went. >> a collision to the public space. >> day one, and it's loved and hated. which for any architect makes it an instant success. that's our broadcast. thank you for watching. i'm john seigenthaler, ali is next. i'm ali velshi "on target" tonight the end game in syria, a fragile ceasefire holds. isil is still a threat. and bashar al-assad still has the upper hand. peace is elusive in syria, a cessation of hostilities brokered by the united states and russia is holding for a six day running. there has been numerous violations along the front lines

separating government troops. the united states special envoy for syria, stefan de-mistura is hopeful and says the situation in syria is fragile. success is not guaranteed. progress is visible. a sign. process is the renewed shipment of aid going to civilians in some of the pors effected areas. now for the hard part, negotiating anend to a brutal war about to enter a sixth year. representatives are expected to meet in geneva next week, for a new round of talks shepherded by the unenjoy stefan de-mistura. the rebels broke up into competing factions. turkey, and, of course, the united states. syrian president regained the initiative on the ground. he has backing from russia and

iran. complicating matters is isil, which controls up to a third of territory. and the al nusra front, an arm of al-qaeda, fighting alongside other groups. the bombing campaign continues. complicating it more are the kurds in green. with backing from the united states she succeed in rolling isil back along the turkish boarder, but turn their guns against u.s.-backed rebels, putting them on the same side as the u.n. backed government, highlighting a big point about syria's end game. the war swung in bashar al-assad's favour. what the international community is coping for is the warring factions unite around the common goal of defeating isil. the only problem is they all

seem more interested in defeating each other. stakes are huge. andre is the director of the middle east programme at the woodrow wilson center in washington. >> good to see you. the violence is down. two key groups are not part of the cessation of hostilities deal. nusra. the al nusra front and isil. without them, can the agreement hold? >> well, it was never intended for those two groups to be part of the ceasefire. everybody sees them as legitimate. in any case they would never have participated in a ceasefire agreement because they don't see anyone else as legitimate actors other than themselves. if you have a ceasefire, you have to exclude them from the beginning. and the fact that they are not part of the ceasefire, doesn't nine that other parts would not work. and, in fact, we are seeing that

there is some success. it's early to say definitively, but it's been much better than most protected. >> better than people protected. also there's something to follow, they don't tend to hold for anning long time. >> -- for a long time. >> true. you have two things working against you. one is time, that people will be fed up with a ceasefire, and two you have violations and someone are engage in a terrible attack undermining the whole thing. timing is the enemy. they need to produce a political out come. >> let's talk about russia,

under the deal does bashar al-assad and his iranian backers, do they gain the major advantage. yes, the ceasefire is to their advantage. they had the upper hand, gained the initiative, the fact of the matter is they are the status woe power and can add men and material to front line. it is a way in which it can hep them it's no win, win for the russians and allies, they'll be on the defensive. the rebellion will come back and continue to hit them. because they are the government. they have to promise more than just fighting.

they have to produce an end to hostilities. and that is in the hands of the rebels. >> under the terms of this deal rebel groups like the free syrian army, what are referred to as the moderate rebels are prohibited from attacking the russian-backed forces. it's not clear that the opposite is seen as true. the bashar al-assad government continues to consider ant anti-forces and use it to continue to attack them. we have to be - on the face of it, it looks like the syrians - they were limited. there is some threshold which the syrians and the russians do not go. no one knows what the threshold is. once you pass it, you know that you have passed it. the fact. matter is that yes, they are attacking occasionally and

there's rebel groups fighting among themselves, attacking troops. ut you are right they have a more lib iral interpretation. if they go too far, the war starts again. >> when russia came into this thing, it changed the complems of the fight. is there a decisive change of position that the u.s. should take, or has the u.s. clearly signalled that it no longer stands behind its decision of regime change. that the u.s. changed its position and everyone knows it. >> this is a good question. part of the been is the russians seem to have the military and the political diplomatic advantage. we don't. the russians know what they

want. they want to protect the regime. they don't know what a final game would be. they need to know what they achieve. when it comes to the united states it's not clear what they want. is i.s.i.s. the first priority, what about bashar al-assad. they don't want that either. they have no idea how to achieve this. the best they can do it take advantage, push to rackar and mosul. that's the best they can - we can hope for. it does not have a strategy, it needs to come up with a strategy. >> let me ask you this, what does russia want. regional influence, with the regime, is it ports and air fields in syria, why is russia so involved in this? >> well, for many of the reasons

that you suggested. they do want to remain influential in the region, they care about stopping what has been happening over the world. so the regime change, they want to break the back of this regime change policy. but they we have to be careful. there's no alternative. it's clear that you hear noises from moscow. saying well look, we have they are open to a consideration of sorts. they've been making the noises. they are pushing the envelope a little bit. >> last time you and i spoke, we were in istanbul, we were talking about talking about

turkey and russia. they trade a lot. there's a lot of energy and goods that go between them. and things started to get rough between them. russia was flying the airplanes. turkey is now got russia on a bunch of sides of its borders. is there a possibility of relations turning between turkey and russia, into something that is dangerous? >> no, because i think both sides realized mistakes are high. there's an n.a.t.o. member country, on the other hand russia, and things can get nasty. it doesn't mean that the russians will not shoot down violation of air space. it will be a controlled escalation, not an all-out war. the turks realise the decision to shoot sound an aircraft that

cross the their frontier for 17 seconds was a huge mistake and they'd like to take the decision back, but with vladimir putin, once you anger vladimir putin, it's difficult to make him change his mind. i suspect in the long run vladimir putin doesn't want to have very bad relations with turkey. they still sell gas to turkey, they still have trade relationships. even though russian tourists don't go through turkey. some have been kicked out of russia, in the end the two countries are too big for each other to ignore themselves and become hostile. >> my viewers and i are smarter for a conversation with you. the director of the middle east programme at the woodrow wilson international center. >> syria's war spilt behind its borders, how tens of thousands of syrians are dropped on the road to asylum.

there's another grim side to syria's war, the desperate journeys of economic migrants as europe tries to get a grip on the refugee crisis. some 25,000 trapped in greece with neighbouring countries restricting their entry, there's a stand off along the boarder with macedonia, 10,000 migrants demand they be allowed to

continue their journey to western europe. macedonian authorities say they'll only let in a few at a time. >> hoda abdel-hamid takes us there. >> the living conditions in this camp are more and more difficult because of the volume of people that continue to arriving here hoping to make it through. there's an amount of young children. i have seen some walking bare foot. you had uncertainty in the past days. now you have despair, anger and frustration. >> tempers player a lot around the camp. you see people not able to contain their emotions any more, asking can we go back to people. maybe it was less humiliating to be back there, even though it was less safe than to be here. at the crossing itself, assist a complete chaos, authorities tried to put some sort of order.

also, they are able to get across. some of them have been pushed back. this has all to do with the guidelines about the paperwork. the officers at the boarder know what are the new regulations. refugees don't. those are photograph papers where the authorities add the name. macedonians are not accepting that piece of paper. they have a long cue of people. >> leaders talk about the refugee crisis, and an exit from the european union. >> a century ago france and

britain fought shoulder to shoulder. there was symbolism in francois holland and david cameron starting their summit with a reef laying. sermonials complete, gender dominated. an arrangement threatened by the british referendum. >> i don't want to scare you, i want to tell the truth. there'll be consequences in many areas, on a single market on financial thread. i don't want to any you a catastrophic scenario. there'll be consequences. there was progress that unaccompanied children could join relatives.

most refugees stay on french soil. >> we'll invest 17 million in infrastructure in calla to assist the work of the interench poll ice. we will found joint work to return migrants not in need of protection to their home countries, the challenge is in the eastern mediterranean, where we need to dissituate people embarking on a journey. yeerns teams flattened a large area. it has been a symbol of the refugee crisis. the presence sends a powerful

messa message for those hoping to reach the u.k. there are questions whether throwing money at the problem is the solution. with refugees crossing to the u.k. it's not a money issue. a global picture of what europe wants to do are. are they refugees, do they have the right to be here or not. >> that question can only be effectively addressed at the summit, convened next week. coming up, a battle in the war raged, mitt romney calls donald trump a fraud and a phoney, can the g.o.p. establishment do anything to stop trump?

that is next.

al jazeera america. the battle for the soul of the republican party, ignited by donald trump took a fascinating and bizarre term. mitt romney, the republican presidential nominee launched a biting attack on trump, calling him distrust worthy, and mitt romney warned that a trump presidency would send america into a prolonged recession. romney attacked the idea that trump deserves prays for his

success in business. listen. >> there's plenty of evidence that donald trump is a conman, a mistake, and what happened to trump airlines, jump university, trump magazine, vodka, stakes, mortgage. a business genius, he is not. here is what i know. donald trump is a phoney, a fraud. his promises are as worthless as a degree from trump university. he's playing the members of the australian public as suckers. he's getting a ride to the white house, all we get is a hat. >> christy trombley fired back with insults meeting with no one. mitt romney made clear that he would not enter the race, saying ted cruz or others should be the nominee. >> joining me from washington is

a center fellow at the manhattan institute. he's a health care expert. good to see you. welcome back to the show. >> how are you. listen, let me ask you, is it realistic to think that mitt romney could take on trump late in the game. you said after super-tuesday it was a good night for donald trump, not as good a night as he hoped to have one or two weeks ago. trump has a quarter of the delegates he needs. >> i don't think mitt romney can enter the republican primary. it is important to note something that is lost because of other news event that happened last week. remember the debate in houston, where rubio and crewed pummelled donald trump, and it would have been the stories of the following 24 hours, except for chris christie endorsing donald

trump. there's not another chris christie that can steel the spotlight. it will be interesting to see whether that continues to erode into support. we saw that he didn't do as well as the previous polling would have indicated he should have done. >> here is the issue. with every mainstream establishment republican coming out and criticizing trump, it doesn't hurt him, as you indicated. it almost needs someone that far out of the regime. mitt romney is not that. he's the establishment that everyone is angry with. there's an argument that mitt romney is some sort of establishment figure. i think he remind republicans

that they were proud to have or representatives the republican party. and because he's not running, because he's not running in the case, he can make principled arguments against trump that coming from others seems like it's a competitive dynamic. >> the republican party after mitt romney's defeat sat around, had a post mortem. made smart decisions that led to the same problems, including limping into the conversations in summer, everything they did to help the candidate like mitt romney is helping trump right now. >> yes, that's largely true, and we'll see again, it's been said widely. the next two weeks are critical. marco rubio and cruz have to win more states, if trump win, he'll have a majority of delegates.

trump has 47% of delegates assigned thus far. it was 65, now it's 47%. in order for the other guys to have a shot. of winning a brokered convention. they have to keep trump under the majority. which is 1237 delegates. i was in houston at cruz headquarters, and ted cruz said as long as mitt romney - as long as donald trump looks out and sees a diverse field. that's his path to the nomination, he was telling marco rubio, who i believe you support, why don't you step aside and why don't we go after him together. >> listen. marco rubio and ted cruz are making the case about each other, and john kasich, who yearly does not have a shot at winning the nomination, but seems to hold on, i don't know if it's to collect delegates in the hopes of winning ohio, or

leveraging it. john kasich is the first guy that should drop out. and there's argument that john kasich is the reason he lost virgin. trump won by 3%, and john kasich got about 6% of the vote. there's argument that if they voted for rubio instead of kassig. john kasich is the girs guy that should drop out. both have arguments to stay in. >> sarah palin came out tweeting after mitt romney's speech and said "the machine's deception and nonsensical attack on trump is not on the candidate, but on hard-working canadians who know we need a revolution. we found the revolutionary. tell me what you think? you know what is ironic, for the last 10-20 years, conservative

talk radio has been abuzz with the rhetoric. there are conservatives and republicans that talk a good game, but when they get into office, they sell out the principles, and nothing changes. no one embodies that idea, more than donald trump. donald trump is not a conservative. he's saying i'll stay this stuff as being an opening bid. when he gets to the office he probably says i'm going to be a deal maker and work with democrats. i think the crowd that supports him. if trump is president. they'll be more frustrated and more upset about the result than they are with anyone else that held the office on the republican side. >> thank you for being with us. vic is a senior fellow. that is the though. i'm ali velshi, thank you for joining us. the news continues on al jazeera america

>> to know that this is something that could have been prevented, that wasn't, because people lied and didn't do their jobs, makes me sick. >> are you sorry that the people of flint don't have fresh drinking water? >> i am concerned. >> it's so frustrating you just don't know what to do. >> thank you for joining us for this special edition of "america tonight." i'm al jazeera. lori jane gliha. ahead of the state's primary