tonight. arwa, thank you. just a remarkable time across the region. we'll stay on top of it. that's all for us tonight. remember, it's monday. we're exactly one week away from the cnn wmur presidential debate in new hampshire. i'll be moderating at 8:00 p.m. eastern. senator rick santorum, one of the republican candidates, right here tomorrow night as we begin our preview of that debate. see you then. "in the arena" starts right now. good evening. i'm eliot spitzer, welcome to the program. today, congressman anthony weiner held a press conference. it was the kind of moment that neither politicians nor journalists should be proud of, and believe me, i know. i've been there. and i've held both jobs. it was the latest chapter in a cringe-worthy saga involving the

new york democrat and the internet. weiner said he would not resign, even as he confessed to some very unpleasant things. >> last friday night, i tweeted a photograph of myself that i intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in seattle. once i realized i had posted it to twitter, i panicked, i took it down and said that i had been hacked. i then continued with that story, to stick to that story, which was a hugely regrettable mistake. >> we'll have a lot more on this in just a moment, but first, a look at the other stories i'll be drilling down on tonight. syria's war on its own people. cnn's arwa damon has the story of the military's latest atrocity. and, a country in chaos. yemen's president is in saudi arabia getting surgery. he says he's going back. the state department says that's a bad idea. e.d. hill asks, will al qaeda fill a power vacuum? then, mitt romney, former governor of massachusetts, wants

to be president. michael dukakis, former governor of massachusetts once ran for president. dukakis says romney's a fraud. >> he's smart, he's slick. unfortunately, she's slippery. now for more on our top story, anthony weiner's bizarre circus of a press conference earlier this afternoon. let me play a bit more of what the congressman had to say. >> for the past few years, i have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over twitter, facebook, e-mail, and occasionally on the phone with women i had met online. i have exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years. for the most part, these relations -- these communications took place before my marriage, though some have, sadly, took place after. to be clear, i have never met any of these women or had physical relationships at any time. i haven't told the truth -- and i've done things that i d p

deeply regret. i've brought pain to people i care about the most and the people who believed in me, and for that i'm deeply sorry. i was embarrassed. and i didn't want it to lead to other embarrassing things. and i did -- i did a -- it was a dumb thing to do, to try to tell lies about it, because it just led to more lies. but almost -- but almost immediately after, i said the lie i knew i was putting people in a very bad position, and i didn't want to continue doing it. >> are you going to split up with your wife because of this? >> i love my wife very much -- >> are you going to split up? >> i love my wife very much, and we have no intention of splitting up over this. we have been through -- we have been through a great deal together, and we will weather this. i love her very much and she loves me.

>> shortly after this press conference, house minority leader nancy pelosi called for house ethics investigation. weiner says he'll cooperate fully. for more now, i've got a powerhouse political panel with me. in new orleans, cnn contributor james carville. in durham, north carolina, rick lazio, a former new york congressman who ran for the senate against hillary clinton. and howard kurtz, washington bureau chief for "newsweek" magazine and the daily beast and host of cnn's "reliable sources." thanks for all being here. james, let me begin with you. you were in the clinton white house, in charge or there in moments of crisis, in management. assuming that anthony weiner has told the truth, has it made it possible for himself, for him to survive, as he goes forward? >> well, history shows that a lot of people have survived, but i'll tell you that right now, the democrats are furious at this guy. i mean, you can see what leader pelosi is calling for an ethics investigation. he's married to one of the most popular people in the democratic

party, and people are livid at him. you know, my general view on these kind of things is let the voters decide. if they want to send him back, that's a choice for the people of the ninth district of new york. it's a choice he'll have to make. and i don't know if he broke any laws. you know, i don't exactly know what the law is on this. i know the ethics committee is going to be in, and he's certainly got to tell the truth there. he's got a ways to go. he's in a sticky spot right now, no doubt about that. >> no question about that. and look, the decision to resign is a deeply personal one, and let me br up-front about this, i did resign. and rick lazio, you've been in the congress, you've seen these facts unfold as they have, unfortunately, over the past week. do you think that anthony weiner made the right decision? and i ask you to speak now not as a partisan, but as somebody who was a member of an institution that has -- that is the united states congress.

>> yeah. it's a deeply personal and political tragedy for anthony weiner and for the people that love him and his family. it's a public humiliation, obviously, but the fact is, you know, you have a situation where a member of the congress didn't just fib at one point, but he had a plan and executed a plan for over a week where he repeatedly lied and made up stories about this. you know, the honorable thing, i think, to do in this situation, which you can make a comparison, every situation is different, eliot, you can make a comparison with chris lee, a colleague of his from new york, who chose to resign, put his constituents first, and get past this thing, let him focus on his own personal challenges. that would probably be the choice that if a friend came to me, i would give to him. he looks like he's not going down that road.

it's clearly embarrassing to the house of representatives, generally speaking. nobody's going to kick weiner out, but the voters of that district, as james said, ultimately, it will be up to his voters. i'm not sure that his voters will care that much about this. enough of them will care to make a difference. it does depend on what else comes out. and clearly, the idea of it not just being one person, but a number of different women that he was reaching out to, and at least in one case, it seems like the one that has been most highly publicized, this was not a welcome invitation to come in and start sending lewd pictures to her. i think that all matters. >> you know, howard, let me come to you. i don't think anybody knows the media, certainly, the political media, better than you do. it seems to me that anthony's web of untruths, lies, there's no other -- nothing else you can call it, where last week, he just said over and over, he denied it, denied it, denied it,

did come clean today. doesn't that make it that much harder. will the media let him get away with this over the next weeks, months, into the foreseeable future? >> probably not. i mean, i remember the embarrassing day when you resigned as governor, eliot, but the difference is you hadn't given 27 television interviews the weeks before saying you hadn't done something you had, because it becomes about the cover-up. this was a riveting and revolting news conference. it was almost like anthony weiner wanted to be flagellated by the press, which was happy to comply, you know the new york press corps, as a way of exposing him to a ritual h humiliati humiliation, to show he could take it. i talked to one voter, my mom, she said this was a big and stupid mistake by weiner, but she would vote for him again. so voters may care less about this than journalists. >> howard, in a couple moments, i'll get to my fury about what

might happen. let me ask you this, did you do himself a favor by suffering the flagellation, and you are right, i know the new york press corps, as bizarre as it is, i'm not part of it, but did he do himself a favor to the extent that by having stood there for 30 minutes he has said, okay, guys, take your shot. do what you want to me. now can i move beyond this. >> weiner would have done himself a bigger favor if he had done that several days ago before repeating all the lice. you don't want to be in a position where he comes out, reads a statement, and walks off, there are all these unanswered questions. he took the heat. had to talk about phone sex, talk about the women in detail, the sexually explicit photos. people got to see him getting beat up, and he was beating himself up at the same time. i don't think he had much choice. >> james, i want to come back to you. you oversaw the absolutely masterful return of bill clinton

as the most popular president and politician in america. and the way he did it, it struck me, was by being president. he actually used the office to do what people cared about. he had the pedestal, the grandeur, all the powers of that office. it's different when you're president. a presidency is one thing, a congressional seat is another. can anthony weiner use his power to emulate that strategy? >> there are a couple of things that are different. first of all, anthony weiner in terms of political skill is not bill clinton, okay, so we can just go ahead and stipulate that. secondly, the republicans appear to have learned, because some of the most odious people in modern american history came out against president clinton, and that, you know, really turned people sort of against him. i think that -- speak of boehner and the republicans of being pretty smart here, they're not jumping up and down, they're letting this whole thing -- let him stew in his own juices, if you will. it's actually the democrats that have taken charge here, which is

the way it should be. so there's a considerable amount of difference here that we're talking about. and also, being a congressman is just, you're right, it's a different form, a different place. but we do know that people look at the situation in louisiana, you know, what we had here in terms of our own senator, and he got re-elected. and if there was any other things that people have gotten in this kind of thing, that they have been re-elected. that's something the voters will have to make. but he's not very popular in this caucus now, and usually this kind of behavior, he said it six times, better hope it's not seven. it will be tough. >> well, let me throw out a different idea here. and it comes back to howard, your mom may be willing to vote for him. she may not get a chance. in other words, new york city state, because of redistricting, is going to probably lose two congressional seats. if the politics hold their normal course, it will be one upstate, one down state. one republican, one democratic seat. won't the members, and james,

this goes to your point a second ago, if he's not popular within the democratic caucus, the conference, won't the new york legislature, when it redraws the lines, say to itself, look, if we've got to sacrifice a democratic seat down state, anthony, sorry, your district is going to disappear. >> i'm sure weiner's democratic colleagues would like him to just go away at this point, and not have to defend him as a symbol of bad judgment and excess in other races. but let's be clear. he didn't -- what didn't he do? he department father a love child with his housekeeper or his campaign videographer. he didn't leave an impeachment drive against the president while carrying on with a house staffer. but he lied about it, repeatedly, and for that reason, eliot, i think you're right, voters may not get a shot at him. >> rick, real quick -- >> i don't know to answer this. is it legal to, like, twitter -- i don't know -- i don't even know what twitter is or what it looks like, but is it legal to send somebody a sort of graphic photo of yourself that's uninvited?

with i don't know what the law is on that? >> ask the teenagers of america. >> james, i'm not sure there's a clear answer to that, but nobody i've heard has said, here's the statute that he broke, and frankly, we haven't seen the pictures, or at least i haven't, all of them, we don't know what the content was. nobody has stood up and said, it's a clear violation of law. nobody has yet given a citation of anything he clearly did. as howard said, he certainly was untruthful. rick, for the last question, if it was the republican party, which historically, at least, and by reputation is more controlled, more top-down hierarchy, would the leadership have said to him, come on, game other, we're not going to tolerate this? >> i believe that would be the case, yeah. i think you find that republicans just, partly because of their constituency, and the fact that they do make, tend to make values and morality a big part of who they are, as a party, and i'm not suggesting, by the way, the democrats

aren't. i'm just saying the republicans tend to position themselves in this space, that they would almost certainly, i think, coalesce around trying to push him out. and i think you'd see an outpouri outpouring of people saying, it's time to step aside. that's why chris lee stepped aside so quickly. i thinks there a major difference, going to howard's point. you look at a different, a slightly different situation, by charlie rangel up in harlem, who was censured and there was a lot of controversy around what he did and said. and, you know, he was re-elected overwhelmingly in that district. so the question is not, as you said earlier in the program, not what we all think. it's what their voters think. and i think it's why a lot of voters are turned off to the system, to politicians. they think there's no accountability, and they think there's two sets of rules. one for the rich and powerful and one for everybody else. and i think the honorable thing to do, when you mess up, you screw up, and in a situation

where you lie for over a week and try to manipulate the system and try to destroy someone else's reputation, there ought to be some accountability, personal accountability. >> all right, look. interesting and important points from all of you. thank you all for being with us. unfortunately, this story is probably not over. coming up, arwa damon joins us with an absolutely awful story from the brutal regime that is clinging to power in syria. arwa, what's the latest? >> reporter: shocking new video has emerged appearing to show syrian military forces planting weapons on the bodies of dead activists, another indication, the opposition says, of the government's smear campaign. >> arwa just keeps breaking unbelievable and terrible news in syria. we'll see that in a moment. but first, michael dukakis weighs in on mitt romney. he's not a fan, to say the least. you'll want to hear what dukakis has to say. stay with us. [ waves crashing ]

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dukakis shared two key lines on their resume. both were governor of massachusetts and both have ran for president of the united states. so dukakis is in a unique position to evaluate romney, both as a leader and as a politician. mike dukakis joins me from boston, where he's a professor of political science at northeastern university. governor dukakis, thanks so much for joining us. let's cut right to the chase. how do you grade mitt romney in his tenure as the governor of massachusetts? >> very poorly. on his signature issue of the economy, he was really nowhere. i mean, we had very little economic growth. there was a lot of talk, but no action. he left the state's infrastructure a wreck. i mean, you have no idea how bad it was. it's a pattern that we've now seen in his campaigns and, as i say, just very disappointing. >> i mean, let's take these issues sequentially, although i want to begin with health care, which is the issue, perhaps,

that is most dominating the conversation nationally, in terms of mitt romney. do you disagree with mitt romney's underlying premise about the individual mandate, the individual mandate was his idea. he said everybody has to participate, one way or another, he now disavows it, but was he right in that policy evaluation? >> absolutely. you cannot have a health care system in which working people and their families are guaranteed decent, affordable health care, unless you require all of us to contribute. and that includes employers and employees alike. and romney was absolutely correct. and by the way, was eloquent, as governor, in insisting that it was a key part of the plan. by the way, pawlenty and huntsman also supported the individual mandate. and said so at the time. >> so your grievance with mitt romney is not that when he created the system he was wrong, but that he has now run away

from it as quickly as he possibly could for no discernible reason? >> ran away from it in massachusetts in the closing days of the debate over it. and now, is he with it or isn't he? i don't know. it's not clear, and unfortunately, that's one of the most troubling things about romney. that these days, it seems as if he'll do what his poster told him to do yesterday. so it's really, as i say, a huge disappointment, both when he was governor and now as he's a candidate. >> staying with massachusetts health care for a moment, has the system worked? >> 99% of the people of massachusetts now have comprehensive health care with and no state, with the possibility of hawaii, can make that exception, and i think it's something we should have had in the united states a long time ago. we're still working on the cost control side, and the current governor, governor patrick, is working very hard at that, so is the legislature, and i think by

the end of this legislative session, we'll have a comprehensive cost control. >> well, clearly, he is modul e modulating, to put it kindly when i say perspective on many issues, given he's facing a republican primary voter somewhat different than what he faced in massachusetts. i get the sense that you view this as a character law, such that he has forsaken core values and his principles in return for political expediency. am i seeingproperly? >> that's exactly right, and it's one of the saddest things i've ever seen. look, you and i have been in the political business for a long time. we may agree or disagree. we may have colleagues more conservative than we are who take opposite positions. but i think most of us admire people in public life who have the courage of their convictions, and support those positions consistently, and mitt has just been the proverbial weather vane, eliot.

going one way, going the other way, switching his position, doing so generally because i guess he thinks it's to his political advantage to do so. and the last thing we need in the white house is a weather vane. we need somebody who's going to be consistent, who's going to articulate the values that are important to this country and follow through on them. and that's why it's been just so disappointing to see this guy in action. you know, he's smart, he's slick. unfortunately, he's slippery. >> is there anybody in the republican world, among the announced or soon to be announced republican candidates for president whom you look at, even though you might disagree with them ideologically, with respect to whom you would not level such a harsh critique in terms of their intellectual malleability and their willi willingnewilling ness to switch position, merely for a few points in the polls? >> yeah, john huntsman. i have a lot of respect for him. i don't want him to be the president, i want the current president to be re-elected, but

i have a lot of respect for john huntsman. >> why? >> well, because he has values, he expresses them, he's consistent, he's not flip-flopping around like mitt or pawlenty, for that matter, and i regret to say that i think the fact that he does have these strong values and he is and has been consistent probably will hurt him in the republican race. >> all right. governor mike dukakis, thank you so much for joining us and giving us your heartfelt views on this matter. >> good to talk with you. >> we reached out to the romney campaign for a response tonight. they chose not to provide us with one. but you can hear from romney himself when he sits down with piers morgan for his first prime-time interview on cnn tonight immediately after our show at 9:00 p.m. coming up, shocking new video, allegedly showing syrian forces covering up murder by planting weapons on unarmed men. the latest disturbing chapter from the crackdown there. stay with us.

extreme violence today until syria, as the government says 120 security forces were killed by, quote, armed gangs. cnn cannot confirm this, because syrian officials have banned cnn and other international news agencies from entering the country. the majority of information coming out of syria is from the government, but disturbing new video we have obtained shows just how far the government will go to discredit the opposition forces. what we see in syria is not only being controlled, but also, it appears to be staged, even fabricated. arwa damon has the report. >> reporter: five bodies lie in

pools of blood. the image is so graphic that we had to blur them. most appear to have been shot in the head. standing over them, syrian soldiers, talking to the camera. [ speaking foreign language ] one of the many jokes about eyeliner on the face of one of the dead. cnn cannot verify the authenticity of the video, but a syrian human rights group says the killings took place at the end of april. at one point, a voice says, "show me those weapons. put them there," and what looks like a gun is placed on one of the bodies. "leave them there, they are the weapons the committee will come film," the man says. we reached an activist by phone. the committee is from syrian tv. they come film and say these people were armed and they had to be killed. he says planting weapons on victims is part of the regime's strategy, to paint protesters as

terrorists. syrian state television claimed security forces were targeting unarmed group and aired this strangely emotionless statement by a man, two of the dead men were his sons, two his nephews. there was a gunfight between the army and the group inside, which included my children and my nephews, he says. and then adds, i saw them carrying weapons and killing and shooting at the army. activists says he was forced to make the at the same time. abazid says the men were unarmed and were responsible for food distributions during the siege. this video, also just posted, shows how people came up with their own methods to distribute food across the battle zone, filling water drums with vegetables and other basics and using a pulley system to move them. abizid told us the five men who were killed were using the same

technique when syrian security forces shot them dead. they killed them to starve the people, abizid claims. they hope to break the will of the opposition. and eliot, activists claim that the syrian regime is undertaking a vicious campaign to try to smear the opposition, repeatedly using threats to force confessions and to cover up their own crimes. and they point to that video that emerged from darwa as yet another example of the atrocities committed by the syrian regime and the government has not yet responded to cnn's request for a response this video, which underscores how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of what is happening inside syria. >> as you point out, you are not there, thankfully, for your own security, but it makes it so hard for us to estimate what is going on within the opposition forces. is there any way to understand whether, in fact, the opposition is, indeed, gaining momentum day by day, or whether or not the viciousness of assad's crackdown is having their desired effect

to force the opposition voices to be dissipated? >> reporter: we continue to see demonstrations erupting, even if it's just for short periods of time in areas that the military has under siege, where there is a military crackdown taking place. we even saw children going out and demonstrating, if after you, and i'm sure many of our viewers will remember, that horrific video of the 13-year-old emerged, the young child alleged to have been abused by syrian security forces, and after that we saw children taking to the streets. so the activists and opposition will tell you the harsher the crackdown, the even greater their response will have to be. because they realize they'll have to reach the point of no return. and they'll tell you there's only two outcomes at this stage. one outcome is that the syrian regime does fall and leave, and the other outcome is that the regime is somehow going to massacre all of them. >> arwa, thank you for that fascinating and somewhat terrifying report. coming up, the deadline's

approaching. either congress raises the debt ceiling or the united states goes into default. but could there be another way? i'll talk to man who says we can fix the problem and all it will cost you is a penny. stay with us.

it's a high stakes game of chicken playing out behind closed doors in the nation's capital. raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money the u.s. can borrow to pay its bills, or let the nation default on its debt.

florida republican connie mack says he's a plan to cut the budget. let me begin with the basic question. you don't think it's such a big deal if you don't raise the debt ceiling and we have to delay payment on either t-bills or re-borrowing or anything like that? >> i disagree, i think it is a big deal. >> if we don't do it? >> i think we shouldn't raise a debt ceiling. we ought to be having a discussion about how do with we cut spending so we don't have to raise it. and i further say, why have a debt ceiling if all you're going to do is raise it when you approach it. >> but why pass bills that require spending if you're not going to raise taxes if not borrow to spend it. obviously, i disagree with you about the impact to not raise it. give us your plan. >> we would cut 1% of spending every year for six years. in the seventh year, we'd cap spending to 18% of gdp, in the

eight year, we balance the budget, and after ten years, we caught $7.5 trillion in spending. >> just so folks understand, the trend line in spending goes up every year, you're saying not only raise it that way, but cut it 1%, so the impact in year two, 2013, would be $145 billion. >> that's correct. >> so you don't want to raise anymore revenue? >> we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. >> so you don't want to close any loopholes, for instance? >> what i want to do is i want to cut 1% out of every federal dollar. that's one penny. everybody back home has had to cut a lot more than one penny out of their home budget, and every business out there has had to cut more than one penny out of their professional budget. >> fair enough point. so in year two, we'd be cutting $143 billion from where the trend line would otherwise be. >> out of a $3.8 or $3.7 trillion budget. >> precisely correct. now, do you specify how those cuts are allocated across government spending? >> so here's what we do. we say that the congress and the president act together.

if they can't come up with a 1% requisite, then it's across the board. >> across the board, without regard to -- you're not going to pick between defense, social security, medicare, medicaid? >> that's correct. here's the thing, so you know, that's a big stick for the congress. so the congress and the president must work together to make sure that we cut up with the cuts so we don't have to touch those programs. >> just so it's clear what you're saying, about two-thirds of government spending is in the entitlements and defense, what you're saying is two-thirds of that $143 or call it $100 billion, roughly, $100 billion in year two comes out of medicare, medicaid, social security, and defense spending? >> what we're saying is if the congress and president fail to act and make the 1% requisite cut, it would be across the board. if the congress does a half a percent, it would only be a half a percent across the board. >> that sounds eminently reasonable. you're a little bit copping out saying, we're doing it across the board. make the choices for us, where would you do it? i've seen your list.

that maybe fine in year one. so in year two, how are you going to allocate that money? and year three, it's $278 billion. >> here's what i would say, this is a democracy, not a dictatorship, it's not my decision alone to make, but it is the decision of the congress. the congress must act responsibly, and the president must work with us. if we work together, we can make the 1% requisite cuts. if not, then everyone is held accountable for the 1% across the board. >> but by the time you get to year four, you're talking about $468 billion. >> off a $3.8 trillion budget. >> most of it coming out of social security, medicare, and medicaid. >> the congress fails to act. >> so you would be eliminating social security, eliminating medicare and medicaid? i want to make sure that's what you're saying. >> if the congress and president can make the cuts necessary, if not, it will be across the board. >> and no loophole closings. we saw a list today of all sorts

of company making billions of dollars in profit and not paying a penny in taxes. you're not saying, we've got to simplify the tax code and make them pay something? >> of course with we need to simplify the tax code, but what i'm talking about is spending. if we cut 1% a year for six years and cap it at 8% of gdp, we'll balance the budget. >> and by 2018, about $1.1 trillion, the vast majority of which is going to come out of social security, medicare, and medicaid. >> i would say the congress and president better start working together. -- >> but your default position, when you're talking that much, there's no place else to take it. we both know only 12% of the budget is nondefense discretionary. all the other stuff, people like to talk about, because it's easier, the vast majority have to come out of entitlements. >> so i would agree we need to get serious about reform in social security and medicare and medicaid and so far the congress has failed to act, and the congress and the president need to work together to make chose changes, so we can come up with the savings. >> i agree with you about that

so far, but would you raise the social security age immediately to get to this number? >> again, it's not a dictatorship. >> one last question -- >> i refuse to be a dictator. that's not what i believe in. >> would you do it? we all believe -- raise the social security -- >> no, i would say this is up to the congress. we need to work together with the president to come up with the reforms needed. >> interesting idea. here's what we're going to do. i want you to come back when we have more time and i want you to tell me exactly where those cuts are coming, because that's where the rubber meets the road. coming up, with yemen's ailing president abroad, can al qaeda take advantage of the power vacuum? former member of the counterterrorism unit helps e.d. sort through this. mom: max. ...maxwell! gg mom: you're home

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the president of elm yemen, al ally of the u.s., is in a saudi hospital and severely hurt. secretary of state hillary clinton indicates the u.s. would rather he stay away, but yemen is the home of the most active branch of al qaeda. if president saleh isn't there, how does that impact us? phil mud, the former director of counterterrorism for the cia joins us now and knows saleh. thanks for being with us. if he's not there, who takes over? >> you have a vice president with not a lot of power or respect in the country. and you have factions, including very powerful tribes, who also

have some military support behind them, going against the government. so you have, theoretically, a government in power, but essentially, you're going to have something amounting to civil wars in the capital of yemen. >> you know how this works. the saudis, when they want something done or we ask them to get something done, they throw money at the problem. they throw money at saleh, does he stay away? >> i'm not sure about that. i think we can bring a lot of pressure on saleh to stay away. the i think saudis, we have a lot of common interest with the saudis and other people in the gulf and the europeans on this. i suppose they could tell him not to get into an air bag, but the man has his own mind. he's been very difficult to deal with. i suspect he'll stay away, i suspect people will prevent him from doing back, but he's a difficult customer to deal with. >> in talking over the past number of years, they've always gave me the impression that he has been behind the scenes, not overtly, but covertly very helpful when we've been trying to track folks, in particular the people we released from

guantanamo bay, so why does it feel like we're throwing him under the bus now? >> "very helpful" is not a term i would use. when you're dealing with a place like yemen, essentially outside the capital in ungoverned space, you can't operate unilaterally all the time. so you've got to have a local partner. so you dance with the partner that takes you to the dance. he was the partner we had to deal, he was good some days, not so good the others. so i say we can find something to deal with with the military or with whoever comes after in yemen in years to come, but i would not say in the past he was an easy partner to deal with. we dealt with him because he was there. >> of course, our big concern is al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. but are they the biggest players there? are there other terror threats we should be more concerned about, or perhaps are more concerned about? >> not at the moment. they're the biggest threat we face, and the most organized terrorist threat outside

pakistan and afghanistan. this is not a lot of people. this is a country of 23 million people. you're talking about a political opposition and tribal militants that number in the thousands and tens of thousands. so al qaeda's our biggest concern, but the real issue in yemen right now is potential civil war with once of thousands of people and rival tribes on either side. >> let me play devil's advocate here. is that the worst thing that could happen, if we look at the big picture? if there is civil war, doesn't al qaeda then have to be concerned about what's going on there, on somehow trying to consolidate these groups to increase their hold? and don't they have sort of a -- i won't say a natural enemy in southern yemen, but certainly not a group that is naturally aligned with the al qaeda ideology. >> i think short-term, you're right. long-term, i think we disagree. for example, you look at two places where you've seen civil war, a place like somalia, where we've got civil war now. the militants, and it's a relatively small sliver of the opposition in somalia, who are focused against the west united states. they're now diverting their

attention to the civil war inside the country. so they spend less time on us. in the past, though, you remember the militants who were focused on civil war in afghanistan loud for safe haven to be established. that safe haven was teemaken ov partly by al qaeda. what i worry about long-term is if you get civil war in yemen, right now pakistan's very hot for the al qaeda guys, and a lot of people, recruits and fund-raisers, will look at a place like yemen where the government cannot exercise authority and say, maybe we'd ought to go there. i'd worry about safe haven and space for them to operate long-term. >> when we start figuring out how we're going to deal with certain countries, i get very nervous. because you take a look at libya. we think, okay, there's this arab spring, we're going to be supportive of the people wanting to spread what we call democracy. the way they look at it, it seems to be very different if we're talking about that in yemen and the president being ousted and someone else coming in, are we getting anybody, perhaps, better than what we've already got, or are we just sort of throwing it up into the air

and seeing what lands? >> i think we are way too optimistic about this. and i think when history is written in 10, 20, or 30 years, this word "arab spring" will be laughed at. look, what we've got here is a process that we, as americans, belief will lead to democracy. it's not clear to me at all that that's where we're at. we're already having questions in egypt about economic performance, youth are asking where jobs are. if we get elections, we'll have the rise of one of the muslim parties, people backed by the muslim parties in egypt. the military is going to start saying, military traditionally very conservative, is going to start saying, what do i do? so i think we're going to do down a road of a lot of unrest after the arab spring. >> phil mudd, thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure, thank you. coming up, still more violence in the middle east, this time on the syrian border. eliot asks an expert on the region, is there any hope for peace? helplessness again. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor

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violence, gunfire, and death on the israeli/syrian border in the golan heights yesterday. israeli forces fired on pro-marpro pro-palestinian protesters who breached the border. what are the wider implications of this new flare-up? joining me now, veteran plooern expert, david aaron miller, who's advised six secretaries of state, welcome. >> pleasure. >> you have been at the vortex of every middle eastern negotiation effort for decades. what is the meaning of this last assault, presumably orchestrated by asaad through the golan heights? >> it shows how much the world is changing. june 1st, 1974, henry kissinger negotiates and the golan heights becomes the quietest space in the entire region. now with the arab spring, and in the syrian case, the winter, you have devolution of control and authority and an embattled regime, the assads, any effort to throw up balls in the air, in order to divert attention from the tragedy that is taking place

on the ground. an oppression in face of world sanction, it doesn't seem to matter. the syrians are essentially sending the message, we still have options. we can still play in the ar arab/israeli conflict, and they are essentially border crashing. >> so there's no doubt in your mind that assad orchestrated this saying, look, guys, i can generate chaos. >> my wife lindsay and i were up on the israeli-occupied golan from the syrian side last may, and you can't get there without permits and without clearances. so, absolutely. they bus these people in, probably from damascus, and it's an effort to show that the syrians still represent the vanguard of arab nationalism. >> the issue of the israeli response, assad knows that there will be an israeli response. there will be bullets that will fly, there will be reports, 25 supposedly killed. first, was that response

appropriate in terms of proportionality, and second, where does it lead? >> these israelis are determined to protect their borders. every country has the right to defend themselves. i think the israelis are clearly trying to restrain and exercise restraint. but there's no doubt in response to calculation, the israelis aren't going to let those people cross the fence. and as far as assad is concerned, he's prepared to fight, literally, to the last palestinian. remember, these are palestinians, probably from camps in the damascus area. >> just so it is clear, based upon the tapes, based upon the information we have about the bullets that flew and the carnage at the border, were the people who were shot and wounded or killed, were they on the israeli side of the border, having crossed the border into israel, or were they shot while they were still in the golan heights? >> my understanding, you have stone markers representing u.n. lines, you have barbed wire, and then you have a fence. and they were shot by israeli snipers as they climbed over the fence into israeli-occupied

golan. >> so as the diplomat who has needed to deal with this as a public relations matter, as a matter of law, you think this was appropriate, too much, excessive? how would you grade the israelis? >> look, every time you got live fire being used against people without weapons, it's clearly cause for concern, even if it was orchestrated. but, again, the israelis are determined to defend their borders. this isn't going to be the real issue. the issue is going to be on the israeli/palestinian front. >> when will that crystallize? >> these are trial runs, these are tests, it seems to me, foreshadowing a much more intense escalation as september approaches. you may get an effort on the ground orchestrated, as well, in order to create in a celebratory atmosphere, hundreds of thousands of palestinians pressing against the checkpoints. at least that's the israeli concern. >> just so folks are clear, in september, the palestinians have said that they are going to go to the united nations to have the united nations say the

palestinian state exists and to have it recognized by the u.n. president obama saying very clearly, this is a bad idea. the united states will oppose it. who will stand by the united states in opposing that effort? will the europeans be with us or not? >> well, the question is, how many european countries can be paired off? the french and the britts, that's what the administration is trying to do. the spanish, the italians, they're also targets of this campaign. but the idea is 192 countries, 116 aligned with the movement, they'll vote with the resolution. in the end, it may well just be israel, the united states, and the marshall islands. that's not the greatest position for the united states to be in. >> does it matter? >> it matters if you want to be on the right side of an issue that has extraordinary resonance in the international community and in the region. but what matters more is whether or not you drive home the principle that the only way this conflict is going to be resolved is through the long, tortuous,

imperfect process of negotiation. palestinians can not create a state, a virtual state or a real state through a paper resolution. >> look, the u.n. vote is not going to matter one wit in terms of actual creation of a state. the second question i have, though, is does this succeed in doing what assad wants, what gadhafi wants, what the president of yemen arguably wants, which is to distract attention from the arab spring, which has been domestically driven, organic, come up from the bottom, redirect attention to the israeli/palestinian conflict? does it does so? >> i don't think so, because by september, it may well will gadhafi may be gone, saleh may have gone back to his own country. it may be that the autocrats, the ones who aren't acquiescing in the arab spring may well have to by the fall. i don't think this is a diversionary tactic. i worry greatly that in september against the backdrop of the unilateral effort to create a palestinian state, you could also see violence on the ground. >> we have literally 20 secon