0 nuclear weapons program. >> graham raised further alarms about inaction for security here at home. citing syria's store of chemical weapons. >> the chemical weapons, enough to kill millions of people, are going to be compromised and fall in the wrong hands, and the next bomb that goes off in america may not have nails and glass in it. >> but even senator graham agrees the situation in syria is difficult to say the least. in "the new york times" this weekend, a lengthy report on the increasing islamist dominance of the opposition. "nowhere in rebel-controlled syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of." as such, the question of further military aid to the resistance is fraught with potentially disastrous consequences. as congressman peter king said on "meet the press." >> the situation in syria is complex. my concern is al qaeda has more influences than it should among the rebels and if we assist the rebels, al qaeda could take advantage of that. >> with all that at play, the including syria, where the president expressed concerns over syrian chemical weapons. obviously russia would be a critical ally if the u.s. is to pursue some further intervention in terms of the crisis taking place, the civil war in that country. white house officials telling us the president urged there to be close consultations continuing between secretary of state john minister on this very topic. one of many topics the two men spoke about this afternoon. >> pete, given quite understandable reluctance to engage in yet another military conflict, there now some regret that while the administration obviously had a red line in their minds about syria, that they may now regret having said so publicly? >> reporter: i think there may be privately some regret that this is playing out the way that it is. obviously, the fact that that line was drawn so clearly, so firmly in the sand obviously adds a layer of complexity to this. i posed the question to jay carney in the briefing hours ago and he said the president made it clear the red line exists long before we had the evidence, we had the information, the intelligence suggesting there is a high likelihood or likelihood chemical weapons were used in the situation. they insist the president's policy hasn't changed. foreign policy experts say in some sense the white house's words were a little ahead of their policy actions right now. the white house, as you played some of the sound bites, has made it clear the president said we will pursue this effort prudently and deliberately, focusing on among other things what happened in iraq where faulty intelligence led in many ways contributing to that invasion. they don't want that to repeat itself here. >> peter alexander at the whoit house. let's bring in our panel. in washington, nia malika henderson for the "washington post." steve clemens of "the atlantic." good afternoon to both of you. steve, given the terrible toll of the last ten years and still mostly of sunni arabs but also the country has christians, kurds, palestinians, armenians. one group of rebels known as the jabat al nustra declared allegiance to al qaeda. are people like lindsey graham suggesting we dive headlong into that? >> you heard lindsey graham say that as well as john mccain, saying we should arm the rebels. the problem as you laid out there and as "the new york times" laid out over the weekend is the lerebels aren't natural allies of the united states. they have al qaeda links. so to arm the opposition is in many ways to arm the opposition against the u.s. so it doesn't look like that would happen. i think one of the things that is interesting about this is that we are seeing the sort of post-iraq reaction to the middle east. even someone who is as hawkish as a john mccain or lindsey grah graham, they are certainly not advocating any boots on the ground. what it looks like that we're in for is this long sort of evaluation of whether or not there actually were chemical weapons used then the white house will have to decide what they want to do. they want to figure out what russia, what china, would do. so far russia and china have been pretty much road blocks of getting anything done there. >> sure. >> what does turkey want to do? what does jordan want to do? their neighbors in that region. syrian neighbors. so, you know, this is a complicated, a hornet's nest of a situation and you certainly don't have a situation, at least yet, where americans are overwhelmingly backing any sort of intervention that would cost the lives of american soldiers. >> certainly not. steve, despite all the risks of involvement in syria's civil war, noted war hawk, bill kristol, thinks it's totally irresponsible for the president not to jump in. take a listen to this, steve. >> this is not a president who wants to start another war. that's the way he sees it. i think it's totally irresponsible for an american president to have that -- no one wants to start wars -- but you have to do what you have to do. >> have to do what you have to do, consequences be damned? >> bill kristol is irresponsible, he once worked in the white house. it's irresponsible to basically critique the commander in chief for taking a pause to ask the key questions about -- >> especially after, especially, steve, after the irresponsible response to the belief that there was wmd in iraq where 5,000 troops gave their lives. is that not irresponsible? isn't it right for this president to pause and say, hang on a second? >> no, that's absolutely right. it's absolutely right to check out the scenarios of what happened. to look at what the motives were. i raised on msnbc the other day that there were, you know, a lot of scenarios. you need to think through the unthinkable issues and not just let the bandwagoning emotion of the moment drive u.s. military commitments. and i think the biggest issue is we're all assuming is the assad regime commanded the use of those weapons. i talked to a senior administration official over the weekend who said that if chemical weapons were used, it is most likely the case but not only the case that those were under assad's command if they were used, and that the question they don't understand is if assad did give the command to use those weapons, why were they used to such a minimal degree? these are questions that anyone in the position of deploying potentially men and women to the frontline, but u.s. military force, need to think through and work through. we have a lot of intelligence we're not sharing publicly that is signals intelligence, chatter among the syrian command staff on what happened. we don't know what any of that is, but it's vital to do that and bill kristol knows this. and we see a lot of people that for months have been discussing chemical weapons and red lines and it's almost as if those wanting to advocate a more robust response are gleeful that, in fact, chemical weapons have somehow been used. we need to stop and pause. >> absolutely. nia malika henderson, steve clemons, thank you for joining us. next, former governor mark sanford may be running the worst campaign in history. stay with us. why is redemption so much easier for republicans than democrats? well, simply put, it's because republicans are the christian party, and there's nothing evangelicals eat up like a redemption story. sanford said he asked jesus to forgive him, and jesus said, okay. 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