From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. We begin with an assessment on ukraine. President obama will stop in estonia ahead of the summit in wales. The Ukrainian Government accuses russia of invading and in a private conversation, president clinton reportedly said he could take kiev in two weeks. Resident who reportedly said he could take kiev. President putin said he could take kiev. They havent broken a two month siege and a video shows the beheading of u. S. Journalist steve sotloff. Joining me now to talk about the latest developments in the u. S. Role in both conflicts is president of the council of foreign relations. Of the new yorker magazine joins us later. You wrote a piece in the headline was the Assad Government might the evil but it is a lesser evil. Evil. Is a lesser it does not have a global reach alike isis does not have global ideology. When you look at isis, you simply cannot fight them and iraq. You have to find them and syria otherwise they have sanctuary. We need a ground partner. We need someone there to hold the ground, take the ground from isis. Ideally, it would be the syrian opposition. The problem is they are weak and divided. We are talking years before they would ever be Strong Enough harshly because we wasted time by not doing more. Others but again, history shows its very hard to organize because arabs are not willing to often provide the foot soldiers. What are you left with . We will not have an American Intervention are a force. No boots on the ground. Then you are left with, by process of elimination, a process of working with the Syrian Government and try to cut a deal with them. You lay off the internal opposition, you lay off your own people and we will lay off of you and they can begin to retake territory. We start working gradually with opposition and it means having some kind of tacit or formal arrangement with the Syrian Government that we do not much like that sometimes in life you have to choose. Is that in any way similar to whats going on in iraq where shiite militias have been the force and they have been helped by american air attacks . We have no relationship with them, but someone is coordinating with happening in the air to whats happening on the ground and the defective result is we are working with them. The parties of her killing each other not long ago are at least now not shooting at each other and in some cases working together or through third parties working together in the other thing that is similar his country such as iran and the United States and possibly syria , russia, saudi arabia, they may have to coordinate their policies. Weve been on the opposite sides an enemywars but when emerges that is an enemy to one and all, you have to be willing to Work Together at least in a limited fashion. Yes, there are some interesting possibilities. What about countries like saudi arabia, a large sunni nation, who have been supportive of the United States . Will they sit back now or support this effort knowing that she are involved . Shia are involved. Theyre strategically opposed to iran on every account. They have real problems with the shia. They have in one way or another facilitated the rise of isis by private donations. The saudis have belatedly woken up to the fact that at the end of the day they are in the crosshairs of isis because they will be seen as the impure places. Ns of two holy it is in their selfpreservation to get isis out of syria. What is unimaginable a few months ago that they would find ways of parking some of their differences, whether they can park some of the differences to the side and find ways of coordinating, that is now a real possibility. Now they can deal with ukraine as well as this. Tell me how you categorize, assess, measure the threat of security,r national to the National Security and the general security of the middle east and europe. Charlie,seriously, indirectly like you i worry about these guys with american and european passport to going home after this graduate school and terrorism. To takeork, we have this extremely seriously. I fear this, quite honestly, down the road. These guys are not content just to destroy. They call themselves the islamist state or the caliphate, they have ambitious designs not looking just that iraq and syria but potentially jordan, potentially lebanon, other parts of the middle east. U. S. Interests in this part of the middle east and beyond, this is not a selflimiting group. This is not a group with a national or territorial set of ambitions. Far different from al qaeda. Far greater capacity. Of money, financing, all whole range of things that give you power to go beyond where you are. Plus they have the momentum. Initially breaking the momentum in iraq slowed down some of the recruiting and then you need to take the battles of them in syria. They have the luxury of mainly being on the offensive. We need to go after their positions inside syria. Nothing but this kind of relationship will be able to stop them. You cannot do it by air power alone. You cannot do it with troops on the ground. Air power is necessary but its not sufficient. It has its limits. It cannot acquire territory. People can hide their. Air power alone cannot ferret out a group. It can get them to act defensively and put them in a crouch but ultimately you have to go after them on the ground. Were not going to do it ourselves. We need a local partner or in the case of iraq, a set of local partners. Who reads a lot about international affairs. I was struck about a piece today from winston churchill. War, this is the unnecessary war. It did not have to happen if we had done more. Is there some kind of corollary there . Just as consequential in what you do in foreign policy, people are often so much more rigorous about assessing the pros and cons of actions. If we do this, this will be the risk. It is rarely as rigorous when it comes to assessing the cost of inaction or the status quo. Hackneyed phrase, theyysis by analysis showed every course of action was risky or costly and they ended up being paralyzed and they did not assess with the same degree of rigor the cost of not acting in syria. Do you think they have changed now and they are on the road where they recognize the threat and are prepared to change . Andts happening slowly incrementally but also quite reluctantly. What worries me is theres a lot of history to suggest that incrementalism can be a bad way to go about things. To break thent momentum. You really want to send the message. I warily that we are not doing that. Whats the risk of doing it . But are a stop isis there other risks and other intended consequences that would be very bad . Is the pressure for escalation. The risk that you do something and you kill, as will happen, some innocent people and you alienate the population which could then reverberate against you. You may motivate more people to join the other side and that will be seen as the latest example of the west killing muslims which is again one of the reasons that this is essential that we have local partners. Thats part of the reason that the president has been slow trying to assemble local partners. Its not enough to say that we dont have very good options. Or a strategy. Have could have and should done more to develop an International Partner in syria. Its been more than three years since the struggle has begun and it was never a priority to develop a serious syrian opposition. There is a fear we could not come to an end that the time. So lets assume you stop. What happens then . What do you do about syria . Do you go to assad and say we have finished off isis and now we have to talk about whats going to happen in syria and he says, what do you mean . Help to defeat isis im elected. You want to defeat me . Lets make a deal. This is not a permanent answer to the challenge of syria. He will not be able to regain territory over his entire country but it is beyond. It is 200,000 syrians that have died. You probably end up with a new political map inside of syria. That is again one of the reasons you want to have a diplomatic complement to whatever you do on the ground militarily and you want to have a circle of countries, friends and syria, a Contact Group to meet including the iranians, the saudis, the russians, and others to begin to sort out with the future political character or personality of syria will be. There has to be a special place for the allies the aloe lights. There has to be something where the sunni will have a much more secure place. You could end up with tremendous degrees of autonomy within what is nominally syria but you could really have a dimension of syria and separately a syria sunni dimension. We will be right back. Steve coll joins us. As i said, steve coll joins us, a staff writer for new yorker but dean of the Columbia University school of graduate is journalism. Another tough day for journalism. We learned another journalist has been beheaded. Give me some sense of context on this. There extraordinary number of journalists at risk in jihadistcontrolled syria and i dont think the full number have been publicized. Casesng held for some ransom . Countries held by al qaedarelated groups or others but apparently the bad news today is that the second and two american journalists we knew isis was holding has been executed as isis threatened it would do when they beheaded james foley about a week ago. Richard handler were just talking about syria that we have to do something and if in fact we have to make some sort of temporary relationship with assad then we have to do that. How do you see what has to be and with respect to isis all of the Shifting Sands of alliances that are coming into play . Isis is a grotesque organization, a very serious problem in and of itself and its a symptom of a deeper failure of International Policy in iraq and syria. Isis feasts off the suffering of sunnis as well as the grievances of sunni in iraq. As a manifestation of desperation among tribal populations, ex military officers, other people rallying to its black flag to try to rebalance the situation. Part of the general core. And low of midlevel level sunni officers from the military have come over to the rebel side and ended up in isis there. Tribal leaders you have oil engineers, people who can maneuver in battle and are experienced in military organization. Sociopaths,e teenagers, and foreign volunteers. A kind of eclectic organization. It may not be very stable internally but how do you break it up and build a deeper stability in the region . Is fighting a desperate war with assad that both sides may want him a letter it is really wise for the United States to stand back and watch more syrians suffer and die while the war plays itself out and kind of owl full because it is through that suffering the extremism has arisen. If the alternatives were easy, they would have been pursued by now. Has the president been paralyzed by overanalysis and waiting for the right form of government, the right combination of forces to come to their . What has happened is isis has grown in strength starting in syria and iraq . Its hard for the outside to understand the options charts and why they have taken the kind of restrained decisions theyve taken that from the outside, there are a couple of failures that seem evident on the ground. There has been an enormous inimism or overinvestment the development of a National Unity government in baghdad which could lead an army into battle in sunni heartlands where i just do not think there is any evidence that the shiiteled government can control territory and address the grievances of sunni who are defecting. First, you have to be realistic about the capacity of the iraqi state and realistic about this project. You cannot stop isis without going to syria. Alsoat is correct but you have to have a strategy to cross the fictional border and it includes strategy in iraq. The second thing is the hard problem of syria where this room risks of take the arming, equipping, building out the Free Syrian Army or moderate groups are a substantial risk. You cannot wish them away. Tacit or explicit, this question at whether at this stage to tacitly or explicitly ally with assad, i would be interested in richards views about it. It would be deeply disturbing and cynical, even tacitly. The least about potentially option that is feasible is a desirable know. You look at the range of options from doing it ourselves to organizing a force to building up a viable syrian resistance anytime soon. You may say it is too hard and a tacit division of syria where we leave assad alone and we work in the others with the sunni might need a least bad of the options now available. Ings deteriorated over the last three years as you know better than anybody. Things have deteriorated. Tacit division of syria as an end state, sure, that is where stability will arise from. What is assad prepared to do . Hes prepared to survive. [laughter] what is the order what is he willing to do in order to survive . Ma decide his routable target is no longer syrian oppositions but is isis. We need to incentivize him to get to that point. Do we incentivize him or make a deal with him . We make a deal with some of his backers to encourage them to see the wisdom in a deal that he focuses on isis, which he has not done heretofore, and he lets others essentially do what theyre going to do. You accept the idea that he invited the rise because it feeds . He did not make it a strategic priority to eliminate. Does he want to go allout in order to recapture the original syrian state . It gets reallye interesting. You have an interesting moment in the region where everyone is waking up and theres a bit of a frankenstein here. Isis is really dangerous and we could ultimately be a target. That has everybody thinking. , you mentioned two options the panarab force or building up an opposition. Have we really tested that proposition . I do not think we have tested the panarab force but im skeptical based on history. Im told by people who have looked at the moderate Opposition Force that it is very tough going. You talk about risk. You have to assume loss of equipment, assume it will be heavily infiltrated. Its tough on steroids now. What about iran . Enemye are come are great to go shooting like crazy to try to get them to do something about their Nuclear Policy and heres an opportunity where we have the same enemy. Weve been trying to develop for grand bargain with iran a number of years now with Nuclear Programs resolution being essential to that. What is the grand bargain . We cap, freeze, or otherwise make a deal around their Nuclear Program in order to create a path to normalization in which the natural partnerships and shared interests that the u. S. Clearly has with iran, they are very easy to list, stability in afghanistan, drug stuff, that has always been on the agenda. Al qaeda is another one. The difficulty at the moment is that irans interest and iraq are perhaps not the same as ours. Shiite control. Ourn the region, if partners in stabilizing the sunni areas of serious and iraq jordan, saudi arabia, the uae, turkey. They all live in texas 10 show dread of iran and particularly c. R. Bard getting as something that undermines their interest. Im not sure how it is that we are going about trying to untie that not, but i feel the presence of that. I dont know if you would agree, in the way that we are trying to play both sides of this problem. Its difficult. We have to try to resolve the Nuclear Issue to come up with an outcome that is enough for them and not too much for the israelis. At the same time, we have to understand it opens up the possibility of other forms of operation. Then we will have a crisis with iran. The question beyond that is if ,e can find these limited areas like afghanistan, if they can never sort out their elections, syria, iraq. Given the internal politics here we lease talking about linkage. Nonlinkage, can you find the spheres of cooperation. What happens to it . Saying we need to find out what we can do. Where are we . In two monthly mark the 25th anniversary of the end of the cold war. They went through two and a half decades of an identity crisis. We have to worry about russians. The real thing is to build up some nato capability. We want to spend intelligently. In particular strengthening the other members of nato. Ukraine,u worry about you have to worry about the countries to whom you have specific article five obligations and nato would be hardpressed to meet them right now. They have to close the gap between commitment and capability. I was listening to an interview with the estonian Prime Minister of all people this morning. Capitals the west nato and north american capitals understand the seriousness of whats going on but they are still having trouble thinking 3, 6 months ahead as to how far putin might push this if he feels that he can with a population in places other than Eastern Ukraine. Each time we wait to see how far hes willing to test his expansion as proxy policy, he pushes it 10 further down the road. Building the supply lines to crimea basically building a permanent russian speaking de facto state, this was completely predictable because its exactly what they pursued in georgia and other places. To start contemplating instability in places like the baltics where there are article obligations, is nato really capable of providing the kind of deterrence, rhetoric, fact, policy, to get him to back down from such conversations . A partassume this is all of his conversations and in the end they will not do anything to force them to evacuate . Part of me assumes its a heavy improv quality to him. Unlike the associates where you had the heaviest the tuition allies to bureaucracies, a lot of this is putin making it up as he goes along. Besides bolstering nato, we want to ratchet up sanctions and be able to keep the diplomatic out, life. Is an alternative between continuing to press on and having a total loss of face back down. Doesnt he have to already know that . He knows ornow what seriously believes, but i think. E ought to repeat that again, with the rest of nato, this is not a symbolic or rhetorical organization. Its a military alliance at its core. Right now, the military dimension is seriously under nowhere where they need to be. Toughest moment in the obama administration. Was a pretty lousy econom