Tag: European Union
Exploiting disorder
The International Crisis Group (ICG) takes appropriate transnational aim in its latest report at Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS), introduced Monday at Brookings by ICG President, Jean-Marie Guehenno. The main thesis is that success of the terrorist dual threat is the result of instability. No surprise there. Few of their supposed enemies in the Middle East and North Africa regard either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State as their top priority. Again no surprise. Neither is invincible, though AQ in Guehenno’s view is underrated at present. It is learning to apply a lighter, more gradual touch that has greater prospects of success than IS’s draconian approach.
It is when we get to the policy prescriptions that I start to part company, as usual with ICG reports. Guehenno and the report argue for containment, or perhaps marginalization, rather than outright victory, because we would not in any event know what to do if we win. It is already apparent in Iraq that the government lacks the means to govern effectively and inclusively in all the territory recaptured from IS. But nowhere does ICG advocate that we acquire the state-building capacities needed to eliminate the disorder in which the terrorists thrive or to repair the societies that they have broken. This is not only short-sighted; it is a formula for unending warfare. The very least ICG should have done is to point out the incapacity and put forward some sort of idea how it can be repaired.
The report argues for keeping open lines of communication, by talking with whomever will talk with us, apparently including the Islamic State and Al Qaeda provided they meet that condition. This includes “unofficial, discreet lines of communication, through community leaders, non-state mediators or others.” I like that, since official talking lends an air of legitimacy that many groups don’t merit. But the argument offered in favor is the US rejection of Taliban offers in 2001 as well as similar reluctance in Somalia, Mali, Libya and Nigeria. None of those examples pertain to the Islamic State or Al Qaeda per se, both of which are arguably an order of magnitude or two less acceptable than the people and groups specifically mentioned. My guess is that we are in communication, directly or indirectly, with many of the groups mentioned, if only to try to free American hostages. It is hard to see how to do that with either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.
Other recommendations get stronger grounding. Their suggestion for narrowing the countering violent extremism (CVE) agenda seems to me intellectually correct, even if the bureaucratic temptation to tie the development and peacebuilding agendas to the latest well-funded pet rock is irresistible. Respecting international humanitarian law, curbing targeted killings and investing in conflict prevention also make good sense to me. Neither the drone wars nor coddling of autocrats in the Middle East has served our strategic purposes well. Both have done more to spread the terrorist problem than defeat it.
In the end I thought Guehenno was correct in his talk at Brookings when he admired President Obama’s effort to keep the terrorist threat in perspective by noting its limited capacity to affect American national security. That effort Guehenno suggested was intellectually correct even if politically damaging. Unfortunately, the ICG report is less prudent:
World leaders’ concern is well-founded: IS’s attacks kill their citizens and threaten their societies’ cohesion.
It then urges us not to make mistakes that risk aggravating the situation, but it nowhere says what Guehenno did: the jihadists are not a threat on the order of the Soviet Union and should not arouse us politically in the way the nuclear threat once did.
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The Islamic State is the easy problem
While the Obama Administration is leaking profusely plans for military intervention in Libya against the Islamic State, I spent a good part of yesterday with people worrying about what to do there beyond killing extremists. It is all too obvious that an air war without a political solution that mobilizes Libyans against the extremists could leave the country even more destabilized than it already is.
It is not so clear what to do about that. A political solution is on the table, but its implementation is stalled, perhaps permanently. Even if the diplomats succeed in their current efforts to get the Government of National Accord (GNA) sworn in, its move to Tripoli poses big security problems, as the capital is in the hands of 15 or more militias loyal to one of the country’s two separate legislative bodies.
Planning for a peacekeeping/stabilization mission is ongoing with the Europeans, including the British, French and Italians. The Americans won’t contribute ground troops but rather “enablers” like ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the civilians among us) as well as whatever is needed (drones, aircraft, special forces) to attack ISIS.
There is a wide range of views on what kind of stabilization mission is desirable or possible. Some think a light footprint limited to Tripoli, or even limited to protecting the GNA and foreign embassies, will suffice and arouse little Libyan xenophobia, provided the strategic communications are adequate. Others note that experience elsewhere would require upwards of 70,000 international peacekeepers in a country the size of Libya requiring peace enforcement. A small force unable or unwilling to protect the Libyan population might arouse more resentment and resistance, not less. At the very least, major routes, cantonments of weapons, borders and oil facilities will need protection, either by internationals or Libyans.
Any stabilization force will require a GNA request, Arab League endorsement and a United Nations Security Council mandate. It will need to be able to supply and defend itself, including from Islamic State and other extremist and criminal attacks. Those are tall orders.
But Libya also has some characteristics that make peacekeeping relatively easy: it is close to Europe, has good ports and a long coastline, it is mostly flat and desert, with few places for spoilers to hide, other than urban areas. The population is mostly Arab (there are Berbers as well–remember the Barbary pirates) and overwhelmingly Sunni. The country’s immediate neighbors–Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria–are all anxious to end the instability and block the Islamic State from establishing a safe haven in Libya, though they don’t necessarily agree on how to do that.
Beyond getting the GNA up and running, what to do about the militias in Libya is the most difficult governance problem. The Finance Ministry, which still functions, has been paying many of them. Others, especially in the south and west, have already gone into private sector, running smuggling and other illicit businesses. Past efforts to build a united Libyan security force by training people outside the country failed miserably. Next time around it will have to be done in Libya. Many of the militiamen will need to be disarmed and demobilized, but there is little in the way of an economy to integrate them into. It is vital to remember that the militias are linked to local patronage networks, which need to be mobilized in favor of stabilization, not against it.
While the US and others have the tools needed to kill extremists, it is not at all clear that we have what is needed to help the Libyans sort out their differences and begin to govern in ways that will deny safe haven to the Islamic State, which already controls the central coastal town of Sirte. We suffer from PDD: paradigm deficit disorder. A hundred T.E. Lawrences prepared to deploy with the militias and help sort out their differences might suffice. But where would we get the 100 Arabic speakers with deep knowledge of the Libyan human terrain? We have all but forgotten whatever we learned about such things in Iraq and Afghanistan, erased because the administration was determined not to get involved again in statebuilding in the Middle East.
The Islamic State is the easy part of the problem. The hard part is figuring out how Libya will be stabilized and governed once it is gone.
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Peace picks March 7-11
- Women in the Peace Process: Making Peace Last in Colombia | Women have played groundbreaking roles in Colombia’s peace process between the government and the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC. With a peace agreement in sight and on the occasion of International Women’s Day, join the U.S. Institute of Peace on March 8 for a briefing on the status of women in peace processes, with a focus on the Colombia case. The discussion is co-sponsored by USIP’s Colombia Peace Forum and the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum. The panelists will discuss the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that have called for engaging women in peace processes as a matter of international security, and the long-term efforts to broaden and support initiatives by women and other sectors of civil society as the key to the sustainability of peace. A 30-minute video, “Women Mediating in Colombia,” will document a USIP-supported project to strengthen the capacities of Colombia’s women as mediators. Participants include Carla Koppell, Vice President, Applied Conflict Transformation, U.S. Institute of Peace, Kathleen Kuehnast, Senior Gender Advisor, U.S. Institute of Peace, and Virginia M. Bouvier, Senior Advisor for Peace Processes, U.S. Institute of Peace.
- How Can Societies Control Corruption? The European Experience | Tuesday, March 8th | 10:00-11:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | In recent years, the EU has made an unprecedented effort to transform its periphery by exporting values such as rule of law, democracy and good governance. The experience is discussed as part of the criticism to the global anticorruption approach in Alina Mungiu-Pippidi‘s book, A Quest for Good Governance: How Societies Develop Control of Corruption. Mungiu-Pippidi, who works as a governance expert for the European Union institutions has also been an active promoter of civil society work in her native Romania, the Balkans and Ukraine. The talk will review the few successes around the world and will compare them with the EU attempt to change old members, new members and neighborhood countries. This event is being organized in cooperation with the Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation.
- Pathways to Resilience: Evidence From Africa on Links Between Conflict Management and Resilience to Food Security Shocks | Tuesday, March 8th | 3:00-5:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Household food security is gravely affected by economic and climate-related shocks. A series of new research studies conducted by Mercy Corps in the Horn of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria argue that strengthening conflict management systems helps build resilience to those shocks. On March 8, Daniel Alemu, Chief of Party for Mercy Corps’ ‘Communities Helping Their Environment and Land by Bridging Interests’ program, and Jon Kurtz, Mercy Corps director of research and learning, will present the findings of the research and what it means for development and humanitarian policy. Following their presentations, experts on conflict, development, food security, and resilience will share their thoughts on the implications for cross-sectoral programming and efforts to bolster resilience in climate-affected areas. Other speakers include Ed Carr, Director of the International Development, Community, and Environment Department at Clark University, Roger-Mark De Souza, Wilson Center Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience, Sharon Morris, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and Joan Whelan, U.S. Agency for International Development Senior Policy and Learning Officer.
- Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire | Wednesday, March 9th | 3:00-4:30 | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Agnia Grigas’s book, Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire, examines how—for more than two decades—Moscow has consistently used its compatriots in bordering nations for its territorial ambitions. Demonstrating how this policy has been implemented in Ukraine and Georgia, Grigas provides cutting-edge analysis of the nature of Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy and compatriot protection to warn that Moldova, Kazakhstan, the Baltic States, and others are also at risk.
- Looking Forward: A Conversation with Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State | Thursday, March 10th | 10:30-11:30 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Over the past 25 years, Kazakhstan has made hard-earned progress, rising from the poverty and chaos of sudden independence to become a middle-income nation. President Nazarbayev recently introduced a strategic vision for its long-term development, “Kazakhstan 2050,” outlining the key reforms necessary for Kazakhstan to become globally competitive. Please join us for a conversation with Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State Gulshara Abdykalikova and Deputy Foreign Minister Yerzhan Ashikbayev to discuss the road ahead. Secretary Abdykalikova also serves as Chairwoman of the National Commission for Women’s Affairs and Family and Demographics Policy, and will discuss the importance of facilitating women’s empowerment and leadership in order for Kazakhstan to realize its ambitious social and economic goals.
- Japan’s Energy Priorities and Policies in the MENA Region | Thursday, March 10th | 10:30-12:00 | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Nearly 90 percent of Japan’s imported oil comes from the Middle East, a region where protracted conflicts cause continued turmoil. Through its private sector, Japan’s extensive financial assistance to the region, and its 2016 role as a nonpermanent member on the UN Security Council, Japan’s strategic interests and resulting policies will continue to be important factors in global energy markets and international relations. On March 10, 2016, the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Global Energy Center will bring together Japanese scholars and practitioners alongside US analysts to discuss Japanese energy priorities and policies in the Middle East. These experts will discuss how the Middle Eastern landscape impacts Japan’s energy policies, and how Japanese policies in turn impact the region. Dr. Ken Koyama specializes in economic and political analysis of the world oil market. Dr. Sara Vakhshouri is the Founder and President of SVB Energy International, a strategic energy consulting firm. Dr. Yasuyuki Matsunaga specializes in politics and democratization in Iran, and is an expert in post-Iran nuclear deal implications. Dr. Kota Suechika is a Professor at the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University and specializes in regional security including the global concerns posed by the Syrian crisis. Ambassador Frederic Hof specializes in the conflict in Syria. Mr. Masataka Okano previously served in the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, the Russian Division, and the Korea Division and specializes in political affairs, particularly US relations with Japan, East Asia, South East Asia, and South Asia. He will make opening remarks. Ambassador Richard L. Morningstar is a former Ambassador to the Republic of Azerbaijan and Secretary of State Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy. He will make opening remarks
- Egypt: Sex, Rights, Politics, and US Foreign Policy with Scott Long | Thursday, March 10th | 5:00-7:00 | Johns Hopkins SAIS | Since the 2013 coup, Egypt has seen massive and spreading human rights violations, part of a counterrevolution stretching across the Middle East. LGBTI Egyptians have been among the victims. Egypt today keeps more people imprisoned for their gender expression or for same-sex sexual conduct than any other country in the world. Why? Why has a panic over sexuality and gender become a tool of the counterrevolution, and how do these abuses relate to other state crimes in Sisi’s repressive Egypt? This talk will also examine the role of the Obama administration in supporting the Sisi regime, and the contradictions in its declared support for LGBTI rights globally. Presentations will be followed by a Q&A session.
- The Future of Peacekeeping in Africa: Lessons from Ghana | Peacekeeping missions today face some of the most complex environments in their history. President Obama in September 2015 reaffirmed U.S. support for United Nations peace operations and directed a range of actions to strengthen them for a new era. Ghana, with its long history of contributing to peacekeeping and with soldiers in 12 of 16 U.N. missions, provides lessons in effective training, policymaking and non-violent conflict resolution. Understanding the political, operations and conflict environment is key to successful peacekeeping. That’s a priority for the United States, which provides almost 30 percent of the annual peacekeeping budget and, in 2014, pledged $110 million a year for three to five years to build the capacity of the continent’s militaries for rapidly deploying peacekeepers in response to emerging conflict. Ghana, the eighth-largest contributor to U.N. peacekeeping operations, has significant troops in Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, South Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire. It also has supported missions of the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union. The panelists include Colonel Emmanuel Kotia, chief instructor and academic programs coordinator at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Ghana, and author of the new book, “Ghana Armed Forces in Lebanon and Liberia Peace Operations.” He has more than 28 years of service with the Ghana Armed Forces and served at critical junctures with the peace operations in Lebanon and Liberia.
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Filling Bosnia’s reform gaps 2
Kurt Bassuener of the Democratization Policy Council replied to my Filling Bosnia’s reform gaps:
You’re right, Dan, about the fear element in voting. But fear and patronage are usually a package deal. For example, if a) you’re not sure your vote is actually secret (a commonly held concern) and b) Uncle Adnan has a public sector job and feeds a family of five, are you really going to vote for the powers-that-be? Doubtful. You may stay home, disgusted with all the options on the menu – 46% of the eligible electorate did precisely that. And voters have voted in the past for alternatives, but have usually been disappointed. Witness the SDP’s rise in 2010 and fall in 2014, after a massive proportion of its vote punished the party for perceived betrayal.
So the sense of disgust, despair and hopelessness around elections is justified – one’s vote, at least above the municipal level (where mayors are directly elected), doesn’t seem to matter a bit in terms of delivering meaningful change. The fact that the SDA and HDZ, two parties which have been at the trough since Dayton (with brief spells in the wilderness at the state and entity, but never cantonal, levels) got elected not in spite of what they are, but because of what they are: parties of power and patronage. All voters are rational actors acting within a perverse incentive structure that once was constrained by the “international community,” but hasn’t been for a decade. Voting is purely transactional for a large segment of the electorate, not votes of affirmation.
What’s telling is that even the self-described civic parties – SDP, DF, and Nasa Stranka – exerted no appreciable effort to seek Serb votes in the RS. I’m not saying that’s an easy task. This assessment of seven polls by Valery’s former colleague Raluca Raduţa demonstrates there is a lot of potential common ground with which to work. But to transform that latent potential into political and social power, an effort to develop a supermajority behind a positive agenda for a rules-based society would have to begin well before an election. The only way to change the system through the system would require a coherent 2/3 majority (including overriding the entity vote) behind a common agenda. Nobody is aiming that high right now.
There is no obvious political vehicle – and as you note, no international will to be a catalyst. The understandable but myopic focus solely on “CVE” [countering violent extremism] neglects the fact that by effectively paying for quiet (while thinking it is buying stability), the West is supporting the patronage structure and maintaining a system which can only generate violent extremism. So the current approach amounts to whack-a-mole triage to deal with effects after years of unwillingness to tackle the systemic root cause: institutionalized lack of accountability.
This isn’t a problem that can be solved programmatically; it’s a POLICY problem. Absent the will to be confrontational with the beneficiaries of the Dayton system, who are supposed to be partners in reform according to the EU’s enlargement theology, even the programs you suggest, Dan, won’t make a dent. The West has it within its power to painfully constrain the political class’ room to maneuver by reducing their ability to leverage fear, then their ability to employ patronage funded with external infusions. Then developing a partnership with citizens to squeeze them in the right direction is possible.
Finally, “holding perpetrators accountable” means getting them convicted and keeping them convicted in the second instance, which rarely if ever happens. Right now, it seems likely that the EU will surrender on a crucial element of BiH’s judicial architecture – the ability of the state to assume cases begun at lower levels if it is determined the crimes in question have sufficient impact on the state. RS Prime Minister Dodik has wanted this for a long time, but politicians in both entities would benefit from a retreat on this, getting de facto immunity.
If the US and EU were serious on criminal accountability – and on “CVE” – we’d maintain that extended jurisdiction, and furthermore return international prosecutors and judges to the state judicial systems organized crime and corruption investigation, prosecution, and adjudication continuum. The Organized Crime and Corruption chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina is the body which tries violent extremism and terrorism-related cases, so if we’re really serious, that’s where it will show.
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Filling Bosnia’s reform gaps
This USAID “gap analysis” for Bosnia and Herzegovina dropped into my inbox last week. I encourage those interested in the prospects for political and economic reform there to have a flip through the powerpoint slides. Bottom line: whatever the international community and the Bosnians have been doing about reform since 2006, it isn’t working.
There are likely several reasons for this. The ethnonationalist polarization of Bosnian politics intensified rapidly in 2006 after the rejection of the “April package” of constitutional amendments. Bosniak candidate for the presidency Haris Silajdzic amped up his rhetoric against Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik, who replied in kind. Both enjoyed political success as a result, though Dodik has last much longer and gotten much louder.
At about the same time, the European Union chose Christian Schwarz-Schilling as the international community’s High Representative responsible for ensuring implementation of the Dayton accords. Schwarz-Schilling was committed to lightening the touch of the Hirep and vowed not to use the dictatorial “Bonn powers” that had been bestowed on that office in 1997. This relieved a great deal of the pressure for reform and freed the country’s politicians to pursue their private interests at the expense of the state, as they would no longer find themselves summarily sacked for doing so.
The financial crisis of 2007/8 then took the wind out of the Bosnian economy’s sails. With growth slackening, the politicians found less cream to skim and naturally slowed the pace of reform even further, hoping to husband some state resources for their own benefit and to protect themselves from the electorate’s wrath at the reduced patronage benefits available. The corrupt and costly consequences of their behavior are well-documented. Corruption in Bosnia is not an aberration. It is the system, as Valery Perry has recently shown.
The question is: what should a foreign assistance organization like USAID do with its money in a situation like this?
Obviously not what it was doing before, which was grants to lots of widely scattered even if worthy projects. Nor, in my view, should it try to push reform by financing it. The money AID is likely to have in the future for Bosnia is nowhere near enough to convince a rational actor to undertake the kinds of reforms that are needed. Only the EU and the international financial institutions have that kind of money these days.
But conditionality and external pressure is not enough. The current Bosnian leaders won’t reform unless they feel some pressure not only from the international community but also from their own constituencies. One of the few reforms Bosnia has gotten right in recent years is its electoral system, which runs reasonably well. The problem has been that voters keep electing the same ethnonationalists who promise to protect them from other ethnonationalists. This mutual security dilemma keeps all three varieties in power, each for fear of the others.
Were I in charge, I would take all of the AID money and put it on a single objective: mounting a serious, sustained campaign across ethnic lines to unseat corrupt politicians and replace them with people committed to transparent and accountable governance, again across ethnic lines. The money might go to independent investigatory media, auditing bodies, judicial training, civil society organizations and thinktanks to support the kind of analysis and social mobilization required to unveil corrupt practices and hold perpetrators accountable.
The 2009 AID Anticorruption Assessment Handbook recommends pretty much that kind of program. In a country where “high-level figures collude to weaken political/economic competitors,” it suggests:
–seek gradual pluralization of political system with new competing groups emerging based on open, vigorous and broad-based economy
–build independence and professionalism in the bureaucracy, courts and legislative institutions.
There is a serious question whether an effort of this sort can be run out of an American embassy. Valery Perry thinks yes. I doubt it. American embassies have too many other urgent priorities to worry about the merely important. The latest is countering recruitment of foreign fighters, which has pretty much taken precedence in all countries with significant Muslim populations for the past year or two. Bosnia has contributed a more than proportionate number of fighters, so that priority is likely to crowd out most everything else.
Of course any ambassador worth her salt would want to know if the US government is funding a program of the sort I suggest and exercise oversight. But wisdom might dictate that it be conducted, transparently and accountably, through non-governmental channels. There are lots of American and non-American civil society organizations capable of such work. I hope they get the resources needed to make a real go of it.
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ISIS recruitment
On Thursday, the Middle East Institute and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies hosted ‘Recruiting for Jihad: The Allure of ISIS.’ Charles Lister, Resident Fellow at the Middle East Institute, Ahmet Sait Yayla, Terrorism and Radicalization Specialist and Chair of the Sociology Department at Harran University, Turkey, and Anne Speckhard, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University and Director of the International Canter for the Study of Violent Extremism, all presented their thoughts on who ISIS attracts. Daniel Serwer, Professor of Conflict Management at Johns Hopkins SAIS and Scholar at the Middle East Institute, moderated.
Lister believes that every case is unique when it comes to who is recruited into ISIS. It recruits from all over. There is no single profile of a person most likely to join.Its strategies have been effective to the point where it is no longer only a regional terrorist organization, but a global one. In the past few years, ISIS has recruited about 50,000 people. The group now has a presence in countries in and around North Africa and the Middle East. ISIS has an unofficial presence in many other countries.
Lister attributes ISIS success in recruitment to five factors:
- Exploitation of chaos in Syria
- Military success
- Undermining of its rivals and adversaries
- Creation of a clear, alternative way of life
- Exploitation of media and social media
Though ISIS uses all these methods for radicalization, recruitment is most successful with personal contact, both over the Internet and in the privacy of homes. This makes forming effective counter-recruitment difficult.
Lister suggested several counters to ISIS recruitment. Fighting ISIS directly on the battlefield, targeting its leadership and finance, working more with rebel groups on the ground, and enhancing border surveillance are all ways to combat ISIS. Lister added that encouraging a safe space for a healthy, dynamic debate on sensitive issues will help in the fight against the Islamic State.
Yayla spoke mainly on the ISIS presence in Turkey and Turkish fighters that joined ISIS. Out of the 5,000 people from Turkey currently fighting with various groups within Syria, around 1,200 to 1,400 are working with ISIS. These people keep passing the Turkish-Syrian border. On the border, villages are close together, and many of the people directly across the border are friends and family. Villagers and the ISIS Turkish fighters know each other well and do what needs to be done for one another. Many of the people passing these borders are smuggling weapons and supplies.
For ISIS recruitment in Turkey, social media has a large impact. Facebook videos of Turkish ISIS and Jahbat al-Nusra fighters convince some to join the groups. They subtitle these videos in Turkish to appeal to the Turkish audience. Many Turkish recruits worked previously with al-Qaeda previously. They reach out to their close circles of friends in order to recruit. Criminals from Istanbul and Ankara are attracted to ISIS as they need money. ISIS provides $200/month stipends. Living on the streets in Turkey is much worse to these people than living a better life with ISIS in Syria.
Speckhard has interviewed terrorists, defectors, and family members of terrorists. She believes ISIS has been successful in recruitment because of four factors:
- Representation of an alternative world order
- Promotion of its ideology
- Some level of social support
- Individual vulnerability
Speckhard focused on the individual vulnerability to recruitment. Desires for revenge and prior trauma make people vulnerable. Those not in conflict zones watch videos of places like Iraq and want to be a part of something. Unemployment is a big factor in recruitment. Sexual rewards, as an ISIS fighter is given a wife, are also a motivation in joining. ISIS provides immediate satisfaction and relief. People are drawn to this.
ISIS provides an alternative to marginalization. Speckhard pressed for a civil rights movement and more effective integration, especially in Europe. The solution to marginalization will have to be legally enforced. She added that it is important to work with Turkey and support Greece going forward, in order to lessen the number of vulnerable people.
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