respond
fairly quickly, knowing you have other jobs to do, we would
appreciate it.
But you all have been great witnesses. We thank you both
for your service to our country.
And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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