Page 3 - Assad Go News Today

The opposition. >> we dont enforce our own red line. >> right. we have to become more modest in what we seek to do and that would mean not insisting that assad go today. maybe he goes down the road as some part of a diplomatic process or we have to increase our support for the opposition or both but you cant sustain a foreign policy where you have extraordinarily ambitious goals and say we are not going to do this and not do that. john kerry is right. the real question is whether president obama...

Going to use these. i will make sure he doesnt. he is on the hook. whether you get an agreement of the united nations is irrelevant. we are done with this. unless -- assad does this another time. then i think the president is going to go in. he is not going to stop at congress first. he is going to go in. i think assad knows it it. putin knows it. this is over. doesnt matter what negotiations are. vladamir putin is on the line for making sure, he doesnt use chemical weapons. the president accomp...

Whether you get an agreement of the united nations is irrelevant. we are done with this. unless -- assad does this another time. then i think the president is going to go in. he is not going to stop at congress first. he is going to go in. i think assad knows it it. putin knows it. this is over. doesnt matter what negotiations are. vladamir putin is on the line for making sure, he doesnt use chemical weapons. the president accomplished his goal. he will stop the use of chemical weapons. >> chuck...

Out of the navy about. >> i said with my limited knowledge, we have enough to do a strike, right? >> oh, sure about. >> so were okay. what i want to know is, what happens the next day. an extra two days, it takes three days, what happens if assads still there. assads still there, is he going to -- >> you and i had this conversation the other day, ill repeat myself. >> ill repeat myself and ask you the same questions. >> no, no. the bottom line of it is, a cruise missile strike is not a strategy....

Areas. what are we going to hit that is not time sensitive? >> thats the thing thats the big mystery here. 100,000 people have already died. so one chemical incident does not make the entire crisis. we have failed to understand exactly what we want to achieve ultimately regarding the end state. do we make assad go or not? ultimately, the devil you know sometimes is better than the devil you dont. brian, there is 100 rebel groups out there, if you count every little faction, over 1,000. so we don...

On the other hand the russians are very calculating in these things. i dont suspect they have a lost emotional investment in assad. they have a investment in having a voice in syria and having a seat at the table where things get sorted out. they may make a deal with russia where they let assad go and maintain influence in the region and that is what the u.s. may be aiming for in the long run. gregg: there is not a warm and fuzzy relationship these days with president obama and vladmir putin. >>...

In any way in syria or anywhere else. we put this out as our twitter question and we have the vast majority saying, no, we cant properly vet the people. we have problems at home, why is this the right time for the u.s. to get involved in something like this? >> thats a legitimate question. to the extent, how are we going to get involved and how much are we going to do? clearly it is in our national interest to see assad go. but its also in our national interest not to see the country taken over ...

Is if the goal of this is to get rid of assad, which i understand is what the outcome that senator john mccain would like to see, i think everyone in the world if they could wave a magic wand, or everyone in u.s. politics if they could wave a magic wand would like to see assad go. if thats the goal, and this escalation of, say, arming the rebels doesnt work, have we not just put our foot in quicksand in which we must then continue to escalate? >> no, i dont think so. first of all, they are all b...

They could wave a magic wand would like to see assad go. if thats the goal, and this escalation of, say, arming the rebels doesnt work, have we not just put our foot in quicksand in which we must then continue to escalate? >> no, i dont think so. first of all, they are all bad choices. i dont mean to imply these choices are easy or these choices are good. i think, frankly, we should have armed the rebels many months ago and i have a bill in congress that would authorize the president to do just ...

President of a couple of square miles in damascus? >> yes. and i think thats true, although actually he holds or his people hold certain other parts or certain other cities, as youre well aware. assad probably has believed through the war he could either win outright or at least hold on to enough of the country it would be better than defeet. remember, of course, for him and his cronies, defeat may mean their minority is persecuted in a future syria and they will be hunted dont suddenly. so comp...