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Some of the key phrases i heard from the president speaking at the white house this hour. he said, not considering any military action involving boots on the ground. not considering a long-term campaign. we are looking at a limited, narrow act. when you hear that, what does that entail? what could that accomplish militarily? >> well, the accomplishment in terms of a military objective would be, as the president indicated, would be very narrow, very limited, very precise. you'd want to think that it would fit within a larger tragic construct. kind of a picture of what this end state looks like....

States could potentially take out much of the air force of bashar al assad. is that, is that worth doing, peter? i mean, if you take out his aircraft, maybe crater the runways to prevent them from being used by anything but helicopters, is that worth doing? >> well, the question, jon, is what's the objective? what's your end state? what are you trying to achieve here? you don't want this to be a feel-good exercise. you don't want this to be eye wash, you know, for the obama administration's failed policies over the last two and a half years that has led to 100,000 people per riching. you know ...

Think in the middle east. at this juncture it's wiser to hold back and let others act. >> your point as we saw on the map, those other countries with military might should, perhaps, give us pause if they are not acting. but spider marks, what is the risk, then, in not acting or just doing too little here? >> well, it appears like we're going to do too little. yet get ourselves potentially entangled in a fight in syria. and i completely agree. you don't want to have -- this is not necessarily a war of choice. it should not be a war of choice. in fact, the president has described the possibility...

Be launched very, very quickly. the flash-to-bang time is instantaneous. >> amazing. just amazing to see that all play out. general, what exactly would the end game be here? what would be achieved by going in in that manner? and where might we end up? >> well, unfortunately, ashleigh, what we have under the scenario that tom and i were able to describe yesterday and as the president has described, he wants to very narrowly define this punitive action to punish assad for the use of chemical weapons. that's a tactical engagement. the end state has not been described. the strategy has not been de...

Israelis will be presented with a much bigger problem than they are now. but the problem is, how do you negotiate an end state to this? you can't. what you're looking for is a stand down by both parties and perhaps the egyptians and the turks can find a way since the israelis will not, to enhance this arrangement with hamas with additional incentives. i think the bottom line here, though, given the fact that the israelis have made it unmistakebly clear they're not interested in decapitating the hamas leadership or destroying hamas as an organization, what this represents to me in a very worris...