>> did somebody else take out the len on my father's house that financed the equipment, did somebody else make payroll every week or figure out where it's coming from? president obama, you're killing us out here. through hard work and a little luck, we built this business. why are you demonizing us for it? we are the solution. not the problem. time we had somebody who believes in us. someone who believes that achievement should be rewarded, not punished. >> we need somebody who believes in america. >> the idea to say that steve jobs didn't build apple, that henry ford didn't build ford motor, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it's insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in america. president obama attacks success and therefore, under president obama, we have less success and i will change that.

host: from the rom they campaign from the romney campaign last weekend. this response from the obama campaign: >> president obama exposed what he really thinks about free people and the american vision, he said this. if you've got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. if you were successful, somebody along the lines gave you some help. there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. we value school teachers, fireet e. investments in road. sue: somebody built roads. if you've got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen. >> you really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. >> the point is that when we

succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also, because we do things together. host: chris, what's going on here? you have a comment that is then turned into a web ad by the opponent, and the back and forth on really these micro issues. guest: i would say gasp, one side is taking the other side's comments a little out of context. it's kind of nothing new sund the under the sun, it's a dog bites man situation. at the root of this is barack obama in his comments that mitt romney's ad played, did he reveal something that he really believes, which is you don't make or build anything on your own, that it's a collective evident. what the obama folks say is look at the context of it. he is simply saying if you have a business, someone billion the road to that business, someone helped you construct the walls of that business, not that you as a individual don't deserve credit for kind of the broad

success of business. the romney campaign is taking it to say this is a winnow into how he views things, he thinks that private enterprise does not work, he does not understand it. it's an echo of what romney has been talking about throughout the campaign is look, i've been in the private sector, i'm a businessman, i know how to create jobs. this is someone who has been a college professor and they say this can disdane, community organizer and someone who frankly doesn't understand the private sector and has disdane for the private sector. in some ways this is politics as politician, steveoo as politics, steve. i don't think the election will be ultimately decided on this comment. this election looks to me, if you look at polls, "new york times", they had a fascinating poll about the level to which the economy drives obama down, 35 percent approve of his handling of the economy, 55 percent disapprove and 51 percent say a president can do a lot about the state of the economy. that's troubling if you're

barack obama because in truth if you talk to economists they say the president gets too much credit when the economy is good, and i would say mitt romney has not run a perfect campaign but he seems to be credible alternative if that's what people are looking to. host: and donna saying yeah, i saw that ad coming. michael on the phone from colorado springs, member of the green party. caller: good morning and thank you for having me on this morning. my only question is i keep hearing on cspan, and i watch it almost every morning for the past year is everybody keeps talking about mitt romney or barack obama being the next president. how come we never hear about the third party? dr. jill stein is also running, has anybody given credibility to her campaign at all. host: we featured her last sun on the washington journal and covered her acceptance speech

in baltimore, along with her running mate. guest: and i write about this in the book, which is that if you look at polling about dissatisfaction with the two major parties, if you look at the fastest growing success and the fastest growing political affiliation in the country is independents by far, you would say jill stein or someone else who wanted to run as a third party candidate. host: ross perot. guest: would have a legitimate perot. guest guest would have a legitimate constituency. there are lots of serious credit people from both sides of the aisle ments what they did is say we've made a mistake about the approach of third party candidate. instead of waiting for a person to emerge we're going to put the pieces in place orally and fine the person. what they did is collected ballot signatures. this is not an insignificant list. every state has their own laws of how you qualify for a presidential ballot. it usually involves signature

and petition gathering. that is dossly costly and timeconsuming. they did that and got the ballot in half a dozen states and were on the way to getting more. early in the year they held an online convention designed to pick a candidate, a candidate had to reach a certain threshold. no one reached that threshold. the person who came closest was a person who was not in fact officially competing for the nomination. it will not surprise folks to know that was texas congressman ron paul. he's an amazing active online and off linele forking. what that told me is yes the idea of a third party candidacy is appealing because people do not like the two parties, they feel like the two parties don't do that, you see this in congressional approval, you see that in presidential approval, and yet, when it comes down to actually picking a third party person, putting a name to a third party, oh, that person has his or her own weaknesses, his or her own flaws, it is not the ideal third party

candidate, it's the third party candidate you wind up getting. that's why i put the exercise together of could we construct a perfect third party candidate. foes for those that talked about michael bloomberg, a lot of people talked about him in 2008, and we haven't talked about gun control, but that is outside the majority of most peep, this won from hails from a large liberal city that is disdained by lots of the country, this is someone who is a single jewish man. i'm not sure michael bloomberg plays outside the corridor. we like to talk about the fact that he'd be a good candidate. i think he has real appeal in the fact that he's will to go speak truth, but i don't see a broad constituency for someone like a michael bloomberg. >> and finally, there is talk about the third parties and if you watch to watch the green party convention or libertarian convention or other third party

events it's on our website, part of the cspan library that chris cillizza talked about. he's not a third party candidate, congress ron paul, republican of texas, presidential candidate, he'll be speaking at the convention in august, a chance for you to tweet in your comments, tuesday morning, cspan. florence, new york city, democrats' line with chris cillizza, good morning. col my issue is with this campaign, listens republicans, they don't like being attacked but they always try to justify attacking democrats and they don't really have any tools. republicans to me, they want to play the race game at the end of the day. obama did everything, what he said he was going to do, but he never gets any credit for this. guest get certainly a viewpoint

hell on many democrats' circles. if you look at the tone of the campaign, i would actually say the obama campaign has been the more aggressive in terms of really taking it in a somewhat personal way to mitt romney. that's not to say that mitt romney and his allies won't respond in kind but i would say that it's striking that barack obama has not pulled punches here, he has gone directly at mitt romney often in a personal way. that approach frankly has won him plaudits from folks i know on the democratic strategist say who say side who say for long times democrats have won moral victories and lost actual victories, the swift vote is an example, that john kerry and his allies said no one is going to believe this is beneath contempt, yet it did undermine his candidacy and helped

reelect george w. bush. i don't think barack obama will make that mistake, he understands the ultimate goal is winning campaigns and getting reletting, that's the best way to push his agenda forward and they are doing that. host: the gospel according to the fix and your blog, entitled the fix, where did you come up with that? guest: i recently did a book signing and someone asked me that question and i said it was a compromise in a lot of ways. first of all, any time you try to name any political blog at this point that has campaign or 2012 or two on it's already taken. number two, we did this in '05 and the goal was, the conceit of the fix, the blog, was are there enough people who are political addicts and that's kind of where we got the fix from, this would be your fiction, if you were a political junkie and you loved the granular politics, if you wanted to talk about in the book i say my fest of a political junkie is if at this point in the 2012 campaign, if i mention the 2016

handicapping for president, if your eyes glaze over, you're not a real political junkie. if you lean forward in your seat,ure a political junkie. that's our litmus test. host: you have the list. we're going to have you stick around to have you share the list, this is the five must read books, we featured these, richard ben chaimer, what it takes, john barry's, the ambition and the power, game change, path to power, means of assent and masor of the senate, trilogy. >> and passage to power, the new one out of there. >> and joe klein's primary colors. >> guest: the one i would love to talk about is richard van cramer's book, it was about the '98 campaign, it's about 1000 campaign, it's not an easy undertaking but this is a book that for me was genuine inspiration as to why i wanted to cover and write about politics and politicians. richard van cramer, the title is meant to signify what it

means for a person to run for president. i think people don't understand how incredibly taxing, how incredibly difficult it is to do this thing and who are the people that out of this whole country, decide you know what, i think i would be the best person to represent them. ben cramer, i had the chance to meet him a while back with several of my colleagues, i went back to the eastern shore, because literally the first thing i did when i went on book leave is visit him. i wanted to talk to him about writing books but i also wanted to talk to him about what it makes in the '88 campaign and just a fascinating individual. he went on to write a well reviewed book about joe dimaggio, if you care about baseball and even if you don't, you should read. just a fascinating take on who these people are and where they emerge from. ben cramer, he was just a guy. he wasn't anybody, and particularly, he didn't work for ag big news organization.

he decided he want to write this book. he started calling press secretaries and he was getting no response. what did he do, he went to st. louis, and interviewed dick geoff heart's mother and found his brother and he found he went bottom up, which is so it seems so obvious, but at the time, people weren't doing it. so he found out who the friends of all these people, what they were kids, he talks about what they were like when they were kids, what they were like in high school, in college. just a great thing and i would say read it solely for the stuff on joe biden. biden obviously ran for president, was considered a frontrunner at one time in the '88 race, they have a close relationship. insight into the of the united states is remarkable and we forget what joe biden, the tremendous tragedy of losing his wife and his child early in his life, his struggle with that

and who he has become as a result, i think for the bidden stuff and bob dole stuff, obviously the kansas republican senator, ben cramer writes as convincingly, more convincingly than anyone i've ever read before about bob dole's struggles after his injuries, his postwar injuries and how he, through literally sure force of will, willed himself back to health, then to the senate and then to a presidential race, obviously the nominee in 1996. so just stunning stuff there, and i can't recommend that book highly enough. host: our last call is minda from tennessee with chris cillizza. caller: i was surprised that the post pointed out the lies that obama told about romney's time at bain but most of the lines, about hillary, saying he has instincts of a chicago thug. you see where he has an enemies

list and labor department and irs investigate the contributors to the romney campaign. we have never had anything like that happen before. >> thank you minda. kathleen parker writing about it in the washington post, obama's team aims low. guest: look, i agree broadly with the idea that the obama team is doing what it takes to win this race. and that includes savaging mitt romney's time at bain. i always say to people when they say in politician, that's not fair, campaign politics is not a moral fable, campaign politics is about winning and losing. you may not like that reality but the truth of the matter is my wife is a college field hockey coach, there are wins and losses. there is no asterisk next to the losses, well, they played better and they pushed us around and we were more skilled. that's not how it works. you win or lose. that's campaign politician, too. there is no politics. there is no gray area. there's book and white. there's winning and losing.

the caller mentioned hillary clinton and bill clinton. mitt romney is running ads in which he features clinton saying shame on you barack obama. my guess is we may see more in the mitt romney ads in the time to come. host: i want to go through your all star list, marco rubio on the republican side, bob gentlemen jindal, nicky haley, chris christie of new jersey, mcdonnell, senator john thune of south carolina. one of the names could be on the list of the v.p. list if romney is elected. on the democratic side, andrew cuomo of new york, martin o'malley of maryland, senator mark warner of virginia, elizabeth warren, rahm emanuel of chicago and secretary of state hillary clinton. >> if jeb bush runs in 2016 on the republican side or 2020 if romney is elected, he's the overwhelming favorite. if clinton decides she wants to

run again, i would say she's not likely to do so but she has not ruled out doing so, she is the de facto nominee. if not we have a much wider contest. if secretary clinton doesn't run, andrew cuomo, governor of new york, the son of a former governor of new york who himself was a much talked about though never realized presidential candidate, mario cuomo, would be on that side. if jeb bush doesn't run, much more wide open. some of it would decide on who mitt romney picks as his president. if he picks indual or rubio if they lost in 2012, they would be first among equals in 2016. host: chris cillizza, your first book, thank you very much for being with us. guest: thank you for taking the time, i appreciate it. host: your work is online at "washington post".com. the international aids conference is getting underway today here in washington, d.c., and when we come back, we're

going to take a closer look at >> join us live at 8:40 eastern on c-span 3. >> join us for discussion on hispanic voters and foreign policy on monday. we will hear from the co-chairs of the bettina task force, a group graded to recommend policy options to barack obama and mitt romney. the wilson center's mexico institute and the pacific council on international policy hostess a band. live coverage begins at 9:00 the eastern and c-span 2 bank. -- c-span 2. >> we want to welcome andrew tabler, senior fellow at the washington institute for near east institute. your story in the "new york times", the u.s. has been stymied by the u.n., the latest action with russia and china vetoing any effort by the united nations, and so the

essence of this story indicate thank with diplomatic efforts really now on the back burner the u.s. is taking a different approach. how so? >> what you're going to see now, the last 18 months or so, the united states has pursued its policy and based it on a diplomatic strategy concerning the opposition, and what's happened is time and time again, russia and china have vetoed resolutions to deal with this, so now we're going to see a shift to working directly with the opposition on the ground and a lot of other forces and a lot of other countries as well. we have a number of countries who are in the room now concerning some sort of more active robust approach and they're mostly gathered with the friends of the syrian people, a coalition of countries, and the core of that is the p3 plus one, germany and also turkey, qatar, saudi arabia. east host let me get your

reaction to the quote in the "new york times". we are looking at a controlled demolition of the assad regime you write but like any other controlled demolition, anything can go wrong. >> guest: that's absolutely right. in the case of syria, syria is a mosaic of different sects, it's a little like lebanon, a little like iraq and in this case, abelites run the state, like the baathist regime and minority, the sunni population ran iraq, they're extremely hard to displace and they're very well armed, so they're going to try and bring down the regime which is the state of policy of the obama administration going back nearly a year, but of course, what breaks off, the regime probably will not fall like we saw the regimes fall in tunisia and in egypt but rather, it could simply contract, and the truth could pull back towards damascus but most importantly towards the adeloi homeland on the syrian coast, a

police i spent a lot of time while in syria. it's a mountainous area that could be defended and they have one of the middle east's largest stockpiles of biological weapons and it's a deterrent against further attacks. and: we'll talk about this, author of the in the lion's den, you indicated your time there, "the new york times" this morning, life during wartime, what is it like for the syrian people? guest: the syrian people have been under bombardment by shelling, canon fire, attacks by helicopters, and just arrest and torture for the better part of 18 months and we never really expected they would be able to stay out in the streets until this day. at first the protests were very much peaceful but time and time again the regime has been using shelling and other more lethal forms of weapons and so on.

that now has accelerated, and so what's happened is over time, the opposition has become gone from a protest movement now to an arms movement and those are the ones who are fighting the president outside of the capitol. host: "the washington post", scenes around syria, u.s. options in syria, i'm going to share her thoughts and recommendations in a moment. let me get your reaction to u.n. ambassador susan rice who had these comments thursday in new york: >> this is the third time in ten months that two members, russia and china, have prevented the security council from responding credibly to the syrian conflict. the first two vetoes they cast were very destructive. this veto is even more dangerous and deplorable. yesterday's dramatic attack in

damascus is indicative of how the situation in syria will continue to deteriorate in the face of this council's inaction. the perpetuation of the status quo is in no way static. it is, in fact, a recipe for intensified conflict, increased terrorism, and a proxy war that could engulf the region. host: andrew tabler, comments to susan rice, ambassador of the united nations. you could sense the anger in her voice. there's an editorial from the baltimore sun, again, about blocking u.n. efforts. what's the story behind that? guest: russia and china, especially russia is a long time ally of the outside regime. they've armed them, 50,000 reductions live inside sira, many are trailers in military forces an beyond, they have a

well established relationship going back to the cold war when syria was one of the main satellites for the soviet union in the middle east. they don't want to give them up. the second variable is vladimir putin is back in charge literally in russia and wants to project their power. he can get a tremendous amount of power simply by saying no, no, no at the united nations. i think there are a lot of other reasons as well. they're afraid of extremism, they think the next hour inside of syria will come from some sort of sunni extremists although i don't know anyone who agrees with him on this. so there are a myriad of reasons, but in the end it's very simple, russia's interests don't match ours and that of the western countries, as well as that of the majority of the syrian people. unlike that during the cold war we have all of the regional powers we need in the room, the turks, the saudis, and beyond, to confront this because the other main backer of the assad

regime are the iranians, and syria allows them to project their power to hezbollah on the mediterranean and both russia and iran are keen to support the outside regime even as it contracts. host: i'm going to ask you about that next. this is a photograph in the "new york times" to give you a sense of how much damage is in the streets of syria. but with regard to iran, it's had a close ally in syria and the iran iraq access axis, but the axis powers between the two nations, can you explain? guest: sure, the relationship with the islamic republic iran and syria goes back to 1979, because syria was a long time rival of iraq which is also a rival of iran so it started out that way but it's deeper. the assad regime alloites are shia, an offshoot of islam, they are 12ers, waiting for the

12th date, alloites are 11ers and there's a difference in culture between the shia and alloites but in terms of politics, they feel an affinity politically for each other because they are aligned against the majority sunni population in syria. iran would like to see that that regime in syria continue into the future. they get a lot out of backing it. it allows them to supply hezbollah with weapons and not only just weapons, but increasingly long language weapons that syria scud ds and 600 rockets over the years. so that relationship has just deepened, and now the relationship between iran and syria is extensive. >> guest: jan has this point. i don't know much about syria,

how did assad get the power he has, he does not look very powerful. guest: that's a very good point. bashar inherited the country from his father, who many of you remember from the cold war, a major figure in the arab israeli conflict. what happened is the alloites from which the assad regime hails, the assad family, they made their way through the military. they represent a minority of the population. they were in the period which the when the french administered the syrian republic, they made their way up through the military and after ku de ta they seized power and assad took the reigns completely. host: this headline, pentagon prepares for the collapse of the syrian regime, he points out the pentagon has set up a

special team for the imminent collapse of the regime of president assad, the crisis asset team will help prepare the u.s. military for whatever role it might take in the conflict. it appears to be reaching a decisive moment in which the government could fall apart. can you elaborate? guest: what the stories are alluding to is that the u.s. government has finally realized the assad regime and the situation in syria cannot be contained by diplomacy at the u.n. a lot of people in the administration have been there for a long time that this conflict is being driven from the ground up. it has been for actual will well over a year but oftentimes the perspective on these things when you're far away in washington and elsewhere, it's a little harder to come to grips with. so the big issue is yes, the regime is increasingly fighting the opposition. there's another part of this,

though, that because syria has such a large chemical and biological weapons stockpile, they have 40 or so sites in the country, that means that now that they're moving them around, we think to the regime is trying to maintain their safety, but if they then go if the regime contracts and eventually goes back to damascus and to the coastal mountains where the alloites are from they can take those weapons with them and the lick li hood of those being used to commit atrocities as the regime goes out goes up, or the areas over the stockpiles are overrun by the opposition in a very chaotic fashion, someone could simply sell those weapons or give those weapons to those who are not only enemies of the outside regime but also the enemies of the united states as well. that's where it becomes a national security concern for the united states. guest: and john says any concerns about assad's

biological and chemical weapons, you just addressed part of that issue, how real are the concerns? guest: no, they're very real. this is not a situation like iraq where which had a weapons of mass destruction program, discontinued it and then when the united states invaded, very little if nothing was found, and in this particular case, we know that they have this stockpile. they haven't actually openly hid it, it was developed by the iranians and most importantly by the soviets and this has been one of the major concerns, and these weapons can be used as a deterrent for others to attack that regime on the way out. and we're really worried now that as bashar leftist hour disintegrates he could get them or god forbid get them near hezbollah or other parties which could use them in the future or even the present, use them against israel or other allies of the united states as well.

guest: if you're listening to c span on the radio, our conversation with andrew tabler, he is author of in the lion's den, an account with washington's battle with syria, also a senior fellow at the washington institute for near east policy, former editor in chief of syria today, and graduate of washington and jefferson college and university in cairo. linda is on the phone, good morning, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. host: good morning linda. caller: i have a comment and then a question. my comment is when bush 43 was president, nancy pelosi went over to syria against the president's wishes, again the state department wishes. and mrs. pelosi met with bashar assad, and headlines across the world stated that mrs. pelosi had said that the road to peace is through damascus.

guest: right. caller: when this first started over a year ago, my question is, could not mrs. pelosi have gone as an envoy, and led a peace mission to syria? guest: it's funny you mention that, it brings back memories. i was actually there that day in damascus when she was visiting. what she was needing concerning peace was the policy and this is very popular, it has been for decades, an especially in democratic party circles of basing u.s. policy and large parts of it on the peace process, and here we were talking about facilitate ago peace treaty between israel and syria, and that's for the first couple of years of the obama administration, was the policy. with the uprisings, we have the problem of the assad regime versus its own people, open hostilities.

mrs. pelosi did not go over, but we did have others who have been along the way who had been engaging the assad regime like senator john kerry, had been making had made overtures to damascus and carefully watched the situation there. very interestingly, he had shifted, along with everyone else who was engaging the assist sad regime on that basis. the reason why is the brutality of the regime and bashar al assad and his family have lost all legitimacy inside syria and their ability to rule is simply in question, so i don't think mrs. pelosi is going to go to damn as even as bashar assad exits. host: was not syria a coalition partner during desert storm? guest: it was, that was under bashar al assad's father and actually it helped seal the iraqi border and actually

committed troops to the invasion of iraq. not very many but it committed some troops. that was long ago, and a very different regime. but the regime's brutality has endured over the decades. it's something that everybody in syria knows. and while we're able to work together with them during that time, the current uprising, as well as actually bashar al assad's 12 years in office, have made it impossible for the united states and syria to work together. and i think it's pretty plain to see now what's going on, why that is. guest: andrew tabler, malcolm is on the phone, phoenix, good morning, independent line. caller: good morning mr. tabler. guest: good morning. caller: one of the questions i had was regarding the customer role, i don't know for how many years. one of the things i'm dumbfounded about, it seems as though for i don't know how many decades is that the

environment in these islamic countries has been unstable for quite some time, and yet, they criticize the u.s. and our way of lifestyle as one in which is not to be desired. yet, at the same time, we're always taking the lead in trying to resolve these conflicts abroad. why is it that the islam countryies did not take more of the role in actually resolving the issues with the islamic people and yet the united states are the ones that are doing that, and is it is there any reason why then that we profile them after 9/11, saying they sit back and willingly watch their people be destroyed? thank you. guest: yes, the question in the sense there has been a number of initiatives, in terms of a faith based response, there have been a number of initiatives by the organization of islamic countries and similar to the crisis, but most of the time in the middle east, it's

states and other body that is link states together that in charge of the response and here we actually had a really robust response by a lot of the regional countries, qatar, saudi arabia, egypt, libya, a number of other countries, and they have helped through mostly through the arab league, which is a bit like the united nations of the arab world in the sense that it links the arab countries together and they put together a number of initiatives to get president assad to step aside. the problem is that president assad doesn't listen to anything, of course, unless he's forced to and it's there that they have been trying to work with us at the united nations to try and get president assad to step aside. so there has an regional response. in terms of your the overall i understand a little about what you were saying. yes, i mean, it's true, if you

turn your television sets on and read the paper it seems like the middle east is in turmoil and of course that's been going on there's been a lot of problems there for decades. what's going on now, though, what we call the arab spring or the arab awakening, is simply about regimes that don't reform and are extremely repressive, and populations that are just completely transformed and increasingly young, and it's very difficult for these political entities to rule over such young populations which are increasingly globalizing. and what we're looking at now is systemic failure, not just in syria but all over the middle east. host: a followup, mark says how does syria's inner circle, this conflict, affect the developing countries like egypt and libya, and i'm going to add israel to that as well. guest: it's a good question. what happens in syria doesn't just stay in syria. syria is not vegas, and in that

sense, the fight in syria, because you have a regime which is minority based, alloites, christians and some other 12ers, the offshoots are gathered around the regime, that's 20 percent of the population, versus a sunni majority primarily. these different sects are then backed by different countries in the region with iran backing the regime and the other minorities and then saudi arabia, qatar and so on backing the majority sunni population. so what happens is that you rapidly get into a proxy war. that proxy war then continues, which it has, and then finally, when it gets to a situation where a power, the regime power starts to erode seriously, then you get into a situation where things like chemical weapons and biological weapons stockpiles get loose. that's where israel, their security, is challenged, and i think israelis are now increasingly worried about what's going on in syria as this

transition continues. host: let me go back to your book in the lion's den. how much time did you spend in syria? guest: i spent about seven years in syria and it was a wonderful experience, and in the and the book chronicles that. it talks about my time. i worked i had an interesting entry into syria is that i worked for a journalist, i worked for bashar al assad's wife's charities concerning world development and helped at the magazine when i was there. that was my day job. what i actually did, though, was i was on fellowship by a number of organizations, institute of current world affairs and the national crisis group and that's where i eventually work now, the washington institute, and i wrote about what was happening in syria, the corruption i saw, and i think most importantly, about the battle between the united states and syria over the years. and which was something i witnessed and was kind of part

of. and what i learned by being there and as the book chronicles is that is that regime was unable to deal with the demographic waves inside the country. the president's wife knew about that. they tried to launch a number of initiatives to deal with it but the system was unable to reform because it was minority based. it's too corrupt. in chapter three of the book you can read about how to turn down a bag of money that someone is trying to off you who's around the president and his wife, and how it turn it down and stay in syria and get away with it. and i that gave me a little window, turning down that bag of money gave me a window into how corrupt that system really is and how it was one that we really couldn't work with. host: jordan that jordan from albuquerque, good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i just wanted to call mostly to commend our president and show my support for secretary of

state hillary clinton and susan rice. i think they're doing a great job. i think their polices are leading our country in the right direction, and i think our former president, bush, and his father and bill clinton are on the same page on this as well. that being said, i think the situation is very complicated, and that the right thing is to help as much as we can, and i hope you agree with that. i just want to leave you with one further quote from >> [inaudible] that's that all necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for good men to do nothing.

it's important to keep in mind that we need to push the country in the right direction and the people of the world to freedom and prosperity. host: thank you for the comment. let me pick up on this comment and frame it in terms of a question from danielle plecka, a fellow from the american enterprise washington in washington, she has penned this, first of all, this question, how does the u.s. make a difference in state of the international community's paralysis and obama administration's reluctance to support syrian opposition, and damascus has been the linchpin of the strategy, and she concludes: guest: i think that's something that the obama administrationo thee they get.

the problem is, until now, there have been a number of very real problems. one of them is that the opposition inside the country is horribly divided, much more divided than the libyan opposition. and of course, that presents challenges because it becomes it's easier to facilitate a transition and work with people if they are well organized. second, if you know what's coming next, so you can bet on that emerging in the future, we don't know so much about that in syria. so much about when the regime falling comes down to what also replaces it. and at the moment we have a maintenancor ally in the regime under serious attack and going down but we don't know what's going to emerge from that political entity. i think it's going to be very chaotic for years and that's something that's created a challenge and i think that's the reason why you've seen mitt romney criticizing president obama on syria but not doing so in the way you might expect

because syria is a complicated case, and i expect that that's increasingly going to be so, and sadly, it's going to be happening at the same time with a lot of death and destruction. guest: and one of the opinion pieces, the "new york post", mira teragi writes. caller: i don't know there's been much perspective given to history about the middle east and referring it back to our own history. we're celebrating the 150th anniversary of a rebellion in this country, you know, in which the president has called up the troops and we had a

fairly bloody war for four years in which many thousands, tens of thousands, of especiallies were also killed, and we had a general sherman who basically destroyed the entire countryside as he marched from atlanta to the sea to just make a point and hundreds of thousands people died. we do not condemn him as a mass murderer for doing that. cani don't see how we condemn bashar's son for basically fighting a civil war, but fighting against rebels. i mean, what they do inside their own country should not be any more of our concern than what we did inside of our own country 150 years ago. host: thank you for the call. guest: i don't agree. in the case of the american civil war, you have a civil war.

in the case of syria, syria hasn't always been in a state of civil war. actually the syrian opposition and the syrian upvising was overwhelmingly peaceful in nature for about i would say it's only been about the last eight months or so that the things have accelerated in terms of the armed groups and it's very simple, because the assad regime was using live fire and shelling on a civilian population. they took it for nine months, the international community didn't come to their rescue, so they said well, this is something many americans relate to, we're going to pick up weapons and fight back, and president assad said we're fighting terrorists and fighting a civil war. the syrian uprising was not always an armed uprising. president assad is getting what he deserves in return for his repressive polices. i realize it's not always as simple as who started it, but in this particular case, i think the president assad and

his regime are to blame, and that's the zone why we have the position we do by the obama administration and its allies that the regime in syria bears responsibility and that president assad should step aside. host: "the new york times" story, you're quoted in the front page, it's available online, and they quote admiral william mcraveen, head of the special operations, he told congress it is going to take an international effort when assad falls and he will fall in order to secure these weapons. the story points out that americans and other western intelligence officials have expressed concern that some of the more than 100 rebel formations fighting inside syria may have tie toss al qaeda and they could exploit as the security worsens. this is a point you brought up earlier as well. guest guest the arms groups i met with in lebanon and turkey, and i'm going there shortly with a colleague, what simply

happened is that the armed groups have grown in number, they are, though they're not organizing in a linear fashion. they're not leader less, but they're head less. and that's for a couple of reasons. one of which is that the geographic distribution of these groups in the country is wide. second though, if this organization had a head, assad would try and cut it off. it will be interesting to see who emerges as the strong military or political figure during this transition. until now i can't point to one of them who would be able to work with or cut deals with. but the u.s. government has scrambled over the last six months to get a better knowledge of these groups, and i think we're going to see an increase in the united states working with such groups. now, as you mentioned, al qaeda does operate in the country but it's not part of the opposition. it's only in the sense that

they also oppose the assad regime. but i don't believe that al qaeda is going to take over opposed assad syria. i think it's going to however play a role as a third party and one that serves our short term interests of that shares our interests in terms of bringing down the assad regime but certainly not our long term interests in any way, and i think it's very important we are cautious about working with groups in syria, making sure they are not involved with al qaeda or their affiliates. host: to be clear, the photograph we showed, one of those rebel groups from "the new york times", a section of the "new york times". but this is from joy, who says syria took in so many war refugees from iraq and now they are smack dab in the middle of a civil war. are they moving back to iraq. guest: yes they are, and some of them are moving back to iraq and that's just unfortunately, you know a lot of iraqis have suffered in the process and we'll have to wait and see what their choices are here going forward.

it also depends upon those refugees, where are they from, are they sunni, shia. a lot of these refugees have returned as iraq has stabilized over the last couple of years. guest: host: carter, good morning. caller: yes. can you hear me. host: sure can. caller: mr. tabler, good morning. i'd like to just start off by saying i i'm disturbed by some misleading comments that i think you've made, just to give an example of one is that you've stated that the assad government has lost all legitimacy within inside syria and i don't believe that's to be true. i've been following this situation for a number of months very closely by many multiple news sources, and i believe that the picture that you're pointing is very misleading. because the free syrian army which has been painted in much of the media as a spontaneous

uprising of syrian citizens is nothing of the sort. apparently it's neither free nor syrian, nor is it an army. basically what you have here is a group of hired groups groups of hired mer sen areas mer senaries, then not syrian internationals who are basically hired thugs, killers, terrorists and assassins. the syrian government in my view has every right to protect itself against such attacks. host: i want him to respond and we'll follow up. guest: i don't agree with you. i think that line that you just put forward is that of the syrian regime. i read all the sources and i read them in multiple hangs. i would languages. i would agree with you in that the situation in syria is not simple. i think that the assad regime has lost legitimacy in terms of its legitimacy to govern.

i think also the most importantly now, that the regime's power is contracting. you're not fighting in your capitol and then using combat aircraft and these kinds of things, weapons, unless you absolutely have to, so i don't think what i said was misleading. i think it's just i think it just doesn't agree with your point of view which i think is very close to the regime's account. host: carter are you with us? caller: let me finish with the question. what i see is that nato is heavily involved in this, turkey is actively involved, there have been foreign nationals who have been found who have come into the country from germany, from france, britain special ops in there, certainly turkey has special ops in there and the muslim brotherhood is involved in this, the assad regime has been at war with the muslim brotherhood for a long time, this is still an issue for this government.

within the larger geopolitical context, i believe that the reasons that russia and china are opposed to what's happening is that they see a gross violation of the sovereignty of the country of syria and its government by outside forces that are trying to destroy it. host: guest: i don't agree. i don't think this is a plot by the international community to destroy syria. it's true a lot of powers are betting on different factions inside of syria. i don't think that sovereignty sovereignty is not something that a regime should be able to hide behind. in terms of when you're entrusted with sovereignty you also are entrusted with protecting your own people, this is under the u.n. charter. when you don't do that or when you violate their rights to this degree, i don't think you can stand beside it and i don't think that we should. president assad had a choice, 12 years ago, when he took

power. he could have reformed and tried to get ahead of this demographic wave sweeping over the country. he just couldn't do it. and in this country, when your polices can't deal with the situation, you're voted out of office. in syria, the assad regime has ruled supreme since 1970 and the syrian people didn't have that dhois that choice and they're fighting back and they deserve our support. host: how much influence does his mother have on him? guest: that's a good question. we're not sure but she's still around. she is an alloite like bashar. bashar's wife is a sunni. i talk about this in the book. many times i would go to the minister of administration and phi say first lady, and they'd say andrew, no, the first lady is bashar assad's wife. this is the wife of the president.

so they revere her. how much of an influence does she have an bashar is unclear. she's not in the public realm. but we do know this is a regime which is dominated by the assad family so we think she plays a role but i don't think we understand what. host: donna has this point, anything to get us into war. is that what this is about? guest: no. i mean, for 18 months or so, the obama administration has gone out of its way and bent over backwards to go through the u.n. so it hasn't had to end up in a war. but sometimes wars happen. it's because you have two irreconcilable sides. a minority dominated regime that is brutal, that has a proven track record of being unable to reform, ruling over one of the youngest populations in the middle east outside the palestinian territories. these two forces are just

swirling around each other like a hurricane and anyone who's visited syria over the past year, or the areas around it, gets that. western policymakers, though, thought that oh well, maybe it would settle down or maybe eventually people would go home. that didn't happen. so i think what we're looking at here is a conflict, and a hurricane which has been gathering for some time and of course it's harder to deal with a hurricane if you don't take procedures in advance to get people to safety and to deal with a fallout and that's what the obama administration i believe is doing now. host: our guest is andrew tay. let me go back to the front page of the "new york times", united nations works to oust president assad, points out the administration officials have been in talks with officials in turkey and israel on how to manage a syrian government collapse. leon panetta head to go israel in the next several days to meet with the counter parties in israel and the white house is holding daily high level meetings to discuss a broad range of contingency plans with regard to syria.

john is on the phone from capitol heights. good morning, democrats' line. caller: good morning. that last caller was somewhere on the mark about what's happening over there. but you all talking about 12 years ago, libya, iraq, syria, were all friends of the american government, all those dictators were friends of america, and america knew then that what they were doing was undemocratic so now all of the sudden oh, syria and the president and whoever he is is such a bad guy. i mean, but what's amazing to me is the two faces, the hypocrisy, lies, selective justice, no accountability, of what america is doing in that part of world, what israel is doing in that part of the world an everybody over there is so wrong but nothing is said or dub about our hands, our footprints, our cia, our manipulations and all all that part of the world, seeking oil and putting whoever we want to be in there to protect israel. israel can kill who they want

to and justify it but at the same time, those people aren't stupid and crazy. although they are different regimes and tribals, and in the meantime, i cannot disagree with russia or china when they sit back and see just how two faced and unjustified we are in what we do, and want to hold everybody else accountable. guest: firstle on of all we didn't support libya. they're a listening term adversary of the u.s., although there was some reconciliation before. getting to your point, i agree with new that the u.s. had been backing a lot of these regimes earlier. it was because we thought they were stable. there is a lot of hypocrisy. are you particularly surprised that international politics like domestic politics that our politicians are not consistent? and maybe a greater question, are even people consistent in

pursuing and pursuing your interests is sometimes complicated. i wish it wasn't so. i wish we were supporting and this is what i learned by living in the region i wished we were supporting regimes or governments that were more in touch with their people. anybody who lives in the middle east for a long time understands that. but some of the but for some of the reasons you mentioned, we don't. and that's because they've got i think a lot of people believed and tried to boil down our policy to a couple of things, and of course, in democratic party circles, it was that the peace process reigned supreme, and that was the way we should approach the region. peace process is important and the settlement between the israelis and palestinians is important to the two state solution, but that conflict is not the reason why people get up in the morning in the middle east. they are their concerns have broadened over time. and hopefully they have solved that problem eventually but until that time they're going

to be dealing with basic issues of governance i think here for the coming years if not decades.