Syria. The goal is not to see a massive mess on the map. But he thinks that we can make this a whole lot worse than it already is. In the next year he faces the withdrawal of the United States from afghanistan and he would like us to still be there. This is one area he was quite relieved that we were there. He liked the idea that we were bogged down because we may be there and some kind of way in which we would stay, not where we would be heading out like the soviet red army headed out a couple of decades previously. He he looks at syria and probably doesnt spend every day thinking about u. S. But he spent a lot of time looking at this in the kgb, studying what the u. S. Is up to. He does not think that they have thought up of anything thought of anything beneficial to russia. Activityin all of the in syria is to be restraining the United States from intervention. He does not know where the endgame is going to go and he would much rather have Bashar Alassad keeping some semblance of control in the complete chaos that he has seen in iraq and afghanistan and libya. He is on the same page as some members of congress, wanting that wanting to know if this will be benghazi. Until he gets some kind of response from the president , and he is following closely what the president has been saying, he wants those answers as well and wants to know what will be in syria by the end of the day. On that front, russian and middle east policy is misunderstood. This is not the cold war. If you look at the series of alliances that russia has, they are weird. This is not just iran, this is israel. A hezbollah attack by a ran on israel would be a disaster for russian policy. Iran on israel would be a disaster for russian policy. He has been alarmed by the sudden shift in the middle east profile of who is in charge. He is probably relieved that the military is back in the case of egypt. Springnot like the arab or any of the implications this had for the middle east or if this would create more extremist groups that turned their attention from the start current focus and turned to russia. Ever since he ended the war in chechnya, he has been relieved that the extremists went somewhere else and he does not want them coming back. With the Winter Olympics in the new year of 2013, and the billions he has spent there. There are all kinds of things he doesnt like about this. This is not the old middle east for russia and nobody else. He wants to know what the u. S. Will do and what their what the implications will be. I wanted to ask about the other al qaeda affiliates in syria. There has been concern over the last two and a half years that the course of the war has made this group grow stronger. There is also the concern that if we maybe the inaction allow this to happen but also the possibility that the strike may further strengthen almusra. Atif we step back and look the developments during the civil war this started out as a general nonviolent movement, for political change in syria. Two and a half years later it is not that anymore. This is a very ugly sectarian war. With terrific violations of human rights by the syrian rebels. What began as the arab spring turned into a sectarian war that put 15 of the population the christian minority against the sunni majority. Leaving out the kurds, who are the third player and have their own entity in northeastern syria. This conflict between the christian front and the sunni front becomes increasingly violent and dangerous. The opposition and the resistance is incredibly fractured. The Defense Intelligence agency this summer could identify 1200 separate parts of the sunni opposition movement. Even if they are armed by 50 , there are only 600 this is a very dysfunctional movement. There was no al qaeda at the beginning, but now they have come on very strongly using their nearby base in iraq. We have two specific franchises operating in syria. One is the almusra front, who say they are syrian in origin, but knowledge a lot of assistance from al qaeda in iraq, controlled by alzawahiri in pakistan. And there is al qaeda in iraq they are in charge and running this operation. And have the authority from bin laden, if he was here. Anyone who says these functions are 50 of the resistance your alarm bells should go off. Just like anyone who tells you there are 5000 al qaeda fighters in iraq and syria. It is not clear that they know how many fighters they have in syria today. Do not settle for oversimplifications. Two significant groups have now moved into a rack, and become among the most robust parts of the resistance to the Bashar Al Assad government. If we killed the Playing Field against this regime, inevitably that will help al qaeda. There is no way we cannot help them, the way that we degrade the Syrian Regime and their military capability. We can offset this to a certain degree and i have written about some ways to mitigate the impact, but we should have no delusions that at the end of the day, the more we weaken, or hit them hard, were going to end up having bigger al qaeda problems in the future. If you have a strategy that says, we are willing to take that risk up front now. We are confident that we know that we will get to the end, that is one thing. If we have the Yada Yada Yada strategy, you have to spend more time thinking about the. Helpertently, we have to we will be helping them have a Stronger Base in the middle east. Al qaeda is at a crossroads. They were threatened by the arab spring when this began. The whole philosophy is that the only solution to the problem of american influence in the east was violence this was challenged by the arab spring. It was not jihad that toppled mubarak, it was twitter and facebook. Now al qaeda is in position to say, it would not work. Mubarak is back. What this president does for entire region right now will determine the vector and the importance of al qaeda for the next decade. Crossing a crucial point. In the more broad middle east. You may have riled michael duran. I want to talk about what may be the more difficult scenario. Both houses of congress in their own separate ways, both down to the idea of the strike. If theyve of vote yes, what does the president do with that new permission, does he just pocket this until a future date, or you would support the strike . Or has he essential committed himself by asking to their for their permission . Let me start by saying something that is very obvious but that we should think about for a second. I agreed with almost everything the per that jeremy said. What i want to say that is very obvious is we have a resident who, for two years, showed not just a reluctance, basically informed the american public, that intervention in syria is pure folly. Nobody can argue that president obama has been looking for a pretext to get involved. Opinionfactor, public is overwhelmingly opposed to this. This is also obvious. The third factor is that the military doesnt want to do this. I have never seen body language less supportive of the military action than what i saw from the chairman during the hearings. Want,esident doesnt Public Opinion doesnt want to, and the military doesnt want it. Here we are, talking about a proposal to intervene in syria put forth by the president. To me, this is an incredible statement, that the president , up until this time has not defined American Interest correctly in syria. All has been my point along. Interests are objective things out there in the world, the Meeting Place between objective things in the world and the way that you conceive of them. There is a point in which your conception of the world the way that these objectives things objective things determine interests. If they are too far out you may find yourself in the uncomfortable position where, if they vote against this in congress this is a real political defeat for you at home. They are severely weaker at home if he gets that no vote. There has to be a paradigm shift and recognize that we are here for a reason. This slippage is not something that happened because people were trying to go that way. All along they were trying to hold the line and defined this incorrectly. I am sorry, i am going on a little bit. Our allies in the region, they have all come they have all come to washington and said, you have to do something. The turks, this is an amazing thing. Not just a sunni muslim powers but the european powers, they have said, you have to do something. First it was quiet, and then, this is to the white house combined with leaks to the press and now we have the politicians saying out loud, we want an intervention. I have never seen anything like this in 20 years of following the middle east. Twopresident could have, years ago, taken those elements and created a coalition, and when this moment came he would have had elements that we would put out front and we would not look at unilateral american action. The Start Building coalition i will be there with boots on the ground. Now he has the opposite. When he realizes we do have interests in the middle east, we have to take action. Nobody is there because he did not build up the coalition. We have to build this coalition now. Getss to act whether he authorization or he doesnt. Because the goal of acting is not just simply to have a military effect on the ground, this is to transmit our intentions, and a willingness to put skin in the game for all of our allies to start coordinating them. Part of the problem in syria is not just what the enemies are doing but what the allies are doing. The turks are turning a blind eye to all of the people coming through. They are not supporting al qaeda. They are just letting the open. Supposedly we have a global strategy to combat al qaeda. And one of our most close partners is supporting them in syria. This is a huge strategic failure which we have to think about. Jeremy, assuming that there is a yes vote for both houses. You would advise the president not to strike anyway . Works he is not bluffing on this. He did change his opinion of the wisdom of a strike as a result of this attack on august 21. I think that from the standpoint of the u. S. Government and the chemical weapons issue this has always been different. You see this change in the president s view on the list of intervention. A very limited intervention in the last few weeks. This was always the case that this will extend back into the clinton and bush administration. There is no credible institutional focus chemical weapons are considered part of them. We have a completely different process for chemical weapons within the u. S. Government on syria and the u. S. Government has taken that interest a lot more seriously. They have thought of this as separate. So the chemical Weapons Development within the Syrian Civil War is some and that the president was not kidding, when he drew the red line one year ago. He was not kidding. That is because of the way that the u. S. Government sees chemical weapons. I dont think that this is the right way of seeing it. He will act if Congress Gives their permission. The reason the policy has developed in this way, the president has always been seeking a sort of balance with the audience they have balanced on this question. An anonymous official said they were looking for a response that was just muscular enough be mocked. That is sort of how they did this all the way through. Every time something happened the United States had a response. The chinese did not feel the need for a response. Lookingalways sort of for the minimum that could be done to satisfy the desire and the political culture for a response. But that would not get us any more involved. That is how we have gone to this place with the nonintervention and the interventionists are sort of pissed off. I would prefer if you mention the person you would most like to answer the wetjen. Questionccept your anyhow. We will go down the line. Please identify yourself when you get the microphone. We will begin with gary and harlan, and then we will go to the woman five rows back. That will be the first group. Thank you very much. Iam garrett mitchell, and write the mitchell report. I think the person i would pose this to is to michael. And his role as the moderator. It has been clear that we have differing perspectives about what we should do in syria. There is one thing that seems to me that the panel is in complete agreement on. The president has not been able to state the case for the american strategic interest in syria. Observation the that nearly has the panel. I would like to ask if the panel could give us what they consider a working definition of americas Strategic Interests syria. And that assumes that there is one. We know that obama had a similar problem with afghanistan. He was never able to articulate what the american strategic interest was in afghanistan and i dont think he is an intelligent man. So it raises the question whether these terms that we love to use in washington, like americas strategic interest, if this is a lot of hooey. Narrowly put, the question is, is there such a thing as an american strategic interest, and if so, can we take a swing at this today . The panel did exceedingly well in discussing a lot of these things and i want to associate my views with you about russia, which we dont appreciate in washington. I have a threepart question stemming from Marty Dempsey and his testimony, when he said, yes, we can degrade and determined. Can the panel tell me what it will take to the terror assad to deter assad. What do you think that the syrians will do next . Six rows back. I have worked on the protection of civilians in Armed Conflict and that inc. That is what we are talking about today. One question that has not been asked today, is, do the Syrian People want intervention . It appears that on both sides there are westerns about what will happen. We are already seeing a lot of movement. We have given up on the un Security Council, who have dramatically failed following their resolutions on the protections of civilians. But there is a third path where the americans can take leadership but perhaps back away from what will be a big mistake, and will not make things better for the civilians at all ends. The third path is going to the general assembly, utilizing resolution 377. This has rarely been used, but this is a way to go around the Security Council, and major demands such as referral for both assad and others, including the rebels who violated international law, and to investigate the atrocities and create an arab league u. N. Proposal that has been turned down in the Security Council in the past. With the french and the u. S. Taking on the role of the no lie zone. This would give us some time, with a lot of planning required and would allow the president to maintain credibility and take some interest in this step back and think about what is best for all the Syrian People. This will help tilt to one more thing this would help to build support for the councils world government. The jihadists are providing food and taking leadership with the local people, and the opposition is doing nothing when to taking terms of responsibility for these people. This is very expensive and we recognize that this is expensive anyway. We will work down to anyone who wants to respond to one of the three questions. I should say on the more broad question, brookings is holding an event here at 10 00. The sure that you saw estimate in syria this is in the range of 3 million. We will ask them to handle other questions. We have said that inside of syria this does not reach the threshold of president obama. Of assad has cost us a lot trouble with hezbollah, which has been tolerated by the United States and syria, president clinton and senator kerry thought that assad would the a reformist. This does not get to the syrian importance, but what we have seen three years ago, this was not a popular thing to say. Al qaeda may establish new sanctuaries in the more broad public asian with her neighbors is that the Syrian Civil War now been correctly seen as something that does not stay within their borders. And ken pollack who is celebrating Rosh Hashanah today and is not on the panel this is the Regional Focus that will have to be determined. Within its borders, you could argue that syria, perhaps is something that we could have ignored and it ignore for many years. Michael the ran predicted that we would be heading for trouble and it would not stay within its borders. This is where the u. S. Strategic interests are engaged. I would like to add a bit to that. Since the assad dynasty took power in 1970, we have had a hostile relationship with syria. Every president from nixon until now has maintained sanctions. We have lived with that. This is a problem, but this is a manageable problem. But the spillover from syria spills over into the things that matter to us. My own view is that israel and turkey are pretty kick goal of taking care of themselves, especially the israelis. That is why i think one thing the president has done over the last two years, that everyone will agree with, is to try to strengthen jordan to handle the spillover from syria. But now this is almost a flood. Degrade and deter. No one thinks this is a good idea to bomb chemical weapons. This will disperse the chemical weapons. Boots on the ground to get them, secretary kerry briefly hinted at that, but if he had not walked act they would have voted no right then and there. We will not go in and get this. This is a very complex and dangerous task. The ability to deliver the ability to deliver to degrade the ability to deliver them this is a hard task. The syrians have figured out a lot of ways to deliver chemical weapons. The way they deliver it in damascus was the way we have not seen. Syria had that capability before. This is an opponent that is making it harder to be great. The israelis have a lot of experience with the president assad dynasty. They have had experience of and making whack sure they do not get one back. The syrians basically said nothing. They said nothing, literally. We can draw from that. The danger is this. End isnt assad feels the in sight.