position. they are really struggling all of them are really struggling to find a way forward, with no clear sense of what that pathway might be. and this meeting of the friends of syria group that will begin later this week is i think a reflection of both the challenges confronting the united states and its allies in thinking about what the next kind of frameworks might be for sustaining diplomatic and economic pressure on syria at a moment in which the u.n. path way seems to be closed but of course we have no real guarantee or no real, in fact detailed information about how or whether the friends of syria group might be able to play that to play that role. what i would like to do in a very brief time is to try to outline three principal reasons why i think the u.s. conference

this sort of policy dilemma that it finds itself in today when with respect to how it engages beenbetween the friends of syria. first, i thing we have to be clear that the administration over the past several months has really bumped up against the limits of their efforts to lee -- to use political and economic pressure to bring about a change of regime in damascus. based on the developments of the past several weeks including the russian and chinese veto of an effort to secure the u.n. resolution targeting the regime they now find themselves confronting what i think we really have to conclude is the fairly decisive failure of u.s.

strategy toward syria. this is a strategy i would defined as relying principally on statecraft, international diplomacy and sanctions with one aim at first and foremost, which is to increase the cost of loyalty to the regime. to peel away critical constituencies from the regime including the business community, including various minorities, and to cause sufficient strain and tensions with in the ruling coalition including, we hoped, a military leadership of the regime and the security service leadership of the regime to cause the regime itself either to fracture or force the inner circle to except some process of a negotiated transition, whether it is defined by the arab league

frank workmework or someone surrounding the regime that transitions were in place. raise the cost of loyalty with the cost paid of consequences leading to the end of the regime, yet here we are almost a year, the policy began to be put in place with virtually no evidence to suggest it is working. we know the regime is frayed. we've heard about that from the presentation. we know there are internal problems with the end of regime, but the kind of cleavages that might cause core regime supporters and minorities to defect have not occurred. this has to be recognized as a

very significant failure. as my colleague suggested it isn't midway's of failure anchored in a misreading, a fundamental misreading of the resilience of this regime and the foundations it could draw on in order to sustain itself in the face of quite sick of it and external pressures. moreover, this is the second reason we find ourselves at a particular troubling moment for u.s. policy. the of ministration together with partners seemed to feel they have no viable alternative to the strategy they've developed almost right from the beginning of this uprising. it is true the russian and chinese bidault and the escalation of violence we have seen in syria over the past couple of weeks with horrific attacks have breathed new life into conversations about intervention.

we have seen just this weekend with statements by senator mccain and gramm that we should be supporting the syrian opposition, and i expect this debate to continue. i do not expect it to affect the strategic rocket was of the obama administration. because i think underneath this rhetoric coming debate the administration understands very well that none of the conditions that would be needed to make intervention of meaningful option are --in place./ i think there is a fundamental understanding that without the appropriate context defined in terms of those conditions intervention is off the table. however, where does this leave the regime?

-- administration. you will excuse the confusion. and we refer to democracies as administrations. a slip of the tongue. it leaves the administration in the position of continuing to argue the same kind of economic and political pressures that have failed to produce an effect on the strategic calculus define that the casualty that we should stick with into the foreseeable future. this, i am afraid to say, is not the position that i think any administration wants itself to be in. the obama administration finds itself arguing that the best course is more of the same, even though conditions on the ground are not waiting for a slow moving it u.s. policy to affect

the strategic calculus of the regime. at the rate of which the regime is willing to apply rich session -- applied the recession, we're in the position of arguing, and this is an old joke from the sales community, we are in the position of arguing we will lose money on every sales but make it up in volume. this is not the position you want to be in. this is not a strong position in which to argue your policy. in addition in focusing so much of its energy on the political track, and in its determination to resist a military intervention and seeking

support that intervention would be a mistake the administration has left itself fundamentally unprepared to deal with what i view as one of the most of the get troubling trends the finding -- defining the syrian uprising over the next six months, the militarization of the uprising and proliferation of a growing number of very-thinly organized and coordinated armed opposition actors all over the country nominally grouped under the free syrian army but operating with very little command and control. how has the u.s. responded to this trend? very poorly. for the most part it continues to insist military opposition is a danger. and what that means is that as militarization deepens and

expands, for obvious reasons given what we've seen from the opposition regime, the strategy for building a political approach that includes the deeper, multilateral agreement with the political opposition are around a program to equip, train coming increase the capacity of the armed resistance and to do so in a fashion that could bring them more centrally under the authority of the civilian wing of this is a retreat syrian opposition i think the cost to us of not having those policy tools in place become much higher. i will conclude by saying if we recognize the name of u.s. policy is not simply regime change. we are engaged in this not simply because we want a political change of regime in

syria, but because we want to support a transition process that holds some promise of putting syria on a trajectory that will leave it with what ever difficult and challenges it is likely to face towards a stable, and even one would hope a democratic outcome in the future. it does seem to me that we have some obligation to assist in efforts that might prevent the growth of an uncontrolled armed opposition with uncertain, and i think potentially very dangerous consequences. we need to consider much more actively -- i think the administration needs to consider much more actively how it can broaden u.s. strategy beyond a focus on diplomatic and political efforts alone and neglect militarization as a phenomenon that it must respond to as a way to deal with some of the potentially very dangerous

implications of unregulated militarization that we see playing out on the ground in syria today. thank you. [applause] >> i would like to thank steve for some really interesting and stimulating contributions, and i am mainly going to pose a couple of questions to the panel also hold and to the individual speakers to try to get some conversation and discussion going. the only self-serve and remarque i'm going to make is that steve mentioned absence of diplomatic strategies. and it was carefully planted remark to allow me to plug the report i just released offering a political and diplomatic passed forward.

. you can get it at www.cnaspressurenotwar.com. i actually agree with a great deal of the analysis, but at least some of us are trying to find those alternatives. for the panel the questions i really wanted to raise were some of the different readings about the syrians marks might be and what it might become. the rigid detail of some of the ways we see the evolution over a long time -- this is very important it is not a creature of the air of spring but has fairly deep roots. i think it is very important to go back and recognize the long- term realities of the violent nature of the syrian regime. there was a note on the world fervid migration.

i think it is very important for understanding the much deeper roots of the problems in syria than simply being a response to the fall of hosni mubarak. and i think these are apparently deeply rooted, which has the negative consequence of also meaning these are deeply rooted in internal conflicts that are not going to find an easy solution any time soon. and i think this is one of the most sobering realizations for anyone that does not want to see iran weakernn, but wants to see a stable syria. i would put odds likely whether it stays or go as we continue towards the path of stabilization. what we're actually trying to accomplish is to create some

kind of reasonably stable and legitimate order. then i think we really need to think about some of the different readings we have heard on this different panel. i would like to pick up the dialogue which began on sectarianism and he also hinted at a different reading of the implications of their rural emperor's real ratings. i am especially interested in the secretary and reading. we hear about the great fears of them the minority and what happens afterwards. i think there is a very persuasive case for this argument, and yes this is a conversation that i have been involved with now in too many cases for me to bear to

remember. i dealt with it during the bosnia campaign, kosovo, and iraq. we are dealing with it again about how we owe it to the same stories about how there is no secretary and disagreement because we all live together, no history of it. yet, there is a slaughter rate. what point does an audit of -- artificial demise come about? this is one of my greatest worries some of the things that are not real before, just as happened in bosnia, suddenly become very real. they seem to be almost irreversible where you see and bosniain bosnia, virtually no movement towards reconciliation or normalization of society.

is that were syria is headed? the second-biggest question that i like the panelists to think about this, the implications of this not just for the uprising but the syrian opposition. on the one hand there are many different groups active on the ground challenging the regime. i think we all know this and the speakers referred to it. many of them are highly local. they are rooted in particular communities. many of them are peaceful. even if they now seek the protection of the banner of the free syrian army, nobody is any -- under any resolution that they represent a hierarchal hopeopposition. there is a great attractiveness to the idea that we can avoid a false choice between supporting tyranny or supporting an armed opposition. we would like to find those people to support but when you

are trying to formulate policy and trying to think about where to go forward, you have to support somebody. who is it that we should be supporting? if there is no unified point of contact, and no organized military hierarchy within the free syrian army, then who is that the international community when they seek to help them who did they help? exactly. how are they able to gain a point of entry into that? this is a question that i would pose even more directly to steven. one of the things i would use as a point of discussion and washington in the international community, again and again i hear we must arm the free syrian army. we must not do this until we have unified into a more cohesive hierarchal caand

authoritative umbrella for the opposition. everything we've heard today suggests not only are they not that things, they're not going to become that anytime soon. yet this does not seem to stop people. it reminds me of nothing more than the people who told us the great detail and confidence that you cannot do counterinsurgency operations if you do not have a legitimate host national government. in afghanistan when we lack of that they argue we should go ahead and do it anyway. clearly what they described as necessary, it was not necessary. here there is a very strong temptation to go ahead and armed the free syrian army. is there is a prospect that in that time frame we're talking about and which are making the free syrian army might make a difference, they will have any form of political unity the last

thing is the question of the impact of militarization which i think the speaker described very effectively and is one of the greatest worries. the real question is this, as the process of militarization extends and spreads, whether or not we are in the free syrian army, let's assume violence friends, what does this do to the possibility that you would actually in fact see the current regime supporters being willing to take a gamble on a negotiated transition? in much of the community that wishes to support the syrian opposition that even the balance of power for trigger defections among the military and regimes by giving them confidence that aasad would fall

and this would give them license they need to make it enormously risky leap. the counter argument is that as they see their adversaries who many deeply believe are a foreign conspiracy out to go out and murder the secretary and enemies and the like, as they see them are up they will come closer to the regime from and they will be less likely to make the leap into the unknown. what i am asking each of you to say, in your reading of this in your reading is this leading to the direction were the kind of political transition that steve laid out becomes more or less likely? what does that mean for what is possible in a post-syria, assuming they ever get there? you get two minutes each. [laughter]

i think it would be better for this round if you wanted to come up and top for a few minutes about it, then i will have used it at the table when we get to taking questions from audience. >> i am just going to address a couple of things, because i think i colleagues will be better suited to address most of the things. in syria and the rest of the region, to make a long story short, in my view it is certainly a function of the explosive combination. the motivation is sustained military role, along with

economic policies, which are new liberal policies with cronyism that has produced devastating demise within a society. at the same time the state's public sector in many ways or the state's welfare services in many ways that ultimately in the past decade with through a lot of the subsidies and supports that many rely on to survive not just as extras or to supplement their income. the social market economy policies in syria from 2005-2010 gradually eroded the support that many who relied on the state support got them. i still believe that the syrian uprising would not have started had there not been some kind of

domino effect elsewhere. people demand the overthrow of the regime would have been tortured as they have and beaten a couple of years ago with very little response, because this has been happening in syria for decades. we have to really recognize that as much as many of us would like to put supreme importance on a serioussyria's revolution, it does not tell us when it will produce and does not produce mass protests. there are a number of factors that has produced the discontent that is ready for some sort of mass mobilization, but this needs to be triggered. i also think syria was not as right as we of been seeing as many other states for this kind of opposition of all levels.

that includes all of society's- the regime with very little public support. there are also reasons why a lot of other states have not actually gone that way. and they have to do with not with the fact that they are not reach the level of discontent that would make fighting bullets with their bodies are rational thing. -- a rational thing. on secretary newsomianism i was wondering if we as aagree. i was like i do not think the secretary and situation is the core of the problem. it is worst in my view, and i will be very brief because i will give my colleagues a chance.

and i would like to give people an audience a chance. so i think secretary and his of his work when it might over clops with power or political power. when that overlap takes place whether manufactured as a function of development of society classis, and patterns and so on, i think it becomes explosive. just like the privilege of the suny community it actually exacerbates whatever divisions might have existed in which could have been interpreted as tourism. so policy does actually exacerbate existing divisions within society that do not have to naturally get people at each other's throats. as we have seen in europe and other parts of the world

different groups can come together and be of each other's throats. there is a perception, especially here in washington that it is different in the middle east. there is something about the secretary and divide. in the majority of books that have been produced on the region, especially from science, actually create an exceptional situation when it comes to the middle east or is, or the arab region specifically. i do not think it as a secretary and situation. i do think however when you create provisions -- divisions for mechanisms of loyalty as did the regime by narrowing the circle of leadership at the top or as you actually use minority

sectarianism to express our, you are going to increase sectarianism. when you massacre your people by the thousands, you are going to put a stamp that is very difficult to remove, whether or not the regime is actually out there just to protect us, which it is not. the number of christians in syria and other minorities that support not necessarily the regime, but the status quo -- and sometimes they do support the regime. and i am have syrian come and i know my family in syria is completely split on the question of the regime and the uprising, so it does play our role, but the role is very much a function of policies and overlap between between variables. let's not forget before 1950,

there was other minorities that were excluded in the countryside. not because they were christians and sudanese, but because they were not part of the urban suny community establishment. unless we take into effect these nuances, we will revert back to the policies on these issues. finally, opposition. who are they come in what is it we should be supporting? -- who are they, and at what is it we should be supporting? let me just say this because i want to stop here. what is it we should be supporting? i really feel it is a very important to ask questions especially as americans or people representing the americans what should we should

be doing is a question that is very difficult and problematic and sometimes depending on who is asking, is hypocritical to ask our officials say what we should be doing in the region, are you serious? arii skipped a word. [laughter] what we should be doing is military dictatorships and dictatorships in the region. we talk about democracy and fighting in pushing for a particular facet what we are supporting the most vicious secretary and authoritarian regimes in the world including saudi arabia and many other regimes in the region. we're supporting the state of israel with our own tax dollars. what is the talk about what we should be doing? we should stop supporting

dictatorships and stop supporting revolutions against dictatorships. is this something that exists somewhere else? we are not interested and revolutions. we're not interested in democracy. we are interested in compliance pierre yen. i think the question is disingenuous. in think there will not fare much better by any other kind of root in the region, especially if led by the united states. i will leave the rest of the questions to my colleagues. [applause] >> i just want to say a few points about opposition to the regime. and i think we should keep in

mind opposition to the regime has been going on for a very long time. it is not only that we have had the massacre and the islamists insurgency of the late 1980's, because consider that actually hundreds and perhaps thousands of people over the past 40 years, the figure is 100,000 political prisoners. if we take that into account this has been a country that has been resisting for the past four years -- 40 years. you would not end up with such figures, even if we can dispute to 60,000 or whatever. we have thousands and thousands. i am amazed we still found the communist labor front that was completely picked up in the

1980's and put in prison, a whole lot of them. that continues, and it continues in the 1990's. in 2000 come assyrians believed syrians believe it was going to be different. people went in organized before rums and started discussing how thick and liberalize the democracy. within one year all of the believers of the civil society movement were in prison. we see this continue. the problem with the syrian opposition which was in 2000 for in 2005, restoring research, and there was a problem that was endemic, and that is a sense of

should we depend on outside or will we be able to do it on our own? in 2005 it look like for an intervention it would take place if the results had an assassination and so on. and there were even jokes about that that there would be an american intervention. also, there is a continuous talk of conspiracies. i remember in 2005 [inaudible] we have these oppositions. people continued being suppressed. we do not have a mass movement that we have now. let me say my experience with young organizers.

they thought in february this was their chance last year. if they do not havejumped on it now they will never have a chance. they said this is our chance, and we will take it. also, we have the instances of a hotjihad. we have been instances when one of the young merchants was shot by a police officer. then 1500 people protested and so on there always was -- i must say syrians knew more than any outsider what they were capable of. i remember them saying this would be worse than libya.

today the same people who told me it would be worse than libya are saying we did not think it was going to be that bad. [laughter] yes, worst in libya, but not imaginable. you must put that into context. and one of the anecdotes was at the merchant, he finally said i think [inaudible] he called them on the death bed and said do hameg. once they took the chance, this is what we see now. i think that militarization, i think we're seeing violence in response to violence.

there are signs of not just the syrian army. think what is happening to the so-called watchers that are getting liquidated. it is happening even in the sudan. an urban corridor that is supposed to be more urbane and so on and collaborators are getting it liquidated. they are getting liquidated everywhere. we are calling to see more of that. and when i say there is no sectarianism, it does not mean it cannot be functional lies. -- fuctionalized. there are all kinds of reasons that we should be concerned about increased violence. in am not really sure what can be done about it. i do not think the question is -- anyway, for someone like

myself, i am not going to give advice to and the administration about what to do. i want to put the question to the american administration and other powers acting in the region, what would they do if we have similar uprising in saudi arabia? [applause] >> the saudi response this morning was they were conspiracies and crush it with an iron fist. there you go. >> this is a bit of a depression but in observations, i think this story of the u.s. engagement in the crushing of the uprisings is a bit more nuanced. there is a room for debate, but we do not time to have it here. i would argue the decision was taken with extraordinary or the

decision to takesteps out was taken by diplomats that were not at all pleased with the pressures they were subjected to by saudi arabia who identified them as a red line and not to cross. there are interpretations we can get into later. on opposition and so on, three key questions. is it a viable counterpart? do we need to wait until the free syrian army is unified before imagining a makes sense to try and provide arms or even some other support of the free syrian army, and what is the impact of militarization of the impacts of the syrian army? if it spreads come is a likely to strain -- change the strategic calculus to the

military campaigns. i think we read over and over again in the media and see ample evidence in facebook and other locations of the debt and intensity of conflicts with an opposition, but i think we have to be careful how we read that. i agreed to be careful not to exaggerate the extent to which produce them -- increasingly coherent structures of opposition activity in protest activity in syria are in fact taking hold, are in fact consolidating and beginning to go here are around a relatively narrow set of forms for the management and governance of the uprising. we have the syrian national council. there are some out liar groups related to older efforts to bring to the other opposition figures within syria. we have the national

coordinating committee which just taken a somewhat more accommodationist stance for the regime. we have the local court native communities, which are organized through -- but there is an effort to kind of ford should a more democratic framework for governance of the local coordinating committees around assyria. within the syria national council itself we saw it. i think it was most evident in the first assembly in tunis in late december of 2011, an effort to acknowledge and respond to some of the concerns of our representation that have hindered the consolidation in previous months. no one would claim that they acted with -- without an

enormous amount of mistakes in stumbling along the way but i think the notion of disarray and in coherence has to be in some respects properly framed. i also think we have to recognize that there is a bit of a catch-22 that the opposition has confronted in trying to respond to and overcome its own organizational capacity limits. for many reasons including very many smart reasons the u.s. and eu it and arab governments have held back or did hold back during the early times in which opposition was emerging out of the conviction that it was critical to provide the space for an organic authentic syrian opposition to emerge and consolidate, one that would not be laboring under the shadow that it was nothing more than an instrument of the west, serving a western or for an agenda, and

therefore it legitimate as representatives of the syrian people. within the state department there was a great deal of concern about any effort to reach out to the opposition because the proceeds consequences if it were to become known that the u.s. were engaged. yet, what that created was a context in which an opposition whose origins we need to understand as rising out of context in which any sort of political culture or society have been brutally suppressed for over 50 years. in which [inaudible] had been very heavily a political. now how to develop a kind of capacity for mobilization and engagement with the struggle to challenge the regime and define an alternative future with very

little on which to draw up to assist in the reference to do this. unlike in libya, egypt and other cases in which uprising's unfolded it is an opposition cutting its teeth in the process of building itself as a viable organization. and without very much support or assistance from the u.s. or other governments. to the extent that we now look at the other opposition groupings and identified shortcomings in that raise questions and our minds about whether it is right for us to engage them as counterparts, my own view is that we need to recognize, i think that there are opportunities and possibilities for the international community to engage with and support the

syrian opposition in ways that it might actually help it to develop into the kind of counterpart that we hope it would become. in and i think the fsa is a much more complicated question. i think if we are to have any kind of meaningful discussion about strategies for providing they must be done in the fashion in which insures their strong civilian oversight of the free syrian army. the notion that we would contribute to the creation of an armed opposition that has the capacity to stand as a viable challenger to the politically strikes me as profoundly. i will wrap up there. [applause] >> alright, so every single one of us spoke far longer than we

were supposed to, so we didn't have a lot of time. i would like to take a few questions from the floor, and i will give everyone a last word. why don't we start here. keep them really brief period to g. >> i have questions for steve about what realistically we can expect from the leader, and how you lead the transition in syria, and today they announced that tahitian government did might invite it to invite the syrian government to the conference? >> thank you. all of the panel is the spoke

about the saudis and touched on are wrong, let's put them together. i would like to have them address the idea that as a lot of regional dimension and struggle but it is an aspect of the iranian conflict. the iranians are trying to maintain the influence, and the saudis are trying to cut the road on the iranians and separate their influence between a rock and a wroniraq and iran. thank you for a great presentation. >> i have a question on the resolution and the u.n.in the u.n.,

the reaction to that but i have heard, and based more on popular press and academic press is that russia has ties and are more concerned about that than they are about the syrian people, and nobody can explain why the chinese and joined the russian the dough. it seems that the russians and chinese book traditionally go against interventions an internal matters, what they consider internal matters, because they are afraid of something being used on them. i was wondering if you could comment on that. to go>> we're going to stop the questions with a loss final word. we'll have to wrap up at 2:00. i'm sorry. >> i think in terms of the

tunisian conference, my expectation is it is largely an agenda-setting meeting, with one principal item on the agenda. that is to organize a division of labor among the states that indoors of political transition in syria about which the governments will undertake which roles in engagement with the syrian opposition. i think this is a framework that has one of its principal aims to anoint the syrian opposition as a principal framework through which the broader aims of government seeking political change in syria will try to achieve objectives. that is a significant shift from several weeks ago when it felt international institutions should provide the principal arena for which to pursue those efforts, and it is understandable. there are differences in how government about a corporate

strategies for engaging opposition. the u.s. is not prepared at this point to provide weapons to the opposition. it is class -- less clear the air of spring governments are equally reluctant to provide weapons to the opposition. what we may see is an understanding reached, and perhaps the elements of an architecture put in place through which the group will organize engagement with the syrian opposition. i will look for the as a base line objective or goal to come out of this meeting. if it does not, i think we have to begin to ask very serious questions about efficacy for pursuing this consensus strategy of pursuing regime straichange in syria.

we will set aside the russian question. in terms of the resolution of the un, chinese motivation russian motivation, there is a long-standing strategic partnership between russia and syria that was an important point of their decision to be built. that is far less meaningful in the chinese case. there's a very interesting case that came out today. they expressed support for the arab league framework this weekend and told the friends group that they would be willing to support the arab league resolution of the voted against in the security council a few weeks ago. why? because the vote had very little to do with syria. it had a great deal to do with principles of global governance in the maintenance of international order in which the chinese are determined to prevent the west from monopolizing the international institutions that serve as principles for oversight of global governance. if you read this article, which

i forget where it came out, but there are chinese spokespersons that make the very same case that their underlying principles that were a stake in this boat, and we expressed very strong views about those principles and their importance, and not permitting the west to define the agenda for the international community. very little about syria, and i think that is why they were able to backtrack so quickly immediately following that vote. i will leave it at that. i want to thank you for your time and attention. i need to rush back to the u.s. institute of peace. thank you all very much. >> i will just -- which questions are we addressing, all of them? to go >> on iran, let's bring in all

of them. the issue moveis there is an expectation or interpretation that makes this about syria and dictatorship and opposition, which is the case, which is true, but they may get only about this, and the response is it is not just about dictatorship and opposition. i have been writing against dictatorship and the syrian regime for many years and there wrote against the iraqi regime for many years. half a point here is the question of syria is we are presenting this is just about syria. it is about syria, but also about this very important hurdle in the middle east to achieving some sort every food domination and the optical.

they are not necessarily actually the object, of the attack. the object of the attack is any resistance to a particular form of oralrule in the region. that is what is being hidden in not discussed. there are various camps in the region now. one camp which can be called the resistance is manifested by these three actors, and a lot of people who support resistance in the region and against the u.s. and arab country domination, as well as israel do not necessarily support the syrian regime or the are romains and geographic regime corp. or necessarily hezbollah in all of its dimensions. it is very important for us to not take this view and look at

what is making a lot of people supporting the status quo in syria and try to oppose the opposition. not because they support the family but because there are larger states that are making the trade off extremely horrible. in other words i would like to stress that most of the people in the region do not support the syrian regime and do not support what is now worked up regionally and internationally to move this process to some sort of completion, especially if it involves military intervention. i am not opposed to militarizing but opposition. as far as russia, with i do not think they support the family. if you think about it, absence

of the syrian regime cover russians will have no solid partner in the region, and they will have no leverage on various issues including is really conflict and other matters. and it will not have the base it has. and i think these issues play a bigger role. about the u.n. and opposition and resolution, i have very little things to say about the syrian national council. i actually supports the other branch of opposition, which is kind of led by a the national coordinating bodies that firmly oppose the regime, but also oppose international and military intervention. they are attempting to have people on the ground. i am not just holding it because i am not on their side. >> final words? >> i think to speak of the

militarization without thinking it would bring intervention, would be mistaken. militarization means there would be turkish intervention, iraq intervention and so on, and continued iranian in his belote intervention. i think we are reducing the beginning of that. -- and hezbollah intervention. and i have not seen anything to confirm that, but i think the leader of the resistance spending by the regime has really been damaging towards opposition and for himself as well. i think these are dynamics that i do not know what the way out of this is. we should always keep in mind there are people who are getting

killed every day in protecting civilians through peaceful means should beach our first priority. i think the problem we have seen today has come from doing business with dictators and military. and actually having a military economy internationally and globally, and that is what continues in regimes in the middle east and elsewhere. so the problem is not just in the middle east. i think the problem is much more global. to think it will be a result of militarization it is not. it means further violence and continued, unfortunately i lived in the region. >> i would like to thank all of you for coming in staying around. i would like to think the panelists. it has been a fascinating discussion.

-- like to thank the panelists. march 20 at 5:00 when the perlman will be here to discuss her outstanding new book on violence and the palestinian national movement. this is not a set of questions unique to syria obviously. thank you all for coming. have a great day. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> several live events to tell you about this morning on our other networks. from what wall -- woodrow wilson international center, a discussion on the middle east and u.s. for nforeign-policy.

at 10:30 we will be live on c- span3 with a discussion of cyber security legislation. panelists include michael chertoff, former head of the u.s. homeland security department and former national intelligence director, mike mcconnell. in a few moments, today's headlines in your calls a live on "washington journal >" ." president obama will speak at the ground-breaking ceremony of the national museum of african- american history and culture. just before noon, a mitt romney rally in arizona. that state's primary, along with michigan is next week. in about 45 minutes, we will talk about their role of contraception, abortion, and women's rights in the presidential campaign. our guest is the president of the feminist majority foundation. the president ceo of american

crossroads, stephen