watching al jazerra america. i am del walters in new york. "inside story" is next. reminder that you can check us out 24 hours a day just by going to our website aljazerra.com. where the news continue 24 hours a day, seven days a week. ♪ ♪ >> the battle lines are becoming clearer in iraq. and an army of sunni radicals are head east to baghdad where sunni fighters are preparing for a fight. and meanwhile, the u.s. is wondering if it's time to talk to a new player in iraq. iran. it's "inside story."

>> hello, i'm ray suarez. over the weekend, iraq stayed isis posted pictures on the web that shot around the world. captured soldiers from the iraqi national army, restrained, led to a field and executed in a shallow trench. isis said that it has killed 1700 soldiers that way, and the army says it's a lot less, but either way, it's a symbol of the cold murder that isis said it's prepared to use in a drive to take as much territory as possible in a drive for a sunni state on both sides of the border. iraqis president is under pressure and scrutiny. maliki was voted in in the last round of voting but the territory in which he is charge is shrinking. the u.s. has ruled out sending the u.s. military back into

iraq, but the country is examining the options and one of those is talking to iran. long an american opponent and a government. >> i wouldn't rule out anything constructive to providing real stability. >> in an interview with yahoo news monday, secretary of state john kerry said that he might be willing to reach out to iran to stabilize iraq. >> let's see what iran may be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements. we are open to my instructtives to minimize the violence, and hold iraq together for the country, and eliminate the presence of outside terrors. >> kerry's comments came as diplomats from iran and the united states talked about iran's nuclear program.

for now, they're overshadowed by developments? the u.s. and iraq. how they might collaborate is an open question, but iran has strongly denounced the violence. [ foreign dialogue ] >> interpreter: as the government of iran, we won't tolerate this violence. >> in iraq, the sunni surgeries, led by the state of iraq and iso, continues to take territory. the latest is the shi'ite town, on saturday, is is posted graphic material online, showing the massacre of dozens of iraqi soldiers. they claim they have killed hundreds of troops so far, but the claim has not been independently verdict. thousands of iraqi shiites have

volunteered to serve the iraqi military at the front lines, vowing to win against the insurgents. >> i come to defend and fight side by side with them to defend our homeland, and god willing, we will achieve victory. >> an air operation targeting isis hideouts, and the iraqi military has vowed to retake every mace. >> we are vowing to defeat them, and for all of those who stood by the iraqi people. we started to march toward them and there will be no place for them to hide. >> maliki has asked the united states for help in the fight, with drone strikes and airstrikes. the u.s. has ordered carriers to the gulf in case president obama decides to strike.

but the president has called on maliki to bring all of the factions together to seek a military solution. he lost the trust of the factions a long time ago. when he when the insurgents took over mosul, he couldn't get enough. the question is can he bring his country together as the crisis deepens. >> maliki and the breakup of iraq, this time on the program, looking at the fracturing of the country that the united states spent so much blood and treasure trying to stabilize after the 2003 invasion. we're joined by douglas oliven.

and he's at the new america announce, davis, at the center for science and international affairs at the harvard school of government. and derek harvey, the former senior analyst for iraq and intelligence x. derek, let me start with you, we just saw maliki trying to rouse the public and the army and talking about a counter strike and defeating his enemies on the field. is this the guy to do it? if the goal is a unified iraq, with a measure of democracy, make a federalized iraq at the end of this, is he the guy to do it? >> i think we're challenged to think that president maliki is the guy who can bring this country together. he has had eight years to try to bring sunni arabs and kurds together. and in those years, we have seen

a steady erosion of trust and confidence between the groups. part of his actions to reintegrate them is the problem. and his actions to remove incompetent arab and sunni officers with political loyals to him is part of the problem, and he has built an army that is militia favoring the forces of the shiite and that does not bode well. he has broken so many promises, it's hard to see how he can find counterparts who will believe him going forward. >> you say that you agree, and if you do, is it any wonder that iraq is in the situation that it is now? >> i completely agree. prime minister maliki has undone brick by brick what the u.s. was able to achieve. and i think that prime minister

maliki has consistently undermined the trust that the iraqi could have in the government. and it's to the point where the iraqis and sunnis feel that they no longer have a future within iraq. and at the same time, prime minister maliki has won the elections on the basis of whipping up sectarian fear and rate red. and he has won elections in the context of fear in the context that isis had put fear in with suicide bombings, and it's understandable that at this point, the shiite community is rallying around the prime minister. and i think it would be difficult to remove him at this point. and though he has been nothing but damaging to iraq, i think the best thing that we can do at

this point is to rally around a national unity where sunnies have key positions in the cabinet, the ministry of defense and interior, and leading the iraqi army's response to this isis take over. >> you just heard that elections don't always choose what a country needs. they have value and they have validity, but don't necessarily give you what i need at any given moment. >> that's true, but over stated a little bit. maliki has certainly taken actions that can be interpreted as sectarian. and it's not like the opponents have been sending him flowers either. this is a country that has been sending a steady flurry of car bombs, a drum beat since we left in 2010. repeatedly car bombs going off in eastern baghdad targeting religious sites.

and they're coming out of sunni arabs. there's a small minority of citizens that have given passive support to these terrorists. it's regrettable, but it does not give maliki time to be gracious and reconciling when he has this not constant attrition of his own citizens. they demand that he do something. you can imagine what our citizens would do if car bombs were going off in our cities. they would demand that the government do something, and all the prime minister has are blunt tools to do this. so he goes around and rounds up all of the sunnies, it's primitive, and it's not helpful but it's all he can do. >> given the situation that douglas describes, was there an attempt to say all iraqis should be against this sort of thing, and pull onto his side sunnis

horrified by the violence, or was there a risk for them when they were unwilling to give that kind of support? >> well, there's heztency, and deep mistrust between the groups, and that's one of the reasons why the american presence was so critical. and many of us before that continued presence could have mitigated stewart in the erosion of the trust that was being built between the different groups when we departed the country. the security situation today, and the erosion that we have seen between the communities, it's very very challenging. i don't know how we bring it together unless we take a role in how to get back in some substantive way. >> he

seems to be stuck with the life of the parliament. and what can they do short-term with the political dispensation election. >> i think that the u.s. has an enormous roll here, and i think that they have underestimated the leverage in iraq since 2011, because i think president obama has wanted to wash his hands of the iraq crisis, and has wanted to leave it in the hands of the previous presidency, and i think that there has been sign after sign and opportunity for president obama to step in and say something. on the day that the u.s. forces withdrew, president maliki had tanks around the houses of all of the key sunni leaders, and that led to the victimization of the political leaders, which was absolutely uncalled

for, which betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of prime minister maliki on the way that the civil war ended, which was by bringing the political leaders into the settlement. and i want to pick up on something in a doug said earlier, there have not been consistent car bombings since 2010, and there has been low-lying violence, but when you compare the kind of violence that has broken out in iraq since april 13th, when forces stormed a peaceful site. since that i'm, there has been an absolute explosion of violence, and that has been months and months of peaceful process. and no action was taken to address any grievances. that doesn't explain a source of the violence, but sunni passivity in the face of this

massive incursion, and this massive extreme group, isis. >> after the break, it's that very violence that has a previously unthinkable kind of corporation being talked about openly. you heard it at the beginning of the program, with secretary of state john kerry, talking about the u.s. cooperating with the iranians to bring peace to iraq. stay with us. this is "inside story."

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>> welcome to "inside story" on aljazeera. i'm ray suarez. prime minister maliki. and douglas, i want to give you the chance. >> this is group, we're now in ,

reinforced the grievances of one group and the other, and the sunnies are upset that the sons of iraq were not integrated into the armed forces, and the shiites are saying, thank goodness, we didn't integrate the sons of iraq into the armed forces. we're reinforcing the others into a bad place, but what we need, on the sunni side, a leader who can come forward state that to all of his people, we need to integrate into the state. we were implicit the crime into the old regime, and we need to renounce islamism, and we need to move into a minority role in the state as descend. is there anybody in the sunni camp with the kind of reputation and credibility that would do that.

>> we had this conversation on twitter the other day. and neither of us came one an answer. we're in a difficult situation right now, isis is fighting in both iraq and syria. certainly in syria, we have the iranians assisting them, and iraq, we are about to have the iranians assisting them. and we're about to date back to the date against the iranians. it's a complex situation and how muddled our policy is. but in iraq, it's not inconceivable that we could have u.s. drones or airplanes, george hw bush, providing air support to the iranian guard corp. in 2012, it's not what we would see. >> it's not like iran is not

already playing a role, right? >> they are, they have been in baghdad, and we have code enforcement officers, assisting with the iraqi security forces, and i believe that we have 100 to 150 other advisers. organizing and shaping the iraqi security force, at least in narrow areas. similar to how they have done it in the last years. but common to iraq, we have a direct threat from isis. it's a terrorist organization, and it has land and leadership and resources and it has tremendous capability and it aspires to be the leader of the jihaddist community, the violent jihaddist community. so from that position in that part of the world,

we aspire to strike deeper targets in western europe and the united states, and that's our target, to get after isis. >> you say what you were just describing earlier in the program, about a different kind of approach from the central government in baghdad. given that the leadership cadre there spent much of its exile in iran during the saddam hussein years, given that iran wants to further shiite aims inside of iraq, is overirannian aid going to get us closer to a unified iraqi state? >> i think that iranian aid could be extremely helpful at this time. i think that the fact that iraqi shiite leaders exiled in iraq has been wildly overplayed,

there's a lot of uncomfortable tension between the politician, and i don't think we need to be too worried about that. i think what the iranians need to do is work with them to pursue a new strategy when it comes to iraqis in need. but at this point, we're basically in a counter insurgency, a puny military without stress attached to them do not work. these kinds of insurgencies spring out of or at least are sustained which serious political grievances, and whether or not we think it's fair, without addressing these grievances, the counter insurgency is not going to be successful. and what we need to persuade the iraqi government to do is

persuade them to offer iraq a federalist solution where they can govern their own territory. and eventually have their own security forces in those territories, and it's solutions similar to that that we see in iraqi kazakhstan, and i think that that is going to be the only thing that's going to be a big enough prize that's going to separate isis, which is the real threat, to the ordinary iraqis in need to the point where they don't know what to think about isis, and i think that's what we need to do now. a radical assessment needs to be offered. >> we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we'll talk about what the new dispensation in iraq might look like, whether american and iraqi interests are both furthered by a stable iraq. this is "inside story." le app,

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>> welcome back to "inside story," i'm ray suarez. are the outcomes in iraq threatening the region more or less? as the world looks on, and the country descends into more war, what can you hope for in the years to come? what does the least damage and provides hope for a liveable iraq and peaceful region? before you heard us talking about the possibilities of a u.s.-iranian cooperation and a future iraqi government, is there interest on both sides of u.s. and iran in easing maliki from the scene? and maybe pushing toward that unity government? >> i'm not sure that there's interest

in removing maliki from the scene or down the road, in the current government, i think that the dialogue between iran and the united states, if it's ongoing, i think that the iranians are going to connect iraq to a number of issues, for instance, getting the united states to give up support for the free syrian army as part of the deal. and making other connections to nuclear and other issues, but we'll have to wait and see, and of course the administration would say that there's no connection, that these are i'll owed and separate. and i think that's something that we need to keep a close eye on. >> what do you think about that? there may be moving parts, but a lot can get done? >> a lot can get done, and it depends on which problems we're talking about. there are two on the table. and they're very distinct. we have the isis problem, which is a terrorist organization, and

then we have the iraq politics, which is allowing isis to have results last week. but when we were to wave a magic wand tomorrow and turn iraq into sweden, so they could have no purchase in it whatsoever, it's going to turn to jord and not the rest of the lavant. so four one, what do we need to do to counter isis? iraq is the battlefield. and we need to focus on fixing iraq politics there. in that sense, we have to live in iran, and they're not interested in a dysfunctional iraq and an ac that breaks up, this is not an interest to iran. and a traditional rival to iraq's east. >> what do you think? does this carry the possibility of making things better in syria, and

settling the ongoing disputes over globalization, and getting a better deal out of it. >> i think that the only thing will be limited to iraq, i think this is an urgent crisis that needs to be dealt with immediately. and i don't think progress is going to be made on the other two standing issues, but i think it's well worth both iran and the u.s. pushing ahead strongly on this, because i think it's one of the only hopes they're ac has to avoid an absolutely catastrophic situation. at the moment, we have the mobilization of tens of thousands of shiite volunteers joining the he out militias, understandably wanting to it defend their hometown. but we saw what happened in 2006, shiite militias not properly under the control of the iraqi forces, can easily turn into forces for ethnic

cleansing in mixed areas of baghdad and there are a number of territories where sunnies can just be slaughtered. and the problem is -- that could be terrible in itself, but it's only going to enhance recruitment for isis, and iraqis community. so we're at the cusp now of something dreadful happening in the next few days that brings it out of control. and if the u.s. is going to help they need to help now. >> thank you all for joining us on "inside story." that brings us to the solution of the program and thank you for being with us. the program may be over, but the conversation continues. we want to hear you talk about the issues raised on this or any show. log onto the facebook page. send us your thought on twitter. in washington, i'm ray suarez.

more volunteers join the fight in irs rebels move closer to the capital baghdad. ♪ ♪ hello, you are with al jazerra, we are live in doha. also to come, homes are hit by artillery shells in eastern ukraine as government forces battle pro-russia separatists. kenya's president blames local politicians and not al-shabab for two nights of attacks in which dozens of people were killed.