so that you have a strong sustaining of the delivery of, you know, whatever government services are left. there's not many, frankly. to hold the institutions themselves there, so you are something there to build on, unlike iraq years ago, where you can actually begin to put together government and a future for syria. >> so, the secretary at least clearly trying to spin russian involvement on the ground there as something positive, but that's got to complicate things for the u.s. >> well, it does because it creates a reality on the ground now that they can't do anything. even if they wanted to get rid of assad, they couldn't, because if you look at some of the weapons the russians are bringing in, it has nothing to do really with isis. it's really just about trying to prop up this syrian military. so, what they're trying to do is harness that into a way to work against isis. clearly, this makes it impossible for the u.s. to go against anything russia wants. russia wants to keep them there.