U.S. And Kurds Fight for Key Iraqi Dam; Ukraine Says It's Gaining on Rebels
SCIUTTO: Welcome back. U.S. airstrikes are helping to loosen the grip of ISIS on a key dam in Mosul in Northern Iraq. The strikes are helping Kurdish forces on the ground retake at least part of the dam. But is the U.S. help too late to stabilize Iraq? Want to discuss now with former U.S. ambassador to NATO, he's Nicholas Burns. He's also now with the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard. Thank you for joining us, Ambassador Burns.</s>NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. UNDERSECRETARY FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS: Thank you, Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: So I was reading your editorial, which came out of your conversations with former secretaries of state, Rice and Albright, as well as former Defense Secretary Bob Gates. And you all seem to agree that the combination of the crisis in Iraq and Syria and Ukraine is really the defining moment of the Obama presidency. And I just wonder, do you think that the policy response from the White House is up to that challenge? Is it meeting the challenge?</s>BURNS: Well, those are my words in a "Boston Globe" op-ed last week, Jim. I think this is the most important period for Obama's foreign policy, President Obama's foreign policy. In Iraq, if the ISIS -- if the ISIS, Islamic State advance cannot be halted, there is the possibility, of course, that Iraq will be further weakened. It could disintegrate. That would have profound implications for the rest of the Middle East and of course, for United States interests. And of course in Russia, President Putin is drawing new lines in Ukraine, he's dividing Europe. He's continuing to supply the Ukrainian rebels, the Russian separatist rebels, I should say in Ukraine, with military hardware. So these are, I think, the two most important tests for president Obama's foreign policy in his presidency.</s>SCIUTTO: Let me ask you because you referenced this in your editorial and you and I talked about this before, there is a perception of U.S. disengagement and lack of influence in both of these conflicts. Do you think that's fair?</s>BURNS: I think there is a general perception, a narrative, if you will, across the world that the United States is no longer acting with as much self-confidence and energy and leadership as it has in the past. The president does have an opportunity in these two crises to counteract that. And I think particularly in Iraq, where the fighting has gone better in recent days for the Peshmerga, the Kurdish forces against the Islamic State, the United States is stepping up its actions. The U.S. airstrikes over the weekend were pivotal according to all the news reports in pushing back the ISIS fighters and with Prime Minister Maliki's resignation, there is now an opportunity for the United States to give much more military assistance to the Iraqi government. And to have the Sunni leaders play a bigger role in supporting that government. So I think the United States does have an opportunity to do better in Iraq and to reinforce the Iraqi state. And in Russia, of course, the real test is whether the sanctions put forward by the United States and European Union can persuade President Putin, that the price is too high for him to continue arming and funding these separatists.</s>SCIUTTO: Let me ask you about Ukraine there and I do want to get back to Iraq. Talking about Ukraine, to this point, the administration strategy has been to gradually raise the costs on Russia, to deter them from further military action in Ukraine. While those costs have gone up, though, there has been further military action in Ukraine. There has been escalation, not de- escalation. In fact, the Ukrainian president has called the most recent action an invasion. U.S. Not going that far. But is U.S. policy working in Ukraine? It doesn't seem to be deterring the Russian president.</s>BURNS: Well, there was a major development over the weekend, Jim, and that is that the Ukrainian government retook control of the center of Luhansk. There are lots of reports that some of the Russian ethnic leaders who have been leading the insurgency in Eastern Ukraine have left and gone back to Russia over the last several days. It does look like the momentum is with the Ukrainian government in reasserting sovereignty in Eastern Ukraine, retaking some of the key checkpoints in Donetsk and Luhansk. And that way I think the president's policy has been the right policy. He has not introduced American military forces and I think there would be very little public support for that. But he has now pushed the Europeans to do more on sanctions. And the president has an opportunity at the NATO summit in just two weeks' time to reinforce the NATO allies that are on the front lines of the conflict, Romania and Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It may be we're beginning to see President Obama's policy is working in Ukraine.</s>SCIUTTO: Let me ask you about Iraq. You have these airstrikes over the weekend around Mosul helping apparently to retake the dam. The president said there is military action there granted from the air not the ground, it will take months, not weeks. The Iraqi military hasn't proven up to the task. Do the American people, do our viewers have to prepare for the U.S. military to be involved in Iraq for the long haul going forward?</s>BURNS: Well, I think President Obama has been clear that this is not going to be a repetition of the Iraq war when we had 150,000 American troops in Iraq, when we fought a ground war. The president said he's going to use air power to try to knock back the Islamic State fighters, assist both the Iraqi military and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to retake the city of Mosul and they essentially retook Mosul Dam this morning. A very important spot, 30 miles west of Mosul. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. And so if the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces can take it from the Islamic State, that will be a major victory. I don't think we'll see a repetition of what the United States did from 2003 to 2008 in Iraq, but it is very important that the U.S. use its air power to try to strike at the Islamic State forces. They're a threat, not only to Iraq, but to Syria. And they're also a threat to the United States and Europe because there are thousands of fighters there, many hundreds of whom may have western passports. We don't want to see them infiltrated to our society, trained as terrorists. There are good reasons why the president has done what he's done, but I think are limits -- he imposes limits on the scale of the American effort.</s>SCIUTTO: I'm glad you mentioned that threat to the U.S. more than 100 U.S. intelligence officials say, American fighters among ISIS, the concern that they come home and carry out attacks as well. Thanks very much, Ambassador Nick Burns joining us from Rhode Island. Always great to have you on the air. Coming up next on NEW DAY, another night of clashes in Ferguson, Missouri. The governor sending in the National Guard. The very latest from Don Lemon, who is on the ground in Ferguson right after this.