Remarks at the Atlantic Council
Remarks
Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition To Counter ISIL
As prepared for delivery
Thank you, General Jones, for your generous introduction. When you and I began our military careers, we probably couldn’t have imagined a time when two Marines would be allowed to speak in succession at a center named for an Air Force General. I guess it’s just one more sign of the Scowcroft Center’s clear commitment to civility and diplomacy.
But Sir, thank you, and it’s good to be with you again. Across our long careers we’ve shared many of the same experiences. One of those, of course, is the Atlantic Council, an institution that does so much to encourage robust global debate and dialogue.
And I want to thank my old friend Barry Pavel for supporting that dialogue here at the Scowcroft Center and for his insights into some of the most complicated and vexing security and political questions in the Middle East–questions with which we both spend a great deal of time grappling each day.
Fred, I know we have some time to talk during the Q&A, but I wanted to thank you as well for your continued leadership of the Council. During your career as a journalist–whether it was in Beirut, or Berlin, or here in Washington–you clearly had a talent for anticipating and understanding trends as they were first emerging. The Atlantic Council is far stronger because you have brought that intuition and strategic insight to this group of august scholars and leaders.
Of course, it is that same kind of strategic vision that also defined the public service of this center’s namesake, Brent Scowcroft. Few Americans can take more credit for steering the perilous course through the tumultuous and unpredictable period of the Cold War.
In hindsight and as the passing years increase, the Cold War’s peaceful conclusion may appear to have been inevitable. But as this audience knows better than most, it was by no means inevitable–indeed, our nation and all for which we stand–was in constant peril. I believe that peaceful outcome was only possible because of leaders like Brent Scowcroft–because of public servants with unwavering courage, unparalleled intellect, and unimpeachable integrity–that we were able to arrive at the far side of the Cold War as a nation whole and intact.
I have heard General Scowcroft summarize with a few humble words some of what he has witnessed and helped to achieve: “Progress is only possible if the United States and its allies work together.”
And I have had reason to consider those words in these past 5 plus months serving as the President’s Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
Since mid-September, I have traveled to 21 partner capitals, several repeatedly, to meet with the national leadership, and in that short span we have assembled a global coalition, which currently includes 62 nations and international organizations each committed to the counter-ISIL campaign.
This is the fifth global coalition in which I have participated, but the first where we have had to create the mechanisms that structure and guide our efforts from whole cloth. As Commander of ISAF, for instance, our authorities derived from a UN Security Council Resolution and our form rested upon that of the North Atlantic Council. That simplified our otherwise enormous undertaking in Afghanistan.
In building this kind of organizational structure–in this Counter-Coalition–it is easy to become bogged down in detail, to look down at one’s feet rather than out, at the strategic horizon. But what I have never lost sight of, and in fact, what has never been clearer to me, is the essential importance–indeed the centrality–of America’s global leadership, and the convening power that derives from that unique quality.
There is simply no other global power–either presently or on the horizon–that has the kind of strategic depth or diplomatic reach to convene the diverse coalitions and collections of nations needed to address the kind of borderless challenges that will shape the course of this century.
The challenge we face in ISIL is one of them.
Whether one lives in Amman, Canberra, Singapore, or Kuala Lumpur–each of which I visited in the past month–or even right here in North America, ISIL’s threat is not confined to some distant and dark place, some foreign shore. In the form of foreign fighters and the spread of its toxic ideology, ISIL is a threat that is real; a threat that is here; and a threat that demands both our urgent and, assuredly, our enduring attention. It was the urgency of that threat, and the immediate emergency we saw unfold last summer in Iraq, that prompted me to accept President Obama’s invitation in September to assist him in organizing the global coalition to counter ISIL.
It is difficult to describe today just how desperate the situation was for Iraq last summer. By June, ISIL fighters began pouring through the Tigris River Valley. Multiple Iraqi towns and cities, including Mosul, went down one after another under ISIL’s heel. A substantial portion of Iraq’s military units collapsed, and ISIL’s subsequent and remorseless slaughter of Iraq’s refugees and Iraqi religious minorities exposed us all to a stark, intolerable evil operating far beyond the pale of human behavior. Iraq was a nation torn asunder, under siege, and largely alone in the world.
As the emergency in Iraq unfolded, my thoughts were very much with my many dear friends there now facing a uniquely horrific threat.
But seeing ISIL ransack cities and towns where thousands of American men and women had served selflessly was also terribly difficult. I felt and will always feel called to honor the sacrifices of soldiers and Marines who came home with permanent scars, seen and unseen, and the memory of those who’d given their last full measure of devotion in places like Fallujah, Tall Afar, and Ramadi. Giving meaning to what they sacrificed motivated me then and motivates and inspires me today. It is part of what makes me absolutely determined to see this Coalition and campaign against ISIL succeed.
And today, less than 8 months after ISIL fighters were threatening Baghdad, and 6 months after President Obama called for a Global Coalition to counter ISIL, we have achieved the first phase of our campaign: we have blunted ISIL’s organization’s strategic, operational, and tactical momentum in Iraq.
And as we undertake Coalition efforts to help restore Iraq’s territorial integrity, we are also seeing Iraq undertake vital reforms to make that a sustainable restoration. Today, Iraq has both a more inclusive government and a new prime minister, Dr. Haider Al-Abadi. While he has only been in office since September, Prime Minister Abadi has made a series of politically difficult and absolutely critical decisions in support of a stronger, more unified Iraq.
For example, Iraq’s new government has come to an agreement with the Kurds on oil revenues–an agreement a decade in the making–one now reflected in the newly passed 2015 budget Prime Minister Abadi put before Iraq’s Council of Representatives last month. The Prime Minister has also priced into that budget funding for a national guard, one that would allow Iraqis to serve and provide security for their own provinces. And today the NG legislation was read in the Parliament.
Prime Minister Abadi has issued an executive order to withdraw Prime Minister Maliki’s challenge to laws devolving more authority to Iraq’s provinces, a change long sought by Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds. He has mourned the deaths of Sunni colleagues in their own mosques and he has met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani–a vital endorsement of his leadership at a critical time. He has strengthened the relationship with the Kurds by closing an oil deal with them that has been 10 years in the making. And perhaps most importantly, Prime Minister Abadi has spoken out aggressively and proactively against all forms of sectarian violence. Most recently yesterday as Iraqi security forces kicked off their offensive to recover Tikrit. He has called this violence a scourge no less dangerous to Iraq’s future than ISIL.
Of course, Prime Minister Abadi’s efforts to reconcile Iraq’s divisions and reform its government remain an enormous undertaking. The results are as yet uncertain. His efforts to spur economic revitalization are challenged by a historic decline in the price of oil.
Make no mistake: Iraq has a tough road ahead. Supporting a secure and stable Iraq will require a sustained effort from the Coalition. Whether it comes to standing up Iraq’s security forces or confronting extremist bigotry, these efforts require our realistic expectations.
These expectations are reflected in the 3-year time frame the President included in his formal request for the authorization for the use of military force against ISIL. The AUMF request foresees using our unique capabilities in support of partners on the ground instead of through the large-scale deployment of U.S. ground forces. The President has asked for the flexibility to fight an adaptable enemy, one that hopes to expand its reach well beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria.
As we pursue this campaign with our Coalition partners, there will be some advances and setbacks. There will also be some incredibly heart wrenching moments, something I’ve learned in my previous coalition efforts.
And I have to tell you, these moments don’t become any easier. The world’s attention was riveted by the beheading of the Japanese Journalist Kenji Goto, or the immolation of the courageous Jordanian pilot Moab al-Kasasbeh, or the death of Kayla Mueller, an innocent and selfless American aid worker.
But what is often missed by the world are the unspeakable depredations meted daily to the desperate people under ISIL’s heel–such that the horror of murders of ISIL’s high profile captives is repeated hundreds of times a day, every day, across the misery of these conquered peoples.
None of us can hear reports of ISIL selling hundreds of women and girls into slavery and say that we are powerless to act.
None of us can see ISIL desecrate holy sites and murder spiritual leaders–Sunni, Shia, and Christian alike–and not see something sacred to us all being violated.
None of us can allow ISIL to threaten the existence of entire peoples and stay silent. And we were horrified at the sickening spectacle of ISIL- affiliated militants who executed 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach–these atrocities must be consigned to the darker chapters of human history.
With the Coalition we have now assembled and through our coordinated action, we send a clear and unambiguous message: We will not be desensitized to ISIL’s vicious assault on human dignity.
What we have seen in recent weeks is that the series of brutal acts ISIL has broadcast to the world has in fact galvanized the Coalition to greater action. Last month I saw that redoubled commitment firsthand, when I met with His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman in the immediate aftermath of Captain Kassasbeh’s martyrdom. As I expressed my personal condolences to His Majesty and to the Jordanian people, his determination to honor Captain al-Kassasbeh’s life, faith and sacrifice couldn’t have been more clear.
Now, as Iraqis begin to recover more of their country from ISIL and our Coalition intensifies its efforts, there will be more hard days to come, and we must gird ourselves for these challenges.
But in my experience I’ve seen the possibilities that lay beyond the horizon when partners maintain their focus on a set of clear strategic objectives, and work towards them with mutually-reinforcing lines of effort. I’ve seen how sustained cooperation and the pursuit of a shared strategy can lead to unity of purpose and transformation.
Wherever Coalition nations have coordinated airstrikes with capable partners on the ground, we have seen ISIL stopped in its tracks, especially in Iraq.
Because we lack the same kind of partners on the ground in Syria, the situation is more challenging and complex. Still, we are working closely with regional partners to establish sites for training and equipping vetted, to moderate Syrian opposition elements, to train approximately 5,000 troops per year for the next 3 years.
And every day Secretary Kerry is working with energy and persistence to create the diplomatic space that will make possible a political solution to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all. Nonetheless, it is difficult to overstate the political complexities and challenges in Syria.
Even as we press ahead on the political track, it is useful to look at a particular example of what is possible in Syria when Coalition capabilities and Coalition firepower is paired with capable ground elements and diplomatic creativity: the defeat of ISIL at Kobane. We do not hold Kobane up as a grand template for all future battles, but there are lessons we can and should not ignore that relate to our larger strategy.
I said in November that ISIL would impale itself on Kobane, and last month we saw how that came to pass. And let me be clear: Kobane was strategically important because ISIL made it strategically important..–a profound misjudgment on their part–on par with its attack on the Erbil. It sent hundreds of fighters and some of its most qualified leaders to fight in Kobane because they wanted desperately to broadcast a victory for the entire world to see.
Of course, the cameras perched just across the border in Turkey captured a far different story. Thanks to the determination of Kobane’s defenders, diplomatic creativity that opened up the Turkey corridor for Kurdish reinforcements, and support for Coalition airstrikes, ISIL has been stopped there and Kobane has been liberated.
ISIL’s defeat in Kobane has clearly exploded their myth of invincibility and damaged morale. ISIL fighters saw unit after unit of their comrades sent to Kobane–often to the same precarious tactical positions where they were certain to be killed.
We’re sensing damage done by ISIL’s defeat in Kobane in a growing dissent inside ISIL command structure, in the growing number of desertions, and in a growing number of executions used by ISIL commanders to instill fear in their rank and file and to create greater discipline. And today we see further momentum of defenders pushing out well beyond Kobane to liberate more territory to the east.
The military aspects of campaigns like this will invariably receive the greatest attention from the media and policy-makers. But as I saw in Afghanistan during my command there, in Al Anbar in 2007-08, and in recovery efforts for the 2004/5 South Asian tsunami: the military response to this kind of emergency is essential but it is not sufficient.
It will ultimately be the aggregate pressure of the Coalition’s activity over multiple mutually supporting lines of effort that will determine whether we succeed or fail.
That is why when I visit a Coalition capital and meet with a prime minister, a king, or president, I describe the counter-ISIL strategy as being organized around five lines of effort — the military line to deny safe haven and provide security assistance, disrupting the flow of foreign fighters, disrupting ISIL’s financial resources, providing humanitarian relief and support to its victims, and counter-messaging–or defeating ISIL as an idea.
The issue of foreign fighters has grown to be a prominent, if not the preeminent, topic of concern in all of these conversations, and rightly so. There is clearly a growing awareness that the thousands of young men who have traveled to fight in Syria and Iraq present a truly unprecedented, generational challenge.
Indeed, in a trip I took last month, in each capital where we briefed the leadership, this issue of foreign fighters was foremost on their minds.
In ISIL, and more broadly in this spread of extremism, we need to be prepared to confront these same dangers today, but now on a global scale.
Coalition members are beginning to take the coordinated, and hopefully increasingly concerted actions, required to meet the emerging foreign fighter threat. More than a dozen nations have changed laws and penalties to make it more difficult to travel and fight in Syria and Iraq. Through capacity building in the Balkans, criminal justice efforts in North Africa, and through a 20 million euro investment from the European Union to engage at-risk communities, we are beginning to see nations take a series of coordinated actions.
And even with these expanded measures, foreign fighters continue to make their way to the battlefield. We must continue to harmonize our border and customs processes and promote intelligence sharing among partners.
We have to be prepared for the foreign fighter to operate as a strategic asset–as we have seen in Paris, Sydney, Brussels, Ottawa, and Copenhagen–indeed a foreign fighter or ISIL sympathizer never even has to travel to or return from Syria or Iraq to become a national security threat.
As we seek to interdict foreign fighters at home, en route to the battlespace, and returning from the front, we will need to develop the capacity to reach, rehabilitate, and reintegrate the thousands of these young men and, increasingly, young women, who will eventually try and make a return home. And, whether in fact we can, this will be a question and challenge with which the global community must grapple for many years to come.
Last month in Singapore, I met with Muslim leaders and social scientists who have exerted enormous energy in understanding and in successfully developing protocols to deradicalize young men, the victims of violent extremist ideology, helping them transition back to being contributing members of a multicultural society. Success here is a very complex undertaking that deserves our intense study to derive more examples of what best practices and methods may be applied in different cultures across a very diverse world.
This kind of creative thinking and information sharing between partners is also critical to a related and similarly urgent challenge: constraining ISIL’s access to financial support. If you have the right intelligence and have the right partners working together, some of what can be achieved in the financial space can strike a substantial blow at ISIL’s spending options and operational latitude.
The Coalition is not there yet, but we have made gains in synchronizing practices to block ISIL’s access to banks, both in the region and globally. This includes staunching the flow of private donations and constraining ISIL’s financial options through diminished its access to oil revenues.
But, their financial resources are diverse and for now, nearly self-sustaining. For example, beyond the oil enterprise, ISIL’s portfolio includes massive criminal extortion of conquered populations, kidnap for ransom, and human trafficking and a slave trade, including sex slaves, in which, disgustingly, ISIL takes pride. We also know it can access substantial cash resources in the bank vaults across its captured territories.
When ISIL is not destroying precious works of antiquity, as we saw in videos broadcast from Mosul last week, it is attempting to make millions, if not billions, from the sale of historical artefacts and artworks. They are literally attempting to eliminate Iraq’s and Syria’s rich history for the purposes of burying the region’s future.
As we expose the nature of ISIL’s crimes to the world, we must also do more at a humanitarian level to support and rescue ISIL’s victims. Saudi Arabia alone has donated $500M in relief, as well as more than a dozen medical camps; numerous other Coalition partners have made substantial investments in education for refugees and in the host communities that support them. Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are to be commended for their generous hosting of several million refugees.
The United States leads the world with our nearly $4 billion humanitarian contribution. Certainly, we can take a measure of pride in that, but we and our Coalition partners must do more.
And, as more territory is taken back from ISIL, we must also ensure that we’re poised to act in relief of the liberated populations and support the return of internally displaced persons. We are working closely with the Iraqis, with the support of our Coalition partners, and in particular the Arab states, to help Iraq develop stabilization and recovery plans.
The Coalition’s counter-messaging line of effort is contesting ISIL’s narrative across the many platforms and languages they use to spew their toxic message. ISIL seems attractive to many of its recruits because they proclaimed a Caliphate, launched onto the world stage with an illusion of inevitability and invincibility.
But the last 6 months have amply demonstrated that ISIL and those terrorist groups which preceded ISIL are really only a criminal gang and death cult under increasing pressure, sending its naïve and gullible recruits to die by the hundreds as untrained suicide bombers.
Where ISIL once proclaimed itself to be on the march, it is today under unparalleled and increasing pressure from a world uniting to push back against its savagery.
In any operation–military, humanitarian, counter-messaging–we need to define success from the outset. When I think of what success must look like, I think of my young grandson. I ask myself whether the world he will inherit will be different from our own.
I am not the only one in this room today who has spent the better part of his or her life at war or preparing for it. If we do not get this effort right our children and grandchildren will have to endure the same and perhaps, far more dangerous consequences as we know ISIL and other “end of times” extremist organizations seek to possess WMD.
ISIL is the current emergency. But we should not forget the future that millions of young people across the region hoped to forge when the streamed on to the streets of their capitals just a few years ago. They were motivated by a common desire for education and jobs, for the freedom to determine their own future–;no different from what all of us want for our families and the generations who follow us.
We should not forget how these young people used technology so effectively to share their struggle and story with the world. Think for just a moment about what would be possible if these same young people, so hopeful for peace and prosperity, were not joined in protest, but rather by efforts to innovate and trade with one another.
As we confront this current emergency, we must also seize this moment’s promise: to create a rising tide of opportunity, to propel a young generation forward in dignity. That must be our common aspiration.
And we should also keep in mind that if we do not act in concert, if we don’t use this moment of crisis as an opportunity to grapple with underlying causes of extremism, ISIL II and the son of ISIL are surely in our future. We will leave a perpetual struggle to future generations as a bitter inheritance.
Within this coalition and as a community of nations, we will never find complete agreement. It is not within our power to prevent every source of conflict between people or nations. But what we can do, what we must do, is strive for a unifying vision to guide the future we shape together. As more than 60 nations continue this campaign against ISIL, that is the broader, more distant horizon we must imagine and the opportunity we must seize. Thank you.
The Office of Website Management, Bureau of Public Affairs, manages this site as a portal for information from the U.S. State Department.
External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein.
Source: Dept. Of State – Releases
Collected Department Releases: Remarks at the Atlantic Council
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire