This week, Aung San Suu Kyi and donald trump, two leaders comprising and confronting their leaders. In iraq and syria, how is the fight really going against the group that calls itself Islamic State . My guests, the founder of the first rough draft of history pod cast. The director of the afghan journalist network. The sudanese writer. And the director of the think tank the institute for government. Welcome to you all. Aung san suu kyi, prisoner of conscience for years, the gently persuasive campaigner who helped bring a peaceful end to myanmars decades of military dictatorship. Why is she so reluctant to speak out against a military operation seen by many as bordering on ethnic cleansing . The de facto leader of myanmar will read a state address this week. How will she deal with this particular issue . I would be surprised if she said a lot more to condemn this than she has already. Shes pulled back from doing that. Even though the un and human rights chief has explicitly called this ethnic cleansing. The military crackdown on the rohingya population. She does not want to use the word rohingya. She really has gone with the majority population, saying that they foreign interlopers into the country. But some of them have lived theirfor decades. Exactly. She is not doing what any government should do to my mind, which is protect the people, it governs. She is hiding behind violence on both sides. Why . Is she afraid of a popular backlash. Is she afraid of the military . The military are driving this. Either of those reasons, it seems to me, is not enough excuse for what she is doing. So we have the spectacle. This person has been a hero. Winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. She might lose that reputation in a matter of weeks. But i would be surprised if she went a lot further in this coming statement because she has since shown so little willingness to do so. Its intriguing, in the light of that, Rex Tillerson was saying this week, we must support Aung San Suu Kyi. In a sense, this fear in some capitals that if not her, then who . If not her, then the window opened up into this country would close. What i worry about with Rex Tillerson is that he is still trying to create a state department in exons own image. His chief skill is not one of diplomacy, but one of being a ceo. That is were almost all of this Mental Energy has gone. Im not sure i always take at face value these statements. But you are on top of this. If somebody like Aung San Suu Kyi goes to new york, where she will have lots of contact inside with people from the un, people she knew from the decades when she was under house arrest and living in miserable conditions in myanmar herself. Is there any room, do you think, for her mind, not to be changed in a speech, but into being guided towards a more responsible position on this . The might. And i believe she has pulled out of the Un General Assembly meeting. But you are right, that would have been the opportunity to make the point to her. As leader of a government, even a fragile one, its your responsibility to do this. Secondly, other governments could help and put pressure on the military. The military in myanmar is like the military in many of these countries, it is the business, it runs lots of companies, there are ways to put pressure on it. They could persuade the military to give ground to the openings of democracy. There would be room for that conversation. But not now. Its an extremely sad affair. I have worked in the human rights . I have fought for democracy in my country. Freedom and so on. What seems to be happening here is, this ladyjust fooled the world. It tells me more about how the world and the west sees what democracy is. Painting her as a secular saint. Yes, you are easily fooled. Easier person coming i am a democrat, i am fighting for human rights, without Digging Deeper to see this person is generally like that, you support her. That explains to me why the west makes a lot of mistakes. Even in africa. Even my country, supporting a dictator, when we are fighting for human rights, they are supporting a president who stayed there for 31 years, people, and so on. Even winners of the so called Nobel Peace Prize this to be careful next time. People could have changed this ladys view. She says she will look after these people, and so on. She would be fooling people. We need to see the difference between who is a human rights fighter, a proper credible one. I am not here to defend her on this particular thing, but she did i am not here to defend her on this particular thing, but she did fight for human rights. She was. That does not make it a record of deceit. It is simply she was transformed up. Like she did, and shout about, i want human rights and freedom for my country. The only way you can charge it is when i come to power and i practice that democracy and freedom. But she isnt doing that. What is administrative is the difference between when somebody is in opposition when somebody is in government. I think she is in a difficult position not to defend. Shes in a difficult position because it is not an unpopular cause, the rohingya case, and people believe that the country started it, there was militant attacks. There were militant attacks, but it is a history of long standing persecution. It is this disproportionality of response. So journalist and western leaders tend to think of these situations come in terms of international pressure. But theres also a lot of domestic pressure on her, as well. There is no point her throwing herself onto the fire and losing her support. It is about having fear of what the military will do to her. Shes peddling the militaristic. This is where other governments could help. Does she want to stand by the principles that she stood for . You know . Also a very important fact is how she is posturing for her domestic support, as well. She used the phrase fake news, which was disappointing. But also the calling card of the populists address. Is there a sense in which perhaps we have got here because of image projection . Is there a sense that we never properly understood what kind of thing she believed in . Herfather was a burmese nationalist. He helped to found the state. Perhaps we misunderstood what she stood for . Not tragically in the sense she was completely misunderstood. But there are situations where families are legacy political families. Where they uphold a lot of the fundamentally problematic nation building principles. There have been examples in history. In pakistan, for example, she was seen as a well educated person, she was not seen as an extension of a family that upheld corruption principles in the country. There is a similar kind of thing happening. And we need to learn lessons about who we support in the future. Exactly. But even with western leaders, kissinger, 0bama who had got in before doing anything. Maybe it should be given on a basis, if you do not deliver, we should take it back . The west should not be the one to say, and that is the problem. The west supports you, and gives some sort of democracies to your country. No. She should be working for her people. I fought for democracy, i continue to do that, and human rights after. It isnt about the west. I dont believe in the west right now. Because one day they are supporting a dictator, another day they are supporting a human rights person. Pick and choose, it is wrong. Lets move onto another subject which has possibly dropped out of the headlines but is still an important ongoing story and sabah in a sense. Its been going on in terms of the fight back towards the that calls itself Islamic State for more than a year, and it has been losing more and more of what constitutes that statement. It is a process you have been watching for many months now. How do we know it is working, and at what price is this war being waged . We dont know yet. There have been two big defeats for isis in iraq and syria. Raqqah is under siege. There have been attacks in iraq recently. Shia pilgrims were killed. In syria, isis militants are laying landmines and attacking civilians as they leave. And another major town in iraq, something similar is happening. Isis have lost their big flagship cities. That does not mean that two things are not happening. There is a vacuum being created now isis has gone. Most of these hinterlands are not governable. Isis leaving town does not mean pockets of them do not exist, i go back to my original two points, the second thing which is going on is that there are now three parties, arab league, sort of soldiers, and they are inflicting heavy civilian casualties as well as people fleeing cities like raqqa. All eyes are acting against isis, they are causing casualties, and there were also casualties being inflicted by isis. When people say isis looks like it is on the wane, all i see is it is getting far messier and less concentrated. Civilian casualties continue unabated. Does not mean the fighters are giving up. I do not think there was a strategy. The military level, i hate this word, it was invented during the iraq invasion of 2003, degrading, we are degrading isis. The old city of mosul was degraded along with it. That is what is going on in raqqa. Russia is involved. America is involved. Turkey, over the border, a nato ally, it was announced that they are buying russian High Tech Computers and military equipment. Where is the organisation at the top . There isnt any at the top. At the bottom there are people who are, you know, the fighting continues as before, except isis is being pushed out. And it is leading the way into other places. As mentioned, they canjump on any pilgrimage site in this shia part of iraq if it wishes. But can it rule anything . Can it make inroads anywhere . They are claiming this idiot bombing yesterday. The one which took place in london. Thankfully nobody was killed. Almost every incident is claimed. Whether they have organised it, more likely they are an inspiration for it. Part of their propaganda has been able to do that, to create this. And the more there is pressure on them, raqqa and other places, the more they want to claim they are behind atrocities all over the place. We have just been hearing what happens when they do pull back. There is this vacuum. Is it going to be finally the formation of the shia crescent we have been hearing about for ages . The sort of arc of iranian shia influence going from iran to lebanon. Obviously there gets to be more space with that kind of thing. But it isnt a recipe for peace just because isis has been driven out and thats the folly in some of the rhetoric we are getting from america in the moment. I think history is repeating itself. Were going back to the days when you overthrow the iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, and what comes is mayhem. In libya, you overthrow the gaddafi regime and there was mayhem. I think the world needs to learn a lesson. Theres no doubt that isis will be defeated in iraq and syria. But where next . If i was to advise people in africa right now, in those traditional days we would say get your spears. Start guarding the borders of africa. Next its going to be africa. They are coming to africa. These guys, you can defeat them one place, they will go somewhere else. It always happens, like in mali. The world has not learnt its lesson. So we are fighting this terrible thing right now. What comes next . Have you had anybody, united nations, america, britain, anyone, talking about what they are planning for syria afterwards . Isis, as you said correctly, or alqaeda for that matter, came about because of what happened. You overthrow Saddam Hussein. Everybody who used to be in the army of Saddam Hussein must not be in the army and must be persecuted in the civil service. Those are the people who went to join alqaeda. Those are the people who have been setting up 70 , or 80 of isis right now in iraq. So are we addressing any of those issues . Or are we just at the moment saying we are fighting them . We will worry about that tomorrow, yes. They are already in somalia, north africa, and so on. I agree with you in one respect. The american funding, for example, for the anti isis campaign is 20, 30 times fold what has been earmarked in iraq for the post isis rebuilding and supporting the liberal processes. But we must go one step before the iraqi us invasion. Shiites, all the disparate groups, in syria, as well, with all of the different tribes and ethnicities and minorities, have all been pushed under the surface by long standing dictators. Thats how we got into the situation in the first place. We got into the situation because america invaded iraq, because Saddam Hussein has inflicted an artificial uniformity on iraq for decades. As Bashar Al Assad is doing now. So there is the relevant question, what happens after the invasion is, but what i think is a more original sin is the complacency when these dictators are in place in the first place. And not understanding the centuries of instability that will follow. That comes back to the point i was making earlier, because we have taken off colonialism, we cant do that any more, we cant impose and bring order with it. Now you have to figure out what does russia or america, or the turks, in the region actually want . And they cant agree on when to have a cup of coffee. Consequently you have this endless war going on. Every time you think you have got this far put out, it merely spreads over here. Isis may disappear. It could be some ultra sunni. I agree, this is an important point. We are doing it now. We are creating situations now. If you see, for example, the support of the us and the west for the Saudi Arabian monarchy, which completely suppresses shiite minorities, if the saudi monarchy was to fall for whatever reason, there are ripe circumstances for a group like isis to develop. The us could have done more to acknowledge that the sunni minority is being clobbered. The bottom line is about democracy. If you keep having, sorry to say, middle east is exactly like africa. In africa we have these dictators and so on. In uganda, we have them. It does not matter whether you destroy one group like isis today. 0r take off one leader. Saddam hussein. If the bottom line, the foundations, are to do with lack of democracy. The russians, you know, while i condemn the west in their approaches, the russians, as well. 0h, lets have this syrian man, he has to be there, but he is not a democrat in the first place. Thats why his people are trying to agitate for some rights. So unless we try to now ask these people. We wont get that answer. It is a mess. Well, donald trump did say he is a deal maker. After apparently a convivial meeting at the white house the us president cut one with his opponents, the democrats. If that wasnt enough of a shock for his fellow republicans, it was on the subject of illegal immigration. An issue many in his party felt strongly about and one of the reasons they voted for him in the first place. The agreement could provide breathing space for many thousands of people who came to the country as children and now have families and jobs of their own. They were facing deportation because of a decision the us president made himself. Michael, you are back from the us, is the job changing donald trump . No, i think his new chief of staff, general kelly, is changing the way things happen in the white house. And dont forget, general kelly is tough and managed to force out steve bannon, the dark lord, who sits on the left short of donald trump and whispers bad things in his ear, forced out of the white house. But he replaced the previous head of the republican committee. He was primarily a bridge to the republicans and a very ineffective bridge he was. I dont think there is much change going on. You dont think this is strategic, this isnt a clever decision . No, no. I think with donald trump you cannot ascribe. Im not being flippant here, you cannot ascribe too much logic what happens. The man is exactly as he seems. As he seemed when he started running, as he seemed when he first burst onto the new York Real Estate scene in the 1980s. He is a Mount Everest of social pathology with a feral, and this is important, i am not being flippant, he has a feral instinct for self preservation. He isnt getting what he wants out of the republican leadership. They have given him no help at all. They havent been able to repeal and replace 0bamacare, for example. They havent come up with a decent tax plan. So what will he do . He needs a victory. He reaches out to chuck schumer, the leader of the democrats in the senate, and their leader in the house of representatives. They are old hands. They are seasoned political game players. He cuts this deal. But what is it . Have you seen a signature . It all has to get through congress and it may never come to pass. The democrats are the Minority Party in congress. This panel instinct you talk about, it is a powerful thing for a president to have and it would help his political life. But will it achieve what he wants . Is there just a danger it weakens the republican leadership, irritates republicans, and then the democrats get annoyed because they cannot get what they want . Yes, except hes almost forming new politics. Hes confounded his own party, if we can still call it that. As michael said, this instinct for survival, it doesnt lead to anything resembling a coherent plan. It doesnt lead to a plan like the one he campaigned on. But it mayjust get him some victories. Though the ground he is conceding, were not even sure if he wants to build the wall. The wall i mean, there was no greater symbol of his campaign, nothing that was more vigorously charged than build the wall. And now its turned into repair the fence. So we dont know whats coming out of it. Ruthless isnt the right word, hes absolutely instinctive in reaching for support and for his sense of what makes a deal. We are beginning to see, that that isnt the same as clinching the deal. Do you think this deal will lead to a changing of other peoples attitudes towards him . The thing is, i am very sceptical. Because i dont believe in america any more in terms of americans being able to make wise decisions about democracy. If they could put a man like trump in power, who are they . Because for me. But isnt that the epitome of democracy, that somebody like him could win . It is, but in africa we have all of these idi amins, demagogues, you know. For me, trump is like a gaddafi of america. Not because he kills, but this egomaniac. He wants to be in the media all the time. I think hes thinking, what do i say tomorrow to capture