Government. Created by cable in 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Now its a Panel Discussion on the syrian conflict and International Communities humanitarian military and diplomats response to the crisis. The middle east institute post runs just over 90 minutes. Im sorry for the delay this morning. Its keeping our moderator busy but in the interest in time and we are on air on cspan, we should get moving. Ill be giving opening remarks, well get started on our opening remarks and theyll be here and spend we will start the moderator discussion. First of all, welcome to the middle east institute. Thank you ever so much for joining us to this extremely important event. As someone who has worked on syria and particularly on this nonstop for the last nine years, i can safely say events like this couldnt come a more important time. Im mostly not aware of any other funds like this one happening in washington these days. Im extrema glad its taking place. The humanitarian crisis developed in northwestern syria in recent months, its entirely unprecedented. Not just nine years of war in syria but in this whole world modern history. Yet, despite this year in the crisis, the world is yet to do much more in public statements of concern. My opening remarks are pretty brief because of a get carried away, ill say everything i planned to say on the panel. The one thing i do want to say is how grateful i am to have of being with this panel of experts and practitioners, all of whom will lend this shortly in various perspectives to understanding what remains a complex and extraordinarily important issue. First, on author barth left, the founder and president of medical ngo that seeks to reduce Health Care Disparity by providing free healthcare to refugees and displaced people. Hes just returned from a medical mission inside where he visited humanitarian partners, met with displaced people and treated patients in the largest hospital there. He said these experiences in the last few weeks and details of the ongoing crisis. Hes also a former president of the Syrian American medical society. The cofounder of the American Relief coalition in syria and cofounder of the syria face initiative. He was also awarded the chicago of the here in 2016, his medical work and that effort. As a fellow in the middle east program at the Foreign Policy reset institute, a doctoral student in Political Science at Princeton University and i should add, a prolific writer on all things syria. Primarily based on a Large Network of contacts, shes cultivated across syria as well and across the region. Shes also fellow at the thinking a progressive israeli palestinian. Shes worked at the consultant for International Crisis group, if lentic crisis institute for peace among other places. She is a decade of expense working with Human Rights Organization in the middle east and defending the rights of refugees, migrants, laborers, palestinians and religious minorities. Alex, who with be here shortly, an Award WinningNational Correspondent based in cnn washington bureau, focusing on National Security issues. He spent most of the decade and abc news, based in moscow, jerusalem and london. He spent considerable time in the front lines of force and uprising in the middle east. He reported on the refugee and migrant crisis and covered the way of europe by isis. Among the first correspondent in cairo as the revolutionary exploded in many, many tips to syria on both the regime and rebel side. He traveled across ukraine as the Russian Military invaded. On behalf of the middle east institute, welcome to all two, or soon to be three of year. Im looking forward to this important discussion will follow. The last thing ill say one final note before we do and over, i want to let you know we are all going to be taking questions and questions for the panelist. Questions from all of you in the audience and from Live Television viewers by the interactive site. The information is on the screen here. Go to that website on your smart phone, any Electronic Device and enter the code 622500 will be able to submit your questions throughout the event, two poles which i will go through in a second and you can see other peoples questions throughout the panel as well. This will allow our moderator to keep an engaged discussion going with all of your input throughout the whole event. I should add the first part here, relatively state board one, should the u. S. Try to play a role in stopping the violence there, you can vote yes or no. You will see the results change as we go. The second one, which im hoping will come up because i dont have it in front of me. [laughter] it will come up in a minute and it will be similarly straightforward. There will be a second one with more answers to the questions, which will probably give us more of an interesting and more complex response. On that note, i will take my place on the panel. Hell bear here very shortly, we will start with elizabeth first. This is the history of the uprising, this was the 21st century, the humanitarian crisis of that portion. I wanted to draw attention to the fact that first of all, we were talking about the crisis rather regime in russia and later on as well. 1 Million People displaced in turkey. Those individuals, i would like cspan, talking about this crisis, more correctly most of them were displaced along the border. They are well off with others. This situation secures the areas from which people fled to allow them to return to airgas not under regime control. They remain there. We are talking about a crisis but these people have no hope there. In conversations with people there for many years, the desperation and the belief that they will die is prevalent. The fact that the ability to resist was happening. Trying to remain resilient. They might as well pick up and leave instead of trying, even with ablebodied men there. This is what is contributing to the rise there. I think the people who speak to the population there, this population even before the crisis, people who refused to live off the regime in these areas they are better off in the city. Its a strong population endured violence with institutions and mutual support, people are being pushed to the edge where they can no longer be in the community, survival for themselves and their children. The planetary crisis and portions, its very strong resilience. Also people are trying to help others. A tiny tiny minority, people being executed or people being tortured after being captured, this is something that is created this amongst the population. The regime continues. Theyre unable to stop the violence there. They do believe they are about to die. When i talk to people and try to understand what they do, what will they do . The border there while others are just saying this is our fate and this is what will happen. This has not happened, this is population, most of the population are children, 51 . Men participating in that there. Thank you. Thank you, elizabeth. Go ahead. If youre used to the culture, usually a family and their children, we are watching a war in syria. We should be using ceasefire and negotiated ways, acquisitions presented there. President trump in the region. What we are witnessing with leadership and the human un and war of suffering in syria. The media or policymakers, it is unprecedented. If we have 50000 people displaced in syria, no one will say anything. The media to respond with this crisis. Cnn came to me because they want to. The previous governor, this is important for us. So i was thinking that you have one corrupt government and this is compared to 900,000 people who have no health plan, and the media cannot keep these two stories. Our policy makers when the media decides that 900,000 humans in italy should be humans like us, our policymakers should Pay Attention to them. Our policymakers will Pay Attention to them. This is happening in syria i came from there a couple of months ago, i was in chicago and im going back and forth in syria with these ideas, mostly Northern Syria, yemen and other areas in puerto rico or columbia and the migrant crisis, it provides healthcare for displaced people and disasters. Im not saying thats because im from syria, and think that from that position. I will give you an example. People i met, elizabeth talked about this, surgeon for my city originally, to come to the United States every year for courses, when it started, he treated the regions there. The history of the syrian cris crisis, when the uprising happened and by demonstration, they are asking for political reform. The regime used a tactic to prevent what happened in your egypt with a change in the regime, so doctors treated them they also believed they had that regime and influences with american troops in iraq and basically unpredictable what they would do. The uprising through syrian and so forth, he allowed them in many areas and moderate opposition in many other areas. You have that. Also, if youre seeking an unprecedented tactic to end the uprising, with doctors put into position without an regime in russia. Thats what was killed in russia. The doctors who work there, by the regime and the regime, he was displaced there. Also on the committee and things like that, it was overrun by the regime, he continues knowing that he may not return to his family alive. Every position American Healthcare workers in the United States of america should be aware of these, they are treating their communities, can we talk about the recipient there, the main reason is the fact that you have hospitals and clinics treating children and families and the communities that. People told me that they will take the chance of living in neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. A position that will teach your kids may have fever, they will leave. When you talk about health and half of the population of syria displaced, half of the population displaced. The main reason is russia to destroy them, from schools and destroy markets. Also showing on social media the extreme brutality that will happen there. Marcy these videos. Brutalities and areas. I will speak also about syria, and this is flooding there. They have to mitigate this. They have families there. You have one or two of displaced but in syria you have seven, eight and ten displacements of pop the population. Going north and now theres no more in the cities. If someone thinks they can go to europe or turkey or libya, they cannot sleep. These people are going there over and over. She wants to be a doctor, most of the children that ive seen there. Not only in syria but the whole middle east. The chaos and extremism, just syria, Pay Attention to it. Not because of syria, but people there. Because of the location, the countries that allow syria, the fact that many mingle through syria, more than anything, it is very important that you go and make sure of that. Whats happening in syria is affecting the United States. The refugee crisis there, we are seeing that in the middle east in 2016 and the populism in europe, it affected that in the United States. We care about us here. [applause] i kind of feel, i guess it would have made sense to me to talk about that but i was going to talk about the lay of the land and strategically but that was one that was very powerful, the human stories but i think weve heard from elizabeth already that over 1 Million People in the u. S. , 900,000 but over 1 million it started at the end of april 2019. Exactly. Over 1 Million People are being displaced just since the first, less than three months. They were already about 850,000 people displaced. The population along the northern part, along the Turkish Border, close to if not reached 2 Million People. Thats a massive population. They would follow a long time back, people are sleeping in fields, at least i think eight children have frozen ii death in the last two weeks because they have been forced to flee and with no shelter. When you have officials and when we discuss and talk about this thing unprecedented, it truly owes unprecedented. Security counsel and they advance the underestimated scale of money and equipment and abilities that they would need to deal with this crisis and they doubled their Financial International community to deal with it. Beyond that, the United Nations is stuck, there was a french proposal the last few days to issue a statement, just a statement calling this an emergency and calling on the International Community to do what it can for abilities and the russians vetoed that. Just a statement. The prospect for you and action beyond those statement is a tough one to consider. In europe, theres great pressure on the general to do something more. Silencing himself from the issue because they have other concerns in syria. Right now, they access the regime areas in its ability to operate in regime controlled territories. There is, i think the security conference was just a week or so ago, that conference was left with that, which they defined as the western world coming and lost touch with what it means to be an important player and meaningful player in the world. I think the crisis in italy can be almost total silence from the western world on the issue. Its a perfect calculation of what they called back. Theres no attention from our policy makers. Military on the ground, just to give you all a clear picture of where things have proceeded, in the last ten months since april last year, when they first really surged, roughly 35 40 of northwestern opposition controlled syria had been recaptured by regime forces. Nearly a year, theyve got about a third of the way there. They have moved faster over time than they did over on early on. To defend and withhold this military campaign is limiting by the key regime projected was to take control of the inside highway which runs, if you could picture a map of syria, from the biggest city all the way south to damascus. The objective is complete. The secondary objective, i believe, would be to capture the highway which splits in half and goes across into the heartland as the regime. We are not there yet but the key dynamic we have to be considering right now, especially in the last week or so is turkey. Turkey has had a military presence for a long while. It established what they called observation posts, they have explicit agreement with russia mark with the Syrian Regime to establish those operation posts. There are 31 now, 13 have been completely surrounded and besieged by the regime. So nearly half of them. Effectively without a site. That raises all kinds of questions about why turkey hasnt done more until now and expand the pressure on an issue, which frankly i think is existential for the president there. Whether he looked at his allies in parliament or his opposition in parliament, theres huge pressure to avoid single refugee entering turkey. Any other areas on the fervent border. The prospect of 2 million refugees or displaced people sat on the border. If they were to cross, they were killed. Beyond that, if it were to fall for turkey cumulated, we could very easily see the dominoes start to fall and the rest of Northern Syria begin to erode. It couldnt be much more significant and get their perspective has been limited so far. We saw military offenses by turkish soldiers for the first time yesterday morning but they were pushed back by russian airstrikes. That brings and another element, which is russia and turkey increasingly coming together. The Turkish Military has fired shoulder launched missiles, and russian jets in the last 24 hours. No insignificant development. They have provided their opposition proxy, not by jihadist groups but opposition groups with far more advanced weapon systems on the vehicles may have done in this area of the country at any time over the last nine years. They deployed ten, vehicles, multiple rocket launch systems, a highly sophisticated laconic interference system, which was theoretically target russian and syria just as some time. Yet, even despite all that, we continue to see the regime admits. My question is really, what is . They have issued a deadline for the regime to withdraw, clearly not going to do that. I would expect them to push back in a much more serious way by the end of the month. What happens then . How significant is it . They are really looking at catastrophic scenarios with continued regime all the way through the northern border. I will end there because we should get into the discussion. I want to apologize for showing up late. I covered the Intelligence Community for cnn, its been a bit of a turn over, shall we say the highest level and i say that not just to explain why im late but also to speak to how theres so much going on in this country and in the news thats drowning out going on in syria. Thats not an excuse but there is a tremendous amount of upheaval in washington and the u. S. Cnn has done a good job on covering the crisis. The fact is, this is an unprecedented crisis that isnt getting nearly enough attention. Elizabeth, you laid that out very clearly, i think for people who watch and have been observing and we are used to these superlatives. We are used to chucking figures and horrific stories and photos. So, if you wouldnt mind, if you could please put this in a bit more context of why this is a unique moment and speak a little bit to the bottleneck of why it isnt reading these people, it just seems so logical and yet, even things like rhetorical statements. We are talking about this crisis, and they are completely unprepared. Basically, when i spoke to friends who work on that side, the first 100,000,