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Casualties in this next period. so we really don't know how this is going to play out. either bashar al assad will turn himself into a turtle, he'll go down into the bunkers, he'll ride this out, or he'll use this as an opportunity to launch a major counteroffensive against the rebels who want to use this time to gain momentum. >> thank you to richard engel for joining us from near the turkish border with syria. greatly appreciate your time this morning. and here in the studio, to help us sort through many of the complexities of action in syria are colonel jack jacobson, msnbc military analyst...

I think there's not going to be something in the middle. he's either going to hunker down, absorb the attack, and carry on, because i don't think, necessarily, a couple days worth of bombing with the cruise missiles are going to do very much, necessarily, to the -- to assad's fortunes in the war. or in the alternative, it will escalate into something far nastier and it will last a much longer period of time. i don't think it's going to be anything in the middle. i think he's absolutely right. >> ed, let me ask you, one piece of this that i started with that clearly became the major development...

Then we could say we had no further interest in the region other than punishing assad. but whether we like it or not, it's not a question of us getting dragged into a situation in syria. look, the bottom line is the bottom line. the contagion of the syrian civil war is going to affect this region for decades to come. it's going to redraw sectarian and religious lines in the region. the worst thing we could do here is to pretend as if somehow or other this is an isolated situation that doesn't affect american interests elsewhere in the world. that's what the president is talking about. when the...

Little bit more, shall we? joining me from washington, general james "spider" marks. from new york, ed hussein, senior fellow for middle eastern studies at the council on foreign relations. welcome to both of you. general marks, i just want to begin with you. we have witnessed more than 100,000 deaths in syria, and thus far we are in, what, year three? pretty much stood on the sidelines. from your per spekctive at a military man why would the use of chemical weapons suddenly tip the balance in the favor of intervention. >> what has been indicated, clearly the use of chemical weapons violates i...

>> i think by getting involved we exacerbate the risks. we've already seen the iranian take action against israel. we may see the syrians responding and attacking israel and turkey. by attacking chemical weapon stockpiles which we can't do, because we don't know where they are, we run the risk of toxins spreading again more widely into the f the population. we're damned if we do, damned if we don't. i suspect the drum beats of war are being played too loud and too quickly for us to take a step back. there's a lesson to be drawn, i think, from the european and british skepticism of what's going...