presumably, they ll be in the northern part of syria, the part that is controlled by the syrian democratic forces. that is predominantly kurdish force that the u.s. coalition is backing. wouldn t would assume at the very least, the hope is that the key focus is reconstructing areas, especially key cities like raqqa that we were just in that is utterly devastated. there s barely a single building left standing. and it s going to be key to make sure that people can feel safe going back into these areas. and they can begin to at the very least to physically rebuild their lives. the reason this is important isn t just for the humanitarian sake of it all, it s important because the people the longer they live in refugee camps, the easier for isis to exploit the grievances. it s something that mattis
recognizes. he s a military man. he knows how important it is to run a civilian track alongside a military track. but the president bashar al assad has come out and said any presence is illegal. but quite frankly, there s not much they can do about it. lynn, back in august, this was specifically in reference to afghanistan. but i think it speaks to the president s larger view of a portion of what arwa was discovering there, nation-building and reconstruction after these conflicts. watch. i also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly lives, trying to rebuild countries in our own image. instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations. so the president also went to talk on to say, to speak about there being no more nation-building. but is that possible in syria,
american people as to what he s thinking. and also to the state department, to the defense department. and to the other nations, as to how he wants to knit together the coalition that could help rebuild syria. and how it s going to be paid for. yeah, we ll see if the president, in the weeks leading up to this state of the union, if he fleshes out what his view of potential pragmatic cooperation is with president putin of russia. lynn sweet, arwa damon, errol louis, thank you all. thank you. still to come, there s a 17-year-old boy who had a run-in with police. the boy ended up in the hospital. and the family says, and these pictures, i know they re dramatic, but they say he was so disfigured, they just couldn t even recognize him. what s happening with that situation. also, have you heard about this, this online gaming prank that ended in tragedy? an incident man is dead. his family wants to know what
out of north korea into china. it s a level of instability that china can simply not abide. and they ve kind of made that clear over the last five decades. so, i m not sure why the president thinks in the name of getting a better trade deal, they re going to take extraordinary risks by trying to challenge the north korea regime who could hit beijing just as well as parts of the united states. it s hard to imagine that is going to succeed. arwa, back to you, i want to turn to syria right now. we hurt from secretary of defense james mattis, there will be more civilians heading into syria, both diplomats and contractors now that there s been success in eliminating the caliphate there. do we know what they ll do, where they ll go, and just the logistics of how this will happen after the year s long civil war we discussed this morning? yeah, at this stage, we don t know exactly how many civilians will be involved.
the iran government should respect their people s rights including right to express themselves. the world is watching. that came then but earlier in the day, the state department releasing a report saying that the iranian regime should respect their people s demands for basic human rights and also an end to corruption. so, it doesn t come as that big of a surprise that the white house would be behind these protesters. there s been a very tense relationship between the trump administration and the iranian regime. in fact, the u.s. believers in many respects that iran is involved in the conflicts and yemen and syria adding to the chaos in those countries. and, of course, president trump was pretty critical of the iran nuclear deal that was hatched during the obama administration. he campaigned against it. and since being elected president he s called for a thorough review of iran. he s suggested that they have