To i mean, the administration seems to fear being pulled into will iraq, and on the other hand they have a growing sense that things are going so badly they may have to do something different. Where are we . Michael the american strategy has been to degrade and defeat the islamic state, but it has been under resourced all along. They do not have a strategy that outlines aligns with their objectives. After the fall of ramadi, they have made some course correction by sending american personnel to a new base in an bar anbar. It is an attempt to reach out to the tribes and work more effectively with the military units in anbar that at some point will have to retake ramadi. Charlie does it sound like too little too late to you . Dexter all of this is a sign of the president ambivalence. Charlie this is in ambivalence . Dexter he wants to do something, but he doesnt want to be there. What he doesnt want to be you responsible completely for the collapse of the iraqi state. You will you michael because foreign fighters flocked there and there are a host of region reasons that this is said to be in american interest. Apart from whatever happen in iraq, we are getting there incrementally. Whereare charlie how much does this depend on how well the iraqi army works . Michael the reason they are sending trainers and advisers to anbar is not purely to work with the iraqi army. Half will be for training engagement and half with the iraqi army. They will have to work at the local level. Really to wait and see how it works out. Charlie what is at risk for the u. S. . Dexter i think it is from the churches in Obama Administration wont have some success in iraq. It hasnt had much success so far, but i think it is too early to say they cannot have success. Its possible to do that. Will and i also think its possible without the enormous investment of money and troops and energy that marked the bush administration. Nobody is talking about sending back american divisions and reoccupy the country and doing anything on the scale. Once these troops are in, we will have all about 3500 American Forces there, almost all of them behind the wire in bases. This is not a strategy of risk for the United States. You can adjust the strategy at make it more effective, but it will be different entirely from what happened in the iraqi war. Dexter when i was there, it has been a year since most will sell to isis. Since mosul fell to isis. The iraqi army we trained at unbelievable expense over many years, and it just disintegrated overnight. Isis, they took whole towns with just taxicabs and a guy with a bullhorn. They all ran away. That is not a problem you can fix by just adjusting your policy in washington. That goes to the heart of what these countries are. Michael all of the exertions being made in iraq do not get at the problem in syria where again, they are gaining ground. The coalition has come together and pretty much agrees on what needs to be done in iraq. But they have wildly divergent views on what needs to happen in syria. The saudis and turks think thought has to go. The iraqis, who are think assad has to go. The iraqis, who are heavily dependent on assad, dont think that. The problem has been managed primarily by deferring the syria problem, but it cannot be deferred for ever if the strategy is to destroy the islamic state. Charlie thank you. We will be right back. Stay with us. Charlie more than 11 Million People worldwide were uprooted from their homes last year. Millions in syria and iraq have fled the countrys as the conflict rages on. The United Nations has called it the worst migration crisis since world war ii. European leaders are seeking to address the flow of immigrants on their shores. Thousands of muslims are stranded at sea seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Matt dillon recently visited one of those camps. Matt we have the smaller ships that were used to help the people that sit out there for weeks. They filled them up. This it up there for weeks, these people and deplorable conditions. They were held for ransom. People were finally able to break through to the Community Leaders to get them to negotiate a release. Many of these people suffered. Charlie michelle is president of Refugees International and kenneth is director of human rights watch, and David Miliband is a former foreign minister of britain. Im pleased to have each of them here. Let me begin with you, matt. Tell me how you got involved. Matt ive been on the board of refugees for several years and obviously, the rohingya are a group of people that we are very interested in and concerned about. It was about six weeks ago at an event when an activist, a human rights activist and advocate for the rohingya spoke. His speech was very powerful. He started off by saying i dont exist. It stayed with me. I met with him the following day and told him if we got an opportunity to help on the issue, i will. I found myself in the region doing some press in japan. And i called michelle and i said, i would like to go down, and what do you think . I would like to go down to myanmar and check out the camps. At that time, while i was in japan, there were more news articles coming out of ships being pushed out to sea, discovering mass graves, deplorable pictures of people jammed into the hulls of these ships. I wanted to get a sense of why this was going on and a remembered that speech. That is what brought me there. I went down with a couple of journalist friends who are more familiar with the crisis than i am. Charlie do we know about what is happening in burma . Guest i think we know more than we did a few years ago. We started working on it a few years ago. That was before the violence in 2012. That happened at a time when there was more International Presence and allow the nation to be better known. I was very grateful when matt foley he was going to burma, because it had given the impression that the government had made an international crisis. I was very happy when matt went to the camp and he said it is not an international crisis. It has its roots in burma. Charlie what do we need to do here . Give me the politics of it. Guest step one is to deal with what is driving them away. Roughly 10 fled last year. Its as if 30 phil it is as if 30 minus americans just up and flood because of persecution. Theres a reason for this. Ron has 135 ethnic groups and is does not recognize rodriguez as legitimate. They have no citizenship. Its a combination of racism they are darker skinned, and the fact that they are muslim in a largely buddhist country. They are seen falsely as immigrants. What we are seeing now is that because there is a gradual democratization process in burma, the military is terrified of losing democracy. And there is a movement behind buddhism resulting in a split vote and forcing her to choose on human rights policy. And sadly, she has been largely silent. She has said that it is a mistake to view me a human rights activist and that shes a politician. It is poison for her to embrace them. Its ultimately not her fault. The fault lies in the burmese government, but shes making it easier for them to persecute by failing to speak up for the rohingya. Charlie if she spoke of, what would be the consequence . Or is she so large that she could speak up without consequence . Kenneth the fear is that she would lose both in the election. But it would force the burmese government to stop the violence in the camps and to give them the Voting Rights that they deserve. Guest there are fires in burma. There is economic interests, but unless they get the humanitarian situation properly dealt with, the economics and politics will not work. Its very striking. We worked in myanmar in the last 25 years in the state where the rohingya are, both in camps and in villages. And weve also resettled rohingya into the United States since 2007. On both sides, the consistent message is, until all the parts of burmese Myanmar Society are treated properly, we will never have the political stability to allow for the Economic Resources of that country to be to properly deployed. Charley discrimination increase as democracy increased . Kenneth in a sense, yes. The Voting Rights issue became real as elections were on the horizon. The issue became more intense. There is since the gradual opening of burma as a buddhist extremism, which is two words you dont tend to put together. Military has used these extremists to try to split the prodemocracy vote. We have seen an intensification of violence against rohingya. Its a good way to change the subject from military malpractice and misrule to this very unpopular minority. Charlie what do you hope to accomplish . Matt for one thing, the u. S. Government and other governments should put more pressure on the myanmar government to give these people they are stateless, they dont have rights to citizenship. And they should work toward that. In the meantime, they have to have their human rights net met and that is something that is not really happening. I think thats the goal right there. Right now, the government of myanmar doesnt want the world to believe that these people exist. They dont even acknowledge the word rohingya. Kenneth it has gotten so bad that diplomats will not use the term for fear of offending the burmese government. In my private meeting with the president i got him to say the word rohingya, which was a victory. Officially, they dont exist. You see most of the diplomats not using the term, which is a real abdication of responsibility. The burmese went back to 1988 when there was an outpouring and it was crushed. And burma live through 30 years of awful dictatorship. Charlie did they change the government . Kenneth they put in a civilian figurehead with a general. But burma under severe economic sanctions is looking around and seeing countries like thailand and others booming and recognizing that it had to open up politically in order to open up economically, but they have been doing it begrudgingly. Theyre are trying to split the opposition. It is an effort at a controls transition, and so far, the west seems more interested in applauding its great victory toward some progress rather than pushing toward more. Charlie what is there to lose by pushing a toward more . Kenneth if you talk to hillary clinton, this is one of her big victories. This is one of the big things shake, status secretary of state. It does not serve her to highlight what big things she accomplished as secretary of state. The Obama Administration has done better about that. They do speak about the problems. Many of the european interlocutors do not want to push too hard for democracy. There is a laissezfaire attitude, which is not serving the burmese people well. Charlie when you turn to syria and all the refugees, are we desensitized to what is happening in these camps . David it is not just refugees, but there are people in these urban areas. Turkey, 2 million refugees. His stumble 1000 kilometers from the syrian border, you will find syria refugees. It has become an iraq crisis, youre right. Lets give it our attention from syria to iraq, where in truth, you cannot address iraq without addressing syria as well. But there is a deeper revolution. We are down to one envoy trying to get a temporary ceasefire in one syrian city. That is the extent of the diplomatic push at the moment. And meanwhile, the options get worse. They were a bad options a year or two ago. They are even worse now. They are two countries and it is a splintered opposition. In a sense, there is an insoluble crisis that is blocking it. Charlie and only thing will follow it is a political solution. David and those like him and those only come through effort on the ground. And at the moment, neither side has anything to gain. Charlie my impression is recently that assad has begun to lose more than he is winning. David there is a lot of talk about him struggling to get soldiers, but he is backed up i by russia and iran and hes in a better position that he was in 2012, 2013. The major challenges to shore up the neighbors, some of whom like jordan are close allies, and they need help coping with the burden they have. And there are civilians in the middle of syria that are being bombarded by their own government. Some accountability needs to be established for grotesque breaches of the laws of war. This is a war without law, as well as a war without end. And you are right to say that there has to be political muscle behind us because it will not be brought to a close. And the only beneficiaries from the vacuum are obviously isis. Kenneth we are so far away from a political solution in syria. We cannot afford to wait for that. While we negotiate, people are being slaughtered. And as david points out, there are the barrel bombs, which are huge explosives filled with shrapnel that assad drops from helicopters. They are just being dumped into areas of aleppo. The way to stop that is to put pressure on assad through russia and iran, his two main backers. Charlie what pressure could you put on russia to make them change their policy with respect to syria . Kenneth i would Start Talking about it publicly to begin with. U. S. Policy toward these two countries is very onedimensional right now. With russia, it is all about ukraine and with iran its all about the nuclear deal. If there was a serious effort to try to raise the issue of the barrel bombs, you might see the same progress in moscow that got us a year ago to open the borders for humanitarian aid. The only thing is to force them to pay a public reputational price for continuing to back a regime that slaughters civilians. It may not be the panacea, but it is not being tried. When it has been tried with other issues like humanitarian aid, it has worked. There has not been a serious effort to use those tools to stop the barrel bombing. David since the passing of the u. N. Resolutions, the humanitarian situation has gotten worse, not better. There is not the flow of aid going into syria. In a document each month how the Syrian Government is taking medical supplies off of trucks as they go across the border. The first thing that all members of the Security Council need to uphold our their own votes. Theyve already voted for a solution, but its not being implemented. And we are in a situation where the main beneficiary is not russia or iran, not the u. S. But isis. That is the new factor in the game. Anyone who looks at it will see that at least according to the publicly stated position, there are Common Elements in the positions of countries that are currently on different sides and there needs to be a fundamental reset in policy with respect to the syrian crisis, or it will be worse in a years time. Even looking again at how the geneva agreement, which was from intensive diplomacy, is brought into effect. Charlie i thought would be that unless assad starts losing badly, then you may have iranians and russians change in their attitude about what to do. Kenneth let me respond to davids point. Isis, the one hand is a horrible force, but the u. S. And the west tend to look at assad and the last defense against isis, even though that is a huge recruiting tool for isis because of the barrel bombs. I think we need to look to distinguishing between legitimate defense and shooting at combatants, and his tendency to simply bomb civilians in oppositional areas. That is what causes so much death. Even though i take davids point that humanitarian aid is not what it should be, the russians were willing to sign off on his humanitarian aid under public pressure. They have not faced that kind of public pressure to stop the sick the barrel bombing of civilians. There is now talk of a new effort. The Security Council has talked about barrel bombs but has not attached it to anything for just the cutoff of arms. We need to change that dynamic if we are going to save syrian lives. Michel we have a problem, which is how to avoid establishing nation establishing of neighboring countries. It is very difficult to get out, not just because people want to flee, but because it is difficult to enter these countries and they are exerting pressure on their own populations. I think humanitarian aid has to be maintained but that is not sufficient. The ministry needs to be supportive, public works need to be supported. It is a devastating crisis for this country and if we do not move in a different direction, we will have a serious problem. We have seen manifestations in lebanon and in turkey. Charlie i want to make sure i understand what you are recommending we do. Michael development makers etc. , should make major contributions to these countries to help them with the structural needs for the government to address the population. It is not humanitarian aid, but development aid. It is happening at a very limited level because we are talking about middle Income Countries that do not qualify for development aid. That is something that needs to be changed if we want to preserve the sanity of these countries. We are seeing a number who are fleeing from turkey to lebanon to egypt and then taking votes boats all of their economies because all of their economies have dried up and they do not have worked and they dont know what to do. David he makes a very important point, because organizations like the world bank work in cases like jordan and lebanon. But in this case, 350,000 syrian kids are not getting an education at the moment. Charlie are they getting shelter . David they are getting some shelter and some food. The irc and other fantastic ngos are working night and day to try to help people. For protection for women and kids and for family reunification. It has been overrun. It was 18 funded this year. It will be hard to bring the war to a grant to an end, but to make a difference on the ground is not that hard. Charlie what is the solution beyond the countries and refugees themselves to stop the flow of refugees . Youre arguing in syria you need is real pressure on the supporters. Im not sure where the best example of that has happened in recent history that has led to that kind of results. Kenneth the two big victories we have had in a disastrous situation is, one, getting assad to turn over chemical weapons, which was done under threat of military action. David if the course in nigeria was not the way it was, we would have the same levels of refugee flows that we are seeing elsewhere and im going to niger, a small country bordering nigeria and there is a sick the biggest number of people flowing across the sahara. It shows the potential to go upstream and block off some of these. Charlie are you the leas