Good afternoon. Welcome to the center for strategic and international studies. Welcome as well to our viewers online. My name is jacob kurtzer, im the acting director of the humanitarian agenda here, a project that we seek to leverage the expertise of our scholars and programs to offer policy solutions to humanitarian problems in the world today. I would like to direct everyones attention too our emergency exits, its part of our safety and security plan, and encourage you also to take this opportunity to turn your phones to mute. I want to acknowledge before we begin the partnership that our program has with the agency for International Development whose support allows us to put on events such as todays discussion. We have a short time today so ill be brief. All of us here today are keenly aware of the immense human suffering taking place in idlib and across syria right now. Families and individuals have been forced into multiple displacements, with targeted attacks ongoing on innocent civilians and on hospitals and clinics all of which challenges our notions of shared humanity. The escalation of violence this past weekend only increase the urgency of finding Durable Solutions for the challenges faced by the population of syria. While were very grateful to our speaker today for joining us and for hosting and for having this event today, i find it deeply distressing and disappointing that after so many years we continue to be hosting events on the same topic, highlighting the same challenges, and asking ourselves what we can do and what can be done. I would like to turn it over to one of our regular partners in the humanitarian agenda, jon alterman. Dr. Alterman is a Center Vice President and the director of the middle east program here. Hell introduce our speaker today. Thank you, doctor. [ applause ] thank you very much, jake, and thanks to the humanitarian agenda, thanks to u. S. A. I. D. For their support of this program. The horrors of idlib, almost a Million People, many of them children, are trapped between armies. The province has doubled its population since war broke out as syrians sought refuge from fighting. Now 3 million syrians are huddled there, suffering from cold and lacking water, sanitation, and medical care. This has been occurring outside of the Public Awareness not because its unknowable but because the public is uninterested. Seized by coronavirus, a president ial campaign, a shaky economy, and rising populist sentiment in europe, the crisis in idlib gets little attention. Thats what brings us here. And were here to speak to a forceful humanitarian Whose Organization has been doing tremendous work to try to relieve some of the suffering in idlib. David miliband is president and ceo of the ernintercontinenta i International Rescue committee. Under milibands leadership, the irc has expanded its ability to rapidly respond to humanitarian crisis and to meet the needs of people uprooted by conflict, war, and disaster to bring clear outcomes, strong evidence, and Systematic Research to the h humanitarian programs through Collaborative Partnerships with the public and private sectors. Before he began this important work, he did other important work from 2007 to 2010, he was the foreign secretary of the united kingdom. He graduated from oxford in 1987 with a first class honors degree in ppe, philosophy, politics, and economics, got a masters in Political Science in 1989 from mit which he attended as a kennedy scholar. His accomplishments have earned him a reputation, in former president bill clintons words, as one of the ablest Public Servants of our time and as an impassioned advocate for the worlds poor people. Im pleased to introduce to you mr. David miliband. [ applause ] thank you very much, jon, thank you, jake. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Ambassadors, excellencies. Usa i. D. , who are your partner and also our partner, the office of foreign Disaster Assistance gives foreign aid a good name. Its a flexible entrepreneurial, committed partner of ours. Its a nice link that theyre also partners of yours. Im afraid that the timing of this event is very, very good for all of the wrong reasons. The situation today in northwest syria is beyond desperate. As i know from our own staff on the ground, life, never mind livelihood, is daily in doubt. As jake referred to, the Turkey Russia syria clashes should underline to all of us that the wider diplomatic vacuum, notable for the absence of coordinated european engagement, notable also, im sorry to say, for the absence of the United States, is a real danger not just to humanitarian need but also to wider regional stability. My purpose in making this speech today is in part to bring the humanitarian reality of idlib to washington, to speak up for our staff and for the people who they serve, in the hope that theres still room for humanity and principle in the corridors of power here. There are few countries with the capacity to shift the dynamic in syria and the u. S. Is one of them. So i hope there is resonance in what i describe today as well as brainstorming amongst all of us here in the conversation after my speech about what to do about it. But as well as bringing idlib to washington today, the situation in idlib to washington, i also want to make a wider argument, and this is the wider argument that im going to try to make. Its that the war in syria is not just a disaster. Its an argument that the war in syria will dangerously become a byword, a precedent for a new normal of brutal, divisive, contagious conflict. Impunity on the battlefield, stalling of diplomacy, the u. N. Pulled from pillar to post, the aid system inadequate, neighboring states creaking under the strain of refugees, western policy befuddled by a mixture of dysfunction, division, and denial. That is the reality of the syrian story over the nine years that jake referred to. And the danger is that it becomes copied elsewhere. Here is what identifying today. First, summarize the Current Situation across syria starting in idlib. Second, explain how we see syria as a warning for the changing nature of conflict around the world today. Third, set out some short term imperatives for how to save lives today. And fourth, draw some wider lessons for humanitarian and diploma diplomats. I think we all know that the assault on idlib is intended by the Syrian Government to be the climax of the war in syria. 950,000 syrians have fled since december with another 400,000 at risk of joining them. The largest civilian displacement since the war started nine years ago. So yes, there have been conversations about syria and debates about syria over the nine years. This is the largest displacement reflecting some of the most virulent fighting. Every day another 11,000 civilians join those on the run. Among those forced to flee are about 20 of our local irc staff who attempt to preserve their own work as well as their own families as they do so. Over 80 of those on the run are women and children. Many are out in the cold, braving freezing temperatures, about 20,000, with no shelter at all. Freezing rain and snow which has led to the deaths of about seven children in the last month, deaths from freezing itself. Attacks on Health Facilities represent some of the most egregious war crimes and are taking place despite specific calls from u. N. Security Council Resolutions for them to be stopped. In the past three weeks alone, the irc and other organizations we work with had to suspend operations in a number of Health Facilities and relocate an entire fleet of ambulances because they were being attacked. In total more than 80 Health Facilities in Idlib Province have now been closed. Its also the case that the situation has deteriorated so far that all of the u. S. Based ngos have come together in the Global Emergency Response Coalition which is a humanitarian alliance to launch only the second ever joint appeal in our history to raise funds for deployment inside idlib. The fact that the exodus in idlib is the greatest since the war began is testimony to the ve ve virulence and brutality. The region is still recovering from the consequences of the turkish offensive five months ago. Just last month a u. S. Convoy exchanged fire with a pro government militia while driving through a checkpoint. Meanwhile elsewhere the Islamic State has been damaged but not vanquished. While the group is not nearly as deadly as in the past, it remains a persistent threat, carrying out regular ied attacks and shootings in places like raqqah east of the euphrates and temporarily capturing villages and bombing oil and gas facilities west of the river. Previously, opposition control, which has since been retaken by the syrian military, we know from our own staff that the end of formal fighting has not led to an end to the violence or an improvement in the civilian populations, humanitarian situation. Charles lister counts more than 350 attacks in the past three months in the southwest of the country where the civil war began including an attack last month that killed two oxfam workers. The situation resembles a frozen conflict rather than an emergent peace. Meanwhile, outside syria, the situation of nearly 6 million syrians who fled across the border shouldnt be forgotten. 78 of syrians in jordan live below the poverty line. Half of the 500,000 syrian refugee children in lebanon are still out of school nine years into the war. And its worth noting, and im sorry to say this as someone who is a foreigner in america, i live and work here and i have huge admiration and respect for the country, but the following is almost the most stung statistic of all those ill give you. It relates to the continued shame for the u. S. That this country has made it so difficult for syrian families to find refuge here. Remember the statistics. 3. 5 million refugees in turkey, 3. 7, maybe, 915,000 in lebanon, 655,000 in jordan, 567,000 in germany. Just 563 syrians were let into the United States last fiscal year. And only 320, not 320,000, 320, are on track to enter this fiscal year. Thats what the reduction in the Refugee Resettlement program has meant for syrians hoping to find safety here. Meanwhile, the Syrian Government has made no secret of the fact that syrians who fled to neighboring countries as refugees are not welcomed back. The government has levied a wide range of charges against returning refugees meaning many of them risk imprisonment and torture if they try to return. They also use the infamous law 10 to prevent refugees from having a place to come home to. Finally, the conduct of the war will make reconstruction and attempts to recreate some sense of normality all but impossible in decades to come. Just 9 of the syrian population are currently served by functionfunction functional Wastewater Treatment plants. One in three schools are damaged or destroyed. This is a decadeslong trauma that is going to affect future generations as well as the current one. The broader point, though, i think is really important. The catastrophe in idlib, and this is the third thing i want to talk about, how we should understand the syria today as symptomatic of a wider what i call age of impunity. The catastrophe in idlib and the wider consequences of the conflict are symptoms of the utter failure of diplomacy and the abandonment by the International Community of syrian civilians. It also foreshadows an even darker trend towards impunity. An era characterized by disregarding the rule of International Law and an even graver deficit of International Diplomacy which allows the suffering of civilians to continue unabated. The use of chemical weapons, public beheadings in town squares. These crimes are bad enough. But accountability has so far been all but nonexistent. The majority of the blame lies with the allied syrian, russian, and iranian forces. As the u. N. High commissioner for resume heights pointed out, of the roughly 300 civilian deaths in northwest syria this year, 93 were caused by the Syrian Government and its foreign allies. But in the process of so blatantly violating the laws of war, those countries have spurred a race to the bottom. It gives me no pleasure to point out that in the effort to take back raqqah from Islamic State, the u. S. Led operation destroyed or damaged more than 11,000 buildings in the city and has taken no responsibility for reconstruction. This can only undermine calls for, quote unquote, restraint from Russian Forces in idlib. I believe a fear what were seeing in syria is not unique and that it foreshadows a dangerous trend where the laws of war, so carefully built up after the second world war, become optional. I think its important to understand what the drivers are of this age of impunity. And i would put to you there are four. First, war is now increasingly urban. So the distinction between civilians and soldiers is eroded. This is a major reason why the war in syria has displaced more than 11 Million People. And here is an interesting thing. According to Steven Feldstein at carnegie, since 1945, an average of five people were displaced for every one person killed in conflict. In syria, that five to one ratio is 25 to one. Second, the battlefield in syria is increasingly crowded, filled by nonstate actors who have the consolation of Free Syrian Army groups, extremist groups, local Partner Forces like the u. S. Backed Syrian Democratic forces, and foreign militaries from turkey and the u. S. To russia and iran. The involvement of so many groups, more than a hundred in syria, according to the arms conflict location and event data project has fractured the battlefield geographically but also hierarchically, given the often unclear chain of command within each of these groups. Furthermore, and here is the point, its not just well, ill go on to the point. Third point for you, the large presence of foreign militaries has made the war far deadlier for civilians due to the increased firepower they bring to an otherwise, quote unquote, civil war. As demonstrated by the widespread russian air strikes on cities like idlib. The issue is not just the imbalance of Foreign Forces in syria. Its the mere presence of them. In total, 70 countries now contribute troops to conflicts in other countries according to the Peace Research institute of oslo. So the syria phenomenon does not stand alone. Its increasingly common elsewhere. Just think about somalia, iraq, mali, elsewhere. And the fourth driver of this age of impunity needs to be talked about. Its an obvious point, dramatized in the title of this years munich security conference. The title was, quote unquote, westlessness. It takes a german speaker to find a way of encapsulating the trauma of or the dysfunction of western policy, westlessness. The absence of the west in the syria end game is not only a military question outside the northwest of the country. Syria is low, very low, on the western diplomatic priority list. And Foreign Policy is very low on the political priority list. In fact, fear of entanglement largely without weighs commitments to halt the suffering. And the roots of this absence are obviously the failures in iraq and afghanistan, the lingering effects of the financial crisis. But when liberal democratic countries committed to human rights are absent, then those who regard those riots as an inconvenience are obviously given free rein and thats what were seeing. Although syria is the poster child for the age of impunity, if you look at civilian deaths, if you look at killing of aid workers, if you look at a range of indicators of children caught up in conflict, syria is not an outlier. Its part of a trend. And so that leads to the concluding or prescriptive parts of my remarks. I want to talk about short term relief in idlib and then come to the wider lessons. The immediate need in syria is a ceasefire, obviously, increased, unimpeded access to civilians in need. But there is no chance of this happening and little point for people calling for it without a strategic decision in washington and european capitals that syria matters enough to require all the costs that come with engagement of any kind. Since im running a humanitarian ngo, i have to steer away from the military side of these questions other than saying that all military decisions should be taken with a view to their humanitarian consequences. But even short of the military questions, once a decision is taken that engagement is right, there are ways to increase the costs on those who are perpetrating crimes on the battlefield. For example, instead of u. N. Member states and u. N. Officials expecting each other to address the crisis, both need to step up. Ive suggested secretary general g gutierrez should convene, for example, a ministerial session in which the u. N. Human Rights Council briefs members and requires them to account for the human rights abuses and war crimes that are taking place in syria. There needs to be engagement by western powers with the seriousness of the situation, a meeting was planned, it seems to be off now, between chancellor merkel and president s erdogan, putin, and macron. It now seems that will be a bilateral president putin president erdogan meeting. A wider meeting makes sense but where is the u. S. In that story . The renewal of crossborder aid, the reopening of the crossing in the east, are essential. Two crossing points for a