Do Syria News Today

Focused on counterterrorism, isis, as do syria. three things are important in this country. number one, make sure that isis never comes back in syria. we need to keep our troops there. theyre inside the ten-yard line in defeating isis but were not there yet. >> how are you going to convince people to come to that -- >> if we leave now, the kurds will get slaughtered. im going to talk to him at lunch. i got a call from general dunford. the president is reconsidering how we would wee do this. hes ...

Afghanistan, i can tell you that isis is on the rise in afghanistan but if pakistan would help us, we can get taliban to the table and end the war in afghanistan. our presence then would be focused on counterterrorism, isis, as do syria. three things are important in this country. number one, make sure that isis never comes back in syria. we need to keep our troops there. theyre inside the ten-yard line in defeating isis but were not there yet. if we leave now, the kurds will get slaughtered. im...

>> im john berman filling in for jake tapper today, we do begin with the world lead. president obama asked him to do it. secretary of state john kerry flew to baghdad to ask him in person, but iraqi prime minister nuri al maliki appeared to shut the door today on requests for him to form a sort of unity government, one that would include sunnis that maliki has shut out of the process for years. this would be all in the hopes of will quelling the uprising by sunni militants tearing iraq apart. so...

A day to baghdad with 70 tons of supplies. with syria and iran battling the same enemy as the u.s. it is making for some very strange bedfellows. heres jim acosta. >> reporter: all of a sudden the u.s. may have some unlikely helping hands in iraq. u.s. officials believe syria launched air strikes on isis military strong holds. adding the syrian air assault, iran is conducting drone surveillance over isis forces. with that kind of assistance from two longtime adversaries is not sitting well with ...

Political process. >> our thanks to jim acosta for that report. joining me now here in new york fareed zakaria host of fareed zakaria. as if it it could get any more complicated. the enemy of my enemy is a dictator. its not like the white house can call syria and say thanks for this, but to an extent was this inevitable by the u.s. saying were not going get involved with air strikes right now by saying the response will be very, very limited. does that create a vacuum where syria and iraq were b...

Their use of chemical weapons. >> because of that, white house officials are quick to make the distinction between assad and iranian leaders working with the u.s. and other world powers to limit their nuclear program. >> do syria and iran qualify as partners in the region? >> syria certainly not and we consider the moderate opposition and the group that we will deal with diplomatically there. when it comes to irani think ive described what we have done already which is to have some discussions o...

Essentially a shia government in damascus and syria. its a regime, but its considered a herretical regime so they have the same enemy. the iranian, syrian and iraqi government all see isis as their enemy. we are the ones that come in with the complication. we sort of like the the iraqi government because its sort of democratic and we dont like the syrian government because its a dictatorship, and we dont like the iranians because they -- you know. our position is incoherent and i dont mean it ab...

Government formation is so urgent so that the leaders of iraq can begin to make decisions necessary to protect iraq without outside forces moving to fill a vacuum. >> reporter: but syria and its embattled leader bashar al assad along with iran might have other plans. they have competing interests in iraq and the sects vying for power there. >> its a kind of strange bedfellows that would probably knife each other under the covers. the fact is that iran wants influence in iraq. it wants effectivel...