president clinton was at the game where they won their first title in 1994 when he was president. he told fans he's proud of what arkansas basketball has meant to his home state. finally still here on the sports beat. take a look at how president obama spent part of this federal holiday out there on the links in palm -- i guess it's palm springs, california. it's, of course, where numerous presidents have teed off going back to dwight hizeisenhower. according to the cbs news white house correspondent mark knoller who chronicles all this stuff, he's been keeping count of everything. remember, you can always follow what's going on here in "the situation room" on twitter. go ahead tweet me @wolf blitzer. "crossfire" starts right now. tonight on "crossfire," bloody

stalemate in syria. and outright defiance from its allies. >> russia needs to be a part of the solution. >> are president obama and his team shaping world events or putting the u.s. at risk? >> america's friends worry we've lost our way. >> on the left, van jones. on the right, s.e. cupp. in the "crossfire" -- tommy vietor, who work eed for the president and danielle pletka, an obama critic. tonight on "crossfire." welcome to "crossfire." i'm van jones on the left. >> i'm s.e. cupp on the right. in the "crossfire" tonight guests with starkly different views of president obama's syria policy. the syria peace talks have just now, people like senator john mccain are calling for u.s.

military action again. we just saw secretary of state john kerrly today calling for help from the russians again. no wonder syria is a mess. president obama drew red lines, then abandoned them. he called for bashar al assad's ouster, then abandoned that. he called for military intervention and abandoned that, too. abandoning our imperatives is about the only thing that's been consistent. now al qaeda has splintered and radicalized the rebels. the power vacuum left by our confused inaction threatens our security both at home and abroad. >> wow. okay. so you tell us how you really feel. look -- >> this is serious stuff, van. and two years in the making now. >> i disagree with you on just about everything. first of all, i know people like you would love for the president to have just rushed us into another big war. if he had done that he would have been going against the u.n., the uk and the republicans. i'm glad we got a lot of help.

we've got tommy vietor, a former spokesperson for the obama council and danielle pletka from the american enterprise institute. welcome to the show. now listen, everybody says we should be dropping bombs over there, arming the rebels, getting ourselves embroiled over there. are you in favor of passing out weapons to people we can't even vet over there? what is your response to this crisis? what do you think we should be doing over there? >> i've said for a long time i think we need to arm the rebels. >> how do you do that? >> we have been vetting them on the ground in jordan. i think the fallacy in this discussion is that somehow if we hand out arms to the rebels then arms will end up in the wrong hands. that ship has already sailed. there are arms in all the wrong hands already. we've got hezbollah, which is the most sophisticated, most armed militia in the world today. we've got the iranians arming. we've got the russians arming. >> so you're actually making my

point which is adding more weapons to weapons -- >> no. >> dumping more military hardware into a situation like this is likely to backfire. we've already done this before, aren't you afraid of blowback and backlash? we've done this with the afghanistan with the russians before. >> saying we've done this before doesn't make it a bad idea. arming the people who we vet who are the better guys on the ground will enable us to see the balanced attempt. we need to see better guys take the sides against al qaeda. we need to see assad out of power. i'm less worried about arms in the wrong hands than i am about terrorists fwloeing throughout the middle east and coming here. >> you agree with this? >> i don't have personal knowledge of this, but judging from what i've read, i think it's pretty clear we are arming the opposition already. what we need to be clear about is what arming means. small arms are obviously going in. a lot of our partners in the region are doing the same. if you're talking about a rocket that could take down an israeli plane landing in jerusalem,

that's a huge problem. you heard people like marty dempsey come out and say he's opposed to those large sorts of weapons. a matter of degree. i agree with you more needs to be done. the president has signaled his frustration. the question i've always asked in my time in government, my time since is what exactly is this sort of panacea solution that people see out there for those who say to the president, just leavd, just do more. >> it's not a panacea, there are a number of prescriptions that the president seems to have denied in splitting the baby in syria. in favor of talking tough but not really committing us to a lot of action. those kinds of decisions have consequences. even if you thought that diplomacy with people like vladimir putin and bashar al assad was possible, it hasn't worked. so what now? no one's asking for a panacea. >> sure. >> what are the kind of tough decisions the president's willing to make now to change the course in syria? >> i think, well, first of all, the president has to make the tough decisionses that we will

never have to decide between. this is a tragic situation. the reports of the humanitarian situation, children being killed, they're horrific. and they break your heart and they break his heart. but he also has to look at the moms and dads of service members who go into war and are killed there. so he makes the real call. we don't get to. we get to pontificate. the things he's already doing is arming the opposition, increasing humanitarian assistance to those who are affected. i think they're up to 1.7 billion. increase the diplomatic pressure on recalcitrant parties like the russians and others. clearly, the u.s. wants to do more, we need to do more. we need to remember that meaningful action is being blocked by russia, by china, by the security council and that's the reality of the situation. >> but what happens with these mixed messages? when you call for bashar al assad's ouster, you say he must go, but then we don't do anything when he processes the chemical weapons redline. >> that's another question. the president has read out the

red line. we've beaten that to death. we knew the president didn't really mean it when he laid down a red line. fine. they got a deal for the syrians to give up their chemical weapon. now the syrians will stop giving up their chemical weapon. what have we done? we've expressed disappointment. arming the rebels, we're doing nothing effective. the president's heartache, those are expressions and emotives. first of all can we need to have a security corridor. >> you want boots on the ground? >> no, absolutely nobody -- >> absolutely. >> bill clinton's national security adviser had a piece in "the washington post" in which he called for, if necessary, intervention from the air to create safe corridors. we don't have boots on the ground in central europe, we don't need boots on the ground in syria. but we need to help these people escape from a brutal murderer. otherwise all these expressions of compassion from the president are nothing more than a hallmark card on valentine's day. >> you talk about syria, it is

your view that we can start going in tlnd a start bombing, shooting down planes without disrupting everything else? what about the impact on their relationship with iran? in other words, this is a regional conflict. if we go in there and say things are so important to us in syria we're willing to drop bombs, it shatters the coalition around iran. it makes the russians play a tougher game. they won't sit back and let us shoot down their helicopters they're giving to the regime. >> two things. first of all, i would be obviously desperately unhappy if this destabilized our really successful talks with the iranians -- >> i sense some sarcasm. >> but let's set that aside. you're exactly right. we should not forget this is a regional conflict. what we're seeing in syria is destabilizing the country of lebanon. it is spilling over into israel. it is going to destabilize if not topple the government. our allied government in jordan. it is already affecting turkey. and it has brought al qaeda back

to iraq. all of our gains, all of the sacrifices that those men and women the president care about so much made are being reversed in iraq because of our inaction. ours and allied inaction in syria. >> and your view is that if we were to start dropping bombs over there it would all be better, right? >> no, it's a ridiculous shorthand oversimplified solution. what happens the day after we start blowing up targets? which we have no legal authorization to do. >> so we should just be allowed to -- >> will they pick up the pieces and do something further, to take this to a political solution? absolutely not. when we sit back and cook up these solutions, we get to another iraq war. we get these, you know, entry plans without an exit. >> well, first, there's another problem here. and danielle referenced it, i referenced it earlier on, too and that's the fact that syria

is now al qaeda stand. as it did in libya, in iraq, in marx ali and the ma greb, exploits these areas of conflict where there's a power vacuum, no leadership. they're there now building infrastructure, opening school, opening power plants, hiring people, recruiting. we would all agree that is a terrible, frightening scenario. what do we do about it? >> we're very good at listing problems at this table. pi haven't heard anyone list a solution yet. >> i'm asking you, our guest, for a solution. you work closely with the president. what are is solutions for that big problem? >> there's going to be a need for a decades-long development, governance and capacity building approach across the region. this president has dealt with unrest like no other president before. it swept the region. i agree with you, yes, there are greater security challenges now than there were before. i don't think that means we should automatically say let's

drop some ordnance on this country? s automatically? it's been two years. 120,000 plus people dead. i remember what the president said. i was looking it up before we came in. what the president said before we went into libya. you must have been in the white house then. when he listed the very prospect of gadhafi taking to the air and mowing down his own people as a reason for the united states to intervene. >> that was a very different situation. >> past military intervention in syria. >> there was international support, a clear objective. >> at one time the president thought military intervention was a good idea. >> and luckily we have a president who can reconsider. >> change his mind, yeah. >> and we jumped on george w. bush because he went to war with too small a coalition, without a u.n. mandate and with no plan to win the war. now people are saying we should go in with no coalition, no mandate. >> first of all, no one is saying we should be going in --

no, don't build up the straw man. >> you can knock me down if you want to. but i want you to take a look at this picture, first. i'll explain to you why there are real answers and why helping this little boy could help us get to a reset on syria at the same time deflate the russians. when we get back. your eyes really are unique. in fact, they depend on a unique set of nutrients. [ male announcer ] that's why there's ocuvite to help protect your eye health. as you age, your eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite is a vitamin made just for your eyes from the eye care experts at bausch + lomb. ocuvite has a unique formula that's just not found in any leading multivitamin. your eyes are unique, so help protect your eye health

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[ thump ] to speak with an insurance expert and ask about all the personalized savings available for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. personalized coverage and savings. all the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. call... and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? welcome back. we are debating the trouble now in syria. the peace talks just broke down. fortunately, president obama knows how to fix foreign policy messes. he got us out of iraq. he's getting us out of

afghanistan. he forced iran to the bargaining table. he's bringing the israelis and the palestinians together. >> wow. >> and by the way, he did take out osama bin laden, in case you forgot. now it is time for obama to reset on syria. now, bashar al assad is starving millions of his own people on purpose as part of his strategy and the russians are helping him to do it. the president actually needs to step up and start helping kids like this one who wandered into a syrian refugee camp looking for some help today. but the president's got to be smart. don't bomb assad and turn a dictator into a victim that russia has to rescue. here's the way uout of this. lead the world community, pour in enough aid and dare the russians to block us. you start with bread, not bombs. we have tommy vietor, he worked for president obama. we also have danielle pletka who worked for the senate foreign

relations committee. you just love seeing this president doing everything right. i just listed off a bunch of stuff he is doing right. can you give him some credit tonight for that before we move on? >> i think you're a very sweet man. i cannot believe the list of accomplishments that you touted out for president obama. oh, my god, iraq is blowing up because we abandoned it. >> because we went in there with no plan and caused a big mess. we tried to clean up that mess now. >> we can relitigate iraq after the show. afghanistan we're about to bail out and give up on all the gains we've made the last few years. on iran, we're helping them move toward a nuclear weapon. i'm very sorry about that. are we set with russia? what has it gained us? it's even hot in sochi. i'm sorry. i look at one bit of foreign policy after another. i talk to our allies, i talk to our friends in europe and the middle east and they're in despair at an america that is turning its back on the world,

not just those children in syria. >> first of all, this president had to clean up a mess we overextended last time. you have to admit that. we went in with no plan to win the peace, we overextended. there's no op tight in this country to do more. unfortunately even our allies, the uk, they don't want us to go in there with boots on the grouped. >> no one has said boots o the ground. stop saying that, van. >> here's my big fear. you tell me why i'm wrong. we start dropping bombs over there or we start shooting planes out of the sky. you shatter the coalition around iran. you don't think it's important. but for the first time we actually do have them at the table, what happens the day after we shoot down that first plane with your security forces? what happens the first day? >> well, first of all, i don't think the iranians will walk away from anything because they've got us exactly where they want us at that table. so i don't think the iranians are likely to walk away. otherwise, why wouldn't we walk away given everything they're doing in syria to kill the men, women and children that are innocent and on the ground in

syria with the arms that they are providing with the soldiers that are fighting for them with their armies? that's not true. >> let me bring us a little bit broader, danielle and van talked a little bit about the obama doctrine. i'd like to know what that is. because, as i see it, we've sent a lot of mixed messages here. we've stayed out of syria, but we went into libya, we even had boots on the ground in uganda. we trust people like putin, assad and rouhani but we withdraw troop and send in drones. what is the obama foreign policy that you're proud of and that you rightly criticize? what is it? >> what everyone likes about this president is he's not taking a doctrinal report to foreign policy. >> everybody likes to -- >> it's true. otherwise you go to irang where no one knows the difference between a sunni and a shia. that's a problem. step back and think what's in the u.s. national security interests. keeping troops in iraq, keeping

troops in afghanistan has put an enormous burden on those service members, on their family. when you step back and look at afghanistan today, you look at hamid karzai who is doing everybody possible to destroy relations with the u.s.,ic not explain to anyone why we'd keep another u.s. service member in there and allow them to be threatened longer than is absolutely possible. >> then let me ask you, why the tough talk? why on syria, for example, why the tough talk -- >> i'll tell you why. i was sitting there that day. >> if there's no military presence implied behind it. why not wash our hands completely of it and say, we're not touching syria? >> sure. if you're speaking about the red line, it was to deter assad from using it that day. >> it was assad must go. >> right. and that's still our position. that is the united states' position. that doesn't mean we will drop bombs on you the minute we feel like it. >> what does it mean? >> it means diplomatic, humanitarian support, diplomatic pressure, political pressure on assad. efforts to arm the opposition,

efforts to prop up the rebel forces. look, it's a messy process. foreign policy is not easy. >> i can tell you, i can tell you -- i can tell you what the obama doctrine is. it's don't get sucked into civil wars that you can't win. >> sarah palin said it best really what the obama doctrine is, which is eh, let allah sort them >> it is the policy of the president. >> i disagree 100%. what are we leaning for over there? i think some republicans feel we look weak when we don't wait until the wars. i think we look weak when we do. nothing made us weaker than waiting in there. so i think that when you got to take responsibility for the last time we took the council of belligerent overextenders itt

shattered our public will in the country to be involved overseas. don't you think the coalition that we have built up whether talking about iraq or if you don't like the iranian coalition you must like the efforts with the palestinians. don't you agree inherited the mess? >> i don't agree the president inherited the mess? do i agree the president deserves credit? absolutely. i think the president deserves credit for all of the efforts in the regard. i think anytime the president of the united states tries to resolve through diplomacy and uses american might to do it he is doing absolutely the right thing. it is always the right option. the problem is when you view that as a substitute for policy and when you view the outcome as

indifferent. and that is our problem in syria. that is our problem with russia. that is our problem everywhere. >> do you think the idea i put forward to get the world to rally around humanitarian aid and call the bluff, you think that is a good step forward? >> i think it is a nice idea. the problem is in reality we have the successful foreign policy thing. violated that -- separate topic. let's not talk about that. we did not get the russians to have humanitarian and deliver the food you want to deliver. >> and come into the middle of that. why would we entrust them? >> they have been challenged. stay right here. we want you at home to weigh in on today's fireback question. should the u.s. get more involved in resolving the syrian conflict?

we will have the results in a moment. also our outrages of the day including a new study revealing what religious people think about science. i'll bet it isn't what you expect. no two people have the same financial goals.

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we're back with tommy and danielle. now it is time for outrages of the day. science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. the words of albert einstein, i hear he is a pretty smart guy. i doubt he would know what to

make of today's left. a new study finds that evangelicals are more than likely than general public to believe that science and faith can co-exist. that is often met with mockery and down right dismissal. while a tiny pocket of atheists believe 95% of the world is crazy most religious americans believe in revolution. can we all just get along? >> i hope so. i am one of those religious people. once again a florida man shot an unarmed teenager and a jury failed to convict. as a father of two african-american boys. 90% of black people are killed by other black people. 80% of white people are killed

by other white people. the real threats lie much closer to home statistically perhaps we all are fearing the wrong people. one hopeful thing, the twitter hashtag dangerous black kids exploded this weekend. i want you to look at the dangerous black kids. are these the people we should be fearing? i hope the next time you see an african-american boy walking down the street maybe they won't seem so dangerous. that is my outrage. >> go to facebook or twitter to weigh in on our fireback question, should the u.s. get more involved in resolving the syrian conflict. 14% say yes and 86% say no. are you surprised? both of you agree we should be doing more in syria. >> we need more support. the american people don't want another war. and i think that is -- >> are you surprised? >> i'm not surprised. i think that the absence of

leadership from the president of the united states is what fails to educate the american people about the challenge. >> thank you both for being here. the debate will continue online. from the left i'm van jones. >> from the right i'm s.e. cupp. next the picture worth a thousand words. a 4-year-old child alone in the desert, caught on camera alone trying to escape syria. tonight cnn inside syria with an a exclusive look at the human toll. outrage after jurors fail to convict a white man of the shooting death of an unarmed black teen. and a reality show pastor dies from a snake bite. let's go outfront.