canines are revered as guardians of the dead. they buried eye long with their humans to guide them through the after life. thanks for watching al jazeera america. er i'm del walters in new york. "inside story" is next. that's the inside story. >> the peace talks may have broken up. but there's never been a pause in the fighting. what's next for syria? that's the "inside story." hello, i'm ray suarez.

the warring cities of greece called a truce that allowed visitors and competitors to travel unimpeded to the games. active role in getting the warg sides i--war in syria. those talks ended in failure over the weekend, with the syrian guaranteed that the fighting and dying would continue back home. the obama administration was particularly tough on russia faulting the putin government for providing cover for assad government while the assad regime unleeched ever crueler weapons on their opponents. opponents in the civil war, what happens now? the syrian conflict has made the area dangerously unstable.

the last session of the second round of talks in geneva lasted just 27 minutes, and ended with an apology from united nations mediator, lakhdar brahimi. >> i'm very, very sorry and i apologize to the syrian people that their hopes which were very, very high, that something will happen here. i think that what has been -- the little that has been achieved, in homs, gave them even more hope that maybe, this is the beginning of the coming-out of this horrible crisis they are in. i apologize to them. but on these two rounds we haven't helped them very much. >> secretary of state kerry accused the syrian president of stone walling the passions

talks, saying bashar al-assad would water win this on the battle field than come to the negotiating table in good faith. barrel bombs and starvation. >> assad says he wants to talk about terrorism. assad himself is a magnet for terrorism. he's the principal magnet of the region for attracting foreign fighters to syria. ftc moreover -- moreover, assad himself is gauging in state-sanctioned terror against his own people. >> it was the united states and russia that brought the warring parties and syria to the negotiating table in the first place but secretary kerry had harsh words for russia monday saying its military support for the assad regime has enabled assad to double down which is creating an enormous problem.

alid almoalem said it created a negative atmosphere for the talks. >> we are saying that the way the regime is negotiating is negative for the talks. this is a conflict now that the negotiations aren't going in any direction. >> more than 140,000 syrians have died since the beginning of the war, according to the london-based association of syrian rights. 7,000 were children. with the bleak humanitarian situation the u.n. emergency relief agency was able to evacuate over a thousand people from the ancient city of homs, after 18 months of fighting that's ruined the old city, a feeble cease fire allowed peace keepers to physically guide out of the city, women, children, and disabled residents caught in the middle of the brutal battle,

while thousands remain behind. the united nations is requesting a continuation of the cease fire in order to get supplies to a city under siege. opposition are still fighting against themselves. on monday the main group backed by the united states replaced its general, losing the confidence of the u.s. and other allies. president obama spoke about the situation in syria before the talks broke down. he was meeting in california with king abdalla of jordan, where 6,000 syrians are refugees. >> there are immediate steps we have to help the humanitarian situation there. there will be immediate steps we will have to take to apply more pressure to the assad regime and we'll continue to work with all the parties concerned to try to move forward on a diplomatic

solution. >> for now there's no diplomatic solution oon the horizon. a third round of talks on syria has been promised but no date has been set. >> so where do we go from here? is the u.s. out of options? are the russians ready to bargain? is there hope for the people of syria? joining us now is dan yeah surwar -- daniel surwar. a scholar at the middle east institute. from new york city michael weiss, fellow from the institute of modern russia and a columnist on foreign policy. he's covered the siege of aleppo in 2012 and heather hurlburt. her work focuses on the nexus of 7 and military.

heather let me start with you. in the area of conflict resolution do we have a problem here, a leader who is willing to do anything to stay in power and also at the same time knows that his opponents are not willing to do anything to make him leave? >> ray, we have two basic problems. that's one. the other one is the leader's neighbors who want different things and each want different things more than they want the violence to stop. if you had agreement between the members, you might have a solution to the problem you just mentioned. but it's hard to see where the violence stops. >> are we doomed to failure, once it's clear that the opposition was going to stick to its guns, that it wouldn't countenance any traditional deal that ended with bashar al-assad staying in power? >> i think it was freighted, and

i think -- fated, and i think it's fated not by the position of the opposition but by the situation on the ground. bashar al-assad thinks he has the advantage. he thinks he's winning. he thinks he can end at least opposition within an area he controls inside syria. as long as he believes that i don't think he's going to be willing to discuss transition which is what the opposition wants to discuss, the transition away from the dictatorship. >> people are dying in really large numbers. is he ready to fight to the last syrian? >> he seems to be ready to fight to the last syrian. he seems to be ready to kill more syrians than his father killed. i don't see any limit of conscience, let's put it that way. any limit from him. if he's going to be limited, he's going to have to be limited by a force on the other side or

by his allies, iran and russia, in particular, which have given him a blank check so far. >> let's talk about that blank check, michael weiss. is there an extent to which assad mite go that would -- might go that would peel him away from russia? is there daylight between damascus around moscow? >> i've been hearing that for three years yet bashar al-assad is still in power and the russian government by john kerry's admission has increased its arms sales to the syrian regime. he feels he has absolute impunity and a new lease on life. the west has misplayed its own hand. the chemical weapons deal, which was to my mind a rather clever trap set by vladimir putin and the russian government.

that trap has caught its quarry, namely, the united states. it has relegitimized the assad government getting rid of his chemical stock piles. only 11% of those chemical stock piles have been removed from the country. even the watchdog -- i'm sorry the agency responsible for the removal is casting about, whether a june 13th deadline can be met. the russian government has categorically rejected a resolution that would authorizes humanitarian corridors into the country on a larger scale than homs because they feel any punitive action he are a context for military invasion from the west. bashar al-assad thinks he will never ever be forced from power and i'm afraid i think he's increasingly more and more

right. >> so in a very powerful position but so powerful that there's really no limit to what he could do, where it would start to have a diplomatic cost to russia? >> well you just put the president of the united states on the air after a confab with the king of saudi arabia, the emphasis is on relief, not crisis mitigation. you can't really treas this crisis with this regime and this man in power and yet the west and the united states do not want to take what action was necessary to remove him and remove that regime. so the consequences are going to be band-aids on a hemorrhage. look at lebanon. my magazine put up a number of

pictures of car bombs, guess what it's not going to decrease, it's going to increase. sectarian conflict fomented not by the opposition, but by the regime. this was part of the plan. let's annihilate sunnies on an industrial scale. put a cast call for hezbollah from next door lebanon and turn this into a sectarian conflict, a more a sas morass that the wet want to get involved in. >> heather do you see things getting to a point where they won't? >> yes. what i would gra is he with what michael -- what i would disagree with what michael has said,

syria in the middle eastern politics, when assad takes it to a level when it becomes clear that he will not survive and nobody in the region will work with him, then there will come a point where putin and the russians will want a new ally or partner in the region and at that point they will be ready to bargain him away. now to dan's point, how many more tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands have to die before we get to that point? i'm afraid it's quite a while. but the russians not out of sentiment for bashar al-assad himself but how they play a role in the region, what they are willing to change. by then, because of the dynamics of disintegration, the region itself may have gotten to a point where it's not able to stop regional infla inthat infl.

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anywhere else. >> talk to al jazeera. >> only on al jazeera america. >> oh my! >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. the diplomatic talks to end the conflict in syria have broken down. civil war with no end in sight. president obama said this weekend before the talks broke down, that there will be some intermediate steps we can take, to apply more pressure to the assad regime. he did not elaborate and daniel, as you're watching this unfold, maybe nostalgia is the wrong word but the longer this goes on it starts to look like a a '50s or '60s war.

>> the regime has in common not the interest of seeing extremists not multiply more. chechens and others come back into russia russia. to continue this fight the way bashar al-assad is continuing it make life more difficult for russia itself and i think that's quite apparent that there will be terrorists who go into russia as a result of this. but i also think there's if going to be a broad resentment in the sunni world as a result of whatting assad is doing in syria. what we've got to do is to rebalance the battle field a little bit. bashar al-assad is too dominant

on the battle feed to want a negotiated solution. the way to do that is either to strengthen the opposition forces by increasing the training and equipment that go to them or by damaging bashar al-assad's forces and in particular, stopping him from using artillery and missiles and aircraft to attack libertied lid areas in syria. i think that kind of rebalancing would have a big type of dploavmentidiplomatic impact. >> heather, the rest of the world has been risk-averse doing what daniel has suggested. >> well, the rest of the world hasn't been risk-averse enough. more closely linked to folks with ultimately terrorist aims than we'd like. things we could do, one sandy

burger suggested this week, people who are living in these areas actually start to see some benefit from having thrown off the assad regime. another by the way, if you don't like arming option, consider a blockade. one that doesn't allow assad to be resupplied. why are you arming this guy? you have a whole range of military, nonmilitary, very, very forceful to not very forceful at all options most of which have been explored and sort of given up as not feasible in the past but as the body count mounts as as dan said we're reduced to trying to shift the balance of power, many of those need to be considered more seriously. >> we spoke a lot about russia in fact the world spoke a lot about russia as far as syria

goes but what about iran? what's their angle and what role are they willing to pay as they are trying to earn their way to a degree back into the world's good graces to deal in syria? >> well, look. i think actually i sort of envy the relationship between and amongst damascus, moscow and tehran. they seem to be very much on the same page and have a coordinated propaganda campaign. that is this: what we are facing in syria is a terrorist 37th, by al qaeda and others, what the united states and the other western nations engaged in the so-called war on terror must do is to really kind of put their notions of war crimes and mass atrocities aside and work with the assad regime, work with the russian government and help contain this crisis. i actually disagree with what daniel said. i don't believe the crème lir ks

actually exorcized from this, the entire option, the entire resistance against bashar al-assad and his government are terrorists. this week in fact just on the heels of the geneva 2 failure, the government black listed the delegates as terrorists and froze their assets. this is not the kind of regime that could cut any compromises. it would be more bolstering of the argument that russia and iran could be helpful or constructive in this conflict. it would be better to cund of tamp it down -- to kind of tamp it down a bit. i see them doubling down on the line coming from damascus, which is this is a terrorist threat and nothing more. >> daniel, your quick response? >> i think it's true that up until now, russia has not seen

the threat from extremists in syria but i think there is a threat. so whatever the line is, it doesn't really matter. there will be a threat from terrorists in syria, people who have been trained and experienced there. and i think somebody in russia will realize that at some point, we have to accelerate that process and get them to realize it more quickly. >> we're going to take a short break. and when we come back: we'll talk about american options in the region. the menu doesn't look that great. this is "inside story."

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. on this portion of the program we're examining the issues, creating a negative climate for

talks, secretary of state kerry said russia needs to be part of the solution and not contributing so many more weapons tot regime. still with us -- to the regime. still with us, daniel surwur, johns hoch cins schoo hopkins sf international studies, michael weiss, and heather hurlburt. heather, there were forces saying to the president of the united states, late last year, get in and don't get in. and everything that's happened since, could be fodder for either argument. see, we were right not to get in or boy it could have been different, had we. >> well, ray, let's be honest: that unfortunately a lot of the argument in the united states has been much more about the politics of the united states than it is about either the gegeopolitics of the region or e

leader. whether it's trying to implement financial sanctions on the russian banks that are facilitating the arms deals, to a lot more on the humanitarian side including by the way i'd love to see some of the antiimmigration folks which have been president obama's critics taking in some of this that we have now. >> michael, what would you say in the near term? >> well, we actually currently are exploring some of those options and implementing them including increasing financial aid and sort of indirectly arming some of the moderate opposition particularly in the south of the country where the presence and dominance of jihadi groups have been much more so than in the north. recently the u.s. has committed millions of dollars working with saudi arabia to run light weapons, antitank weapons to the sort of fsa, free syrian army,

to the south, in beddar province in particular. i know more can be done on the humanitarian front. more united states and european countries where they have easier access to. i especially agree with heather though about the limiting or the elimination i should say of assad's resupply capability. this is an important point that really doesn't get enough attention. he is wholly dependent on foreign weaponry coming from both iran and russia. much of it is flown into the country which requires runways that need to allow planes to land. some of it is sailed into the country of the port cities, and you could implement a naval blockade, we have a number of war ships in the immediat medit. we could eliminate the supply chain in the air. this could pick a fight with

russians but they don't care to have a fight picked with them. arming oguy who not only has created grievous war crimes but also gassed his own people. what do you need to know if diplomas wildiplomacy will not . >> dan, wha what is on your lisn the near term? >> i would suggest at least in this option we terminate the geneva 2 talks because they failed. and we haven't said they failed, quite, we have said they haven't succeeded. we neat to terminate them. we -- need to terminate them. we could recognize the syrian opposition coalition as the legitimate government of syria. we could sass heather said, provide funding for the

liberated areas much more funding than we have been providing. we could consider sanctions against syria for violating the chemical weapons agreement. i agree it was a boon, the chemical weapons agreement to bashar al-assad. he hasn't fulfilled it. that gives us the option of adopting very strict financial sanctions preventing any further funds transfers. >> well, we're going to see which options if any the united states chooses in return. thanks all for being with me today and thanks for being with us at home. that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." the program may be over but the conversation continues. log onto our facebook page, take a look at us on twitter@aj

insidestoryam. i'm ray suarez. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. these are the stories we are following for you. an 84-year-old nun, scheduled to be sentenced today. whenever i can act on my own, to expand opportunity for more americans and help build our middle class, i'm going to do that. >> president obama this time ordering new fuel standards for u.s. trucks. and a look at how the fda is cracking dn