Marvin Calb News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Also joining us marvin calb, author of the book "the road to war" the senior fellow at the brookings institutional, as well. thanks to both of you for coming in. david, let me start with you. you know bashar al-assad, you met his father. you understand what is going through his mind right now. when he sees this debate unfolding in the united states, how worried should he really be that he's about to get crushed, if you will, by u.s. tomahawk cruise missiles? >> well, i'm not sure i completely understand what he's thinking right now. he's somewhat of a changed person from when i knew him. i don...

Battle field increases. but right now, no. i mean, syria, you know, 75% most of them i think would be described as conservative muslims, not necessarily jahsdest. opposition people to whom i've spoke don't really have a concern about that right now but certainly, in the future if this starts to fracture in syria, something like that could happen. >> david lesh thanks for joining us. marvin, thanks to you, as well. there was one pretty surprising moment during the senate of foreign relations committee hearing today. cameras caught senator john mccain with something other than syria on his iph...

Air force. if the united states were to make good on the pledge to provide serious arms, to selected elements of the opposition, i say senator mccain and others advocated that would tilt the battle field. this will be a long process, and the decision to potentially use force in response to the chemical use policy can't bear anything like the full burden of the policy if your goal is to take the humanitarian nightmare that is contemporary syria. let's talk more about tomorrow's vote on the syria resolution before the senate foreign relations committee. joining us the author of "syria, the fal...

At one time and many of us thought was something of a hope for syria and had a different type of background as you said, a licensed ophthalmologist and he was always -- he was considered by everyone who knew him as humble and unpretentious. how did this happen? i think the key is is that he became much more comfortable with power, which is not bad. if you become more comfortable with power and authoritative, maintaining that particular system, i think all on us many on us inside and outside syria hoped he would change the authoritarian system but it changed him. >> i'm going to ask david and m...

Over throw. i know it's hard to reconcile this person that many of us knew at one time and many of us thought was something of a hope for syria and had a different type of background as you said, a licensed ophthalmologist and he was always -- he was considered by everyone who knew him as humble and unpreten shows. how did this happen? i think the key is is that he became much more comfortable with power, which is not bad. if you become more comfortable with power and aauthoritative, maintaining that particly system, i think all on us many on us inside and outside syria hoped he would change t...