Foreign Affairs committee  It's a pleasure. Sorry to be such a downer.

Foreign Affairs committee  They're very unlikely to get democracy. None of the major players want democracy and are not calling for it. There are tons of people who would like to see democracy in Syria, but they don't have any guns and they don't have political representation that can bring them there toda

Foreign Affairs committee  If you want to get rid of chemical weapons, the best way to do it is to work with Assad. He presented this package with Russia of getting rid of the weapons because he thought it would re-legitimize him. If America is willing to come to terms with Assad's surviving in the parts o

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. They get help from Hezbollah from Lebanon, particularly in the battles that are right next to Lebanon's border. We saw in Qusayr a big Hezbollah piling on. Hezbollah has been training and giving advice. So has Iran. Iran has been training, and there have been Iranian soldier

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I don't think so. The regime forces, probably—the good forces—might number only 60,000 to 70,000 men in their really trusted elite, but there are a lot of other people. They have developed the militias.

Foreign Affairs committee  They do have some heavy arms, and they are getting more all the time. They have lots of mortars, and they are getting some tanks. Particularly, they have mounted guns on the backs of pickup trucks; that's the big new element. They have a lot of shoulder-held rockets, but not a lo

Foreign Affairs committee  Well, we saw a big supply come in from Croatia. It was bought and flown in from Croatia on Saudi planes to Jordan and funnelled across the border. There have been guns from all over the globe coming in. There is a big arms bazaar in Turkey. Tons of Libyan arms came in. There were

Foreign Affairs committee  That's the regime's side and that's the Russian side. There are even people in Washington.... We have heard it from a number of people. Ex-CIA head Hayden said that the regime should win, because we don't want what comes next, which is going to be worse. Ryan Crocker, one of our

Foreign Affairs committee  Now, these numbers are completely made up, but I put them in there because nobody knows the numbers. I just want you to know that this is completely made up, and that any numbers you do see are largely made up, because these militias are shifting in numbers all the time. The ge

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. Basically, this leaves the west in a terrible dilemma because they are supporting regime change, but they're unwilling to destroy the Assad military, and they have a lot of resistance to it. America has spent $2 billion on Syria, which is about the equivalent of three days'

Foreign Affairs committee  If you flip forward beyond the map of Lebanon and Iraq and just go to Syria, you will find a Kurdish region in the northeast. Anyway, I can't see where you are, so it doesn't matter.

Foreign Affairs committee  What we're getting is a big sorting out, and the minorities are only 20% in Syria, but they have military power in the form of the Syrian army, which has largely become an Alawite militia today, and they have centralized government, and they have help from Iran and Russia. They h

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm going to divide my talk into three sections. I'll do three minutes on a historical background and how I see the conflict in Syria; a second section on who are the main players on the ground, what they want, and how powerful they are; and a th