we had created by drawing that red line with regard to assad's use of chemical weapons. so we brought the russians in, gave them legitimacy there, political legitimacy in order to police up, imperfectly, i might add, the syrian chemical weapons. just a little bit more than two years ago, the russians intervened in force in syria and literally changed the geometry of the battlefield there. assad was on his last legs and with a really fairly modest application of russian military power, changed the dynamics of the fight and now we see assad's not going anywhere and it's isis that is thoroughly defeated. >> one of the ironies here, right, president trump has promised a tougher stance against iran in the region, but, of course, assad is iran's client state as well, right? protector state. >> if you look at who is winning here, all right, what you've got are the syria, the al oite